Winning, An Introduction
Americans like to win. And they don't like to lose. Ostensibly, this is the objective of competition: to win. To beat the other guy to the prize. And survive by being on top. And because of this pathological desire to win at all costs, American shave created a society that risks descending into the tiers of the second rate.
Part of it is confusion over what winning is. Is winning achieving the best solution to the problem? Or is is merely beating the other guy (by any means) in the immediate term? Americans have opted for the latter. Win now. Damn the rest. As a result, our health care sucks, our infrastructure sucks, our business ethics are non-existent, and we are, as society, completely paranoid. We live in fear about everything. The government is out to get us, our neighbor is packing heat. Our values are under assault.
If we still had any values. That is now dubious.
There is a lot to say in this regard, so I will confine myself right now to stating the obvious about our government, specifically (but not exclusively) the Republican Party. The republicans do not care about solving problems. their record is abysmally clear. When in office, they enlarge deficits and subsidize their friends--those who pay up, anyway--particularly in the finance and defense industries.
The last election was an embarrassment. The Republicans thought they could simply buy it. Spend money and they will come. the despised liberals, the Democrats, did what the GOP was too arrogant to do: they went to the people. Guess who won? Oh, we already know.
The Republicans were obsessed with the win, not the substance of dealing with issues and facts. So they lost. But let's not portray this as a Republican issue. it is an American issue. As much as we are obsessed with winning, our deepest fear is losing.
Remember Vietnam? Some of us do--those of us who had draft cards--and we haven't trusted government since. The reason is that we got stuck in Vietnam for no other reason than that our presidents--Johnson and Nixon--couldn't bear the stigma of losing. They both did other good things, it is true, but in this one instance they were cowards. Losing was viewed as unacceptable. Even if in the beginning, it wasn't even an issue except in the minds of drooling domino theorists (a theory that has since been discredited, by the way. No dominoes. No genuine Commie threat. And no strategic interest for the U.S. Phantoms on every level.)
But Our leaders decided they couldn't deal with "losing" and killed 60,000 Americans (and countless Vietnamese) before reality was rubbed in their faces.
All because Americans are not problem solvers, they worship victory.
I hate to tell you folks, life is not a game.
Part of it is confusion over what winning is. Is winning achieving the best solution to the problem? Or is is merely beating the other guy (by any means) in the immediate term? Americans have opted for the latter. Win now. Damn the rest. As a result, our health care sucks, our infrastructure sucks, our business ethics are non-existent, and we are, as society, completely paranoid. We live in fear about everything. The government is out to get us, our neighbor is packing heat. Our values are under assault.
If we still had any values. That is now dubious.
There is a lot to say in this regard, so I will confine myself right now to stating the obvious about our government, specifically (but not exclusively) the Republican Party. The republicans do not care about solving problems. their record is abysmally clear. When in office, they enlarge deficits and subsidize their friends--those who pay up, anyway--particularly in the finance and defense industries.
The last election was an embarrassment. The Republicans thought they could simply buy it. Spend money and they will come. the despised liberals, the Democrats, did what the GOP was too arrogant to do: they went to the people. Guess who won? Oh, we already know.
The Republicans were obsessed with the win, not the substance of dealing with issues and facts. So they lost. But let's not portray this as a Republican issue. it is an American issue. As much as we are obsessed with winning, our deepest fear is losing.
Remember Vietnam? Some of us do--those of us who had draft cards--and we haven't trusted government since. The reason is that we got stuck in Vietnam for no other reason than that our presidents--Johnson and Nixon--couldn't bear the stigma of losing. They both did other good things, it is true, but in this one instance they were cowards. Losing was viewed as unacceptable. Even if in the beginning, it wasn't even an issue except in the minds of drooling domino theorists (a theory that has since been discredited, by the way. No dominoes. No genuine Commie threat. And no strategic interest for the U.S. Phantoms on every level.)
But Our leaders decided they couldn't deal with "losing" and killed 60,000 Americans (and countless Vietnamese) before reality was rubbed in their faces.
All because Americans are not problem solvers, they worship victory.
I hate to tell you folks, life is not a game.
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