Prop note: D-CAP has suggested that I read the piece though first and decide whether or not I want to go back on my word and my policy of no censorship because I might be concerned the piece is over-the-top in some way. Not likely. One of my screen names is "Paint It Black" and Kelso Sr reads the classic Russian writers for comic relief. My first read of D-CAP's post will be post-publication. I take neither credit for his briliance nor blame for his errors. I am not surprised that the first two to deputize for me here are fellow New Yorkers.
http://distributorcapny.blogspot.com/
Kelso's Nuts love you
Where did this all go so awry?
How did we get to this place as a nation – a place where we are literally coming apart at the seams --- akin to Rome 476 AD, the Ottomans 1918, the Brits 1946.
How did we become a nation of always taking instead of a nation of giving?
When did we make athletes who cheat and dope up into some kind of gods?
What made Britney Spears and Paris Hilton become more important than education, homelessness and AIDs?
Why can Dubai build architecturally dynamic cities, while Minnesota watches bridges crumble?
Who allowed someone as horrible and stupid like George W. Bush to become a leader and how does ANYONE think he is doing good for this country?
We did. We are failing as a nation – and lately it seems we are failing fast. I know this all sounds like a downer – but it is hard to look up these days when all you see is 'stuff' to make you frustrated, angry and depressed. We used to be a people that looked forward and were able to deal with the problems that life tossed in the way. Not anymore. We ignore them, we minimize them, we schluff them off, we keep looking back to when we thought it was so much better and worse – we keep blaming someone else for our troubles. Better living through irresponsibility, unaccountability and being unaware. And the more we ignore what is going on, the more we enable the precipice to arrive faster.
There are so many things this nation has to be proud of --- medical advances, technological advances, agricultural advances, and legal advances. Growing as a society is never easy – but somehow we fought the fight against the trial and tribulations – and won more than we lost. But the soul of America was primarily optimistic, hopeful, benevolent and the forward thinking. Sadly I do not see that at all today. We have massive problems (many of our own doing) that are being shoved aside in the name of "something else" – including pessimism, selfishness, greed, and backward thinking.
Like I said – where did this all go so awry?
How can a sane person sit there and actually say they want a Hillary or Rudy or Mitt (or almost any of their ilk) to lead and to inspire us (yep leaders are supposed to do this) to change the malaise that has crept over this nation. I surely cannot. None of the current crop of (for lack of better terms) goopers and dims comes close to sparking the hunger necessary to change the current course. They all appear, deep down, to want to keep the status quo – with shades of difference between them. My fear is that no matter who is elected --- we are just not turning this Titanic around at this point. And the men in the crow's nest have been yelling the iceberg is ahead – and they are yelling louder each day. These 'candidates' are ALL simply (to use a cliché) rearranging the deck chairs of this Titanic.
And somehow you get the feeling these candidates are proud of their blueprints for America – rearranged chairs. Don't you just love how what is the 'right' thing to say and do as a candidate and what is the 'politically expedient' thing to say and do is NEVER the same. Every rational person knows the 'right' thing is to do is come out and say is that this war was wrong and should be ended. But virtually no one – at least none of the candidates atop the leaderboard will actually come out and say it – they hedge, they dodge, they spin – because it is 'politically' wise to do that. The focus group or the base might not like that! Every rational person knows the 'right' thing to do is fix a political system that is broken beyond repair – but none of the candidates are willing to say it – or even come close to mentioning it. What I see is that NO ONE is ever willing to go out on a limb any more.
So here we are – risk is bad --- everything we do has to be a 'victory'. Or could it be that we are just too jaded, exhausted and self-consumed as a society today to really allow someone to engineer a different and welcoming America.
So like I said – Where did this all go awry?
It went awry when greed, arrogance, disdain of failure, selfishness, self-protection and more than anything else – fear – become standards to live by. Sharing, compassion, risk, responsibility and most of all humanity have become curse words in the heart of America. Unless this can be turned around, the US Titanic is doomed to hit that iceberg.
