Economic Apocalypse or the ‘Parturition of Self-Knowledge’

by Joshua H. Liberatore

For a while now I’ve thought that a handful of essays in our language should be reread every three or four years, throughout one’s lifetime, just to keep the ideas fresh and secure in our collective consciousness. Among these would have to be Thoreau’s “On Civil Disobedience” (1949), Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” (1963), and certainly George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” (1946). All of these works offer critical reminders of the vigilance and discipline thoughtful people must maintain against threats mounted by dangerous political monopolies, ideologies of coercion, and the concomitant erosion of individual liberties. Given the financial volatility of recent weeks, it occurs to me that Anthony Burgess’s insightful “Is America Falling Apart?” – first published as an editorial in the New York Times November 7, 1971 – is a necessary addition to this short list of prescient commentaries. Burgess, the British novelist and critic best known for A Clockwork Orange, had just spent a year as a visiting professor at Princeton University, and he proved himself a keen observer of some disturbing trends in American society, patterns whose legacy we face with greater acuity every day in 2008.

    The overarching theme of Burgess’s essay is that America’s historical resistance to government intervention and centralized authority (for certain measures anyway) is the root cause of various degradations in services and infrastructure that Burgess observed firsthand. Such an attitude was leading the United States down a path of psychic and physical self-destruction. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, what most struck a European visitor like Burgess was the dreadful state of public transportation and roadways in and between American cities. He also noted a beleaguered education system. Concerning the rather prosperous New Jersey school district in which he placed his six-year-old son at the time, he remarked: “America has always despised its teachers and, as a consequence, it had been granted the teachers it deserves.” He was amazed, in turn, at how disposable and poor our consumer products seemed in comparison with the tremendous might and ingenuity of our industrial capacity.

    Burgess attributed these domestic shortcomings to America’s being what he called a “prewar country, psychologically unprepared for one thing to go wrong.” Because America had never been thoroughly devastated by the wars that had brought Europe to its knees twice in thirty years, it had simply never expected its government to offer more in the way of comprehensive public services. He could also see that though many Americans took visible pride in cultivating a sense of self-reliance and autonomy – where transportation, education, and consumer satisfaction were concerned – America was also showing some serious fissures in its foundations. Burgess was astute to see that “where private ownership prevails, public amenities decay or are prevented from coming into being.” In the wake of the current mortgage meltdown, we’d do well to reflect on this imported wisdom.

    What President Bush is now fond of calling “the ownership society” has basically relieved governments – state and local, but most egregiously Federal – of the responsibility to look after the people’s basic safety, health, and tuition. Burgess was well aware of the American fear of state planning, long associated with the failed communism of the Eastern Bloc. What Americans neglected to see (and often still do) is that some degree of socialism has worked quite well in the rest of Europe. In one of the most trenchant passages of the essay, Burgess remarked:

America is anachronistic in so many ways, and not least in its clinging to a belief – now known to be unviable – in the capacity of the individual citizen to do everything for himself. Americans are admirable in their distrust of the corporate state – they have fought both Fascism and Communism – but they forget that there is a use for everything, even the loathsome bureaucratic machine. America needs a measure of socialization, as Britain needed it. Things – especially those we need most – don’t always pay their way, and it is here that the state must enter, dismissing the profit element. Part of the present American neurosis, again, springs from awareness of this but inability to do anything about practical implementation. Perhaps only a country full of bombed cities feels capable of this kind of social revolution.

Burgess understood that sacrifices were inevitable, in so far as budgets are limited. He knew that throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, many European countries – England, France, and Italy – had been forced to cut back significantly on military spending in order to keep their vast social programs solvent and operational. Imperial egos were bruised, of course, but even Great Britain was wise enough to see that its world ambitions had become too expensive, too unwieldy, and spending at home was not only necessary but indeed the only humane option.

    Nearly forty years later, America is still not, strictly speaking, a “country full of bombed cities” and has still never seen the kind of mass slaughter and brazen destruction of property that led most European governments to invest more heavily in what we naively call “social services,” as if basic health care and general literacy were mere bonuses and not the core elements of a stable, self-respecting community. The European birthright of guaranteed health care, generous unemployment and pension benefits, fair and equal, top-down education programs, and of course, high-quality mass transportation grew out of the traumatic experience of near self-effacement. But even after the terrorist attacks of September 11th in 2001, the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and the Minnesota bridge collapse in August of 2007 – just to list three of the more memorable policy failures – many Americans still do not seem persuaded that our government should and could do more to maintain and improve quality of life at home. (Even if we must accept the inevitability of fruitless wars abroad and a “defense” budget that readily consumes more than fifty percent of tax revenues, to say nothing of deficits beyond comprehension.) Thus, we are moved to repeat Burgess’s provocative query: Is America falling apart? As the financial markets nearly collapsed and one institution after another went bankrupt in the past few weeks, many at home and around the world undoubtedly asked that very question. In the absence of a promising answer, what we did hear was a frenzied response from the Federal government, as this most Republican of Republican administrations was forced to silence its rhetoric against regulation and government intervention and take activist measures, through the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve, to staunch the fiscal hemorrhage. A profoundly deregulated mortgage market and the bad borrowing habits of ownership-minded Americans had apparently caused the crisis, and only the deep pockets of the U.S Treasury, with its trusty flow of loans from Asian and European banks, could feasibly effect a turnaround.

