In the grocery store, five days before Thanksgiving, you can cut the hostility with a knife. Instead of people shopping alone,
and in peace, with their lists and private thoughts, as was their habit during the week, couples are at it, for this big shop,
together. There are both husbands and wives, and sons with their elderly mothers. A recipe for disaster in a crowded store
on a frigid Saturday morning. There is one impatient man with a goatee, and his frail, overweight mother, well into her eighties,
very hard of hearing, with a few canned goods in her shopping cart, who stops in the soup isle, and says, “I hate how they
do this,” and then takes the can of broth from his mother’s hands and shoves it back on the shelf, telling her how it was
labeled to look like the name brand. “They do this to confuse people.” He suffers with her through rest of the store, as she
shuffles up and down each isle, until we meet again when he pulls a box of plastic bags from the shelf. “You only need ten
plastic bags, that’s all, right?” And she nods, yes, of course. No more than ten. He throws them into the cart—like the rest
of the people in the store who toss groceries over the handle, not with any care, but with an indifferent heave on this particular
morning. And the husbands and wives glare at each other across the turkeys covered in frost, trading sarcastic comments about
what they need to buy, or not, and who will get it, or not. And the eyes roll. And the hands grip the carts with white knuckles,
tight fisted. Ready to punch, except for the crowds and security cameras. There was that kind of violence in the air, along
with the blueberries out of season at the checkout, crushed under the wheels of the cart.
We’re all worried about the economy, stressed, anxious, maybe even depressed, with Wall Street no better than a house of cards,
with one bank failure tumbling after another, resulting in a global credit crisis, and in the past two years more than a million
homes lost to foreclosure, and now early signs of dreaded deflation, along with the three big American car manufacturers in Washington begging lawmakers for massive loans, which they have little
hope of receiving this year in their efforts to avoid bankruptcy and further economic meltdown. And it’s not just the American
automakers, Toyota will cease all North American production for two days next month to work through excess inventory. More Americans are losing their jobs
every day, to collect unemployment (if they can even get through the long waits at the overwhelmed unemployment offices), while other Americans who have been unable to find work, despite months of trying, and hundreds of
resumes, fear losing their benefits in the near future. And in the throes of a severe recession, some even say standing on
the brink of a depression, we heard the voice of our President-Elect on his weekly radio address, reminding people that, “we
can steer ourselves out of this crisis -- because here in America we always rise to the moment, no matter how hard.” It was
a short speech, only about three minutes, and if you didn’t hear it on the radio, you could have watched it on YouTube. Obama
finished with the reminder that, “in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people. And that is how we will meet
the challenges of our time -- together.” It is about rising, and coming together, instead of splitting apart, and losing the
social capital that comes with work and economic success. When under tremendous stress, it is all too easy and human to fall
apart, to panic, to retreat to our separate dark corners, our living rooms with the television glowing, where we can keep
score with the latest economic indicators on the cable news crawl. Yes bad news is everywhere, like jagged rocks in the worst
river rapids anyone has ever shot on a leaking raft. But we all have paddles, and if we put them in the water and pull together,
maybe this time we won’t crash. Still, we won’t be able to navigate this river without the map of solid leadership, as we
suffer the whirlpools and waterfalls in the months and years ahead.
An editorial in today’s New York Times reminds Americans of President-Elect Obama’s call to change, and of the hard work ahead
in “remaking this nation.” People have been and continue to be receptive to this message of service. The Obama campaign was
an example of what community organizing could do on a national scale, from the grassroots up. In the face of this disastrous
economy, and uncertain future, what better way to strengthen our nation than by continuing this spirit of volunteerism. No
effort made is too small to be felt. Collecting canned goods to help the local Boy Scouts’ food drive, donating to food pantries,
it all makes a difference. It only takes one hand to lift another, before we’re all standing.
