Motley Moose – Archive

My mother was fond of telling me–after several instances in which I did not get my way as a child–that I could always go “pout” about it. My dad had an Army-related phrase for it: “Go pound sand.”

Part of the growing-up process as a child was getting beyond temporary setbacks–psychological, physical or otherwise–and doing what needed to be done at school, around the house or in the community. Coming of age in rural America, without the frills of shopping malls or high-speed internet, drove this message home even farther.

One individual who knew the virtues of a rural upbringing well was a man named Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus. A Roman, more than four centuries before the birth of Christ, Cincinnatus was forced to live a very simple life on a small farm he and his family used mainly for subsistence. Yet when Rome fell pray to misfortune in a fight against the Aequians and the Sabines–and the Roman senate devolved into a state of panic–Cincinnatus was called upon by his fellow countrymen to serve as dictator, wielding totalitarian power, in order to defeat the empire’s foes.

A remarkable sixteen days later, Cincinnatus had vanquished his foe and, instead of continuing to enjoy his unrivaled power, resigned as dictator and went back to tending his farm.

There are few greater stories of humility than the life of Cincinnatus.

I guess I’m confused.

Tea Party activists and Republican firebrands were elected to office in droves recently on the wave of populist support; a new spin on your great-grandfather’s kind of populism: accountability in the national checkbook, fairness and restraint in the application of government, and real jobs for real people in America.

I guess I’m confused, then, after the most recent Congressionally-imposed crisis our country has endured.

This week, after a round-up of recent polling data for the president against other Republican challengers, we have put together an electoral map projection for the 2012 Presidential Election.

Our earliest projection (which we did not post) had the president winning re-election by a sizable margin (313-225). This week’s, however, is a different story.

In a match-up between a mythical Republican challenger (a Romney-Bachmann-Perry hybrid), the mythical Republican earns a majority of 274 electoral votes to President Obama’s 264 electoral votes.

Victor Hugo once said, “Emergencies have always been necessary to progress. It was darkness which produced the lamp. It was fog that produced the compass. It was hunger that drove us to exploration. And it took a depression to teach us the real value of a job.”

With that in mind, friends and fellow citizens, let’s talk about our current fiscal and economic matters. And let’s do it like people, like neighbors; not like politicians or those trying to siphon your votes and your livelihood.

Can we agree on a place to start? Let’s stop looking for a scapegoat or somebody to place the blame on each day. Every minute we spend in that vain, futile rut robs us of precious time to put our heads together and run our country, fixing problems along the way. Economic success or misfortune is not the fault of Presidents Obama or Bush alone, nor are they of one specific individual. Calculus is the proper and most constructive place to derive things; not politics or the day-to-day lives of our families.

In an age of fast food and even faster communication, one constant remains: the world’s still gotta get fed.

What so troubles in these partisan times is that fewer people–and fewer families–are doing the feeding.

Nobody needs to be reminded that our interconnectivity as a people has grown exponentially over the past decade. Just ten years ago, Facebook wasn’t even a twinkle in the eye of Mark Zuckerberg, and Twitter was even further from Jack Dorsey’s mind. Web-based diaries were just becoming popular and obnoxious little pagers were still popular products for cell phone providers.

The way we do business, shop for household goods, go to school and even talk to one another has undergone a significant revolution since the turn of the milennium–and this trend will only continue in the coming years. At its best, this paradigm shift facilitates a more responsive society–I can donate money to the American Red Cross for humanitarian relief via text message mere minutes after a disaster occurs, or pull up information on the latest round of bills being considered by the US Congress.

But how have these changes affected who we are, as people? Are we able to look up from our Blackberrys and iPhones long enough to consider this question and its ramifications?

I was reading a piece on Herman Cain tonight: a budding GOP hopeful whose credibility–much like current frontrunner Mitt Romney–stems from his direction of a private company (in Cain’s case, Godfather’s Pizza). The article itself dealt with the racial component (Cain is black) of today’s politics, and it is brutally obvious that neither side really gets it or plays by the rules they claim to covet.

The real kicker, however, always comes from the comments section found below the article. The Internet allows for a certain level of anonymity, and the remarks that folks leave are anything but civil. Yet they reveal a basic level of misunderstanding about America among her citizens that bears unearthing more.

In one such comment, “Mark” rails against the American system of economic justice by claiming, “We are already redistributing our wealth to people that aren’t elevating themselves to get better jobs and work harder.” And there it is; the unsettling, uncanny crack in our national shield: “Them.” It’s never about us. If only everyone else would work as hard as we do, we wouldn’t be in this mess.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It’s a privilege and an honor to stand here before you.

Almost seven decades ago, our forefathers took to the skies and the sea in a decisive battle that would decide the fate of the Pacific Theatre in World War II. The Battle of Midway started on this day in 1942 and showed to the world the incredible toughness and resolve of the United States of America. We owe a tremendous debt to those who served and protected our freedom in those most perilous of days over the waters of the Pacific Ocean.

Fast-forward to this day–June 4th, 2011. We aren’t at war with Japan or Germany, but our problems are real, and they are trying. College graduates, saddled with student loan debt, are finding it more and more difficult to land a decent job; families from Omaha to Odessa are finding it more and more difficult to pay the bills and keep their homes from foreclosure; the price of everything from health care to gasoline to lunch meat has got us wondering what more we’ll have to sacrifice simply to make ends meet and keep those dreaded creditors off the phone.

Our politicians and media personalities routinely divert our attention from one sensational claim or complaint to another, like fun-house mirrors at a carnival. But when one man or woman speaks up, and wonders aloud why we should support tax cuts for those who are already rich and living on millions; or why there are so many unemployed and homeless veterans on the streets; or why we’re spending billions of dollars per day in Afghanistan and Iraq, but hem and haw at financially supporting our neighbors when disaster strikes–those people are shouted down as naive children or vile traitors.

So many tell us that we stand for nothing; that our trials and tribulations and hard work are altogether worthless. It is prudent, then, to ask ourselves: What is it that we stand for?

On my walk today, I saw a license plate subheader that read “Fight Terrorism.”

And I thought to myself, isn’t that what they want?

Transcript from The Journeying Progressive’s speech today (downtown Kansas City, MO):

“Good afternoon. It is dark right now in the nation of Libya. For the past month, the world has watched a selfish dictator brutally suppress the protests of a people in crisis. Today, the United States and her allies have said “Enough.”