The Seeds For The Decade From Hell

TIME magazine recently called the 2000-2009 years “The Decade From Hell.” Which, of course, has led many commentators to the next level of adjective inflation by calling it “the worst decade ever.” It is perhaps easy to understand the temptation to apply that appellation to this thankfully-ending decade:

• Two wars are still going on, both longer than any war except Viet Nam, one of which in Afghanistan is essentially being restarted from scratch after eight years;
• We are now billions of dollars more in debt given a complete throwaway of government fiscal responsibility at all levels from all political parties;
• We are very gradually coming out of the worst economic disaster since the 1930s, spread across the country in varying degrees but not across all strata of our population;
• Traditional pillars of our economic society have collapsed into bankruptcy, a result of mismanagement, greed, and short-sighted thinking, forcing us into government bailouts of undeserving companies as the necessary lesser of two bad options;
• Yet in spite of such bailouts, we have witnessed an unrepentant arrogance from such mis-managers, failing to reform their expectations and ways of thinking;
• Unemployment, bankruptcies, homelessness are all up, personal income and asset valuations are down.

There are certainly many causes for gloom at this year-/decade-end. I am sure anyone could add to this short list of negatives. Decade from hell? That seems to fit. But worst decade ever? We’re still far away from the 1930s; its 25% unemployment pales our 10%. And that full-blown international depression lasted through the entire decade; we’re only one year into our recession. So let us give our parents/grandparents of that generation credit for patience, stamina, and perseverance. And ultimate success.

The 1940s started badly with our entry into the incomprehensible horrors of World War II fought by the “greatest generation” now dying off. It ended with the baby boomer population spurt now moving into senior citizenship. And it spawned the new economic middle class that anchors us today.

The 1950s had its Cold War with Russia, visions of atomic bombs falling on school children hiding underneath their wooden desks (!) or in backyard underground shelters, and the frightening specter of McCarthyism shredding our Constitution – thereby planting the seeds of “the politics of fear.” In the end, scare tactics and fears of cataclysmic destruction went unrealized in the overall tranquility of Eisenhower.

Which gave way to the tumult of the 1960s/1970s. Two back-to-back hellish decades. Our reinvigoration by Kennedy was lost in his assassination, setting the stage for 20 years of violence as a political solution. High expectations continually gave way to dashed results: Johnson’s Great Society produced some long-lasting institutions in the social safety net and civil rights. But it lost its momentum and coalition in the climate of Viet Nam. The great adventure and challenge of landing on the moon became seen as a frivolous indulgence. The peace and love of Woodstock died in the drug centers of Haight-Ashbury. “Peace with Honor” was tripped up and exposed in a place called Watergate, and the seeds of “the politics of hate” were planted. And just when “our long national nightmare [was] over,” Ford (correctly) pardoned Nixon and a Georgia peanut farmer lost his way in a “great national malaise” of gas lines, sweaters in the White House, and hostages in Iran. These were truly consecutive decades of hell.

Followed by a decade in 1980 of optimism and a re-found sense of humor – at least on surface. “Supply side economics” was rightfully exposed as “voodoo economics.” We pulled out of a short recession, but savings and loan institutions went bankrupt due to a lack of oversight. Deregulation came into vogue and generated much prosperity, though the wealthy / middle class / poor gaps grew wider while public accountability began to fade. “Greed is good” brought “let the buyer beware” to a new zenith, threatening the stabilities achieved from our 1930s lessons learned. The seeds for future financial ruin were planted here, hidden by feel-good sunny optimism, yet waiting to belatedly sprout in this last decade like the choking southern kudzu weed. But the Berlin Wall came down, the Iron Curtain was raised, the Cold War defrosted, and a genuine Middle East threat was stopped by a truly united coalition with a clear and limited objective.

And minus a woman named Monica, the 1990s were pretty good for us. Economic prosperity, international cooperation in the Balkans, overall stability. But the dual seeds of terrorism and the “politics of winning over governing” were being planted during this period, the “dot.com bubble” was looming, yet computer programmers the world over successfully averted a very real potential “Year 2000” catastrophe.

