The Need to Think

The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country. Abraham Lincoln's Annual Message to Congress December 1, 1862 The recent episonde of "Frontline" about the Obama admin's handling of the financial meltdown, which could be considered a success after three years, although it is coming under attack from both the left and the right. The biggest question is why the Obama admin did not pursue deeper reform. While it's tempting to make Tim Geithner into the villain of the story, the real problem is how the Friedmanite dogma has been established; that the best economic policy is to keep corporate interests happy. This has been accepted as "received wisdom." Who has any new ideas. The Right, especially the "Tea Partiers," don't have any solution other than cockamamie ideas of bringing back the gold standard. On the Left there is mostly confusion. While the Occupy Movement is admirable in some ways there doesn't seem to be any coherent solution. Many in the Occupy movement identify themselves with something called "Post-Anarchism." These vague Utopian notions only lead to disappointment and despair, as seen with the New Left in the sixties and seventies. The real division isn't so much between Right and Left, but between those who refuse to think and those who think in purely abstract theoretical terms. What we need is someone who can come with ideas that actually yield results.