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TechnoratiAmerica Could Use a Little 'Tough Love' From Leaders
We Americans have a high regard for ourselves. We are -- or so we tell ourselves -- the richest, the most generous, the most powerful, the most peace-loving, the most productive, the most wise and most lovable nation on the face of the earth.
We also love politicians who dare to tell us all those wonderful things about ourselves. Like any people, we want to think well of our country and take pride in it, and we want leaders who take pride in it as well.
But there's a difference between justified pride and illusion. Too many Americans seem to believe that our place in the world has been divinely ordained and thus permanent, when in fact it is the product of past sacrifice and wise choices. It can all be lost if we also lose the capacity to look at ourselves and our problems honestly.
For example, it is no longer true that we are the richest nation in the world. Quite the contrary, in recent years we have become the world's biggest debtor nation. We are financing our prosperity in the manner of an old but declining aristocratic family, living beyond our means year by year by pawning off the assets earned by earlier generations.
But our leaders don't dare to tell us that truth, because they know we wouldn't take it well. Even as they acknowledge some minor current difficulties, most of our political and business leaders reassure us that our economy is still sound as a dollar. They don't happen to point out that compared to the euro, the value of that dollar has declined by a third in just the last five years.
Yes, we remain productive, but that too cannot last if our government is too poor to invest sufficiently in our public infrastructure. Our roads, bridges, rail lines and ports are crumbling and insufficient in a modern economy, but we decline to tax ourselves to correct that situation. Our nation's Highway Trust Fund -- the main source of infrastructure investment -- will be bankrupt by 2009, yet we refuse to increase gasoline taxes to replenish that account.
Officially, we tell ourselves we can't afford it. But meanwhile we ship fortunes to oil producers overseas, where the money is put to such useful and productive purposes as building ski resorts in the Arabian desert.
There are no easy answers to $4 gasoline, but our leaders are nonetheless eager to offer a few. Some choose to bash the oil companies, as if they are at fault for our addiction to their product. Others suggest suspending the federal gasoline tax, which would slightly and temporarily ease our pain at the gas pump but do nothing whatsoever to cure the underlying disease.
President Bush, for his part, suggests drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, yet another seemingly pain-free solution. But we could drain the wildlife refuge of every single drop of oil it might hold and it would not lower the price of gasoline a nickel. Nor would it alter our strategic situation in any meaningful way.
Four hundred years ago, an English writer-philosopher offered great advice to a counselor to King James I. Always tell the king the truth, Sir Francis Bacon wrote in a letter to his friend. Tell the king what he needs to hear, not what he wants to hear.
"If you flatter him, you betray him," Bacon warned. "If you conceal the truth of those things from him ... you are as dangerous a traitor to this state as he that riseth in arms against him."
A lot of things have changed since Bacon's time. In this country, We the People are now king, but Bacon's truth still applies. Those advisors and courtiers who flatter us also betray us.
Instead of flattery, we need honesty. We don't need leaders to tell us how great we are, we need leaders willing to tell us that we've gotten ourselves into a bad mess and it's going to take hard work, sacrifice and cooperation to fix it. The alternative is the decline of a great nation.
Or, as a writer-philosopher named Bob Dylan once put it:
"If it keeps on raining, the levee's gonna break;
Some people still sleepin', some people wide awake."
Jay Bookman is deputy editorial page editor.
Copyright© 2008 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
41 Comments so far
Show AllI thought you'd like to check out the political allegory of mine that I just found a literary agent for. It's a story set in the context of a teacher discussing with his class all of the evidence that the Bush administration is as corrupt as it is incompetent...and how to rectify the Constitutional crisis we face. It's couched in a discussion about the urgent need to stop abusing Mother Nature. I wrote in 3 dozen celebrities to play the students, so it's very funny despite how infuriating it is. You can read it at www.stoplittering.com/theswitch.htm and, yes, StopLittering.com is my site.
Nazi goons hate being accused of murder - even though that's exactly what they're doing. The truth hurts.
Thomas More Said: "not just those that murdered in the name of empire."
Contemptible and childish thing to say. Insults are the weapons of small minds.
How is that contemptible? Just calling it how it is... What else do you call someone pointing a gun at another human being and pulling the trigger other than murder? And why are American soldiers overseas murdering people? For the EMPIRE. So who did I insult here? You? Because you refuse to admit that your military are murdering people in the name of Empire and has been doing so for a very long time? What would you call it if I walked into a market in some American city and open fired on the people shopping there? That would be murder wouldn't it? How is it any different than US troops shooting people in a market in Iraq? NO different.
The only important thing about Wright and Obama is Obamas judgement in the matter.
