Hillary and This Old House
Was able to key up Hillary Clinton’s Colorado campaign visit yesterday. While the cable shows went berserk over The Donald’s meltdown and interviewed Baghdad Bob supporters chanting how everything is in order, nothing to see or hear, Hillary Clinton was out there . . . campaigning.
How radical, eh?
Looking at the schedule, her program was stacked throughout the day. Several things struck me.
When Hillary talks about creating good paying jobs, she doesn’t stop with a simple statement, as in: ‘I’ll create new jobs. I’ll create so many jobs, produce so many hu-u-u-ge job opportunities you won’t believe it!’
That’s not HRC’s style. Hillary Clinton provides details from the ground up because the devil and/or angels are always in the details.
For example:
Early childhood education, preschool, is known to enhance a child’s success later on. And success later on is tied to the stability of the family which in hand must include steady, good-paying jobs and/or continuing education/retraining for the parents, as well as affordable child care and healthcare for all families. For the today’s kids, Internet access is essential for research and homework assignments. Something in the neighborhood of 5 million children are not connected to the Net and at a distinct disadvantage. Internet access is also important for businesses, budding entrepreneurs. It’s appalling that many rural areas, those that actually have access, depend on dial-up. The US military developed the freaking Internet and we have fellow citizens still relying on dial-up connections? That’s what I used when I was working on a Commodore 64. Back in the day, as they say.
Jobs preparation be it professional, technical or vocational, all educational routes, require affordability without the burden of oppressive debt. Investment in our fellow citizens is crucial because our people constitute the Nation itself. The term ‘commonwealth’ is not a dirty word; it’s woven into the fabric of who we are as a country and the very notion of ‘commonwealth’ distinguished the American experiment early in our history.
Donald Trump sees the country in flames—a divided crime scene. Hillary Clinton sees the country as a whole, systems and programs out of sync, in need of repair, rebalancing. It’s not unlike looking at an old house where the structure is still sound and solid. The house has good bones, we might say and immediately envision modernizing the interior, replacing or restoring elements that no longer work efficiently, knowing that each improvement dovetails into the next change or challenge. The work seems endless but we keep at it because this is our house, this is where we and our children live and work and dream.
I will never accept setting a torch to the old house or pretend that burning things down is the answer to anything. That’s for anarchists and nihilists who have neither the eye nor requisite mindset to distinguish good from bad, right from wrong. They would rather turn their backs on the old house, dismiss the workmanship, the history, forget the sweat, tears, the spilled blood while shrugging off the backbreaking effort to raise a structure where no house exactly like this one ever stood before.
Burn it down, they scream. Burn it to the ground!
Which is why, in IMHO, this election is so important. Our house, our futures and those of our children are at stake. The generations that came before us are watching and whispering:
"Don’t screw this up," they murmur. 'Never trust an arsonist."
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