Have the wheels come off?
October 28, 2005 9:28 AM   Subscribe

Is the US broken beyond repair? Columnist Peggy Noonan asks some disturbing questions about the US and its future. Have the wheels come off the trolley and are we headed off the tracks. Can anyone put us back on the tracks or is it too late? A very thought provoking article.
posted by waltb555 (117 comments total)
 
is the US broken beyond repair?

yes....
posted by HuronBob at 9:30 AM on October 28, 2005


It's too vague to be thought-provoking. And any time a Reagan apologist decrys the state of government, you should feel a little reassured that things are going okay.
posted by Mayor Curley at 9:36 AM on October 28, 2005


If we had a major terrorist event tomorrow half the country--more than half--would not trust the federal government to do what it has to do, would not trust it to tell the truth, would not trust it, period.

You can thank your dumb-assed wonder boy W for that, Peggy.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 9:38 AM on October 28, 2005


You guys would like that, wouldn't you?
posted by keswick at 9:38 AM on October 28, 2005


Noonan seems to be inuiting the "diminishing returns on complexity" that Joseph Tainter discusses at length in his 1988 Collapse of Complex Societies. Interesting.
posted by jefgodesky at 9:39 AM on October 28, 2005


The US has just been poisoned by the current administration. But not fatally, yet. I am optimistic.
posted by Peter H at 9:42 AM on October 28, 2005


That it will recover that is. Ha, oops.
posted by Peter H at 9:42 AM on October 28, 2005


This whole article sounds like it was written by a 24-year-old who is just now realizing that the world's a hostile, unfair place. Peggy'll knock 'em dead on LiveJournal.
posted by COBRA! at 9:43 AM on October 28, 2005


I've always been annoyed by people that complain about problems but offer no solutions. But I agree w/ the Mayor - it's too vague to be of any real value.
posted by matty at 9:43 AM on October 28, 2005


America will end, not with a bang, but an extended metaphor about trolleys.

I do detect in myself and others some sense of impending catastrophe, but I would bet that feeling has been pretty strong throughout human history. Also if this lady is worried about cloning, as that is what is going to fuck us up in the end, I would suggest she spend a little less time with the pie charts in USA Today and a little more time helping me fill my cellar with MREs and frozen horse sperm.
posted by Divine_Wino at 9:43 AM on October 28, 2005


Nooner must accept her part in the current state of affairs.

Shining those cordovan shoes
Chasing away Raygun's blues

Writing about morning in America then
Wondering about mourning in America now

The thousand points of light
Have turned strangely dim

Must be Fitzmas!
Treason is the reason for the season!

All my heroes are dead.
From the Alzheimer's I so dread.
posted by nofundy at 9:46 AM on October 28, 2005


"Courage is the price that life extracts for granting peace." - Amelia Earhart
posted by matty at 9:47 AM on October 28, 2005


as that is

as if that is what is going to fuck us up in the end...

Clones are the only thing I am not scared of, clones and the extinction of the horse.
posted by Divine_Wino at 9:50 AM on October 28, 2005


jefgodesky is my hero! thanks for the reference!
posted by By The Grace of God at 9:50 AM on October 28, 2005


the reason why a 24 year old on live journal would sound like this is because she hasn't been around long enough to become complacent or invested enough to live in a state of denial

and no, it's not w, although god knows he's no help

the wheels fell off the trolley in 1963 ... it's just taken many people this long to notice

what we have is a fire in our spirit house ... it's burning down because the house and what's in it are keeping us from being the people and civilization we should be ... eventually we will be left with no choice but to rebuild and we will be better for it

not everyone, of course ... many tragedies will happen

but that's how it is and i'm afraid it's out of our control ... how we react to it, isn't

we're in for a long bumpy ride
posted by pyramid termite at 9:52 AM on October 28, 2005


I notice that Clinton always seemed to have a handle on the situation.....

Just because the current president is a fucktard doesn't mean the presidency is broken.
posted by nyxxxx at 9:53 AM on October 28, 2005


Peggy Noonan once wrote that God sent dolphins to save Elian Gonzales
posted by jefbla at 9:55 AM on October 28, 2005


What's the big deal about 1963? You know, that makes is so much more different than 1865, 1881, and 1901? get over yourselves, boomers
posted by keswick at 9:56 AM on October 28, 2005


What Cobra said. It seems Peggy's had a dose of reality - finally.

Amazingly, these "fears" motivate many of us to keep trying to find solutions and innovations to address all the trouble of this existance we call life and don't look to the dumbass in the whitehouse for leadership and confidence.
posted by tzelig at 9:58 AM on October 28, 2005


Mainly, she seems to be in despair that the current President can't successfully bumble along on the same combination of phony aw-shucks folksiness and low-wattage intellectual disinterest as her hero President. It worked once, how can it not work again?
posted by Armitage Shanks at 9:59 AM on October 28, 2005


What a baby. Harsh reality has proven that Peggy's team's approach does not work, that it is fundamentally flawed as anything other than an academic political philosophy with no bearing on reality, so she blames reality for not being different. She's no better than nor different from the most hidebound marxist, or a 15 year old objectivist, or some other annoying idealist who insists that we'd all be happier if we lived under Fourier's system, or any one of the thousands of ridiculous total conversions of society suggested over the years that always begin with "First, disregard everything we know about human nature, for that is a minor and irrelevant point."

A White House is a castle surrounded by a moat, and the moat is called trouble, and the rain will come and the moat will rise. You should buy some boots, do your work, hope for the best.

Two things: a professional writer with decades of experience should not have written that sentence in the first place, never mind letting it go to print, though OpinionJournal has developed a reputation for being a sort of Romper Room attached to the WSJ, rather than the infinitely more professional online prescence that it should have. Also, when the moat is rising, someone who truly has their eye on the long term and truly understands planning buys boats, as well as boots.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 10:02 AM on October 28, 2005


Somehow Noonan has overlooked the fact that America's electoral system is completely broken. Two companies run by brothers count 80% of all ballots cast in a federal election, with little to no oversight.

This situation led to massive electoral fraud in the 2004 presidential election as well as the 2000 presidential election.

If voting is broken, then democracy is broken.

Solutions: demand oversight and transparency. Petition your state to de-certify the crooked voting machines, as California did. It's impossible to have a completely fraud-free election, I know-- and I know that voting fraud has occurred before the rise of the crooked computers-- but come on: two companies run by brothers count 80% of all the ballots. That's not democracy-- that's not even close.
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 10:07 AM on October 28, 2005


She actually uses a Ted Kennedy quote to express the country's growing malaise: "Teddy took a long, slow gulp of his vodka and tonic, thought for a moment, and changed tack. 'I'm glad I'm not going to be around when you guys are my age.' I asked him why, and he said, 'Because when you guys are my age, the whole thing is going to fall apart.'"

No one has their finger on the pulse of America quite like a member of one its most aristocratic families.

I'm not saying that America isn't in trouble, but if America's wealthiest families can't sustain their comfort and power from generation to generation, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

At the end of the day, all America is and all that it has ever been is a big experiment. You think people didn't feel the wheels coming off during the Civil War? The Great Depression?

