Our McFuture

I absolutley agree with what is said. My first real experiences with these policies have been in that last 8 years. I was 17 in 2000 and ever since have seen what bad policies done to us as a country in every which way. When abroad I have seen the fall of our countries image and back home the standard of excellance my family raised me with not being petuated in american society.
Our inability to train the labor force with the needed skills to succeed in the work force today is unaccpetable.

Watching these olympics makes me feel that we as a country are treated and are starting to be looked at as a old power with nothing else to offer. Alot is going to have to be done to bring is back to the innovative front but i believe this generation is not going to wait. Something must be done.

ADP is a great start and I thank you for your actions and inspiration.

Will, as usual you nailed it. We have become a nation of consumers, driven only by short-term profits, valuing quantity over quality. People love to buy cheap crap from Wal-Mart and don’t care how their business model is helping to destroy our quality of life, just like people think that they are getting a deal when they get the Super-Size meal at McDonalds, when in fact they are getting nothing but more empty calories and one step closer to a heart attack.
I’m tired of the ignorance and more-is-better mentality that makes people think that drilling in the Arctic refuge is going to solve our energy problem while refusing to change their habits to conserve and break our addiction to oil.
No one is going to fix this for us. Until the American people wake up and realize that we each are responsible for our future by the choices we make today, things are going to continue to get worse.

Our leaders have taken us down this path. They do not represent the interests of the people or the Constitution. Now it is shop Wal-Mart or starve…soon it will be just starve. We don’t live in a free democracy. Did anyone really vote for Bush’s second term? We are one “crisis” from Bush seizing power indefinitely. Sure stop buying plastic crap from Wal-Mart that will help..
I don’t mean to sound so negative. I agree with much that said here at ADP. I think we can do much to take care of each other. I am not sure we can do much to change the direction America is headed until we get “big-money” OUT of politics, and I just don’t see that happening. God Bless America.
Never underestimate the power of prayer!

The definition of insanity -Continuing to do what you are doing but expecting different results. Welcome to the insane asylum called America. And more and more I am reading (from very knowledgeable sources) that there is growing evidence that our relationship with the planet may be reaching a tipping point. Energy is only part of the picture. many of our human practices have been shown to be in profound tension with the planet, and ultimately threatening to ourselves. The evidence is compelling. Every 20 minutes, a species of animal or plant life disappears from the planet, with more than 26,000 species lost every year….More than 80% of the Caribbean coral reef cover has vanished since the 1970’s….50% of the world’s wetlands have been destroyed since 1900…Fifty percent of the world’s fish species are either fully exploited or depleted…Twenty four billion tons of fertile soil disappears each year….Around one-third of the planet’s land surface is threatened by desertification….Eighty percent of the world’s original forests have been cleared or degraded, and more than 40 million acres of tropical forest are lost each year…Water tables are already alarmingly low in many parts of the world, yet will decline by an additional one-third over the next 20 years…Demand for water has more than tripled over the last 50 years…A billion people are regularly exposed to levels of indoor pollution 100 times higher than World health Organization
recommendations causing 2 million deaths annually…Each year, three times more rubbish is discarded in our oceans than the total weight of all fish caught….Americans throw away 2,5 million plastic bottles every hour, a signal of a looming waste management crisis in the developed world that more landfills alone cannot address. Add in increasingly clear and uncontested evidence that we are directly contributing to global climate change and you’ve got the icing on the cake.

Ants have been incredibly industrious for millions of years, yet their productiveness nourishes plants, animals, and soil. Human industry has been in full swing for a little over a century, yet it has brought about a decline in almost every ecosystem on the planet.

And our esteemed leaders can’t even focus on these things for minute periods of time if at all when the future is at stake for every human on the planet rich or poor. Now is the time these critical sustainability issues must be addressed and long term strategies developed or there may not be a long term for planet earth and is inhabitants. The statistical information quoted is from “Powerful Times” by Eamonn Kelly (2006) A gret book you should all read.

I see this conundrum somewhat differently.

