Traditionally, American Democracy has been thought of as innovative because the founding principles of this union of states laid the foundation and security that birthed a unique middle class and insured it’s existence. The decline of that middle class America in 2008 takes hold in every walk of life. As desperation takes its toll, it manifests in ways that create the context our society now lives in. In my 35 years I’ve witnessed a vast cross-section of life. In 2008, what I see mostly is despair. The middle class is all but gone and most people are too preoccupied with survival to notice. We are no longer considered innovative.
While noticing the disappearance of the American middle class,I have casually recorded the evolution of the "Self Help" industry and with it’s ever increasing success I can’t help but notice how lost the average individual feels. I’ve watched my mother fall prey to 800 numbers, wild diets and credit card corporations. People who survive on credit surround me. They can barely afford their monthly minimums. Credit card companies punish them by raising their interest rates so high that the average person with a credit card will never pay off their debt. These same corporations intentionally seduce college students, the families of soldiers, and the soldiers themselves. College graduates are living paycheck to paycheck, working in fields unrelated to their education, unable to pay student loans because the only jobs available are service or trade oriented. Most of my friends don’t answer their phone because there is always someone who wants what they don’t have. The mentally ill roam our streets and populate our prisons while their needs go unnoticed but their crimes meet quotas. On TV, I see women waiting for their husbands to come home from their third and fourth tours of war and men who wait for their women as well. In every walk of life, I see people existing—not thriving. The state of our union is in crisis. The current structure of our society, rather than providing foundation, seems to be stealing pieces of our foundation little by little. Without stability we will continue to feel lost.
I have long thought of America in terms of adolescence. When compared to the lengthy history of other cultures, America is still a teenager. Like many young adults, we value instant gratification over viable long term solutions, we view ourselves at the center of every world situation, we believe that we are invincible, we act out when we don’t get our way, and we lie so that we may represent ourselves as something other than who we are rather than embracing our true selves. Our incessant need, as a society, to be what we are not invades even that which we know as leisure. Every sport Americans have raised to a pedestal has fallen hard because the people involved could not meet American ideals without enhancements. As Americans, we are no longer taller. We no longer live longer. We maintain our extraordinary divorce rates. We host unmatched teenage pregnancy rates. We are no longer responsible for the leading scientific advances in this world. Racism keeps a portion of the population from accepting minorities as full-fledged human beings. Rape and poverty are still prevalent in our society. Some Americans pay for sex. Some Americans sell sex. AIDS still exists in our own country and around the world. As a country, unprovoked we pre-emptively invaded a country that posed no valid threat to our nation. We are now the occupiers of that country. Our country has shed the blood of indigenous peoples of our land and countless other cultures in the name of progress. We owe our title as a super power in this world to our humanitarian missions, and to the blood we have shed. We are homeless veterans and unemployed college graduates. In a Global Warming report released by Hinkle Charitable Foundation, it is revealed that as a nation: "The US comprises about 4% of the earth’s population, but emits about 25% of the total global greenhouse gases" .Our literacy rates are discouraging. We are consumers. We do love our children. We also hurt our children. We are criminals and law-abiding citizens. We do drugs. We self-medicate. We like our prescriptions and we like what we buy in secret places and dark alleys. We are good people who have bad days. We are human beings. We are people who fall in love, marry, and live happily ever after. We are people who choose not to marry. We are people who are not allowed to marry. The front line of our military and all of those who stand behind that line are no longer only male or heterosexual and it’s likely that they never were. Mental illness continues to be neglected and ignored by our military, by our medical institutions, by our insurance companies. We Americans, often, prefer to sue one another rather than communicate. We like sex, before and after marriage and sometimes before puberty. Incest survives generation to generation. Our children are not protected from the sexual greed that surrounds them at every crucial age. We are strong and we are weak. We are White, Black, Brown, Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern, European, and Other. We come from everywhere. We are gay, straight, and bi. We are cross-dressers and people who just like to be spanked. We are fat and skinny. We are every size in between. We are Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Catholic, Atheist, and Agnostic. We are greedy, kind, glutinous, and compassionate, and we live together. We live together.
My wish for America is that we will transcend this chapter in our evolution and strive to mature as a country—by doing so we will earn the renewed respect of the world we live in. To do that, we must consider our past, present and future with open eyes. We must begin the arduous process of evaluating who we have become as a society and then we must decide who we want to be so that we may move forward together as a nation unified.
In order to better care for our society—in order to make positive changes in our society, we must accept our society. The sooner we make room for who we are, rather than who we wish ourselves to be, the sooner we can move forward showcasing the true American potential. Fences and walls do not divide our multi-cultural society. No other country has the potential to map the ways in which we "live with each other" rather than "against each other." We, the voters, are adults and should be treated as such. Our government, to date, has insulted our abilities to cope with reality by telling made up stories such as that of Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman. They believed hoaxes like these would lull society out of chaos. They were wrong. We are better than this. We deserve more from the people whom we’ve hired to represent our best interests. How shameful it is to see our current government embrace, perpetuate, and represent a society that we are not. It’s time we turn the page to begin a new chapter in American Democracy by recognizing who we are NOW, then adjusting our lives and our laws to better represent the best version of who we are—so that we may present that image to the rest of the world and maintain that image so that we are consistently who we say we are from this day forward. The world must trust us once again. Our future is dependent upon it.
Perhaps, I should be writing about the good things in America. The problem is that the good things don’t need to be fixed and the bad things are out of hand. Bad things need to be said sometimes. Even if the only reason is to let powers that be know that you have not forgotten what you have seen and that you expect that their intent is to make the future better, rather than worse. One day, I may write a letter that points out the good things in this country, because I love this country, but right now is not that time.
In the following pages I will ask for numerous programs to be created and or reformed. As the daughter of a single mother, I am aware that money does not grow on trees. Times are hard for the majority of Americans. The thought of new taxes ignites fear in a large population of the people. Given the lack of benefits that people receive for the taxes they already pay, I can certainly understand why they would fear more taxes. Simply put, I believe that the constituents of this country deserve more for their money. Perhaps if the taxpayers were awarded a stable foundation in return for their hard-earned money they pay to the government, the phobia regarding new taxes would subside. Instead, Americans struggle while holding down numerous jobs, missing the first steps of their children, and cat-napping between responsibilities—all while watching their dreams become a distant memory. The American Dream no longer provides a tall measure of happiness. Instead it provides fatigue in healthy portions. In order to better understand my perspective you must also understand that I believe our government’s priorities no longer include the safety of American constituents. I advocate for a return to the intensions of the founding fathers. As such, these recommendations are meant to be implemented as part of a larger restructuring in the governmental financial distribution agenda. I am not for "bigger government." I am not for "smaller government." I am for "better government." Money doesn’t grow on trees. This is true. My mother drilled this knowledge into my conscience at an early age. Though, in America, good ideas are just that plentiful. I propose that we use those good ideas to re-build our nation—make the founding fathers proud. Our people are our most precious resource of all. The founding fathers drafted our constitution to provide protections FOR the people. Again, it is your job to protect the constitution and the people of America. The programs and or the reforms I discuss in this letter are suggestions for how you might begin to light the way toward a better life for ALL of America.