Wednesday's Open Topic:
North Coast said...> "Something changed much for the worse between 1963 and 1970 and we need to fix it."
Then Fargo Woman said....> "I'll go out on a limb here and suggest it was the proliferation of drugs.
If you have any new suggestions on how we can eliminate crime due to drugs (drug sales, procurement of drugs, criminal procurement of funds with which to purchase drugs); the health crisis - both physical and emotional - directly attributable to drugs; the rending of the social fabric of this nation, our communities and families directly attributable to drugs, then please I beg you, voice them - by all means - voice them here. For I too would like to sleep in a home with unlocked doors, an experience I’ve never enjoyed though I was raised in a small village in West-By-God-Virginia (but I digress . . . per chance my mother was simply paranoid before her time).
Yet, were you to provide the Nobel Prize worthy solution to our social, communal and individual crisis, still the dilemma would not be completely resolved. For, beloved neighbor, we still require a solution to the greed that has so possessed this nation like a junkie in the malevolent grip of his accursed addiction.
This greed for power, as much as for the filthy lucre that sucks at power’s swollen teat or the fame that sucks at its other, permeates this country and all who reside in it. This greed motivates us to cheat others before they can cheat us; to get what is ours and let them that can take the rest; to promise anything to attain a position or promotion and then deliver nothing, and, finally, to allay our guilt with self-assurances of, “After all everyone does it.” And why not? Look at the fine examples set forth by our leaders.
Our Justice system: confessions acquired under duress; search and seizure laws loosened or eliminated altogether, rights and freedoms compromised for the political and financial advancements of a select few, etc., etc. et-F***ing-cetera.
Look all the way to the White House, good soul, to the halls of the nation's sovereign capital wherein sits the rabid results of a campaign stolen by a brother for his brother - hanging chads my a**!
Or turn your head away from this monstrosity and overwhelm you delicate, raised-in-an-unlocked-home-senses with the carnivorous ferocity of a congress enacting laws benefiting special interest corporations billions of dollars annually while inundating the populace with taxes and empty promises. You need to look close, look fast before those same congressional leaders retire from office to accept positions with those same corporations, or their special interest lobbyists, for salaries NBA team owners can only wish they were making, etc. etc., well . . . you get the idea.
And all the while, men and women, sons and daughters, loved ones all, cry and scream and die in a desert land on the other side of the world in a failed attempt to save people from something they never asked to be saved from. Even France waited until our revolutionary forefathers said, “Lafayette, help us.”
So, perhaps the rose-colored glasses that came with that subscription to Tiger Beat, Good House Keeping or Field and Stream should return to the time capsule they came from. Welcome to the New Millennium, my naive friend.
The beat generation is now collecting Social Security.
A population explosion has wrought havoc on this planet’s limited resources – a whole other dilemma we have yet to address in this particular diatribe.
In the meantime, Flower Power has fallen to the Power of the Purse: greed, greed and more greed. Unfettered consumerism; capitalism donning the imperialistic mantle of world domination through our unique brand of democracy thrust down the collective throats of people and nations whether they want it or not – for their own f***ing good.
And last but certainly not least: the insane notion of entitlement. We are entitled to lives of leisure on the bowed backs of third world workers. We are entitled to our gas guzzling one passenger 80% of the time SUVs for the sake of that 20% convenience. We are entitled to taking advantage of every legal loophole available to us to toss tenants into the streets so we can land-bank our properties until the housing boom resurges so we can rehab them into overpriced, featureless condominiums.
Now, North Coast, you said something about not really knowing what changed for the worse between 1963 and 1970? I wonder, do you think you might have a handle on that now?
Do you think you – or Clinton, or Obama, or Gordon or Moore – have an answer? Any answer?" Please?"
BLOGNOTES: Well, what do you say? The floor is now open.
26 comments:
i've always felt the population explosion was to blame for most of our woes.
ZERO population growth.
everyone should rent/netflick/buy :
Idiocracy
its a funny movie... but i think it speaks volumes as to where mankind is headed.
I agree with Fargo Woman absolutely, and love her post.
This country has become a nation of greed-crazed, hallucinating, grasping clowns. We are despised by more civilised countries.
I have always thought that the principal reason poverty produces crime is because we ceased to respect poor people as human beings. The kids see their parents as no one they need respect, and the "system" seconds that.
We live in a society that only respects people who are "winners" irrespective of how they "won". We lionize criminals and parasites. Look at the popularity of a show like "The Sopranos", and look at the way we worship the Rich &Vulgar.
People were crowded in cities before. The tragedy of the war on drugs is in its 4th decade.
Prohibiting alcohol sales in the united states didn't prevent people from drinking. It did create a vast criminal enterprise.
Shockingly, doing the same with marijuana has done the same.
(And yes, I don't like the idea of people buying coke and heroin at the corner drug store -- but they can do it out front right now, so let's try something different.)
I'll go out on a limb and say it was the loss of thousands of high paid, low to medium skill manufacturing jobs.
Just a thought
Fargo Woman is one of Chicago's greatest bloggers.
Charlie, our crime rates in 1968 were about what they are now.
I would tend to look at the social climate of the 50s and 60s, with its emphasis on constant upward mobility and the pursuit of the "American Dream", whatever THAT is, and the concurrent notion that there should be no limitations on anyone, and that if you don't become at least well-off, you are somehow deficient in virtue and intelligence.
We are a bunch of people who have a very hard time dealing with limitations. We don't deal gracefully with lack of prosperity and not getting what we want, when we want it.
I won't finger either the "liberals" or the "conservatives" in particular, but I believe that both camps promote attitudes, which, though they seem to differ, encourage people in the notion that immediate gratification is an entitlement and the lack of self-restraint and inability to live with lack and limitations is some sort of virtue.
I believe we will make real progress when it becomes OK to have an "ordinary" income and to say out loud that you can't afford something, without fear that you will be castigated as lazy and deficient simply because you can't afford all the material goodies in the world.
I'm fairly young and haven't studied much socioeconomics or political philosophy. That said, my ill-informed opinion about why the United States is on the decline revolves around what Europe does correctly.
Socialism, in the right forms and doses is apparently not such a bad thing. It seems the nations in which the poorest of the poor can actually get nutrition, healthcare and education don't have the violent crime epidemic from which the USA suffers. There is the auxiliary issue of how shallow the mainstream American has become and I have no answer for that one...
ASK JOE MOORE- HE SAID CRIME IS DOWN-
the north coast said, ". . . best blogger in Chicago." Aw, shucks, ma'am. Thanks for the compliment.
Legalize drugs and the price of the product will plummet and dealers will be out of jobs because you can buy your meth at Walgreen's with no one pushing it on you (make advertising illegal, however, as with cigarettes). Price plummeting will reduce crime and get the criminals off the streets. The addicts will then have easier and cheaper access which may not get them off drugs but will solve a lot of the lifestyle issues. The war on drugs is simply not winnable and some people will choose addiction over rehab no matter what we do. Why force addicts, just because they are addicts, into a life of crime and into the arms of criminals? We could also levy a tax on the drugs, like with cigs, with the monies going toward rehab and healthcare for addicts.
There is no population explosion in the western world. It's entirely in China and among Muslim populations.
The U.S. is not perfect but it's still the best place in the world to live which is why we have such a huge illegal immigration problem and why there are lines tens of thousands deep of people who want to come here legally.
Every generation says that their world is going to hellyet, oddly, life has IMPROVED for most peoples in the U.S. Our poor live better than the poor anywhere else in the world. This is not to say that they should continue to be poor but let's get some perspective.
The U.S. was hated in many places in Europe after WWII and Truman was demonized, as was just about every president up through the end of the cold war. Irrespective of my views about Bush, it's the same old story. Enemies demonize the other side. I may not be down with everything the present admin does but I'm sure as hell not on the side of peoples who crush liberties and would have me wearing a burka and being murdered for homosexuality or out of marriage sex.
