• What happened? • Footing profits What happened? I am in my mid-sixties, which means I was already a semi-adult when the Sixties subculture grabbed hold of America’s attention. While the focus of the liberation was on sex, drugs and
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What happened? • Footing
profits
What happened?
I am in my mid-sixties, which means I was already a semi-adult when the Sixties subculture grabbed hold of America’s attention. While the focus of the liberation was on sex, drugs and rock and roll, it was about having the right to question our government’s policy. Unfortunately, it ended up being a sputtering social movement, with the vast majority of the participants cutting their hair and being absorbed by the system.
Even though it is fascinating to watch the successful television series set in that era, Mad Men is truly the harbinger of a time to come and one that we now inhabit. Manipulating messages that played on people’s fears and insecurities became an art form and created a new market place for commerce, social interaction and political messaging.
Computers were beginning to creep into our culture during this period. At first, it was a great new typewriter that allowed you to correct mistakes on the spot. Since then, technology has become an integral part of our everyday life and it is inconceivable to think of a time when all of this didn’t exist. Media alternatives also began to proliferate at an uncontrollable pace with the advent of cable television.
Somewhere in all this cold technology, I believe our basic humanity has been victimized and cannibalized. Following World War II, we fought wars that really weren’t wars. The concept of enemy became perverted to be any country that threatened our way of life, even if they were thousands of miles and oceans away and desperately poor. We bought the American myth we were selling from Madison Avenue and made it our political mantra. At the same time, we have all this new media yelling at us in order to get our attention and our dollars. From an information perspective, journalism has been devoured by jingoism. We are now angry with each and there is no trust at all today.
My God, then came the destruction of the Twin Towers in my City. I lived for years in the City and I loved it dearly, still do. The world lives in New York City and it is a miracle and living testimony to our humanity. It is a beautiful place and it was brutally raped on 9/11 by a handful of people, so filled with hatred that their lives were of no consequence, let alone the thousands they took with them. What happened from that day forward is something that breaks my heart and brings me to tears when I think about it, which is very often. We have sent our best young men and women to fight wars because we were sold on the awful idea that our freedom as a nation was under threat from sinister forces we could not see. The destruction of the towers was a crime. In my America crimes are punished by seeking the perpetrators and bringing them to justice.
On that day, just over tens years ago, the world came to a stand still. At that moment, everyone was a New Yorker. As a result of this unspeakable tragedy, the most powerful country in the world had an opportunity to cry and suffer with victims everywhere. Our sense of violation and loss sat right next to all of those disenfranchised people, living on a spoonful of rice or piece of bread. We were truly one with the world.
By that time, we were already tragically polarized as a people. The owners of power, money and political influence had very quietly hijacked our own country right out from under us. Those who criticized were ostracized.
America was an unbelievable experiment in the possibilities of freedom and gave birth to itself as an act of defiance against the arbitrary use and abuse of power. Our ongoing abuse of power around the world has not served us very well. Our policy in the Middle East of protecting our access to oil at all costs is clearly one of the culprits in creating the firestorm in the desert that burned on the shores of our own country.
What has happened to us? We are human beings and we are part of a global community that is inextricably interconnected. We had our moment and it is gone. We are angry at each other and the victims of daily manipulation by all that media, technology and savvy of the Mad Men. As long as we do not see everyone within our borders as Americans, we will continue to be preyed on by interests that are devoid of any sense of humanity. As long we don’t see America as part of a magically connected global miracle, we will continue to suffer and to perpetrate suffering on all those people who held their breath on September 11th.
I love you, America.
Larry Feinstein, Koloa
Footing profits
One year ago the price of a barrel of oil was $80 and the average Hawaiian gasoline price was $3.37/gallon.
This morning oil traded for $86/barrel and the average gasoline price was $4.21/gallon (even higher on Kaua‘i).
Oil prices have risen 7.5 percent in a year while gasoline prices have surged 25 percent higher.
Some entity, either public or private, is making a lot of money on the widened spread over this time. Who is it?
It’s the driving public that is footing these profits. You and me.
Dale Gearhart, Kalaheo
