Changing Aging Blogs
[Is your blog changing aging? Let us know at changingaging AT gmail DOT com]
- Ageless Marketing
- A Little Red Hen
- Better Than I Ever Expected
- Boomers
- Cab Drollery
- Duplex Planet
- EChronicles
- Ecumen's Changing Aging Blog
- EdlerAbuse.org
- Elder Law Issues
- Elder Storytelling Place
- Embodied Aging
- Global Ageing Network Blog
- Maya's Granny
- O'Folks
- Real Sage Advice
- Remembering Matters
- The Boomer Chronicles
- The Savvy Boomer
- The Story of Stuff
- Time Goes By
- Women's Voices for Change
Politics
- Daily Kos
- Grasping Reality
- The Huffington Post
- Talking Points Memo
- Think Progress
- The Washington Monthly
Media & Culture
- CJR Daily
- FAIR's Media Views
- FuturePundit
- Infomaniac: Behind the News
- Social Media
- Romenesko
- Truemors
Health & Science
News
Changing Aging Books
Search
Recent Posts
- ChangingAging.org Redesign -- Please Bookmark!
- Disaster in Buffalo
- Power Up Friday
- Blanchard WinsDays
- Kevin Frick writes...
- Monkhouse Monday
- Getting Closer!
- Blanchard WinsDays
- Power Up Friday
- My Pick for Health and Human Services
- Understanding Health Care Reform
- Facts Are Stubborn Things: Social Security Edition
- Monkhouse Monday
- Localism is Coming
- Krugman Can't Wait...
Recent Comments
- ron bloom on
A More Perfect Union - Richard on
A More Perfect Union
Category Archives
- AGING 100
- Aging
- Culture
- Dementia
- Eden Alternative
- Erickson School
- Green House
- Health Policy
- Longevity
- Media
- Rockets
Monthly Archives
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
Subscribe to this blog's feed
Blog Data
« Boredom is More than Boring | Main | Rule by Division »
March 19, 2008 |Permalink |Comments (2)
A More Perfect Union
I started this week talking about the serious weaknesses that are inflicting our house of credit card, debt-based economic system. I'm still watching that story unfold and will have more on it over the next few days.
Yesterday, I took time to watch the speech Presidential candidate Barack Obama delivered in Philadelphia. "A More Perfect Union," addressed the question of race relations in America directly, in a thoughtful and ultimately very useful way. As a nation we need to hear more of this kind of talk. We are, truly, "many out of one" and we need to be reminded of this more often.
Here is the speech. I urge you to watch it, think about it, talk about it with the people you live with, work with and care about.
There is a deeper message here and it has to do with aging and the possibility of a savage and ongoing intergenerational conflict. White versus Black versus White versus Black? Yes, the history is there for all who care to read it. There is also the growing possibility of another cultural fracture, Old versus Young versus Old versus Young. Candidate Obama makes the point that powerful interests have worked relentlessly to enlarge and deepen the racial divide -- all in pursuit of their own narrow self-interests.
When I was writing about the collapse of the Bear Stearns investment house, I made the point that the Bush Administration had argued strenuously in favor of "privatizing" Social Security and placing the financial security of America's elders into the hands of men like Bear Stearns' Jimmy Cayne.
In support of its drive to privatize Social Security, the Administration did its best to open a rift between young and old. It sought to enlarge our differences and make us alien to each other. This strategy is at the root of so many of our social problems and it is what makes those problems seem so intractable.
Narrowing the gap, bringing Black and White together, Young and Old and Men and Women together is the essence of true leadership and true leadership is the life blood of any healthy human community.
The differences are real but we do not have to let others use them to divide us and deny us a better future.
Comments ( 2)
It was honest and moving. Many have compared it to Martin Luther King but the media soundbites really missed the point.
just discovered you and am excited by your ideas. the social security privitization effort is another of those greed waves that this administration has attempted....fortunately this one has failed.
am very pleased that obama has been so elegant and direct in speaking about race. having so many talking on all sides of the topic is only a good thing. it takes it at once out of whites talking only to whites.