Life in the U.S. may present different challenges than in 1950 BUT it's a hell of a lot freer in most ways. Gays can live together and adopt children. Women can be career professionals or marry and be stay at home moms. Look at management in many companies -- it's multicolored. Racial prejudice still exists but African Americans today have it 1000 times better than 50 years ago. Good grief -- the two leading contenders for president are an African American man and a white woman!
We have WAY more choices today than our grandparents did and yet here folks are whining about how terrible things are? Craig's father started Gay Chicago mag. and was lauded by many civic leaders when he died. Can you imagine such a thing 100 years ago?
My grandmother was poor. I am not. Her life was good but very hard. My grandmother, b. 1901 and d. 1997 was always quick to remind me how much our lives have improved over the 20th century. She was not pollyanna and criticized things but she also saw just how far we've come. I'll refrain from listing the 100s of advances in medicine and science that have saved lives and improved our health.
Hopefully we will all continue to push for improvements in society and among peoples but we've come a long way and I count my lucky stars that I'm here now. I'll take my life over my grandmother's any day and if she could have traded me, she would have.
Pamela-
I have so much to say about what you posted, but this does most of the talking for me:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_of_living_in_the_United_States
The USA isn't the best place in the world to live, and it is less equal than the places that are.
"There is no population explosion in the western world. It's entirely in China and among Muslim populations."
pardon me but... huh?
check this out:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com
/id/15128931/site/newsweek/
http://www.diversityalliance.org
/docs/whystabilize.html
and by the way... a family of four (US) is harder on the environment than... say... a family of 9 in India.
everyone of us 'Westerners' is a consumers that throws tons and tons of stuff out. everything we buy comes in some form of packaging that just doesn't breakdown fast enough to balance out the amount we throw away.
you are misinformed if you think for one moment that Population growth is ONLY a problem in China or India or any other 3rd World Country.
why do you think the immigration subject is such a touchy one?
THERE ISN'T ENOUGH ROOM OR RESOURCES FOR EVERYONE.
our food supply is becoming poisoned. we feed our livestock chemicals so they grow faster to support our ever growing need for more and more.
now with the GAS crisis... Corn will become more valuable and expensive plus they are now saying that we cannot possibly grow enough to support our energy needs and food needs. don't forget... our livestock EAT corn too.
we are crowded in the cities... sure, but we are crowded in the country too. urban sprawl anyone??
its so sad that our countryside is being eaten up by subdivisions and MORE PEOPLE that have toilets and yards that need water. NPR had a story yesterday about the decline in Water Tables because we are using WAY too much water.
don't know what happens when we deplete the water supplies. guess we'll just drink Gatorade.
;)
watch that movie.. if for nothing more than you'll have a laugh.
acid's wiki url was broken and doesn't work so i'm not sure what the reference is too but wikipedia is not a reliable source (great thing though it is, it's sadly unreliable and in places oddly biased). There are millions of people everywhere in the world who would trade life with any of us in a heartbeat. Seems like folks don't get out much.
Socialism leaves a lot to be desired and apparently works just as well as communism which is why even European countries are dialing it back. The reality is that people who produce WILL produce less if they have to give the fruits of their labor away to others who are just sitting on their behinds. This is human nature and there is a reason for it -- it's call self preservation and every single living thing does what it can to maximize its resources for its benefit including plants.
The birth rate in the western world is declining signficantly irrespective of population increases and shift in the U.S. It is down 17% in the U.S. since 1990 and Italy has the 2nd lowest birth rate in the world. See reliable source for U.S. stats:
http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/censusstatistic/a/aabirthrate.htm
See http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2007/07/20070725_a_main.asp
for more on population shifts and birth rates.
Japan actually has a negative birth rate.
There is a lot of empty land between Chicago and the coast of CA. Has anyone here ever driven across Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas?
And why shouldn't corn fields sprout houses if they are no longer needed for crops? Isn't it a lovely thing that we can accommodate people and have nice housing and still plentiful and cheap food? Those less carbon footprint folks in India would likely kill to leave a bigger carbon footprint in a decent house in the U.S. Are there challenges in managing population centers and shifts? Yes. Are they managable? So far, yes. We have a boatload more people in the U.S. than in 1776 and life here is WAY better than it was in 1776 with life expectancy longer -- and people living healtier longer. Life is good. It's not perfect but it's damn good.
