Considering resolutions this year points to the opportunity to address fundamental issues before us in our democracy. And they will require wisdom and perspective.
Decades ago a new generation asked us to consider again who we are. At the end of World War II we were the single major power standing. We educated our veterans and flourished economically. But inevitably, at least periodically, a people must consider who they are and where they are going. For us the time is here again as a new reform movement takes shape.
And we come to this time with a sad state of political affairs heavy with obstruction where statesmanship has descended to the level of the pathetic. Yet, as a Janus we are making strides in such things as bringing women to power, LBGT rights, environmentalism and raising the issue of institutionalized racist.
Lately we have seen tragedies in the deaths of young black men and police officers. Too often we are hearing cries which do not take account of the true nature of the issues. There is the matter of racial bias in police enforcement and the deaths of young men of color. Our understanding is strained. The man who murdered the two policemen in New York was fundamentally disturbed as was the man in Sydney, Australia who took hostages and did not represent Muslims. It is discriminatory to dismiss these aberrations as reflective of a body of people. In this country we need to face each issue for what it is. Demonstrations are called for and are part of a democratic institution. We need to retain respect for them.
Our problems are numerous. In the mental health field we endured devastation by insurance companies combined with slash and burn tactics in the name of “austerity”. The outcome has been distasteful incidents of violence – especially gun violence.
We face an infrastructure in trouble. We can only imagine how much faster our recovery from the Great Recession might have been if we had addressed the infrastructure problem. Instead we faced obstruction and “austerity” touted by people hostile to government.
In the XL pipeline we are seeing political grandstanding where the truth is the Gulf Coast refineries are filled with crude from fracking. We can’t use the Canadian crude and Europeans and Asians want it.
Even as women rise to power their reproductive rights are challenged.
Antidemocratic efforts at voter suppression by “conservatives” are widespread and in a democracy are intolerable.
We have to face the world as it is and deal with our failed policy toward Cuba and immigration issues which often reflect other of our failures. This is hardly a time for complacency. Nor is it a time to tolerate egotistical, manipulative politicians who are an aberrant minority in the government and who are hostile to government. They serve their own ends of ego, prejudice and racism.
There are important issues behind every one of the recent events making headlines. And they speak to opportunity to right wrongs and to deal with an emerging world. We have immense talent and resources at our disposal and they need to be joined with wisdom and perspective. Presently we are seeing the best and the worst of us played out. The best is seen in the opportunities presented by the reform movement which is forming.
Gren Whitman says
Excellent article; thanks!
Here are two other important issues, persistent, chronic problems that sorely need to be resolved:
(1) The “War on Drugs” beginning in the Richard Nixon/Nelson Rockefeller era all-too-quickly become a war by the police on poor and minority communities and resulted in several generations of users, abusers, and addicts, not to mention the mushrooming prison system where most inmates are locked up because of a drug-related offense and because they are poor. My recommendation: De-criminalize controlled drug substances.
(2) The ever-spiraling cost of higher education, that prevents many young people from attending college and hobbles many graduates with deep debt as they start their adult lives. I don’t have an overall suggestion to solve this, but the reintroduction of trade schools and apprenticeships, as well as more certification courses, would help.
And (3), on a much more local scale, I also respectfully recommend that fewer opinion pieces by Fletcher Hall in the C’town Spy — is none too optimistic? — would raise your publication’s intellectual and credibility levels enormously.
Marty Stetson says
Lots of problems in the essay but I did not see any solutions offered.
Gerald Maynes says
Yes the worlds trouble according to those on the left are interesting. The trouble with the races in America are mostly in the minds of folks like Al Sharpton, who makes a very good living throwing gasoline on every event possible. Female reproductive rights in trouble, since when? Abortion is still legal, birth control is inexpensive and can be purchased inexpensively at any supermarket, drugstore, Super Center in the world. Voter suppression? Or is it horrible to expect voters to have some form of ID to vote? Heck it was only two years ago, that a women from the western shore was running as a Democratic candidate for congress and was caught voting in Maryland and in Florida on the same day. Cuba , Our failed policies or is it the crooked Castro brothers who have stolen the wealth of the Cuban people who is entirely at blame for their peoples miserable lifestyles. Heck how many people jump into a raft every year to go to Cuba.
Perhaps the cures for these problems are simple common sense. Raise our children not to steal or grab a police officers gun good be a good start in one case. Have some compassion for the other guy more then likely would have prevented the problem on Staten Island ( of course following the law in the first place would have went a long way to). Finally, stop making a problem out of some thing that is not one in the first place . ( my mother used to call it stop making a mountain out of a mole hill)