Wednesday, November 23, 2016

America and its Greatness




On "Making America Great Again"

    What I have found personally surprising and a bit irritating in the last several days is the cognitive dissonance, on the part of both the Left and the Right of the nation's political spectrum, that seems to be coming from all quarters, in the wake of the statements of both proposed Trump staffers and political supporters and hangers-on.  The Left seems to be horrified by the US-variations on "Sieg Heil" uttered by Donald Trump's allies and supporters on the Alt Right.  The Right seems either willfully ignorant of the implications of these statements or tacitly supporting them.  While these utterances have been ugly, I have found myself laughing about them, or perhaps I have been laughing at the reactions to them.  In truth, I have been neither surprised by the expressions of vitriol on the extreme Right, nor have I been willing to denounce them as fundamentally un-American.  They are as American as baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet.  This is 'America', and it always has been.


"American Values"
   
    What are "American Values"?  Have they ever really existed?  Does such a thing even exist?  Is it just a figment our our imaginations?  Is it the glorified claptrap we see in our favorite Westerns?  I don't know about you, but I liked the ones that were much more realistic, whether it was Brando and Malden in 'One-Eyed Jacks' or more modern grim tales like Unforgiven or No Country For Old Men.  They always seemed far more realistic than the famous John Wayne fairy tales of a lone white man taming the land, the native peoples, the blacks, the womenfolk, the animals, the elements, and any other thing he might come across.  I never once bought these mass hallucinations, where the hero ends the movie, standing silhouetted against the sky as the credits roll, with his wife submissive and passive by his side, his homestead the product of his effort and his alone (perhaps with a little help from the blonde Jesus who never seems to be visible amongst the teeming masses we see on broadcasts today in the region of his birth), without any government handouts, regulations or public agencies to hinder him.


"Making America Great Again"

    Let's be clear about one thing.  "America" has never been great.  It is an experiment.  It is a place that is trying to become great. It is an amalgamation of peoples, who all have their origins in the barbarism, oppression and poverty of their collective nations or origins, who believe that this country offers a unique ability to transcend the circumstances of your birth.  In the more hidebound societies of the rest of the world, this is a much more difficult undertaking.  Nations whose people see and define themselves in historical and ancestral terms have a much more difficult time redefining who and what they are.  They can never be made of more peoples than those who were here first.  They can never incorporate other words or languages into their lexicon.  They can never share beliefs with other people that were not there at their nation's founding. 

    What is great about 'America', or more precisely, the United States of America, is that, at least in theory, and occasionally in practice, it has shown itself to be a political entity that, perhaps more than any other nation with the possible exception of Germany, can learn from the horrors and mistakes of its past and make at least a halfhearted attempt to make itself a better nation.  Germany has arguably done a better job of this, for a variety of reasons, among them that it is generally more homogeneous, and so arriving at a common cultural understanding might be easier as a national exercise.  Nevertheless, the German government and the overwhelming majority of its people, seem to have largely made their peace with the horrors of their nation's (and many of their citizens') deeds during the early 20th century and are amongst the planet's most vigorous in avoiding anti-Semitism and stamping it out among its people.

    The United States, by comparison, has paid lip service to the evils of the nation's founding, but still fails to fully acknowledge it and take steps to right its historical wrongs.  While it does admit that the past includes many wrongs, the U.S mantra of "individual responsibility" means that no one is collectively responsible for the horrors of the mass land theft from genocide perpetrated against the continent's first inhabitants, nor the centuries-long barbarism shown towards people of African descent.  The incessant prattling on about the nation's "greatness" makes many of its inhabitants, and not only those of European descent, believe that the nation has its origins in some fabled past, which the darker hordes of the planet have somehow conspired to "steal" from them.

    With that in mind, the United States has never been great.  Continuing to think it has been is one of our greatest impediments to change and bettering ourselves as a society.  People who view the nation's greatest moments as those that are already behind them often find themselves unwilling to accept newcomers, new ideas, or new ways of doing things.  Recognizing that we have been horrible and need to do better is the impulse behind almost every improvement that the nation has made.  This has been the case  with the ending of slavery, women's suffrage, ongoing civil rights struggles, the inclusion of the gay and lesbian community, or the welcoming of religious minorities into the broader fabric of our society.

    The truth about this nation, and in my opinion, the only thing that makes it "great", is its ability (at least on paper, and occasionally in practice) to learn from its mistakes, to commit itself not to repeat the horrors of its past, and its ability to define itself as a product of something more than a race of people or a faith.  It is ostensibly committed to the idea that a people and a sense of community can be formed from something other than a group of individuals with a common primordial past.  It is a place where we have determined ourselves to not be bound by destiny or some hidebound concept of clan, group, or other form of identity.  We hold an ideal in front of us (or at least we should) and commit ourselves to achieve it.  That ideal is the "more perfect union" of the Constitution's preamble.  We have not achieved this union yet, but what is supposed to make us great is our willingness to change and adapt ourselves as we try to get there.