Wright is just another racist bigoted exploiter of victomology to line his own pockets. Forget him.
Its Obamas choices over the years and during Wrights exposure of what he and his church are that are important.
To decide on Obama we have to know about him and his declarations of what he is simply aren't good enough for me. None of them are it so far. Giving a magnificent speech aren't enough. He has to clarify some of his decisions or he can't win.
I'd personally prefer Senator Obama to be what he says he is so I can vote for him. I knew about GWB and voted agaibnst him, but look at all the people that believed what he said he was...twice! Not again.
benningwentworth May 1st, 2008 4:40 pm
I heard her state clearly on a radio pod cast about a month ago stating clearly she had NO intention of killing herself.
There is no reason not to believe her untimely death was the result of a government goon squad .
Wait until she leaves the house take her out with a "non-lethal" tazzer and string her up in he mothers shed
3 minutes tops
We don't need any "tough love" from leaders. We need leaders who don't have hidden elitist agendum and other conflicts of interest. The Democratic Congress that just can't manage to pull out of Iraq has all the same military investments as members of the White House.
CFR, Bilderburg Group, WTO, G8, Trilateral Commission, and more all want what is happening. Our leaders are owned and are part of private interests, and have no felt obligation to any other people. Their concern for us is only as grovelling worker bees.
What kind of shill article is this? This article's premise is, "Oh, the leaders are so worried for all of us, and they shed tears thinking daily of our plight, and they're holding back some negativity to protect us." No. They created this situation, and are working to make it more complete. Today's leaders are textbook psychopaths.
yes, does anyone know how bookman spoke about wright? has he supported wright?
has he written and spoken out in support of him?
"You are moaning about a $4 for a US gallon of gas? Here in the UK, it is $12 per US gallon… and about 80% of that is tax."
Well, if you limeys hadn't been trying to emulate the USA since the days of the Reagan-adoring Thatcher-witch, you would still have efficient public transit, rail system, urban design, and when you needed a car, Morris Minis, and you wouldn't need to use much gasoline.
Well said Shankari25.
Mr. Bookman, Would you please list our "leaders"? You must not include any corporate pimps or megalomanics or any persons whose agenda is not that of serving the People.
You are moaning about a $4 for a US gallon of gas? Here in the UK, it is $12 per US gallon... and about 80% of that is tax.
This hits the lowest paid hardest.
Thank You, Elmysterio, I was thinking the same thing.
Yes we need a healthy dose of empiricism in the Baconian tradition if we are gonna make headway into the social, economic, and political mess we have been dragged into.
The elites could use a little "tuff luv" from the rabble.
America needs an organized effort to boycott the products and services of those who SUPPORT the lies and distortions of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly.
We need to spread a list of ADVERTISING SPONSORS that PAY for the continuing propaganda and celebrity fluff that is poisoning and/or diluting our news media... and we need to actively and effectively BOYCOTT EVERYONE ON THE LIST including the Pentagon.
It's late in the thread, but Military or Market-Driven Empire Building: 1950-2008 must be read.
"WASHINGTON — John McCain dropped a little-noticed bombshell into his March foreign-policy address: Boot Russia from the G-8, the elite club of leading industrial democracies whose leaders try to coordinate economic policies."
Poor ol John isn't dipping both oars in the water anymore. Our other 'leader' is only a cheer leader in cowboy boots jeering himself on and off the world stage...
rebelnow,
I agree the people need to show some tough love, not the other way around.
It has become impossible for any so called 'leader' to speak anything that resembles non-mainstream truth. I'm positive Obama agrees with the reverend Wright on multiple points. Actually, its not even about agreeing, he basically said a bunch of logical, obvious things...and Obama is a bright guy, do the math.
Leaders?... We don't need no stinkin leaders!
l used to vacation in third world countries, l guess l still do,l stay home.
news flash -- the Government's "READING FIRST" program (part of NCLB)
May 1st, 2008 | NO DIFFERENCE: The federal Reading First
program failed to improve children's reading
comprehension, an Education Department study says. There
was no difference in comprehension scores between
students who took part in the program and those who did
not.
THE PROGRAM: Reading First was created as part of
President Bush's No Child Left Behind law. The $6
billion program was designed to boost student
performance in low-income elementary schools.
How can this be? Spend six billion dollars to address a serious well documented problem ... and it doesn't show appreciable benefit?
Kids drop out of school often because they are failing ... )... they often fail because they can't read very well ...
How can this be?
Well, though I agree with Hobbs on honesty....it just does not seem to be the American way. No one could be more sorry about that than myself. I've been ashamed of the actions of my country for a long, long time.
