As the Massachusetts Democratic Party limps around with a self-inflicted bullet wound in its foot, we should keep in mind that Americans have always thought the country's going to hell, and yet hasn't actually gotten there, as James Fallows reminds us:
Through the entirety of my conscious life, America has been on the brink of ruination, or so we have heard, from the launch of Sputnik through whatever is the latest indication of national falling apart or falling behind. Pick a year over the past half century, and I will supply an indicator of what at the time seemed a major turning point for the worse. The first oil shocks and gas-station lines in peacetime history; the first presidential resignation ever; assassinations and riots; failing schools; failing industries; polarized politics; vulgarized culture; polluted air and water; divisive and inconclusive wars. It all seemed so terrible, during a period defined in retrospect as a time of unquestioned American strength.
... In The American Jeremiad, his classic 1978 account of that phenomenon, Sacvan Bercovitch, of Harvard, points out that from the very start of European settlement in New England, colonists were warned that God was disappointed in them, so they should improve not just their individual ethics but their collective social behavior. Indeed, only six years after the Arbella brought John Winthrop to Massachusetts, a Congregationalist minister was lamenting the lost golden age of the colony, asking parishioners, “Are all [God’s] kindnesses forgotten? all your promises forgotten?”
Nearly 400 years of overstated warnings do not mean that today’s Jeremiahs will be proved wrong. And of course any discussion of American problems in any era must include the disclaimer: the Civil War was worse. But these alarmed calls to action are something we do to ourselves—usually with good effect. Especially because of the world financial crisis, “we have seen palpable declines in the middle class’s standing and its sense of security for the future,” Jackson Lears said. “I think that was a good deal of what was behind Obama’s election—that same longing for rebirth that we have seen in other eras. It is rooted in the familiar Protestant longing for salvation, but is adaptable to secular arenas. Obama was basically riding to victory as part of a politics of regeneration.” Barack Obama’s very high popularity ratings just after the election suggest that even those who now oppose him and his policies recognized the potential for a new start.
It's a great article, made more interesting by Fallows' recent return to the U.S. after 3 years in China.
So, no, we're not going to hell. We're in that unstable moment when the swing has reached the top of its arc and started returning to center, but bits of us are still moving in the opposite direction. Thirty years from now, when we're at the top of the left side of the arc, it'll feel the same way.
One year into the Obama administration, it seems that a sizable portion of the country believe that because he hasn't cleaned up the unprecedented mess left by the former occupant, he somehow caused it. That, anyway, comes through in the reports of GOP focus groups of independent voters in Massachusetts. That, and crashing ignorance:
"I like what Scott Brown stands for and I feel that the Democrats cannot run the country anymore. That too many people that don’t have jobs are going hungry. They’re not taking care of business. They’re not doing their jobs. They’re caught up in this health care thing. I’m saying they’re not taking care of the people that are unemployed.” (Independent Man, Bristol)
Except for the bits in the past year where the Democratic Congress expanded unemployment insurance, passed a stimulus package, prevented massive bank failures, and started winding down two wars.
"Scott Brown ran a campaign as an underdog and he ran without support and is getting his message out, it doesn’t feel like he’s tied to anybody...." (Independent Woman, Norfolk)
Except for the largest single GOP money-drop in a decade.
"Brown would be the forty-first elected Republican, breaking the monopoly the Democrats have in Congress. I think they’re running away with their agenda and not listening to the American people. Just that there are so many cases where, for example the tea party, people are out there expressing their opinions. I see interviews with Harry Reid, not hearing the majority." (Independent Man, Bristol)
Except for the majorities who voted for the Democratic Congress, Senate, and President (53%, 52%, and 53%, respectively) in 2008.
In fact, the Democratic Congress' failing could be that they've tried too hard to represent the entire country, including the obstructionist right wing, when they should have taken their mandate and rammed their policies through. This, if you recall, is what the Republicans did in 1994 and 2000. Andrew Sullivan summarizes:
[The health care reform bill is m]ore conservative than Nixon or Clinton - and yet it's a threat to the meaning of America. This is claptrap. Hooey. Hysteria. And wrong. If the Democrats give into this FNC/RNC campaign to smear Obama as something he is not, they will miss the only chance of real, imperfect but meaningful reform. They will have blinked after being psyched out.
The Republican Party doesn't care about policy, they don't care about governing, they don't care about helping people, and they certainly don't care what the majority of Americans want or need. The Republican Party cares about winning qua winning. And then what? Well, they don't care.
And yet, today's aftershock in Haiti and Japan Airlines' bankruptcy (¥2 trillion) will probably be more important events a year from now.
Jon Stewart, of course:
It's all right. Throughout history the right usually has more internal discipline than the left, and somehow, things progress anyway. I just hope that today, nihilism loses. (Think about that for a moment and then, if you live in Mass, hold your nose and vote for Coakley anyway.)
