Two unconventional convention afterthoughts:
1) We are witness to a manipulated politics of resentment. The American small town, mythic seat of uncorrupted virtue, is now, post-Palin, juxtaposed to the sinful big city. We have that from no less an authority than Rudy Giuliani, odd though it may seem coming from a cross-dressing adulterer who is so very New York. It was he who, at the Republican National Convention, included in his remarks this put-down of Obama (compared to Palin): “I’m sorry that Barack Obama feels that her hometown isn’t cosmopolitan enough. I’m sorry, Barack, that it’s not flashy enough. Maybe they cling to religion there.”
Since “clinging” to religion is not even approximately Giuliani’s thing, one wonders what prompted Mayor Nine One One to speak as he did. And the answer is not trivial. He knew before whom he stood. He stood before a horde of party activists who have been suckled on the dark dangers of The City, on its permissiveness; as Mitt Romney put it in his convention address, children must be “raised in homes and schools that are free from pornography, promiscuity and drugs; in homes that are blessed with family values and the presence of a father and a mother” — far from, no doubt, the other targets of his oratory: “the Eastern elites,” “the Times and the Post,” “the coast.” And we know, do we not, where that points.
The theme is ancient; it comes to us at least from Cicero’s time, and we see it worldwide these days. Rural versus urban, tradition versus modernity, values versus fashions, the local versus the cosmopolitan, the ever-helpful neighbor versus the sullen stranger. Or, as Mike Huckabee put it during his convention speech, American ways versus European ideas.
The folks of the actual small towns know and resonate to all these codes, in part because that’s what they’ve been raised to believe, in part because that’s what the Giulianis and the Romneys encourage them to believe, and in part — in very large part — because those Eastern elites do, in fact, treat them with dismissive condescension.
I have in mind here an especially trenchant example, drawn from the September 5 episode of Bill Maher’s television show. That particular program, characteristically uneven in its obsessive pursuit of irreverence, began with a faux commercial: “Here in Alaska, people know how to stretch a dollar, even if they don’t know how many people in their family are pregnant. That’s why families like the Palins choose Mommy & Me Home Pregnancy tests in the new family size 24-pack. And they’re so simple to use, even a fundamentalist Christian can do it. Available at Walgreens, CVS and Wasilla bait and tackle.”
This instance of smart-alec derision is not far from the idle chatter I heard from friends during the Republican convention. Alas, Barack Obama’s wrong: There is a blue state America and a red state America, an America deeply divided in its core values. (About half of all Americans reject evolution, believing instead that God created man all at once about 10,000 years ago.) I do not for a moment concede that “they” have a monopoly on virtue nor do I claim that “we” have a monopoly on intelligence — but too often, both Americas behave as if that were the case. And all that accomplishes is to empower the specialists in divisive politics. It’s time to grow up. Or shall we continue to be surprised when a citizen of, say, Wasilla, Alaska, assaults the “elites” after experiencing Bill Maher’s contempt?
2) I’m disturbed as well by the repeated depiction of America as the strongest, the most prosperous, the most hard-working, the most generous — name your superlative — nation there’s ever been. That’s just not how it is, as the following data indicate: On per capita gross national product (admittedly, a crude measure, especially in these volatile times), America scores just above Austria and substantially behind Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Ireland. We’re not in the top 10 on life expectancy, nor on low infant mortality, where we’re beaten by 41 nations. Our teenage birthrate (52.1 per 1,000 women under 20) is three times Australia’s, eight times Sweden’s, 14 times South Korea’s. Our income inequality is considerably higher than in almost all the European nations. We are the only advanced industrialized nation without a national health care system; along with Japan and Singapore, ours is the only nation where capital punishment is legally permitted. The United Nations Human Development Index, which is based on a wide variety of data — everything from human rights to drinking water — ranks America 12th in the world.
Ours is a great nation, to be sure. It is, arguably, the freest nation in world history, surely the freest society of its size. At its best, it is awesomely generous. It has come to terms with its heterogeneity in truly admirable ways, and its commitment to free speech is a world-historic achievement. Its ongoing effort to balance the rights of the individual and the claims of the community, though ever imperfect, is praiseworthy.
At its less than best — say, for example, in its sordid record in Central America or in the salaries it pays its public school teachers or in its material self-indulgence or, lately, in its meddlesome sense of entitlement — its boasts ring hollow.
There’s no shame in that; there’s challenge. True patriotism does not require a suspension of disbelief; patriotism begins with candor, with the capacity to love a place that is flawed, even deeply flawed. And then the patriot moves on to help repair the flaws, not by chest-thumping rhetoric but by — dare I say it? — community organizing or any of the other strategies for real change that are available.
