Talking to Thomas L. Friedman: What are the Problems?

By Rabbi David Eidensohn

 

 

          Thomas L. Friedman (10/6/02 NYT) writes, "Most Americans are worrying about their jobs, the stock market, the environment and the fact that their kids may not grow up in as open and peaceful a world as they did." Mr. Friedman says that Americans biggest security fear is not Iraq but politicians and corporate executives who might upset our pensions and markets. Mr. Friedman calls for a Manhattan Project for new energy sources, more conservation, and an end to tax cuts.

          Mr. Friedman writes his concern for "what kind of world my girls were going to grow up in." Mr. Friedman, do you worry about the next generation? What about this generation? Do you know what the problems for girls are today? Why did you ignore the problem of parents, whose health care and pensions, even social security, are in serious jeopardy?

          Mr. Friedman talks about energy problems, taxes and conservation. I would prefer to talk about the national debt, social security, and health care. I would look at the collapse of marriage, the tragedy of children living with grandparents, and the great challenges facing women who want to be mothers and must work. I would talk about jobs and global companies paring the payroll. I would invoke the police presence on our public schools, to protect children from killing other children.

           Eventually, children leave public school and go to college. Boys abuse girls sexually and the girls can't prove it. The government is suing Harvard to force it to investigate even uncorroborated complaints against boys, which Harvard refuses to do.

          Time Magazine's April edition, about "successful" women and their bitter tears when family is no longer feasible, shocked America. Millions of dollars mean so little in an empty house. Speaking of empty houses, fifty percent of first marriages now collapse, and this is only the beginning of the trend. Maureen Dowd from the Times spoke from her heart about being a single successful woman, and what she says makes me want to cry. I'm sure she cried when she wrote the article. She nailed ABC for producing only gay and dysfunctional family programs. She is not a right wing fanatic, but she is a woman. As she said in her article, she wants TV appropriate for a vulnerable but functional young lady. All of this is going on today, not tomorrow. All of this has nothing to do with energy, taxes and conservation. It is about whether we are human.

          Recently, the Rutgers Marriage Project showed that men are increasingly reluctant to marry. Women, racing the biological clock, rush men and give them what they want, but men take and do not reciprocate. Tomorrow Billy will find another "successful woman" and yesterday's selection can stew in her tears. Men are bitter at a society that suppresses masculinity. They have had enough of the "justice" that allows a woman to make up lies about her husband and steal his children, house and savings. (A woman once asked me to save her from her husband. She was told how to trick him into being arrested, was successful, and when her husband started counter-measures, she begged for help.)

Mr. Friedman writes about divisions in Moslem society between moderates and extremists. I am more worried, frankly, about the war in America between the genders, because there won't be much to talk about after that war.

          Is there a problem for women who cannot be mothers, professionals, wives and human beings all at the same time? Is it a problem when only 14% of women in America are full time for family? The children think it is a problem.

          Not long ago I met someone with degrees in physics, chemistry and advanced computer scientific applications. When he reached the age of fifty, the global monstrosity he worked for decided to dump him to avoid paying his retirement pension. Another person told me he would be laid off at fifty, and that is what happened. We are a society of slaves to corporations that work indefatigably to pry the most work out of us for the least company commitment.

          No other civilization in history ever pressured women to live without children, or to have children and neglect them. No civilization in history ever sacrificed marriage and family for excess consumption, until today. No civilization in history ever destroyed the minds of children, teaching tiny tots about homosexuality. Have we truly researched the impact of that? No civilization in history ever pressured all girls into being toys until today. No civilization in history ever robbed a boy of his manhood, until today, when boys are taught unmanly gender. Is it a wonder that boys, raging with repressed manliness, slaughter children?

          Alan Greenspan said that in a few years the government would have to find 6 trillion dollars to pay for social security. Will cheaper energy, better conservation, and improved tax policies pay older Americans their social security? The government already owes six trillion dollars and has no plan to reduce the debt, and here comes another six trillion dollar debt.

          Mr. Friedman worries about his children and the next generation. What about our parents who are in big trouble right now? The census bureau reports (August 26, 2002) that:

Ø    5.8 million grandparents lived with their grandchildren under 18 in 2000. I am a grandparent, and I would not like to live with my grandchildren. I haven't the energy.

Ø    42% of the above grandparents supported their grandchildren. The elderly thus consume the reserves they need for their old age, and health costs are spiraling.

Ø    5.4 million children lived with grandparents. It is not fair for children to have to live with grandparents, because children must be free to be boisterous and need young parents.

Ø    21 percent of preschoolers in 1997 were cared for by grandparents while their mother was employed or in school. I bet that mother felt great burdening her parents, children, and self.

The government is in no position to help out, because it is a basket case financially.

According to the White House (Office of Management and Budget), we pay $360 billion dollars a year just on interest on the present 6 trillion dollar national debt! Are we dealing with our debt? According to the 2003 Financial Year budget plan (the fiscal year 2003 began on October 1, 2002) not only are we not paying one cent in FY2003 to reduce our national debt, we are actually borrowing another eighty billion dollars so that we can spend more than we earn! Nine percent of the budget is devoted to the national debt.

          After the Second World War, according to statistics from the treasury department, the national debt remained under 300 billion dollars. Only in the sixties, with the government committed to ambitious programs, did the debt begin to fly out of control. In only ten years from 1967 to 1977, the national debt more than doubled, from 340 billion to 706 billion. The national debt more than tripled in the following decade, 1977-1987, from about 700 billion to over 2,300 billion. In the following decade, from 1987-1997, the national debt more than doubled again at over five trillion dollars. Debt is proof of failure of the economic system. Today we have insoluble problems, and Mr. Friedman ignores them, looking into people's wallets for the picture of their children, without realizing that the wallets are the problem. If we can't support our economic system, it will collapse, not on our children, but on us. We cannot sustain doubling and tripling of the national debt each decade.

          According to (Tuesday, October 8, 2002) U.S. News and World Report, 41.2 million Americans have no health insurance, are dying younger than other Americans, taking less medicine than they should, and finally collapsing and going to the emergency ward, the most expensive type of medical care. Will conservation, tax reform and new fuels help them? In one year, 2002-2001, an additional 1.4 million Americans could not afford to insure themselves and their families. Health insurance is so costly that 13 million people earning over 50k a year are uninsured! 75% of uninsured families have a full time breadwinner. For every one percent rise in the cost of health insurance, .1 percent of workers and dependents lose coverage. Even people with good jobs see the trends and are anxious about their health insurance. We are nation in fear, afraid for our marriages, our jobs, our health, our families, our government and our economy, and Mr. Friedman ignores this, to talk about jobs, the stock market and the environment. What good is a job if it of short duration? What good is the stock market if we have broken families and the profits go to divorce lawyers and therapists? Why worry only about the environment when the inside of the house is toxic?

          The crisis of government funding is upon us now, not tomorrow. One in seven Americans work for local government; states and cities cannot afford this, and are going bankrupt, as David Broder of the Washington Post is fond of pointing out. Older people cannot afford health care, and the government has no money to help them.

          Mr. Friedman is worried about taxes, energy and business ethics. I am worried about water to drink. Will our children have enough water? Will they have enough room to live? In less than a second, a new baby is born someware on the planet, and our water resources remain the same. Our space does not expand, but the population is going to double, and then double, and it is already six billion in the world. Do you think that in New York and Paris people will just pile on story after story to accommodate the children? Is anyone planning for this?

          The solution, to paraphrase Mr. Friedman, is to make a Manhatten Project for women and family, even gender. We must free people from working for monster global companies in order to serve themselves. We must become a nation of capitalists, not slaves. We must conserve, not just air and trees, but the human being we saw in our parents, and want so much to give to our children. If we are human, we can solve all of our problems. If we are robots, the only hope is to create a human.

          Iraq is a threat to the world, and so are those who consider the Bible a hate book. The army will deal with Iraq, but who will deal with those who hate the human soul revealed at Sinai? Who will allow a man to be a man and a woman a woman? Who will save us from the child-destroyers who run our public schools, our media, our colleges and our foundations? Who will teach a woman how rich a mother is? Who will teach our men to respect a woman? Who will teach our pundits that it begins and ends with our daughters?

          We bend and break all of the supports of natural living and have faith that we will somehow exist. Nobody expected the Yankees to collapse. John Feinstein says that Yankee pitchers are on average 35 years old, but nobody saw it coming. America refused to send its top basketball players to international competition. Somehow, people felt, America will survive. It didn't. Alan Greenspan was howled down when he warned that stocks are ridiculously high.

Those who complain about the national debt, the problems of women, the plight of the elderly and the pain of children are not howled down. Nobody listens in the first place.