To despair is to turn one's back on God

The title of this post is a quotation from Marilla Cuthbert, a character in Lucy Maud Montgomery's classic, Anne of Green Gables. And this post is a rebuke of the despair in which I, Dade Cariaga, occasionally indulge when I think of the magnitude of the mess that we have on our hands.

Yes, we are in a very bad place economically, politically, socially. Yes, it is going to get worse. Yes, our lives as Americans are going to change in ways that we can't foresee and that will disrupt the insular illusion of security to which we cling. None of us is going to escape the coming storm.

Don't believe me? Take a look at the price-per-gallon display next time you pull into a gas station. Scan the headlines from Wall Street. Check out what the Federal Reserve is doing today. Look at how the dollar is performing on the foreign exchange. All the gurus that sit on the boards of the corporate banks and financial institutions are on the verge of a panic. But that's not all: the Iraq war, which is draining our national treasury to the tune of $275 million per day, is still raging full blast. Big Dick and nutty John McCain were just over there yesterday patting themselves on the back over the success of the endeavor. And then there are the chronic problems that are rapidly approaching crisis proportions: global warming, peak oil, the Palestine issue, Pakistan's instability.

The Bush administration is the epitome of a government run to benefit the monied interests at the expense of the common people. But, as one might expect, with their sole motive being the enrichment of themselves, they have been revealed as being completely unconcerned with the lives of the people below them, whom they view as mere resources. Well, their time is coming to an end. All but the very thickest of Americans are aware of their crimes and ineptitude now.

So, yes, the forecast is bleak. Nonetheless, there is still reason --strike that --there is still the obligation to hope. Historically, we've been in tough spots before. This country overcame the brutal economic blight of the Great Depression with pluck and determination, by uniting, by putting aside minor differences and changing the zeitgeist that was spawned out of the carefree, live-for-today Roaring 20's. So, now, we must unite again to face the consequences of the Junior Bush era of corporate greed and the plunder of the commonwealth by private interests.


Well, as I just witnessed last weekend, there are still plenty of people that are willing to roll up their sleeves and do what is necessary to fix things. When it gets bad enough (and, people, we're there), we will put aside our trivial differences and get to work on the repairs. When we have a government that helps us rather than hinders us, we will make progress on things like alternative energy, international peace, fair trade policies, universal health care and so much more.

We can. We must. We will.