The nation is beset with numerous important problems today. What are we doing about them?
There seems to be only three choices available today. The Democrats are trying to solve many problems and there are disputes about whether they are going too far, or not far enough, but at least they are trying.
The Republicans have solidified their position as the Party of No. They believe that anything the Democrats do is wrong, and that getting nothing done would be better than allowing the Democrats a victory, no matter how great the need or just the cause. They are obstructing everything by employing procedural hurtles and by abusing the filibuster on every Democratic bill, thereby requiring a supermajority to get anything done.
By resisting all change, the Republicans are in effect saying that they want to return to the state of affairs before the Democrats got in. They are happy with the policies that doubled the debt, got us in two wars, caused the world wide economic failure, caused the Massey Coal mining disaster and the current Gulf Oil disaster. We know what the Republican America of the future would look like. We barely survived it last time.
The Tea Party is not an actual party yet, but it has a following and has moved the Republicans to the far right. They seem to have thrown up their arms crying that the situation is hopeless and cannot be fixed. Some of them advocate a Tea Party Revolution to start over. Some of them advocate "Second Amendment Remedies" Code words for armed insurrection.
If their revolution succeeds what do they hope to gain? What would the Tea Party America of the future look like?
I hope I am wrong and that the Republicans and their radical Tea Party Wing realizes that people won't vote based on nothing but negativity, they have to at least pretend to care about their country. They cant just run as the Un-Democrats, they have to come up with a few ideas of their own.
Before we discuss the solutions to the nation's problems we should first figure out what the most pressing problems are. Different problems mean different things to different people.
If asked what the most serious problems facing the country today are, every person would probably come up with a different list. The importance of the problems are relative to who is influenced the most.
If people are endangered, the threat would be the most important. If they are discriminated against, oppressed, suffering, or treated unfairly, the cause of that inequity would be the most important. If people are starving, sick, or in need, the cause of that need would be most important. If people are suffering from pollution, than that is a real concern.
People are angry today. Most of those angry people fear change, but when asked to name the beast they fear so, those nebulous fears disappear in a cloud of meaningless catch phrases. How can they face their fears, if they have no idea what the underlying basis is for their fear?
We want our country back! We fear the Socialists! We want our rights back! Nebulous fears, but what are the concrete steps needed to restore your sense of rightness?
When I hear the right claim that they want their country back, I have to ask who took it? Those on the right will say that the socialists are destroying the country and the Constitution, but when asked for specific examples, I don't see outrageous injustices but good things that will help people. What I see is that the corporations are the ones that have taken our country away because of the immense power of their money, which drowns out the voices of the people. The radical right wing activists on the supreme court are the ones that took our country away. The right wing complains about loosing their country, their freedom, and their rights, yet the right wingers in the Bush Administration did more to destroy the Constitution and our rights than any other administration.
There should be some common ground. We can all agree that the oil disaster and the coal disasters are terrible, yet we disagree on causes and solutions. Sometimes we can't even agree that there is a problem. Most on the right refuse to even believe that Global Warming is human caused although 95% of climatologists believe that this is true and most believe it is an undeniable fact.
How can we agree on anything when one side refuses to accept scientific facts? Some of our problems may seem insurmountable because of our radically different world views.
Are there some concrete problems that we can all agree need to be fixed?
For my ideas look at an old post:
http://www.rantrave.com/Rant/What-are-th...But then things have changed since then. In future posts I will explore solutions to our problems.
What do you think are the most important problems facing the nation and the world today? Which should we tackle first?