    Unwillingness to admit mistakes and learn from them is the biggest danger facing the country, the body politic, and the culture broadly.  An inability to say "we are wrong" and to commit to learning from the mistake and not repeating it prevents progress in all areas that require scientific inquiry to address.  We can't address human impact on the earth's climate if we refuse to admit it even exists.  We can't address issues of sustainability if we believe our concept of the God of Abraham gave the planet to Western Europeans to do as they please and will constantly replenish it for us. And so on, and so on…

    Instead of "making America great again", how about committing to simply trying to make America great for once?

Friday, October 28, 2016

Morgan - A good, but not perfect, sci-fi thriller worth seeing.


Morgan was amusing, if slightly formulaic, sci-fi. I caught it at the local dollar show yesterday. I had a feeling that it would be worth seeing, but perhaps not something I had the will to spend $10 on at full box office price.

The film's start Kate Mara was icy and aloof, but the reason for such aloofness wasn't really apparent until about ten minutes before the end. The film was surprisingly star-heavy, featuring appearances by Michelle Yeoh, Paul Giamatti, Toby Bell, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Game of Thrones' Rose Leslie.  I kept wondering who was the star of the film.
As movies begin to explore the ethical implications of A.I., cloning and similar technologies, I expect even more of these sorts of films to come out, some better than others. Having said all that, I feel it was definitely worth a couple of hours of time. If you have a chance, go see it.

Sunday, August 21, 2016

There Is More To Be Concerned With Than the Presidential Campaign.

I have been woefully remiss in not posting more frequently, but have been so absorbed by other writers and sites and their US presidential coverage that I have missed many of the more important state and local challenges we face in the US, as well as some of the critical international issues our neighbors around the world are dealing with.

A pressing problem in Florida at the moment for the central and southern portions of the state is the current water crisis. Lake Okeechobee has built up unsafe loads of agricultural runoff,  high in nitrogen and phosphates, among other things. The state government, presumably at the direction of the administration of Governor Rick Scott, has failed to use the proceeds generated by a voter-approved amendment to purchase land to the south of the lake, take it out of agricultural (mostly Big Sugar) production and restore it to wetlands. The wetlands would have performed a critical water purification function, as well as restoring the natural flow southward, where wetland plant growth could feed on the nutrients. Because of this failure, the US Corps of Engineers must periodically release the pollution-rich waters of the lake into the Caloosahatcheee and St. Lucie rivers, which flow into the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic, respectively. These waters have now created critically high levels of pollution in both sides of the state, destroying water quality, killing local fauna and flora and leaving thick algae blooms that make any other water-based activity impossible.

Now to add to that, the state's Environmental Regulatory Commission has authorized the release of high levels of industrial chemicals to add to the organic compound soup currently in the waters.

Here's a column from the Miami-Herald on the topic: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/fred-grimm/article96465417.html

If you are justly offended, here's an online petition where you can begin to take action: https://www.change.org/p/keep-the-cancer-causing-chemicals-out-of-our-water

Sunday, April 3, 2016

I had the honor of taking a few courses with Professor Hansford and found him to be both committed to the law and committed to social justice.  It's great to see him accomplishing great things.

https://www.saltlaw.org/salt-names-junior-faculty-teaching-award-winner/

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Sylvester Brown, Jr.: Moving Beyond the Segregationist Mindset of St. Lo...

Sylvester Brown, Jr.: Moving Beyond the Segregationist Mindset of St. Lo...: It’s almost enough to make you throw your hands up and just give up:    “City gives company vacant lots to plant trees.” The March...



This article sums up much of the reason why I moved to Miami. And I don't think St. Louis is by any means unique in this regard. In fact, a lot of these conditions are also present in Miami, but, the presence of so many varied peoples of African descent and the approaches, culture and skills they bring to bear on these problems creates a vibrancy that creates many strong, culturally-based alternatives that help people survive the cruel indifference of governmental structures.

Sunday, March 27, 2016

EYE ON MIAMI: Eye on Miami: Become a Lobbyist for the Good. By G...

This is a great post from Eye on Miami. Take a couple of minutes to read it.  It's a quick read, but worth it for the community and politically-minded who want to actually make a difference, rather than just post angry comments in discussion threads online.



EYE ON MIAMI: Eye on Miami: Become a Lobbyist for the Good. By G...: Imagine you have an issue you would like to support, like not moving the Urban Development Boundary or stopping a Walmart. Actually you h...