The Decade's Missed Opportunities
By Bill Shein
January 1, 2010
How to best sum up the first decade of this century? Frank Rich, the New York Times columnist, recently used the Tiger Woods story to suggest that the 00’s were years of fantasy and denial, where we believed what we wanted to believe, despite facts and evidence. He’s right.
I’d broaden Rich’s analysis to focus on the result of our cognitive dissonance: A decade in which we missed historic opportunities to change course – opportunities that are rare and precious. Big events repeatedly offered us a chance to step onto the road less traveled – a road we can walk together to a better, more just, more sustainable, and more peaceful future. Yet we took familiar, often foolish paths.
The ‘00s began with a presidential election that highlighted the deep, structural flaws in our electoral system. That includes an Electoral College scheme that excludes two-thirds of Americans – those living in “safe states” – from meaningful participation in choosing a president, makes a mockery of the democratic principle of “one person, one vote,” and enables partisan shenanigans in one closely divided state to change the national outcome.
But we did little. Politicians elected under the current system are loathe to change “what brung ‘em,” lofty speeches about democracy notwithstanding. Despite new awareness, and the tireless of efforts of dedicated reformers, no broad-based movement for democracy reform was born. The system remains largely the same.
The murder of innocents on September 11 created an historic opportunity to rally the world to a new way forward, one in which international cooperation routinely triumphs over division, conflict and war. Much of humanity stood by our side, ready for bold American leadership. Instead, led by small-minded ideologues, we further entrenched militarism and violence as acceptable tools of foreign policy, and the opportunity soon vanished. We rewarded those ideologues with four more years in office.
We bombed and invaded two nations, killing hundreds of thousands, displacing millions, spending trillions. And for much of the decade, our use of mechanized, high-tech violence has been just another story on the news – and rarely the lead story.
Has the result of this bloodshed been greater security? At decade’s end, a hapless criminal intent on murder – and known to our intelligence services – bought a plane ticket with cash, traveled internationally with no luggage, and still boarded an aircraft with a bomb.
When more than 1,000 of America’s poor and mostly black residents of New Orleans died during Hurricane Katrina, we were outraged – at incompetent decision-makers and our own indifference to poverty and injustice. In our national anguish, we vowed to address systemic poverty across America. Have we? Today, the gap between rich and poor is wider, more families survive on food stamps, and long-term unemployment has skyrocketed.
In the latter half of the decade, a financial system that handsomely compensates those who make money on money led us to disaster, hollowed out our economy, eliminated millions of jobs, and destroyed the savings of tens of millions. Our response? We rewarded the perpetrators with bailouts and trillions in low-interest loans they quickly flipped into easy profits by doing the same things they always do. Fool me once? Twice? A thousand times?
Have we used this opportunity for substantial change? It seems not. We continue to focus too much of our wealth of human capital – creativity, ingenuity, imagination, compassion – on production and consumption and growth-at-all-costs, rather than on solving longstanding, intractable problems. (See “poverty,” above.) We do this even as we learn, day by day, how our extractive, consumption-based economy pushes our fragile ecosystems to the brink.
The decade was capped by a president accepting a peace prize with a speech defending war, an address that wholly misrepresented and ignored successful, nonviolent movements for change in eastern Europe and elsewhere. He perpetuated the myth that a just cause can be advanced justly with violence – a belief shared by murderous fanatics.
Will the next decade be different? Will we seize opportunities for change instead of being distracted by pop-culture spectacle or retreating into the short-term comfort of denial? Can we move away from greed, competition, consumerism, and violence – and toward community, sustainability, commonwealth, and love?
Of course we can. Opportunity exists in every moment, should we choose – individually and collectively – to seize it.
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In spite of all available evidence, Bill Shein remains optimistic about the new decade.
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Reader Comments (15)
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections.
The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes--that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The Constitution gives every state the power to allocate its electoral votes for president, as well as to change state law on how those votes are awarded.
