Is It Me, or Has the Spirit in America Been on Hold Lately?
I have my moods, my ups and downs, my times of being more alive and less. Lately, I’ve felt somewhat dispirited, unspirited. OK, but also kind of stagnant where my visionary and creative energies are concerned, which is to say with respect to the spirit.
Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s just one of my moods.
But maybe I’m picking up on something about this moment in America. Maybe it’s like THIS:
The central battle in America in our times is the battle of good against evil, for evil has gained an unprecedented foothold in America in recent times through what’s happened through the right wing of the American polity. That’s the main event: a battle for the soul of the country. That’s not America’s most essential business most of the time, but that is what’s at center stage in the American drama since George W. Bush became president.
The arena of that battle used to be the Bush administration, and its unprecedented lawlessness and lying. We got rid of that evil gang, got Obama, and discovered that even without Bush and Cheney the Republican Party is a lying and amorally destructive force: all the Republican Party wants to do is make Obama fail, whatever the injury to the country, so they can get power back for themselves.
For better or for worse –and that’s what now remains to be seen– Obama is our champion in that war. That is the battlefield now: whether the Republicans will be able to continue to gain advantage by acting in the most irresponsible and unconstructive way imaginable, in a completely dishonest and hypocritical way. Or whether Obama will now be able to fight against them in a way that a) makes them pay for serving evil, and b) gets accomplished for America the incredibly many things we need to do to repair the damage lately done the country, and create the foundation for the country to wisely and competently choose its future and make itself into what it wants to be.
The ugly process of getting health care reform passed was one unsatisfying stage in the course of the battle between Obama and the Republicans; but it DID look like it was achieving something in the end.
Obama was disappointing as the general of our forces, largely making a mess of his potential through the way he led –or didn’t lead– the process.
THen the election in Massachusetts (which occurred in the context of that health care process mess) somehow threw everything up in the air –though in reality not all that much had changed– and it led to a time when the forces of both good and evil scurried to adjust to this political earthquake that Teddy Kennedy’s seat had been one by a Republican.
The Democrats eventually seemed to regroup. And Obama assumed a more powerful, possibly more confrontative posture.
First, the president hit a triple, if not a home run in the State of the Union Address. That was followed up two days later by an astonishing encounter where Obama realled schooled the House Republicans. These developments led finally to the issuing of the invitation to tomorrow’s televised meeting for Democrats and Republicans to talk about health care, and “seek bi-partisanship” while the American people –who supposedly WANT bipartisanship– watch on.
At that point, maybe two-plus weeks ago, the respective camps mostly retired from the field, making no major moves on the battlefield, knowing that this health-care meeting will be the showdown to launch us into the next stage of the war.
We know that the result will not be any truly bipartisan, truly legitimate working together in good faith to achieve results that are good for the nation. The Republicans just don’t have that in them. They know it, and we know it, and I think that we can assume Obama knows it.
And so we come into tomorrow’s battle, in which the explicit text will be that both sides are seeking appropriate cooperation between the parties for the good of the nation but in which neither side really has any such aspirtations at this point.
The Republicans are not interested in bipartisanship because they are an expression of an evil force these days, and that force has no desire for the good of the nation to be achieved. That’s what makes it evil: it dislikes the good, and even if it had nothing to lose by making things good would choose not to do so.
And the Democrats don’t aspire to real bi-partisanship out of this meeting because they have to know that the Republicans are committed to making the Democrats FAIL, while the government actually achieving things would make the Democrats look good. This Republican Party is not willing to be a minority party, which means a political faction that is content to work for the good in a way that accepts the legitimacy of the power reality that it is the other side, for now, that is the dominant partner. A traditional minority party aspires to get power back, but does not making that the driving force in EVERYTHING.
So Obama knows, me must assume, that his purpose in this meeting is for him and the Democrats come out looking good in the eyes of the American people and the Republicans are exposed as the liars and hypocrites that they are.
And then Obama can use this new redistribution of the power that comes from public opinion to advance his program on many fronts.
Let us hope, let us pray, that Obama understands fully what he needs to do, and that he is at his clever and creative best –like in the speech to the Joint Session of Congress in Septembeer, like in his televised session with the House Republicans a few weeks ago, and indeed like his handling of the Reverend Wright problem early in the primacy election season in 2008– both in designing this drama and in pulling it off.
