2009

I think it would be impossible to say that I think 2009 is going to be a great year.  The economy in the United States and abroad is tanking.  Banks and investment houses have failed.  The real estate market is sinking, and no one I know is buying.  Acquaintances who I’d never think would economize are worried about money and cutting back on anything discretionary.  I know one couple where both lost their jobs in 2008 and others where one spouse is working a second job in order to make up for the other’s nonexistent wages.

Just when we couldn’t take much more from the incompetent corporations – bankers, investors, insurers, and the entire American automotive industry – powerful individuals abused our trust and took us for a ride, or tried to. The Madoff hedge fund Ponzi scheme on Wall Street has devastated personal fortunes and wiped out foundations, and so far it has caused one highly publicized suicide.  Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, a politician who was elected on a platform of ending the culture of graft and corruption in his state’s politics, was found to be peddling Barack Obama’s Senate seat to the highest Democratic bidder.

Don’t even get me started about the state of the environment.  Or wars in the Middle East, where the innocent continue to be killed or radicalized into becoming sympathetic to forces of chaos and terrorism.  Or whatever the hell is going on with Israel and the Palestinians.

Could it get any worse?  Probably.  I’m not going to wax karmic about how we collectively have to pay for eight years of GW Bush, and we have already started.  I hope that’s not true.  I’ve already bummed myself out too much just writing all of this.

Barack Obama and his team are going to face the toughest challenges that I can imagine on multiple fronts as soon as he is sworn into office in a few weeks.  The unprecedented grassroots call to action, the hope and excitement that buoyed him to victory earned us back some goodwill from the rest of the world that we’d lost since it first peaked just after 9/11.  But these empowering and optimistic feelings are not enough to keep Americans’ fears at bay for even the first year of the Obama presidency.  I hope that Obama and his team are prepared to face the worst and show a new kind of American ingenuity to get us out of this mess.

As I wrote holiday cards this month, I tried to get myself to write sentiments on the order of wishing my friends a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year.  I couldn’t get past the health.  Writing anything about prosperity seemed like the lies you tell a hospice patient.  What I really wanted to say was that I hope you and the people you care about persevere, and that I still try to believe that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

Happy New Year.  May 2009 bring you strength and patience you didn’t know you had in you.