It was a little before seven o’clock last Sunday night as I made the left turn from my gateway and began the three block walk to my favorite local watering hole for libation, good food and conversation when there came to me the familiar sound of a child’s crying.
The tone of the cry was both sad and angry -- and as I passed by, I said aloud, “What an unhappy little guy.”
“Oh, he gets that way sometimes,” his mommy responded to me as she settled the little fellow into his car seat.
I continued on my way, but the boy, perhaps motivated by his mommy’s words and my own, pressed on and his cry took on words:
“I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to go to bed!” This expression was immediately followed by more intense sobs. Hence, my mind shifted from the White Sox Tigers game which was playing on my pocket radio to more serious musings. I was sure that this little guy probably needed to go home and to bed whether he realized it or not. I’m sure that as unhappy as he was with mommy—and perhaps even daddy—he was absolutely aware of his love for and his dependence on them. Nevertheless, his anger was genuine born no doubt out of a sense of helplessness. As much as he wanted to stay and play, it was sadly and irrevocably out of his hands. He was going home and to bed.
A child is a mere microcosm of an adult and one adult is a mere microcosm of a nation of adults. Adults -- as well as children -- like to have their way. Adults also expect to have their way, especially angry and disillusioned adult “taxpayers”.
Some months ago, I expressed my enthusiastic endorsement of the candidacy of Barack Obama for the presidency and that endorsement remains both intense and enthusiastic. However, the basis for that endorsement is quite beyond the person of Barack Obama.
The basis of my endorsement of this most insightful and dynamic man’s candidacy is his insistence that we must move beyond the norm of conservative vs. liberal ideological sniping if we’re to successfully come to grips with the economic, social, and international challenges of today and tomorrow. The short words for such a shift in paradigm are “hope” and “change”.
Everyone wants a change from the loss of human life in what seems to be a perpetual “war on terror” as well as from the increasing economic doldrums here at home. Everyone would like to have less expensive medical care, lower taxes, better public education, and an assurance of continuous employment and opportunity. Everyone would like to see “a kinder, gentler America” as proscribed by George Herbert Walker Bush during the 1988 presidential campaign.
Progressives generally give support to Senator Obama’s message of hope as do I. However, the real test will not come during what is left of the Democratic nomination process or even during the upcoming campaign against the Republicans.
The real test will come, especially for liberals, when President Obama asks us to let go of our prefabricated thinking, our fear-laden presumptions and our sense of personal injury.
The election of an African-American as our President will likely bring forth a national sense of euphoria. It will demonstrate that we have overcome our historic racial prejudices which were even written into our Constitution back in 1787. (U.S. Constitution: Article I, Section II.) While this breakthrough may be a powerful one, should Senator Obama be elected, we still will not be able to assume that along with our traditional prejudices we will also have let go of our traditional worries and fears.
Conservatives are genuinely frightened of people with ideas about government that differ from theirs. Liberals are genuinely suspicious of people who have more money and property than they have. Even worse, both liberals and conservatives often feel a sense of angry helplessness in much the same way as that little fellow of last Sunday night. After all, neither they nor he created the world into which they were born.
Back in 1880, the late great Oliver Wendell Homes observed that "the life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience."
Thus both liberals and conservatives are in a perpetual struggle to create laws which will ensure their political and social domination. Simply put, the experience of both is one of unhappiness when their opposites hold power. Senator Obama, on the other hand, insists that we have more in common than we realize.
Hopefully, he’s right, but what do you suppose our reaction will be the first time President Obama tells us that our ideologically based playtime is over and it’s time to put it to bed?.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
No comments:
Post a Comment