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 Within these pages, I am trying to sketch out, in admittedly broad strokes, a picture of a positive American future. This is a vision that, if forced upon the politicians, will allow America to make progress on her finances and her honor, both of which have been damaged severely at the beginning of this new century. The following progressive ideas are deeply interconnected and can, if executed in concert, truly bring about the American Renaissance that we all crave. This agenda is based upon common sense, not any true genius or inspiration. Included in the common sense I"ll admit to a healthy dose of tolerance. Politics and the media in America have polarized society so much that common sense no longer seems to exist. The partisan ideologies pushing common sense to the fringe are driven by moneyed power"s desire to protect its elite status and lifestyle.
Freedom and liberty cannot exist in a climate of excessive government and corporate power. We are on the road toward an authoritarian capitalism that minimizes individual liberty. Progressives must seek to promote the freedom that was the original vision of our Founding Fathers. There are a number of obstacles to accomplishing this return to greatness. Without digging our way out of debt, we cannot make the investments in our infrastructure and our people that are essential for restoring our greatness as a nation. Moneyed power has achieved levels of wealth sufficient to build and maintain a private infrastructure, which stifles public infrastructure improvement. Also, the future cannot be bright when we are beholden to so many for our energy needs.
A clear and objective view of the American economy will be required for success. The economic power of the military- industrial complex (and now the terror-industrial complex as well) is based upon conflict. With so much American economic activity related to the defense industry, it destroys our credibility as a peace-loving people, and it sows the seeds of endless conflict and war across the planet...not to mention bankrupting our nation. This agenda attempts to create a synergy of solutions to bring about progress on all the aforementioned fronts. Politicians have stoked the fires of discord along the left/right axis. The angry, name-calling politics that dominate the airwaves are very destructive to the country. The partisan wars prevent even the discussion of controversial ideas, let alone any real action. The two parties have divided the great issues of the day, without necessarily any rational reasons, other than the other people are on one side. This knee jerk reaction for conservatives to oppose whatever liberals support, and vice versa, leads to little reasoned debate.
Once there were 'liberal' Republicans, but those handful that still exist are now known as RINOs, 'Republicans in Name Only' by their own party. The two parties have become exclusionary, costing us the special synergy between liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats that once brought about dynamic thinking in our politics. This push and pull tension in four directions instead of two has been lost. The progressive agenda in the following pages could be seen as a libertarian- socialist vision of American politics that seeks to reignite our natural synergies by creating the multi-polar political tension that once made American politics great. To some a libertarian- socialist is a contradiction, a fiction, but I submit that there is an overlapping agenda between all ideologies, if we act as Americans first rather than as ideologues.
The caricature of Uncle Sam on the cover shows how the left/right war cripples us. Uncle Sam has eye patches on both eyes. The one on his right eye is Liberalism, which means this ideology blinds Sam to ideas from the right. The eye patch on his left eye is Conservatism, meaning this ideology refuses to see ideas from the left. Democrats and Republicans are beholden to the polarization of left vs. right and conservative vs. liberal. Each side has so demonized the other that any issue one side picks up, the other must be immediately against. Unfortunately, this leaves poor, old Uncle Sam blind. Americans must throw off the blinders of these isms and look objectively for solutions to our society's ills.
We have no shortage of ills! Oh, yes, we have many, many problems today, which presumably the readers are aware of and care about or else they would not have opened this book. Partisan warfare has become so heated that tension between left and right prevent us from finding the solutions that are actually there under our noses.
A bipolar political system under stress can settle into a back and forth swing that never actually makes progress but falls into an illusion of change through ever more drastic swings of the political opinion pendulum. Dramatic swings of political opinion can be revelatory in a multi-polar political universe. However, in the bipolar universe we are just going back and forth from the left to the right and back again, which goes nowhere. Society can have a very short memory. First liberal ideas are all the rage and then conservative, but in the beginning of our republic, there was a clear belief in liberty as the guiding ideology.
That belief in freedom brought us together as one nation and one people and dampened the swing of the pendulum, because freedom cannot help but create a multi-polar, diverse political climate. The Founding Fathers provided us a framework from which to progress, adapt, and evolve over the years, not burdened by divisive, preconceived notions of ideology. Then, the guiding vision was that the individual"s freedom and liberty comes before the needs of the State. The focus truly was on the individual and their freedom and not what was best for the State, for business, or the oft cited by anti-constitutionalists, public safety.
