Tuesday, January 16, 2007

America in Crisis: Why the Nation Needs to Re-Evaluate its Priorities

The United States, with its wealth of natural resources, expansive frontiers and diverse populations, has always been endowed with great potential. The possibilities inherent in the American nation are being squandered, however, by the arrogance of power. Those in power regard the free and vital political expression of the vast majority of people as a threat to their authority. Any real movement for a change in the political, social and economic order is seen as a threat to the status quo.

Currently, the United States government is devoting the nation’s economic resources to pursue a military solution to the quagmire it created as a result of its unwarranted and illegal aggression against what was once the sovereign state of Iraq. Not only is this action expending vast economic resources, but it has the potential to spread into a wider war in the region, and, more importantly, plunge this nation into a moral crisis.

The fear of terror has been remarkably exploited by the current administration, and has been used to impact individual human rights as well as divert attention away from the serious domestic issues that plague this nation, including the crisis in health care, education and the environment.

Although the current foreign policy that is being pursued is particularly aberrant, it by no means represents anomalous behavior. The United States has long utilized military intervention as a way to achieve political and economic ends. Recent history is replete with examples of this adventurism too numerous to detail here.

If there is any way to extricate ourselves from this morass, it, in my judgment, dependent upon a significant change in the way the nation perceives itself. There is set of mythological beliefs that paint a distorted and essentially erroneous image of the nation and its people. If any real progress is to be made, this veil of misconceptions needs to be lifted. The United States is, in fact, only one member in the community of nations, and needs to modify its behavior so that it can co-operatively deal with the many problems that face the global community, especially in regards to the global environment. The problem of global warming, for example, may eventually subsume all other concerns.

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