waiting for the world to change?

i have been thinking a lot lately about the state of the world and the state that this country is in. folks talk all of the time about ‘the good ole’ days’ and we laugh them off but i am beginning to believe that our golden age is behind us. being a relatively young country, we have flashed and burned rather quickly in the grander scheme of things. i think that the thing that kept this country going 900 miles an hour was our belief in manifest destiny. we have always been a country ‘on the go’- we have cities that don’t sleep and night shifts and we have had this forward momentum. we wanted to be the best. then… we got lazy and complacent and comfortable. our cities have not been kept up because hey, we need our money in our pockets to build our pressboard and vinyl homes and keep our fiberglass suvs running to and from the convenient store for that bottle of soda. our kids aren’t learning because- hey, don’t we just need a glorified babysitter anyway? our kids are the best and so what if they can’t read? we lack any real leadership because- hey, in a democracy, even the morons voices are added to the mix- and the corporations are ‘entities’ with votes and isn’t that what we pay people to do? we can’t be bothered.

so, now we are in a pickle. with every wave of ‘new’ corruption scandals from our leaders,and every indication that our infrastructure is crumbling, and every bit of evidence that we have sold our souls to the chinese for cheap dollar store stuff, we become more and more like deer caught in headlights. we are out of our comfort zone. we don’t make decisions- we pop pills to be happy all of the time. come on now. we cannot sit and pretend that all is well and that things will right themselves. what we need is true leadership. where that is to be found- i have no answer. but, we can be leaders in our own lives. take some personal responsibility. it’s a start. we are not going to be able to save the world- the corruption runs too deep, but we can take back our homes, our lives and our communities and make a stand there. it’s possible, but it has to come from us. we have seen that electing the same people over and over again has cost us our country. let’s think outside the box and effect some real change. let’s be the citizen leaders that the forefathers had in mind. our democracy is in our hands.