Urban Youth 4 Obama: "This is our moment."
The return of Civic Spirit: " We are the ones who we've been waiting for. . ." Many Democrats harbor great hope that Obama's Youth Corps will become a force for change in the inner cities. A Federal Stimulus Plan for the greening of these forsaken places by making parks and civic spaces would be a serious move in the right direction. Community service which would employ youth in mural-painting, garden-planting, clean up and anti-gang/peer pressure programs would bring the change rhetoric into a pragmatic solution-oriented and reality-based platform and would hearken back to the civic programs successfully implemented by FDR.
The Corporate sector should become involved as well as the civic, and this would entail a grand show of Unity and compassionate conservatism (which throughout the Bush-Cheney years became lost in rationalizations regarding the Iraq war, and proved to be largely a smokescreen for their original campaign regardless). In any case, all of this has been discussed and would appear to be in the offing, as per Change.Gov, the official Obama-Biden transition website.
My late husband, Andrew John Kovalinsky, had engineered a youth program whose time had not yet arrived in the Clinton and W eras; in addition, some underhanded behavior on the part of certain of his colleagues transformed and deformed the program, which resurfaced as a mega-program under Bush-Cheney. No matter: I wager that Obama's "This is our moment; we are the ones we have been waiting for" slogans from the election season may stand a chance in the near future of being tested by the fire of implementation, and may be put into the service of action more noble, and far more fruitful, than that which was endeavored in the Bush years.
3 comments:
Suddenly I feel hope again.. as an Australian woman who finds this Blog wholly fascinating and innovative, I have despaired at the youth of today. I realise that as far back as the ancient Greek philosophers, the catch cry has been identical. but never have we seen the uncaring, desparate youth we now have who take drugs and drink to excess to escape their misery and fear as they have no real clear LEADERSHIP.
Most churches have failed them, a lot of their parents have failed them, and they live vicariously through extremely violent movies, fast food as often parents are not around, or rebel in gangs with graffiti and vandalism. So often I have said "It is hopeless, we would have to start all over again" while thinking this could never happen but perhaps now it CAN and WILL.
Only we can turn it around with the direction of a Leader whose time has finally come.
Jesamyn.
THANKS, LOVE for your insightful and inspired remarks. I do believe Obama has the power to enact real change, and as you know, I would like to redeem the efforts of poor Andy, who struggled so nobly in the same direction.
Yes, this is the puzzle of the Ages... why good men of vision are cut down in their prime, and why religion in the old syle cannot address it at all.
It must be that you are left to bring his works into being, even though it is a tough task, after all, history has proven that we do not gain much without heroic struggles.
Jesamyn.
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