Which brought us 2000-2009. The decade when the accumulated seeds sprouted. Fear and hate sprouted as the Constitution was turned inside out “to keep us safe.” Deregulation sprouted as our economy was handed over to unchecked incompetents with a responsibility only to their own wallets, and a willing public believed there was no cost to prosperity. Terrorism exploded upon us, reflecting years of our patronizing dismissal of other cultures and an arrogant belief in our own self-righteous virtue. And government became paralyzingly ineffective amid a partisan priority for winning versus “governing to the greater good.” A lot of chickens came home to roost in our own back yards in this decade, living within the flowering weeds from seeds we planted years ago.

So what can we expect from this forthcoming “teens” decade? Another decade from hell, or a decade of regeneration? It could go either way. If we are still thinking and acting in our 2000-9 mentality, then it could be grim. If we have learned anything from that decade, and we can apply those lessons with patience, it could be a positive redirection of our collective and individual selves. Like the sick patient, we need to 1) stop the bleeding, 2) then stabilize, 3) then redefine our health regime, then 4) then work through long-term rehabilitation. We’ve done step 1 and are in step 2 right now. If the negative media and politicians do not overwhelm us first, the signs and metrics of recovery are all there. It has taken us a few decades to mess things up this way. If we have the confidence, commitment, and stay-with-it-ness, the Decade of Hell may not lead to the Decade of Heaven. But it may lead to the Decade of Renewal that we need. And individual and national renewal could be pretty damn good.

Happy New Year, and Best Wishes for the New Decade.

Happy Holidays - Revisited

(TIME Magazine recently stated that only 22% of people polled preferred to use a “Happy Holidays” greeting during this holiday season, versus a “Merry Christmas” greeting. In the midst of the Hanukkah celebration, upcoming Christmas, the winter solstice for nature observers, and all other forms of seasonal festivities, it seemed appropriate to repeat the following modified blog from December 13, 2007.)
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NEWS ITEM: “(New York) A group of people exchanging holiday greetings on a subway last week hurled anti-Semitic slurs and beat four Jewish riders who had wished them “Happy Hanukkah,” authorities said. The prosecutor’s office was investigating a possible hate crime.” (USA Today, 12/12/07)

In our country’s continuing need to create a controversy where there need not be one, we have now annualized this penchant. I refer to the great “Happy Holidays” versus “Merry Christmas” cloud that hangs over salesclerks everywhere. What does one say to a stranger in this season of joy and love for people of virtually all faiths over an extended calendar of celebration?

I guess there are some folks who feel it to be their First Amendment and unalienable right and spiritual obligation to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Whether the recipient celebrates Christmas or not, or celebrates within a Christian or secular context, and usually without bothering to ask. Where companies have asked employees to use the Happy Holidays greeting (a meaningful wish applicable to virtually all peoples), employee groups and speeches from the pulpit decry once again “another assault on religion.” I think such outraged individuals have it backwards. If I may, I will use a personal story to illustrate.

When I left my native Arkansas at 21 to go to Boston, a more Wonder-bread kid from a homogeneous white Protestant environment could probably not be found. (What diversity existed in my town was out-of-sight/out-of-discussion, e.g. non-Protestants, Blacks.) Yet in Boston I found myself in a completely foreign melting-pot environment unlike any I had known. Religions, cultures, nationalities, with all their various Americanizations, were all there. Reflecting against all of these new experiences caused me to have to go back and understand where I had come from in my safe, all-the-same upbringing. It was a head-swirling multi-year process of change and assimilation, all for the far better I know.

On my return to Boston after a 2-year absence, I became dear friends with a couple whose history could not have been more different. Raised in New York City, in close knit Jewish communities, immersed in the performing arts, I seemingly had nothing in common with them at all. But over the years I learned so much from them and their family and friends. Not just about Jewish culture, but about many other cultures as well and the ability to all live together, given their broad exposure to such versus my nil.

For years, when the December holidays came around, I always sent them and his parents a Christmas card. Because Christmas cards is what I did every year. It was an unthinking reflex. Kind people that they are, they never pointed out to me my un-thoughtfulness, but just accepted the wish in good (and probably bemused) grace.

It was probably 15-20 years later when, out of the blue, it suddenly hit me how backwards I had been. Christmas is MY holiday, MY set of long memories. Their holiday, their memories, are of a different celebration and meaning --- in their case Hanukkah. I take joy when they wish me a Merry Christmas, their knowing that is a special time for me and my family. In my special feelings for them, I finally realized that my heart should wish them not my holiday but theirs: Happy Hanukkah, the holiday that brings similar seasonal warmth to them.

There are millions of non-Christians in this country (@25% of the population), and many non-religious celebrators of Christmas. Many no longer live in isolated homogeneous communities, but increasingly we live intermixed all together. One can choose to “spread the Gospel” in the winter holiday time, or one can express true love and acceptance of each other and their respective celebrations. People who insist on the “right” to wish a Merry Christmas to people whose tradition of observance is different are in fact being very selfish. They make themselves feel better, but they are not truly spreading “joy and good will to others.”

Our country’s diversity is one of our strengths. But say Happy Birthday to me on my birthday, not yours. Wish me a happy 4th of July, not a Happy Bastille Day. Wish people joy and peace in their own personal form. And if you don’t know, or haven’t tried to understand another’s culture, don’t assume; just know that “Happy Holidays” really does work just fine.

Happy Holidays and Peace be to each of you, and to your friends and families, my readers.

Our Cultural Labels

I was born in America; I am an American. I was born in one of the Confederate succession states of 1861-1865, within a mainly Scot-Irish immigrant ancestry extending back through states of the Old South; I am a Southerner. I was born and raised in Arkansas, on the Oklahoma border; I am an Arkansan, with a western trace. My American / Scot-Irish / Southern / Arkansan heritage was geographical, distinctly cultural, religious, and familial, all within a predominantly conservative homogeneous setting.

At 21, I moved to Boston, Massachusetts for college. Excepting 2 years after college, I stayed in New England for the next 38 years. My geography, my religious connections, my exposure to vastly different and varied peoples, and my thinking about the world, all evolved. Homogeneity became heterogeneity. So am I now a liberal New England Yankee?

Except that now I am living in the Appalachian mountains of western North Carolina, another distinctly different locale. North Carolina was the home of my primary maternal and paternal ancestors. Am I a transplanted Arkansan or New Englander? Or have I simply returned to my original roots?

In the past, perhaps after one ancestral adventurer moved to start a new beginning, people for the most part lived and died within one place. That one place contained a significant portion of their lineage, siblings and extended family. And that place existed in a culture and support framework extending probably no more than a 100 mile diameter circle. That culture typically lived in near isolation except for tourists passing through, or the books, magazines or movies that gave vague, intangible hints of different worlds beyond. In this isolation, native foods, speech patterns, indigenous careers, and community standards and values took deep roots, flowering vastly different landscapes. If you did travel, you knew clearly that you “weren’t in Kansas anymore.”

As television broadcast images and a standard speech pattern instantly and incessantly across the country (and globe), as franchised food outlets nationalized regional foods, as shopping malls replaced local downtowns with bland repetitive line-ups of national chain stores, our distinct localism and regionalism is being irrevocably lost. With “fresh” Maine lobster, Californian See’s candies, Chicago pizza, and New York cheesecake now available anywhere, the anticipation and surprise of exploring new territories and experiences are increasingly only fond recollections. Sameness, rather than individuality, seems to have become a national priority. When southern-style sweet tea is now available in a prepackaged bottle at McDonald’s in Connecticut, we know that distinctive regionalism and individual identity have suffered a major casualty! The desire for new experiences loses out to the quest for the comfort and safety of familiarity.

Why does all of this matter? Because I believe this increasing loss of geographic / regional / cultural identity contributes to people’s current sense of loss of personal identity. To an increasing anger at a perceived loss of individuality in favor of standardization. A fear of an ill-defined force that is pushing a sameness onto each of us, with a mandate for thinking and behavior that is disconnected from our everyday world. It is a force that seems oblivious and unaware of the framework and reality of our daily lives. It is a force felt regardless of political party affiliation, conservative or liberal bents, religious beliefs, ancestral heritage, geography or race.

