For a moment, before launching into some of her stock talking point attacks on Obama, Hillary showed a side that we have not seen and it seems to have helped her win a narrow victory in New Hampshire. After 35 years of public life, she said in she's just now "found [her] own voice." She also claimed that in the closing days of the New Hampshire primary she finally started taking the "tough questions" of younger voters. In that spirit, here is my tough question for Senator Clinton.
Which of my hopes are "false"?
When my friends and I talk about politics it is often in desperate terms. Our social contract is being torn to shreds. Our climate is changing. Our international standing is severely damaged. Our politicians use fear to win elections. And we don't see how our broken politics can solve these problems.
The reason that Obama has inspired so much support among young people is because we desire a game-changer. "Working hard" and "fighting" aren't going to be enough if the game is still played by the old insider Washington rules. We're clear-eyed enough to know that the odds are long, but we're also clear-eyed enough to know that we have to beat long odds if we are to have the change that is necessary. Here are four of my hopes: (1) that we can restore the social contract in America that says if you work hard you can afford health care, education, and live in a clean safe neighborhood; (2) that we can move from denial of to brave confrontation of global warming and that we can stop changing the climate; (3) that we can repair the damage done to our national standing by George W Bush and those that supported his policies; (4) that we can achieve the changes in the "public sphere" that it will take to achieve these first three goals.
My question for Hillary is this: Which of my hopes are false?
With health and education costs increasing faster and faster the American dream has taken a hit in recent years. People are losing their homes due to foreclosure. But the American economy still generates great wealth. The problem is that wealth is more and more concentrated in the hands of only a few. Is it a false hope to believe that we can restore the social contract in America and make work pay again?
Also increasing: global mean surface temperature. Climate change is scary enough, but our ecological problems go further and deeper than just CO2 pollution. My friends and I anxiously talk about how to survive an ecological collapse. Some of them think I'm crazy to hope that Americans can make fundamental changes to the way they live and stop changing the climate. Is it a false hope to believe that we can?
America has never been viewed so dimly by so many. The invasion and occupation of Iraq has been a disaster. George W Bush is primarily to blame, but many Democratic Senators not only voted for authorization but also voted against the 2002 Levin Amendment to force Bush to engage in further diplomacy. They must have thought it was "naive" to want more diplomacy. My hope is that we can restore our image in the world with a president that is not afraid of direct engagement. Is it a false hope to believe that we can?
I know that achieving the goals of restoring our social contract, stopping climate change, and rebuilding our reputation will not be easy to achieve. The main obstacle is our broken politics. I'm not under some kind of "post-partisan" delusion, but I do believe that it is possible to restore respect for reason in our discourse. I think that it is possible to have an engaged citizenry. In his book "The Assault on Reason" Al Gore described the situation:
American democracy is now in danger—not from any one set of ideas, but from unprecedented changes in the environment within which ideas either live and spread, or wither and die. I do not mean the physical environment; I mean what is called the public sphere, or the marketplace of ideas.
http://www.time.com/...
The odds were long against the revolutionaries that defied an empire to found our nation. The odds were long against those that strove to make real the founding vision of equality and end slavery. The odds were long against those that fought for women's suffrage, for labor rights, and for civil rights. I'm not naive and I know that the odds are long now. I believe that our best hope is to change the game. Is it a false hope to believe we can?