I would like to think that there is that chance we can turn this around --- I am looking for that possibility, I only hope it isn't buried under the fragments of the American soul.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
13 comments:
Quite a lamentation. Are you sure you're Jewish? And from New York City? There is rather a feeling of loss of innocence to this post that I assumed would have been long lost by any Jewish New Yorker.
You are asking to be explained the unexplainable. And you have done more than your share already to change things. You've gotten in there and mixed it up in what is tacitly a very competitive atmosphere and have regularly presented an opposing point of view with wit and style. You have no idea whether or not some teenager just read your words and decided to get active and organize with his or her friends based upon your words, but definitely it's happened since you began blogging.
But I'll take a crack at your rhetorical questions because I think you may be slightly off the mark on a few things.
How did we become a nation of always taking instead of a nation of giving? THE USA WAS ONLY REQUIRED TO GIVE IN TWO TIME PERIODS -- THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND THE 1960s & 1970s. AND THE ONLY REASON GIVING PREVAILED THEN IS THAT ECONOMIC WEAKNESS AND SOCIAL DISCONTENT ALSO PREVAILED IN THE PRESENCE OF A RELATIVELY EQUAL COUNTERWEIGHT WITH AN OPPOSITE SYSTEM OF ORGANIZING SOCIETY IN THE USSR.
When did we make athletes who cheat and dope up into some kind of gods?
I MAY HAVE TO SEND YOU TO YOUR ROOM FOR THIS ONE. YOU MEAN "WHEN...BLACK BASEBALL SUPERSTARS WHO GREW UP RICH AND INTELLIGENT IN OPPISITION TO THE RECEIVED NARRATIVE...SOME KIND OF GODS." TO ME, BARRY BONDS IS A GOD. WHEN HE WAS THIN, HE WAS 6 WINS PER SEASON BETTER THAN THE #2 NL LF, RONNIE GANT. NO OPINON ONE WAY OR THE OTHER ABOUT THE STEROIDS. HE WAS GOING TO BE IN A TIGHT PACK WITH RUTH AND JOSH GIBSON FOR BEST HITTER OF ALL TIME WITH OR WITHOUT STEROIDS. BONDS IS ANYTHING BUT A GOD, THOUGH, TO THE STRAIGHT, WHITE MALE SPORTSWRITERS AND FANS WHO CONTROL THE DIALOG. YOUR CONCERN IS WAY OFF BASE.
What made Britney Spears and Paris Hilton become more important than education, homelessness and AIDs?
'TWAS EVER THUS. THERE WAS OPERA. THERE WAS VAUDEVILLE. THERE WAS THE YIDDISH THEATER. THERE WERE THE "PENNY DREADFULS". THERE WERE THE HORSE OPERAS AND SOAP OPERAS.
Why can Dubai build architecturally dynamic cities, while Minnesota watches bridges crumble?
MINNESOTA IS A STATE WITHIN A DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC WHOSE PREVAILING MAJORITY VIEW IS TO LET THE INFRASTRUCTURE ROT & GO-G0, USA-USA-USA. DUBAI IS AN AUTOCRATIC STATE WHICH HAS PINNED ITS FUTURE ON ECONOMIC GROWTH THROUGH PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT AND BANK PRIVACY. DIFFERENT PRIORITIES AND DIFFERENT ABILITIES TO EFFECT CHANGE.
Who allowed someone as horrible and stupid like George W. Bush to become a leader and how does ANYONE think he is doing good for this country?
AL GORE, JR., AND JOHN KERRY, THOUGH IT'S HARD TO BLAME THEM BECAUSE THEY THOUGHT, I'M SURE, THAT THEY HAD BEEN TRYING HARD TO WIN. ULTIMATELY, THEY ARE TO BLAME BECAUSE THEY TOLD YOU FAR IN ADVANCE OF THE ELECTION THAT THEY DIDN'T CARE ONE WAY OR THE OTHER ABOUT THE OUTCOME. BRADLEY AND DEAN WERE BRIEFLY AVAILABLE. GORE AND KERRY LET YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THEIR GENERAL ELECTION CANDIDACY WITH THE CHOICE OF JOE LIEBERMAN AS RUNNING-MATE AND THE CHOICE OF SHOWING UP FOR ADDRESS TO NATION IN TIN SOLDIER OUTFIT.
