The Company Men

I just watched this simple, yet powerful movie that stars Tommy Lee Jones, Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper, and Maria Bello among others. In essence, it's a movie about corporate downsizing and the impact that mass firings have on the folks who are let go.

I won't spoil the movie, because I think everyone should see it. But I am going to describe one part of the film because of the powerful impact it had on me.

There is a scene where the characters played by Jones and Affleck are walking through an abandoned shipyard, following the suicide and subsequent funeral of Phil, one of their recently fired colleagues. Jones' character provides a narration:

"We used to build things, right here. In this spot there was a frigate. Back there, a guided missile cruiser. It was before we got lost in paperwork. Phil used to work right here. He was skinny as a rail and absolutely fearless. He would hang upside down in a boatswain's chair 70 feet above the factory floor welding seams. 2000 men worked 3 shifts a day. They could see the work the did in the ships they built, and they could provide for their families. Maybe put the kids through college or get a second car..."

I was profoundly affected by this scene. During the Second World War, America manufactured the tools to defeat fascism and nazism at a rate of 125% of its capacity. Now? Those days are gone. We don't build things in America anymore, because the markets don't like companies that have high labor costs. The market wants to see profits and profits are reduced when we ship labor overseas to places where folks will work for pennies on the dollar of what Americans work for.

And they are glad to do it, because there are no labor rights or regulations. The governments of those country rule with an iron fist and hat means cheap labor.

I'm no economist, so I don't know how to solve the problem, but I do know this: once upon a time, a product that said "Made in U.S.A." meant it was reliable and made with quality.

Kennedy Space Center

"For most of human history, a voyage to the moon was considered a journey of the addle brained or fool hardy. But then man went aloft on mechanical wings....."

The above quote is from the opening narration of episodes one and twelve of the excellent HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon. The 1998 epic recounted the first 15 years of The United States' manned spacecraft programs, with most of the focus on the awe inspiring moon landing.

As an aspiring pilot who was grounded because of a genetic defect that causes me to mix up colors (sort of like a color type of dyslexia), I have been interested in the space program and flying ever since I saw an F-4 streak over my Grandma's house in 1971. She lived on an approachway to a Naval Air Station in Massachusetts that doesn't exist anymore.

I was in Florida recently for a three week training assignment. While there, I went to the Kennedy Space Center and saw up close the things I only had seen on T.V. For most of my life, I must confess that I never understood how somebody could be moved to tears by a song or a piece of art. The former I attribute to being somewhat ignorant of classical music, and the latter I suspect is related to my aforementioned color perception problems.

But last weekend, I walked into the Kennedy Space Center for the first time. I turned left after clearing the Visitor's Center and walked into the Rocket Garden.

For the first time in my life, I was moved to tears. I am a 47 year old former marine. I don't think I'm very tough, but I've always been stoic and cool headed. Not a lot gets to me. In my line of work as a federal investigator, emotional detachment is your best friend. The colder you are, the more precise. But this.... It was unlike anything I've ever felt.

I won't attempt to describe it in words, except to say that it was the best tourist thing I've ever done. I took a tour of the facility called "Cape Canaveral Then and Now." It was a journey back in time through the early years when computers that filled rooms had less than 100KB of memory and most of the heavy calculations were done by geniuses with slide rules.

Where we go from here is entirely up to us. Someone once said that Americans have short attention spans. He cynically observed that if you give us a job, a color T.V., and an occasional space shot, we're content. Whoever said that must not be from here. As a historian, I submit that the so-called short attention was mis-perceived. I think that it is in fact restlessness and the desire to explore. It's something we need to renew as the world moves ever faster. Humans are inquisitive and have a need to discover the unknown. Rather than ignore that need because of economic concerns, we should not only embrace it, but placate it by continuing to reach out.