America, the very name brings good feelings, ones of pride, felt in each of our collective souls. Though sometimes hypocritical, the American people have always taken pride in possessing the moral high road. We value the life and freedoms of the individual. Our Christian values have made us conscious of tolerance and compassion as a guide in our dealings with others.
Usually, our hypocrisy is brought on by our self-involvement with our daily lives, or just ethnocentric blindness. Once again, we ignore genocide in our world, and ignore future but certain disaster to our beloved country.
Between hurricanes, earthquakes, and the rising seas, we have plenty of reasons to make each area sustainable. But the threat of terrorism, crime, traffic gridlock, and rising gas prices should be more than enough to change public policy. Perhaps: Americans for tax-free local farms and businesses?
Yes, public policy regarding local business. We need to be self-sustaining locally, for the public good. How many people would suffer if our highways and trains were cut off?
I realize that large corporations are powerful and would fight, but we need to look out for the people. Think about the effect on our economy if we developed small businesses locally to grow and produce our own goods.
It is terrible that we are reliant on foreign sources of oil to keep our standard of living intact. It should be a national passion, with the full weight of the government to replace oil as the single irreplaceable part of our economic system. Oil is one of the reasons our balance of payments is terribly negative. In fact, it is a crime that we accept what in private finances, corporate or private, would be intolerable.
I am going to stoop to redundancy by stating the obvious, that borrowing to fight a war, while cutting taxes is proof of misplaced priorities. I was taught that human suffering is a shared pain. That starving and homeless people reflected of all of us. Perhaps, I was raised in the America of Oz, of dreamers.
Dave Gebhard
Lakeport