And yes, I agree with the description of Peggy Noonan as a 24-year old live journal blogger. Scary that it takes some people so long to grow up.
posted by billysumday at 10:07 AM on October 28, 2005


40 years from now - What's the big deal about 2001?

keswick, you'll have that experience some day ... trust me
posted by pyramid termite at 10:07 AM on October 28, 2005


Noonan is right that America faces severe, crippling problems that no one in power will even talk about, let alone try to fix.

But on the other hand, that article is an extended exercise in denial. What Noonan feels, but does not yet have the intellectual honesty to say out loud, is that George Bush has royally fucked up this country in the last 5 years. Instead of admitting she's been duped, she instead makes the really lame dodge of "Presidentin' is hard."

And she, in typical right-wing fashion, misses the actual problems that plague America, for the most part. They are fundamental economic imbalances (debt, deficit, loss of jobs, brain-drain, etc.), coupled with a poison political climate Republicans have built over the last 30 years. So those problems will continue to get worse, while the robber barons of the Republican party practice the politics of "fuck you, I've got mine." It will end in a great depression. After a decade of that, if America is still here, we may have some chance of recovery.

Of course, I'm probably wrong. If this shit were easy, there wouldn't be a problem.
posted by teece at 10:10 AM on October 28, 2005


You think people didn't feel the wheels coming off during the Civil War? The Great Depression?

during the Civil War and the Great Depression we didn't have a mechanic who was taking an axe to the engine while the wheels were coming off...
posted by any major dude at 10:12 AM on October 28, 2005


It reads like an apology piece for this president. "Of course he can't handle it! It's all so complicated now!"

As if it weren't complicated before with the Cuban missles, the Cold War and those World Wars we had before with millions killed in prison camps.

Yeah, it's *so* complicated NOW.
posted by Red58 at 10:12 AM on October 28, 2005


I feel a Billy Joel song about fires coming in, five, four, three.....
posted by HuronBob at 10:12 AM on October 28, 2005


Cobra, baby, we create our realities.

How are you doing?! Are you good?

Just checking.
posted by nervousfritz at 10:12 AM on October 28, 2005


This makes me think of Clinton's first inaugural address: "
There is nothing wrong in America that can't be fixed with
what is right in America." Perhaps even Peggy Noonan can be fixed with what is right in America.
posted by allen.spaulding at 10:16 AM on October 28, 2005


I'm 32 and I can remember dozens of times "America has lost her innocence." Reagan.. Lennon... Iran-Contra... Challenger... Waco... WTC 93... Ruby Ridge... Oklahoma City... 9/11... Columbia.... As a student of history, I can find hundreds more. I think it's a hoot that people think JFK was some messiah who was going to help America cast aside its fedoras and grey flannel and lead us into the Age of Aquarius.
posted by keswick at 10:18 AM on October 28, 2005


Fear of apocalypse is nothing new; many of us spent most of the eighties expecting the bombs to drop at any moment. I'd agree that the US is in a bit of a bad way at the moment, but I'd like to think-- I hope, in fact-- that this has to do with the fantastic levels of denial around the Bush presidency finally starting to collapse. Sobering up can be rough, I know. But the country will be better for it.

Also, I can't believe that Noonan wrote the entire Op-Ed without mentioning the word "Iraq". If she's looking for an explanation for the sense of malaise she's wondering about, that's not a bad place to start.
posted by jokeefe at 10:19 AM on October 28, 2005


From Peggy's Dec. 14th, 2003 column:

"Let's not be boring people who Consider the Implications."

You see now where that approach gets you? Oops, too late. Hmph.
posted by you just lost the game at 10:19 AM on October 28, 2005


I could not stomach the whole thing. But let me say that a Republican hack expieriencing ennui is good news for 06.
posted by Mr T at 10:21 AM on October 28, 2005


what teece said. Many of Bush's biggest supporters now seem to have forgotten where the buck stops---it stops on the "strong leader"'s desk. They never had any trouble blaming Clinton for every single thing--rightly or no--but find it impossible for some reason to blame the man in charge.
posted by amberglow at 10:21 AM on October 28, 2005


The presidency wasn't seen to be overwhelming 6 years ago, or 8 or 20, or 100...or during the Civil War, or WW2, or 1812, or ever--until now. There's this insane refusal to expect the current leader to be responsible all of a sudden. Do they really know he's not up to the job and just don't want to say it? Or are they really delusional, looking everywhere except where responsibility lies?
posted by amberglow at 10:24 AM on October 28, 2005


Whatever Peggy Noonan. Maybe you should pick some new friends from Metafilter. Maybe they would tell you to relax... wackos who don't care about the little guy are running a country filled with wackos who don't care about the little guy (at least 50%)...

Democracy is an inherently unstable situation... stability is for those with the power of the police state...

Imagine how everyone was feeling in October of 1968, after June 5th, 1968 (RFK), February 21, 1965 (MX), January 6, 1964 (MLK), November 22, 1963 (JFK).

Talk about a tough six years... yeah, we've had a tough six years too... but nothing is wrecked... come on...
posted by ewkpates at 10:24 AM on October 28, 2005


At the very least, can this be the end of electing dim presidents and justifying it with "well, he'll surround himself with smart people"?

Clinton, in the course of his impeachment (his impeachment for fuck's sake) was a more effective leader and administrator than Reagan and Bush on their best days.
posted by psmealey at 10:26 AM on October 28, 2005


It should be noted that all modern presidents face a slew of issues, and none of them have felt in control of events but have instead felt controlled by them. JFK in one week faced the Soviets, civil rights, the Berlin Wall, the southern Democratic mandarins of the U.S. Senate. He had to face Cuba, only 90 miles away, importing Russian missiles. But the difference now, 45 years later, is that there are a million little Cubas, a new Cuba every week.
It's this part that really makes me feel like this is a Bush apologist piece. While I wasn't around for the Cuban Missile Crisis, and all I know of it is what I've gathered from school and some small reading, I don't see what threat today is comparable to the Cuban situation and is forever ongoing. Sure, the threat of terrorism is out there, but back then it was the Soviets with nuclear weapons. It's really the baseline threat level, and I think that's what needs to be compared. I suppose if the government received information about an immenent attack (that turned out to be true and all) and took action to prevent it through a really stressful week, that would compare.
posted by Godbert at 10:27 AM on October 28, 2005


The italics on the initials of "avian flu" and "Zimbabwe" made my day. Thanks, Peggy!
posted by aparrish at 10:28 AM on October 28, 2005


I refer to the sheer scope, speed and urgency of the issues that go to a president's desk...to the need to have a fully informed understanding of and stand on the most exotic issues, from Avian flu to the domestic realities of Zimbabwe.

There is a solution to this...And it's a responsible, intelligent chief executive -- one who's backed by hard-working experts in a variety of fields, not lickspittle former classmates or party hacks.

The Democrats have been saying for years that competence matters. The Republicans have been saying that their good ol' boy is good enough, that the party knows all, that science is a sham and diplomacy is weakness.

And so here we are. Welcome to the reality-based community, you simpering apologist.
posted by PlusDistance at 10:34 AM on October 28, 2005


Noonan's basic argument: Things are a lot worse for rich white people than they used to be. Woe betide the Republic. Why won't the rich white people do something about it?

