whyroots

With rising unemployment, a spiraling credit crisis, and two foreign wars keeping Americans in danger far away, it's easy to despair for uplifting conversation topics this Thursday. While the prices of food for the Thanksgiving dinner, and the gas to travel to far-flung family have stayed within reason so far, any more increases could send millions of Americans into poverty.

I don't want to diminish the suffering that many are feeling right now, or fear of the midterm future. Dozens of my close friends have lost their jobs in the past two weeks, and no doubt there will be more turmoil before this is all resolved.

But when we look at the larger picture, there are indicators that the cliché about failure being an opportunity for learning may well apply to nations as well as individuals. The historic election of Barack Obama might never have been possible had a negative economy not buoyed his candidacy as a reform-minded Democrat. Nevertheless, the incoming administration has the mandate and the opportunity to shift course in a way that accomplishes

Once in office, his task will be difficult, but the disastrous state of financial and political affairs left by President Bush provides the opportunity for national consensus on broad initiatives to stem the bleeding, and build a better future by reassessing our priorities, as a country and a people.

This New York Times article outlines Obama's plan to use his proposed huge ($750 million plus) stimulus package to accomplish two goals simultaneously: To revive the country's economy, and to shift large amounts of resources towards the infrastructure enhancement and "green jobs" he and his supporters maintain are key to making America competitive and self-sufficient in the future.

In California, the recent passing of Proposition 1A provides a clear example of the potential for large government spending to fulfill these dual mandates. Surely the building of a high-speed rail line through hundreds of miles of the state, and the attendant station building and upgrades, will help alleviate the pressure on construction workers made by the precipitous decline in housing prices and thus residential development.

Sometimes it takes blows to force overdue innovation and adaptation. The automakers in Detroit are learning this now, and as they should have in the 1980s (read David Halberstam's The Reckoning for a fuller account of this process). Let's give thanks to America in advance for learning from our mistakes.

Maybe the disappointment of the Prop 8 failure can serve as a reminder of the amount of work left to be done to reach mainstream acceptance of homosexuality. Living in coastal enclaves where gay people are often thought of purely as aesthetically-gifted brunchers who like to party a lot and live in trendy, expensive neighborhoods, makes it easy to forget the huge amount of misunderstanding and hatred that still exists toward homosexuals across this country.

Earlier today at an In-N-Out Burger in Pleasanton, Calif., I saw a young University of Oregon hockey player enjoying a Double-Double with a group of his teammates, sporting a bootleg "Army: No Homo" T-shirt. The Mission District hipster in me (and yes, there is quite a bit, though not quite at the tattoo/barista/thrash drummer level) wanted to take this as an ironic protest against the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, but given his general demeanor, I'm willing to wager that wasn't the case. Unfortunately for this post, I didn't have the balls to ask him about the shirt, nor did I want to ruin my own Double-Double experience by sharing the venue with a confirmed homophobe.

While the spread of the Internet has dramatically opened up the diversity of information accessible about the world outside one's own life, it can often serve to only accentuate discriminatory behavior through the mask of anonymity. The world of online video gaming is full of anti-gay banter and deliberately hateful attacks on the "gaymer" community. Elsewhere on the web, I've seen message board posts recently lamenting the trend that "every TV show these days has to have a gay or lesbian character" and other such "pervasions" of modern American life by the "gay agenda."

I'm not a completely guiltless observer of these trends either. In years past, I've been guilty of not challenging the use of "gay" as a pejorative adjective referring to stereotypically effeminate activities and attitudes, though not as an out-and-out insult like many young Americans do. Example: Liking pop opera quartet Il Divo is "gay," but a teacher who gives you a bad grade on a test isn't. Unless they are. Not that there's anything wrong with that—to quote the Seinfeld episode that most accurately reflects the lingering unease of homosexuality and PC leanings common in my peer group.

Being a committed Boy Scout brought me some of the most meaningful experiences of my life, from cultivating my love of the outdoors early on to anchoring some of the more subtle traits of personal discipline and integrity in relationships that I rely on every day. Nevertheless, the very Mormons who broke the bank funding Yes on Prop 8 ads provide the bulk of the funding to the Boy Scouts of America, resulting in the infamous policy banning gay Scouts and adult leaders from participation. My own council in high school (Boston Minuteman) took a firm stance against this discriminatory practice, allowing members of all persuasions, but the shame of the national ruling remains with me.

