Here in the U.S., we face catastrophes on so many fronts, it’s often difficult to even name the problems, let alone get on with the business of solving them.
Healthcare, Social Security and Energy come to mind. As does the perilously insecure and crippled election system throughout the nation — and our collective crumbled confidence in it.
Racism, homophobia and a burgeoning theocratic movement threaten not only the gradual erosion of social progress made in this country, but the terrifyingly swift disparagement of the guiding light on the road to progress: the Constitution.
Our foreign policy, such as it is, crafted by a ruthless and seemingly unstoppable (to say nothing of unindictable) cabal of so-called “neoconservatives” in the highest reaches of power, has consigned us as a nation to a level of international disapproval and resentment heretofore unknown to any but the most villainous nations in history.
Arguably valuable as it might have been, our status as a “Super Power” resides largely in our access to (and proven willingness to continue seeking) nuclear weaponry. Our armed forces, stretched to their limits in an unwinnable war, losing strength in their dwindling numbers of new recruits, can no longer be said to be capable of defending this nation from an actual threat.
Our prisons, growing in number by the day, sit full to bursting with an incredible percentage of our total population; a great many of whom reside in said prisons because of a failed “war on drugs” whose very existence appears to be driven by graft, misuse of authority and, perhaps, a myopic dedication to the eradication of an uneradicable human desire.
These are but a few of the problems confronting us as a society and as a species.
So I ask you — what needs fixing, and how do we fix it?
