“I Want my Country Back”
by Lowen Kruse
That is the plaintive cry.
Back from whom?
From the poor, who never had it?
From minorities, who did not own it but are changing our cultural values?
From corporations, who have bought and paid for congressional control?
Back from farmers, from politicians, from labor unions, from educators, from the military, from conservationists, from the oil companies … the special interests in which we all have a part? Back from our latest priorities?
Back from anyone who has proposed a revised national agenda?
Going back is a tricky thought. As a young pastor, I heard the pious cry, “Back to God!” An older pastor asked, “How did we get ahead of God?” Is somewhere in the past the Golden Age? Is God not in our future? Was “The Force” pure in the past? Clearly our Founding Fathers did not think they had the permanent formula. They were on a journey, had many questions, and were looking for serious-minded travelers to aid in the journey.
We are on their and our journey. Our country has always been developing new models of economics and accepting ancient cultures in new forms. Middle East and Arab states have been on the journey for centuries but their people now declare they must take steps to find the common good.
Politicians have it easy. They supposedly were elected to represent us, but in this century corporate wealth selects the words and images for public postures. No need for them to listen to us. Put simply, politicians are the taillight, not the headlight. A few put out a vision, but unless the public adopts it, the vision does not translate into political action. We, the public, are in a contest to influence political action.
However, the good news is the public declares the policy. We decide who should be protected by the government and we are very slow to change our collective mind. For example, Social Security will be there for future generations. Guaranteed. The public overwhelmingly wants it. Elected and corporate leaders can announce a vision, but unless the public adopts it, the vision does not translate into political action. We, the people, are in a contest to influence political action. We are on a journey.
It was different in earlier simpler times. Washinton – Lincoln – Teddy Roosevelt – had a vision that guided public thought and thereby became the future.
FDR was a doubtful visionary, though he was bold. Hoover quietly started the changes that Roosevelt implemented, for he realized that every citizen has to be a part of the action to have a true democracy. FDR helped to develop that consensus through creative and far-reaching ways. The new ways were so far ahead of us we are still not quite sure what Social Security means. It enabled senior citizens to become volunteers and participate more fully in the community. In wholly new ways. Frankly, Fireside Chats are now replaced by expensive intimate-sounding ads (as, from oil companies and drug manufacturers.) Political think tanks generate a lot of misleading info for those ads. Where are the truth squads?
Ike, Kennedy, Carter, Reagan, Clinton and Obama each called for change, but the call was the reflection of public sentiment. For Carter, the call to be moral on a global scale took the rest of his life. We have not bought in. For Reagan, the vision to be a leader in global economics found quicker assent because Ike and Kennedy laid the global foundation. He could posture as a conservative while taking the lead in tripling the deficit. However, he became a key in our journey because the public bought in.
We are not going to get our country back from the 1900s. Nor do we want to go there, in spite of the ‘free enterprise’ promotion by companies who lobby for a government big enough to protect them. We had that in 1890.
We are a work in progress. We will determine if our vote will outweigh the corporate vote. It can, if we think “journey.”
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