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BS ‘n’ About…
“The System”
The political, spiritual, economic, and social systems around which we build our lives determine who and what we are as a people, and as a nation. These lay out the rules by which we play the game and instill in us the passions and values that mold us as individuals. They are the definition of our nation in relation to those of our fellow man.
The “American system” was built on a bedrock of democracy, capitalism, and Christian-dominated Freedom of Religion. But we have changed much as beings since these institutions were introduced, and much as a nation since we were formed by our Founding Fathers. Is the American system sufficient to lead us through the 21st Century? Will it fail us when subjected to the speed and pervasiveness of modern communications? Has it already done so?
Modern times are evolving at an unprecedented, technologically driven pace that gives us no time to assess the changes. …no time to see the prices coming. …no time to make any plans. Is it any wonder that the institutions upon which we’ve based this growth have failed to keep pace? Should we be surprised if they eventually prove inconsistent with their very goals and totally incompatible with each other?
Capitalism is about creating wealth yet left unchecked its greed and excesses will eventually consume everything and impoverish us all. Democracy is about giving the little guy a voice, but modern communications and capitalist dollars have spun, manipulated, and distracted him out of the process. Faith talks about peace and love, yet offers Armageddon as its only future.
For most of our history we were universally respected by our fellow nations, friend and foe alike. The American system stood for something unique among nations, something symbolized by the Statue of Liberty. We took in the ‘huddled masses, yearning to be free’, and gave them hope, put them to work, gave them a vote, and let them practice their faith in their way.
We stayed out of all the geo-political strife in the world, usually only dragged in as a last resort. We spent our money on our people. When push came to shove, our neutrality gave us the strength to tip the scales in the direction of good. When the Berlin Wall came tumbling down it felt like the Good Guys had won and now it was over.
The American system had prevailed. Our Revolution was the beginning of the end for the Monarchies. Our wealth tipped the scales in both World Wars. Afterwards, we rebuilt Germany and Japan in democratic, capitalist visions of ourselves that have kept both free, wealthy, and among our strongest allies to this day. We won the Cold War, not with tanks, but with blue jeans and movie stars.
When the Soviet Union broke apart, we stood at the dawn of a new era. The American system had prevailed and the world would be what we would make it. The American system prevailed because we were the obvious, no-doubt-about-it, Good Guys. We knew it. They knew it.
It was the other guys who ran the concentration camps and tortured the prisoners. It was the other guys who filled the airwaves with war rhetoric and propaganda. It was the other guys who scoffed at the UN and started the wars. It was the other guys who viewed their Constitutions as open to interpretation.
It was the other guys who were living Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous while their people eked out a living. It was the other guys who were breaking international treaties and digging in the arctic preserve. It was the other guys who strip-searched you before you got on an airplane.
In the little more than twenty years that the American system has held predominance in world affairs, it has become distorted beyond all recognition. We have become a lot of the things we used to oppose. Today’s headlines would have appalled our Great Grandparents.
How could we have changed so much, so quickly? As with most of history, the answers lie in the evolution and interaction of the institutions around which we’ve built our culture. The difference this time around is that the instantaneous communications of the Information Age have exponentially increased the rate at which these institutions evolve and interact.
A multi-tentacled international conglomerate is a far cry from even a US Steel. Political ads pumped into every living room have no links to Not That Long Ago ward boss democratic politics. Tele-evangelical Preachers take tent revivals to places they’ve never gone before. We are dealing with completely new things on a completely different scale than we ever have before. And we’re doing so with the same old motivations, loyalties, prejudices, and mindsets.
Big Government, Big Business, and Big Religion are monoliths of bureaucracy and inertia. They are resistant to change, playing to win, and getting “Bigger” every day. They build the world we call home, but they build it in their best interests, not ours.
Corporations need to stay profitable. Governments need to stay in power. Churches need to be ‘right’. As long as we continue to throw our Best & Brightest into the business, political, and spiritual arenas with these as their all-encompassing objectives, we will continue to distort their original intent.
Capitalism, and the corporations it spawns, will never see beyond next year’s bottom line. If that means starting WWIII, so be it. If that means chopping down the last rain forest, so be it. If that means throwing me out of work and shipping my job overseas, so be it.
Democracy, and the politicians it spawns, will never see beyond the next election. If that means lying to the people, so be it. If that means selling out to the guys who write the big checks, so be it. If that means mortgaging the future to finance the present, so be it.
Religion, and the schisms it spawns, will never see beyond its need to be infallible. If that means once a schism, always a schism, so be it. If that means trashing the Earth on the way to Paradise, so be it. If that means counting down to Armageddon, so be it.
Big Money and Big Media have amassed power in the hands of our institutions to the point where We, the People are no longer part of the process. We are just the audience. …warm bodies to be plugged into “The Matrix”. We pay whatever they decide to charge us for gas. We send our kids off to whatever wars they declare. We watch Wall Street boom while our slice of the pie gets smaller and smaller. We see a world where our kids’ lives won’t be better than our own. We accept a world where our lives aren’t better than our parents’.
For more than 200 years the strength of the American system was the little guy’s belief that he was a part of the process. He knew that if he worked hard, he could raise a family, keep them housed, fed, healthy and educated, and still have some left over for the good things in life.
America still means well but we are no longer a nation of patriot-farmers, fiercely protective of our freedoms. The very institutions we set up to free us have become entrenched, inefficient, unrealistic, and downright dangerous in a 21st Century Information Age society. We are no longer calling the shots. Our institutions have outgrown us and taken control.
America is in crisis, both home and abroad. We’ve never had so many enemies and so few friends. We’ve never been so divided. Today’s America feels nothing like the one we pledged allegiance to first thing every morning in grade school.
For America to achieve its stated geo-political goals we need to start doing things for the right reasons again. We need to quit re-interpreting things like Constitutions, disarmament treaties, and Geneva Conventions. We need to elect governments that unify rather than divide. We need to know ithat we are the obvious, no-doubt-about-it Good Guys again.
Lying is lying. Cheating is cheating. Torture is torture. These kinds of things didn’t used to need to be defined. These kinds of things didn’t used to fill the headlines. We have lost our way. We used to know better. We used to be a better people.
Our institutions have taken control of the rudder and are hurtling us into the future at a mind-boggling pace. But, ingrained as they are, they are the things most difficult to change. They are the rules. Unfortunately, what’s best for them will rarely, if ever, be what’s best for us as individuals, as a nation, nor as a species.
We need to regain control of the American system while we can still remember how it used to be. Democracy implies sharing the power and investing the nation’s wealth in its people. From Athens to Rome, The French Revolution to the Weimar Republic, democracies have fallen when the wealth of the democracy is controlled by few and spent on war instead of controlled by many and spent on the people. What does that say about America’s future?
Ancient Greece lies in ruin. Rome went up in flames. The Industrial Age has passed. Yet it is with their institutions that were building 21st Century Information Age America. As ideals, democracy, Christianity, and capitalism represent everything that is good and free about America. As working realities, each has become distorted by the times. It is not unlike running XP applications on ms-dos hardware. We all know that eventually leads to a crash.
—It is time to update the operating system.—
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