It seems that everyone is writing about their memories of September 11, 2001 everywhere. Newspapers were filled with reporters remembrances of where they were and what they were doing on that fateful day. Facebook and Twitter were filled with statuses (stati?) talking about each individual's experiences on that day. Online sites listed members posts about loved ones touched by that day.
So, I thought I would share my own memories. However, as I sat down to think about this, I discovered that really, my experiences were not that different than most people's that day. I heard about the attacks, went back to my office and spent the day watching in horror as the events unfolded, went home and drank a lot. That's more or less what most Americans did that day -- at least those who were not touched directly by the attacks by either being present at one of the sites attacked that day or by losing loved ones in the attacks.
But what I didn't see many people talking about was the odd emotions that swept through the remainder of that week and in the months following the attacks. That is what I wanted to write about here.
Like many Americans my first reaction to the attacks was one of rage. Anger gripped me almost immediately and the feeling was that we had to strike back at those who did this immediately and overwhelmingly. As was the case everywhere, this anger mixed with a newly found Nationalism that fueled an unacceptable level of nonchalance toward U.S. government abuses over the next several years. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
After the anger subsided somewhat, what overcame me was an unbelievable feeling of sadness. The picture on every channel was of the newly christened "Ground Zero". Death, destruction and mourning was all that one saw everywhere. How soon we forget the countless fliers with pictures of missing friends or relatives that were hung all around Manhattan hoping beyond hope that someone would come and say that the person on the flyer was found alive. But those calls never came.
What was even odder was the fact that we had to go on with our lives as normal. We got up on September 12 and went to work and tried as best we could to go about our business. But, how were we supposed to act? Do we act as if nothing happened? Do we walk around as if in mourning? Is it ok to laugh?
A couple of days after, I went to a previously scheduled wine pairing dinner at a local restaurant. The featured speaker from the winery was not able to attend due to being stuck in Chicago and having all commercial air traffic still grounded. I was there with a number of local businesspeople, attorneys, doctors and judges. I swear to God, nobody knew what to do. The typical banter and small talk that I am always uncomfortable with anyway was missing from this particular evening. Even though every American had this new shared experience, it was like we had forgotten how to communicate comfortably. It was as if we were students on the first day of grammar school, uneasily approaching each other, waiting for the other to break the ice. Eventually, conversation commenced with the usual insincere politeness, but still this had to be one of the oddest experiences of my life.
Young people might not yet really understand this, but September 11, 2001 was pre-Facebook. There were some social network-like sites out there, but generally this type of instant communication and shared openness about everything in your life was not the norm back then. I mention this because I experienced for the first time the potential of such new media in the days and weeks following 9/11. Leo, a firefighter with the FDNY and I person I knew only from the Black 47 message board, was not on duty that Tuesday morning. However, he had been called to the scene shortly after and was participating in the clean-up and rescue operations following that awful day. Cell phone service was down in New York, as were land lines in lower Manhattan. There were no smart phones then, at least as we knew them. People generally did not text each other (why would you type on a phone when you can just call the person?). After countless hours at Ground Zero with the stench of death surrounding him, breathing in noxious smoke and debris, Leo was able to get to a working online computer. The only way he could think to let everyone know he was ok was to post it on the Black 47 message board. Seeing this, other fans of the band got in touch with his family to let them know that he was ok and would be in touch as soon as he could. It was pretty incredible to play a tangential role in this experience and it forecast the amazing power of social media that would go on to within less than a decade help organize revolution across the globe.
Leo went on to post more on that message board. He gave a gripping account of what he was experiencing as he and his fellow firefighters dug through the remains of the World Trade Center. He wrote with heartbreaking detail the sights, sounds and emotions that surrounded him as he searched in vain for his fellow firefighters. He wrote what it was like to attend so many funerals in such a short period of time, each one for someone with whom he was friends and for whom he would give his life without hesitation, and how the sound of the bagpipe, which he had enjoyed in celebration his entire life, was now a sound he dreaded hearing. He encouraged those in the NYC area to attend the funerals since there were not enough firefighters to show up en masse as the practice for a firefighters' funeral, especially one who died in the line of duty.
What was coming through most in these posts was an overwhelming fatigue. It was a fatigue which many of us felt in the weeks following 9/11. Although we weren't literally sifting through human remains as were the teams at Ground Zero, we were dealing with what were almost unthinkable attacks and the unfamiliar emotions that they wrought. It was as if we were all in a daze.
About three weeks after the attacks, my ex-wife and I were planning to attend a Black 47 concert in Baltimore. We had plane reservations and were staying with her friends in the area. Obviously following the attacks, our plane reservations didn't make it through. Although air service was back in place, flights were so overloaded and routes so limited, that our flight was canceled. We drove to Baltimore and got ready for the show. At the outset, it was very much like the dinner I attended a few days after the attacks. There was a sense of uneasiness still among the crowd. We enjoyed the opening act -- O'Malley's March, led by then-Mayor of Baltimore (now Governor of Maryland) Martin O'Malley. Black 47 took the stage probably around 11 or so. The experience was quite frankly cathartic. This mix of Irish immigrants and native New Yorkers put out such positive electrifying pure emotion that it finally gave me the excuse to let loose and simply celebrate life. The lead singer Larry Kirwan had watched the sad events of 9/11 transpire in person from the roof of his apartment in The Bronx. He saw victims jump from the towers in one last desperate attempt to escape the flames, or perhaps one last act of defiance against those who sought to take their life against their will. The band lost many fans and friends in the towers' collapse, notable amongst them Father Mychal Judge, whose death certificate was numbered the first among those killed on that awful day. But despite their first hand experiences and their immediate losses on that day, they gave us permission to live again and to go on with our lives, perhaps with a new appreciation of everything we had.
In the years since, there have been many reasons to celebrate and to mourn. I have seen illness, addiction, divorce, death, depression, eventually though leading to healing, spiritual rebirth, love, marriage and the birth of my daughter who has given me an entirely new view of life and more reasons to smile every day than I probably had cumulatively in my life prior to her birth. Three years after the events of September 11, 2001, a close friend of my wife (then my newly engaged fiancee) gave birth to a son. Although they had hoped that the child would not be born on such a day of loss and mourning, it was in a way the greatest example of the healing and rebirth that I and hopefully the country as a whole had experienced -- that this would now be a day of celebration of new life and of the possibilities brought about by the best in humanity rather than a remembrance of what the worst in humanity can bring. That is how I choose to remember 9/11 and to live my life, celebrating whenever I can and doing my best to overlook all who would try to bring me down.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
It's The Income Disparity, Stupid
Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Madison, London, San Francisco, Athens. All of these places have been the scene of public uprisings and social unrest during the last six months. All of the social unrest has one thing in common, something that most of those in power would like you to ignore. That is that in all of these cases, the leading cause of the unrest was the increasing and alarming disparity between the incomes of the wealthiest percentage of the populace and the vast majority of the common people.
In cases such as Tunisia, Egypt and Libya the unrest led to revolution and the unseating of the corrupt dictators that perpetuated a society in which the majority of the population was kept in both economic and political bondage for the benefit of the political leadership and its friends. In Athens and London the unrest led to mass rioting, violence and looting. In San Francisco and Madison, the protests were smaller and more peaceful, but both the cause and the State's impulse to quell the unrest were the same.
There was little attention paid to the role that economic disparity played in the "Arab Spring." However, much of the unrest that led to the uprisings against governments throughout the Arab world was led in great part by the unsustainable economic conditions which left many workers, especially workers who were young and educated, without any chance at a meaningful and prosperous future. This hopelessness combined with the unveiling of the abject corruption in the leadership of these nations exposed by the WikiLeaks document dumps, was the key cause of the uprisings causing (so far) the governments of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya to fall.
In London, the government and media went out of their way to portray the youth rioting for several nights as mindless criminals and thugs out to have their fun destroying property and stealing. The leadership responded overwhelmingly by issuing harsh sentences for relatively petty crimes (one youth was sentenced to 6 months in prison for stealing a $10 bottle of wine) and suspended sentencing guidelines in order to allow judges to impose even stiffer penalties to these defendants than would normally be allowed by law in order to deal with this criminal element. Of course, they ignored or dismissed arguments that these riots had anything to do with the harsh austerity programs imposed by the Cameron government, or the high levels of youth unemployment, or the response to the corruption within the Cameron regime exposed by the hacking scandal of Rupert Murdoch which involves high level members of Cameron's government.
The fact is that the youth in London were acting no differently than the bankers in the institutions that were bailed out by Cameron and his cohorts throughout Europe and the United States. The only difference was in scale (the bankers looted trillions of dollars from investors and central banks who were all to glad to bail them out once the bottom fell out of the economy whereas the rioters took mainly small ticket items) and status (the highly connected, highly paid, highly educated bankers were portrayed very differently by the leadership and the media than the youth taking part in the rioting and looting).
The fact that social networking sites such as Facebook were used by rioters to communicate (as was the case in the uprisings throughout the Middle East) caused the Cameron government to look for ways to limit access to such sites including blocking internet access during the riots, a tactic that was widely criticized when used by governments in Egypt and Syria prior to these uprisings, and subsequently used by BART police to quell protests in San Francisco.
But the fact is, that it wasn't Facebook or the Internet that led to the uprisings or unrest. And denying access to such sites will not address the issues that led to the uprisings and unrest. What the Cameron government and the leadership in the U.S. is failing to see is that the unrest is being caused by a broken system wherein criminal activity by the rich and powerful is rewarded and even encouraged by the government who creates laws to make such criminal activity easier and reaps the benefits of it while at the same time making it harder and harder on those that make up the vast majority of society who are finding it more difficult every day just to keep their heads above water.
