What is this term "Canada" you speak of?

For those of you not on Facebook or our little slice of it, anyway, this screed is an extension of a thread that questioned the morality of using veteran's health care and benefits as political footballs by the mostly wealthy members of Congress. Ooh, look I wrote something just below! Shhhh! Let's see what it says, shall we? 

But, to underline my overwrought response to Gretchen and others, what this country is missing is the notion of "sacrifice for your neighbor."  We see wonderful, young, vibrant souls march off to wars, into burning buildings, confronting dangerous criminals on a daily basis.

What I don't see is any sense that a lot of Americans give one shit about another American unless they're family or gang-affiliated. And I'm sure there are plenty of instances of people helping others, but I don't see it as "a worthy purpose in Life" sorta thing, like the several hundred thousand US military personnel who lost their lives fighting against Nazism and Fascism (the real kind, not the bullshit Beck n Fox want you to believe). Despite the loss of hundreds of thousands of American military and merchant marine lives, we could not have the war on military might alone.

It took a combined effort of EVERYONE to: 

• eat less meat, 
• go without electricity, 
• grow "Victory" gardens, 
• buy war bonds (but not to make money but fund current efforts to feed, clothe, arm and train the 10 MILLION people in uniform--I would think a comparable figure today based on population growth would be 20-25 million, or about 10X what we're supporting now!), 
• take public transportation, 
• DRIVE LESS(!), and
• eat LESS sugar(!!)...all these things and more were rationed during the war. 

Surely some people chafed at the inconvenience of it all, but compared to parts of the world that were battlefields and subject to the carnage of war--the rapes, the bombs on housing, the orphans, the starvation, the death camps in Europe* AND Asia, etc. 


And make no mistake, people by and large sacrificed. What were we told to do after 9/11?  

• "Go Shopping! We can't let the terrorists win by ruining our Christmas shopping season!"  Of all the embarrassing, numbskull things W ever uttered, that was probably the most humiliating IMHO. (That and a tax cut for the wealthy in the middle of 4 wars.) 
• In contrast, Obama has taken another route. Damn Commie.

Why were we "different" back then? One guess is that our leaders--both political and business--don't understand the basic human desire to WANT to sacrifice during times of crisis because they're all millionaires. How many business leaders do you who are middle-class Americans?  Same for Congress? As a local example, our current Rep. John Yarmuth, D-KY 3rd, is from a family of millionaires. They own property and restaurants. Don't misunderstand me, I think he's done a very good job. But he'll never miss a meal or not have a large house to live in.

The person he replaced was good, too: Anne Northrup, (R), who came from modest beginnings but her husband is a wealthy businessman. Although she voted w/W over 90% of the time, she was the person to cause one of the Old Guard GOPers, Sen. Trent Lott, R-MS, to step down as Senator when he defended a politician's segregationist past (personally, I don't think he intended to that, but the cost of free speech is accountability, unless you happen to be a right-wing TV/Radio blabberer). This may shock some of you, but I voted for her and I may do it again because she's capable and smart and puts her money where her mouth is, attributes much more important than party politics.

Nationally, according to Opensecrets.org, "U.S. senators had a median net worth of approximately $1.7 million in 2007, the most recent year for which their financial data is available, and 62 percent of the Senate's members could be considered millionaires. In the House of Representatives, the median net worth was about $684,000, with 39 percent of members having net worths estimated to be at least $1 million. By contrast, only about 1 percent of all American adults can be considered millionaires. Growth between 2006 and 2007 was still a healthy 13 percent, despite indications last year that the economy was headed south.

"Worries about the economy that most members of Congress are feeling right now are likely coming from their constituents, who will head to the polls in less than three weeks," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics. "For the majority of lawmakers, the pressure they are feeling wouldn't appear to be coming from their personal finances. With a median net worth of $746,000, most members of Congress have a comfortable financial cushion to ride out any recession."

Before the American economy showed signs in 2007 of slowing down, lawmakers had enjoyed an extraordinary run in their personal investments and other finances. Members of Congress, who are now paid about $169,000 annually, saw their net worths soar 61 percent from 2004 to 2007, on average."

FWIW, in 1989, W. Bush invested $600,000 to become part owner of the Texas Rangers major league baseball team. When the team was sold in 1998, Bush earned at least $14.9 million from the deal. Tell me this: where does someone who never had a successful business outside the luck of his birth get $600,000 in the first place? Cheney's wealth was estimated to be around $30 million in 1989. Barack Obama did not become a millionaire until the last few years when his books sold millions of copies, but he was well off before then.

If our generation has done a very good job of something, I would have to vote that we failed our parents, our kids, and ourselves when it comes to this crazy term "sacrifice." How do most of us act when there's a single parking space nearest the door and someone else gets there first? Why do we drive behemoth vehicles that are as suited to the suburbs and city driving as an M1 tank? Why do the majority of Americans who describe themselves as politically "conservative" believe that too much emphasis is placed on assisting non-whites? Why do those who spout the glories of unregulated, lassez faire capitalism never mention Adam Smith's concept of "Moral Man" and one's responsibility to ensure the stability of the marketplace and never to place profit as the sole criterion for any decision, business or otherwise?

