America's Moment of Clarity: 21 Days Clean

It feels strange to me that election day was only three weeks ago. Usually, for me, three weeks is hardly any time at all. I have dishes sitting in my sink that have been there longer than three weeks. I have unopened mail sitting on my table older than three weeks.

But in the case of Obama’s election, November 4th seems like a long time ago. Like months past. Maybe even like something that happened last year.

I don’t know how to explain this warping in my sense of time’s passing.

Maybe it’s because I’m able to breathe again. To relax, knowing that George W. Bush and his gang of crooks, thugs, idiots and con artists are finally getting the boot. And that a smart, competent, sane, decent person has been put in charge again.

It goes even deeper than that, too. I feel like the country I live in remembers what is right and important again. The last eight years have been surreal for me, like I have been put in some sort of Bizarro World version of America, where all our values and priorities had been turned upside down.

Since 2000, I’ve wanted my country back. And now I feel like I have it.

What’s more, it’s even better than when I lost it. Maybe not financially, right now. Or militarily. But psychologically. Emotionally. Dare I even say it? Spiritually.

If America were a person --- a filthy, street-living, meth-addicted person --- I would say that we have hit bottom, had a moment of clarity and are poised to make an even stronger comeback. Because this time we’ve realized that our meth --- all the immediately-gratifying, short-term-thinking, status-quo-preserving shit we’ve been sucking on for decades --- really isn’t good for us. That it might have served us in the past, helping us pull all-nighters on our way up, but has ultimately brought us down to our current bedraggled state.

America Looks Forward to Its Bright Future

Though it took a bad beating to get us here, we might finally be at a point where we seriously consider how we are going to live without getting back on that shit again.

Here’s some of what we’re purging:

1) Racism. Things are different in America now. I saw it in the coalition that Obama put together to work for him. I saw it in the way that America voted. I saw it in the way that the people who didn’t vote for him more or less shrugged and shut up when he won.

I feel that something has truly changed in this country between how it was just 22 days ago. Heavy tectonic plates that have been grinding against one another for decades finally slipped three Tuesdays ago and we’re in a new landscape now.

A specific, personal example: I do standup comedy. I had written and told some jokes that used racial issues. Not in a derogatory, stereotype-perpetrating way, but in a way that exploited racial tensions for their humorous energy. For instance, here’s one that got big laughs up to November 1st.

“A lot of whites think it’s hypocritical that white people can’t use the n-word, while blacks use it with each other all the time. But I don’t mind. Because white people have our own “n-word.” A word that we don’t mind using with one another, but that we get kind of uptight when we hear blacks and Mexicans call us. That word is “neighbor.””

Today, that joke --- and others like it --- is dead. Not because it’s offensive, but because the reality that supported it --- that of whites being reflexively nervous and afraid of darker skinned people --- simply doesn’t exist anymore in a country where the President is black. That battery is drained.

As much as I hate losing good jokes, this tectonic shift is a very big and awesome thing. Maybe the most big and awesome thing that has ever happened in this country.

2) Metastastized Financialization.

Michael Lewis, author of Liar’s Poker, tells this story better than I can in this article about our current financial debacle, and the two decades of insanity that preceded it.

Since I’ve been aware of America’s economy, I’ve been struck and worried by the outsized prominence that financial services has taken. And had a sneaking suspicion that that sector’s activities were not necessarily providing proportionate value to investors, economies or societies. After all, if there is any subject that I am an expert in, it is failing to provide adequate service to those counting on me.

I’ve also noted with alarm that a great deal of our economic “growth” takes the form of successive bubbles. In my adult life, I’ve watched a broad stock bubble grow and pop, a more narrowly focused Dotcom bubble grow and pop, and a real estate bubble grow and pop. And can’t help but notice that efforts to stimulate the economy after one pop --- i.e. low interest rates --- generally give rise to the next bubble.

I’ve felt like at some point we’ve got to make reforms more substantive than simply inflating the next financial instrument-led bubble to rise out of a recession. At long last it looks like serious thinkers and policymakers are considering what those reforms might be.

3) Dependence on Foreign Oil.

This summer’s stratospheric gas-prices that turned already-suffering American consumers upside down and shook all the money out of our pockets --- while loathsome Oil Execs and Traders enjoyed record profits and bonuses --- finally made believers out of us all. I think Americans realize that we can’t be so dependent on foreign oil suppliers going forward. And that developing a domestic source of energy is at least as vital to American interests --- and worthy of sustained effort and funding --- as picking up some moon rocks, or toppling a petty Middle East dictator.

4) Crazy Christian Bullshit
Yeah, this is a tough drug for America to put down. And it looked like we were going to relapse, when we got a look at that big pretty hunk of Alaskan Ice. But we did resist, and on January 21st we will officially be 100% Creationism-Free at the top levels of government. I’m so proud.