“Only the hand that erases can write the true thing”
Meister Eckhart
My head hurts when I realize how life has changed since I left high school. In June of 1963, gas sold for 29 cents a gallon. American-made cars filled the roads. President Kennedy was alive. Segregation kept African-Americans from voting. I knew Vietnam was somewhere in Asia.
War taught me where and now we outsource manufacturing jobs to a country I first fought and then learned to love. We fill foreign cars with $3 gasoline. Barack Obama is President. We use cell phones and bury our youth killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Still values endure. I share family news through e mail; Skype with our son in Africa and meet friends on Facebook. I grew up in what seemed like a small town on rural Staten Island, where fathers went into “the city” to work. Today I feed birds in my upstate back yard and watch wild turkeys walk out of the woods. I commute with men and women to the State Capital for work. Geography and technology have brought dramatic changes. Consciousness evolves more slowly. The question is which values have we kept through all these changes?
Our organization and definition of family has evolved but I believe it remains strong. We are more open to alternative, discussing the challenges of marriage and gender roles. We no longer accept that children should be seen not heard. Thanksgiving still brings us home. Births and deaths draw the same emotions and parents still show up for school plays, Little League and recitals.
Despite globalization, frustration with our government and our conflicting perspectives we argue about America because patriotism still matters, “My country right or wrong” is no longer our guide, however. More say “where she is right, let’s keep her right and where she is wrong let’s make her right.”
Community is an essential value, only the form has changed. We meet in more locations, with greater ethnic diversity than our parents, rely on newer technologies to communicate and have global neighbors.
Employment still defines us. WDI has been conducting focus groups and surveys of workers; those who have lost their jobs and others who live in fear. Their stories are not that different from earlier generations. Without work they feel small and abandoned.
I remember hearing stories from the great Depression of men and women who worked for little or no money, sometimes only to maintain their dignity. I played in parks developed through the WPA, learned in libraries built through public employment programs and played on ball fields created by volunteers. Pride is the motivating force that has built our nation, brought refugees and immigrants out of poverty and sustained our communities. “Work is love made visible” as Kahlil Gibran wrote years ago.
It is time for a new New Deal. National security must be redefined beyond war. Our nation will only be secure when all Americans have economic security and our international neighbors do too. None of us want handouts, just the right to earn their way, strengthen our communities and support their families. We demand an opportunity to work. The billions made through hedge funds could strengthen healthcare, pay salaries of teachers, employ our dislocated workers, rebuild the infrastructure of our tired cities and grow new and green industries.
In one of our focus groups we held a drawing for a gift certificate. An unemployed man who won tried to give it to a woman who was clearly having a harder time. She refused, saying he won and she had not earned it. Was this foolish pride or a well founded sense of self worth? I don’t know. I do know that our greatest asset for rebuilding New York and this country is the skills and strength of our own people.
Much has changed in my lifetime but essentials remain. The combined effort of millions pulled us out of one depression, led by a government that respected its people, recognized there is dignity in work and marshaled American citizens’ pride and commitment to family, community and nation. Instead of learning the lesson of cheap labor from China we would better pay attention to their word for crisis and understand it also means opportunity.
In this economic crisis we would be smarter to bail out the people than the banks. Let’s apply Meister Eckhart’s principle; erase our decades of distrust in government led solutions and write the true thing. We need a new New Deal led by a government that puts our people back to work.
Together we can rebuild the infrastructure of our communities, install free high speed internet that will encourage a diversified economy. President Eisenhower built our interstate highway system using the logic of national defense, stimulating commerce at the same time. We need to revitalize our communities, complex transportation systems and add a stronger high speed internet communications highway.
Our people are ready and waiting for government to respond.
