Imperfect Partners

Dean Hitchman

• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781098085575
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Historia y teoría política

It is reported that Americans are addicted to sports. In 1992, the average American household watched 178 hours of sports on television, over three hours per week. Sports pages in American newspapers “far outnumber” those devoted to movies, theater, sciences, and art combined. Advertisers spend more than $3.7 billion a year sponsoring sporting events, and our education system makes a huge investment in physical education so that nearly every child in the country can participate in sport at school.

It is reported that many Americans “know more about sport than we do about politics, science, technology, economics, or their own Constitution. We discuss sport with friends, relatives, and strangers more quickly and intensely, with more passion and conviction, than any other subject.” And, may I add, knowledge. In many cases, fans can recite who won or lost for all preceding years over the last decade or longer.

Most studies report that leisure time has remained relatively constant since 1975. A statistic such as this would not give cause for us to pay attention but rather passing it off as just another trend associated with the times in which we live, or is there an underlying reason for leisure time to have topped out?

Those of us who are old enough to remember, and if we older folks are still able to remember the television series that ran around 1949–1958 “The Life of Riley,” we can see it was the classic depiction of the average American family. “The Life of Riley” depicted Chester Riley—played by William Bendix—as the sole breadwinner of a family of four who would come home to his family and homemaker spouse after a day of hard work at the aircraft plant as a Riveter.

Upon bursting through the front door, he would proclaim in a loud voice, “PEG, I’M HOME!” Riley’s fast-paced energetic entrance was always the kickoff that set the tone for the rest of the show, usually leading to Riley getting in hot water. By the end of the show, amends were made and viewers were left with a sense of “It’s a wonderful life” and with a sense of fulfillment and looking forward to the following week’s episode.

Statistics indicate that today Americans are working harder and longer, often holding two and three part-time jobs just to keep up with the same standard of living as the one-breadwinner job in the heyday of the industrial revolution era and “The Life of Riley.”

The traditional one-income family slowly but surely began noticeably receding in the late 1960s and was well under way by the early 1970s. It resembled the coming in and going out of the ocean tide, something you almost don’t even notice. Except the American economy was the tide with a one-way ticket to other places to be determined by corporate America and nonetheless the help of our very own United States congressmen and congresswomen from both political parties and under multiple administrations.

The one-income family was more the norm then and “The Life of Riley” explains that time in history very well about the average American family. By following unfolding economic events that would begin to transpire and transform our whole American culture, “The Life of Riley” gives us a clear panoramic view of what economic and social life in America was like following World War II forward, until around the conclusion of the Vietnam War. Economic America was about to take a downward drift that would change the landscape of America forever.

It is never talked about in any terms that points the finger of blame on every administration—Republican or Democratic—for cutting deals that allowed corporate America such freedom of trade that would gut the American economy and leave American workers on the sidelines. If you ever wondered how a politician could go into office “penniless,” relatively speaking, and leave a multimillionaire, the spear-carrying lobbyists for the corporations are very likely a part of the reason.

By the late 1960s onward, as odd as it may seem, rock-and-roll music, free love, and illicit drugs to turn on, tune in, and drop out were dramatically altering the makeup of American society.

Divorce was increasing, day care was springing up, jobs and pay were taking a nosedive, workers were (immigrating internally) following jobs, and the two-income family was emerging as the new norm. Americans were indeed working harder, often holding down more than one job and earning less.

The erosion of our economic system based largely on our manufacturing gigantism was slowly being handed over to what could be described as second-class nations with cheaper labor forces, lax environmental laws, and backward nations ruled by despotic leaders who were a threat even to their own people, selling them out almost as slave labor to the capitalists.

Hindsight seems to indicate that the American middle class had lost their sense of purpose and had given up hope toward self-sufficiency, thereby adjusting to circumstances by drifting aimlessly toward a life of debauchery. A new era was settling in on America, as American corporations pulled the plug in their bid for the lowest-cost labor forces available on the planet. It must be stated as a reminder, the fundamental responsibility of Congress is to protect the American people. If anything could be lacking in this respect, it was that this responsibility was not only lacking but also totally absent from any governmental agenda.

If I am successful in projecting only one thing in this entire book to my readers, it is this: What is the responsibility of our sitting Congresses? The responsibility of those being voted into office by we, the people, is to be advocates, custodians, and protectors, literally and figuratively, of the American people. There is no responsibility of our elected officials that carries greater importance than this, as you will come to appreciate as we bring forward the reasoning for titling this book Imperfect Partners.

A Quickening Pace in the 1970s Yesteryear

When the trend of outsourcing began catching on, it amounted to subcontracting (in-house) activities, mostly to independent or non-union vendors. The affected industries wasted little time in expanding to a larger role of (exporting) production capacity.

The effects were immediate for many workers being (uprooted) from what used to be secure employment with a good company for a lifetime. The life of Riley was changing, and changing rapidly!

Free market globalization has a ring about it that just by saying it makes you feel somehow that the emerging new global economy is akin to a speeding train that cannot be stopped. Just by interjecting the word global in conversation denotes limitations on any one-world entity voicing opposition to the principle of participation.

If any one nation had the audacity to hold out, opposing the ideal of globalization, safeguards were put in place to limit the naysayers. What were the safeguards? Specifically the World Trade Organization (WTO), the United Nations (UN), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are three of the power brokers enacted to persuade all nations to observe the rules of engagement to do business in the new global economy.

We will be reviewing the WTO, UN, and IMF in more detail as to their role in the global economy. The enigma surrounding these world organizations is that their functional appearances is that they were created to promote harmony and benevolent interaction among global trading partners. What were these organizations able to achieve? For one thing, and maybe the primary thing that they did do, especially the WTO, was that it made the US Congress look innocent of responsibility for international trade and powerless to protect the American economy. In other words, it made Congress look like “It’s out of our hands,” don’t fault us for the hand dealt us!

Free trade was clearly a one-way street that posed the most expensive arrangement imaginable for the health and well-being of the American economy and the working middle class in particular. Was Washington asleep at the wheel? It goes to show that our government did a good job of selling middle America on the concept that free enterprise was something outside of their control. It was an accepted ideal that free trade was just something to be tolerated whether you liked it or not. The fact is that all commerce between nations is very much a leadership role—that is, unless those in control choose to do nothing to manage that which is in their job description and is within their jurisdiction.

The truth of the matter is that when the wholesale export of America’s manufacturing base was being exported, every sitting American Congress, one after another, participated in crafting trade deals and writing policy at the u...