From That Used To Be Us, by Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum; Chapter 13, “Devaluation:”
THOMAS FRIEDMAN, Wikimedia Commons
“. . . something else that happened with the end of the Cold War and the passing of the baton from the Greatest Generation to the baby boom generation: an erosion of important, traditional American values that long underpinned our public and commercial life. . . .
“A well-functioning political system must be rooted in something deeper than itself: Continue reading
Tonight’s Republican presidential debate on CNN was introduced as a sensational TV extravaganza, complete with a wildly cheering audience. My first impression was that American politics has descended to the level of one or all of the following:
Is it possible to lower the standards any further? You had only to wait for the sponsors of the first two commercials:
Despite the demeaning atmosphere of the televised debate, I thought the four candidates made strong efforts to focus on important issues of government and character.
Imagine, if you can, the words that would describe each of the four candidates in a high school yearbook:
I’m a true-blue Democrat, so I make no claim to objectivity. In my opinion, President Barack Obama would most easily defeat either Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney.
If the Republican candidate is Mr. Gingrich, I fear that the election will turn ugly and racist. Mr. Gingrich makes no attempt to hide his disdain for President Obama and all African-Americans. I think a Gingrich campaign would bring to the surface a great deal of racism. I’m afraid a significant segment of the country would rally to Mr. Gingrich, but the majority would be so repulsed by the blatant racism that Mr. Obama would win easily.
If the Republican candidate is Mr. Romney, the divide between Romney’s wealth and his brand of vulture capitalism will contrast so sharply with the fortunes and values of working people, the election might indeed resemble “class warfare.” I believe that Mr. Obama would defeat Mr. Romney in a landslide of possibly historic proportions.
An election between either President Obama and former Sen. Santorum, or Obama and Rep. Ron Paul, would provide American voters with a clear and honest choice. I think both Santorum and Paul are strong advocates of a strong conservative tradition in American politics. President Obama would be favored over either of them at the outset of the campaign. But both Santorum and Paul ane impressive men and either one of them might close the margin to 50-50 during the fall campaign. I see Obama, Santorum and Paul all as wholesome role models for American young people, and probably qualified and competent for the high and demanding office of president of the United States.
A campaign featuring Ron Paul would be quite an educational experience for the American people, probably offering the clearest and least emotional discussion of the issues. Mr. Paul is the longshot, but his ability to answer nearly any question concisely and with clear logic, without dodging, is refreshing and enlightening. I think Mr. Paul and Mr. Obama, as opponents, might bring out the best in each other and in American politics.
Before the age of television and internet, it was believed that the American people most wanted a strong, trusted father figure or grandfather figure as president. Mr. Obama occupies the White House as a family man in the “Father Knows Best” tradition that warms the American heart.
Let me finish on a light note by asking which of the Republican candidates you would be willing to leave your grandchildren with over a long weekend? Here’s my reaction to that question:
— John Hayden
ANN PATCHETT
Blogger’s note: This review was originally published in December 2007, in three installments, on my first WordPress blog, Maryland On My Mind. Time flies, posts get buried, new blogs are born, and great books live forever. The original review has been deleted from the old blog in compliance with search engine policy. — John Hayden
Dec. 8, 2007 — When you read about Bernard Doyle, the former Boston mayor with great ambitions for his sons, you can’t help but free-associate: Kennedy. At least I can’t. Two of the sons are named Tip and Teddy!
And then I free-associate: Skeffington. Bernard Doyle and Frank Skeffington. Two Irish-Catholic mayors who loved their city, and were beloved by many. The voters turned on both of them. Doyle told a lie to protect his family and faded away without achieving his own ambitions. Skeffington stayed on too long. Again, I free-associate: William Donald Schaefer, late great mayor of Baltimore.
Ann Patchett reminds me of Edwin O’Connor. I discovered O’Connor’s 1956 novel, The Last Hurrah, in high school, and read all his other books. The two authors have insights about the same subjects — people, politics, family, God — and breath-taking writing talent, honed by attention and effort.
We are fixated on the question: Is America headed in the right direction or the wrong direction? A sizable majority answers, the wrong direction. But if you ask the wrong question, you get an irrelevant answer.
I think the question is not one of “direction,” but “balance.” What would be the “right direction” anyway? East or west?
America has come unhinged, out of balance. Everything is distorted, like in a hall of mirrors. American wealth, American politics, American society, all badly out of balance.
