? May 1st marked the anniversary of the killing of Osama Bin Laden.? Is it just me, or was this kind of overlooked in the news?? I pay a pretty fair amount of attention and in a culture where we celebrate 6 month anniversaries of relationships I would?ve thought the OBL story would?ve gotten a little more press.
Actually, the only reason I?m thinking of Bin Laden at all today is because I was just in a conversation regarding President Obama?s foreign policy achievements and someone said (even though they are critical of the President), ?I will give him that one!? I still celebrate.?
I join the millions of Americans (and non-Americans) who feel relief, even gladness, at the demise of Bin Laden, but I?ve never felt compelled to celebrate.? The sense of closure his death brought was met with new?concerns about American foreign policy and I find myself asking, ?Does America have the moral compass anymore to make our continued fight with Al Qaeda and the surgical decimation of?its leaders more than celebrations of bad men dying and can it lead us in the direction of peace??
I?ve been hearing the rhetoric a lot lately from the Romney campaign that his ?no apology? foreign policy will, ?Restore America back to greatness.?? Someone from his campaign was on tv the other day and declared that Romney will ?Make us proud again to be an American.?
Yet, it was only a few years ago that saw Democrats rallying behind ?returning America to greater standing in the world?; to find our ?moral authority? again and doing away with ?Cowboy Diplomacy.?
I remember because I was one of the louder voices.
Only 8 years before that the battle cry rang from Republicans running against Gore that we needed to ?bring dignity back to the White House.?
Clinton, before that, ran against Bush Sr. and promised to return us to ?a time when America was respected more than feared.?
A recent letter to the editor in the Des Moines Register criticized Obama?s foreign policies and finished with the proclamation, ?We need to make America great again!?
Every time I hear that I ask myself, ?What ?great? period are they referring to??
I hear ?return to greatness? from both sides of the political fence and I wonder, ?What is the criteria for greatness??
Apparently, the letter writer felt good about the way things were before Obama even though the Bush era ended with economic catastrophe, and a foreign policy quagmire.
Maybe, the writer was referring to Clinton-era American pride.? Clinton did balance the budget and maintained an extended period of prosperity, but, even I will admit there was a ?stain? on the integrity of the White House as his personal shortcomings became harder and harder to defend.
It wouldn?t be hard to imagine that many Americans wish for a return to the principles of Ronald Reagan and his ?Shining city on the hill,?
? but that was also a time when we became a debtor nation and created a fiscal catastrophe.? With regard to foreign policy, the Iran/Contra deception comes to mind, and while the fall of the Soviet Union has been handed to his legacy, it was really the result of Gorbachev?s Glasnost and Perestroika.? Not to mention that the ?Trickle Down? revival of neoliberalism created a divide between the Haves and the Have-nots that still tangle the economic debate.
Many Americans think of the great moral purpose of World War II and the recovery from the Great Depression as the greatest time in the history of America.
Although to hear the conservative revisionists speak of FDR today, you would think that every failure, social and economic, was the result of the New Deal.
Lincoln, perhaps the greatest philosophical genius to ever occupy the White House, presided over the greatest socio/political divide in history.
There is no doubt that seeds from separatism still exist to this day as we continue to fight challenges of racism and policies of ignorance born from fear.
So?what is the period of greatness that we all, at one time or another, seem to crave?
Good news!? This isn?t a rhetorical question, I have an answer!
There are two things that happen when we consider the greatness of our nation.? One is a natural human craving for nostalgia.? Nostalgia is not built upon a remembrance of how things were; rather it comes from what we remember about how we felt at a certain time.
We carry in our narrative the fact that we have survived, and we remember the moments of joy in the cracks and crevices of our struggles; we instinctively long for those feelings again.
? Some of my happiest memories are from hardships long ago where I found laughs and inspirations in the journey and I yearn for them even today.
And two, we have a collective historical consciousness about the legacy and promise of America.? We are aware of the unique place in world history that our Republic occupies and we have been taught what our forefathers fought for in defiance of tyranny.? We are raised on the traditions of patriotism and the stories of struggle and triumph that define our realization of freedom and human rights.
While our history is undeniably peppered with stumbles and falls toward realizing those principles, it is still a timeline of progress toward life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Together, nostalgia and patriotism conspire to give us a sincere sense of what makes this country great and we perennially?long to restore her to something that ?used to be.?
My challenge for all of us is to ask ourselves, individually, ?What is it that I believe in that makes America great?? Does America follow the call of human rights and the principles of freedom?? What am I doing to continue that journey??
We make a mistake when we put the responsibility of America?s promise onto the shoulders of politicians before we answer those questions ourselves.? Only collectively, as citizens and politicians, can we define the moral directives that will restore our journey for freedom and the realization of peace on Earth.
That, and only that, will make us great.
Source: http://garyhasissues.com/?p=3127
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