Back to Our Future

Have we lost the capacity to dream and the ability to distinguish between matters of substance and what Jon Stewart refers to as “our obsession with the trivial?” Have our leaders let us down or have we failed to demand enough of them and provide vigorous support for them? Between the vitriolic outbursts of teabaggers and the political realities of trying to accomplish something in an excessively partisan environment a wall of resistance has grown up that has slowed movement to a crawl. For some that is the goal, for others it is the ultimate defeat.

On a recent Bill Moyers Journal scenes from actress Anna Deavere Smith’s one-woman show “Let Me Down Easy” dramatized events in the lives of people she had met and interviewed across the nation. There was a particularly compelling vignette of the way things are for people who lack power and means. At a medical facility in New Orleans following the collapse of facilities in the wake of Katrina, a health-care professional is stunned by the forbearance of patients who lack electricity and most other amenities. What surprised her most was that they accepted as a matter of course the slow response to their needs because they understood that wealthier, more important people would naturally receive attention before they did.

A lot of us, however, keep hoping President Obama will overcome the current inertia that has overtaken the country and reinvigorate the vision he articulated during his campaign to serve all the people. Taking on entrenched interests isn’t an easy assignment, but we were moved to believe he was equal to that task. The majority of his party and many others support aggressive health-reform legislation for example, but in addition to the usual impediments that stand in the way of anything resembling substantive change, pressure from the White House has been wanting and the bills now circulating in Congress fail to address many major health-care issues.

But even as concerns about health reform and joblessness fester, masters of the inane blister the air about the president’s bow to the Japanese Emperor on his trip abroad stating, inaccurately, that it was the first time such a gesture by an American president had ever occurred. And Sarah Palin is everywhere publicizing her book and trying to build her political bona fides, oblivious to the reality she proves with every appearance that she is profoundly unqualified for higher office. Firmly in her camp a drool train of loyal male apologists add another dimension to her odd persona.

Matthew Continetti of The Weekly Standard has written an entire book, The Persecution of Sarah Palin, excoriating her detractors. He claims, for one thing, that she held her own in the debate with Joe Biden. Perhaps refusing to answer moderator Ifill’s question and “speak directly to the American people” seemed appropriate to some, but it defied accepted standards, ignored an established format and disrespected the political process in which she had agreed to participate. Continetti did say her accent is sort of a problem but at the same time suggested that part of her appeal is the fact that for a great many people ‘she talks the way they do and thinks like them,’ a rather alarming assertion considering how uninformed and under-educated much of the electorate is.

We are still a relatively young nation but have become so jaded many of us would surrender our hopes and dreams to narrow-minded ideologues committed to a status quo they claim is our birthright. They preach the advantages of smaller government at a time when achieving a revitalized economic future may depend on a government prepared to undertake bold new initiatives. In his column, The NY Times, 11/17/09, Bob Herbert asks us to “Imagine…an America with rebuilt, healthy dynamic metropolitan areas…gleaming new port facilities…networks of high-speed rail…electric vehicles…a smart grid and energy generated by the…sun and wind and water and the ocean’s waves. Imagine if the children of today’s toddlers had access to world-class public schools all across the nation and a higher education system that is both first-rate and affordable.” Just imagine.

These were some of the imaginings Barack Obama entertained in his run for office. A recession got in the way, but targeted programs could do double duty by creating jobs to rebuild our infrastructure and provide for a more productive, self-sustaining economy - - time for a man, inspired by the ‘dreams of my father’ to move decisively towards fulfilling his own and the American dream and time for supporters to stand with him.