Bob Schwartz

Millions of Americans believe that America’s past is better than anybody else’s future—including America’s own. That is inherent in an obsessive turning away from progress, from failing to adapt to twenty-first century (or even twentieth century) realities, and a strong longing for the comfortable but mythical past.

The irony is that civilizations with much more history than the U.S.—the youngest of all global powers—have had a much better time moving boldly and successfully into the future. This doesn’t mean that countries East and West have met all or most of the Herculean challenges they may face. And it doesn’t mean that there aren’t people there looking back to the “good old days.” But for the most part, these countries have avoided being distracted by the substantial complexities of who and what they were, and focused on balancing that with who and what they can and must become.

The substantial past of some of those countries may actually be the antidote to nostalgia that has allowed those nations to move forward. After so many centuries of arguments between the backward-lookers and the forward-lookers, the very practical argument wins: seeing where you are going is the best way to avoid crashes, falling off cliffs, or just standing still while everyone else advances around you.

Maybe what America needs is a few more centuries of arguments, where the reactionaries and regressives hold sway and drive the nation into a crash or off a cliff. Maybe then America will know what the older heads in the world already know—that evolution moves forward and not back (if you believe in any kind of evolution), that you have to keep your eyes open, that you have to adapt or die. Unfortunately, those of us alive today, standing by helpless, won’t be able to enjoy the fruits of that learning. We may only be here for the hard lessons.

The National Enquirer has dropped an O Bomb:

Shocking bombshell evidence that proves OJ committed double homicide and  where he may have hidden the murder weapon REVEALED!

O.J. SIMPSON is shaken to the core because bombshell evidence that proves he murdered his ex-wife and her friend is hidden in his $500,000 Florida home – and it’s all about to be discovered because the house is headed for the auction block on Oct. 29.

The home has been in foreclosure, and the disgraced football star, now impris­oned in Nevada, is terrified that the new owner will discover the items – the knife used in the gruesome murders and the de­signer shoes that left bloody tracks around his former wife’s lifeless body.

Should anyone care? The families of the murder victims Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman might. O.J.’s own family might.

Nobody else should, but that doesn’t mean that O.J. doesn’t matter. His sensational and ridiculous 1995 murder trial is as culturally significant as any event of the generation—including Watergate and 9/11. Saying that does not invest it with any substantive importance, the kind that those and other profound events have. The O.J. trial is the birthplace of the modern media era, and practically everything that rational people don’t like about the current environment owes its origins to that.

Half of America watched some part of the trial. The “shocking” acquittal was by the end beside the point. The fact is that tens of millions of Americans, an unforgettable cast of characters (most of whom are now forgotten) and a mammoth of media conspired to make something colossal out of something not nearly as big. (Not entirely forgotten characters though: In an irony-defining development, the late Robert Kardashian was integrally involved in the events and helped defend O.J. In the spirit of making something out of nothing, Kardashian is now best known as the father of Kourtney, Khloe and Kim.)

We have never recovered from the O.J. trial. It represented an unprecedented gap in scale between actuality and the intensity of the coverage received and interest engendered. It was part, maybe the greatest part, of proportion going out the window. And now, no detail is too small or relatively unimportant, no story adequately covered, that more isn’t offered. Much more. Much much more, most of the time to the point of diminishing returns and dying brain cells. Too much is never enough.

And to think it call began with one man’s certain heartless brutality, and a missing weapon and pair of shoes that may now see the light of day.

Everyone is someone else’s pain, or at least pain in the ass. We don’t always know this or acknowledge it about ourselves, thinking how we are put upon or suffering at the hands of others, yet unwilling to see how others are overlooking our own silliness or meanness.

We are constantly getting breaks from family, friends and particularly from those in loving relationships. Since we can’t actually count the number of breaks we get—most are silently and even unconsciously given—the best path to balance is to give breaks to others as infinitely as possible. This can seem painful, because we are convinced it is our duty to make the world or someone we know and love “better.” Except that more than we realize, others are making the world better by allowing us to be who we are without comment or critique. Compassionate criticism has its place, but so does giving breaks, more often than we do.

It would take a million pages just to start talking about the differences between men and women. Here’s just one.

Many of us run through a checklist before leaving home for the day. Whether you are forgetful or just overloaded with thoughts, this is a good way to avoid inconveniences and annoyances.

The simplest checklist in these times is “phone, wallet, keys.” This is elegant and practical. Missing any one of these can be a problem, but the other two can help solve it. Missing all of them is a big problem, with a lot of downside, and nothing up.

In most cases, men have pockets, and they often use these pockets to carry things. And, not coincidentally, three primary things are phone, wallet, keys. The checklist doesn’t have to be mental. A quick self-pat-down does the trick. This can take literally a few seconds, and is minimally invasive.

Women may have pockets, but frequently they do not carry much in them. Many women carry some sort of handbag or shoulder bag for items such as…phone, wallet, keys, and more. They may use the same bag each day or day part, but they also may change bags for style or size.

This makes the morning checklist for women complicated. Even when care is taken to make sure that a bag includes the essential items, there is no true certainty until the contents of the bag is inspected. No pat down is available. And then, there are multiple bags, so at any moment, the phone may be one place, the wallet another, the keys another.

As with all the differences, we can’t over generalize. And we can’t fix—because there’s nothing to fix. We celebrate the way things are, even when—or especially when—that includes the occasional missing essential. As much fun as it might be to pat down your favorite woman, completely aware that her pockets are empty, you make do with a very short and sweet, “Got everything?” Which whether it works or not, does say it all.

In a fantasy world, the marriage between politics and public policy is an ideal one. Each loving and respectful partner contributes thoughtfully and constructively, and the outcomes are not just positive, but even better than we could imagine.

Suspend imagining and consider this. The offspring are often so ugly and unacceptable that we avert our eyes, ashamed not of the partisans and pragmatists we have put in positions of power, but of ourselves for our reticence and complicity.

The New York Times reports  that after the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords in early 2011:

The Justice Department drew up a detailed list of steps the government could take to expand the background-check system in order to reduce the risk of guns falling into the hands of mentally ill people and criminals.…Most of the proposals, though, were shelved at the department a year ago as the election campaign heated up and as Congress conducted a politically charged investigation into the Operation Fast and Furious gun trafficking case, according to people familiar with the internal deliberations.

Even if none of the proposals—some of which would not have required Congressional action—would have altered anything in Connecticut is beside the point. Politics stood in the way of positive policy and brought it to a standstill. Once again.

This election year has been a test. We muster moments of idealism, gathering genuine evidence of progress. But time after time, something happens to draw us back to a lingering cynicism we can’t shake. We have to shake it, for the sake of all of us, for the sake of those who are weak and need our strength, for the sake of the broken who need fixing. But it can be so very hard.

Jimmy Carter was one of the most interesting President’s of his generation. We know that from his distinguished career as a statesman and man of public faith after he left office. But even as President, he brought a certain humanity and candor to the office that was unique. This also left him uniquely vulnerable, as events and political strategy overtook him.

In the midst of the energy crisis of 1979, Carter gave an address since known as the “malaise” speech, even though he never used that word. In it he said:

I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy. . . . I do not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world, with unmatched economic power and military might. The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. . . .

There is no direct connection between that speech and the current circumstances. Except if we don’t use today to start examining “the meaning of our own lives and…the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation”—an examination we suspended for this election year—we are never going to get back to it.

We have to start criticizing those we otherwise like and praising those we otherwise don’t, without worrying about political impact. Every Democrat winning or losing, every Republican winning or losing, is not going to change things. Jimmy Carter’s “crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will” is inexorably tied up with the events of this week. We are going to find that will, starting today.