What if we all as a nation stopped selling American designed weapons, like airplanes, ships, subs, missiles, helicopters, tear gas, et cetera to foreign nations and groups?

What if we brought home all of our overseas troops, no matter where they are, discharged all of them except the ones we need to secure our own borders, and sent all of them to University or Trade School?

What if we create a new kind of entity called a Corporation that had to die after 75 years? All the corporate patented and trademarked assets would become public domain, and physical assets liquidated and distributed to shareholders.

What fs we taxed at 100% all estates above a certain threshold, and ensured that a hereditary oligarchy would be stopped in its tracks?

What if we increased the highest tax rates to 65% of income or capital gains or any kind of investment income?

What if we became a single-payer nation for health insurance, and reinvested in creating upward mobility by making our public Colleges and Universities the inexpensive wonder of the world they once were?

Just imagine if the purpose of government was to provide for the general welfare and common defense by taking care of certain things like infrastructure, environmental regulation, education, and health care so that people could focus on the more important things in life, like becoming the best, most creative, generous, kind and loving person in their work and personal lives, fully invested citizens. If we all recognized that we are all in this together, that “E pluribus unum” are words by which a great nation should live.

We can make this progressive dream happen.
Doesn’t that world, where all pursue their dreams because all the stuff that government does really well are being taken care of sound great? The only way to make it happen is to pay attention, wake up, organize, and vote!

Why are we in Afghanistan? Why are we in Iraq?

More to the point, why are we, the world’s largest debtor nation, the world’s policeman? I despise the fact that we send our armed forces where they are both not needed, and not wanted, and that we cannot afford to do it.

This might sound selfish and Amerocentric, but let the United States take care of the United States, and let the rest of the world take care of itself. Be a good neighbor, lead by example, stop being aggressive, be more cooperative, help other nations when they are in humanitarian crisis, voice our opinion, and that’s it. The policy of the United States should be one of non-aggression and peaceful cooperation with other nations. Our military should be for defense of the nation’s borders.

Living within our means means scaling back our military power, and boosting spending on domestic services like universal healthcare, sophisticated and effective public education, including comprehensive sex education, civic education, strong arts and sciences education, and most of all, critical thinking skills. These are the things that create true wealth: cultural wealth, entrepreneurial innovation, and a passion for participatory governance.

I say, globalization has not resulted in a raised standard of commonweal; instead it has resulted in increased poverty, more environmental degradation, decreased civil rights, and a bankrupt global financial system. Globalization has increased the gap between rich and poor in this country.

The United States was such a wonderful and fertile imaginative landscape, and I believe it can be again if we contract our global ambitions and focus on rebuilding infrastructure, public education, respect for the sciences and arts, paying off our national debt, rebuilding our manufacturing sector, and fully restoring our civil rights.

I believe that people have to shed their own blood to earn their own freedom – that is the only true way to value that freedom. Our way is the way that works for us, and can serve as an example of one particular path to freedom, but each nation needs to find its own path that works for them. We can talk about our way of life and why it works for us, but that’s all we should do. To do otherwise isn’t being a good neighbor. Our best example of leadership is to live our nation’s life and let the strength of our ideas be demonstrated by how successful we are as a nation, and how we treat the most vulnerable among us. Our American ancestors paid their blood and lives so that future generations of Americans could live in freedom and prosperity. Let the people of the world do the same.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? … Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. Thee’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do… It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

-Marianne Williamson

As we focus our energies on making manifest the success and prosperous light within the American nature, we can give other nations the courage and inspiration to do the same.

But that leads back to the question of how do we increase the light of the American cultural soul? The only way to do that is to increase freedom. This country was founded on the principal of individual freedom, but also freedom that is responsible for each other as a nation, and species. And freedom is only increased through a liberal dose of education and participatory civic action by the populace. The power of the government is derived by the will of the governed. We must always remember that, and not just at election time. The voices of the citizenry must be louder than the voices of the corporate lobbyists.

Heck, I wonder why do we allow corporate lobbyists? Corporations cannot vote in elections, they cannot be citizens. Only individual human beings can be citizens be reason of birth or naturalization. So it seems to me that a major problem is the existence of corporate personhood. The abolition of corporate personhood would put corporations back on the other side of the government/person line, and “We the People” would actually be people again, and a huge return of power back to the population.

The return of corporations to the side of being in the public interest is crucial to regaining full civil rights. Noninterventionism and the abolition of corporate personhood. Neighborliness and helping others. Huge investment in infrastructure, education, healthcare, and a tremendous reduction in military spending. These are the things that liberals need to be fighting for.

Albert Einstein said, “You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.” The only way forward is through peaceful work and democratic action. Let your light shine forth, people.