Options in America: Kill Yourself or Have a Baby
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
Time made Vladimir Putin its Man of the Year. Chalk it up as nostalgia for
the cold war, when America was great, and a working man in a state like Michigan
had two cars, a nice house, a country cabin, a health plan, a pension and a wife
who stayed at home, canning fruit and batting her eyes at the postman. These
days he has two lousy jobs, she has three and they have negative equity in their
home, no health plan and no pension.
A couple of indices of how down many Americans are feeling about the
future: The suicide rate among middle-aged Americans has reached its highest
point in at least 25 years, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
recently reported.
The rate rose by about 20 percent between 1999 and 2004 for U.S. residents
ages 45 through 54 - far more than among younger adults, whose own suicide stats
are also on the rise.
In 2004, there were 16.6 completed suicides per 100,000 people in the 45-54
cohort, the highest it's been since the CDC started tracking such rates, around
1980. The previous high was 16.5, in 1982, a year when there was a terrible farm
crisis in the Mid-West.
These days it's the health care crisis. People can't even afford to get
finished off respectably by a doctor or a hospital, so they have to do it
themselves.
The second index of desperation is a sudden spike in teen pregnancies,
particularly among young black women. As R.F. Blader wrote a few days ago here
on this site, "When we believe in our opportunities, we safeguard our futures.
Conversely, we behave self-destructively when we have no hope. For many
teenagers in America, the options aren't heartening. In a society where
opportunities are scarce and life is getting harder, getting pregnant puts a
positive spin on a vote of no-confidence." Indeed some argue that having babies
early is a very rational choice for a young black teen, since her support
network of kin are still alive, and her own body not wasted by the toxins
associated with low income neighborhoods.
In less than a week America will start trudging through the endless months
of Campaign 2008. Worthy Iowans, their quadrennial season in the limelight at
its apex, will cram into the caucuses and kick off the horse races. In all the
torrents of rhetorical hot air thus far expended, it's hard to find a single
sentence from any politician that could give any comfort to that suicidal
50-year old or the teen with a toddler as her only solace. There are gestures to
populism by the Democrat John Edwards, but I've not met anyone who believes that
there is the slightest chance of substantive reform of health care or a reversal
of soaring trends in inequality. The bad guys have a lock on the
system.
The default option these days is fantasy, a trend in American politics
kicked off in this epoch by Ronald Reagan. Reagan knew how to keep things
simple. When Reagan died a Pentagon official told me that when Ron became
president in 1981, and thus "commander in chief", the Joint Chiefs of Staffs
mounted their traditional show-and-tell briefings for him, replete with simple
charts and a senior general explicating them in simple terms. Reagan found these
briefings way too complicated and dozed off. The Joint Chiefs then set up a
secret unit, staffed by cartoonists. The balance of forces were set forth in
easily accessible caricature, with Soviet missiles the size of upended
Zeppelins, pulsing on their launchpads, with the miniscule US ICBMs shrivelled
in their bunkers. Little cartoon bubbles would contain the points the joint
chiefs wanted to hammer into Reagan's brain, most of them to the effect that "we
need more money". Reagan really enjoyed the shows and sometimes even asked for
repeats.
Reagan set the bar for the level of national political debate. They called
him the Great Communicator, and no one has moved the bar since. So who cares if
his great contribution to the national fantasy - "missile defense", aka, "the
strategic defense initiative" aka "Star Wars - is now scheduled to consume 19 per
cent of the defense budget even though it's well nigh universally admitted the
system is useless? The system is impregnable to reform and everyone knows
it.
Comments (14)
Iowa sucks. So does New Hampshire. I'm praying for three-way ties in both so as to render their meaning irrelevant. That won't take back the fact that the candidates had to spend infinite hours bowing down and sucking up to self-important Iowa County elected officials who do not have any clue about the world's and nations problems just their petty own little whatevers.
