{"id":69937,"date":"2008-06-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-02T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2008\/06\/02\/un-american-dream-cousu-de-fil-blanc\/"},"modified":"2008-06-02T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-06-02T00:00:00","slug":"un-american-dream-cousu-de-fil-blanc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2008\/06\/02\/un-american-dream-cousu-de-fil-blanc\/","title":{"rendered":"Un American Dream<\/em><\/strong> cousu de fil blanc"},"content":{"rendered":"

Le mod\u00e8le am\u00e9ricain, ou American Dream<\/em> pour les intimes, est du type mythique avec comme th\u00e8me fondamental l’\u00e9conomie (le bonheur \u00e9conomique, ou bonheur par l’\u00e9conomie). Le succ\u00e8s constant de l’\u00e9conomie US est l’argument fondamental de la promotion universelle de la vertu am\u00e9ricaniste, l’argument imp\u00e9ratif de la plaidoirie constamment expos\u00e9e de sa sup\u00e9riorit\u00e9. Parfois, l’on se doute de quelque chose et des r\u00e9serves sont \u00e9mises. Le cas n’est pas toujours assez bien document\u00e9 et il est combattu par la pol\u00e9mique o\u00f9 le principal moteur est la passion id\u00e9ologique, et le principal aliment une fascination sans borne qu’on subit ou qu’on d\u00e9nonce.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tAinsi est-il du plus grand int\u00e9r\u00eat de s’arr\u00eater \u00e0 une critique circonstanci\u00e9e, rationnelle, ferme et stricte de la chose. Un auteur US qualifi\u00e9 pour cette t\u00e2che est l’auteur \u00e0 succ\u00e8s Kevin Phillips, commentateur politique et sp\u00e9cialiste des questions structurelles US, notamment les structures et le fonctionnement du syst\u00e8me \u00e9conomico-politique dans ses divers aspects. Kevin Phillips est une solide r\u00e9f\u00e9rence, notamment parce qu’il ne peut \u00eatre soup\u00e7onn\u00e9 de la passion du parti-pris id\u00e9ologique. Philips est pr\u00e9sent\u00e9 de cette fa\u00e7on: \u00abHe was a prime strategist for Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign and one of the main architects of the notorious Southern strategy, through which the old Republican Party of Wall Street and Main Street refashioned itself with a right-wing populist appeal, stoking racial antagonisms while above all capitalizing on the bankruptcy of American liberalism to shift the political spectrum sharply to the right.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tCette pr\u00e9sentation de Phillips est extraite d’un texte du site WSWS.org<\/em>, mis en ligne aujourd’hui<\/a>, \u00e0 propos de son dernier livre, Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism Phillips<\/em> et de l’article de Harper Magazine<\/em> qui en donne un r\u00e9sum\u00e9. Notre esprit est ainsi rafra\u00eechi quant aux r\u00e9alit\u00e9s \u00e9conomiques am\u00e9ricanistes actuelles: 9% \u00e0 12% de ch\u00f4mage r\u00e9el au lieu des 5% et moins affich\u00e9s ; 7% \u00e0 10% d’inflation au lieu de 2%-3% ; 1% de croissance au lieu de 3%-4%. Le plus int\u00e9ressant est que le montage est plac\u00e9 dans sa perspective historique, pour nous rappeler que cette tromperie est une fabrique constante, de pr\u00e9sident en pr\u00e9sident, de d\u00e9mocrate en r\u00e9publicain, de l’\u00e8re moderne des statistiques \u00e9conomiques.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00abThe article focuses primarily on three measures: the monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI), the quarterly Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and the monthly figure for the unemployment rate. Phillips convincingly demonstrates that the real unemployment rate in the United States is between 9 and 12 percent, not the 5 percent or less that is officially claimed. The real rate of inflation is not 2 or 3 percent, but instead, between 7 and 10 percent. And real economic growth has been about 1 percent, not the 3-4 percent officially claimed during the most recent Wall Street and housing bubble that has burst.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t()<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bbThe corruption of official statistics is not the work of one administration, and Phillips traces it back nearly 50 years. The current occupant of the White House has, in fact, been somewhat less active on this front than his predecessors.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bbSoon after John F. Kennedy took office in 1961, Phillips points out, he appointed a committee to recommend possible changes in the measurement of official joblessness. What soon followed was the use of the category of discouraged workers to exclude all those who had stopped looking for jobs because they weren’t available. Many who had lost employment in basic industry, in a trend that was just beginning to pick up steam with automation and the rise of global competitors in such industries as steel and auto production, were no longer counted as unemployed.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bbDuring the administration of Lyndon Johnson, the federal government began using the concept of a unified budget that combined Social Security with other expenditures, thus allowing the current Social Security surplus to disguise growing budget deficits.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bbAs Phillips reports, Nixon tried to tackle the problem of statistics in typically Nixonian fashion: he actually proposed that the Labor Department simply publish whichever was the lower figure between seasonally adjusted and unadjusted unemployment numbers. This was apparently deemed too brazen an attempt at manipulation and was never implemented.