We have to get real

Don't listen to people who say that this is an acceptable status quo. Our country is not heading in the right direction. People will always be able to say that it has always been like this, that we shouldn't get so worked up. I believe that human nature, and all that that portends and means, has always been the same and will remain unchanged until the end of this earth. That does NOT mean that where we are going is where we should be going, or that because we've faced problems before we should all sit back and relax because everything will turn out all right.

China is accelerating at an extraordinary rate, and will be our economic equal before long. Our politicians and our people have put off so many problems for so long. Think about this: we've been talking about energy independence for 30 years. We've been talking about healthcare since Johnson, back in the 60's. We haven't built a refinery in perhaps 30 years. Construction on the last nuclear reactor began in 1977. We talk and we talk and we talk. Polar bears, salmon, etc., seem more important to us than getting ourselves off of foreign oil so that we don't have to suck Saudi Arabia's kneecaps.

Some enviromentalists have become so unreasonable as to, in effect , usher in the destruction of this country's pre-eminence in the world. We know that we can't destroy the planet. We also know that we can't simply quit using oil; we don't have the technologies to do that right now. So what do we do in the meantime? Aren't most reasonable people in support of doing enough drilling so that we can effect the transformation from oil to other sources of fuel? The debate seems pathetic sometimes. No, we can't just drill whole hog. We have to begin the process of getting ourselves off of oil. We can't just feed the beast and provide no incentive to get ourselves off of foreign oil.

But neither can we not drill at all; this is NOT an option people. We don't have the technology to stop using oil immediately. That is just a fact right now. So would we rather have the oil under our control, from our own country, or do we want to continue this embarrassing and dangerous dependence on foreign oil? It's simple. It is not as complicated as some people would like it to be.

We can't be extreme in either direction. But we have to have enough oil to begin a transformation from oil to other energy sources. The only question is where should that oil come from. Our country, or from foreign nations.

We just have to be informed. And then we need to elect people that have the right ideas.

If we just continue the malaise and let awful politicians and special interests put their agenda before ours, nothing will change. It will continue to get worse.

This lack of involvement is not like the American spirit. In a democracy, we hold the power to change the direction of this nation. When we don't use that power, or use it unwisely, for a period of at least 40 years, then we end up in this situation where it seems impossible to change things because there are so many entrenched interests. When we lose hope, we stop participating. When we stop participating, the worst of our political culture takes over and entrenches itself, and the best of it is abandoned by the people it needs to create real change: us. The public.

So now, we have Pelosi and Reid. How these people were elected is beyond me. Their singular incompetence, their embarassing naivete about world events, their refusal to behave in an honest and honorable way, is every bit as worthy of denuciation and unelection as the Republican leadership that for years failed to honor the interests of their constituents and their nation. How we cannot see this is unreal. Ask yourselves, Democrats: you rail against the tactics of Republicans. You excoriate them for their supposed ruthlessness and dishonor, and their lack of concern for the national interest.

Tell me, honestly, that Democratic leadership since 2006 has been anything more than a changing of party symbols. You should listen to your new party leader on one important point, and one of the only ones about which he is right: it's rediculous to merely change the hands that control the levers of power, rather than the way in which that power is exercised.

Rather than a bipartisan desire to keep our country safe, to keep it ahead, to work toward the goal of the betterment of America, we see mostly the politicization of terrorism, of security, of energy independence. The Democratic party has been guilty of this for as long as some Rebublicans have been. We just ask that you put down the partisan shades and realize that.