The bill is currently endorsed by over 1,659 state legislators (in 48 states) who have sponsored and/or cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). The recent Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University poll shows 72% support for direct nationwide election of the President. This national result is similar to recent polls in closely divided battleground states: Colorado-- 68%, Iowa --75%, Michigan-- 73%, Missouri-- 70%, New Hampshire-- 69%, Nevada-- 72%, New Mexico-- 76%, North Carolina-- 74%, Ohio-- 70%, Pennsylvania -- 78%, Virginia -- 74%, and Wisconsin -- 71%; in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): Delaware --75%, Maine -- 77%, Nebraska -- 74%, New Hampshire --69%, Nevada -- 72%, New Mexico -- 76%, Rhode Island -- 74%, and Vermont -- 75%; in Southern and border states: Arkansas --80%, Kentucky -- 80%, Mississippi --77%, Missouri -- 70%, North Carolina -- 74%, and Virginia -- 74%; and in other states polled: California -- 70%, Connecticut -- 74% , Massachusetts -- 73%, New York -- 79%, Washington -- 77%, and West Virginia- 81%. Support is strong in every partisan and demographic group surveyed.
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 29 state legislative chambers, in 19 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Oregon, and both houses in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, and Washington. These five states possess 61 electoral votes -- 23% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
Hi,
Just wanted to let you know that I read this article on commondreams and commented on it and as a result I have been banned from the ccommondreams website (this was as of 1/4/10).
My comment was something as follows. An opportunity that was missed was not supporting the deserving third party candidates and instead most of the 'progressive' vote went to the democratic party. This was encouraged by commondreams who didn't really give a voice to non-corporate candidates (other than occasional crumbs).
I also went on to say that being offered sh*t as food by a democrat is no better then when it is being offered by a republican. There have been other commentators who used similar language.
I was trying to express my disdain for what the democrats, and commondreams are offering us, same crap in different packaging. I'm also a third party/Nader supporter.
This censorship by commondreams seems to be because of my attack on the democratic party and commondreams support of the democratic party.
I guess 'you're either with us or against us' rises again from the ashes.
I think something has to dramatically change if we are going to survive in any desirable manner. And the censorship of commondreams isn't helping. While they publish your article (which I was in agreement with), they censor any comment that takes it to the next logical step, of supporting someone other than the status quo corporate government.
www.NotOneMore.US - Take the Pledge for Peace and Justice
peace
I miss the "Lying Game"
Bill, Bill, Bill, Where's the sarcasm? Where's the irony? Where's the wit? So much to talk about - so little here. You're much more effective when you use your humor than this diatribe. All is not lost - read the next 100 years by Friedman (no not that Friedman - George Friedman). Then lighten up!
@Kbuzz -- Friedman relies on the same techno-military solutions to human problems that have led us into the present mess. Interesting food for thought, perhaps, (I've read some of the book) but if we make policy based on anything remotely similar to what he's suggesting, the outcome will be disastrous.
Of course, he (and you and me) won't be around in 100 years to see how well he did. What a great plan for a book! I gots to write me one of them prognosticationary books asap! ;)
@AG - I don't know anything about the commenting policy at commondreams.org, though sorry if they didn't let you have your say over there. Feel free to post what you like here -- all opinions welcome.
@Tina - Just turn on the news. Zing! ;)
Well, I must say Bill Shein, I thought I was coming here to read another one of your humorous essays ... and expecting a few welcome laffs. And what did I find instead? A thoughtful and provocative column.
Starting with that glaring flaw in our electoral system that GAVE the presidency to George W, Bush, even though Gore had gotten the majority vote ... that alone so riled me that it was hard to continue reading. But read on I did. And I had to agree with ALL that you were saying. Even the comments you made about our president, Barack Who's Sane Obama. I still fully support him, and still admire him, but IMO he has taken a few wrong turns on this path he was elected to trod. I don't envy him his problems, they are indeed massive and horrific, but I do want him to steer back on track. I expect a LOT from him, and I am willing to give him the time he needs to help START setting things right.
