Yes, the country, indeed the world, is in deep trouble. When venerable names on Wall Street like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley crumble, it affects everyone. A global meltdown of about $100 trillion (I can type the words, but have no feeling for their meaning) is in progress. These are the Bush years. We are now witnessing the Bush rapture - a total world meltdown which McCain/Palin hide from under their race-baiting bigotry. For them, lynchings and forced conversions are not too far off. But this shall pass. Life will not be the same after 2008.
We rational people await the arrival of our candidate, Barack Obama, and a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress. But what we need to digest is also:
- All homes will be "underwater". All equity you think you have in your home has been wiped out. You choose whether you stay and suffer or walk and be bankrupt.
- All the little perks of life: that ice cream, that beer, are gone. Yes, most of our jobs will still be there. But not that discretionary income.
- All those plans for the future: that retirement, that second home are gone. We will be working for lower wages into our seventies.
- All those dreams we had for our children are gone. College will be unaffordable. Jobs will be scarce. Palin prejudice will rule the land.
- All our expectations of a peaceful society are gone. Anger and violence will surface in the corners of our cities. The McCain/Palin rallies are but a hint of the dark demons that are being unleashed across the land.
But this too shall pass. With the right vision and leadership, we can unwind the Bush excesses one by painful one. From the DOJ to the SEC to Iraq and Afghanistan, rational policies can drive long-term solutions. The deficits of the past can be resolved, wrenchingly, through great societal pain.
We are lucky that a leader has emerged in Obama. A leader who has the vision to lead us forward rather than backwards, a leader who can study the Depression-era years so we don't have to relive them, a leader who can lead America to lead the world into the future.
Now I say this without having been an Obama fan during the early primaries. But now I know better. I know both McCain and Obama better. And the more I learned about them, the more repulsed I was with McCain and the more attracted I was to Obama. And now the nation, the world, cry for vision and leadership. Yes, we are ready for the tough times ahead. But we need bold thinking and bold leadership. Obama is our only hope.
What say you?