Let's see: turned a massive surplus into a massive deficit; cut taxes for the rich and others whilst fighting two wars halfway across the world, thus expending tons of valuable human and material resources and making the deficit even worse and fucking our children and children's children while also hastening the decline of America (run-on sentences can sometimes be fun); creating No Child Left Behind and contributing to making my student's even stupider while also promoting a service-based system of teaching and further encouraging the entitlement issues of this generation; having Dick Cheney as his VP, Rumsfield as his Defense Sec., and Powell as his puppet Secretary of State; continued to erode EPA standards, weakened enforcement of carbon emissions also hastening global warming (see # 5); rigged Medicare prescription drug bidding to favor Pharmaceutical companies; rigged Iraqi rebuilding bidding to favor Haliburton and other close bedfellows and ultimately watched a bunch of money disappear through corruption; fucked up Katrina...really, really badly; alienated every ally except Australia, Britain, and Luxembourg; was perhaps the worst public speaker of all times and may have been the least educated president we have ever elected; made Richard Nixon look like a puppy dog; declared some American citizens did not have access to habeas corpus and then proceeded to detain them on Navy ships without access to a lawyer or trial; built Guantanamo Bay and hamstrung future presidents abilities to deal with these prisoners; presided over a state with more executions than any other; ran the Texas Rangers into the ground; ran an oil company into the ground; was a C student at Yale, taking a spot away from some poor person more deserving.
Thanks GWB for being you. And thank you Americans for electing this twit, once. And thank you Justices Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas for electing the idiot the first time through unconstitutional means. And thank you Gore for being about as exciting as a piece of wood and distancing yourself from a charismatic and likable guy. And finally, thanks Kerry for using botox, windsurfing, being a vet but reacting too slow to the Swiftboat attack, and looking like a fudgsicle melting in the sunlight.
9. The Iraqi War: You all know why the war in Iraq will impact us forever. Besides estimates that we will be there for years to come, the death toll on both sides, the amount of money and other resources expended, and the fact that we screwed our own foreign policy up by allowing the idiot above to conduct a preemptive war. Here is why I am mad. First, when we invaded them we failed to secure the infrastructure. The result was the looting of museums. But, you might say, who cares!?!
Well, Iraq or, as it once was called, Mesopotamia is the birthplace of writing, urban civilization and empire-building. 5,000 years ago, in Uruk or southern Iraq today near the Euphrates river, humans began to write two-dimensionally in clay with reeds. These peoples are not far from who we are today seeing as how Abraham came from Ur, another city on the Euphrates; the Judeo-Chrisitan-Islamic religions derive some of their mythology, ethical precepts, and general world view from the Mesopotamian religions; and, quite frankly, our alphabet owes a lot to these people. So much of the artifacts that were housed in museums, the results of archaeologists tireless excavation, are gone because of Bush et al.
Second, our bombing runs ignored the fact that much of ancient Mesopotamia is still under the desert. We likely destroyed numerous antiquities in our careless destruction of Iraq. I mean, we were bombing dams, electrical grids, and other key urban structures, what makes us less likely to destroy non-urban targets.
Third, no country has ever successfully invade Iraq/Mesopotamia and occupied it for very long. The Arab people are a hardy bunch much like the American people. No one likes foreign occupiers, especially those who mistreat the natives. Abu Ghraib was likely one case of a much larger and problematic orientation towards the Iraqi people...
8. The Infamous Nipple Incident: Why is this important? Why did it make such an impact on me? Well, here is the deal. Freud once said that we are driven by two things: aggression and sex. Society's job is to control out id by internalizing a superego which acts as our moral compass or conscience. In earlier times, sex and death (or aggression) were fundamental dimensions of human existence. They were inseparable from life itself. They were natural. With the rise of the state, violence became a regulated sphere of social life -- probably for the best. With the rise of world religions, new conceptions of sin, ethical imperatives, and soteriologies, sex became regulated -- e.g., orgiastic rituals were no longer acceptable religious rites. Stay with me here...
Finally, capitalism arrives on the scene and sex and aggression are commodified, packaged goods, tightly controlled by corporations, the Church, and the State. Reckless abandon, pure sensuality, and true emotions are dangerous to stability. We are not quite Brave New World where everything is government sanctioned; pornography on the internet is still uncontrollable and there are random acts of violence. Nevertheless, the question we must ask is: why, during an extremely violent sporting event which peddles sexuality through cheerleaders and through advertisement for beer, cologne, clothing, and anything else, does a nipple create such a stir that the FCC steps in and now the Superbowl is not televised live, but on a 5-second delay?