This was an excellent column, Bill Shein. If only it would help still that bombastic voice from rhe Right ...from someone no longer in power, (but who THINKS he still is, and who so envies the man who actually IS), but political miracles don't seem to exist in this current age of blame games, fear mongering and hate spreading.
Thanks, Bill Shein, for being The Voice of Reason. Period!
Mary from CT
BTW:
"prognosticationary" is NOT a word!
Using such language only makes you seem perilously on the verge of utter ridiculousatry!
Mary from CT ... again.
Powerful stuff, my man. I can buy-in part way, but there are a few things I must take issue with.
First, need I remind you that in 2008 the United States elected a black, progressive president. How many of you thought that would be possible at the beginning of the decade? I know you think Obama been a huge disappointment. People said the same thing about Clinton. But I think we need to be realistic about what government can accomplish. Presidents are constrained by a deeply divided, toxic political culture that empowers an opposition to virtually blockade progress. This of course needs to change. We should start by abolishing the filibuster, which is not constitutionally mandated and is merely a Senate rule. But like it or not, the opposition represents a significant number of your fellow citizens in the Red States who believe just as sincerely and passionately as you do that their ideology points the way to a just, peaceful and prosperous society. These people exist, though you don't know any of them. You don't talk to them, watch their TV, or read their blogs. We just talk to each other, and that exacerbates our tendency to demonize the opposition and attribute their electoral success to dark conspiracies.
The last decade was just like all the others that came before. In terms of human progress, it's two steps forward, one step back. I submit a decade is not an appropriate period within which to measure change. You're focused on the trees. We need to look at a span of at least 50 years to see the forest. Is the world a more just, peaceful, rational, and sustainable than it was in 1960? The question answers itself.
We take maddeningly tiny baby-steps forward. It's an ugly, dirty, frustrating, and sometimes appalling business. It makes us want to scream. But they are nevertheless steps FORWARD. So rejoice in the new year. Despite all the perfectly valid points you make, we are way way better off than we were in 2000.
@Frank - Interesting points all, though I strenuously disagree. Obama has made some improvements on the margins, but he has addressed few of the real structural problems that have built up over decades. The economy has been hollowed out -- one in four American children now live in families that need food stamps to survive. (You might want to read that again.) Wages have been flat, and househhold income is little changed from decades ago, even with *both* parents working. That's just insane.
Just since 2000, working families -- including those in the so-called "red" states -- have fallen further behind, with no real improvement expected anytime soon. And by "soon," I mean in this decade. We'll be told to get used to a new "natural" level of unemployment of six or seven or eight percent -- knowing, of course, that the real level of unemployment and underemployment is far greater than misleading government statistics. A new report out this morning found that fully 45 percent of American workers don't like their jobs. What kind of society are we creating?
In the coming months, we'll be told that any effort to regulate the financial services industry, or rein in the abuses or destructive practices of big business will "cost jobs." Of course, the jobs that are left are increasingly crappy as so many American companies seek profits by moving all production overseas. We're left with a few high-paying job categories and then a whole mess of very-low-paying service jobs.
On another point, the "red" and "blue" nonsense is just that: nonsense. It's a convenient way to divide people, which is precisely what's effective at maintaining the status quo in politics and perpetuating economic and other injustices. Keep people believing they see things differently, that they don't have common interests, etc., and you do indeed create an environment in which little gets done. But not for substantive reasons. And division and conflict plays well on TV, which is why so many of the so-called "news" channels spend many hours a day airing commentary and left-vs.-right nonsense that is of little value, and usually divorced from facts and reality.
In fact, take party labels off many issues and there is large majority support for things like universal health care, a shift away from the creeping national security state with military and "defense" spending nearing a trillion dollars a year, more investment in education and meaningful social democracy, etc.
