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TechnoratiAmerica's Locust Years
This past week I was reminded of a Winston Churchill speech where he lamented, "these are the years that the locust hath eaten." Speaking before the House of Commons, Churchill chronicled Hitler's rise to power, Germany's rearmament, and England's failure to respond. He used the locust metaphor to refer to the multiple opportunities England had to prevent war.
I remembered Churchill's words after reading economist Joseph Stiglitz's Freefall and NEW YORK TIMES columnist Thomas Friedman's newly revised Hot, Flat, and Crowded back to back. Stiglitz analyzes the global economic crisis and skewers the Obama Administration for not doing more to address the root problems. Friedman analyzes the global environmental crisis and castigates Washington for not doing more about it.
The Stiglitz and Friedman books make the same point Churchill did 74 years ago. There were abundant warning signs of an impending crisis, but they were ignored.
Answering the rhetorical question "Can America develop a just economy?" Stiglitz responds, "We have gone far down an alternative path -- creating a society in which materialism dominates moral commitment, in which the rapid growth that we have achieved is not sustainable environmentally or socially, in which we do not act together as a community to address our common needs..."
Focusing on global climate change, Friedman, the more pessimistic of the two authors, writes, "People don't seem to realize... that it is not like we're on the Titanic and we have to avoid the iceberg. We've already hit the iceberg."
Churchill's speech was given in 1936, three years after Hitler became Chancellor of Germany and three years before the invasion of Poland -- when England finally woke up and declared war. During this six-year period, despite obvious evidence that Germany was preparing to devour Europe, English leaders pretended that it wasn't happening.
Historians offer two explanations. First, England was coming out of a recession and English political leaders felt their countrymen wouldn't be able to handle preparation for war and economic recovery, shouldn't be asked to sacrifice. Second, they -- Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain, and Edward Halifax -- admired Hitler, felt he was good for Germany, believed him when he said he had no intention of waging war, and regarded National Socialism as preferable to communism. Meanwhile, the locusts chewed away and, as a consequence, England came within a whisker of being devoured by Hitler.
Unfortunately, the locusts are still at work. They moved on to America.
Friedman cites Kurt Andersen who last year described baby boomers as the Grasshopper Generation. Building on Andersen's influential essay, Friedman laments that baby boomers "ate through a staggering amount of our national wealth and our natural world in a very short period of time, leaving the next generation a massive economic and ecological deficit."
Stiglitz and Friedman agree that America's locust years began in 1980 with election of Ronald Reagan. It "ushered in an age in which we told ourselves that we did not have sacrifice anymore for a better way of life." As a consequence, Friedman continues, "We became a subprime nation that thought it could just borrow its way to riches." This party hearty and damn the consequences attitude prevailed for thirty years, notably with George W. Bush, who after 9/11 said the appropriate American response was not collective sacrifice but rather to "go shopping."
While neither Stiglitz nor Friedman feels that the prospects for America are hopeless, both recognize that we have a steep climb out of the hole we're in. Friedman likens our condition to recovering from a serious heart attack.
Confronted with our locusts, Americans have two choices. First, we can ignore how bad things are: pray for the rapture or maintain that it's not as bad as people say, that the "liberal media" had distorted the extent of America's malaise. Those aren't locusts; they're sow bugs. The problem with this approach is that it won't make the locusts go away (anymore than Churchill's inept predecessors protected England by pretending that Hitler wasn't a monster.)
Friedman brilliantly characterizes the current American ethos as IBG/YBG: "Do whatever you like now, because 'I'll be gone' or 'you'll be gone" when the bill comes due." Sadly, since Reagan was elected many Americans have become moral weenies.
The second choice is to speak the truth and fight the locusts.
The American progressive tradition has to been to stand up and fight whenever it appeared that democracy was on the ropes. This is one of those times. America has suffered thirty years "that the locust hath eaten." Time is running out. We may not survive another "heart attack."
There is so much that needs to be done that it is difficult to say where to start. Each of us has to think about the moral commitment we are prepared to make. Here are two modest suggestions: First, speak the truth. Tell everyone you know about the locusts, about the terrible problems that American must face. Second, prepare for sacrifice. Dealing with these problems is going to hurt, but the pain will be bearable if we face the locusts together.
70 Comments so far
Show AllAre you Cisco Kidding me? The #@*&% sins of our Bush-Raygun "greatest generation" fathers are, instead OURS? BS (Bush Shadow)! Rather dan our BushCo.-dependent and black-mailed YUPpresidents Billary thru Barack, the balance of US Eternal Flamers (cum "boomers") shouldered our burden of sustaining 2 prior and now 2 post generations with the best productivity Of ANY! Most couldn't even get a subPrime, in 1987 when we needed such and Could Have AFFORDED IT! Instead, Bush-Raygun first tried to enS&Lave US and when we took it in stride, sought (and is succeeding in crushing our kids' BILL$) instead. Now that's domestic TORTURE of US ALL! Butt, they're not through yet, with surrogate Obummer doing NADA economically effective, the Bernanksters and Wall Street-walkers are coming for our Social Security and other societal safety nets for another, Maybe FINAL ROUND of PROFIT-RAPING! "Well" (to quote Raygun), maybe We FLAMERS need to rerun a train of our own "contumacious '60s" REVOLUTION over Obummer and his Cheney/Bush Dicktrain!!! "From the ashes, we can build a Better DAY".
I had a similar reaction. The lack of concern about the future and the devouring of the seed corn coincided with the takeover of the government, the media, and the national discourse by the most rapacious and predatory corporate elites under Reagan and continued under his fellow fascist travelers who succeeded him. Is this another plutocrat trying to convince the boomer little people that they are responsible, implying such boomers made a conscious choice to eat the seed corn, and now they have to sacrifice by giving up their SS and Medicare because of all the excesses they enjoyed over the past few decades? The little people, who saw none of the profit from their increased productivity, are supposed to ignore the pesky little facts that the plutocrats made all those decisions and enjoyed all the benefits.
