As I read the news over the past week I remembered my parents and all of their stories about the Great Depression. - “All I remember getting from the government during the depression was a shovel of coal dumped in front of our home for heat,” my father told me. My mother would often remind us as children how precious fruit was; “During the depression a banana seemed like gold because they weren’t available and you couldn’t afford one even if they did become available.” Consequently, I grew up in a warm home where the abundance of food was the hallmark of every special occasion whether that occasion was marked as a holiday, a birthday, the celebration of someone’s achievement or even if it was just another Sunday dinner. If I could have a dollar for every time my father cut into his porterhouse steak and proudly declared, “Believe me, everyone in the world is not eating like this today and your mother and I know that for sure,” I’d be a rich man.

They were also very proud of Social Security. Upon my sixteenth birthday, my father opened a savings account for me and deposited $5.00 into it. He assisted me through the process of obtaining my Social Security card and when it arrived in the mail he gave me this advise: “Memorize this number and always remember that for every hour you work, our government will take taxes that you’ll receive when you retire.” The expression on his face depicted both childish glee and the first wrinkles of wisdom. He ended by saying, “That’s what I always remind myself when I become frustrated by how hard I work. I keep telling myself, it’s not all for nothing; some day because of this great country, I won’t have to worry about dying in a ‘poor house’ like your grandfather did. He came to America but there was no Social Security and there was the Great Depression. Your grandfather was considered educated for his day but all of his money was spent on survival. There was no Social Security and most people could not afford to take care of their family and save enough for retirement.”

My mother often described her family as ‘well off’ back in Italy: “We owned land and had our own business. That was something in those days. We lost it all to the dictator Mussolini. He took everything and we were suddenly homeless. That’s why we came to the US and that’s why I love this country. It can’t ever happen again in the US. You just work hard and you’ll be able to retire one day and live. The government protects us here.”

My parents’ evaluation of the United States was not just based on free enterprise; it was equally based on protection. They espoused gratitude for the opportunity to rise to their highest potential but they equally valued their protection by the same government. They distinguished a difference between their homeland and the US. In Italy, if you were wealthy, protection was assured but in America everyone could count on the necessities of life. My father used to tell me, “Some people complain about taxes in the US but I don’t mind them at all. You either pay for education, housing and medical insurance or you pay for what they steal out of your home.” This is something I believe has been forgotten during the Republican years. The American people need more than opportunity. We need protection. We need to know that we can enjoy our lives. We need to know we can relax. We need to know we have medical insurance. We need to know we can retire at a reasonable age. We need to know that we don’t have to compete for essentials. We need to know we work a forty-hour week and can enjoy our life on the weekend. We need to know our children can go on to higher education. After all, how can a nation enjoy prosperity and equal opportunity while some can’t even trust survival? In such a scenario conflict is inevitable. It is only a matter of time before such conflict enters our home. Guns will not protect us because the desperate have less to lose and also have guns at their disposal in the US. A war between Americans is not even an option any more in a world economy; we would be ignored and eventually changed by European sensibilities and markets, which is already in progress. This is not the eighteenth century. The Republican Party that has been captured by the Neoconservative and Christian Right movements wants the benefits of a worldwide market but not the logic and practicalities to assure such markets. They are stuck in a post WWII strategy. The rest of the world has moved on.

Even if McCain and Palin won the election, Europe and Asia would not endorse their limited self-serving strategies. China, to whom we owe billions of dollars, and who has not been affected by the market crash because of their strict governmental regulations of borrowing, has already started the process of protesting President Bush’s position of allowing national policy rather than worldwide policy. France, our ally, has suggested worldwide regulation and considering our weak position and the need of the EU to unify, we should consider Bush’s protestation to be a temporary postponement at best. In other words, The US’ providence that has existed since WWII is over, thanks to the Bush administration and its free market strategy. Why? They didn’t balance opportunity with protection. But then again, why did we as Americans expect a privileged son of an aristocracy to consider our protection?

The Neoconservative Republicans and the Christian Right Republicans are stuck in a time warp. They want us to believe that we can somehow live like it was both 33 AD and the Eighteenth Century. They are not only irrational but they are also poor historians; their vision of America is not simply inaccurate, it is delusional. Their assumptions about Christianity and our Founding Father’s intentions are completely unproven. They have more in common with folklore than history. Watching their insane accusations against Senator Obama has more than proved this assumption. Their attempt to bring us back to Eighteenth Century interpretations of America and the economy has proven to be a disaster but they continue to defend their logic and they call all those who oppose, “un-American.”

I know for sure that my first generation immigrant parents would shudder if they were alive, at McCain and Palin’s definitions of America. They would be considered “socialists’ by their agenda. They both considered being Christian and “sharing the wealth” as being synonymous and necessary. They believed in opportunity and protection and fully believed that a balance could be struck for all of us. They believed in the separation of Church and State and supported their Gay and Lesbian children. My wife and I believe the same.

It is time for all Twenty-First Century Americans to rise to the occasion and promote our interpretation of America. It is our turn. We must go beyond fighting the ignorance of America and join the world assembly of nations to end our financial crisis and to bring the necessities of life to all citizens. We can still shine as an example for the world by balancing opportunity with protection of the weak until they are strong. This is the global challenge and any political party or the ignorance of a few will not deter it. The only question is when we choose to join. Obama and Biden choose now. McCain and Palin are satisfied with shadow boxing the inevitable for their own self-serving agendas.

There is one more point and the irony of it should not go unnoticed. It is Bush who has been forced to socialize our banks and it is spreading to our markets starting with mortgages. Capitalism pushed to extremes ends in socialism. We should remember this lesson.