[ previous: "samoootch" ] [ return to the present ] [ next: "half-asleep" ]

18 July 2002 (Thursday): good old-fashioned family values

America needs a good whack upside the head. I don't mean this in a cynical or despairing way, actually; I just think it would do us (and everyone else) a lot of good if we had to eat a nice fat slice of humble pie about now. A worldwide revolt against our foreign policy might do it, accompanied by a small economic collapse on our part, just serious enough to require our begging other nations for assistance. Of course, to a certain extent, as the U.S. economy goes, so goes the worldwide economy, so this will be tricky.

It may already be happening, though. The revelations of corporate fiscal irresponsibility, the ever-present entrenchment of partisanship stifling legislation, the slow implosion of the old guard in the music industry, even the crisis in our Catholic church...it may all be dry underbrush gathering in the forest, waiting for a lightning strike to burn the whole place down. As American citizens, we'll be hapless individuals caught in the crushing downstroke of history when it happens, but so it goes. What doesn't work has to give way to something that does, however painful the process.

I'm thinking about a lyric by the guitar player who sessioned with me in Nashville, off his upcoming album: "you don't say what you mean/you're just mouthing the right words/looks like you're perfectly made for this modern world." Also thinking about part of an interview with Norman Lear, the man taking his copy of the Declaration of Independence on tour:

Is it possible that we are more sentimental about it than we are devoted to living it out? Any danger of that?

I think the culture has trivialized our point of view about such things. The last line of the document, you know, we pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. The words "sacred honor" -- where in our culture do we propagate the notion or do we help kids understand the beauty of the words and the proposition, sacred honor? You know, I often think you have to go to The Godfather, you know, you have to go to places like The Godfather to find people who are for wrong reasons pledging sacred honor.

What do you mean by sacred honor? What do you think they mean, and do you mean what they mean?

I think sacred honor means if I say to you, count on me, you can count on me. As simple as that. If I say I'll be there, if I say you matter to me, you can count on it.

- PBS's NOW with Bill Moyers

posted by enjelani @ 02:19 PM PST