Tell you what: let's just all kill ourselves and then we won't leave any carbon footprint.
But first I'd be happier if we made all the illegal immigrants legal and allowed people to go where they want, when they want. For a bunch of liberal socialists some posting here seem oddly reactionary.
I think Pamela makes some really good points. There is, of course, always room for improvement and it's always easy to look back in nostalgia for "simpler times." I do it myself fairly often.
And I think there is nothing wrong with looking back and trying to emulate the good things from the past. Old fashioned hard work, well-built buildings, natural and wholesomely prepared foods, etc...
I believe part of why we all feel so overwhelmed at times is the amount of information we get now as opposed to in the past- i.e. Mass media. We know more than we can handle. Fact is, that situation isn't going to change and lying down and giving up is not what we need to do.
What we need to do is everything we can to take action and put something good back into this world - not just take out of it and however we can find to do it on an individual basis. Think service. Think give. I can honestly say when you give, you get back more than you gave in spades.
If you haven't tried volunteerism and service, give it a shot. I don't think you'll be disappointed. It feels really good to do something that has nothing to do with $ and everything to do with making things better in whatever venue you choose.
That's my sales pitch.
Pamela says "I may not be down with everything the present admin does but I'm sure as hell not on the side of peoples who crush liberties and would have me wearing a burka and being murdered for homosexuality or out of marriage sex.
Life in the U.S. may present different challenges than in 1950 BUT it's a hell of a lot freer in most ways"
Do most American sheeple even know that the Constitution has been shredded? We are NOT more free.....we are losing our liberties for more security...Our gov't creates false flag operations to scare the sheeple to go along with war and the emerging police state
But first I'd be happier if we made all the illegal immigrants legal and allowed people to go where they want, when they want.
Hear, hear.
I think there are some myths about corn that need some clearing up. Changes to corn production (starting with how it is subsidized in the U.S.) might not be so bad at all. Start with the movie King Corn or read Michael Pollan
Or just read the Farm Bill. That's an education in itself.
oh and fargo woman rocks! ..btw folks check out this link to many eye opening documentaries (it's free)
http://www.tv-links.co.uk/
There is so much that has been said already that I agree with. However, I will suggest this: the notion of entitlement, so aptly characterized by our fearless Veep as the non-negotiable American way of life, is going to bankrupt the nation if not individuals in time. We push off all the pain to the next generation and assume some sort of magic will happen to keep things as they are. That may have been true once, but no more.
We are facing a confluence of events in the next decade: depleted water (check out the story on Australia's River Murray and the drought), depleted fossil fuels, and growing economies and populations in other parts of the world, all creating new pressures on earth's resources. We have our heads buried in the sand, unfortunately. We are about to get our butts shot off. And our political leadership at all levels would prefer not to deal with this. Problems everywhere and no ready solution.
Don't forget about segregation. That was a-ok for the white folks back in the fifties. Were there any black folks on Leave it to Beaver?
Ah- the good old days, where they fired women from their jobs when they got married.
Ah- the good old days, where they locked people in mental institutions for being gay.
Ah- the good old days, where anybody could smack anyone else's kid. Now you'd get sued.
Ah- the good old days, what a fantasy.
Prattpangs -- I don't disagree that liberties have been shredded in the name of security. I've suffered plenty at the hands of TSA including having my wallet searched and public feeling up (which baffles given my overall petite stature which is small enough to leave even my cats laughing at me -- I'm so not threatening physically). And don't even get me started on confiscatory taxes. I want government out of our bedrooms, our wallets, and our private communications. Besides, the terrorists have already figured out that even the FBI can't figure out how to wire tap Skype so all their intrusions are kind of a joke and have them only catching 7/11 drunks who have had one too many and start talking crazy. If it weren't so sad, it would be almost keystone cops hilarious.
