Whenever I go to the US, I get to watch CNN at the airport (this time a couple of days ago, waiting in the immigration line). It strikes me that I always see images about war. The US are in a state of perpetual (defensive) war just as described by Orwell.
Even when you look at the terrorism issue I think Europe is much more vulnerable than the US. The US is by no means perfect but Muslims come here and get jobs and own businesses and they don't drink and their kids don't fk up cars at the mall. If you want to wear a Burka or some other kind of headscarf we don't give you trouble, we have the first Amendment because we know how much trouble an "established religion" caused in England.
In France and other euro countries they warehouse Muslims in Big Block apartments out of some Le Corbusier nightmare on the edge of town (where euro people don't want to live) and they live off welfare and it takes hours and hours to get anywhere on public transit. Muslims there have grievances that go far beyond the indignities of being dissed in comic strips. On the other hand I am personally pissed at the Boston Bombers because we gave them a safe place to live where nobody wants to kill you because you are a Chechen. (We do have idiots in the US who attach Sikhs because they hate Muslims or attack Iranians because they hate Iraqis, but this is really a lunatic fringe.)
When CNN is not talking about war it is talking about some plane that disappeared or how the daughter of somebody famous was drowned in a bathtub or how the Republicans and Democrats can't agree on the budget (i.e. fund Homeland Security so we can avoid the kind of attacks that hit the Euro zone, fund NASA so we can get astronauts home from the ISS...)
I was watching Fox News at the gym today, side by side with CNN.
On CNN the news was about terrorist attacks, wars, and a blizzard in the Northeast. It might be the daily bummer, but it least it was News.
On Fox News they are indignant because some people didn't like a movie that was released a month ago. This segways through something I can't get through the closed captions and then they're talking about what a visionary Daniel Patrick Moynihan was in 1965.
There is a market for what there is a market for; that's TV but it is the same for books and magazines.
On top of that there are quite a few fields that are burned out. For instance up till 1968 there was a compelling literature on anarchism. Then you read Foucault and even though you feel the blood-chilling pain of humanity ground down by Leviathan but in touch with why it is necessary.
Then you had identity politics, which was a good idea at the time but pretty soon it is part of the problem because you get black and white people suffering from the same problems and not recognizing it.
For instance, the police department in the nearest city always has some incident where a cop shoots a black or (less often) a black shoots a cop. Tensions are high and many blacks fear being a victim of police violence.
Now the guy who cuts our hay would be white as a sheet except that he spends a lot of time outside. He's a man of the highest care and integrity; he's driven heavy machinery for a lifetime and never hit an animal. He's opposed to gun control because he thinks he might need guns to defend himself from government tyranny.
Oddly enough in the 60s it was urban black people who were fascinated with armed insurrection and you had the Day Hall takeover at Cornell and the black panthers.
Well you go up against Leviathan and you get smashed. Now black people are too smart for that shit and now it is rural whites getting into barricade situations with the cops. (i.e the evolution from the Philadelphia MOVE house to Waco)
If you start talking sense you get horrible trouble from all sides, for instance, liberals love the idea of investment in broadband but try saying that the CWA might be part of the problem. As for conservatives, they seem to be annoyed that the outside world exists at all and would rather be talking about the days of Moses and Abraham.