I’m angry. And if the women of America aren’t angry, there’s something wrong with them.##M:[more]##
Not her exact words, but this captures the gist of author Anne Lamott’s introductory remarks at her recent appearance and book signing at Barnes and Noble at MarketFair. She was describing the state of the nation and the world in these waning days of the Bush Republican government. For anyone who does not know Lamott, she is a San Francisco Bay Area-based writer, one of my favorite thinkers, who writes about writing and politics, friendship and faith. One of her earliest and best-received books, Operating Instructions, is a laugh-and-cry-out-loud journal about raising a baby boy as a struggling, recovering-from-addiction single mom. She has this uncanny ability to hit essential truths on the head and put words to thoughts you were afraid to share because you thought you were the only one wacko enough to think them.
For me, the phrase “angry women” conjures up uncomfortable images of bra-burning radicals in the post Gloria Steinem era and the feminist caricatures derided as “femi-Nazis” by controversial conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh. But there is a stark truth in Lamott’s words. While we may not choose to describe ourselves as angry people, there is plenty in the world that should be making us angry, or at the very least, uncomfortable.
Let’s start with this week’s sad anniversary: it’s been five years since we became involved in the war in Iraq. We’re not going to discuss the fact that we were led into it on the premise of a lie, nor are we going to discuss the casualties, the mounting deaths, injuries, destruction of families, the toll of rehabilitative care, and mental health issues. For now, let’s just focus purely on the economics of the war, since Americans agree that it is the economy that is our top concern.
In a new book, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz reports that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan will have cost the U.S. budget $845 billion through the end of fiscal year 2008 which ends in September, an average of nearly $12 billion dollars a month. That is far more than the $670 — adjusted for inflation — spent in the 12 years American troops were in Vietnam. If your eyes are glazing at these numbers – here’s a figure that puts them into perspective. This year’s federal deficit is expected to be about 460 billion dollars and a huge chunk of that is the cost of fighting what has become an unwanted, unpopular war.
Imagine how many inoculations that $845 billion could provide for the nine million uninsured children in this country.
Think how many teachers that $845 billion could hire in California, where the continuing mortgage crisis and ongoing budget meltdown caused some 20,”000 educators to receive potential layoff slips.
Imagine what a long way that money would go to fix the social security mess, which, the way it’s going now, means the money will be long gone by the time I’m old enough to claim my share.
Think about how that money could make our highways and byways safer for everyone. Sagging bridges could be retrofitted, potholes could be patched, unsafe roads realigned, traffic lights installed, bike and pedestrian paths built.
Think how many hungry people that would feed. Speaking of money.
One of the most frightening images this week was of that crane coming down on some buildings on New York’s tony Upper East Side, smashing bricks and mortar, killing seven and injuring dozens of others.
It is an apt symbol for the implosion of Wall Street, and the death of one of the financial district’s most venerable institutions, the 85-year-old Bear Stearns. It was the result of what in effect was a run on the bank, a crisis of confidence that sent the house crashing down as if it were made of straw and the economy the Big Bad Wolf. There are enough checks and balances in place now that Wall Street should recover in a way it could not in 1929, but imagine the lives of the employees and investors at Bear Stearns who lost their life savings. Do you think they’re feeling some anger right about now?
The job market, real estate, rising prices at the supermarket — all of this is causing a general malaise that’s caused a darker gloom than the springtime clouds gray and heavy with rain. Milk is over three dollars a gallon, and even eggs, which traditionally go on sale this week before Easter, are upwards of two dollars, approaching three dollars a dozen.
The economy is enough to cause apoplexy. Then there are politics. Just when we couldn’t get any lower than the sex scandal that toppled the once mighty New York governor, there are new allegations about a weekly threesome involving also-resigned-in-disgrace New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey, his estranged wife, and their chauffeur. The late-night comics might be having a field day, but what is the message that we’re sending to any of our children who might aspire to go into politics? That politics not only create strange bedfellows, now it seems a prerequisite to be one?
No one deserves to be angrier than poor Silda Spitzer, Southern belle and Harvard law school graduate, who gave up a thriving corporate legal career to stand by her man and raise their three children. How sad for their three teenage daughters, at a time in their lives when they are still figuring out what relationships are supposed to be all about, that they should be forced so publicly to learn of their father’s seedy soul. Hopefully, they have lined up a good family therapist.
Finally, on the question of the future of this country and who should be leading it: I am leery of John McCain and a presidency that might extend the quagmire in Iraq. I also happen to be one of those women who is not crazy about Hillary Clinton, just because she’s a woman. As for Barack Obama, these latest revelations about his relationship with a man of God who apparently preached intolerance is intolerable to me. I am not so much angered by these choices, but disappointed.
