Possibility

There are days and then there are days. Although each has possibility, not all are fruitful. Possibility? What is that, you ask? Well, let me see if I can answer that question.

Some years back when I was living in a very old house (the pride and passion of it!) I’d arise on a Saturday morning and review the list of ‘to do’ items. Lots of things listed: ‘repair front steps & repaint them; scrape back steps, prime and repaint them; review basement stairs to improve flow; is there any chance to do that? [absolutely none!]; determine when to repaint exterior and on what timetable; do one exposure at a time? beginning with which one?; time to replace furnace filters and set for summer suspension; install window air conditioners for summer; and so forth’. The list was long always. The house was 100 years old (now 120) and always in need of attention.

There was more to do than there was money or time needed to do them all. And so I whittled the tasks down to the really big ones and waited for a surge of income making it possible to hire a contractor to do the big tasks.

But there were days when what I decided to do never got done. A good book beckoned. A good movie was replaying on TV. Or the kids wanted to go for a ride and that’s all the excuse I needed to abandon the dreaded list of ‘to dos’! The possibility of tackling a task and removing it from my list was doomed. It remained in place for yet more months.

Possibility. Something to do that would make things better. Ignoring the same only left the possibility idling on the list.

Possibility, of course, pertains to other lists as well. What to do about potable water supplies so scarce in other nations, especially Africa? What about access to affordable health care throughout the world? And access to plentiful education as well. What are the class struggles in other nations and America, too? Are these truly class issues? Or are they made up crises designed to distract us from other pressing issues in need of attention?

Possibility. Potential. Promise.

The three ‘P’s’. They illustrate what could be if we only try. Failing that, they remain but the illustration is absent. No progress. Prosperity is restrained if it exists at all. What could be does not come into being. An opportunity is wasted, ignored.

And we all lose.

Unemployment struggles to abate, personal budgets weary on to cover the basic needs without all hopes fulfilled. The house continues to wear and decay. The car gathers more miles and loses its luster as its used status expands to near antique. Hopes of better days ahead disappear. A generation loses hope. Kids dream dreams that you and I could never imagine.

We Americans think most everything is possible. It is the way we were raised. Well, I suppose there are the families who were born into poverty that don’t dream the same way that the majority of us do. But in the main we grew up in a world where much was possible. In my day, scientific discovery was huge. The space race captured our imagination and dreams went higher than the sky.

Of course the space program uncovered many scientific goodies. We used the new found knowledge to produce new products like computers, cell phones, medical devices small enough to be implanted in the body to monitor and regulate many functions. Life was extended with medical advancements. Dreams were expanded with crazy new ideas to enlarge our ideas for products and services allowed by the ‘new’ sciences. We could now look at problems we could solve by simply applying new knowledge.

Social problems were another thing, but wait! Social problems were often resting at the feet of poverty. Provide more jobs, more manufacturing and the unemployed or lesser employed could raise their standard of income. Expand access to education and the poor could raise themselves out of poverty. Helping hands would lift entire classes out of low income bondage.

It didn’t work out that well. When all was said and done social problems continued. They grew to enormous proportions. Like a cancer large swaths of our population were not lifted up by new discovery and enhanced living standards.

Fixing these problems raised the specter of new, costly social programs paid for by government – our taxes. That prospect caused some people to resist the solutions to the problems. They argued that the fix would take money from them to pay benefits to others. And so the ideological divide was born and gave many a lot to talk about.

From that beginning we attracted users and takers and the political boon of ideological divide and conquer became an entire industry. Built on mankind’s baser instincts this industry was destined to become larger than life itself.

Now in 2015 we see the results of that industry. No politician – citizen servant – can get elected to public office without support from narrow interest groups with large check books. Good thinkers and willing servants are discouraged and left behind. They won’t play the game of the check writers. They disappear from the political scene and leave it to the moneyed residue.

Gridlock is the result because the ‘winners’ among us refuse to lose. The ‘losers’ among us refuse to give the ‘winners’ credit. So stasis results. Equal powers check equal powers. Nothing is gained. Nothing is done.

And possibility is the loser for us all.

We think we live in a democracy. We do not. We live in a republic fueled by money not ideas. Such a system avoids education and science. Facts are made up and bandied about as though they actually mean something. Our public discussions – yes, even our elections – are meaningless exercise of futility. Power and countervailing power checkmate each other. And those parties are happy. The ‘other’ is not allowed to rule. They have protected their ideological argument for another day, another time they just might win.

Possibility. It is our hope that things will be better, improved, healthier. Without possibility we are impoverished of hope.

How long will the majority of us allow this to continue? When will we realize that we are trashing our own future.

Governance is all about managing the common good of the body politic. It should not be about stasis of political bankers. Or ideology. We have tried big government and small government. And both were found wanting. Something else must be found that works.

Perhaps solving problems that negatively affect people is the answer? When will we get back to this discussion and exploration of possibility?

Will you join the march for possibility?

May 20, 2015