If you are reading this, you will be doing so on or after January 1, 2026 - and if you are reading this blog posting (or any part of it) on that day itself, please accept my personal good wishes for a Happy New Year!
Today's blog posting outlines some of my (mostly general) thoughts about what we need to be working on, and working for, during this year upcoming, a year that is exactly 250 years after 1776, which is generally accepted as the year in which the American Revolution was initiated. This New Year would be a good time to start working on some genuinely "revolutionary" ideas for the years ahead.
Our "national purpose," and the purpose of our national government, as established by the American Revolution (an event which is well described and well discussed in On Revolution, by Hannah Arendt), is best presented - in my view - by three different documents:
Today's blog posting (it's pretty long, so be warned) presents some of my thoughts about how we can (and actually must) carry forward our national purpose, as defined in those three documents.
"Revolution" is not a bad topic as we enter a New Year. Here we are, on January 1st! Our Earth revolves, and the seasons change, and now, today, on January 1st, we face - as we do again and again, and as we always will - the question of what we should do!
What We Should Do (Introduction)
This lengthy blog posting (you have been warned) addresses a key topic, "what we should do." When I say, "we," I mean to reference our collective opportunity to act, together, as citizens of The United States of America, and this "What We Should Do" listing should definitely be recognized as "a partial list." We are able to do (or at least we are able to attempt to do) what we decide we want to do. This truth is axiomatic for those of us - and I hope that includes virtually all of us - who believe in the dignity and power of "self-government."
"Possibility" is what I like to call "my category." In my view, virtually all things are possible in the "political world," the world that we most immediately inhabit. But we do live in two worlds, the way I see it. The "World of Nature," that I sometimes refer to as "The World That God Created," can be described by the "laws" of physics, and the "laws" of the other natural sciences. These "laws" describe "necessities." We can't countermand the law of gravity here on Planet Earth. But the "Political World" that is defined by the "laws" that we promulgate ourselves is different. Our human-created laws tell us what we want to happen, not what has to happen.
Those of us who grew up during the time of the Civil Rights Movement, and during public opposition to the War in Vietnam, well remember that we (or many of us, anyway) defied the human laws that told us that we were supposed to do things we thought were wrong. We didn't follow those human laws that told those of us who were Black that we couldn't sit in the front of the bus, or sit at the dime store lunch counter. We didn't follow those human laws that told those of us who had reached our eighteenth birthday that we had to register for the draft, and then, if called, go off to kill other people we didn't even know.
In our "Political World," what actually happens will be determined by what we actually do, ourselves, as we mobilize our individual and collective energies and assets to create a reality that we wish to establish and inhabit. In this blog posting, I try to provide at least a little bit of an idea of what I think are some projects worth undertaking, some ambitions worth accomplishing, but what I really think we should do is not only to pursue my own listing of possible projects, but that we should augment the suggestions I advance with those that will be put forward by others.
Put forward by YOU, for instance!
What YOU should do - your own personal assignment, in other words - is what you think is right, and what you decide just might be "possible" if you devote your life to it. It should be YOUR dream. My father told me, on my eighteenth birthday, that "if you don't have a dream, Gary, you will never have a dream come true." My gloss on my father's excellent advice is that we need to be sure that we're thinking not only individually, but in terms of our collective lives together, too, as we do our dreaming. We need, in other words, to incorporate the wisdom of Bob Dylan as we dream, and then we need to act, to bring our envisioned future into reality.
Bob Dylan "said that."
I say that, too.
I also say this: We are "all in this together."
oooOOOooo
What Do I Know?
I am here confessing to being an "old guy." I was born on the Day After Christmas in 1943. That means that I am 82 years old, today, as I post this entry into my blog. The kind of "revolutionary" changes that I am advocating in this blog posting are generally brought into being by the young. Just to be clear, though, while I am admitting to being an "old guy," and am doing so right up front, I am still feeling like that "young man" who did a whole lot of things during the time I qualified as "young," and who still thinks that everyone - including me, and including all those "old folks" who are still upright and ambulatory - is capable of doing something to "change the world."
