So…it looks like this is my week to post responses to Real History Lisa’s posts.
OK.
She wrote one yesterday (in an apparent crisis of confidence…I can relate) called America is Dying. Her evidence? For starters, a live version of Wheel of Fortune in Florida that was attended by thousands of people.
Like I said…I can relate.
And then she extended THAT evidence to include the usual litany of things that are wrong with America. To which I can ALSO relate.
But there’s more.
MUCH more.
And I wrote a comment to her post that, as often happens with me, turned into a stand-alone post.
So here it is.
We ain’t dead yet.
Not by a long shot.
Read on.
No, Lisa.
In the ’50s, my father’s essentially good-hearted American parents sat slack-jawed in front of the TV set watching Lawrence Welk and pro wrestling. They thought that Jews, Italians, Blacks, Asians and anydamnedbody else who was not just like them were inferior beings. That was the way it was in Norman Rockwell’s America. I am a surviving eyewitness to this.
I was there.
Waking up.
Being born.
So were you, at whatever time you came up.
So were ALL of us.
America is NOT dying.
It is in the process of being reborn.
Those thousands at the live Wheel of Fortune show? And the other millions like them?
They are being left behind.
They are the afterbirth.
I firmly believe this. Please read my month-old diary Meet-up in the Working-class Boonies for further evidence.
Yes, there are millions who are still driving their murderous SUVS, eating bad food at bad restaurants and chain-storing their asses off. But they are in decline. People are awakening because they must, if for no other reason. (As is there was EVER another reason for awakening.)
Their SUVS are getting too expensive to operate.
Their bad food is literally killing them off. As is their bad medicine. At best, it is making them uncompetitive. Those millions of Mexicans who marched last month? They were marching on freshly cooked chilé rellenos and good rice and beans. Where was the middle class? Inside. Because their fast food-fed asses were too weak and too stupid to march.
Their chain stores are providing inferior goods and services. They are NOT cheaper. Their products break. And poison people. Their hiring practices and bottom-line buying drive societies into economic decline.
Why am I not like my grandparents?
Evolution.
Which continues, driven as it has always been driven by one concept and one concept only.
Survival of the fittest.
NOT survival of the fattest, or dinosaurs would still rule the earth.
Will America experience a regression, will it no longer be Boss of the World?
Yes.
‘Bout time.
It is dying?
No.
Just going through an adjustment.
It is STILL the most noble attempt at multicultural and multiracial co-existence that has ever happened in the history of the world.
I watched Clint Eastwood’s truly wonderful paean to blues pianists last night on PBS.
Fats Domino woke me up in 1958 or thereabouts. Among a number of OTHER “others.”
Johnny Cash.
Little Richard.
Dinah Washington.
And eventually a whole lot of OTHER other others.
Here come some OTHER mother. Always and forever in America. (Barring the unforeseen nuclear-driven collapse. Praise God and pass the jalapenos. Which I ate in some sushi yesterday. ONLY in America. Good, too. Yellowtail, scallions and jalapenos. Only in America.)
I am telling you once again, the blues will save America.
ALL them blues.
Mexican blues.
Black blues.
Caribbean blues.
Country blues.
Rap blues.
ALL them blues.
And Wheel of Fortune will join all the other quaint cultural memories like The Lawrence Welk Show on the memory shelf of history.
Think UP, Lisa.
Evolution progresses, as it must.
Think UP.
We gonna be alright again.
Any day now.
Aaaaaany day…
Think UP, Lisa.
We ain’t finished yet.
Not nearly.
Later…
AG
YOU know.
Think UP!!!
Later…
AG
Damn, AG!
You’re the man!
Thanks, I needed that.
We ALL seem to need this. Knox.
Luckily…it’s the truth as well.
I mean…we COULD go down, and go down hard. Germany went down, as did Russia, Japan, Rome etc.
WAY down.
Been to Dusseldorf, Moscow, Kyoto or the Coliseum recently?
I have.
