Thursday Thoughts

Mark, the character played by Christian Slater in the movie Pump Up the Volume, had it right. Our generation is looking for someone, anyone, to lead us.

Previous generations had the World Wars to give them focus and conviction. In those wars, good and evil were more defined and clear cut. We had the infrastructure projects to pull the country out of the Depression, when we built huge highways and dams, among other things. Later we had Kennedy and the space race to energize the nation and provide jobs and focus. Even Reagan, taking office when we were still in the grips of the oil embargoes, turned our attention to defeating our old Cold War nemesis Russia and we soon saw the fall of the Berlin wall.

What have we seen since then? A "war" with Iraq that lasted hours and didn't solve anything. A President that had sex with his intern and didn't know the meaning of the word "relations." Now we have another war with Iraq that isn't solving anything and is wasting lives with no apparent plan or purpose. We have an unsteady economy that could topple at a moments notice.

We are losing jobs to outsourcing, losing faith in our country, and we have corrupt leaders who allow the California energy crisis to continue and who open up wildlife preserves to logging and oil drilling in order to make money for the richest one percent.

Once, when you asked children what they wanted to be when they grew up, many used to say they wanted to be a cop, a fireman, a doctor, a teacher, or even President. Most now say they want to be a pop or sports star.

People just don't have faith in themselves or their country any more.

What we need is another mission. We need our leaders to come out and say that, by the end of the decade, we will have the first permanent structure on the Moon or at the bottom of the sea. We will have a manned mission to Mars in 10 years.

Or, just as ambitious but less specific, let's end world hunger in the next 10 years. With proper leadership and coordination, the industrial nations can feed the world today-- why not do it? Or, let's set up inviolable world nature sanctuaries in South America and Africa, to preserve the ever decreasing jungles on this planet. Let's head a global effort to turn away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy sources. Let's improve the viability of solar panels to 75% or better.

Yes, each of these ideas is a pie-in-the-sky, almost unattainable goal. But the same was said of taming the Colorado River. Peopled skoffed at a man orbiting the planet. Ten years later a man stepped foot on the moon. With the right leadership and direction, human beings can solve nearly any problem.

America's current leadership has chosen to take us in a direction that separates us from the rest of the world and creates divisiveness among our own people. What would happen if we led by example, instead? How many fewer people would join terrorist agendas if they looked to us and said, "Look at America, helping to feed our own people as well as the rest of the world." How many more nations would follow suit if, when the largest tsunami the world has ever seen strikes, America is the first one there offering the most aid money and resources?

Until such time, here's one more listener trying to find Hard Harry on the radio and praying for a voice to lead us.