Roots of America’s Collapse

I refer again to an article written by Umir Haque. In that article Haque states America is in a state of collapse. And in a state of chaos. The two are interwoven in his view. But what he says in more detail is uncomfortable. Perhaps because his statements reverberate with some truth?  Whether all truth or not I am unwilling to state at this point. But come along with me and examine a few of his statements.

“The roots of American collapse run deep into the soil of hate. What was ‘neglected’? America neglected to invest in itself. while the rest of the rich world built public healthcare, transport, education, and so on, in the 1950s and 60s, America was still segregated by race. So American collapse isn’t just about what is going wrong today. It is about why everything is going wrong today. In the simplest analysis, Americans today, unlike nearly any other country in the world, deny one another basically good lives. You may think that is new, but it is not. They always have – that is what slavery and segregation were, weren’t they? The deep antipathy to public goods, healthcare, education, and so on, in America is the result of a legacy of hate. And that legacy is what stopped America from investing in itself, ever, and still does today – hence collapse.”

Well, I must say he has a point here. I had never thought of it this broadly before. In my own life, disgust over racism came early. As a child our home discussed inequity and discrimination as wrong. We then focused on racial injustice, not broader injustices; there were many but we remained focused on racial discrimination.

That posture never left me. Even in the era of Viet Nam war protests, I was focused on the civil rights movement and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I marched in those protests, not Viet Nam War protests. So it comes as a surprise that the rest of America did not then, and still doesn’t, get the importance of racism and discrimination. It poisons the body politic. It poisons our history. It constricts our growth and warps us in our values.

This warping is subtle and accumulative. Decades later we are still distorted and we don’t see it. That’s Haque’s point, after all. If we are distorted and do not see our own bias, then we make public policy and program not fully cognizant of their effects.

Thus we do not invest in public education through which each person gains what they need to compete successfully with everyone else and the world’s societies as well. We crimp our own abilities. We also fail to invest fully in research, science and expanding the base of knowledge. Instead we commit a disproportionate share of our ‘investment dollars’ into war, military science and armaments. The Space Program alone saved us from totally giving in to the military-industrial complex in the 1960s and 70s.

And then there is the entire question of our investment in infrastructure: dams, roads, bridges, storm water management, smart electrical grid, global warming, air pollution and water pollution and soil pollution. Have we done enough in those arenas? Mostly; but even today arguments and actions are proposed to do away with much of the public administration guaranteeing progress in those arenas. For God’s sake, we are talking about eliminating the departments of Education, Energy, EPA and many others!

If those arguments are even spoken, aren’t we proving the point that we are unwilling to invest in our public good? Haque is probably correct, then.

If you feel otherwise, then explain why the discussion in Washington is unfolding as it is. Why is the Congress contemplating its agenda that pretty much parallels what Haque charges?

And this stems from slavery and segregation? Probably true. After all if we think some people are not worth supporting and nurturing, then we can move farther down the spiral of discrimination and even unwittingly discriminate against ourselves!

Interesting thought. Possibly true.

Perhaps we all ought to spend some time pondering who we are and what exactly it is that we are proud of our nation. And why!

June 2, 2017