Professor Yang Jing, School of Foreign Languages, Nanjing Normal University,
"The Sinking Age", [US] George Parker, translated by Liu Ran, Wenhui Publishing House/New Classic Culture, January 2021 edition, 520 pages, 108.00 yuan
"New Yorker" columnist George Parker's best-selling book "The Sinking Age" is "The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America", but from another perspective, it is not impossible to call it "Biden's Foreign History", because a considerable amount of space in the book is the close observation and revelation of his personal staff, which can make up for the shortcomings of the regular history.
"The Sinking Age" depicts a superpower that is about to collapse and collapse (unwinding means disintegration and decryption) - rather than calling it the United States, it is better to call it "unfailure" or "clusterfuck Nation". Here, Wall Street elites are nothing more than fraud gang elites. Washington's economic policies and top-level design are simply unable to implement. It firmly believes that the United States is a wealthy and powerful country in the world with democracy, freedom and equality as the foundation of a country. The so-called American Exceptionalism has become a joke. On the contrary, ordinary people can only rely on selling their labor to survive: they have long lost their spirit of independence and resistance, become vassals and tools of monopoly groups, and become literal "Americain'ts". According to David Brooks, a columnist of the New York Times Book Review, Parker's new American history, which borrows the writing style of the novel and is presented like a kaleidoscope, is his "most ambitious" work to date, and can be regarded as a modern version of the disillusioned "American Dream". Parker himself admitted that the book's intention and style were largely influenced by the famous novelist John Dos Passos's American trilogy (1930-1936) during the Great Depression.
Parker pointed out in an interview with the media that before the end of the 21st century, Americans generally believed that there was a contract - a contract in which everyone could enjoy themselves: "People at that time were more restricted and had less freedom than they are now, but they had more sense of security. Every generation felt that the next generation could be perfected and done better." But starting from the previous generation (post-80s), this contract could no longer be fulfilled. Parker explained: "Many Americans feel that they are fighting alone and no one will help them. To some extent, there is an injustice in our society, that is, the elite class is thriving, while ordinary people, including those who may have considered themselves middle-class in the past, are unable to extricate themselves from the quagmire of life." This is also the problem the author discusses in this book. By showing the life fragments of celebrities and the general public, Parker discovered that the decline of the United States was a historical necessity because Americans lost their common values - as Raymond Carver, the novelist in the book, said: "This moment has come: the wife and everything that I think is sacred, valuable, and worthy of respect fall apart, including every spiritual value."
The book tells five stories through clever interspers: Dean Pray A Reagan-era Republican, who was optimistic and then became a supporter of the Obama reform program and committed to promoting biodiesel in rural southern China, but suffered a heavy blow in the sudden energy crisis; Tammy Thomas, an African-American worker in Youngston, Ohio, had an "industrialization" wave, where local physical factories were closed and cities began to decline, and by 1983, the site became a veritable "rust belt" (Rust belt). Belt, as if cancer patients were slowly killed - the author calls the cause of the disease "Death Spiral", that is, economic entities are trapped in a vicious cycle of continuous debt rise but their efficiency is deteriorating; Jeff Connaughton is a political lawyer who was following the political rookie Senator Joe Biden in the early stages of his career. Later, he was swaying between political idealism and partisan temptations, and eventually became disheartened and chose to stay away from politics; PayPal co-founder Peter Till is a Silicon Valley billionaire. He believes in liberalism, believes that the essence of the Internet revolution is nothingness, and is worried about its prospects.The fifth story of this book is not about a character, but about a city, Tampa, Florida, which tells how the American city has experienced life and death tests in the subprime mortgage crisis and the financial storm it caused.
Biden
Parker intertwined these private stories with the life stories of public figures at that time, and collaged related news titles and short biographies, comments, etc. in close-ups of characters, making the characters vividly appear on paper. The public figures that appear in this book include not only gold medal host Oprah Winfrey, Walmart founder Sam Walton, rapper Sean Cory Carter (Jay-Z), but also former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and of course, Joe Biden, the evergreen political evergreen that Connaughton has long followed. The author combines celebrity anecdotes with various newspaper headlines, advertising slogans and even pop songs to form a bizarre "mosaic" to reflect the surging tides and undercurrents of the times.
