The spirit of the times
Regardless of what medium we use to get our news, it is presented to us as a series of isolated stories. Some analytical pieces describe common threads and themes across a range of stories, usually relatively narrow. For example, a lot has been written about the astounding political success of Donald Trump and the more modest but unexpected rise of Bernie Sanders as reflecting two sides of the same coin: discontent with politics as usual and the political establishment in both parties.
With this column, rather than looking at one topic and trying to spell out its significance and analyze its context, I want to transcribe a set of headlines from the current press and let the reader make her/his own connections and conclusions. I will follow each headline with a brief commentary of my own in brackets.
I want to look at our present world through a lens with a much wider field of vision. There is a fancy academic term from the German that describes what I am trying to get at: zeitgeist. Let’s start with a couple of definitions of the term: (a) “the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time” (Google); (b) “The Zeitgeist (spirit of the age or spirit of the time) is the dominant set of ideals and beliefs that motivate the actions of the members of a society in a particular period in time.” (Wikipedia).
Here we go:
“Under the Sea: Inside Miami Beach’s expensive, unprecedented, frantic fight against rising oceans.” Miami New Times, April 21-27, 2016
[While Marco Rubio and the Republicans have been in denial, we at Progreso have been reporting on the problem in Miami Beach and other parts of the state. Alarm is rising as the water begins to impede traffic and inundate homes. The cost of mitigating the problem now is also waking up a lot of ordinary citizens who also have been in denial. When will the GOP as a whole wake up and smell the brine? Will it take a tragedy or several of them?]
“Dark Money and IRS Blindfold.” The New York Times, April 29, 2016
[Two weeks ago I wrote about Dark Money, the enormous quantity of money hidden from taxes and missing from the economy, stashed in offshore accounts or parked in real estate. As far as I can tell, that was the first use of the term Dark Money. And it is not only the IRS that is in the dark. Tax authorities in Latin America are in the dark, probably to a greater extent]
“Obama’s Legacy: Politics of anger, fights, division” Miami Herald, April 29, 2016
[This is one of the most mendacious, misleading and unfair headlines I have ever seen. The GOP Congress has been virtually the sole reason for “anger, fights and division.” A small elite of GOP members of Congress met in secret to plot how they would torpedo Obama’s presidency even before he had been inaugurated. They have carried through with their promise for the last seven-and-a-years while the president has bent over backwards to compromise. On the first day of Congress after Obama became president, the GOP majority leader in the Senate declared his number one priority to be making Obama a one-term president. His failure only stoked GOP rage and obstructionism, to the point of bringing the government to the verge of closing down and to the edge of defaulting on its debt]
“Colorado Voters to Weigh Universal Health Care” New York Times, April 29, 2016
[While the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, has increased the number of Americans with health insurance by ten million, the program is full of holes wrought by the GOP and the vested interest in the mercenary medicine complex. A significant number of voters in at least one state have managed to put on the ballot what Bernie Sanders has been proposing for the nation throughout the campaign. This vote will be telling.]
“Divided Syrian City Plunges into War as Hospital Is Destroyed” The New York Times, April 29, 2016
[Evidence of the folly of George W. Bush’s Iraqi misadventure continues a dozen years later and people all over the Middle East are still suffering from Bush’s interventionism]
“Obama-Netanyahu Rift Impedes U.S. Offer of Record Aid to Israel” The New York Times, April 29, 2016
[Under Obama the United States has been far more generous to Israel than to any other nation in the world. But the Israeli Prime Minister has been even more intransigent than Congress, many of whose members support his position over that of the administration. The tail wags the dog yet the tail and its U.S. friends constantly complain.]
This exercise has been the product of reading the headlines selectively and over just a few days. I have a lot more material than I could include here.
The spirit of the times is, or should be, despair.
