If They Asked Me, I Could Write a Book

The United States: a Superpower? Not if others have their way about it. The guy at the top of America is a target bombarded here and abroad by envy, greed, power, and whatever else can demean our nation in its projected decline.

Thirty-three Latin American countries have gotten together to economically challenge the United States globally. As long as they make it economic rather than political, they have a shot at becoming viable as a player, but not for the top spot.

There is Turkey and the Shiite Islamic nations which are developing through the Arab Spring and looking toward positioning themselves as a modern Ottoman Empire, to the dismay of other nations who view them with concern. We would have to look to our Sunni friends, who have taken advantage of us for so many decades with oil dominance - they may turn out to need us more than we need them in a new world market.

There is our old friend China and Southeast Asia. We could have a problem with India, although money always has a leveling property. Both of them already own large parts of United States properties and farms. They could even put together a NAFTA approach with Canada and Mexico. Canada is developing energy and Mexico is economically developing domestically - who knows we may someday find illegal immigrant Americans in Mexico.

There is our friend Russia, which used to be a superpower, and has become a big oil player and may move west. Right now they may also have our problem with their citizens looking at a looser government friendly to its people.

It is important to realize that all of the above nations had the ability to prevent the United States from being too big to fail, yet none of them came forward with offers of assistance - leaving us with stimulus packages of different dimensions to provide money to nourish Goldman Sucks and its vampire hordes.

So, the world looks to record the Rise and Fall of the American Superpower. America's decline is a reason for ecstasy (not the drug even though the effect may be similar); although if the past is any indication, our detractors will also suffer unless they form many consumer bases.

While the world glories in America’s decline, the largest group of people consumed with promoting the philosophy of decline are the American people. Day in and day out the media, television, and politicians contaminate American thinking - getting our citizens to debase themselves and our society. We are deluged with false economic teachings. We require our citizens to place blame upon themselves for our ills, and grind themselves into a flour of shame. If we don't respect ourselves who else is going to do so? No one - especially not our own children.

The latest slide into our political unreality is the elimination of all restraints in the existing child labor laws. While our children keep falling down the scales in educational standing, politicians want to make them into commodities instead of competitors. I’m convoluted enough to see some validity in their thinking. We can deport all our illegal immigrants, and then provide backup child workers for our farms (it may be hard labor, but they have to learn that life is not a pumpkin pie) and other places (school toilets, retail, and factories) where we are stuck having to pay lower than the so-called minimum wage. What kind of stupidity is the American citizen willing to accept and live by? How gullible has the American citizen become that we are willing to be motivated and governed by slogans?

Well, we have to wakeup and understand and accept where we are and start to figure out how to change our declining future. Are we of the mind that we must immediately repair all financial and money markets with a lot of unneeded money and giving it to the people who put us where we are, or do we say that we do not consider money in any form the sole commodity of supply and demand? How many people does it require to run government money printing presses? First thing we have to do is to realize what our useable assets are and seek to develop them.

Probably the first asset, which we have ignored, is education – this requires an intense surge. Another asset is creative technology, which we are letting slip through our hands to outsourced countries whose people come here to our universities and by sending university units and colleges overseas.

What is interesting in this area is that companies, such as Pfizer, (they are not alone) have laid off 1,100 employees. They are not seeking to reduce costs of operations or increase profits, but solely to build up their cash resources to buy back an additional $5 Billion worth of their own stock. What’s even more fascinating is that the 1,100 people came out of the research and development labs who might have created medicines to contain or cure America’s or the world’s illnesses. Now ain’t that a kick in the teeth? But don’t be concerned, Merck opened a new research and development headquarters in Beijing, China with 600 employees. This could make us a sick nation in decline.

When we started out as a nation, one of our primary assets was agriculture, much of which has now been sold or leased to multinational corporations who pushed out the old mom and pop farms and yet receive federal monies by way of subsidies and grants. Agriculture is an asset which can't be picked up and outsourced by acreage, shoveled into a ship, and sent overseas. So why not look at it as a resource for national development and employment? The produce is not merely food for consumption here and for export, but also through technological advances has been used in the creation of many products which can industrially be made in our own nation. Who knows? It might even reduce the number of food stamps.