There is no turning everything around. George W. Bush was the perfect MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. Under the guise of being an uber-patriotic nazi (small n), he allowed RED China to acquire 11% of the wealth of the USA with a very cheap call optioh on the remaining 89%. Talk about subversive traitors!
The Republicans won't fix anything. They've told you what to expect. GWB but more so. [Ron Paul excluded for purposes of simplicity]. Obama is evil. Edwards is OK but weak. Kucinich is good but the country wasn't ready for him in 1979 when it was receptive to some of his ideas. How could it be receptive in 2008? I know I'm going to differ with all of my friends in Blogovia on HRC. I disgree with her on plenty of stuff, too, but that doesn't prevent me from recognizing that she's the best candidate and would make the best president out of the whole bunch. If you like pain and sacrifice, you'll certainly get it with her. What has she said that suggests otherwise? I gave up looking for inspiration as an adolescent. I wanted the least-worst and was willing in defeat to take some comfort in the presence of guys like Baker, Regan and Shultz, GHWB and Bill Clinton who would not let everything go to hell in Aunt Tilly's handbag. Look for "inspiration" and they give you Obama.
distributorcap, excellent questions all.
as it so happens, and regarding your infrastructure question, i was just reading a report by The New America Foundation regarding our massive public investment failures. the author of the report, joel kotkin states,
"Despite the documented need for basic infrastructure, neither of the nation's major political parties has taken up this issue. Instead, government policy continues to be shaped by the belief that only certain sectors or groups drive economic growth. Thus, the federal government continues to emphasize high-tech infrastructure, and local governments try to boost their economic fortunes by building sports stadiums, entertainment facilities, and other amenities for the 'creative class." He notes that "Urban leaders have also become enamored of the idea that building elite cultural, entertainment, dining, and other amenities will create "hip" communities and attract highly productive, highly paid residents Appealing to this "creative class" of educated professionsl, many believe, is a quicker path to restoring the overall health of a regional economy than fixing roads, building schools, or attending to other basic infrastructure needs."
The flaws in that logic are obvious and, at least to me, very disturbing.
In case anyone is interested, here's the link to the report, "Back to Basics: A Pro-Growth Investment Strategy." It outlines how we went from a progressive public investment of the early 20th century (such as how we were able to use infrastructure building to pull the nation out of the depression, to today, where "The strong downturn in spending on infrastructure that began in the 1980's has led to an infrastructure deficit, adversely affecting the quality of our roads, public transportation systems, public education, and productivity-enhancing investments."
http://tiny.cc/eIOfe
Why can Dubai build architecturally dynamic cities, while Minnesota watches bridges crumble?
A couple of months ago I exchanged e-mails with a couple of people at the leading hotel in Dubai.
We started with questions of room availability. Then I got around to asking if my wife could rent a car.
Yes, and a driver would be happy to take her around.
No, I said, she wants to drive herself around.
Well, Dubai responded, such is possible, but it is not customary.
The website for the hotel makes it clear that women visiting this social backwater must cover up if they leave the hotel and should wear discrete bathing suits while there.
In another set of e-mails, I asked if being Jewish posed problems for my intended visit.
No, I was told. No problem.
I followed that e-mail with one mentioning that I'd be traveling under an Israeli passport.
That did it. I received another communication from someone much farther up the hotel management ladder, someone empowered to drop the bombs, so to speak.
Sorry, but no rooms available to Jews traveling under Israeli passports. No apology, just a statement of fact.
