On the Civic Plaza

On Friday I ride my bike downtown to see Barack Obama. Around 11:30 I take a gander at the line to get into the convention center, where he's due to speak on the economy at 1:30. It doesn't look too long, so I go and eat a BLTG (G for guacamole). When I return, I follow the line from the door backwards all the way around the entire city block.


As I'm not much of a concert goer, this is by far the longest line I've ever stood in. But I'm game. I've never seen a potential president either. After waiting a while, my line-friends and I find out that we accidentally line-jumped. The end of the queue was actually across the street, behind a series of zig-zags on the civic plaza. We feel a little guilty but keep our places. In the end, it doesn't matter because the convention center and all of the overflow rooms are full. However, this works out great for me because Obama decides to speak to us out on the Civic Plaza before going inside. This means I get to see him up close, hear a short campaign speech, and get home in time to make brownies for girls' night.

I guess these pep talks are always vague. He says some things about hope for the future and an emphasis on cooperation rather than special interest. As a preview to the talk on the economy that he's giving inside, he says that we need to stop giving tax breaks to the top 1% and start making it easier for average, working Americans to climb the ladder of success. That sounds pretty good, but the "ladder" image always makes me furrow my brow a bit. It seems to imply constant climbing-- that everyone (except maybe that top 1%) can and should get richer and richer and buy more and more stuff. But isn't there a reasonable rung where some of us should just hang out?

Though Obama is the best speaker of all the candidates, and it would be a relief to hear his voice in the sound bytes for the next four years, I'd listen better if he said something like this:

"In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose. . .

We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path . . . that leads to fragmentation and self- interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure."

Jimmy Carter said that in 1979 in his "Crisis of Confidence" speech. It was mostly a speech about energy, and in it he asked Americans to "take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel. Every act of energy conservation like this is more than just common sense - I tell you it is an act of patriotism."

My problem with today's politicians is that they don't ask me to do anything except elect them. I don't believe that they can do a whole lot to make this country better. But I believe that I can. Ask me to do something specific. Ask me to sacrifice for the good of my country and the world.

I am the people, and I am not as selfish as you think I am.