It's so easy for the apologists of the American Empire to claim that everything's worse and nothing's better. But there's nothing in the article that proves the case, aside from general woolgathering about lack of values and lack of leadership. And that's topped with a dollop of free-floating modern anxiety about nukes, disease, and whatever other bogeyman you want to invoke.
posted by Scooter at 10:34 AM on October 28, 2005


A question for Peggy: is it a hangover she's suffering from, or buyer's remorse? Or both?

I suspect that history, including great historical novelists of the future, will look back and see that many of our elites simply decided to enjoy their lives while they waited for the next chapter of trouble. And that they consciously, or unconsciously, took grim comfort in this thought: I got mine. Which is what the separate peace comes down to, "I got mine, you get yours."

I think pretty much everyone is at least trying to live their life that way these days. What do you think is behind the surge in popularity of home and garden televison shows/magazines, etc. over the last decade or so? We might be going to hell in a handbasket, but if you've got a nice enough house or backyard you can ignore the reality of the situation for as long as you don't leave your property.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:35 AM on October 28, 2005


It reads like an apology piece for this president.

she's anglin' for a supreme court nomination, i wager
posted by Miles Long at 10:37 AM on October 28, 2005


A White House is a castle surrounded by a moat, and the moat is called trouble, and the rain will come and the moat will rise. You should buy some boots, do your work, hope for the best.

Two things: a professional writer with decades of experience should not have written that sentence in the first place, never mind letting it go to print, though OpinionJournal has developed a reputation for being a sort of Romper Room attached to the WSJ, rather than the infinitely more professional online prescence that it should have. Also, when the moat is rising, someone who truly has their eye on the long term and truly understands planning buys boats, as well as boots.


Third thing- a moat is for defense of the castle. it doesn't endanger the castle. or the trolley or whatever. dumb simile lady.
posted by Miles Long at 10:41 AM on October 28, 2005


keswick - if you think it was just about jfk ... or the news headlines of that decade ... you are very much mistaken

in my town, the milkman still delivered to your house ... the stores were still all downtown ... many other things i could mention changed ... but especially the attitude of self-confidence and destiny we had as a culture

i'm not nostalgic for those days at all ... but the difference is quite noticable ... as is the desire of many of my age group to roll the country back to those days, which is stupid

it has little to do with innocence ... back then, in spite of all the problems in the world, the basic culture didn't seem to be changing ... in a couple of years it changed radically and continues to do so

after the trolley crashes and we recover, i expect calmer and more stable times for awhile ... if we recover
posted by pyramid termite at 10:43 AM on October 28, 2005


Noonan's basic argument: Things are a lot worse for rich white people than they used to be. Woe betide the Republic. Why won't the rich white people do something about it?

Oh, they will. For you see, the past five and a half years have marked the beginning of a world-wide effort by "the elites" to make the plot of Atlas Shrugged come to pass.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:43 AM on October 28, 2005


It's beyond, "The president is overwhelmed." The presidency is overwhelmed.

Presidential apologist and set-up woman for the coming wave of totalitarianism. Our weak government (with millions of employees) is not enough to handle the problems. It needs to be bigger and more powerful.

More Manicheanism. You're either with the government or against it. All you doctors, lawyers, accountants, just practicing your love, you're the problem. You're not doing your part.

Peggy Noonan is one of the elite alright. These are the first seeds. Beware the big-government conservatives.

/tinfoilhat

My real question would be "What track are we supposed to be on?" I've never heard a leader articulate that sentiment explicitly. What is our purpose as a nation? Honestly. I don't see one, and I never have. If the actual purpose was "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," we derailed long, long ago. Somewhere along the line, the unwritten "pursuit of property" become all powerful.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:44 AM on October 28, 2005


p.s. ... this is not about bush ... it would be little different if kerry had been elected president
posted by pyramid termite at 10:44 AM on October 28, 2005


she's anglin' for a supreme court nomination, i wager

It doesn't take much.
posted by Peter H at 10:45 AM on October 28, 2005


Pyramid termite, in this age of Peak Ellipsis we must conserve as much as possible. Think about the ellipsis shortage our children will face.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 10:46 AM on October 28, 2005


pyramid, there wouldn't be Iraq if Kerry was President. Our resources would have been here at home when Katrina and Rita and Wilma hit. There wouldn't have been tax cuts for the rich. There wouldn't have been a squandering of a budget surplus. ...
posted by amberglow at 10:50 AM on October 28, 2005


Noonan seems to be attempting to develop an apologetic rationalization for the Bush administration's complete and increasingly public ineffectiveness and incompetency. It's not their fault, it's the system that's broke, modern life and international politics that's too complicated.

If I have a handle on all the conflicted issues she lists, then surely you can find a team of people stateside who are equally qualified to make decisions and direct the policy bureaucracy into effective action. It just so happens, not that this should have surprised anyone, that Bush et al aren't up to that task.

Next week, she'll probably be writing about how Michael Brown was the earnest and innocent victim of FEMA's bureaucracy and the Red Cross' malfeasance.

Message to Noonan: the system is a victim of the neocons, not the other way around.
posted by kowalski at 10:51 AM on October 28, 2005


it would be little different if kerry had been elected president

yeah -- except that kerry's VP chief of staff wouldn't have been indicted on 5 felony counts, and there's not a snowball's chance in hell that peggy noonan would have written this article about a kerry administration.
posted by spiderwire at 10:51 AM on October 28, 2005


"the wheels fell off the trolley in 1963 ... it's just taken many people this long to notice"

"the wheels fell off this trolley" LONG before 1963. if we're talking about the US, i'd suggest 1776.
posted by muppetboy at 10:54 AM on October 28, 2005


A question for Peggy: is it a hangover she's suffering from, or buyer's remorse? Or both?

Both, I suspect.
She didn't get the nickname "Nooner" for nothing.
Escaping reality one sweet sip at a time.
And the vodka gets the taste of Raygun's shoe polish off her tongue.
She took a leave of absence from WSJ recently to work on which presidenting campaign? Gasp!
posted by nofundy at 10:59 AM on October 28, 2005


I suspect that history, including great historical novelists of the future, will look back and see that many of our elites simply decided to enjoy their lives while they waited for the next chapter of trouble. And that they consciously, or unconsciously, took grim comfort in this thought: I got mine. Which is what the separate peace comes down to, "I got mine, you get yours."

I think pretty much everyone is at least trying to live their life that way these days.


The Card Cheat is partly right. Everybody has been living their life that way forever, no? That is, if you believe in evolution. It's all gimme pussy, gimme sperm. Sorry, no kids? See ya (or not).

If you don't believe in evolution, well, you're likely to make idiotic choices.

We live in buildings with our nuclear families and everyone outside those walls can go to hell. It's obviously not that simple, but that's the basic social structure.

It's just a gut feeling, but I think something in the transition from tree-dwelling hunter/gatherer to bipedal agriculturist screwed up in our evolutionary path, and left us ill-equipped to deal with relationships on a global scale, nor measurements of time longer than our own spans. We have no actual comprehension of what 6 billion people mean, let alone 1,000 years. (I'm not saying it didn't do most everything else completely right, especially our gigantic dongs.)

