What could the new administration offer? Well, speaking of the moon, a new space program is one. Conservative pundit Jim Pinkerton has already written eloquently how space exploration captures the imagination, as it also develops new markets and new technologies. "The historical record shows that high-tech space work is good for the economy," he recently wrote. "[T]he list of spinoffs from NASA, spanning the last half-century, is long and lucrative."
Another approach would be to create a massive series of new high-speed rail lines on the East and West coasts, across the country, and through the Midwest and Texas. It's said Americans won't ride the rails any longer, but it may simply be that they won't ride the current rotten rails we have. And alternative mass transit certainly makes environmental sense.
Or Obama could announce massive new Peace Corps and Vista-like programs to recruit the young and the old (as well as the newly unemployed) for teaching, day care, and other human needs, and send them into every community and corner of the globe.
The point, of course, is to give people something tangible in which they can believe. In times like these, we need poetry, not prose. If you propose to build something important, they will come.
To read the Stark Ravings blog, go to thePhoenix.com/starkravings. Steven Stark can be reached at sds@starkwriting.com.
