enjoy magoo
The U.S. Is Morally, Socially and Economically Bankrupt
(Ed.
Note: Robert Warren, a retired New York lawyer now resident in the
scenic U.S. Southwest, has been running a political listserve for his
friends and their friends since 2003. He now has lost hope that the
U.S. is going get back on the right track anytime soon because we
Americans aren't as self-sacrificing as we used to believe.
Unfortunately, with this realization, Warren lost the appetite to
continue the listserve and, in the article below, puts an end to it.)
Dear Readers, Friends and Colleagues:
Believe it or not, since the Old Pessimist wrote his first column in
early March 2003 to protest the upcoming invasion of Iraq, I've
actually composed, published and circulated by e-mail nearly 200 of
these columns.
I have no idea how many readers I've
accumulated: I do know that some simply hit the 'Delete' button,
either out of implicit disagreement with the OP's liberal views or
because they have grown tired of the bleak conclusions that are the
hallmark of this column; some read it intermittently, often long after
its publication; some study it faithfully and, of them, many are good
enough to regularly pass it along to their own family, friends and
colleagues. Over the years, a surprisingly large number have
responded, some in agreement, others to take exception, and many to add
independent thoughts of their own.
At one point, back in
2005, I was regularly turning out a column-a-week. Then 'the book'
interrupted, and there were fewer and fewer columns as CHARLOTTE got
the attention she deserved. Since publishing and circulating the book
in March 2007, I have become less attentive to the OP's concerns. In
point of fact, this is only the third column of 2008 and, as it turns
out, the last one. For the foreseeable future, the Old Pessimist has
decided abandon the column. Perhaps he will pick up again someday,
perhaps not.
This decision does not come easily -
whatever his readers may think, the OP does enjoy writing to them. It's
an interesting and useful exercise and allows him to collect and mull
over his thoughts for publication in the town square, as it were. Three
full weeks ago, I began what was to be Column Number 3 for this year;
for the first time ever, I was defeated by my subject matter. Upon
examination, the OP finds that he is suffering from an overwhelming
case of weltschmerz. Taken from the German, it means “a depressing view
of the state of the world.” Its components mean “world pain” and can
appropriately be used as a synonym for “world-weariness.”
As I drafted that initial column, I found that I had used five full
pages simply to enumerate the woes, foreign and domestic, that trouble
me, and that's without a single sentence devoted to a suggested
positive response to any of them. Of this I am sure: we have
prematurely come to the end of the American Century and we have no one
to blame but ourselves. I admit without reservation to the danger
stemming from the horrifying threats posed by the War on Terrorism, but
we have allowed our preoccupation with protecting ourselves to turn
common sense on its head.
America is morally, socially and
economically bankrupt. By the time it's all over and done with in
Iraq, we will have accomplished nothing except to exacerbate the
chronic chaos that prevails in the Middle East, and done so at the cost
of thousands of American lives, tens of thousands of Iraqi lives, the
further destabilization of the area, including four million externally
and internally displaced Iraqi citizens, at a cost which may, when
fully calculated and applied to all aspects of the war -- including
the care of those tens of thousands of U.S. troops who were permanently
maimed and injured while unnecessarily serving in Harm's Way -- of
perhaps as much as $3 trillion.
We have saddled future
generations with a national debt that handily exceeds $9 trillion
($9,373,127,228,938.81 as of this writing!). I could begin where I
left off with the last draft, but that's of no use, since no one is
listening anyway. But if the money spent on the Middle East war
(excluding the fighting in Afghanistan, a necessary evil, but a war
which we can never hope to win, only contain at best) were applied to
domestic concerns - health care, education at all levels, decaying
infrastructure, endless environmental concerns, the cost of fossil
fuels and more efficient means of transportation, not to mention wealth
disparity that is dealing what may, in the end, be a mortal blow to the
Middle Class, leaving only the rich and the very rich versus the near
poor and actual poor - just think what we could do for ourselves.
I no longer trust our Government, not when we have a Defense Department
with a budget greater than the gross national product of all but a tiny
handful of nations, when we are in the midst of creating new
missile-and-delivery systems that might, maybe have been appropriate
during the height of the Cold War, but which are hardly suitable for
hunting down the Taliban in the mountains of Afghanistan, each system
costing billions upon billions of dollars, especially when we are
neglecting care for our most seriously wounded in battle.
President Bush and his administration have wrecked America. They've
seen to it that we've done to ourselves what bin Laden wanted to do to
us. Do you actually feel any safer now than you did at the end of
2001? Do you feel more secure economically? Do you care about the
millions of uninsured and the millions more of homeless, underfed
Americans? Are you one of the nincompoops who blame our woes on the
relatively minor matter of illegal immigration from Latin America? Do
you believe that, for the sake of convenience and to deflect collateral
damage from stupid, flawed policies, Christ deserves a cabinet post?
Do you honestly believe that evangelicals are, somehow, more patriotic
than the rest of us? Do you recognize that the true burden of the war
in Iraq and, by extension, the War against Terrorism, is being
shouldered by, at most 10 percent of the population (more like 5
percent)?
Do you have any notion that the U.S. Tax Code is
fairly written, fairly applied and fairly enforced? Do you think that
a good college education at a private university should cost in excess
of $42,000 per student per year? Do you believe that we have any sane
idea how to compete economically with India or China?
