Archive for the 'Global Communication' Category

The United Nations Window on Racial Diversity for 2010 America

Published on May 10, 2010 in Global Communication, Global Politics, racial diversity and United Nations. 0 Comments

quote: variety’s the very spice of life (William Cowper)

in the news: in (American) political message wars, “race card” has become a salvo fired by all sides (Washington Post, May 6, 2010); (American) tea party groups battling perceptions of racism (ibid, May 5, 2010)

in perspective: Since the inauguration of the western industrialized world’s first non-white leader in January 2009, the conservative mantra in America has been a call to “take our country back.” The vagueness of the term speaks volumes about deep-seated human emotions yet to be understood let alone measured. However, for those wanting to “take the country back” to a pre-non-white American presidential time, the United Nations perspective can serve as a reassuring window onto the future.

The modern world of 200 countries is wholly interdependent at all levels, from economic and social to environmental. Those countries are peopled by an overwhelmingly non-white racial majority. As represented at the United Nations, the mix is a panoply of human potential and splendor, as well as a wild bazaar of the mindboggling challenges to be negotiated across the mix of developmental levels, cultural differences and national priorities.

Since the 2008 election, little attention in the American mainstream media has been devoted to the most basic change in the country. For the first time ever, non-white faces represent the country in newspapers and on television screens.

The sheer novelty demands address. That’s because Michelle Obama may be lauded as a fashion trendsetter, but America is used to Hillary Clinton’s demure pantsuits and the prim attire of Laura Bush.

The American self-perception is guaged through its leaders. The change that came to America through its leader was a radical one that called for acclimation, or simply getting used to a novel development. The United Nations model is the vehicle to fast-track the necessary perceptual change America needs to make.

In essence with the 2008 election, America overthrew the expected paradigm of a white-male President backed by his complementary woman-behind-the-throne. Sixty-plus years after its establishment, the United Nations has long erased such presumptions about power-wielders in the minds of its ranks and staff.

Whatever its handicaps as a bureaucracy, the United Nations has one giant redeeming value. The forum allows for a refreshing level of exchange that enables minority views to impact on the jaded approaches to problem solving that the world’s superpowers bring to the table.

The effect is far from miraculous. The mighty United States still rules at the United Nations, along with the other permanent members of the Security Council, including the European powers of France and Great Britain along with China and Russia.

Nevertheless, the little Solomon Islands manages to sway minds and hearts with its imagistic pleas for environmental control to ease concerns about rising sea levels and increasingly fierce climactic disasters. Little Cuba with its enormous United Nations staff and restricted travel allowance still manages to nettle its powerful northern neighbor.

And complain as it might against bias, perhaps with good reason, Israel makes a good case at the United Nations for why it has to take severe measures against Palestinians in the midst of neighbors still denying the country’s very right to exist. African countries, meanwhile, pursue with utmost confidence the continent’s renaissance through cooperative arrangements with global giants such as China.

In short, the United Nations is a window onto a bustling world. The maverick America that managed to break the racial glass ceiling on power could benefit from its mainstream media making more use of the United Nations web site.

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Metaphors for Racism in 2010 America

Published on March 25, 2010 in Global Communication, Global Politics and Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

quote to tickle thought: the metaphor is probably the most fertile power possessed by man (Jorge Ortega y Gasset)

in the news: Walmart announcer tells black people to leave store; Racial slurs hurled at lawmakers during health reform protests

definitions from Oxford concise dictionary: metaphor, a symbol of an abstraction; racist, one who believes in the superiority of a particular race; bigot, one who has an obstinate and intolerant belief in an idea

in perspective: America broke the global racial barrier on power with its 2008 election. Its new half-black president has wisely chosen to focus on the national crises that got him elected when white strategies no longer worked. A year into the new administration, however, racism screamed to be addressed.

No doubt the shock of the racial breakthrough combined with the sensitivity of the issue prevented direct address. A possible solution would be for the media to approach the subject through the indirectness of the metaphor.

The first step would be to break down the vast block of those opposed to the policies mandated by the election for the creation of a more global and compassionate America. That would be the conservative half of the population having unabashedly declared its commitment to saying no to any progressive proposal.

Breaking down that domestic block to progress calls for differentiating the categories making up the conservative element in 2010 America as represented by the Tea Party movement. That includes true conservatives clinging to past values and ideals, elitists holding to pyramidal models of societetal entitlements, racists seeing the present reality of non-white American leadership as an anomaly rather than progress, and downright bigots deserving of no more notice than to be ignored since they’re not open to reasoning.

Once identified, the concerns and needs of each group could be targeted directly. To true conservatives still of the view that the United States can unilaterally impose its will on other countries, the global nature of the modern world and economy could be pointed out. Elitists would be reminded of the shooting-star nature of celebrity and wealth today while racists of every stripe would be bombarded with facts about how blockages to freedom, opportunity and merit are challenged everywhere. Finally, bigots would be left to die out in the discourse about true conservative concerns.

Bolstering those messages with the aid of metaphor would be the second step in garnering support for the agenda America mandated with its 2008 election. The metaphors would concretize today’s reality of just how backward was conservativism in a global world.

For true conservatives holding onto old ways, metaphors would focus on the futility of renewing the worn-out old. Pouring money into a dilapidated house, patching threadbare clothes or resoling outworn shoes would serve as starting images.

Elitists may be swayed by metaphors about the evanescence of status in the media-driven age of Sarah Palins, movie stars and “celebutards,” as the New York Post coins it. By contrast, the lasting influence of those committed to global progress could be stressed, particularly activisists of notable visility such as Bono and Sean Penn.

For racists, metaphors would center on the evidence of history and how bizarre old attitudes about human differences appear in a modern context. Rudyard Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden” about United States involvement in the Philippines during 1899 could serve as a template for an image today of a “Non-white’s Challenge” in a world where China holds the purse strings of the United States.

On the question of racial superiority, the image behind the metaphors would be the Biblical reversal of the first becoming last and the last becoming first in the absence of an attitude shift. Inversely, agreement on equality could turn the global scenario into an endless series of championship play-offs where everyone has a serial shot at coming out the winner.

History bears witness to the futility of movements centered on obstreperousness, elitism and racism. It exposes the glaring reality. Bigots are primitive dinosaurs in the human journey towards progress.

American media has an opportunity to impact on a rapidly changing world in 2010 as the Tea Party movement gets nasty and violent. The challenge calls for innovation and for an update of old journalistic rubrics.

Coverage of hard news today calls for creativity. It also calls for the violation of the sacred American taboo against intellectualism.

A literary device such as the metaphor can make the bitter pill of transition more palatable to the American common man exemplified by the political football who came to light in the 2008 election. “Joe the Plumber” may not like the rest of the world or see any use for it. But without that broader context, he’s nothing more than a laboratory rat caught in a maze.

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Just Say "Yes" to Conservative "No" in 2010 America

Published on March 10, 2010 in Global Communication, Global Politics and Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

quote to tickle thought: Stronger than all the armies is an idea whose time has come (Victor Hugo)

in the news: (American conservative) Rush Limbaugh will move to Costa Rica if health reform passes (in US); (US NY representative) Massa flirts with the right, but (conservative talk show host) Beck isn’t tickled

in perspective: America voted for radical change in the 2008 election. The new president has come under fire for being overly conciliatory with the conservative establishment.

Media reports indicated that independent voters in particular were disillusioned with the new President Obama over his inability to bring about more robust change. But perhaps that inability was less the president’s fault than that of the American public, which has allowed itself since the election to be diluted in its “yes, we can” rallying cry as the conservatives gathered steam with their “no” on the agenda for change.

The pendulum swing was predictable enough. After a historic step forward, the country as a whole took a half step back as the conservative element knocked the country off its victorious feet.

Columnist Frank Rich on Sunday March 7, 2010 was among those questioning President Obama’s ability to lead. The internet that week buzzed with gossip about White House power struggles.

Yet the half-white man who’d won America’s faith in 2008, and with that skill led the country to overturn global history, was not likely to be slow on the draw. That was true regardless of how resoundingly and unprecedently behind the eight-ball he was.

Health care reform was the signature legislative priority of the new administration, no doubt because no other issue cut as sharply into questions about economic, social and racial divides in America. The resolution of no other issue could so decisively determine whether America would go with the agenda chosen in the 2008 election or let the conservative “no” take over and return the country to the simplistic mentality that had led to the global economic crisis that left the country no choice but to vote for radical change.

However watered down and imperfect, passage of the health care plan would be a signal for the new President Obama to continue implementing the 2008 mandate for a more humane United States in a global world where it was reeling. Enemies such as terrorists and how to deal with them remained on the forefront. But of equal concern for the country and its economic future were competitors such as the European Union, Russia and China.

