American Dreaming

By Steve Hynd

Harlan Ullman does some "real talk":

Sometimes, delusion, self-deception and outright denial can dominate the public's psyche. As the U.S. economy stutters, unemployment refuses to budge and the 10th anniversary of September 11th looms, many Americans question or challenge the notion of the American Dream. For too many, that vision is, today, elusive or unobtainable. In compensation perhaps, America's past successes are often exaggerated or distorted.

Realism is vital in addressing tough issues. Unfortunately, realism brings the hint, not of objectivity, but pessimism. And, in politics, optimism, no matter how far-fetched usually trumps pessimism.

Ronald Reagan's "Morning in America" defeated Jimmy Carter in 1980 and four years later Walter Mondale. While Carter never used the term "malaise," his pessimism, along with exceedingly high inflation and interest rates, termed the misery index, and the failed Iranian hostage raid, assured Reagan's victory. Mondale was forthright in predicting that despite the rhetoric, Reagan would increase taxes. Reagan vehemently denied that charge; won and raised taxes nearly a dozen times during his tenure.

Realism is also important in remembering history as it was, not as we would like it. Despite the intent to perceive even past crises as halcyon days, that simply was wrong.

The reasons why the United States managed to accede to greatness weren't because of its so-called exceptionalism, given that most countries believe in their own uniqueness. In part, America was lucky. In part it had huge resources. And, in part, its founding fathers were unique in history.

...The United States is indeed a very fortunate country. It is the wealthiest and militarily strongest state in the world. Unfortunately, that power isn't automatically fungible in resolving most of the problems and crises it faces. And, as long as the country fools itself by reinterpreting or forgetting the past, it is difficult to see how those same distortions can be prevented from wrongly affecting the manner in which it deals with the present and the future.

If the American Dream is to be sustained, and we shouldn't delude ourselves believing that this is an eternally destined right, only the American people can ensure that objective. Americans must demand of their elected officials mature, objective and competent government, absent as much as possible, ideological extremes and the bitter partisanship infecting the nation. And, sadly, this might be the most extreme form of Americans dreaming.

Sadly, as I quipped on Polizeros Radio last night, the realist picture of America's woes reminds me far too much of the old joke about a tourist, hopelessly lost, asking a local for directions and getting the answer "Well, I wouldn't start from here."

 Two weeks ago, I posted a piece wondering what could be done to find the elusive solutions the nation needs.

Ask anyone and they'll have some ideas - then on further thought they'll say "but it wouldn't work because..." and the following will be some reasons that at base are a mixture of apathy and elite manipulation of the political process. The same base problems we so desperately need to deal with.

What's to be done? Is this just the way it is, something people shouldn't struggle against? Or is there a way out of the apathy trap?

Today, Ron suggests that there's probably no help for the situation - that America and the Western/capitalist model of civilization have just become too complex to self-sustain.

 Taiinter attempts to explain why civilizations fail. In short Tainter thinks they collapse because they become too complex. The only solution to over complexity is simplification but complex systems are unable to voluntarily simplify. Collapse is nothing more than involuntary simplification.

Is that it? Is it truly the case that, as Ullman writes, "realism brings the hint, not of objectivity, but pessimism", or are there solutions to the Gordian Knot? Next week on Polizeros Radio we hope to look at some possibilities. Those include but are not limited to:

Political reform: making campaign finance about equal access to power for both rich and poor, increasing third party access so that everyone can have a share in the conversation, using referendums to bypass bipartisan intransigence, ending officials abusing journalistic stenography and more.

Domestic Policy Platform: Budget changes so that the big spenders like Defense don't eat all the pie and the national debt doesn't just grow forever, tax reforms so that everyone pays their fair share instead of the share an army of tax-dodging experts can get them, ending the too obvious culture of privilege - where laws get ignored for specific sets of people (banking fraudsters, government torturers and government gun-runner to name but a few), infrastructure spending to repair American competitiveness, long-term thinking about climate change, energy, education and innovation.

Foreign Policy Platform: a resurgent Peace Corps so that practical things can again be done by people who don't carry guns, ending wars and occupations that don't address core interests, realistic "future threat" and "core interest" assessments, not always reaching for the bigger hammer as soon as possible.

It'll be a busy show - we may not have time for it all. But I'd really like for readers to give their own ideas on how to "get there from here", or write their own piece and give us the link in comments.

Why should a couple of tiny blogs and tiny radio show try to do something as ambitious as this? Why the hells not.

Update, Monday Sept. 12th: Keith Boyea has some thoughts too.

This isn�t a list of everything I think needs to be done, just a few that are either creative, overlooked, or achievable.

Political Reforms:

• Increasing the number of Representatives in the House of Representatives to bring the Reps closer to constituents, encourage the growth of �third parties,� and encourage cooperation between Members.

Domestic Reforms:

• View Energy, Transportation, and Housing as an integrated issue by simultaneously: (1) investing in nationwide freight rail and high-speed rail in regions where it is best suited. (2) Investing in nuclear energy now, even though it has a long development time because breakthroughs in alternative and clean energy are probably decades away. (3) Encouraging the development of higher density housing and zoning policies which make communities walkable and ride-able. This allows the development of work/eat/sleep communities that require shorter commutes, less energy consumption, and better utilization of mass transit.

Foreign Policy Reforms:

• Divest ourselves of �ownership� of the Middle East in part by developing the energy policies listed above. It is no secret that much of our interest in the region derives from its abundance of oil. Especially divest ourselves of our relationship with the Saudi monarchy�the same one that makes all our claims of caring about human rights hypocritical.


• Make a sustained and serious effort at encouraging reconciliation between Israel and Palestine. If, after 2 or 3 years of sustained effort, progress cannot be made, divest ourself of support of BOTH sides.


• Don�t view China�s rise as zero-sum. It is not something we can �manage.�

Hopefully we will get a chance to talk about some of these this Thursday.