When We Asked for “Change,” We Didn’t Mean This Much

Excuse me, Buddy, but/ Excuse me, Lady, but/You Foolin', ain’t you?/Where can I be?/This ain’t America, is it?/Oh Lord, where can I be?/This ain’t America, is it?/ Naw, this ain’t America/You can’t fool me.
- Melvin Van Peebles

The excerpt from an old Melvin Van Peebles song describes more and more clearly every day the financial distress many of us are experiencing in America, and our confusion about how all of it could possibly be happening.

For far too long, we have taken so much for granted, living in the United States.

The truth is that most Americans, throughout what had been the 20th Century, had grown accustomed to always having the world’s largest and shiniest cars, nicest homes, an abundance of relatively affordable food in our grocery stores, cheap and available gasoline and home heating oil, banks that guaranteed your savings, a good job if you worked hard, and a pension when you were no longer able to work.

In addition, with U.S. global dominance, the ability to travel freely around the world was a ”birthright” for American citizens and wherever they went, both, their passport and the U.S. dollars in their wallets or handbags were widely respected.

We took for granted, and were taught in school, that people all over the world – black, white, red, or yellow – wanted nothing more than to scrounge up enough pesos, yen, pounds, or rand to buy a ticket, come here, stand in line and apply for U.S. citizenship. After all, America was the greatest nation on earth and everyone, no matter where they were born, really did prefer to live here, we thought. How else would you explain those long lines of people applying for citizenship and the estimated 20 million people who have apparently come into the U.S. illegally, largely across the Mexican border?

But, have you noticed? Both legal and illegal immigration rates have declined over the past two years. From 2002 to 2006, the legal immigration rate stood at one million per year, on average. In 2007, only 511,000 individuals chose to legally enter the country. And to add insult to injury, the Pew Hispanic Center reported just last week that fewer people are trying to enter the U.S., even ILLEGALLY.

It appears that change actually has begun to arrive in the United States; not the change we’ve been asking for, but change, nonetheless.

While we’ve been spoon-fed a 24/7 diet of poll results, campaign press conferences, and in-depth candidate profiles, the rest of the world has been mobilizing, organizing, and working to change virtually every one of those things that we always took for granted, starting with the thing about the U.S. being the world’s most dominant economic and military power.

Only in the last three months or so, it seems, have U.S. media decided to take seriously a review of the fundamental weakness in the U.S. economy. It was growing more and more difficult, I assume, to ignore the millions of foreclosed homes (one in ever 452 households), the 40,000 job losses each month, the bank failures, the $10.6 trillion national debt, the recent bankruptcy filings by Lehman Brothers and Circuit City, among others, and what seems to be the imminent demise of large portions of the “Big Three” auto manufacturers in Detroit.

Curiously, the story of the depth of America's true fiscal crisis didn't really begin to receive continuous, mainstream media focus, to the point where it finally became the main issue in the presidential campaign, until the U.S. Treasury warned that, without $700 billion in cash from American taxpayers, the country’s financial system was facing a critical risk of failure.

The outlook for the U.S. is even more dire when we consider that the so-called emerging, global economies, including Brazil, Russia, India and China, are now questioning why the rest of the world should continue to follow the U.S. lead on global financial issues and policies, when it is obvious that the U.S. has recently lost its status as the most powerful and productive economy on earth.

Here are some developments to watch for: Expect to see changes in the structure of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Expect to see major changes in the structure and leadership of the United Nations. Expect, also, some of the new emerging powers to wonder, out loud, why the U.N. headquarters is still located in New York City, in the United States, especially when the U.S. happens to be about $500 million in arrears on its dues and other financial obligations to the U.N., itself.

According to a recent story from the French global news service, Agence France-Presse, “The big emerging countries that are now the main pillars of world economic growth are looking to push their way into seats next to the rich nations’ club at the G20 summit in Washington …Brazil, Russia, India, and China are determined to have their new heavyweight status recognized” by the so-called Group of 7 advanced nations and to “win a say in directing the planet’s economic affairs.”

When you tie the evidence of deep distress in U.S. financial systems with the country’s ongoing 70 percent dependence on foreign oil reserves, and its relatively indecisive and unsuccessful military adventures around the world, America’s global competitors smell weakness and become emboldened.

The stage is now set, it seems, for a major upheaval in global economic leadership, with Eastern nations and Southern Hemisphere nations vying to assume more control than they have enjoyed in about 500 years. The first formal evidence of that is just beginning to emerge from last week’s G20 meetings, but if you look really closely you can already begin to see that things “ain’t” what they used to be.

For example, I just saw that the government of Peru has announced that it is planning to sue Yale University to recover thousands of Inca artifacts, including ceramics, textiles, and "bones," that were “discovered” in their country in 1911 by a U.S. scholar who was connected to the University.

In a related story, the Egyptian embassy in New York has reclaimed a bronze artifact dating back to the Ptolemy era (about 2,000 years ago) that was being exhibited without its permission by Illinois University.

While these are small examples, they do represent evidence of a continuing trend by emerging nations, especially many non-European nations, around the world, who no longer feel compelled to sit by quietly to do the bidding of the United States. It is hard to imagine either Peru or Egypt being so directly confrontational with the U.S. 50 years ago or even 30 years ago. A new day really is dawning, on a global basis, whether we like it or not.

The first question is whether our President-elect is prepared to play a very different hand, in the short term, at global negotiating tables, beginning next year. The second is whether the U.S. really will develop a serious, long-term plan for regaining its economic and military prominence. The third question is whether we, ourselves, are ready to deal with the changes to our own lifestyles that are sure to result, in the months to come, from the global economic shifts.

Even as we continue to celebrate the election of President-elect Obama, we would be well advised to remember the wisdom of Polish poet Stanislaw Lec, who famously said: “When you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the ground from beneath your feet."

Stay tuned. The rest of the world will be in contact with us shortly.


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