Sometimes it appears that the plutocrats assume that many on the left are as soft-headed and malleable as the useful idiots they have found on the right.
Sioux Rose
Wow, KIVALS: I typically post in response as I read down a CD thread. You and I were totally on the same wavelength on this one! I essentially came to the same conclusion that you did, albeit 4 hours later! Well, if it's worth saying, it might as well be said twice!
"Is this another plutocrat trying to convince the boomer little people that they are responsible, implying such boomers made a conscious choice to eat the seed corn"
I think he is blaming the Boomer elite for the decisions that were made by the state, and not blaming each boomer individually.
Nonetheless, as a group, the Boomers allowed their most rapacious elites to do this to all the other classes and nations, and to future generations. Maybe this is because they were the first brain-dead TV generation.
I don't really grasp the two previous posters' anger at Bob Burnett's article. It was a call to arms for progressives. It attacked the consumer society. It pinned the tail on the Reagan donkey where and when most of our current problems started when the American public was bedazzled by effective speeches and vague promises of a better future. After a period of great morass.
So what's wrong with all that?
Gary
"Nearly everyone has a friend, colleague, relative, or acquaintance whose life is touched by ASP (psychopathy). The disorder is so common that not to know an antisocial is itself remarkable. The closer one is to the disorder, the more one knows about its destructive potential."
-- Donald W. Black, Bad Boys, Bad men: Confronting Antisocial Personality Disorder
Burnett tried to blame the whole generation equally, implying that virtually all members of the generation had equal responsibility in making the choices and enjoying the resulting short-term benefits and now everyone had to take equal responsibility in paying the costs. He left out the very important fact that Reaganism and the policies it inspired were by the predatory economic elites and for the predatory economic elites and as a result they have done exceedingly well and the rest of us have not. Also, consider the current political environment where talk (usually by predatory elites) of controlling costs through cutting SS and Medicare has become commonplace.
Here's Obama, in his Inaugural Address, on the financial crisis:
"...Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age..."
This is basically the same thing Burnett is saying. Speaking of "our collective failure," it shifts the blame to "all of us," and leaves unnamed the mysterious "some" who actually caused the financial crisis.
RichM: You nailed it! If they can turn it around on us, "we the people," they are relieved of responsibility, and the authorities/M$M can continue to distort and confuse/blur the real issues, without holding anyone accountable. Various administrations, Republicans and Democrats through the past few decades, including Carter's, have passed laws and put policies in place that do not serve the general public interest.
Sioux Rose
KAY: It's virtually the exact same M.O. that's being used to brush aside the ACT of ILLEGAL WAR, violation to The Geneva Conventions, and who was accountable. Unlawful, exceedingly depraved acts are presented as if the entire team did its best, but unfortunately (as if) came to mistaken conclusions. This M.O. is also being used to lend cover to the easily-bought lawyers and the previous Unitary exec. in pursuing the goal of gaining cover for the implementation of pro-torture foreign policy protocols.
I imagine it will also be THIS excuse used when the seas begin to inconveniently flood the coastlines as the next climate change tipping point is reached and passed, with unimaginable (but to the experts railing to get sane legislation passed) results in the way of losses.
When no one is held to account, then nothing really is measured as right or wrong. It's the ultimate in moral relativism, now marketed as the sexier sounding "pragmatism" or "bipartisanship." Complicity with evil is always evil, and that's what is guiding America's ship of state... right for the rocks!
As a baby boomer who always bought recycle items, and drove old (gas-efficient) vehicles, while being aware of conservation in all of my patterns of resource-usage I hardly feel culpable for the direction the nation has taken. Rather than blame the baby-boomers, it makes sense to consider the role media has played in using covert hypnotic techniques and tactics to virtually program the unconscious portions of many citizens' minds. In this way, their own value systems have been disabled, and the vast majority bought into an incredibly materialistic worldview, one that catered to the ego's need for instant gratification. The path to salvation will require a deeper commitment to scaling down, and learning patience as well as compassion (on a grand scale).
Sioux Rose
KIVALS: Concise, incisive analysis.
(removed by author)
Washington's inability to face the truth is a national embarrassment. Bob Burnett is obviously a wealthy businessman who profited handsomely over the last thirty years. Now he wants us, those who suffered most, to suffer more. Yes we will but not with the likes of him in our midst. Pontifications on hardship from the pulpit of ease are unacceptable.
Won't we insect masses be totally exposed when these locusts have eaten down to the grassroots? What then?
Burnett: "Friedman brilliantly characterizes the current American ethos as IBG/YBG: "Do whatever you like now, because 'I'll be gone' or 'you'll be gone" when the bill comes due." "
I prefer the following bumper-sticker material (which I coined myself!) to describe the generation of Americans that just created the last 30 years:
"I don't believe in taxing the Rich. Just the Children."
BTW: I read a lot of articles on CD describing the 'malaise' we all need to wake from, but not so many describing, shortly and succinctly, what we can do about it. Until last Friday, that is:
FixCongressFirst.org
To explain: Republicans are effective at raping the country because their corporate sponsors want them to rape it on their behalf. Democrats are effective at NOT cleaning up after the Republicans because their corporate sponsors want them to be ineffective. Both Republican (Reagan, Bush) bizzarely selfish behavior AND Democratic (Clinton, Obama) bizzarely ineffective behavior is explained by the overwhelming need to please their corporate and large-money sponsors. And 30 years of this has come close to destroying the country. The problem isn't the Republicans, and it isn't the Democrats. Its the need for large-money sponsorship. We, the people, need to join up, stand up, and insist this be, once more, a democracy of the people, rather than of the money.
