Shamble Nation

Driving through New York the other day I was listening to the radio and came across a talk show with a typical host speaking on how today’s society is in shambles because traditions are lost, women are not minding children, Spanish-speaking drug dealers are set free to operate in our cities, and nothing is deemed wrong anymore in our society. Swinging couples, Dope-happy Miss Americas and the legalization of marijuana all seem to point to the end of America’s rigid traditions. Is this for the worst?

It is true that more women are working now than ever before. Women’s incomes are also approaching those of men and our society is becoming less chauvinistic. Equality among sexes is America’s ethical fortress. Do we blame many of today’s problems with children on the fact that both parents are working? Of course. Children need more help than ever in the ever-confusing, fast-paced environments we have manufactured. In past generations, nobody had money and society tried to keep in pace with the rich neighbors down the street (The Joneses). Now our capitalist comsumption and global reach have made it possible to try to keep up with Cribs folks. Now we need two jobs to buy 72 DVDs for Christmas, a Widescreen 1080p HDTV with a surround system fit for a typical megaplex. And dont forget our 60 GB Playstation 3! We need new cars every few years and digital cable and internet and those new boots that just came out. We need the new iPod and a new Prada handbag. We need so much stuff, of course we need more money.

Housing prices had soared so high, I was wondering how anyone could live outside of Smith Hill in Providence. Even Mattapan prices went up considerably. Who can afford these places? It is no wonder this generation has logged considerably more time at the office than a standard 45 hour week (meanwhile our gadget-inferior Europeans average less than 35 hours a week at work). With so much time at the job and less time at home, how does anyone have time for a kid these days? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why child obesity (and obesity in general), delinquent schooling, loss of ethics, depressed and despondent behaviors and crime are effecting the young people in our country. It’s worse in the inner city where cash-strapped single mothers are continuing a cycle with no end by being chained to a low paying job, struggling to raise a family and only have a few hours a week to battle against the dereliction of influence that surrounds their kids while at work. Meanwhile, the barrage of advertisements on the television from every outfit; be it selling cars, trucks or super TVs, make it seem normal that everyone should have what they sell. They have created a false reality and have addicted adult and child alike into a have-to-have culture where we are measured by our toys, not our character. If we let material dictate our lives, we become just what we consume, junk. My favorite so far this year, is the commercial where two neighbors are sparring over whose car it is parked in the street in front of their houses. Is that a normal Christmas present?

Who started all this? I believe it began in the post war "greatest" generation where returning GIs were sold the greatest of lies and the worst planned development in American history: The American Dream. A big house, a yard and a car with no black people, destroyed the fabric of community and allowed the rampant segregation of American cities. To which the effects are still manifest in our still horrible race relations and clogging traffic arteries. However, atleast then it was still possible to own a slice of that America dream for a reasonable price. Now, our obsession with the “American Dream” (who came up with that term? It seems anything we coin as “American” has to be a good thing, doesn’t it?) has made it unattainable. Jamming traffic prevents an easy commute and the price of gas continues to skyrocket. Well, until we completely use up this finite resource and our whole transportation infrastructure becomes useless because for some reason we have neglected improving our defunct public transportation systems. We have a laughable transit system in most American cities and our rail system would a laughing stock in the third world. Our insistence on monotransportation will only cause strife in the future. I realize that my point has wandered on this section, but I think it is somewhat apparent that it wasn’t this generation or the few before that created these geographical problems, it was the greatest of them that did.

While I am not a marijuana user, I don’t really understand the reasons for it being illegal. By creating a black market for its sale, we have also created illegal businesses, prevented age barriers and allowed billions of dollars to end up in the hands of, in many cases, notorious criminals selling other products a lot more dangerous than just marijuana. While the tobacco lobby is still quite substantial (Denying and lying about tobacco’s effects for years while doing their own reproachable “studies” and managed to mislead the public about the ill-effects of cigarette smoking and tobacco chewing), I think it’s fair to say that the tobacco industry has less pull now on the strings of government than it did decades ago when it convinced the government to illegalize cannabis sativa.

And if people think the effects of marijuana could be more dangerous than alcohol, I would like to compare numbers of the total number of automobile deaths blamed on alcohol with those blamed on marijuana. Although I don’t have the actual numbers, I am sure latter pales in comparison. Regardless, I am sure there could be (if not already) a breathalyzer that measures THC in the body so that Cops could see how high drivers are and give them a special DUH! citation.

Miss America is skiing with blow and living up life in the Big Apple at Trump Tower? Why not? How else is a girl who obviously has lost touch with reality supposed to act. She has Real World syndrome (The supposed accurate representation of young people living in luxury apartments in large cities and their resulting interactions…somewhat far from any reality I have been associated with). And we, the public, have the gall to look down upon her for living up life. It wasn’t her doping nightlife and nefarious behaviors that shocked the Beauty Pageant community and the public at first; it was her noted absence from corporate sponsored events that offended her uppers. Why should she be held to a higher role model standard? If anyone saw Little Miss Sunshine, the whole beauty queen community needs better role models beginning with the parents of these little girls. Little girls should not be paraded around in full makeup wearing bikinis and high heels. What kind of message are they receiving and what damage is being done on their psyches? How can we expect Miss America from Kentucky, who probably did hundreds of pageants during her childhood to be a capable role model when she had no tangible role models of her own growing up?

I think it’s quite obvious that you cannot simply blame this country’s problems on loose virtue and working mothers. Obviously there are quite substantial roots to these problems and like most diseases, our society treats these problems symptomatically. For example, to ease traffic, we build additional lanes; to raise income, we raise the minimum wage; to alleviate housing shortages, we build more luxury condos. We all know these fixes are never effective. In order to ease traffic, improve public transportation; For housing, make urban areas more appealing. Yet, it’s the method that makes the most money that determines which way is always followed. And until we elect officials who are going to make these widespread civic changes, we must be content with dopey pageant queens and neglected kids. It simply costs too much to have money dictate. Shamble Nation.