"We didn't start the fire It was always burning, since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it"
"-"-- Billy Joel
My daughter"- was born in a time of optimism. A few years earlier, the Berlin Wall had fallen and the USSR had collapsed. The previous month, Clinton had turned Bush into a one-term President, ending, at least for the moment, America's lurch to the right. The conclusion of the Cold War offered an opportunity for a peace dividend and a chance to invest in solutions to long-simmering problems on the home front.
Thirty years later, that same daughter has given birth to a son in a world where optimism is harder to come by. The fledgling Russian Democracy was killed in its crib by a new Despot with his sight set on reoccupying countries that had escaped the USSR's grip. The peace dividend was squandered on tax cuts for the rich, helping to increase the gap between rich and poor. The Reagan Revolution now looks quaint after four years of Trump and The Republican Party's march toward totalitarianism.
Threats to democracy, widening income inequality, and the reemergence of the nuclear threat confront us against a backdrop of the possible extinction of life as we know it on Planet Earth. As I prepared to travel to meet my brand-new grandson, the planet experienced its hottest week ever recorded. Under the influence of campaign funding from carbon-dependent corporations, our government refuses to act in any meaningful way against climate change. The Republican party will not even admit that man is the cause of the problem, a necessary first step in implementing solutions.
As I spent this past week getting to know my first grandchild, my younger daughter's words kept echoing in my mind: on more than one occasion she has told me that she does not know if she could bring a baby into the world knowing that we're on a crash course towards a self-induced extinction. How badly have we failed as a species when newly crowned adults doubt our ability to collectively survive? That is not a great legacy.
As I thought about my Grandson's future, I reminded myself that pessimism is the enemy of progress. To be an activist, one has to be an optimist; otherwise, what is the point of the fight? You have to believe that change is achievable.
Is it possible to stare into a newborn's eyes and not see hope? Babies are a blank slate unencumbered by the anchors that weigh down those of us who have been here for a while. Self-doubt fueled by past failures does not exist yet. Instead, the simple pleasure of hearing a mother's comforting voice can send a baby into ecstatic glee.
While the crises facing our species are certainly daunting, they are not insurmountable. Just as my grandson will eventually progress from his current state of complete dependence, we too can change our status. The march toward authoritarianism can be stopped. The erosion of freedoms does not have to be inevitable. Our behaviors can be modified to stop the warming of the planet. But this will only happen if we're willing to fight for it.
I cannot look into my Grandson's eyes and not feel a sense of responsibility for improving the world that he will eventually inherit. The hope cannot be betrayed.
Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for public education, particularly for students with special education needs, who serves as the Education Chair for the Northridge East Neighborhood Council. As a Green Party candidate in LAUSD's District 2 School Board race, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action. Dr. Diane Ravitch has called him "a valiant fighter for public schools in Los Angeles." For links to his blogs, please visit www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own.
