A New Apathy

Read and watch what you will. Just remember that “The Code” is pure fiction.

Interesting recent commentary in Asia Times On Line by one Sreeram Chaulia titled “Why all is quiet on the American home front”. In his essay, Chaulia suggests some very logical reasons why the US home front seems apathetic towards Iraq, why there’s not overwhelming public outcry similar to Vietnam. The points made:

- US body count not as massive as Vietnam

- No draft

- Mass media control by US government

- Lack of complimentary issue (Civil Rights), although Immigration may fit the bill

- Constant fear mongering since 9/11

All good reasons, I suppose, but there seems to me some missing piece of the puzzle.

At first, I thought that maybe it’s the lack of focus on the majority. The majority is lower and middle working class people, sending their sons and daughters to fight for the most part. The interests of the majority are not highlighted today. In our modern times, the focus of all attention is on the elite. The hot story today is the salary of CEOs, the rise and fall of celebrity, the Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous. I want to say that until the rich and powerful take on the plight of the working class as the latest fad disaster, the trendiest concern, like Darfur or East Timor, then nothing will happen, the Great Republic will remain slumbering.

But the poor just ride the back of the wealthy and I don’t have any proof that the rich have ever taken a lasting interest in improving the lot here in America. For that, I would only support a return to the draft if the result is that the rich complain about what’s going on around here. But that’s pointless since, as I’ve witnessed, the American rich have always had their way of escaping such civic responsibility with ease.

That does leave the home front majority in a precarious situation.

OK, ponder that for a moment while I weave this situation into the current State of Baseball in my fair town.

As you are aware, with every passing week records are being shattered here in Cowtown. This season is sizing up as something more than just another in a long line of futile efforts. As this mind-numbing team has collapsed to lose three-quarters of all games in the first 40 days, all hope for respectability has dissolved into the harsh reality of a long, hot summer. Our season is already over and, judging by the depth of this sink hole, it will take years for us to climb out of it. After reviewing such monumental failure, it’s going to take a major, dramatic shift in the Royals organization to get back on track. As a result, there are kids in high school, on the hot list for the next draft, even guys in the Royals farm system, who are all doomed to fail over the next 3-4 years. Owners will meet and demand something be done, money will be spent, the revolving door of coaches will be spun, but it won’t matter for a long, long time. Meanwhile, me and 7,900 of my closest friends suffer each night.

Royals manager Buddy Bell has been in this business a long time. He’s seen a lot of games. He knows there’s a certain amount of give and take in baseball, there’s a cyclic effect to it and all things have a mysterious way of leveling out over the course of a season.

Knowing that, he played the odds. In Spring Training, he tried to force players into roles, particularly pitchers, just like the way LaRussa, Torre, and every other manager in the game does it. The big problem with that technique is Buddy has his hands tied by upper management. Good players, everyday players, well-paid players who can fit those roles don’t find their way to Kauffman Stadium. So, when that ultimately began to fail and it was so painfully clear that the talent of the pitchers on this team wasn’t anywhere near the level needed to keep them in such roles, Buddy was forced to abandon that approach.

First, he tried to simply switch the roles within the system. Pitcher A becomes the middle reliever and Pitcher B goes to the end of the game and so on.

Finally, after that failed too, he started doing something radically different. I mean radical in reference to modern baseball management, anyway. He sorta gave up on the whole role idea and started to just let them play it out. If the starter, no matter who it was, got banged up to hell in the first two innings, Buddy let him pitch right through that on to the sixth or as long as his arm would hold on.

Losing games as a result? Yep, but, well, why not? What’s the diff? We are losing no matter what he tries to do.

To me, this is the kind of apathy that we’re faced with here in the US. It’s not tried and true, based on an understanding of the give and take, not something Sreeram Chaulia will find in the history books. This is a new kind of apathy, not painted like it was in 1965 when hope was still possible. It is acquiescence by a muted audience, a restricted audience which has thought things through to the end, knowing they have no choice but to watch failure after failure unfold in front of them.

