Standing Still

Digging through my stuff I came across a book: "The Next Century," by David Halberstam. I had forgotten it, and flipped through it to remind myself of its contents. In 126 pages, the author showed us the likely outcome of the collapse of the Soviet Union, then the rise of Japan because of that nation's focus on practical education, and finally on us. He was not kind about us, but uncertain. Could we compete in the modern world with our service-oriented economy? Was the rest of the world catching up with us and surpassing us on the global market? Would our standard of living be sustainable into the next century?

Halberstam's book came out in 1991, twenty years ago and ten years before "9-11" pushed us into a collision course with national bankruptcy (fueled by all that unchecked spending on two wars and everything else as if we had the money to spend, plus sponsoring that very attitude among our people). The housing bubble was a symptom pf our economic malaise, not its cause. The cause was a combination of corporate greed and political myopia.

Niel Degrasse Dyson recently asked (paraphrasing) how we would create jobs unless we actually manufactured something. But he's just a scientist; what does he know? Still, I look around at the lack of industry or industriousness across the nation as we sit back and are spoon fed reality TV and fat-laden cheeseburgers with sugar coated french fries. And I see others streaking ahead of us. I am reminded of an exchange in the play, "Inherit the Wind" (by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee -- being an author myself, I can't pass up an opportunity to mention their names).

Matthew Harrison Brady asks his former friend Henry Drummond, "Why have you moved so far away from me?"

Drummond replies, "Perhaps it is you who have moved away by standing still."

America is standing still. Perhaps our politicians should be thinking about THAT.

The Ugly Americans

Watching the political process, or lack thereof, over the past few months, brings me to a dire conclusion: the people charged by the people with running the show are clueless about what is really important. They listen to select minorities pounding away while the -- once tragically called -- Silent Majority is left scrambling to maintain a decent standard of living. One in five AMERICAN children goes to bed hungry every night. One in eleven Americans is out of work, and if you're Hispanic or Black the numkber is worse. Now I am told by my union (ah that other ugly word to those in power even though only one in eight American workers belongs to a union) that the US Postal Service wants to pull out of its agreed upon contributions to its workers' retirement benefits. An echoing in my head are words, always words, but once upon a time a man's word was his bond.

So I am here to remind you, and I hope you pass it on to anyone and everyone who might listen. Not my words. Not even new words expressing new ideas. They come from a speech made in 1944.

when you read them, think about all that we have achieved as a people over the past eighty years, since the Great Depression began in 1929, all that we have gained regarding the rights and protections of our working force, of Middle America. We remain the backbone of the country, and yet Congress coldly and assuredly is working toward destroying Social Security, Medicare, unions, health care, and personal freedom, all in the name of profit. Not my profit. Not your profit. So here come the words. Let them echo in your head, too, and resonate throughout this once great land.

“The Economic Bill of Rights”Excerpt from President Roosevelt's January 11, 1944 message to the Congress of the United States on the State of the Union[1]:

“ It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.
This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.”[2] People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens.

For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.

Wisdom with Age?

They say age brings cynicism. I say it brings retrospect, but hope doesn't exactly disappear just because you become disappointed in our lack of progress. After all, after all we have seen, we still buy on credit, eat fatty and sugar-loaded foods, support war, and ignore climate change. But not all of us. And the numbers keep growing among the, dare I say, opposition.

There is a book that says old is fifteen years older than you are right now. That means age, like hope, is a relative thing, and depends on your own heart, your own approach. You choose. You can choose misery or happiness, regardless of what the world outside is up to on any given day. You do not have to bury your head in the sand to remain hopeful. You can see hope being smothered and still believe in it. Stay curious, have fun, and dream.

Bring Back Hope

From several directions lately, I have been hearing the same thing being said: hope is gone. In America, at least, hope is gone. Americans don't dream anymore. We can look around at the reality out there and see two glaring things: most of us look to satisfy our needs and more so our wants on a daily basis even if we have to mortgage ourselves -- and our kids -- to the sky; and, two, as a result, for the first time since people have been keeping track, our children are going to have it WORSE off than we did. Wouldn't it be good to downsize our expectations and upgrade our aspirations?

As Niel Degrasse Dyson commented on Bill Maher on August 12, for our economy to recover, for the United States to regain some promise in the world, for us to create JOBS, don't we have to MAKE something? What do we make now? We consume, we expect, we indenture our future. We have lost our standing in the world, and our footing to climb back up.

So. What do we do? What do we MAKE? Dyson mentioned how hopeful he always felt as a youth, growing up in the 60's. There was constant talk of tomorrow -- the city of tomorrow, the space race and where it would lead, even the imaginary exploration that captured us for nyears, Star Trek. It was all there. It was all killed (my own suspicion is that hope died with the everlasting involvement in Vietnam), The odd thing is that the future is still out there, and if America does not lead the way someone else will. So instead of bickering among ourselves over our small group private interests, maybe we should look for some united front on which we can all -- dare I say it -- pin our hopes,