Americans seem to be in a perpetual state of denial. About our past, our present and our future. A friend of mine teases that even Americans who don't live in a state of denial, tend to be frequent visitors.
What are we in denial about? Most things, but especially the state of our union. It seems that without regard to who occupies the Oval Office, come January we hear that predictable refrain in the president's annual address, "The state of our union is strong." I guess it depends on how you define "strong," but you'd have to have a very liberal definition of "strong" to be bragging about the present state of our union. Let's face it, we're in the deep end and a whole lot of folk don't have life jackets.
I'm proud to be an American, I just want Americans to have more to be proud of -- a high quality education, a good-paying job, a place to call home, some savings on which to retire. Most Americans aren't asking for much, and they realize there's no victory in victimization. They just want a chance to get in the game, play by one set of rules and have a shot at winning. The recent jobs report underscores that many Americans have gotten tired of standing on the sidelines waiting for their number to be called. So the August unemployment rate falls (slightly) because hundreds of thousands of fellow citizens have given up even looking for jobs. How does America win again if we can't even field a team?
We are in a state of denial about the present -- how bad things really are.
The late Texas congresswoman Barbara Jordan once said that the American people all want essentially the same thing: to live in a nation as good as its promise. Nobody is asking for more, and nobody ought to settle for less. But, in truth, America is not yet a nation as good as its promise. There's a huge gap between the promise of America and the possibility in America for ALL citizens.
Author Jeff Faux argues in his new text, THE SERVANT ECONOMY: Where America's Elite is Sending the Middle Class, that our much-touted service economy is fast becoming a "servant" economy. He argues that debt-laden 20-something college graduates will become 30 and 40-something, burdened with even more debt, working part-time dead-end jobs. In the desperate competition for fewer career opportunities, personal dignity will go the way of decent pay. As I read the book, I kept saying to myself, "This is what happens to the middle class, say nothing of the poorest Americans!"
We are in a state of denial about our future -- if we think that the salvation of the nation rests on another tax cut, another voucher, another election, or another stock market boom.
"This is really the story of America, how the market system, especially in the global era, took away a lot of jobs in America that used to provide a middle class income, especially in the manufacturing sector. Instead of the government helping to create new skills, new industries, and so on, the government teamed with the most powerful and richest interests in this country. That's how campaigns are made, and since those 30 years, they have continued to side with the top 1 percent and totally ignore the bottom -- the poorest people -- and once in a while say something about the middle, but really only pay attention to the top," economist Jeffrey Sachs said to me on my PBS television program.
We are in a state of denial about our past -- how we really got here.
As kids, we used to joke that denial is not just a river in Egypt. Indeed, it is not. But this is no laughing matter.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once famously said, "I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits."
Do you believe?
Follow Tavis Smiley on Twitter: www.twitter.com/tavissmiley
This is not the country I grew up in. We are becoming a feudalistic society where the one-percent guffaws "let them eat cake" while the 99-percent do nothing about it except whine about replacement referees and vote against their obese best interest.
I don't disagree with Mr. Smiley's overall analysis, but I note that one really significant factor in the decline of the American Empire is the fact that it is an empire trying to impose its will on the rest of the world through military might. Aside from the moral failings of that policy, and the international hatred it has engendered, the war machine has badly damaged the economy and probably will ruin it as there is no sign that it will go unchecked anytime soon.
In my lifetime, I have seen the following wars of choice, probably none of which made any sense from a cost-benefit analysis: Vietnam, Grenada, Iraq 1 (Kuwait), Panama, Yugoslavia, Somalia 1, Afghanistan, Iraq 2, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia 2, Libya, Uganda, Congo, South Sudan, Central African Republic. (The last four are part of an operation targeted at the Lord’s Resistance Army.) At least since the invasion of Afghanistan, no thought has been given as to how to fund these foreign adventures.
Even as this is written we have 2 more wars in the eggs which haven't hatched yet: Iran and Mali.
This does not even count the 700 or so military bases the US maintains around the world in "friendly" foreign countries.
The cost has been and will continue to be absolutely ruinous.
Why do folks keep acting as if the rising national debt is their greatest enemy? It is the lack of the ability to prepare for and to build a future that will destroy their lives, that and their personal debt. In the meantime, the wealthest grab more money and many middleclass people support the policies that allow this. Someone needs to find a way to explain in plain language how it is the upper one percent is able to and does take from them. They don't see it. They don't know how it is possible none the less how it is done. Lay it out for them someone please.
The electorate cannot make truly informed decisions in the current system. I believe the American people long to be treated like mature, intelligent adults with respect to the issues facing our country. We want our elected "leaders" to put the facts on the table, have an HONEST and intelligent public debate on how to resolve our various problems and let the people decide which approach they prefer.
As it is now it's a game of lies, distortions and superfluous rhetoric. The current system essentially operates as a money making machine for political consultants and the media outlets selling ad time. The real agenda for governing the country is determined by the 1% who have the time and money to lobby Congress and pay for the politicians political campaigns.
It's almost the American Idolization of national politics. All the substance has been stripped out of the process. The only real players are the 1%.
We need to take back the country from the 1% and the stupidification of the current crop of so-called leaders who don't have the courage to break the cycle.
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By we do you mean those of you that are employed?
Some of us are in intimate terms with the "state of the union"
Remember Dr.King was murdered for having such audacity, Travis. The question that will determine future history is whether or not any Americans in the 21st century have such audacity-and are willing to risk Dr. King's fate.
That's what made the Occupy movement's very existence so critical-it showed such people still exist and are willing to risk it. All they need are the numbers and as the disparity of wealth and corruption continue to grow worldwide, their numbers will grow.
And then we'll find out if the financial elites are willing to destroy the world they own rather then turn over part of their plunder. I fear they are building immense underground bunkers secretly because they've already decided if they can't have all of it,they'll make sure we get none of it. It's a sick sense of entitlement they have.