Saturday, March 30, 2024

FROM THE RIDGE: Don’t hold your breath for good outcome

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This land is your land, and this land is my land, This land was made for you and me. Woody Guthrie wrote that in 1940 and it has become one of the United States’ most famous folk songs.
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Some have called it an alternative national anthem. Others say it’s a Marxist response to God Bless America.

Events in that country over the last couple of weeks show a struggle for a fair go and a fair share of that land.

Thirty years later Simon and Garfunkel wrote America, a bittersweet song about a journey on a bus through that country.

The traveller is looking outa window hoping to discover America but then sings the lines “Kathy, I’m lost, I said, though I knew she was sleeping. I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why”.

That sense of dislocation and unhappiness is why the rust belt states voted Trump into the White House four years ago.

The promise and mantra is a country of great opportunity and equality but the delivery of the opposite for so many is what is fuelling the discontent and anger we see daily from the other side of the Pacific.

It is a fight for racial equality and a battle against fiscal inequality.

It has been uncomfortable viewing because it’s a great country full of good people. It has given the world so much and is such a big part of the global economy and culture and exerted much influence but now is withdrawing into itself. It’s our fourth biggest trading partner and has been a vital part of western democratic stability.

I drove 15,000 miles across it in 1982, travelling through 30 of the states while living in a Chev Impala and had the trip of a lifetime.

I was young but even I noticed the incredible wealth and opulence on offer and then the extreme poverty living on the streets in full view, which wasn’t a feature of New Zealand at that time. These massive imbalances in wealth inevitably lead to trouble. Rome, France in the 18th century and Russia in the 20th are all examples.

It is the first and to date only country to put men on the moon. Space X’s feat last week was another extraordinary accomplishment. It’s scientific and technological achievements have been incredible.

Rock and roll came out of the Southern US and grew from when African Americans’ rhythm and blues, jazz and gospel blended with country music and European instrumentation.

It’s the country whose initially reluctant entry into World War II tipped the balance and helped defeat fascism and preserve democratic freedoms we now take for granted.  And so much more.

But the times they are a changing.

A recent piece in the Irish Times by columnist Fintan O’Toole began thus. “Over more than two centuries the US has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger. But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the US until now: pity. Americans are locked down with a malignant narcissist who, instead of protecting his people from covid-19, has amplified its lethality.”

He pointed out the US had early warning of the virus, the world’s best concentration of medical and scientific expertise and limitless financial resources. And a president who is a self-proclaimed germophobe to boot. Yet they have still managed to find themselves as the global epicentre of the pandemic.

That was all before the riots and scenes of chaos like the anarchy we sometimes see in third world nations.

Then came the disturbing event where a president emerged from his bunker and riot squads tear-gassed peaceful demonstrators so that he could walk safely to stand in front of a church with a bible in his hand for a mere photo opportunity.

Once this crisis within a crisis has passed it might not get any better.

Americans are about to endure several months of what I think will be a very unpleasant election campaign.

Even Fox News polls have Trump losing if an election was held now but any result is possible.

His challenger is a reasonable, presidential, mild-mannered man but will be 78 at the election and 82 if he wins and survives long enough to see his term out.

He has said he will pick a woman as a running mate and the recent events are likely to narrow that down to a woman of colour.

She could possibly end up as the first black woman president if things don’t go according to plan for Biden.

But there is a lot of water to go under that particular bridge.

It is in the interests of America and of much of the world, other than countries like China and Russia, that things settle down and they have a good, robust, civilised and fair election.

But I’m not overly hopeful.

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