An American Manifesto for the 21st Century

By Bob Buchanan

This book provides a pathway for America to move in for the remainder of the 21st century. If adopted, it positions America for the myriad of changes coming in the near future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781682221150

Book preview

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The Current State of America:

We are in the 21st Century, yet we continue to encounter and suffer through the same problems and issues that were present at the founding of our Republic. Look back at the newspapers from the entire period from the 1700’s to the 2000’s and you will read stories about the same problems we have today. Our culture hasn’t changed significantly. Although we have gone through agricultural, industrial and technological revolutions, our culture remains much the same. We continue to kill each other; we struggle with poverty, income inequality, immigration, the environment, human rights, etc. Culturally we are stunted. Periodic economic growth, riots, deteriorating race relations, environmental ruin, an increasing percentage of Americans classified below the poverty level, decreasing number of Americans in the middle class, the dissolution of the family (observe the number of single parent families), the Supreme Court ruling (Citizens United) that corporations are people and campaign finance rules, increasing defense spending, the merging of church and state, the loss of manufacturing jobs, the aging of the population, involvement in foreign wars, loss of our moral compass. Despite thousands of regulations, Government fails to provide oversight to Wall Street, major corporations, the environment and education. We still hear of arguments between the Federal Government and the States (again, partisan politics between the two parties), arguments over immigration, and decaying inner cities. America had a meteoric spurt of growth from the end of World War II to the 2000’s. Politicians beat themselves on the chest for their achievements while failing to use frequent economic windfalls to improve the lives of American citizens, the government and the economy (instead spending much of the windfalls on pork barrel projects).

THE PROBLEM:

The above current state of America shows just some of the problems this country has. The main problem, however, is the failure to recognize that those Americans with good jobs, steady incomes, health insurance, savings accounts and stable families are happy, and they want to maintain the status quo (this includes the millionaires and billionaires). They are afraid of change. Why would they want to alter their comfortable lives? Frankly, these persons of wealth and stability mostly run the Government and large corporations (especially lawyers) and they may say they want to fix things but have you seen real change??? They put Band-Aids on severed heads. The politicians with the ability to enact change can’t agree on how to fix any of our problems (the economy, the poverty rate, education, immigration, etc.). So, they don’t fix it. They argue, discuss and perhaps do something incremental and have been doing so for decades. This IS the problem. Is the Government too big --- YES! Is the Government (Federal and State) too involved in our everyday lives – YES! Are we turning into a police state and are the police becoming too militarized – YES! Are we interfering too much in the lives of people in foreign countries – YES! Are we looking to the future and changing America to not only meet the future but to excel in it – NO! This is the biggest problem we have. Our government has become too incompetent to make the changes necessary to keep America – America. If we continue down this road we will no longer be the Land of the Free. Do we need laws, regulations and law enforcement – YES! Do we need George Orwell’s Big Brother? – NO! Again, some will equate this paper with The Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels but they are wrong. Although if you read Marx and Engels’ paper you will see that they were concerned with overthrowing the status quo through revolution to create a state run by the people (Obviously the ideas of socialism and communism have already proven to be abject, miserable failures with terrible effects on their citizens). However, they did observe the increasing divide between the haves and have not’s, and America is moving more and more in that direction now. I am not advocating revolution against the Government, armed or otherwise. What I AM advocating is a revolution in how we think about the problems and how we address the problems in the future. Since it is our Government – we can change how it operates/functions. Over the rest of the 21st century, if we don’t destroy it first, the world will change significantly. One excuse you always hear from the politicians is This is a very complex issue. It is not. We have obviously failed to fix any of our major problems. Compromise (which our Government was founded on) has become a dirty" word, particularly in Congress. People argue over everything – including things they know nothing about and don’t even understand. (The perfect example is Congress whining about the Iran Nuclear deal and admitting they haven’t even read it yet?????!!!) It is time to try something new/different. Break the issues down and start solving them with new and different ideas!

This paper will be presented in two sections. The first section will deal with domestic issues and policies in America and the second section will deal with American foreign policies.

DOMESTIC ISSUES AND POLICIES

A. The economy: The American economy has undergone a multitude of changes over the last 200-plus years. What started as a basically agricultural based economy morphed into an industrial society, then into a technological society (which