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(See “It’s a Wonderful Life,” American Political Edition (Parts I-V) for all five parts combined and revised)

(Opening scene: Angels, represented by twinkling stars, are talking about a troubled soul on Earth. They review this soul’s life, and the circumstances that led to its present difficulties….)

It was conceived with great hopes in a simpler time, by a variety of generous parents, and a few original sins. England (via the British Empire), in which modern democracy developed; The Enlightenment, characterized by a fluorescence of rationalistic philosophy; a wide-open new land, with an easily displaced indigenous population; abundant imported and bred slave labor. It developed a grandiose vision for itself, one comprised of the somewhat incompatible “manifest destiny” and protection of liberty, and a faith in its own exceptionalism.

But, as often happens, life presented unforeseen challenges which diverted this soul, the sovereign American People, from its youthful dreams. It gradually was forced to confront its original sins, brutally divided by one of them. Innovations complicated the landscape in which its dreams had been formed. It had to cope with a world comprised of other people with interests of their own, people less convinced of the benevolence of this popular sovereignty than that populace itself was.

But despite this diversion from its original dreams, it was the same soul, peforming many good deeds, born of pragmatism rather than idealism, that were not part of the original plan. It grew to address a changing world, doing what needed to be done to increase the welfare of those who depended on it. It intervened in the home of its parents when brutality racked the latter’s fields and towns, and then watched those parents, unencumbered by youthful dreams, combine the best fruits of their child’s aspirations with the reduced purism that comes from maturity.

But something in the people clung to the purity of youthful dreams, sulking with resistance to adulthood’s demands, an error that sometimes characterizes youth. Just at the point when both the people and their government were on the verge of following the mature wisdom of moderation and adaptation, the dreamer within, childish and narcissistic rather than noble and generous, rebelled, and rent this soul in an internal conflict over whether mature moderation would prevail, or childish purism.

The childish purism rebelled in a moment of crisis, and a large faction of the people said, “Government is not the solution, it’s the problem! The world would be better off without this government we’ve allowed to grow and grow, displacing the purity we had believed in and tried to implement in our youth! We would be better off if we had not allowed the lessons of life to adapt those youthful dreams to the demands of reality!”

And so this soul’s guardian angel decided to show it what the world would have been like without that modern government it now wished dead….

(Continued in “Wonderful Life,” Part II)

Buy my e-book A Conspiracy of Wizards

There is much about the Tea Party mentality that is similar to anti-progress attitudes of the past, such as the fear that any improvement in the production or distribution of wealth comes at the expense of those who are invested in the status quo, and that the local and immediate interests of those who are inconvenienced or made worse off in the short run should trump the global and long-term interests of the many who would benefit from advancements in the production and distribution of wealth.

Throughout human history, in varying balances, there have been those who cling to a familiar past and those who reach for an improved future. The progress made despite the former has included a shift in balance in favor of the latter. Whereas traditional societies anchored themselves in ossified rituals and beliefs, modern societies have increasingly embraced the possibility of progress. But, as many have noted, modernity is “a candle in the darkness” (Carl Sagan’s phrase to describe science, still today), flickering in the midst of howling hordes of gods and demons, superstitions and arbitrary certainties, that continue to hold us back.

Early in the industrial revolution, British artisans protested mechanized production by destroying the power looms that were displacing them (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite). There are two important things to note about  this: 1) Progress does indeed cause dislocations, and, unless we take pains to address it, localized losses amidst generalized gains; and 2) to the extent that these victims of progress, whether their victimization is real or imagined, succeed in obstructing progress, we all lose in the long run, for the improved techniques that were obstructed would have created far greater wealth and opportunity in the long run than the archaic techniques that were preserved.