    As investors and homeowners watched, drop-jawed, from the sidelines, our government stepped up to a Herculean labor in damage control, the very kind that Burgess had seen England embrace after World War II, the very kind he figured Americans eschewed from the depths of their souls even when the need was often clear and pressing. First Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, then Bear Stearns, then AIG – sorry Lehman Brothers! – then Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs felt the clammy but firm clutch of the Federal colossus under their trembling thighs. And Americans of both stripes knew something remarkable was happening, something only vaguely captured by the grandfatherly reassurance of the gentle Henry Paulson and his confused looking boss, who looked the nation in the face and postured confidence in “the system.” Ominous phrases such as “market correction” and “injected liquidity” were uttered, measures undertaken to forestall the “disorderly failure” of certain institutions. No one yet knows what the result will be of these massive mobilizations of taxpayer-funded resources (estimated cost: $700 billion), but what’s already noteworthy is the mere willingness to engage such options, not to mention the public’s trust that they will be effective in the long run. Questions remain about who the primary beneficiaries of the bailouts will be – CEOs and corporate board members or lowly bank account- and mortgage-holders. Our leaders assure us that they are acting with the interests of both Wall Street and Main Street at heart. Is such a balance possible?

    During a political epoch in which we have spent an unfathomable amount of money, dedicated immeasurable resources, sacrificed much human life, and indeed relinquished sacred civil liberties in the name of such nebulous causes as “the global war on terror” and “ensuring the blessings of liberty” overseas, we must recognize that the comforting myths of self-reliance and rugged individualism and our presumed distaste for government interference are as vacuous and illusory as our naïve faith in the fabled free market. Our government interferes all the time, just not in those areas of public life where we shudder to countenance the intrusion of – dare we say it? – socialism. In 1971 Anthony Burgess discerned a sort of mild neurosis among Americans who knew that the system was broken but could not foresee a solution. But he also interpreted this neurosis as a positive signal that Americans too felt something akin to the collective pain that had ultimately delivered necessary social improvements to Europe in the post-war period. This general uneasiness constituted, he decided, the early pangs of a wounded innocence giving way to realism. “The agony that America is undergoing,” he said, “is not to be associated with breakdown so much as with the parturition of self-knowledge.” If the recent actions of the government to insert itself in realms it typically chooses to ignore serve as any indication of a shifting paradigm, we wait patiently for its further translation into much needed domestic improvement projects of equal proportions.

Formica Dreams

by Joshua H. Liberatore

Who can enumerate the meals served, prepared, conceived
on this gleaming, marbled surface? Onion-rich and yellowed
by years of immigrant congress, its edges bear evidence
to family joy and neighborhood sadness alike, a layered
(yet impregnable) stratum of prosperity’s cruel ironies.

Rituals contained, coffee after pranzo, salad after supper,
wine before soup, oil instead of butter – all is revealed
in its shiny veneer. No egg white permanently effaced from
this hermetic archive of second-day produce, pungent aromas
of freshly picked dandelion, no errant meatball forgotten,
no pastry quite removed. (Watermarks of grief unredressed.)
If tomatoes did not stain, what good did they do?

No one remembers its origins – an uncle’s benevolent boss,
a cousin’s wedding bounty shared, a church-basement sale?
So many elbows, too few to cause buckle, too ready to last,
a nimble and rapturous artifact in god’s kitchen, a blessing
never questioned, provenance guaranteed by middle-class grace.
Eight at a time, ten would mean elsewhere – a surprise visit
never daunted, its capacity secure: folding chairs reassured.

Excellent birds look on with envy, a human harvest fit for
kings but made by peasants, nobody in doubt of what
nobody knew was a miracle unsurpassed in all the annals
of Ellis Island’s meek promise in the land of the large.
A place one could live and forgive and be forgiven -
tables laid to perfection were proof the decision was right.
One patria lost (in some ways forever), but paradise regained
in the dreams of Formica’s resplendent durability and weight.

Why Do We Read?

by Joshua H. Liberatore

The question of what motivates us to stare at pages of composed text for hours at a time is a worthy investigation, one that can be approached from a number of different perspectives ranging from the philosophical to the ordinary. One nuance to consider is that the question doesn’t ask for an individual rationale for reading’s purpose but rather a more general justification, something that might help to explain the urge, necessity, or compulsion to read more globally.

    It would be too easy for me to answer the question about my own reading habits and motivations because I read for very clear purposes: enjoyment, escape, enrichment, and, of course, political and cultural awareness. But I think reading in general might be explained better as a vehicle for understanding the human condition in all its particular colors and shades of experience. We read because books have something to communicate to us and we are eager to absorb it, anxious to consume it, ready (though often ill-equipped) to understand it. We read because we are tagged homo sapiens sapiens ( “man who knows who knows” ): our thirst for knowledge is both self-conscious and physiologically determined. We are beset by a world waiting to be discovered, and books provide us one possible means of entry into an intimate knowledge of the complex situations in which we find ourselves.

