I am despondent. here I was enjoying some excellent British comedy on BBC - the US cable edition with the swearwords considerately excised in case my sensibilities would be offended. Wait, my sensibilities fucking were offended. Which sanctimonious self righteous conservative intolerant throwback from the time of Moses gave the FCC the power to censor the BBC, yet HBO, another pay for cable channel, can proudly exercise the first amendment even if I don't want naked midgets fist fucking in my living room?
Well, this blog IS titled
Angry Elephants, not Mildly Disgruntled Elephants. You should have known that this could go downhill from the moment you read that. After all, the blog is black, not fuscia. How many more visual cues should I give? For fucks sake? O.k., a little steam let-off is good as it might reinvigorate that part of my brain that searches for adjectives/adverbs/conjunctions/gerunds and other assorted grammatical terms but often comes up woefully short, requiring me to resort to enunciations of that glorious, multi-faceted, and infinitely expressive string of letters that Shakespeare him/herself would have used ad nauseam were it contemporaneous of the era, quite how it is so universally reviled in the US is quite beyond me, even after 11 years and swearing (sic) the pledge of allegiance. But as usual, I digress, nay I bloviate (a recent addition to the popular vernacular of the political pundits) which cunningly allows me to segway to part of the cause of my current discontent.
After 6 years of waiting, hesitation, and humiliation, I finally "earnt" the right to vote in the USA. Sadly for me the first opportunity to vote caught me off guard as I was neither here nor there mentally, and the country was in the grip of a hysterical, historical rewrite, in which a decorated war veteran was slandered in a public rape that led to the re-election of the (now) most unpopular President the nation has ever seen. So, like a deer in headlights, I failed to vote. A further 4 years passed and this time I was prepared, having registered for a local nomination for a senatorial contestant, I have been sharpening my democratic scythe, preparing to topple the presidential hopeful that stood in the way of my American dream.
But wait, still two months away and hardly an acrimonious word has been uttered in the presidential race, relative to 2000 and 2004, and yet I am already feeling like my scythe is but a feather in the face of the hurricane of delusionary and ill-conceived policies and lowest common denominator rhetoric. BOTH candidates are standing in the way of MY American dream. In this land of choice, this land of the free, where do I now place my vote?
We have on the one hand an inexperienced idealist that has no ability to think on his feet, nor talk off script, who thinks that taxing wealthy individuals and small corporations is the way out of the current a/c deficit and underfunded social security, and on the other hand a bomb-em-before-they-bomb-us wannabe octogenarian that thinks drilling the arctic refuge for 2% of the US oil needs, only available in ten years time, is a way of relieving dependency on foreign oil today.
Fuck me, a high school student could come up with better plans than both of these idiots. Hilary certainly had this better thought out, imho. And therein lies the problem. Hilary, cast as shrill, cold, emotional, part of the DC establishment, polarizing and probably the devil incarnate somewhere in Utah, by the "free" press, had better policies, more comprehensively thought out, than any other nominee. Sure, she fucked up in the early part of her campaign, but her policies did not change. The American people, over(sic)saturated with celebrity and "reality" entertainment, have lost the ability to evaluate complex socio-economic situations even if their very future livelihood depends upon it. That is not to say a good generalization carries to all corners of the room. There are of course many smart Americans out there. I just wish they would wake up and realize the evangelical tidal wave is not fodder for the John Stewart show on Comedy Channel, but a frothing, roaring, life destroying force that is pushing the US back into the Dark Ages of intolerance and isolation from the world.
In a literary stroke of genius, I slide gracefully into the final source of my despondent reverie. I recently had the good fortune to attend a lecture of the 3 time Pulitzer prize winning NY Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, author of "The World is Flat", at my son's school, where he presented his latest book, "Hot, Flat, and Crowded", no doubt, soon to be a best seller as he panders to, wait for it, NATIONALISM!
Mr Friedman has disappointed me. On many levels. Most notably, he has given a face to the arrogant entitlement that pervades the American populace, crowding out the many moderate, worldy, and charitable people that make up this land. The premise of his book is apparently (as I have only his presentation to draw from, having been turned off from setting aside "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins to read his latest pontifications) that developing nations in their quest to attain the American Dream, will make the same mistakes as America in mortgaging the future for the now, and that America needs to lead the world in a green technological revolution in order to circumvent a global catastrophe, and re-instate the US in its rightful place as the leader of the "free" world. In fairness to him, he did state that if America did not rise to this challenge and regain leadership of the world, America would become a broken nation (I paraphrase).
I posit that the rest of the world are not so stupid. Yes the developing nations are consuming resources at a fantastic rate that cannot be sustained, but they differ in many ways. First, they (as Mr Friedman wistfully pointed out) benefit from, dare we say, dictatorships? In other words, the leaders of these nations, if so inclined, can enforce regulations that appear punitive in the short term without seeking approval from a congress and senate (ref the closure of factories in Beijing in preparation for the Olympics). Second, the largest of these developing nations, China, are genetically wired to think long term. They are not driven by next quarter's earnings estimates, they plan 50 years and out. They have been doing so for thousands of years (when left uninterrupted by colonial powers). Third, the Chinese and Indians, the two fastest growing populations and economies, are producing more engineers and scientists each year than America does cocktail waitresses. And where are many of these students studying? Why, in the ivy institutions of America, of course. And, thanks to the wonderfully astute immigration policies (that neither presidential candidate appears keen to materially change), they have an added incentive to return home with their new-found knowledge of nano-technology or bio-electrical processes upon receiving their degrees. America first trained China in advanced manufacturing techniques to the point of self sufficiency, and now instills their engineers with the spirit of innovation. As a nation, they have a great legacy of innovation (lest we forget the printing press, gunpowder...) and they are imbued with a great diversity of cultures within their borders which is a proven incubus for creativity and innovation. And no one doubts their work ethic, nor that of the Indians.
So, Mr Friedman, like the quote of the wise Sir Winston Churchill: "America can be depended on to do the right thing--after they have tried everything else", while America continues to thrash at the problem, I believe that at the very least, the Chinese will pay heed to history and avoid many (not all) of the mistakes made by Western Nations, and they will do the right thing for themselves, and consequently for this planet. In doing so, they will set the standards for the world to follow, assuming leadership at the table of man.
The American empire is in decline. And hence my despondency.
Dim Sum, anyone?
Labels: "hot, flat and crowded", friedman, mccain, obama