Dissatisfied as President Obama’s constituents may have been in 2010, there was no mistaking the change in the country’s tenor since the last days of the previous conservative administration. Through actions such as stabilizing the global economy and instituting its own financial reforms, creating jobs and changing policy on issues such as climate and energy, the new America in 2010 had become a world-friendly participant in a global world instead of a pariah.

That big step forward was accomplished in just one short year and acheiving it was crucial for the country regardless of conservative clamor for continuing to harp on the rubric of America’s greatness devoid of acknowleging global neighbors. As economists and diplomats well know regardless of the American public being slow to be informed by its mainstream media, the growth of the American economy in the 2010 global world depended on the behavior of 200 other countries.

If all that could be accomplished by America’s new President Obama despite the heels-dug-in position of “no” to change among America’s conservatives, progressives could take heart. The bigger picture showed that they needed only to send up a resoundingly united “yes” to change so as to prove out the wisdom of their 2008 choice and enable the new President Obama to be the intermediary between the old and new America in the role for which America had elected him to be.

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The Battle for an American Identity in a 2010 Global World

Published on March 2, 2010 in Global Communication, Global Politics and Politics. 0 Comments

quote to tickle thought: divide and rule (ancient political maxim cited by Machiavelli)

in the headlines: energized conservatives pound on Democrats at CPAC; lawyers cleared over 9/11 memos (condoning torture); majority say Obama hasn’t accomplished much in first year; anti-government groups show surge, watchdog warns

in perspective: Coverage of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)in Washington ended on February 20 with the message that the conservative spirit in America had rallied. A contrast was drawn between this year’s optimism and the demoralization of last year a month after the inauguration of the western industrialized world’s first non-white leader. The 800 pound gorilla in 2010 America that nobody seemed able to address was a realistic sense of the forces driving the conservatism.

A year into the new administration, tea partiers bickered among themselves and fought for a rebel identity separate from mainstream Republicans. Meanwhile, the Southern Poverty Law Center on March 2 said it counted 512 militia-related groups in the country in 2009, up from 149 the previous year. The common element between all these groups was the word “no” to the 2008 election mandate, with the “divide and rule” tactic reenforcing it.

Seemingly forgotten was the mandate itself. That mandate was to bring radical change into a great country that had brought on a global economic crisis with eight years of a greed-driven, unregulated conservative policy. Licence for indulging a strategy of denial about that mandate was a product of the “divide and conquer” tactic practiced by conservatives upon the country’s progressives.

A year into the new administration, conservative euphoria over expected gains in 2010 midterm elections was fueled by falling support for the new President’s policies. Public opinion polls indicated that blame for failure to achieve the promised electoral campaign change was leveled at the new president for his inability to break an increasingly fierce Washington gridlock between conservatives and progressives.

Independents were said to be most disillusioned with the new president’s performance, perhaps in a demonstration of just how impatient were the country’s progressives to get the country onto the global highway where cooperation was the operative word rather than the flexing of muscle to achieve aims. In the 2010 global world of 200 countries all interconnected through travel, communication and trade, alliances created the basis for power, not the single factor of military or economic primacy.

The 2008 election showed that America’s progressives were well aware of the global shift in which emerging countries from South America to Africa and from China to India were intent on gaining an equal say in how the world was run. America’s conservatives, on the other hand, held onto old rubrics about the value of America remaining the world’s schoolyard bully.

Personal experience can serve to show that change is a complex and frightening process before a breakthrough occurs. That personal experience can be extrapolated to the local, national and global levels.

By contrast, the harping of a single note to hold onto old virtues based on past successes is a message that is simple, loud and clear. In 2010 America, a year into its new progressive administration, that conservative message was dividing and conquering the progressive agenda mandated by the 2008 election.

The cure for the tyranny of the conservative stranglehold of “no” to American progress in the 2010 global world was for progressives to take the advice of Benjamin Franklin. At the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, that great forefather said, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Independents may be disappointed by the performance of America’s new leader as he negotiates the slippery slope of instituting change by relying on those adept at working the system to help him in that task. But with America’s identity in a global world at stake, progressives of every bent would best serve their country by resisting the conservative tactic of allowing themselves to be divided and ruled.

Imperialists and colonialists throughout the world’s history had practiced and perfected the tactic of divide and rule. As the beacon of democracy for the 2010 global world, America was eminently positioned to overthrow that policy, not only for the global good but also for its own.

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Black David Up Against White Goliath in 2010 America

Published on January 29, 2010 in Global Communication and Global Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , .

quote to tickle thought: Genius does what it must and talent does what it can (Owen Meredith)

in the news: Obama’s State of the Union a moment of truth; US economy grows at fastest pace since 2003; Senate republicans have one word for democrats: no; squabbles erupt over national Tea Party event

in perspective: A year into his first term, America’s new non-white President gave his first State of the Union address just as the United Kingdom conducted the Chilcot inquiry into the country’s role in the Iraq invasion. From the start, the new President has repeatedly stated that he wants to move forward rather than look back at the country’s actions during the previous eight-year conservative administration. However noble the attitude and however desirable the ideal, the reality of the Main Street fight against a Wall Street monopoly demands an accounting on a period that led to America being reviled in the world to the point that it sparked a global economic crisis.

America broke the racial glass ceiling on power to elect the man who could lead it in the humane and world-friendly direction a global world demanded. He has done the job he was mandated to carry out and yet has received little acknowledgement for gargantuan efforts in reversing the global economic, moral and security declines resulting from previous policies.

One benefit to derive from the opportunity to meet new challenges is that of learning. To have achieved his place in history, America’s new President is undoubtedly at the “genius” level as defined by “an infinite capacity for patience,” according to a number of sources in Bartlett’s Quotations.

On the other hand, however admirable their skills, the President’s colleagues in Congress and beyond are at the “talent” level of doing what they can to stay in power or make a profit. The historical thrust of both that power and profit is white, moneyed and privileged.

America elected a black “David” against a white “Goliath” in 2008. The new black David just may need to readjust his thinking during his second year in office to get across the mandate the American people entrusted to him. He just may need to put the power of the past behind the stones he flings at white Goliath with his slingshot.

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Does 2010 America Expect a Miracle-Worker in Obama?

Published on January 17, 2010 in Global Communication. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

quote to tickle thought: …the miracle is nowhere but circulating in the veins of man (poet George Seferis, 1900-1971)

in the news: missing girl’s dad pleads for Obama’s help in Haiti; Syracuse schoolchildren upset over White House response to letter; majority say Obama hasn’t accomplished much in first year

in perspective: America elected the western industrialized world’s first non-white leader to address a global economic crisis created by the last “pale male” American administration that had alienated the world with its military, political and economic policies. At the first year anniversary of the new people- and world-friendly administration, yet another poll showed Americans disappointed with the new President’s performance.

At the same time, distraught American parents called on the President to help find their missing daughter in earthquake ravaged Haiti. Also, Syracuse schoolchildren found an outlet to voice unhappiness with a form letter in response to their invitation for the President to help them build a snowman.

The election of a non-white leader for America could be viewed as a miracle in itself, as judged by voluminous news sources prior to the election predicting that America simply wasn’t ready for the step. In wake of the historic inauguration in January 2009, complete with world jubilance, the President’s approval rating has been shown as steadily declining, even aside from the expected conservative backlash against progress by tea-partyers.

The perception seems particularly odd in view of the fact that the new President has addressed and stemmed the global economic crisis, has restored America’s standing in the world, has brought financial institution managers to the edge of accountability and has given individual Americans the sense that a “compassionate” President was at the country’s helm. Those mere handful of the new administration’s accomplishments in its first year could be attributable factors to an ineffable sense that despite continued challenges such as unemployment and discord, a glumness in outlook for the future had lifted in America over the single year before.

Compared to other world cultures, 300-plus-year-old America is young. It is short on attention span and long on satisfying ambitions, whether personal, national or international. In the 2010 globalizing world, perhaps the biggest miracle America performed with its 2008 election was to choose the man who would lead by weathering the country’s growing pains as manifested in juvenile retaliatory tantrums.

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A Prosperous Decade Well-Earned by 2009 America

Published on December 31, 2009 in Global Communication. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

quotes to tickle thought: Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. (Tennyson, In Memorium)

I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind. (Shakespeare, Timon of Athens)

in the news on 31 December: US jobless claims drop to lowest level since 2008; US to lose $400 billion on Fannie, Freddy; dollar rises to three-month high as jobless claims drop; US stock futures up slightly after jobless data; cranky Cheney at it again (with criticism of Obama being soft on terrorism)

A failed Christmas day attempt at a terrorist attack on an airliner brought vitriole from former vice-president Dick Cheney. Throughout 2009 and the first 11 months of a world-friendly American administration after eight years of a world-alienating approach in response to the 9/11/01 attack on America, the new president has repeatedly acknowledged that America is at war against terrorist extremists.

Even so, the former vice-president of the previous administration blindly clung to his view that the new president was “pretending we are not at war.” His reasoning was that “war” did not fit with the view the new president had brought to the Oval Office, that of social transformation and the restructuring of American society.

However, social transformation and the restructuring of American society was precisely the mandate affirmed by the 2008 election that broke the global racial glass ceiling and put into office the first non-white leader of a western industrialized world. In the midst of a global economic crisis, that election bore out the wisdom of the American electorate at large.

The 2008 election proved that America was independent and the ultimate land of opportunity. It also proved that America was smart.

Throughout its history, America has grown to its current stature as hands-down world leader because of its hallmark trait of adaptability. That stature is based not just on economic and military might but also on social fabric and moral high-ground for basic values such as access to fairness and justice.

A solidly founded broad-based constitution was the basis for America’s growth. It allowed for amendments that in turn accommodated global shifts in the accordance and insurance of basic human rights to people as those concepts of justice evolved.

Thus over time, the wing of America’s compassionate protection spread to envelop not only slaves, women, minorities and participants in war, but to all in need of a champion as the world with its vast levels of standards for human standards of conduct met up, clashed and evolved. With some notable exceptions when American unilaterism outruled common sense, the spirit of America has been summed up by kindness, strength, flexibility, smarts, capability and a hand up for the underdog.

The spirit of grandness through generosity has been America’s trademark and continues to be through its new administration. By any measure it trumps the smallness of defensive cowering and preemptive schoolyard bullying of the preceding eight years that will be washed away by history.

On New Year’s eve 2009, America rings out the old decade of holding onto a vestigial vision of a white male macho monopoly on power in a global world, On that same night, it rings in a new decade of challenge for both the American people and its leaders.

To find direction, America has only to reflect on the changes it has made since a mere year earlier. At the turn of 2009 with America’s new leader less than a year in office, America can afford to let its former vice-president cry “the sky is falling!” in the vein of Chicken Little.

America can make room on its airwaves for that alarmist view because it is solidly on the right path under its new globally-savvy leader. At the turn of 2009 onto a new decade, America can afford to be generous with the world as it has been handed down to it by the previous administration because of the direction America chose with its 2008 election.

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The "personal" goes "global"

Published on November 28, 2009 in Global Communication. 0 Comments

quotes to tickle thought: On this shrunken globe, men can no longer live as strangers (Adlai Stevenson); Every advance in civilization has been denounced as unnatural while it was recent (Bertrand Russell)

in the news: Kenyans draw weapons over shrinking resources (cattle, water, land); Dubai (economic) jitters spread; Apple’s iPhone arrives to rousing welcome in SKorea; Honduran economy faces challenges; White House party crashers fit a new mold: fame at all costs; terrorism suspected in Russia train crash; spin on (golfer Tiger) Woods’s story takes on a life of its own; Commonwealth backs quick start climate change fund; (French) Sarkozy secured (Polish-American) Roman Polanski’s release (in Switzerland as he awaited extradition to US)

in perspective: No man is an island, nor is any city, country or region in a global world where the common thread among the people of 200 countries is shared humanness. Cultures vary in levels of development in the cultural, economic and political spheres. The unifying element is centred on the principle that all growth at every level starts with the personal.

The question of whether “nature” or “nurture” is the more important in the determination of a human personality has not been determined. It is not known whether inherited characteristics or environmental factors are most prominent in shaping an individual character and life.

A fact that is known, however, is that two are inextricably intertwined, like the double helix of the human chromosonal strands. Inheritance comes from two parents and is incubated in every-broadening arenas of social interaction.

In the year 2009 when the US has broken global glass ceilings in the areas of race and gender with its 2008 election, some regions of the world and countries within them are in privileged situations relative to others due to geographical and historical circumstances. But in a period of a technological and communications revolution involving all the world, the best guiding principle for the ground-breaking US and the rest of the world is to “keep it simple, stupid” and remember the personal element in a global world.

Financial security, social standing and personal pride through integrity are commonly embraced human goals. Greed, resentment, hostility and undue grabs for power are common human failings.

To nurture global growth both economically and culturally, individuals need only to foster the positives across cultural differences and join in with each other on the commonalities to defeat the negatives. Recogning the personal thirst for personal power at every social level in every society is the key.

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the face of change in the 2009 global Obama era

Published on November 10, 2009 in Global Communication and Global Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

quote to tickle thought: I’m convinced that every boy, in his heart, would rather steal second base than an automobile (Thomas Clark)

in the news: (filly) Zenyatta races into history books by beating the boys in classic (Breeder’s Cup race); the shame of the 2009 U-17 World Cup (in Nigeria); Obama draws criticism for sitting out Berlin Wall anniversary; unemployment in US reaches 10.2 per cent; teen boys drink, fight more, girls less, when playing sports; hunger is Afghanistan’s biggest killer

in perspective: The western world’s first non-white leader was elected to bring about change a year ago in the midst of a global economic crisis brought on by a “pale male” ethic dominating human interaction throughout modern history. The specifics and the dire level of the threat were quickly diffused in the typical American attention span of short duration. Griping and blaming the new administration took over the headlines in the arguments over what “change” actually met, which obscured the fact that the change had been accomplished simply by the election.

The change that election of a non-white leader brought to America and to the world was simply a change in values. Paradoxically, that is the most difficult undertaking to accomplish at any level, whether by an individual, a family, a community or nation. Change at all those levels must now be nurtured if America is to cure itself and all its woes, from moral, social and cultural to economic and political.

That task may seem daunting on the surface, given America’s violent disagreements over issues such as health care and fiscal reform. At heart, however, the way forward is straight-forward. That is to make a platform out of America’s strengths and then project them out onto the world so as to put the modern America into a solid perspective for its people.

Damned Yankees was the title of a Sunday op ed piece by Ari Flreischer, the former George W. Bush press secretary, pointing out that his beloved Yankees hadn’t won the World Series under a Republican administration since 1958. The study on teen jocks being more aggressive than non-athletes may say more about American high school culture than about serious sports players. The 2009 U-17 World Cup played in Nigeria was handicapped by structural weaknesses in the arena that could use the help of American industry to improve.

Addressing the hunger and poverty in Afghanistan could also use American help, not on the small scale of organizations such as Doctors without Borders, however large and important they are, but at the level of American national policy. That was the way to open doors for American industries to partner with others who could help implement programmes for delivery of products.

Finally, the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of Communism should be the ultimate message that America’s values are rapidly changing. After all, there really was little to celebrate about the world having allowed half its population to live under totalitarian tyranny until the system self-imploded.

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The new family of America with 2009

Published on November 5, 2009 in Global Communication and Global Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

quote to tickle thought: None so blind as those that will not see (Matthew Henry)

in the news: Danish PM optimistic on climate deal; Kilimangaro’s famous icy peaks are thawing fast (may disappear in 25 years); US Senate panel approves climate change bill despite GOP boycott; US Republicans try to rally resistance to health care bill as House vote nears; US Democrats downplay election losses as GOP celebrates

in perspective: As with any issue on a global scale, a December climate summit in Copenhagen needs US backing for an agreement on how the world can deal with unnatural climate change after 150 years of uncontrolled industrialization. America, however, cannot commit to working with the world because its conservatives will not give up an Ameri-centric reality as mythical as Pilgrims and Indians at the first Thanksgiving.

Yes, America is blessed by geography, history and ideology to the point that it broke the global glass ceiling on race with its 2008 election. Yet the predictable pendulum swing of conservative reactionism obscured the central point of the 2008 election. America had acknowledged the world was global.

By definition, a global world is governed by a different set of values than a fragmented one, just as a family leads a different lifestyle than a lonely single. On large scale or small, the difference is social consciousness and conscience.

In essence with the 2008 election, America grew up, got married and accepted adult responsibilities toward family at every level. Moreover, America did that as a statement of policy, proclaiming it had married its better half, the one with a conscience.

Conservatives may continue to deny the permanence of America’s new character. They may continue to insist that the 2008 election was a mere dalliance with virtue.

In truth, however, the global economic crisis that had led America to elect the first non-white leader of the western industrialized world had also snapped America out of its self-absorbed extended adolescence. America had settled down, as judged by outrage over the family budget used to pay big bonuses to failed financial institution family members. Compared to the volume of those outcries, the din of tea-party conservatives is barely a whisper. Shrieks of panic about socialism are as laughable as the family dog hiding a bone in the back yard for safekeeping from other family members.

America’s blessings are its assurance that it will not devolve into a dysfunctional family and that it can start living by the true family values of warmth, friendliness, curiosity, healthy competition, generosity and compassion. It can also start to truly thrive by turning a deaf ear to the curmudgeony old bachelor uncles of the family who gripe about missing the old days when children and women were seen and not heard.

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