OPINION: Where Did Hope Go?

These past few weeks during the never-ending machinations over raising the debt ceiling, I was reminded of the first few minutes of the movie The Big Chill. The preacher eulogizing Alex asks “where did hope go.” Where did the hope for the future of our country go, I found myself asking. Remember how we felt after Obama won the election. Bipartisanship was a thing of the past, wars would end, our nation’s health would once again be the best in the world, and we could once again dream of a better country  and a better world.

 

There is plenty of blame to go around, but the “blame game” was also supposed to end, so I won’t go there. What we have learned over the past few months is that my vision of our future and the vision of our elected officials is not only not the same, but is not even close. The “deal” to be voted on in the next day clearly delineates the priorities of our leadership. For one group it’s no new taxes no matter what, reduce government, and leave the “sacred cow” military spending alone. For the other side, it’s we will sacrifice everything as long as you leave Medicare, Medicaid, and SS alone, even to improve it — our sacred cows are just as sacred as your cows. For both sides its – elections are almost a year away so for God’s sake let’s not do anything else it might influence the way people vote.

 

Where did I our hope go? Let me list just a few of the issues that are not sacred in the minds of our leaders. They can be sacrificed according to them at the altar of fiscality – Health Care, Education, NASA, Environment, Road and Highways, Public Safety, and our Nation’s Parks. Here are some people who are not sacred according to our leaders and are not as important as credit ratings – the poor, the sick, the unemployed, the imprisoned, and the retired or elderly. Where did hope go? While Congress has been arguing about sacred cows, tens of millions of able bodied, willing workers go jobless day after day, week after week, and now year after year. Who speaks for them? Where did hope go? Our nation’s schools, roads, buildings, bridges, and parks are in desperate need of rebuilding and repair. Where did hope go? Our public health and educational systems are rapidly in decline and we no longer are in the upper echelon of the world in the care or education of our people. And if we need further example of where did our hope go, we need to go no further than remembering that 50 years ago, JFK challenged our country to explore outer space, and we did. This year we closed the doors to NASA and the dream that it represents.

 

I understand, that there are a lot of people who feel that given the reality of the moment the current deal is the best sausage that can be made. Well, we’ll see if it is edible or not, but it certainly has no nutritional value. Our country has always had challenges This budget crisis pales in comparison to the civil war, the World Wars, nuclear annihilation, and the Great Depression. Perhaps, we will hear somewhere a voice that says what was done is not good enough  for me. I’m not going to wait until 2013 to provide hope. Where such a voice resides, that’s where hope lies.