I'm nobody's expert on anything, but I am an American. I have lived here my entire life. I was even born in "real" America-- in Colorado; though, I was born in Denver-- and perhaps that is not "real" America to that incredibly narrow definition of "reality" currently being so vigilantly marketed by Senator McCain's campaign.
I was raised a Republican-- but not in the sense that most of the people on this blog define that word. I was raised to believe in hard work, discipline and decency to others. I have not always lived up to how I was raised. I was also raised to trust in those who came before me -- my ancestors, including my parents, and stretching also to people like our Founding Fathers and Mothers, or even Edmund Burke, and other like minded thinkers -- when I could not find the answer myself.
Yet, as a teenager I watched my government do nothing to save our steel industry-- that used to be the best in the world-- and I watched the companies/corporations that owned the steel plants refuse to spend money to upgrade their steel plants. Instead, steel plants closed their doors all over this Country. I still don't know how anyone's party affiliation explains that one. That has to be one of the stupidest decisions made both by our government and by the corporations involved-- and we can see the effects of that decision all over our rust belt, once so prosperous.
I have watched decisions about profits THIS YEAR take over the better judgments of business people and easy credit take over the minds of everyone else (including me at one point-- I had to cut up my credit cards and go cold turkey for a few years). I watched us negotiate free trade agreements like NAFTA without thinking about what came next-- I read Mr. Solzhenitzen's conclusions about the West and wondered if he was right-- had we, in fact, put materialism above all else? Had we, in fact, become a nation obsessed with the short term that had forgotten all about the future? Were we worshipping the "market" almost as if that illusory "market" was actually some sort of religion?
Years ago, I tried to put my feelings about all of this into writing-- but I only managed a feeble poem, in a way a blasphemous prayer (though I assure you I wrote this out of concern, not to blaspheme).
Hallowed by the CFO,
Thy profits come, thy short term will be done,
In the United States as it is with NAFTA.
Give me this day my daily salary
And forgive me my trespasses into socialism
As you welcome all who transgress into materialism
and lead me not into the temptation of democratic revolution
For thine is the boss, the power and the everlasting rule of society
In the market’s name we cower
but hopefully not forever.
I know this is feeble, but it still reflects a basic truth that even Alan Greenspan repeated this past week. Mr. Greenspan said it more clearly than I did above when he admitted his free-market "ideology" had a flaw..... a flaw that brought us to this place. Ideas should not be worshipped-- that is the lesson those "ancestors" my parents taught me to trust sent down to me. Perhaps we have learned this lesson this time-- perhaps some will continue to cower before the "market" and its deregulation requirements. Whatever the future, or truth, of this, I do believe we will weather this storm-- why? Because we are the children of people who survived and discovered how to bring freedom, liberty and prosperity to so many, and even learned how to perfect even that. We are Americans.
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