As a bestseller that won the 2013 National Book Award (non-fiction), the examples in the book are fascinating and enough to let the world understand the United States here. The so-called "sinking era" actually refers to three large-scale social transformations in the United States in the past four decades: the first transformation in the 1980s is the stagnation of middle-class income and the increasing social inequality. According to the author's analysis, this transformation is closely related to factors such as the changes in the nature of the labor market in the information age, changes in family structure, rising medical costs and the decline in the quality of higher education. The second transformation was the severe financial crisis and economic recession of 2008. The author believes that the inducement of this recession is not only the imbalance of global capital and the ineffective Federal Reserve policies, but also the failure of Wall Street's greed and risk assessment model. The most serious third transformation at the moment is very likely to lead to the complete collapse of the country's political structure and economic system. Parker firmly believes that the fundamental reason for this problem is that the American democracy has failed, and the elites have become gunmen and accomplices of the chaebol: "Politicians and generals have become consultants and experts. The army is composed of professionals, not citizens. Public schools have made citizens' children half illiterate." - The chaebol behind the elite is the underbox manipulator of this game of money and power. Anyone who is familiar with the rules of the game in Washington and Wall Street knows that there are a large number of "self-transactions" (or re-transactions) in the center of power in the United States, most of which are completely legal and impeccable. But, as Parker repeatedly asks in his book: Why are these elites from world-class universities such as Hayep (and Walton), the most multicultural elites (classes) who have been the most diverse in culture and advocate equal opportunities since ancient times willing to be bought (or sold) and eventually fall into dolls of interest groups? Parker's theory of "top-level corruption" may be the main reason, but it cannot truly explain the long-term phenomenon of wages halting growth, increasing gap between the rich and the poor, and increasing concentration of social capital. There are obviously more complex political and cultural factors behind these phenomena.
The democratic political system of the United States once created the world's greatest industrial power, and now, with the decline of American democracy, this era is about to decline and end. Borrowing the mouths of the characters in the book, Parker predicted a picture of the doomsday for "non-country" for "non-country", which included the collapse of the suburban lifestyle based on automobiles, the collapse of public social order, and the spread of guerrilla-style violent revolutions - the entire country will be divided into a semi-autonomous core area and an armed and separatist local political system. As Neal Stephenson portrayed in the dystopian science fiction novel Snow Crash, most of the United States has become a sovereign enclave of powerful corporate consortiums and mafia-managed one-one can’t escape the violence and social divisions around them.
This is also Parker's original intention of writing this book. As an investigative reporter, he has the responsibility and obligation to reveal to the Chinese people the truth that the United States is "sinking": the structure of daily life has been disintegrated, traditional values have been destroyed, the elites are profit-oriented, and government leaders have "derogated their duties."According to his diagnosis, today's "the only default power in American life" is the "organized chaebol." With its strong power, even politicians are inevitably controlled by them. Jeff Connaughton, one of the main characters in the book, left the market sadly after piercing through the insider trading between Washington and Wall Street. The more than ten years of "intimate" political cooperation between him and Biden also provides readers with a different perspective to understand the president-elect. In the early 1980s, Connaughton took Joe Biden as an example and set ambitions to become Biden's campaign aide, fund hiringer, Washington lobbyist and insider of the U.S. political affairs. But during the financial crisis, witnessing the intrigue and dirty deals of Washington's powerful people, Connaughton's admiration for Biden was shattered along with his political ambitions. He accused Biden of "ruthlessness" in front of Parker, and was an unreliable cold-blooded manipulator: he was indifferent to everything except his own presidential dream.
