Results tagged “financial crisis” from Marilyn Sewell

George W. Bush is easy to hate.  More than other single individual, he is responsible for our illegal attack on Iraq and our terribly flawed war effort after we arrived; for the lack of moral leadership our country has among nations; for the frightening extension of the executive branch of government; for our willingness to imprison without trial and to torture; for the unprecedented spying on American citizens; and now for leading us into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

So why would anyone want to make a movie about W.?  "Because he's larger than life," says Oliver Stone, and I would agree with him.  George W. Bush is one of those real people who is so unreal that as a fictional character, he would hardly be believable--in other words, as the incredulous onlooker at Bush in action so often says: "You can't make this stuff up."

And yet the real W. is a living, breathing human being who is more like ourselves than different, and to Josh Brolin's credit, that's how the actor plays him.  This film is not a satire.  It is a picture of a man who is ambitious, like many other men; who, like many others, can't quite find his niche; who, like all too many guys, drinks too much and has sex with women he has no intention of marrying; and who, like many such men, finally marries a good woman who stands by him. 

The one thing that makes W. different from most of the rest of us lost and searching souls is that he has a rich and powerful Poppy (played beautifully by James Cromwell) who keeps bailing him out.  And another thing: W. just isn't all that bright.  And so he can be manipulated by those around him--people who are smarter and more nefarious than W. could ever think to be.  Richard Dreyfus leaves his usual fast-talking character behind to become the oily snake-in-the-cabinet Dick Cheney.

W. knows he has been going down the wrong path, and so he decides he needs to quit drinking and to be "saved."  Had he not made these changes, he surely would have become the unseen, unheard of, ignominous Bush son that his parents feared he would be.  But Carl Rove guided him to victory as the Governor of Texas, and then on to the White House for two terms.  Books will be written for a hundred years about how that happened, but it did--enough said.

Josh Brolin, though, lets us in on the struggle of the man--to please his father, to overcome his alcoholism, to make something of himself.  W. thinks he is "called" to become President, and he goes forward with the moral certainty that is the hallmark of those who are not educated or reflective.  He is a man who is in way over his head.  Way, way over his head.  And because he is surrounded with toadies, he cannot see a way out, he can only "stay the course." 

"W." is not a great movie--it never brings us to the universal realm that a greater film perhaps could have.  In the end, it is topical, and it will die with the times.  But I liked the film because it humanizes a man who has now become a character to most of us.  The film reminded me that George Bush must be devastated right now, and he must be confused.  He must surely wonder how his advisors and his God could have let him go so wrong.  Maybe he wanted to grow up and be a man and give, but he just didn't have the capacity for the job of President.  Which, of course, is a vast understatement.  I'm sorry for him, and I'm sorry for this country.

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One of my congregants read a passage from the late Walter Lippmann today at a meeting, and I found his words both moving and relevant to our current political/financial crisis.  The passage is from Lippmann's essay "The False Gods," Today and Tomorrow, May 20, 1932.  In part, it reads: 

"What is it that has shaken the nerves of so many?  It is the doubt whether there exists among the people that trust in each other which is the first condition of intelligent leadership.  That is the root of the matter.  The particular projects which we debate so angrily are not so important.  The fate of the nation does not hang upon any of them.  But upon the power of the people to remain united for purposes which they respect, upon their capacity to have faith in themselves and in their objectives, much depends.  It is not the facts of the crisis which we have to fear.  They can be endured and dealt with.  It is demoralization alone that is dangerous.

"A demoralized people is one in which the individual has become isolated and is the prey of his own suspicions.  He trusts nobody and nothing, not even himself.  He believes nothing, except the worst of everybody and everything. He sees only confusion in himself and conspiracies in other men.  That is panic.  That is disintegration.  That is what comes when in some sudden emergency of their lives men (sic) find themselves unsupported by clear convictions that transcend their immediate and personal desires."

We have a situation now in this country in which nobody knows what to do, and nobody trusts the good will of our leadership.  In the face of the current financial meltdown, no more do we believe that "actually, someone is in charge; somebody knows more than I know about how things work--I need not worry."  Instead, it has come down to our "immediate and personal desires."  How does this crisis affect me?  Or, in the case of some people, "How can I profit from this crisis?"  Or in the case of some of our Congress people, "What must I say or do to be re-elected?"

We see conspiracies everywhere.  We fear that power given will be power misused.  What seemed perfectly clear a few weeks ago is no longer on the radar screen at all.  Hardly anyone is thinking like a citizen; many seem to being thinking how to gain advantage, rather than how to help and to heal.

The remedy?  Try honesty and trust.  Try integrity.  Try being sensitive to the needs of the poor.  "The world is flat," Thomas Freidman says, and all of us are one. All of us are one, yes, but not only in terms of our flow of money and goods, our fast-food joints, and our pop music--we are also one much more more literally, much closer to the flesh.  We cannot be separated, one from the other. What is good for one is good for all; what hurts one, hurts all.

We know that withdrawing honesty, trust, integrity from any relationship destroys that relationship.  We also know that whatever we do for ourselves alone is not enough, it is never enough.  We move through each day of our lives only with the support and care of many others.  The complex systems of families, communities, institutions, and governments that hold us are there only because of the common faith and trust of many who are present now and the many who came before. 

The power of the people depends upon our faith in something larger than our immediate needs and desires.  We need leaders of integrity and vision who can bring us together.  We need leaders who can summon us to a future that is worthy of our lives.

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In 1630, before even the ship landed for the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Gov. John Winthrop spoke to his people, setting forth a noble mission for the brave little group.  He said, in part: ". . . for wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us: soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our god in this worke wee have undertaken and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall shame the faces of many of gods worthy servants, and cause theire prayers to be turned into Cursses upon us till wee be consumed out of the good land whither wee are going . . . .  But if our heartes shall turne away soe that wee will not obey, but shall be seduced and worship . . . other Gods, our pleasures, and proffitts, and serve them . . . wee shall surely perishe out of the good Land whither wee passe over this vast Sea to possess it.  Therefore lett us choose life . . ."

Our founders, imperfect as they were, saw themselves in a holy covenant with God.  They were to set an example, in this new country, a country that would become a shining light to all nations.  They would not work for their own welfare and enrichment, but for the good of the all.  They would not live chiefly for earthly profits, but would seek spiritual wholeness in this Promised Land.

What we are seeing now in the present financial crisis is the logical and inevitable result of the breaking of that covenant with the Holy.  We have seen individual profit--greed, if you will--taking precedence over the good of the community in our country's two most powerful arenas: government and business, which have worked so closely together as to be almost inseparable.  The system is rotten at the core.  It has been for some time.  Now all has been revealed.

So what is going to happen?  Unless the people rise up and demand reform, demand that this country change its nefarious ways of plunder and empire-building, we will go under economically, and we will likely drag the rest of the world with us.  Perhaps we need to enter our version of the "Great Depression" before the light bulb turns on, and we discover we have a serious, serious spiritual problem.  You see, spiritual problems always seem unimportant to the secular mind--until one understands that this is the relational ground we all come from, and when it cracks and shatters, we are lost.

God help us.  And I mean that, in the most literal sense.

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