Perspectives

When I talk with friends around the nation and describe Florida politics, they “tch-tch” right along with me. I tell them that an out-and-out beady-eyed, bald crook was elected governor, and that the Florida Legislature is completely controlled by a bunch of southern Republican bubbas who are little more than jackals feeding on the decomposing remains of a state government they are methodically ripping apart (deconstructing).

“Oh,” they say, “that does sound bad,” but then they relate what is happening in their state, and we invariably agree what a pox upon America has been the simplistic drivel of conservative values and economics. We lament how we’ve arrived at this juncture and what, realistically, we can do about it. I am reminded of Timothy Leary’s recommendation from the 1960s that we “turn on, tune in, drop out.” I’d say an increasing number of Americans will do just that with one modification — Americans will turn in and drop out.

I’m encountering more and more folks who say they can’t stand to watch the news and don’t. Don’t or won’t read a paper. It’s bad and getting worse, they say. What’s the point? I’ve got my half-acre (metaphorically speaking). What will be, will be. I’ve enough socked away to make it to the end (one’s death). It is hard to argue with despair. To refute the facts.

Yet it is just that — facts — that underscores for me our struggle to stabilize the listing ship of the USS America. We are so dysfunctional as a people, as a nation, that we cannot, we will not, agree on the facts. Oh, it is argued, facts are subjective. No. Facts are not subjective. A fact is empirically true and is supported by evidence. That is the definition of fact.

Fact: Effective, available birth control reduces the need for abortion.

Fact: To balance the federal budget deficit, taxes will need to rise (on the middle class, too).

Fact: Social Security can be successfully stabilized by 1) increasing the employee contribution 1 percent over 10 years, by 2) increasing the retirement age to 70 over a 30-year phase-in and by 3) applying the Social Security tax on all wages.

Fact: America does not have the best medical system in the world, not by any number of empirical standards or studies.

Fact: No empire lasts. America is an imperial power and has been for 150 years.

Fact: Presidents Washington and Eisenhower, generals both, warned of the undue influence (the anti-democracy) of a military/industrial complex.

But it is not just that we cannot agree on the facts; we cannot agree on what kind of people we are. America is at 310 million people and growing. Arguably, 10 percent of the population is unable or incapable of taking care of itself — the elderly, a sizable percentage of our young, the sick, the severely handicapped, wounded veterans, the mentally unstable, the drug-addicted, released prisoners and the unemployed/unskilled/uneducated. Thirty-one million Americans. What then? What happens to the “least” of us?

We’re losing — perhaps it never was — whatever solidarity we had as a people. No longer do we subscribe to the humane idea that everyone is part of Team America and we collectively sink or swim together.

Or, that America is a collapsing empire incapable of righting itself.

Change the station, Ma. Please.