Another box of "Peace on Earth" cards...

I purchased a box of Christmas cards today. Sometimes I will choose cards with a Nativity scene on the front, but usually I select cards that show a dove and an olive branch with a theme about "Peace of Earth."

You know, I sure would like to purchase my box of "Peace on Earth" holiday cards knowing that it is actually true, for once, that America is at peace and out of wars and that we can rejoice what should be a real gift of the holiday. Do you think America will ever achieve that goal? There was a short time, right after the end of the Cold War, when I was able to say that, within my lifetime, America was at peace. No wars! Wow! And conincidentally...or maybe not so coincidentally... at the time, there also developed an actual U.S. budget surplus and not a huge deficit. But it was not to last. It vanished, with the come and the go of politics and fear, without most of us getting the time to treasure it.

More war years went by--this time two wars rather than the usual one. I always thought the moment that summed up the George W. Bush years came at the end of it when a frustrated Iraqi journalist threw his two shoes at Bush when he was speaking in Iraq. The Iraqi was, of course, hauled off to jail to serve a sentence length that was way too harsh for its crime. But I always felt that the shoe-throwing, meant to reflect an Iraqi insult, reflected the view of many Americans, including mine, that our president then was misguided, reckless, oblivious, careless, stupid...about the wars, about the economy, about the social problems. That was Bush. That was then. Then there was the end to eight, long years of irresponsible governing. Inspired by hope, I voted for Barack Obama and change and hopeful, new paths.

This coming Tuesday, President Obama is supposed to tell us, according to clues from the media this week, why he thinks there is a need for troop escalation in Afghanistan, what the exit strategy will be, and how we are going to defeat an indigenous population like the pitiful religiously conservative Taliban within a nation that has never been stable and that is now led by a American-foisted leader whose termed corrupt and whose police system is considered even more corrupt. Well, Obama can give a pretty good speech, so I guess I will hope that he can pull it off, for the sake of all the American soldiers and their families and the Afghan civilians, all who will suffer the consequences of longer days of war.

Going back to the "shoe" theme, of how a shoe can matter in the course of a presidency, I think Obama has to worry about the dropping of two shoes. One shoe is the war. The Vietnam War offers a lot of lesson-learning comparisons. LBJ escalated and Nixon continued a war that cost way too much for too many people. It went on too long and it had little success. Too many Christmases went by with Bob Hope specials from war zones and "Peace on Earth" Christmas cards.

When Obama escalates the war effort on Tuesday, he opens the door for the emergence of an anti-war candidate who is also populist and also Main Street- and jobs-driven rather than Wall Street-aligned. He opens the door to the exit of his liberal base. But it is more than just an invitation to someone else who may actually supply the change that candidate Obama once symbolized. It means that Obama's journey, once hopeful in the shoes of FDR, was turned into a political "Waiting for Godot" with domestic policy that parroted Bush, foreign policy that didn't learn from LBJ, and an assortment of mediocre Clinton advisers keeping Obama from progressive steps.

Because of his polio paralysis, FDR couldn't even walk, but his shoes were his vision and action and they stepped boldly in ways that saved an economically depressed nation. The second shoe that Obama has to worry about is the economy and how it relates to all of America. His advisers followed the Poulson and Bush path with big bail-outs for Wall Street without responses of regulation for Wall Street transgressions. The bail-outs for Wall Street made Main Street feel forgotten. The banks made profits, did little for consumers, and continued business-as-greedy practices, jacking up credit card rates on the very people--the middle-class taxpayers whose money had saved them, and the young voters who were inspired by the prospects of change.

And yet, it could happen again. Wall Street could cave and tumble into another gigantic financial ruin with the least little financial collapse around the world, and then what would the Obama speech be? More economic stimulus for them because without them, we are lost, even though, with them, we were forgotten? I don't think even Bernanke at the Federal Reserve would be able to sell a second Wall Street bail-out. Certainly, that would mean a one-term presidency. A sad end to what could have been. And thus, the renewed need and arrival of that populist, now with an anti-war voice and a eye on Main Street and a jobs programs mentality.

Shoes thrown are an insult. Shoes that are led astray are wasted. Shoes make a difference because paths make a difference.

I look forward to the day when I send my "Peace on Earth" cards during a holiday season and the message truly reflects the American belief and the world reality.