When the species does truly "go off the rail" it will be superseded by another that will take a crack at sustainable world domination, but I don't expect a winner for another hundred thousand years or so. Not that it matters. I'll be dead soon enough. :)
posted by mrgrimm at 10:59 AM on October 28, 2005


there wouldn't be Iraq if Kerry was President. Our resources would have been here at home when Katrina and Rita and Wilma hit. There wouldn't have been tax cuts for the rich. There wouldn't have been a squandering of a budget surplus

All hail Cassandra, prophetess.
posted by dhoyt at 11:01 AM on October 28, 2005


"the wheels fell off this trolley" LONG before 1963. if we're talking about the US, i'd suggest 1776.

One vote for 1585.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:01 AM on October 28, 2005


i suppose i should clarify that. although we think of ourselves as "rugged individualists" and a "new nation", nothing could be further from the truth. we have always been interdependent on the nations of the world and we inherited the host of problems that europe inherited from even earlier civilizations. if you want to look for the root causation of american problems, you may as well look at the history of human kind.

anyway, i thought this article was shallow and meaningless. it's hard to fathom someone who isn't still in college or high school who is just waking up to reality like this...
posted by muppetboy at 11:02 AM on October 28, 2005


"One vote for 1585."

how about whatever year it was when we stole fire from the gods?
posted by muppetboy at 11:02 AM on October 28, 2005


All this stuff is NOISE...we're due for a big change anyway...It's the Rule of 72. From The Fourth Republic by Stirling Newberry of BOPNEWS (PDF/HTML):
Each Republic, then, has three important pillars - a monetary basis, a system of power arrangements to negotiate the working of that monetary basis in social and economic power, and a lens which ties the government to the fiscal discipline needed for maintaining the relationship between the two. When the monetary basis becomes unworkable, there is a economic crisis which, while perhaps no larger than others, is intractable to the old order, as political arrangements are unable to cope with the tension between what must be done and what can be done. The crisis is only resolved after there is over-reaching attempt which destroys the previous currency basis. Only when some means to take on the debt left behind by the older order, and the cost of repairing it, is assigned, does the process truly end, an a new Republic is born, and grows to maturity.
The modern (and dying) Production Economy which started with Roosevelt and the Commerce Clause (and it's effects) is old and busted, and will be replaced by next years model, where the consumer is king, in a Consumption Economy. The only question is what it will look like.
posted by rzklkng at 11:06 AM on October 28, 2005


All hail Cassandra, prophetess.

I'm confused. Are you referring to Peggy Noonan, or calling amberglow a girl?
posted by Armitage Shanks at 11:09 AM on October 28, 2005


All hail Cassandra, prophetess.
posted by dhoyt at 11:01 AM PST on October 28


Dhoyt, the most important element of the Cassandra myth is that her predictions were correct. So I don't see what you're getting at.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 11:09 AM on October 28, 2005


how about whatever year it was when we stole fire from the gods?

No, the gods deserved it. The people who had been living in North America successfully for 10,000 years didn't.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:10 AM on October 28, 2005


pyramid, there wouldn't be Iraq if Kerry was President.

"we could begin to withdraw U.S. forces starting next summer and realistically aim to bring all our troops home within the next four years"

from a campaign speech

at no time did he promise to end the war immediately ... according to his own words, we would still at this time have troops there

There wouldn't have been tax cuts for the rich.

that's not a cause of the malaise and trouble we're in, its a symptom

There wouldn't have been a squandering of a budget surplus.

it had already been squandered in 2004

but the problem goes much deeper than who's president or what they are doing ... we have a civilization that cannot be sustained for long with its current methods of dealing with things ... not to mention iranians calling for israel's destruction, terrorists eager to get their hands on a bomb, the chinese wanting to spread their influence through asia and an economy that relies on the idea that we can continue to borrow forever and put off the day of payback

this is not a sustainable state of affairs ... when it blows up, bush will probably be blamed for it

better him than kerry
posted by pyramid termite at 11:10 AM on October 28, 2005


First, thank you to all commenting for your wise sense of perspective. Metafilter is sometimes the best tonic to the idiocy running rampant in the halls of power and press.

Second:
Keswick: get over yourselves, boomers

Right on. I'd like to add a slightly different dimension to this conversation: I am SICK AND TIRED of the selfishness of the baby boomers fucking up my world. From my view, much of what has derailed the American experiment in the last thirty years has been the obstinate refusal of the (thus far) largest generation of Americans to stop being so damn selfish.

What began in the 50s as a genuine consciousness movement, sparked by Beat writers et al, was hijacked in the late 60s by the coming-of-age boomers, and turned into a rationale for a giant party.

I know I'm ranting, but please bear with--I'd like to know others' take on this: The boomer generation as young adults created an unprecedented counter-culture movement that gave us many social freedoms we all benefit from today. Bully for them. But then they couldn't let go of that mindset--that they should be able to do what they want, whatever is best for them personally, all the time.

While we gained much in the social upheaval of the late 60s/early 70s, it seems that much was also lost: a sense of shared responsibility for the welfare of our society and the world at large; a sense of obligation to one's community and family; a sense that one's work ought to perhaps serve a purpose greater than only income enhancement; etc. As the boomer generation moved into middle adulthood, started having kids and moving into suburbs, it only got worse. I came of age in the 80s, and the values of that culture were, upon reflection, shockingly shallow and self serving--what was once called "greed" (famously praised by Gordon Gecko in 1987's Wall Street), simply became, by the early 90s, "success".

The hyper-pursuit of material comforts, and the sense of entitlement connected to that, is the legacy of the boomers. They are a shallow, chronically self-centered group, and Noonan's article evinces that as well as any example.

Has anyone else felt this way? Or am I just especially bitter today?
posted by LooseFilter at 11:12 AM on October 28, 2005


PS...the three Republics according to Billmon:
If that's true, then the United States may be approaching the end of the third great cycle of its political history. This thought is especially (if morbidly) fascinating to me, because it would mean all three of these cycles have been of almost precisely the same length. Consider:
  • From the ratification of the Constitution (1789) to the outbreak of the Civil War (1861): 72 years.
  • From the outbreak of the Civil War (1861) to Roosevelt's First Hundred Days (1933): 72 years.
  • From the Hundred Days (1933) to the next presidential inauguration (2005): 72 years.
  • posted by rzklkng at 11:14 AM on October 28, 2005


    Loosefilter, it's just Angry White Male Syndrome. A lot of people have a lot to lose when things change, but change they will...
    posted by rzklkng at 11:17 AM on October 28, 2005


    Has anyone else felt this way? Or am I just especially bitter today?

    Old people these days...dagnabbit!!!

    'Twas ever thus, as mrgrimm pointed out. I think the only difference these days is that, due to a multitude of factors, the lives we lead can directly affect people on the other side on the globe, whereas no matter how lazy, stupid, greedy or destructive my ancestors might have been in, say, the Middle Ages, it wasn't going to destroy the ozone layer over Australia.
    posted by The Card Cheat at 11:18 AM on October 28, 2005


    loosefilter ... my saying this might surprise you, but you're absolutely right ... i grew up in a generation of vipers and have known this for some time ... the boomers suck
    posted by pyramid termite at 11:19 AM on October 28, 2005


    Has anyone else felt this way? Or am I just especially bitter today?

