The Cat and the Mouse

I’d like to first preface what I write here by saying that I love John Stewart. I think he is as smart as he is funny. He and Stephen Colbert have forged new ground in television that will prove to be seminal in years to come in terms of comedy. But for those of you who watched the recent John-Stewart-vs-Jim-Cramer Debacle unfold, I have this to say.

I think John Stewart is being disingenuous.

At first, I applauded what he did to Cramer. Here, finally, was a voice speaking for the masses, angry and demanding answers. Stewart spoke for all of us and it was refreshing, bold and a much-needed voice in the wild.

But the more I thought about it, I realized there was a disconnect. Here’s the problem: we’re in a lot of trouble. Economically, speaking, we are looking at the next ten years as a lost decade. Our banks have failed us, our government has failed us, heck, our entire economic system has failed us. And yes, while some of us were culpable buying houses we couldn’t afford, most us played a hand in accruing debt that we couldn’t afford. But the lion’s share of the blame goes to the institutions we trusted with our money.

The current administration, under President Obama, has done a monumental job in the short time they have been in office in trying to fix what’s wrong. They have implemented new laws, passed giant stimulus bills and created a realistic budget for the years to come. I’m out of breath just talking about their accomplishments.

But will their plans work? There are plenty who think they will (certainly the administration seems confident) while others think they will not. No one knows for sure. What is certain is that there is a lot of confusion. I think it would be safe to say that only few understand what happened, few know what the plan is and few see what the future will bring. No one knows the full story.

And there’s an inherent danger in that. Because right now we are suffering from what I’m calling a Crisis of Confidence. Here’s how it breaks down. There is a battle taking place between the classes. The middle and lower classes are broke, tired and hurt. They are out of work, have seen their pensions disappear and their future looking bleak. They’re angry. And they have every right to be.

For years, the upper class has enacted a rape-and-pillage mentality to take as much money as they can from the lower class. In light of this, why would the middle and lower classes want to give these guys at AIG, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and all the other failing financial institutions taxpayer money to get them out of the hole that they created? And then to hear that the executives in charge have the audacity to not even use the money to restructure their business, instead looting their new-found treasure chests of bail-out money and pocketing it for themselves.

Yeah…we’re pissed.

Now Obama comes along. He says, okay we’re gonna fix what’s wrong. Give money to those who deserve it and punish those who stole. That’s exactly what should be done. He comes up with a plan to fix the economy. He is, in no uncertain terms, changing the way we understand how capitalism works. “Capitalism will be different,” Geithner (who I like, by the way) said to Charlie Rose. That’s a good thing. That’s exactly what should happen. But yet, the market continues to plummet and the nay-sayers get their voices heard.

What festers here is the confusion. It has become exacerbated by the media. Media figures like Jim Cramer. With confusion comes a loss of confidence. With a loss of confidence comes a public unwilling to spend their money, borrow from the banks or buy new homes. When the money stops pouring in, the banks get nervous and stop lending. When the banks stop lending, the economy grinds to a halt.

And that’s where we find ourselves right now. The great Cramer vs Stewart comes at a crucial point in all of this. I agree with everything Stewart had to say to Cramer. I don’t know Cramer, I’ve never watched his show, but from what I’ve seen, he’s bombastic and loud and he puts on a show. Just like John Stewart does every night.

Stewart, whether he wants to admit it or not (he doesn’t) is part of mainstream media. He’s not real news, he’s fake news. But news nonetheless. It’s a modern way of knowing what’s going on. An entire generation looks to him (and to a lesser extent to Colbert) for their source of the news. Yes, it’s funnier when there are jokes thrown in for good measure, but that’s where a lot of people find out what’s going in the world. It’s foolish to think that most people who watch The Daily Show are watching because they’ve just watched the real news and now want to see it skewed. They don’t have to because Stewart does a good job of telling everyone what’s going on.

So, he is, in a very real sense, a news outlet. And so, he becomes a part of the media machine that creates the confusion that creates the loss of confidence in the market. So for him to single out Cramer for doing exactly what I spoke of, creating confusion, feels disingenuous. Stewart has always professed that ‘getting the laugh at any cost’ is the only objective to everything that’s done on The Daily Show, but what I felt while watching that interview was anger, shame and confusion. I didn’t once laugh. It was akin to watching a bully beat up a weakling or a cat toying with a mouse.

John Stewart spoke what we have wanted to hear spoken out loud. But he did that only because he knows he speaks for a generation. And that’s a great thing. We need more people like that. But he cannot run and hide behind the veil of comedy, under the guise of a jester. That it’s just a joke. It adds to the confusion.

