Two Civilized Men Among the Barbarians

The character of much of what passes for debate in the United States signals that the nation has become the moral equivalent of Tobacco Road, a backwater of civilization.

Humankind has traveled a long journey since the time when some folks walked out of Africa, and others decided to stay. Yet at the American center of the Earth's material wealth and military power, human progress has been short-circuited -- smothered -- by a ruling group bent on dragging the rest of the species toward a social and moral dead end.

This hyper-aggressive group maintains an iron grip on both the mechanisms and the terms of civil discussion, retarding the rest of the citizenry's ability to think and speak like other humans privileged to live in the developed countries. American political conversation is becoming nonsensical, divorced from the very purposes of life.

Measured by the most minimal standards of the modern, industrial world, only two of 10 Democratic candidates for President passed civilized muster at a recent debate in New York City: Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Rev. Al Sharpton. The rest of the field, to varying degrees, fail to even comprehend modern assumptions of what it is to be human, living among other humans.

The civilizational divide

Why do we work? What is the purpose of industry and commerce? Do other peoples have rights that stronger nations are bound to respect? Only Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton appear prepared to take part in the evolving global discussion on the central issues facing humanity, Americans included. Other nations have begun fashioning answers to these questions, to the moral, material and physical betterment of their inhabitants. They are reaping the benefits of a long and sometimes bloody debate over humans' obligations to one another, and the proper uses of wealth and power.

In the U.S., Sharpton and Kucinich must shout to even broach these subjects. Kucinich is labeled a kook when he argues for "health care for people, not for profit" -- although this is the premise on which all the other wealthy societies begin their discussions of health matters. Rev. Sharpton's platform calls for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing quality health care as a right, and seeks universal, single-payer coverage in the interim. "I would rather have no bill and fight for something real," he said.

The mind-shrinking corporate media snicker and sneer, focusing instead on the other candidates' partial schemes based on the concept of "affordability" -- barbaric constructions in which the lives of fellow citizens are endlessly devalued. (Candidate Carol Moseley-Braun favors single-payer national health care, but reveals her barbaric side in other matters -- casting doubt on the moral grounding of all her positions, as becomes clear, below.)

The "top tier" is oblivious to the obscenity of their Social Security retirement age debate. Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean is in trouble for having once suggested that the age be raised to 70, to ensure the continued "solvency" of the system. However, Dean's sin is worse than the rest of the media-favored pack only in degree -- they all discuss Social Security retirement in insurance company actuarial terms, morbid calculations that fail entirely to address the basic questions: why are people expected to work hard for much of their lives, and what is the value of life after one's time in the workforce is over? These are the logical, natural and civilized questions with which societies grapple once there is enough wealth to provide acceptable standards of food, clothing, education and shelter for all. It is at this point that human populations can envision the larger possibilities of existence, as individuals, as nations, and as a species.

Western Europeans treat time not spent on the job very seriously -- and have arranged a social contract that finds many of them in the Caribbean for long stretches of the summer. They debate ways to implement national goals for progressively shorter work weeks and earlier retirement ages, so that the collective nation can enjoy its wealth and become -- more interesting! The United States is even richer than Western Europe, but the debate over Social Security is confined to formulas that leave concentrated wealth untouched. In this sense, U.S. Social security is not a "national" program at all, since the futures of citizens who have outlived their usefulness to employers is not financed as if it were a key component of the common, national mission. Longer life spans, the greatest benefit that society can convey to its members -- and the reason humans band together to create societies -- becomes a "problem," or so it is treated by the leading voices of the two American mass political parties.