Yesterday, I was walking out of a store wearing a t-shirt with a military logo on it. An overweight girl and her apparent boyfriend, who was also overweight, were walking up to the store. They looked at my shirt and she asked me if I had ever been in the military. “Yes,” I replied, stopping. She then asked me if I had ever gone overseas, “to war.” “Yes,” I said again.
“I could never go and do all that,” she said. “Me, either,” her apparent boyfriend added.
This was the too-many-th time I had heard that from too many someones. “You’re not willing or able to defend your country!” I said in a loud voice, and walked off, muttering like some crazy coot: “We have become a degenerate people. Our ancestors would disown us.”
I know that not many serve these days (probably one of the problems), and that even those who might want to often don’t qualify for a host of reasons (another one of the problems). I suppose the girl and guy meant what they said as a sign of respect and awe, and that I became just a weird jerk to them by the way I acted. But those words they said have become a pattern I have heard far too much. People thank me and others for our service, and I appreciate their words, but they almost say it with a fearful relief that someone else did it, that at least someone COULD AND WOULD do it. People of all political stripes say they “love” their country, and they want to enjoy their “freedoms,” but “couldn’t imagine” doing what I and others have done. They don’t want to serve their country, and sure as hell couldn’t imagine defending it, especially not where they might be killed. With so few willing and able to defend this nation, how can we not be planting the seeds of our fall?
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
The Shinier Side of the Coin
As a historian as well as political scientist, I am aware (but perhaps not keenly enough!) that some things have certainly improved. Here’s my list of things that I will keep adding to as time goes on (readers’ additional suggestions welcomed!):
1. Regardless of covert prejudice, there is less overt prejudice in our society, and easier intermingling of people of all different races, creeds, colors, gender, etc., and with this toleration and even welcoming, more opportunities for those than before.
2. Much technology has made our lives potentially more convenient (whether we have filled that convenience with other things is another matter!).
3. The generational divide is not as keen (I am aware that there are some drawbacks to this as well).
4. Entertainment possibilities are greater than ever (same caveat as 3 above).
5. Varieties of food are greater than ever, and awareness and appreciation of those foods as well.
6. There are a LOT of good books and magazines (and blogs!) to read (whether there are a lot of GREAT books and magazines and blogs is a matter of taste).
7. Travel is more possible than ever.
8. There are lots more fun ways to keep fit.
9. Communication is easier than ever.
10. We know a lot more of what works and what doesn’t work.
11. Desired information is often easily at hand.
12. As a human race, we appear to be less warlike than we once were.
13. Air Conditioning (even though, interestingly enough, drawbacks here as well).
14. Conception Control (some think there can be drawbacks here as well).
1. Regardless of covert prejudice, there is less overt prejudice in our society, and easier intermingling of people of all different races, creeds, colors, gender, etc., and with this toleration and even welcoming, more opportunities for those than before.
2. Much technology has made our lives potentially more convenient (whether we have filled that convenience with other things is another matter!).
3. The generational divide is not as keen (I am aware that there are some drawbacks to this as well).
4. Entertainment possibilities are greater than ever (same caveat as 3 above).
5. Varieties of food are greater than ever, and awareness and appreciation of those foods as well.
6. There are a LOT of good books and magazines (and blogs!) to read (whether there are a lot of GREAT books and magazines and blogs is a matter of taste).
7. Travel is more possible than ever.
8. There are lots more fun ways to keep fit.
9. Communication is easier than ever.
10. We know a lot more of what works and what doesn’t work.
11. Desired information is often easily at hand.
12. As a human race, we appear to be less warlike than we once were.
13. Air Conditioning (even though, interestingly enough, drawbacks here as well).
14. Conception Control (some think there can be drawbacks here as well).
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Economists
From The Associated Press, 29 November 2009
“In 1982, as now, headlines were bleak. Many economists were forecasting a long, anemic recovery. The usual engines of job growth seemed idled. The U.S. was losing its industrial edge to an emerging Japan. People were hoarding gold. The downturn was called the worst recession since the Great Depression.
Sound familiar?
Yet all the grim warnings turned out to be misplaced. By 1984, the economy was humming. Reagan was re-elected in a landslide. One of the longest economic expansions in U.S. history was under way, lasting for nearly two decades — with a few bumps.
Right now, economic policymakers are unsure of the road ahead and they lack a good map.”
Their view hasn’t changed a great deal since then.
It is hard to say whether they, and their sycophantic media allies, really believe that, or that is just what they are SUPPOSED to say, to appear to be the calming voices of reason and perspective. What these maybe thinly informed or deceptively palliative folks do by this though, is give the perception of abysmal ignorance and appraisal abilities. Because still focusing on the “usual indicators” doesn’t take into account that we had relatively little debt and trade deficit at the start of the Reagan era. Now we’ve had nearly 30 years of MASSIVE debts, massive trade deficits, and misbalance of payments. We are appreciably weaker.
Here’s the conversation we’ll be hearing from new powers if we don’t deal with reality VERY soon, with big changes: “You arrogantly, ignorantly, and stupidly thought yourselves immune to economic reality. You weren’t. It might have been delayed, but now it is come. Twist in your misery; you brought it mostly on yourselves.”
Because these economists, who we have worshipped like they run some plainly predictive hard science that can deliver the manna, don’t really know (as they occasionally admit): Greenspan, Bernanke, none of them. It is not a science, and they are struggling in the semi-dark. We need to quit listening to them so much; we look a bit like superstitious ancients readily awaiting for the pantheistic cleric to deliver the pronouncement as he examines the entrails for clues! Virtually no one is out there questioning economists’ often faulty assumptions, and only a few question their predictions. These economists plug their figures into models with delusional assumptions, and then dismiss anything (like environmental or social impact) that can’t fit their model! And their prescriptions largely benefit the plutocrats only anyway, and merely placate briefly (at best) everyone else.
