The United States of Gloom?

[PrisonerOfHope]

Toby Harnden is the Daily Telegraph's US Editor, based in Washington DC.
By Toby Harnden US politics Last updated: July 3rd, 2011


NEWS REVIEW: America’s deepening recession and widespread pessimism about the country’s prospects add a bitter note to Independence Day, reports Toby Harnden, US Editor.

Across America today, people will gather for barbecues in their backyards, parades through their towns and firework displays lighting up the night sky.

They’ll be celebrating Independence Day – the birthday of the United States and the 235th anniversary of shaking off the oppressive yoke of British rule.

On this day in 1776 a group of 13 colonies broke away to found a new nation free to govern itself as it saw fit, pledging that each citizen would have the unalienable right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. A nation, as Americans are apt to declare without equivocation, which became the greatest on the face of the earth.

That’s the good news. On the flip side, however, a country whose hallmark has always been a sense of irrepressible optimism is in the grip of unprecedented uncertainty and self-doubt.

With the United States mired in three foreign wars, beaten down by an economy that shows few signs of emerging from deep recession and deeply disillusioned with President Barack Obama, his Republican challengers and Congress, the mood is dark.

The last comparable Fourth of July was probably in 1980, when there was a recession, skyrocketing petrol prices and an Iranian hostage crisis, with 53 Americans being held in Tehran.

Frank Luntz, perhaps America’s pre-eminent pollster, argues that his countrymen are much more downbeat now than in 1980. “The assumption with the Carter years was that it was a failure of the elites, not the system. We thought the people in charge screwed up. We didn’t blame ourselves.” Remarkably, many Americans think things will only get worse and the good times will never return.

A recent New York Times/CBS poll found that 39 per cent think that “the current economic downturn is part of a long-term permanent decline and the economy will never fully recover”. That was up from 28 per cent last October. Last month, a CNN poll found that 48 per cent of Americans believe another Great Depression is somewhat or very likely.

Luntz has found that 44 per cent of Americans believe their country’s best days are in the past, 57 per cent that their children will not achieve the same quality of life, and 53 per cent that they are less free than five years ago. So what is going on? How did the land of the free, the home of the brave, and a country that less than three years ago elected a young, untested black man as president on a platform of hope and change, get into this funk?

The parlous state of the economy is only part of the explanation. More significant is the recession’s length. Obama’s promise of a national transformation after the Bush years, moreover, means that the thud of coming back down to earth has been that much harder.

The intoxicating atmosphere of the 2008 election and Obama’s inauguration has given way to a hangover. Americans were promised that the $787 billion Obama stimulus package would cut unemployment by funding so-called “shovel-ready projects”. Instead, unemployment is at 9.1 per cent compared to the 7.8 per cent Obama inherited, while the national deficit has tripled from less than $500 billion to a staggering $1.5 trillion.

To add insult to injury, at a recent gathering of his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, during a discussion about the length of time it took to get projects funded, a smiling Obama interjected: “Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected.” Members of the council sitting around him tittered but most Americans were not amused.

There is gridlock in Washington over raising the national debt ceiling, with Democrats demanding tax increases as well as deficit reduction, and Republicans adamant that no taxes will be increased. In a characteristic illustration of a bipartisan assumption of bad faith in such debates, Democrats have accused Republicans of wanting to damage the economy as part of a plot to harm Obama’s re-election chances.

The US Treasury is warning of “catastrophic economic and market consequences” if no deal is reached in July and the country defaults on its debts, though there are signs that both sides would prefer this to political compromise. Obama summed up the Republican position as “Are you willing to compromise your kids’ safety so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?”

Six times, he mentioned the scourge of tax breaks for corporate jets. To the uninitiated, it might have appeared that eliminating these evil tax breaks might make a significant dent in the national debt. But it was quickly calculated that doing so would save about $3 billion over the next decade, or 0.03 per cent of the $9.5 trillion in cumulative new debt contained in Obama’s current budget plan.

