Change Is A-Comin' / Change Done Already Came

"So does that make the father in the ad less an agent of change, or even more of a revolutionary by saying that hybrids and the environment are now no longer something we even need to talk about?" --Kirk Johnson, The New York Times, 1/6/08

The article is about the new buzzword in the race for the Democratic presidential nominee: change. Kirk Johnson describes a new TV ad for the Ford Escape Hybrid: a young girl and her father, presumably in a typical Midwestern conservative town, are getting into their Ford Escape, and the girl is complaining that she's embarrassed to be seen in a gas-guzzling SUV. Where they're going (a metaphor for progressive communities), people drive hybrids and care about the environment, she says. The father tells the daughter that the Escape is in fact a hybrid. Well why didn't you say that, she asks. "I never thought I needed to," the father replies.

Something strange is happening. Obama won Iowa, a mostly white state. People are talking about his racial identity, but not that much - it's not "the main thing." People are talking about Hillary's gender, but it's also not "the main thing." (Change vs experience has become the main thing.) These two individuals are vying for the most powerful political office in the world. The tipping point (a la Malcolm Gladwell) has come and gone.

The father is not grandstanding about the fact that the Escape is a hybrid, it's sort of just a given.

Change is funny that way. There are certainly moments of drastic upheaval and event: the Civil Rights Movement, Rodney King, OJ Simpson, Clarence Thomas. Colin Powell and Condaleeza Rice. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sandra Day O'Connor, Nancy Pelosi. The release of scientific reports substantiating global warming. Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize. But now, here we are. Barack Obama may become the President of the United States. Hillary Clinton may become the President of the Unites States. Bill Richardson may become the next Vice President of the United States. Homosexuality is further and further from "deviant" for the majority of Americans. Organic foods are now sold at Walmart, and "carbon footprint" and "global warming" are part of the vernacular. In the process, change feels excruciatingly slow and uphill and costly; but then, weirdly, all of a sudden, there it is. Here we are. How about that. And we barely need to talk about it.

Could it be that capitalism is in fact now in check? That corporate decisions are truly being influenced by greater social values, as expressed through political rhetoric, actual policymaking, grassroots activism, and the media? You are what you buy, you are who you vote for - meaning, the trickle down of cultural values in a democratic capitalist society becomes most clearly manifest via your checkbook/credit card bill, and your ballot.

It's early, but look, people came out in Iowa (the way people were supposed to come out for Howard Dean, but didn't). The numbers themselves are a huge indication of change. Is democracy back??!!

Some people might say that this is what you'd call "self-correction." The American Empire is either going to crash and burn, or pull itself back together. The average society has an intuition about itself and acts accordingly when things get way off track.

I buy that. But I also think that this pulling back together requires leadership and commitment and grit in every sector at every level. Perhaps now's the moment to humbly thank the generations of grassroots warriors, the ground-up soldiers, the visionaries - who've understood all along that change is both slow and fast, and who've persisted on behalf of the greater good - at great cost, and with patience. Here we are. This moment may not last long (and who knows which way the election will turn), but I'm going to enjoy it - a moment of optimism, of feeling proud and grateful for my country and its commitment to real progress. And I'll be showing my gratitude, at the very least, via my checkbook/credit card bill and my ballot.