Iacocca?

To be honest, I'm from a generation that remembers "Lee Iacocca" to be a funny name I heard a lot on the news as a child. That is to say that I was too young to understand his significance at the time, but do remember the frequency at which his name was said.
He was a Ford executive in the sixties and seventies, and then saved Chrysler from certain death in the eighties. He's never held political office, but has endorsed and supported to varying degrees both Republican and Democratic candidates.
My mother forwarded me an excerpted from his book "Where Have All the Leaders Gone?" (ISBN: 9781416532477). There's a few finer points that I can tell I probably disagree with him on, but the overall tone of the excerpt is definitely inline with how I feel right now and the tone of this blog.

"Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'Stay the course'

Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned 'Titanic'. I'll give you a sound bite: 'Throw all the bums out!'

You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving 'pom-poms' instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of the "America" my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?

I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have.

The Biggest 'C' is Crisis !

Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It's easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself. It's another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down.

On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. Where was George Bush? He was reading a story about a pet goat to kids in Florida when he heard about the attacks. He kept sitting there for twenty minutes with a baffled look on his face. It's all on tape. You can see it for yourself. Then, instead of taking the quickest route back to Washington and immediately going on the air to reassure the panicked people of this country, he decided it wasn't safe to return to the White House. He basically went into hiding for the day, and he told Vice President Dick Cheney to stay put in his bunker. We were all frozen in front of our TVs, scared out of our wits, waiting for our leaders to tell us that we were going to be okay, and there was nobody home. It took Bush a couple of days to get his bearings and devise the right photo op at Ground Zero.

That was George Bush's moment of truth, and he was paralyzed. And what did he do when he'd regained his composure? He led us down the road to Iraq; a road his own father had considered disastrous when he was President. But Bush didn't listen to Daddy. He listened to a higher father. He prides himself on being faith based, not reality based. If that doesn't scare the crap out of you, I don't know what will.

A Hell of a Mess

So here's where we stand. We're immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving. We're running the biggest deficit in the history of the country. We're losing the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves. The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for leadership.

But when you look around, you've got to ask: 'Where have all the leaders gone?' Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, omnipotence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.

Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo? We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened.

Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina. Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane, or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm. Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn't happen again. Now, that's just crazy. Storms happen. Deal with it. Make a plan. Figure out what you're going to do the next time.

Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when 'The Big Three' referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen, and more important, what are we going to do about it?

Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry.

I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bonehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change?

Had Enough?

Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope I believe in America. In my lifetime I've had the privilege of living through some of America's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our worst crises: the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Kennedy Assassination, the Vietnam War, the 1970s oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11. If I've learned one thing, it's this: You don't get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it's building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play. That's the challenge I'm raising in this book. It's a call to "Action" for people who, like me, believe in America. It's not too late, but it's getting pretty close. So let's shake off the crap and go to work. Let's tell 'em all we've had enough."

So, can you get mad? Can you stop trying to turn off the world around you?

The Road from the Airport

I just watched an interview with CNN's Sanjay Gupta and documentary film producer Michael Moore. My own opinions of Michael Moore aside (and I'll ask you to do the same), he made a side point while trying to illustrate a grander point which was that, "[Franklin Delano Roosevelt] defeated the Nazis, and the Japanese, and Mussolini in less time than it's taken us to secure the road from the airport to downtown Bagdad."
I became lost on this and missed the rest of what he was saying. This is a staggering point. Think of everything your parents or grandparents (or great-grandparents for Generation Y) told you about World War II. Think of every documentary, book, television show, and movie you've ever seen taking place during World War II. Think of all of these things, and now put that into the context of this statement. The Allied Powers took Normandy, pushed the Nazis out of France, and overtook and occupied Germany and people still can't walk around Bagdad without being gunned down or blown up. We defeated one of the greatest navies the world has ever known and occupied Japan and we can't secure a few highways for transportation.
How is this possible? I know the lip-service, sound-bite, "News at 11" reasons for it, but to be honest, my intuition is saying something just isn't right about this. What is going on over there? Should I even be looking to Iraq with a question mark over my head, or should my attention be elsewhere? If it's implausible that a country of our wealth, determination, and military standing is unable to quell the situation in Iraq (the argument of whether or not we should be there aside), then what are we doing there?
I think I have my answers, but what do you think?
What makes sense to you?
And once you have your answers, reexamine them.
Are you being honest with yourself?
When are you going to put an end to this?

Starting Place

In the last couple of years, and the last few months even more so, I've been motivated to accept a concept that is difficult to completely understand. I think the reasons why this is difficult to swallow, at least for my generation (that being some blend Generation X and Generation Y), are:
(1) X/Y has been programed to not notice problems of race to benefit political and economic forces of the country.
(2) X/Y has grown up in a world where racism is significantly more covert and discreet than previous generations experienced.
(3) Modern race issues are multifaceted to the point that it's just easier to dismiss. If you really wanted to understand it well enough to do something about it, you'd be looking at a regular headache.
My girlfriend's class T.A. produced this very simple but explicit video on one of the core concepts behind modern race/class inequities.

We are not all equal because we do not have the same starting place in life. If you can see the basics of this concept, you'll see that equal opportunity is a fallacy. Modern race issues are economically based, and economic inequality results in poorer health and lower levels of education which lead to about every other problem you can imagine.
Martin Luther King said, "To accept passively an unjust system is to cooperate with that system; thereby the oppressed become as evil as the oppressor," so keeping with the theme of this blog, what can you do about this?

"Good Evening America..."

In a previous blog I mentioned films that are intended to bring your attention to what is being taken from you. I mentioned Network, but there are countless others. More often than not, you are too busy being entertained to ask yourself what the meaning of a film is, or why the makers of a film chose to release it when they did. You avidly and with enthusiasm watch a film again and again and never are you jolted awake by what has been given to you. Perhaps, you avoid watching the news or documentary films because reality just doesn't appeal to you, but most (good) films are attempting to challenge you as well.
Here's a clip from the film V for Vendetta. I feel that this scene sums up the overall tone of the film.