And last year we were crowing about the collapse of capitalism and the dawning of a new era.That worked out well.Some kind of popular uprising in the only way, but what form would that take? An alliance of Brownshirts and the KKK?
Sioux Rose
UBREW: You're brewing up some good, solid ideas. Thank you for your posts.
Thomas Friedman has a lot of damn gall to be complaining about environmental problems and poverty now considering that it was *his* books like "The Lexus and the Olive Tree," that heavily promoted corporate globalization and militarism, and *his* promotion of Bush's war against Iraq that are largely responsible for our current problems. Does he have any shame?
Why does anyone listen to his crap when we have far better authors like Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, John Perkins, Greg Palast, Chris Hedges, Chalmers Johnson, Howard Zinn, Stan Goff, etc, who write about economics, ecology, globalism, empire and their interactions?
I have three words for billionaire (by marriage) Tom Friedman:
SUCK. ON. THIS.
Nice work if you can get it, Massa Tom.I have a cousin who married a horse lady in Va, and he's set himself up as a Country Gentleman. Way to go, y'all.
As others have already noted, Mr Burnett seems to be saying that America's problems are the fault of the entire baby boomer generation. Burnett doesn't aim his fire at capitalism, the corporate elite, or corporate domination of government. No, it's mainly just "the baby boomers" -- the whole generation. He also takes a shot at Reaganism (but that too can implicitly be blamed on the baby boomers who elected him).
What is Burnett's real perspective? The article doesn't spell it out, but there are several warning signs.
First, he thinks Tom Friedman is "brilliant." Friedman is a US nationalist, an avid supporter of all US wars, & (except for social issues) a mostly right-wing Democrat.
Second, Burnett's blaming of the entire baby boom generation matches Obama's Inaugural Address. In that speech, Obama very similarly blamed the financial crisis on "all Americans" for having lived beyond our means. It wasn't the financial oligarchy that dominates the government, no; it was "all of us." So naturally "all of us" must pay for the crisis, since it was "our" greed that caused it. // In his autobiography, Obama also tried to curry favor with elites by showing hostility to the 1960's -- ie, to baby boomers.
Third, Burnett uncritically accepts the official US version of WWII. In this version, Churchill was entirely heroic, and England before Churchill made the mistake of "naively trusting Hitler."
{Actually, though, the real reason why England left Germany alone in the 1930's was that British elites hoped, and correctly calculated, that Hitler would eventually invade the USSR. It wasn't that the Brits naively "trusted" Hitler, or were blind to his military build-up. Rather, they figured it was worth the risk of allowing the build-up, in hopes of destroying the USSR.}
Altogether, the article has the virtue of acknowledging that "we've got a problem." That's better than denying that we've got a problem. // But beyond that, the perspective is scarcely different from what one might find on the Op-Ed pages of the NY Times.
RichM
Nice post. I agree with you about Friedman. Didn't he claim in one of his books that globalization is just fine--the Chinese will make all the stuff and we will do all the creative work of design? You can see how well that prediction worked out.
Incidentally, "Globalization" is a Chinese word. In English, it means "Labor Arbitrage."
Since most of what has happened during the last thirty happened on the Baby Boomers' watch, it's reasonable to assume that they-we- have some responsibility for what happened.I'm referring to the general rightwards drift of the country,the predominance of greed heads large and small, the decline of American manufacturing,the hollowing out of the union movement, falling educational standards, the sucking of all the wealth out of the economy and placing it in the hands of the upper 1%.All of these were approved of-or permitted by us,or voted in by our 'representatives.' Whom we voted in. We were in charge.We fucked up. I finally found the Abe Osheroff quote I was looking for the other day.
"The stuff we're made of never goes away
with or without monuments, because the bastards
will never cease their evil, and the decent
human beings will never stop their struggle".
Now try putting that in the context of the Baby Boomers.We just went shopping and let the bastards have their way.Too bad, folks, but it's the truth.We bear a large burden of collective responsibility for this.As effective radicals, we suck.
People know what really needs to be done. We know. But we are too afraid for our own skins to take the necessary actions, me included. But the level of anger is rising out here in the boonies, outside the beltway, outside the executive suites. They have no clue as to the real level of anger in the populace. Obama thinks he can just smile, give another flowery speech, put his arm around our shoulders and stab us in the back... again and again, while having absolutely no perception, not a clue, of the real level of anger rising... rising... and at some point, someone with more balls than I have is going to be standing in front of a mirror, asking himself, "Are YOU talking to ME?"
I'm as horrified as you are about what's happened in the last 30 years -- the general rightwards drift, & other things you mentioned. I also agree that "As effective radicals, we suck" -- so in that sense, it's fair that all of us should accept a degree of responsibility.
But I think it's a mistake to see the key variable here as the "generation" under whose watch these developments took place. After all, one could just as easily say that since all these things happened in North America, North America has "some responsibility for what happened." Or it's the Western Hemisphere's fault, or white people's fault, or the fault of humanity in general, or the fault of all Judeo-Christian peoples, or the fault of male-dominated societies, or the fault of all societies based on Enlightenment principles. Etc...
The key variable, it seems to me, is not so much the particular generation that came of age in the last 30 years, but only a certain section of that generation; plus analogous sections of previous generations. It's more the result of a certain type of social organization, in other words, rather than the characteristic of any particular generation.
It may sound like it, but I'm not trashing our entire generation.A generation is a huge number of people, and obviously, there are good people fighting the good fight in any generation. Even the most radical generation, that of the thirties, wasn't a 'radical' generation-far from it if you're talking about the generality of people-but there was an effective radical core who were much better at setting the agenda and controling the discussion than we've been.Even now, the banksters and the power brokers are still working on the dismantling of the progressive legislation that was passed during the New Deal.Such is the dogged durability of that generation's achievement.No, I'm thinking of guys like Jerry Rubin, the former Yippie and radical, who had a capitalist epiphany, and then became a propagandist for making money, eighties style.He was a kind of poster child for those former radicals who sold out.It's okay, 'cause Jerry says it is.He got run over by a bus.