THRIVING!!!
We have a different problem than did those societies…like everything else, the magnitude of problems grows as well. WE have nuclear war and environmental disaster with which to deal. But in the past, other problems were considered insurmountable as well.
So far…it’s us (Humans) batting a greater percentage than just .500, because in these ballgames less than .500 is regression. AND WE HAVE NOT REGRESSED.
Proof?
Once again…look at your own grandparents. Heavy though they quite well may have been. You have gone WAY past them.
Bet on it.
I am.
AG
P.S. My own grandpa…the other one, whose name I use here…used to say “Everything gets better except the last thing. And you don’t have to worry about the last thing, because then it’s all over.”
Yup.
If this IS our last go-round…as we were instructed during the Cold War in case of nuclear attack…bend over, put your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye. It’s been a long, joyous road, and your ass deserves all the props it can get.
I like the thought of America as being reborn, AG. We all change, we all evolve.
On the evidencxe…
That appears to be the plan.
AG
Shared by Arcturus:
STOP BECHTEL! Call to Action: August 6-9, 2006
Wish I could.
Working.
Gotta eat.
AG
i guess jalopenos and yellowtail makes AG optimistic. Good to know.
I don’ need no steenking sushis to be optimistic…I got LIFE telling me what to do!!!
So I duck into the take-out side store of one of my favorite Japanese restaurants in midtown to get some fuel for a gig. A B’way show on which I sub. Something quick and light, because I play a wind instrument and cannot breathe right with much in my stomach. (Sushi being my all-time preferred just-before-the-gig fuel.) I see some tuna + avocado and some yellowtail with scallions in the cooler. Two of my all-time faves. I order them from the young, obviously just over from Japan kid manning the store and he says something almost totally unintelligible. After several go-rounds, it dawns on me that he is trying to warn me about the jalapenos in the yellowtail. Try to think of how the world “jalapenos” interfaces with a barely-able-to-speak-English Japanese accent. The show I am doing is the Monty Python musical Spamalot. The conversation was right out of Monty Python, 30 years later. I laughed for blocks.
There were GOOD, too.
How could one NOT be optimistic after an experience like that?
Cultural Dissonce, Pt. XXIV.
Only in America.
Later…
AG
P.S. Jalapenos…and hot food in general…are the FOOD of optimism.
You eat it.
It hurts.
It burns.
But you KNOW it’s going to go away.
Now that’s optimism!!!
AG
I enjoy a good burger now and then…and sometimes I like mindless entertainment like a TV show or pulp novel.
The key is keeping things in balance.
I’ll have a greasy burger occasionally — but I’ll have it with salad and/or fruit instead of french fries. And I’ll probably pass on the BK Quadruple Stacker (aka “The Quadruple Bypass”; 1000 calories, 68 grams of fat!).
I’ve shown up with thousands for the chance to go on “Wheel of Fortune” — but I’ve also shown up for beach cleaning days.
I spend money in chain stores — but today I’m heading for Kohl’s to pick up some stuff for our local homeless drop-in center (there’s a need for men’s jeans, and Kohl’s is having a good sale this morning).
Balance…that’s the key.
No, we’re not dead yet — or if we are dead, I happen to believe in resurrection…
Okay – I’m really not trying to be a downer. I so appreciate and admire AG’s great enthusiasm that I almost didn’t want to respond.
But I have to, because I feel it’s important, and as I said not too long ago, when I have to choose between being popular or doing what I have to do, I feel I must choose the latter.
All the things Arthur describes are genuine. True. AND IN THE PAST.
Think about it.
Every culture has it’s birth, golden age, and death. Every one.
Every country has it’s arc as well: birth, growth, decline, and sometimes, death.
I don’t see how America can continue to be the leader of the world without making some drastic changes. I don’t know if they’re possible. I know they aren’t possible unless a lot more people get on the bus, so to speak.
