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Hoping for a New Ethic in 2010
Yes, we are a country of rugged individualists, yet there's also a deep, community-minded streak in each of us. We're a people who believe in the notion that we're all in this together, that we can make our individual lives better by contributing to the common good.
The establishment media pay little attention to grassroots generosity, focusing instead on the occasional showy donation by what it calls "philanthropists" - big tycoons who give a tiny piece of their billions to some university or museum in exchange for getting a building named after them. But in my mind, the real philanthropists are the millions of you ordinary folks who have precious little money to give, but consistently give of yourselves.
My own daddy, rest his soul, was a fine example of this. With half a dozen other guys in Denison, Texas, he started the Little League baseball program, volunteering to build the park, sponsor and coach the teams, run the squawking P.A. system, etc., etc. Even after I moved on from Little League, he stayed working at it, because his involvement was not merely for his kids ... but for all.
He felt the same way about being taxed to build a public library in town. I don't recall him ever going in that building, much less checking out a book, but he wanted it to be there for the community and he was happy to pay his part. Not that he was a do-good liberal, for God's sake - indeed, he called himself a conservative.
My daddy didn't even know he had a political philosophy, but he did, and it's the best I've ever heard. He would often say to me, "Everybody does better when everybody does better."
If only our leaders in Washington and on Wall Street would begin practicing this true American Philosophy.
click here
Maybe we could help get them in the proper frame of mind by urging a bit of introspection on their part. With New Year's Day right around the corner, I was working on my list of New Year's resolutions when it occurred to me that some of the people running our country could benefit from my suggestions for their lists. No need for them to thank me -I'm happy to help!
Let's start, then, with those proud-and-loud members of Congress who've adamantly opposed real health insurance reform for workaday Americans. Not only do I include the entire block of Republican lawmakers whose vocabulary is limited to the word "no," but also those pathetic Democrats who've compromised the reform idea into corporate mush. It would be neat (and only fair) for each of these stalwarts of the status quo to make this vow for 2010: "Since I helped kill reform, I will give up the excellent government-paid, socialized health coverage that I get so that I am in the same leaky boat as my constituents."
And here's one for the barons of Wall Street, who continue to float on billions of dollars in government bailout money, yet are grabbing bonus payments for themselves, while pouting that the public is not showing them the love they deserve: "I hereby pledge to go through the 12-step detox program of Greedheads Anonymous to cure my narcissism and become a human being again."
Let's not forget the Obamacans, either! They came into office on an antiwar, anti-fat cat, pro-middle-class program, yet they've expanded their war, catered to fat cats and offered the middle class nothing but "a jobless recovery." Here's the resolution we need from Obama: "In year two of my term, I promise to Democrat-up by getting some economic advisors who've actually met a real worker and downloading some recordings of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt to my iPod. I'll also require top officials in my administration to volunteer at least one loved one to go to war in Afghanistan."
If only we can get those in charge to make these pledges, we'll all have a happier New Year!
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17 Comments so far
Show AllI usually like Jim Hightower's observations, but this is pathetic.
Hope?
New Years Resolutions?
Somebody needs to cut back on the egg-nog already.
I feel like I could use a stiff drink to get that sugary crap out of my system!
No kidding. If Obama lost sight of the people who elected him when the pile of corporate "contributions" was as high as his chin in 2009, there is no way he will be able to see us in 2010 through the pile of corporate "contributions" that will tower above his head. The Wall Street bankers have nicknamed him "Windfall Obama" to thank him for showering them with taxpayers' money.
Obama has institutionalized the unitary executive culture that Dubya initiated.
Obama's 2009 track record proved that its Obama's way or the highway.
As for hope: $2.00 plus hope still buys a good cup of coffee in some locations.
A "good" cup of coffee cost $4.00+ in most other locations.
"Everybody does better when everybody does better." How very, very true!
