Letter from Slim Wolfe
Democracy – December 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
When was the last time you heard mention of the National Endowment for the Arts? For that matter, when was the last time you heard a serious discussion of the proper function of government? While other nations past and present, rich and poor, establish and fund musical groups, dance troupes, theater, and other creative activities, here in the USA we seem to leave it all to beer companies or other private financiers. Creativity is wonderful so long as it has to do with monetary gain. Those who want to be ambassadors of the American way can forget about the cello and go out for business management or counter-insurgency. Where is it written that the function of government is to lubricate the free enterprise machine?
We are taught that democracy has roots in ancient Athens and the Greeks also recognized that artistic endeavor, physical culture, and philosophy/education were ends in and of themselves, not merely means to generate more sales of suds and sneakers. Most nations seem to have been able to separate the creative effort from the war/conquest/wealth syndrome, but Americans are taught that it’s all homogenized under the heading of commerce. Symphony orchestras become the pet projects of motor corporations (deductible, no doubt) so the government can focus on managing Far East trade and military bases in Eastern Europe.
And where is it written that the government’s job is to preach? Does it presume to represent the American consensus when it advises young people that abstinence is the most acceptable form of birth control, or suggests that we ought to be better risk-takers, or warns some foreign government that it’s out of line? And since the almighty dollar is in fact our state religion, why don’t we have some accountability? Malfeasance can bring about the fall of a FEMA director or even an attorney-general, but no one questions why the federal reserve — or someone in authority — can’t prevent the skyrocketing cost of a barrel of oil or the worldwide banking crisis brought on by unscrupulous lenders. For a nation which seems to run on the belief that freedom equals solvency, we’re sure making a mess of it. (Meanwhile, the waitress who served Hillary Clinton will remember her mostly as the woman who didn’t leave a tip.) It would be enlightening to add up all the dollars our government spends fostering commerce, from involvement at the state college level on up to overseas trade deals. And it’s vaguely amusing to wonder if, were some president to suspend the constitution, we would see hundreds and thousands of lawyers take to the streets and face down police and the army in defense of our ideals as we have just seen in Pakistan.
I’m not going to cash in my chips and migrate to a better world in Pakistan, ancient Athens, or anywhere else, for that matter, mainly because I’m not as adaptable as I was when I was twenty-five, and my pile of chips won’t get me very far, but also because those other places seem to be in almost a worse pickle than we are here in the USA. So I’ll live through another season of strings of colored bulbs hung on hapless trees and roof gables, lit up by energy from fossil-fired power plants, and I’ll wonder if I like it better or worse than the madness of religious pageants elsewhere which sometimes bring about dozens of deaths by trampling or fire. As the bard once said: What a long, strange trip it’s been.
Slim Wolfe
Villa Grove