Don't think it can happen here? The United States reached the highest level of income disparity in its history in 2009 -- even higher than in the midst of the Great Depression, this according to the most recent Census results. The ratio of youth employment (the percentage of non-institutionalized persons between the ages of 16-24) last month reached its lowest point in history -- 44.8%. Congress and the President have passed spending cuts which will further disaffect millions of Americans as services and benefits on which they rely are reduced or cut off entirely. At the same time, the Obama Administration is seeking to push settlements with the TBTF banks which would amount to less than a slap on the wrist for all of the illegal and fraudulent activity in which these banks engaged leading to the economic collapse of 2008, while at the same time delaying the implementation of reforms and regulations required under the anemic Dodd-Frank Bill which would help to prevent future such abuses. Aided by Supreme Court decisions granting corporations First Amendment protection, political campaigns are being flooded with corporate donations dwarfing anything that could ever possibly come from common citizens all being made with the understanding that those politicians receiving the funds will do everything in their power to further enrich their corporate donors.
The United States is ripe for severe social unrest. We are already seeing the first signs of this, not just in protests like in Madison and San Francisco, but in outbreaks of mass violence in Charlotte, Kansas City, Philadelphia and other major cities across the nation in the last few months. 2012 presents itself as the year in which the U.S. could see widespread and violent social unrest on a level we have not seen in decades, if ever. While our leaders ask "Why?" and seek to quell the spread of violence through the use of tougher laws, greater criminal sentences and the repression of social media, I will be sitting back and reminding them "It's the income disparity, stupid." Until that is addressed, we will continue to see the unraveling of our society economically, socially and morally.
In cases such as Tunisia, Egypt and Libya the unrest led to revolution and the unseating of the corrupt dictators that perpetuated a society in which the majority of the population was kept in both economic and political bondage for the benefit of the political leadership and its friends. In Athens and London the unrest led to mass rioting, violence and looting. In San Francisco and Madison, the protests were smaller and more peaceful, but both the cause and the State's impulse to quell the unrest were the same.
There was little attention paid to the role that economic disparity played in the "Arab Spring." However, much of the unrest that led to the uprisings against governments throughout the Arab world was led in great part by the unsustainable economic conditions which left many workers, especially workers who were young and educated, without any chance at a meaningful and prosperous future. This hopelessness combined with the unveiling of the abject corruption in the leadership of these nations exposed by the WikiLeaks document dumps, was the key cause of the uprisings causing (so far) the governments of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya to fall.
In London, the government and media went out of their way to portray the youth rioting for several nights as mindless criminals and thugs out to have their fun destroying property and stealing. The leadership responded overwhelmingly by issuing harsh sentences for relatively petty crimes (one youth was sentenced to 6 months in prison for stealing a $10 bottle of wine) and suspended sentencing guidelines in order to allow judges to impose even stiffer penalties to these defendants than would normally be allowed by law in order to deal with this criminal element. Of course, they ignored or dismissed arguments that these riots had anything to do with the harsh austerity programs imposed by the Cameron government, or the high levels of youth unemployment, or the response to the corruption within the Cameron regime exposed by the hacking scandal of Rupert Murdoch which involves high level members of Cameron's government.
The fact is that the youth in London were acting no differently than the bankers in the institutions that were bailed out by Cameron and his cohorts throughout Europe and the United States. The only difference was in scale (the bankers looted trillions of dollars from investors and central banks who were all to glad to bail them out once the bottom fell out of the economy whereas the rioters took mainly small ticket items) and status (the highly connected, highly paid, highly educated bankers were portrayed very differently by the leadership and the media than the youth taking part in the rioting and looting).
The fact that social networking sites such as Facebook were used by rioters to communicate (as was the case in the uprisings throughout the Middle East) caused the Cameron government to look for ways to limit access to such sites including blocking internet access during the riots, a tactic that was widely criticized when used by governments in Egypt and Syria prior to these uprisings, and subsequently used by BART police to quell protests in San Francisco.
But the fact is, that it wasn't Facebook or the Internet that led to the uprisings or unrest. And denying access to such sites will not address the issues that led to the uprisings and unrest. What the Cameron government and the leadership in the U.S. is failing to see is that the unrest is being caused by a broken system wherein criminal activity by the rich and powerful is rewarded and even encouraged by the government who creates laws to make such criminal activity easier and reaps the benefits of it while at the same time making it harder and harder on those that make up the vast majority of society who are finding it more difficult every day just to keep their heads above water.
Don't think it can happen here? The United States reached the highest level of income disparity in its history in 2009 -- even higher than in the midst of the Great Depression, this according to the most recent Census results. The ratio of youth employment (the percentage of non-institutionalized persons between the ages of 16-24) last month reached its lowest point in history -- 44.8%. Congress and the President have passed spending cuts which will further disaffect millions of Americans as services and benefits on which they rely are reduced or cut off entirely. At the same time, the Obama Administration is seeking to push settlements with the TBTF banks which would amount to less than a slap on the wrist for all of the illegal and fraudulent activity in which these banks engaged leading to the economic collapse of 2008, while at the same time delaying the implementation of reforms and regulations required under the anemic Dodd-Frank Bill which would help to prevent future such abuses. Aided by Supreme Court decisions granting corporations First Amendment protection, political campaigns are being flooded with corporate donations dwarfing anything that could ever possibly come from common citizens all being made with the understanding that those politicians receiving the funds will do everything in their power to further enrich their corporate donors.
The United States is ripe for severe social unrest. We are already seeing the first signs of this, not just in protests like in Madison and San Francisco, but in outbreaks of mass violence in Charlotte, Kansas City, Philadelphia and other major cities across the nation in the last few months. 2012 presents itself as the year in which the U.S. could see widespread and violent social unrest on a level we have not seen in decades, if ever. While our leaders ask "Why?" and seek to quell the spread of violence through the use of tougher laws, greater criminal sentences and the repression of social media, I will be sitting back and reminding them "It's the income disparity, stupid." Until that is addressed, we will continue to see the unraveling of our society economically, socially and morally.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Bill O'Reilly is a Sociopath
A sociopath is commonly defined as one who entirely lacks a sense of empathy.
Bill O'Reilly fits that description to a T.
After the self-described evangelical Christian Anders Breivik bombed the offices of the leading political party in Norway and then inexplicably murdered dozens of young boys and girls attending a summer camp sponsored by that same political party, O'Reilly went apoplectic even by his standards. What made O'Reilly upset was not Breivik's actions but the fact that the "media" kept reporting that Breivik was a Christian.
According to O'Reilly it was impossible that Breivik could be a Christian because a Christian would never commit mass murder. File this under the same O'Reilly philosophy that explained the proof of the existence of a Supreme Being as "tide goes in, tide goes out."
Never mind the undeniable fact that throughout the last 2000 years there have been multiple and repeated examples of Christians committing mass murder (just take for some of the not so controversial examples, the Conquistadors in what is now the Southwestern U.S. and Mexico, the Puritans in Salem, Massachusetts and the Spanish Inquisition to name a few). The worst thing about O'Reilly's outrage isn't the logical and factual fallacy of his point of view, it is the fact that he would fail to see the obvious parallels of this radical evangelical's twisting of Christian teachings to his own violent ends and the same actions by radical evangelical Muslims who do the same with their religion.
Imagine that it is 2001. You are a Muslim man living in a quiet American neighborhood with a wife and kids, working hard at your job, being active in your community and doing your best to be a good American and a good Muslim. Suddenly because of the actions of a small group of radicals who claim to speak for your religion, you are demonized in your own community, treated with suspicion everywhere you go, your allegiance to your own nation is questioned and your religion is smeared night after night after night by people like Bill O'Reilly who do everything in their power to portray you and everyone who believes in your religion to be an enemy of the state. During the next 10 years, people in elected positions start questioning your right to be able to practice your religion openly, the simplest things such as building a place of worship in your community are met with vocal opposition and even violence, Congressional hearings are convened about the growing problem of American Muslims, you hear terms like Islamist, Islamo-fascist and Sharia law start to seep into the everyday language of our media. And of course those who are spreading this hysteria for their own political gains know absolutely nothing about your religion, but are simply passing on narrow negative stereotypes which bear little if any relation to reality.
How would you feel?
Perhaps the same way Bill O'Reilly felt when met with just the fact that this Norwegian terrorist had adopted a warped version of Christianity that reflected badly on O'Reilly's view of his religion?
Of course, if Bill O'Reilly had the least bit of empathy he might have used this as an opportunity to attempt to understand what millions of Muslims in the United States and across the world felt in response to the small percentage of their religion who would use it to spread violence and hate. If O'Reilly had one ounce of simple basic human understanding, he could perhaps take his argument about Breivik not representing the views and actions of the vast majority of Christians to the next logical step of seeing that Al Qaeda and the other radical Muslim terrorists did not represent the true teachings of Islam or the beliefs of the vast majority of Muslims across the planet. If Bill O'Reilly wasn't a sociopath, he might have used this as an opportunity to spread understanding instead of fear.
But, that's not Bill O'Reilly. Bill O'Reilly is a sociopath. Not only did O'Reilly castigate the media for portraying (accurately, mind you) Breivik as a radical evangelical Christian, but in turn used it to further attack Muslims. Of course he was only furthering the party line of Fox News and News Corp. in general. This could be seen by the media giant's take on the Norway attack from the get go. The Daily Mail's headline the day of the attack put in above the information about the bombing and shooting in Norway in quotation marks "Al Qaeda Attack". On Fox News Channel they would present stories about Congressional hearings on Homegrown Jihadists and use them to transition into stories about Norway's homegrown terrorist, giving the impression that he was somehow a Jihadist rather than someone who was inspired to his violence by his perception that Norway was becoming too accepting of Muslims and other non-Christians.
Of course, I have not heard a single person in the media or elsewhere claim that Anders Breivik in any way, shape or form represented the views or actions of mainstream Christianity or even a large group of Christians. It was obvious to everyone that Breivik was a very disturbed individual who represented a very small and very misguided group of Christianity that in no way represented what a vast, vast majority of Christians believe.
If only Bill O'Reilly would stop saying that Muslim terrorists represent the mainstream views of Islam.
Of course, that would mean that he wasn't a sociopath. And he truly is.