This presidential election has resulted in a fundamental paradigm shift in politics. White is now black. Old is young. We
have a new model, a new exemplar. Minds previously fossilized by the calcification of partisanship have been released by a
new spirit of cooperation, and yes, intelligence. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in his essay “The Crack-Up,” in 1936, “The
test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain
the ability to function.” This is in contrast to George Orwell’s term, “doublethink,” defined in his book 1984 as the “ability
to hold two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously and accept both of them.” Like the ability to see both the
face and the vase, the American people were able to see both sides of the political equation in this election. They held both
candidates’ ideas in mind at the same time. And they functioned, and voted.
Since he began running for president, Barack Obama has inspired artists, musicians, and poets around the country. Clash of
Civilizations is an electronic music project created by Boston-based composers and music producers Milan Kovacev and Nikola
Radan, and their song, “Change is What’s Happening in America” is based on several lines from Obama’s New Hampshire primary
speech to his supporters after Senator Hillary Clinton’s victory:
And whether we are rich or poor, black or white, Latino or Asian, whether we hail from Iowa or New Hampshire, Nevada or South
Carolina, we are ready to take this country in a fundamentally new direction.
That's what's happening in America right now; change is what's happening in America.
Yes, we are ready for change. 73 Days until inauguration.
And now the work begins. At the new website Change.gov, President-Elect Barack Obama outlines his agenda for his presidency, while inviting Americans to speak up and contribute
their own ideas, and to share their stories, and their vision for America. This is a participatory government, one that doesn’t
stop at the ballet box. It requires the effort of each of us to contribute what we can, to support our country and each other.
Power may be concentrated in the hands of the few, but ultimately it is drawn from the people. And now, as Obama prepares
his transition to office, as Colin Powell says so eloquently this interview on CNN, it is time for America to come together.
In this Fox News video Carl Cameron reports that Sarah Palin was unaware of some basic geopolitical facts, such as the member
countries of NAFTA, and that Africa is a continent, not a country. In Susan Jacoby’s article “The Dumbing of America” which appeared earlier this year in the Washington Post, she warns of a resurgent wave of anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism
in this country, including a frightening lack of even a basic grasp of geography, history, and science. Politicians typically
appeal to the voters as regular “folks,” and in this last election, the Republicans identified the “Joe-six-packs,” “hockey
moms,” and the iconic “Joe the Plumber,” as their base, (even if Joe the Plumber didn’t have a plumber’s license). To be labeled,
“elite,” on the other hand, now far from its original meaning of being distinguished, is as Jacoby writes, one of the worst
pejoratives anyone could be called. So what is the real danger here? That we neglect our capacity for an independent intellectual
life. We can do better than surf the Internet and TV channels, and sift through sound bites. We have affirmed this in part
by electing a president and leader who is thoughtful, well-educated, and smart. Barack Obama is open to the challenge of conflicting
ideas, and welcomes debate. Let us as a people, not just “folks,” listen, read, and learn, and continue our own balanced debates
and discussions; and let us also remember that education is the foundation and future of this great country.
President-elect Barack Obama delivers his acceptance speech last night at Grant Park in Chicago
before a crowd of hundreds of thousands of Americans, many of whom are overcome with emotion and openly weeping. In his speech,
Obama reaches out to all Americans, saying, "And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn - I may not have won
your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too."
Are you a liberal or conservative? Is it because of all those books you read in college, those friends you hung out with at
the pub, late into the night talking about politics, or were you shaped by your parent’s and family’s beliefs? Maybe none
of that. You may simply have been born a hard-wired ideologue, according to a recent study published in the journal Science. The researchers looked at whether political beliefs were linked to physical responses such as the startle reflex. The test
subjects were shown strong and threatening pictures, and their physical reactions were measured, such as blink rates, and
skin moisture. Researchers found that subjects’ political beliefs were aligned with how intensely they reacted to each stimulus,
with conservatives having the stronger reactions. John Hibbing, one of the researchers involved with the study told NPR: “Those people who seemed to have a stronger reaction to threat were more likely to favor things like military spending,
the death penalty, the Patriot Act.” Liberals and conservatives may find it so difficult to bridge the divide between their
ideologies because they experience the world so differently. It’s not even that they look at the world through different lenses,
but that they see it through different eyes.
