Written by Robert S. Becker   

The only ordeal more daunting than delivering bad news today is the reluctant concession that good news exists. You'd think online readers, awash in doom and gloom, would break away now and again to savor the modest positives that surface. Call me lighthearted. Or lightheaded. Call me Ishmael, for he survived mayhem.

Good luck betting against the onslaught of bad news bears. Even shaky optimists are dismissed as naive or foolish, sell-outs who mine the few tarnished valuables from establishment rubble. Yet, are online sites not coming to ape blood-curdling local TV newscasts teeming with school shootings, infamous felonies or systemic disintegration? No doubt our species’ reflex against threats, perceived or real: better to cry havoc than stay put to confirm the hungry tiger in the shadows.

Indeed, the more dire the headline, the more readers feel oddly reassured: their impassioned favorites confirm that looming fascism isn’t just here but certain to worsen. Doomsayers, like anyone else, are sometimes right, but too many Chicken Littles displace analysis or context with sweeping apocalyptic certainty. Every challenge is a crisis of unlimited proportions, thus the Ukraine face-off presents “doomsday.” Tidings of woe distort reality, inducing cynicism and discouraging activism. Hopelessness is no spur to get your head bloodied. Should we not delight, for example, that cigarette addiction is out of vogue, that AIDS interventions have removed it from gruesome headlines, nor that a growing critical mass now considers creationism and climate change denial laughable?

Further, have not irrefutable revelations from heroic whistleblowers illuminated dangerously hidden corners? Are we not raising consciousness about huge, “externalized” costs from environment calamities, nor publicizing real costs from our global empire, especially how "national security" manias produce the opposite? Neocon warriors are in retreat, no one defends torture, dumb “wars against terrorism,” or unilateral, pre-emptive strikes. That's good. Rightwing worship of fiscal austerity is now exposed as utterly fraudulent, linked to its hysteria on inflation, debts and deficits. And outrage against rigged income and assets distribution grows weekly. Need one be Pollyanna to mine some good amidst the bad?

Leveraging Foolish Foes

Admittedly, media misery mavens spur my satiric teasing of overblown rhetoric. Should we not savor warring Republican gangs, forever inventing new forms of party mortification? Have minority reactionaries ever wasted more time, money and PR serving their transparent Art of Non-Governance? Recall Karl Rove: "you can't beat something with nothing, so it is critical that the GOP offers an alternative”? And be glad when only their universe qualifies as alternative.

Indeed, turning vacuous negativity upside down is downright patriotic. I propose a national holiday for good news, say, April 1, maybe May 1. More than one day should commemorate our clear-eyed dedication to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Naysayers still have all the others.

Is it not great fortune that none of these reign, as we go head-to-head on Ukraine: Bush, Cheney, Romney or Generalissimo McCain? Is it sensible to fear WWIII over what’s so far a Ukrainian skirmish? After all, we’ve cultivated the imperial Monroe Doctrine so why deny the equivalent Putin Doctrine in his Russian backyard? I even find good news when John Kerry talks as if the Bush Doctrine is null and void: now we know the U.S. would never invade another sovereign country or violate international law. We favor the Pax Americana, even if we collude with unwashed insurgents.

Moving ahead to economic accolades, who’s ready to tangle with Warren Buffett’s rosy big picture? His endorsement from last year's annual letter to shareholders takes the long view: "Who has ever benefited during the past 237 years by betting against America? If you compare our country’s present condition to that existing in 1776, you have to rub your eyes in wonder. And the dynamism embedded in our market economy will continue to work its magic. America’s best days lie ahead.”

Along with Paul Krugman, Buffett’s nobody’s fool, as both provide heft against wild hyperbole our dollar, economy and nation are collapsing. Like it or not, U.S. capitalism survived the ’08 crash, per this from last week’s NY Times headline: “Federal Deficit Falls to Smallest Level Since 2008,” down “precipitously to $680 billion,” marking “the end of a five-year stretch when the country’s fiscal gap came in at more than a trillion dollars a year.”

Okay, lower deficits aren’t sexy nor inspire cheering in the streets. But economic conditions are better, jobs are slowly coming out of the woodwork, and worsening trade deficits deflate the dollar, thus inflating whatever we buy overseas. Speaking of imported oil, time to praise an astounding upsurge in clean alternative energy production, especially solar and wind power. Overcoming enmity from Big Oil, low-pollution, alternative energy growth is great modern news, even if it doesn’t make headlines.

$600 billion, Lost & Found

You probably missed this happy gem: “Mortgage bailout now profitable for taxpayers.” Yes, "too big too fail" banks have not failed to repay $250 billion loans (plus 9% “dividends”). $187 billion came back from Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac (103% repaid). Even insurance jackasses at AIG repaid $152 billion plus 15% interest. Yes, the auto industry ploy lost 17% but don’t scoff: consider the alternative. $600 billion lost forever – and to the worst crony capitalists: that equals $10 billion a month for FIVE MORE years in Iraq. Still liable for big residual war costs (thanks, Dubya), we’ve cut wars and war-spending, in dollars and lives. Okay, some “good news” is simply the absence of endlessly bad news.

Want more life-supporting positives? Aside from AIDS progress, a wide range of extraordinary medical breakthroughs are saving lives while reducing pain and suffering; and thanks to halfway Obamacare, more non-rich people will benefit. Did I mention that Medicare still works like a charm, that older folks are healthier, live longer, with improved senior living options? Oh yeah, Social Security is working just as planned: what a miracle.

New technology delivers not just better tablets or phones but fundraising wins for good projects. Kickstarter's crowd-funding platform alone has collected $1 billion in five years from 5.7 million donors. Globally, one billion earthlings have escaped abject poverty in one generation, per Bill Gates, envisioning perhaps no large populations in starvation/survival mode by 2035. Worldwide education cuts the birth rate and less infant morality REDUCES total family size (more survivors, fewer kids). Moreover, Gates’ optimistic annual ’14 letter disputes three progress-threatening falsehoods: 1) poverty is an endless cycle, 2) foreign aid is a waste, and 3) saving children’s lives encourages overpopulation. Worth reading.
http://annualletter.gatesfoundation.org/#section=home

Blessings, Small and Large

Finally, to compare great with small, give thanks for the startling transformation wherein marijuana graduates from being the evil gateway to heavy-duty addiction, thus life-long misery. Now only binge drinking, excessive drugs, addictive electronic games, or never leaving home produce such indignities (joke).

I bet our darkest naysayers could unearth good news one day a year. We’re not talking “everything’s coming up roses” or idiot Smiley Faces. No doubt, fixated naysayers will find downsides to my measured cheerfulness. Why, some days I doubt the world perishes from nuclear weapons, climate change, even Putinesque saber-rattling. I also believe in evolution, moral and biological, and that American electoral politics are not utterly kaput. Okay, call me a dreamer.