Nobody Daily - 5/6/08

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Nobody Asked Me But:

No, I don’t think, as some people do, that we have become a second world nation. But I do agree that we have affluenza. We are more concerned with maintaining and improving our already more than comfortable lifestyle than we are in maintaining and improving our infrastructure. We have allowed our nation to become middle-aged.

We were once the world’s banker. Now our politicians look to other nations, large and small, to bail us out of our financial difficulties.

We were once a building nation. New York City skyscrapers, California’s K through college public education system, the world’s largest network of super highways, in these we were the envy of the world. We invested in our future. Now if you want to see tomorrow’s building and development, you look abroad.

Thomas Friedman, in his first NY Times column since returning from his leave to write his latest book, describes it like this:

“A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Singapore. In J.F.K.’s waiting lounge we could barely find a place to sit. Eighteen hours later, we landed at Singapore’s ultramodern airport, with free Internet portals and children’s play zones throughout. We felt, as we have before, like we had just flown from the Flintstones to the Jetsons. If all Americans could compare Berlin’s luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II.”

What happened? We have become a fat and lazy nation. Our leaders talk of comfort rather than challenge. We would rather dream of selling up to a million dollar house than of walking on the moon.

However, I remain an optimist about America. I believe that we can break the complacency cycle. But it will not be broken unless and until we again chose leaders who offer hard choices today, who remind us that when we stop dreaming, we stop growing.

Here is the Friedman column that I mentioned. It is a must read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/opinion/04friedman.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin