Consumerism: Helping or killing our economy?
On the day after Thanksgiving, a Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death by shoppers who crashed through the doors of the store, eager to save a few bucks. In the midst of the busiest shopping day of the year, President Bush and many leaders of the Federal Reserve have been applauding the unabashed consumerism taking place all over the nation. Consumerism, they say, is fueling this economy. Or is it burning our economy?
Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of international relations at Boston University and former director of its Center for International Relations (from 1998 to 2005) believes consumerism, along with unrestrained militariams is tearing this country apart.
I do not normally follow the Bill Moyer’s Journal. Yet, Mr. Moyer recently had an interview with, Andrew J. Bacevich. It seems to be extremely easy for politicians to point to problems if they lay outside of the United States and don’t require change for US citizens. But extremely difficult to point to problems that exists inside the United States, which may lay blame on politicians and the citizens who support them (by voting). After all, who would vote for a politician who says the major problems facing the US is “American” way of life, i.e out-of-control consumerism, consumer debt, unfunded entitlements, oil and credit?
Andrew J. Bacevich makes the claim “If you want to preserve that which you value most in the American way of life, then we need to change the American way of life.” We shoud listen. We need to connect the dots between the economy, the governemnt and military: they are in a crisis and the solution (like the problem) lay within our own nation, not outside–the problem lays with us
I’m going to make a bet. As president, Barack Obama will not draw criticism to America herself, wherein lie the source of America’s problems. He will not show us the truth of our fundamental problems such as massive personal and national debt; over-streched, imperalistic military abroad; and billions of dollars of entitlements promised that we cannot pay. It would make us too uncomfortable. It may require us to change our lifestyle. Who has a right to make us change our comfortable lifestyle
The fundamental problem will not going away with Barack Obama in the White House
Is it possible for the United States to change course?
Below is a small part of an Bill Moyer’s interview with Bacevich that attempts to answer that question and more. I encourage you to read it or watch the full interview
ANDREW BACEVICH: One of the great lies about American politics is that Democrats genuinely subscribe to a set of core convictions that make Democrats different from Republicans. And the same thing, of course, applies to the other party. It’s not true. I happen to define myself as a conservative
Well, when you look back over the past 30 or so years, since the rise of Ronald Reagan, which we, in many respects, has been a conservative era in American politics, well, did we get small government?
Do we get balanced budgets? Do we get serious as opposed to simply rhetorical attention to traditional social values? The answer’s no. Because all of that really has simply been part of a package of tactics that Republicans have employed to get elected and to – and then to stay in office.
BILL MOYERS: And, yet, you say that the prime example of political dysfunction today is the Democratic Party in relation to Iraq.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I may be a conservative, but I can assure you that, in November of 2006, I voted for every Democrat I could possibly come close to. And I did because the Democratic Party, speaking with one voice, at that time, said that, “Elect us. Give us power in the Congress, and we will end the Iraq War.”
And the American people, at that point, adamantly tired of this war, gave power to the Democrats in Congress. And they absolutely, totally, completely failed to follow through on their commitment. Now, there was a lot of posturing. But, really, the record of the Democratic Congress over the past two years has been – one in which, substantively, all they have done is to appropriate the additional money that enables President Bush to continue that war.
BILL MOYERS: And you write that “What will not go away, is a yawning disparity between what Americans expect, and what they’re willing or able to pay.” Explore that a little bit.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I think one of the ways we avoid confronting our refusal to balance the books is to rely increasingly on the projection of American military power around the world to try to maintain this dysfunctional system, or set of arrangements that have evolved over the last 30 or 40 year
If you want to preserve that which you value most in the American way of life, then we need to change the American way of life.
Photo: Bill Moyers Interviews Andrew J. Bacevich (August 15, 2008) PBS.org.