Meanwhile, never forget that muslims are virtually incapable of anything that matters. While you may think enormous monuments attesting to the bizarre indulgences of financial people in Dubai are an achievement, remember that these grotesque buildings have been designed and built by non-msulim firms.
Skimore, Owings & Merrill are big in that part of the world. A major Korean construction firm is one of the chief builders there. And never forget that most of the people who have delivered the limited successes experienced by muslims and their countries were educated in the US.
Meanwhile, back here in the US, bridge-building, maintenance and subsequent problems are not simple subjects. But the collapse of the Rt 35 bridge in Minnesota is simpler than most.
Mistakes were made. First and above all, gross errors were made by the people responsible for resurfacing and upgrading the bridge.
It shouldn't take an engineer to visualize the foolhardiness of putting about 100 tons of repair materials on a bridge WHILE workers were repairing and upgrading it AND while traffic was zooming across it at rush hour.
Somehow nobody thought to question the sanity of overstressing the bridge by placing a huge static load on its span while running cars over it 24 hours a day. Nobody thought to investigate the unusual vibration conditions that would arise from placing a huge static load on a bridge while traffic zoomed across it WHILE workers replaced key parts.
But the bridge did NOT fail due to its design or its age. It collapsed because it was overloaded and overstressed -- conditions that were CAUSED by the actions of the crew sent there to improve the structure.
you're absolutely right about the bridge collapse no_slappz. i have a friend who lives out there and who takes that bridge on a regular basis. he's not an engineer, but when he saw what was going on he intuitively knew that something bad was going to happen. he stopped taking the bridge a week or so before and it collapsed at the same time he would normally have been commuting over it.
and i think you're right about the dubai thing as well. look at what they are building and one realizes it's neither sustainable nor aesthetic. it's just gross. and, SOM have been whoring the middle east for work for years and years. and quite successfully as well. yet it hasn't done much for the reputation as serious designers. paul goldberger trashes them constantly. and deservedly so.
and sorry about your travel debacle. sickening.
AXN:
You won't be surprised to know that Kotkin was on the other side of this debate 15 years ago. Was heavily into the "broken windows" policing thing, the non-ideological (sound familiar?) market-based urban renewal via tech and gentrification, etc. Was all over Giuliani's dick like white on rice.
I don't know enough about civil engineering to offer any worthwhile opinion but it did seem like more a question of inattention than part of any overall plot against the people.
No_slappz likes his Wall Street credentials. I'm so into my own shit here that I fucking FORGOT that I had been an off-shore emerging markets equity, debt and deriviatives trader! Feature that. I forgot! At any rate, every culture has its quirks to be sure. All one can do, however, is get annoyed about them. You can't change them and it's foolish to try. I have 100s of stories about Russian bureaucracy that seem silly and backward and Harvey has 1000s. You come to expect things in foreign countries to be weird.
anita,
You wrote:
"...and sorry about your travel debacle. sickening."
My inquiries began as an outgrowth of a conversation I had with someone who admired what he'd seen in Dubai. It wasn't actually traveling there. I decided to play a role a little like Jerry Seinfeld in the book he wrote under the name of Ted L. Nancy, "Letters from a Nut."
However, I wanted to uncover some nuttiness in the government and culture of Dubai. As a matter of law, the hotel people and the country itself is an anti-Semitic dump. However, my correspondents from the hotel strained to offer accommodating responses to my increasingly troubling requests.
It sends them over the edge when women want to actually steer the car, wear skimpy bathing suits or travel with an Israeli passport.
The gaudy monstrosities that are built on their scorched parcel of land are really nothing compared with what happens in their heads.
i will get to all of you later
been a ridiculously busy day
N_s:
That is an hilarious book! I got to get someone to send me another copy.
You don't have to cut and paste peoples' comments here. I get fuck-all for traffic so those who do comment have a pretty good idea of their viewpoints.
I kind of like Dubai but I've only been during the peak of the racing season. I didn't really dig too deep into the culture. I was with a bunch of dudes for betting horses and playing cards. Uncovering latent at blatant anti-semitism would have harshed my buzz.
