He Said: Friday Ramblin'

Late 20th-century America advanced rapidly. Technology allowed ideas and words to move faster than previously imagined. It brought the world together in a way that seemed impossible. The world indeed got smaller while simultaneously expanding. Anything was possible. So why did all the same problems remain? Or worse, get exacerbated?

Which problems should have been solved by such fast-moving and groundbreaking means of communication? Shouldn’t international crises have been nearly eliminated? Sure, we couldn’t control the weather, but our responses should have been so swift and coordinated as to make anything past “first response” a simple matter; if you weren’t injured or killed by the initial wave/blast/storm, our communication and mobilization resources should have made search and rescue a simple matter. But we know otherwise. Humankind always manages to let itself down at crucial moments. Typically due to bureaucracy. Just ask people in New Orleans. Or Haiti.

So where are we now? A nation brought to its knees by debt and cultural division. Freedom, somehow, means wildly different things to many different people; the rallying cry of “limited government” now used as more of a blunt object with which to beat the other side – “limited” to being used against our enemies. Neither side (for we’ve become incapable of acknowledging a third, fourth, or more options) is without blame, though one seems to wear it like a badge of honor so ingrained is it in their mindset. The other plays half-assed, publicly not quite sure if it likes playing by the rules while secretly not. Carter wasn’t corrupt, just too idealistic to be effective. Reagan believed wholeheartedly in a very bad idea. Bush was so hard-wired into the military-industrial/intelligence complex that politics were an after-thought. Clinton was a genuine leader but too flawed to be a great one; post-POTUS life is far more amenable. Dubya was a knee-jerk reaction to Clinton’s antics and Gore’s woodenness; a fearful response to “too much freedom”. This has all culminated in Obama, a man who is somehow perceived to be both an extension of Bush and his party’s short-sighted neo-conservatism and the first giant step toward socialism. Nuance has never been an American trait.

So where are we now, really? Well, we have a POTUS that has let down his core constituency yet can point to a laundry list of legit accomplishments; a POTUS that has seemingly alienated one half of the country with one policy that they oppose on principle in spite of the fact that it will benefit the majority of them; a POTUS who, no matter how hard he tries to unite, will be a divider. Nuance has never been an American trait.

Which leaves us with… a GOP field dominated by the least offensive character, who also has no charisma and no leadership ability. One man followed by a shrinking field of clueless, power-hungry lifers fighting for scraps. Some are well-intentioned but bereft of forward thinking; others are legitimately dangerous to our collective future. So BHO will likely see 4 more years. And that isn’t dangerous, but it isn’t inspiring either.

Steve Jobs was both an asshole and a visionary (as many so often are), and he wasn't afraid to be either when the moment called for it. He saw a path toward enlightenment that happened to be littered with consumer-invention. The perfect combination of personal freedom and collective involvement. His technology could be yet another tool to make the world smaller and simultaneously larger, infinite. And we’ll still let ourselves down very soon. Nuance has never been an American trait.