Bill O'Reilly fits that description to a T.
After the self-described evangelical Christian Anders Breivik bombed the offices of the leading political party in Norway and then inexplicably murdered dozens of young boys and girls attending a summer camp sponsored by that same political party, O'Reilly went apoplectic even by his standards. What made O'Reilly upset was not Breivik's actions but the fact that the "media" kept reporting that Breivik was a Christian.
According to O'Reilly it was impossible that Breivik could be a Christian because a Christian would never commit mass murder. File this under the same O'Reilly philosophy that explained the proof of the existence of a Supreme Being as "tide goes in, tide goes out."
Never mind the undeniable fact that throughout the last 2000 years there have been multiple and repeated examples of Christians committing mass murder (just take for some of the not so controversial examples, the Conquistadors in what is now the Southwestern U.S. and Mexico, the Puritans in Salem, Massachusetts and the Spanish Inquisition to name a few). The worst thing about O'Reilly's outrage isn't the logical and factual fallacy of his point of view, it is the fact that he would fail to see the obvious parallels of this radical evangelical's twisting of Christian teachings to his own violent ends and the same actions by radical evangelical Muslims who do the same with their religion.
Imagine that it is 2001. You are a Muslim man living in a quiet American neighborhood with a wife and kids, working hard at your job, being active in your community and doing your best to be a good American and a good Muslim. Suddenly because of the actions of a small group of radicals who claim to speak for your religion, you are demonized in your own community, treated with suspicion everywhere you go, your allegiance to your own nation is questioned and your religion is smeared night after night after night by people like Bill O'Reilly who do everything in their power to portray you and everyone who believes in your religion to be an enemy of the state. During the next 10 years, people in elected positions start questioning your right to be able to practice your religion openly, the simplest things such as building a place of worship in your community are met with vocal opposition and even violence, Congressional hearings are convened about the growing problem of American Muslims, you hear terms like Islamist, Islamo-fascist and Sharia law start to seep into the everyday language of our media. And of course those who are spreading this hysteria for their own political gains know absolutely nothing about your religion, but are simply passing on narrow negative stereotypes which bear little if any relation to reality.
How would you feel?
Perhaps the same way Bill O'Reilly felt when met with just the fact that this Norwegian terrorist had adopted a warped version of Christianity that reflected badly on O'Reilly's view of his religion?
Of course, if Bill O'Reilly had the least bit of empathy he might have used this as an opportunity to attempt to understand what millions of Muslims in the United States and across the world felt in response to the small percentage of their religion who would use it to spread violence and hate. If O'Reilly had one ounce of simple basic human understanding, he could perhaps take his argument about Breivik not representing the views and actions of the vast majority of Christians to the next logical step of seeing that Al Qaeda and the other radical Muslim terrorists did not represent the true teachings of Islam or the beliefs of the vast majority of Muslims across the planet. If Bill O'Reilly wasn't a sociopath, he might have used this as an opportunity to spread understanding instead of fear.
But, that's not Bill O'Reilly. Bill O'Reilly is a sociopath. Not only did O'Reilly castigate the media for portraying (accurately, mind you) Breivik as a radical evangelical Christian, but in turn used it to further attack Muslims. Of course he was only furthering the party line of Fox News and News Corp. in general. This could be seen by the media giant's take on the Norway attack from the get go. The Daily Mail's headline the day of the attack put in above the information about the bombing and shooting in Norway in quotation marks "Al Qaeda Attack". On Fox News Channel they would present stories about Congressional hearings on Homegrown Jihadists and use them to transition into stories about Norway's homegrown terrorist, giving the impression that he was somehow a Jihadist rather than someone who was inspired to his violence by his perception that Norway was becoming too accepting of Muslims and other non-Christians.
Of course, I have not heard a single person in the media or elsewhere claim that Anders Breivik in any way, shape or form represented the views or actions of mainstream Christianity or even a large group of Christians. It was obvious to everyone that Breivik was a very disturbed individual who represented a very small and very misguided group of Christianity that in no way represented what a vast, vast majority of Christians believe.
If only Bill O'Reilly would stop saying that Muslim terrorists represent the mainstream views of Islam.
Of course, that would mean that he wasn't a sociopath. And he truly is.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Dreams Deferred
I'm going to do something a little unusual in this post. I'm going to talk just a little bit about my job as a prosecutor. Specifically about the thing that bothers me the most in my job. It's not what you think. You would think that it would be seeing hardened criminals beat their charges or the destruction that victims of crime suffer in their lives as a result of the crimes perpetrated against them, but it's not. The worst part of my job is seeing young men and women constantly come through the court system throwing away any chance they had at a successful life all for what is in the best case a fleeting benefit.
Most of those we see come through the court system fit into a pretty common pattern. Most of them drop out of school usually around the 10th grade. Almost all of them have single parent homes, if that. Many of them have parents and other family members who have been to prison. It is not surprising that most of these young people end up wearing an orange jumpsuit, sometimes it seems they are almost destined for it.
However, today I was struck by two young men -- boys really -- both of whom had thrown their futures away for some short term gratification. Unlike most of those that we see, both of these young men had been given a clear path out of the dead end future facing so many of our youth in our impoverished locale. One had graduated from high school where he had excelled in football, earning a scholarship to North Carolina A&T, where he dropped out after one year to return to the same streets from which he had escaped and now had been caught selling drugs. The other had been a good student at his high school, earning honor roll awards and had been a member of his school's ROTC program. Instead of taking advantage of the path to success that all of those combined had, he instead broke into an occupied home late at night earning him a first degree burglary charge and an almost certain trip to a long prison sentence.
I once heard that the only thing awaiting young high school graduates in rural Southern towns were the three "M's" -- marriage, military or mill. Now the mills are all closed, the military is becoming more and more selective the worse the economy gets and it seems that nobody gets married these days. The three M's have been replaced by the three "P's" -- prison, pregnancy and pharmaceuticals. We are slashing spending on education on both the Federal and State levels. Class sizes are growing. Good teachers are being laid off and many who dreamed of going into the profession are finding the school doors closed to them as there are no jobs for them.
When you look at everything that is wrong with our educational system, you can almost understand why selling drugs are burglarizing residences may seem like a reasonable career move for young people. We cannot continue this trend.
I don't come here with answers, only questions. What can we do to provide a brighter future for our youth? What can we do to get these young people to realize that there is more for them than prison, than crime, than dead ends? All of our children are worth better than what we are giving them.
I'm tired of seeing kids who once had a future being sent off to prison because they can't see their own worth or their own path to success. Let's as a community do more to help them before they are standing on the opposite side of the courtroom from me.
Most of those we see come through the court system fit into a pretty common pattern. Most of them drop out of school usually around the 10th grade. Almost all of them have single parent homes, if that. Many of them have parents and other family members who have been to prison. It is not surprising that most of these young people end up wearing an orange jumpsuit, sometimes it seems they are almost destined for it.
However, today I was struck by two young men -- boys really -- both of whom had thrown their futures away for some short term gratification. Unlike most of those that we see, both of these young men had been given a clear path out of the dead end future facing so many of our youth in our impoverished locale. One had graduated from high school where he had excelled in football, earning a scholarship to North Carolina A&T, where he dropped out after one year to return to the same streets from which he had escaped and now had been caught selling drugs. The other had been a good student at his high school, earning honor roll awards and had been a member of his school's ROTC program. Instead of taking advantage of the path to success that all of those combined had, he instead broke into an occupied home late at night earning him a first degree burglary charge and an almost certain trip to a long prison sentence.
I once heard that the only thing awaiting young high school graduates in rural Southern towns were the three "M's" -- marriage, military or mill. Now the mills are all closed, the military is becoming more and more selective the worse the economy gets and it seems that nobody gets married these days. The three M's have been replaced by the three "P's" -- prison, pregnancy and pharmaceuticals. We are slashing spending on education on both the Federal and State levels. Class sizes are growing. Good teachers are being laid off and many who dreamed of going into the profession are finding the school doors closed to them as there are no jobs for them.
When you look at everything that is wrong with our educational system, you can almost understand why selling drugs are burglarizing residences may seem like a reasonable career move for young people. We cannot continue this trend.
I don't come here with answers, only questions. What can we do to provide a brighter future for our youth? What can we do to get these young people to realize that there is more for them than prison, than crime, than dead ends? All of our children are worth better than what we are giving them.
I'm tired of seeing kids who once had a future being sent off to prison because they can't see their own worth or their own path to success. Let's as a community do more to help them before they are standing on the opposite side of the courtroom from me.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Desert Island Albums
Back to music. I've often thought about what albums would be on my list of those which I would want on a desert island (for you kids, albums are what we used to call cd's before there were cd's. Oh, and cd's are what we used to call mp3's before there were mp3's). Of course, first on my desert island there would be electricity so I could listen to them, but perhaps I'm being a bit too literal.
Again, these are in no particular order and I'm sure there will be plenty I leave out.
Car Wheels On a Gravel Road, Lucinda Williams. This may be one of the most perfect albums ever recorded. Lucinda rips through a collection that streams pure emotion through every song. For those unfamiliar with Lucinda Williams's work, her voice is not the classical smooth poppy over-produced perfect voice that has become the preference of music these days. Her instrument can best be described as guttural, accented, sparse and sometimes harsh. But for those who get her, Lucinda's voice is a thing of beauty that transfixes listeners and brings them inside the raw emotions of the subject of her songs. No album of hers has better spotlighted Lucinda's signature voice than Car Wheels. The album starts with "Right in Time" and from the first notes of the twangy country rock guitar lick that begins the song you start the journey of this phenomenal work of art. Other gems on the album are "Drunken Angel", "St. Charles" and my favorite "Joy". But even as good as the parts of this album are on their own, the whole of the album almost indescribably transcends the sum of those parts. The emotions run the gamut from love, to lust, to heartbreaking loss and revenge. Most of Lucinda's work before and since Car Wheels is excellent, but never before or since has she come close to the absolute celebration of life in all its ups and downs that Car Wheels provides. Hell, I'm not sure that anyone ever could.
Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, Neko Case. Throughout her early career, Neko Case became the queen of the burgeoning alt-country music scene. Her early albums The Virginian and Furnace Room Lullaby were alt-country gems full of twangy guitars, pedal steels and most of all Case's incredible voice, which was at once both powerful and delicate. Her next albums "Blacklisted" and "The Tigers Have Spoken" (a live collection of new songs, a rarity in the new autotune obsessed music culture) built on this prior work, maintaining the country roots but expanding them into a more mainstream sound. Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, however, marked a bold departure from the simple alt-country themes of Case's earlier works. On Fox Confessor, Case introduced a dark and ethereal sound that really transcends genre. It is neither country, nor rock, nor pop, nor alternative, but is also all of those in a way. I can categorize it only as Neko Case. The album starts off with "Margaret vs. Pauline", a look at class distinctions between two women (my favorite line is "Two girls ride the blue line/Two girls walk down the same street/One left her sweater sittin' on the train/The other lost three fingers at the cannery" showing the relative "tragedies" each suffer). Other greats on the album are "Star Witness", "Hold On Hold On", "That Teenage Feeling" and "Maybe Sparrow". The mood on this album is inescapably dark, but Neko's voice and the odd chord progressions make this album also beautiful. At the same time both scary and intriguing. Neko has continued this feeling on her later album "Middle Cyclone". Wherever her muse takes her, I will be willing to follow.
Kilroy Was Here, Larry Kirwan. Larry Kirwan is the lead singer of Black 47. Since Black 47 is my favorite band in the world, I was interested to hear his solo album as soon as it was released in early 2001. At the same time, I was a little worried. Why was Larry doing a solo album instead of another B47 collection? As soon as I listened, the reason was clear. This is one of the most personal albums I've ever heard. Kirwan delves deep into his own life in a somewhat mournful and self-critical fashion. In what is a huge strength for Kirwan's songwriting abilities though, which shine on this album as well as his work with B47, is that none of it is the least bit sappy or nostalgic. Kirwan bears his soul on this album. It opens with "Molly" which captures Kirwan's infatuation with James Joyce's masterpiece "Ulysses". Along the way we are treated to a remembrance of his father while Kirwan was growing up in the title song of the album, and then another deeply personal "Life's Like That Anyway" which recounts many deeply personal experiences of Kirwan's young life. There is also the hilarious "History of Ireland Part 1" featuring Malachy McCourt which serves as a comedic primer for anyone with an interest in Irish history. The album ends with the haunting "Fatima" about a star-crossed love between a young Christian boy and Muslim girl. The refrain of the song "things fall apart in America" took on an altogether new meaning nine months after the album was released.
Remain In Light, Talking Heads -- Talking Heads were my favorite band throughout my teenage years. Their music still ranks up there against pretty much anything put out today. Although my first experience with Talking Heads music was in their more popular "Burning Down the House" and after their live release "Stop Making Sense", Remain In Light is the band's best album by far (and most of the others are pretty darn good with the exception possibly of "True Stories"). This album, driven my hypnotic African rhythms and complex vocal layering and at times even chanting, helped me through some tough times. To this day, if I am feeling overwhelmed by the occurrences of the day, simply putting on Remain in Light acts as a brain reset and leaves me feeling relaxed and recharged. The big "hit" off of the album was "Once in a Lifetime" which is best known for its repetitive "Same as it ever was" refrain and its quirky video. Many of the other songs are less well-known but are among the best the band ever made. "Born Under Punches", "The Great Curve" and "Crosseyed and Painless" provide a frenetic energy which when put together with the later songs "The Listening Wind", "Houses in Motion" and "The Overload" induce an almost hypnotic state. Great music, great effect.
The Dreaming, Kate Bush -- This album shows the value of second chances (and why first impressions aren't always correct). I first was introduced to Kate Bush as many in America were with her ultra successful "Hounds of Love" album and the hit song "Running Up That Hill". I had listened repeatedly to the cassette tape of that album to the point of wearing it out. I had read many glowing reviews of Bush's previous album The Dreaming, which drew, especially in its title song, from the Aboriginal Australian tradition of walkabout, and its trance like state in which one was led to search deep into one's mind and find inner truths. Since I enjoyed Hounds so much, I figured I would also love The Dreaming. When I first listened to this album I hated it. Really. Wouldn't even give it a second listen. I was jarred by its experimental nature with odd rhythms, instrumentation and literal screaming of lyrics by Bush. I couldn't understand how anyone could write such glowing reviews of the album. A few months later I forced myself to listen again and in an instant I got it. This was like nothing I had ever heard, and despite my initial revulsion, I now understood the triumph that this album was. Songs like "Sat Up In Your Lap", "There Goes a Tenner" and "Get Out of My House" portray a fast paced anger. On the other side of the spectrum are beautiful love songs like "All the Love" and "Houdini" which still stands as one of the saddest yet incredibly romantic songs I've ever heard.
Fire of Freedom, Black 47 -- I am eternally indebted to Larry Kirwan and the band Black 47 for kindling my love of Irish history. Fire of Freedom was the band's first album released in 1993. It contained their biggest (and only) hit song "Funky Ceili" and actually saw pretty heavy airplay both on alternative and even some mainstream pop stations and MTV. The album, produced by Ric Ocasek of The Cars, more than anything tells the tale of the Irish immigrant in the U.S., from many different perspectives. Woven throughout the album is the haunting air of the classic Irish tune "The Foggy Dew" but with lyrics that tell the tale not of the doomed revolutionaries of Easter Week 1916, but the doomed immigrants forced to work as domestics for the wealthy while looking for human attachment in the pubs at night. This culminates in the album's final song "Living in America" which incorporates all of the previous Foggy Dew excerpts heard throughout the album. The song "Black 47" tells the tragic tale of the Irish forced to emigrate on coffin ships during the Great Hunger of the mid 1840s to early 1850s. There are no punches pulled on this song, as the band lays the blame where it should be -- at the hands of the British who allowed the Irish to starve rather than doing anything to save them ("God's curse upon you Lord Trevalyn/May your great Queen Victoria rot in hell). "Fanatic Heart" tells the story of a young Republican in Northern Ireland separated from his love after being kidnapped during marching season in the North and tortured never being the same after. The title song is a song of complete defiance written about the struggles of Republicans in the face of oppression at home and abroad (it would go on to a new meaning following 9/11 as a cathartic anthem following the tragic events of that day). "James Connolly" is an unflinching anthem honoring the Irish Labor leader and revolutionary which would go on to become one of the band's signature songs. There are also plenty of lighthearted songs as well. The previously mentioned "Ceili" tells the semi-autobiographical story of a young Irish musician who after being fired from his bank job, finds his lover is pregnant and flees to America under threat of castration by the girl's father. "Maria's Wedding" tells the hilarious tale of a young Irishman crashing his lost Italian love's wedding in Bensonhurst. "Forty Shades of Blue" is a down and out tale of an Irish immigrant down on his luck with his "tongue hanging out for some Irish Rose" who'd "sell his soul for a cigarette". And the uproarious "Rockin' the Bronx" tells the tale of the band's early years trying to break into Irish pubs that were more used to hearing lilting versions of Danny Boy than the drum machine driven loud guitar and uillean pipe fare that was being torn out by the band.
Mind Bomb, The The -- I don't know exactly what it is about this album that makes me keep coming back to it time and time again, but it made a deep impression on me in my late teens and early twenties and still stands up today. The The unleashes an angry, deeply emotional epic on Mind Bomb that is possibly unparalleled by any other I've heard. In "Armageddon Days are Here (Again)", the band takes on modern organized religion head on and delivers a deeply emotional and frighteningly haunting diatribe. Starting out in a play on the party rock anthem "Ballroom Blitz" with the lines "Are you ready Jesus?, Buddha?, Mohammad? Well, let's Go!" and has the angry refrain "If you think that Jesus Christ is coming, honey you've got another thing coming/If he ever finds out who's hijacked his name/He'll cut out his heart and turn in his grave". Certainly there are many who would find that offensive, but even if you do, the song is worth a listen for the raw emotional argument it puts forth, even if the singer's point of view is not one that you would buy. "Kingdom of Rain" with Sinead O'Connor lending her amazing voice, is one of the most honest break up songs of all time, with the simultaneous emotions of love, anger, revulsion, loss and mourning all coming together as they do when suddenly the person whose bed you shared is no longer a part of your life. "The Beat(en) Generation" is as true today, if not moreso, than it was 20 years ago when this album was released -- telling of the feelings of disenfranchisement many youth feel. "Beyond Love" ends the album on a high note, telling graphically the hope of new love and new life which carry us to the future. Mind Bomb is an album that makes you feel that you belong even when everything and everyone feels they have left you behind.
Armed Forces, Elvis Costello and The Attractions -- On his third studio album in less than three years, released in 1979, Costello turned out a triumph. Armed Forces has remained one of my all time favorite albums, and grew in popularity for several years benefiting from heavy rotation of several videos made of its songs on the newly created MTV. Costello grew out of the late 70s punk movement, but was more talented a musician and songwriter than many of his contemporaries (something he was criticized for at the time). Starting with the lush and complex "Accidents Will Happen", the album weaves through politics ("Oliver's Army", "Goon Squad", "Senior Service") and the politics of relationships ("Two Little Hitlers", "Green Shirt", "Chemistry Class"). The American version of the album cut the song "Sunday's Best" (a good move) while the original UK version left out "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding", which has become the albums best-known song and one of Costello's most identifiable songs. This album has stood the test of time and it would likely be just as welcome if it were released today as it was in 1979.