    Supposing that reading – like the making of art or music, neither of which clothes, feeds, or protects us from violent death – also fulfills a basic evolutionary function, we might do well to consider why human language is so particularly suited to graphic representation and, well, why we take the trouble to arrange our words in writing. Even as we may feel dismay at the alarm bells suggesting a general decline in reading in an age dominated by the power of image and computer animation, we also can’t help but recall that reading has survived dark eras in the past. The odds indicate that reading will likewise survive reality TV and Grand Theft Auto. Our genetic birthright in the class of high primates with a penchant for communication dictates as much. Its continued practice, despite mounting distractions, shows that reading somehow helps our species to survive and flourish.

    Putting aside reading’s niche in the grand scope of biology for a moment, let’s consider some short- or near-term factors. If we are moved to read on the species-scale for some mysterious reason, in quotidian terms, we are often asked or compelled to read for more utilitarian or mundane purposes. In fact, sometimes (and too often this is the case) reading becomes a means to an end. We read to accomplish some purpose; we read because we must in order to achieve some bureaucratic function; we read because we must get from one place to another; or we read because we are lost, confused, misunderstood, and lonely; we may even read to escape some more pressing reality, to find some refuge in a fictional or imaginary universe. We may read to avoid responsibility, to evade conversation, to explore a different, more appealing world than the one in which we live. All of these reasons have some value, but they don’t fully explain the experience of reading and all of the hidden potentialities it may unlock for our hearts and minds – that something magical, even ineffable obtains in the questions invoked by a good, solid dose of worthwhile reading.

    Reading is an activity that asks us to step outside our normal plane of experience and develop a new perspective on what’s at stake. In a story, or a poem, or a long, complicated novel, we are engaging a fictional universe that in many ways confronts us with some strange, unfamiliar shapes and images. We step into the minds of peculiar personages and, for a moment anyway, we are asked to involve ourselves in their experiences, so often alien, or even diametrically opposed, to our own. In some ways, this is a positive intellectual exercise because it requires us to transcend the ordinary and become intimate with the extraordinary (even when certain realistic details “hit home”). In other ways, reading can become a profoundly – still positively, productively – alienating experience that shatters our preconceptions and destabilizes our sense of normalcy. We seek that transcendent, destabilizing enterprise because something tells us it’s healthy and proper, even necessary.

    We read sometimes against our will, against our greater desire to lie in our beds and stare at the ceiling. Why do we do that? In any honest assessment, even an addict like me must confess that reading is often a chore, a struggle, and especially when reading something difficult, uncomfortable or unsavory; we must grapple with the text, wrestle with the words, and we beat ourselves up to get inside what the author is trying to communicate. When we experience these initial pangs of displeasure, we may groan and sigh, we may cringe at the prospect of finishing the article, the story, or the novel and wonder privately (and sometimes aloud) what profit there is in the enterprise. And yet, just as often as we give up and toss the newspaper, magazine, or novel aside, some small but forceful voice inside us cries out a plea to continue, to persist, to make it to the end. And many times we listen to that voice, heed what it demands of us. These are the more peculiar moments of reading (when the whole business may remind us of strenuous calisthenics or household chores), but somehow we perceive the benefit in the act and it is enough to drive us forward and reach the end, even when that end seems so much less satisfying than the many alternative activities we may believe preferable to the effort of reading.

    When I was younger reading wasn’t something I felt motivated to do on my own time. I was dutiful about reading most of the things my teachers (and sometimes my sister) gave me, but I think I definitely always preferred to be outside, playing baseball and soccer, climbing trees, and in high school, hanging out with friends and playing music or video games. I never doubted that reading was good for me, but I just never seemed to make it a priority unless school demands compelled me otherwise. It was not until I was almost an adult (maybe age seventeen or eighteen) that I really began to appreciate the activity of reading for what it offered on its own terms – not for the grade, not to win free stuff from the public library, not please my parents, but to amuse myself and to learn from all of the exciting treasures that books seemed to contain, one by one, as I discovered those rewards.

    Now, reading has replaced all of those other things that used to be my first-choice activities, and I find myself talking myself into playing sports, taking long walks, or spending time with friends (no longer under the spell of video games of course) in much the same way I used to convince myself that reading was a fun thing to do. Perhaps I’m exaggerating here, for I certainly retain my appreciation for all of those non-literary activities, which have only in turn gained greater meaning through the world I am able to explore through reading. It’s possible that those more basic pleasures – our physical or social engagements with the non-textual world – once refracted through a sensitivity honed by quiet, contemplative, sedentary reading, emerge refined and improved, more comprehensively human. Maybe it’s with that rich reward in mind that, ultimately, we keep reading.

