Op-Ed Piece: America's Exploding Pipe Dream

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/opinion/blow-americas-exploding-pipe-dream.html?ref=columnists

I really liked this Op-Ed piece. It is blunt and straight to the point. It doesn’t dance around the issue at all. The author, Charles M. Blow, writes about how the United States is on a preventable decline that most people are just unwilling to step up and stop. He says we are allowing our country to lose its position of prominence in the world because we are making poor decisions and are still suffering under the delusion that we are the best country in the world, and that because of this we are not doing much if anything to uphold our position in the future.

He uses several rhetorical strategies in his essay. Logos, ethos, and pathos are all used to describe the poor shape our country is falling into. Logos is shown in the statistics comparing us to other countries, ethos is shown in the descriptions of how the rich unfairly and unethically hoard their wealth and buy off the government with it, and pathos is used with examples of the increasing poverty in the U.S. Blow also uses anaphora throughout the first half of his essay. Almost every sentence starts with “We…” emphasizing how everyone has played a part in letting this decline happen. He is also cynical at times, especially when talking about the rich and their part in this downward spiral.

Song for our Times

I believe an appropriate song for our times is “American Eulogy” by Green Day. I chose this song not only because I’m a huge Green Day fan, but because I feel it addresses many issues and problems in the United States today.

The first section of the song addresses political issues in the United States. The first verse makes references to the old, more inaccurate color-coded terror alert index and the “hysteria” and panic that it could cause. It also describes the confusion the alert index causes as being a “feeding ground” for the media and others who use the index to cause fear and anxiety by emphasizing when the threat level goes up. The second verse makes references to class differences and civil unrest. Unemployment is mentioned, as are riots and “class war” or conflict between the rich/Wall Street and the less well off. The third verse says that “America is falling,” representing that, while we are still a world power, we are gradually losing our power to other developing countries.

The first verse of the second section of the song is less about politics and more about feelings of unhappiness and dissatisfaction with the “modern (U.S.-centric) world” and the many problems it has. In this section the bassist and lead vocalist each sing from differing viewpoints about “the modern world” and are arguing back and forth with each other. This is shown when lead vocalist responds to and disagrees with the previous assertions about the “modern world” being a bad thing, saying to “deny the allegation” that it is and that everything bad that was said about it is “fuckin’ lies.” The bassist comes back with a counter-argument about the modern era being shallow, and how too much emphasis is put on being “up to date” and having fancy gadgets and “high definition,” and not on “the value of your mind,” or how smart or what kind of person you are.

Finally, the choruses of the two sections, “I don’t want to live in the modern world” and “mass hysteria” are blended together and static noise is added, creating a confusing section where there is conflict between the two opposing parts to be heard over the other.

My Fear

What do I fear? Well, I have a number of fears, but none more terrifying than death. Death is scary. For me its not necessarily the manner of dying, although some ways would certainly be preferable to others; it is the unknown after death. After you die, you’re gone. There is nothing left but your body, your shell. What makes you who you are, your personality, is gone forever and it’s not coming back.

I know that there are a lot of people who believe in some kind of life after death or reincarnation or something like that, and therefore don’t worry as much about this. I personally don’t believe in anything of that sort, and that is why the thought of death and being non-existent terrifies me. Just think about being alive and aware of who you are and how alive you are at one moment and then to suddenly ceasing to exist. It’s an incredibly frightening thought.