No doubt, things have changed a lot since the 18th century, but they have not changed as much as the politicians and ideologues would have us believe. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are still our best weapons. Like the wielding of any weapon though, it requires courage. It requires the courage to embrace and demand the rights that individuals are guaranteed by our Constitution. Unfortunately, individuals have been tempted to turn over too much of their freedoms to authorities under the influence of the siren song of safety. The Bill of Rights empowers the individual citizen to effect change, but citizens must act and be engaged. Freedom and individual rights are the real defense against those that would loot our nation"s treasury and run our country into a ditch.
An interesting thing about history is how often the same pressing problems seem to recur as a particular nation or society matures, grows, and eventually, passes into oblivion. Each ideology or ism of its day attacks these recurring problems: substance abuse, feeding the poor, ensuring civil rights, educating our children, etc-with a very narrow mindset. History has also shown that as the pendulum swings back and forth over time, the swings become ever more violent in each direction. Eventually, the society tears itself apart. The great American social experiment can evolve beyond this rollercoaster ride to civil strife.
Remember, moneyed power and their agents are terrified of the power of the people. The colossal partisan divide and the rabid rhetoric from the right and left are bought and paid for by moneyed power. They will fill the airwaves with more and more docu-dramas of fear to divide us. Through all the wrath and hateful speech, the money moves the wheels of the state behind the scenes. The laws created strip the individual of his rights and ability to prevent moneyed power from getting the legislation they have paid for.
That is what politics in America is really all about today: money and power. When the power of the individual is constrained, the power of money and the state become unrestrained. Unholy alliances between billion dollar corporations and millionaire government officials become ever more self-serving. Political rhetoric is used to fire the partisan furnaces any time the regular guy might actually get some real legislative support.
The healthcare legislation, known as ObamaCare, is a perfect example of partisanship being used as obstruction. Rallies and slogans to defeat the legislation were truly divorced from the realities of the bill, because in partisanship only passion matters, not reason. Privately funded 'grassroots' rallies, where misguided Americans shout slogans against socialism and declaring any government healthcare insurance will be incompetent, while at the same time protesting potential cuts to their Medicare and Social Security Benefits, make no sense. To citizens of developed nations on the outside, looking in, the passionate slogans shouted by American citizens about the 'Coming Socialist Horror', defy common sense. It is clear to the citizens of most developed nations that there should be a social safety net that governments provide for their citizens.
When common sense is on the fringe, we are in real trouble. The next chapter is meant to establish just how far common sense has been pushed from the middle ground. On September 11, 2001, supposedly, the world changed forever. Perhaps, it did change, but I am unable to understand the complete transformation of our national zeitgeist. American reaction to that event boggled me. We seemed consumed by hate, paranoia, and hell bent for revenge. We let our emotions divorce reason from our national thought processes.
My reactions were on the fringe. How I reacted and how I felt about the attacks on the World Trade Center were considered naive and foolish by friends and colleagues. I was vilified. I held my head in my hands many a day and wondered when the lunacy and fear mongering would end. I often despaired that the WTC attacks would lead to war that would never end.
Today, I feel a new wave in society. We are beginning to see the mess we are in. There is a willingness to embrace some new ideas in the air. The ideas in this book will first start with empowering individual Americans in their own lives, and most importantly, in their political lives. Moneyed power is not going to give up its money or its power voluntarily, and currently, our laws and legislation are very protective of that power and money.
Empowering individuals can lead to dangerous mob rule without a clear unifying vision of what the society of individuals is hoping to achieve, so this book attempts to survey the undiscovered country of common interests. Staking out today"s unknown middle ground will require some compromises by all sides. A new day dawns in the American body politic where tolerance and an eye toward practical solutions for our children"s futures will rule the day.
Either we have the courage to be free, or we will not be free. It is so very simple. On 09/11/2001, we proved to the whole world that Americans did have the courage to be free, and then, each day afterward, we seemed to run from that courageous truth that caused the whole world to rally to our side. The moneyed and powerful were terrified by what happened on 9/11, because it stripped away all the theater of the military-industrial complex and showed that only freedom and individual liberty could effectively combat our enemies.
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