    I'm right there with you on this.
    posted by all-seeing eye dog at 11:20 AM on October 28, 2005


    Yup, boomers suck ass.
    posted by Divine_Wino at 11:22 AM on October 28, 2005


    The editorial - which is all it really is, really - certainly has a large degree of navel-gazing, but anyone who is frank, honest and not desperate to foward an agenda is likely to find some wisdom in it.

    There are those here who say that the author has finally smelled the coffee. It's an easy charge, if you weren't alive back when coffee actually smelled different. It may be hard to believe for people who weren't alive when man walked on the moon (or even saw the lift-off of the first space shuttle), but there was a time when the country pretty much had it all in hand and under control. Or, at least, believed they did.

    It's a cynical charge from a generation raised in chaos who grew armor early; who learned to adapt and survive. It wasn't too long ago Meta featured an article about the broken Kurt Vonnegut, in which he bemoaned essentially the same feeling of loss. A lot of folks kissed his nuts in that thread because they respected him. In this thread, it's broken into half a snark and half just another chance to throw political brickbats at each other some more.

    You've missed the point. And that's what Vonnegut is depressed about.

    You sit at the bar and brag and excuse and pontificate about the most minute actions of your favorite sports team - you stand there like queer little star trek fans in your little uniforms, like you're part of the team. You're not. The team makes it's decisions - you buy tickets, and shirts and hats. You wave little plastic team flags out of your car windows. You paint your bellies in team colors. But your chances of managing that team, or even affecting that team's policy is squat. You just wanna feel like your part of something that's winning. You just wanna feel like someone gives a damn about your thoughts on defense and punting.

    They don't care.

    Same thing in Washington. They're gonna do what they're gonna do, and you go right ahead and send those contributions and come up with all your little grade-school insults for the other party. Go, freakin' team. But in Washington, every single one of you is less than a fart in a stadium. 100 of you put together is unnoticeable. 1000 of you put together is a laugh. 10,000 of you put together is half a news story on the five o'clock news and forgotten next week. 100,000 of you, in one place might earn an intangeable non-promising one-line soundbite from a local politician.

    What happened at "The Million More March?" C'mon - it was less than two weeks ago - what did it achieve? Show me all that power you have to change the world. You're Helpless.

    We're all helpless.

    And it didn't used to be that way. But that time is over now. Partially because you've been trained to squabble like chickens with each other inside your armor of cynicism and your belief that your alignment matters.

    You're the last kid picked. You're the loser they send to play deep outfield. No matter what you think, you're not part of the team... and that is just part of what has changed. And who among you is ready to wake up and smell That coffee?
    posted by Perigee at 11:24 AM on October 28, 2005



    “And--forgive me--I thought: If even Teddy knows . . .”

    ‘Cause Teddy is to the Kennedys what Fredo is to the Corleones.


    This is the oldest struggle. The selfish vs. the unselfish. It is in times like these that it bares itself. But it seems to have always been there.
    I’ve talked to many people who have this attitude. One of them was a medical doctor. It amazes me they are so callous as I’m sure they are amazed that I am so stupid.

    I suspect to some degree - and speaking in poor metaphor here - those folks are supplicating the ID. When I hit the gym (for example), there is a part of me that doesn’t explicitly say “quit!” but that says “slow down” or “we’ll do more tomorrow” or whatever bargain it seeks to make. That little bit that wants to be a tad more comfortable and will sacrifice anything to get it.
    Some people let it rule them. Let that, for lack of a better word - monkey - take over their intellect and get what it can for itself.

    Every once in a while a cabal of folks gain power (which is really all the monkeys aim to do) and that raw undercurrent of psyche becomes apparent. Those who are in league with it know others who are and can see those who aren’t. And the ones who have given the most of themselves over to it are typically in charge. Like any group of addicts, the strongest need drives.

    The difference is, it has no sense of mortality. No sense of change. (Solomon comes to mind: “This too shall pass”) One of the reasons I’ve been able to go through what I have is not because I’m any tougher than anyone, it’s that I accept that things change and I will die and it will all end. So I can tear a calf muscle and keep running or break a collarbone and keep going or drive myself without sleep for days, why? Cause I’m going to die anyway. Pain, glory, etc. It will end. You might as well master yourself and be who you will to be. ‘Cause nothing you have or make is going to last either. (Ozymandias)

    With that in mind, what scares me is not the trolley coming off the rails, but the counter-revolution. If someone who has transcended the monkey wants to live on in the continuity of their beliefs and their work. Someone like that would be similar to O’Brien from 1984. And they would lock the trolley onto one set of tracks forever - or threaten to nuke their own populace before their path stops. It’s the external “Thou art.” vs. the internal “I am.”

    Dunno if that makes any sense. Translated into politics, I’m not sure what historians will call the Yankee cycle. Or if we will even have one like the Chinese Dynasties do, or appear to have.

    Whether the constitution ultimately fails as an experiment in the United States is irrelevant. There are always tough times and people have to suffer through them. The ideals are eternal. They’ll be back. If not here than somewhere else. And those people will push humanity forward again. Or we’ll all die. We should live to assure the former, or else we’re just another pack of dead monkeys.

    I agree with most of the comments here - that reforms that didn’t force the mechanisms of the country to depend on the welfare of the rich white folks would fix most of the problems.

    And I’m with totally with ya LooseFilter FTBoomers.
    posted by Smedleyman at 11:25 AM on October 28, 2005


    Oh, there's a trolley off the rails all right: Peggy was so worried about the possibility of Liberal sissies derailing the country that she took an extended leave of absence from her job writing condescending editorials and chairing Washington luncheons to campaign for Bush in '04. She's constantly suggested that Liberals hate Bush because they resent his manly virtues. Now her big strong man is exposed as a ham-fisted mediocrity, and her noble sacrifice in vain. Whatever will the ladies at the Autumn Cotillion think?
    posted by slatternus at 11:26 AM on October 28, 2005


    I tend to agree that if Kerry had been elected this would have been: "Kerry told us that he was up to the job, but he lied and we'd be better off with Bush."

    But I think the real response here should be "If you can't stand the heat...."
    posted by ontic at 11:26 AM on October 28, 2005


    Cobra, baby, we create our realities.

    How are you doing?! Are you good?

    Just checking.


    Actually, yeah, I'm quite good. I'm just a guy who lives in the Midwest, follows my interests, and keeps in mind that A) the world's a big fucking place with a lot of interconnecting variables, and anyone who says they know how it all works is deluded or lying, B) given that human history is essentially an ongoing series of people thinking that society is going to hell in a handbasket, and C) I'm going to die some time, and it'd be a damned shame to spend what time I've got all tied up in knots over shit beyond my control.

    I'm very aware that we create our realities. And while whatever happens in Washington is a part of the reality I pay attention to, it's not the foundation.
    posted by COBRA! at 11:28 AM on October 28, 2005


    If the US is broken, well..........