The situation may still be bleak, but there's good reason to believe that it is steadily improving, though not at the pace that those of us sympathetic to the plight of gay rights activists may like. The fact that Prop 8 succeeded by a much thinner margin than the earlier vote banning gay marriage is encouraging. Ultimately though, perhaps the biggest driver of broader mainstream tolerance of homosexuality has been the courageous "coming out" of many of the past several generations of gay people, leading millions of Americans to realize that gay people aren't the one-dimensional threats of their imagination, but cousins, siblings, and children of people much like themselves.

My uncle and his partner, who live and work in St. Paul, Minn., have been together in a stable and loving relationship for most of my life, though until I was at least 13 I just thought they were business partners and good friends, and it wasn't until late in my childhood that the started attending family gatherings as a proud and open couple. My second cousin grew up in upstate New York with a pair of extremely loving grandparents who happened to be devout and culturally conservative Christians; their continued love of him even after learning that he was gay no doubt led to some serious soul-searching and reexamination of old beliefs.

Across the country, gay people in "red states" and smaller cities have gradually been moving into the light, quietly changing opinions and staking a claim that their life need be no different than any other American's, regardless of who they choose as their objects of love and lust. Though it won't be easy, and could fail if our society turned away from openness and acceptance as a value, it is here that I think the battles for gay rights will be won, not in "gay ghettos" like West Hollywood, the West Village, and the Castro.

I think the essence of progressivism is contained in the simple ideal of human progress, that of moving from a society characterized by scarcity and fear toward one of sustenance and acceptance. From trust-busting, to the New Deal, to civil rights, women's rights, and now gay rights. This last issue is sadly still on the vanguard of American society, as evidenced by the pass of the gay marriage ban in California last week, no matter how dastardly the tactics of its supporters.

Note that this progress is an ideal, one that never comes automatically. Living in San Francisco, it's easy to fall prey to a sort of techno-utopianism in which the march of science and knowledge (from Graham Bell to Google) inevitably lead to more freedom and prosperity for society. This is a common enough trope (dating back at least to the Enlightenment, in the West) that remains surprisingly resilient in the face of all the 20th century's industrially-fueled terror. While this may be true for the educationally mobile and stock-holding upper middle class (all bets are off if this credit crisis really picks up steam), income inequality in America today is higher than at any time since the time of the very trusts Teddy Roosevelt notoriously busted.

One thing that the Progressive Party and their spiritual heirs have always taken to heart is the contrary warning that without a fight, power tends to beget more power, and that the increased wealth of our modern society doesn't necessarily result in material changes for the mass of Americans. Whether this makes all the competing groups vying for the title of "progressive" worthy of the charge is debatable, but the idea remains a useful, even necessary one in November of 2008.

Instead of the Anglo-French convention of the "résumé," Germans seeking to tell their personal and professional stories do so with the refreshingly literal term Lebenslauf ("Life's-Path"). Life as trip is hardly a groundbreaking metaphor, but I find it a useful one. In this framework, the relationship between past and present is less the  accumulation of various honors and rewards in a uniform trajectory toward perfection, and more a journey through a variety of discrete environments, each bringing something new to the "sojourner"—to use a popular Obama sobriquet—even as they close of other experiences of the world.

I see my participation in Whyroots as a sort of intellectual Lebenslauf, a way for me to record the path of my own life and thoughts as we enter a new era in American politics and civil society—and my first experience of living in the United States under a Democratic president! Also, unlike a personal blog or private journal, which often only encourage a writers' narcissistic tendencies, my hope is that the structure of this project will cultivate the kind of respectful debate and dialogue that leads to true learning.

We are not seasoned policy experts by any means, nor are we the movers and shakers of society in 2008. We are reasonably intelligent and critical observers of the times we live in, and are embarking on this journey in order to participate a little more fully in the complex time and place we inhabit.