As the nation approaches Independence Day in its 234th year, Americans confront a summer marked by considerable unease. The business landscape feels artificial, strained, and fundamentally broken. Despite government attempts to address the excesses and failures of Wall Street bankers, hedge fund managers, and credit manipulation experts, little has changed. Two years have passed since the late-2008 financial crash, yet job creation remains absent. The outlook grows bleaker still: without economic expansion, without rising tax revenues, and without any apparent willingness to reduce dependence on foreign oil, America faces massive capital outflows to petroleum-producing nations and the likely erosion of its financial position and standard of living.
The transformation of American life has been dramatic since President Bill Clinton departed office. The Bush and Cheney years—dominated by 9/11, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and near economic collapse—will eventually be judged by historians as a monumental failure. Leadership, meanwhile, has largely evaporated, particularly at the highest echelons. President Obama has not emerged as savior or saint. Beyond passage of the national healthcare bill, which most Americans opposed regardless of merit, his administration has accomplished little. He inherited wars destined for calamitous outcomes and was forced to continue them. Most Americans correctly anticipate that fragile governments in Iraq and Afghanistan will crumble once American forces depart. Against homicidal religious tyrants such as the Taliban, American strength proves insufficient. Our civility and humanity become liabilities against those who destroy schools, deny women rights, attach suicide belts to children, and bomb weddings, funerals, and soccer games.
The oil catastrophe in the Gulf compounds these troubles. Despite technological and scientific achievement, the nation cannot cap the flowing crude. What follows remains uncertain.
Yet the 4th of July preserves something perpetually wonderful: that summer moment when more season stretches ahead than behind. In New England, July 4th carries an endless quality. Flags and bunting flutter in breezes with quintessential American character. Cookouts and gatherings flourish everywhere. Fireworks hiss and briefly streak skyward. The American Empire faces no imminent doom; it stands nowhere near conclusion. This period, however, finds citizens gripped by serious present doubts and greater future ones. Victory belongs to America if paranoia spawned by 9/11 can be overcome. Strength and bold action remain necessary against genuine threats, but the priority must be economic recovery and moving forward with our lives. The future is ours to claim if we act rightly.