Lubbock Left

Six years and a day after 9/11, my mind is drawn once again to the advice our crappy president gave us in the days following the collapse of the twin towers: go shopping.

I think our country took him too literally and followed his advice too enthusiastically. Now we are a nation of debtors and over-spenders. Not only is this debt situation very un-conservative (now it’s no surprise to see that the Bush administration is not really conservative, but, in 2001, I’m sure some people still bought the neocons’ “compassionate conservative” line), it’s very un-American also. Before Reagan/Bush, our national pursestrings were very tight indeed. Clinton restored budgetary sanity, but now our national debt is in the tens of trillions of dollars. To me, that looks like two things: (1) a rejection of 200 years of American budgetary morality, and (2) a very bad example set by our leaders that is being followed by our citizens.

Here’s a short list of things that could help our national spending problem:

• Don’t allow predatory lending companies to exist. Period. Stop loaning money to people that can’t pay it back. Usury is a sin for a reason.
• Implement a single-payer national health care system so that ordinary people — even people that are “well off” — don’t go broke from illness.
• Start enforcing the trust-busting laws again. Anti-competitive mergers and monopolies allow corporate conglomerates to fix prices beyond the reach of consumer budgets. The petroleum and telecom industries are great places to start.
• Make net neutrality a firm and well-written law.
• Regulate college tuition and improve federal student loan assistance programs.

The above list is all over the place, but it pretty much has to be, since our national financial situation is screwed up all over the place.

I also stop to think today about what Bush could have said to the American people after 9/11 — what he could have suggested we do instead of goddamn go shopping. Here’s a short list of the infinite possibilities:

• Today, right now, go outside and meet your neighbors. Knock on their doors and tell them you’re glad to know them and that you’ll be there to help in a time of need.
• Make a commitment to train yourself in one aspect of disaster recovery — first aid, food bank work, search&rescue, construction/rebuilding, crisis counseling, or any such skill — and then share it with your family. Volunteer to help when that skill is needed in your community.
• Set up a regular monthly contribution to your favorite charity — as little as $5 a month will still go a long way.
• Join the Peace Corps or a similar program for six months to a year (assuming such programs weren’t scaled back or eliminated).
• Contact your friends and family that you haven’t heard from in a while and catch up, tell them you love them, etc.
• We still have “nothing to fear except fear itself.”
• Anything!

Picture an America where service, rather than spending — community over consumerism — was encouraged in the wake of 9/11. I believe we wouldn’t have individual or national debt to the degree that we have today, and we would be a proud nation working together to better ourselves and our neighbors. Instead, we are an international baby, screaming and kicking because we’re angry and scared.

And broke.