The Perfect Storm

Apologies for not writing anything for a while, but so much has been happening in the world these days that it’s hard to wrap one’s mind on anything. Everything that’s happening has such gravity and weight, that it’s hard to focus on just one issue. The economy, yes, the environment, yes, foreign policy, yes…these are all elements of what I’m seeing as the perfect storm designed to capsize the Obama administration, despite his well-intentioned efforts. It is a monumental mountain to climb and unless we can all get on board and do what’s necessary, the work of our new president will be for naught.

Certainly, Obama’s address to Congress and the public on the 24^th was as important and in many ways symbolic a speech as Bush’s speech to the nation after the 9/11 attacks. It was simple, broad and concise. It spoke to the heart of the problem without sugarcoating the ugly truth of the new world we have awoken to. Our current financial crisis has plunged us into the economic and emotional equivalent of 9/11. They don’t call it a “depression” for just any reason.

But are there solutions? Is there a way out? Certainly, but the answers aren’t pretty. They aren’t easy. And that’s exactly why there is a very good chance that whatever we do will fail. It may sound like pessimism, but well…let me explain.

My apartment building is a microcosm of the world I live in. Missy and I live in a pre-war building in Brooklyn. It used to be low-rent housing but is slowly being gentrified as our neighborhood borders the more affluent Park Slope (where those who couldn’t afford the Upper West Side get banished). So, we have tenants of all kinds, middle-income families, hipsters, and young professionals. We also have families, holdovers from the days of the low-rent housing. Please do not get me wrong, these are nice people from working-class families, there is no judgment on their condition.

One day, as I trudged my recyclables down to the dank, dirty basement, I witnessed my neighbor throwing bottles and cans down the regular garbage chute. I thought about this as I waited for the elevator to bring me down to the dungeon of our building. I asked myself, “why do I even bother, if my neighbor doesn’t even care?” Didn’t care or didn’t know better? That’s a big distinction.

The distinction between apathy and ignorance is a crisis of epic proportions. Why? Because any solution to any of the problems we face, as a race, will endeavor the efforts of everyone…everyone.

Consider this. A recent article reported how 665 million people in India rely on open defecation. That means 665 million people shitting out in the open because they don’t have access to something we Westerners consider our God-given right, a toilet. That means hygiene and water pollution problems. That means bacteria, virus and parasites. That means people (especially women) get sick and taken out of the workforce. That means an economic drain on both the workforce and health care. That also means poor water supply because of both industrial and human effluent. Dirty water means more people getting sick and more bottled water to be processed. More bottled water means more pollution. You see where this is going? And this is happening all over the world. Unicef estimates that 1.2 billion people are affected with 884 million drinking unsafe water.

Now, the question is, do they know better or do they just not care?

We Westerners are quick to condemn the poor to their fate as if it was a choice. But that argument is false if given a moment of scrutiny. Are we to assume that people like to shit out in the open? Of course they don’t. But they have no choice. Still, the paradox remains. If one were to stop shitting out in the open, one would have a better quality of life. But, how can one have a better quality of life if one has no choice but to shit out in the open? The Catch-22 known as the Poverty Trap.

What does this have to do with anything, you may ask. Plenty. See, of we are to tackle the triumvirate problems of the economy, the environment and foreign policy, we must tackle it as one thing. This is Cerberus incarnate.

The only way to tackle our economy is if we re-invent the way the economy works. Our financial system is in tatters and there’s a good reason for it…greed. Not specifically corporate greed, not public greed, just greed. Gordon Gecko was wrong, greed is not good. Financial experts have realized that the only way to healthy economy is if we change the entire financial structure. And that means the rest of the world too. The hard part will be to convince executives to go against their baser instincts, to not be greedy. A tall order, I know, but what choice do we have? There is no short-term answer to the economy. None. That’s a fact. Yes, the stimulus helps, but it's a band-aid to our hemorrhaging economic wounds. To fix what ails us demands discipline, responsibility, a modicum of frugality and realistic sense of one's lifestyle. It demands it from everyone. Everyone.

The only way to tackle the environment is if every country in the world, yes every country (even the developing ones) rolls up their sleeves, switch to renewables, put a price on carbon, stop deforestation, change their current transportation fleet and re-design how everything we buy is made so that there is less waste in the product's manufacture and disposal. That means the U.S., Europe, the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), everyone.

And then there’s the little problem of foreign policy, specifically Afghanistan. Again, the only solution, the ones experts call for, is a concerted effort from every country that borders those two countries (yes, that means Iran) to deal with the problems there. Any policy that does not include foreign assistance is doomed to fail. And if we fail, we face the over-run of Afghanistan and possibly Pakistan by the militant Taliban. Pakistan, you know, where they have nuclear weapons, that Pakistan. If that happens, then the problems of the economy and the environment will seem, well…quaint. Again, to prevent what could potentially be the third world war, everyone has to get on board. Everyone.

