Rebirth of a Realist

Rebirth of a Realist
Today (4/9/06) I went to my local feed store to buy bird feed. The owner gave me a cap with the store logo on it. It was very nice and remembering the old adage of never looking a gift horse in the mouth, I waited until I got home to read the label. Yes, it was made in China. I always read labels. It tells me a lot about my country and the world.
In 1996, I was invited to attend a symposium at Moscow University. The university itself is amazingly conservative. Perhaps I should use a better word, for in Moscow the media has confused the public by using the word conservative to describe those on the left.
A great many students there are sent by corporations of other countries to study economics. The host for the gathering was a professor in the economics department. The subject was the future of Socialism and how can it democratically be achieved.
While there, I was asked to speak to a young group of students with Communist backgrounds trying to adjust to the new Yeltsin Capitalism. (I noticed some of them wearing beepers and carrying cell phones) What they wanted me to speak about was the question; "What has happened to the political left in America? Why is it having so little influence in the Government?” I was reluctant at first. How can I do this without criticizing my country while a guest in another country? Remember my patriotism was forged steel hard during the years of World War II and my mission in life is to make that country better, but here is part of what I finally said. As I spoke, I was pretending that I was speaking to liberal America.
I spoke of subjects that no one wants to mention at home. Neither the conformists nor the radicals can find platform for saying what is really the cause of the root rot of liberalism in America.
MOSCOW 6/96
“Standing in front of you is living proof that you can not always believe what you see about Russians on American television. I am wearing a dark suit because you rarely see a “new Russian” on our television who is not wearing a suit and tie. Of course, we only see the “New Russian.” I was beginning to believe that such people wear their suits to bed. I was also led to believe that everyone at Moscow University wears suits and ties every day.
There is a point and a message that I want to present about the way that I am dressed. You see, I am not a rich man. I do not have my clothes custom made, so I buy them off the rack, as the expression goes, from the department store, as most Americans do.
Therefore, my shoes are made in Mexico. My suit carries an expensive American label, but it is made in Bulgaria. My shirt was made in the Philippines, My tie in Italy, Even my socks and underwear were not made in America.
Before I left home, my wife and I had some fun looking about the house for things made in America. We found very few. I have two or more television sets made by Mitsubishi in Japan. I drive a new GT Legacy station wagon made by Subaru, a Japanese company making cars in America. My camera is Japanese. Even the lawn mower that I use to cut the grass around my home was made in Japan. This morning I discovered that the luggage that I brought with me was not made in America.
I buy the best product that I can get for my money. It is not easy for me to admit to all of this, because my mother was an organizer for the International ladies Garment Workers union: My father a charter member of the C.I.O. My brother an organizer for the dockworkers, and I was a local organizer for the National Association of Broadcasters and Engineers. I am union from the tips of my skinny hair to the tips of my toes, but the American labor leaders must bear the brunt of the responsibility for all of the American Jobs lost. I feel they have let the workers down. To me that is the beginning of the liberal malaise in America.
The most explosive subject, of course is the demise of Jewish liberalism. Using the tried and true fear tactic right wing Zionism has made many Jews feel guilty about being liberal. Liberal Jews have not found the door that leads them away from the oppressive Zionists and back to their own beautiful Jewish traditions.
Now what is the point of all this? The point is that Young Americans, at one time accepted the myth of the “Great American Know How.” It was a phrase that we all heard many times. We knew that it was a myth because the only great American expertise was perhaps how the Indian Chief Sitting Bull made his bow and arrows. The rest of the work building America was done buy Italian Americans; Irish Americans, African Americans, Chinese Americans, Russian Americans, and so on. Today, as more jobs are sent abroad many young Americans have lost their national pride. Korea, Vietnam and other military fiascoes have taken their toll. They have demonstrated, marched, committed civil disobedience, and they have been sent to jail and nothing seems to change. There is a feeling of helplessness. It is my belief that the same thing has happened here. It is one thing to wave a flag and pretend, but when the youth of a nation does not have genuine pride in their country, or the actions taken by their country in their name, then that Nation is in serious trouble. It is my belief that Americans and Russians suffer from the same malaise which comes from the mixture of lack of pride and feeling of helplessness.”

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“Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.”
“This President( GW Bush) is the worst President of my lifetime.”
Lowell Weicker Ex Republican US Senator and Governor of Connecticut
For Realists the time has come again to see the future of the Republicrate system in terms of what it has created. The misery of the people in Bosnia, Iraq, Palestine, Haiti, the Philippines, and most of Eastern Europe is due mainly to answer our gathering instincts. Or to put it in Realist terms, our greed.
In our own cities the killing continues. Police are being arrested, and in my own state of Connecticut, millionaires, Priests, teachers, Mayors, State Legislatures and perhaps even Governors are being indicted. There is very little left for our young people to believe in.
It is obvious that what is needed is a new political movement that will reach back and gather the thoughts of Roosevelt and Wallace, refuel them and re-shape them to fit the present day world. It may require the development of new tactics and new methods of presentation but a political philosophy based on international equal justice, which is as relevant today as it was in the forties, needs no changing. All it needs is people with the courage to pursue it. When an idea like that has found its time no military power on earth can stop it. It is time for real patriots to step forward and save the country