So the spirit in America has been waiting for this showdown, while the armies have been camped on the two sides of the river awaiting the arrival of the day of battle. Except for the occasional sniper fire, the scene has been quiescent. Both Good and Evil have been on hold, observing a time of preparation.
And, so perhaps how I’ve felt lately has just been the cycle of my mood. Or perhaps my spirit –which in this decade has been so strongly connected with the spirit of this nation– is mirroring in me the state of play in the large spiritual battle being waged in America in our times.
February 24th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
We’ve subscribed to Newsweek for some years now, and I was dismayed to see this week’s cover (& cover story), “what would the GOP do if it ran the country?” Here we are just over a year after an 8-year reign of hell by the GOP, the party which, literally since election day 2008, has done nothing but throw sand in the gears of our country, and Newsweek thinks it relevant to ask such a question. We in fact know exactly what that sorry excuse for a party did, and would do. Violate the US Constitution on all fronts; bankrupt the nation; trash the civil rights of Americans; create the most corrupt administration in our nation’s history; lie our nation into wars; massacre hundreds of thousands across the world. Need one go on with the list too long to fit here?
That such as Newsweek would lower itself to dignify those scoundrels with such an inquiry says a lot about why we are where are today.
February 24th, 2010 at 7:59 pm
Either way I am betting you will revive, Andy. There are many other good people in this world to work with and for, still. Not to mention that there is still beauty to be found, easily.
On the eve of another health care confrontation, I have two things:
1. I think I had seen it said before, but A.B. Stoddard has driven it home to me the precarious boat we are in as to health insurance.
As the economy declines, more and more healthy people will opt to do without health insurance. I did that myself for a good 10 years once upon a time when I was younger and had neither much money nor employment with health insurance benefits. I was lucky. If healthy people leave the pool of insured, then the insurance companies will naturally raise the cost of premiums for those who want health insurance, because the remaining pool has a higher proportion of sick people with medical costs. The same thing will happen if new regulations prevent such nasty practices as dropping people whose health care gets expensive. The insurance companies will raise the cost of premiums. In two years or five years from now health insurance will be out of sight for many more people than it is now–
–unless everyone is forced somehow to be in the pool, which is a great part of what this push is about.
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/healthcare/83183-hcs-last-chance-white-house-summit-
2. This is a good performance of a song in celebration of the U.S. being number 37 in the world in health care coverage. A friend just sent it to me with a request that I help make it viral, that is, that I pass it around and encourage others to pass it around.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVgOl3cETb4
Larry
February 25th, 2010 at 9:10 am
I am also a person of lowered expectations. I see the Administration dropping ideas and programs I think are important by the way side using the excuse that there are not enough votes if they are asked. Just today, I heard that the Obama Administration is dropping the Consumer Protection Agency from his financial reform package. Obama seems to think that the Presidents job is to look for what can be done without sticking one’s head out and going with that. I don’t call that leadership.
the Barack Obama Administration is much better than what a John McCain Administration would have been, but it is not nearly what we need to turn the tide back. Basically we seem to have an Administration that goes with the lowest common denominator that pleases no one and depresses the liberal base and repulses the Republicans. All in the name of reasonableness, not leadership.
So, unfortunately, I do not expect much out of today’s health care meeting will achieve anything substantive. Barack Obama has already given up the public option and let’s not even talk about the single payer option. He’s basically a consensus builder and there is no consensus to be obtained here. The Republicans know if a real, honest to god, strong health care bill is passed and enacted, their prospects in the future would be dim, hence they have no interest in passing a workable, strong health care reform package.
February 25th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
It seems the liberal community in general is as ‘fired up and ready to go’ as they’ve been since the early 1970’s. There’s no question the Left has every reason to feel beat down and depressed due to Liberals being mute for such a long period of time. Liberalism has been virtually cut off from establishing any kind of quality, broad domestic reform agenda. So I believe it’s safe to say liberal-minded people (you, me and all democrats) were chomping at the bit yesterday (and every day before that, for a good long while it seems to me) to get a broad and forceful Dem consensus to govern well.
Progressive activists of all stripes have coalesced, imho, creating a huge impact that led to the opportunity Pres. Obama and his collegues will be challenged with tonight. But, I still believe the path of Change at this moment mostly rests in the hands of Congress, which is where I’ve been hoping like mad the spotlight would sharply shift.