    Noonan has herself been enthusiastically whacking the gears with a lead pipe for over two decades.
    posted by troutfishing at 11:31 AM on October 28, 2005


    the wheels fell off the trolley in 1963

    Yeah, that was the year the first disco opened in the US. I knew it was disco's fault.
    posted by kindall at 11:34 AM on October 28, 2005


    I'm heartened to read I'm not alone in my sense of this.....though not happy, because it means we still have a bit of a struggle to get things right.

    It's my sense that we live in a paradigm of FEELING rather than THINKING--this explains much, it's what boomers have made dominant: Why the current (really pretty dogmatic) religious revival? It FEELS good to think that we have Answers to Things; Why do "values" matter more than competence? It feels good to have someone 'like us' in charge; etc. This meme can be applied to any number of our current social ills, but I refuse to buy into the idea, stated above, that we really are powerless to do anything--right now, collectively, we choose to do nothing other than talk because our lives still feel pretty good.

    I'm not sure how bad it will have to get before thinking becomes fashionable again. I'd like to see rationality regain some currency before I die.....
    posted by LooseFilter at 11:55 AM on October 28, 2005


    SHORTER PEGGY NOONAN:

    Things were so much better when Ronald Reagan was president. Now, all we have is a pale copy. I think I'll go pleasure myself with my statue of Reagan Freeing the Communists.
    posted by paddbear at 12:03 PM on October 28, 2005


    No one has their finger on the pulse of America quite like a member of one its most aristocratic families.

    I'm not saying that America isn't in trouble, but if America's wealthiest families can't sustain their comfort and power from generation to generation, that's not necessarily a bad thing.


    Ignoring the validity (or not) of her article for a moment, I would like to take a moment to say that I often feel the same way, but not. By that, I mean I have the same feelings that I might express the same way, but about an entirely different thing.

    My worry is about our dependency on distant (not necessarily foreign) goods in order to survive. Here in LA, our water comes from elsewhere, either in bottled water form or through long pipelines before reaching our tap. Our food comes from other states, or from a long way away within the state. Our oil comes from without as well, obviously. And all of this is social/business infrastructure.

    So what happens if that infrastructure breaks down? Much of what we depend on is driven by profit, and the access to goods and services we take for granted could disappear overnight if there were no longer profit in it, or if it simply became untenable to maintain (arguably the same thing).

    I gaze out into my backyard sometimes, and think about what I would need to learn if I had to start growing my own food there, and how long it would take...how I would get the water my family needs if both water and gasoline were no longer available and it were the middle of summery...and so on.

    In short, every year that goes by, the majority of city-dwelling americans live lives of complete and utter dependency on profit-driven mechanisms we neither understand fully nor control -- and as my confidence in big business and the government dwindles, so does my trust in the future.

    I suppose it is inevitable that I'd feel this way, as the older one gets the more one discovers about such things, and the more one realizes that it's all held together with string and spit, but you can't deny that the dependency has increased markedly since the industrial revolution began.

    I wonder how long it takes to grow beans and carrots...
    posted by davejay at 12:05 PM on October 28, 2005


    Hmm. "The middle of summery" sounds like a nice place to be, doesn't it?

    summer, not summery -- although "the middle of summery" sounds like I'm visiting an unfamiliar place in England, sort of surrey-adjacent
    posted by davejay at 12:08 PM on October 28, 2005


    you know what's kind of funny? ... if maureen dowd or another left leaning columnist had written this, there would be a lot less snarkiness here

    but i'm reassured by some of the excellent responses here
    posted by pyramid termite at 12:14 PM on October 28, 2005


    the wheels fell off the trolley in 1963 ... it's just taken many people this long to notice

    "And that, I think, was the handle---that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting---on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark---the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

    --HST
    posted by ZenMasterThis at 12:34 PM on October 28, 2005


    Get out of America while you still can.
    posted by dolphin917 at 12:41 PM on October 28, 2005


    Welcome to my world.



    40% of the country still supports this ongoing trainwreck.

    In some ways it's good that Bush won reelection. He gets to sleep in the bed he made, and the next 3 years are going to be a lot tougher than 2005. One could almost sense that Kerry really didn't want to win. Who, not living in denial and/or believing the bullshit, would?

    We're looking at at $10T deficit for heading into 2010 (the first budget Bush's successor will be responsible for).

    The fiscal party's going to be over this decade. Taxes are going to have to go up, or spending is going to have to be cut. One dynamic I haven't seen commented on is that the tax cuts fueled the housing valuation boom, essentially wiping the cuts out for anyone who leveraged themselves to buy a house in the past 3 years. This middle-class money is now locked into paying the mortgage, so when the taxman comes for a 1-2% rate raise it's going to be tough for many middle-class people to find the money.

    Maybe the Roberts court will get a real pro-life case to decide. That will also wake some people up, the 70% of the country that aren't fundie nutballs at least.

    Iraq, dunno where that's going to go. Isn't $200B and ~10000 US dead and maimed enough of a cost to show that it was a really stupid idea to play GI Joes with our military and invade a sovereign country on a nation-building gamble?
    posted by Heywood Mogroot at 12:41 PM on October 28, 2005


    This reminds me of when Andy Rooney came out against the war . It wasn't what he was saying that was impressive, it was the fact that it was him who was saying it.
    posted by brevator at 12:48 PM on October 28, 2005


    Peggy Noonan presents:
    "I am Atlas, watch me shrug."
    posted by BeerGrin at 12:55 PM on October 28, 2005


    It's too vague to be thought-provoking.

    It's called Zeitgeist. Look around, it's everywhere. We are in a historical period of crisis that will last about 20 years, one crisis after the next, until the baby boomers finally retire and the next generation can take over and restore some order and civic duty. See Strauss and Howe The Fourth Turning.
    posted by stbalbach at 1:09 PM on October 28, 2005


    Man, this is like the worst weed-fueled paranoia session ever.

    And shut up, Peggy. No one cares about your sudden crisis of meaning.

    There has never been a trolley, nor any wheels to come off of it. I don't buy that humanity has ever existed in some ideal form that we somehow lost. We're an ongoing experiment that may or may not survive our own screw ups. What of it? We can either moan and rock ourselves in the corner, go for the suicide option, or keep trying. Those are the only choices we've ever had.
    posted by emjaybee at 1:10 PM on October 28, 2005


    Heywood Mogroot, make your graph bigger, please. I can't read any labels or make out all the datapoints.
    posted by rschram at 1:13 PM on October 28, 2005


    One could almost sense that Kerry really didn't want to win. Who, not living in denial and/or believing the bullshit, would?

    You would think that if that were the case he would have gone full tilt, both barrels blazing on the SOB's instead of being the impenetrable chunk of cold marble that he appeared to be. Same for Al Gore, where was the ranting, bearded, desert prophet he's turned into in 2000 if he didn't really care about putting up an appearance of stable sanity?
    posted by Pollomacho at 1:18 PM on October 28, 2005


    emjaybee, there is a trolley. It has wheels, but is off the tracks. And I am feeling paranoid.

    perigee, that was great and grimly funny.
    posted by TrolleyOffTheTracks at 1:28 PM on October 28, 2005


    rscham: just open the image in a new window.