Back to Black, Amy Winehouse -- Although I am writing this entry the day after her sad and inevitable death (I started this post in early June) and literally fighting tears as I do, my inclusion of this album is not intended as a reflection on her untimely demise but as a celebration of her unmatched talent. Many of those who came to know Winehouse through the tabloid pictures and celebrity media depictions of her ongoing struggle with addiction probably saw her as simply a target of derision or a victim of her own success. But what grabbed me was the music itself. There are very few who can take a genre of music -- 1960s girl group soul and pop -- and turn it into something new and fresh. Although the sound and style hearkened to an earlier time, Winehouse transformed the music and owned it. There was nothing derivative in her music, as odd as that may sound. Back to Black was one of the best albums put out in decades. Period. The songs that were well known such as what would become her ironic anthem "Rehab" and "You Know That I'm No Good" only give a glimpse into the genius that was contained in this album. Songs like the title track and "Some Unholy War" express deep emotion and honesty not often heard in modern pop music (I have had the chorus from the title track going over and over in my head the past 24 hours "We only said goodbye in words/I died a hundred times/You go back to her/and I go back to black"). While others actually seem to celebrate lost love ("Me and Mr. Jones", "Tears Dry On Their Own"). Very few could sing as honestly and openly about sex, drugs, lust and loss as honestly as Winehouse could. I will always regret not hearing more of her talent and I would have been willing to give up hearing another note of her beautiful voice if she just could have found peace and wellness in her life.
Again, these are in no particular order and I'm sure there will be plenty I leave out.
Car Wheels On a Gravel Road, Lucinda Williams. This may be one of the most perfect albums ever recorded. Lucinda rips through a collection that streams pure emotion through every song. For those unfamiliar with Lucinda Williams's work, her voice is not the classical smooth poppy over-produced perfect voice that has become the preference of music these days. Her instrument can best be described as guttural, accented, sparse and sometimes harsh. But for those who get her, Lucinda's voice is a thing of beauty that transfixes listeners and brings them inside the raw emotions of the subject of her songs. No album of hers has better spotlighted Lucinda's signature voice than Car Wheels. The album starts with "Right in Time" and from the first notes of the twangy country rock guitar lick that begins the song you start the journey of this phenomenal work of art. Other gems on the album are "Drunken Angel", "St. Charles" and my favorite "Joy". But even as good as the parts of this album are on their own, the whole of the album almost indescribably transcends the sum of those parts. The emotions run the gamut from love, to lust, to heartbreaking loss and revenge. Most of Lucinda's work before and since Car Wheels is excellent, but never before or since has she come close to the absolute celebration of life in all its ups and downs that Car Wheels provides. Hell, I'm not sure that anyone ever could.
Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, Neko Case. Throughout her early career, Neko Case became the queen of the burgeoning alt-country music scene. Her early albums The Virginian and Furnace Room Lullaby were alt-country gems full of twangy guitars, pedal steels and most of all Case's incredible voice, which was at once both powerful and delicate. Her next albums "Blacklisted" and "The Tigers Have Spoken" (a live collection of new songs, a rarity in the new autotune obsessed music culture) built on this prior work, maintaining the country roots but expanding them into a more mainstream sound. Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, however, marked a bold departure from the simple alt-country themes of Case's earlier works. On Fox Confessor, Case introduced a dark and ethereal sound that really transcends genre. It is neither country, nor rock, nor pop, nor alternative, but is also all of those in a way. I can categorize it only as Neko Case. The album starts off with "Margaret vs. Pauline", a look at class distinctions between two women (my favorite line is "Two girls ride the blue line/Two girls walk down the same street/One left her sweater sittin' on the train/The other lost three fingers at the cannery" showing the relative "tragedies" each suffer). Other greats on the album are "Star Witness", "Hold On Hold On", "That Teenage Feeling" and "Maybe Sparrow". The mood on this album is inescapably dark, but Neko's voice and the odd chord progressions make this album also beautiful. At the same time both scary and intriguing. Neko has continued this feeling on her later album "Middle Cyclone". Wherever her muse takes her, I will be willing to follow.
Kilroy Was Here, Larry Kirwan. Larry Kirwan is the lead singer of Black 47. Since Black 47 is my favorite band in the world, I was interested to hear his solo album as soon as it was released in early 2001. At the same time, I was a little worried. Why was Larry doing a solo album instead of another B47 collection? As soon as I listened, the reason was clear. This is one of the most personal albums I've ever heard. Kirwan delves deep into his own life in a somewhat mournful and self-critical fashion. In what is a huge strength for Kirwan's songwriting abilities though, which shine on this album as well as his work with B47, is that none of it is the least bit sappy or nostalgic. Kirwan bears his soul on this album. It opens with "Molly" which captures Kirwan's infatuation with James Joyce's masterpiece "Ulysses". Along the way we are treated to a remembrance of his father while Kirwan was growing up in the title song of the album, and then another deeply personal "Life's Like That Anyway" which recounts many deeply personal experiences of Kirwan's young life. There is also the hilarious "History of Ireland Part 1" featuring Malachy McCourt which serves as a comedic primer for anyone with an interest in Irish history. The album ends with the haunting "Fatima" about a star-crossed love between a young Christian boy and Muslim girl. The refrain of the song "things fall apart in America" took on an altogether new meaning nine months after the album was released.
Remain In Light, Talking Heads -- Talking Heads were my favorite band throughout my teenage years. Their music still ranks up there against pretty much anything put out today. Although my first experience with Talking Heads music was in their more popular "Burning Down the House" and after their live release "Stop Making Sense", Remain In Light is the band's best album by far (and most of the others are pretty darn good with the exception possibly of "True Stories"). This album, driven my hypnotic African rhythms and complex vocal layering and at times even chanting, helped me through some tough times. To this day, if I am feeling overwhelmed by the occurrences of the day, simply putting on Remain in Light acts as a brain reset and leaves me feeling relaxed and recharged. The big "hit" off of the album was "Once in a Lifetime" which is best known for its repetitive "Same as it ever was" refrain and its quirky video. Many of the other songs are less well-known but are among the best the band ever made. "Born Under Punches", "The Great Curve" and "Crosseyed and Painless" provide a frenetic energy which when put together with the later songs "The Listening Wind", "Houses in Motion" and "The Overload" induce an almost hypnotic state. Great music, great effect.
The Dreaming, Kate Bush -- This album shows the value of second chances (and why first impressions aren't always correct). I first was introduced to Kate Bush as many in America were with her ultra successful "Hounds of Love" album and the hit song "Running Up That Hill". I had listened repeatedly to the cassette tape of that album to the point of wearing it out. I had read many glowing reviews of Bush's previous album The Dreaming, which drew, especially in its title song, from the Aboriginal Australian tradition of walkabout, and its trance like state in which one was led to search deep into one's mind and find inner truths. Since I enjoyed Hounds so much, I figured I would also love The Dreaming. When I first listened to this album I hated it. Really. Wouldn't even give it a second listen. I was jarred by its experimental nature with odd rhythms, instrumentation and literal screaming of lyrics by Bush. I couldn't understand how anyone could write such glowing reviews of the album. A few months later I forced myself to listen again and in an instant I got it. This was like nothing I had ever heard, and despite my initial revulsion, I now understood the triumph that this album was. Songs like "Sat Up In Your Lap", "There Goes a Tenner" and "Get Out of My House" portray a fast paced anger. On the other side of the spectrum are beautiful love songs like "All the Love" and "Houdini" which still stands as one of the saddest yet incredibly romantic songs I've ever heard.
Fire of Freedom, Black 47 -- I am eternally indebted to Larry Kirwan and the band Black 47 for kindling my love of Irish history. Fire of Freedom was the band's first album released in 1993. It contained their biggest (and only) hit song "Funky Ceili" and actually saw pretty heavy airplay both on alternative and even some mainstream pop stations and MTV. The album, produced by Ric Ocasek of The Cars, more than anything tells the tale of the Irish immigrant in the U.S., from many different perspectives. Woven throughout the album is the haunting air of the classic Irish tune "The Foggy Dew" but with lyrics that tell the tale not of the doomed revolutionaries of Easter Week 1916, but the doomed immigrants forced to work as domestics for the wealthy while looking for human attachment in the pubs at night. This culminates in the album's final song "Living in America" which incorporates all of the previous Foggy Dew excerpts heard throughout the album. The song "Black 47" tells the tragic tale of the Irish forced to emigrate on coffin ships during the Great Hunger of the mid 1840s to early 1850s. There are no punches pulled on this song, as the band lays the blame where it should be -- at the hands of the British who allowed the Irish to starve rather than doing anything to save them ("God's curse upon you Lord Trevalyn/May your great Queen Victoria rot in hell). "Fanatic Heart" tells the story of a young Republican in Northern Ireland separated from his love after being kidnapped during marching season in the North and tortured never being the same after. The title song is a song of complete defiance written about the struggles of Republicans in the face of oppression at home and abroad (it would go on to a new meaning following 9/11 as a cathartic anthem following the tragic events of that day). "James Connolly" is an unflinching anthem honoring the Irish Labor leader and revolutionary which would go on to become one of the band's signature songs. There are also plenty of lighthearted songs as well. The previously mentioned "Ceili" tells the semi-autobiographical story of a young Irish musician who after being fired from his bank job, finds his lover is pregnant and flees to America under threat of castration by the girl's father. "Maria's Wedding" tells the hilarious tale of a young Irishman crashing his lost Italian love's wedding in Bensonhurst. "Forty Shades of Blue" is a down and out tale of an Irish immigrant down on his luck with his "tongue hanging out for some Irish Rose" who'd "sell his soul for a cigarette". And the uproarious "Rockin' the Bronx" tells the tale of the band's early years trying to break into Irish pubs that were more used to hearing lilting versions of Danny Boy than the drum machine driven loud guitar and uillean pipe fare that was being torn out by the band.
