Four more years....

I’m looking into the future, to August 2016 to be exact.

It is not a pretty picture.

Sure the unexpected can happen (and likely will) but assuming the “normal” course of events given what we know, the government will either be hamstrung or following ruinous right-wing policies.

The hamstrung scenario has Barack Obama as president and the Republicans in control of both houses of Congress. Yes, governing will be even more difficult than it has been for the last four years. At best, the nation and the government will be on hold. The question in August 2016 is, who will the Democrats choose to run for the presidency and will they be able to take back Congress? The answer to the first part is most likely Hillary Clinton. And, no, the Democrats will not be able to take back Congress, whose major function will have become to blame everyone, including fellow members of Congress.

The economy will be even worst than it is today and the Republicans will still be in their Grover Norquist, drown-the-government-in-the-bathtub mode. The Republicans will no doubt choose, yes, Paul Ryan to head their ticket. He’s such a nice, “refreshingly thoughtful” man. At some point the GOP might change its name to the “Tea Party.” Perhaps a real Republican “party of Lincoln (and, Oregonians please note, Hatfield and McCall)” might re-emerge.

On to scenario #2. The country is run by the Romney/Ryan administration with the Republicans controlling both houses of Congress (Okay, they might lose one or both in the 2014 mid-term elections, but you get the idea.) The rich get even richer (anyone want a sixth Caddy and a seventh home?) and everybody else tanks. Under this scenario, Bernie Sanders decides to run for president (as a Republican Socialist?) and the Democratic nominee is...hmmmm. Your choice. Could it be that no one wants the job?

Pulling the levers on all the above will be the very, very rich and the very, very secretive. Casino owners, TV wrestling magnates, defense contractors and corporate carbon-belching global warmers. (Did I mention that the drought and weather extremes will worsen over the next four years?)

Meanwhile, in the streets, expect food riots, Romney-ville or Obama-ville homeless camps. The Occupy movement of 2011 will look like a picnic in the park compared to what’s coming.

If reviving the economy means declaring yet another war, we may finally see veterans take to the street to demand an end to the madness. It is a madness that is literally leading them to take their lives in appalling numbers. This too will not abate.

Back in the world of electoral politics (if it can be called that), the options are grave. Of course someone will chime in to say that at least scenario #1 is likely to produce a more moderate Supreme Court. When the choice boils down to the future of the Supreme Court, you know we are in trouble.

The best way to spend the next four years is to do some serious blank-slate rethinking about the state of the nation, its constitution, its values and its role in the world. What say devolve into very small, autonomous manageable states? Switzerlands come to mind. Split Oregon down the middle, East and West.

Ecotopia anyone?

At the very least, the thinking might provide political talking points as the election campaign gets serious in late summer of 2016.

Wanted: A rallying cry

I’ve had two “call-to-action” responses to my brief post about Bob Herbert’s recent column and my endorsement of its message that we have serious “street work” to do right here in the USA.

My Hillsdale neighbor Peter DeCrescenzo noted that the Egyptians in the street had a rallying cry, "Mubarak must go!" They were able to invest in Mubarak all of Egyptian society’s ills. It remains to be seen whether freeing Egypt of Mubarak will free the nation of its ills.

But what about freeing our own country of its own ills as cataloged by Herbert?

Peter writes, “...to be effective, the goal embodied in the demand must be understood by the majority of a country's citizens....The challenge for Americans is to figure out what our rallying cry should be. To be effective, it must unite the majority of Americans.”

He adds, “To be successful a rallying cry must be understood on an emotional level at least as strongly as on an intellectual level.”

Who what’s it to be? What are we calling for? What do we want?

I want a government of, for and by the people (sound familiar?), NOT of, for and by the super-rich and multi-national corporations. I want a society where electoral decisions aren’t made based on emotional attack ads but on reasoned, sustained, respectful and fair discourse.

If we are to achieve that, we need a new constitution. That is what the Supreme Court majority is telling us in its back-handed way. Vis. last year’s Citizens United case.

In America, the U.S. Constitution is treated like sacred text. The end-all and be-all of virtuous government. First of all, it's not sacred, but it is, like all things human, suspect and open to criticism, revision and even rejection. If an action is unconstitutional, could it be that the problem may be not with the action but with the Constitution?

So perhaps the cry should be for a “New Constitution," a new “New Deal.” Isn’t a new constitution the starting place for post-Tahrir Square change in Egypt? Why not here?

The other response came from LeeLa Coleman, another neighbor. She wants to organize friends to peacefully demonstrate at a busy corner in our community. A small Hillsdale group has been doing that for five years in opposition to America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was part of their group at one point, but moved on after Obama was elected (Silly me.)

If I felt it would do any good, I’d rejoin them.

Meanwhile, I note in a New York Times story yesterday that a major influence on Egyptian street organizers was one Gene Sharp, a Harvard professor and student of Gandhi. I had never heard his name, but I’m adding his book “The Dynamics of Non-Violent Action,” to my reading list. (Alas, it is sold out on Amazon, and I just bought and have put on hold the last copy at Powell’s. No, it isn’t in the Multnomah County Library. In fact the library has none of Sharp's several books about non-violent protest.)

I'll be looking forward to what Sharp has to say about rallying cries. For a hint, go HERE.