THINKING FOR OURSELVES

An Extraordinary Moment

By Shea Howell

Michigan Citizen, June 15-21. 2008

We are living in an extraordinary moment. Barack Obama has secured the nomination for the presidency of the United States. Only a year ago such an achievement seemed impossible. Much of this moment belongs to the magnificent gifts of the Senator from Illinois who has managed to project a new vision for our country, captivate the best of our youth and unleash an energy unseen since the 1960s.

At the same time Senator Obama would be the first to admit this moment belongs not only to him and to all those who have worked for him, but to all those who have gone before in the long struggle for justice in this land.

In a recent Op-Ed column in the New York Times Bob Herbert wrote, “This election year has been a testament to the many long decades of work and sacrifice by men and women—some famous, most not; some still alive, many gone—to build a more equitable and just American society.” Herbert goes on to say, “When night riders were fitted for their robes, when Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door, when lowlifes mocked and humiliated those who were fighting for women’s rights, they were trying to forestall the realization of this type of moment in history.”

Those forces, who have held sway on our public life for decades, are at long last losing their death grip on our minds and hearts. Whatever happens from here on out, the Obama campaign has given us “a moment the society can build upon.” We have an opportunity to change the course of our country, to construct a better future.

In sharp contrast to the hope embodied in the Obama campaign are the deepening fears of the American people about our well-being. According to a Gallup poll conducted at the beginning of the week, a majority of Americans, 55%, are for the first time in history financially worse off than they were a year ago. More than one quarter, 28%, believe our children will be worse off than we are. A stunning 77% hold a negative view about the economy with only 5% thinking it is moving in a positive direction.

The challenge before Senator Obama, and all of us, is the reconstruction of our country. The devastation we are experiencing has been a long time coming. Over the last 40 years we have been coming to the end of a way of life made possible by a society industrializing itself and producing abundance by abusing the land and its people. Central to this abuse has been the monsrous growth and misuse of military power. The development of a war economy is inextricably tied to the crisis we now face. This crisis is more than what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called the “very obvious and almost facile connection between the war” and the struggles to create a just society at home.

“The war,” said Dr. King, “is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit.”

“ Our commitment to a war economy, “ he warned, “was destroying all we valued.” “We …must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”