A Letter from the Provinces: On the Rightful Irrelevance of the Vice Presidency

by Patrick Baker                                                                 September 7, 2008

In the provinces we are following the presidential campaign as intently as you in the mother country, and it was quite easy to get us to take the vice presidential bait. But now that the shock of the selections has worn off, the conventions have mercifully passed, and we have started thinking again, we wonder just how important either Joe Biden or Sarah Palin can be.

    Certainly not as important as Dick Cheney, the only vice president ever to take a more active hand in formulating policy than his boss. And thank God! Let us pass over the short-sightedness, the bellicosity, and the belligerence of his posture, and focus on one thing: its inappropriateness. Whoever the American people elected to lead it in 2000 and 2004, it was a disservice to us all for the President legitimately chosen by the Supreme Court to hand the football off to Refrigerator Cheney on the goal line.

    In the pre-Cheney universe the vice presidency seemed more akin to a major ambassadorial post. Sure, its holder stood first in the line of succession, but he was of decidedly less importance for day-to-day affairs than the big three Cabinet secretaries – State, Treasury, and Defense – and sometimes even than the President’s wife (one thinks of the Wilson, Reagan, and Clinton administrations). The vice president’s central task was to help the president get elected and then get out of the picture. So let us please stop treating our new candidates as if they were going to have a hand in ruling the empire. They won’t.

    With both Biden and Palin seemingly more than content to take a secondary or even tertiary role, we happily anticipate this return to normalcy. What continues to disturb, however, is the amount of attention both the media and the rival camps continue to put on people of so little moment. The last time any VP candidate made such waves was the 1992 campaign, when Dan Quayle couldn’t spell potato and lost his mind to the United Negro College Fund, and when Admiral Stockdale appeared to have a ‘Nam flashback during a televised debate.

    The disturbing parallel: the sick fascination with a mere sidekick’s fitness has been inversely proportional to the content of the campaign. With Bush the First babbling on about points of light and Perot making vague reference to misleading charts, what else was there to talk about? Now, with Obama and McCain substantially agreeing to be vague on everything except whether Iraq is our war, we have to focus on their familiars to tell them apart.

    Of course it matters who is one heartbeat away from the Oval Office, but it matters much less than who is elected there directly. So let Biden and Palin act the part of attack dogs and fearsome fish; let them speak from the heart or from someone else’s talking points; let them pretend that it is possible to put change or country first, as if we could do one without the other after a presidency so corrupt, so irresponsible, and so cynical that even the Grant administration bows its head in awe, yielding its well-won title.

    It is time that Obama and McCain stop beating around Bush and say what they really have in store for the country. With the general election only two months away, they must finally show how they will overcome the legacy of the past seven and a half years, a legacy whose memory is so painful that history itself would rather forget it. This is no time for PR or platitudes, but for clearly formulated plans. That is just the beginning of what they owe to you at home, and to us in the provinces.

Species of Justice in “I’m Not Scared”

by Joshua H. Liberatore

The opening scene of I’m Not Scared (Io Non Ho Paura, 2003) shows a lean, tan-skinned Michele Amitrano (Giuseppe Cristiano) sprinting through a field of golden wheat in Southern Italy. Stunning photography and color composition do not distract, however, from the film’s profound moral argument, whose basic positions are laid out from the outset. As Michele and his gang of village friends race one another to an old abandoned farmhouse, Michele stops suddenly to heed the call of distress from his younger sister, Maria (Giulia Matturo), who has fallen and broken her glasses. Relinquishing the race, Michele locates her and leads her on to the destination, where upon arrival, he must explain his tardiness to the group’s sinister – if such a word may aptly describe a ten-year-old – leader, Skull. Michele proceeds with a rational defense: he had stopped to help his sister and thus, must protest his status as “rotten egg.”

    The argument takes a turn when a chubby, aggressive girl pushes Michele down as if to emphasize his newly earned pariahood, in which she delights for an unstated reason. When she asks “Who has to pay up?”, however, we learn that Skull harbors a peculiar sense of justice: the fat girl must pay up by showing the gang her private parts. When she accuses Skull of base unilateralism and threatens to leave the gang for good, he fabricates a democratic vote, in which all join his suggestion – though with visible reluctance – to punish her. Even little Maria, who scarcely understands the system much less the punishment, indicates her assent (as she solicits in whispers an explanation from kindly Michele). Tension builds as the fat girl slowly unbuttons her shorts, her eyes averted in shame that disarms both the audience and most of the children (only Skull smirks . . . sinisterly). At the last moment before her humiliation is consummated, Michele’s voice and long arm raise to the cry of “Ferma!” (Stop!) He repudiates her punishment, offers himself as the true “rotten egg,” and, much to Skull’s satisfaction, agrees to walk across a rickety plank in the farmhouse’s upper level. By substituting the fat girl’s shame with his own intrepid achievement, Michele thus completes the exercise in redemption while establishing his character as a candidate for heroic and compassionate self-sacrifice, a moral premise which anchors the narrative as a whole.