    It's an interesting graph. All other presidents since Ike (and maybe him too) were at 60% at this point in their 2nd term. Except for Nixon.
    posted by Heywood Mogroot at 1:33 PM on October 28, 2005


    Calvin Coolidge brought rugged individualism to its foolhardy apex.
    Hover fumbled as a great tide of history washed over him.
    America came together with FDR and built its out of a depression.
    The Greatest Gen went to the last justified war.
    After the War, we invented a new rigid ideal of social conformity.
    The Hippies rebelled against real disenfranchisement.
    The Boomers broadened the boundaries of what was allowed
    and with Reagan grabbed as much as they could.
    And here we are; 30 something and wondering when the wave will break over the nation.

    My heart tells me we need to build; not emotionally but Physically.
    We need to drop the false ideological conflict bullshit.
    We need to have dirt beneath our finger nails.
    We need to go back to the great infrastructure works of FDR and repair or replace them.

    We've been arguing for so long about "Who we are" that we have stopped being who we are.
    We've been living in the great land our Grand fathers and Great Grand Fathers built, and we have neglected the solid reality of the floors and walls and foundations.
    We argued about what color they should be.

    How will all the "Acceptance" and "Social Change" we argue over finally come about?
    Easy. We will not longer be able to afford to care about the skin color of the American next to us.
    We will not care who other people have sex with when we are struggling to pay Germany and China and Japan back all the money our Fathers borrowed to "Make America Great."

    I truly believe things are going to get much, much, harder.

    And by the way boomers: if you think money and superior numbers will keep you separate from the struggle and cushy and safe, you have a surprise coming. If you newly minted Methuselah think we will work and pay so you can retire and live long on our backs, sucking Viagra and slathering Rogaine, you have surprises coming.
    posted by BeerGrin at 1:37 PM on October 28, 2005


    The Hippies rebelled against real disenfranchisement.
    The Boomers broadened the boundaries of what was allowed
    and with Reagan grabbed as much as they could.


    BeerGrin, "Boomers" and "Hippies" are the same self absorbed people. Don't be fooled by the myth that they struggled to change society. That struggle went to the generation before them, the "Children of Kennedy" the ones that rounded up voters in Mississippi, sang folk songs at sit-ins and were the first to join the Peace Corps in droves.
    posted by Pollomacho at 1:43 PM on October 28, 2005


    So can anyone tell me when exactly the left went from laughing at the paranoid, apocolyptic nuts in the bunkers to finding their ideas intruiging and subscribing to—nay, PUBLISHING their newsletters?
    posted by keswick at 1:50 PM on October 28, 2005


    Nay!!!
    posted by Perigee at 2:09 PM on October 28, 2005


    Well, this thread does seem to invite long searching emails (which have been in the main pretty compelling reading), so here goes . . .

    I spent this morning touring the farm of a seventy-something Danish gent who helped get the ball rolling on Denmark's wind-power industry back in the early 1980s (it now supplies nearly 20 percent of the nation's power). He beat cancer a couple of years ago - he mentioned this as the most incidental of afterthoughts - and now spends his days tending a farm in a quiet corner of the tiny island of Aeroe. He's trying to grow an exotic strain of oil-yielding radish (he didn't know the English word for it, but it had the Danish word for "radish" as its root) that he hopes can be used to supply ethanol for all the island's cars. His first crop has succeeded well beyond his expectations.

    If we had 1,000 of him - maybe more, maybe 100,000 - this world would be a very different and much more hopeful place.

    In the afternoon, I visited a vast field of solar panels that provide essentially all the heat for a town of 2500. There is a flock of sheep that wonders amid the banks of panels, keeping the grass short.

    If we had a 1,000 of these, maybe 100,000 - well, you get the picture.

    The truth of Noonan's brainfart - and there's rarely even a nugget, so this is rare - is that America really does seem to be off the rails. Maybe not all of it, and not forever. Maybe it started with Oswald's magic bullet or Nixon's tapes or Reagan's false morning in America or the stolen victory of the seat of ultimate power by the smirking heir to an oligopoly. Anyway, America seems tragically trapped in a no-win zero-sum game it can't talk itself out of. It's truly awful to watch, because it is a nation that has given the world so much hope for so long.

    America may need to look outside itself to end this game, and I fear that it doesn't know how to. Me, I'm looking to a jovial Danish senior citizen with a field full of strange crops, and the world seems a little more bright.
    posted by gompa at 2:15 PM on October 28, 2005


    keswick: the difference to me came with the realization that the current PtB running Washington are essentially looting the place, getting theirs while the getting is good, putting the nation on one hell of a collision course toward fiscal meltdown in the next decade.

    Bush Sr., bless 'm, went back on his 'no new taxes' pledge during his presidency, and it cost him dearly in 1992.

    But I've been watching the Republicans actively dismantle the 20th century American State brick by brick for 5 years now (and fighting against progress since 1993 really), and I have no great hope that there will be workable solutions to the fiscal mess these assholes are creating now.

    The KulturKampf defeats (prayer in schools, "under God" in the pledge, creationism, pro-life, drug-prohibition) is reversible, but $10T on the national credit card is going to be a Big Fucking Load to be carrying in 2010, when we're looking at medicare costs blowing up and the SSTF needing to start redeeming (later that decade) the $6T in IOUs it will be holding.

    While I'm no macro-economist and don't have a clue what's going on with China and the petrodollar flows into this country, I think we're going to need to raise federal taxes substantially to dig us out of this hole. Interest on the debt alone is going to be ~$500B/yr after Bush leaves office.

    FY05 ended $560B in the red, and that was supposed to be a 'good' year for our government. We're living on borrowed money right now. This is unsustainable.
    posted by Heywood Mogroot at 2:15 PM on October 28, 2005


    long searching posts, even . . .
    posted by gompa at 2:15 PM on October 28, 2005


    Plus the sheep may indeed also be wondering, but they're much more verifiably wandering.
    posted by gompa at 2:21 PM on October 28, 2005


    gompa: that was great. My thoughts exactly.

    We need less mindless consumption and more investment in Smart Shit (21st-century infrastructure, essentially) that creates more wealth in this country.

    This is another indictment I level at the PtB. We need a health care system that focuses on prevention and primary care for all, not penis pills (good health --> productive populace --> national wealth). More intelligent energy infrastructure. Instead, the current leadership thinks drilling in Alaska is going to materially solve things.

    The only forward-looking thing that has come out of DC since 2000 has been the "Smart Car" of 2003's SOTU, but that was a piddly amount of money ($1.2B over 5 years) directed at productizing natural gas for vehicular use apparently. A start, but not quite enough.

