Where have all the leaders gone?

Last night Connor posted an excerpt from Lee Iacocca’s new book Where Have All the Leaders Gone?. I really liked it, and it to made me “jump for freaking joy,” to quote Connor. :) Here it is:

Am I the only guy in this country who’s fed up with what’s happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We’ve got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we’ve got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can’t even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, “Stay the course.”

Stay the course? You’ve got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I’ll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

You might think I’m getting senile, that I’ve gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don’t need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we’re fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That’s not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I’ve had enough. How about you?

I’ll go a step further. You can’t call yourself a patriot if you’re not outraged. This is a fight I’m ready and willing to have.

My friends tell me to calm down. They say, “Lee, you’re eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people.” I’d love to—as soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get them to pay attention. I’m going to speak up because it’s my patriotic duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a straight shooter. So I’ll tell you how I see it, and it’s not pretty, but at least it’s real. I’m hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don’t vote because they don’t trust politicians to represent their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys work for us.

Really, really good points, and enough passion to get people to wake up and realize what’s going on. I’ve been far too apathetic about politics lately. But let’s not call it “politics,” since that has a stigma attached (at least for me — I yawn when I hear it). Instead let’s call it civic duty, or even better, saving America or rekindling patriotism. Where’s the spirit of the Founding Fathers? Let’s not let their sacrifice be wasted.

To that end, Connor and Russell Page and several others (including yours truly) will be writing blog posts on April 16 (the Monday after tax day) “discussing why we should exercise the right to vote.” If you have a blog, we encourage you to join in and add your voice.

Ok. I am not studying while I type this, but had to share.
“This is what education is. It is the education that prepares us to be free men. You have to have an education if you are going to be happy; for happiness consists of making the most of yourself. You have to have this education if you are going to be a member of the community; for membership in the community implies the ability to communicate with others. You have to have this education if you are going to be an effective citizen of a democracy; for citizenship requires that you understand the world in which you live and that you do not leave your duties to be performed by others, living vicariously and vacuously on their virtue and intelligence. A free society is a society of free men. To be free you have to be educated for freedom. This means that you have to think; for a free man is one who thinks for himself. It means, for example,that you have to think about the aims of life and of organized society.”
Robert Hutchins (was President of the University of Chicago)

That was written as a forward to a book written in 1959, when I was four. This book was “An Introduction to the Great Books and to Liberal Education.” Those words are as true today as when written. We are in the state that we are in, as a nation, because we, as a people have been lulled away into carnal (temporal) security and have learned to live our duties “vicariously and vacuously” on the “virtue and intelligence” of others. We sold out leadership for management and control. We as a society have been distracted by Babylon and society wants her spoils. Lemmings. Tuned in to self and out to what is important. I hope we can wake up.

Of course, when Hutchins wrote those words he was calling to my parents generation. He was trying to bring a Renaissance in education, to teach children how to think, not just what to think. The what to think group won. Someone flushed and now we have ineffectual citizens, rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic.

Thanks Ben. I will try and study now. I am half way through Mere Christianity, and a few others. Lets see what can be done. I have been watching your run to the finish of the semester. Refreshing to know I am not the only one swamped.

Next Tuesday is tax day, actually. They extend the deadline when it falls on a Sunday.
And the rest of the post is very good, too. :)

Anna,

Actually, it’s Monday for most states. There are a select few states that are serviced by the Mass. IRS office which will observe a state holiday on Monday, and so they have been pushed back to Tuesday.

More info at http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=164052,00.html