Drowning in Delusions
Something is very wrong. You know it and, as Senator Robert Dole used to say in another context,"the American people know it." We no longer sound like the people of the United States. We are not the country of hope and light, the beacon to the oppressed of the world which we have been in the best moments of our national history.
We are now becoming increasingly selfish, stupid and self-delusional and there can be little question that each of those benchmarks of what passes for political "thought" in this country, carry seeds of disaster and of our demise as a great nation.
You hear it everywhere. The President spoke about how bewildered are the leaders of other industrialized nations, some the leaders of very classically conservative governments, about our inability to find a way to insure the medical care of our citizens other than the destructive employer based program we stumbled into after World War II. Today, Tom Friedman wroteabout our national response to China's campaign to "green" its own industry, comparing it to how we once responded to the launch by the Soviet Union of the first man made satellite
This time, Mr. Friedman writes,
This is not to mourn a lost time when all was well, the way the Reaganauts do. The days when people were openly discriminated against because they were black or Irish or Jewish or Catholic or women or homosexual is not an era to which we look fondly. But the country which had a rendezvous with destiny, the one that could roll up its sleeves and do what had to be done, and the nation motivated to be the best, the most enlightened, and the place which shows the way, is the nation we were born into and which we are losing or, perhaps and sadly, we have already lost.
We have lost it, if that is what has happened, to another disease to which we have often been victim. It is the self-delusion which comes from thinking that if we just say something often enough it must be so. Such as
or
because a system where a for profit insurance company bureaucrat fills that function is certainly superior.
Some of these lines come from a lack of education and from the know nothingness and anti-intellectualism that has had such great appeal in a country where some decided who should be president by which candidate one would most want to share a beer. It is even argued that to concede that other countries do anything better than we do is unpatriotic or somehow anti-American.
But being a good citizen does not require that one determine their views on legislation by "what it will mean to me" or to "my pocketbook" as we are frequently told. Indeed, of course, in addition to being selfish and to that extent, un-American, it is always a false argument: our history and common sense tells us that we rise and fall as a nation, not as individuals and our momentary advantages are always outweighed by the forces around us, and the lives led by our fellow citizens
As the new year began on the Jewish calendar last weekend, a rabbi reminded a congregation in New York City of a different view, the one which is what truly made our country what we want it to be. He said, among other very important things, that
and, as he said that, those who first began listening in the 1960s can recall another call to the best of what our nation can offer. This is Senator John F Kennedy, in the first presidential debate of the 1960 campaign:
It is not because of Nixon's "six o'clock shadow" that Senator Kennedy won that debate and won that election as fable has it. It is because John Fitzgerald Kennedy struck a chord in the new generation of Americans to whom the torch was then being passed, and it was those people, our parents and grandparents, who saw a better country ahead.
We have just gone through another such election, but the question remains---the same questions asked by President Kennedy while he sought his election in 1960, by President Obama when he sought his, by President Roosevelt in the 1930s and by a rabbi in New York City last week. What kind of people are we and what kind of country do we want to have.
We are at that crossroads again and I fear what the answer may be. I wish all those for whom the next day is one of prayer and redemption the very best, and the hope that we can mark the day with greater resolve to do better for our country and its people and that others find another way to resolve the same.
We are now becoming increasingly selfish, stupid and self-delusional and there can be little question that each of those benchmarks of what passes for political "thought" in this country, carry seeds of disaster and of our demise as a great nation.
You hear it everywhere. The President spoke about how bewildered are the leaders of other industrialized nations, some the leaders of very classically conservative governments, about our inability to find a way to insure the medical care of our citizens other than the destructive employer based program we stumbled into after World War II. Today, Tom Friedman wroteabout our national response to China's campaign to "green" its own industry, comparing it to how we once responded to the launch by the Soviet Union of the first man made satellite
This time, Mr. Friedman writes,
[i]nstead of a strategic response too many of our politicians are still trapped in their own dumb-as-we-wanna-be bubble, where we're always No. 1, and where the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, having sold its soul to the old coal and oil industries, uses its influence to prevent Congress from passing legislation to really spur renewables.
This is not to mourn a lost time when all was well, the way the Reaganauts do. The days when people were openly discriminated against because they were black or Irish or Jewish or Catholic or women or homosexual is not an era to which we look fondly. But the country which had a rendezvous with destiny, the one that could roll up its sleeves and do what had to be done, and the nation motivated to be the best, the most enlightened, and the place which shows the way, is the nation we were born into and which we are losing or, perhaps and sadly, we have already lost.
