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Challenges
They
say that Americans perform best when they are challenged. We rise
to the occasion and will defeat any enemy or problem.
I disagree with that assessment. We do not
perform our best when we are challenged — only when we accept those
challenges and commit ourselves to a serious cause. That's very different.
We have been challenged for decades to find
and use alternatives sources of energy, and completely failed to respond.
We were called to conserve fuel consumption, and purchased SUVs instead.
We have been challenged to defeat global warming, and basically ignored
it, twisting scientific opinion so we would not be inconvenienced. Well,
with gas prices rising and weather patterns changing, we are certainly
being inconvenienced now. Things will probably get worse through our purposeful
neglect.
We have been challenged by crime, poverty,
terrorism, illegal drugs, political corruption, rampant inequality, affordable
healthcare, border integrity and a whole lot more-and we fail to make
things significantly better. We shamefully sit on our hands while business-elites
out-source low-and middle-class jobs to foreign shores in order to reap
obscene profits. Where is the patriotism in that?
We fail to shut off the television to attend
political functions, or perform volunteer work, or teach the kids how
to even want to make things better. We have lost our vision for the future,
preferring to draw our pride from the accomplishments of those before
us.
We fail to read our own bibles, preferring
religious-political jingoism that supports current bias. We've become
so complacent that we don't even want to think for ourselves, or feel
outrage, or get off our seats to make a difference in someone's life.
The marketplace has hypnotized us into believing that consumerism is the
hallmark of contentment and success.
Seeds for Thought is issuing a much
needed wake-up call. We know that people's hearts still care about the
world we live in, and the people in it. We know that we all want the United
States to become a real leader of the free world through the inspiration
of high ideals, not through military might or economic exploitation.
We also know that there are forces designed
to dissuade our best intentions, so that a small percentage of us can
gain power or wealth at everyone else's expense. We have to understand
this in order to rise above misleading political jargon and the interests
of a business community that has no interest in people.
We ask those who are religious and those
who are not, to unite for a common cause, rescuing morality and building
a better world than what we have today. We must energize ourselves. We
must unite, or the powers that be will continue to ruin everything.