The last administration made enormous, radical changes in American society by forcing through a variety of policies, many of them before 9/11, many more afterwards. Without majority support. So it's, frankly, a lie that change has to be incremental. That's a disempowering belief that's peddled by those who benefit from the status quo. The "half a step forward" analogy simply reinforces that mistaken notion. It's what we're told to believe by those who "know," who want those who believe we're accelerating in a terrible direction to shut the hell up and deal with lowered expectations, widening division of wealth, and an economy that doesn't work for regular folks. Indeed, it's the same school of thought that has created an America where we focus so much on "The Economy" and have made the production and consumption of goods and media and entertainment central to our society. We're way, way off course. And it's an unsustainable, disastrous course.
Change is indeed hard, and shifting away from our increasingly corporatized, commercialized, denial-heavy culture will not be easy. If the president wanted to fight for more than half a loaf (or even a quarter), he would. But he's very much a typical politician, and, in fact, more likely than many others to believe that he should just get what he can, compromise quickly, etc. Sadly, that's not how you address the enormous challenges we face. It's a recipe for largely more of the same, though wrapped up in more eloquent language.
Virtually everything is broken, and the old ways simply won't do. The Huxley-esque nature of our society today is quite terrifying -- though profitable for some industries, of course -- as we actually *pay money* to have entertainment and advertising and misleading faux corporate "news" pumped into our homes and heads, leading us to believe the nonsense that comes over the airwaves, that we can be happy if we can land on a "reality" show or buy the right shampoo, etc.
It's comforting to imagine that taking a long view is reason for optimism, but the facts don't permit it.
P.S. Clinton was a terrible, corporatist president, at the beginning and the end, on many issues. School uniforms! Welfare "reform"! Yeah! Oh, and massive deregulation of the financial services industry, with his administration leading the way. Go back and read about Tony Coehlo's efforts to bring big business interests into the Democratic fundraising fold. It was not surprising how policy changed as a result.
[\end of rant]
@Mary - Right, sorry. What's the word? Is it actually prognostification? Predictionarilous? Prognasticalifragilocious? I use an iPhone app to write most everything, then run it through spellcheck, then post it. Like Charles Barkley, who famously admitted he hadn't read his own ghostwritten autobiography, I rarely read what my iPhone app writes for me.
Bill, you are right, the state of the world sucks! Pop culture rules, education is wasted, heart wrenching issues without a voice! But, have you met our citizens? Do you think "Joe Everyman in his Lazyboy with cable washing over him" is going to stand up and make a difference? In our society, the dollar is your vote! It is not equitable, it's not comprehensive, it's not in our best interest but it does perpetuate the division between the haves and have nots. Consider that when you are tuning in "Real Housewives of Altanta" or buying your Vanity Fair with Tiger Woods on the cover or attending a Major League baseball game. In my corner of the troubled world, I use service to others, leading by example and making an individual difference the priority and teach my children to do the same.
Wait -- Tiger Woods is on the cover of Vanity Fair? I've got to get that, pronto! (Kidding.)
Peggy, I think/hope that eventually, yes, we'll have a real movement for substantive, meaningful change. I've long believed it will be based on restoring our democratic structures to something that actually enables public policy to reflect the best interests of all of us. As it stands, the system's broke. You're right to note that many of us, at various times, give up, or don't care, or are not interested, get distracted by the firehose of nonsense that's fired at us from every screen, or simply don't believe it matters.
I recommend Neil Postman's 1984 book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death," as a very prescient primer on where we are today and why. He uses Huxley's writings, especially "Brave New World," to show how modern entertainment and "news" media are creating enormous challenges for our political culture.
I also agree that an ethic of service to others and making a difference in the lives of others are both fundamental. Many people embrace those ideals in word and deed.
There is so much that's wonderful and incredible and breathtaking about human beings and the world we inhabit. We have all the resources and ingenuity and ideas we need to create something far better than what we have at present. (Assuming "Real Housewives of Atlanta" -- which I gather is an actual TV show -- is not the most anyone hopes for.)
Thanks for commenting.
--B
Thanks Peggy in St. Louis. Revolution is never top down (No one who is at the top genuinely wants a revolution.) nor does it come from the intelligensia being a clarion to the clueless masses. It comes from people like you (and perhaps me, when I follow your formula).
Danielle E. (Beth) Lyles MS