After reading this, I must honestly say that I was truly amazed. I could not help but think that Macaulay was referring to present day events. I mean let’s face it, from an economic standpoint, I think it is safe to say that the general agreement is that the country is in economic turmoil. However, what is not agreed upon is how we got here or how we are going to get out. One thing is for sure, there are some who will say that we are sinking deeper and deeper into a recession; while others will say that economic recovery is indeed occurring, just not as fast as we desire.
“But how small will that distress appear when we think over the history of the last forty years; a war, compared with which all other wars sink into insignificance.” (p.492) Does Iraq and Afghanistan sound familiar to anyone? We spent several years fighting in both countries, but it was not until the incumbent President took office that the millions of dollars being spent for these wars were added to the books. Now I don’t know about anyone else, but to me this is like trying to balance my checkbook, only to realize that I forgot to put an ATM transaction in. Now, I have less money than I thought because the bank subtracted the ATM fees as well as the amount of the withdrawal. That can be very scary if I have pending transactions still out.
Something else that I am trying to better understand, is why in the world are so many middle class people, as we are often called, paying so much in income taxes? Now wait, I do not pay income taxes myself, but my parents do; and they sure as hell do not make $250,000 a year or more. This to, according to Macaulay, “taxation, such as the most heavily taxed people of former times could not have conceived,” (p.492), is another distress that we should pay close attention to. Again, I do not pay income taxes, but my parents do and for the life of me, I cannot figure out why people who do not make millions have to do so. Yet, when I watch the news, the few times that I do, I am constantly hearing people advocate to continue providing tax breaks for the wealthy.
Now I will not confess to be into politics, because I am not. But I can definitely grasp what the author is getting at. It is quite possible that if everyone would just be honest, and not only try to understand, but also accept the true reasons behind the economic chaos that we are in, solutions can be found. Then maybe, just maybe, we might come to realize that although things are not the way we feel they should be the situation could definitely be much worse than it is. From what I can see, there is plenty of blame to go around for everyone.
Reggie,
ReplyDeleteI agree that there are many parallels between Macauley's review and current economic and political issues. I don't think you were really successful here is analyzing Macauley, though. While you start with his text, and a quotation, from there you really don't make any other contact with the text. Although blogs are by their nature a less formal genre of writing, this is an English course and to give you English literature credit I need you to focus more on the literary text!