So when we see people rallying against health care reform, health is often only a tangential issue. When we see record numbers of people lined up at gun shows to make purchases, the right to bear arms is often only a tangential issue. When “tea baggers” hold up their anti-tax signs, taxes are often only a tangential issue. When “birthers,” led by demagogic politicians and broadcasters, question the citizenship of our current president, citizenship and one’s right to hold presidential office are often only tangential issues. At the heart of these emotional displays is a reaction to a sense of threat to people’s personal life, their personal control over that life, and the disappearance of one’s local community and cultural familiarity. The world feels too big; the individual too small and still shrinking.

This past week, Switzerland passed a public referendum prohibiting the construction of new minarets – those distinctive spires on top of Islamic mosques. This in spite of there being only four minarets currently in the whole country. Switzerland is that historically fanatically-neutral country famous for taking sides on no question, with a long tolerance of multiple cultures and religions. Yet in a country with a Muslim population less than 6% of the Swiss population, cultural fears and perceived threats were aroused and dominated the vote. Spain and Germany have similarly grappled with mosque architectural construction in these long-standing Christian countries, while France and England increasingly struggle with issues arising from growing immigrant cultures. Underneath these struggles is the fundamental question –what does it now mean to be, or look to be, an Englishman, a Frenchman, a German or Spaniard? Where will all those Swiss A-frame cottages or French chateaus go? As some here grapple with having a president who looks very different than all those other presidential portraits, how do the French, the most adamant in preserving their native culture, now respond to a French president with a non-French ancestry?

I expect that Europe, with its history of small homogeneous nation-states, will struggle mightily over the next several years with this issue of cultural / national identification. We in America have been multi-cultured from our founding. Yet even with our long experience, our track record for assimilation has been, and is, very spotty. Underneath our immigration discussions, our educational policies, our “national versus local action” debates, we are in fact still often asking ourselves, “What does it mean to be a southerner, a westerner, a Californian, a Texan, a Vermonter? What does it mean to be an American?” And is our personal label really relevant anymore?

The Cancer Of Hypocrisy

There are a couple of topics that send me right to my personal soapbox. (That statement will be no surprise to friends who know me well!) One of those topics is encounters with hypocrisy. Meaning people’s ability to act with complete disregard for what they have stated. Or similarly, one’s use of selective memory to avoid linking current actions / statements to past actions / statements.

The ability to change one’s mind can be a strength of character. It is why we inquire intellectually, consider intuitively, learn spiritually, and (hopefully) conclude rationally. As our knowledge expands and our experiences broaden, our conclusions evolve over time IF we take the time to reflect on these. It is what we call maturity or wisdom. If learning is continuous, it is supposedly what differentiates child from adult.

The American public can actually be quite understanding and accommodating to public officials who change their minds on an issue, whose statements of values evolve, whose current actions contrast with their actions in prior periods. I have long opposed political campaigns that reach back 20-30 years and trumpet some youthful indiscretion, early writings, or now-questionable judgments. We all have our skeletons, our tapes we’d like to erase, our do-overs we wish were available, our regrets.

The key to public acceptance of a “change of mind” is that it is an acknowledged CHANGE of one’s position. Meaning that there is a) confirmation of a once-held old position; b) an explanation of what new has been learned (the transition); and c) an acknowledgement that today’s opinion or action is a departure from the past. We may not agree with that new position, and we may be disappointed that the change happened within a particular individual. But if it is a change from a position of integrity, we are able to at least respect that integrity.

On that basis, Nixon’s public “rehabilitation” after his resignation began only after genuinely and finally acknowledged his culpability in the Watergate fiasco. 20 years later, Ted Kennedy presented Gerald Ford with a Profile in Courage award, acknowledging publicly that he was wrong and Ford was right in pardoning Nixon and moving country forward. In the 1980s, George Wallace rejected his past resistance to civil rights and black equality, and acknowledged he was wrong in leading this resistance. Each gained credibility with their change of heart. Few politicians today are willing to follow similar suit.

