Southern Journal-Observer

Change We Can Live With

To my Republican friends, I have but few words of encouragement:

Get over it. Your man lost. He lost because of poor judgment. He lost because he represents an old style of politics.

Change has come to America, as our new President-elect Barack Obama said on the night he acknowledged his victory in a jam packed Grant Park in Chicago.

 For me, and my generation, he reminds me of what my parents once said about President Franklin Delano Roosevelt: “He made us believe in ourselves.”

 Obama takes the nation’s reins in the worst of times, just as FDR did during the Great Depression. I am not a Depression baby, but a World War II baby. My generation, born in 1941, teethed on uncertain times. We grew up listening to our parents talking about far-away places where Americans were dying, just as now.

 FDR gave America and the world hope of a new beginning. Obama is going to do the same, and, in fact, already has.

 I am proud to say that I voted for Obama. Why? Because I thought him the best man for the job facing Americans today. We are facing tough economic times. We are facing two wars on two different fronts. You don’t have to be a military historian to know that two wars on two fronts is a great challenge.

 Our economy is on life support. We have had to bail out Wall Street, a move that I totally disagreed with, even though some very smart economists said that was the only way out. I figure, like former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan advocated, let the markets sort things out.

 I am for the Darwinian approach: survival of the strong. Those who could weather it would weather it, and those who could not, would go away. I know the outcome. I read many of the leading newspapers of the time, talking about what would happen if a bailout did not occur: an awful lot of people would have lost an awful lot of money; banks would have failed; the stock market could have collapsed, just as it did in 1929.

 But, the downside of handing out wads of taxpayer funds to banks and Wall Street is that now the car industry wants a handout. We’ve bailed out the airline industry, the federal savings and loan industry, and now Wall Street.

 Who is going to bail out the taxpayer? The federal government cannot continue to increase taxes to pay its bills. That would create a tax revolt, and bankrupt the public. The Middle Class has just about disappeared under the watch of President George W. Bush, a rich fellow who never really had to work hard a day in his life. Not with his hands, not out in the sun, not out there where timecards are punched and where people have to make decisions on whether to eat, or buy medicines.

 I voted for Obama because I want to see what a new team can do. This last White House outfit has just about finished off the Middle Class, which makes me wonder all the more why so many poor and rural folk vote Republican. They were voting for the very people who do not have their interest at heart.

 My Southland went red again. There was a time when the South was neither red nor blue. It was FDR land, and Truman land and Carter land and

Clinton land. I cling to those days with hope that Obama can pull us out of this great abyss. 

If not, the nation is in for some very rugged times. Our enemies are watching with a kind of hungry eagerness.

 We are fond of saying that we are the world leader. My hope is that Obama will once again make America realize its greatness.

 Enough said.

Sad Day in Knoxville

It's a sad day today. 

I just learned that several of my friends at the Knoxville News Sentinel have been laid off. It is a continuation of that contagion that has hit all newspapers across the nation: for some reason, the business has decided that people would rather read their news on the Internet.

I really disagree with that. What newspapers do is give you all the news, not just bits and pieces. And, yes, I believe that newspapers are unbiased in their news coverage, for the most part. "For the most part" is the one caveat I toss out, because I know that today some of that has changed.

In the old days, with old news editors running the show, you best be unbiased, or you were not around long. I come from that school.

I hate to see us as a nation give up on newspapers, because, as Jefferson said, we will be in jeopardy of losing our Republic without newspapers. We need them, not some fashion of them on the Internet.

I read the Internet: New York Times, Washington Post, daily. I like them, since I can't afford to purchase them off the rack. But, my local paper, the News Sentinel in Knoxville, is the one I turn to for news that is important to the community. 

If newspapers are counting on the nation turning to the Internet to read them, then, I fear that we will become a nation of the uninformed. I want a paper I can hold in my hands, take to the bathroom, take to the deck, sit out and go through it. I'm not going to read the NY Times Sunday edition on the Internet. It's too big. I get it at home, where I can look at it all week.

This is a national problem. It isn't going to go away in this economic environment, but only get worse. 

Let's hope that enough people come to their senses before we lose our print editions of the newspapers. Losing good, solid reporters, journalists, editors, photographers, designers, is not a good sign.