This morning Thomas Friedman’s New York Times op-ed was titled “The Fat Lady Has Sung.” It’s about the “lean years” vs. the last 70. He writes:

“Yes, sir, we’ve just had our 70 fat years in America, thanks to the Greatest Generation and the bounty of freedom and prosperity they built for us. And in these past 70 years, leadership — whether of the country, a university, a company, a state, a charity, or a township — has largely been about giving things away, building things from scratch, lowering taxes or making grants.”

He goes on to say that we are entering an era where those institutions will take things away. Essentially, no more grants for the arts. No more easy welfare, no more tax breaks, no more projects to build things simply because they should be built. The mountain is still there, but we won’t be climbing it because it’s too expensive. He started it all off with an anecdote about folks in Tracy, California having to pay to use 911. $300 a pop or $48 for a yearly subscription. Imagine… “Hmmm… is this a $300 dollar emergency or should I just try to handle it myself?...”

Is he right?

Pretty much. My favorite example that he gives is that we went from companions flying free to paying for every single bag we carry on. My brother went off to fly to a cruise yesterday and he was joking that he wasn’t sure if the handle on his bag would make it bigger than the allowed bag size. I started laughing- but he wasn’t kidding afterall.

Friedman calls on us now to be the “Regeneration”—to accept that it is our job to rebuild rather than to live off the bounty that the Great Generation started and the subsequent 3 generations chomped through.

It’s a good point- one that is slapping us in the ever-more defiant face, turning this cheek then that cheek in a message of No that looks like a dance. Defensive in every sense of the word.

We are afraid, and I can understand why.

Terrorism is made to sound like it is everywhere- the financial system just about collapsed last year- there are people losing their homes all over the place and taxes are going up- Congress has stopped working.

Friedman essentially says we need a guide:

“Mr. Obama won the election because he was able to “rent” a significant number of independent voters — including Republican business types who had never voted for a Democrat in their lives — because they knew in their guts that the country was on the wrong track and was desperately in need of nation-building at home and that John McCain was not the man to do it.”

We need a nation-building storyteller. President Obama, tell us a story. I agree with Friedman- we need a powerful story to live out, and at the present moment all we’ve got is confusion and fear- which leads to the No dance and more confusion.

He closes with, “We simply do not have another presidency to waste. There are no more fat years to eat through. If Obama fails, we all fail.” Indeed.

Tell us a story to live out.

Photo Credit: ~C4Chaos (via Flickr under CCL)