Here is the answer. Sex sells. But, it is accepted by the public only in a nicely packaged form. Tightly controlled, appealing to standardized stereotypes of sex roles, sexuality, and eroticism. Two girls fighting over a Miller Lite and a guy in a fountain at an outdoor restaurant plays to our base desires, but carefully and in very typical ways. The violence on the field is also highly regulated. Football may have the most rules of any sport; out-of-bounds is highly salient; legal v. illegal is also quite obvious; and the events unfold in very rigid timed segments. The nipple, on the other hand, was unplanned; it was spontaneous; it was out of the control of the broadcast.
It made an impact because it clearly highlighted who we are as Americans, and what we fear the most. It reminded us of our puritan roots. Our desire to sublimate our most sensual and erotic feelings. It is the same fear that manifests itself when we see Gay Pride parades and unbridled sexuality on display; or, the dirty feelings we experience when we go to strip clubs; or that feeling you get at the Hustler store. All of us have nipples; most of us have suckled from the nipple at some point in our childhood; and, all of us enjoy nipples today. Why the fuss over a piece of anatomy...?
Now that we have that straight, why is this so important. Well, actresses and celebrities have always been reckless. But, with the level of media amplified in the 2000s, these people not only were celebrated and reviled at the same time for their behavior, they were given a stage grander than people fighting for peace, or trying to end global poverty or hunger. Why? Because they shave their heads and show their cooch? Because they get coked up, drive a brand new mercedes into a stop sign? Because they get pregnant, have a child, get divorced, and then go bat shit? What is so cool about that? I realize their are teaching lessons in these people's misbehavior, but that we even give them the spotlight is very telling.
E! entertainment is perhaps the biggest culprit here. They package this crap. But, people are willing to eat it all up. And for what? Some catchy pop hooks? So we can compare our morality to their immorality? Or, so we can worship our stars, but secretly wish and wait for them to crack?
I don't know. I do know this phenomenon is a bad one for our society. Rome too became morally decrepit near as it decayed. Decadence is tantalizing and seductive. The rise and spread of the absurd is upon us and I fear for the intelligence, capability, and strength of the next generation.
6. The Rise of Talentless, Horrible, Human Beings...And Their Acceptance...: Somewhere in the reality television craze, we have begun to idolize talentless ass-clowns like the "octomom," Jon and Kate, and my favorite Paris Hilton. Our vanity is reflected in their stardom. Who are these people? My neighbors. Ordinary idiots with cameras thrust in their face and our decision to purchase what they are selling. It is really a bad case of the Emperor has no clothes. But, for some reason we stare. And I am not sold on the "I can't pull my eyes away from a train wreck" excuse. Their success is a symptom of a larger malaise; an American obsession with normal people becoming successful (at least in most cases, though Hilton is unique and will get some time below) for no reason at all. It keeps giving all of us hope that we too will make it. A friend of mine, who worked at a liquor store with me, used to call the lotto "tax for the stupid". Why? Because it was a waste of money and only showed people's inability to stop humping the American dream. Statistics will reveal objective truth: 95% of all Americans will never move beyond the socioeconomic position they were born into...mobility is a myth...but, the American dream is so alluring.
What bothers me most, however, is the way we put these people on TV with little regard for the well-being of their children, who are the real victims of this. Our society has stopped caring about children. From the massive debt we are handing them to the decision to produce violent video games, violent television. Or the peddling of goods and services to teens while objectifying them. Or the sale of sex to them. We are destroying them slowly with the hormones we pump into cows that speed up the puberty process.
And, Paris Hilton, you deserve the Super Idiot Award. You aren't very attractive, but you are rich. You cannot act, sing, or dance, but you are rich. You are not very smart, but you are rich. Thanks for reinforcing, again, the fact that money is all you need to get attention and become a superstar. Your existence wastes precious resources better spent on people who work for a living; who toil their lives to make in their lifetimes what you make in a year; and who actually are talented.
