What is your Pearl Harbor?

During any discussion of current politics, one of my brothers always points out that he doesn’t want the rules to change midgame. He feels like significant changes in healthcare, tax structure, and global climate change are unfair to those who are in the middle of their lives. Now, says he doesn’t purposely want to destroy the environment or deny people medical care, but he doesn’t want to be told what he can and can’t do and he doesn’t want to have to pay for other people.

So let me get this right: changing our expectations and our commitments in a changing world is un-American? Liberals and Democrats are lambasted as un-American because they see current challenges abroad and within as calls to collective action and higher duty?

Where is this coming from you ask? What set you off this time Casey?

Well, let’s start at McDonalds at about 8:15 this morning. For a grad student like me with mainly night classes and flexible research hours, this is actually early for me to be up and around. Normally for breakfast I try to eat two eggs at home with some kind of fruit and a little whole grain, but this morning was just another piece of a horrible week and a half, so I threw my hands up and surrendered to mass produced food-like products.

Considering that my grandparents live at least 4 hours away and I am perpetually stuck in either collegiate or organizing mode, I don’t have a lot of contact with folks who are significantly older than me. But like many McDonalds during breakfast hours, the McDonalds closest to campus had a fairly good sized crowd of older folks “dining” this morning. There were two noticeable groups actually. I will get to the second one in a minute, but the older crowd is what made me start thinking first. The older crowd tended towards men and coffee. Some perhaps were only there for coffee and a few were reading newspapers. Most were probably retired but I heard one talking about a job he had to do next week. A few wives had tagged along with their husbands. These folks were probably the age of my grandparents. WWII cohort. The Greatest Generation. I didn’t listen long enough to hear any general political talk, but I heard a random “Russia didn’t even win a gold medal”, a reference to what I thought was an amazing Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Nothing special here really, just a bunch of old men enjoying coffee with their friends.

Now, about these old men coffee drinkers and the Greatest Generation. The world owes the relative “peace” of the last 6 decades to this generation. They were presented with a situation that called for sacrifice and changed expectations. A changing world called on them to create a new reality. As the world continues to change and we are presented with new situations, wouldn’t it make sense that we must change with the changing times?

I say accepting new conditions and proactively attacking the coming problems is as honorable as what Americans did during WWII. They certainly accepted a way of life far different than they would have preferred. We complain about regulations that might possibly raise the price of dirty energy or gas guzzling cars, but they couldn’t buy cars at all during the war. Why not tax sugary drinks that are fueling our obesity crisis when our forefathers experienced rationing of sugar, butter, and all kinds of things in order to achieve a group goal.

I guess sacrifice is more honorable when it comes voluntarily from every single individual, but plenty of those soldiers in WWII and Korea and Vietnam were conscripted. We certainly don’t down play what they did and their forced sacrifice is still probably what was needed.

The United States probably should have entered WWII before they did. It was too controversial to step into the war before we were totally surprised at Pearl Harbor. Sure, many people then volunteered with the threat of imminent destruction at hand. Are we going to have to wait until disastrous conditions occur? What if it is too late with too many PPM CO2 in the atmosphere? Do we have to wait for universal health insurance until it is evident that the American economy cannot afford to spend nearly double what other countries spend? How long must we give tax breaks to the rich holding onto the idea that it will make anyone but the wealthy wealthier?

So tell me climate change skeptics, what is your Pearl Harbor? At what point will you believe and allow substantial policy change to occur?

Middle income and working class Americans who face service cuts and tax hikes, what is your Pearl Harbor? At what point will you ally yourselves with each other, rather than with the wealthy whom you hope to someday join?

All you Americans who fear insurance and medical bills getting in the way of your dreams, what is your Pearl Harbor? At what point will you demand care for people over profits?

What is your Pearl Harbor?