Chapt Twenty-Three- Diagnosis

Chapter 23

Diagnosis: American Affluenza

The inevitable fate of every empire

Eleanor loved her country, whether or not it loved her. And she loved its foundations, no matter how imperfect. She wrote: “To me, the democratic system represents man's best and brightest hope of self-fulfillment, of a life rich in promise and free from fear; the one hope, perhaps, for the complete development of the whole man.”

The beloved first lady equated our country with hope, security and the promise of personal fulfillment. Her travels and service at the United Nations gave her a deep understanding and appreciation for just how special our country is... and Olivia Clemens made similar observations: “... I am more and more thankful that I am an American- I believe the old puritan education brings better men and women, than any of these looser methods...” Olivia had learned, through tragic experimentation, that her upbringing was no random system, and not interchangeable with any other.

Like every young person, Rose went through

 as metamorphosis in her thinking.
 (portrait on bottom a detail from a cabinet photo
in the Cushman collection)

There is a

 popular saying which says "If you are not a 

Liberal at 25, you have no heart. If you are not a

Conservative at 35, you have no brain..."

Rose Wilder Lane always saw things from a statistical or scientific point of view. She explained that for over six thousand years, all of recorded history, men and women lived and died young, in hunger, filth and disease. They lived in pig-sty shelters, and farmed and rode animals and enslaved other people. Then a Monotheistic people came to America and threw off the yoke of authority, and a revolution of thought began here. Men instituted freedoms and human rights, and in a relatively short time, just three generations, Americans created an entirely new world. She wrote:

“Swiftly, in seventy years, Americans have built defenses against darkness- from pine knots and candles to kerosene lamps, gas jets, electric bulbs, neon lights, florescent tubes...” World-traveled and deeply analytical, Rose boldly pointed to the previous six thousand years of human history, then put her patriotism into perspective: “In less than one century, human energy- only in these states and on the western rim of Europe, has made such a terrific attack on the enemies of human life that it has created the whole modern world.”

As Rose recounted all of the amazing advances and inventions coming from our culture, she asked us to consider, to appreciate: “Where is the greatest effectiveness of human energy? Here in this Republic, where a seventh of the world's population creates more material wealth than all the rest of the twenty-two hundred millions of human beings, and distributes that wealth more equally than wealth has ever been distributed anywhere else.”

These women had learned the hard way, how valuable and irreplaceable were our country and its ideals. Mrs Roosevelt went even deeper: “The more I traveled throughout the world the more I realized how important it is for Americans to see with understanding eyes the other peoples of the world whom modern means of communication and transportation are constantly making closer neighbors. Yet the more I traveled the happier I was that I happened to have been born in the United States, where there exists the concept of freedom and opportunities of advancement for individuals of every status.”

Mrs. Roosevelt also felt that America had a responsibility to communicate and lead the world in the establishment of human rights. But she warned that our system was under siege by our own inconsistency, and worse our complacency; that we took too much for granted and gave our survival in the future a low priority.

In her time, survival was no longer an issue for Americans, and they had forgotten that the rest of the world did not share their advantages. Rose Wilder Lane pegged it when she penned: “For sixty known centuries, multitudes of men have lived in this earth. Their situation has been the everlasting human situation. Their desire to live has been as strong as ours... Their intelligence has been great.

Yet for six thousand years, most men have been hungry. Famines have always killed multitudes. And still do over most of this earth... Europeans have never expected to get from this earth enough food to keep them all alive.

Why did men die of hunger, for six thousand years?”

Why did workers walk barefoot, in rags, with lousy hair and unwashed teeth, and workingmen wear no pants, for six thousand years, and here, in less than a century- silk stockings, lip sticks, permanent waves, sweaters, overcoats, shaving cream, safety razors, it's incredible.”

Eleanor Roosevelt feared the disparity between our culture and the rest of the world would lead to collapse: “We are in a great struggle between two vastly different ways of life. While we must have guns, atomic weapons and missiles and retaliation against aggression, they are not going to win this struggle, or prevent a catastrophic world war.”

These were still her fears after living through two horrific world wars. Like Rose Lane, Mrs. Roosevelt saw the main problem to be starvation, and the real solution for world peace to be food. Until people had the freedom to eat, no other freedoms or governmental systems made a difference. This priority was the key, as the United States was built on an emphasis of the welfare of the individual, and we had to prove that it worked.

Even Jesus, more than once, found it expedient to feed the multitudes when he preached. People are more receptive on a full stomach. And this simple strategy would trump the Communists, whose obsession was the welfare of the state. And America must make her bounty common to all of her inhabitants. This goal, and the means to achieve it remains the main argument in the United States today:

“In the United States we are the showcase for the possibilities inherent in the free world, in democracy.” Eleanor reasoned, “If the lives of our people are not better in terms of basic satisfactions as well in material ways than the lives of people anywhere in the world, then the uncommitted peoples we need on our side will look elsewhere for leadership.”