Mind Bomb, The The -- I don't know exactly what it is about this album that makes me keep coming back to it time and time again, but it made a deep impression on me in my late teens and early twenties and still stands up today. The The unleashes an angry, deeply emotional epic on Mind Bomb that is possibly unparalleled by any other I've heard. In "Armageddon Days are Here (Again)", the band takes on modern organized religion head on and delivers a deeply emotional and frighteningly haunting diatribe. Starting out in a play on the party rock anthem "Ballroom Blitz" with the lines "Are you ready Jesus?, Buddha?, Mohammad? Well, let's Go!" and has the angry refrain "If you think that Jesus Christ is coming, honey you've got another thing coming/If he ever finds out who's hijacked his name/He'll cut out his heart and turn in his grave". Certainly there are many who would find that offensive, but even if you do, the song is worth a listen for the raw emotional argument it puts forth, even if the singer's point of view is not one that you would buy. "Kingdom of Rain" with Sinead O'Connor lending her amazing voice, is one of the most honest break up songs of all time, with the simultaneous emotions of love, anger, revulsion, loss and mourning all coming together as they do when suddenly the person whose bed you shared is no longer a part of your life. "The Beat(en) Generation" is as true today, if not moreso, than it was 20 years ago when this album was released -- telling of the feelings of disenfranchisement many youth feel. "Beyond Love" ends the album on a high note, telling graphically the hope of new love and new life which carry us to the future. Mind Bomb is an album that makes you feel that you belong even when everything and everyone feels they have left you behind.
Armed Forces, Elvis Costello and The Attractions -- On his third studio album in less than three years, released in 1979, Costello turned out a triumph. Armed Forces has remained one of my all time favorite albums, and grew in popularity for several years benefiting from heavy rotation of several videos made of its songs on the newly created MTV. Costello grew out of the late 70s punk movement, but was more talented a musician and songwriter than many of his contemporaries (something he was criticized for at the time). Starting with the lush and complex "Accidents Will Happen", the album weaves through politics ("Oliver's Army", "Goon Squad", "Senior Service") and the politics of relationships ("Two Little Hitlers", "Green Shirt", "Chemistry Class"). The American version of the album cut the song "Sunday's Best" (a good move) while the original UK version left out "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding", which has become the albums best-known song and one of Costello's most identifiable songs. This album has stood the test of time and it would likely be just as welcome if it were released today as it was in 1979.
Back to Black, Amy Winehouse -- Although I am writing this entry the day after her sad and inevitable death (I started this post in early June) and literally fighting tears as I do, my inclusion of this album is not intended as a reflection on her untimely demise but as a celebration of her unmatched talent. Many of those who came to know Winehouse through the tabloid pictures and celebrity media depictions of her ongoing struggle with addiction probably saw her as simply a target of derision or a victim of her own success. But what grabbed me was the music itself. There are very few who can take a genre of music -- 1960s girl group soul and pop -- and turn it into something new and fresh. Although the sound and style hearkened to an earlier time, Winehouse transformed the music and owned it. There was nothing derivative in her music, as odd as that may sound. Back to Black was one of the best albums put out in decades. Period. The songs that were well known such as what would become her ironic anthem "Rehab" and "You Know That I'm No Good" only give a glimpse into the genius that was contained in this album. Songs like the title track and "Some Unholy War" express deep emotion and honesty not often heard in modern pop music (I have had the chorus from the title track going over and over in my head the past 24 hours "We only said goodbye in words/I died a hundred times/You go back to her/and I go back to black"). While others actually seem to celebrate lost love ("Me and Mr. Jones", "Tears Dry On Their Own"). Very few could sing as honestly and openly about sex, drugs, lust and loss as honestly as Winehouse could. I will always regret not hearing more of her talent and I would have been willing to give up hearing another note of her beautiful voice if she just could have found peace and wellness in her life.
What Happened to Citizenship and the Common Good?
Recently I was told by an individual who disagreed with my feeling that it is not only acceptable, but expected that we help take care of those in our society who are unable to care for or help themselves that his only responsibility was to himself and his family and no one else. Needless to say he identified himself as belonging to the Tea Party. However, his philosophy seems to have permeated not just the crazed right wing political activists who have been led by Billionaires to stand in opposition to their own economic and political interest, but to society as a whole.
In the most recent political drama coming out of Washington, the Democrats, yes the Democrats, have adopted this philosophy in agreeing to and even championing cuts to Medicare, Social Security and other benefits to the aged, the poor and children. Democrats have even adopted their opponents language in referring to these as entitlements, an unnecessarily pejorative word.
It used to be that taking care of those that were less fortunate than ourselves was not only encouraged, but expected. It was a badge of honor that we would not let our sick, our children, or our elderly suffer through their misfortune. Taxes were seen not as something forcibly extracted from the government against one's will, but as the price that one paid for the privilege of taking part in this great nation of ours.
So what the hell changed? When did we go from a great society that offered a hand up to a nation of greedy misers taking everything we can get our hands on and hanging on with all our might to every last cent?
We shouldn't really be that surprised when we look at who it is that is running this country now. Just as the generation that survived economic calamity in the depression and suffered even more deprivation as they banded together under government imposed rationing to win World War II has become known as "The Greatest Generation," the baby boomers that came after should go down as "The Worst Generation."
The Worst Generation in some ways couldn't help it. They were raised enjoying all of the benefits that came from their parents' and grandparents' sacrifices without ever having to sacrifice themselves. They gained a self-proclaimed soul during the 1960s when they marched against Vietnam and joined the "counter-culture." But really for most of them, it was just a way to get laid and not have to fight a war that they were all to happy to let their poorer uneducated brethren battle. As soon as the war ended, they continued their excess through the 70s fueled now by cocaine instead of pot and LSD. Then in the 80s, they cashed in, championing deregulation and irrational and excessive wealth.
In the 1990s they came into power and we have been on a downward slope ever since. Bill Clinton offered the hope of a new generation of leadership and many of us, including me, bought into it. While cloaking himself in the idealistic language of the Age of Aquarius (and Fleetwood Mac), in reality he was much more comfortable in the company of bankers than he was in the company of beggars. Claiming faulty liberal credentials, he foisted possibly the greatest long con ever executed on the largest collection of marks ever gathered -- the entire American public.
Assisted by a period of unequaled economic growth and prosperity, instead of using this as an opportunity to enact legislation to shore-up the nation's safety net and insure equality and shared prosperity, Clinton instead enacted legislation which benefited the wealthiest of his donors while setting in motion the machinery that would lead to the immense economic inequality we see today. Without much attention, Clinton not only signed but championed two pieces of legislation -- the Gramm, Leach, Bliley Act and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. GLB did away with the Glass Steagall Act which had prevented financial companies from becoming Too Big to Fail and CFMA insured that the destructively complex instruments collectively known as derivatives would remain completely unregulated. These two acts together have combined to lead both to the huge bubbles in both tech stocks and real estate during the 2000s and the inevitable collapse and subsequent bailout of 2008-present.
Oh, and he signed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the Defense of Marriage Act. Some liberal.
In 2000, the second President of the Worst Generation was elected. In some ways at least George W. Bush was more honest than Bill Clinton. He had all of the same anti-equality, pro-bankster policies as Clinton with none of the pseudo-Liberal pretext. Bush was a different part of the Worst Generation. Just as Clinton before him, Bush managed to avoid having to serve in Vietnam (Bush by using his high-powered political connections through Daddy and Granddaddy to join the National Guard), he just didn't feel guilty about it. I picture Bill Clinton putting daisies in GWB's M-16 during an anti-war protest at Harvard.
What Clinton started in his pro-banker legislation and deregulation of financial weapons of mass destruction (Warren Buffet's words, not mine), Bush put into overdrive. Bush one upped Clinton much to the delight of his wealthy donors. Not only did he continue the rash of deregulatory policies and threw trillions upon trillions of government money into the pockets of corporate backers in order to fight two wars (at least one of which was completely unnecessary) but he enacted the largest tax cut in history to boot. This was the epitome in a way of the entire Baby Boomer philosophy: take everything you can get, as quickly as you can get it, and have everyone else pay for it.
Corporate irresponsibility was not only allowed, but it was encouraged, even endorsed with a government seal of approval. Economic irresponsibility quickly spread throughout the nation. Why should we live within our means? Nobody else is. Suddenly, migrant workers making $10,000 a year were buying $750,000 mansions. Cocktail waitresses were purchasing three homes, each with no money down. Consumers were encouraged to buy more than they could ever hope to afford, lured in by complex mortgage products such as interst-only loans and mortgages with low introductory teaser rates which blew up into huge adjustible rates.
And who could blame those entering into these deals (except the blow-hards on CNBC)? They were acting the same way as the traders on Wall Street who were, thanks to deregulatory legislation, leveraging themselves 10, 20, even 40 times their reserves in buying up securities based on these worthless loans. Of course when it all came crashing down, the bankers got bailed out by the government they paid for, while the marks got foreclosed.
The financial bailout was the inevitable and ultimate conclusion of the philosophy of the Worst Generation. Referred to during the 1970s as the "Me Generation," this collection of spoiled brats never allowed to suffer or know real failure, always bailed out by their parents was simply acting in the exact same way they have been taught. The Worst Generation believes that there are no consequences for their irresponsible behavior, that what is good for them is the only measure of what is good, that the benefits conveyed by the previous generation are theirs to consume without any responsibility to provide benefits for the next generation.
This of course brings us to today. As the Congress and the President debate, as The Onion so adeptly put it, whether or not they should destroy the nation's economy, all of the proposals being floated in one way or another take this philosphy even one step further. Cutting Social Security benefits, cutting Medicare and Medicaid, slashing discretionary spending, all with no tax increases, a corporate tax holiday for corporations who have been stashing their money overseas to avoid taxes, and new measures of inflation which guarantee to continue to pound the lower class over and over and over again (more on this later), are all just the latest version of the "me first" philosophy which has permeated the baby boom generation for decades. Is there any wonder why Paul Ryan's budget proposed phasing out Social Security and Medicare only for those under the age of 55?
The "Me Generation" has become the "Me and Only Me The Rest of You Be Damned" generation. There is no more concern for the common good. There is no expectation that we will take care of the weakest and most vulnerable among us. It is a take what you can get, no holds barred race to oblivion and the one with the most toys wins.