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bbUnder Nixon’s Federal Reserve chairman, Arthur Burns, however, the concept of core inflation was devised. This became the means of excluding certain areas like food and energy, on grounds of the volatility of these sectors. The suggestion was that these prices jumped and then sometimes fell, so that it was best to remove them from the prices surveyed. In fact, food and energy together accounted for an enormous portion of spending for most sections of the working class and, as Phillips also explains, these two sectors are now verging on another 1970s-style price surge. As of last January, Phillips writes, the price of imported goods had increased 13.7 percent compared with a year earlier, the biggest jump since these statistics began in 1982. Gasoline prices, meanwhile, have soared by more than 30 percent since just the beginning of this year.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bbThe Reagan administration addressed itself to the pesky problem of housing in the inflation index. An Owner Equivalent Rent measurement was dreamed up for the purpose of artificially lowering the cost of housingfrom a purely abstract statistical standpoint. Under Reagan, Phillips also points out, the armed forces began to be included in the labor force and among the employed, thus reducing the unemployment rate, even though these same members of the military would in many cases have no employment in civilian life.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t Et ainsi de suite jusqu’\u00e0 GW, qui ne fut certainement pas le plus actif dans la manipulation corruptrice des statistiques officielles. Il faut dire que le travail amass\u00e9 avant lui est si impressionnant et efficace. L’\u00e8re Clinton, notamment, est caract\u00e9ristiques pour ses trouvailles exotiques (lorsque le steak, qui se trouvait dans l’index de la consommation, augmenta d’une trop vilaine mani\u00e8re pour la beaut\u00e9 exig\u00e9e de la statistique, on le rempla\u00e7a par le hamburger, infiniment plus vertueux par sa stabilit\u00e9).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tCette vue d’ensemble, historique, substantielle, de la politique faussaire des statistiques officielles renvoie \u00e0 la substance de l’am\u00e9ricanisme. Ce pays fond\u00e9 sur l’\u00e9conomie et sur la communication<\/a> a trouv\u00e9 dans sa doctrine de l’am\u00e9ricanisme la recette id\u00e9ale du bonheur consistant \u00e0 mettre la seconde au service de la premi\u00e8re. La communication a d’abord comme premi\u00e8re mission de maquiller les apparences pour rendre l’\u00e9conomie triomphante et perp\u00e9tuer la vertu de l’American Dream<\/em>, d’abord aux yeux et \u00e0 l’esprit des citoyens dont on attend discipline et adh\u00e9sion, ensuite pour les yeux \u00e9namour\u00e9s du Rest Of the World<\/em>. La contrainte est moins physique et l\u00e9gislative que psychologique. La manipulation des statistiques, qui est une activit\u00e9 assez courante en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, a ceci de particulier dans le cas de l’am\u00e9ricanisme qu’elle est syst\u00e9matique parce que fondatrice de la version modernis\u00e9 du syst\u00e8me.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tLa v\u00e9ritable puissance du syst\u00e8me est du domaine de l’influence, effectivement avec pour cible principale la psychologie. Le proc\u00e9d\u00e9 a la vertu fondamentale de constamment renforcer l’image de l’American Dream<\/em> en donnant au mythe une assise d’apparence rationnelle. Les partisans de l’am\u00e9ricanisme utilisent ce proc\u00e9d\u00e9 presque par nature, avec l’usage d’une raison d’apparence: constatant la fonction de mythe de l’American Dream<\/em>, ils sont les premiers \u00e0 sugg\u00e9rer d’en faire la critique par vertu de raison, pour finalement constater que la science objective, comme par miracle, vient justifier le mythe en lui donnant une assise qui a toutes les apparences de l’objectivit\u00e9. C’est un chef d’uvre de manipulation. Vous d\u00e9couvrez finalement que votre r\u00eave a toutes les raisons de s’exprimer comme un argument rationnel dans la r\u00e9alit\u00e9. Toute la recette de l’am\u00e9ricanisme, des statistiques fauss\u00e9es \u00e0 Hollywood, se trouve dans cette d\u00e9marche. Elle justifie les caract\u00e9ristiques de la psychologie am\u00e9ricaniste, inculpabilit\u00e9<\/a> et ind\u00e9fectibilit\u00e9<\/a>, en alimentant l’id\u00e9e de la vertu objective du syst\u00e8me.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\tMis en ligne le 2 juin 2008 \u00e0 09H18<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Le mod\u00e8le am\u00e9ricain, ou American Dream pour les intimes, est du type mythique avec comme th\u00e8me fondamental l’\u00e9conomie (le bonheur \u00e9conomique, ou bonheur par l’\u00e9conomie). Le succ\u00e8s constant de l’\u00e9conomie US est l’argument fondamental de la promotion universelle de la vertu am\u00e9ricaniste, l’argument imp\u00e9ratif de la plaidoirie constamment expos\u00e9e de sa sup\u00e9riorit\u00e9. Parfois, l’on se… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3612,3015,3613,3795,7605,5250,7604],"class_list":["post-69937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloc-notes","tag-american","tag-communication","tag-dream","tag-economie","tag-faussaire","tag-phillips","tag-statistiques"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69937\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}