7 Unspeakable Truths

Americans live in a state of deceit and denial inculcated by the insidious accumulation of entitled thinking that has reached a tipping point beyond which the destruction of social order and national power is certain.  Like children without rules or boundaries we have become tempestuous and, in more cases every day, violent.  We still have the capacity to identify the truth but lack the courage to speak it.  Our leaders, including President Obama, will not speak these truths.  I will.

            There are seven truths – things I am certain of after significant study and deliberation – that America must face if we are to maintain our position in the world, even if only in relative terms.

1. The wars we have chosen to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan are unwinnable; we must move expeditiously to extract ourselves from the center of this quagmire and deploy a strategy of offshore balancing to contain terrorism while, at the same time, develop new sources and forms of energy to become energy-independent.  If we don’t, we will find ourselves at the center of a much larger confrontation between Israel and Iran, which will begin within two years.
2. The obligations of our government to supply public goods, particularly Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, are financially unsustainable – even if we radically reform our healthcare system – which isn’t going to happen.  Debt is not power.
3. Our critical national infrastructures including transportation, power grids, and water supply systems are rapidly approaching a period of catastrophic failure that will cripple our economy more than the current financial crisis.  When ‘Main Street’ fails, it’s over.
4. Climate change is a reality, notwithstanding the unfortunate apocalyptic grandstanding by Al Gore and a few rogue scientists, but the orthodoxy of environmentalism is wrong.  We must find new ways to conserve and produce energy that allow economic growth to be sustained.  We must do this for the environment and, moreover, for our national interest … for our health and security.
5. Within twenty-five years the dollar will no longer be the world’s reserve currency.  We must move expeditiously to begin the process, region-by-region, of migrating to a common currency – the ‘globo’ – to protect us from non-US currencies being used against us and to mitigate the inherent instability produced in a global financial system populated (currently) by 178 different currencies.
6. Our primary and secondary education system is broken.  Today, we are maintaining our global ‘edge’ on the back of our superior universities. While our students ‘catch-up’ because they have access to college, unlike the developing world (especially China and India), this will change.  We must immediately move to improve the quality of teachers and reduce the burden of unions and bureaucrats. Parents, teachers, and communities must wrest control of this system, which is in rapid decline.
7. The absence of a liberal immigration policy, which has always been the lifeblood of America’s capacity for self-renewal, will lower our ‘replacement rate’ and increase our ‘dependency rates’ to levels that will produce demographic-induced collapse.  If you want a preview, look at Japan.

            Rival interests do not defeat great powers; they collapse at their own hand.  In America, we have the knowledge and the means to maintain our position in the world and to secure our future for many generations.  If we do not face each and every one of these truths, we will fail.  Let the real discussion begin.

Hijacking Jesus

My fellow Texans have a longstanding and attractive reputation for independence and enterprise, complemented (unfortunately) by a penchant for delusion and ethno-phobic evangelism.  The latter is on ugly display by a small group of fervent Christian fundamentalists who are hijacking Jesus to re-write American history and promulgate the primacy of White Conservative Protestants (WCPs).  They are led by Don McLeroy, a dentist from Bryan, Texas, who was appointed chairman of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) by our governor-turned-secessionist Rick Perry.  Their central argument – that the United States is a “Christian nation” – is the veil behind which they are attempting to codify the primacy of WCPs as the originators and preferred arbiters of American ideals, as well as the central actors of American history. Make no mistake; their agenda has little if anything to do with Jesus Christ. It is all about power.

            There are no Christian values in their rhetoric. No Golden Rule from Matthew 7:12, or God’s love from John 3:16, or contemplations of enduring love from 1 Corinthians 13.  Their arguments about America as a “Christian nation” amount to little more than mental parlor tricks performed with a blindfold to ignore the historical record.  That’s not to say they haven’t worked hard to produce their arguments; delusion is not easy.  It is that they require more leaps of faith than a tent minister whose pants are full of brimstone.[1]  We can have hearty debates about their claim of a “Christian nation,” but that is not the issue. The question is, so what if it is, or isn’t?  What difference does it make?

            The answer is found in the substance of their proposals to the SBOE.  Their agenda has little to do with Christianity and everything to do with maintaining a social hierarchy that places them at or near the top.  César Chávez gets erased from textbooks purchased for Texas schools in favor of Phyllis Schlafly and the Moral Majority.  Ted Kennedy is replaced by Newt Gingrich.  The Reverend Pat Robertson is nearly as important as the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. As McLeroy’s cohort and fellow SBOE board member Cynthia Dunbar reveals: “The philosophy of the classroom in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next.”[2]  Re-writing history to highlight the primacy of WCPs is the pathway to enduring political power.

            The aim of these Texans is to set a standard of citizenship that favors WCPs over people of color, or theological difference. African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans and Indians must join Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists in accepting an America founded in a Puritan-esque mystique that favors WCPs.  They must accept their lot as second-class citizens marginalized by an ethno-phobic doctrine that fantasizes the historical record of America.  Or, if they live in Texas, they can go to the polls on March 2 and vote people like McLeroy out. They can send a message of tolerance, inclusion, and compassion, consistent with the American ideals of liberty and justice for all. They can out-Jesus the WCPs.