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These polls always compare the US to small homogenious nations. As a large ethnically diverse population, the US has done a great job in elevating and integrating multiple ethnic and racial groups. Compare us to our peers, large countries with multiple ethnic groups, like Russia, China, India. I would rather live here. I hope Leonard Fein avails himself of our democratic right and immigrates to Russia. His liberal version of all or nothing would fly better over there.
It's so hard to find my place in Mr Fein world view. If there is a reference to some ancient thinker, it's Cicero - and not a quote from the ancient Hebrew sources. Even more frustrating is the word "our" or "we". The collective identity is always non-Jewish: "we, the Americans" - never "we, the Jews". I don't believe that Jewish identity in America has totally collapsed. Surely, the descendants of an ancient civilization and peoplehood have their own distinct point of reference. In any case, Mr Fein, surely some (if not most) of the readers of the Forward are eager to get a picture of Jewish life and interests. What is the point of having a Jewish press if an article such as yours doesn't have any focus whatsoever on any particularly Jewish perspective? Despite assimilation, despite a failed Jewish educational system, despite a century of intense Americanization - still, being Jewish is not quite the same as being just another American. I'd like to read about that in your articles.
Political disasters don't come suddenly, they are gradually prepared by almost imperceptible, but nonetheless steadily increasing movements of ignorance and hatred. Today, after eight years of Bush, and years of habituation to social, economic and political corruption, we are witnessing what is in fact the downfall of the American republic. Some of us are not surprised. We watched in horror as the curator of a six-million-dollar "natural history" museum exhibit oriented towards evangelical Christians declared that the Dead Sea Scrolls are not really "Jewish" texts, without a single word of protest from any media source. We watched in horror as a broadening wave of religious sensationalism continued to sweep through our society, manipulated by media hoaxters to make a buck off of hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who suffer from a natural, if somewhat morbid, curiosity about the "lost tomb of Jesus." Now we watch in horror as the nation elects a reactionary, computer-illerate Vietnam war "hero" who gambled our future on a flashy, ignorant, manifestly corrupt and evangelical politician who quotes antisemites in her speeches and believes abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape and incest. In her nauseating convention speech, she said she wants to "serve the people of this country." Well, who among the people was she referring to? For an idea of the seedy, dishonest and hypocritical reality this this taking us to, see this article, and click on the links: http://www.nowpublic.com/world/plagiarism-and-dead-sea-scrolls-did-nyu-department-chairman-pilfer-chicago-historian-s-work
Political disasters don't come suddenly, they are gradually prepared by almost imperceptible, but nonetheless steadily increasing movements of ignorance and hatred. Today, after eight years of Bush, and years of habituation to social, economic and political corruption, we are witnessing what is in fact the downfall of the American republic. Some of us are not surprised. We watched in horror as the curator of a six-million-dollar "natural history" museum exhibit oriented towards evangelical Christians declared that the Dead Sea Scrolls are not really "Jewish" texts, without a single word of protest from any media source. We watched in horror as a broadening wave of religious sensationalism continued to sweep through our society, manipulated by media hoaxters to make a buck off of hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who suffer from a natural, if somewhat morbid, curiosity about the "lost tomb of Jesus." Now we watch in horror as the nation elects a reactionary, computer-illerate Vietnam war "hero" who gambled our future on a flashy, ignorant, manifestly corrupt and evangelical politician who quotes antisemites in her speeches and believes abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape and incest. In her nauseating convention speech, she said she wants to "serve the people of this country." Well, who among the people was she referring to? For an idea of the seedy, dishonest and hypocritical reality this this taking us to, see this article, and click on the links: http://www.nowpublic.com/world/plagiarism-and-dead-sea-scrolls-did-nyu-department-chairman-pilfer-chicago-historian-s-work
Alas, Fein finally said something I agree with. "There is a blue state America and a red state America, an America deeply divided in its core values." It can not be united. Certainly not by the most left wing Senator in the Senate. One thing I am certain of is that if we continue down Fein's liberal path it will lead to the downfall of our wonderful country which has been the greatest force for good in the world. And speaking of Cisero brings to mind this quote: “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But a traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of the nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.” Marcus Tullius Cicero Roman orator, statesman 42 B.C.
Well Chanukah is around the corner. That's when a group of rural extremists defeated the the Syrians and their urban Jewish allies. Wonder how Fein will celebrate that?