As a business student at the University of Alabama, Connaughton invited Senator Biden to the school to give a speech. Connaughton was impressed by Biden's eloquence and people-friendly image. He swore that he would serve with all his heart if the senator ran for president. In 1988, Connaughton, who had obtained an MBA, gave up his well-paid job and joined Biden's presidential campaign as a fundraiser. After Biden's campaign failed, Connaughton joined the Senate Judiciary Committee as an assistant. Later, during Clinton's tenure, he worked under White House legal counsel Abner Mikva. During this period, Connaughton witnessed all kinds of political activities and undercover operations, and witnessed the hypocrisy of Washington's politicians being unveiled layer by layer (their most conscientious statement is that "politics is not entirely for money") - when the elites and monopoly groups make a fortune, the ordinary people in this country are like lambs to be slaughtered, suffering. As a "insider", Connaughton began to realize that the so-called American democratic system was originally created to protect private property, but today it has evolved into protecting powerful capital. Democracy has deteriorated, the foundation of the country is shaken, and it is no surprise that the country is trapped in civil strife and disputes - and the only way to change all this is to get rid of capitalism - this is also the main reason for Connaughton's ideal disillusionment, because this vision is simply impossible to achieve in the United States.
In Washington, although Connaughton is regarded as the "Biden Party" (or "Biden follower"), in fact, he believes that he has not been "fairly treated" - for example, the "ungrateful" Biden refused to let Mikova recommend him to the Interior Department, and Connaughton was deeply disappointed. After leaving the White House, Connaughton's fantasy about President Obama's team, including Vice President Biden, was completely shattered; he moved to the Savannah countryside near the sea in Georgia, devoted himself to writing, and published a memoir - "Rewards: Why Wall Street Always Wins". According to the author himself, this book is a true portrayal of all the above-mentioned "people who have lost their faith."
In the book "The Sinking Age", with the help of Connaughton's narrative, Biden became the "invisible" protagonist who did not officially appear. He was born in a Catholic family in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He has always taken the middle class as his mission and called himself "Middle-Class Joe". Since being elected as a Delaware Senator in 1972, he has been deeply engaged in politics for nearly half a century and is a veteran in American politics. Although he suffered from stuttering in his early years and was ridiculed by his classmates as "bye Biden", Biden, who was disabled and strong in ambition, gradually corrected this problem through hard practice in the mirror every day and grew into an excellent speaker. According to Connaughton, it was after listening to the speech on campus that he was impressed by the elegant and approachable Biden - he remembered Biden's opening remark: "I know you're here tonight because you heard that I'm a great man." Then Biden said: "Yes, I'm the so-called 'presidential material' that is widely known."The crowd burst into laughter, all of whom were fascinated by his sense of humor: Biden's name is "Biden", and is often mistaken for "Bidden" - the latter means "being commanded and being chosen", and is often used in the scene of Jesus calling others in the Bible New Testament - here it implies that Biden calls himself a chosen person.
In Connaughton's view, humorous and outspoken words are Biden's strengths, but more often they will cause lawsuits without thinking. 2 During the 2008 financial crisis, Biden talked freely on TV: Wall Street's white-collar crimes, like a plague epidemic, will surely "dang the whole of the United States" and attributed its roots to the serious dereliction of duty in the supervision of the government's judicial department. Later, he blatantly declared in a speech at New York University: "People believe that our judicial system and management are useless, and they may never even try to effectively deal with crimes that are unethical and suspected of being illegal in the upper class. "As soon as this statement was made, a stir immediately caused an uproar and triggered strong protests from the White House.
In May of the same year, US President George Bush compared American Democrats to Western leaders who had been blindly tolerating and retreating to Hitler before World War II. Biden made sharp criticisms of this, claiming that Bush's speech was "nonsense" and "outrageous" - Biden was later forced to apologize for suspected attacks on the current national leader, but in fact he did not restrain himself a little since then. Before he announced his competition with Obama for the Democratic candidate, Biden was interviewed by a reporter from the New York Observer. In the interview, he commented that his opponent Obama was the "first eloquent, smart, clean and foreign person he knew The mainstream African American who looks good" obviously violated the taboo of "political incorrectness" (PI), so he had to defend himself as soon as possible: he himself had no intention of defaming "the black presidential candidates of the past, and he did not mean to despise Obama." This incident was seen as another example of Biden's susceptibility to making low-level mistakes - the embarrassing or unsatisfactory remarks that blurted him or her words, which often brought unexpected harm to him and his team like Boomerang throughout his political career. In 2012, Biden described his political experience in a public speech, "What I can tell you is that I know eight presidents and are very close to three of them." "—The English word "intimately" he used here means suggestive sexual relations, which is very confusing. After media reports, he was forced to clarify. The New York Times commented on this that Biden often accidentally "puts his feet in his mouth" (referring to making mistakes), and "weak filters in his mind cannot stop him from talking nonsense."
