Creating a new, better day

Several letter writers to the Journal have echoed the barking seals of right-wing talk radio: Obama is imposing socialism on us and limiting "free enterprise." The naked truth is, like Franklin Roosevelt, Obama is a liberal and a capitalist. Like Roosevelt he is trying to save the capitalists from themselves. This is a big job. He has to rescue them and also keep them from destroying the planet.

Any "socialistic" measures (read active role for government misnamed "big government") are to rescue a failed system and designed to be temporary. The government steps in as the bank and employer of last resort because only it can keep the house of cards from falling. When the coming "depression" is over the goal is to have capitalism with a more human face but where the same dollarcrooked fingers that brought us this financial and ecological crisis are still in charge of our future.

We are "consumers" and not human beings and the Earth is not our only home but a mass of raw materials. These raw materials are turned into commodities through our labor, sold back to us to make more money and then again the whole malignant cycle of Walmart waste repeats itself. The planet can be destroyed by private "individuals" called corporations who "own" most of the world like masters once owned slaves." Capitalism has to impose its needs on nature regardless of the consequences to obtain profit and as we have known it is incapable of sustaining the environment. Many in civil society are aware of this but we do not yet have political leaders either capable or willing to tell us this nor are want to hear this inconvenient truth. We are all complicit with a permanent war and consumer society that abuses the world.

Fortunately every crisis presents opportunity and there are reasons to think rural America can make contributions far beyond its numbers. A crisis gives us the chance to reconsider our fixed ideas. The defenders of the status quo want us to think there are no alternatives to capitalism and that any ideas challenging it must be labeled "socialist, communist, foreign" or sometimes even "French." But rural Americans are in a much better position to see this ruse for what it is — fear of change and loss of control. Right now the emperor has no clothes. They have to come up with a new wardrobe, a brand new show. Trickle-down Reagonomics is gone and some sort of depression economics is being invented before our eyes.

Stop and ask yourself — What do we want and what is good for us? What has capitalism done for the Trinity Counties of America? If the United States somehow moved "beyond capitalism" to a system as yet undefined what do we stand to lose — our benign neglect, our unemployment, our poverty, our methamphetamine epidemic! We have already experienced the grab and run exploitation that took our gold, silver, timber, water and our children looking for work and gave us little or nothing in return and are in a better position to see beyond it. We already live close to the zero-growth economy that the rest of the country is going to need but a planned one that focuses on human need rather than greed and recognizes rural America in all its diversity as an equal partner in our endangered future.

The American people have travelled a long road to elect our first black president. We have an even longer and harder road ahead. I believe it is the common interest of all those who want Obama to reform capitalism with a more human face and those of us who want to move beyond it to defend his administration from the phony charges of "socialism." Would that it were so because instead of being the rescuers of the banks we would be their public (national) owners."

But the only way to get where we need to go is by taking our baby steps one at a time. What he needs from us is voluntary citizen action, support, criticism and our own rural agenda that he can respond to and be accountable for. Let's get busy and create a new day.