Hypocrisy is a whole ‘nother matter from integrity. Hypocrisy acknowledges no prior action or statements, even though they in fact existed. Hypocrisy makes no explanation of a change of heart, or an evolved viewpoint. Hypocrisy ignores counterarguments, relevant information, or very real impacts on people resulting from a new position. Hypocrisy manages to live comfortably between conflicting public-serving words (pandering) and self-serving actions.

Why is this discussion important to raise at this time? Because hypocrisy infests so many of our institutions and discussions of the day. The most notable political example of this is within the Republican Party’s wholesale rejection of any new health care reform because “it would raise the federal budget deficit over $1 trillion over 10 years.” So Republicans are now our guardians of federal budget integrity? In my blog of September 18, I reported the history of budget deficits 1969-2009, which showed major deficit jumps during the Reagan/GWBush years, and further large increases with GWBush and a Republican-controlled Congress. Digging further: there are currently 40 Republicans in the U.S. Senate. 25 of these were already in office when GWBush was inaugurated; 15 were elected during Bush’s 2001-2008 terms; 3 are serving their 1st year in office. This means that virtually all of the current U.S. Republican senators protesting budget deficits were all there when the biggest deficits ever were run up. (I suspect the same results would show up looking at Republican tenures in the House.) So why would we give any of these politicians any credibility on this subject? Fight health care on its merits if you wish, but please spare us newly-found and un-credible moral outrage.

We get great pronouncements of moral indignation and expectations from politicians and religious leaders of all affiliations who subsequently are found committing the very same moral failings they railed against. Would-be anti-homosexual and “family value” protectors are found in fact to be what they protest against. Governors who protested federal TARP money are front and center for the photo ops when the those checks are given out to constituents. Anti-corruption prosecutors and governors prove to be corrupt themselves. Religious leaders who condemn perceived “sinners” ignore their founder’s words of love and forgiveness. The Cardinal of Boston gave a funeral mass to Ted Kennedy, yet was strongly criticized by some Catholic leaders because Kennedy did not support the Church’s position on abortion; balanced against Kennedy’s lifetime of committed effort to bring health care, education and opportunity to America’s disadvantaged, who do we think came out the more ethically compassionate in this public argument?

Hypocrisy reveals claims of a “greater purpose” and “higher good” to be, in fact, blatant self-serving personal promotion. Facts are irrelevant; history is not acknowledged; responsibility is not taken; integrity is not present. In this age of video archives and Google Internet searches, one wonders why someone would seek to deny where they have been. The old and new displayed side-by-side. Past meets future. When the two do not match up, both individual and institutional credibility crumbles; credibility gives way to cynicism.
This is what we now see: low approval ratings of politicians from all parties at all governmental levels; declining church enrollments; reduced charitable support; lack of informed dialog. We need to acknowledge our past, whatever it may have been. Then we can build productively on that past, rather than wasting time running away from it. We need to humbly accept that holding high positions of trust is less important than serving honestly in those positions.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Despair

Recently, President Obama addressed a dinner of the Human Rights Campaign in Washington. In that address, he once again pledged to end at the federal level discrimination based upon sexual orientation, including a repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law that restricts the service of gays/lesbians in the military. The predicable hue and cry resulted, with the gays/lesbians and the political left saying “when, right now” and the conservative side saying “no, never.”

The truth is that America has always had a history of discrimination. This truth is somewhat all the harder to fathom given our multi-cultural history from our beginning. British middle-to-upper class society dominated the governance and economy of this country from Day 1 in Jamestown. That dominance was unchecked for all of the 17th through 19th centuries. Not until the early 1900s did that yoke begin to break for the other cultural, racial and gender groups.

The Irish were told they “need not apply”; the Jews and Catholics were excluded most social clubs, private schools and politics; African-Americans had their separate entrances / water fountains / sitting and living areas while working as modern-day indentured servants; Native-Americans forcibly surrendered their land and were confined to specific reservations (unless white Americans found that they wanted that land’s resources after all); women had no voting and limited property ownership rights; Asians worked in laundries and restaurants, and helped build a railroad; and Mexicans, once the proud owners of their southwestern lands, became the field hands for harvesting and the gardeners of landscapes. Other groups were similarly relegated to specific niches of American society.