Sioux Rose
RICH M: As usual, fine analysis. It would seem from the meme that's beginning to make its way from one MSM pundit to another wherein the baby boomers are being targeted as the cause for the nation's fiscal maladies, that the strategic reason for this particular disinformation campaign is to create "probable cause" for removing benefits expected by this large demographic. By blaming would-be victims, this use of pre-emptive strategy may soften the public's outrage when this group's benefits begin to see cuts. They're chumming the waters before the sharks arrive.
If our media truly broadcast "left" voices, then the symptoms of the plague of Disaster Capitalism (as brilliantly noted and delineated by Naomi Klein) would have been known and recognized before that disease so fully entered the currency of American society. Now with the bankers getting fat on the public's money while they simultaneously raise credit card interests rates and do little to keep homeowners in homes... so that the net loss of property taxes causes a reduction in public services, a precedent has been set to cut other worthy programs.
Things are moving down a slippery slope and very soon apt to get ugly. My cosmic bets are on the 2nd half of May-early June and the first ten days of August when more than the fiscal heat will be turned up high.
>>>>"Friedman likens our condition to recovering from a serious heart attack."
I'd be more apt to liken our condition to a "massive heart attack" and any fool knows that survivors of a massive heart attack can count their remaining time here on earth in terms of minutes to hours------if they're able to regain consciousness, that is.
Baby Boomers were no more locust than the Greatest Generation was great, National Socialism is not analogous to Wall Street speculation, and anyone who quotes Thomas Friedman as an authority on anything is probably not worth reading.
The Victorians did a pretty good job of consuming their own and their colonies' natural wealth while fouling their cities with coal dust, and the Crash caused by the reckless greed of 1920's Wall Street speculators (what would they be - the Lost Generation?) spread to Germany and helped pave the way for the rise of the radical right. Scapegoating Boomers as uniquely possessed of cultural irresponsibility and greed makes it that much harder to identify and tackle real threats to democracy.
Just what kind of sacrifice and pain does Mr. Burnett want to see inflicted? And on whom? How much you want to bet he doesn't have wealthy founders of Cisco Systems in mind?
He doesn't say what sacrifices he thinks are needed. Let's see...Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, unemployment benefits, surely there must be some things that the greedy boomers can do without in order to maintain the Empire's military dominance of the world's oil and natural gas fields.
Perhaps I should have read this entire article. But when I saw the name Thomas Friedman, I quit right there. That black clad paskudnyak, the Rod Blagojevich of the New York Times, the master of the shit eating grin, the very personification of crawling toadiness and tasteful greed that is the Democrat party . . . aw, hell . . . screw him!
That's him, Mordechai, but you're being way too nice.But he's changing tack. The rape-the- world line that he was peddling so successfully a couple of years ago doesn't sell as well as it used to.He's always chasing the zietgeist, and always trying to figure out what the next hot thing is, and cash in on it. Not unlike a lot of us, when you think about it.
Exactly just like Christopher Hitchens who when being a neo-con turned unpopular latched onto my beloved atheism like a lamprey eel. A pox on all these Johnny come latelies who are part of the problem, not the solution.
When everyone is to blame then no one is to blame. That is the essence of this article.
Burnett may be a nice man, but his political analyses lack keen insight or depth-- as many others have already noted, his reliance on the abominable Friedman here is sufficient reason to "gong"* this article.
A word to the wise: writers like Burnett were, and possibly still are, a staple of The Huffington Post (along with the odious Mark Kleiman, Marc Ambinder, Mike Lux, etc.). Even before HuffPo tarted-up its format and tightened up its comments censorship, it became obvious that the site can't be taken seriously.
* If the phrase is unfamiliar, Google "The Gong Show".
The Titanic sank after it hit the iceberg.
Most people do not recover, or never recover fully, from a serious heart attack.
And suffering a serious heart attack on the deck of the Titanic as she sinks... well, even if you're one of the lucky ones to make it onto a lifeboat, you're in the middle of the frozen nowhere with your heart attacking...
Party-hardy is sounding like the better plan more and more...
Please dont. I'm on my third pastry.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Thomas Friedman is a cente-millionaire who also married Big Money and one of the arch-hypocrites of the last 30 years. The reason he keeps having to update his "Flat Earth" books is because he's been consistently WRONG in his analysis. This article ignores the deleterious effects of the global capitalist "free trade" regime unquestioningly worshipped by locust Baby Boomer Friedman and all the other cente-millionaires and billionaires who coddle and cherish this charlatan for helping the American masses to buy into this Big Lie that has done nothing but destroy the future potential of hundreds of millions of Americans, gut the middle-class and put the entire biosphere in danger of becoming a Malthusian Hell for near future generations. Anyone who cites Thomas Friedman as an authority on anything besides enriching himself and the other super-rich is an addle-pated fool.
Is there some reason an article that posits taking Thomas fscking Friedman seriously is appearing on CommonDreams? Outsource the New York Times to Bangalore and let that scvmbag crawl back behind the walls of his gated community till kingdom come.
Not locusts. Dung beetles.
The "problem solving process" in ROTC stated that we should "recognize the problem, seek solutions and resolve the problem". Duh. This article, like so many others does a good job of recognizing the problem, but few of them go on to seek and propose solutions.
We have 500 mostly sold out elected brains working on "solutions" in the Federal government. We are 300 million brains seeking solutions but though we own the government in theory, we the people are not allowed to put our two cents in. They say two heads are better than one, therefore 300 million should be better than 500 compromised heads.