We have lost it, if that is what has happened, to another disease to which we have often been victim. It is the self-delusion which comes from thinking that if we just say something often enough it must be so. Such as
we have the best health care in the world
or
The last thing in the world I think Democrats and Republicans are going to do at the end of the day is create a government-run health care system where you've got a bureaucrat standing in between the patient and the doctor.
because a system where a for profit insurance company bureaucrat fills that function is certainly superior.
Some of these lines come from a lack of education and from the know nothingness and anti-intellectualism that has had such great appeal in a country where some decided who should be president by which candidate one would most want to share a beer. It is even argued that to concede that other countries do anything better than we do is unpatriotic or somehow anti-American.
But being a good citizen does not require that one determine their views on legislation by "what it will mean to me" or to "my pocketbook" as we are frequently told. Indeed, of course, in addition to being selfish and to that extent, un-American, it is always a false argument: our history and common sense tells us that we rise and fall as a nation, not as individuals and our momentary advantages are always outweighed by the forces around us, and the lives led by our fellow citizens
As the new year began on the Jewish calendar last weekend, a rabbi reminded a congregation in New York City of a different view, the one which is what truly made our country what we want it to be. He said, among other very important things, that
we must do even more for the disenfranchised, the poor, and the medically uninsured in this country. Our health care system must be fixed. Supporting the weak and the needy is a mainstay of our character and a purpose of our existence. 'Large-heartedness' said our President 'is part of the American character.' ...
We ... will not be judged by our success in times of prosperity. That is easy. Rather we will be judged by how decently we comport ourselves in times of adversity. That is the challenge.
and, as he said that, those who first began listening in the 1960s can recall another call to the best of what our nation can offer. This is Senator John F Kennedy, in the first presidential debate of the 1960 campaign:
I should make it very clear that I do not think we're doing enough, that I am not satisfied as an American with the progress that we're making. This is a great country, but I think it could be a greater country...I'm not satisfied to have fifty percent of our steel-mill capacity unused. I'm not satisfied when the United States had last year the lowest rate of economic growth of any major industrialized society in the world. Because economic growth means strength and vitality; it means we're able to sustain our defenses; it means we're able to meet our commitments abroad. I'm not satisfied when we have over nine billion dollars worth of food - some of it rotting - even though there is a hungry world, and even though four million Americans wait every month for a food package from the government, which averages five cents a day per individual. I saw cases in West Virginia, here in the United States, where children took home part of their school lunch in order to feed their families because I don't think we're meeting our obligations toward these Americans. I'm not satisfied when the Soviet Union is turning out twice as many scientists and engineers as we are. I'm not satisfied when many of our teachers are inadequately paid, or when our children go to school part-time shifts. I think we should have an educational system second to none...
These are all the things, I think, in this country that can make our society strong, or can mean that it stands still. I'm not satisfied until every American enjoys his full constitutional rights. If a Negro baby is born - and this is true also of Puerto Ricans and Mexicans in some of our cities - he has about one-half as much chance to get through high school as a white baby. He has one-third as much chance to get through college as a white student. He has about a third as much chance to be a professional man, about half as much chance to own a house. He has about uh - four times as much chance that he'll be out of work in his life as the white baby. I think we can do better. I don't want the talents of any American to go to waste.
I know that there are those who want to turn everything over to the government. I don't at all. I want the individuals to meet their responsibilities. And I want the states to meet their responsibilities. But I think there is also a national responsibility. The argument has been used against every piece of social legislation in the last twenty-five years. The people of the United States individually could not have developed the Tennessee Valley; collectively they could have.
A cotton farmer in Georgia or a peanut farmer or a dairy farmer in Wisconsin and Minnesota, he cannot protect himself against the forces of supply and demand in the market place; but working together in effective governmental programs he can do so. Seventeen million Americans, who live over sixty-five on an average Social Security check of about seventy-eight dollars a month, they're not able to sustain themselves individually, but they can sustain themselves through the social security system. I don't believe in big government, but I believe in effective governmental action.
And I think that's the only way that the United States is going to maintain its freedom. It's the only way that we're going to move ahead. I think we can do a better job. I think we're going to have to do a better job if we are going to meet the responsibilities which time and events have placed upon us. We cannot turn the job over to anyone else. If the United States fails, then the whole cause of freedom fails. And I think it depends in great measure on what we do here in this country. ..
In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt said in his inaugural that this generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny. I think our generation of Americans has the same rendezvous. The question now is: Can freedom be maintained under the most severe tack - attack it has ever known? I think it can be. And I think in the final analysis it depends upon what we do here. I think it's time America started moving again.