One of the problems with having an elephant in the living room is that when it poops a huge pile of matter right top of your favorite antique Persian carpet, it is far too easy to look up indignantly and begin shouting at the elephant and assigning blame for its perfectly natural body function. An elephant, after all, is not potty trained.

A more rational reaction would be to take hold the elephant’s halter, tusk, or trunk, and coax it out of the living room, through the front door, and onto a spot in the corner of the garden, thereby avoiding the possibility of a pungent stream of liquid following its initial deposit. Then, and only then, I would look for the person who invited the elephant into our domain.

The Chinese have taken merely clever advantage of the mixed priorities of our own government. America, both the place and the idea, has become eroded and ambiguous. We don’t know whether we are a “world power’, “global community leader”, “CEO of a corporate coalition” or “land of the free, home of the brave, and a nation which first looks after its own.” As a result, and I say this with a slight amount of trepidation that people will turn on me as they did Michelle Obama, we are often none of these things. In a fairy tale, our nation might be billed as the lion tamer (albeit with a sympathetic heart) who wields a whip and a chair, but only goes after one kind of lion in the cage, leaving another, perhaps more dangerous, free to wreak havoc.

One of the greatest discoveries I’ve made in life is that by defining myself or my work in specific ways, such as, “I am a teacher who always looks for the means to generate enthusiasm, increase student learning, and provide activities to enhance cognitive skills,” I am better able to manage issues that are inconsistent with that determination. I cannot be all things to all students. One result of the distinction I have created is that I spend long hours planning lessons and developing materials but only rarely do I chaperone at dances. There is nothing inherently wrong with chaperoning, or dances. They are just outside the criteria I’ve set.

America is, naturally, far more complex an entity than a high school English teacher of a certain age, but I believe that our votes need to make manifest our national priorities and define who we are as a nation. Then, our law makers and leaders must take the action necessary to remain committed and high-performing in those areas. Our nation is not single faceted or visioned, so who we intend to be in the future must be determined by looking out at the larger world as well as within our rural areas, cities, states and regions. And, when a contradiction arises, the outward or global view versus the national or domestic view, it is not enough to just say, “Look to our citizens first, and then the world.” We are an integral part of the larger world as well as a haven for our citizens, so both aspects .

But this ideal is far from present. Instead, we have a government that has become as corrupt as any nation we despise for its lack of integrity and transparency. Perhaps baksheesh in the form of banded bills is not being slipped into envelopes and passed along in seedy alleys, but what do you call the over-billing of contractors in Iraq, the mythology of national interest behind NAFTA, the power of corporate America, and the pervasive influence of lobbyists? Expedience is America’s current guidepost, a religion that has our leaders both bowing to the power of a Russian government that attacks a sovereign nation and that constructs a pyramid of excuses so that we ourselves can occupy another land we should never have invaded but for misinformation and religious bias.

Yesterday I heard Ralph Nader, the oft-called “gadfly” of the 2008 election, speak on NPR. He called both campaigns to account for abandoning or ignoring the issues that impact Americans most seriously: national health care for everyone, a bloated military budget that beckons us into a further escalation of our involvement overseas, an aggressive crackdown on the corporate crime that has cost millions of Americans their livelihood and their savings, and a restoration of our civil justice system. I make the same plea as Mr. Nader, that my candidate of choice determine who he is and his vision for America without diluting that insight with the demands of a million different groups. I do not want a chameleon for a president, but an eagle who sees the land before him with sharp eyes and a keen sense of how to deliver the necessary message along with the absolute truth as he knows it. Please, no more WMA!

This is not the time to look at China and find fault with them, however justified we may feel ourselves to be. As Americans who love their country and ache for its standing in the world and in the mirror of its history, we need to demand that our legislators and judiciary search out the people, organizations, and entities who are inviting the elephants to use our nation, our economy, our identity, as an outhouse and take steps to neutralize their influence. We are the home of the brave, but are we courageous enough to see our own faults, flaws, and fallacies and create a more rigorous vision for ourselves, one that demands that we toe a line that doesn’t waver?