In addition to "inappropriate" words, other embarrassing things in Biden's political arena were also revealed one by one by one by Connaughton. In 1988, Biden ran for the first time for US president, full of confidence, but it was soon revealed that part of his speech was plagiarism - the "golden sentence" actually came from Neil, the leader of the British Labor Party at the time. Kinnock. The scandal continues to ferment, and Biden has to announce his withdrawal from the election under the pressure of a party comrade. To be fair, Biden's first defeat in the election is not so much because of plagiarism, but rather because of party struggles. As we all know, Biden has always been good at winning voters with a people-friendly attitude. At a public rally at that time, he claimed that his ancestors worked in the Pennsylvania coal mine and they did not get the life opportunities they deserve, which made him feel "very angry" - Biden's original intention is, but empathy (or sensational), but people inside and outside the party were snatched and tested that "there were no miners among Biden's ancestors" and were maliciously deceiving voters. Not only that, Biden's "academic misconduct" behavior when he was studying in law school was also exposed by the media - at that time, he cited an article published in Fordham Law Review in a course paper, but did not clearly mark it. Although Biden was asked to retake the course after the incident and finally passed with a high score, it was considered a "stain" in his conduct.In addition, the media also revealed Biden's exaggeration about his college life: for example, he received three degrees during his college years, entered the law school of a prestigious university with full scholarships, ranked among the top in the class in his graduation, and he participated in the civil rights movement, etc. After being infinitely amplified by a political rookie's intentional or unintentional "self-boasting" has risen to the height of moral integrity and has nowhere to hide. After a relentless pursuit, Biden had to retreat sadly - he said his candidacy has been covered by the "deep shadow" of his past.
Related to this, a 1990s video material played publicly by Cable Channel on the US also caused a sensation. Biden agreed to wear a microphone throughout an unedited campaign at the time - an unprecedented example in American politics. In the ninety-minute interview program, he performed very well for 89 minutes, but just as the event was about to end, a voter asked about his law school results, which was likely to touch his pain, and Biden responded in person: "I think my IQ may be much higher than you." - Although this second "talk show" was aroused to revenge, it also cost him a heavy price, otherwise he would not have to wait until 2008 several years later to start his second presidential campaign journey.
According to Connaughton's observation, although Biden is often nicknamed "Joe Bomb" because of such a mistake, this cannot cover up his genius in speech and expression. Many times, he can always arouse applause in just a few words - for example, in a public speech commemorating the assassination of President Kennedy, his famous line "We cannot say that our dreams have been shattered just because our political heroes were murdered; it is buried deep in our broken hearts" can be called textbook level. In 2013, Biden said in a speech on sexual assault on university campuses at the University of New Hampshire: "Whether you are drunk or are conscious, disagreeing means disagreeing. Whether you are in bed, in dormitory, or on the street, disagreeing means disagreeing. Even if you say agree at the beginning, but then change your mind, disagreeing means disagreeing. Disagreeing means disagreeing." - It has become a well-published quote in the future. In 2019, in response to Brunei's intention to implement Islamic laws that allow adultery and homosexuals to be stoned. Biden accused this act of rebellion and "shocking" and advocated that "national cultural traditions cannot be used to excuse this crime against humanity." The US State Department was later forced to issue a statement due to suspected interference in other countries' internal affairs - but this is Biden, who does his own way, is very different from the timid style of ordinary politicians. As Connaughton said, after two campaigns (the third campaign of the 70s-year-old man in 2020 was not expected), "Biden's life has been thoroughly studied - even his hair transplant is no exception." His ability to move forward bravely without hesitation may be related to this "open and transparent" confidence.
