This week I’ve been thinking about sacrifice and what it means to sacrifice today for a better tomorrow. Among the many ideals Americans have lost sight of during the past thirty years of conservative ideological hegemony is the idea of shared sacrifice. What has become of our willingness to sacrifice? Have we become so politically polarized that we cannot agree that anything is worthy of our collective sacrifice?
Our President would have us believe that we can invade and occupy a foreign country without a shred of national sacrifice – no draft, no rationing, no war bonds – nothing, except a mind-boggling bill that will be dropped on the doorstep of future generations.
The conservative, free-market mythology that has prevailed in our country for the past thirty years tells us that we can have low taxes – especially for the wealthiest among us – and still enjoy good roads and highways, well-tended parks, excellent schools, ready and able police and fire protection, and other services that government provides to make life better for all citizens.
Sacrifice entails effort and effort entails sweat, discomfort, even pain. Overweight? Don’t sweat on the treadmill, just swallow this magic diet pill, chock full of sacred herbs from Borneo. Bothered by love handles or cellulite or sagging eyelids? No problem, step right up and let your friendly cosmetic surgeon slice and dice your cares away. Yellow teeth? Thinning hair? Piece of cake, we can fix that. Will that be VISA or Mastercard?
Want to get in on the housing boom but find yourself short of cash? Don’t scrimp and save. Step right up and let me tell you about the magic of sub-prime loans and Collateralized Debt Obligations.
Yes, oil is a finite resource but you’re an American and that gives you the right to drive a behemoth SUV that takes up two parking spaces at the mall and burns more gas in a month than a Peruvian peasant uses in a year. Americans are special and Peruvians are just, well, Peruvians!
Corporations feel no responsibility to sacrifice a dime’s profit so that workers can share in the bounty they produce, just as the wealthiest Americans feel no responsibility to sacrifice some of their coin for the less fortunate. The rulebook has been re-written so that no such sacrifice is required of corporations or the wealthy.
After 9/11, when President Bush was talking like a whiskey-addled cowboy about bringing terrorists and evildoers to justice, the late Susan Sontag wrote that the Administration’s rhetoric was infantile. The mainstream press went after Sontag hammer and tongs, but the truth is that Sontag was right then -- and seven years later Americans are still being addressed like spoiled children. As every parent knows, children demand that the world conform to their whims and wishes, not the other way around.
Instead of accepting that idea that high gas prices are probably here to stay – and adjusting our driving habits, vehicle choices and lifestyles (making a sacrifice, in other words) – our politicians insist that all we need is more domestic exploration or a gas-tax “holiday.” Instead of accepting that Americans use more energy than any other people in the world, we are encouraged to continue consuming more than our share of resources, but to look for the “green” label or the most ecologically friendly packaging.
Like the spoiled child, we want what we want when we want it.
Many years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King said that when profit motives and property rights become more important than the needs of people, the triple-headed evil of racism, extreme materialism and militarism cannot be conquered. Look around and you’ll see that Dr. King was on to the truth.
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