I really think your recent post needs some perspective. True, we have a President that has made many mistakes and done damage to the country. However, I have no misconceptions about Russia or China and I don’t forget their problems while watching their Olympic and miltary successes. Even with our problems we are the most successful nation with the most freedoms in the history of the world. Sure unemployment has gone up but it is still significantly lower than unemployment in Europe. Sure we’ve had a housing finance crisis but we still have many more Americans owning homes than ever before and I believe we have a much higher home ownership rate than most other countries in the world. Saying this doesn’t mean that I don’t want to get better. And I agree with most of your suggestions for improvement. Just keep it in perspective.

China’s teams have done well so far in the Olympics. Good for them. They deserve their success but remember they have a pool of 4 times as many people from which to choose their talented athletes. They also remove many of them from the home at 3 years of age and put them into Olympic work camps for the rest of their productive athletic lives.

But more significantly, China is a totalitarian state. A very successful one, but still extremely repressive. There is no freedom of thought or religion. Just try and start a blog like this in China and see how long you stay out of prison. Have you noticed the smog? They call it mist and it is still this bad after shutting factories, limiting traffic and manipulating the weather.

Russia is even a worse. Sure they have a military machine that can run rampant in a country that is less than 10 years old. Life expectancy of a male in Russia is 59 years and going down? It is 75 and going up in the US. Pollution and corruption run rampant in Russia.

Yes we have problems here but please keep it in perspective.

Perhaps our core problem is that our leaders value money more than people.

I think greed has been the crux of the problem since Reagan was president. The mantra of greed has been preached for almost a generation and we now see the excess to its extremes. It was said by someone that fascism should more properly be called corporatism since it is a merger of state and corporate power. This is exactly what we have across the globe, from China to Russia to the United States. This has led to concentrated wealth in the hands of a few at the expense of many. Fortunately the credit based economy is now coming to a crashing end and it will result in real discussion of our national priorities both as a country and a world. Until we remove leaders that are in charge and have only their own interests and global domination in mind, we will not progress out of the situation that has been created. Fighting useless wars with resources we can’t afford will just result in more disinvestment from the things we should be investing in. Voting for those that preach hate and fear will just leave us in quicksand. What is needed is nothing less than a revolution by the people.

Americans have exactly the government, social structure, political leaders, and economy that they wanted.. by default. Someone always fills the need and if none is expressed, they create it themself. China is filling that gap.

Americans have exactly the government, social structure, political leaders, and economy that they wanted.. by default.

If its by default then I would argue they didn’t want it.The few greedy and powerful Americans you refer to are the only ones who wanted this government, social structure, political leaders and economy we have. Don’t paint all Americans with your broad brush. Many chose leaders based on the best of intentions within a faulty system of electing and choosing leaders in a limited two party system which has been hijacked by corporate power and money. The death grip of this system is even evident in this election spin cycle. What we have now as a system in no way resembles the will of the people and the core principles the country was founded on. I think the best thing most Americans can do at this point is to ignore what happens at the federal level and focus on local growth. Help build communities with foundations from within rather than relying on imports and global trade. The faster we do this at a local level the quicker we can break the death grip Washington and Wall Street have around us. Don’t send your money to far away places like Saudi Arabia, China or even Wall Street. It will end up in the hands of people who don’t have your best interests in mind.

Read Adam Smith and David Ricardo regarding Nations and “comparative advantage” for a marco-economics perspective on trade. There will be winners and losers, but overall the US economy benefits. China’s low wages will not last forever as they have en economy that is growing. What happens when there is more demand for a product or service? Prices increase…history has demonstrated that when prices increase so do wages. Eventually the centralized China policies will come to roost and wages will increase. What happens when those wages increase to equalize to Europe, US, Japan and industrialized nations? They will need to compete on equal grounds.

I don’t underestimate the ability of the US to understand these fundamentals, the problem is that the media tends to overemphasize its effects. YEs unemployment is 6.1% and the housing problem is real, but wont last for the long term. This economy is far too advanced and more connected for one country to do all things at the lowest prices forever making Adam Smith and David Ricardo’s “comparative advantage” still relevant a century later.

I would rather be unemployed in the USA than employed in China….