Direct democracy can be the answer to America's Locust Years.
"Direct democracy can be the answer to America's Locust Years."
Yes! It sounds like you are waking up EZ, good post seriously, more like this and fewer apologizing for Dims and we'll redeem you yet.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.” - Thomas Pynchon
Have we no shame?
Can we not use and over use the metaphors of World War II and Churchill to justify another asinine American rationalization for empire?
And Bob Burnett has the luxury to lecture us like Friedman on hurt and pain. How contemptuous can they be of working people who have borne the burden of these many wars and the economic shenanigans of the neoliberals who have raided the public common for their private interests, have raided our pensions to raise the value of their private stock funds and are now on the way to stealing our retirements.
Our wages have remained the same for forty years.
It’s on our shoulders that the full faith and credit of the U S Treasury depends.
This one quotation from Thomas Pynchon contains more wisdom than an entire book by the global carpetbagger-cum-environmentalist Thomas Friedman.
And, I might add, more than this off-base and superficial offering by Bob Burnett.
And just for the record, Mr. Burnett, I resent your implication that hard-working folks who have had the short end of the economic stick for decades are guilty of the excesses you accuse them of enjoying. Hardly! Perhaps your immersion in corporate culture has skewed your perception somewhat towards the lofty view of the economic elites.
Stiglitz responds, "We have gone far down an alternative path -- creating a society in which materialism dominates moral commitment,.."
This is the point.The free market economics that economists have been preaching for so long makes sense only if you separate economic activity from morality, which is ironic, because Adam Smith was a professor of moral philosophy.
In effect, economic theory as taught is equivalent to a mathematical model,one that is self-consistent, but which is not relevant to the world we actually live in.
I'll tell you where to start:
1. Nationalize the FED!
2. 80% flat tax on all incomes over $3 million a year.
then we can watch loosely moraled baseball players and bankers cry about how unfair it is.....
good - move to somolia!
+1
a serious heart attack?....
i'd say a gunshot wound would be more accurate....
a heart attack is usually caused by oneself... either eating wrong for decades or family heredity...
while the global meltdown and the fact that for the last 30 years the top 1% have corralled ALL THE ECONOMIC GAINS from the economy was the PLAN!
stupid ass analogy....
I'd say that the wealthy have stuck a gun to our heads and pulled the trigger but that would give the wealthy too much credit for actually facing us as they pulled the trigger.....
oh no.... these cowards sit back in their gated communities and sniper us from a safe distance....
I beleive the pain friedman wants is $8 a gal gas... so we can even less afford our mortgages and electric bills...and instead send the money straight to the oil companies...
Notice these idiots NEVER mention the trillion dollar wars we have going right now!
If the reports of massive methane seeps in the Siberian arctic ocean are true we might as well party hardy because this event signals the beginning of the end for most life on earth as it has in the past on more then one occasion.
Okay, with appologies to the "I (take your choice) hate or
don't believe in God" crowd, I take exception to the following characterization by the author:
"There is so much that needs to be done that it is difficult to say where to start. Each of us has to think about the moral commitment we are prepared to make. Here are two modest suggestions: First, speak the truth. Tell everyone you know about the locusts, about the terrible problems that American must face. Second, prepare for sacrifice. Dealing with these problems is going to hurt, but the pain will be bearable if we face the locusts together."
First of all, the source for the locust metaphor was not just the mind of Winston Churchill--he got it from the scriptures which back in the 40's when he spoke those words the general public was not as ignorant of as today's generation is. The specific cites are:
"Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? Tell ye your children of it, and [let] your children [tell] their children, and their children another generation. That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten."
Joel 1:2-4
The scripture then counsels the people so afflicted:
"Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders [and] all the inhabitants of the land [into] the house of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD, Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD [is] at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come."
Joel 1:14-15
Churchill's unspoken subtext was that Britain's dilemma was the result of the moral failings of the British peoples which was manifested in their irresponsible and reckless leadership. The solution therefore to Fascist Nazism was ultimately (and first and foremost) moral and not just political or military (though certainly both political and military steps needed to be taken).
What the locust metaphor should teach today's spiritually ignorant generation is that the dilemma of our own devouring fascist corporatocracy and its security state muscle is ultimatrely the result of the moral failings of our peoples which is manifested in our own irresponsible and reckless leadership. The solution, therefore, must first and foremost be moral and not political and economic, (though changes in political and economic policy and priorities must occur).
Churchill spoke to a generation capable of understanding the difference between being moral and immoral because they had a common moral heritage. Today's peoples are so steeped in the diversity of philosophical amorality and situational ethics that the very definitions of such ideas as "telling the truth" and "preparing to sacrifice" cannot find any consensus of definition. They are absurd and pointless notions--relics from a more superstitious past from which we have evolved.