Thus America became the most generous provider of humanitarian assistance in the world. For a century.

Meanwhile, Eleanor argued,“Russia had trained its young people to go out into the world, to carry their services and skills to backward and underdeveloped countries... And our young Americans? Were they being prepared to take their faith in democracy to the world along with their skills? Were they learning the language and the customs and the history of these new peoples? Did they understand how to deal with them, not according to their own ideas but according to the ideas of the people they must learn to know if they were to reach them all? Had they acquired an ability to live and work among peoples of different religion and race and color, without arrogance and without prejudice? ”

Of course the answer to most of those questions was in the negative. And she knew it, and warned “...where we fail, the Russians will win by default.”

Eleanor saw instead the blind, uneducated monster of apathy on the horizon. She saw that “fear and laziness have reduced us from a strong, vital nation to a people unable to lead other nations in the only way to win the struggle against Communism, the way of the mind and the heart.” But she saw instead a people who “appeared not to have the slightest grasp of their meaning in terms of our own future.”

Mrs. Roosevelt admitted that Russian Communism had a measure of success, and had placated its people, but she believed that nothing “...that has to be preserved by fear will stand permanently against a system which offers love and trust among peoples and removes fear so that all feel free to think and express their ideas.”

And we Americans are the people who will do it, if it gets done. Mrs. Roosevelt nearly begged, “The future will be determined by the young, and there is no more essential task today, it seems to me, than to bring before them once more, in all its brightness, in all its splendor and beauty, the American Dream...”

Rose Wilder Lane also saw this need, and the threat, that our splendor was more and more tarnished by our own indulgent, amoral election traditions, held in check by the sound instincts of the electorate: “Average Americans have common sense. They know that there is always enough stupid, ignorant, dishonest voters to carry any election; they know that demagogues, liars, hillbilly bands, popular actors and orators, free picnics and vote-buying can always corral enough voters. They know that these extensions of the franchise have broken down the standards of American politics, and have so overcome the moral character of American politicians that both parties use these methods of getting votes. And that therefore an election is merely a sporting event, like a ball game, its outcome depending on luck as well as skill, and its object being no more than to get ballots into boxes and men into office.”

Lane was obviously disgusted with how Americans had begun to take their wonderful country for granted, and elections had become a parade of attractive people making promises they could not keep. And Americans were becoming shameless beggars who voted for whomever filled their outstretched hand. She saw this degeneration as a direct, existential threat to individual liberty and human rights.

In spite of these dire forecasts, Rose Lane held on to her faith in people, especially Americans. Yes it was a battle of philosophies... but “ A real world Revolution is not won in a couple of centuries, maybe not in a millennium or two.” In fact she saw American freedom as an irresistible force... “It is impossible, in the nature of man, that the Revolution for human rights will not transform the whole human world on this earth, in time.”

Rose insisted that Americans knew well what was going on, and so far had managed to govern themselves, but she feared the complacency and mild corruption would inevitably lead to compromises in our system... attacks and eventual modifications on our U. S. Constitution. And that would be the first of many major blows which would result in the destruction of representative government. Self-serving parasites would throw away our republic and substitute it with some kind of Socialism, disguised as “pure” democracy. She knew and preached the dangers of a pure democracy, the temptation of every revolution, which would do what all revolutions like that have ever done... devolve into bloody Class struggles like that of France, then in a moment of chaos and vulnerability, elect an ruthless tyrant. An American Stalin could be only one election away. Our only protection from the rush of the masses was the Electoral College, and other safeguards in our Constitution which protect our republic.

Mrs. Roosevelt wrote her warning to us this way: “We must show by our behavior that we believe in equality and in justice and that our religion teaches faith and love and charity to our fellow men. Here is where each of us has a job to do that must be done at home, because we can lose the battle on the soil of the United States just as surely as we can lose it in any one of the other countries in the world.” She knew the problem, and she had the solution...

“It has long been my personal conviction that every young person should be given some basic training that might, eventually, be useful to his country.” In fact the Russians and Israelis do. But Americans hate conscription or the draft. A free people will not be herded and indoctrinated. They can be successfully nurtured at home.

“These are things our children should be told.” Eleanor insisted, “These are the conditions they are going to have to meet. They ought to be made to understand exactly what competition they will encounter, why the must meet it, how they can meet it best.”

Eleanor feared that unless we turned the corner, stopped taking our system and patriotism for granted, and changed our philosophy of child-rearing “...we will have a great mass of citizens who are of no value to themselves or to their country or to the world.” And this was in the early '60's, almost 60 years before this writing. Of course, we sowed to the wind, and did not heed her concerns and are today reaping the whirlwind.

Eleanor, Rose, and many women of their generation were trying to rally parents, mothers and fathers, to take up the challenge to prepare our children for the future battle for the minds and souls of the coming generations. Never underestimate the importance of your example and instructions to your children.

Mothers- teach your children!