Some thoughts...

The Case For Optimism

The cries of doom and despair are always ever present both in our personal lives and in the world around us. How many trumpets have sound signalling the end of the world as we know it, or stated with utter seriousness that we might as well accomodate (read: give up) and come to terms with "reality." History has a way of teaching the doubters a lesson they never seem to learn. During the Cold War and even before, socialism/communism was seen as trendy, desirable and best of all for its supporters, inevitable.

In the movie the Matrix, the agent of Matrix, agent Smith, states to our hero Neo, that "do you hear that Mr. Anderson, that is the sound of inevitability."

The inevitable never happened. In 1991, the last breath of inevitability blew away to great dustbin of history. Communism died before the clenched fist of Boris Yeltsin before a tank. We like to credit great leaders such as President Ronald Reagan, Lech Walesa, Boris Yeltsin, Mikhail Gorbachev, President George Bush, Pope John Paul as the agents of change.

While there is a small crumb of truth to this, it was really the people, the "masses yearning to breathe free," striving for the fresh air that they saw and dreamed about, freedom.

It is these people, the people of this country. Not its governments, not its leaders, not its elites. It is the so-called 'simple' folk which give me hope. It is they who open their doors, their wallets and their hearts. It is they, who in times of distress hold this country afloat. The people of this country hold it afloat time after time. That is why, in all this, I am confident that America will come back from Hurrican Katrina because of these people. You see them every day....

:: Some thoughts... ::