David Sirota: From Shared Sacrifice to Hedonism
[David Sirota is the author of the bestselling books "Hostile Takeover" and "The Uprising." He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado and blogs at OpenLeft.com. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com or follow him on Twitter @davidsirota]
After Japan's 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt delivered a national address making eight references to the "sacrifice" that would be needed in the impending war and three mentions of the "self-denial" we would have to endure....
For its honesty and purpose, the speech remains a shining example of leadership. For its bravery in telling painful truths the country needed to hear and for Americans' subsequent rise to the challenge, the address today stands as a sad commemoration of a tragically lost ethos.
That is the only conclusion to draw when comparing Roosevelt's clarion call to those following the past decade's Pearl Harbor-like calamities. Rather than encouraged to sacrifice or accept self-denial in the face of emergency, we are now instructed to embrace our inner hedonist....
The same aversion to sacrifice now defines the response to the ecological Pearl Harbor on America's Gulf Coast....
"Americans can help," [President Obama] said, "by continuing to visit the communities and beaches of the Gulf Coast."...
...[L]et's be honest — when it comes to difficult lifestyle changes that Pearl Harbor-sized crises demand, many of us are as willfully ignorant and plagued by denial as Dubya. And truth be told, had Obama asked us to do something — anything! — more than have fun in the sun, many Americans wouldn't have praised him as a new FDR; many indeed would have berated him as Carter incarnate....
Read entire article at Salon.com
After Japan's 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt delivered a national address making eight references to the "sacrifice" that would be needed in the impending war and three mentions of the "self-denial" we would have to endure....
For its honesty and purpose, the speech remains a shining example of leadership. For its bravery in telling painful truths the country needed to hear and for Americans' subsequent rise to the challenge, the address today stands as a sad commemoration of a tragically lost ethos.
That is the only conclusion to draw when comparing Roosevelt's clarion call to those following the past decade's Pearl Harbor-like calamities. Rather than encouraged to sacrifice or accept self-denial in the face of emergency, we are now instructed to embrace our inner hedonist....
The same aversion to sacrifice now defines the response to the ecological Pearl Harbor on America's Gulf Coast....
"Americans can help," [President Obama] said, "by continuing to visit the communities and beaches of the Gulf Coast."...
...[L]et's be honest — when it comes to difficult lifestyle changes that Pearl Harbor-sized crises demand, many of us are as willfully ignorant and plagued by denial as Dubya. And truth be told, had Obama asked us to do something — anything! — more than have fun in the sun, many Americans wouldn't have praised him as a new FDR; many indeed would have berated him as Carter incarnate....