Veteran '66-68 (Two years I did not 'give', they were taken.)
Leaders? The author calls these people leaders? Where have these so-called 'leaders' led us?
Hiding, pretending, bullshitting, posturing -- is not leadership. Authentic leadership is about strength of character and integrity. We shouldn't have to instruct so-called 'leaders' to be honest. Real leaders already are.
Still, I completely agree with the author that honesty is a solution. Honesty is always a solution. If 300+ million Americans refused to say one more dishonest word, refused to participate in spreading around bullshit of any kind, we might turn this country around overnight.
The thirty-plus years since the Carter era recession have been relatively good ones ... it amuses me occsaionally to hear about this or that year-or-so slump that occured dueing that period of "faux" prosperity and stability (at what an enormous cost) .. it would be pointless to have the sort of "buy American" campaign that was quite popular then ... there would be little to buy and the prices, well, you know ..
It's not even so much that Americans are "in denial" ... so many Americans haven't got a clue ... the banks kePT sending more credit cards and the refinancing, second mortgage, equity line of credit ... kept folks afloat...
There's this piper we haven't been paying .. It's gonna be ugly and so much of the old "safety net" is gone or eroded.
Like that Peace Dividend that never arrived with the fall of the Soviet Union, I've stopped expecting my welfare reform rebate (all that money we're saving by creating another whole industry of making sure everyone is working hard enough to deserve help, y'know, like the prison industry where we spend billions to warehouse people who are then "ex-cons" and unable to work, when so often what got them in crime in the first place was having no marketable skills -- oh, which they often still don't have after their years incarcerated ... but they're out of 'our' hair and silenced.)
It's gonna be ugly. As a nation, we're lazy and spoiled and demanding ...
Remember how folks laughed when the soviet union imploded from, among other transgressions, they allowed their military spending to starve everything else ... joke's on us.
"not just those that murdered in the name of empire."
Contemptible and childish thing to say. Insults are the weapons of small minds.
Like it or not Jay Bookman and Francis Bacon have a very valid point to make.
Good start Samson!
Conspiracy theories abound!!
"TOUGH LOVE" for DC Madam.
ASSISTED SUICIDE by 'FOGGO LOOP'
too bad, guess she knew too much
"We, the People are now king"? You been asleep, dude.
I thought this article was lacking any substance and truth for that matter...
Also, ike kay said: . I consider myself a humanist and not one that has the USA tattooed to my backside although I gave three years to the military and so have a right to speak.
WHY does military service matter when having a 'right to speak'? I thought EVERYONE had the right to speak, not just those that murdered in the name of empire.
It should be the other way around;
"Leaders need a little 'tough love' from Americans!"
But a helluva a lot more than "a little".
What is lacking is not tough love. What is lacking is leadership - and judging from the current candidates for the presidency, there's not much hope for such in the foreseeable future either. Most of us know quite well what the problems are which must be addressed, but I have yet to hear a single politician articulate them fearlessly and with strength. Samson, among others, is right. We must act, because the yahoos running the government won't. Sadly, it seems the R word is no longer recession, it's revolution.
The problem with the suggestions from the corporate media (Bookman isn't bad, but look at the byline ... he writes for a media company owned by the Cox family, one of the richest in the country) and the Democrats is that they all work from the point of view that we have to ask the people who've deliberately broken American democracy to fix it for us.
Then of course they tell us that it can't be done and the problem is too big to fix. Which is the step before they tell that we have no alternative but to just accept what's been done to our country.
The answer if of course to stop waiting for the corporate media and corporate politicians to just hand us a solution. If we want to fix our country, we have to do it ourselves. And a part of that is realizing that the corporate media, the corporate media and our so-called leaders are really the enemy that we must defeat.
My view is this. We lost 'America' when it became the most powerful nation on earth. That power was a magnet for greedy, power-hungry people, and they took the country away from us. That was the end of about a 150 year experiment in freedom.
That experiment was never perfect. During those 150 years, we never had a perfectly free country. We had slavery for a part of it, we had powerful economic interests. But, the ideal was still there, and many Americans believed in that ideal and worked in little ways to promote freedom.
But then the alure of the power that the US had obtained became too great. It became too big a prize to grab. So of course those who want power came and grabbed it.
To maintain that power, they had to change America. This also about the same time that radio morphed into television and they had a powerful tool to use to reshape the country into what they needed for their own power. They kept the facades of freedom, as most individual Americans still believe in the concept. But they twisted it around in ways that suit their needs. Witness many Americans supporting the rise of a secret police and domestic spying apparatus as being something that's needed to protect freedom as just one example.
