July 4th, 2003

As American as Humble Pie

I I would like to encourage you to enjoy this particular Independence Day. I mean really enjoy it. Because I really truly believe that freedom as Americans know it today will be history within 25 years.

Now in political speech-writing, this is what's known as a hook, and once you start with appealing to a fear, you move to appealing to a hope -- "freedom as Americans know it today will be history within 25 years -- unless we do something about it!"

Trouble is, I don't see this as idle rhetoric or oratory.

***

Let me set the scene. I'm hiking the beach. A hot afternoon, this July 3rd, and I'm working on a Fourth of July essay, working out the construction in my mind.

George Washington, who warned against foreign entanglements, would be thrilled to know the U.S. now has a standing army of more than a million people, and that nearly half of them are currently abroad.

Originally published July 4, 2003. Click image to enlarge.

Thomas Jefferson, who said he'd prefer a country with newspapers and no government to a country with a government and no newspapers, would be thrilled to see media conglomerates choking debate, limiting coverage and being more interested in making money than exposing wrongdoing. He'd be shocked at the steady demise of newspapers.

So as I walk, I keep mulling over timelines and factoids. What would the soldiers who fought in World War I, The War To End All Wars, think if they knew that the Model Ts they drove way back when actually got better gas mileage than the Fords of today?

I make my way back inland to start typing. I'm sitting at the Mac with CNN's Inside Politics in the background, and here comes political analyst Bill Schneider with a poll. Would the Founding Fathers be pleased or displeased with how things have turned out in America? Look at that, I say to myself —l the exact same question I've been mulling.

The poll reported essentially, a 50-50 split between pleased and displeased. No surprise, really — Bush v. Gore in 2000 pretty much proved we're a country split right down the middle.

The surprise to me in Schneider's poll was the utter clarity of the demographic breakdown. Ask a rich person if the Founding Fathers would be pleased with things, and the answer is yes. Ask a poor person and the answer is no.

What a powerful message there.

***

I wonder how many people will send Fourth of July emails out on Windows machines today. I wonder how many people will do their holiday shopping at Wal-Mart. I wonder how many people will go see the latest blockbuster movie from the big media conglomerates.

And I wonder how many people will stop to think about the growing rift between giant and small, the super-rich and the working-poor, and what it means for our society.

People should remember it's called capitalism, not laborism, and that money is far more important than a person's work. Americans may have this benign smugness that inequality is a problem in Third World countries, that it can't happen here, but in many ways it is already happening here. George Bush is on path to become the first president since Herbert Hoover to have net job losses in his term, yet his tax cuts and economic policies still favor the monied class.

American politicians routinely bash Banana Republic leaders for ripping off their people to enrich the elites. But if someone says such a thing here, today, they sound like a kook, a radical. It's too far-fetched, too un-American, to be taken seriously.

That's why I say enjoy this Independence Day. As George Orwell said, if the government and the media control the language, they'll control the thought.

It takes intelligence and an appreciation of history and economics and sociology to spot what lies underneath. Do you think it's coincidence that schools and media keep getting dumbed down? Do you think it's a coincidence that schools remain in large part financed by property taxes? What a way to guarantee that the poor will not only remain poor, they'll remain poorly educated, too.

There are a number of unpleasant truths in our world today, but Americans prefer polite myths to harsh realities. People are dying in this occupation-cum-liberation of Iraq, yet the myths of freedom and liberation survive. Pardon my pessimism that the economic myths which could fracture this country are going to be exposed or acted upon anytime soon.

So happy Independence Day. Try to remember that people died to create, and keep, this holiday.

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