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American Culture--Our people and Leadership
2005 June 24
© 2005, Libertiny Financial LLC
With another pending purchase (Unocal gas and oil) of an American company by a Chinese business, it's time to take a hard look at America's culture, future, and our leadership.
I don't begrudge any country from wanting to make the lives of their people better, either by getting caught up in the "rat-race" or by using a different system. And I don't have a problem with the Chinese wanting to purchase whatever they want. We'll see if the shareholders of Unocal decide which buyout is in their best short AND long-term interest.
I am concerned with the underling issues that were first brought to light by the Japanese becoming an industrial powerhouse in the 1980's and 1990's and now the Chinese in this century.
By building up their infrastructure, educational system, technology, and economy, both the Japanese and the Chinese have revealed some major problems with the American culture and government. Namely, more and more Americans are starting to expect a certain lifestyle without working for it. Our education system continues to slide toward oblivion. And each year, a larger group of Americans choose not to be "builders" (cultural, hardware, intellectual property, etc.) and instead are satisfied with being "consumers." Part of this stems from some poor leadership that has been exhibited for years by our government and public business leaders.
To change the situation, we need Americans to get our own "houses" in order. Then we need to proactively find and vote for leaders (government and public businesses) who include feedback from both the mainstream and folks who some consider to be out of the mainstream, understand where American and the world's cultures are going, have a positive vision for the future, the brains to put a plan together, and the courage to follow through with the plan. This is not too much to expect.
And then we need to monitor our leaders to determine if they're following through with the big picture issues that they discussed. Our focus on sensationalizing the trivial imperfections of leaders is just a waste of time. But if they don't take the time to make the hard decisions, then we need to boot them out of office and find someone else.
Without these attributes, America would never have become a country.
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