Well. I had hoped that I would be able to make more frequent posts than this. It is now July 20th as I write this and Barack Obama is now the presumptive nominee for President of the Democratic Party. I have to confess that I was overjoyed to see him win. I had initially supported someone else, John Edwards, but Obama gradually won me over. I voted for him in the primary and I believe that he is an extremely gifted political leader and potential President of the United States, although he is not perfect by any means. No mere human could be.
If any who is too upset by Obama’s flaws and imperfections carefully thinks about it she or he will realize that it is not so much Obama as the circumstances in which we find our society and our democracy that are far from perfect. It the belief systems that hold sway over millions that stand in need of improvement and in need of being brought closer to reality.
Some of the most important things that Obama has been emphasizing in his campaign have been things that we have needed to have our leaders remind us of for many years. He has reminded us that we are all Americans despite our many important differences and that we all still have much more in common than we have realized or thought about for many years. We can still hope to accomplish a great deal by working together and believing in our country and by having the courage to work hard for real change although it is bound to be imperfect by some criteria.
Obama at least had the good judgment to see the dangers of a war against Iraq before many other members of the Democratic Party did. And he has shown a great deal of knowledge of and understand our many serious problems including our environmental problems and our economic problems. And he has put forth policy proposals to deal with them that show great promise.
If Obama wins the Presidency, and his prospects for doing so seem excellent, we will all still have a great deal of work to do to make sure that real changes in government policy that will secure our country’s future actually take place. However, we will have a much more hope than if his main opponent somehow wins. This is not to say that John Mc Cain is a bad man. He means well. But we need to realize as Americans , that in politics, having good intentions will just not cut it.
Just imagine what the future of our country will be like if McCain wins rather than Obama. Our troops may continue to be in Iraq for many more years. Many more of our soldiers will be killed. And when will there ever be and end to our military involvement there? By what rational criteria will McCain ever be willing to withdraw them other than the vague premise that chaos will ensue if our troops are not there in perpetuity to maintain a mere semblance of order. ?
And what will happen to our economy without leadership operating from a fundamentally different perspective than what we have had for the last eight years ? How high will the price of gas and other fossil fuel based energy go? And what will we do if we do not have vigorous leadership helping us develop renewable sources of energy like solar and wind just as fast as we can possibly go?
What will happen if Obama by some terrible tragedy does not win is almost too terrible to contemplate.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Our common frontier
When I was thinking about starting this blog, I was thinking of calling it "Our crisis of survival" but I changed my mind. What I want to do in this blog is stand back from the general flow of the march of our society towards whatever we are headed for depending on the choices we make as a society and try to figure out, and suggest to others, what kinds of questions we should be asking ourselves that will help determine where we end up further down the road of whatever history still lies before us.
I should say a little about myself, so readers will have some idea of the kind of places in the mind and heart from which I have come although I hope to say things here and suggest things that you will not find anywhere else, or at least not on most other blogs. I am a member of the Democratic Party, and I consider myself a liberal, a liberal on economic issues and a liberal on social issues. I have been a political and environmental activist much of my life.
I decided to call this blog:
"All our tomorrows"
because I see all of our tomorrows as Americans as linked together in many different ways. Who we choose as our next President will help determine what kind of an individual future each and every one of us has as well as our common future that we will all share. And within the Democratic Party, who we choose as our nominee for President will also help determine our common and individual futures.
I also believe that all of our tomorrows for all of us humans walking around on the planet are also linked together, regardless of the nation-state in which we were born. We are all citizens of the world we all share in common, whether or not we are aware of it or not, or think about it much, or not.
The future for all of us humans is our common frontier. By speaking and thinking of it as a frontier, I mean that there is a kind of boundary, or edge between us and our future that recedes as we move towards it. And as we peer into that future, what we find is mostly a kind of inky blackness. The legacy of ideas, beliefs, and institutions we have all inherited from the past casts some light into that blackness, but not much, not nearly as much as we need.
One of the things I hope to do on this blog is explore some of the many meanings of specifically American individuality and American citizenship as it relates to our common future as Americans and our common future as citizens of the world.
We are now engaged in the contests for the nominations for President of the two major political parties, the Democratic and the Republican, and we are probably very close to determining who those people will be. On what basis should we be choosing who those nominees should be? This will be a subject for another entry. I may not be able to make daily entries, at first, but I will try to make them as frequently as possible. I hope whoever reads these words finds the promise of a fresh perspective.
Earth citizen
I should say a little about myself, so readers will have some idea of the kind of places in the mind and heart from which I have come although I hope to say things here and suggest things that you will not find anywhere else, or at least not on most other blogs. I am a member of the Democratic Party, and I consider myself a liberal, a liberal on economic issues and a liberal on social issues. I have been a political and environmental activist much of my life.
I decided to call this blog:
"All our tomorrows"
because I see all of our tomorrows as Americans as linked together in many different ways. Who we choose as our next President will help determine what kind of an individual future each and every one of us has as well as our common future that we will all share. And within the Democratic Party, who we choose as our nominee for President will also help determine our common and individual futures.
I also believe that all of our tomorrows for all of us humans walking around on the planet are also linked together, regardless of the nation-state in which we were born. We are all citizens of the world we all share in common, whether or not we are aware of it or not, or think about it much, or not.
The future for all of us humans is our common frontier. By speaking and thinking of it as a frontier, I mean that there is a kind of boundary, or edge between us and our future that recedes as we move towards it. And as we peer into that future, what we find is mostly a kind of inky blackness. The legacy of ideas, beliefs, and institutions we have all inherited from the past casts some light into that blackness, but not much, not nearly as much as we need.
One of the things I hope to do on this blog is explore some of the many meanings of specifically American individuality and American citizenship as it relates to our common future as Americans and our common future as citizens of the world.
We are now engaged in the contests for the nominations for President of the two major political parties, the Democratic and the Republican, and we are probably very close to determining who those people will be. On what basis should we be choosing who those nominees should be? This will be a subject for another entry. I may not be able to make daily entries, at first, but I will try to make them as frequently as possible. I hope whoever reads these words finds the promise of a fresh perspective.
Earth citizen
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