Re-Invent America; Re-Imagine the World

Mickey Friedman
December 2, 2011

(This column, without illustrations, appeared in the Berkshire Record on Thursday, December 1, 2011. This morning my very conservative friend Anthony told me I should start packing. This time I went too far; I’d probably be deported. We argue and joke all the time about politics. He jokes about retiring to a small imaginary village in Sicily where he and his lovely wife and his new-found donkey don’t have to deal with spam, the e-mail version not the lunch meat. He thinks this column might get me to Sicily before he gets there.)

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Nobody asked me, but I have a suggestion for the Occupy Movement. Be audacious. Dare to dream big. I see that Michael Moore has his ideas: increasing taxes on the rich, limiting corporate contributions, a single-payer health plan. All good ideas that I support. But still too small.

I say that because the Arctic is melting; and Antarctica is next. Because it’s too late for little changes. You can argue that these reforms will greatly change the lives of many. But Nature is telling us loud and clear: the time is now. Actually, the time was decades ago, but we humans are so very slow to learn.

I’ve been a dissident for a very long time so I may not have enough audacity left. But the folks who Occupied the Verizon building using their nifty video projector, flashing the slogans of the movement on valuable New York City corporate real estate, well, they know audacious. The young folks with their cellphones, all live streaming video of police misconduct, they have audacity.

I say take that courage and re-invent America.

I usually fall back on fairness. When I think about a better America, I imagine A Fair America. In every sense of the word. Dividing the apple pie so we all have the same-size piece; all playing by the same rules. So that who your father and mother is, or where you come from, or the color of your skin, or the language you speak, the size of your bank account, doesn’t give you a head-start or a better education or a better job.

When it comes to sports, we’ve got umpires, referees, fair balls and foul, late hits and pass interference, drug testing and free kicks and instant replay. So we know and appreciate and work hard to enforce fairness when it comes time to play. Fairness is built into our social DNA.

So how about we take a moment to re-invent an America where fairness rules. In the workplace; in hospitals; in schools; and in the marketplace. What’s a fair wage? What’s a fair rent? What’s a fair rate of return on an investment? A fair profit? What’s a fair price? And can you, in fact, have fair wages and fair prices and still have profit?

I’m not saying this will be easy. We live in complex and complicated times and it gets more complicated as you widen your concern. Is it fair for people in the North to use so much more energy than people in the South? To eat more? Is it fair for one person to have six houses when someone has none? Is it fair for one tribe to murder another because they speak another language? Worship another God? Is it fair for one country to invade another just because they’re afraid?

At various points in human history, people have tried to imagine a new way. Since we’re Americans, let’s think about the American Revolution. A reluctant revolution. The Colonists tried again and again to convince the British to make changes, to give them a break, a little independence. The fact is the Kings, Queens, Emperors, the Presidents, Prime Ministers, the Chairmen, whatever they call themselves, when push comes to shove, they are going to meet threats to their power with force. They’ll call out the cops, the Stasi, the military, the peoples’ militias, the Savak, the Basij, the campus police, and the National Guard. And so the Red Coats came and the colonists fought back.

The Bill of Rights and the Constitution were born of re-imagining. Of course, we are all limited by our experience, our fears as strong as our hopes, and these were rich and landed white men, probably afraid and/or contemptuous of the natives, the slaves, the poor and the women. With all that going on, they created an admirable beginning. No one who truly appreciates the complexity of change could reasonably imagine that this Constitution would meet our needs today. We are a multi-colored, multi-cultured, several gendered, many-faithed and non-faithed multitude.

Madison anticipated that we would be of many minds about what to do and how to do it, but clearly an electoral college Republic, with a Senate of a hundred, with Rhode Island holding as much sway as California is ludicrous.

So please be audacious. Abolish Congress with its two-party-rich-white-winner-take-all politics. Surely it’s time for 21st century proportional representation, all of us with a voice.

Imagine us an iPhone8G version of Government.

Then expand your efforts to Planet Titanic. With your friends and allies around the globe, from the Spaniards in the streets of Madrid to those courageous Egyptians in Tahrir, re-imagine the world.

Find an alternative to the runaway greed of capitalism.

Imagine us a way to save the penguins, to save the ice. To save yourselves and your grandchildren. Re-invent a fair and equitable Earth.