To listen/read many blogs on this site lately, the MSM, talk radio and across the Internet, there is a feeling of pending crisis, doom, a palpable fear.
In the movie Apollo 13, Mission Operations Director, Chris Kraft laments "This could be the worst disaster NASA's ever faced" and Flight Director, Gene Kranz responds "With all due respect, sir, I believe this is gonna be our finest hour." apollo 13 wikiquote
I share in this optimism...
I am not denying there are challenges and that America has certainly been taken down the wrong path. As Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his first inaugural address:
This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.
FDR's speech is as relevant today as it was in 1933 and I urge everyone to listen and read his speech at History Matters
... their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.
Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.
In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others—the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.
If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective
I believe the candidate that lays out the vision to tackle the problems of war, global warming, economics and like John F Kennedy in his inaugural speech link
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man
is the candidate that will lead us into "our finest hour".
I would like to hear what your ideas are that will turn this "disaster" into "our finest hour"
My Thoughts:
I believe that the move from an Industrial nation to a Sustainable nation will be one of the greatest economic booms since the Industrial revolution.
Peace Corp volunteers and UN Peace Keeping forces to rebuild Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur
Public works projects to rebuild our infrastructure, adding rail lines, alternative energy, clean-up
eliminate nuclear arsenal ...what do we have to lose anyways, a couple more years of radiation poisoning?