New hope

by Francis Jock

Created on: February 28, 2008   Last Updated: May 02, 2012

Barack Obama's oratory delivers a new message of hope that is sweeping the country in words that inspire and encourage a troubled nation to look inside itself and rediscover its promise and relevance in the new global community. His message of hope is far more than old democratic ideas presented in a new package. Much more. They are substantiative ideas that are nothing less than a call for Americans to embrace the new world order that others have tried, and failed to summon.

A sea change of ideas was the phrase used by Hilary Clinton to describe the promise and the future of this great nation when the Democrats, flush with renewed spirit and disciples, assume the reigns of power in 2009. A sea change is something that the survivors of an approaching hurricane can well attest to. A sea change proceeds a storm surge just before the most powerful natural force on Earth wends it way into the lives of millions. Hilary Clinton foretells the coming change, because she recognizes the power of the Obama American movement.

But there's more than just comparing Obama to an approaching hurricane to this story. There's the reality of the reality we have to face if someone other than Obama is empowered by the nation's electorate. The past eight years have been a disaster for our nation. It's not just the invasion of a sovereign nation in the middle-east; it's the mindset of the Republican leadership that verges on the imperialism, self-righteousness and undeniable power. It's a corruption of our system of American government and the principles of freedom and democracy framed by the Constitution's creators at its worst.

There is a message for us from Hollywood, of all places, delivered subtly in the movie No Country for Old Men. The message is simply that in this new world, we share responsibility for finding solutions to the problems that seem insurmountable. Problems like drugs, immigration, the war, health care, and too many more to list here. These are problems for which it has become increasingly obvious that old style thinking produces old solutions by that don't work.

We can thank the old republican regimes, Bush and Cheney and their staunch sycophants for being tanked by the think tanks. Of course, they've taken us along for the ride because we're just ignorant folk that will believe anything if you scare us enough. But Americans, like Hilary Clinton, have found their voice and recaptured their vision, one that's been absent for decades, lost in the turbulent times since Robert Kennedy was mercilessly slaughtered.

As a wealthy multicultural nation we have two things in common. The timed that we live in and the earth that we share. Our earth is verging on environmental collapse, thanks to decades of denial and scoffing about the impact of global warming. Our time is marked by the end of the millennium and the rise of globalism. Our nation's power doesn't quite seem so powerful when it can easily defeat armies, but not tribalism and religious fanaticism.

Preservin g the old industrialist view of exploitation of resources for profit has made the wealthy powerful and blind. We need a form of environmental capitalism to work our way out of this mess and the old industrialist regime, possibly led by John McCain, would rather wage war in a distant land. Much more than that, we need new ideas and positive leadership in order to guide our nation's ship of state through the storm that engulfed us while we slept.

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