On November 9, 2012, it happened. Skyfall, the 23d installment of the James Bond movie series fell upon us. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I assume the Skyfall movie, like the 22 other Bond movies, is about an imminent threat to the free world, and only Bond can eradicate the threat and save us all. Presumably he does, and he gets the girl, too.
Skyfall, or more correctly "the sky is falling" has also been a predominant theme of the recent elections - - i.e. there is an imminent threat to the free world as we know it and that only "insert your candidate's name or political party affiliation here" can save us from the threat. Ho hum. Yes, I voted and I care about the future of our country. Still, I am tired of hearing the refrains of political hacks and their misinformed adherents that "the sky is falling." Really? It's an old and worn-out political clarion call theme that sort of grates on me like a cell phone ring that's too loud and shrill. Come to think of it, the Bond movies follow an old and well-worn theme too. I think I'll wait for Skyfall to make it to the Comcast free movies list before I see the movie.
Adele sings the Skyfall title track, appropriately titled "Skyfall," and the words of the chorus go like this:
"Let the sky fall, when it crumbles
We will stand tall
And face it all together
Let the sky fall, when it crumbles
We will stand tall
And face it all together
At sky fall"
[Aside: I like Adele's music, and you can hear Adele's Skyfall theme song on YouTube.]
"The Sky Is Falling" is a familiar phrase to those of us familiar with the story of Chicken Little (aka Henny Penny, aka Chicken Licken). The Story of Chicken Little is an Americanized version of a 25 centuries old folk tale. The gist of the folk tale is that the characters are given and believe some bad information, and then, overcome with the mistaken belief that disaster is imminent and driven by paranoia and mass hysteria, they are swept up into saying and doing ridiculous things. As I listened to the media blitz leading up to the election, and the post-election media banter, I could clearly hear the refrain "the sky is falling." No need to read it between the lines of some of the nearly hysterical commentaries; It was right there in bold print: "The free world as we know it has ended." Talk about paranoia, it's out there, man. Can't you hear the refrains of Adele singing: "Let the sky fall; when it crumbles we will stand tall and face it all together at sky fall."
Here is something I find ironic: On November 9, 2012, four days after the election and the exact same day as Skyfall was released, Steven Spielberg released the movie Lincoln. If you are any kind of familiar with American history, you will recall that before, during and after the American Civil War there were shrill and passioned clarion calls of warning, from both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, that freedom, and the free world as it was then known, were being destroyed. Finger pointing and blaming and the sky is falling hyteria led to the most bloody, brutal struggle in American history. Americans still feel the pain of the Civil War. Lincoln, the movie, focuses only on the the furious power struggle over the fate of our nation during the last four months of Lincoln's life, before he was assassinated. The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed, the American Civil War finally ended, and President Lincoln was killed. What did we learn from all the blood, sweat and tears?
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For futher irony, Steven Spielberg is also the producer of the new sci-fi television series, Falling Skies. The Falling Skies series is about an alien invasion of earth that destroys the world as we know it, leaving only a remnant of survivors to resist the invaders. While the prospect of aliens taking over our world is terrifying, there are more real and imminent threats to our well being -- stuff like Hurricane Sandy, the economic recession, love lost, broken hearts, and cancer. You can insert the name of your own most-local natural disaster, your own economic crises, your own stories of broken relationships, or your own most pressing health concern. You get my drift: We don't need aliens to invade us, nor election results not to our liking, to be at risk of having the world as we know it turned upside down. It's happening all around us now, and the threats are common, insidious, costly, emotionally rending and potentially lethal.
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Our elected political leaders have often let us down -- that's for sure. They've taken us down roads, and are taking us down roads, which are not in our individual or our national best interest. We know this now, and we've always known this. This problem is as old as man, and much older than this relatively young country. I think the whole tendency for that kind of self-destructive conduct started in the Garden of Eden. But really now, are the problems of this nation problems that one political leader foisted on us? Don't be ridiculous. The problems of our nation, and they are many, are systemic, and they are driven by the "me, me, me" voice in every one of us.
One of the common "sky is falling" themes I have heard and read a lot recently is about how the Democratic party is a party of "gifts" and how the Democrats have been giving away the so-called store in the form of entitlements to woo voters, and how the country is falling apart as a result. It almost certainly is true that America, or anyway the American economy, is suffering greatly because of our entitlement program spending. In 1960 entitlement spending comprised less than one third of total federal government spending, but by 2010 entitlement spending constituted about two thirds of total federal government spending. It is nearly universally agreed that we cannot sustain the current course and growth of our entitlement programs much longer without facing serious economic consequences. But what may surprise you is that entitlement programs and entitlement spending have historically grown more during Republican administrations, and that the so-called "safety net" entitlement programs, i.e. the welfare programs, currently comprise only about a third of the total entitlement spending of the government. The vast majority of entitlement spending in America is from Social Security and MediCare. The statistics I am quoting are gleaned from a very interesting Wall Street Journal article by Nicholas Eberstadt titled: "Are Entitlements Corrupting Us? Yes, American Character Is At Stake." I found the article fascinating, and I strongly encourage you to read it.
My friend, Brent Auernheimer, pointed me (and others) to this article in a blog post or facebook post. The gist of the article is that there are a lot of Americans from every walk of life and every economic strata (i.e. it's not just the poor people) on the entitlement take from the federal government. As a nation, we no longer have that gritty "I don't want no handouts" self-reliance of early Americans. We, and really I mean all of we, want the federal government to take care of us; we want what's due us, and the hell with how we pay for it. We're all on the dole somehow, and we like it. If you read this Wall Street Journal article, you may come to think that the sky really is falling, but not for the reasons most vociferously cited leading up to and following the recent election. The problem is that there are a whole lot of corrupt people on the take in this country and low and behold, it's all of us!
Forget Adele. Now I can hear Gomer Pyle saying: "Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!" So do I think the sky is really falling? No. Not yet. Even Nicholas Eberstadt, who wrote the entitlements piece for the Wall Street Journal, concedes that there is enough wealth in America to continue our absurd entitlement spending for a while yet.