Bless Hightower's "daddy", and I do believe most of us are still that open-hearted/-handed kind of American. Indeed, we wholly or partially support: public libraries, school programs, food banks, local medical emergency expenses, second hand non-profit stores, and numerous local and international charities. All this on top of paying taxes that are used primarily for hurting, not helping, people.
Expecting anything new from Congress, Wall Street, or the BO Administration is a waste of time. They, like the Republicans, have an alternative perspective and indeed, live in a totally different reality. They do not wish or intend to rejoin the bulk of humanity.
"We're a people who believe in the notion that we're all in this together, that we can make our individual lives better by contributing to the common good."
I have liked Jim Hightower and his work for a long time. The "America" he likes to talk about (above) doesn't exist except as a small minority and mostly in his mind. That's why we're in the shit we're in.
We are a country ruled by richfilth animal Oligarchs who are planning for gross, global, human die-back including the United States and BHO is their standard bearer. The implied became predictable and is now inevitable without a total 180 and that ain't happening. Oligarchs lost power once before in this country, they will never give it up without a revolution or a total social collapse into anarchy. Yeah it could, easy now. We're all hollowed out and there's no "guts" in the soup anymore.
THAT is the America Mr. Hightower should be "On" about - not "begging" Master's Overseer to please give us some crumbs.
'Tis the season for lightweight, fluffy commentary!
"If only we can get those in charge to make these pledges, we'll all have a happier New Year!"
Bah! Humbug! Humbug, I tell you!
Unless we can get those in charge to KEEP such pledges, we'll be right back in the doldrums before Groundhog Day.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Baaahhhhh. The American people and "change you can believe in the next three years."
Humbug! Those of us who know better.
Mr. Hightower,
And a happy holiday to you.
Your sentiments are nice, but applied to the wrong people.
The problem in the next election isn't going to be Obama.
It is going to be the people who will again vote for Obama. After all, just like when Bush was re-selected, it sent a message that somehow the behavior, policies, lies, wars, were all tolerable.
I don't the current situation tolerable, understandable, necessary, the way things work, better than the alternative, or whatever rationalization people have. And it doesn't matter to me whether these policies are carried out by a republican or democrat. (Actually, it did upset me more when carried out by a democrat, like when a cop steals. You expect the criminal to steal (the republicans), and not that it is better, but you don't have a sense of betrayal.
I find these policies and practices unacceptable, though I understand that they are happening.
I don't want any wish lists or hope lists. I want information and awareness of what is happening so I can determine what needs to be done.
It is clear that the democratic party is not interested in ending the war, providing health care for all, control corporate greed that is destroying this country, protecting our food supply, etc. Why? Because it would interfere with the corporate elite's endless quest for even more profits, regardless of the human cost.
As long as the status quo remains, along with the current elected officials, these injustices will continue.
Until we make our elected officials accountable to us, nothing will change.
Take a stand, start by voting third party, and supporting third parties.
www.NotOneMore.US
We're a people who believe in the notion that we're all in this together, that we can make our individual lives better by contributing to the common good.
This is rubbish! It hasn't been true for at least 80 years, if it was ever true at all. This is a nation of the fleeced whose chief desire and chief fantasy is to become one of the fleecers.
You can not be a true American if you believe that we are all in this together and we can make our lives better if we work for the common good. No! We know we are in-di-vid-u-als! We go on and on about our individual rights, our individual desires, our individual efforts, our individual power. We don't want to pay taxes to help those people. We want to spend our own money to take care of number one---me, me, me. The American slogan is, "I got mine, screw you!"
Until we realize that we are social animals and depend on one another, this misery will not end. We must learn to act together. Hightower the elder was right when he said, "Everyone does better when everyone does better."
Sounds like socialiam to me. And it sounds damn good. Forget number one. We need a community that cares and shares.
