G-20 - Building up, not tearing down

[Image from BBC]

The differences between our current administration and our former administration are stark. The latter was mostly concerned with flaunting power and tearing down, and the Obama administration is concerned with cooperation and building up.

Thus, at G-20, the "leader of the free world" (our president!), helped to bring about what McClatchy calls "large achievements."

"The leaders of the world's major industrialized nations accomplished something at their G-20 summit...that rarely happens at such gatherings of heads of state.

"The produced large achievements.

"They pledged the first-ever global regulation of hedge funds and private-equity firms, big players in global finance that have enjoying operating under the regulatory radar. They agreed to require banks to set aside more capital in good times to help them function in bad times. They vowed to crack down on tax haven nations that allow the wealthy to escape taxation. And they pledged $1.1 trillion to the International Monetary Fund and related institutions to help revive the global economy."


What struck me, in particular, was how for the first time in a long time, the United States held out the hand of friendship by explicitly involving itself in cooperative efforts, and thus telling the rest of the world we not only own up to our culpability in this godawful mess, but recognize that we do not live in isolation, that we cannot "make it" on our own, that we're all in this together and we'll do whatever it takes to make it right.

That's a 180 from how the Bush/Cheney gang of criminal thugs operated over the past eight years!


This obviously does not mean that our problems are over and that we're on the way back to easy street. We may never walk easy street again. But it does mean that we're committed to taking the necessary steps to modify the system so that it works, not just for the greedy bastards on Wall Streets around the world, but for all the people -- those who because of the greedy bastards are now homeless, jobless, and hopeless.


McClatchy has much more on this subject which you can survey here.

Here's to you, America!

Grant Park, Chicago, November 4, 2008. The scene was surreal, beautiful, haunting, lovely, incredible ... hopeful.

Could it be that we, as a country, will begin to actually put into practice our rhetoric about freedom, and peace and opportunity?

Joe Galloway is a believer:

"Here's to the American people, the electorate, for finally coming to their senses and voting for something different, for someone different and for a chance to fix the multitude of man-made disasters that confront us.

"By their votes, the Republican revolution and all it's wrought - an economic meltdown, two endless wars, class warfare that's enriched the very rich and beggared everyone else and a treasury bulging only with IOU's -- will be crushed.

"That revolution began to take root with the criminality of Richard Nixon's administration, with its paranoid enemies list. It gathered steam in the time of Ronald Reagan and with Newt Gingrich's seizure of Congress. ...

" [...]

"High tide arrived with the unlikeliest occupant of the Oval Office in our history, the beady-eyed, smirking, tongue-tied, counterfeit cowboy George W. Bush, and a Congress that after 9-11 was ru by runaway Republicans who were too busy enriching themselves and their friends to care what their president was doing to the country, the Constitution and even their own party.

"Little wonder, then, that Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Paliln will go down to defeat after a campaign of sheer desperation that's been nasty, brutish and long. ..."


McClatchy's article encapsulated much of what has been going through my mind since last night. You can read all of it here.