The challenge for this Administration is to continue confidently projecting a vision of America’s future, replete with a “grand plan”. That plan must be able to paint an exciting image of the journey to the future, balanced with warnings of all the perils and unknowns that lie ahead. But if the vision is expansive, inclusive and bright enough, the President can regain the positive energies of his greatest asset: America’s/ world’s youth.
The grand plan should explain to the world what America and the world would look like in 25 years, if it were followed. The plan should illustrate how we will live, travel, work, play, educate and communicate. Through science and technology with population and global resource management, this grand plan would raise the world’s standard of living appreciably and equitably. America desperately needs this type of “JFK-like” inspirational challenge to unite not just Americans, but all nations. Only something of this magnitude can put the American brand back on the top shelf.
If you want to take the peoples’ minds off the problems of today, you have to give them an exciting preview of tomorrow. They must be taken visually and virtually to a World’s Fair-like tour of tomorrow. If we are playing with 4-G wireless, I-phones and I-pads today, why not toilet-cleaning androids every middle-class citizen could afford tomorrow? For those who can’t extrapolate that out to envision the full extent of the possibilities, don’t worry, we’ll help you with the details later.
If the next generations conclude we are lost and out of ideas, why should they remain motivated to stay engaged? They are witnessing fewer examples and models of success that demonstrate value in following our lead or building upon existing socioeconomic, political or cultural platforms. Even the ROI of attaining an advanced education is in question based on conventional methods of funding it in America.
Just because we hear every day how smart the Chinese are does not mean we are idiots. One should be reminded, it was America who figured out how to put the energy of 400 horses under the hood of your car. It was also an American who put the computing power of 10,000 brains in the space of a pinhead.
Sure the Chinese may have the fastest computer on earth today, but it was an American that created the first one. America’s ingenuity remains as abundant as ever, however it has just been lying dormant. Due to poorly negotiated trade agreements and unbridled multinational corporate profit pressures, America and the American were devalued as worthy investments.
What is needed now is the proper triggering mechanism to jump-start the next leap forward. Since we don’t need to recreate the wheel, let’s use necessity as the triggering mechanism. If necessity is the mother of invention, nothing is more necessary than America inventing itself out of this current crisis.
We must redirect resources into the core of America – the masses and small business. We must refocus efforts on developing intellectual bench strength from within. While it may be necessary to tap the world’s supply of talented scientific and mathematical minds, since domestic intellectual assets have dwindled, it would be wise to start growing more of our own at home.
In order to offset the conservative contrarians predictable political dogma that investing in America’s future is just code for wasteful spending, you counter with “America is always worth the risk”. The strategy is to challenge the Republican Party and the Ultra Right to say to America, we don’t believe in you… you are not worth the investment. You are a waste of money… Make them tell America to its face, we don’t think America can build a better future. Let them look like they don’t have the balls to make the big bet. Let them look like the cheap chicken shit tinhorn gambler who only wagers with other peoples’ money and still welsh when they lose.
Based on America’s past performance in meeting and exceeding all expectations when their backs were against the wall, investing in a country that gave the world automobiles, air travel, telephones, television and everything else that followed is a country to bet on, not against.
With incrementally achievable milestones that the public can see, appreciate and benefit from on the road to realizing the fruits of said “Grand Plan”, President Obama will avoid the annoyance of the perennial “are we there yet?” from the Congressional peanut gallery.
You can circumvent the naysayers by putting them on the spot. Simply give them the opportunity to put their vision before the American people. The President and Progressives should call the Republicans’ bluff by demanding to see what the Republican Rightwing Conservative/Tea Party’s vision of America will look like with government pared down to the marrow.
We should require them to lay out their detailed, achievable roadmap to America’s future – a future people will want to buy in to and be a part of. In the true spirit of competition, let the country and the world decide which path to follow. Thus far, there has been nothing coming from the Right other than efforts to turn back the clock, play stall ball and repeal but not replace anything the President has accomplished.
In doing so, Republicans have skillfully resurrected the abortion argument for social conservatives to froth over; engaged in heated rhetoric that has been linked to – albeit loosely – the tragedy in Tucson bringing about the dog-eared second Amendment fight. When adding the old standby of regulation of any kind is anti- business, anti-American and therefore unconstitutional, it would seem the only direction the Republican has been headed is in reverse.
There have been no forward thinking ideas coming from the Republican narrative. Conservatives have never been known to be harbingers of big things to come. It was the Conservative mindset still holding the reigns to their buggies as the Model T rolled off the assembly lines. It was the Conservative clutching his bible while babbling if man were meant to fly God would have given us wings. When the Wright Brothers came down from their first successful flight, there was probably a Momma Grizzly Bear in the woods looking up and musing… WTF
If you don’t have a plan for your future, then you deserve what’s coming!
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