America Dreaming Small

What’s in it for me?

That’s the way Americans debate health care, just as it is the way we debate everything these days. What will it cost me? What will be my options? What will be the effect on my taxes? This is not an entirely absurd or venal approach. Self-interest is an appropriate prism through which to evaluate public policy. But this narrowness and solipsism illustrates the way in which America has personalized, and thereby stunted, what used to be called the American Dream.

The American Dream represented the idea that the United States was a place where any person could accede to whatever life their talent, ambition, and diligence would allow. It was about universal, common opportunity. Today, it is about my opportunities. It is the notion that I can succeed, I can acquire; and it’s every dog for themselves.

One Fine Day

This blog is, just now, emerging from a lengthy vipassana (“Do not spit on the footpaths! – Be Happy!”), full of all that clear-headedness and deep insight that only silence can confer. Or that’s the hope — and the story.

If ever there was a day to shake me from my writing stupor – I mean, meditation – it was yesterday. I attended an address by His Giggliness the Dalai Lama in the afternoon and watched Barack Obama become President of the United States late at night. That’s a pretty heady one-two punch.

America to Receive Adult Supervision at Long-Last

Obama Pulls Knock-Out Punch and Wins Debate in Unanimous TKO

John McCain was able to get a last-minute permission slip from his mom – or President Bush, or whomever – and came to Mississippi. By all accounts, Barack Obama slaughtered him in the first presidential debate – all accounts except mine, that is.

Sure, polls of undecided voters immediately following the tête-à-tête showed Obama winning the day by roughly two-to-one. Sure, Obama was smart, confident, well-mannered, and “presidential” while McCain continued to speak petulant nonsense, displaying the same loose understanding of the concept of a “failed state” as he has of the “fundamentals of the economy”. Sure, the talking heads unanimously called the win for Obama. These were sweet accomplishments for the Illinois Senator, who certainly had the more difficult challenge on the evening. After all, what can be tougher than debating a guy for whom language has no fixed meaning.

Still, Obama failed to do the one thing he absolutely had to do to win this election: assure America that he is not black.

Obama Becomes Elektra

Check-out the awesome new Obama-wear created by Elektra Printz, one of New York’s smartest new fashion designers. Never heard of her? You will.

McCain Doesn’t Rock

The McCain-Palin campaign is having a hard time getting its groove on.

For politicians, every public event features a soundtrack of popular music, selected by the campaign staff as anthemic of the message du jour. Bill Clinton used Fleetwood Mac’s Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow until we all ripped the Stevie Nicks posters from our bedroom walls in violent fits of overload. Hillary Clinton held an internet-based, you-select-my-theme-song contest which, after more than 200,000 electronic votes, somehow chose Canadian schlock diva Celine Dion’s You and I. PUMA must stand for Positively Unlistenable Musical Aesthetics.

But seemingly each time McCain and Palin put the needle to vinyl, they receive a cease-and-desist demand from the recording artists.

Mishandling Russia

Russia is, once again, a big goddamned problem for America and NATO.

The invasion of Georgia is just the latest and most unavoidable sign of trouble — and most overt headache — in an international relationship that never gelled, as perhaps it should have, at the end of the Cold War. The recklessness provocation of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili gave Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his sock-monkey, President Dimitri Medvedev, all the pretense required to remind NATO who controls the neighborhood.

Going with McCain?

Is it just me, or does anyone else have the nagging feeling that the Republicans will somehow manage to dump John McCain this summer?

I’ll be the first to admit: I have no idea how they might do it at this point. I went so far as to leaf-through Republican National Committee Rule 15(e), which sets-out the various state committee rules on the extent to which delegates are bound to the candidate to which they are originally pledged. I don’t really see an out, given Mr. McCain’s overwhelming first-ballot majority at the nominating convention.

If I Were Barack Obama…

… I’d give a major speech on gender in America, just as he did on race in his brilliant Philadelphia address.

Of course, this was something that Hillary Clinton should have done, while she was still in the campaign. But she was too busy decrying her victimization – which was, sadly, not invented – and galvanizing her feminist base around the insult. The positive, inspirational route was not in Ms. Clinton’s political playbook.

An Obama address on the evils of persistent sexism would not only have intrinsic value, it would also help to ease Ms. Clinton’s army of wounded feminists into his fold.

The Right Leader at the Right Time

Will Barack Obama be a great president, or even a good one? This is very difficult to predict, and depends largely on the people with whom he surrounds himself, his political acumen, and his ability to balance principle and pragmatism. He is certainly very smart, making him a welcome change from the current leadership. But then, Jimmy Carter was a brilliant man and a horrible president. Ronald Reagan was an intellectual lightweight, but had a hugely successful (if also hugely repugnant) presidency.

Still, I have no hesitation in saying that Mr. Obama is exactly the right person to lead this country at this time.