    The real plot of the film unfolds when Michele returns to the farmhouse alone, to retrieve Maria’s broken spectacles and also to make a more fateful and significant discovery: a ghost-faced boy his own age chained to the bottom of a deep hole. Terrified and already late for supper, Michele slams down the corrugated tin cover and flees the scene, returning home to familiar scenes of domestic bickering and his father’s return from the north. Two thematic threads emerge from this carefully constructed scene, which serves as a parallel reinforcement of the opening sequence. First are the dictates of Mediterranean machismo, by which Michele must arm-wrestle his father in order to earn the gift he has brought for the children. Except that traditional machismo (its ten-year-old variant anyway) is not sufficient, and only with Maria’s spirited assistance can Michele vanquish the older man’s superior strength. Second, in complement to Michele’s physical (if staged) victory, his father also loses in the drawing of matchsticks to determine who will retrieve the wine from the cellar. Father introduces this system as a carryover from his military days, as the best way to determine who would “volunteer” for the deadliest missions. Fascinated by the random but democratic luck of such a high-stakes selection, the children glory in their second triumph of the evening. Meanwhile the attentive viewer contemplates hints that the father engineered the result in both cases in his children’s favor, an observation that will be well rewarded in the film’s final scenes.

    As Michele continues to involve himself in the captured boy’s survival by bringing him water and food, and also spending time with him in attempts to discover who he is and why he is so oddly imprisoned, a startling discovery is made. Michele’s father, the gruff but apparently loving Pino Amitrano (Dino Abbrescia), is part of a bungled conspiracy to kidnap the boy, Filippo (Mattia Di Pierro), from his wealthy Milanese parents and threaten his life in order to raise a hefty ransom. The details of the plan, which Michele gradually learns through close observation (he recognizes a crockery pattern the farmhouse clutter) and daring acts of surveillance, are never made perfectly clear. Nevertheless, the audience understands a few key features: the plot involves most if not all of the adults in Michele’s village; the plan is not succeeding (the police are hot on their trail and the ransom has not materialized); and the conspirators constantly argue about the scheme’s endgame as well as organizational matters such as who is in charge, who delegates. Painfully, and with much scruple, we realize, through Michele’s just actions – which simultaneously thwart the plot’s advancement and yet do not bespeak harsh judgments against his own parents’ role – that the village’s poverty and lack of prospects are the real culprit here. Circumstances have reduced otherwise good and decent people to committing an act of unpardonable cruelty and injustice.

    I’m Not Scared, under the skilled supervision of director Gabriele Salvatores (Mediterraneo, 1991), thus effectively illustrates a complex moral and a very real one. Michele’s clandestine heroism and consequential bravery yield positive results, but not without costs. As the film reaches its narrative climax, we see the themes of justice and self-sacrifice, established so solidly in the opening sequences, elegantly integrated into symmetry with the thrilling denouement in which Michele must choose between his affectionate loyalty to family and his principled knowledge of right and wrong. By this point in the drama, the trust we have built in Michele as the moral arbiter of both the film and the desperate society it portrays delivers us to a satisfying, if not crystal clear, conclusion. Throughout the film, we see Michele’s daytime heroism is supported by nighttime fantasy, in which Michele fulfills in real life the brave deeds of his invented model in the story he is composing by flashlight. Thus, it is Michele’s imagination, his creative intuition, that allows him to rise above the practical worries that have driven his parents toward crime and correct a grievous wrong with decisive action.

    American politicians of both parties are fond of using notions such as justice, freedom, character, and most recently, change, as if they designated firm moral absolutes without nuances. Motivations differ. Conservatives deploy these terms to combat what they see as the scourge of moral relativism, but in doing so also mask a deep-seated fear of complexity and contextualized understanding in confronting problems. Liberals, in turn, tend to embrace such terms to dispel the appearance of wobbliness or weakness in the face of the hard realities of governing in “these dangerous times.” In a time when many Americans feel nagging doubt about both the substance and feasibility of such lofty political aspirations as “spreading freedom” and “ensuring the blessings of liberty” around the globe, I’m Not Scared provides some refreshing reminders about the troubling complexity of our moralistic adventures. Concepts like justice and freedom, sadly, are not Platonic Forms by the time we discover them in practice, but are more akin to the scope of a classificatory genus, for which there are many species.

    Just because a vote is taken does not in itself guarantee that justice has been served. A “random selection” may not constitute genuine democracy, and desperate circumstances, however much they evoke our sympathy, never justify extortion and cruelty. Finally, Michele’s example shows us that the unilateral action of a strong-hearted individual, even against the will of an entire community, does not necessarily preclude the service of justice and the distinction of moral authority.

A Letter from the Provinces: On the Price of Oil

by Patrick Baker                                                                 August 20, 2008

In the provinces the price of oil is killing us. It costs me eighty euros – that’s one hundred twenty-five dollars of our present monopoly money – to fill my Fiat’s tank. I have even started shifting early and driving well under the speed limit to save gas, thus losing out on one of Germany’s only indulgent pleasures: reckless velocity on the Autobahn.

    I know, the price of oil is killing you, too, at home. It is bringing the American automotive industry to its knees. It is bringing the American driver to lay down precious offerings on the mini-me altar of hybrid technology. And it is has pushed American congressmen to suggest sacrificing their own budget for the sake of looking like they actually care about the citizens. Do they?

