ku # 552 ~ remaking America
Wednesday, January 21, 2009 at 12:47PM 
Delicate ice @ -6˚F • click to embiggenI didn't have much to say yesterday regarding the historic (give the word a rest already) event taking place in Washington, DC. In fact, because I was sick to death of all the media hype leading up to the event, my only participation during the event was to listen to the new president's inaugural address on the radio.
IMO, the address is what I have come to expect from then-candidate, now-President Obama - long on rhetoric, short on specifics. To be fair, I really didn't expect him to deliver a policy-wonk address, but, if he is going to truly seize the moment for "change we can believe in", he's got to get down to brass tacks PDQ/ASAP.
IMO, a broad non-specific mandate "to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America" just isn't going to cut it. Now, don't misunderstand, I want for the new president to succeed in leading the "remaking" of America. But he's got to start giving us specifics about the lay of the land he wants to lead us into.
I, for one, am not at all interested in "remaking" America into a redux of the one that has landed us in the mess in which we currently find ourselves. That was an America in which it actually made sense after 9/11 for the then-president to exhort us to "go out and shop" as an antidote to what ailed us. Which, in fact, is exactly what so many "loyal" Americans did to wretched and irresponsible excess which, in turn, helped lead us into a promised land of near economic ruin.
To his credit and to my sense of hope, he did speak of the possibilities of "what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose and necessity". The emphasis is mine. I did so because of something I read (by Robert Hughes, from his book, Culture of Complaint: The Fraying of America) a number of years ago:
The fact remains that America is a collective act of the imagination whose making never ends, and once that sense of collectivity and mutual respect is broken, the possibilities of American-ness begin to unravel.
Essentially, Obama and Hughes are saying the same thing - imagination + commonality of purpose = common good.
imagination - IMO, and I am not alone, imagination has been sorely lacking in America, especially so in the last decade or so. To be more precise, what ever imagination existed, it was employed by the business class for sole purpose of expanding their wealth and well-being - imagining ways to accrue more and money money in whatever manner possible (as long as it did not require hard work) and f**k the common good. In addition to the many borderline-illegal financial schemes, some employed their imaginings to dreaming up a zillion meaningless/frivolous next-big-things with which to separate the suckers - AKA, the consumer class - from their money.
And, of course, let's not forget those legions of loyal American suckers without whom much of the covetousness inspired spend-and-get nonsense would not have been possible. Those near compulsive consumers whose imaginings were limited to how to acquire the next-big-frivolous-thing in whatever manner possible. Mortgage the house (and your future)? Sure, why not? You gotta love that funny money.
commonality of purpose - The "possibilities of American-ness began to unravel" decades ago when America's moronic grand dad stated that "government was the problem", which is essentially tantamount to proclaiming that "it's every man for himself". The public square in America was deemed to be a place fit only for free-for-all excesses. The idea of the "common good" came to mean something along the lines of, what's good for ME is the common good.
Witness the ridicule heaped upon Hillary Clinton and her mention of the notion that it take a village to raise a child. And, it's worth noting that most of that ridicule came from those swell beady-eyed-zealot folks who proclaimed that government - the BIG village - was the problem and that it takes an unregulated free-market - the free--for-all - to raise a child.
To me, remaking America involves getting our collective head out of the spent-and-get gutter and on to the business of defining what constitutes the common good. And then using our imaginations to do what's necessary to foster, reward, and protect that commonality. Otherwise, you might just want to use your imagination to picture what it will be like to stand in line for a ticket for the next merry-go-round ride to a redux of the bankrupt American "dream".
Reader Comments (2)
Mark,
I have to admit that your commentary is one one of the few wise ones I have seen in blogs since yesterday. Obama is not my President and USA is not my country so I am not entitled in commenting. But nevertheless I am a bit worried anytime a lot of people delegates its own future (and responsibilities) to somebody else no matter how good he/she could be.
"I didn't have much to say yesterday regarding the historic (give the word a rest already) event taking place in Washington, DC."
...as you follow that with 9+ paragraphs of much to say. haha.