Dangerous Fickle

Tonight I listened to NPR’s Daniel Schorr wondering if there was “any light at the end of this darkening tunnel.” His function for NPR is “news analysis.” After his analysis, I needed some psycho-analysis. Before I jump off the bridge, however, I will attempt to go a little bit farther toward the answer he seeks. His only consolation was to hope President-Elect, Barack Obama could lead as well as we had all hoped.

I submit Obama can’t cure our ills without our help. What we need is a river of Ritalin and some focus. Americans have the attention span of a kitten in a room full of catnip filled balls. Most of the time, this phenomena is a cute distraction. An example of this distraction is our kids who would rather send a text message because it saves time. It becomes sad and dangerous when our national ADHD affects policy. Our abandonment of Afghanistan after the Soviet Union withdrew in the eighties is an excellent example of how we as a people can jerk a mandate away from our leaders in a heartbeat. Don’t get me wrong. I am not one of those left-wingers who believe we were partially responsible for 911. I think, however, had we not ignored Afghanistan, our lives would be much easier today. Afghanistan is just one more in a long line of examples of our inability to focus on something long enough to finish the job. Ironically, another of those examples, energy policy, faces us today.

Faced with dollar and a half gas, we have an opportunity to reduce our dependence on oil. Reducing dependence will take money just as it takes money to dry out an alcoholic. You can bet we will get amnesia about four dollar gas when there is an attempt to tax gas to the three dollar level. There will be those refuse to pay another cent. They would rather give it to petroleum exporting countries than spend the money trying to break our addiction. Americans were focused completely on energy policy when gas was four dollars a gallon.  Now that gas is back to 2003 levels, we want our Hummers back. When a tax is mentioned, we will listen to anyone who will justify the status quo and ignore all arguments to the contrary.

Contrary to how it looks today, Wall Street and the banking system will rise from its ashes. When that day comes, it will be time to revamp our regulation of the financial system. Our collective amnesia will again make us susceptible to free market worshiping interests. They will tell us how well the free market works and we will forget all about the two trillion dollars* it took to fix the last free market orgy. Again, while the house is on fire, we are totally focused on the problem and are willing to give our leaders a mandate for action. Once the house is rebuilt, we could care less about keeping it from burning down again.

Daniel Schorr hopes for the hero of hope. I say the hero is or memory. Let’s resurrect our collective memories and give support to those who would help us fix our problems. In the coming days, right wingers will ask us to abdicate our personal responsibility which they regularly champion. They will ask us to let the lobbyist and other financial interest write legislation which will effectively allow the fox to guard the hen house. Left wingers will take the opportunity to make us feel guilty for our success as a nation. They will ask us to redistribute oil money and regulate the market engine into oblivion. We should resist these impulses however good it may make us feel. We should help the new President build a consensus and stick with it. When our pocketbooks feel the pinch of three dollar gas and higher mortgage rates due to common sense regulation, we should stick with the program.   

* My guess of the final tally of economic stimulus and bank welfare it will take to recover from this mess.