Thread: "There is no normal anymore"

'There is no normal anymore'

Americans are living with daily angst because, from the economy to health care to foreign policy, our nation is spinning out of control.

By James P. Gannon

In a recent episode of ABC's new sci-fi drama V, about an alien invasion of "Visitors" seeking to conquer Earth by posing as peace- loving people, there was a scene with a line of dialogue that hit me as one of those "Aha!" moments.

The lead character, FBI anti-terrorism agent Erica Evans, is talking to a young Catholic priest, Father Jack Landry, who shares her conviction that the Visitors are evil. They cannot trust anyone because the Visitors have taken on human form and could be everywhere. "I am taking your advice," the priest says to the FBI agent. "You said to go home and act normal."

She responds: "There is no normal anymore."

That statement, it seems to me, goes a long way toward explaining why so many Americans are angry, confused and worried today. Polls show that 58% of Americans think the country is on the wrong track, suffering an economy that's sick, a politics that's broken, a culture that is growing more violent, coarse and scary, and a government that's out of control. They want things to get back to normal but increasingly feel that there is no normal any more.

Nearly every aspect of American life seems to have veered off course into uncharted territory with unforeseeable consequences.

In the economic realm, only Americans who lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s can remember a time of greater stress. In the midst of a so-called recovery, the economy is still shedding tens of thousands of jobs monthly, with the national unemployment rate already at 10%. In the past, a 4%-6% unemployment rate was considered normal, but that now seems like a distant dream because it takes job growth of about 100,000 a month just to keep the unemployment rate from rising further — given the expected growth of the labor force. So normal unemployment could be years off.

Debt and anger

There is nothing normal about an economy in which the federal government takes over giant automakers, bails out too-big-to-fail banks, buys up nearly all mortgages, keeps short-term interest rates at zero and prints over a trillion new dollars. As the national debt passes $12 trillion and the White House projects $9 trillion more in deficits over the next 10 years, the value of the dollar sinks and the price of gold — America's best fear gauge — rises past $1,100 an ounce.

The anger that boiled over last summer at congressional town hall meetings, and that has roiled the debate over health care legislation, reflects the sense of many Americans that the government is as out-of-control as the economy. Nothing seems normal any more. The health care bills are ridiculously complex, and the competing claims of supporters and opponents so irreconcilable, that citizens are baffled and worried.

It's significant that issues such as abortion coverage and insurance for illegal immigrants have become flash points. These are issues that average Americans can understand and have strong views on. Who can fathom 2,000 pages of legislative jargon? Nobody. So let's fight about what we know and care about.

There is no normal in American politics anymore, either. Both major political parties gravitate toward their extremes, left and right, and the center no longer holds. Most Americans tend to be centrists — a "normal" middle ground — but the parties have abandoned the center to cater to ideologues and campaign contributors on the fringes. There seems to be no political home for American centrists.

In foreign policy, international terrorism is the new abnormal, dominating prospects for war and peace. It is not normal for our wars to drag on for six, eight, 10 years;even in World War II, America's involvement was over in fewer than four years.

Our stretched military

It is not normal for our soldiers to endure three, four, five deployments to war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our military is stretched to the breaking point and our wars are unwinnable.

It is not normal for U.S. soldiers to be gunned down by one of their own Army officers on American soil, as happened recently at Fort Hood, Texas. It breeds a sentiment like that portrayed in the TV drama V, where no one can be trusted and you can't tell your enemy from your buddy.

On top of this, our culture has gone alien. Hollywood churns out a gutter-flow of violence, vampires and video sex. Is it so shocking then that high school students watch and cheer as their schoolmates beat and gang rape a young girl? Aren't they just acting out what they see as "entertainment"? Will this become the new normal?

I don't know how we can get back to normal, if that's even possible. But I am convinced that the political party or candidates that can offer hope of a "return to normalcy" — to borrow Warren G. Harding's winning slogan in the 1920 presidential election — will have strong appeal.

The 2008 presidential election was about "change." The elections of 2010 and 2012 could be about getting control of too much change and returning to normal.

James P. Gannon is a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal and a former editor of The Des Moines Register. He publishes The Rappahannock Voice at www.rappvoice.com .

Posted at 12:16 AM/ET, December 08, 2009 in Economy - Forum, Forum commentary

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/12/ ... PageReturn

'There is no normal anymore'

The writer is dead on with this statement. Unless you are of the mindset that this is the "new normal". Dr. Phil coined that term right after 9-11. Our govt. wants us to reprogram ourselves into thinking this IS normal and this is how it's going to be from now on...