In the most recent political drama coming out of Washington, the Democrats, yes the Democrats, have adopted this philosophy in agreeing to and even championing cuts to Medicare, Social Security and other benefits to the aged, the poor and children. Democrats have even adopted their opponents language in referring to these as entitlements, an unnecessarily pejorative word.
It used to be that taking care of those that were less fortunate than ourselves was not only encouraged, but expected. It was a badge of honor that we would not let our sick, our children, or our elderly suffer through their misfortune. Taxes were seen not as something forcibly extracted from the government against one's will, but as the price that one paid for the privilege of taking part in this great nation of ours.
So what the hell changed? When did we go from a great society that offered a hand up to a nation of greedy misers taking everything we can get our hands on and hanging on with all our might to every last cent?
We shouldn't really be that surprised when we look at who it is that is running this country now. Just as the generation that survived economic calamity in the depression and suffered even more deprivation as they banded together under government imposed rationing to win World War II has become known as "The Greatest Generation," the baby boomers that came after should go down as "The Worst Generation."
The Worst Generation in some ways couldn't help it. They were raised enjoying all of the benefits that came from their parents' and grandparents' sacrifices without ever having to sacrifice themselves. They gained a self-proclaimed soul during the 1960s when they marched against Vietnam and joined the "counter-culture." But really for most of them, it was just a way to get laid and not have to fight a war that they were all to happy to let their poorer uneducated brethren battle. As soon as the war ended, they continued their excess through the 70s fueled now by cocaine instead of pot and LSD. Then in the 80s, they cashed in, championing deregulation and irrational and excessive wealth.
In the 1990s they came into power and we have been on a downward slope ever since. Bill Clinton offered the hope of a new generation of leadership and many of us, including me, bought into it. While cloaking himself in the idealistic language of the Age of Aquarius (and Fleetwood Mac), in reality he was much more comfortable in the company of bankers than he was in the company of beggars. Claiming faulty liberal credentials, he foisted possibly the greatest long con ever executed on the largest collection of marks ever gathered -- the entire American public.
Assisted by a period of unequaled economic growth and prosperity, instead of using this as an opportunity to enact legislation to shore-up the nation's safety net and insure equality and shared prosperity, Clinton instead enacted legislation which benefited the wealthiest of his donors while setting in motion the machinery that would lead to the immense economic inequality we see today. Without much attention, Clinton not only signed but championed two pieces of legislation -- the Gramm, Leach, Bliley Act and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. GLB did away with the Glass Steagall Act which had prevented financial companies from becoming Too Big to Fail and CFMA insured that the destructively complex instruments collectively known as derivatives would remain completely unregulated. These two acts together have combined to lead both to the huge bubbles in both tech stocks and real estate during the 2000s and the inevitable collapse and subsequent bailout of 2008-present.
Oh, and he signed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the Defense of Marriage Act. Some liberal.
Clinton signing the repeal of Glass-Steagall
What Clinton started in his pro-banker legislation and deregulation of financial weapons of mass destruction (Warren Buffet's words, not mine), Bush put into overdrive. Bush one upped Clinton much to the delight of his wealthy donors. Not only did he continue the rash of deregulatory policies and threw trillions upon trillions of government money into the pockets of corporate backers in order to fight two wars (at least one of which was completely unnecessary) but he enacted the largest tax cut in history to boot. This was the epitome in a way of the entire Baby Boomer philosophy: take everything you can get, as quickly as you can get it, and have everyone else pay for it.
Corporate irresponsibility was not only allowed, but it was encouraged, even endorsed with a government seal of approval. Economic irresponsibility quickly spread throughout the nation. Why should we live within our means? Nobody else is. Suddenly, migrant workers making $10,000 a year were buying $750,000 mansions. Cocktail waitresses were purchasing three homes, each with no money down. Consumers were encouraged to buy more than they could ever hope to afford, lured in by complex mortgage products such as interst-only loans and mortgages with low introductory teaser rates which blew up into huge adjustible rates.
And who could blame those entering into these deals (except the blow-hards on CNBC)? They were acting the same way as the traders on Wall Street who were, thanks to deregulatory legislation, leveraging themselves 10, 20, even 40 times their reserves in buying up securities based on these worthless loans. Of course when it all came crashing down, the bankers got bailed out by the government they paid for, while the marks got foreclosed.
The financial bailout was the inevitable and ultimate conclusion of the philosophy of the Worst Generation. Referred to during the 1970s as the "Me Generation," this collection of spoiled brats never allowed to suffer or know real failure, always bailed out by their parents was simply acting in the exact same way they have been taught. The Worst Generation believes that there are no consequences for their irresponsible behavior, that what is good for them is the only measure of what is good, that the benefits conveyed by the previous generation are theirs to consume without any responsibility to provide benefits for the next generation.
This of course brings us to today. As the Congress and the President debate, as The Onion so adeptly put it, whether or not they should destroy the nation's economy, all of the proposals being floated in one way or another take this philosphy even one step further. Cutting Social Security benefits, cutting Medicare and Medicaid, slashing discretionary spending, all with no tax increases, a corporate tax holiday for corporations who have been stashing their money overseas to avoid taxes, and new measures of inflation which guarantee to continue to pound the lower class over and over and over again (more on this later), are all just the latest version of the "me first" philosophy which has permeated the baby boom generation for decades. Is there any wonder why Paul Ryan's budget proposed phasing out Social Security and Medicare only for those under the age of 55?
The "Me Generation" has become the "Me and Only Me The Rest of You Be Damned" generation. There is no more concern for the common good. There is no expectation that we will take care of the weakest and most vulnerable among us. It is a take what you can get, no holds barred race to oblivion and the one with the most toys wins.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
A Fraction of Fiction
It happened gradually. So gradually, we barely noticed. We were the proverbial frog placed into a pot of lukewarm water, not noticing the rise in temperature until our blood was boiling. All it took was the wrong people being put into power, running on a platform of fear and freedom conning a scared public into believing they were a legitimate way out of the economic morass in which we found ourselves.
The first thing they did was eliminate the minimum wage. This was hailed by elites in both of the political parties existing then as a huge improvement that would bring prosperity and production back to our country. It was promised that with the removal of artificial controls on wages that wages would actually increase due to the so-called invisible hand of the free market economy.
At first, this had some positive marginal effects. Some low wage jobs actually did see increases. But after a while, wages started decreasing. What used to pay $10 an hour started paying wages of $5 an hour. Then, the pay became less and less. Eventually, most of us found ourselves working for $2 or $3 a day. But, the jobs did come back. We were manufacturing again, making textiles, furniture, cars, all sorts of items that used to be made in Mexico or China or Indonesia. And profits soared as corporations could now get the benefits of American work ethic and efficiency on the third-world wages they used to pay the Mexicans or the Chinese or the Indonesians.
The next thing they did was eliminate the EPA. Announcing that global warming was a myth created by radical environmentalists to ransack the holdings of American corporations, the elimination of the main environmental regulator was again seen as a huge step forward for the free market and the nation as this would further allow us to add jobs and increase our domestic financial output. Looking back, it would have been better just to nuke ourselves.
As temperatures continued to rise, more and more of the polar ice caps melted raising sea levels. Record snowfall melts swelled rivers to never before seen levels. Most of the Midwest is now the world's largest inland lake, effectively separating the eastern and western halves of the country. Most of Florida is gone. Sacramento is now an Oceanfront paradise, as most of the West coast is under water.
Next they eliminated the Department of Education. This was hailed as huge victory for freedom. No longer would local school boards be subjected to the whims of a government bureaucracy handing down orders willy-nilly to its subordinates. Of course, with most of the former middle class earning less than $2,000 a year, there was little for most school districts to do to raise money. Resources ended up being slashed, and then when there was little choice left, the localities started lowering the age which required compulsory education until some eliminated the requirement altogether.
This was fortunate for many of the new manufacturing giants, however, as the federal government next did away with the job-killing child labor laws. With the newly freed young fresh bodies no longer required to attend schools against their will, children as young as 10 were signed up for jobs in the new textile mills, working 10-12 hour days, six days a week. Their families, with no money on which to survive, had little choice but to not only allow, but require their children to do so.
All of this led to America becoming an economic juggernaut, of course. The nation's exports increased exponentially. The owners of the factories and especially their bankers raked in billions of dollars a year in profits. The nation had its first Trillionaires. The stock market reached heights no one could ever have imagined. Of course, very few but the most wealthy in the nation benefited from this, not that this mattered since they controlled every politician through their purse strings.
As for me, the road down was a steep but unsurprising one. My profession -- lawyers -- was the most despised of the new leaders. A whole new set of rules were implemented making it harder and harder for the masses to reach the scales of justice. First they capped civil awards -- initially at $250,000, then at $100,000 eventually capping the award for an individual in any civil suit, to $25,000. Of course, this only applied to claims for personal injury, not to actions on behalf of corporations for breach of contract or for money owed on loans or foreclosures. Class action suits were outlawed. In a stunning limit on free markets, the same leaders outlawed the use of contingency fee contracts. Lawyers had to work for a fee agreed to and paid ahead of time. Awards of attorney's fees were no longer allowed by the Courts as part of damages or costs.
Needless to say, this put most plaintiff's attorneys and small town lawyers out of business.
I was a prosecutor, so it seemed my job was safe, as the jails were filling with more and more violent offenders, willing to risk everything to get whatever they could at the barrel end of a gun. The leaders stacked the courts with judges willing to overturn well established laws that were seen to clog up the gears of justice. Miranda warnings were tossed away. The right to counsel was deemed unnecessary and the appointing of private attorneys and public defenders offices declared a restraint of trade. Most of the cases I handled now were against individuals unrepresented by counsel and unfamiliar with the workings of the court system. Where I used to look forward to going up against a talented, smart, tough defense attorney and would spend hours pouring over my files and researching the law on all of the potential legal questions that could be raised, now my job bored me. There was no challenge sending away an uneducated, poor teenager to decades behind bars in ever alarming prison conditions.
