Our country has been torn up since the civil war. We didn't get a Marshall Plan after the civil war and so hurt and guilt and PTSD and pride and fear ruled. States and counties and precincts and cities and suburbs all split and warred with each other. We had the KKK, the carpet baggers, the white flight, the urban decay and somewhere, somehow weird cults mixed in and formed an ideology.
Now we have a chance to heal. Now we have the balm of Obama coolness to heal that inflammation of fear and hate. McCain can't do it. Ron Paul can't do it. Bob Barr can't do it. And my first choice of Edwards couldn't have done it, nor could Hillary. Because none of them understood that it isn't about fighting so much as a gathering in.
Bill Clinton understood that is is not about our differences but about what we have in common that is important. But he forgot that in trying to help his wife run.
Finally, slowly, I am beginning to get it. We cannot fight with each other and win. If we struggle, if we lash back, our shackles just get tighter and tighter. Freedom is lost when all we care about is security. Our nation is lost when all we care about is "me". Polity is lost when we hate and fear. For too long, we have had a steady diet of fear and hate and selfishness. For those of us who have been paying attention, Obama has changed us. He has changed how we look at the world, how we look at each other, but most of all he has changed how we look at our responsibility to this nation. That's why McCain's talk about Obama's "socialism" now has a funny tinny sound. It now doesn't resonate, doesn't find room in our new understanding of how the world works. Of course, the economic crash has also changed how that works. In the economic crisis, we are now all socialists. We have taken over whole companies, both banks and insurance. What could possibly be more socialist than that? And, most of us realize, it was necessary, probably, to keep some economic structure going. We think it will help to some degree, but more is needed.
I know that we have a long long road before true healing occurs. One has only to look at some of the idiocy that we have devolved to - mud slinging, cult worshiping, cruel and inhumane treatment of others through torture and lack of care, and the hope of retaining innocence through ignorance. But healing quickly is not impossible. Check out the chart on oil prices:
Crude oil price hovers around $67!
Similarly, I think once we have wrung some of the juice of "capitalizing on deregulation and capitalizing on speculation" I think we might find a great deal of sanity coming back into our markets.
I think the economic crisis is a blessing. It allowed us as a country to quit thinking about security as just a military issue. It has highlighted the poor abilty of "fiscal conservatism" to do the job of dealing with the "free markets". Now I know that the crisis is causing pain, has caused pain and will cause pain. How much depends upon us. We can get out of this trough by stopping the digging. We can reregulate markets and understand that "free" doesn't mean totally untethered idiocy. We can build our way out of the depths AND rebuild infrastructure, improve education and heath care and care for our environment. (The latter is more worrisome - do we still have time?)
The blessing can extend in other ways as well, if we let it. What IS important to us? Do we insist upon everybody going it alone or do we care for children in poverty? NPR had a great program about how to prepare our children for success. It may be too late for the current adolescents, but surely we can work for the younger set. Giving their parents parenting tips. Giving them more opportunities to learn words, and giving them encouraging words from adults. Do we improve mental health facility access? Does everyone want to be rich? Do we all expect to be? What does that mean? Do the rich have responsibilities? DO CEOs have responsibilities. How do we intend to codify those? (I personally think a CEO SHOULD HAVE LIMITS on compensation. Just me, mind you. And I don't know how we would enforce such a limit should we think it necessary. Perhaps a referendum amongst the lowest paid employees rather than the well heeled BOD on CEO salaries?
But power will not give way to common good easily. Power will always seek to perpetuate itself. It is up to us to shore up those avenues that constrains power when power could wind up hurting our country. We need, for example, a non-partisan DoJ. We need Voting Rights and Civil Rights protected in that agency again and not have it used as a partisan witch hunt to perpetuate power. How to do that, I don't know. We have tried independent investigators and those, by and large, have been used by power for partisan purposes. There is a watchdog - an Inspector General - that is supposed to keep an eye out for wrong doing and the Bush administration subverted it to some extent. Impeachment would be the best way, in that it would show the world that we HOLD ACCOUNTABLE, those who would wield power in such a horrific way. But that is not going to happen. It remains to be seen what, if anything, an Obama DoJ will do about such misdeeds.
The first rattle out of the box should be the dismantling of Gitmo. That is a stain on our nation's soul. If Bushco goes quietly, I do not believe anyone holding power will see Gitmo as a must save. Bush could end it now but won't. Bush could resign now, or as soon after the election as possible, but won't. But rest assured, very few will want to "best" Bush's legacy. I think he will be in a class by himself for a few centuries. But more Roves will come into power and somehow we have to make inherent contempt a phrase that congress again pulls out of its arse and figures out a way to use. An Obama presidency will not require it, we devoutly hope, but future presnits should have some fear of oversight.
To summarize - we now have Bushvilles (tent cities) springing up, we have empty pantry shelves, we have 401ks having the value splash out of them like the iceberg struck them instead of the Titanic, we have emergency rooms overloaded, health care woes, Gitmo, and we are looking at the rethugs trying every trick in the book to steal this election. But I want you to know that all of this will be easy to fix IF WE HAVE THE WILL and IF WE HAVE THE GUTS to stand up to power.
h/t to Lolz Politicians