A Change is Gonna Come

We stand today on the brink of a long awaited and sorely needed new dawn for America.  It's difficult to be cynical on such a day; it's difficult even to revel in the schadenfreude of an outgoing presidency and a newly-irrelevant political party.  On a day like today, the scales fall from the eyes of even one as jaded as myself, and for a brief moment, the raw possibility of the moment is electric.  Never have we, as a nation, needed such a moment so badly.  Never have we been so fallen, and not since the Civil War have we been so divided, one from another.  Today sees us pulled up from the nadir of our course as a people, and to pass the word 'hope' about is neither hyperbole nor triteness.  Hope is a palpable thing today.  Hope for an end to our foreign wars.  Hope for the end of torture.  Hope for health care for every citizen.  Hope for a new era of equality.  Hope for a green future.  Hope for a change in trajectory and an escape from the last eight years, years of ignorance, fear, and the gradual slide towards tyranny.  Today, then, is a very important, a very hopeful, day indeed.

For the last few months, I've been less concerned with the inaugeration of Barack Obama than with the departure of G. W. Bush.  The man, and by extension his administration, has represented everything wrong with modern America: the willful ignorance, the arrogance, the divisiveness, the sheer, unfathomable greed.  Bush has been a specter and a bogeyman for anyone who cherishes the environment, personal freedoms, open discourse.  I hate him of course; truthfully I hate what he has meant for this country, and what his continued political survival has meant about this country.  Despite what Bush may think, history will in no way look favorably upon his terms, and I firmly believe that as the full scope of his actions are with time revealed, he will be recognized for the stain he truly is.  

It's a sign of the the moment then, that as I sit watching the inauguration, Bush is now so far from my thoughts.  It takes a remarkable magnitude of good will to overcome the bitterness in my heart, yet here I am.  I, like so many people the world over, am dazzled.  I am won over.  I am drifting on the current of hope which has sprung forth after so long being stifled.  The happiness, the very sense of well-being engendered by this moment is somewhat inebriating.  Even Rick Warren, a blight on an otherwise pristine ceremony, is hardly dimming the gleam.  This is the very thing we need to speed the forgetting, to speed the healing.  What but this moment could eclipse the mistakes of our recent past?

 I don't look to Obama as a messianic figure, and I don't step into this new era with my defenses lowered.  I firmly believe in the corrupting influence of politics, and I ardently believe that sacrifices are made in the name of the greater good; Washington grinds down square-pegs into round ones, inexorably.  Yet how can one not give themselves up to the gestalt spirit?  How can one not abandon, even momentarily, their skepticism, in the face of such overwhelming joy?  Today, we usher in a new President, but more than that, we usher in a new age for America.  It's a time when hope can flourish, when the better angels of man's character are not detriments, but strengths.  It's a time when the sins of the past are washed clean in the rising tide.  We wade today in that tide, in the waters of hope.  And for once, we wade together. 

Giving the Devil His Due

Two days ago, President Bush announced the proposed creation of three Pacific marine monuments, vast preserves on a scale previously unheard of.  The act is certainly welcome, a feat of environmental defense to be lauded and emulated by the coming administration; in quantity and quality, the mostly pristine waters represent an ideal model of conservation.  Yet, here in the eleventh hour of the W administration, when an act like this can be effective whitewashing, it's important to be cautiously optimistic, and to remember the true nature of the Bush presidency, which for the last eight years has been incredibly detrimental and destructive to the causes of ecological preservation.  

It's certainly no secret that the Bush Whitehouse has been one of the most unsympathetic, even downright hostile, regimes ever in regards to the natural world.  It's important here for me to point out that such a blatant anti-conservation mentality isn't simply a matter of Republican politics; it was on Nixon's watch, after all, that the Endangered Species Act of 1973 was created, as well as the Clean Air and Water Acts.  Even Bush senior's term saw 235 species added to the ESA, and that was in just four years.  In the eight years of W's administration, how many have been added? Just 64.  Bush's government (I would never suppose that Bush himself ever did anything on his own initiative, he's not that capable or interested) did everything it could to actively weaken the Endangered Species Act and promote business and extraction industry interests over those of the United States' natural resources.  It's almost as if the regime has had a personal vendetta against environmental well being. The front line in the broadly drawn battle has, for the last few years, been visible in the fight to list the polar bear as Endangered, the first such instance of a climate caused listing.

The Bush administration fought the listing through legal avenues and, some would say, through political bullying, and though the polar bear did eventually win protection, that masks the fact that this sort of battle was waged again and again throughout the eight year presidency, less visibly, and with less success for the cause of conservation.   

And now, as we mercifully and thankfully stand on the brink of a new presidency, Bush leaves us not with the bitterness and justified outrage that his term in office deserves, but with an act of benevolence almost unprecedented in scale in the annals of preservation.  I'm really almost angry over the move; I want my bitterness and outrage unclouded.  I don't want to have to hear 'yes, but' from now on when the issue of the Bush administration's environmental crimes are brought up.  But ultimately, I'll take what I can get.  The cause of conservation is often triage on a grand and tragic scale, and while my righteous indignation is difficult to part with (I do indignation so well), it's even more difficult to ignore a step in the right direction, even if the step was taken by the enemy.  Sometimes, all a man can do is grit his teeth, say thank you, and move on.