Thursday, October 2, 2014

Honoring Jimmy Carter's Vision, The Direction Americans Should Have Chosen

Take a look at the headlines, or watch the world news, and all you see is bad news. Naturally, that is particularly true in regards to the Middle East, a region of the world that not only always seems troubled, but which America's presence in only seems to exacerbate, no matter how well-intentioned the sentiments of many Americans might be. We feel we have to be there, because, of course, they have what we need: oil.

Earlier today, I already published a blog entry honoring President Jimmy Carter on this, his birthday. Carter, to me, was indeed the last honest and great American leader that this nation really had.

Obviously, not everyone would agree. In fact, I can imagine the howls of protest, and yes, probably mocking laughter, that many detractors of Carter have relied on. After all, so successful was their campaign to discredit President Carter (and let's not mistake it for anything other than that, because a political campaign is exactly what it was, and remains), that the popular perception of President Carter's years in the White House are still seen as a failure.

In reality, though, nothing could be further from the truth. This was a man who accurately projected the dire direction that the United States was heading in, if it did not make some serious changes.

How dire were his predictions? Well, he predicted that the nation was going through a moral crisis, and that there would inevitably be an increased detrimental impact for most Americans from excess and unchecked greed and moral corruption. Separately, he predicted that America's reliance on foreign oil would be debilitating, and ultimately compromise the nation's stability and well-being. The Middle East, he warned, was a volatile region, and he saw the very real threat that things could get worse, not better. And if the US failed to break out of the oil dependency that had already hurt the nation, then things would continue to deteriorate so long as Americans relied so heavily on other nations and regions for their energy needs.

By daring to suggest that the path the US was on might not be the right one, and that a major overhaul was needed, Carter became the bearer of bad news when the American people were not yet ready to hear the truth. And let's be honest, Americans still are not ready to hear the truth, even though many of Carter's dire prognostications about what would happen if we did not change our ways have indeed come to pass, for the most part exactly as he predicted.

Yet, instead of being given credit, people often still blame President Carter for trying to waken and sober Americans from their dreams of grandeur and entitlement.

Even today, as a man, people will tend to view Jimmy Carter as a good man who does much to improve the world, to make it a better place, although his years in the Oval Office were a disaster.

Ultimately, he was largely undone by the very thing that he singled out as the greatest threat to the nation: greed.

He warned the nation about the perils of not keeping this collective spirit of our selfishness in check, but it fell on deaf ears. The reaction was more or less skeptical. Who is he to preach to us?

Carter also famously warned about the necessity to make America energy independent, and made clear that, while this would not be a quick or painless process, it was a necessary one. Given the oil wars and the consistently rising price of oil ever since (which has essentially also forced the rise in price of almost all other goods, by extension), it would appear that he knew what he was talking about. So, he accurately projected what the main problems for the United States would be down the road, over the course of several decades (unflinchingly and unselfishly looking beyond his own political career and what might be politically profitable for him), and he prescribed a remedy to make sure the worst case scenario did not happen. It was not politically popular at all.

His honesty and transparency, to say nothing of his legendary decency, are in stark contrast to the realities of American political life these days.

In fact, we can take that a step further. Carter was kind of an abberation, a serious deviation from the norm in modern American politics.

What makes me wonder, specifically, is why this man is so often hated. Not that all people agree with that perception, mind you. But many people downright hate him. Far too many view him as a failure, as a man who contributed to bringing this nation down, rather than being that rare breed of honest public servant that warned the people that elected him, and that he represented, about the dangers that lay ahead. Unfortunately, this critical interpretation of President Carter largely won out, and even though most Americans would acknowledge that he is a good man who does selfless and admirable work, the fact of the matter is that most Americans seem to view the Carter years as a failure.

Does that sound like an exaggeration? Hardly.

Listen to far right wing conservative commentators on the radio and television, and the loathing in their voice when they speak of the Carter presidency. Think of the books and articles that are critical of the man.