States can't declare bankruptcy. If they could, Illinois would probably have done already:
While it appears unlikely or even impossible for a state to hide out from creditors in Bankruptcy Court, Illinois appears to meet classic definitions of insolvency: Its liabilities far exceed its assets, and it's not generating enough cash to pay its bills. Private companies in similar circumstances often shut down or file for bankruptcy protection.
...Despite a budget shortfall estimated to be as high as $5.7 billion, state officials haven't shown the political will to either raise taxes or cut spending sufficiently to close the gap.
As a result, fiscal paralysis is spreading through state government. Unpaid bills to suppliers are piling up. State employees, even legislators, are forced to pay their medical bills upfront because some doctors are tired of waiting to be paid by the state. The University of Illinois, owed $400 million, recently instituted furloughs, and there are fears it may not make payroll in March if the shortfall continues.
In unrelated news, the current temperatures are 16°C in Raleigh and -1°C in Chicago...
We haven't heard anything yet from the newly-hired Fox "News" analyst, but I'm sure we won't have to wait too long before she adds to Limbaugh's and Robertson's inane comments about Haiti.
I think we need to look to Jon Stewart for clarity:
Thousands dead, a country devastated, and this clown blames the devil? Seriously:
"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it," [Televangelist Pat Robertson] said on Christian Broadcasting Network's "The 700 Club." "They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal."
Assuming for a moment that Robertson isn't an ignorant, medieval, superstitious, wretched man, and that Haiti did make a pact with Satan, one must ask where Robertson came by this information. Possibly he was in the queue behind Haiti, waiting for his turn at the deal window?
No, that's just mean. Neither Robertson nor Haiti made a pact with the devil, and neither Robertson nor Haiti deserves what they have right now. Haiti doesn't deserve the suffering, the death, the destruction, the French colonial history, the dictators who took power, the poor soil, the lack of rainfall, or anything else that has led to where they are this evening. Robertson, for his part, doesn't deserve his money, his power, his influence, or anything else that has allowed this latest public utterance of such far-reaching and anti-Christian stupidity the audience it got.
Anyway, the devil, if he existed, wouldn't work through earthquakes. He'd work through televangelists.
The Duke CCMBA has a five-term course called "Culture, Civilization, and Leadership" that gives us structures to help us understand—wait for it—cultures and civilizations. At the end of each term, each team produces a paper analyzing the place in which we started the term. This term, I drew the short straw volunteered to write the first draft. We just submitted the final paper, after a few days of revisions. If you're interested, here it is.
We didn't put it in the paper, but throughout the process, I kept hearing Ozymandias in my head. Can't think why:
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
We'll see.
The Burj Dubai, the tallest building in the world, opens tomorrow. The Chicago Tribune reports on its historical debt to Chicago:
[T]he Burj Dubai has a broader -- unmistakably global -- significance for Chicago, which invented the skyscraper in the 1880s, pioneered supertall structures in the mid-1960s and had bragging rights to the world's tallest building title from 1974 to 1996, when Sears (now Willis) Tower wore the crown.
These days, the city's cloud-busting architectural achievements aren't simply found in the downtown blocks girdled by the rough-edged steel structure of the "L." They're spread across the world, from Dubai to Shanghai and beyond.
"From the foundation established in Chicago, that legacy is now being exported to other countries," said Joseph Rosa, the Art Institute of Chicago's architecture and design curator.
The article goes on to laud Adrian Smith, the building's chief architect. It's good to remember, though, that Chicago invented the skyscraper, and led the world for decades. But we're content to let the young upstarts have their fun. Look upon their works, ye mighty, and despair.
Once again, a major American newspaper has reported on something as universal fact, but that only makes sense in the U.S.:
The day is a palindromic date: 01-02-2010, meaning the number can be read the same way in either direction.
There will be 12 palindromic days this century, [Aziz Inan, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Portland in Oregon,] said, and Saturday is the second. The first was 10-02-2001. (To check out his complete list: faculty.up.edu/ainan/palindrome.html)
Well, only here. Almost everywhere else in the world, people use different formats for dates. In Europe, for example, today is 2/1/10; the next "palindrome" date is February 1st (01-02-2010), and the last was 10 February 2001 (10-02-2001).
Except maybe not. Most people don't customarily use leading zeroes when writing dates. That makes today 2/1/10 most places, and means the next "palindrome" really won't be until 1/1/11. Or 11/1/11. Or 11/11/11. (20-11-2011? What manner of numerical silliness will that date cause people?)
Don't even get me started on International System measurements and American exceptionalism[1]. But it's the same idea.
In his defense, Prof. Inan isn't serious (and neither am I): "Despite Inan's excitement, he dismisses the notion that mysticism and magic lie behind such dates. He doesn't, for example, fear Dec. 21, 2012, the date the Mayan "Long Count" calendar marks the end of a 5,126-year era. Some folks think the date portends a revolution or an apocalypse. Jan. 2, 2010, and Dec. 21, 2012, he said, just happen to be really cool dates."
[1] There are 310 million people in the U.S. of 6.5 billion worldwide—we're 1/19th of the world population—and the only country including England who still use the English system of measurements.