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Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Deep Thoughts on the Democratic Win in the US
A variety of issues are facing us ("the West," "North America," "Anglosphere" -- take your pick). Some are personal issues for individuals, like gay marriage. (If gays were being rounded up and put into concentration camps en masse, we would have a societal issue. If Adam and Steve must make do with a "commitment ceremony" and living wills, instead of an official government-sanctioned marriage, this really is not a life-changing problem for the rest of us.) Of course, we should not ignore personal issues. And when you are on a holiday from history, personal issues are all you really have to worry about.
But there are also societal issues that need confronting. History is back with a vengeance. The conservatives in the US seem to recognize that something is afoot. They have not dealt with this "something" very well, or at all, but "knowing is half the battle." You can discuss the best tactics to approach the war we are in, and disagree about them. I have no clue about how wars are fought -- the ones I know best were won by the countries most willing to kill their own citizens. This is not what I want for my country. Pretending that there isn't a war does no one any good. We need a societal change that accepts that the war is on, and goes on from there.
History shows me three ways of creating huge societal change:I do not want to see Thing One or Thing Two happening in my city. And I am afraid to trust Thing Three, party because I do not know if we have centuries. What I want is Thing Four, where a society agrees that there is a problem and moves to deal with it -- at a reasonable pace, with minimal disruptions to their way of life, and without blood running in the streets. I am afraid that the people will ignore the issues until it is too late -- not too late to deal with them, but too late to deal with them without resorting to something drastic.
- A more-or-less benevolent dictator makes things happen or kills you trying.
- A people riots wildly in the street.
- Very slow minute changes that take centuries to come to fruition.
If you elect Democrats because you think they have a better way to deal with the huge radical issues of the day, more power to you. Maybe they do -- it would be hard to do much worse than the Republicans. But if you elect Democrats because you think they will make the big bad things to go away, or because there are no big bad things... Then I am afraid for us ("the West," "North America," "Anglosphere" -- take your pick).
posted 11:15 AM