    Take the gas tax holiday idea. One wonders just how satisfying sixteen cents less per gallon could be. Gee whiz, we could get a lot of swell stuff with that extra two to five dollars per week! If I were in the mother country to take advantage of this great deal, I think I would splurge on an additional plain, small coffee at one of the few remaining Starbucks on my block. But then a scary thought occurred to me. Since the gas companies already know that Americans are willing to pay that 16 cents per gallon, won’t they just raise the price accordingly during the so-called holiday? Won’t a gas tax holiday just make it easier for oil companies to soak the American consumer? I see fewer lattés in the future.

    The German government has responded to rising heating costs with the advice to put on an extra sweater this winter. Forget re-election. Can you imagine an American politician getting home safely after saying something like that?

    I’ve got a better idea than sweaters, though. How about peace? I know that sounds naive, but I can make it as Machiavellian as apple pie if you’d like. The way I reckon it, the price of oil is not so much what we’re paying at the pump, but what we’re paying in useless wars, loans from China, international standing, and polar ice. The real price of oil is over four thousand Americans and several hundred billion dollars frittered away in Iraq. It is unpayable debt to a country more than happy to own us. It is the inability, despite embarrassing attempts, to take the high ground over Russia on the Georgia conflict. And it is the increasing likelihood of Kevin Costner’s worst movie finding vindication.

    Imagine what would have happened if America had invested just one of the many hundred billion dollars it flushed down Iraq – just say it to yourself real slow: one hundred b-i-l-l-i-o-n – in alternative energy research and development, just like it once put so many resources into the space program, or into designing the atomic bomb. If you think replacing oil with the sun is a pipe dream, how do you think going to the moon sounded in the 1950s? And yet Americans worked and sacrificed, and Neil Armstrong showed us what a divinely felt purpose and gobs of money can do. That is how technological advancements – unlike wars – are won. And once this advancement has been made, no wars will ever need to be fought again in the Middle East-because the region will no longer have any value for us.

    Why is it that Americans and their politicians could be so optimistic when it came to showing up the Ruskies, but now they just roll over and play brain-dead when we need to get out from under the thumb of the oil barons? Whatever the case, one thing is clear: the price of oil should not be calculated in money, but in lives, in peace, and in our future well-being. I wish someone at home were saying these things, but perhaps they can be seen more easily from the provinces.

A Letter from the Provinces: On Barack Obama’s Speech at the Victory Column

by Patrick Baker                                                                 July 27, 2008

The plain fact of the matter is that Europe has floated in the American sphere of influence since the end of World War II, and Germany especially so. There was long a feeling of partnership – well, junior partnership – in promoting the democratic way of life and assuring American interests around the world. Except for the Vietnam War, American interests seemed to be German interests.

    All this changed in the wake of 9/11. On 9/12, American interests were German interests. Germans stood ready to do anything their senior partner asked of them. And they did it. But the commands and the way they were given were both so odious that the trust and the will to obey were broken. Germans no longer look to America as their big brother, their uncle, or their great white father, but they must heed the father all the same.

    For this reason, an event as frivolous as the primary elections received more coverage here than they did in the America of my youth. Germans want to know who the next emperor will be, a desire made all the keener by the simple horror they feel for the current one. And for this reason, over 200,000 Germans went to hear a campaign speech by Barack Obama. Ask yourself when the last time was that any American politician holding any office enjoyed a crowd that big. Has it ever happened? This is important.

    Please do not be fooled into thinking that the crowd was made up of disgruntled American expats, or that most people showed up expecting a concert or some imaginary free lunch (it was after dinner in Germany anyway). And do not think that the speech bombed because most people did not seem to clap at the right time. No, the audience was overwhelmingly German, and it did not clap on time because it is unfamiliar with the obsequious rhythms of mandatory jubilation that attend American political rhetoric. English is also its second language.

    Germans flocked to hear Obama because they are dying for change in imperial policy, and he promises that change. This is the import of his speech.

    And more for us than for them. For even if not elected, he has done America the favor of showing the world that there is hope of escape. Escape from a boot-in-the-face foreign policy that politely goes under the name of “unilateralism.” Escape from a phony war. Escape from helplessness and oblivion, which are the two feelings that dominate the psychology of America’s “allies.” They now have reason to hope that in the future they will not stand helpless as an American president walks all over them. They have reason to hope their own interests will not shrivel up in oblivion.

    There is, of course, no hope of escape from the empire as such. There is only hope for a better existence within it. Will we give it to them?

    Empires come and empires go. The world will likely never know an age without one, and whether this is for good or for ill can probably not be said. What can be said is that some empires are better or worse for others, and that some are better or worse for themselves. This last is worth thinking about, as it rarely gets much attention. Let’s forget about the losers for a minute and concentrate on the winners. Empire was, for example, bad for ancient Athens but good for Rome; good for early-modern Spain but not so hot for France; the best thing that ever happened to England but a total disaster for Italy.