Are we really that bad? Well, it's hard to argue otherwise in some cases, but I don't think human nature has changed an iota since we started using speech and painting in caves. (No cheap shots at those Tea Party/Glenn Beckerites and their signs .) If anyone remembers the Greek stories from college (no, not from Penthouse, you pigs!), they were no more than people striving to break free from their "barbaric" past when people behaved via instinct instead of a principle or set of principles. Some would call this the earliest known forms of "law"; others, "organized religion", but the idea was the same: how do we learn how to conduct ourselves in a civilized manner? 


The worst punishment anyone could receive was banishment from the city because that meant you no longer had the walls and laws to protect you, you were a barbarian. One had to live on one's wits and wiles and sword fighting ability. The great irony in this depiction of early civilization was the need for everyone to sacrifice something to be able to live among those who had transcended barbarism. 


Now, if I'm reading these goat entrails correctly, it would seem we need to relearn some of the skills, i.e. what sacrifices are necessary before we can re-enter the city of law and civility? Or is our slide toward barbarism destined to occur because we failed to transcend our instincts to "get ours" while we can, like children in the sandbox? Call me crazy, many already have, but the comparison of our culture to children fighting over toys in a sandbox seems eerily close, too close. If given a choice, I'd prefer to be found wrong than to be vindicated.  

Please, I encourage everyone to comment in a constructive manner. I don't know everything, just everything I know. We CAN change this course, but how is a very big question. 


XOXO - JR


ps-the title refers to the fact that a majority of Americans cannot locate Canada on a map. Remember what I'm saying, children fighting over toys, incivility. I wonder what the % of Canadians can find us on a map?



*To their credit, Mussolini and the Italian populace were not in favor of shipping Italian Jews off to death camps. If memory serves, it didn't happen in Italy until Mussolini was overthrown and German troops took over the country. The Italians mainly wanted the prestige that Germany received once Hitler took over the government. In fact, the first meeting between Hitler and Mussolini didn't go as Mussolini planned because he felt that he was the pre-eminent Fascist in Europe (Europe was UGLY with fascists following WWI). Hitler, needing a photo-op with a leading fascist, quickly re-entered his train and left, leaving Mussolini "high and dry," deprived of his chance to "school" the young Teuton with a bombastic and pompous speech. Hitler knew who needed whom.

A quick aside for context. For those of you who don't remember or know, Hitler was a master politician. World War I was fought for a lot of reasons, but one them was the idea of "social Darwinism", the political upshot of "eugenics," or study of "good" genetics. Oddly, the term and its movement started in England and quickly added adherents after Darwin's inconsequential little tome published in 1859. Hitler knew what the Germanic people wanted to hear--no more "weak" government a la democracy, lower taxes, more vacations for workers, a cap on corporate profit as a % of sales, a strong military, something we hear a lot these days--the need to RECLAIM NATIONAL PRIDE!, no more payments to the Allies (reparations for starting WWI).

In a nutshell, eugenics is the study of the role of factors under social control that could (theoretically) either improve or impair the qualities of future generations. Modern eugenics has been directed chiefly toward the discouragement of propagation among the unfit (mental retardation, mental illness like schizophrenia, homosexuality, etc, aka "negative eugenics") and encouragement of propagation among those who are healthy, intelligent, and of high moral character ("positive" eugenics). To the ultra-nationalist Germans, this meant a "cleansing" of pure Aryan blood that had been polluted and diluted by Jews, Roma (or "Gypsies," who originate from the western coast of India), and Slavic peoples like Poles, Serbs, Slovaks, Russians, Belarussians, et al).

It also meant the extermination of homosexuals, sexual deviants like child molesters, socialists, communists, and--get this--those deemed "a threat to the good of the nation," which served as a nebulous euphemism for those who openly disparaged its leaders, policies, or questioned the leadership in any shape or form. I know, it was crazy. From 2001 - 2008,I had people whom I thought were friends who nevertheless branded me "unpatriotic" and a "coddler of terrorists." Why? For questioning the morality and long-term wisdom of torturing people who were assumed--with little or no evidence--to be threats to national security. I'm not saying, but...it would seem that Americans who think like those "friends" of mine do are closer to fascists than they'd like to believe or will ever admit because most of those people are incapable of considering themselves anything but perfect, white, conservative patriots who love "their" country more than I love "mine". Others who were less harsh just summed up my entire dissent as a "Bush-hater" because no matter what Bush says or does I find fault with him. Unfortunately for them, that's not true, never has been. He was an unmitigated disaster as President overall  

For any of you who spout really stupid things about our President being a "Hitler", do you truly believe, in your heart of hearts, that the things Nazi Germany DID have anything to do with Obama's policies? And before you start foaming at the mouth like so many Orcs entering an unguarded village, remember that "death panels" were a lie propagated by a future president (in 2016).  


JRB



--
Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.  -- ⼤⾌