On foreign policy, there was a brief spasm of celebration over the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. But Obama’s decision, against military advice, to capitalise on this by withdrawing 33,000 US troops from Afghanistan has been accompanied by a sense that the US is retreating, if not surrendering.

It was on the Fourth of July last year that General David Petraeus assumed command in Afghanistan and declared: “We are in this to win.” But in announcing his recent decision to withdraw troops, there was no mention by Obama of winning or victory – or, for that matter, of Petraeus, who is returning home to take over the CIA.

Futhermore, having cast doubt on American exceptionalism, Obama has allowed Europe to spearhead the Libya operation, prompting a White House aide to coin the term “leading from behind”.

But Americans do not just blame Obama; and the national malaise is to do with far more than one president. “Every institution in America has gone through a collapse,” says Luntz. “The Church is not what it was, thanks to all those religious scandals, the media is much less trusted today than it was 20 or 30 years ago. Big business does not have credibility.”

The growth of blogging, social media and cable TV together with the decline of the broadcast networks and papers like the New York Times means Americans have access to more news, but this is often partial and drowned out by opinion. Because there is greater choice, more and more Americans are choosing to read only things that reinforce their existing beliefs, shutting out the other side.

When Republican presidential candidates Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann made assertions about historical events, their supporters rushed to Wikipedia to change entries about those events – altering reality to advance their argument.

“It means a lot more shouting,” says Luntz. “It means a much less unified America on the Fourth of July and a lot more division. You’ll hear a lot more political arguments while we’re watching the parades. While we will appreciate the celebration of tradition, there’s so much anxiety and anger that it makes it really unpleasant.”

One of the few news stories of recent months that prompted unanimity across the political divide was the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, then head of the International Monetary Fund, on suspicion of raping a chambermaid in a New York hotel.

Only in America, most people here agreed, could the rights of an African immigrant trump those of a powerful, arrogant politician. But even that illusion was shattered last week when it turned out that the accusing woman was a liar with criminal ties who allegedly hoped to profit from the incident. Now, the sleazy Frenchman is poised to resume his presidential quest, doubtless to be fuelled by Gallic anti-Americanism, back home.

The 2010 mid-term elections showed that the Tea Party movement, drawing its small-government, low-tax inspiration from the revolutionaries who overthrew the British, was a phenomenon that could turn American politics upside down.

Previous elections had been about choosing the lesser of two evils but 2010 was about throwing the bums out. Luntz, a Republican, predicts that 2012 will be a “none of the above” contest. What is needed above all is optimism: it is a prerequisite for the risk-taking needed to invest and start new businesses. Its absence could turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy as belief in American decline helps ensure that the halcyon years are indeed in the past.

The 1980 election was won by Ronald Reagan with his “Morning in America” message. Today, a 10ft bronze statue of Reagan will be unveiled outside the US Embassy in London’s Grosvenor Square, which, in another sign of the times, is due to move to Battersea next year because of concerns about its vulnerability to terrorists. Thus far, there is no sign of a new Reagan emerging.

More worryingly, the optimism he embraced and came to personify is all but absent in America this Fourth of July.

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blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyharnden/100095052/down-on-the-fourth-of-july-the-united-states-of-gloom/

Here's my own piece in a local paper:

What Are We Celebrating On The Fourth Of July?
posted July 3, 2011

You see it everywhere - on signs in stores, in TV commercials, newspaper ads, and sales fliers: Happy Fourth of July.

Well, now, isn't that special? What's the big deal about saying, "Happy Fourth of July?" After all, every country in the world has a "fourth of July."

Ask school kids what the Fourth of July is all about, and virtually each and every one will answer something like, "Fireworks" or "Cookouts." Retailers see it as yet another excuse to hold a sale. For most, it's a day off from work. But how many people today understand what July 4th is really about?

