Change
I’m not usually one to get involved in politics. To me, the system is so corrupt and unmanageable that it’s not possible to fix it with better policies, better programs, better politicians. Sometimes you’ve got a lemon and it’s just not possible to make lemonade. Sometimes you have to take that lemon back to where you bought it and get a new one.
All of that still stands, but I have to admit that I was intrigued by Obama’s acceptance speech late last night. He said some things that surprised me, that foreshadow what I think is to come in the Century of Declines.
You [elected me] because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime — two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.
He says that we face the greatest challenges of our lifetime. What is a lifetime? How many years is a lifetime? 75 years? 106 years? Either way you look at it, he’s saying that no one who is alive right now has ever faced the kind of problems that are coming our way. This is no surprise to me: I think all of industrial civilization is poised to collapse in the next 50 years. But it’s a pretty big deal for a president to be saying something like that.
I [ask] you to join in the work of remaking this nation, the only way it’s been done in America for 221 years — block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.
Here I see a direct foreshadowing to the re-localization of our world. We need to bring everything closer to home: food production, energy production, manufacturing, etc. We have to REMAKE THIS NATION. He’s not talking about fixing this piece here and fixing that piece there, he’s talking about completely re-doing it.
It can’t happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.
So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.
This is huge. This is something that hasn’t been said in this country since WWII: a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice. We have to be prepared to help each other through the hard times that are ahead, we have to look beyond our own front yards and be responsible for our communities, we have to be prepared to sacrifice the very things that make America what it is today, and, without all of that, NONE of the change we seek can happen.
I’m still not convinced, though. These are just words. But I have to admit, he’s got me thinking that maybe, just maybe, he might be able to help make the fall a little less severe.