The Tea Partiers are modern Luddites, taking mallets to social institutional rather than technological innovation. As I discussed in several previous posts (see, e.g., The Politics of Consciousness , Information and Energy: Past, Present, and Future, The Evolutionary Ecology of Audio-Visual Entertainment (& the nested & overlapping subsystems of Gaia), The Nature-Mind-Machine Matrix), both technological and social institutional innovation are part of cultural evolution, the reproduction, mutation, and selection according to differential reproductive success of “memes” (i.e., ideas). And as I’ve also discussed in several previous posts (“Political Fundamentalism”, “Constitutional Idolatry”, Liberty Idolatry, and Small Government Idolatry), the political fundamentalism of the Tea Party is akin to the religious fundamentalism from which it mutated, and to the Inquisition which is the historical model of such fundamentalism, clinging to archaic orthodoxies that do not stand up to rational scrutiny (see Real Fiscal Conservativism for an economic analysis of this vis-a-vis the Tea Party), and fighting against the heresies of progress.

We are simply embroiled in one of the on-going battles of human history, constantly reincarnated, and constantly obstructing our ability to do better. It is incumbent upon us to open as many eyes as possible to this fact, and leave those who prefer to be champions of avoidable human suffering to become increasingly marginalized and reviled, while those who prefer to be champions of human welfare and true spiritual growth can join all other reasonable people of goodwill in the shared enterprise of forging a progressive path into the future.

Buy my e-book A Conspiracy of Wizards

Buy my e-book A Conspiracy of Wizards

The title quote, uttered by President Obama to describe the choice we have in the 2010 elections, captures the essence of the on-going struggle between humanity’s inner-angels and inner-demons, a struggle which produces the realization of both our dreams and our nightmares, depending on which prevails in any given moment of history.

The refrain “we want our country back” is the refrain of those who fear progress, who cling to a mythologically sanitized past rather than forge a path into the inevitable future. It attracts, along with those who are making some vaguer, narrower reference, those who want to take the country back from, among others, women, African Americans, Hispanics, non-Christians, and Gays, groups which have succeeded in diminishing the opportunity gap between themselves and the white, male, Christian minority that has historically maintained that gap to their own advantage and in accord with their own bigotries. And while we have progressed in diminishing the gap, the legacy of history remains with us today, and demands our forward-looking rather than backward-looking attention.

Those who have the courage to hope, to aspire to do better, don’t ever want their country “back.” We always want it “forward.” Our history has been the story of a people moving forward, conceived in a Declaration of Independence which continued and contributed to a transformation of the world already underway, accelerating our reach for future possibilities, and our removal of the shackles of past institutional deficiencies. It was a nation of Progressives, of people who knew that you don’t just accept the institutions handed down, but always seek to refine and improve them. It was a nation that drafted a document by which to govern itself, one which proved insufficient (The Articles of Confederation, drafted and adopted in 1777, though not actually ratified until 1781), and then got its representatives together to try again, ten years later, and get it right (producing the U.S. Constitution, which was a document drafted to strengthen, not weaken, the federal government).

The drafting and ratification of our brilliant Constitution marked a beginning, not an end, a point of departure through which to express and fully realize our collective genius, not an impediment to the use of our reason and will to address the challenges yet to come. It was drafted by people wise enough and humble enough not to imbue it with the quasi-religious hold it (or an insulting caricature of it) now has over some contracted imaginations. It was meant to be a source of guidance rather than a source of idolatry. It provided the nation with a robust legal framework through which to address future challenges, some of which were already visible at the time, and some of which were not, but which the framers knew would ceaselessly present themselves (and which many thought would promptly make the Constitution itself obsolete. The fact that that hasn’t come to pass is a tribute to our ability to make from the document they created in a given historical context one which adapts itself to changing historical circumstances).

Ahead of the country remained the abolition of slavery, the protection of individual civil rights from state as well as federal power, a far-too-late end to the slaughter and displacement of the indigenous population (too late because they had already been nearly exterminated, and removed to tiny, infertile plots of land), the institution of free universal public education, the extension of suffrage to unpropertied males and women, the passage of anti-trust laws to preserve a competitive market, the establishment and necessary growth of an administrative infrastructure which immediately preceded and facilitated the most robust acceleration of economic growth in the history of the world, the desegregation of our schools, the passage of The Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the beginnings of absolutely crucial efforts to address the long-term detrimental health and economic consequences of environmental contamination.