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[1] For a well-researched, comprehensive article on the WCP’s arguments and proposals at the Texas State Board of Education see Russell Shorto, “How Christian were the Founders,” The New York Times Magazine, February 14, 2010. For scholarly work on the religious heritage of America’s founding, see David L. Holmes, The Faiths of the Founding Fathers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006) and Jon Meacham, American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation (New York: Random House 2007).  

[2] Dunbar in Shorto’s New York Times article.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

Mother nature has accomplished what reasonable people cannot: closing our federal government for the week. While our government’s effectiveness remains unchanged – nothing is getting done – at least the majority of pols and pundits are home-bound, awaiting the arrival of a lobbyist to deliver a Honey Baked Ham and shovel their driveways. Meanwhile, we have been granted a respite from the din of weak-kneed incompetence. If the current storm persists, we might even get the Olympics started before the Boehners and Pelosis can spray on their faces and return to the podium. (Maybe we can even get some of those new C-17 cargo planes the Pentagon doesn’t want to haul some snow from DC to Vancouver to finish grooming the freestyle course! Sigh … I digress.)

Reasonable, thoughtful people from many corners of scholarship and journalism are starting to seriously question the future of our government. James Fallows recent essay in The Atlantic, “How America can Rise Again” offers a lengthy survey of America’s strengths and weaknesses. He recounts America’s history of overcoming adversity, but laments that the system that largely enabled those victories is broken today. He argues, “That is the American tragedy of the early 21st century: a vital and self-renewing culture that attracts the world’s talent, and a governing system that increasingly looks like a joke.” He explores a range of options including “an enlightened military coup … a new constitutional convention … a viable third party … [or] hope for another Sputnik moment” to right the ship. In the end, he settles for “muddling through” over “starving the beast” as the best worst choice. Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig argues in The Nation, “if you want change, you have to change Congress” and solicits readers to sign a “change Congress petition” that calls for a new “Fair Elections Now Act” to subvert the insidious power of lobbyists. Still others, like Tim Dickinson in Rolling Stone blame Obama for “ muzzl[ing] millions of followers eager to fight for his agenda” and effectively trading in his “Yes We Can!” pledge for a mockingly “No, we can’t” reality. In the end, what happened to Obama was simply stated by Clinton advisor James Carvelle: “Washington always wins.”

While many, including myself, can easily point at the government to assign culpability, the larger reality is that our government will not and cannot face its problems. Moreover, when you set questions of ideology, capability, and blame aside - turn off Obama’s teleprompter and wash the notes from Palin’s palms – and just look at the numbers, there is no chance our government can sustain its current or future obligations. Absent a series of syzygystic miracles, it will collapse under the weight of its own financial malfeasance. It is time, as Jacob Weisberg argues at Slate, “to stop blaming the rascals we elect to office and start looking at ourselves.” It is time to take the initiative – to quit staring at our government like an infant who has discovered his navel – and take our future back; one person, family, school, and community at a time.

Pepsi's New Populism

Pepsi commercials will not be seen in the Super Bowl this year.  After 23 years of Cindy Crawford, Britney Spears, et al, dating back to when the Giants beat the Broncos in Super Bowl XXI, Pepsi is opting to reorient its marketing platform to ‘be less about a singular event and more about a movement’ according to spokesperson, Nicole Bradley.  Since the decision was made, Pepsi has poured more than $20 million into its ‘Refresh Project’ that allows participants to vote for community-worthy projects originated by regular folks who submit their ideas online.  See www.refresheverything.com.  The current leader board reflects an array of social aims including caring for troops, improving education, and several ‘green’ initiatives.  Both for-profit and non-profit groups can apply.  Pepsi is spawning its own network of civic entrepreneurs.

            The execs at Pepsi aren't stupid, although as you might expect, Coke is stepping into the big game with a campaign on ‘open happiness’ (whatever that means).  Pepsi has very adroitly measured the sense of populist discontent in the country and aims to capitalize on it while utilizing the convergence of people, media, and issues to extend their brand.  Big $, big-bang media is giving way to an organic process of self-identification and self-executing regimes that produce empathic and objective-oriented networks, which effectively work around the epidemic of ineptitude plaguing our national, state and local governments.  Maybe the follow-up campaign will be Pepsi is the Power of the People.

            Pepsi is banking on marketing gains that are won referentially as a by-product of empowering people around ideas that matter and that have a high likelihood of frequent and enduring participation.  This represents a more subtle and artful form of persuasion, but may prove to be much more effective (and efficient) than three million dollar thirty-second commercials performed by this year’s starlet.  The new Pepsi Generation may usher us Boomers to the ash heap of history right along with our tie-dye shirts and pinstripe suits.  Or, Pepsi may be right back next year, advertising in Super Bowl XLV, hosted by Mr. Jones at Jerry World on February 6, 2011 in Arlington, Texas.