The War

I've been watching Ken Burns "The War" on PBS. This epic struggle that has defined the last 6 decades,  has shaped my life and still shapes America in terms of how we think about ourselves as a nation and how we view war  and morality.

I immigrated to this country from England with my parents in 1956. Eleven years after the end of war, England was still rationing. America having won the war became the worlds economic and military superpower. America was on the march, rebuilding Europe and creating much of our present day infrastructure. Our manufacturing might made us number one and there seemed nothing that we could not achieve as a nation. Proof that we occupied the moral high ground.

So what happened? As with any superpower, first comes hubris and pride, and then comes arrogance. We failed to see that our economic expansion was a  more a result of the wars devastation of the industrial capacity of Europe and Japan than our ability to out design and out build the rest of the world . Rebuilt, the industries of Europe and Japan began to compete, and in the case of Japan began turning out electronics and automobiles that rivaled and bettered anything that America could build. Our products became shoddy our. What were once derided as cheap Japanese goods became world class products. Whole electronic industries disappeared from our shores as televisions, stereos, and radios were now made in Japan.

By the 80's Japan was regularly cleaning our industrial clock thanks to an America named Edward Demming who taught Japan about quality control and made quality the obsession of Japanese companies. What had once seemed an industrial juggernaut came to a screeching halt. We were now being out classed on both design and quality. In response to this American companies got religion and began turning our higher quality products, but by now whole industries have disappeared and now we must compete with the lowest possible cost.

Somewhere along the way we lost the moral high ground. We engaged in a series of wars starting with Korea and Vietnam that did not fit the image of a war justified. We have gone to war in Iraq based on lies and deception. We miscalculated at every step the nature of the war we started and brought shame to the founding principles of our nation.

So while The War was over 60 years ago we continue to deal with the aftermath of a conflict that many know nothing about. Our nation stands at a crossroads. Our leaders talk  in terms of good and evil and take us to war, justifying the morality of an unnecessary and immoral war, comparing themselves to Churchill and Roosevelt while decrying the lack of a Jefferson or Washington  in Iraq to lead us out of the quagmire that we created.

Where are our Jefferson's, Washington's, and Adams? What is our industrial policy? What is our energy policy? What is our Healthcare policy? What is our immigration policy?

The nation that won The War should be up to the task of figuring these issues out. There are no issues that are too tough to tackle just leaders too small to answer the call.