Emblem courtesy of TakePart Blog Network website
What ever happened to the concept of our political leader’s doing the nation’s business, as their constituents wanted it done? Am I confused? I thought that our nation’s founders worked to develop and members of our armed forces in times past and present fought and died to protect our American ideals and way of life.
The more results I see from our political leaders’ game playing, the sniping back and forth by our political candidates, and the vested interests control of our government’s purchases, funding of meaningless projects, etc. the more I feel out of step with the way our lives are mutating.
My feelings, unlike most people’s, does not strike specifically at a specific political party, political action group, or some in the media. Why does it seem that our country has lost sight of our ideals of, presumed purpose, fairly treating all people, providing assistance to those that cannot help themselves, having a business community that does what is right for its consumers and not constantly provide the consumer with the short end of the stick, having a free media to insure that known injustices are made public, not having large sections of the media controlled by special interests, not having our government encouraging firms to send their jobs outside of the U.S., manipulating the federal income tax structure to primarily benefit the wealthy, etc..
Political party affiliation is of no concern here, as members of both major parties have proven their ability to feather their own beds, lavish their contributing constituents with wasteful, unnecessary projects, etc..
With the previous in mind, I ask the following questions:
Is it un-American to want a media uncontrolled by special interests and one that does not supply the public with a constant barrage of a one sided political message?
Is it un-American to want political candidates and media pundits discuss the issues that would face the elected and not to try to sway the public with the cost of a haircut (John Edwards, Presidential candidate in 2007) or to jump on someone for showing real emotion and passion (Gov. Howard Dean, Presidential candidate 2004).
Is it un-American to expect that government entities equitably search for firms to perform tasks – rather than award projects to those firms that made political contributions to the “right” party?
Is it un-American to expect that those in Congress would do what is best for America and American Ideals – rather than to “fight” for or against a bill, based upon some type of political payback?
Is it un-American to want a President that takes action in the best interest of his nation and not blindly follows the dictates of a religion, religious group, or big business mogul.
I fear, there are those that would say it was un-American.
The major issue that disturbs me is the fact that there are those that deny either the existence of or the menace of Global Warming/Climate Change (GW/CC).
Remember: political party is of no concern.
To continue, is it really the duty or the privilege of a sitting President to so strongly refuse to accept GW/CC that he has his administration massage the feelings of the government’s own environmental experts including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Director’s explanation of the GW/CC threat from coal.
In addition, we have a Congress that passed and a President that signed bills into law that speak to GW/CC, however, they do not demonstrate the urgency or the meaningful extent required to effectively prevent the world from going past the environmental recovery tipping point. Instead the President and members of Congress shout that they have created laws to address GW/CC. Are these weak laws the result of compromises with conservatives in Congress just to get a bill passed?
All of our children and grandchildren are counting on us to do what is right. No one said doing what was right would be easy. No one said that there wouldn’t be costs, risks, etc. However, there are many companies in the U.S. and other nations that have and are thriving on the business opportunities presented by going green.
Just as the Anti-Defamation League‘s commending Barack Obama‘s response to a person being honored that has spoken hate and bigotry for about 30 years, so to the rest of us is the need to stand up and demand that our leaders do a much better job for us or let’s forget about them on election day. What do we need to demand…well, maybe to demand that they promote American Ideals in their conducting the nation’s business.
With the NASA Director’s forecast that if the rate of increase of carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere were left unchanged, the climate change may be unstoppable within ten years, based upon starting in 2006. With that said, how can any reasonable person refuse doing our utmost to avert such an impending disaster?
There are many things that could happen to our planet that we could not prevent, but it seems that the one thing we can change is held up by discussions with those that discount it. So, in other words, our existence and life on this planet may well depend upon how well and how soon the elected officials that are non-believers of GW/CC may be convinced to get off of their duff and join in performing meaningful actions to prevent it.
For the ADL’s statement of Barack Obama’s response, view it on this site by clicking on the “American Ideals” category below the article(s) being displayed. Click on the article’s title to view the entire article.
For the NASA Director’s forecast, please go to this site: http://www.earthtalk.org/ Since that site used the same tools to create it, it looks similar to this one. After scrolling down to the categories section, click on the “Dirty Power Plants” category. Click on the article’s title to view the entire article.