When asked, the Bush administration says we need to stay in Iraq until there is a stable (puppet) government running the place. Nice theory. Unfortunately, the scientists say we only have a few billion more years before the sun burns out and life on Earth becomes extinct.
Nothing about our presence in Iraq makes any sense, in other words, except for the fact that we want its oil. We never should have been there; we shouldn't be there now, and every day we stay makes it worse.
So why doesn't everyone realize this?
Simple. We have lost our way. We have lost sight of, or forgotten, what America is supposed to be. That's why we are invading small countries while ripping ourselves up at home, shipping jobs overseas, blaming workers for the failures and greed of management, blaming illegal immigrants, blaming the powerless.
Corporations lay off thousands, report record profits and talk nonsense about "the need to compete in the global economy."
And almost nobody protests this. Well, it is about time someone did.
Yet let us first remember what America was supposed to be. Once upon a time it was a country that knew it was supposed to stand for religious freedom and tolerance.
That doesn't mean that we always practiced what we preached. But there was an ideal, and people knew what it was. It was also supposed to be a nation where everybody with a dream could work hard and hope to see it come true. And part of the magic was realizing that we were all in it together. That America became an incredibly rich country that was supposed to care about not only its own people but also the world.
Forty-five years ago, a young, brilliant and far-seeing new president sketched out what that dream ought to have meant for the world.
"To the peoples in the huts and the villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves for whatever period is required."
John F. Kennedy also, in that famous speech, the first he ever made as president, made a special pledge to South America, "to convert our good words into good deeds — in a new alliance for progress — to assist free men and free governments in casting off the chains of poverty."
Most of his inaugural address was not about life here at home, but it was clear he, and the better Americans of his generation, had a vision for that too. Yes, this was supposed to be a place where you could get rich.
But not by destroying your neighbor's ability to make a living and sending his job off to China. Nor did having a flourishing private sector mean that you couldn't have a necessary public sector as well.
What we had, they used to tell us with some pride, was a mixed economy. Everything wasn't owned by the state, comrade, and big business wasn't allowed to control everything either.
Capitalist society needs a dose of socialism — as in having governments that take care of the roads, the sewers and water systems — and have a vested interest in protecting the environment and education.
The goal should be as good a life as possible for everyone — here, and to the extent we can help, across the globe.
How's that for a political ideal?
Naturally, the Kennedy administration made tons of mistakes, and the biggest of all lay in a mistake very much like Iraq. We will, JFK famously also said, "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty."
King George most likely believes he is living up to the American ideal, then again that is what delusions are all about. The problem is the American People are paying the price. In lives lost, and money waisted, and the loss of our reputation around the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment