Can we get a front row seat into the lives in the "Other America" now?
This swath of people that somehow were forgotten. Let's not ever forget them. When the robots come for their jobs, when they can't drink the water, when they go hungry, when they still can't realize how they got played, when they start murdering their neighbors for the scraps, when they're on their deathbeds. I think we should be right there.
And that's not so much about schadenfreude but ensuring that people expressing 'fuck you' in public (via votes, etc...) aren't afforded the privilege of saying "oh shit" in private.
I begin with a bold request for the type of media I want to see motivated by two things
First, "A Nation of Strangers” which I think could be a fitting epitaph for the U.S. in the near future. It acknowledges that there’s no monolithic contemporary American culture. I imagined “A Nation of Strangers" as the working title of a Maysles-style documentary series where the viewer sees the lives not lived by millions in big cities. The goal would be presentation rather than representation (via a media outlet with whatever slant they have). It’s not a groundbreaking approach but it should be revisited.
This statement articulates the state of American society so succinctly that it’s a marvel to read. In it you see that you can’t discuss one without the other. After thinking about it I realized that you have to start with people as subjects before introducing the systems that pushes and shoves them into conflict.
I end with what I see is the consequence of the culture wars and the sense that great steps will be taken to shield the ones who chose this from being called out on it. So much focus goes on the principal actors in government but millions of people put them there. It’s imperative that they have our attention now (they certainly wanted it) and they get it later (when they won’t want it).
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