America's 21st Century Declaration of Dependence: I Can't Do Anything About It

Let me ask a question. How many people have you noticed recently who shake their heads in frustration, and utter something like, “The war in Iraq was a huge mistake, but I can’t do anything about it.” Or “The Bush Administration’s illegal wire tapping just blows my mind, but what can I do about it?” Or, “I know that politicians on both sides of the isle are owned and controlled by big money, but since I’m not one of the rich and the famous, I just avoid thinking it about it. It’s a waste of my time.”

Political Cancer of the 21st Century
To be honest, I hear this sentiment so often that I’ve come to think of it as a America’s 21st century Declaration of Dependence, our modern day battle cry…or battle whine. And to the degree that Americans are convinced that they can do nothing about it, they won’t even try to do anything about it. And if you refuse to try, you’re destined to fail, at which point the whole thing devolves into one big self-fulfilling, self-defeating prophecy. We fiddle while modern day Rhome burns, using the excuse that we can’t do anything about it. It’s 21st century political cancer…American style.

The Antithesis of I Can’t Do Anything About It
But allow me to introduce you to a friend of mine who’s the antithesis of the “I can’t do anything about it,” mentality. I won’t use his real name because I know he prefers to operate in the background. But this much I can tell you. He’s an immigrant from thousands of miles away who won his American citizenship the hard way, as opposed to having it handed to him at birth. He came to our shores at a young age, specifically to study engineering at one of our nation’s most prestigious universities.

He’s a family man who raised three happy, healthy kids. He had a distinguished engineering career from which he’s now retired. But during his working days, he was required to travel extensively, and as such, his perspective is international in scope.

It’s Unbelievable Who He’s Influencing
He’s a devout Catholic, and in his “retirement years” this seventy something gent now uses his ingenuity, his persistence, his optimism, and his computer to play an active role in helping to resolve problems ranging from the war in the Iraq, to political shifts in South America, to our own Gulf Coast disaster, and world poverty. Recently he’s even taken an active interest in childhood obesity. In other words, while natural born Americans all around me are constantly declaring their impotence, my seventy something friend is all about DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

He Will Be There…But you’ll Never See Him
I will close this part of my commentary on this note. If there’s ever a democratic solution to Iraq, it’s likely that my friend will have played an active role. If there’s ever a democratic solution to Venezuela, Bolivia, and Cuba, it’s likely that my friend will have played an active role. If we ever come to grips with the Gulf Coast disaster and poverty, around the world and in America, it’s likely that this gent will have been in the middle of it all. But since he operates backstage, in the shadows, and he will take no credit, encouraging others take the bows. That’s just the way he likes it.

Even If You Have Mouths To Feed
Now to be totally honest, I’m not trying to suggest that my other acquaintances have the discretionary time that my retired friend has to work with. They don’t. Like most of us, they still have mouths to feed, and bills to pay, which restrict them from doing all the altruistic kinds of things that my very active friend participates in. But that certainly doesn’t mean that they can’t do anything about it either. In this spirit I will list ten things that anyone can do…if theywant to do something about it. Here goes…

1. Despite encouragement to the contrary, you can understand and operate from the perspective of enlightened self-interest, which contends that what’s good for my family is good for me, what’s good for my neighbors and my neighborhood is good for me, what’s good for my township, my county, my state, and my country is good for me…and vice versa. It’s the infinite we VS the finite me.

2. You can stay informed by tuning into good, thoughtful electronic programming on TV and Radio, reading newspapers, magazines, books, and web sites, all from the perspective of enlightened self-interest.

3. You can take the time to think over, ponder, and meditate on the information that you absorb daily.

4. You can ignore the conventional wisdom that warns against talking about politics and religion (the powerful certainly want you to avoid talking about these topics), and actively dialogue with others on these topics because they’re so incredibly important to the world and to future generations.

5. You can have confidence in your own intellect, your own integrity, and as the result you can draw your own hard won conclusions, and avoid allowing others to think for you…unless you prefer being a vegetable.

6. You can recognize that in the end, word of mouth advertising is the single most powerful form of promotion on earth, and all the bought and paid for stuff is just a commercial attempt to influence word of mouth advertising. People telling people can overcome all the money and all the ads, as long as the real people avoid being intimidated and manipulated by the controlling few.

7. You can cast an informed vote. On a side note here, did you know that only 35% of all Americans are registered to vote, and are thus eligible to vote. And of that 35% fourteen percent vote a straight Republican ticket, and fourteen percent vote straight Democratic ticket, without even thinking about it. This leaves 7% of the people, the ones they call swing voters, to decide on the future of our nation. If you win over half of that 7%, or a mere 3.6%, you control America. This effectively leaves over 96% of Americans without a voice in their democracy. If you do nothing else, cast an informed vote.

8. You can multiply yourself by inspiring ONLY two other people to register, and to cast an informed vote. If everyone did that, we’d overcome our problems in a heartbeat, despite the Big Brother/Big Money controllers.

9. You can make up your own list of ten things to do, AND DO THEM!

10. You can stop saying “I can’t do anything about it,” and like my incredible seventy something friend, you can take action, one step at a time, and pretty soon, you’ll lose your self-imposed impotence, and in the spirit of America’s original Declaration of Independence, Thomas Paine, and democracy worldwide, you will be able to do something about it. Carpe Diem.