Something has gone wrong in this country and it is difficult to figure out how and when we got so far off track. We have always been the model to the world with our egalitarian ethic and our can-do attitude. Together, we won World War II, we rebuilt Western Europe, and we built the finest public education system in the world.
We believed in a middle class society, which honored work more than wealth and where every kid had a chance to run for president or rise from a position in the mailroom to head the corporation. We enjoyed paying taxes as our ante to the democracy game. Our tax dollars made us participants in the goal of improving the commonwealth.
We didn't have so many material things but we helped our neighbors. Older citizens with children grown and out of the house voted in favor of new schools because we all believed that each generation of Americans should be better than the last.
When it came to war, a young man's choices were to be drafted or enlist. One thing for sure. If our country went to war, we were all part of the war effort. And those who didn't go into the Army sacrificed in other ways. It was a total effort.
This is the America I remember from childhood. True, this is an idealistic view but representative of how we felt about America then.
So the question is, what has happened? Where did all the hatred, anti-this anti-that, America only for "approved" people, unbridled greed, come from?
Where are the leaders that can really bring back the feeling of America as all-inclusive and respectful of every citizen's human rights even if we don't personally like them?
Looking for a leader to bring our country home,
reunite the red, white and blue before it turns to stone.
Lookin' for somebody young enough to take it on,
clean up the corruption and make the country strong.
America has a leader but he's not in the house,
he's walkin' here among us and we've got to seek him out.
Neil Young
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