5. The Seriousness of Global Warming: There may be no calamity more intense facing the human species. The Artic Circle will be completely melted within 30 years (during the summer months), raising water levels upwards of 2 feet; by the end of the century, the temperature will have risen about 7 degrees, and the glaciers all over the Earth are melting and threatening the water supplies of a lot of people. This is all very bad news. All the Priuses in the world will not save us if we don't cap emissions, use green energy, and start thinking smarter here. But, we are like our animal brethren: terrible at managing our environment.
4. Palin, the Right, and the Conservativization of America: Love them or hate them; love her or hate her. Palin changed the political calculus in serious ways. Before her, McCain was the best they could offer; Romney, a tired Guiliani, and Fred Thompson (really!?!) were the second-runners up. Palin unleashed a torrent of hidden anger and resentment from a segment of the population that lay dormant for a long time. Who are they tea party people? These hardline right-wingers? These Glenn Becks? Limbaugh's radio show has always had strong ratings indicating they were there the whole time. Listening, biding their time, growing angrier. And then, Palin opened the flood gates. Obama merely is the symbol of their hatred: a black man, a liberal, a northerner, an urbanite, and an intellectual. Everything the populist right hates.
But, my friends, don't think these people are going away. They have only begun to defile themselves. Polls indicate America is becoming more and more conservative, except in the few liberal bastions that sit on the coasts. Prepare for strange politics in the next few years. I am not predicting anything, because I have lived long enough to know things change in politics in a heartbeat...but, the outlook is not so pretty.
Palin will not go anywhere, but new one's like her will arise. What will happen? I suggested a moderate third-party, but that's unlikely. I suppose the moderate GOPers will either toe the line or be ousted from politics. The left will only harden and a new political civil war will be fought. Or, it might just be politics as usual. Either way, like the New Left in the 60s, the "neo" right of the Palin-era is upon us.
3. Massachusetts, San Francisco, and Same-Sex Marriage: The decision by courts and mayors and, likely, the populous in many places, to allow same-sex marriage is landmark for a few reasons. First, when I was younger -- like in the early 1990s -- being gay was not ok at all. I had no gay friends, though I suspect some were closeted. Clinton's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" (regardless of your feelings on it) broke the gates open. In 15 short years, we have gone from gay not being ok, to gay being kind of ok, to the door being wide open, marriage becoming gradually accepted and soon gay adoption being understood as ok as well. Studies of course indicate two parents, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, are better than one; children of same-sex parents do not turn out gay because being gay is a matter of biology and genetics and not environment; and that loving parents and committed spouses transcend orientation.
What I think is most interesting, as a sociologist, is that we have no idea whether this will end well or terribly. The same arguments against gay marriage were bandied about against interracial marriage 50 years ago: it will destroy the institution of marriage; it is against god's will; etc. We see how that turned out...just fine. I assume things will also end benignly because in the grand scheme it makes little difference who marries who...as long as they are happy, healthy, and contributing members to society. I suppose the real irony is that the groups most opposed to gay marriage also tend to have the highest rates of premarital sex, teen pregnancy, divorce, and infidelity. I suppose the old don't throw stones at glass houses applies.
2. Obama as (Black) President: It would have been too easy to put this number 1, though it certainly deserves it. I would rather end this list cynically to fit my M.O. Obama's election was inspiring for so many reasons. And, what the right doesn't get is that it will not be strictly about his performance vis-a-vis McCain's potential performance; it is about the fact that we all witnessed something that a year and a half ago none of us assumed could ever happen. A black man is president. It took 100 years to go from being slaves to actually having some civil rights; it took another 40 plus years of struggle to get those rights to mean something; and now there is a black president. I am proud to be American, but ashamed at the right's attack on him. He has not done everything he promised, and he is definitely more left than he made himself out to be, but he should be given a chance to do something in his first term. I am all for dissent, but not ad hominem attacks. To question his integrity is absurd. Especially considering the transgressions of his predecessor.
Regardless of how this turns out, Americans can never go back to the old days or pre-Obama years. We have evolved. And, well, thank god because stagnation is the best medicine for destruction.
By no means am I saying we are headed one way or the other. But, most of the things we took for granted have been challenged. Being a democracy is a difficult task. Accepting freedom with less security goes against some of our base instincts. As a people, however, we will have to decide which is most important to us: being a beacon of light to other subjugated peoples or joining them by subordinating ourselves to our masters.
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