Poet
wrong. world war two started only when, on september 3, 1939, england and france declared war on hitler for invading an anti-semitic country run by a military juanta. that country was called poland, which did not exist between 1793 and 1919. had britain compromised, world war two in the west could have been avoided. hitler's gaze was toward the east. he deemed slavs inferior and wanted to occupy the lands where germans had historical roots. rumania and hungary fell into germany's orbit easily, as did many other eastern european countries. what scared england was germany's growing economic power, which contrasted with britain's failing empire, beset by its troubles with india and ireland. if england had been truly interested in checking german military advances, england could have sent troops to poland during the 6 month crisis over danzig, which began in the march before hitler's september 1939 invasion. during the same interlude, the french army could have stationed itself on the rhine, poised to attack hitler from the west the moment hitler's military moved east. confronted by the prospect of an immediate two front war, hitler would have relented, as his armies were not at peak numbers or fighting form. but the west never adopted this obvious defensive strategy because the vain british wanted a fight with the upstart germans, who were beating them out of export markets all over the world. by giving the poles an unconditional guarantee, england assured world war two, as the poles had no incentive to negotiate any accord. yet, england, with no intent to rescue poland, had the fight for which it had hankered when hitler, on september 1, 1939, marched into polish lands on which germans had lived long before world war one. britain allowed the poles to be sacrificed, for britain did not want to fight a sustained land war against the german army. indeed, it could not. england wanted to play to her own strengths and hoped that the air and sea would be where the decisive battles against germany were fought. witnesses in the british cabinet at the outbreak of both world wars were aghast at how churchill relished the start of each world war against germany. war gave him relief, a cause for living. he always floundered in peacetime, unable to focus his vast energies on the mundane matters of government. at the start of each world war, churchill said that the hun was getting too strong and must be crushed. given england's imperial spread, future historians will record that september of 1939 marked the beginning of the clash between a sea based empire and a continental one. no one in the future will believe that churchill, admirer of both franco and mussolini, persisted in this most deadly of conflicts for any reason other than maintaining the predominance of the british empire.
Johnny U--
Churchill didn't become PM until May of 1940 after WWII had been declared (and Poland occupied by both Germany and the Soviets). The fondest dreams of both the French and British were that Hitler and Stalin would bleed each other white and allow them (France and Britain) to pick up the bloody shards of what was left and achieve dominance. As far as why Churchill persisted in the conflict, he didn't have much of a choice.
Germany occupatied Scandanavia, the Low Countries and France after Poland was subdued. Instead of going East Hitler turned to the North and West and in the process acquired access to vast parts of North Africa courtesy of Marshall Petain's Vichey government. Rommel was heading East to take the Suez Canal and with it choke Britain's life line to its own resource base.
Poet
poet: thank you for filling in some of the blanks; however, churchill was a member of chamberlain's cabinet when germany invaded poland; his strict and unyielding attiutde against germany was in vogue by then, since hitler had annexed the remainder of chezoslovakia in march of 1939. still, the hitler of 1939 had no intention of attacking his western neighbors. he considered those countries equals, especially in a racial sense. in his books, hitler talked about germany's natural expansion eastward, where he intended to gain living space (labensraum) for the german peoples at the expense of the jews and slavs, whom he considered as racially inferior to german stock and genetically worthy to be but servants to their german masters. again, if britain had wanted to fight for polish territorial integrity, it could easily have done so. it could have sent troops to the polish border while the french encamped on the east bank of the rhine. but, the prospect of such a pincer would have forestalled the german invasion and thus robbed britain of any justification for the war it wanted. britain had to craft a causus belli by drawing a line in the sand where britain traditionally had no interest. for the first time, britain signed an agreement to fight east of the rhine, to come to the defense of poland in the event germany atacked her. britain thus served up to poland a blank check, unconditionally pledging its might to defend a country that had had but a spotty national identity over the preceding 150 years. so determined to bait the germans into war, the english overlooked the fact that the germans in the western part of poland were oppressed by a polish military dictatorship that revelled in its persecution of polish jews. but britain cared nothing about either poland's territorial integrity or its domestic workings. had it cared, britain would have fought russia when russia gobbled up the eastern half of poland after germany's initial thrust eastward in september of 1939. poland served as the key for britain to initiate hostilities against a germany that had become too dominant in too many spheres. furthermore, england had always opposed the most powerful continental power, historically aligning itself with the second most powerful country on the continent. a germany that absorbed more territory and became more economically independent and larger by the year was anathema to a british empire that had since the 1880's fretted about being dwarfed by their highly cohesive rival on the continent. germany's manufacturing was already superior to britain's, its products more marketed, its population larger, and its share of the world's export markets increasing at a far faster rate. these developments alarmed the imperial isles more than a lack of democracy in poland, which had never known it anyway. no friend of democracy, churchill hated the spanish republic, loved franco, and loathed gandhi. he had pleasant correspondences with the european leader he admired the most, benito mussolini. all the while, britain had its own imperial domain upon which the sun never set, but germany threatened both this established order and the traditional british world view of themselves. yet, germany did not feel inimical toward britain, as hitler at every turn offered a negotiated peace in which he would guarantee the british empire. some say his anglophilism caused him to stop his panzers near the coast of france, where unleashed they could have annihilated 250,000 british troops at dunkirk. germany attacked france only after a period of 8 months of stagnation on the western front, where no side moved( sitzkrieg). during this sitzkrieg, the french did nothing militarily to speak of, but hid behind the maginot line, a system of fortifications that they believed were impregnable. hitler attacked first, and won sooner than anyone had forecast. the french had superior numbers of tanks and men, but were apathetic about war and lacked motivational leadership. many french right wingers were happy to see hitler check french socialism and install a reactionary vichy government. the french were so pliant that germany was comfortable occupying just the top half their country, leaving the collaborating french to run the southern half unimpeded. there was little resistance to german occupation, something that did not escape stalin's notice; french compliance made it easy for hitler to move 80% of his army to the eastern front, where all hell broke loose on 22 june 1941.
Johnny U--
Winnie (unregenerate imperialist anglophile that he was)was anti-Hitler and pro-intervention to stop Germany in its tracks BEFORE A WAR HAD TO START TO DO IT during the days of Baldwin and Ramsey's governments of which you may be sure he was not a member primarily because of his outspoken critique of their policies vis-a-vis German rearmament.
Further, he wrote all of this for newspaper publication and was well known to all of Britain for having such views. This was the primary reason his oratory was so moving to the Brits and not viewed as the belicose rantings of an elderly drunk (which, regrettably Winnie also was). To use a refrain from an old Barbara Mandrell song, Winnie was anti-Hitler when being anti-Hitler wasn't cool.
