Trending south, my steps quicken as I walk faster
Tiredly dragging my battered feet through the mud
Making my way, fleeing a horrific disaster
Grant's hordes' screeching still ringing like anvils of God.
Thus begins a haunting poem by John Reuben Thompson, a Confederate poet and an assistant secretary of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the beginning of the Civil War. There is no particular reason that I've thought of him, because I was actually thinking about the lack of heroes in our country. It does make one long for the times long past. Not that I care about the Confederacy of course, nor am I from the South, but in a fairly disjointed way I started thinking of the state of affairs in US.
We had real heroes in the past. Lincoln, FDR, JFK, even Truman were all people who could lead and make tough decisions that would change the course of history. The way they grappled with the issues was extremely different from the way things are accomplished now. Now we have polls and focus groups on every subject available and politicians are considered foolish if they do not pay attention to those metrics or if they do not propose agenda considered acceptable by large numbers of citizens. The parties are stuck in a fairly narrow band of acceptable agenda with a very tiny degree of variation allowed.
Consider Barack Obama - the so called agent of change that many people here orgasm about. What exactly can he do and what exactly will he do? Back in the day, leaders could start whole new national programs, drop nuclear bombs, win civil wars, stand face to face with commie dictators and not blink, etc. Now we consider it heroic if he might propose a bill with a voluntary Universal Healthcare that will face tough waters in Congress or if he starts withdrawing US Troops from their malaise in Iraq, a thousand at a time, so as to not jeopardize their safety (as if 50,000 US troops sitting on their bases would not be able to fight off a couple dozen suicide bombers because too many troops were pulled out at once). We've removed the component of heroism, of being a true leader from the list of requirements but not just that: we also simply do not have any heroes qualified to run for President as only conventional dolts are entering politics these days, vetted by calculating pragmatic parties.
So Obama jumped on a few bills and now can say that he accomplished some things in the Senate... So he voted on a bunch of stuff in Illinois. So what? I am not even going to bring up Hillary - for she is the ultimate anti-hero. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Just shows the caliber of leadership we currently deserve. Along with the maverick McCain who probably had not had an original thought in his whole life. Is this something to get excited about?
I am left bored and not amused by what we settle for these days. Of course I'll vote to do my civic duty. And I voted in the primaries. But when are we going to finally get John Galt to lead us to the promised land? Or FDR at least? There is plenty of exciting ways we can reinvigorate our political process. I doubt the presumptive winner Obama will do that.
It's fun to be here though and a shout out to my friends DemocraticLuntz, Elise, and a few others.