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Where to start? With The Speech, of course. Like many, I have it stowed away in video and text to use as source in months to come.In general, the issue of acquiring a new Justice on the Supreme Court seems mostly a soft subject to detract us from jobs, deficits and rogue countries. Will North Korea become bigger than PakAfghan? Will they let us forget that there's a question of Iraq? Barack Obama was spot on when he says wars are easier to start than to finish. Same goes for discussions on the subject.
I was most struck by a QuickLink I posted--an Alternet article described incidents from around the nation dealing with family murder and suicide. The sheer number of stories left me with a heavy feeling. Turning to TV happy talk about improving statistics, there came that old disclaimer, "employment is a lagging indicator." Like already an official 10%. One comment on the QuickLink mentioned above had these words:
Broke, unemployed and helpless + summer = angry.
Broke, unemployed and helpless + WINTER = desperate.
I saw a comment on another piece about the present state of labor: "Opinion polls say that the majority of US workers want to be in a labor union, according to Kate Bronfenbrenner, a professor and director of Labor Education Research, New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. So why are just 12.4 percent of American workers union members? In brief, they fear what their bosses will do to them. Such fear is real."
Wars on Obama's watch--nothing new about those. My personal involvement in E-politicking started during the Democratic 2004 primary. General Wesley Clark's thesis in the debates regarding the Iraq war was, "It was wrong then and it's wrong now." During the ensuing time I often read Chris Hedges' work, because he reported from the front. This week he wrote an article called War is Sin. I quote: "It is impossible to know war if you do not stand with the mass of the powerless caught in its maw. All narratives of war told through the lens of the combatants carry with them the seduction of violence. But once you cross to the other side, to stand in fear with the helpless and the weak, you confront the moral depravity of industrial slaughter and the scourge that is war itself. Few books achieve this clarity. "The Photographer" is one."
I hoped to say more about what is likely to be major topics to cover this week, but seem stuck mulling over some fundamental principles. Why do we read, write, and comment on happenings bigger than those we control? The short answer for me is because I need to see how I fit in. There's both a defensive and a participatory element. I sit here wondering how I can be connected to those more stressed than I, and also wondering how to make stories real to political leaders. I read whatever is available online, which will help me chart my own course. For that reason I communicate with you who are wiser than I, asking for meaningful explanation. I try to find your articles. If I miss one, let me know.
What I feel more optimistic about is that some of us are beginning to see national and world events with less of an adversarial approach. Could it be that a Democrat will see another Democrat as more like a neighbor than a stranger? My idea of a neighborhood is a place where I don't necessarily have a close relationship with every resident, but I know our surroundings will be more pleasant if we don't engage in fruitless spats.
