For the better part of a year, even in the following week, much noise has come from the traditional crowd regarding the supposed takeover of their country. Slogans which worked in the past, (Country First) failed to match the reality of the first decade of the new century. The traditionalists, for all their mocking of the word change, don’t realize America changed long before President Obama took office. I’ll wager when the Cold War ended, that’s when we also stopped becoming a superpower.
When the Berlin Wall came tumbling down in 1989, it was the beginning of the end for the former Soviet Union, the Evil Empire I and many young people at the time was force fed mentally to abhor and denounce for terms like Marxism, Communism, and the fact freedom was denied its citizens. At last, they were defeated and the United States remained the lone superpower in the world, the winner in the Cold War spanning over forty years.
However, with being the lone superpower, we paid a price. One, we had no enemy to rally against on the national level. We finally had to take a hard look at this country and the financial burdens accumulated over the years. The 1992
Presidential debates presented the first challenge of our new status. What to do about our deficit? In the past, the traditionalists insisted the military was the answer, but now that the Soviet Union was dissolved, what was the solution for the U.S.? The lack of an long term idea to set this country on the right financial track was and in my opinion a continuing challenge today, but the traditionalists failed to see beyond their patriotic mindset.
The patriotic mindset pervaded in our politics and our media for years. How else could we explain the success of television shows with hosts throwing off guests who didn’t agree with their ideological views, in an atmosphere that would make the Ancient Romans jealous. Although Christians weren’t thrown to the lion’s den, there were plenty of liberals to throw at the horde of a rowdy studio audience with leading questions and accusatory statements to their latest victims, the unruly commie-loving activists who survived to face their wrath. While this chatter was entertaining and fun for a while, it didn’t help discuss ways to bring down the deficit, balance the budget and steer our minds to a long lasting vision of what America could be, rather than what Ross Perot once accused the United States of daydreaming of its past
“while the rest of the world was building its future.”I would wager that the frustration shown by protesters, traditionalists and the politicians who side with them is due to the undeniable fact America hasn’t changed and refused to accept the inevitable. A prime example of that is the closure of military bases and the effect it has on surrounding cities depending on them for years. As evidenced by the city I live in now, there is no financial engine as a replacement for the lost bases. Contrast that to other military bases redeveloped with retail outlets serving the communities they reside in.
My counselor once advised me that ‘whatever worked for you in the past, no longer does.’ The entire populace of the United States is going to have to face this undeniable fact, we are going to change whether you like it or not. It doesn’t matter if it’s in a campaign slogan or in actuality, but it’s happening right now. It happened after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s, end of the Cold War of the late 1980’s, the various incidents in Waco and Oklahoma City in the 1990’s, the terrorist attack of 2001, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and President Obama’s election in 2008.
In each of these historical instances, the world around us was shaped and impacted our consciousness somewhat. And although this is a hard pill to swallow….the 1950’s are long gone. As much as our traditionalists point to that decade, they will not return. I could argue the same about our civil leaders who guided our consciousness such as Malcolm and King. They’re not coming back either, point blank. For now, we have to deal with the fact we can adapt to the global economy, clean energy, green jobs, social networking and yes, those damn digital readers. They are here and we can’t force the 1950’s or any other past time into a 2010 and beyond square peg. It just won’t do.
Rest assured should the traditionalists have their way, our current President will be a one timer and I would assure you there will be a talk show host who will state ‘we finally have our country back again, the experiment is over’ as if the election of a Black president was a unintelligible trial by the majority to see if individuals who share the author’s hue have the mental acumen to govern. In fact, had he continued, former general Colin Powell, also African-American, would have been successful in his 1996 Presidential bid, IMO. So it’s not the ‘experiment’ but more the realism of the time when we can choose content of character rather than a person’s skin. (Slowly creeping but we’re getting there)
Of course, the election of President Obama is another facet of change the traditionalists refuse adamantly to accept. As we move forward in this new century, there will be more Supreme Court Justices sitting on the bench who are not of a certain dominant ethnicity. That’s a fact. The previous administration such as the current one have members of diverse nationalities in high positions, a testament to the changing times in this country. So it would be foolish to combat the winds of change as I wrote in my poem of the same title (in the
Voices of South Central), ‘blow continuously over death.’
Whether or not you believe it’s true, the fears of losing the majority in another forty years troubles the traditionalists to no end, which shows in the passion, the fervor of the recent protests and conventions. Yet, if ancient Egypt, Greece, most of all Rome, France, Britain, Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union all faced a social metamorphosis, is it safe to assume the United States is headed for a similar transformation? Although massive turnover in the status of the dominant majority isn’t for certain, it’s the one threat the traditionalists shudder and plan to avoid at every possibility. However, if our Lord in heaven with His patient eye oversaw the rise and fall of empires, what difference would it make when it’s our turn to face the inevitable? That’s something worth considering.
No matter what happens, it will be worth watching – and experiencing the reaction to change among the populace.