The American War Between The States freed the African-American from outright slavery, but consigned him/her to de facto slavery by ostracization and economic exclusion. But that war was also the first step in bringing out into the open a recognition of the need to end inequality in America. So we thusly began the long, slow, but deliberate march towards the true fulfillment of “all [humans] are created equal.” The three rungs in achieving this movement have been through access to 1) education, 2) economic opportunity, and 3) politics.

I am of the opinion that true fundamental change in cultural beliefs and attitudes takes at least 3 generations to achieve, and only then after concerted efforts and milestones by the parties involved to build the bridges required. Bluntly speaking, you have to wait for the old people, the original ones with their vested interest, to die off and end the “righteous cause” that they continue to espouse. By that yardstick, peace will never come to the Middle East until the original fighters and homeowners in the 1948 partition conflict die off. Ditto with China and Tibet, as well as others. Even so, left unchecked, the hatreds and suspicions can go on seemingly forever, passed from generation to generation in a near blood oath. So the Britain / Scotland / Ireland conflicts remain backdrops after 1000 years, the Sunni / Shiite Islamic conflict remains after 1500 years, and various Mediterranean and Baltic countries still pursue long-held agendas over ethnic cleansing, holocaust, and cultural annihilation.

By that measure of sustained resistance, we have moved forward quite remarkably in America in pursuit of genuine cultural equality, even given how much more remains to be done. Blacks broke into the military during the Civil War and continued through World War II, albeit in segregated units until President Truman officially ended that. In 1919 women became able cast a vote; women were elected as governors of Wyoming and then Texas in 1925; a woman from Arkansas was the first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1932; and FDR appointed the first female cabinet member in the 1930s. The U.S. Supreme Court over time has now incorporated virtually all cultural representatives, though it still remains insufficiently balanced in any given year. A non-Protestant became president in 1960, and a non-white in 2008. Over time, the American workforce has shifted from a predominantly white, married, suburban, male breadwinner to instead reflect virtually all cultures / races / genders in most every profession, though issues of equal pay and advancement continue. Other examples of substantial change exist everywhere.

In most all successful instances, integration and equality have been achieved from the bottom up, moving through the ranks, typically at great pain &/or loss to those in the forefront. But as little children of all races play together, as adults of all cultures and gender work side-by-side, the old barriers and animosities can gradually fall away over time. Not in a grand overnight swoop, but in that plodding but straight-ahead drive that cannot be stopped; 1 step backward or sideways, but always with 2 steps following forward. So when I return to my boyhood home in Arkansas, I drive by the old Negro public housing settlement, and the park and swimming pool nearby set aside uniquely for them. Except they are all thankfully torn down and gone now. There is only one entrance door to all facilities, not “separate but (un-)equal” ones.

In the future, America will undoubtedly continue to refine and improve its equal access to all. We have come so very far from the Brown v. Board of Education decision of the 1950s, the starting line of this past 55 years of our current push to genuine equality. Gays/lesbians in the military will ultimately go the same route and outcome as of female cops – incapable ones will be weeded out, and competent ones will prove to work side-by-side and ably protect their co-workers as well as any straight male. The immediate legal barrier will ultimately fall away, never as soon as we would like, but as inevitable as it must be.
All of the legal and social pushes being made now have to continue unabated. Yet in the end, it is all about personal abilities and competency, while realizing that all other perceived issues are incredibly irrelevant. I am confident that, in 20-30 years when my five granddaughters approach middle-age adulthood, they are likely to look back at 2009 and wonder in amazement what all the fuss was about in the first place.

The State Of Our Current Being

I recently had a good friend visit and spend awhile on this mountain. Among other things, one of the reasons that he came was to talk with me about his concerns for the current political and social climate here in America. Some of that concern was exacerbated by his sense of loss of the hope he had felt from the November 2008 election results. A loss that a hoped-for new climate and change of direction were finally imminent. Instead, by the end of this summer, we had witnessed a critical low point in civility, common sense, and creative thinking. Extreme radicalism had cornered the market of news and public discourse. His discouragement and pessimism were easy to understand.

