To Jerusalem, Washington, Buenos Aires and Back

Last week, I spent an evening at the English Institute. I went to help with a class of kids a little bit younger than me.

Silvina, the teacher, told me to check out their small library and feel free to borrow any books I wanted. The library was indeed very small, but Saul Bellow's To Jerusalem and Back caught my attention.

That book was today's main activity. To Jerusalem and Back is Bellow's memories and thoughts of an extended trip to Israel. It reads sort of like this blog, if it were written by a more astute and literary author and all the posts were compiled into a book. Bellow transitions seamlessly from philosophy, politics and history and connects it all with the conversations and sights of his trip in the 1970s. It won the Nobel Prize for Literature and I think it's well-deserved.

There's a lot in Jerusalem to keep a person thinking. What struck me was how little things have changed since Bellow wrote the book. After a few pages, I forgot that the book was published over thirty years ago - I kept thinking about how similar my experiences were in Israel just last year.

The comparisons I drew were sometimes quaint, like his descriptions of the idealistic kibbutznicks. More often they were disturbing. When Bellow was writing, the Jewish community was worried about leftist anti-Zionism in Europe spreading to America, propagating the belief that the Jewish lobby was too strong. Civilians were being killed by terrorism - though I don't think suicide bombers would come around for at least another decade. Families were dealing with the losses of their sons from the 1973 War, but it could have just as easily been families coping after the 2006 war with Hezbollah. The Palestinean territories were still in question, as were the Golan Heights, and no one was sure what to do about the Israeli Arabs.

In one section, Bellow asks Yitzchak Rabin if he is worried that America will drop Israel in favor of the Arabs' oil. Rabin thinks that the U.S. will no longer need to rely on the Arabs once it creates alternative energy sources. "But how long will that take?" Bellow wonders. "Six, eight, ten years?"

It was chilling.


That paragraph has been running through my head the rest of the day. How long will that take?

The end of this campaign season has left a Democratic victory all but certain, which should be good news for environmentalism and alternative energy. The financial crisis has made McCain squirm as Obama coasts to the White House. Obama really couldn't have a better political environment.

I'm obviously happy about the impending win, but I think it's also allowed Obama to lay low, and play it safe, rather than taking tough stands and showing true leadership on important issues that are rarely addressed in an honest, head-on manner. The most prominent one is that which Rabin was so sure of thirty years ago: alternative energy resources.

When pressured by McCain to list the ways in which he has stood up to liberal interests and the Democratic Party, Obama said that he was for clean coal resources. He also said at another point that he would "look into" offshore drilling in the Arctic, which is better than a rash cry for "drill, baby, drill," but still not reassuring. I think Obama and McCain both know that neither clean coal nor offshore drilling is really the answer to our dilema. The candidates are forced to boil down policies to one, symbolic gesture which doesn't at all do justice to their whole platform. Obama's economic policy is reduced to ending Bush's tax cuts for the rich; McCain's is getting rid of pork. McCain's energy policy is "drill, baby, drill;" Obama's energy policy is investing in alternative energy resources, which is also now every politician's energy policy even though barely any act on it.

I was proud when Obama stood up to both Clinton and McCain in the spring against the summer gas tax holiday. There seemed finally to be someone who was willing to stand up for common sense against what was popular and easy. I hoped that he would continue that way throughout the whole campaign, talking about the issues that need serious address and not just chatter about wind or ethanol.

As Election Day nears, Obama's path has steered farther away from what is sensible and right. I hope that changes in January.