That said, we still have more choices in the U.S. than any place else. And, largely, we are free to live our lives as we wish with limited interference. A man can walk down State street in a bathing suit and heels, holding hands with a guy in a business suit and no one will stop them. And then they can retire to their decent housing, got with a 5%, 30-year fixed loan. Try that in 90% of the rest of the world. It wouldn't happen.
I'm with Jocelyn -- volunteer and do something, anything. Government be it by tribunals or kings has never been the answer throughout human history. Rather, it is individuals working independently and together that make the big differences and lasting change. It was not government that invented radio but crazy Marconi with his kites and nutty transmission operations. It was not government that gave us the white city but brilliant architects and landscape architects pushing a vision. It is PEOPLE doing invidividual acts (though often working together) without bureaucratic interference that improves the human condition.
It is naive to believe that we will not be affected by the exploding populations and deep poverty of the world's proliferating megaslums, especially since some of these places are providing us with the very resources we need to maintain our current standard of living, namely oil.
The planet as a whole is in severe population and resource overshoot,but we feel immune from the effects of rampant overcrowding in places like Lagos, Nigeria, a place whose population has grown from 300,000 in 1950 to 10 million in 2000, living in ragged poverty along open sewers. Author Mike Davis refers to Lagos as "just one node in the shantytown corridor of 70 million people that is the largest footprint of urban poverty on Earth."
I hope THIS country doesn't become another shantytown sewer in the next 30 years as our population swells to 400 million and beyond. We have depleted most of our natural resources and are strip-mining the rest of the world to get what we need to maintain our lifestyles. As it is, we are now seeing an influx of tens of millions of people from poor, overcrowded places, who seem intent on replicating the squalor and scarcity they grew up with.
A bigger threat, though, is China, which has 1.6 billion people, will soon have the largest highway system in the world, and is now aggressively competing with us for the world;s remaining oil supplies. India is also a contender for that oil, and we have very little of our own left. We produce less than 5 million barrels a day here in the US and consume 22 million a day.
God Forbid another 25% of the Chinese population should acquire a car. That means another 350 million cars competing with our own 200 million autos and trucks for fuel. China is inking contracts for Canadian oil as fast as it can, and they might be soon in a position to outbid us, given that they own a huge portion of our debt.
These overcrowded and rapidly developing countries have the ability to crimp our lifestyle pretty severely just by competing for the same resources. We're already feeling the pain, in sharply higher fuel prices that are driving up the cost of utilities and food steeply. Cropland is now beginning to be diverted from food production to fuel production. The triple-whammy of rapidly inflating fuel, utility, and food costs ought to make anyone think long and hard before producing a large family.
And speak not of places like Wyoming, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. These places are only marginally inhabitable, and people continue to leave them because they are the most difficult, demanding places to live in the country. Fewer and fewer people try to farm them. Water is scarce and the weather is horrible. It was a tragic journey from the hopeful days of the pioneering 19th century settlers who had so much spirit and courage to the people Steinbeck wrote about in "Grapes of Wrath".
Pamela-
The link gets hidden under some other structure in the webpage. Just go to wikipedia and search "standard of living" and then follow the link to "standard of living in the United States." I urge you to read the entry.
A quick note about the accuracy of wikipedia: while you must be skeptical of what you read in an article, several (like the one I just referenced) lead you to official sites with official information. In the case of the standard of living article, much of the information comes from the CIA's own site and concerns statistics collected by agencies like the UN.
It should be highlighted that you are arguing against a fully communist state, not socialized government programs. The 'socialism' I'm speaking of refers to government funded education, healthcare and even living and food arrangements.
With these sorts of programs you will undoubtedly face larger taxes. However, as shown by the standard of living in the countries that follow these policies, the payback is less tangible but arguably worth more: less violent crimes, values that are deeper than the vapid consumerism rampant in the US, and so on, a generally better educated and more informed populace, and so on.
Furthermore, you are implying that if people produce less, that is a bad thing. What if the scenario were that the top one percent produced less, but the lower fifteen percent produced more because they were enabled? What do you think the net shift in society would amount to?