We are living in a time of pronounced fear all around us. Where there is fear, there is always the twin close by – anger. These are the fraternal twins, always one with the other, two faces from a common source. Fear comes from our sense of helplessness when the world around us, the future we projected for ourselves, or the support structures for our security and survival that we came to believe in, come crashing down. Anger comes from our sense of powerlessness to stop that crash, to extricate ourselves from these unwanted changes, or to find the tools by which to restore our personal order.

Eight years ago the Twin Towers in New Your City were destroyed within one hour in a seemingly irrational act by people whom we did not know were angry at us for reasons we had no understanding of. Believing that “it could happen anywhere to any of us,” our illusionary sense of well-being was shattered. Fear set in. Unfortunately, some of our political leaders chose to prey upon that fear and tried to draw us towards a false dream of personal and national security, done out of their own short-sighted sense of exaggerated righteousness. If we agreed to let them loose, they would make everything all right again for us (and the world), and we needed not even disrupt our lives nor make any personal sacrifice for them to achieve this.

Jump forward to 2008. Thousands of American soldiers have been killed and maimed, yet there was no collective sense that we are any safer from outside terrorists. The entire banking system was set to collapse, echoing the Great Depression of 1928-1940. Jobs were disappearing, with talk of new bread lines. Retirement savings were slashed, if not wiped out, by the stock market tanking. People were losing their homes due to bad, over-sold mortgages and lost jobs. Bernie “Made-off” stole $65B of other people’s money with no apology, while story after story of individual and corporate greed splashed all over the headlines. General Motors and other stalwarts of American capitalism were driven to bankruptcy by incompetent business executives. And sick people died, well people became sick, and healthy people feared getting sick because everyone had to finally acknowledge a truth – that in this richest of countries, deserving people could not get needed health security without losing their financial security.

And so as is always the case, fear of what was happening all around went to anger. Lots of screaming about political philosophy, government takeovers, the death of capitalism. Lies and distortions from self-serving broadcasters and politicians took over the news media and Internet, with seemingly no one willing or of the stature to stand up and say “Enough” to these untruths. Se we had people taking guns to political rallies in order to strut their would-be importance. Hitler moustaches on Obama faces, racial name-calling and images, shout-downs at public forums. This is where anger took us. It is in fact an ugly picture. It is not the American picture we have previously believed in.

Yet we have been here before in American history. We have lynched people whom we deemed the lesser of us. We have killed religious leaders of different persuasions or burned them as witches. We have protested in marches and “tent cities” in Washington. We have segregated people and ideas different from our own into separate ghettos, locations or entertainment facilities. And some similarly fought a Social Security program in the 1930s and Medicare in the 1960s rather than provide comfort and dignity to our fellow citizens. We have long had the capacity to shut out that which is different, and attack and do violence to that which we feel threatens us.

But as the wise Yogi Berra once counseled us, “When you come to the fork in the road, take it.” We are at another one of those forks. In one direction is to continue on the fear path. Let an illusion of “the good old days,” demanding personal security and status quo at all costs, and an unwillingness or inability to adapt be our only goals. In which case anger will continue to fuel the engine of our thinking, speech and actions. America may well go this way. I hope not. And it does not have to.

Alternately, we can acknowledge the reality of our fears, yet not give in to them. We can swallow hard, take a deep breath, and plunge ahead believing that we still have the capacity to make our individual and collective lives right. By doing the right thing while looking long-term. We have cause to believe in that: GM may be smaller, but it is still in business and employing people; no one talks about the banking industry collapsing anymore; overall, the stock market is moving in the right direction. However slowly, most all steps are moving in the right direction, but we are not there yet. The sky has not yet fallen.

We have been on a very questionable road this past decade, if not the past three decades. A road of questionable ethics, goals, economics, and spiritual values. A road where the signs said “American might wins all; financial success is the one true goal however you need to get there; other people are on their own; my way or not at all.” The political establishment of 2001-2008 showed us clearly the folly of that narcissism. But it takes a near-complete collapse of that folly, such as we are currently experiencing, before we can perhaps be willing to change our direction. Before our love of the old past can give way to the necessary future. Optimism is in the LONG view. The human truth is that we do not change our thinking or direction until the “pain of right now” is greater than our fear of an unknown future. Future by definition is that which we cannot envision clearly, but in which we have faith.

