Long-Term Vs. Short-Term: Systematic Problems and the Difficulties in Solving Them

David Simon (creator of The Wire) was on Real Time with Bill Maher on September 7 and some of his remarks that night coincided with the article we read this week.  The guests on the show were discussing the downfall of certain systems in America, and how they related to the downfall of the economy, and Simon had this to say:

"Deindustrialization's been going on for 50 years, the decline of organized labor's been going on for 40 years, globalization: 20-25 years, and you're gonna sit there and argue over this month's employment report?  The fact that we can't have an adult electoral process is rooted in this kind of frenzy of who can we blame, and how fast."

"That business of four years being the metric for anything?  We have a political culture that everyone plants annuals, they plant pretty flowers that come up the next spring.  What we need is a political culture where somebody plants a f****** olive tree, which doesn't even give you an olive for seven years.  That's how you fix an economy...When the olive tree becomes an orchard."

The Shapiro article, "Clinton and Education: Policies without Meaning," the author explains that the Clinton administration has taken a stance on education that harkens back to the Reagan/Bush administrations, the early 80's, and that the policy argues that American public schools need to become more modernized to compete with Japan. Shapiro finds Clinton's educational philosophy to be "disappointing and dismaying .... your administration is attempting to relegitimate this educational philosophy by framing the public discourse of education in economic terms" (46).

The idea that standardized testing will help reach the sort of economic goals Clinton's educational reforms are hoping to achieve is disgusting to Shapiro's more progressive philosophy.  He is afraid that these trends are "destined to increase the concern with tests and testing among teachers and educational administrations, while further increasing the level of boredom and alienation already so persistent among students" (48).  

He goes on to write that "[v]ast differences in the material and cultural resources available to different groups will examine what succeeds in schools reflects the deep inequalities between races and classes in American society" (48).  He adds "[f]or those of us who argue that schools need to be places that model democratic values and nurture a democratic culture, this trend signals an anthiethical authoritarian and dehumanizing view on students" (49).  Shapiro doesn't seem off-base with this assessment, as far as my experiences go.  

I agreed with much of what Scorpio discussed until he started portraying Clinton's policy as a basis for anti-liberal Republican rhetoric.  It seems like the roots of the problem started in Republican administrations in the 80's.  Yes, Clinton's policies were not helping, exacerbating the problems.  However, I would've taken Scorpio's criticisms a little more seriously if he had acknowledged it less as a political philosophy difference and more as an overall systematic issue.  

It seems like Scorpio does try to bring this up in his article in some passages, yet he chooses to be partisan at the end.  I prefer David Simon's outlook: the system is broken, we need to fix it, and short-term tricks and finger-pointing aren't going to work to fix a longer-term problem.  

I chose to share and discuss an article on President Obama’s foreign policy record written by George Packer, a veteran of The New Yorker.  His point of view on the Republican National Convention in Tampa was hilarious and worth checking out.  Packer's the closest we have to a modern Hunter S. Thompson, one my writing heroes.  

I chose to analyze and reflect on his June 12 article on the President’s foreign policy.

Packer first gives an overview on the President’s first term, laying out the issues that have plagued him, and noting that he had many problems with his domestic agenda due to difficulties with the Republican Party.  He explains that "the Republicans decided from the start that they would lay all problems at Obama’s door and do as little as possible to help him solve them, a daring as well as immoral strategy that paid off handsomely; the White House seemed completely unprepared for this approach, letting the President’s opponents to define him by August of his first year…"

Packer also notes that many of the problems plaguing the country are not issues that have come out of no where, they’re problems we’ve been facing for a while and, much like the Scorpio article pointed out, we have to start looking long-term if we’re going to start trying to solve them.  Short term patching up hasn’t been working, and is yet another obstacle for the President.  Packer says that "Beyond reasons of politics and personality, there’s the more chronic problem that many American institutions, both public and private, have been decaying for years, losing the trust of the people … to the point of dysfunction—so that historic crises like the September 11th attacks and the financial meltdown no longer seem able to jolt the country into coming together to solve its major problems."

The next part of the article Packer argues the President was able to successfully achieve with foreign policy because he was able to circumvent the Republican Party and the domestic problems.  In Packer’s opinion, he has had a positive impact on the country as foreign policy is concerned: “Obama has talked softly and carried a big stick. The coolness and reasonableness that are sometimes weaknesses at home—and have been exploited as such by his opponents—have served him and the country extremely well abroad.” 

He goes on to conclude “Americans almost never elect Presidents on the basis of foreign policy. It certainly won’t happen in 2012. But on this count alone, Obama deserves the second term that just now seems to be receding from view. It’s easy to overlook these achievements, because many of us expected more out of his first term—I’m sure he did, too.”

         My thoughts concur with Packer’s on the President’s foreign policy achievements.  I find it fascinating that he was able to be most successful where there was the least amount of resistance. 

He DID have a Democratic Senate and House of Representatives for his first two years, which he blew on the controversial health care bill.  I think it was a misstep to blow all his political capital on the health care bill.  He wasn’t able to work on other domestic issues; the health care bill greatly damaged the rest of his agenda.  I don’t question the bill as much as I question the execution of the Obama administration in choosing that as the main policy reform of his first term.  I wish they had done more with the economy instead.

Anyways, Packer’s article was most fascinating to me because he didn’t directly mention the Osama Bin Laden assassination.  He simply says that the top Al Qaeda ranks have been “devastated”.  Most Americans would probably say that the assassination is the number one foreign policy achievement of his presidency.  Packer has many other reasons besides the assassination to support the President’s foreign policy, which makes the article more impressive to me.   

         President Obama has been successful with many of his ventures around the world, especially compared to his predecessor.  If he is re-elected, I wonder if he can do the same at home.