Americans live today not only across distinct time zones but often within very disparate perceptions of reality, firmly adhered to among those who follow tides in politics, law, religion and social justice. We are less separated by language than by entrenched belief.
Does a person actually have a “right to work” if committed genuinely to a job, or to be sheltered from abrupt dismissal without cause? Is government actually overswelled with nonproductive drones, counting the clock until retirement? What is Constitutional or case law compared to reality on the ground for individuals among the 315 million people in the U.S., when the two have never been synonymous? Lawsuits to secure violated rights or reverse injustice require access to money well beyond reach of most actual victims, and qualified attorneys cannot make a living from too much pro bono work, despite good will. Some things must change:
For example – can anyone privileged to enjoy extreme wealth entertain any idea of grinding daily concerns lived by middle income folks, still less those of the chronically poor? And what happened to a conscientious work ethic in industry these days, when planes fall out of the sky from preventable manufacturing failures with alarming frequency, causing mass, heartbreaking fatalities?
When a global insurance company pays millions to reimburse a huge airline corporation’s loss, few persons grieve. If one’s mother or grandchild were on that crashed plane, however – suddenly the tragedy matters far more. Americans rising to positions of influence or power via elections, corporate boards or internet blogs seem to have lost the discipline of accountability and replaced it, if not with sheer greed, then with what ancient Greeks called Hubris: Total certainty that I am right always, anointed by the career gods, and need not alter course in financial, social or public market practices because others are harmed, deceived or suffer loss.
That is, of course, ancient imperial thinking, particular to and well suited for dictatorships. It served Roman caesars, once harshly ascended to heights or madness, rather well, but seldom Roman citizens and never their slaves.
While slavery today is illegal according to codes annotated, it is replaced by far too-low arbitrary wages doled out to men and women who desperately need a job, by collective blind eyes to enormous human trafficking in immigration and prostitution, and by some law courts’ indifference to serving justice or truth in a case, favoring quick adjudication and discreetly expected favors. This applies to those juries, too, who agree to return a least examined verdict and go home to watch TV. When every citizen of a democracy holds responsibility for others’ good – as preachers and stateswomen and men remind us – no one is.
Hence, the role of journalism, stepped up now by 24/7 eyeblink-fast electronic and satellite signal. By the time viewers and readers have reacted to one Washington or corporate scandal, three more appear on the 5:30pm newscast or on internet and print front pages, skewed of course according to preferences of whoever actually owns each communication outlet.
Gone are times when objective reporting availed, as well as presumed integrity of networks and their talking faces. Critical judgment is required of consumers and voters to assimilate today’s info blitz and discern what is true and what is not, and this must be chosen as well as learned. The alternative, for a sizeable swathe of national election participants, is to passively pay the loudest media maven or blustering campaigner to do their thinking for them. It’s easier, but allows oligarchs and extremists to form public opinion, unexamined.
The value of – despite our urgent need for – quality education has diminished, hence the current President’s carte blanche to eradicate the federal department promoting it, and to hamstring or eliminate other agencies and their personnel who may call to account open malfeasance. A supine Congress, many members of which sit eagerly at the feet of overreached executive power, choruses noisy assent to each outlandish decision or impulsive proclamation from the Oval Office. No one blinks but smiles unctuously, knowing that this administration has allied with gigantic wealth ready to fund their opposition in the next election; if they wish to remain in the Senate or House, sharp lockstep lines must be toed to preserve prestige, perks and office. If this has always been so, now the masks are off……… “One has never seen such good acting!” opined the late Princess Margaret upon hearing her estranged husband express deep devotion for her before the British press.
Similar performances are seen daily in real time as Elon Musk trumpets his expertise to chop costs across the breadth of U.S. federal government, hiring untried kids to threaten respected civilian and military staff, meanwhile profiting increasingly as the largest private contractor to the Defense Department.
The efficiency czar, firing thousands, is raking in a cash hoard he claims to be saving us, and this is not a badly scripted movie, it is fact. Just two million American voters, a tiny fraction of the country’s electorate, gifted this Washington administration with power, being admiringly, naively and against all evidence otherwise certain that their chosen candidate would “do right,” fix everything, always tell the sole truth and act with complete integrity when handed White House keys and nuclear codes… Of course he would! But another election comes in four years; by then, fantasies will have long since faded. Since we do live in a democracy, let’s pray earnestly that it continues to work.
Linda Berry is a Northsider.
