No More Mr. Nice Guy!

The big picture

Looking back over my last few posts, I may have come across as unduly negative and even fearful for the future. Don't get me wrong, I've actually been floating on a cloud since Barack Obama's victory. I just want to keep one foot on the ground.

Nothing is permanent in politics, and no sane person believes that Obama will magically solve all our problems overnight or that we have vanquished the monster of conservatism once and for all. But Obama is our last best hope, coming at a time when we critically need a leader of his stature. His lame-ass (I mean duck) predecessor has not only left him with a host of gargantuan messes to clean up, in Iraq, the economy, the list goes on, but with disingenuously ignored crises like climate change and oil depletion on which we have lost eight precious years to take action.

George Bush Junior, the doltish figurehead for a toxic cancerous dogma which chants mindlessly that government is the enemy, the source of all evil, the beast that must be drowned in the bathtub, is the worst leader we could possibly have had at this stage of human history. The problems which now loom over us simply cannot be faced by going it alone, armed only with the myth of rugged individualism. Not just federal but international action is required to avert climate catastrophe, and the civilized world is breathing a huge sigh of relief that the Connecticut Cowboy is about to take a permanent brush-clearing vacation and will be replaced by someone who can restore the USA's standing in the world.

If we survive the crisis of the next few decades, if clean renewable energy becomes an everyday reality and some semblance of sanity returns to Mideast politics, it may be that at some future point we will have the luxury of talking about limited government, less regulation and what not. At that point the political pendulum may once again swing to the right, though hopefully the swing will not be as extreme as the last time, nor give birth to such an ignorant, know-nothing incarnation of conservatism as the religious-right, crony-capitalist fascism that we have suffered through. In any case, the Reagan Era is decidedly over, and not a moment too soon.