This is a learned reaction, not a symptom of new logical events or the lack of a massive impact but a clear symptom of a captive society. This is the Stockholm Syndrome on a grand scale but with a twist. Buddy knows he’s stuck on a crappy team while we all identify with our captors and we both feel nothing we do will change our fate.

I sense this modern effect among average Americans not only regarding the Iraq mess but other messes as well, a general nonchalance regarding things ranging from Presidential elections to government policy of questionable legality.

I saw a bumper sticker on a car the other day that read, “Somebody Else for President.” My point exactly. Now, the driver of that car told me it doesn’t really matter anymore who the pitcher is, just as long as it is somebody else for an inning or two, since there are really no good choices in this matter. Besides, thinking it through, with all the difficulty we’ve witnessed during the election process, do we really have a say in who it is any more than Buddy has a say on who’s in the bullpen? Haven’t we all learned that is decided not by the general electorate but by somebody else, “the Deciders” who sit in their own luxury suites, those who have the power anyway?

I know it’s all anecdotal evidence but I am still amazed by the reaction of people when I ask them about eavesdropping. “Aren’t you afraid or even pissed off,” I ask, “that the Government may be monitoring your phone calls, reading your email?” Maybe I hang with the wrong crowd, but to a man they all respond with a shrug. They don’t care. Their mantra seems to be, “Hey, I ain’t doing nothing illegal. I’m not a terrorist. I got nothing to worry about.” If they say that enough times to each other then they eventually all begin to hum the same monotonous tune.

“Besides,” the choir moans, “only criminals in this country are worried about their personal privacy. It’s just a legal argument, used in the courts to protect themselves.”

But that’s just it, I proclaim. Don’t you see? YOU are not a criminal! But who is it that decides what is legal or illegal? YOU? Aren’t you just letting somebody else figure it out after the fact? Don’t you want to know about that crap up front? Aren’t you giving up your rights as a citizen? What if they decide that saying something bad about the administration in time of war is illegal? I’ve heard you speak on occasion at the bar, bitching as you watch the evening news, couldn’t you be charged with that?

More shrugs.

I’ve got to pin this one down a bit closer. I find this extremely interesting. How did this happen? When and where, exactly, between 1776 and 2006, did civil liberty, the right to personal privacy and probable cause all cease to exist in this country? Was I fooled to believe that it might have existed at one time? I don’t know the answer to that yet but it seems to me that something like that has happened. At least the citizens of this country seem all lined up at the bar to let it fade away, in any case.

Will the Royals suck for years to come? I see no other alternative. Will we not still be in Iraq come 2008, 2009, 2010? Of course. Are there not another few thousand young men and women in this country and abroad today, right now, who are doomed by that reality and our inability or unwillingness to change it? Absolutely. Will we not pour our country’s resources into the Middle East constantly over the next decade, public resources that could be better used right here at home? Most likely. Will the next administration be selected not on the principle of who we really want, of who is really capable but rather on the principle of the lesser of two evils? Yes, yes, and yes.

No, Sreeram Chaulia, I’m sorry but I guess it’s different now for us old folks. Logic is lost. It’s not about body counts and media control anymore. We can see through all of that. Today, because we have no hope we don’t care. It’s as simple as that. And like Buddy Bell, we’re just gonna let it play out, come what may.

D$ came home from work the other night and found me sitting uncomfortably in my leather recliner watching the Royals go down in defeat yet again on the telly. He walked in the room and looked at me for a moment.

“Are you really watching this?” he prodded.

“Yeah, yeah,” I mumbled softly. “I gotta do it, man. It’s like a train wreck.”

“Why are you killing yourself with this?” he asked.

I replied with my Proper Lesson speech, a worn, tired old speech that I try to give plainly as often as possible but one that’s begun to irritate even my own ears.

“D,” I said, “Baseball’s not about just winning. It’s about winning and losing and how you deal with it all.”

“Well,” he sighed, seeing me lounging sideways in my chair, lighted ciggy drooping from my mouth, warm can of beer on the end table, “looks like your dealing with it well and at least it will be that much better for you when they do turn it around.”

Ahh, to be young, unwise and so full of hope again.

Cheers,

Mb