Tuesday, May 16, 2006

POLITICS - Just When Did America Become Myopic?

"Myopic America" by Ken Grandlund, Common Sense

Dictionary.com provides the following definition:

my·o·pi·a (n.) Lack of discernment or long-range perspective in thinking or planning.

Is it just me or have the American people fallen into a kind of stupor that allows them to accept the myopic worldview force fed to them on a daily basis by an incompetent and corrupt government and a complicit media establishment?

I mean really, what gives? When did our great experiment in Democracy, so cleverly envisioned by our founding forefathers, become little more than an exercise in futility disguised as representational government? At what point did people decide that the only thing that mattered was the here and now? When did we decide that our responsibility ended at the edge of our yard? And how did we get to this point?


...there's more.

OK, can you answer the question? Just when and how did America contract Myopia? When did we put on blinders or succumb to Tunnel Vision?

In truth, I already know the answers to some of the questions I posed earlier. I understand that for most people, simply staying ahead of the monthly bills and keeping the kids in school, fed, and on the straight and narrow takes up most of the available emotional and intellectual energy we have. I understand that in an increasingly complex world, the number of things happening make it impossible to focus too much on any specific governmental action or societal shift. I understand that before we can worry about what takes place outside our own personal borders, we must take care of ourselves. But at some point in our individual lives, we should be able to come to an understanding of sorts that the world extends beyond our own doorstep, and that what happens out in that world will eventually reach up to our own steps and change the way we live our own lives. It is the disconnect between that reality and our own actions that makes me scratch my head in wonder.


Well, maybe. But we really, really need to wake up or we are going to find ourselves inside prison walls we have built. We can become another North Korea in a few decades.

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