There never was a moment in the course of this story when there weren’t challenges yet to be identified and addressed, many of which could only be successfully addressed by means of government, and, often, only by means of the federal government (e.g., the abolition of slavery, which ended up requiring the federal government to prosecute a civil war; the enforcement of Civil Rights protections; and environmental protections covering interstate pollutants). Our Founding Fathers understood that. Thomas Jefferson himself said that every generation needed to refine its institutions to adapt to changing circumstances and meet the challenges of their own day. Such people never wanted their country “back.” They always wanted it “forward.” And they dreamed of establishing a country that would renew rather than renounce that commitment with every new generation.

Though there are many today who don’t get this, most don’t get it by means of blurry vision and historical inconsistency, rather than a retroactive commitment to what they claim currently to be an immutable truth. It is a tiny minority today, utterly detached from reality, who want to completely abolish Social Security or Medicare, though there are many who vehemently oppose health care reform and improved financial sector regulation. The difference between those past acts of our federal government that we have come to take for granted and whose value we almost universally recognize, and those present acts of our federal government that so many (so absurdly) call a “socialist” threat to our “liberty,” isn’t in the nature of the policies themselves (they are actually very similar in nature), but rather in the difference of perspective granted by elapsed time and an improved quality of life.

The impassioned, angry, vehement opposition to today’s progressive reforms, almost down to the precise words and phrases (including cries of “socialism”), is virtually identical to that which confronted the passage of Social Security and Medicare in their day. It is the perennial resurgence of the same faction, the same force at work today as in those previous generations: The voice of fear, the clinging to past failures and deficiencies for lack of courage, the perception of progress as a threat rather than a promise, though those same cowering souls could hardly imagine living without the promises of progress fulfilled before their birth and in their youth. They take gladly from those progressives who came before and fought to establish the world they now take for granted, but fight passionately against those progressives of today striving to provide similar gifts of social improvement to future generations.

In Colorado, these two sides, these two opposing forces of Hope and Fear, are embodied in our U.S. Senate and Gubernatorial races. In both races, it is the urbane, highly informed, business savvy, pragmatic Progressive pitted against the retrograde, chauvinistic, insular and regressionary Conservative. Michael Bennet, as I have written before at some length (Why Michael Bennet Truly Impresses Me), is a model of reason, civility, humility, and subtle systemic understanding, all focused on how to leave our children with more rather than less opportunity than we ourselves have enjoyed. Ken Buck, his opponent, is a sexist troglodyte who accused a rape victim of “buyer’s remorse”  (though the accused rapist admitted in a taped phone call from the police station that he had in fact raped her!), a candidate who opposes access to abortions even by victims of rape and incest (condemning some pre-teen girls to a premature motherhood that will, in some cases, utterly destroy them). With the same indifference to reality, Buck is committed to the pseudo-economic certainties of his ideological camp, certainties which defy the lessons of history and the prevailing economic models of those who actually study the subject.

In our gubernatorial race, we have a very similar match-up, with Democratic candidate John Hickenlooper (currently the very popular mayor of Denver) as a model of the rational, urbane entrepreneur (who, after being laid off as a geologist in his youth, opened a very successful brewpub in a downtown Denver area –LoDo– which, through his enterprise and hard work, he helped to turn into a very robust restaurant and bar district), opposed by Tom Tancredo, the U.S. Congressman (from my district, CD 6) who became nationally and internationally infamous for his outspoken xenophobia and belligerent anti-immigrant demagoguery. Again, it is a race of hope against fear, a repeat of similar struggles we have seen around the world throughout human history, with prosperity and human welfare flourishing where hope has prevailed, and a contraction of wealth and opportunity taking hold where fear prevails (sometimes accompanied by nightmares of violence directed against the scapegoats who have been identified as personified targets of that fear).