    It is perhaps not a surprising fault that we do not often consider whether our empire is good for our subjects, but it is as shocking as it is unconscionable for us not to ponder whether it is good for us. What Obama’s speech showed is that it could be, or at least that it could be better – for both sides. We hope for the best, especially in the provinces.

A Letter from the Provinces: On Foreign Policy Experience

by Patrick Baker                                                                                 July 16, 2008

In the provinces we hear a lot of talk about Barack Obama’s fitness on foreign policy. Actually, we hear a lot of doubt and snickering.

    Having just lived through what one might kindly describe as a two-term foreign policy debacle, we are happy to learn that Americans are finally taking an interest in this aspect of government.
Still, we are perplexed by the standards of excellence demanded by the voting public, or at least the standards that opportunistic politicians and greenhorn media operatives are now telling them are necessary.

    The big word is experience. Sure, who doesn’t want experience in a candidate? We want it in a doctor, a lawyer, a mechanic-so we should want it all the more in a politician. And yet we can’t help but think of Socrates’ alarming conundrum: that the political art, despite being (one of) the most important, seems to be the one for which there is no curriculum, no set of universal standards, and no absolute guideline for excellence. One either has a knack for it – like Pericles or Bill Clinton – or one does not. Even more maddening is the corollary: that there is no standard available to the people to help it decide to whom to entrust its country.

    Nevertheless experience does seem to be the closest thing we have to a reliable guideline. If a politician has been effective in office before, or if he has experience with certain issues, then it would seem that he should succeed in the future.

    Let us test this theory by looking to the past quarter-century of American history. Reagan was an actor with no foreign policy experience and still managed not to get us nuked. He also oversaw communism’s endgame and the final phases of the Cold War. Not bad for a rookie. The first George Bush was a foreign policy expert (if a career in diplomacy and Central Intelligence is good for anything), but was not as successful as we all might have hoped. His legacy is pockmarked by a gratuitous invasion in Central America and not finishing the job in Iraq. Bill Clinton, who had foreign but no policy experience, presided over the first and only grand period of American diplomacy and world humanitarian action since the Marshall Plan. Now we have the second George Bush. He had no foreign experience whatsoever, and his avowed policy was isolationism. To compensate he surrounded himself with the greatest foreign policy experts in the Republican Party: Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Powell. What did We the People get? Lies rather than truth, obsession instead of perspicacity, and a situation so dire that Americans have never been in greater danger around the world and at home.

    Having lived in the provinces for the last ten years, I will say that I have never felt greater unease at being recognized as a citizen of the Empire. This goes double when traveling. I will also say that I have come to doubt the value of expertise, or at least what passes for such in Washington and on American television. This is why I am glad that neither of this year’s candidates has any.

    That’s right, neither. The case has already been made for Obama, and so I won’t make it again. What about McCain? First, being a prisoner of war does not make you an expert on anything except your own internment. I will be kind to Sen. McCain and refrain from quoting the words he uses to describe that experience. Second, being on the Arms Services Committee makes you an expert on foreign war, not foreign policy. There is a difference, and it’s called diplomacy-the very thing we need after seven and a half years of forgetting all about it. Third, visiting foreign countries, even as a Senator, does not make you an expert on them. Thinking is also required, and although Sen. McCain may have done some, he has not shown any indication of it.

    So it looks as if the candidates are even on the experience side of things, and thank God. Maybe there is hope for the future, even in the provinces.

Ribbons and Fireworks at the Democratic National Convention

by Chiara Liberatore

I’ll admit it. I was totally inspired by the recent speeches at the Democratic National Convention. I was drawn in by the seemingly vulnerable and human qualities of the speakers’ emotions and personal stories. I believed in the promises and even felt a little . . . should I admit it? Patriotic. Wow. At work during the night of Obama’s speech, I was receiving text messages from friends around the country exclaiming over the speech and the man. I could barely wait to get home to watch it. So I went home and watched and listened. At this point, I was already very aware of the overall tone of the conference. I had watched Joe Biden, Jill Biden, Michelle Obama, and several members of the audience choke up during Beau Biden’s introduction of his father. Early on, I recognized the theme of many of the speeches in which the speaker introduced himself or herself first as a father, mother, or sister, etc. before moving on to his or her political status. And at the end of Obama’s speech, when fireworks and ribbons framed the two Biden and Obama families on that huge stage, and Star Wars-themed music pumped through the loudspeakers, I begrudgingly recognized that I felt a little exploited by the fanfare. Was this the Olympics or the DNC? But the moment passed, and I went back to feeling hopeful and pleased with the candidates again, and I will tell you why.

    I am an Obama supporter. I do think that he has the ability to be a catalyst for major change in the United States in domestic policy, foreign relations, and overall public political engagement. I absolutely want him to win, but fortunate or unfortunate as it may be, I believe that this type of campaigning is what it will take. I am part of a generation that I find overwhelmingly politically apathetic. At times I find this to be more discouraging and detrimental to progressive change than the existence of dangerous (in my opinion) ideals or political opposition. I have two adult coworkers who proudly describe themselves as apolitical and tout the fact that they don’t vote or support any political candidate. In my opinion, this is proof of a weakened state. We live in a time when reality TV is king, and celebrity stories, People magazine, and talk show hosts dominate our airtime and news stands. If Obama (whom I also find more interesting for his ideas and leadership ability than his background) has to play into this social phenomenon to win a seat in the White house, I am all for it.

