LONGVIEW, Texas — The sharp report of an acorn bouncing off the metal roof of my back porch distracts me from the fearsome financial news streaming out of the radio, delivered in the dulcet tones of the National Public Radio announcer. The Republican administration, with complicity from Congress, is doling out money to bail out investment banks and other financial institutions faster than a drunken sailor on shore leave buying lap dances in a strip bar.
Autumn has arrived, my favorite season, brief as it is in East Texas. I wonder lately whether the actual season is a metaphor for the juncture in which we find ourselves, our financial system near collapse. When the Wall Street Journal is running double-deck, bold-faced headlines that span the width of the page, things really could be falling apart.
At best, by the time this administration and Congress finish doling out trillions of dollars in borrowed money, my grandchildren will be taxed to pay this debt. And I don't have any grandchildren yet. Take your time, my daughters, before extending the family line. Let's see where all this is headed. That doesn't even count the cost of the war in Iraq, in lives and borrowed money. Are we in the autumnal days of America? You have to wonder, given the past eight years or so.
Meanwhile, on the back porch, squirrels scamper across the yard, gathering the mast ricocheting off the roof. I've forced them to forage, though I grudgingly fill the bird feeders that they still on occasion successfully raid despite my vigilance. It sometimes takes a week, but then suddenly the entire feeder goes from full to empty in a day.
My theory: One extraordinarily gifted tree rat in the neighborhood can leap horizontally at least 96 inches from 5 feet up a trunk and latch onto the feeder. He can't get to the food, since it's in a "squirrel-proof" caged feeder. The collision of rodent and feeder sends a bunch of seed tumbling to the ground, which squirrels and sparrows happily share.
The tree rats are so busy gathering acorns, which are plentiful, that they ignore humans. In fact they often scold my presence. That's a bit insulting, being scolded by a squirrel. After all, I'm the one making the mortgage note and filling the bird feeder, both of which luckily I can still handle. That's not the case for a lot of folks in America these days. It's less tumultuous in East Texas, because the oil-and-gas boom largely has insulated us from the financial firestorm sweeping this country.
Unless you sneak a peek at your 401(k). I wouldn't do that if I were you. Wait a while. Maybe a long while.
Am I alone in thinking neither presidential candidate has a reassuring handle on how to extricate us from this litany of messes? The economy, the war, an ever-increasing crescendo of natural disasters and poor responses, the growing disconnect between our government's leaders and the reality of the uncertain fortunes of so many folks just trying to make a living. I thought not. All of us who choose to vote will pick one candidate or another. My sense is that there is an increasing lack of confidence, among those voters who care, that either of these fine men — and they are both patriotic, intelligent men of integrity — really have figured out how to lead a nation that has clearly lost its sense of direction.
I know. We are America. We'll bounce back. We're the greatest nation on earth. I believe that, most days. But after eight years of disastrous leadership from the current president and Congress, it's easy to wonder whether our country is in the twilight years. We can wave the flag all day long, beat our chests and blame our problems on those who mean to do us harm. But the wounds we're trying to bind right now seem self-inflicted, derived from a sense of hubris and a blind faith in the politics of greed.
So now we have a Republican administration and a Democratic Congress leading the largest government bailout of corporations and quasi-government entities in history — while the CEOs walk away with golden parachutes. Those severance packages might be much less than originally contracted, but none of these folks is going to go hungry.
Meanwhile the squirrels in my back yard gather food for the future. There's a lesson there. It could be a hard winter.
Gary Borders is publisher of the Longview News-Journal. E-mail: gborders@coxlnj.com.
Gary Borders
Publisher
Longview News-Journal
903-237-7700
www.news-journal.com