The fact that the Fourth of July is a celebration of independence from government tyranny under British rule seems to have been pretty much forgotten, or is viewed as an unimportant afterthought.

What kind of government tyranny did the Colonists want freedom from? Well, for one thing, the kind that involves warrant-less searches of peoples' homes, where government agents could just walk right into your private home for no reason and conduct a search without even getting a court-issued warrant. That was a form of government terrorism waged against the people, and when America declared its independence from British rule it adopted a new rule at home that specifically forbade such tyrannical government actions. To deal with this particular abuse, the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution was created to protect citizens from illegal searches and seizures undertaken by a lawless, tyrannical government.

It's not 1776 anymore - it's 2011. And once again Americans are dealing with a tyrannical government that is trying to take away their rights, one by one. Police in Indiana now have the court-affirmed "right" to conduct warrantless house-to-house searches without any just cause whatsoever. The state Supreme Court there has ruled that police no longer need warrants to break into private homes and search them for anything they want, at any time of day or night, for any reason. Nationwide, courts are ruling that you cannot resist an unlawful entry into your home by a police officer, even if that officer is committing a crime by breaking into your house. Policy brutality is becoming widespread across the country, with police beating, tasering, arresting, and charging people who are guilty of no crime whatsoever, such as the case of the young man with a speech impediment whom the police felt were "mocking" him; in another incident, a paraplegic was tasered because he couldn't get out of his wheelchair. A SWAT team kidnapped a girl from her home, because her mother refused to give her dangerous drugs....yes, right here in America. Some police officers are nothing more than a bunch of thugs with badges, and videotaping an incident of police brutality can get you arrested and/or shot.

(Let me interject here, the Chattanooga and East Ridge police have been doing a find job of protecting the citizens. I particularly admire the Chattanooga Police for the excellent work they do, especially given the lack of respect and concern for their needs that they get from Mayor Littlefield, not to mention insufficient pay. But...that's a subject for another day.)

Don't even get me started on the illegal searches of citizens' persons by the TSA goons, even stooping so low as to force a 95-year-old women in poor health to remove her diaper and fly without underwear!.

The Tenth Amendment provided for states' rights, limiting the role of the federal government in local issues, but today the federal government totally disregards it, claiming to have supreme power over all the states.

Now we're starting to see economic tyranny, with "Obamacare" forcing people to buy health insurance. What next? A government mandate that new cars must be purchased from Government Motors?

The loss of free speech is everywhere, with news being censored if it questions government policies in any way. Oh, it isn't done overtly - the news media just don't tell us about the important things that are going on in the country and the world, instead filling the airwaves with nonsense stories like that of Weiner, or the latest "celebrity" inanity; it's not news anymore - it's "entertainment." Meanwhile, pornography and perversion proliferate, because they're "protected" under free speech laws. What insanity!

I could go on and on - the illegal wars being started by a "President" who thinks he's above any and every law; the so-called "Patriot Act" - initially given to us by George Bush - which takes us back to the days of King's Rule, and more. (And before some of you whine - as I know you will - "But it's all for our own good, to keep us 'safe'." Let me remind you of what Benjamin Franklin said: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.")

The founders of this once-great country fought and died to give us freedom from a tyrannical government, yet today Americans are willingly and uncaringly laying down their freedoms, and the word 'patriot' has become synonymous with "terrorist'." Our once free republic is fast becoming a police state...and the sheeple don't care; they're more concerned with not missing "American Idol", or what they'll be stuffing their faces with at their next meal.

Celebrating Independence Day once meant something; today it's all about shopping, food, and fireworks. The population has forgotten that elected officials are public 'servants', not royalty, and they grovel at the feet of those in office.

"Happy Fourth of July?" How about a return to "Happy Independence Day?" Wake up, people - before it's too late and "independence" and "freedom" are nothing but a distant memory.

Arlene Michelle

chattanoogan.com/articles/article_204467.asp