Transition To Same Old

Practical reality follows euphoria; what was once billed as hope for the future has somehow transpired in short order to a threatening future. Hope has suddenly become an endangered emotional underpinning, thrust from the spotlight by that misery of fear. From having nothing to fear but fear itself, to a resounding, heartfelt, audacity of hope, and coming full circle back to fear - of an economic collapse so deep, so wide and all-encompassing that America may never find itself back to solvency.

"A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe." How is that possible? After all, all those masses of people who shed suspicion and fear to claim hope for their own, still have reason to hope. How is it that they are now faced with another prospect entirely; that if they do not submit to the fear of the immediacy of financial/social collapse by accepting a massive debt that will submerge their inheritors' hope for the future, they will have failed the test of hope? Or is that trust?

The circuitous, tortuous maze that led to this revelation comes as rather a surprise. The man with nerves of steel and the mellifluous voice of reason, who steadfastly adhered to calm while all about him was in turmoil pre-election, now, as President, has suffered a collapse of vision himself. From resolute calm, transformed entirely to resolute badgering, insistence that all will be lost for the need of a massive infusion of the country's future wealth.

He is the president. Upon him falls the massive realization of acute responsibility. His decisions must be sound and well argued to himself before they are presented to others, many of whom are ready to sit in judgement. History is the only judge; that is the understanding that comes from experiencing the future, securing its place in history. President Obama's urgent pleas to Congress to validate his vision for the future resonated with passion and misgivings.

Trouble is, some of his previous choices, critical ones at that, in establishing the inner core of his closest, most trusted, obviously qualified advisers have been questionable at best; embarrassing at the worst of their revelations. An unfortunate shedding of some deep level of trust in his ability to discern the qualities of those who can be trusted to act in the public good from those who trust themselves to act on their own behalf. Is that change Americans can believe in?

The worry is that good money - lots and lots of it, an astonishing sum of Treasury funds that are to be borrowed at high cost - will go the way of the previous 'rescue'; wasted, unaccounted for, an exercise in futility and outrageous self-entitlement by those lacking conscience and a will to support the nation's need.
The enormous job losses speak to the urgency of the emergency, and the need to do something to shore up American fortunes, however.

President Obama stressed the disaster to the nation that the massive layoffs represent; to the country's financial stakes, its future, its ability to turn itself around, terming it "irresponsible" to further delay passage of the $840-billion stimulus package. That the Senate has since passed with some alterations to what many Republicans see as just another omnibus bill with line items that will do nothing for the emergency and represent the usual partisan pork-barreling.

Still, fully 67% of Americans have signified approval of their president's stimulus negotiations, and the Republicans, though in high dudgeon in their disgust for the incalculable risks being taken and the dodgy inclusions in the package, have little public support. And with the good news, the relief of the passage of the bill through the Senate by a nice majority and with several Republicans casting their vote in favour, the deed is done.

Whereupon the U.S. stock market immediately and enthusiastically posted a definite vote of confidence: a downturn.