It is not because of Nixon's "six o'clock shadow" that Senator Kennedy won that debate and won that election as fable has it. It is because John Fitzgerald Kennedy struck a chord in the new generation of Americans to whom the torch was then being passed, and it was those people, our parents and grandparents, who saw a better country ahead.
We have just gone through another such election, but the question remains---the same questions asked by President Kennedy while he sought his election in 1960, by President Obama when he sought his, by President Roosevelt in the 1930s and by a rabbi in New York City last week. What kind of people are we and what kind of country do we want to have.
We are at that crossroads again and I fear what the answer may be. I wish all those for whom the next day is one of prayer and redemption the very best, and the hope that we can mark the day with greater resolve to do better for our country and its people and that others find another way to resolve the same.
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Fantastic post! Thanks!
September 27, 2009 12:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep.
September 27, 2009 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Beautiful post.
We need an Outward Bound experience for every member of Congress and every corporate CEO, with no knowledge of where they are going or when they will be picked up. Handed a map, that may or may show the drop locations of their fellows, plus an backpack that contains only what others have decided they should have, or not have.
First-aid kits? No, if they don't have them all ready, they can't expect to be given them; that only encourages layabout laziness. Waterproof shelters? No, sorry. They'll have to build their own; it's the American way. Not even tarps? Sorry, they already got tarps.
Cell phones? Sure, but don't tell them in advance that the batteries have been taken out; instead, let them live in fantasy that when they need emergency help, it will be there for them.
Just an idea, admittedly a little harsher than appropriate for this thoughtful blog, Barth.
September 27, 2009 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I forgot: a major storm and the expectation of insurance agents who, in the event, will not come.
September 27, 2009 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, Wendy, what a wonderful fantasy! I would so love for that to happen!
Or barring that, maybe each of them (including Democrats, but most especially those blue muts) with just a week having to be in the shoes of a hard-working person with a family who is losing his house; has already lost his job and insurance, and has to figure out what to do about it. But the trick would be that they wouldn't know that it would only be a week; they would believe that it was permanent.
Then at the end of the week, poof! Back in Washington, with the ability to legislate.
September 27, 2009 3:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's more to the point, C'Ville. Let the sheriffs come to their houses, in a moment when "who you know" just won't do it.
September 27, 2009 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wonderful! How do we fund this? Should we tell them they are all going to Argentina so they will go along?
September 27, 2009 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Argentina? Ha! Very funny, BlueSplashy, in a SCkinda way.
September 27, 2009 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
That my puny post gave rise to this is yet another reason to scribble things here. I love this idea. It could be the only thing that works.
I heard something tonight somewhere along the lines you suggest believe it or not. It will be posted here as soon as I can get my e-hands on it.
September 27, 2009 10:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well Said.
September 27, 2009 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm afraid you are to late. The "slippery" on the slope will take it's toll sooner than later. Their is to much weight of ignorance and blindness to turn now to the brighter future we once held. In the grand scheme of things the United States of America will be a "one hit wonder".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbbREwVijbg
September 27, 2009 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
The average age of Representatives was 57.2 and of Senators was 63.1 at the beginning of the 111th Congress. Since both bodies operate on the basis of seniority, the age of the influential members is a lot greater than the averages.
So the formative years for these people were the '50s and early '60s. Consequently, they are fully brainwashed to think that America is always number one in everything and that the American way is always the best.
Their world view was also formed during the heyday of the great paternalistic American corporations. Peace with the employees was bought by sharing some of the companys' material success, primarily through ever-improved benefits packages (including future promises of pensions, which didn't have to be paid quite yet).
The great society type of liberalism is similar. The American voter is placated by the provision of ever improving government benefits. These also include promises of benefits that don't have to be paid just yet.
This is agreeable to the wealthy and politically powerful, since it appeals to their sense of social responsibilty and philanthropy without requiring that hard choices about working conditions in the corporation or economic inequality in society actually be addressed. Government becomes an expanding philanthropic pump that siphons taxes from the better off and sprays programs out over the less well off.
What Congress doesn't realize yet is that the paternalistic government is just as dead as the paternalistic corporation.
September 27, 2009 3:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, really? I hadn't noticed. Could you perhaps provide some examples?
Expanding philanthropic pump? Well, at least I know that won't become a republican talking point, because most of their VOTING base (which is poor, but used, in order to provide votes that go against themselves and their families) wouldn't be able to comprehend the phrase.
September 27, 2009 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Medicare would be a good example. In the beginning the tax was very small and it has expanded very considerably. The tax that a person pay depends on his "Medicare income", but the benefits are not dependent on what you have paid in. In fact, there is also a Medicare premium after you are 65, which is higher if your previous income is higher.