We’re consuming more than our share of the world’s resources. Society is being ever more stratified. People are borrowing more even as they’re spending less, because they’re making less, in purchasing ability, than they were ten years ago.
Our country is held hostage to power companies. People are working longer hours. Labor unions are not as powerful as they used to be. We’ve seen all the people who stuck up their hands and said follow me cut down, by character and/or physical assassination.
We’ve seen homegrown businesses disappear and be replaced by strip malls of chain stores, most of which are owned by the same few companies.
We’ve seen our vote literally stolen from under our noses, without protest, except from a very few, who are instantly decried as “conspiracy theorists.” (If they’d stop conspiring, I’d stop theorizing.)
I’m sorry. I don’t see it. I think we’re well down the path to hell and the media is carrying the handbasket.
How many really moral people do you know, outside the activist community? How many people do you know who are trying to make the world better? Aren’t most of them just trying to get ahead themselves, trying to make THEIR corner of the world better?
Look at England. France. Rome. The Ottoman Empire. None of them survived the test of time. All of them received their comeuppance. Who are we to think we can escape the patterns of history without extraordinary awareness and effort?
The United States is on the decline. That’s simply a true statement. The question is, are we just sliding down a wave mid-ocean, or is this it? Are we washing up to the shore, to be stranded? That’s the part I can’t answer, yet.
Hope is good. Hope is valuable. And we should all carry hope daily in our hip pockets, and keep it close. But hope can also be like pseudaphed – a bit of a drug, when used inappropriately. We’re sick, and hope will only cure the symptoms, not the disease. I want to cure America. Hope alone won’t do that.
[blockquote]Look at England. France. Rome. The Ottoman Empire. None of them survived the test of time. All of them received their comeuppance. Who are we to think we can escape the patterns of history without extraordinary awareness and effort?[/blockquote]
Couldn’t the comeuppance of the American Empire be a good thing? Look at the former empires you list, England, France and Italy are doing just fine. As AG mentioned, Germany and Japan are doing well too. If anything, it might be better for a American of median or modest means to live in one of those other nations than in America. From a globalist perspective, the collapse of the American Empire would probably be a very good thing, as we could return to a multi-polar world instead of having a one-superpower world.
Change never occurs without an impetus. Life is far too comfortable for a large number of people and they are unlikely to take to the streets. As you know, one of the most progressive eras in American history also occurred in a time of great turmoil. The New Deal was only possible because of the Depression, maybe the next New Deal needs a similar crisis.
Oh, I’m with you there. We have a comeuppance coming, all right. But the age of American rule in the world seems headed to an abrupt end. I’m not saying that is a bad thing – but these empires never ended without a lot of blood shed, and bombs falling at home. As much as we may deserve that, on some level, I certainly don’t wish for that for any of my fellow citizens.
In addition, the UK is ahead of us on the path to big brother facism (it’s the most surveilled city in the world). Italy continues to struggle with its facists within. France is a lovely place, but they’ve bet their future on nuclear energy. We’ll see.
YOU WRITE:
‘I don’t see how America can continue to be the leader of the world without making some drastic changes.”
Why must America lead the world?
You write:
‘How many really moral people do you know, outside the activist community? “
Thousands.
Literally.
Morally upright, and confused as hell.
And you write:
“The question is, are we just sliding down a wave mid-ocean, or is this it? “
My bet…until the 2008 elections, at the very least?
What goes up, must go up.
And vice versa.
In EVERY direction.
If BushCo remains in power and unpuished by 2008…it’s over.
Until then…or until a real coup…it’s not.
We shall see.
AG
In the sixties, a great wave began to build. An unseen wave we could feel building and growing in the core of our being. Many ran to catch and ride the wave, just as many feared and ran from it. We rode until it crested and broke and we found ourselves washed up on the sands of the Me Decade where most of us, for reasons unknown to us then, wandered off to raise our kids and aquire stuff.
There is a new wave building. I can feel it in the core of my being. Where and when it will break I don’t know, but I’m running to ride.
Me too.
AG