"Changing the world" is the project I am proposing for this brand New Year. And don't worry if that seems too grand an undertaking for you to want to become involved. The world is going to be changed - for better or worse - no matter what you do. Both possibilities, by the way, must be acknowledged, and this, I think, should be a major motivation for you to decide to be involved yourself. You don't actually have to do anything specifically intended to change the world, but I, personally, strongly advise trying to have some specific objectives in mind, and trying to make things happen, instead of letting them just happen to you. In my experience, a "coalition" of the old and the young is what is really called for. That, in fact, was the kind of coalition that transformed realities when I was in the "young guy" category.
During my life, I have had extremely good luck. Both my Mother and Father were wonderful. I had two sisters and a brother. All equally wonderful! Today, while my parents are gone, my siblings and their children are alive and still present in my life, and I also have a wife, and both a son and a daughter and three grandchildren. All wonderful! And so many wonderful friends!
I can testify, personally, that I have been involved not only in the individual, world-changing relationships just listed, but that I have also been engaged with those friends I mentioned in making significant changes in the world I most immediately inhabit, here in Santa Cruz County, California. In 1999, I was named by my hometown newspaper as one of two people who had the most impact on Santa Cruz County during the 20th Century. Comparisons are "odious," to quote my mother, but eliminating the comparison inherent in what the Santa Cruz Sentinel said about me, it really is true that I have been involved in helping to make major changes in our local community - and that such actions have had some statewide, and even national impacts, too.
In other words, when I ask myself the question, "What Do I Know," I really do know that it is possible to "change the world." It's done by individual action - but mostly by action with others. The world is changed, in other words, by "politics," so often discounted as somehow suspect or dishonorable. What should we do? We should act together (that means "politically") to make progress on the challenges and opportunities we know we have before us.
BOTH "challenges" and "opportunities."
Dealing with them both, not only "individually" but "together."
That is what we should do, as we unroll this New Year we now confront.
oooOOOooo
What We Might Do
(A Very Partial List)
In order to achieve significant changes, we need to act together, and we need to take the actions, together, that are necessary to accumulate, and then employ, political power. I begin with this because I believe that many of us have not achieved a right relationship with political power. To many, "power" is something that someone else has, and to which we are subjected - often unwillingly. In fact, though, we do not live in a "dictatorship," as a few of my friends seem to enjoy proclaiming.
In the United States of America, we have a political system that is outlined in the Constitution, and that was inspired by the Declaration of Independence. Abraham Lincoln summed it up, so wonderfully, and so briefly, in his Gettysburg Address. Lest we forget, that political system is best understood as "self-government," a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people."
BY the people! That's the most important part of Lincoln's summation of what our politics and government are all about, here in the United States of America. That is STILL what our politics and government are all about, even after 250 years, and it is STILL what it's all about even as we have, collectively, elected a president who really does believe that HE is the government.
WE are the government - that is the foundation premise of what we call our "democracy." Because we ARE the government, we need to take responsibility for the government, which means that we need to go beyond "protests" and "resistance." Protests and resistance are absolutely necessary, particularly in our current political circumstances. However, if we are, truly, THE government, we need to be, effectively, "running the place," as I like to put it.
Are we? Most people would say, "No," we're not. If that is your own diagnosis, an important part of your personal assignment, starting now, is to figure out how you, personally, can start exerting political power, and can start changing the things that you object to, and realizing the things you want to see happen, using your personal time, money, and commitment. Today is a good day to think about this. Today is, after all, the day which is recognized as a proper time to make New Year's Resolutions.
I have been suggesting, and reiterate my suggestion, that we each need to "find some friends." I am talking about joining, or forming, a relatively small group of other people who all agree on what they should be trying to do, politically. Such a group needs to get together, in person, on a frequent, and regular, basis, to discuss where they are in their efforts. The purpose of such a group is to amalgamate political power, so as to achieve some specific changes that will demonstrate that "we, the people," are, in fact, actually governing ourselves.
Tip O'Neill had a way of explaining politics that goes as follows: "All politics is local." A small group, in any community, can amalgamate political power sufficient to cause the government (of which we are in charge) to do something that the government is not now doing, or to stop the government from doing something that it shouldn't be doing. Suppose your "small group of friends" has an idea that others think is the "wrong idea." Well, then your small group may not be successful, if the others are more effective than you and your group is, but you should be trying, with that small group of friends of which you are a member, to get our political system (at every level) to start doing what you think is the right thing to do - or what is necessary to do.