Oh and here’s what makes it even more fun. If there’s a mis-step on any one of these negotiations, it affects the other two. If we piss off the Russians while looking for a solution to Afghanistan, we risk losing their help when it comes to bringing them to the table for environmental policy talks. If the Chinese lose faith in the U.S. dollar, then the ground becomes shaky when we talk to them about a new energy policy. We are, truly, in one-world thinking. See, the solution to all these problems is actually quite simple and it's the same solution for all three...unity. The sword that can kill the three-headed dog is that everyone has to get involved. Everyone. Simple, yet seemingly impossible (hence my pessimism).

We stand at a crossroads that we have never seen before. This is new country. We could work hard and pull ourselves out of the deepest hole we’ve ever been in or we don’t. If we don’t then you can find me at the top of my building, behind the barricades, armed and loaded, protecting my water and food supply, because that’s a world we may face.

Overwhelming, I know. But again, there’s hope. And this is where my neighbor and the 665 million Indians come into play. See, everyone reading this, gets it. They realize what’s at stake and they’re already doing their part. They are recycling and doing whatever they can…but it’s the ones living on the fringes of society that need to be reached. They need to be reached because the stark reality is that those people number in the billions. We, the “enlightened one” are actually the ones who live on the fringe.

So what to do? Certainly Obama is doing most of the heavy-lifting, but we all need to do our part, Reach out to those people who may not have a choice or may not know better...give to Unicef, give to the One Campaign, donate your time somewhere. And if you can’t do any of those things, spread the word. Me? I'm gonna talk to my neighbor.

Okay, So Now What?

Now that the marching bands have gone home and the viewing stands have been taken down, what happens now? Now that we find ourselves in the wake of history, what is it that we're supposed to do?

I asked my Facebook friends what they thought of the speech…you know ‘the speech.’ The speech that was to set the tone of our new President’s administration. The speech that gave a brief but powerful look of who and what we are as a people, a state of the nation. The speech that asked the American people to “put away childish things.” That speech that asked all of us to grow up and behave like the decent people we strive to be. The speech that called for responsibility and service to others. That one.

I got a few smart-alecky replies to my query. Some who said that it was the same old rhetoric they’ve heard before. Certainly there were those that were inspired by the speech and some who didn’t think much of it. But no one, (at least those who replied) walked away with the sense of urgency that it is time to get to work, that

“we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.”

This then becomes the great question we face…what do we do?

What do we do now that the old guard is gone and our new leaders are in place? Do we wait to hear from our new President? Do we wait to see what happens, to see how he performs before we do anything? What exactly does he mean by ‘living responsibly?’ How much more responsibly do we have to live? Who measures that responsibility? Us or him? Do we not elect our leaders to show us the way, to lead and tell us what to do? What part of the actions required to save our country from ruin stops being our President’s responsibility and starts becoming ours? Does that mean we must live frugal, eco-friendly, self-sacrificing lives from this day forward? And if we do, then how do we know when it’s safe to go back to the way we used to live? How do we when know we’ve won? Will my sacrifice measure up to my neighbor’s? Will I grow to resent those others who don’t do enough when I sacrifice so much more?

There is a reckoning to be made. We live now in a strange, new world. It is a world where we face economic collapse, a failing environment, extremists that work ceaselessly for our demise, a loss of trust in our leaders and in a government more interested in profit than the betterment of those that put them in office, a pervading cynicism that threatens to kill any hope that things will get better. The future looks bleak.

And dire. There is a secret reality and danger to our new President in that we pin all our hopes on him and that he will make things better, that he will lead us out of the valley of the shadow, but that if he fails then we are truly lost, that there will be no hope left. There won’t be a Shire.

Yes, the stakes are high…but the flame of hope still flickers in the darkness. We do still have a choice and even more important, we still have time. But what to do with that choice, what do we do with that time? I offer this exchange of dialogue between Frodo and Gandalf to illustrate my point:

Frodo – I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened. 

Gandalf - So do all who come to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given to us.

And that is our great task…the answer to “what do we do now.” We must all, individually, decide what to do with the time that’s given to us. This is the great opportunity that lies ahead. That for our new President’s plans and strategies to succeed, we must all find the answers to the questions of responsibility ourselves. We must all be the ones to measure our responsibility.

We must all do what we can, be the change you wish to see in the world, follow what you’re passionate about, be it the environment or local politics or teaching, volunteering, engaging others to join you. I know it all sounds like platitudes and I’m sure I’m coming off preachy and self-righteous. But even if I am, would it matter? Would you hold to your principles and do nothing while the world burns?

If you’ve thought of volunteering with some hesitation and fear, that’s okay. It’s like anything new, but I’ll bet you anything that you’ll feel great doing it. And if that’s the only reason to do it, to feel great, then there’s nothing wrong with that.

Get out there, get involved, live up to the words of our new President when he said,

“In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned.”

So, earn it. Live a life of purpose. I guarantee it will change your life. Which in turn changes the world. And isn't that the point to all of this?