USA - RIP - CIRCA 2010

Lincoln called America "the last best hope of mankind." FDR said we "have a rendezvous with destiny." Reagan hailed us a "sunrise society." All this because we reach outward to accomplish great things. Like saving the union, defeating Hitler, landing on the moon. Today we are still accomplishing great things, but often by reaching inward...!

We are doing this in part by means of a schizophrenic technological revolution which incredibly brings us together at the very same time it allows us to pull apart. Today's stunning satellite/internet capacities let us instantly see and talk, cure and create, together from anywhere on the planet. But also allow us to cocoon into ourselves by holding these sights and sounds in the palm of our hands in all the private corners of our lives.

In this schizophrenic condition, our cocooning habits have helped produce a remarkable state of perpetual self indulgence. We think and talk and share ourselves incessantly. Facebooking! Twittering! Blogging! Call-in programs! Reality shows! Seems as if we simply can't get enough of ourselves.

Recently several Russian scholars predicted this national obsession-with-self will "doom America by the year 2010." Instead of the old Soviet challenge "We will bury you," these doomsayers boast "You will bury yourself." Their premise? In this financial meltdown triggered in the USA, people here have become too self-absorbed to collectively strive together to turn things around.

We have a new president whose new budget is seen by his supporters as an audacious call for collective national action again. To his critics, it is collectivizing America at the expense of America's traditional individualism. With the submission of his budget to Congress, another great debate begins. Another rendezvous in history where we as a people collide with the same evolutionary beasts that have been prowling our journey from the beginning.The wolf packs of crisis are once more ready to devour their prey unless their prey learns how to devour them.

As a people we have the tools...we have the will...we have the history. This debate will now be over exactly how we gather these together to get the job done. If only the debaters on both sides can keep their eye on the prize, not on the politics.