It’s not that they haven’t made great strides in many areas, they have. It’s that we’ve elevated them to quasi-godhood, and that’s wrong.
I have a fair amount of confidence in and respect for the pronouncements of many academic economists. I am deeply skeptical of the pronouncements of most corporate and even government economists. It all seems to me to come down to…who are they serving?
“In 1982, as now, headlines were bleak. Many economists were forecasting a long, anemic recovery. The usual engines of job growth seemed idled. The U.S. was losing its industrial edge to an emerging Japan. People were hoarding gold. The downturn was called the worst recession since the Great Depression.
Sound familiar?
Yet all the grim warnings turned out to be misplaced. By 1984, the economy was humming. Reagan was re-elected in a landslide. One of the longest economic expansions in U.S. history was under way, lasting for nearly two decades — with a few bumps.
Right now, economic policymakers are unsure of the road ahead and they lack a good map.”
Their view hasn’t changed a great deal since then.
It is hard to say whether they, and their sycophantic media allies, really believe that, or that is just what they are SUPPOSED to say, to appear to be the calming voices of reason and perspective. What these maybe thinly informed or deceptively palliative folks do by this though, is give the perception of abysmal ignorance and appraisal abilities. Because still focusing on the “usual indicators” doesn’t take into account that we had relatively little debt and trade deficit at the start of the Reagan era. Now we’ve had nearly 30 years of MASSIVE debts, massive trade deficits, and misbalance of payments. We are appreciably weaker.
Here’s the conversation we’ll be hearing from new powers if we don’t deal with reality VERY soon, with big changes: “You arrogantly, ignorantly, and stupidly thought yourselves immune to economic reality. You weren’t. It might have been delayed, but now it is come. Twist in your misery; you brought it mostly on yourselves.”
Because these economists, who we have worshipped like they run some plainly predictive hard science that can deliver the manna, don’t really know (as they occasionally admit): Greenspan, Bernanke, none of them. It is not a science, and they are struggling in the semi-dark. We need to quit listening to them so much; we look a bit like superstitious ancients readily awaiting for the pantheistic cleric to deliver the pronouncement as he examines the entrails for clues! Virtually no one is out there questioning economists’ often faulty assumptions, and only a few question their predictions. These economists plug their figures into models with delusional assumptions, and then dismiss anything (like environmental or social impact) that can’t fit their model! And their prescriptions largely benefit the plutocrats only anyway, and merely placate briefly (at best) everyone else.
It’s not that they haven’t made great strides in many areas, they have. It’s that we’ve elevated them to quasi-godhood, and that’s wrong.
I have a fair amount of confidence in and respect for the pronouncements of many academic economists. I am deeply skeptical of the pronouncements of most corporate and even government economists. It all seems to me to come down to…who are they serving?
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Gen Whatev, Empowered To Be Enfeebled
America, you have enfeebled your children. By doing everything for them, giving them everything they ask for, by “protecting” them from all possible harm, by organizing all their activities, by listening to what they think they want, by trying to be their friend before they are adults, by feeding them a diet of physical mush that degrades their bodies and their minds because you think they won’t eat anything else: You have gutted their ambition, weakened their energy, sown paralyzing or apathetic confusion, and addled their minds and bodies. You’ve made idle threats with undelivered consequences and given them endless second and third chances, disempowering their ability to become well-functioning adults. You’ve wanted to boost their self-esteem and make them feel like they accomplished something notable because they just showed up, but now the results of all you have done are coming home in overwhelming cascade.
I heard a keynote speaker at a recent education convention talk at length about how we the elders, the teachers, the parents, are going to HAVE to adapt to what our "customers," the children and students, want and how they want it. I have heard this theme endless times. “If only we can find out how they WANT to learn, we can adapt ourselves to them and their preferences, and so we will achieve success.”
The problem with that is that it is at most only partially so. Yes, we don’t need to be Neo-Luddites, with no adapting to new things of real possibility. But we also don’t need to be chasing shifting targets that don’t really much know where they’re going or how they can get there.
Parents and educators would do better to listen to people like John Rosemond and the authors of “Positive Discipline for Teenagers ,“ if they want to discern what really works from what is just more gnat-brained wasted time. The children and students who are the adults of tomorrow are yearning for our co-piloting, not our blind control or suppliant accommodation (neither of which work).
I heard a keynote speaker at a recent education convention talk at length about how we the elders, the teachers, the parents, are going to HAVE to adapt to what our "customers," the children and students, want and how they want it. I have heard this theme endless times. “If only we can find out how they WANT to learn, we can adapt ourselves to them and their preferences, and so we will achieve success.”
The problem with that is that it is at most only partially so. Yes, we don’t need to be Neo-Luddites, with no adapting to new things of real possibility. But we also don’t need to be chasing shifting targets that don’t really much know where they’re going or how they can get there.
Parents and educators would do better to listen to people like John Rosemond and the authors of “Positive Discipline for Teenagers ,“ if they want to discern what really works from what is just more gnat-brained wasted time. The children and students who are the adults of tomorrow are yearning for our co-piloting, not our blind control or suppliant accommodation (neither of which work).
Gibbon
"The name of Poet was almost forgotten; that of Orator was usurped by the sophists. A cloud of critics, of compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste."
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