PS Speaking about Reagan, it is still Bedtime for Bonzo.
my, you're all over the map with this one...where to begin? maybe i'll just leave it at an observation that the national fantasy these days is that there is a rhyme or reason to the stats you are quoting...there isn't...but it is the national past time to try and make them relevant to whatever ax it is one wishes to grind at the time...i leave on an up note...we agree over Reagan...he ran the country while in the primary stages of alzheimer's...which only shows me the presidency is not as vital or as able to do damage as some would have us think...
It is kind of interesting that even with a Masters degree and a two income household, I can't afford health insurance. I couldn't afford a baby if I wanted one either. I've been job hunting for about 7 months and can't find something that pays better yet either.
America is an interesting place... if I just quit working and moved into an apartment, I could suck off the gov't, pop out babies nad have free health care... decisions decisions... lol
Happy New Year
Being in Iowa I can give some analysis of the campaigns and why the big ones are on top. But it might bore people. I wish people would see it as the training ground it is and not a mandate.
Bummer of an entry here, friend. Major clouds of gloom gathering hereabouts.
whoa! Sean or John.....you must be from Michigan by the posting. I have to laugh because I live in the South and some of the enlightened ones in my southern family only drive Japanese vehicles now (Nissan or Toyota). We love 'em, they run forever, never break down, and have a high resale value. Anyways, I went to visit my family in Michigan this summer and they are all driving Fords (Fix or Repair Daily) -or- (Found On Road Dead) Fords. I broached the subject about when were they going to start buying Japanese vehicles and was met with a looooong stony silence. They said they "believed in keeping their state economy strong" and "helping out their friends and neighbors who worked in various automotive sideline industries". I said, hey, in Alabama, we have a Mercedes plant (which is German, right) and across the border in Tennessee we have a big old Nissan factory (Japanese right?) So should I make Alabama's economy sronger by buying a German vehicle? So they didn't have anything to say then.
RYC: Triptophan may NOT be bad for you, depending upon your metabolism. But, if you're having a turkey sandwich for lunch, you may be experiencing afternoon "tiredness" because the triptophan will do this. I used to eat a lot of turkey salad on lettuce, the first time I seriously dieted. And every afternoon at work, I'd experience a "slump", where I was either drowsy, or felt like a short nap would do me a world of good. When I mentioned it to my doc, he said to leave the turkey out of my food for about a week and see if there was improvement. There was.
John,
While it is definitely a damned shame that the candidates are not addressing the real issues, the public, or potential creative solutions to keep the military supreme at 15-25% of current costs, I am happy that Obama had a strong showing, and I feel encouraged by Ron Paul's 10% showing in Iowa. Of Giuliani, Romney, McCain, and Huckabee, I tend to like McCain and Huckabee the most. And both of them had encouraging turnouts of support.
How did the Best of 2007 "North, South, East, WEFTshow go Thursday?
-DI Edifice
To avoid the doom and gloom of everything around me, I prefer to disregard everything around me, and alter it (if it gets in my way) to fit my needs. So far, this seems to have worked.
No, hahahaha, i wouldnt look to our upcoming leaders to slow the plunge into oblivian of the U.S.
Nor would i worry about it. Worry will only make your hair turn grey.
Kill yourself, or have a baby, so your choices depend on your gender. I think Alexander has issues, don't you?
Regardless of the ring of the name, sounds like a male hating female.
Again, I wouldnt worry too much about it. Our Muslim friends will silence her type once in power.
And speaking of Iowa, I see our Muslim friends seem to be well on their way to gaining power.
And Iowa is important, for its corn, or something.
i am just so pissed at john edwards, saying now it's between him and obama, i find it hard to even say how appalled i was at watching the caucuses and how they work.
America is looking for a savior to rescue them from their oblivion of being practically modern day slaves. Iowa and New Hampshire are the same as beauty pageants, where the jury have to decide who's the most photogenic, the most cheery person and have the image to be what it is... I for the other hand if I don't find someone who speaks for me and for the low-middle class I would do shit on election day.
RYC
That is because you not been coming to my site and keeping me in line. I blame you for my deterioration.
Insightful post.
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