We have frankly needed this social and economic disaster to open the possibility for us to change direction, temper our beliefs. It is change that is necessary, however painful. Will we? Which of Mr. Berra’s forks will we take? Will emerging new voices leave behind old views and speak for a new American future? That future is not certain. But yes, Paul, I still remain hopeful and yes, even optimistic.

Who Is Minding The Budget?

In this season of irresponsible rhetoric instead of reasoned debate about all kinds of genuine national issues and needs, I offer the following historical comparative history of our budget deficits since 1969. As people try to self-portray themselves as the “party of change” or the “party of fiscal conservatism,” or whether budget deficits matter or not, a look at the actual track record of federal deficit spending and who was in charge may prove to be helpful to us in some part.

Year / Budget Result / President / Senate Control / House Control
1969: -0.5B (Johnson-D; Senate-D; House-D)
1970: -8.7 (Nixon-R; Senate-D; House-D)
1971: -26.1 (Nixon-R; Senate-D; House-D)
1972: -26.1 (Nixon-R; Senate-D; House-D)
1973: -15.2 (Nixon-R; Senate-D; House-D)
1974: -7.2 (Nixon-R; Senate-D; House-D)
1975: -54.1 (Nixon-R; Senate-D; House-D)
1976: -69.4 (Ford-R; Senate-D; House-D)
1977: -49.9 (Ford-R; Senate-D; House-D)
1978: -55.4 (Carter-D; Senate-D; House-D)
1979: -39.6 (Carter-D; Senate-D; House-D)
1980: -73.1 (Carter-D; Senate-D; House-D)
1981: -73.9 (Carter-D; Senate-D; House-D)
1982: -120.6 (Reagan-R; Senate-R; House-D)
1983: -207.7 (Reagan-R; Senate-R; House-D)
1984: -185.3 (Reagan-R; Senate-R; House-D)
1985: -221.5 (Reagan-R; Senate-R; House-D)
1986: -237.9 (Reagan-R; Senate-R; House-D)
1987: -168.4 (Reagan-R; Senate-R; House-D)
1988: -192.3 (Reagan-R; Senate-D; House-D)
1989: -205.4 (Reagan-R; Senate-D; House-D)
1990: -277.6 (G.H.W. Bush-R; Senate-D; House-D)
1991: -321.4 (G.H.W. Bush-R; Senate-D; House-D)
1992: -340.4 (G.H.W. Bush-R; Senate-D; House-D)
1993: -300.4 (G.H.W. Bush-R; Senate-D; House-D)
1994: -258.8 (Clinton-D; Senate-D; House-D)
1995: -226.4 (Clinton-D; Senate-D; House-D)
1996: -174.0 (Clinton-D; Senate-R; House-R)
1997: -103.2 (Clinton-D; Senate-R; House-R)
1998: -29.9 (Clinton-D; Senate-R; House-R)
1999: +1.9 (Clinton-D; Senate-R; House-R)
2000: +86.4 (Clinton-D; Senate-R; House-R)
2001: -32.4 (Clinton-D; Senate-R; House-R)
2002: -317.4 (G.W. Bush-R; Senate-D; House-R)
2003: -538.4 (G.W. Bush-R; Senate-D; House-R)
2004: -568.0 (G.W. Bush-R; Senate-R; House-R)
2005: -493.6 (G.W. Bush-R; Senate-R; House-R)
2006: -434.5 (G.W. Bush-R; Senate-R; House-R)
2007: -342.2 (G.W. Bush-R; Senate-R; House-R)
2008: -638.1 (G.W. Bush-R; Senate-D; House-D)
2009: In Process (G.W. Bush-R; Senate-D; House-D)


SOURCE: non-partisan Congressional Budget Office

Fiscal years end October 31; budget proposed and passed in prior year by prior President and Congress.
Amounts shown are in Billions