And finally, you make reference to gay liberty in the United States, implying that it is greater here than anywhere else on the planet. Just how out of touch are you?
Jocelyn-
It's an interesting notion that we "know more than we can handle." I agree that there is more information to sort through than there was even 15 years ago, all thanks to the internet. I understand how the ordinary American sheeple (as someone so aptly termed them earlier) may not focus on the increase in GOOD information while drowning in the corresponding influx of BAD. I am not one of those people.
The North Coast-
Wow. I really enjoyed your last post. I couldn't agree more.
in grammar school we learned that they were called 'the badlands' for a very good reason.
makes me chuckle to think about the 'gangbangers' surviving a Montana winter. loitering on a corner with a nonstop wind that sears flesh. HA!
enough said.
i checked out your link and i see what you are referring to.
but i found this link to be a bit more insightful and puts the US population growth in a better perspective based on decades.
http://www.numbersusa.com
/overpopulation/decadegraph.html
i have to say that YES, we are indeed in a low fertility cycle... but it is shocking that from 1990-2000 saw the Largest birthrate rise EVER in US History. makes me wonder what the next decade will show.
great comments... everyone!
love conversations about stuff like this.
I would also tell Fargo Woman that this country had a few unique cultural problems
To an overblown sense of entitlement you can add our lack of impulse control and addiction to excitement.
I see no other reason why we should have so much more crime than other First World countries when they are under similar, if not worse, economic pressures. Housing and fuel are much more costly in France, Germany, and other Western European countries that are wealthy and well-run. And even the decimated Eastern European countries that are tumbling into destitution don't have our crime problems. Russia alone has the kind of violent crime we do.
To me, we seem like the Teenage Idiot-Savant among nations, a place of brilliance and imagination that developed only one side of its personality, or like a 22-year-old rock star who never graduated high school and has a police record, but gets 800 million causeless bucks dropped in his lap and spends the rest of his life looking for his next gift, then screams and throws tantrums when he finds out that getting a big wad of money and good fortune isn't everyday life.
This country's exceptional wealth and inventiveness, and sense of no limitations, is a byproduct of our situation, which was, until recently, one of being a slightly underpopulated country with incredible natural resources and plenty of space, in combination with a philosophy of liberation given us by the Enlightenment. We've squandered the natural resources and we've let our constitutional rights be cancelled one by one. We have also squandered the vast wealth created in the days in which we were fortunate enough to have most of the resources and almost no foriegn competition.
Now, we are full up,to the point where in any further shrinkage or disruption in our stream of oil or other resources will be very disruptive to us economically.
But we still feel very entitled and express that in rampant greed and in the inability to defer gratification- traits that were ample in the 50s but not so deleterious then because of the extraordinary economic situation we enjoyed at the time.
We here in Rogers Park have a tendacy to identify crime with poverty, but the really violent crime is now once more rising across the country, and among segments of the population that were never a problem before. A gang made of privilaged white Orange County kids has affiliated itself with the Aryan Brotherhood and its members are committing vile crimes, mostly against defenseless homeless people, and similar attacks are taking place elsewhere, by people who no one would think would be a violence problem.
If this is how we behave in GOOD times, how will we respond to real economic problems?
Amen, Kheris and Laura! If our country keeps using up non-renewable resources at the current rate, the picture may be a lot more bleak here 50 or 100 years from now.
Fargo, it might get a whole lot bleaker ten years from now.
Study the supply situation first, and see who's saying what. What emerges from all the info is a world oil supply- every oil producing nation combined-that seems to have crossed the peak and is now started down the other side of the slope. Oil production has dropped 3% a year since 2005.
What's worse, though, is that the oil exporting countries are deciding that they want to keep more for themselves and export less.
Now, I will say something that reveals how really selfish and stone-hearted I am, but I will say it anyway...
... Promoting development and industrialization of undeveloped countries under the rubris of "globalization" is the dumbest, most short-sighted thing we have ever done.
I will also say that this was not done out of any good-hearted impulse but to get dirt-cheap semi-slave labor not available here, to do the work.
We are about to get it back in our faces, and how.
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