Poet
to poet: churchill was anti- german only because he was afraid that germany was growing into the biggest boy on the block. never urging that britain send troops to defend poland, he and other brits used hitler's invasion of poland as a "get into war free" ticket. never one to shy from the hard uses of military power against third worlders, churchill loved it when his indian subjects were lined up in courtyards and shot, as churchill brooked no interference from those who tried to yank the tail of the british lion. for every massacre our colonial forefathers sustained in places like boston, there were thousands across the indian subcontinent, where the redcoats spilled native blood by the gallons. in 1923, churchill smiled as he ordered the british air force to use poison gas and germ warfare against "the mesopotanian devils" who inhabited what is now iraq. flabbergasted he was that these desert people would raise their fist against the british empire! churchill's whole life was but a paean to british imperialism. ironically, by continuing world war two, he bankrupted britain and cemented its decline as a great power. had it not been for the united states, there is no telling what fate britain might have suffered. afraid of being upstaged by the man he ridiculed as the "naked little indian", churchill refused to meet gandhi, the same way buckley avoided debating chomsky once chomsky proved to be his intellectual and moral superior. in persisting with his fight against germany, churchill put his people through death and suffering they could have avoided. relishing the fight in which others would soon die, churchill's eyes glistened with anticipation when he learned that hitler had finally sucumbed to his provocations and was firebombing london. he knew that hitler's peace overtures, which he censored, would now be fruitless. before 1939, britain had never gone to war to protect eastern europe, so churchill fought with hitler over a nation well outside the traditional sphere of british influence. there were many germans in poland, but all the brits were on their one island, about 800 miles away. it was the aggregate and growing power of germany that fired churchill's committment to war, nothing else. for anything hitler did to poland, churhchill and his ilk had already done it to india, ireland, iran, iraq, china, bermuda, and the list is endless. even most british historians acknowledge that churchill was a lover of all thing pugilistic. poland was a pretext for the fight for which he and many other english had long planned. britain never meant to defend poland, but to declare war on germany over it. to churchill, what the russians did to poland that same september was acceptable, for russia was not britain's economic rival. and as poles began dying that september, no one in the far flung british empire raised a finger to help them, as britain never intended to carry out the terms of the defense treaty it signed with poland: no british army surmounting germany's west wall en route to berlin, and no british grenediers paratrooped into danzig during the six month crisis leading up to hitler's september 1939 blitzkrieg of poland. so we can see that hitler's 1939 invasion gave britain a reason and the moral gloss to begin making the best war that the british armaments were capable of making against germany. with its small army spared eastern fighting, england could now use its new ships and planes to blockade and bomb germany and mine its seas, all of which britain immediately began doing. berlin was bombed way before london. churchill specifically ordered bomber harris to target german civilians long before hitler told goering to do the same to the british. this is exactly the scheme of war you would expect from a power that was stronger in the air and sea than its landbound rival. contrary to popular understanding, britain built and bought ship and planes like crazy during the 1930's. and that's exactly what you would expect from a power scheming to economically strangulate a country, incinerate its industries, starve its people, and destroy its commercial shipping. so the polish invasion a freed britain to play to its strengths, which explains why churchill refused to sign hitler's treaty that would have banned the bombing of civilians in either country. churchill refused because he needed every advantage that sea and air could offer, as his armies were inferior to many. he eventually approved the use of napalm against german cities. but what would one expect from a country and leader that blockaded germany for 7 months (till june 28,1919) after germany signed the november 11, 1918 armistice? thusly did churchill cause the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of german civilians after the fight in france had long ended. churchill and hitler were cut from the same cloth, but when the u.s. put churchill on the winning side, he got to write the history.
poet: the germans carried the war to scandanavia only after britain's lord of the admiralty mined the north sea, a violation of international law by one winston spencer churchill. the germans had to have swedish iron ore, and to protect that source required them to improvise a quick invasion of norway. again, there was never a preconceived german plan to attack norway. the british actions triggered the german response, which proved effective and marked churchill as a blunderer, just like he was at galipoli in 1915, when he sponsored a disastrous invasion of a turkish outpost that cost britain tens of thousands of lives, an embarrassing withdrawal, and churchill his cabinet job. good thing eisenhower was around when d-day came up. ike, not the ponderous and melodramatic briton, was the right man for that job.
Johnny U--
"the Germans had to have Swedish iron ore" for what? For spreading their wars of aggression that's what. You sound liked an appologist for the third Reich--not the most morally defensible position imaginable. However, Churchill's motivations and actions are not the subject at hand, which is that the "ponderous and melodramatic" Churchill (a characterization with which I would agree, by the way) was leading a people who still had some semblance of a moral code which code Winnie knew quite well and was able to summon.
Our people have no such code, neither do they have any leadership capable of even understanding, let alone appealing to, such a code as is evident from the sincerely intentioned but pathetically weak case presented by the author in review of a book by an economist (Stiglitz) and a journalistic hack (Friedman--whose point of view de jour is whatever his paymasters at the NYT or CFR tell him it is).
Poet
I remember Reaganomics and how the entire nation was bewitched by the Dark Side.
This Geppetto carved a whole nation of wooden headed puppets.
`ol Mr. Star Wars is still running the military, running amok with visions of Hegemony.
Bob Burnett has the best of intentions, but his article today does not exceed the intellectual level of an 8th-grade civics class. He says "we" (the American public) have a choice: Either ignore the crises of environment and economy (militarism/war is a curious omission) or "stand up and fight" the evils named.
This, however, is a bogus choice: It presumes that the American people are morally and intellectually capable of the political struggles called for. This in the relevant scholarly literature is called the "agency problem." All the woes and all the bright ideas to fix the woes are vanity unless there are now or in prospect mass human agencies of renewal. Burnett is oblivious to this sine qua non of the solutions needed.