Biden, who showed himself in public as a friendly person, is actually a bad temper in private and "it is quite difficult to get along with." Especially during the campaign, due to busy affairs and lack of sleep, simple junk foods that can be dealt with have hindered digestion, which led to Biden's irritability. Once angry, he would use his favorite slang ("fuck idiot") to call his male subordinates: "Fuck idiot hasn't brought the introduction I want yet." - This term is both a noun and an adjective: "Is this event leader Democrat or Republican? Or are you so fuck idiots who don't even know this?" Most of the reasons why Biden got angry were caused by the troubles caused by fundraising. Biden hates fundraising, hates the trouble and compromises it brings. Once, Connaughton once witnessed a young staff member holding a list when he got into the car, reminding the senator that "it's time to make a few fundraising calls." Unexpectedly, Biden yelled at him: "Get out of the car the fuck." Some of Biden's colleagues seemed to have been calling for fundraising most of his life - California Senator Alan Cranston is said to have to call one after another even when riding an indoor bicycle in the gym, sometimes just to raise $500 - but Biden has almost never made such calls (he believes in face-to-face speech communication).He hated those people who wrote checks for him on the one hand, and asked him on the other hand, because he could not tolerate himself being held hostage or kidnapped by interest groups, and he did not want to owe them any favors. Having lived in Washington for many years, he never dealt with the solidified upper class, but instead left his office on Capitol Hill every night, crossed Massachusetts Avenue toward Union Station, and then took the train back to his family in Wilmington. On March 19, 2011, in honor of Biden's support for Amtrak and American Rail passenger transport, Wilmington Station was named Joseph R. Biden Station Jr. - During Biden's tenure as a US federal senator, he took trains between this station and Washington for more than 7,000 times. He was also called "Artico Joe" for his deep history with Amtrak. Biden himself is more willing to call himself "Ordinary Joe" to show his differences from the powerful people in Washington - in a sense, this also means a kind of almost provocative conceit and arrogance. It was like the upright guru of ancient Rome or Robespierre in the French Revolution - "He could not be bought because he was ungrateful." Perhaps because of this, in Connaughton's view, no one in Washington except Biden himself thinks he will become president one day - and Biden's obsession and myths about the presidency have become a widely circulated joke in the political arena. But as Connaughton pointed out: Few people seem to notice that Biden is a natural politician who has been struggling in politics for more than forty years. He knows everything about what Americans want, and his desire for the presidency is far beyond everyone. He showed some Lincoln-like tragic power—perseverance and perseverance—and was also a necessary trait and motivation for any American president.
It is worth mentioning that from 1991 to 2008, Biden, who served as chairman of the Senate Judicial Committee and Foreign Affairs Committee, taught a Constitutional Law seminar at the Law School of Weeden University in Pennsylvania. It is very popular among students and is often hard to find. In order to live up to students' expectations, Biden, who is busy with official duties, sometimes flew back to Wilmington, Delaware to teach from a special plane overseas. Parker mocked financial tycoons and powerful politicians in "The Sinking Era". Biden's trivial matter is an exception, perhaps because it represents the traditional values that Americans have always upheld. At the moment when it is about to disintegrate, this extremely idealistic value is precious.
In an interview with Rachel Martin, a famous host of National Public Radio, Parker believes that in some ways, it is indeed cyclical. The earliest recession occurred shortly after the founding of the country, after the death of the first American founding Fathers, replaced by a smoky partisan dispute that seriously tore up American society. The outbreak of the civil war in the 1860s shows that there is a "innate deficiency" in the American democratic republic. The Great Depression in the 1920s declared that monopoly capitalism was a "stubborn disease" in American society, and the 2008 financial crisis further fulfilled this conclusion - of course, this does not mean that American society is hopeless. As Parker said at the end of the interview, "Even if the cohesive values of this society have been lost, it is not a dark ball - its brightness is that it still has vitality and beautiful dreams, just like the characters in "The Sinking Age" have suffered repeated setbacks but never given up. When I turned my eyes from celebrities to ordinary people around me, my heart was still full of hope." - Borrowing the famous quote of a great man: Ask the vast earth, who is the master of ups and downs? In this era of decline, let’s see if Biden, who is getting stronger and stronger, can deliver a satisfactory answer.
Editor in charge: Huang Xiaofeng
Proofreading: Zhang Yan
