Djelloul Marbrook

I think—you were waiting breathlessly for what I think, right?—I think Americans need to change our job description. I mean, we didn’t exactly clamor to be alpha consumerists, did we? It was sort of foisted on us by people who had a lot to sell. They promised us that if we bought all they had to sell they’d keep on raising our salaries, securing our old age, and in general helping us pursue what they called the American Dream. We elected politicians who assured us this was true. They swore it up and down. They’re still swearing it up and down. The difference is we don’t trust them any more.

They didn’t keep their promise, did they? No, they froze our salaries, they even cut them. They stole our benefits and started shipping our jobs to India and China. And now the big heads that fill our pricey HDTV and plasma screens every night are telling us we’re a second-rate nation, and the future is over there where they sent our jobs. And all because we were so obedient and trusting.

So why not chuck our job description as alpha consumerists and assume the job of giving a damn about each other? Would that be fun or what?
We could say to the big multinationals, Hey guys, you know what, if our young people are going to risk their lives protecting you, we want you to bring your fake headquarters back from Bermuda and pay taxes right here in the good old US of A. Oh yeah, and the next time you screw us with piratical gasoline prices, guess what, we ain’t rewarding you with any tax breaks. Got it?

We could say, Yeah, we like gewgaws and doodads, but we like our fundamental faith in human decency even more. We don’t want our grandparents to die miserable, neglected deaths in rat holes. We don’t want our poor kids to have to kowtow to spoiled brats because we couldn’t afford to educate them. And hey, you politicians, the next time you send any of our kids to war you better make damned sure some of your own are with them.

We could say these things. So why don’t we? Why do we let greedy bastards and their ass-kissing politico stooges tell us to shut up and buy, and when our credit cards and our equity are maxed out, hock ourselves to China? We’re better than that, aren’t we? Smarter too.

Oh yeah, and you phony hand-wringers worrying out loud about our kids’ math and reading scores, you’re not so dang smart yourselves if you think we haven’t figured out that this middle class you’re trying to bleed
to death happens to be your market. Or is it your plan that by the time we figure that out the market will have moved to Asia along with our future?
Doesn’t matter much to you, right? You can do business in Shanghai as
well as Cincinnatti. right? Doesn’t matter what flag you do it under, right? Except of course when you get in trouble, you’ll be asking us to die for your right to make another buck at our expense.

All we have to do is trade in our alpha consumerist job description and remember that rugged individualism doesn’t mean buying ourselves into poverty while fat cats laugh themselves sick in their offshore Shangri-Las.
We get to define the kind of capitalism we want. Where is it written we ever gave globe-trotting pirates permission to define it? Where is it written that we can’t have a polite and searching discourse about what is a moral profit margin in a humane society?