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Failures of Imagination
Oct. 20th, 2009 07:04 pmMy biggest gripe so far with the Obama administration, which is one I've had with politicians of all stripes, especially the alleged liberals for years, is their complete failures of imagination. There are times when incremental technocratic moderate change is important, necessary, or the only option. And there are times when the status quo has failed so badly that there's room for big imaginative changes. And if you let yourself get circumscribed by the "necessary", you ignore the possible.
But here, let me turn the mic over to my man Franklin Delano, and his four freedoms speech. (Wikipedia) in 1941. The Great Depression and the onset of World War II, and instead of aiming for small ideas circumscribed by the "necessary" or the "possible", he managed to still think big, and act big, and keep trying different things till they worked. Not half-assed bank bailouts without any oversight, not a maybe kinda half-assed possible public health option, but Social Security, no pandering about "glad to have jobs" (more from pundits than pols), but the National Labor Relations Act, Works Project Authority, Civilian Conservation Corps, and FDR directly took on the banksters and their bought minions in government.
It'd be nice if those we elected as leaders could show some leadership, the kind that won FDR landslide elections.
But here, let me turn the mic over to my man Franklin Delano, and his four freedoms speech. (Wikipedia) in 1941. The Great Depression and the onset of World War II, and instead of aiming for small ideas circumscribed by the "necessary" or the "possible", he managed to still think big, and act big, and keep trying different things till they worked. Not half-assed bank bailouts without any oversight, not a maybe kinda half-assed possible public health option, but Social Security, no pandering about "glad to have jobs" (more from pundits than pols), but the National Labor Relations Act, Works Project Authority, Civilian Conservation Corps, and FDR directly took on the banksters and their bought minions in government.
It'd be nice if those we elected as leaders could show some leadership, the kind that won FDR landslide elections.
