I. Examining "American Dream" and "America First" Tropes
"These two phrases -- 'the American dream" and 'America First' -- have served as touchstones for larger aims. The 'American dream,' as Trump and his audiences understand it, means nothing less than a chance at financial success for all Americans -- at least all those who count as 'American' in his narrow understanding of the term. 'America First,' meanwhile, signals a similar kind of selfishness, but this time on a national scale: abandoning long-standing military alliances and economic partnerships; stemming immigration with literal walls and free trade with figurative ones; and sounding a general retreat from the global stage." [1]
[The author Sarah] "Churchwell explains that originally, there was no such thing as the 'American dream,' but rather an array of dreams: of westward expansion, of navel supremacy, of 'beautiful womanhood.' " "Never in its earliest years was the 'American dream' cited to celebrate the freedom of markets. Indeed, populist and progressive voices denounced the concentration of wealth as a violation of the nation's democracy values and claimed that those who aspired to such avarice were guilty of an 'un-American dream.' "
As Churchwell explains it, "the America First Committee used the exceptionalism of the American dream to argue for isolation from the rest of the world. 'Americans! Wake up!' one of the group's ads implored."
II. The Arctic Ice Cap
"By the end of the summer of 2007, the ice cap was about half the size it had been at the start of the satellite era, and the Arctic sea ice had entered what an American scientist, Mark Sorreze, has dubbed its 'death spiral.' " "Arctic soils contain hundreds of billions of carbon, in the form of frozen and only partially decomposed plants. As the region heats up, much of this carbon, is likely to be released into the atmosphere, where it will trap more heat -- another feedback loop." [2]
In the same chapter in which Peter Wadhams [The author of "A Farewell to Ice: A Report From the Arctic"] argues for better energy policies, he observes that such policies probably can't -- and almost certainly won't -- be put in place fast enough to save the Arctic. Therefore, he says, technologies to block sunlight or change the reflectability of clouds will have to be deployed. These so-called geoengineering technologies have yet to be tested.
III. Hospitals Computerized
"More than ninety per cent of American hospitals have been computerized during the past decade, and more than half of Americans have their health information in the Epic system." "A 2016 study found that physicians spent about two hours doing computer work for every hour spent face-to-face with a patient." "The University of Wisconsin found that the average workday for its family physicians had grown to eleven and a half hours." [3]
"Ordering a mammogram used to be one click," said Susan Badoughi. "Now I spend three extra clicks to put in a diagnosis. When I do a pap smear, I have eleven clicks. It's 'Oh, who did it' "
"People initially embraced new programs and new capabilities with joy, then came to depend on them, then found themselves subject to a system that controlled their lives." "The Tar Pit has trapped a great many of us: clinicians, scientists, police, salespeople -- all of us hunched over our screens, spending more time dealing with constraints on how we do our jobs and less time simply doing them." [4]
"In recent years, it has become apparent that doctors have developed extraordinarily high burnout rates. In 2014, fifty-four per cent of physicians reported at least one of the three symptoms of burnout, compared with forty-six per cent in 2011." A Mayo Clinic analysis found that physicians were switching to part-time work, and the analysis also discovered that one of the strongest indicators of burnout was how much time an individual spent tied up doing computer documentation.
"During the past year, Massachusetts General Hospital has been trying out a 'virtual scribe' service, in which India-based doctors do the documentation based on digitally recorded patient visits." "Just ordering medications and lab tests trigger dozens of alerts each day, most of them irrelevant, and all in need of human reviewing and sorting."
IV. Conservatism's Cynical Strain
"Reagan's famous half-hour commercial for Goldwater described the welfare state as the path to totalitarianism. Apocalyptic thinking, conspiracy theories, and bigotry haunted the movement from the start. The right came to political power under Richard Nixon and Reagan in part by using coded language to appeal to white prejudices." "The movement's hostility to government encouraged a destructive approach to governing. Its attack on institutions nourished violent resentments. Its electoral strategy relied on increasingly open bigotry. The agenda of power at any price gave conservatism a cynical, even nihilistic strain --" [5]
V. Our Brutal Saudi Ally
"Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in crafting a Saudi-Israeli-Us axis against Iran, had persuaded the president to put most of his eggs in the Saudi basket." "The Saudi arms-buying commitments, however, turned out mainly to consist of relatively meaningless letters of intent, signed with major arms corporations rather than firm contracts." "Some 10 percent of annual arms exports have gone to the [Saudi] kingdom in recent years." "If, as seems likely, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman ordered Khashoggi's death, he has raised the specter of a new Moammer El=Gadhafi in the Middle East -- brutal, without conscience, nonpredictable, and reckless." [6]
Footnotes:
[1] Kevin M. Kruse, "Loaded Phrases," The Nation, December 17/24, 2018.
[2] Elizabeth Kolbert, "Now You See It," The New Yorker, October 15, 2018.
[3] Atul Gwande, "The Upgrade," The New Yorker, November 12, 2018.
[4] Ibid.
[5] George Packer, "A Hole in the Center," The New Yorker, November 12, 2018.
[6] Juan Cole, "Our Brutal Saudi Ally," The Nation, November 12, 2018.
No comments:
Post a Comment