From outside the box

I've been thinking about this economy thing and I'm having a bit of a problem seeing light at the end of the tunnel. The silly stimulus package isn't going to do a thing except set us a few billion deeper in debt. Oil isn't going to go down, not to any substantial degree anyway. I don't see America taking manufacturing jobs away from China or Mexico. I don't see our military spending going anywhere but up. I don't see any real campaign finance reform on the horizon. But here's what I do see....

I see a whole lot of baby boomers that are starting to retire and are expecting social security, health benefits, and retirement packages to be there for them. I see oil, health care, interest on the national debt, the cost of the war in Iraq, food prices, taxes, and inflation all going straight up and out of sight. I see less workers and producers taking care of more and more retirees. I see the value of the American dollar continuing to shrink. I see corporations that are all in competition for a bigger piece of the pie that is starting to dwindle to crumbs. I see more and more politicians saying all the right things and doing nothing. I see a catch 22 concerning our boarder with Mexico i.e. the more Mexican voters, the less any politician is willing to stick his neck out and do anything other than talk about the boarder problem, and the longer we go without dealing with the boarder problem the stronger the Mexican influence. I see the Patriot Act as being the beginning of the end of government staying out of the personal lives of it's citizens. And worst of all, I see a country of dumbed down ignorant followers who are on the verge of loosing everything because we bought into the lies and bullshit of an administration who has used every manipulative trick in the book to complete the transfer of wealth from the working class to the elite few.... the corporations, financial institutions, war profiteers, drug and oil companies, and every other multi million dollar industry that has the ability to buy and influence those few in power....the few that we entrusted with the wealth of this nation, the ones that we foolishly elected and trusted to protect us and keep us financially solvent.

So I wonder....what THING is going to happen to turn this all around. McCain isn't going to do it. Barak and Hillary might want to, but can they? Is it too late? Is this the end of the American dream? Maybe....and maybe it will also be the beginning of a new and better America. Maybe we will have to loose everything so that we can start all over. Maybe we are like the family who goes thru bankruptcy in order to learn financial responsibility. Maybe we are like the drug addict who has to do hard time or go thru detox in order to change his ways. Maybe we've had too much for too long and we have to learn what it feels like to be hungry again. Maybe we had to put too much trust into leaders who manipulated us thru fear and spin to learn that we should not give away so much of our power to so few and that we should not be so easily swayed by words and personalities. Maybe we have blown it and it will be our children who will shake their heads in disgust over what we managed to do with the greatest wealth on earth as they roll their sleeves up and begin the task of rebuilding. Maybe they will make it better than it is or ever was. Maybe they won't....maybe we will take them down with us. Maybe we deserve to loose it all.

Ok, there's the pessimistic outlook, now for a little but of optimism....I don't believe we have to loose it all. I do believe that we can climb out of this hole and be better than ever. Americans are not lazy people. We work hard. We stress a lot. We are good at keeping our noses to the grindstone and doing whatever we have to do to make our lives work. I think we need to start taking more personal responsibility. We need to make healthier choices for our bodies and not depend so much on doctors and drugs. Prevention is the best cure! We need to use our credit cards less. We need to remind our politicians that they are working for us by voting them out when they fail to produce. We need to quit reacting to fear. We need to establish an independent group of citizens in every state that makes decisions concerning politicians perks and raises and take that out of the hands of politicians. People in the military, civil service, police and fire, union workers, and employees at all levels of government need to work until their 65 or 70 like the rest of us that are in the private sector has to do. We can no longer afford retirement packages for 40 year olds. We need to start living within our means as a country and quit borrowing trillions from China, Japan, and Saudi Arabia. We need to finance education at least as well as we do our military complex. Fathers need to take more responsibility for raising their kids and they need to raise them with love and respect and empower them to believe in themselves and that will put a big bite in crime and cut down on our prison populations as well as create a stronger moral fabric thru out our society. We need to prosecute white collar crime and hold politicians more accountable, not only via the vote, but by putting them in jail when they betray the national trust. Stealing billions should be at least as big a crime as stealing a car. We need to spend less on wars and more on infrastructure. We need to convince the rest of the world that we are worth investing in, believing in, and emulating. We've done most of these things in the past, why can't we do them again?