As time went on and trials became fewer and fewer as court was merely a formality as we ushered hundreds upon hundreds of unrepresented defendants through the courts in record time, the need for prosecutors became less and less. Seeing us as nothing other than glorified office clerks filing paperwork, our funding was cut further and further and our ranks and salaries dwindled along with everyone else's. Inevitably, one day the news came that it was my last and I packed my few office belongings in a small box and left the courthouse which had once represented all that was good with our justice system without giving it a second glance.
The only legal jobs left were with large firms representing the behemoth corporations that were revelling in the new booming economy. These firms were growing and paying huge salaries to their young eager legal eagles who would come up with ever more elaborate ways to guard their clients against the teeming masses that might otherwise try to claw back some of the fortune that their overlords were amassing. However, these jobs inevitably stuck to a strict system of rewarding the families and friends of their clients and political supporters. Little time was given to resumes from former small town prosecutors who obviously had not played the leaders' game or else they would have chosen another career track long ago.
Before long, I, like most of my neighbors was behind in my bills. Unable to pay my bills, I quickly fell behind in my finances. The bank foreclosed on my home, a mere formality. Of course, with so many of us out there no longer able to pay mortgages, the banks were unable to find many buyers for the homes. Many of us, myself included, simply stayed in our homes, challenging the banks to do something about it. Eventually, faced with an overabundance of "empty" homes with no possibility of selling them, the banks started simply razing the homes leaving empty land where once stood the American dream.
One day inevitably my family and I were met at our front door with a bulldozer. We were given five minutes to grab what we could and vacate before the giant smoke belching machine began knocking down that which we had worked for years to maintain. Within an hour it was all gone.
Fortunately, we were able to salvage some camping equipment and found some empty land on which to pitch a tent and at least have some protection against the elements. Both my wife and I found jobs in one of the mills for a couple dollars a day. The biggest perk of these jobs was that they served a relatively good meal during our half hour break of a meat sandwich and some sort of potato along with a beverage, usually caffeinated. This wasn't done out of any kind of charity or beneficence, but merely so that we would have enough sustenance to maintain our energy to complete our shift. But we took what we could get.
Winters had become harsher and harsher as the climate had become ever more out of balance over the years. So we knew that we couldn't survive in the tent. As many others had, we did what we could to dig shelters in the sides of hills, shoring them up with what scraps of wood and what scrap metal escaped the hands of looters to protect ourselves from the elements. It was just enough to keep us from dying of exposure.
Eventually someone had the idea to occupy abandoned basements that had been left after the banks' bulldozers had done their business. It was then that I found myself occupying the basement of a house I used to own. We shared it with two other families. We were able to mock up a makeshift roof which mostly kept out the rain. Since we were underground, it more or less kept itself cool during the hot months and lukewarm during the cold months. It beat a dugout in the side of a hill any day.
We started referring to ourselves as the Cellar Dwellers and the name became an ironic badge of honor for millions of us who had quickly slid down the tracks of the downwardly spiraling American reality.
The first thing they did was eliminate the minimum wage. This was hailed by elites in both of the political parties existing then as a huge improvement that would bring prosperity and production back to our country. It was promised that with the removal of artificial controls on wages that wages would actually increase due to the so-called invisible hand of the free market economy.
At first, this had some positive marginal effects. Some low wage jobs actually did see increases. But after a while, wages started decreasing. What used to pay $10 an hour started paying wages of $5 an hour. Then, the pay became less and less. Eventually, most of us found ourselves working for $2 or $3 a day. But, the jobs did come back. We were manufacturing again, making textiles, furniture, cars, all sorts of items that used to be made in Mexico or China or Indonesia. And profits soared as corporations could now get the benefits of American work ethic and efficiency on the third-world wages they used to pay the Mexicans or the Chinese or the Indonesians.
The next thing they did was eliminate the EPA. Announcing that global warming was a myth created by radical environmentalists to ransack the holdings of American corporations, the elimination of the main environmental regulator was again seen as a huge step forward for the free market and the nation as this would further allow us to add jobs and increase our domestic financial output. Looking back, it would have been better just to nuke ourselves.
As temperatures continued to rise, more and more of the polar ice caps melted raising sea levels. Record snowfall melts swelled rivers to never before seen levels. Most of the Midwest is now the world's largest inland lake, effectively separating the eastern and western halves of the country. Most of Florida is gone. Sacramento is now an Oceanfront paradise, as most of the West coast is under water.
Next they eliminated the Department of Education. This was hailed as huge victory for freedom. No longer would local school boards be subjected to the whims of a government bureaucracy handing down orders willy-nilly to its subordinates. Of course, with most of the former middle class earning less than $2,000 a year, there was little for most school districts to do to raise money. Resources ended up being slashed, and then when there was little choice left, the localities started lowering the age which required compulsory education until some eliminated the requirement altogether.
This was fortunate for many of the new manufacturing giants, however, as the federal government next did away with the job-killing child labor laws. With the newly freed young fresh bodies no longer required to attend schools against their will, children as young as 10 were signed up for jobs in the new textile mills, working 10-12 hour days, six days a week. Their families, with no money on which to survive, had little choice but to not only allow, but require their children to do so.
All of this led to America becoming an economic juggernaut, of course. The nation's exports increased exponentially. The owners of the factories and especially their bankers raked in billions of dollars a year in profits. The nation had its first Trillionaires. The stock market reached heights no one could ever have imagined. Of course, very few but the most wealthy in the nation benefited from this, not that this mattered since they controlled every politician through their purse strings.
As for me, the road down was a steep but unsurprising one. My profession -- lawyers -- was the most despised of the new leaders. A whole new set of rules were implemented making it harder and harder for the masses to reach the scales of justice. First they capped civil awards -- initially at $250,000, then at $100,000 eventually capping the award for an individual in any civil suit, to $25,000. Of course, this only applied to claims for personal injury, not to actions on behalf of corporations for breach of contract or for money owed on loans or foreclosures. Class action suits were outlawed. In a stunning limit on free markets, the same leaders outlawed the use of contingency fee contracts. Lawyers had to work for a fee agreed to and paid ahead of time. Awards of attorney's fees were no longer allowed by the Courts as part of damages or costs.
Needless to say, this put most plaintiff's attorneys and small town lawyers out of business.
I was a prosecutor, so it seemed my job was safe, as the jails were filling with more and more violent offenders, willing to risk everything to get whatever they could at the barrel end of a gun. The leaders stacked the courts with judges willing to overturn well established laws that were seen to clog up the gears of justice. Miranda warnings were tossed away. The right to counsel was deemed unnecessary and the appointing of private attorneys and public defenders offices declared a restraint of trade. Most of the cases I handled now were against individuals unrepresented by counsel and unfamiliar with the workings of the court system. Where I used to look forward to going up against a talented, smart, tough defense attorney and would spend hours pouring over my files and researching the law on all of the potential legal questions that could be raised, now my job bored me. There was no challenge sending away an uneducated, poor teenager to decades behind bars in ever alarming prison conditions.
As time went on and trials became fewer and fewer as court was merely a formality as we ushered hundreds upon hundreds of unrepresented defendants through the courts in record time, the need for prosecutors became less and less. Seeing us as nothing other than glorified office clerks filing paperwork, our funding was cut further and further and our ranks and salaries dwindled along with everyone else's. Inevitably, one day the news came that it was my last and I packed my few office belongings in a small box and left the courthouse which had once represented all that was good with our justice system without giving it a second glance.
The only legal jobs left were with large firms representing the behemoth corporations that were revelling in the new booming economy. These firms were growing and paying huge salaries to their young eager legal eagles who would come up with ever more elaborate ways to guard their clients against the teeming masses that might otherwise try to claw back some of the fortune that their overlords were amassing. However, these jobs inevitably stuck to a strict system of rewarding the families and friends of their clients and political supporters. Little time was given to resumes from former small town prosecutors who obviously had not played the leaders' game or else they would have chosen another career track long ago.
Before long, I, like most of my neighbors was behind in my bills. Unable to pay my bills, I quickly fell behind in my finances. The bank foreclosed on my home, a mere formality. Of course, with so many of us out there no longer able to pay mortgages, the banks were unable to find many buyers for the homes. Many of us, myself included, simply stayed in our homes, challenging the banks to do something about it. Eventually, faced with an overabundance of "empty" homes with no possibility of selling them, the banks started simply razing the homes leaving empty land where once stood the American dream.
One day inevitably my family and I were met at our front door with a bulldozer. We were given five minutes to grab what we could and vacate before the giant smoke belching machine began knocking down that which we had worked for years to maintain. Within an hour it was all gone.
Fortunately, we were able to salvage some camping equipment and found some empty land on which to pitch a tent and at least have some protection against the elements. Both my wife and I found jobs in one of the mills for a couple dollars a day. The biggest perk of these jobs was that they served a relatively good meal during our half hour break of a meat sandwich and some sort of potato along with a beverage, usually caffeinated. This wasn't done out of any kind of charity or beneficence, but merely so that we would have enough sustenance to maintain our energy to complete our shift. But we took what we could get.
Winters had become harsher and harsher as the climate had become ever more out of balance over the years. So we knew that we couldn't survive in the tent. As many others had, we did what we could to dig shelters in the sides of hills, shoring them up with what scraps of wood and what scrap metal escaped the hands of looters to protect ourselves from the elements. It was just enough to keep us from dying of exposure.
Eventually someone had the idea to occupy abandoned basements that had been left after the banks' bulldozers had done their business. It was then that I found myself occupying the basement of a house I used to own. We shared it with two other families. We were able to mock up a makeshift roof which mostly kept out the rain. Since we were underground, it more or less kept itself cool during the hot months and lukewarm during the cold months. It beat a dugout in the side of a hill any day.
We started referring to ourselves as the Cellar Dwellers and the name became an ironic badge of honor for millions of us who had quickly slid down the tracks of the downwardly spiraling American reality.
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