And the American people themselves are highly critical. Carter had promised the most transparent presidency in history, and that he would not tell a lie. He did not promise anything like infallibility, although it seems almost like this is what the people assumed he meant. Every single mistake that occurred during his years at the White House were scrutinized on a level virtually unknown even by other Presidents, and that's saying something. Given that the American people had just endured the level of deceit that from the fallout of the Watergate scandal that had ruined Nixon, and the pardon by his successor, Gerald Ford, that made people even more suspicious.

Carter did indeed conduct his term in office with a greater degree of transparency than any President certainly in recent memory. But he was criticized relentlessly for any and all mistakes made (whether they were big deals or not, and whether Carter truly was to blame or not), and the American people were not in a forgiving mood at all. Perhaps Carter himself should be blamed himself, since he essentially did promise that business in the White House would be conducted more transparently, and with a greater degree of integrity, than had been done in a long, long time, if not ever.

In truth, Carter did keep his word: his was the most honest presidency that we have seen in our lifetimes. He told it as he saw it, even though a lot of people did not like to hear it. Remember, the United States had been the leading superpower in the world, and until only a few years before, had a monopoly on wealth, influence, and power in the world. It had enjoyed the greatest period of privilege that any country had ever enjoyed in history, and Americans were getting used to it. The last thing people wanted to hear was that this level of invincibility was illusory, and that it could be compromised.

What Carter did was this: he told the American people the truth, just as he promised. It was not sugarcoated, and he was not like his successor, who seemed to typify the American success story, was good-looking, and told the people what they wanted to hear, in the manner that they wanted to hear it. He did not gloss over huge problems, and simply say things that were self-serving and popular enough to be politically profitable. Jimmy Carter actually saw the nation's future decades down the road, and he was concerned enough about it to pursue solutions to then problems that the nation was facing, even if this would come at the expense of his own political future, and even legacy.

Carter warned the American people about the two biggest problems that the nation faced, as he saw things. He made two major speeches about these.

The first that he delivered was the so-called "Malaise speech", where he spoke about the increasing evidence of the moral failings that the American people were increasingly allowing themselves to fall into, particularly greed. This greed was getting in the way of the spirit of patriotism and the unifying sense of community, and even of nationality. People were more concerned with their own self-interests, and it was reaching a tipping point where it was becoming detrimental to the interests of the nation as a whole.

The second speech was about the energy crisis, where he accurately forecast the dire consequences of not taking immediate action to begin a quest for America's energy independence. Americans were using too much energy, and they needed to cut back. Also, they needed to invest in alternative energy sources, to foster research into these technologies so that the country could be better off, and energy independent, in the future. Famously, he had solar panels installed in the White House.

These were not popular speeches, and Americans criticized Carter for being too preachy, even holier than thou, perhaps. That, plus the hostage situation, which Carter wanted to resolve peacefully, an approach that Americans considered weak, cost Carter dearly in his re-election bid. He was roundly defeated by Ronald Reagan.

Reagan, inexplicably, took down the solar panels. He made sure that the United States remained hooked on oil, and squelched talk, let alone investment, in alternative energy. He stepped up investment in an already inflated military budget for the industrial complex, and talked tough to the outside world, particularly to the Soviet Union, which he referred to as the "Evil Empire".

Most importantly for Reagan's lasting legacy, he said the things that Americans wanted to hear. He spoke about dreaming heroic dreams, while starting the process of making life in the country a grim reality. The rich got richer, and you know the rest. But that was well hidden behind Reagan's charm, and his wonderful smile. I knew some people who liked Reagan simply for that smile alone. Reagan talked about how it was morning again in America, and how the nation's best days were still ahead of it. People gobbled it up. They loved it. Could not get enough of it.

The American people were dreaming, and they remembered Carter's more wakeful, sober approach as some kind of a nightmare that they had endured.

