Excerpts - Change

The Geezers’ Crusade by David Brooks, New York Times, February 2, 2010

 ...One of the keys to healthy aging is what George Vaillant of Harvard calls “generativity” — providing for future generations...We are naturally inclined to serve those who come after and thrive when performing that role.
The odd thing is that when you turn to political life, we are living in an age of reverse-generativity. Far from serving the young, the old are now taking from them. First, they are taking money...the federal government now spends $7 on the elderly for each $1 it spends on children.
Second, they are taking freedom...As more money goes to pay off promises made mostly to the old, the young have less control.
Third, they are taking opportunity...higher tax rates implied by that spending will mean less growth and fewer opportunities. Already, pension costs in many states are squeezing education spending.
In the private sphere, in other words, seniors provide wonderful gifts to their grandchildren, loving attention that will linger in young minds, providing support for decades to come. In the public sphere, they take it away...
it'snow clear change will not be led from Washington...Spontaneous social movements can make the unthinkable thinkable, and they can do it quickly. It now seems clear that the only way the U.S. is going to avoid an economic crisis is if the oldsters take it upon themselves to arise and force change...Only the old can lead a generativity revolution — millions of people demanding changes in health care spending and the retirement age to make life better for their grandchildren.
It may seem unrealistic — to expect a generation to organize around the cause of nonselfishness...

The '00s: Goodbye (at Last) to the Decade from Hell By Andy Serwer, Time magazine, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009 "…Jan. 1, 2000…The dreaded millennial meltdown never happened…Instead, it was the American Dream that was about to dim. Bookended by 9/11 at the start and a financial wipeout at the end, the first 10 years of this century will very likely go down as the most dispiriting and disillusioning decade Americans have lived through in the post–World War II era… Call it the Decade from Hell, or the Reckoning, or the Decade of Broken Dreams, or the Lost Decade. Call it whatever you want — just give thanks that it is nearly over…Once, we were the sunniest and most optimistic of nations. No longer.
The U.S. has endured not one but two market crashes — one at each end of the decade…the most divisive and confusing presidential election in history… the defining moment of the decade, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, which redefined global politics for at least a generation and caused us to question the continental security we had until then rarely worried about. We waged war in Afghanistan…Then came our fiasco in Iraq…anthrax letters and later the Washington, D.C., snipers and the wave of Wall Street scandals…Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisiana, killing more

than 1,500 and causing $100 billion in damages. It was the largest natural disaster in our nation's history….A housing bubble fueled by cheap money and excessive borrowing set ablaze by derivatives, so-called financial weapons of mass destruction, put the economy on the brink of collapse…The Asian tsunami of 2004 killed more than 200,000 people. And our financial meltdown quickly spread around the developed world…Who among us is unscathed? Not many…Perhaps we were lulled into complacency by the exuberance of the end of the Cold War. It was a deception brought on by an

unusually positive historical continuum...Why did so much bad stuff happen in this decade? Was it just rotten luck or something more? Sure, some of it was simply randomness, but I think a strong case can be made that it was more than just chance that got things so bollixed up. In large part, we have ourselves to blame. If you look at the underlying causes of some of the most troubling developments of the decade…came about at least in part or were greatly exacerbated by:

• Neglect. Our inward-looking culture … Greed. Our absolute faith in the markets…• Self-interest…Deferral of responsibility. Our power grid needs an upgrade and our bridges are falling down because we have not mustered the political and popular willpower to fix them. New Orleans drowned because authorities failed to act before Katrina busted the inadequate levees.
It was almost as if we as a nation said in previous decades, "Why do today what we can put off until the first decade of the 21st century?" …Our economic narcissism was certainly the culprit in the devastation wrought by financial markets...And what about the Hurricane Katrina debacle? An act of God, right? Not really…a federal judge ruled that the [Army] Corps was directly responsible for flooding…The Corps' lassitude and failure to fulfill its duties resulted in a catastrophic loss of human life and property in unprecedented proportions… Some fact-based decision-making could have saved hundreds of lives and billions of dollars. Here, too, years of complacency were the rule, not the exception. The price was paid this decade…the Minneapolis I-35W bridge spanning the Mississippi River collapsed, killing 13 and injuring 145… the bridge had been classified as "structurally deficient" since 1991…the American Society of Civil …estimated that the U.S. needed to spend $1.6 trillion to bring our roads, highways, bridges and dams into good shape…Here again, why should a politician spend money today to fix something that won't collapse until tomorrow? Especially if he or she could get re-elected by cutting taxes instead...We have seen the destructiveness of deferral and neglect on infrastructure, national and global politics, financial markets and corporate governance, and I think it's safe to say that the awareness of that danger is much higher now…" full text
 
