Last year, Hedrick Smith wrote the final chapters of “Who Stole the American Dream? Can we get it back?” while living on Orcas Island. The year before, he was in Seattle conducting interviews, trying to understand what and who drove Washington Mutual into the largest bank failure in U.S. history.
“I was stunned to discover how much more I learned about what I thought I knew,” Smith said. “I have tried to share those discoveries in this book, explaining how much deeper I got into the true story by talking to people high and low all over the country, reading scores of books and reports and studies, doing investigative reporting of banks like Washington Mutual or how Walmart operates in China, and how Costco is able to pay much better salaries and health benefits to its employees than Walmart.”
The author will share information from his book and more at his lecture “The Dream At Risk,” Saturday, Sept. 22, 5 p.m. at Emmanuel Episcopal Parish Hall. Smith is a Pulitzer Prize winner, former reporter for The New York Times and PBS producer. The talk is part of the Crossroads Lecture Series, which brings speakers to Orcas Island to share their expertise.
The lecture will cover how America moved from an era of middle class prosperity and power, effective bipartisanship and grass roots activism to today’s polarized gridlock, unequal democracy and unequal economy that has unraveled the American Dream for millions of middle class families.
“Millions of Americans have lost out on the American dream of a good steady job, home of your own, health and retirement benefits and the expectation that your children will have a better life,” Smith said. “The news on home ownership and retirement is devastating. The unemployment figures are well known: 27 million Americans either without jobs or working temp jobs or part-time, wanting full-time work, or having dropped out of the job market because they see no hope. And polls show that most parents expect their children to be worse off than they are.”
Smith said he was fortunate to come out of college, graduate school and the U.S. Air Force in 1959, “when jobs were plentiful, a degree was a ticket to a good, steady job, when people’s living standards were rising, and employers paid good health and retirement benefits.”
What troubles him now is that millions of other Americans do not have the same opportunities of his generation.
“Largely through no fault of their own, but because our economic system, our business ethos, our values, our sense of fairness, and our political system have all changed so drastically since my early years in the work world,” Smith said.
Other fall lectures
Dr. Thomas McCormick’s lecture “Is Health Care a Right?” is on Sunday, Sept. 9, 2 p.m. at Orcas Center. The lecture explores the question of whether health care is a right or a privilege and explores philosophical concepts of “rights” and “duties” and ethical principles that create a “just society.”
Daniel Kammen’s lecture “Energizing the Low-Carbon Future” on Sunday, Oct. 7, 2 p.m., Orcas Center, will explore innovations in and barriers to building renewable energy systems worldwide, from villages to large regional economies, focusing on tools already available and others needed to battle for a sustainable planet.
On Sunday, Nov. 4, 2 p.m., Orcas Center, Claudia Kawas’ talk “Lessons from the Oldest Old: the 90+ Study” looks into these questions: What makes people live to age 90 and beyond? What types of food, activities or lifestyles are associated with living longer?
Tickets to the lectures are $10 at Darvill’s Bookstore or at the door. Tickets for all four lectures are $35. Visit www.orcascrossroads.org for more information.