Jim, I like what you wrote and yes it is heartbreaking when one's hope for the better gets shattered like that but let's face it. What we have is what I would call a version 2.0 of an amoral administration as if Dubya's weren't bad enough. I held no hope for this administration as I voted for Nader/Gonzales except that maybe it would come to its senses a little and that maybe for all its talk that they might just look at people's efforts and improve just a little but even that is shattered and makes me upset. Not only do I feel upset at times but I am also angry to see my efforts and other people's efforts for worthwhile progressive causes getting TRASHED. There is nothing better to hope for come 2010 and possibly 2011 and 2012.
Ellis Boy Redding of "The Shawshenk Redemption" had this to say about hope"
"Hope? Let me tell you something, my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane. It's got no use on the inside. You'd better get used to that idea."
Who can blame him for saying that even as he was denied parole for good behavior? The lesson is hope for anything and prepare to be disappointed. Hope for nothing and be a skeptic and they reward you out of fear.
Poor ol' Jim, still hopin'.
Shame on me for having expected better than this from Jim Hightower.
As I was about to post my disappointment with this Christmas puff piece I was pleased to see that others beat me to it. I'm well past expecting any new ethos to overtake our so-called
'betters'. The most casual observer can't fail to notice that the right-wing mantra of social decay beginning at the bottom - with the poor drug ridden communities full of dysfunctional and/or broken families, thanks to drugs and sexual debauchery - is utter and complete bullshit. In this sense shit truly does roll down hill.
The ugliness of poverty and the (often racially based) removal of whole swaths of people from access to legitimate markets - be they labor or otherwise - is precisely because of immoral behavior on the part of carnivorous capitalists, and it leaves those communities with nothing but the black market from which to buy or sell what little they have, which is often not much more than their own bodies. Certainly even their 'health care', including the controlling of pain caused by both physical and mental/emotional distress, must be also purchased at a high cost from the black market.
Social decay comes from the top down. When those who should be leading by example exhibit disrespect for persons and property in their business conduct, and exploit a legal institution which was theoretically created to enforce justice (an utterly socialist notion in itself), they are providing the example of how success is achieved. When those at street level see that the law only applies to them, but actually serves the greater theft of the commons, they have no reason to expect justice, much less compassion. Capitalist Conservatives (and their bible toting supporters) would rather make everyone a beggar by calling common decency 'charity', when even their own bible tells them that they actually OWE charity to their fellow man - that is, if they expect to receive the very sort of charity which is the Salvation they claim was given them on the cross.
Far be it from me to say people can't change, but I'm seeing more ghosts than spirits these days. Cynicism is the new realism, and it seems to me that love is growing cold. More are now serving death than life. I cannot wait to see shit rolling uphill. The tide will have to turn at some point or I should just join the cynics now. One form of suicide is as good as another, isn't it?
Sioux Rose
KOGWONTON: Poignant & powerful post. Thank you for sharing it.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
The neo-lib/neo-con elite don't get it because they don't have to unless one group or another of the "little people" bring it home to them in a way that cuts through their insulation.
Look around at what the usual talking heads are on about and it's the same thing the insurance companies are about: Continuing to figure out how to parasitize what's left of the working-class (especially the middle- and lower-middle-class) with new ways to obligate us to cover this externalized business cost or pump up that profit. What all these cannibals (who are still blanged on Thomas Friedman's Flat World kool-aid about online entrepreneurialism coming to rescue us from offshoring our middle-class manufacturing jobs) haven't figured out is that--as the economy worsens--fewer & fewer people are going to be able to afford their coercive interest rates, fees, insurance policies, etc., not more and more. They're like a Carlsbad Cavern load of vampires in denial about the fact they will soon run out of victims to suck to death. Only our vampires won't go dormant as their food supply dwindles, they'll just seek out other victims elsewhere in the world--earning more respect and love from the world's citizens than even Team Bush gained us.
Dear Mr. Hightower, you will sooner drive a starving dog off a gut wagon than get the parasites you mention to stop feeding on decent people.