Inflation adjusted percentage increase in mean after-tax household income in the United States between 1979 and 2005. Wikimedia Commons.
Wages are too low. CEO salaries are too high. Too much wealth goes to profits. Average Americans are “underwater,” while corporations hoard wealth.
We have too many poor people at the bottom; hardly anyone remaining in the middle. And a relatively small cohort of the wealthy — and the associates and lackeys of the wealthy (who are nearly rich or merely affluent) — at the top.
All the money and the power is at the top, very little money and power at the bottom.
The financial sector is bloated, the industrial base is rusted and hollowed-out.
Demand is too low, and supply is too high. The supply-demand equation is a worldwide phenomenon. The whole world generally has an excess supply of nearly everything, including production capacity. Most telling, we have a worldwide surplus of labor.
Too much greed; too little love. Too much corruption and incompetence in all our institutions. A deficit of honesty and diligence.
Too many putting their faith in luck; giving up on work. Too much speculating, not enough investing.
The winners have more money than they can use; the losers are broke. We have a complete failure of compassion and justice. The winners are tired of hearing about the losers. They just want the losers to shut up. Sit down and shut up. Or better yet, lay down and die.
I wonder what would happen if all the Americans who don’t have the sense to lay down and die suddenly found their voice and their anger. Probably isn’t going to happen, because society is muddled by a surfeit of misinformation, lies, and myths.
Too much blather, not enough factual information.
Speaking of blather, it’s time for me to stop writing. It is easy enough to list the problems. I wish I could suggest some surefire solutions, but I don’t have any.
To sum up: I don’t think America needs to change direction; rather, I believe we need to restore balance.
— John Hayden
Image via Wikipedia
Will the next election be a “culture war?” Looks like. Please read Jon Taplin’s latest post, “Bring On The Culture War.”
“Bring on this culture war to end all culture wars. We need a real clear decision. Do we (all the people, not some of the people) want to move towards Rick Perry’s vision on the future or Barack Obama’s vision of the future. Down Perry’s road lies a world where gays stay in the closet, women are submissive, where Social Security is abandoned to the care of Wall Street (for a big fee), and where we keep trying to play the role of policeman of the world.
Pretty much the opposite would be what Obama believes. So let’s choose as a country.” — Jon Taplin
At stake in the 2012 culture-war election, of course, is nothing less than the future of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Will America be a democracy of the people, or an aristocracy of the wealthy and powerful? Will we have a middle-class in America, or a deep divide between wealth and poverty?
Are people willing to give President Obama a fair hearing, or are they predisposed to hate the man?
— John Hayden
Jon Taplin has returned to his blog. Please read Jon Taplin’s insights into the deepening political and economic crisis. See his posts, “Why Now?” and “Brave New World Redux.” Jon Taplin is the writer who explained the ongoing disconnection and unreality in America and the Western world with his series of essays on the “Interregnum.”
Now, in his two recent essays, prompted by the riots in London, Jon Taplin suggests that a “New Anarchy” may lie ahead for the Western World. If for every action there is a reaction, I’ll up the ante by suggesting that the New Anarchy may be an attempted revolt against a New Corporate-Fascism.
We may live to see, in the near or medium future, a great struggle between the forces of Anarchy and Fascism. Some may believe it will be the Apocalypse. Whether or not you believe in Apocalypse, the struggle will likely feel like an upheaval of apocalyptic proportions.
The following words are Jon Taplin’s; I took the liberty of highlighting some words in bold:
“Whatever political will the country might have had for a WPA style program —putting millions of unemployed construction workers back on the job fixing America’s third world infrastructure—now seems to have evaporated. It was perhaps our last chance to avert the Coming Anarchy. With no government infrastructure programs to put people back to work, the private sector is left trying to create jobs for the 28 million people who are either officially unemployed, working part time but wanting full time work or “discouraged workers” who have stopped looking for a job. This of course is not going to happen—and so we are all facing the problem of a “new normal”, in which a large portion of the high school only population may never find work. Liberal pundits mourn the loss of good jobs for this cohort, but as Bernard Avishai warned in “Strategy and Business” way back in 1997, “Any job that is still simple and repetitive enough to employ a semi- or non-skilled person is going to be even more pressured by new software or by contractor-suppliers in China and Brazil.” — from Brave New World Redux
I would have some hope for America if President Barack Obama would appoint Jon Taplin to his inner circle of advisers at the White House. Also needed at the White House, Washington Post business and economy writer Steven Pearlstein. See “Who’s to blame for this mess? Let’s start with the corporate lobby.” on page G1 of the Post, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2011.