Long term, the answer is to make control of the American government no longer be a way of controlling immense power. Some of that will happen just because of the way the power of this country is being sold off and destroyed for the benefit of the greedy and powerful few. But in other ways we can do it by supporting movements of freedom and democracy and the localization of power. We should insist on local power under local control and limit the concentration of power in the hands of a central federal government. In other words, reverse exactly what the power-hungry types have been doing over the last 40 or 50 years.
susanparker correctly points out above that Jimmy Carter tried to point us toward conservation and lowered expectations for our consumption habits. And, I would add, he "tried" to diffuse the hostage crisis at less cost in lives and money than the more recent wars waged and now considered (for Iran.) Peanut farmer with a nutty brother, Billy, or not, he may have spoken better truth than we've heard since from anyone in The White House. AND, we should note, we rewarded Carter by allowing a big tall Hollywood actor guy (with an astrologist-consulting wife to then boot him right out the door with some "morning" nonsense.
Unfortunately, with today's media, it's questionable whether even a president already elected can get away with speaking much truth that we need to hear---much less any mere candidate such as Obama. Look what a little racism, properly amplfied on FOX, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and MSNBC can do to drown any real message in 100-foot-deep water.
Tough love from "leaders"? Not going to happen. No way. Forget about it! They will say anything except the truth in order to be elected. They will lie, slander and kiss the most vile asses in order to be elected. But they will not tell the truth on difficult issues, never.
Leaders? Leaders??! Who are our leaders? Yes, Jeremiah Wright and Jesse Ventura have shown leadership in speaking out truthfully. What some have described as swaggering buffoonery in Wright's answers to questions at the press club event recently, I perceived as an expression of sheer joy in speaking truth. I don't perceive Wright as "white-hating/America-hating". What I do consider hateful is the sock puppet pandering of our presidential candidates and Congress to the global mafia. "Who you gonna call?!"
The real buffoonery lies with our so-called leadership and their complicity in the looming attack on Iran, the orchestrated destruction of the U.S. economy, martial law and a fully-realized police state, etc., etc., etc. Don't expect any favors from the KILLER ELITE.
What have our "leaders" done for us so far. The vaccines and water/food supply have steadily increased in levels of poisons; poison increasely falls from the sky (chemtrails);Homeland Security ratchets up its control of agencies which were previously intended to "serve and protect"--the tendency now seems to be intimidation and control in all areas, no matter how trivial. The list grows daily of government abuse and lawlessness--It's just so in our faces. And where are our leaders. Just read the websites of our government leaders. Trifling!!
For those of us who are beyond the influence of this pap, we need to keep talking, but we need to gather together with others of like mind to try to plan methods of survival, while others are absorbed with whom they are going to vote for. The next false flag operation is ready and the mafia thugs are coming to your house soon.
Our ancestors were hard-working, but they also slaughtered Native Americans and raped the earth. Europeans did plenty of overpopulating, which is part of conquest. We are run by a bunch of narrow-minded greedy ignoramuses who care only for their own pocketbook. Mother Earth has placed us in a situation where we must reexamine our values. We cannot think only of our own prosperity while brutally abusing other people as slaves or destroying the earth to feed our own lavish lifestyles. We must learn what true wealth is. Mother Earth is playing chess with us and we are nearly at checkmate. We must choose our next moves carefully. The greedy, narrow-minded monsters of capitalism must be forced from power. We must rethink who we are as a people with a contrite heart.
The truth is that America is no longer a country. We are an empire. The Constitution, given to us to build a great country, has been sold to corporate America. Now the Constitution is being used to try and prop up a rapidly declining empire.
Hoa binh
yes, imho, it's going to be a bumpy ride for most of us and the uber-rich will be able to ride it out in comfort ... we desperately need leadership that is willing to withstand the rich folks jeers and accusations of "class warfare" and "socialism" and get on with things they will scream we "can't afford" like universal healthcare and maintenance of our highways and other infrastructure (like schools and public hospitals).
These are strange times indeed when so many people have been fortunate enough to own their own mortgage and now see the value of their "property" (that they "own" only on paper) declining. Endless cycles of "tax breaks" coupled with deficit spending have left the government up a creek without a paddle to get out of this hole ... and endless spending on credit has left much of America with no savings, no equity, and few genuine assets for the proverbial rainy day.
Jimmy Carter was crucified when he suggested conservation and diminished expectations ... gotta hope someone is brave enough to try to lead us out of this dependency on foreigh oil, nonrenewable energy quagmire again ... not to mention the crushing, budget-busting costs of "empire" -- empires collapse under such debts
America has a long way to go to adopt this mindset. For over 90% of his fans, Ronald Reagan's two presidential election victories and his enduring popularity are based 100% on making Americans feel good about themselves again.
