Halve Everything

     By now it is obvious that the hope aroused by the candidacy and then the election of President Obama has not caused a sea-change in the hearts and minds of his countrymen/women. Historians may find, fifty years from now, some important change among some young people who were inspired by the President's appeal to pragmatism and decency and reform. Right now, no such transformation is apparent. Why has the rocket fizzled? First, because, although the Republican Party and most of its federal representatives appear insane at best, congressional Democrats appear little better -- a hopeless motley crew of partisan hacks, intellectual light-weights, and visionless place-holders. They simply have no clue about moving forward in a clear, uncompromising direction toward anything. They consider halving every piece of legislation as bold and courageous reform. Secondly, and even worse, President Obama, partly because Congress has forced him to do so,  has decided to halve everything as well:  half a stimulus program; half ownership of GM (actually more); assuming half the costs of an irresponsible banking industry; a half-assed health program that promises very little change; half-way measures in pursuing those responsible for instituting a widespread torture program into American "intelligence" work; a halved promise on closing the Guantanamo Bay "facility"; a half-and-half attitude toward the virtues of unregulated capitalism.

     But these are surface issues, ones that can be changed with the election of a better Congress, and the appointment of better justices to the federal courts, and perhaps evidence of more backbone in the current administration once some victories are posted. Deeper cultural currents and bigger problems cannot be so easily eradicated. Here are my seven deadly sins of American politics and society:

     1. The American public, as responsible citizens, continue to lag behind every democratic, or democratically developing country, in terms of their political acumen and activism. "I am not political" is a phrase worn as a badge of moral honor only in North America. When students began to use this "excuse" with me in Canada in the 1970s, I developed a standard response:  "If you are not political, you are immoral." By political, I mean something more than passively voting. I mean acquainting oneself with the political issues of the day; protesting policies one considers bad or wrong-headed through a variety of means; and, discussing politics with one's acquaintances. These are the minimums. Contributing to a political party or working for a campaign or signing petitions and supporting online political interest groups, is a step further in the right direction.

     2. American journalism is immoral in the news they choose to cover, in the manner in which they report the news, and in ways they choose to analyze the news. Failures of omission and of commission are replete throughout all branches of the media. If we are not being addressed by vacuous air-heads of both sexes, whose hairdos alone tell you where they place their priorities, we are being assaulted and insulted by a parade of right-wing "experts" and subdued moderates in what journalism considers "balance" in analysis. There is no balance, and even if all sides were represented equally in these "debates," halving the views of two extremes does not result in truth and sensibility.

     3. "We live in the grip of the most powerful ideology the world has ever known -- capitalism." These are the words I used for over twenty years in my first year history classes whenever the issue of ideologies of the past became a topic of the course. Most older students thought I was going to end that sentence with the word -- "communism." The rest shrugged this sentence off as irrelevant, set against the power of pop culture (which is itself a partner in maintaining the myth of capitalist inevitability). But the pervasive and destructive influence of capitalism as an ideology seems to continue. And, it has emerged from our financial crisis virtually unscathed -- a remarkable feat for a set of ideas that should have been badly damaged by its advocates and extreme enthusiasts. Indeed, journalists make no objection when commentators -- or the "punditocracy," as Michael Moore correctly calls it -- sweepingly proclaim that the free market system is sacrosanct and must not be impeded. What utter nonsense. Some things must be nationalized (health care, we say today; roads and public utilities, so said Adam Smith in 1776; and why, by the way, don't right-wing ideologists read and cite him). Some things need regulation (uh, savings-and-loans, as proven by the early 1990s fiasco under Bush I, and the banks, as proven today). And, some things need to be driven by the market (our choices in what foods we want in our restaurants and what clothes styles we want to put on our backs).

     4. Paul Krugman, in a recent NY Times opinion piece, identifies the beginning of the current state of economic crisis with the Reagan administration. This is true. I have recently come across a talk I gave when Reagan was re-elected in 1984, and was reminded again that I never could comprehend his election to either term. What were people thinking? He was not even the jolly person most people made him out to be. He was a vicious anti-communist, anti-unionist, and anti-government-activist. He presented himself as some kind of lollypop libertarian; maybe that's why people think he was sweet. And then, just like the New England Puritans of the 17th century, the Republican presidential leadership proceeded to decline. Bush I (a seemingly good hearted and courageous veteran), along with his country-club, pretty boy running mate -- Dan Quayle, stumbled through a term. Newt Gingrich then steered the Republicans of the 1990s into an Alice-in-Wonderland vision of politics and economics and the future. And, then there was Bush II, a man almost as shocked as William Henry Harrison to be inhabiting the White House. We know the rest about the worst president in American history; Bush II was kind of the "Secretariat" (to use a horse-racing analogy unflattering to that great race horse) of bad and evil politics. Thirty years of wrong ideas, of "spend a lot but don 't tax" policies, of anti-democratic politics, has left most of us with no memory of how politics might be practiced correctly.

     5. Only in the impoverished world, do we see a middle and lower class as dispirited as we find them in the U.S. They have been down so long that just keeping one's job, or keeping a pay check that does not rise with inflation, is seen as a victory to be celebrated. Marx was only partly right in calling "religion the opiate of the masses"; sports, pop culture diversions, and, hey, real opiates, are also part of the "opiate[s] of the masses." Some say that ordinary folk have been "dumbed down." It is worse than that; they have been thoroughly anesthetized against hope and planning for the future. No hope and no planning are emblematic of societies of the poor throughout the world.

     6. How long have we put up with fighting the brush fires of idiotic right-wing political and religious groups and advocates. OK, abortion is not a good thing; but given sex education in the U.S. (and many other places) it is at least a necessary "evil." Plus, as a man, I expect to have authority over my body; women should too.  Darwinian evolution is right, insofar as every credible scientific test has been applied against it. Schools are not places over which parents en masse should determine curriculum or how subjects should be taught. Parents must insist on the production of good teachers, and then get out of the way. Being "gay" or "lesbian" is natural; "homosexuality," for want of a better comprehensive word, has existed from ancient times to the present. The only debate is how many people are naturally gay or lesbian; and that, my friends, is a discussion just too, too boring for me to address. Stupid cultural and moral issues are exhausting and diverting from real issues regarding how millions of real people are to live their real lives well.

     7. No one, from teenagers to the enfeebled elderly, are "entitled" to all that they claim. Yes, the young should be educated and protected. Yes, the elderly should be cared for in a humane and caring way. After that, it is all a matter of how far a society wants to go to enhance these protections without extending false expectations. If you are a lazy and not very bright teenager, you should expect the consequences of those twin failings -- one outside your control, the other supposedly within it. If you are a cranky, contentious, and poor senior, you should expect something less than luxury and fawning attention from those around you. There is no historical imperative that any age group should lead a life of sybaritic ease, or that ennui is the correct and expected response to unfulfilled expectations.

    So, with these 7 Deadly Sins still in full play, I am not anticipating seeing anything like the changes to politics and society that, only a few months ago, I thought might be possible in my lifetime.

[For those who think I am being harsh regarding the Obama administration, please read Kevin Baker's article, "Barack Hoover Obama:  The Best and the Brightest Blow It Again," Harper's Magazine, July, 2009]