When you think about the prison-like atmosphere in which we're forced to travel -- lacking the high-speed rail transforming the advanced nations of the world -- and the five-mile-high coffins in which we're locked for a cramped, nasty trip, who can argue with the punishments already meted out and yet to come for two Northwest Airlines pilots? They flew 150 miles past Minneapolis while distracted by their laptop computers. On second and third glance, they represent much more than two jokers in the cockpit.
Am I the only one who thinks America is much like these pilots? Off-course, befuddled by the latest merger and its consequences, living in a world where your pay has been cut in half already, enchanted by technology and believing it can save you (those laptops -- or the electric car), while the airship cruises along, on autopilot, past its destination. The difference is that America is not going to get a call from the flight attendant asking "what the hell is happening?" We're so adept at ignoring such questions even if they were to arise.
Delta and Northwest is a merger that never should have happened. It hasn't lessened the airlines' financial troubles -- for no transportation system really "pays for itself" (so why the hell do we expect that from Amtrak?). It has taken away one more competitor, consolidated an industry even further -- which means not only fewer choices and jobs, but fewer competitive ideas. Consider, for example that we are some 40 years into the era of widespread use of "jetways" to board aircraft -- and yet there's still only one way on or off, adding much time to boarding. That's what happens with groupthink. These cartelized airlines send much of the maintenance work to Third World countries, where managers order the cheapest fixes to airplanes, whether they are safe or not. Hundreds of thousands of jobs have been eliminated. All to appease the free-market gods. And the wayward pilots will be appropriately punished, banged down so hard they will have a hard time getting a minimum-wage job at the local Lowe's. And its two more jobs that Delta can check off its list, throwing the two into the worst labor market since the Great Depression. Christian America loves Old Testament retribution.
Meanwhile, Hank Greenberg, who presided over AIG's transformation from an insurance company to a massive weapon of financial mass destruction, is back at work: Creating a new company and siphoning off the talented swindlers and fraudsters from AIG. Like virtually all of the creators of the bubble economy that has nearly wrecked our future, Greenberg is not only free but back to business as usual. No major prosecutions have come from the worst financial panic since the Depression, even though it's been repeatedly documented that the crash was caused by bad public policy influenced by moneyed interests (deregulation, Phil Gramm), ideology spawned by moneyed interests for their own profit and administered as outright rackets. Yet none of the princes of Wall Street has gone to jail. None of the regulators or Alan Greenspan has been called to account. No Pecora Commission, which in the Depression brought out the dirty deeds of the banksters and led to Glass-Steagall and other protections, has been convened. Poor Bernie Madoff with Soap on a Rope is chump change. The real criminals are back at work.
America has been pushed to its fiscal limits to bail out the swindlers -- and they are using part of the "rescue" money to lobby against financial reform. Their cousins in the insurance and other for-profit health industries continue to block any reform that would get in the way of their rising profit margins that come from denying care and letting the uninsured die. The advanced and advancing nations of the world are preparing for a high-cost energy future by building high-speed rail. We're not even funding Amtrak as was agreed to last year. Our states amount to 50 fiscal disasters, created by the religion of tax cuts. We are completely unprepared for the discontinuity that is the future.
From their Park Avenue aeries or Greenwich mansions, these masters of the universe are as clueless as the distracted pilots as to our bearings. Similarly blissfully distracted is President Obama, the cowardly Democrats, and of course the Republicans, the Party that Wrecked America. From their lavish cockpits, run by the autopilot of special interests, a bought-off, sold-out corporate media and the cushion of money and the promise of more, more, more -- it's like sailing through a night sky with only white noise in the background. Our destination includes military commitments that are unsustainable, a future of huge economic costs and geopolitical disruptions from climate change and higher energy prices, the futility of trying to restart the sprawl, credit, "consumer" society, and the collapse of the middle class. Nobody in power wants to talk about it. Back here in coach, one senses nervousness among the few who wonder why we're not landing, not taking action, because this flight from reality has gone on so long already.
But in this case there will be no wake-up call to the pilots. And most of the passengers will be content with their electronic playthings and fantasies of McMansions until...
One of the frustrating things in reading Jim Kunstler's weekly screed is his insistence that the "passengers" (read, peasantry) will somehow revolt. With pitchforks and torches, they'll storm the Hamptons demanding their money back.
No.
We're too confused to blame anyone except the most obvious scapegoats that Beck and Limbaugh serve up. There's no clarity here beyond the stick-figure phantasmagoria of right-wing demogogues.
It would help if there was a real left in America to point out the gaps in right-wing narratives. Occasionally someone, a Michael Moore or Alan Grayson, will pop up. But just as quickly the messenger du jour will be marginalized as too crude. The warning to the left is simple: don't shout, don't kick under the table, and don't expect to be taken seriously. And that's Obama talking to us.
Populism is best served piping hot but only the right gets that privilege. I'd prefer colloquia and symposia to street fights myself. Unfortunately, this civil war is not happening in the hallowed halls of academe. It's outside in the blazing sun.
Posted by: soleri | October 28, 2009 at 10:23 AM
soleri-
At least its happening, this time, in a public blogosphere instead of tavern back-rooms that are closed to all but the people we already know and trust.
It isn't on Fox or CBS, but it is still more public than ever before. Talton and Kunstler are speaking to a wider audience than the local cronies of the Revolution. They are more connected to more people than Concord and Boston and Philadelphia.
Granted that revolution hasn't yet erupted, in part because things aren't bad enough for enough (distracted) people, but the Tea Party may be bigger and more widespread than before. I'm assuming that America still has some people that can be compared to the Founding Fathers and that "The Crisis" will eventually will eventually result in action. (Jon will understand the in-joke)
Posted by: Buford | October 28, 2009 at 01:27 PM
Following up on my own comment; even though there may be more people listening to Talton and Kunstler than there were reading Thomas Paine, I'm afraid its a smaller percentage of the population. That speaks to our educational (lack of) results and Jon's lament that no one learns history anymore.
I am not as disheartened by the loss of newspapers as Jon is, but I do worry about one of the causes. Newspapers flourished because people wanted to know what was going on around them. Newsrooms were the power because most readers wanted news. Other technologies can supply those needs, but the need seems to be disappearing. I'm not at all concerned by the folks who just read the paper for the latest Sale or the gossip or gardening columns. There are certainly plenty of outlets for those audiences.
We are losing the 'real' news that used to come from the local papers and the national news broadcasts. Those that are still in business have largely sold-out and are now delivering pre-processed news-substitute. To paraphrase Vincent Price- "I can tell its not news. Can't you?"
Posted by: Buford | October 28, 2009 at 01:47 PM