Reagan even convinced the electorate that if you didn't feel good about America you were not patriotic, and he never let reality get in the way of a good story.
The Republicans have continued that strategy and expanded on the fear and greed factors to create a winning campaign formula that has been hard to beat and will be hard to beat in November.
I read with interest the comments of Americans. I consider myself a humanist and not one that has the USA tattooed to my backside although I gave three years to the military and so have a right to speak. Nationalism, is always based in me-firstism, let the rest of the world be damned mentality.
The economic system that determines all peoples survival regardless of where they exist, also determines what a country will become, much of it the result of chance. In that regard the USA has been lucky, with well-worn imperialist ideas brought over with the Pilgrims. America has taken this country from the people who were here, the European model, without paying them. Some of us here know the story. The so called, "free market market system", formerly American capitalism, and now globalization into which it has now morphed. the US with its European allies has created the current means of controlling everything for the few. The G 8 has developed ever-greater means to develop these ideas and to take what it wants from the rest of the world and its own population.
The African Americans, the Africans, the Hispanics, Asians and Indians have been the slave classes that have built the white European and American wealth. The historic exploitation of the working classes of America brought from the world into its "melting pot" with the so-called freedoms and democratic ideals built from the blood spilled to form, compared to the European monarchies and divine kingship, so called Democracy unique in the world. The freedoms bought so dearly, were the first "Divine Kingship" of the "Robber Baron" and now, corporate power elitism.
To keep the masses quiet and to build the lives of Americans, consumer ideology supplanted education, the study human purpose, as a goal in itself. The economic forces, which have built their power, care little for human development and survival. They care largely for their continued power as an end in itself and for the few who have the most based on its protection with a huge military force, hence the oil wars in Iraq, this to support an auto centered disposable consumer society.
The expense of privilege in the community of nations may become the death of the globe and its entire people as a result of the American and European economic system, now out of control. Many American economists, Jeffrey Sachs, Joe Stiglitz, and others view these historical developments as a threat to global harmony and survival.
American wealth once had an altruistic quality about it. The post-World War II USA, developed the Marshal Plan and cared about the condition of the world. Now the top one percent, those who have taken so much, continue to be supported by the thirty percent of Americans who still believe George Bush, and his myth of global superiority at the expense of the rest of the world.
We sit on the edge of an environmental and economic disaster. This American system is out of control and the economic meltdown will continue regardless of who occupies the Oval office. The only difference is that Obama is intelligent enough to know that there are fundamental change needed in the way America and the so-called "free world" do business.
Rev Wright, simply addresses continued black slavery in a world of exploitation of all people led by the US and now the power elite in collusion with the government to continue the "American Dream" mentality, represented now by corporate multilateralism and their wealth and power. Corporate elitism cares for itself alone at the expense of all people, the environment, the human experiment, its freedoms, and so called democratic ideals which has become nothing more than an oligarchy.
We should not be too pejorative about Rev Wright who simply rails against the exploitive aspects of the Western mentality and points out the deficiency in the USA of evolved thinking toward the slave classes and the human species. He, having been able to experience directly because of his skin color these abuses is perhaps too angry which limits his effectiveness. His experience in seeing the wreckage of black America and his intelligence, has caused him to take up the defense of the disenfranchised.
America has a history of caring about others, once a genuine American direction, led by people, despite their failings like: The Kennedy's, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and so many others who died for their belief in a better America and a better world, caring about humanity.
The media who carries their continued assault against those, who would in any way, attempt to include different thinking to bear on the so called "American Dream" which has become the world's nightmare must be seen by the masses for what it has become. The media must begin to understand its roll as an objective commentator to the necessary changes that must be made to the USA and the world if humanity is to survive.
The media above all must be changed once again to give democratic exposure to all important ideas. It must present an understanding of the complex thought needed to be brought to bear on global complex issues of survival. A departure from the simplistic superficial treatment ad-nauseam we witness each day which passes for news presented by the Barby-Doll class of newsreader called journalist.
As Bookman indicates, straight talk from leaders (and from the grassroots) as well as facing troublesome truths can be very helpful.
We face difficult times in many ways, and things could get even more dangerous. Let's not shy away from blunt-speaking people when their messages have some value.
Food for thought in the article ...
"Marine Jeremiah Wright, SEAL Jesse Ventura speak bluntly"
Joint Recon Study Group blog
April 30, 2008
http://jointreconstudygroup.blogspot.com/