    During this election, for the first time in my lifetime, I feel the sedated political nature of our culture shifting. There is a palpable momentum among those of many different generations to follow the election and even make the decision to vote. This has been building for a while in connection with Obama. In 2004, when Obama ran for the U.S. Senate, a forty-year-old employer of mine announced to me that she would be voting for the first time in her life, and although she was supporting Bush in the presidential election, would be voting for Obama for the Senate seat. My husband and I waited in line for four hours to caucus for Obama this past spring. Granted, we don’t have many polling places in our small city, but the turnout made the record books in Portland, Maine, as it did all over the country. I think this shift is the beginning evidence of the change that Obama promises. This may be his biggest role: to get us up off our feet and take stake in what is happening around us. Of course, as President he will have major decision-making power, and we should know and agree with his ideas before we blindly choose him as our leader. But waking us up might be the first step in getting us to find out these facts. And if we are in agreement, then our next charge is to elect him as President. The camera shots of his charismatic younger daughter smiling may just be the modern-day equivalent to Kennedy’s wearing makeup in that famous, historic debate with Nixon.

    Our editor includes a quote from Kennedy in which the nominee states that his religion is not relevant. Isn’t that similar to what Obama is telling us over and over about himself? Yes, I may look different from what you would expect a President to look like, but it shouldn’t matter. Look beyond my skin color, my middle name, my extremist associates (Reverend Wright) and TRUST me. I think that is what the campaign is shooting towards. I am still amazed in this day and age over some people’s racial ignorance and lack of exposure to those who look different from them. And when I catch a glimpse of this ignorance, I worry that we actually do live in a time when a candidate’s race could prevent him from gleaning votes from even those folks who may agree with his policies. As a waitress, I often get to overhear people during their dinner conversations. I share a few of these quotes with the understanding that these folks never expected what they were saying to be overheard, but overhear them, I did.

    “Is Obama black or white?”
    “That’s easy; he’s Tiger Woods.”
    Funny, I don’t see the comparison at all except that maybe both Tiger Woods and Obama are famous, and they both have non-white fathers.

    “The only reason Obama got this far is because he is black.”
    Deep breath, deep breath; clear the steak knife, and exit.

    Harmless comments, some might say, but I think they indicate a resistance to racial difference. I should also add that I work in a restaurant that is priced and located such that the clientele that frequents the place is about 99% upper-class whites.

    And so, I think the Obama campaign is absolutely playing into our emotions and wanting us to relate to him and “trust” him as a direct strategy toward winning this election. Kerry and Gore certainly didn’t have this star power, and Democrats are not taking another chance. I think that McCain’s choice in a running mate illustrates this point very clearly. Sarah Palin is already being described for her personality versus the politician she has been. The first thing I read about her in the paper was that she enjoys hunting wild game, just like her father does. Digging a little deeper, I learned that she supports the doctrine of creationism taught in some schools and opposes abortion even in the case of rape or incest.

    Although I exist in a social circle of those who regularly vote and participate loosely in politics, I received no text messages or calls from people during any of Gore’s or Kerry’s campaign speeches during their respective runs for the Presidency. The energy is here now.

    If I could choose a political climate, I would prefer to live in a time when a candidate’s ideas and policies made the front page, and got people talking on the street. But I don’t. If I did, then candidates like Gore, Kerry, or even Dennis Kucinich might have a better chance.

    I think it is problematic that a candidate’s policies and ideas are hidden underneath their personal image. We shouldn’t have to dig deep to learn the facts that will begin to shape the state of our country. But image-driven politics has become part of our political game. Even Obama doesn’t have the power to change that. If he is to win, he must enter into the game. As a baby step towards a more engaged population of citizens, I’ll take it. Did America’s romanticism over the Kennedys incite more social action and political involvement from the America public? I don’t know. I do know that a lot of great change happened during their time.

    I agree that Obama’s speech at the DNC was slim on examples of concrete policy ideas. But I heard something else that might be important to policy change and reform. I heard him saying that he is one person, a leader who promises to take us towards change. Then he made a request. Obama asked us all to become social activists ourselves. He put the responsibility back on us. Isn’t this how it should be in a true democracy? I don’t think Obama is Superman or that he will magically fix all that is wrong with his winning smile. But I do think he will be a small, necessary force to get us slowly to nudge the wheel, and turn this thing around.

    So, I tolerated the constant camera shots of people holding back tears. I enjoyed seeing Michelle and Barack Obama tell each other they loved each other through a video screen and even found myself Googling “Beau Biden” to find out more about his career. I let myself get attached to these people for their personalities for just a minute, because for the first time since Clinton ran, I thought to myself: This guy, my candidate, is going to win.

    Good thing I agree with most of his policies, huh?