The 4th American Revolution

Today we seem almost numb to the steady stream of leadership failures, scandals, and lies. National polls tell us we are losing faith in our primary institutions of government, education, religion, and business to provide leadership. According to social research from DYG, over 85% of the American Public feel uncertain about our future quality of life, of having a robust, growing economy, adequate personal or national security, or maintaining the quality of our environment.

The time of change is indeed upon us. It seems that every 70 years or so, roughly the time of an average person’s life, our system needs to face a moment of truth, a revolution, a re-thinking about what matters most. This has already happened three times in American history. In each case, the revolution was first led by a thoughtful and passionate group of extraordinary citizens.

The first American Revolution started as a result of England’s corrupt “special interests” turning Americans into second-class citizens. The greed of King George and his cronies made taxes, tariffs, and the treatment of colonists unbearable. Men of great courage and intellect decided it was time to stand for something. American Revolutionaries were driven to create a world that was fairer and filled with more opportunity, more dignity, and more compassion. A world where people’s character was more important than their class. Where merit meant more than pedigree.

The second American Revolution extended the ideals of the Declaration to all Americans. It took a Civil War. The Great Depression ignited the third American Revolution creating public policy to promote honesty in our financial markets and access to opportunity that spawned the greatest middle-class in world history.

Today, we are in a full-blown historical crisis. All of us. If we were a basketball team, we’d be starting the fourth quarter losing by 30 points. And yes, I have great hope that we can still pull out a victory. But we must first be realistic. Our game plan is not working. In fact, it’s a disaster. What we are witnessing is a fundamental change in the viability of our economy. Still, politicians, business leaders, and economic experts insist that our current bleeding of foreclosures, tight credit, raging inflation and our disappearing dollar is only a flesh wound. But it’s not. And most of us have a knot in our stomach because we sense something big and bad may be happening. And well we should. For 50 years we’ve frittered away our greatest achievements and most wonderful advantages. Imagine this. In the 1960’s we rebuilt our schools and rose up a generation of engineers and scientists that first got us to the moon and then gave us the computer age. Then we forgot education was a priority. So today 30% of Americans in high school won’t graduate. We have so few engineers we have to rent them b y the planeload. Among developed nations we’ve gone from first to worst in K-12 education in 30 years.

In 1989 the Berlin Wall fell and America proved to the world that our system was the winner. We won the World War. Unthinkable. Amazing. So today, Russia is reasserting its ominous power financed by its massive oil and gas reserves. The western world is held hostage by over-rich oil lords, mad terrorists and raging ambitions of nobody-is-going-to-tell-me-what-to-do communist China. So much for America’s Golden Age of world peace. Meanwhile failed leadership has bankrupted us. We have $13 trillion economy with over $10 trillion of that coming from our own consumption. The only thing we make that the world wants is our weapon systems and big budget action movies. Basically our biggest export is violence.

In five years the percent of our national debt owed to foreign interests has more than doubled from 20% to over 50%. More than ever foreign governments influence our economic policy. We are so financially overdrawn our infrastructure is collapsing. We’ve spent over $700 billion on a war that will not end while our road, bridges, airports, dams, sewer systems and water supplies decay form decades of neglect. But the biggest failure of leadership is promoting a consumer economy driven by easy money and universal debt. The American consumer has no more assets to borrow against and doesn’t earn enough to pay off what’s owed.

All that must change. For decades they’ve promoted the false idea that rising wages is the core cause of inflation. Now we see inflation is primarily caused by economic and social policy that jacks up housing bubbles, medical costs, food prices, and gasoline. I could go on but that’s not really the point. The real point is, are going to do something about it?

It’s time for a new model of leadership. A model that embraces our joint responsibility for the general welfare of all citizens. This leadership is not yet clearly offered in substance by either presidential candidate. We don’t need refried Democratic liberalism because government bureaucracy is a poor and wasteful provider of actual services. We also cannot endure Republican policies that only concentrates more wealth and power that makes corruption inevitable. What’s needed is a revolutionary view of leadership that is consistent with our nation’s first aspirations. It seeks to neither provide handouts and freebies to the poor or subsidies and tax breaks and favor for the rich. What we need are government and business leaders that have the moral vision to pursue policies that elevate and radically improve education for all from preschool through the many phases of adult life. We need to re-enthrone honest competition and end corporate welfare. We must criminalize what has become brazen, if-legal, corruption of our national government by special interests.

Today our government’s own accounting office estimates one third of our $3 trillion national budget is wasted. We don’t need higher taxes. We need smarter spending. We need ethics and honesty. We all know this. Now we must demand it. All we are asking is for a government of leaders seeking the public interest instead of their self-interest. And what’s in the public interest is universal quality education and an uncorrupt playing field. Americans have the ingenuity to create a new future. We just need a government who will provide the conditions for our talent to bloom. This is called Civic Social Responsibility. It’s nothing new. It’s what our country was founded on. Government by the people, for the people.

YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED IN OUR ATTEMPT TO GIVE AMERICANS A VOICE:
AMERICA’S NEW AGENDA

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