Changing the World by Bob Herbert, New York Times, October 27, 2009 - "I was thinking about the sense of helplessness so many ordinary Americans have been feeling as the nation is confronted with one enormous, seemingly intractable problem after another...Americans have tended to watch with a remarkable (I think frightening) degree of passivity as crises of all sorts have gripped the country and sent millions of lives into tailspins.

Where people once might have deluged their elected representatives with complaints, joined unions, resisted mass firings, confronted their employers with serious demands, marched for social justice and created brand new civic organizations to fight for the things they believed in, the tendency now is to assume that there is little or nothing ordinary individuals can do about the conditions that plague them. This is so wrong...This passivity and sense of helplessness most likely stems from the refusal of so many Americans over the past few decades to acknowledge any sense of personal responsibility for the policies and choices that have led the country into such a dismal state of affairs, and to turn their backs on any real obligation to help others who

were struggling...Being an American has become a spectator sport...The nation’s political leaders and their corporate puppet masters have fouled this nation up to a fare-thee-well. We will not be pulled from the morass without a big effort from an active citizenry, and that means a citizenry fired with a sense of mission and the belief that their actions, in concert with others, can make a profound difference... full text

10 Reasons to be Hopeful about 2009, and 3 Reasons to be Terrified by Sarah van Gelder, YES! Magazine, January 2, 2009: We’re entering a new year at a time unlike any other in recent memory. 10 reasons I’m filled with hope...
1. Young people are stepping up.
2. Election protection is working.
3. There is now overwhelming support for universal health care . .
4. Corporate power is on the wane. 
5. ...painful as it might be, this downturn represents a chance to build a different sort of economy —one that offers dignity, livelihoods, and a future for our children.
6. We’re finally getting real about the urgency and scope of the climate challenge.
7. Social movements are building people power.
8. DIY (do it yourself) communities are piloting the shift to a people-centered society. 
9. International cooperation is now possible... 10. Obama...has elevated the national dialogue, setting a new standard for intelligent, inclusive, nuanced leadership.
Reasons to be terrified:
1. Runaway climate change. 
2. Loose nukes.
3. Mad Max world.
...we humans have the free will to make choices that assure our collective survival, or to do otherwise...The answers are readily available, embedded in all the world’s spiritual traditions... full text
 
Let’s Get Fundamental by David Brooks, New York Times., September 4, 2009 - ..the American health care system is dysfunctional at the core...This is not the time to get incremental. It’s the time to get fundamental. Reform the incentives. Make consumers accountable for spending. Make price information transparent. Reward health care, not health services. Do what you set out to do. Bring change.  full text
 
Fueling the Fire of Real Change by Chris Hedges published on September 29, 2008 byTruthDig.com: "Works of mercy and contact with the destitute sustain the spark in the ashes," said William Griffin of the Catholic Worker. "It is with the poor and the indigent that you sense the imbalance and injustice. It is this imbalance that inspires action. Generations come in waves. One generation is inspired by these sparks, as Martin Luther King was during the civil rights movement. These fires often fall away and smolder until another generation." …As the numbers of disenfranchised dramatically increase, our hope, our only hope, is to connect intimately with the daily injustices visited upon them. Out of this contact we can resurrect, from the ground up, a social ethic, a new movement...Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker, said that success as the world judges it should never be the final criterion for the religious and moral life; spirituality was rooted in the constant struggle to fight for justice and be compassionate, especially to those in need...One was saved in the end by faith, faith that acts of compassion and justice had intrinsic worth."  full text

Getting Covered - Choose a plan everyone can agree on by Ezekiel J. Emanuel and Victor R. Fuchs, Boston Review, November/December 2005 - Dysfunctional social systems can persist for a long time. Major change occurs only when three developments coalesce: a problem begins to attract popular and political attention; the major players agree upon a refined and feasible proposal; and a transforming political event—a major electoral realignment, natural disaster, economic depression, or war—takes place, creating what the political scientist John Kingdon has called an “open policy window.” full text