Speaking of political capacity: Never forget the premise of Ralph Nader's farewell fantasy-book--"Only The Super-rich Can Save Us"--namely, the political invalidism of American progressives, present and prospective. Political invalids are unable to "stand up and fight"; nor do they have more than a rudimentary appreciation of the meaning of these terms, i.e., the meaning of class struggle.
Mr. Burnett should have kept his day job at Cisco. I hear they make great routers.
Hilarious! You have a long way to catch up with the true progressives, Bob Burnett. While we were living our principles all those years, you were fueling the fires of corporate hegemony at Cisco. You inspired quite a slice of admiration for ...DAS KAPITAL!!!! You're worst than Al Gore, trying to lead the progressive movement while you're still miles behind. If you want to catch up, you can start by donating all the spoils of your tenure at Cisco to some truly progressive causes, like localism. I will say one positive thing about Cisco. It did resist the temptation to feed the Intel godzilla.
Whenever there is an economic crisis blame the working class for being too greedy by wanting to have a nice home, a good car, fine food, a great vacation, and wonderful entertainment. Pray tell me, whom are they trying to equal?
Churchill's Biblical reference to "the locust years" implies that the UK should have started a pre-emptive war against Germany in 1935. As I read this essay, I kept waiting for the punch-line, "....and therefore we should start a war against Iran". Churchill was a militarist who liked war because he liked it. He is hardly a good guiding light for our present crises. And the "locust years" metaphor implies that we are in a cyclical system, that there will be alternating good years and bad years. Like alternating Republican and Democratic administrations. Like alternating bull markets and bear markets. Like the seasons, cold follows warm follows cold. Like a ship rocking back and forth. But our crises are no longer cyclical. We are approaching or have crossed thresholds of environmental destruction, money destruction, democracy destruction, genetic destruction, honesty destruction, from which there is no sign of recovery. Our ship keeps leaning further, and further, and further....and we wonder if it will right itself, if there are life boats, if.....
Serious--
The ultimate war is not between nations, ideas, or even individuals. The ultimate war is for the collective conscience of human society. To take any kinds of actions or make any kind of pronouncements without a clear moral mandate for such is to guarantee the situation to which you are respondikng will repeat itself in the future which is the dilemma of societies throughout time. It's why the only thing we ever learn from hstory is that we never truly learn from history.
Poet
speak the truth?
the era of 'they' taking care of 'you' and 'me' is fading...
the era of 'you' and 'me', awake, is, hopefully, coming to be...
as in, you get your own food and water...you defend yourself...you ally with those immediately around you to share the resources available...you take care of those resources...
'they' are not interested in helping 'you', or 'me'...
are you interested in helping yourself, and those around you?
Glboal Start Date: September 22, 2012...no more job...just living...
let's get those gardens growing...
Interesting post, if you are talking about a sort od communitarian approach to bioregions I am in, but armed city blocks facing off against each other with no social safety net at all? Not so much...
This article is useless. Too many hopelessly mixed metaphors referencing nothing. Am I a grasshopper or a locust? Not a single suggestion for a working solution to any undefined problem, except "prepare for sacrifice."
I know who I want to "sacrifice." I also want to study their entrails.
The comments here are far more valuable than the article.
-30-
Everyone I meet is saying there is nothing they can do, and they're waiting for their 'god' to save them. Suck on that.
I have no suggestions of what to do either. I moved into a small community 10 years ago, and I still don't know my immediate neighbors - they are so clannish that they don't like 'outsiders' and won't listen to them. You can't resist fascism with that kind of mentality - we're all screwed.
And by the way, the British and Germans are both SAXONS - the same people who plundered, raped, and pillaged after the Romans left - and my ancestors have been fighting them ever since... at least they kept them at bay for a while, and drove the Arab invasion out of Europe. Or we'd all be Muslims today, with no choice at all.
Ever wonder why the Anglo-Saxons destroyed the ONLY secular Arab country in the Middle-East? Why attack Iraq, and drive Iraqis into religious feuding and misogyny - which was held at bay by the nationalist Baathists, who are denied any part in current elections? Could it be 'divide and conquer' - the oldest trick in the book? They've done the same in the US - making us think that it's every man for himself... a sure dead end, as we'll all hang separately if we don't hang together.
The Baby Boomers had idealistic dreams - but the CIA and WASPS who ran the country murdered all their dreams of a better world. I remember. And I wasn't a liberal, either. Even conservatives could see where the Reaganites were leading us - in the same direction as every other fascist country. The Americans are the Nazis of the 21st century - and it might take generations to defeat them, especially with the idiot-box informing the public...
Thanks for opening up your eyes after growing up conservative. It is exactly people like you is why I advocate lefties talk to and be open to people on the Libertarian right. If we close off to each other we loose, if we open up and share ideas and grow together we win, pretty simple. So IMO jokes about "white trash" trailer park livers and disparaging teabaggers without even talking to them as as counter productive as calling black people the N world. A "teabagger" talked to an open way may turn to be an aware person like armybrat. Sadly many of the worst insulters of Libertarians and other rural poor people people disgusted with the system are those who embrace the also controlled by the military industrial complex Dim fans.
Screw that!
It was to the advantage of the Financial Industry to have Americans Spend and not Save. I never wanted a credit card. I paid all of my Bills by cash or check. Then one day a Department Store refused my check because I had no credit. They started running checks through the 3 Credit Bureaus and if you had NO Credit (note: Not Bad Credit)then you could not use a check. The practice spread. I finally broke down and established credit by getting a Credit Card at my local Credit Union. I wanted to buy a house and had no credit.
This was all orchestrated by the Financial Industry so that they could charge people to use their own money. It progressed to being mandatory for my pay check to be direct deposited. Even people on Welfare are having to use debit cards and are charged fees to get to their money.
So don't blame the people for the use of credit, it was pushed on them.