Have we already reached the point where it's every man for himself in the political sphere? Have we reached a point in which the Reagan/Thatcher Libertarian mindset has so penetrated our thinking that we have become incapable of imagining that we are a part of a "society?" Those were some of the afterthoughts I had after writing yesterday's post.
Because the only way you can possibly justify shutting out new immigrants is if there is a better plan to solve the problem of workers here and abroad, and quite frankly there isn't. At least not a plausible one that is on anyone's radar. Getting Democrats elected to congress later this year is hardly a plan because they don't stand for anything that I, at least, care about. They're just not quite so bad as Republicans.
And so if there's no plan for working together, it's every man for himself by default. And so on what principled ground can I stand to object to the effort of a Latino or Asian immigrant to come to America for a better life? There is none, and will be none until someone comes up with a plan for working together.
There's not likely to be a plan because it's as if we've all given up on the possibility of one. We're good at complaining, but we can't come up with an alternative. That's why the Democrats don't represent working people anymore; the Democrats realize that working people have given up and don't care. Working Americans are in a state of denial. They are resigned to their fates, or they think they'll be clever enough to save their own butts, and to hell with everyone else. That's the American way, right? Everyone sinks or swims depending on their wit and pluck. In the Reaganite American way of thinking, if a person is having hard times, he deserves it.
And so because we think that way, and for so many other reasons, we working Americans are about as witless and pluckless as we've ever been when it comes to developing strategies about how to work together. We are incapable of thinking about systems. We're incapable of getting organized. It's every man for himself, and so we are divided, we are conquered, and we're ok with that. We've allowed ourselves to be manipulated into a position of impotency. And I'm beginning to think we do, in fact, deserve our fate. That's why we allowed ourselves to be conned into putting this administration into office twice now. Twice. Maybe we just deserve it.
And those of us who didn't vote for Bush deserve him as well, because hardly anyone of us did anything except complain, and in our complaining just lulled ourselves into a stupor by the droning of our own voices. We haven't been able to come up with a robust, plausible alternative. And until one is proposed, we will continue to be conned by these wolves in sheep's clothing. We don't want to see them for what they are because we have no one better to turn to, and we'd rather not have to deal with that dismal fact.
And to face up to that reality is more than most of us are capable of doing. We need to think better of ourselves than that. We need to think we're the best the world has to offer. But we're not, not by a long shot. Somewhere along the line we Americans lost our soul. In my opinion, it happened when we dropped the bomb on Japan. But whether that was the cause or not, it marks the beginning of the end. It marks the beginning of the period when the exercise of power became more important than the exercise of our ideals. It's when Americans started to become ugly. Maybe it's naive to think we ever were anything more–ask the American Indians and 19th Century Mexicans about our decency and fair play–but at least the world saw us as pointing to another possibility. The world sees us that way no longer.
It took until the George Bush II administration to close the deal. Is there anybody in the world right now who can believe that we stand for the ideals we pride ourselves in? After Fallujah, Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib? We're just like everybody else now. We do what we want and we come up with high-minded excuses to justify our barbarism abroad to the people back home who will believe anything so long as it enables them to continue to think well of themselves. I'd like to think as a people we're better than that, but maybe we're not. Maybe we're just too far gone.
What has become of us that we have let things get this bad? It's as if we've all collectively lost our minds and with that our ability to imagine a collective future worth living. We're just going to let happen what happens, fend as best we can for ourselves and our families, and that kind of passivity suits the overclass elites in both parties just fine. The more docile we are, the more room we give them to manipulate the system to create a future that will be for them, if for no one else, worth living.
It's the American way: they were smart enough to get where they got–they deserve to rule as they please, and we were dumb enough to let them, and as a result to be maneuvered into our current position of powerlessness. America has become just like every other stratified, oligarchic society that ever existed, and insofar as we've let it happen, we don't deserve any better.
So maybe we should just open up the borders and let people in who at least know what they want. Maybe it will be they or their children who will finally provide the leadership, imagination, and drive so sorely lacking in the complacent Americans who are here already. If we can't do it for ourselves, maybe we should step aside and let others take their shot.
Have we had our shot, and blown it? Just asking.
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