By Charles Pierson
Buffalo, NY – My daughter is 9 years old. Nine years from now she will be going off to college, a graduate of the high school class of 2016. It is likely that the next president of the United States will be coming to the close of his, or her, second term that same year. And so you see that the next president will be one of the most influential people in shaping my daughter's future.
There is a saying that when you have children, your heart is walking around outside of your body. We all pray, and keep our fingers crossed, that the strongest influences on our children will be positive ones. I believe that the world could look very different in 2016 than it does today. Our next president will play a crucial role in determining whether the future of the entire planet will be dim or bright.
I want the next president to be firmly rooted in the reality-based community. You might remember that several years ago a highly placed Bush Administration official ridiculed "the reality-based community" as a useless group of lowly followers. We have learned since then that in the Wonderland that is the Bush Administration, every day is, as children say, "opposite day." Deterioration is progress, defeat is victory, torture is justice, civil war is democracy.
The most important problems to be addressed global warming, Islamic extremism, developing alternative energy sources, and universal healthcare for Americans will require a serious, thorough understanding of the complex forces at work in the real world, not the imaginary forces in the world of make-believe. We can no longer afford to have a government based on delusion, compulsive secrecy, and third-rate marketing slogans.
The darkest scenarios for our future tens of millions of climate refugees, a severely crippled energy infrastructure after the tipping point of Peak Oil, and resource wars for water and oil can surely be avoided by thoughtful, innovative leaders. Therefore, I'd like to suggest that we elect our next president based primarily on two criteria. First, who has the most realistic understanding of the world? Second, who demonstrates and exudes a bedrock sense of competence?
When I lived in Madison, Wisconsin, a local band had a hit song titled, "My Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades." I hope that my daughter, and your children, will be wearing sunglasses when they graduate from high school in 2016. Choosing the right person to be president of the United States in 2008 will, literally, make all the difference in the world.
Listener-Commentator Charles Pierson works as a psychologist in Buffalo.
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