This has happened before: the American people spoke with stunning clarity on one issue and astonishing ambivalence on most others ... and in so doing have triggered a series of consequences that will take an entire generation to rectify.
Although we'll all have to get used to calling him President Bush now (without the quotation marks), the ultimate outcome is not so certain. Even though we will inevitably see a further swing to the hard right (there will be a viciously conservative Supreme Court and dangerous times for gays, intellectuals, the poor and minorities of any classification are upon us), ultimately it will fall to each of us to define what it really means to be an American.
Those of us in the baby boom generation have been here before. The bad news is: last time my generation really blew it and that's a big part of why we're in this mess right now. Those of us in the baby boom generation fell asleep at the switch, and that's the reason why America now teeters on the brink of being a conservative theocracy.
When I was in grade school Governor Ronald Reagan called out the National Guard to take over the University of California. I was a high school student when the Vietnam war was in full rage and young Democrats were being beaten on national television in the streets of Chicago. We read Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and thought it was a travelogue.
Today it's difficult to believe, but back then many of us thought that the revolution must surely be right around the corner. It was common wisdom: tomorrow morning, or certainly by the end of the week, the revolution would be starting because it was the only way to restore some sense of justice and humanity, and the only way to control this huge and violent society of ours. Even though the police were hunting down the Black Panthers and the National Guard was killing students in Ohio their violence would only postpone the inevitable restoration of justice.
But then, about the time we were finishing college, everything changed. The U.S. retreated from Vietnam and Richard Nixon finally resigned in shame. We were so relieved! Obviously justice had prevailed and it seemed that America would naturally lead the world into a period of peace and opportunity and the idea of respect for all people no matter the color of their skin or their beliefs was such a sensible notion that it simply had to prevail, and there would be no need for us to be constantly on guard anymore.
We were so ebullient, so comforted by our small success, and, frankly, so tired, that we fell asleep at the switch. We forgot that the fight for justice never ends. And we didn't recognize that the forces of fear and greed would never rest.
Some of it too was that we got caught up in ... well, growing up. You know, acting like adults. We convinced ourselves that our recent fights were really youthful affairs and that since we were "grownups" now we needed to act our age and quit being so outrageous. And so we set about getting on with our lives confident that the really important fights had been fought and that the war was won.
But, while we were busy getting on with our lives, the conservative voices became stronger ... and smarter ... and richer. They never rested. And over a couple of decades they managed to pull off something like a mass hypnosis on an unimaginably huge scale. They played on the twin emotions of fear and greed and cynically hijacked religion to build the awful juggernaut that has now taken full control of America.
The conservative voices convinced the majority of Americans that they have much more in common with the rich than they do with the poor ... and then dismantled the social safety net in the perverse belief that somehow if only we make it very hard to get help, then the helpless will help themselves, but knowing that in any case the fear of poverty will keep the masses docile and unwilling to fight back.
The conservative voices led us to believe that the world is a dangerous place and that the violent force of the American military is the only thing standing between us and the unwashed hordes who want to come and take our stuff without having to work for it. (And then, in a cruel but calculated irony, they made aggression our official foreign policy, which confirmed the suspicions of the rest of the world and gave even the uncommitted real reasons to hate us.)
The conservative voices insisted that collective action is a seditious idea and that no one need feel compelled to take any responsibility for others. The conservatives falsely defined government as the problem and demanded that if only government would get out of the way, then the "market forces" (ruled by fear and greed) would ensure that everyone prospered. The conservatives perversely twisted Adam Smith, who was talking only about economic fortunes not the welfare of the people, to the point where today a politician can seriously argue that the capitalism is actually the will of god.
The fact is that while my generation was sleeping America has come dangerously close to being a right-wing theocracy, and it has become the most violent and aggressive nation on the planet.
We didn't mean for that to happen. We certainly didn't expect it to happen. But being sorry won't help. We need to recognize that the current state of affairs is the result when those of us of liberal mind are not always on guard.
But there is a new wind blowing. On this cold November morning it feels like the winds of a major winter storm. You can feel it around the country and it will bring change. And we will determine what kind of change.
It's like we're gradually awakening from a long trance. These last months there were legions of my generation working on political organizing who hadn't done that in decades. We've found others who share our beliefs, but who have been too fearful to speak up. We should have been doing this all along, but our generation has always been slow to start, and now we've begun. We've met neighbors and made new friends who believe as we do.
Americans are tired of being afraid and suspicious. Americans are realizing that they actually feel better when they care about others and that they feel the best when they have the chance to give their best. We're realizing that we've been taken advantage of and lied to and misled. And most importantly, we are beginning to understand that only when every human being truly has real justice and real economic opportunity will we have succeeded and only then will be we truly safe.
The revolution begins now.
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