Right here, I expect that many who are reading this will say that this assignment is "impossible," or that trying to do something like this is simply "not going to work." If that is your reaction, you are, essentially, saying that you do not have any belief that a system of "self-government" can succeed. Maybe, you might tell yourself, that could have happened back 250 years ago. Or, maybe, even fifty years ago, which is when I got involved with local politics in my local community, in Santa Cruz, California.
If that is your reaction, let me tell you that this reaction is reasonable. But here is what we all have to remember. Making self-government actually work, in the way I am urging, is definitely not possible if you, personally, and others who are those "friends" I am asking you to seek out, are not willing to change their own individual lives as a first step, and to "reallocate their time."
Most of us allocate our time to surviving economically and then entertaining and enjoying ourselves. Most of us are not focused on "politics," and the task of building and then using political power. But if "self-government" is to become a "real thing," we must, individually (and together) change how we deploy the time we have available to us. When people joined themselves in the struggles of the Civil Rights era, they set aside other plans. Similarly for those who became active in the anti-war movement. Not everyone is going to be willing to change their live, and to reallocate their time (which is the same thing). But, actually, not everyone has to. Just some. For any one of us, individually, it's a personal question: "Am I willing to change my personal life, so as to help accumulate and deploy collective political power to seek to achieve something worth giving my life to?"
If your personal answer is "yes," you're on your way!
Here are some ideas that might be motivating. It's a "partial list," and I have tried to provide a few examples of "political projects" that make sense to me, on the local, state, and national levels. Like I say, I think it always makes sense to remember Tip O'Neill's call for a focus on politics at the local level, but when people start being willing to give up more of their life and time, their entire lives, in fact, one person - YOU, or ME - can have a significant and world-changing impact on something that needs changing at the state, or national, or even global level.
Here are a few ideas to think about, as possible political projects. This is, definitely, only a "partial list," and these thoughts are presented at a very high level of generality:
- Elect city officials in the City of Santa Cruz (including a new Mayor) who will not defer to "the staff," but who will work to get the votes on the Council necessary to tell the city staff what they are going to do, and what they are going to work for during the year(s) ahead. Then, pick your issue for the City to address - there are lots of them. For instance: (1) Giving power back to local neighborhoods, with respect to proposed new developments; (2) Using funding available for affordable housing for local workers, not just people who make the "median income," given that this "median" now reflects those who are now earning way more than local workers get paid; (3) Establishing a set of affordable housing policies that require that new residential units be price restricted on resale, so they will always be affordable to what local workers can afford; (4) Achieveing a reduction in the city bureaucracy, using the money saved by doing that for projects and expenditures that are more directly and demonstrably beneficial to the community; (5) Establishing city-sponsored participation opportunities in each of the new "districts" set up by recent Charter changes, so that local neighborhood areas begin to realize their actual political power.
- Take similar action at the County level of government.
- At the state level, how about enacting a workable system of taxation that will require those who have great wealth to contribute more to collective efforts to deal with the housing, health care, and educational crises that are so clearly being ignored by our current state policies? And what about making sure that local governments are are given real power to impact every one of the state programs and operations that impact local communities, from wildfire protection to assistance to the homeless?
- At the national level, "taxing the rich," can empower and fund state and local efforts to solve our affordable housing crisis, and can make available meaningful work opportunities to everyone, and provide reliable and affordable health care and education for everyone, too. Plus, our national policies can be reconfigured to make environmental restoration and effective efforts to combat global warming a top priority (more important than building new battleships, for instance), giving the world, and our own nation, a chance to survive the runaway global warming that is putting human civilization in danger.
In sum, this is a New Year in which we can, and must, decide that we will stop subordinating ourselves to to "what's happening to us," most of which is "bad," and will start working, both individually and collectively, to realize our more "utopian" dreams of how to change the world for the better. That should always be our assignment, right? Changing the world for the better? What could be more important - and satisfying? What could be more necerssary?
Since it is true that we do "live in a political world," we need to do a better job of mobilizing our personal and collective political power to make the changes we know need to be made - and we can't expect someone else to do it. We need to get on it, and stop acting like it's someone else's job, or that we can't do it.
Because we can.
