My Last Stand

So it ends with the Mediterranean Sea out my window on the right and empty countryside all around. Spain was and shall always be for me a place of ease and enjoyment. And why should there not be such a place? Why should there be such depravity in my own country and relative happiness in the rest of the world? Well I know the answer and the answer is in me, in fact it is me.

But there's no sense in speaking in abstract banalities, better to recount some details I’ve learned here in the present. For example, in the seat next to me on this Euromed Express from Valencia to Barcelona happens to be sitting a Spanish high school teacher, the first one I’ve met since I’ve been here. Not only that but she works with the inner city, 95% immigrant population of Barcelona. She’s young, inspired, and intelligent. A bit cynical, disillusioned after two years of course, but realistic and positive about her own future if not that of her students. What’s more is that I’m quite sure I’m sitting here not only because this is my assigned seat, but to learn something about the society in which I’ve indulged over the past month. An enormous tension around immigration and assimilation, domestic violence, and a poverty of education, these are the problems she speaks of directly to me. In her school Colombian teenagers are breeding a new culture of street violence, Chinese shop owners not allowing their children to assimilate, and there´s economic crisis for all but especially for the immigrant poor. It may sound familiar to those of us Americans accustomed to the challenges of cultural pluralism and economic opportunism, but one difference is that here in Spain public school teachers are highly valued for their competitiveness and competency. They’re not necessarily paid more than their American counterparts but valued enormously in terms of respect for the profession and higher expectations on the job. This is true of Europe in general where the education system continues to function effectively, to create a final product that is focused, specialized, and in service of the economy at large. Whereas in America, I’d say the functionality of our public school system is doubtful to say the least and the economy is most certainly in a state of serious disrepair.

But I’m tired of talking about disfunctionality in societies. I am tried of living in one based on entitlement. I am tired of cities of garbage, where quality of life is sacrificed to no end. I am tired of being progressive in a society that retards my progress. And finally I am tired of having leadership that doesn’t lead. Not to bring up the question of leadership, because it is secondary to the state of the population, but I have to ask are WE actually ready to fix OUR problems? And how will we even know what the solution looks like if all we see is crisis, namely the blinding snowball effect of the 40 years of mismanagement since Eisenhower. To put it simply, the partisan era will end or else. Fortunately the legacy of George W could very well be the dawn the post partisan era, the new functional politic, an apolitical government, desirable or not depending on how one defines or desires the future.

I have hope, vision, and a plan, but none of that matters. What matters is what you have. You as in we. Leadership is a two way street. We’ve reached the point of near oblivion, crowned by the ultimate obliviousness in leadership, the mentality of an adolescent at the helm of the universe. But why now at this point is it finally so glaringly apparent? It could only be the result of that which we’ve tolerated ourselves for just so long. And what happens if we continue to tolerate and accept it, that which undermines the inherent individual intelligence and intellect of each and every person to think and act, the culture of materialism and fear? What happens if we remain ignorant of the uneconomic nature of our economy and the impact of this impossible abstraction on the lives of five billion poor people in other countries? What happens if we continue to believe that we can shape the world through marketing schemes and militarism alone, the belief in infinite expansionism, growth and guns? Perhaps if we continue to puff up and look big just a little longer, maybe the terrorists won’t notice that our economy and as such our entire society have collapsed.

These questions are more rhetorical than realistic, but unfortunately it’s a day late and a dollar short to be asking questions for the sake of changing old habits. It´s time to start thinking for ourselves, individually and critically. The terrorists are on our side now, they´re shouting at us to wake up, that the war is over, and that we never had a chance of obtaining victory over evil. But we’re just starting to realize something much worse than simple defeat: it is that we no longer own the future -- literally, it’s held by the Chinese in the form of US government securities. This is not as miserable as it sounds for they still trust in the core of the American economy and have not chosen to cash in yet. But they will if enough of us do not stand up to reclaim our education, intellect, and the will to work. Realistically I don’t expect anything to be drastically different under President Obama or McCain. But what I do expect is what everyone expects, that somehow we´ll manage. The only question is how long will it take to come to terms with the fallibility that caused this mess in the first place. And will we finally get it right this time around? Anyone´s guess is as good as mine.