Do you
believe that the war in Iraq would continue for one more month if we
reinstated the draft to bring the Armed Services, especially the Army
and Marine Corps, back to something resembling full strength? Do you
think, deep down, that the homeless and the hungry got where they are
because they want to be there, that they joined an unenfranchised group
of bums, drug users and welfare cheats who truly want to live that
way? Do you believe that you have a constitutional right to own a
semi-automatic assault rifle? Do you recognize what it means that the
United States of America has more people incarcerated than any other
country in the world? Do you think that anyone with, say, four
drunk-driving convictions, should e-v-e-r be allowed to have a driver's
license?
Do you think that there is any reason on God's
green earth that New Orleans still has not come close to recovering
from Katrina and Rita? Can you name, say, three Americans with the
credentials of George C. Marshall? Hell, can you name one? Do you
really believe that George W. Bush is smart enough to answer that phone
at 3 o'clock in the morning, or would he mistake it for an alarm clock
or fire drill? Can you imagine what is going to happen to our economy
with crude oil priced at near $115 a barrel, which translates to
regular gas at the pump at $3.60+ per gallon or thereabouts?
Do you realize that being a “millionaire” (based on net worth) likely
is not nearly enough to secure a comfortable but modest retirement,
that a million bucks ain't gonna cut it anymore, no matter how frugal
you are or how prudently you invest the money? Do you know that
selfishness and greed and uncontrolled government spending have left us
with no resources for the next crisis? Do you realize that we've been
fighting an expensive war for more than five years, while the rich
enjoy the deepest tax cuts since before the Depression? Does the horror
of the Holocaust give Israel a free pass when it comes to human rights?
Do you believe that Latinos and African Americans have the same de
facto opportunities as the rest of us?
I may not have
solutions to these and countless other national-scale problems, but I
do know what the problem is, one shared by almost all of us if we are
candid with ourselves. WE HAVE LOST THE WILL FOR SELF-SACRAFICE, the
kind of national ethos that saw us through the savagery of World War II
and which gave impetus to the Marshall Plan. It not just the Me
Generation, or Gen X, Y or Z, or the Baby Boomers.
It is all
of us. We have become a nation of self-absorbed, greed-driven
opportunists who are incapable of thinking beyond our own
self-interest. The need for instant gratification is part of it, but
it's only a symptom, not a cause. Greed is a large part of it, all the
more ironical when the incoming generation of adults is likely looking
at a lower standard of living than their parents for the first time in
more than four generations. Intentionally or by osmosis, we have
adopted George Bush's malign notion of empire and are now finding out
what such an absurdity will cost, both in lucre and blood. The United
States is not in it for the long haul anymore, and doesn't much care
what happens to the rest of the world so long as we preserve, even
expand our own prerogatives. We are a nation of pseudo-elitists,
completely out of balance with reality: we're undereducated,
malnourished, gender insensitive, medically impoverished, racially
biased, perhaps environmentally doomed. We are also self-indulgent,
insensitive, greedy and remarkably provincial. We complain about
airfares and the cost of a good meal in a restaurant, while utterly
ignoring the ongoing genocide in Darfur and central, sub-Saharan Africa.
There are exceptions to every rule, and so, too, here. God bless and
good luck to those relative few who accept and grapple with reality.
But America has become symbolic of the king with no clothes and/or the
school yard bully; we are the arrogant and unforgivably greedy. We
spend far more on pet food than we do on helping our poor. We are, I
fear, about to get what we deserve. It is our children and
grandchildren who will pay our debts. I see precious little that gives
me comfort Out There, and plenty that leads to grievous concern.
Maybe, just maybe, the incoming national administration will begin the
process of saving us from ourselves. Frankly, I think all that it will
be able to do is simply to stem the tide and not let dykes collapse
completely. Still, FDR did save his country from what looked then like
sure ruination. We not only survived, but we prospered as no nation on
earth before us. But he was able to muster the national will, he was
able to make self-sacrifice not only palatable but laudable. He gave
us back our pride.
Well, I am no longer proud to be an
American. I am just short of being ashamed, but that day is coming I
fear. You surely don't need the Old Pessimist to point this predicament
out to you. This analysis doesn't entail clarity of vision or some
overarching sense of duty. It only requires each of us to look around,
not at ourselves but at others. No country can sustain itself on our
precarious footing, where we start a war for God knows what reason,
where the poor get poorer, where the middle class goes nowhere, and the
merely-rich compete with the super-rich for the prize. In the end,
greed, arrogance, and an unwillingness to engage in meaningful
self-sacrifice and strive for self-reliance will be the death of us
all, and certainly will be the end of the America dream. Somehow we
have found a way to curse ourselves and still smile when we look in the
mirror. It should be a time of shared shame, but it isn't -- yet.
Thank you for your attention all these months. It has been heartening.
No one more than the OP hopes that I am wrong about everything written
above. Perhaps I will live long enough to see how it all turns out,
perhaps not. The evil beast of greed and arrogance that I rant about
above has taken on a life of its own -- George W. Bush and his
minions have seen to that -- and so did we when we elected him,
twice. I don't know if anyone Out There is strong enough, determined
enough, unselfish enough and smart enough to enter then arena and take
America back to where it belongs. I hope so, but I think not.
“Good-night and good luck” as Mr. Murrow used to say, a killer of
dragons he. I wonder what he'd make of this muddle? His problems with
the late Senator McCarthy look like a parlor game compared with
America's current dilemmas.
Au revoir,
By Bob Warren, for the Old Pessimist