James Ottavio Castagnera: The More Things Change ...
Faithful readers (if any) of this column, who have followed my series --- on U.S. incursions into the Philippines (1899) and Iraq (2003); recurring oil crises; repetitive waves of illegal immigration; and the way the rich always seem to stay that way --- may be asking by now, “So what’s your point?”
Put simply, I’ve been impressed lately (as the title of the series implies) with how much --- despite a trebled population and stunning technological advances --- our America of 2006 resembles the U.S.A. of 1906 with regard to several of its most pressing social, political and economic problems. Even more to the point, I catch myself wondering whether this is a cause for comfort or concern.
Permit me to recap briefly.
As author Max Boot documents in his 2002 book The Savage Wars of Peace, American incursions have been more the rule than the exception throughout our nation’s history. For example:
- The Barbary Coast (1801-05)
- The Marquesas (1813)
- China (1859)
- Korea (1871)
- Samoa (1899)
- China, again (1900-41)
- The Philippines (1899-02)
- Latin America, assorted countries (1898-1935)
- Russia (1918-20)
And, of course, Vietnam (1959-75). It was this latter, long and disastrous incursion that led to our current national aversion to future foreign military adventures. The Colin Powell Doctrine --- which was so successful in Panama and the Gulf War during the elder George Bush’s administration --- sprouted directly from the detritus of Vietnam. The current Iraqi incursion more closely resembles the majority of those other “interferences” of Uncle Sam listed above. Most of them actually worked out pretty well, particularly the putting down of the Philippine insurrection, which was my topic in Part One. To the extent we see any parallels here, perhaps we should score this one in the “comfort” column. Last week’s successful assassination of the leading Iraqi insurgent lends a little support to this conclusion, I think.
Whether the recurrence of oil crises is cause for comfort or concern depends, I suppose, upon whom we believe. For instance, oil expert Daniel Yergin, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the oil industry The Prize, seems to believe a lot of oil remains to be pumped out of the earth. Other experts seem less certain. Back in John D. Rockefeller’s day, widespread fears that the petroleum supply in Western Pennsylvania was finite and failing, though absolutely accurate, were also absolutely silly… since the world supply of oil and gas quickly dwarfed the Keystone State’s puny petrol reserves. Today, even if the half-empty end of the prognostications prevails, new technologies for discovering, capturing and using the earth’s remaining oil, combined with economic incentives to develop alternative fuels, such as ethanol, are cause for at least some comfort to be blended with our current, reasonable concerns.
What of illegal immigration? Let me repeat what I’ve said in print several times before: those who argue that our ancestors got the chance to come to America, and therefore, everyone else should be afforded the same chance, are guilty of what the late-historian Barbara Tuchman (best remembered for her best-seller The Guns of August) liked to called “wooden-headedness.” With thrice the population of a century ago, the U.S. can ill afford to operate with open borders. The terrorist attacks of Nine-Eleven are only the tip of the iceberg. Continuation of our laissez faire policy toward illegal immigration could lead to a U.S. population of a billion or more by the turn of the next century. This, I believe, is cause for concern.
Last, but never least, is the question of wealth and democracy. Data I garnered for that column indicated that the current share of the nation’s wealth enjoyed by its richest few is not out of line with what the fat cats controlled in 19 th and 20 th centuries. One hundred years ago, John D. Rockefeller was the nation’s wealthiest individual. His Standard Oil trust was attacked under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and broken upon into the so-called Seven Sisters of the 20 th century oil industry. John D. emerged from the litigation a richer man. Today Bill Gates stands in Rockefeller’s shoes. His company, too, came under anti-trust attack by the Department of Justice. He, too, has survived and continued to prosper, together with his creature, Microsoft.
All the same, the recent verdicts in the Enron criminal trials indicate that the system still works… at least with regard to the worst sorts of corporate abuses. CEO compensation continues to sore, due in part --- at least according to former-Labor Secretary Robert Reich’s book The Work of Nations--- to the concurrent decline of organized labor to its anemic numbers of the early 1900s. Perhaps, as the splintering away of the Service Employees International Union from the AFL-CIO recently might suggest, the time has come for a more-militant labor movement once again to storm the boardroom barricades to reset the balance between executive compensation and rank-and-file wages. But, whether or not that happens, history suggests that the Republican can cope with errant fat cats under the continuing rule of law.
Bottom line: I guess I feel more comfort than concern, when I compare our past with our present and try to prognosticate about our future as a nation.
However, I must close on a final note of concern. During the 1988 vice-presidential debate, a youthful Dan Quayle likened himself to JFK. His opponent, Senator Lloyd Benston, retorted, “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy.” In 2006, as in 1906, we have a Republican in the White House. However, paraphrasing Senator Benston, I must say, “Mr. Bush, you are no Teddy Roosevelt.” And that, folks, is cause for concern.