    That Danish guy was creating wealth. Pushing paper around, refis to pay off the cards, the new kitchen from Home Depot, the 30" plasma TV, is consumption. AFAICT, this decade has seen a lot of consumption but damn little investment.
    posted by Heywood Mogroot at 2:33 PM on October 28, 2005


    It's not America, it's the whole planet. We're face some pretty overwhelming problems. How the hell do we deal with a shortage of recources and global warming, both problems are heading to critical mass as the world slides towards another global war.
    posted by piscatorius at 2:36 PM on October 28, 2005


    "Boomers" and "Hippies" are the same self absorbed people.

    not exactly ... the hippies and allied others were the part of the boomer generation that were first heard from ... a small, but noticable minority ... the majority toed the line, but with a mentality of expectation and entitlement ... they watched the country slide off the rails and watched things get more confusing ... they wanted the world they had been promised ... eventually many got madder than hell and started making noise themselves for a return to "traditional values" and "what made america great"

    and that's who's been voting for bush ... he's the true voice of our generation, the representative leader of the baby boomers

    as a member of that generation, all i can say is we really do suck, don't we?
    posted by pyramid termite at 2:46 PM on October 28, 2005


    Reading Noonan's piece was like hanging out in a bar with a five-alarm drunk whose knuckles are raw from beating his kids who looks up from yet another round and sighs, "Where did it all go wrong? I should have sent the wife a Valentine's Day card."

    In 2003, Noonan was wetting her dry goods about Bush being "the Right Man" whose presidency "feels like a gift." I mean, just listen to her!

    George W. Bush's State of the Union the other night flipped expectations and broke rules. It began as a barge and turned into a ship of state. Suddenly you realized its early slowness was in fact a stateliness, not a flaw but part of a design. It built. It didn't blast its horn and yet as it moved forward you couldn't stop listening.

    It was the speech of a practical idealist, practical in that it dealt directly with crucial and immediate challenges and addressed them within a context of what is possible, and idealistic in that it applied the great American abstractions--freedom, justice, independence--to those challenges. The speech was held together by a theme of protectiveness. We must now more than ever, and for all the current crisis, continue as a uniquely protective people. We must protect the vulnerable and troubled--the young with parents in prison, the old with high prescription costs, workers battered by taxes, victims of late-term abortions, a continent dying of AIDS. In foreign policy we must protect ourselves and the world from those who would harm us with massive, evil weapons.


    It turns out that one of the most "massive, evil weapons" at large in the world was Noonan's own gift for draping the flagrant bullshit of these crooks in Capraesque evocations of morning in America. Fuck you, Peggy -- you were one of the architects of the mess that now makes you all dewy-eyed for a simpler time.
    posted by digaman at 2:57 PM on October 28, 2005


    Peggy Noonan is a villain, has always been a villain, and will continue to be a villain as long as she continues to be an apologist for the worst that the Republican Party has to offer. Every Republican presidential administration back to and including Nixon - that is, since before most MeFiers were born - has been felonious. Watergate. Iran-Contra. Valerie Plame. And more.

    Welcome to the real world, Peggy, where being a crony and a moron and a felon don't help. They hinder. Welcome to reaping what you sow. Now sit down and shut the fuck up. You have a guaranteed right to speak, but I have a guaranteed right to tell you you're a jackass and a fool, and that your ideas are poisonous. So shut up.

    That felt good.
    posted by jkilg at 3:00 PM on October 28, 2005


    Every Republican presidential administration back to and including Nixon - that is, since before most MeFiers were born - has been felonious. Watergate. Iran-Contra. Valerie Plame. And more.

    Exactly. And she's been right there with many of them, writing their speeches, rhapsodizing and giving them blowjobs, continually. She helped create this toonerville trolley that ran off the tracks.
    posted by amberglow at 3:06 PM on October 28, 2005


    the representative leader of the baby boomers

    as a member of that generation, all i can say is we really do suck, don't we?


    Spare me. My parents were baby boomers too, and they spent the 1960s getting arrested for organizing massive demonstrations against the Vietnam war -- and later, fighting difficult, daily fights against racism and the oppression of working people. Bush is not a "representative" baby boomer, he's a ne'er-do-well rich kid of a Republican family whose failures have always been other people's problems.
    posted by digaman at 3:07 PM on October 28, 2005


    whatever. i've lived enough to have seen a lot of those older moments of doubt. and i don't disagree that it was 1776. or that the opinion piece is a set up for a bush apology. or that ennui only counts when rich white people feel it. and i work hard at being one of those valuable danes. but you'd have to be out to lunch to not be thinking how intractable it's becoming every day. i love seeing the windmill farms. but i work in climatology research now. and every week i find out something new that scares the ever living jesus out of me. i've worked a lot more in politics for a couple of decades. and i'm finding more and more the social problems of the well intentioned are the biggest enemy. off the rails and unmanageable complexity are not to be blown off. infrastructure outstrips superstructure. only vanity keeps us going. we don't know what we're doing and we've just been hella lucky for longer than can be reasonably explained.
    posted by 3.2.3 at 3:29 PM on October 28, 2005


    Peggy Noonan?

    Fuck Peggy Noonan.

    Peggy Noonan is who Leni Riefenstahl would have been had Hallmark had a Munich office

    Conservatism is a disgraced ideology.

    Conservatism is Dead.
    posted by Relay at 4:38 PM on October 28, 2005


    It's remarkable how she can identify the symptoms without admitting the cause: Peggy Noonan contributed more than her share in bringing us into this situation. The presidency is overwhelmed? How about electing somebody who's fit to govern?

    My favorite rhetorical question from this little exercise in apre moi-ism: Do you have confidence in the CIA? The FBI?

    Well, let's see: back when I was 14, the FBI murdered Fred Hampton in his bed. They seem to be be somewhat more law-abiding now, but, no, I can't really say that I "have confidence" in them. Should I?


    posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 5:20 PM on October 28, 2005




    Wow, what doom and dispair. Just a few years ago, the US reached its apex. Peace and prosperity, the golden age was upon us. I had to wear shades.

    Fundies don't like the peace and prosperity, they prefer times of pestilance and hell-fire. Five year of it now and counting.

    I'm not pessimistic long-term, but the short-term does look scary. Our current fundie presidednt is not incompetently but actively trashing this country.
    posted by tgyg at 9:34 PM on October 28, 2005


    In a July 2005 piece titled The Chauffeur's Dilemma, UoC Berkeley professor of sociology Arlie Hochschild offers a different perspective on the reasons for America's present societal miasma. Whether you agree or disagree with some political conclusions about the current administration that she reaches in the piece, her central point is that, a democratic republic can't function when the body politic delegates moral responsibility for a society to its leaders. That is the lesson of Nuremburg, but it is one pretty lately come to in human history, and I think Noonan and others too easily overlook it. Yet, as a society we know this lesson, and accordingly, we're uneasy with Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and the immediate and continuing callousness of elected and appointed officials in the face of recent natural disasters, and some suggest we already know what we must do.

    In her piece, I suppose Hoschschild is intellectually exploring, as she has in other writings, and as are others, some reasons for the apparently perverse behaviors in which American society lately seems engaged. But what she doesn't address, what Noonan doesn't address, is the difficulty, despite vastly improved communication technology, of conducting civil discourse in modern societies, and of reaching political consensus on complex policy questions through our public institutions, and ultimately, the ballot box.

    But I agree with her that fixing our problems starts with a resolve to be personally responsible for how our society works, to the extent we can, and to act politically and publicly with moral awareness. We can't hire hearts or borrow minds, and be happy with the results. And more importantly, we're learning again, that "the vision thing" always matters.
    posted by paulsc at 8:53 AM on October 29, 2005


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