It is obvious that any planning cannot be accomplished overnight, but that should not stop us from beginning. You can begin by laying aside all the political posturing. The mediocrity of those running and seeking to run the country, after a while, becomes nauseating and issues become without meaning or importance to a creative solution.

At one time we had a Depression, and we also had a CCC, WPA, TVA and other alphabetical agencies which provided for employment, infrastructure development, cultural advances, social security, etc. With World War II and war production most of them were gone.

Right now an opportunity may be presenting itself with the 40,000 or more veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan and the government program for retraining, education advancement and the like. It calls for legislative tools, so do not use the many for-profit schools who steal away the proceeds of GI Bill rights leaving the veteran without education, training, or the ability to function in our society.

The education retraining project is now fully in effect (I hope) and as it develops it can be expanded to the many unemployed, homeless, and others requiring retraining, new opportunity training, education and all of the creativity which we are able and qualified to bind together.

I know I have written a number of times about a National Service Plan. Each time it has been shot down with the misunderstanding that it is a replacement for the voluntary American military. NOT SO!

A National Service Plan can lead to a rebirth of our way of life. It entails exactly what we are doing with the returning veterans by integrating them into a society from which they were taken (many were pulled from their job ventures as reservists and the national guards).

Let's really be honest, to get ahead in this nation and the world you have to be smart and have money. A number of nations are ahead of us, mainly from commercial espionage and their own educational system. The most important ingredient to us is education, whether it relates to technology, health services, construction, infrastructure restoration, and even military, and a national system is the best tool for accomplishing this, and accomplishment does not mean national ownership.

Until we recognize that the guys with all the money are the smartest and most intelligent as to what we are and what we need, we will consistently be delusional that there is actually a middle class (not really just the upper strata of the poverty class).

The Arab Spring stimulated rallies against existing governments which had autocratic leaders denying popular participation. The results have been elections and so-called responsive governments. It has not necessarily turned out that way with Islamic majorities (who seek to delude the protesters with claims of open Turkish governments) taking over rather than secular regimes. In many cases social media has driven the mission toward open discussion and implementation, but who is leading?

Social media has also driven a revolt of the mind to other nations with mixed results. The United States has also been touched in an unorganized manner. The demands are defused as to what the end result should be. Occupy Wall Street unfortunately targets an elusive group which constitutes 1% of America’s wealthy - but, which ones?? This has resulted in a confusion of purpose. Our government is taking the approach of Arab Nations and has sent police in to remove the returning protestors. It becomes a crime to think about the present and the future.

Our government does this instead of recognizing that the protestors consist of students, unemployed, homeless, veterans, foreclosure evictees, and people who have a purpose, but no direction. The opportunity to mobilize and give direction to the protestors - by instead of paying money for police protection - to use some of the money to put some of them to work on roads, etc. and direct our government based on a positive growth and representation and rebuilding America (we claim to be big nation builders outside of America, we should try doing it at home) not solely for the money finding its way into the hands of non-producers who, with financial sophistication, drain purpose from a vitally complete end result.

I am definitely not calling for or seeking a rerun of the 1776 Revolution - or for a Facebook overthrow of our government. I seek a positive deployment of the energies and desires of the Occupy Protestors across the country from New York to California.

We cannot afford another Tea Party (from either the right, the left, or from any fanatical groups) to undertake any single issues which deny our citizens the full enjoyment of our way of life.

A Turkish official at a public meeting commented on their economic growth vs. the United States' decline while Vice President Joe Biden was in the audience, and the official said "the fast fish, not the big fish eats the small fish." Our Vice President, never one with a lack of American pride, answered by saying, "in a sea of young sharks, the United States was still the whale."

Joe Biden has a quality missing in most of those seeking political office, namely an American belief, real trust in his fellow American, and an ability to recognize our decline is of our own making and our ability to recover is within our own hands, minds, and desires. Superpower is a nice term, but meaningless if our citizens continue to suffer from our own misguided actions or inactions.

It's time for us to take the Occupy Movement out of the hands of any revolutionists and to make it a meaningful adventure in a populist and democratic capitalism, all built on respect and compassion. We really can’t allow the political and greed vampires to control and direct our present and future.