But had Americans stopped indulging in their wildest dreams in order to take a look at reality, surely some truths would have become self-evident, and not necessary pleasant truths. Real wages were stagnating and, ultimately, going down. So was the standard of life for the average American. So were benefits, and the unions that had established and protected them, historically. Of course, these things were in decline, but it was happening so slowly, that hardly anyone thought that these slight downturns were seemingly permanent, much less that they suggested something truly wrong was prevailing in the country. And besides, there were plenty of distractions along the way that people preferred to indulge in. In the eighties, there was the Cold War, and the eventual fall of communism in eastern Europe, culminating in the dissolution of the Soviet Union late in 1991. In the nineties, there was the rise of the internet, something that truly changed our everyday lives. Since then, there has been an explosion in technological innovations, such as cell phones, and most people focus so much on these things, which are definite and significant improvements over what was previously available. Also, we had more wars. We celebrated the victory over Iraq in Operation: Desert Storm. We were not able to celebrate victory as much the second time around, because it did not resemble "victory" in the traditional sense, and more closely resembled the victories that the American public was continually assured was just around the corner in Vietnam. Still, all of these things were distractions from what was happening more generally within American borders: a very real decline in living standards.

The deterioration of American values was not just in economic living standards, but in other areas, as well. Human rights was one of the major ones. This was a field that Carter truly championed at all turns, and legitimately tried to empower people in general. Can the same thing be said of President George W. Bush, the leader who led the United States to multiple wars while stubbornly sticking to tax cuts (particularly for the very rich), attempted to redefine torture, had no qualms about handing over political prisoners to nations that did practice torture, and opened up concentration camps on foreign soil. All of this, plus scandals involving corporate corruption the likes of which had not been seen in many, many decades, if not ever. Our standards have obviously lowered.

Now, the world views the United States with skepticism, more than anything. Our human rights record is increasingly questioned, and we are hardly viewed as the leaders in human rights anymore. Many view Carter's strong stance on human rights as naïve, and detrimental to American interests. Indeed, Carter was not willing to profit off of other people's pain. That is why, for example, he made a point of trying to impose an economic embargo on apartheid South Africa, rather than profiting off of the exploitation that existed there. It might not be in America's temporary best interests, but in the long run, knowing that change in South Africa was inevitable, it was preparing the nation for the inevitable, while also maintaining America's good standing as an honest and true broker when it comes to human rights. Of course, that was scrapped as soon as Reagan was in the White House.

That was hardly the only thing that Carter instituted that was scrapped almost as quickly as he stepped out of the White House. Of course, the reason for that is that the American people made a choice back in 1980. They chose an actor with a nice smile and nice words with a strong delivery. Yes, they chose that over Jimmy Carter and his values, his sincerity, and his vision for the United States. And they have kept choosing it ever since, too.

But I believe that we had a chance, a real chance for a brief while there, to choose a different direction. To work towards building a real future, a sustainable future. We could have used that chance to right many of the wrongs that existed in this country, and imagine how much better off we would all be today if we had chosen all of those things that President Carter urged us to work towards back in the late seventies! Surely, we would have made tremendous breakthroughs in alternative energy technologies. We probably would not have needed to get involved in wars in the Middle East, and we know how many hundreds of billions - even trillions - of dollars we would have saved. The environment would be cleaner, and the United States would be seen, indeed, as a true leader in this field. Human rights would have been honestly advocated, and the moral crisis that Carter spoke about maybe could have been alleviated had we then collectively had the wisdom, honesty, and foresight to make the right decision.

Even though many Americans surely do not see it that way, I think of that period as a missed opportunity, one that we would surely regret, if we understood the full ramifications of our decisions.

But, alas, we went another direction, and we have not had the courage or honesty to look back. And until we do, we'll keep having to complain about what's wrong with this country, and how it seems to be going in the wrong direction, no matter which party wins the congressional elections this year, or the White House in 2016.

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