America is on the precipice of crisis, if not already in the early years of a national and international period of peril that may equal in magnitude but differ in character from the era of the American revolution, civil war and reconstruction, and depression and second world war.
The themes are different this time, but no less serious in consequence. Some of them are splashed across the pages of the major dailies, others still consigned to the independent media, and others ignored altogether. They include but may well not be limited to the continued threat of Islamist terrorism and the need for political and economic reform throughout the Arab-Muslim world, the coming threat of a global production peak in oil and the need for a post-oil infrastructure, the emerging threat of global warming and the need for a more sustainable economy, the increasing captivity of both major parties to corporate and other special interests and the need for sweeping political reform, the declining fortunes of the American middle class and the need for far reaching economic reform, our growing dependence on foreign lenders and the need for fiscal solvency, the coming explosion of retirees and the need for entitlement reform, the rapidly rising cost of health care and the need for a national health care system, the ongoing divide over culture issues and the role of the federal government and the need for devolving significantly more power on a range of issues to states and localities, the monumental cruelty and fiscal unsustainability of the American criminal justice and prison system in the early twenty-first century and the need for broad criminal justice reform, the geopolitical and fiscal unsustainability of the American empire and the need for a more genuinely multilateral global security order, and the failure of international political and economic institutions to reflect the will of the people and advance the interests of liberty and human rights around the world and the need for deep reform in these institutions.
More than one of these problems in and of themselves could be enough to paralyze the government and economic systems on which we depend, causing everything from temporary delays in the provision of services to civil unrest, sectarian violence, and a general breakdown of the social order. But it seems increasingly possible, if not likely, that we face the prospect of a perfect storm of converging crises, more than one of which may be global in scope. This is one of those periods in which everything may be at stake, even if few of our media and political elites have yet to publically connect the dots, let alone step forward with the kind of visionary program of reform at home and abroad, and exceptional leadership, this era will require.
The Republicans were granted a mandate after 9/11 by the American people to pursue a unifying, consensus program of change that would advance the interests of America domestically and internationally. Instead, Mr. Bush and his party chose to speak the language of crisis and reform while continuing to pander to the interests of the GOP's largest donors, most vocal conservative pressure groups, and most demanding right-wing intellectuals, rather than govern in the national interest. It has been a performance not quite worthy of Herbert Hoover, a kind of sick tragic farce for which we will all pay the price in years to come.
Democrats, sadly, remain too often mired in the rhetoric and perspective of the pre 9/11 era, focused on tactical and logistical opposition to Mr. Bush, incremental change, and falsely promising the American people a "return to normal" rather than a new new deal suitable to the dimensions of our times. With a few notable exceptions (Al Gore would seem to be one of them) the Washington Democrats are not quite even to the point where they recognize (out loud) the scale of problems we will likely face in the coming years, let alone offer a vision for remaking the domestic and international order in a new image of freedom, fairness, and compassion. It has been a truly sad spectacle for this Democrat to witness.
As the elites of both major parties continue to pander and flounder, the American people fret and seethe, worrying and stewing about everything from the possibility of a nuclear attack on a major US city to the solvency of their pensions, rising gas prices to the fact that despite their middle class incomes they and their children do not have health insurance, and angry that both parties seem intent on working against their interests (read: the bipartisan bankruptcy bill, the nearly unchallenged loss of overtime pay for white collar workers, etc), and continuing to harp on banalities (read: Terri Schiavo). Approval ratings for virtually all the institutions of government, from the White House to congress to the federal bureaucracy, as well as corporate America and other major institutions, are at lows not seen in decades, perhaps not since the great depression. And many Americans understand that circumstances are more likely to get worse, and perhaps much worse, before they improve.
As with previous periods of national crisis, the solutions must come from the broad center, but unlike the last great crisis (the depression and second world war) new deal "socialism" and the post WW II liberal internationalist order is not the answer, anymore than plutocracy, Christian fundamentalism, and neoconservatism are the answers. If one of the two major parties wishes to become the party of the next revival at least one of them must become the party of "radical centrist" reform both at home and abroad, and if neither of the two major parties is willing to carry that burden the American people must take it upon themselves, as they did in the 1770s (albeit, one hopes, without firing a shot this time, as we witnessed last year in Ukraine). In the coming years we must see broad based political, economic, constitutional, and geopolitical reform appropriate to the postmodern age, which recognizes the political realities of a fragmented, multicultural society, the fiscal realities imposed by an aging population, the economic realities of a global economy and the eroding primacy of nation states, and the near-universal aspirations for self-government and economic betterment.
On the domestic side, a radical centrist program of reform might include the resurrection of progressive taxation (either as a traditional income tax or a potentially more eco-friendly progressive consumption tax) with simultaneous cuts in federal bureaucracy, a Manhattan Project on energy independence mixing the research, development, and deployment of alternative power systems and biofuels with clean coal and nuclear power (funded perhaps by "energy independence bonds"), a second constitutional convention (for both practical and symbolic purposes) enshrining the right of privacy and making the document fully relevant to the postmodern era, universal health coverage that introduces genuine market forces to lower costs (and avoid rationing), curbs on the flow of illegal immigration into the country with an amnesty for non-criminal aliens already here, campaign finance reform requiring both corporations and public employee unions to receive shareholder and member permission before contributing to campaigns, criminal justice reform ending mandatory minimums, three strikes laws, and the federal death penalty while increasing penalties for political corruption, preserving entitlements while at the same raising the minimum age for receiving social security, repealing both the bankruptcy bill and new overtime rules while perhaps allowing states to experiment more with (progressively funded, tightly regulated) school vouchers as well as faith based funding, and the devolution of significant powers to states and localities (allowing the states once again to become laboratories for democracy, so that the "free staters" in New Hampshire can have their libertarian experiment, and hypothetical "green staters" in Vermont could have their green democratic experiment).
On the international side, a program of broad reaching reform would recognize that while neoconservatives have transformed Iraq into an anarchic and bloody catastrophe, the hunger for democratic reform in the Arab-Muslim world is widespread, and in the interest of American national security. A press for reform would be coupled with the gradual drawdown of the American military presence not only in Iraq, but throughout the Arab-Muslim world, with the ultimate goal of energy independence, a just and humane peace between Israel and Palestine, and ending Washington's imperial protection racket in the Mideast, North Africa and Central Asia. It would also recognize that both international political and economic institutions, from the United Nations to the WTO, are dysfunctional and not often serving to advance global democracy, the rule of law, and human rights, and fair and sustainable development. Reforms of all these institutions would be vital, and if nation-states will be required to forego more of their sovereignty in the coming decades to these institutions they must reflect the will of the people in member states. We must also recognize that America cannot have a thriving economy, a worldwide empire (with more than 700 bases, 24/7 patrols of the world's air and seas, and multiple occupations of foreign countries), as well as generous entitlements plus low middle class taxes in an era of an aging population, and that we must begin to spread the fiscal and human burden of providing global security at least among democracies, perhaps in the context of some new global organization. Finally, there must of course also be a global and enforceable protocol for global warming.
If history is any guide, this period could prove to be full of as much promise as peril. The American revolution, civil war, depression and world war II brought catastrophic suffering and the deaths of many millions, but they also brought American self-government, an end to slavery, social democracy, and an end to centuries of intra-European bloodletting. May our better angels prevail this time as well. May the next "post-revolutionary" era be a new "era of good feelings."
