Do We See It?

When is that moment when you actually see the 'light at the end of the tunnel"?  We continue to peer into the future, hoping to experience that moment when we confirm that we actually see it, for that is the moment when hope is born anew.

I had that moment yesterday morning as I read the New York Times.

There was a front-page article about the latest NYT/CBS poll that found that President Obama has a slight edge over the Republicans with the general public across a whole range of issues.  Maybe the general populace as a single unit does have the intelligence to see through the obfuscation and deceit.

The poll's results point to the dawn of realization that while the President may have been stumbling along the path of trying to accomplish the major goals of his agenda, the public as a whole appreciates his concept of equality and fairness and sees his attempts to protect the country from the scourge of special interests.  That gives me hope.  It frames the approaching midterm elections with an atmosphere of awareness.   Unless we can rid ourselves of the obstructionist forces attempting to return us to the programs and philosophy of the Bush years, we will head further into decline as a society.  People really do understand at the most basic level that the pettiness of the partisanship exhibited by the lockstep Republican mentality of opposition to anything Obama or Democratic cannot continue.

Then I read an editorial by Paul Krugman exposing the Republican hypocrisy embodied in Newt Gingrich's warning:

"Don't cut Medicare. The reform bills passed by the House and Senate cut Medicare by approximately $500 billion. This is wrong."

It made me gag. 

Republicans have been trying to kill Medicare for 50 years, and now all of a sudden they are Medicare's protectors?  Krugman exposes the argument for what it is-fear mongering and subterfuge.  The proposed Republican alternative is offered up under "Roadmap for America's Future," the budget plan recently released by Representative Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican member of the House Budget Committee.  His plan will cut more out of Medicare than the proposed savings under Obama's plan, while gutting retiree benefits over the next ten years -and yet they are pounding their chests with self-righteous indignation, blocking any Democratic effort to effect cost savings.

The coup-de-gras was in the local paper this morning on page 22.  There was a small article that documented the GOP's cloaking of a mailed survey and appeal for money in the mantle of the US Census!  The RNC successfully raised money using this tactic, and now the House Republicans are doing the same thing.  They are asking people to participate in the "2010 Census of Republican leadership".  They claim the recipients were specially chosen to receive this "census document".  This is a clear attempt to capitalize on the name of the Census Bureau.  And there is House Minority Leader John Boehner's signature at the bottom of the letter! 

The Republicans are deliberately trying to confuse people.  Census bureau staffers are concerned that citizens who fill out this form will not fill out the real Census and that will lead to an inaccurate count.  Remember that House seats (and the distribution of over $400 Billion) are apportioned according to results of this Census.  What are the Republicans doing?  The answer is anything they can to pursue their own interests and maintain the status quo.

I am hopeful that Americans are awaking to the need to recapture our ability to govern ourselves in the interest of the average citizen.  Let's hope this most recent CBS/NYT poll is an accurate barometer of the pulse of the people.

I think......yes maybe.......I HOPE I am seeing that speck of light at the end of the tunnel........

Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock!

I had a dream last night.  It was a metaphor for what is happening to all of us.

I dreamed I was sitting at my computer and trying to open the ICE (in case of emergency) file to find the combination to my safe so that I could put a wad of $1000 dollar bills in there that I had somehow extracted from the bank.  For some reason I could not call up the file with the combination.  My computer was not cooperating (seems to happen a lot these days!). 

In the other room a fellow named David was sitting and chatting with my wife while I was desperately trying to find the numbers that would let me open the safe and put the money in there for safekeeping.  That is really odd, because I know the combination by heart, but I couldn’t retrieve it for some reason. (dreams afflict us with that sense of trying to run but our legs being caught in molasses….)

Sitting behind me was David’s brother ‘Michael’.  Michael had been recently released from prison and was a chronic thief.  He was sitting behind me, silently eyeing my pile of cash while I was pounding on the computer keyboard.  I KNEW he was eyeing the cash and that made my quest for the combination all the more urgent.  As I worked on the computer with growing frustration, I could sense that Michael was becoming more tense.  I could feel him behind me and glanced at him out of the corner of my eye as I feverishly searched for the file.  Finally he gave up all pretense of being quietly sitting there, and started to pace behind me, growing more and more impatient while glancing nervously and repeatedly at my money on the desktop.  I tried to hide the pile of cash under my arms—in my desk drawer; behind the papers on the desk---but I knew that everywhere I put it, he was following my motions like a cat watching his prey.  Finally he stood on his chair and lost all sense of propriety, shaking with agitation and babbling about how “all he needed was one of the bills and he would be satisfied”.  I was terrified!

I turned in my chair and called out to David to come here right away…..in an annoyed voice he asked me what I wanted…..I then screamed his name as loud as I could ……..!

My wife said the sound that came out of me and woke her up was a word that had an “A” in it, but that is all she could make out.  She said the neighbors probably heard me bellowing.

I had a lot of trouble going back to sleep.

Don’t we all have ‘Michael’ sitting behind us trying to get our nest egg?  Don’t we all feel like someone or something is siphoning off our savings and leaving us anxious; fearing the constant presence of economic disaster lurking just around the corner? 

Where is that coming from? 

I used to be really confident that whatever ups and downs we had as a family; as a business venture; as a country we could rebound.  Bounce back.  Try again.  Today, that sense of optimism is smothered by the wet blanket of special interest, greed, and political partisanship.  Our entire civic enterprise is mired in the inability and unwillingness of our representatives in Congress to act.  Unless we figure out what to do about that as a people and a nation, ‘Michael’ will always be just over our shoulder watching our treasure; waiting for his moment to steal it all and leave us with nothing.

The time has come for people of good will and intelligence to take hold of our destiny and get rid of the obstructionists.  I read an editorial by Bob Herbert in the New York Times that hints at the beginnings of an awakening by just those kinds of people. 

We must act now before we run out of time.