— John Hayden
The first battle of the American Debt Crisis is over. Perhaps the deciding battle will be fought in the 2012 elections.Everyone’s focused on the outcome of the presidential contest, but control of the House and Senate is at least as important.
IN 2011, NEARING THE END OF THE FIRST TERM OF PRESIDENT OBAMA, CONGRESS IS SPLIT. REPUBLICANS HOLD A MAJORITY IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND DEMOCRATS HOLD A MAJORITY IN THE SENATE. Graph by Mattbot69 via Wikimedia Commons
Now I have to go to work. Maybe I’ll write more thoughts about a Christian-Democratic Party later. It’s probably not what you think.
— John Hayden
America is not in the grip of mass hysteria. It’s more like mass acedia.
Americans are jamming the Congressional switchboards with telephone calls, as political and economic chaos draws near, but what’s the message? We have no consensus for constructive action. And surprisingly, we lack even a widely shared impulse to avoid self-destructive behavior. What we see and hear is more like a combination of teen-aged indifference and childish impatience: “Do something. Do Anything. Just stop bothering me.”
Democratic processes are failing, and we have no King Solomon, no leader with the sure wisdom to know the right thing to do in the present circumstance. Continue reading
Below is a commentary worth reading. Conservative ideologues have hated Social Security from the beginning, in 1934.
Social Security is not the cause of the U.S. public debt, and neither is Medicare. To blame Social Security and Medicare is to lie! The methodic run-up of defense spending, starting in 1971, and the extension of U.S. military influence to every corner of the globe over the past four decades — those are the primary causes of the U.S. public debt, in my opinion. — John
via roger hollander
Image via Wikimedia Commons
(Please click on “comments” at the left side of the title for an interesting back-and-forth between polar opposite points of view.)
The deadlock over raising the debt limit seems almost like a clash of religious beliefs. The two sides hold different beliefs. The deadlock has helped clarify my thinking about what I believe. Maybe this debt crisis of 2011 will help us all clarify who we are, and what we believe.
I believe that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are the best part of America. I believe that without Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, a large part of the American population — more than half the people over 65 — would fall into hopeless poverty.
Some people believe it would be impossible to balance the American budget without deep cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. I believe that America is still, right now, the most prosperous society the world has ever known. I believe that America can afford Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
I believe it would be fair for the most prosperous among us — those with incomes of $250,000 or more a year — to pay a little more in taxes for the good of America. These people have prospered in America. They live the good life. Aren’t they patriotic enough to want to keep America strong? I believe they ARE patriotic and willing to help. It is inconceivable that they could be otherwise.
Some politicians say they oppose any tax increase because a tax increase would “destroy jobs.”
I don’t believe it. How would a modest tax increase destroy jobs? The president is not talking about making rich people poor. He’s talking about a modest tax increase on incomes over $250,000. How exactly will that destroy jobs? Will people earning $250,000 or more even notice a small tax increase? Will a small tax increase change their way of life? I don’t think so. Some may believe otherwise.
I believe there are other ways to balance the American budget. I believe we are spending far too much on a worldwide military presence. I believe we do not have to be fighting foreign wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. I believe we could drastically reduce foreign military spending, pull American soldiers out of harm’s way and closer to the North American continent. We could reduce defense spending by perhaps a third, and still have a military that is by far strong enough to defend the North American continent.
I simply cannot understand why anyone would want to destroy Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. I believe the vast majority of Americans support these programs. I believe that common-sense cuts in general government spending and defense spending, combined with a small increase in taxes on the most fortunate among us, would bring the American budget into balance.
What do you believe?
THIS CHART PUTS THE FINANCIAL CONDITION OF MEDICARE AND SOCIAL SECURITY IN PERSPECTIVE. BEGGING THE QUESTION: IF MODEST CUTS WERE MADE IN U.S. SPENDING ON GENERAL GOVERNMENT AND DEFENSE, AND SOME EFFICIENCIES ARE FOUND IN MEDICARE AND SOCIAL SECURITY, THEN HOW MUCH WOULD STILL NEED TO BE RAISED IN TAXES? Chart via Wikipedia
Keep the faith.
— John Hayden
Living Simply And Still On The Grid 