I’m concerned with someone like a Harry Reid – just to give one example – who stands out as an obvious and potentially key part to the puzzle. This is a Dem player who at any time can pull a single string, injecting a substantial amount of mutual interest and cohesion to a rapidly intensified Liberal-Dem majority. A handshake and signature would, in the end, quietly solidify Reid’s legacy for the years to come. My guess is that Reid knows Obama won’t bluff tonight. I think Reid will finally be forced to show full commitment to other key Liberal Party members.
I’m in no way holding my breath for even a hot second about this. I could easily be barking up the wrong tree with regards to most of Harry Reid’s personal motivations tonight. But if Reid pulls the string he’ll have successfully carved his place in history as a major player that helped catalyze the agenda of a uniquely talented President, not to mention an already recognized Nobel Peace Prize winner. I hope it’s Senator Reid’s time to shine tonight.
February 25th, 2010 at 7:03 pm
My impression of this “show down”….
Not a game changer.
Obama remains too eager to treat the Republicans as if they were dealing in good faith philosophical differences, rather than just a destructive attempt to frustrate any achievement for their own political gain.
That’s doubly bad news: the missed opportunity to show the real truth, and a sign that Obama has not made as much of a shift as we need for him to make.
On the other hand, it’s possible that this was not a good venue for highlighting the GOP’s real game. In that case, the summit was not a useful exercise; perhaps that decision was made before the Democrats started getting their act together, and the president simply had to get through this and get on with the real work.
So today looks like at best not a loss. It did not gain ground, so far as I can now see.
February 25th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
One account that scores it more heavily for Obama and against the Republicans is a piece by Dana Milbank in the Washington Post, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/25/AR2010022505919.html
In general, I’m not fond of Milbank. But my reservations about him do not have to do with the clarity of his perceptions So I think of this piece as an encouraging sign.
February 25th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
The Blair House? really?… a horrible venue! This being where, the then Senator Obama and family, were “slighted” by other guests who stayed at that house before the inauguration. This administration essentially just handed the over the mic to a group of sophomoric hack politicians and told them to have at! Somebody said something about “Land of the Lost?”
February 25th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
It’s very peculiar to me why Obama’s camp ever decided on what seems clear to me to be a “blue-collar” humor kind of narrative to the whole thing played out.
February 26th, 2010 at 8:20 am
On second and third thoughts, this setting may indeed not have been all that big of a mistake. I still don’t believe anything other than moving the “timeline” was accomplished. And I’m not aligned to Milbank’s way of thinking usually, either, but he impresses me with his candor in this report and I feel that he’s accurate in describing the general atmosphere of the room.
February 26th, 2010 at 8:51 am
I don’t understand.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:44 am
Although Obama showed patience and fairness as the de facto moderator, there was still a repetitious heir of this quasi-dopey, self-paryoding campiness of old white farts working the room with their talking points – and from all the main supporters, McCain, etc.. Comedy Central, for example, use to bill this “Blue Collar Comedy Tour.” You’ll notice those comedians have a similar delivery with this style of humor (although politics isn’t of course always the punch line). And the fact that the setting was at the Blair House, where Obama was denied at the Inauguration, makes me believe the right wing would dumb-spin, if you will, this event and frame most of the attention around him being somewhere he was denied in the recent past. Like I said, I think this was a push and Obama didn’t really harm himself. Maybe this brought the picture a little more into focus for Obama’s continued discussions. But what I first thought was a discontinuous moment in the healthcare process for Obama and the Dem Congress, turned out to be another trial run with the oppostion.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:48 am
I dont’ know if that clarifies anything – i hope so though. Steve
February 26th, 2010 at 10:55 am
Perhaps I’ll be able to describe this style of humor better another time. Bill maher killed though last night on his newest HBO act. He’s got them down well!
February 26th, 2010 at 10:58 am
The “Battle Between Good & Evil” and its associated human foibles has been underway since the days of Gilgamesh. Lately it seems – to us – to have blossomed most obviously on our own soil. But it has always been somewhere. And it certainly has a profound effect on the quality of our lives and the flavor of the times, right down to our personal moods. It’s not just you, Andy, and it probably won’t be over anytime soon, Obama or not. We’re embedded in a larger cycle.
February 28th, 2010 at 10:59 am
The mistake is to misperceive our social problem for a political one. Bush et al. are a consequence, not a cause, of the problem.
I’ve recommended it elsewhere before and its relevant here: watch “The Century of the Self” documentary series. Episode 4 is especially apt here.