Today's Washington Post labels President Obama "disappointer-in-chief". Whatever merits there may be about Obama's assets and liabilities as a leader and as a person, and I mostly give him good marks, this is the wrong measure to apply. The question is not whether a more heroic or capable leader, be it Rick Perry, Hilary Clinton, or Ron Paul, could have done more to lead the United States. The question is "now that the era of great men is passing, what we we, each of us, do to make the millions of small changes that will lead to great change?"
I see much of the Tea Party sentiment as coming from an unrecognized admission that big leaders, like big government, are not the answer. Now, don't call me a birther or a libertarian---I believe that we need government, and a good-sized one, to keep our society intact and keep it from becoming the kind of oligarchies that characterized the Middle Ages. Those days saw a tiny minority, the 1% if you will, controlling all or most of the property and wealth in a their region of influence, and the rest of the people living in relative poverty and servitude, their relative well-being dependent on the patronage of the oligarch. Today's corporate and monied elites, the super-entrepreneurs and asset manipulators, could become the equivalent in this century, living with their private security in gated communities, while the cities and countrysides become more disorganized and impoverished.
Yet we seen counter-trends that are encouraging. As national governments become almost paralyzed by polarization in many countries, local government and metropolitan communities are doing better. People accept the need for government they can see, in police and trash collectors and streetlights. We've seen a renaissance of urban living in many parts of the U.S. and Europe. Even in the benighted oligarchy Russia has become, Moscow thrives in relative terms.
So let's stop arguing over Obama's greatness or lack thereof. Let's keep electing people like him, who are not wedded to the monied elites as the Bush family is, to keep a wedge between we the people and the oligarchs waiting to take more bites of the common wealth (two words on purpose). Then let's focus on taking more action in our own lives and our own communities, to make them greener and more democratic. That way, as the huge institutions become less and less functional, we will have strong civil societies that make life worth living.
I'll close with an experience I had in Bangladesh last year. I dreaded going there--the poverty, the dysfunctional government, the urban overcrowding, the economic exploitation, look terrible in statistical form. But then I went to Dhaka, and encountered real Bengalis. My hotel, admittedly in the better part of Dhaka, was across the street from some kind of park. Overcoming my fear, I went over there some mornings and found a thriving civil society--a teahouse, a gaggle of brightly dressed women chatting over tea under a tree, a group of men chanting energetically through a morning exercise class, and a well-kept brick path around which people walked or jogged, all in the same counter-clockwise direction. A few guards stood unobtrusively at the gates. Trees and flowers abounded. After a while I noticed small signs announcing that the "Gulshan Society" was responsible for most of the improvements. So here was a civil society operating in the midst of chaos, in the most statistically dismal country on earth. I take that park as a sign of what we can create together, anywhere.
I see much of the Tea Party sentiment as coming from an unrecognized admission that big leaders, like big government, are not the answer. Now, don't call me a birther or a libertarian---I believe that we need government, and a good-sized one, to keep our society intact and keep it from becoming the kind of oligarchies that characterized the Middle Ages. Those days saw a tiny minority, the 1% if you will, controlling all or most of the property and wealth in a their region of influence, and the rest of the people living in relative poverty and servitude, their relative well-being dependent on the patronage of the oligarch. Today's corporate and monied elites, the super-entrepreneurs and asset manipulators, could become the equivalent in this century, living with their private security in gated communities, while the cities and countrysides become more disorganized and impoverished.
Yet we seen counter-trends that are encouraging. As national governments become almost paralyzed by polarization in many countries, local government and metropolitan communities are doing better. People accept the need for government they can see, in police and trash collectors and streetlights. We've seen a renaissance of urban living in many parts of the U.S. and Europe. Even in the benighted oligarchy Russia has become, Moscow thrives in relative terms.
So let's stop arguing over Obama's greatness or lack thereof. Let's keep electing people like him, who are not wedded to the monied elites as the Bush family is, to keep a wedge between we the people and the oligarchs waiting to take more bites of the common wealth (two words on purpose). Then let's focus on taking more action in our own lives and our own communities, to make them greener and more democratic. That way, as the huge institutions become less and less functional, we will have strong civil societies that make life worth living.
I'll close with an experience I had in Bangladesh last year. I dreaded going there--the poverty, the dysfunctional government, the urban overcrowding, the economic exploitation, look terrible in statistical form. But then I went to Dhaka, and encountered real Bengalis. My hotel, admittedly in the better part of Dhaka, was across the street from some kind of park. Overcoming my fear, I went over there some mornings and found a thriving civil society--a teahouse, a gaggle of brightly dressed women chatting over tea under a tree, a group of men chanting energetically through a morning exercise class, and a well-kept brick path around which people walked or jogged, all in the same counter-clockwise direction. A few guards stood unobtrusively at the gates. Trees and flowers abounded. After a while I noticed small signs announcing that the "Gulshan Society" was responsible for most of the improvements. So here was a civil society operating in the midst of chaos, in the most statistically dismal country on earth. I take that park as a sign of what we can create together, anywhere.
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