Waiting in America

Looking at this blog I realized today it has been ten days since I last wrote anything. But life here in the states seems to be in some kind of holding pattern, and I’ve gotten caught up in it myself.

The TV news each day and across the internet focuses with slightly more urgency than the day before on whether or not Congress will opt for a national suicide attempt by defaulting on August 2nd. The two sides of this issue are given more or less equal time to make their case. Like a debate between an astronomer and someone who believes the world is flat, this only adds to the surreal nature of it all.

No one quite seems to believe they are about to witness the most colossal failure of the US government since the Civil War, yet the fact they just might can almost be heard creeping to the font of everyone’s mind. The markets leap at the mere possibility of a breakthrough, taking it as an indication the unprecedented remains unthinkable, even as members of Congress think it out loud on the TV.

For my part, I watch as the value of my Canadian dollars slowly grows and the value of my US student loans slowly shrinks. At moments I find myself pondering what Chris and I might do should we wake up to economic collapse on August 3rd. Maybe we get the car fixed after all by some mechanic suddenly hungry for business and willing to give us a deal, then more slowly and deliberately than our earlier trip across Canada hit the road to record first-hand the cultural and natural transformation taking place in the formerly unsustainable and greedy America that brought all this about. Think Grapes of Wrath, only by a far less talented writer with a more ecological point of view.

But mainly I just sit and wait, like everyone else, knowing history is unfolding and all I can do is watch. Watch as a nation so committed to greed it would sooner die than tax wealth to help the growing ranks of the poor living within its borders. Watch a culture driven by consumption for its own sake fall on its sword before accepting regulation that might at least slow the hemorrhaging.

Perhaps the default question will be dealt with before the deadline. Regardless, the philosophical issues that brought us to this point will remain. Both parties still accept the capitalist premise, if to somewhat differing degrees, of never-ending economic growth in a world with finite resources. Whether it’s August 3rd or some later date, nature’s bill will come due, and what we are borrowing from the planet annually is a far greater crisis than what we are borrowing from each other. The seas are dying, the air is warming, and the clock is ticking. Only when we shift the debate to the question of how best to build and maintain a compassionate and sustainable society will we at least finally be asking the right questions.