A CALL FOR SACRIFICE WE (& THE CANDIDATES) CAN’T AFFORD TO IGNORE
April 11th, 2008, 8:21 am · Post a Comment · posted by Dan Lehr
One of the major failings of the Bush administration since September 11th, 2001 has been the lack of any kind of call for national sacrifice (& no, we’re not counting the call from the President to “go shopping“).
After the jump, we offer some thoughts on how the next president needs to change this.. even though we have evidence they’ve given no indication they’ll do so.
Continuing my 1st sentence … part of the reason this is the case is that any call to sacrifice usually means asking Americans to pay more — & in some cases, pay more in taxes.
This flew in the face of an administration who at every turn kept the blinders of ideology on. It assumed - to the detriment of the country’s standing both at home & around the world - that it could put the burden of victory on the small percentage of the population who had enlisted in the nation’s armed forces.
This is absolutely misguided & short-sighted, & the next president needs to work hard to change the public’s mindset to one resembling how the country came together in World War II.
This is not the time to turn inward or ignore the potential for ordinary Americans to change the dynamic of this conflict.
Evan Thomas of Newsweek brings up this point in a great column in Newsweek. & he faults all three Presidential candidates for not shooting straight with the American people during the campaign about what needs to be asked of all of us to achieve victory against our age’s 2 major crises — terrorism & a gradually warming planet.
Some highlights:
“Take global warming. Both Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are in favor of taking small steps to reduce greenhouse emissions, like a cap-and-trade program and a new Kyoto Protocol. But those are modest or mostly exhortatory steps, promises to do better by some distant date. Really doing something to cut the carbon entering the atmosphere would be expensive. It would require truly massive government spending on a Manhattan Project-scale to capture carbon and store it underground (theoretically possible but hard to do in a big way). Or really raising taxes on fuel consumption to reduce foreign dependency and get people to drive smaller cars less often. “
Thomas also mentions taking on influential interests like the farm lobby or the financial services lobby, neither of which any candidate has expressed interest in taking on.
There are a wealth of other areas for which a national call for sacrifice is past due. For example — we need more Americans to learn the Arabic language. Because there aren’t enough people who speak it working for the government right now, we have a backlog of intercepted communication that could hold the key to the next terrorist attack. (September 11th happened for this very reason).
Thomas concludes:
“There was a time when candidates dared to ask for sacrifice on the campaign trail. Before the 1968 Indiana primary, Robert F. Kennedy advocated expanding health care to the poor. He was asked by a University of Indiana medical student, “Who will pay for it?” Kennedy answered, “You will.” The crowd gasped, then applauded. But that was a long time ago. “
It’s a tall order, but the next president has to shift the focus of the American voting public from “what’s in it for me?” to “how can I help us win?”
Imagine if a president in the mode of Herbert Hoover was at the helm at the beginning of World War II. Imagine that president not calling for the country to enlist in a common cause in which their very way of life was at stake. Imagine how much more of a struggle defeating the enemy in that great conflict would be as a result.
In our opinion, you don’t have to imagine it. It’s happening right now.
What do you think?
