2013 was a difficult year for anyone who tries to remain an
optimist. Here at home, gun violence continued unabated, environmental
degradation remained unaddressed, and the social safety net, with the
acquiescence of millions of poorly educated, "low information"
non-participants in the political process contracted further.
Meanwhile,as social mobility has declined, the gap between the1% of
those who own more than 40% of the nation's wealth - or $54 trillion -
and the bottom 80 % - who own a meager 7 percent of the wealth - has
grown even wider. As reported by Forbes Magazine in October of
2013, the wealthiest 400 Americans have now amassed a combined wealth
that equals that of the nation's poorest - more than 150 million people -
or slightly less than half of the population of the United States.
As this country struggles with basic issues of social justice, our
political system is dominated on the right by rigid ideologues who are
unwilling to permit their essentially theological convictions to be
tested by empirical evidence. What passes on the left of the spectrum
for political discourse - with a handful of notable exceptions such as
U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and mayor-elect Bill
deBlasio in New York - is largely monopolized by craven, calculating
politicians who are concerned lest they ruffle the feathers of the
wealthy contributors who profit from the status quo.
Sadly,
Bill Clinton's "third way" has now redefined, much more narrowly, the
limits of what is possible in American politics. It has become a
pathetic rationalization for incrementalism and inaction by those who
claim to be progressives, and it has enabled those who claim to be
conservatives to define the very outer limits of an acceptable political
agenda by those on the left. In fact, it was in large part because of
Clinton's pandering that President Obama and his Democratic colleagues
in the Congress were too apprehensive to entertain a single-payer heath
care system, let alone a single provider system such as exists in the
U.K. and in Spain.
In place of a bold, progressive vision for
the future that would address this country's unmet needs, we are
saddled with political minimalists who insist that we cannot and should
not do better. There are even some Lilliputians, such as Senator Rand
Paul, who complain that we have already done too much and created a
sub-culture of those who are, unlike himself, are addicted to far too
generous government benefits.
In his Second Inaugural
address, Franklin Roosevelt sought to inspire a beleaguered people who
had been beaten down by the Great Depression: "I see millions of
families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family
disaster hangs over them day by day.
"I see millions
whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled
indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago.
"I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children.
"I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and
factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many
other millions. I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad,
ill-nourished.
"But it is not in despair that I paint you
that picture. I paint it for you in hope--because the nation, seeing and
understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are
determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country's
interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding
group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not
whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is
whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
"If I
know aught of the spirit and purpose of our Nation, we will not listen
to comfort, opportunism, and timidity. We will carry on."
By
dint of his personality and his forceful advocacy, President Roosevelt
was able to rally a skeptical and weary population to support his New
Deal. In stark contrast, the vacuum of leadership today and the
corruption our political and economic systems by wealthy special
interests have contributed to a political culture that is now dominated
by fear, resignation, apathy, suspicion and self-dealing. The
pervasiveness of these attitudes is antithetical to a vibrant,
functioning democracy.
Those who insecure are too often
unwilling to speak out - or to stand-up and be counted - lest they
become victims of reprisals, real or imagined. In a culture is which the
present is venerated, history is too often the first casualty. The
courageous examples of the slave rebellions before the Civil War or of
the UAW sit-down strikes in Flint, Michigan during throes of the Great
Depression have been conveniently erased from the memories of all but a
few Americans.
But that timidity has its consequences. The
Colombian novelist and Noble Prize winner, Gabriel García Márquez,
reminds us, "It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because
they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams."
Michael Harrington, at the conclusion of his book, Socialism,
describes the potential harm done by those who are unable to divest
themselves of shop-worn orthodoxies that can no longer explain or
address current human needs. He cautioned that "mankind has now lived
for several millennia in the desert. Our minds and emotions are
conditioned by that bitter experience; we do not dare to think that
things could be otherwise....There are some who are loathe to leave
behind the consolation of familiar brutalities; there are others who in
one way on another would impose the law of the desert upon the Promised
Land...."
As we confront the challenges of the new year,
Harrington's words stand as a challenge to all of those who seek to
defend that which has become increasingly indefensible.
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