Quit hatin on Dubai. People are entitled to be as wacky as they want-look at us.
America has always sucked what so different now- oh yeah, we have an image.
well ... first of all, i don't find it particularly unsettling or hypocritcal that kotkin was a "broken windows" advocate. many people were, including many democrats in nyc in fact, were extremely happy (for the most part) with what giuliani claimed to have achieved with regard to crime reduction ... despite the fact that 1) it wasn't his idea and 2) crime was going down nationwide, not just nyc and 3) the police department ultimately went overboard and it took ray kelly (a democrat) to bring it into line.
and i personally remain offended that women are not treated as equals ... no matter where it may occur. and there are lots and lots of women out there who are working hard, VERY hard, on behalf of women in third, second and emerging worlds to have EQUAL RIGHTS WITH MEN. sorry if i don't write that off as just the wackiness of other countries. it is a major social injustice and i will always call it so.
also, the fact that an isreali or person with an isreali passport is not allowed in another country is also offensive. you don't think that is so, kelso? the fact that isreal can't buy oil in the middle east but needs to go to people such as chavez instead is not a bit unfair? obviously i can't speak on isreali politics in the way that i can speak from my heart on women's rights. i know little of no_slappz so what can i do beyond respond as a human being.
Dave!
Welcome, Pana (like "bro" or" "dude in Panama). Yeah, I did't go there but I was thinking along the same lines as you were. Like how about the US's baroque system of capital punishment with the last meal, the 12:01 AM hour of execution, the "invited guests" who have nothing to do with the case, the beyond-tragic family members of victim and perpetrator, the protestors pro and con outside? Now, that is weird. I'm sorry. I know that No_slappz knows more about my country and my friends than I do, despite never having been here nor having met anybody, but I'll risk it. Panama was a dictatorship until Endara in 1990 and they couldn't get rid of capital punishment fast enough when the Republic was established. No "life-without-parole" either. It would take a pretty bad act to have to do all 20 years of the max. My atty prosecuted a rape-murder on behalf of the Republic and she got at conviction at the rare penalty of 20 years flat. That's the constitutional maximum.
AXN:
I think he's absolutely positively in the right in this situation. He actually got pretty lucky with having Israeli papers. Israelis are a lot more welcome in every corner of the globe than Americans are. I am not anti-Israel in the slightest. I take the same position on the local politics that Barak and Ayalon do. Not the issue, though. I am opposed to intra-Semite-anti-semitism, of course. What gave you the idea that Israel had to buy oil from one country as opposed to another? There are futures markets in every time-zone of the world for every grade of crude and products for standarized amounts per contract and so long as the buyer who takes the contract to expiration has a means of receiving the crude nothing will stop that transaction. Except the USA which has granted itself permission to mix in any country's affairs.
I DISAGREE with how Chavez governs. I know very well who my ENEMY is. What pisses me off about Chavez most is that he can't resist provoking Bush, assuming that his crude oil power's enough. Venezuela's 300 miles away from me as the crow flies. I very much don't want Rice & Co to destabilize the region for George Bush's amusement.
this sure went a lot of places -- as for infrastructure --- i am quite sure Dubai is a country full of complete whack jobs --- the whole middle east is run by really scary folk --
i remember when i went to israel they asked me if i wanted my passport stamped on a separate piece of paper so i could go to an Arab country.
anita -- you are so right about building "entertainment" related complexes -- bloomberg went on and on about the stadium on the west side -- but there is nary a nickel for a the subways -- ok they are building the 2nd ave subway and just started the extension of the 7 train to the west side -- but to walk in the stations that are falling apart, filthy, and gushing water during rain storms (like in august when the entire system was shut down) -- that is a big infrastructure problem.
if i remember correctly -- one of the reasons Israel did not want to turn over the Sinai was the oil --- and as part of the 1979 peace deal Egypt would sell them oil. otherwise it was Venezuela and Norway that supplied their oil.
Post a Comment