Changing The Mindset

I don't want to just end the war, but I want to end the mindset that got us into war in the first place.
-- Barack Obama (any of a thousand stump speeches)

Feeling sorry for Hillary yet? I am, a little. We don't actually need to get out the handkerchiefs, as she seems to be having a pretty good life, all in all. But I know she's been working hard, and it's got to be pretty devastating at this point. Of course, she still has a shot, but she has to know it's going to be an uphill battle from here. Obama's momentum is incredible, and folks are starting to climb aboard the bandwagon all over the country, and from all the ubiquitous demographics. The mood of the electorate has seen a significant shift.

But I have to say that Hillary, for all her differences with Bush & Co., is nonetheless part of that mindset we need to outgrow. And yes, I know Obama may, when it's all over, prove to have been yet another politician who was nothing but talk. I've chosen to believe that his heart is in the right place, for all his failings, and it looks like there are a lot of Americans besides just me who yearn to believe. That could translate into big numbers for other Democratic candidates this fall as well, riding the coattails of Yes We Can, and give the Democrats increased majorities in both the House and Senate for the 111th Congress in 2009. The stage could be set for dramatic progress soon in all the areas that trouble those of us who think about the world from a humanist perspective: war, human rights, global warming, economic injustice, corporate greed, and so on. So why am I still so uneasy?

Even a man -- or woman -- whose heart is in the right place has an uphill battle in the halls of American government right now, even with solid majorities in Congress. There will still be enormous pressure from powerful influences, there will still be all kinds of elected officials and many of them will still be corrupt, and there will still be a host of Bush appointees, including those new guys on the Supreme Court, to throw monkey wrenches into the machinery at every turn. Nobody said it would be easy.

So why do I think Hillary is part of the outmoded mindset of war? Well, there's her voting record, after all. It's hard to take her spin on the Iraq vote, since I'm one of those odd people capable of remembering back further than two weeks. I was paying attention, at least out of the corner of my eye while writing software, to that vote that authorized W to lead us into battle, and you would have had to be an idiot not to know what was going on. The same was true of last year's Iran vote, although so far we've lucked out thanks to "disloyal" officials who've let us in on the truth about Iran's WMD capabilities. There's more, though. In general, Hillary favors a more hard-line stance with those nations who've dared to disagree with us, and the more you know about U. S. history, the more offensive it really is that we continue to think we can cop these attitudes with countries where we've meddled and disrupted things so horribly, we've got a nerve saying anything at all. But that's America, the last great power, and what we say goes. Iran's been a mess since Operation Ajax in 1953 when we installed our own friendly puppet, the Shah, and all that crumbled into fundamentalism in 1979, another great victory for American can-do government.

All that's to say, the more you know about what the U. S. has really been up to basically since World War II, the more hypocritical the status quo holier-than-thou attitude really seems. Obama is very up front about wanting to change all that, although some of the details of his plans for the future make you wonder. I'm not sure how a huge increase in the size of the military squares with getting us out of the mindset of war, but hey, we've got to take this a step at a time. I'm hoping that Obama isn't a liar, because changing this mindset is really what I'm all about.

It's always been one of the most frustrating aspects of this blog that I can't transmit all the insight I've gained by my own reading to the reader that happens across this page. There are many entries here that point to a lot of good sources, and all I can say is it's important to be well read, because you certainly can't rely on today's media, owned as it is by either right-wing crackpots or huge corporate entities who profit greatly in times of war. You have to access information not generated by those who don't always find it in their best interests to tell the truth. The truth is, the United States has made excessive use of power during the sixty years I've been alive, and it has made life far more miserable, and far less hopeful, for hundreds of millions -- no, let's use the billions designator -- around the world. If the United States were actually to change its mindset, and it's why the whole world is watching this election with bated breath, and began to truly support bottom-up democracies throughout the world instead of dictatorships, elitism and corporate exploitation, the world could be utterly, profoundly, dramatically and beautifully transformed.

Obama has said the right things, and whether most Americans really understand why they're so right I rather doubt, but they really are the right things. They speak to the deepest hopes and most noble aspirations of humanity the world over, not just Americans, but they are a special challenge to those of us who are American, if we and the speaker are truly ready to turn words into action. He talks about hope, and he could soon be in position to turn some of those hopes to reality. I'm sure he knows, as I've discovered, how truly powerful a force the United States of America really is for good or ill, and I'm sure he knows that too often, and for far too long, we have not lived up to that promise.

America is far more than its president, or the thousands of government officials good and bad that may soon be under his charge. America is the home of the world's most powerful multi-national corporations, the world's most overwhelming military force, the most influential media, and so on. In many ways, the new president will find himself (yeah, himself) still a small cog in the larger machine. Of course, he could use all the snazzy new powers George Bush will leave him, such as unaccountable intelligence, mercenary, and justice divisions, an escalated priority for signing statements that makes the president a virtual dictator, and a vast array of judicial and administrative appointees deeply committed to unitary executive power. Or not. I'd certainly prefer that he didn't, because then we'd still have the dictatorship Bush created, just with a new dictator. That would do little to change the mindset.

The truth is, I think he's going to need a lot of help. He strikes me as someone who welcomes a helping hand or two, and I believe there'll be a lot of us anxious to put in a little time for a good cause. There hasn't been much out of Washington lately I'd want to sign onto, but times change. At least we can Hope.