Economically,  Hope counsels that we employ the best economic models to forge the best fiscal and economic policies possible to ensure the robustness, sustainability, and equity of our economic system, while Fear counsels that we base our economic policies on information-stripped platitudes, contracting rather than expanding, insulating rather than competing, cowering rather than aspiring. A hopeful people invests in its future; a fearful people stuffs its money in a mattress. A hopeful people works to create a higher quality of life, while a fearful people works toward enshrining past achievements and, by doing so, obstructing future ones. A hopeful people seeks to expand opportunity; a fearful people seeks to protect what’s theirs from incursions by others. A hopeful people reaches out, looks past the horizon, and works toward positive goals. A fearful people builds walls, huddles together, and obstructs the dreams and aspirations of others.

But this year, in this election, it is not just any other incarnation of the struggle between Hope and Fear. It is the most dangerous form of that struggle, the form it takes when we are on the brink of inflicting on ourselves enormous suffering. Because the struggle this year is characterized by a terrifying discrepancy in passion: The angry, fearful mob is ascendant, while cooler heads are too cool, too uninspired, to face that mob down and disperse it.

It is under just such circumstances when, historically, Fear prevails over Hope. It is under these circumstances, circumstances that the hopeful among us are allowing to take hold, when countries get sucked into the nightmare that fear produces. This is what responsible, reasonable people of goodwill cannot, must not, allow to happen.

Vote. Make sure everyone you know votes. Confront the angry, frightened and frightening mob and insist that we are better than that. Don’t let them put this state, this country, and this world back into Reverse again, as it was from 2001-2009, when America became a nation defined by fear, with a government defined by the belligerent ignorance which is Fear’s most loyal servant. Let’s keep this nation in Drive, and move hopefully into the future. In 2008, many of us were excited by that prospect, and in 2010, we should remain warriors of reason and goodwill in the face of the Grendel of small-mindendness awoken by the small, fledgling steps forward we have taken as a people. We need to defend, preserve, and advance what we accomplished in 2008. We need to move forward, not backward.

Don’t sit this one out. Don’t let the brutal tyranny of Fear and Ignorance rule us.

Buy my e-book A Conspiracy of Wizards

The blogosphere is a cacophony of arbitrary assertions, unreliable information, angry retorts, and assumption-laden quick commentaries. Long, thoughtful explorations of issues and aspects of our lives are resented on many sites, high volume being instantly equated with low density, and in-depth analysis conflated with unnecessary verbosity. There are reasons for this: The lack of quality control and editorial assistance involved in instantly self-published compositions leadto a lack of confidence on the part of others that investing a large amount of time is worth the effort. And the world has become a more sound-bite driven place, relying more on quick hits of factoids and headlines than insightful discussion of underlying dynamics and implications. The rapid, massive flow of information is a deluge in which no one can swim, and those who try are left grabbing fractured pieces rather than comprehensive narratives.

But lengthy composition does not imply poor quality. Those of us who still read books, read books that are hundreds of pages long, without generally complaining that the author failed to make his or her point in less than 200 words. Even the magazine articles we read are generally of a length that would be greeted with derision in the blogosphere. But those who self-publish are not necessarily writing works of inferior quality, and thoughtful essays cannot be reduced to soundbites without destroying their value entirely.

I started this blog (just over seven weeks ago, as I write) in order to create a more thoughtful haven on the internet, a place where we do something more useful than post links and quick retorts and escalating flame wars. I wanted to create a confluence of thoughts and ideas, a place where people can teach and learn from one another, where we can all lift one another up by using this technology of collective consciousness in a more deeply nourishing way.

But though a fair number of people have been stopping by on a daily basis to read my posts, very few have posted anything of their own. I can’t make this clearing house of ideas and insights and ponderings and contemplations work all on my own; I need the help of others who are also thinking about the world in which we live. Please, post your essays here, on any topic of interest to you, and send the link to this page to everyone you know who might wish to do the same. Let’s create a real confluence of thought, and imagination, and aspiration, right here, and, hopefully, gradually, flowing together with all other such efforts wherever they may be, everywhere.

I look forward to reading your thoughts about the world in which we live, and what we can do to improve the quality of our lives.

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