So the Medicare system fits the description of a "expanding philanthropic pump", particularly if you are wealthy enough so that the progressiveness has been capped well below your income, and you can have a nice, detached view of it as one of your charitable contributions to society using other people's money. Someone like a Kennedy, for example.
September 27, 2009 9:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is nothing philanthropic, or pumpish about medicare.
September 27, 2009 9:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, Merrill. "The better off" would not be so "better off" except for the rest of us, no matter what they tell them in biz school. But your "me, my, mine" fits the spirit of our times. I wish you were right about Congress, though. I see very little sign of it.
September 27, 2009 10:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
A more just and equal distribution of earnings and wealth in the economy itself would be preferable to more redistribution via taxation and governent programs.
September 27, 2009 11:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
while we wait for "the economy itself" to fairly distribute "earnings and wealth", we can all watch for any usually hot netherworld to freeze over.
Even Adam Smith gave up this ghost eventually. Time's up, y'know.
September 28, 2009 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
You don't have to wait. You can implements laws that give workers more rights, structure compensation more fairly, regulate the ability of businesses to lay off people at will, and generally adopt business policies that create a fairer economy. That's the opposite of what we seem to have, which is a hands-off approach to business combined with an attempt to fix the result by governmental taxation and spending. Let's fix the problem at its source.
September 28, 2009 5:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Barth, this is great; thought-provoking and needed. I wonder what my delusions are. I am sure I have them, and it would do me some good to think it through and educate myself, so to speak.
What would it take to make those who believe the two examples you gave above regarding health care, to realize they are deluded? I mean, the facts are out there.
Global warming? The same.
I think one thing we all have to realize is that barring ignorance, many of the deluded have made a conscious decision to reject facts for the false "comfort" of a particular delusion. Do they "use" their delusions to justify selfishness? I see many people saying that if we had universal coverage we would be in competition with the currently uninsured for doctors' time. They don't even pretend that this is not selfish; they just state it as one more example of unintended consequences of trying to cover the "undeserving hordes."
But there is no doubt that it is the same people who care only about themselves, are those who get on the
"America is the shining beacon of hope and purity and toughness and bravery and morality and capitalism and also is better than every other country in the world; anyone who doesn't agree should be bombed into oblivion." What is ironic about all of the above is that they try to achieve it, and to ultimately prove it -- not by acting purely, with internal toughness, bravely, or morally; but by using fear to get their financial goals realized. Capitalism? No, what they champion is bribery of our politicians, and theft for the benefit of the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.
Some are deluded, but let's not leave out the deluders in this conversation.
September 27, 2009 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
CVille:
You are, of course, right about the deluders. They are all around us. They have infected our political system.
We saw it coming and we let it happen. It was too boring a subject to discuss and did not seem to involve us much but when we failed to change the way we elect our legislators we doomed ourselves to a system where the deluders get to delude their way to the bank.
I tried to discuss this during a long rant that ended my summer but I was so angry and so depressed about what the summer had brought, I was practically incoherent. For what it may be worth, though, one version of that post may be found here.
September 27, 2009 11:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent..We need to be reminded of this over and over! Thanks
September 28, 2009 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting post. It's obvious we've lost our way as a people, but our leaders aren't leading us to greener pastures. They keep us milling around the same watering hole half hoping and half expecting a rain to come that will replenish the fields again. Waiting requires little to no effort. Searching for greener pastures is time consuming and has costs that need to be paid along the way. The question is...do we expend the energy to move forward or sit back and husband our resources hoping the tide will turn in our favor? Each is a risk - to do something - to do nothing, and each has its' rewards. To do nothing would be like waiting for the bell to ring announcing that diner is on its way - you just never know when the bell will ring or how much you will get. The other is pure chance - if something could go wrong it probably will. Neither is a sure bet. Obama has enough problems with pulling the economy away from the abyss. Congress needs to tackle the direction the commerce of the nation is heading and what can be done to improve the outlook for more markets, employment and cost containment to keep inflation in check. We need to get our industrial might back and in working order - no more outsourcing talent to the cheapest labor pool on the planet. The sad fact no one wants to admit too is the free market with its free trade zones has nearly killed off the middle class. They never took into consideration the people who were displace - what would they do for employment? what would they do about training? what would they do about medical and retirement? Both Party's jumped into the ring without ever thinking about the repercussions their actions would create years later. Today, we're seeing it first hand, but does Congress realize their hand in it?
September 28, 2009 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink