I have been worried since President Obama took office that we would see a resurgence of the vigilante anger we saw during the Clinton administration. It was the same fuel that brought us the Oklahoma City bombing and now this. Oklahoma City did not fundamentally change the ugly discourse in this country but I do wonder if this time, we will see real change.
Many optimistic predictions for a new progressive cultural shift, the very reason I hopefully started this blog, tell us that things will be at their worst right before shift takes hold. I hope that this might be it. I will never understand why health care reform causes such fear. Clearly the paradigm of work has changed so why should one of the key ties to the workplace, i.e. benefits packages such as this not also need a re-examination. Is the plan that was passed last year the final solution to a very difficult issue? No, but it was a first attempt at a new paradigm and one that I believe would benefit the average American.
And yet somehow, there is all this anger. I see Sarah Palin and her target map, and here we are today. Another crazy, unspeakable act has led to such loss. Perhaps the ultimate irony is that the completely innocent little 9 year old girl that lost her chance to live was born into this world on Sept. 11, 2001, the day the same kind of irrational anger and fear took away so much life.
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