They are as follows:
- Our Environmental Emergency. This encompasses more than global warming. We face simultaneous emergencies of water, food, desertification, rivers, oceans, and population, among other eco-catastrophes. Combined, this is the #1 emergency because the planet is in danger. This planet. Our only one. Any questions?
- An Equality Emergency. The current grotesque imbalance of wealth, income, and power in America not only underpins most of our economic woes and crises, such as the mortgage foreclosure whirlpool, but threatens to undermine social stability and democracy itself. This imbalance, a result of bad policies, is now also a cause, creating a feedback loop. It's an emergency because it's getting worse, not better, and we're at a tipping point.
- A Freedom Emergency. Privacy and civil liberties both have their back to the wall after 7 years of post-9/11. So do fair elections. Unprecedented information technology has created unprecedented ability to leverage power, a perpetual propaganda terrorizes the public, and you have to search far to find a politician doing anything except shrugging. Since rights to liberty, privacy, and electoral integrity secure all others, a threat to them threatens everything else we hope to do.
- Fiscal Disaster. The time bombs of Social Security, Medicare, pensions, and an aging America aren't going away. Our massive deficits have made it more, not less, likely that they'll explode. The ticks are getting louder - or would be if they weren't silenced by a blanket of deception and a chorus of distraction. This is not an emergency that will destroy us next year, or the next, but must be taken now, on an emergency basis, because the longer we wait the tougher it will be to fix.
- Empire As Emergency. Most of the other emergencies above - arguably all -- relate to our militarily maintaining an empire that few politicians even dare acknowledge. We don't need just to reallocate some resources - we need an about-face in a policy of perpetual militarism that has little to do with protecting average Americans.
- Shredding the Social Fabric. At bottom, there aren't enough guns or police to hold America together; that requires trust and consensus. That fabric has been rent and ripped by decades of division. Some of these divisions are real and too long neglected; others are manufactured and exploited. But no matter where they came from, we need to address, now, the cumulative impact of assaults on community and common vision that, for our first two centuries, helped bind us together, because without this fabric, we lack the strength to withstand other crises.
This is not my "wish list." These are basics that I want to see more members of Congress make top priorities. I'd like our next Senator to show that he or she recognizes the emergency nature of what we have to do, and has the courage to take leadership even where polls suggest that other issues pay quicker political dividends.
All of these emergencies were long in the making, but at any given moment were relegated to a Scarlett-like "I'll think about that tomorrow," because the solutions seemed long-range. Our ever-decreasing-attention-span politics, condensed into 30-second attack ads delivered in a video-game blur, punishes thought, rewarding oversimplification and immediate gratification.
Of course I want any candidate to address many other issues comprehensively. But not to lead with them. Going for the easy shots while avoiding the tough calls is why we are where we are, at all levels of government. Progressives rail against shortsighted corporations that think only about the next quarterly profits; the political analogue is following polls, continually looking only to the next election. At risk of contradicting Alinsky, I believe that real change means changing the conversation.
Addressing these emergencies may not provide the camaraderie or political reward that some others might. It may be hard and dirty work, unglamorous, like fighting a fire or pumping out a flooded basement. But it's what needs to be done, and done now. By, among others, the next Senator from Illinois. |
