Government Healthcare: Unaffordable and Lethal

The idea of free universal healthcare is emotionally soothing and arguably quite Christian. On the surface, it seems like an ideal to which all wealthy and civilized countries should strive. It “feels” good. (So does heroin, apparently.) In truth, it is a stake in the heart of individual responsibility.

Here’s how it works: As countries (like families and individuals) get rich, they tend to lose their common sense. Like spoiled rich kids, they forget about virtues like hard work and personal responsibility—the attributes that got them rich in first place. These nations make ill-advised, indulgent, “feel good” decisions. Such decisions weaken countries over time and, after a generation or two, render them mere shadows of their former grandeur. This story is as old as time.

Let’s look at this through the lens of America in 2009.  Imagine if an impartial observer were to examine our current situation. He or she would have to note that the greatest nation in the history of mankind is not currently in a particularly strong position. The U.S. is spending more than it takes in, importing more than it exports, and fighting wars in the global quicksand of empire. The global community is losing faith in our currency just as another great power on a breathtaking rise (China) salivates for the reins of power and is increasingly poised to snatch them from our hands. 

At this very moment, our government deems it prudent to borrow yet more money to hook up a broad swath of the American public up to a vast new entitlement program designed to grow, as all entitlement programs do, like a weed.    

Have we lost our minds? Handing vast new authorities to a government with an already peerless record of incompetence and lust for power is sheer madness. Forget the huge strain on the budget and the squelching of the free enterprise that made America great. Even more insidious is the effect of socialized medicine on the citizenry.

Such a system makes more people dependent on government. Dependence corrupts and transfers power from the individual to those who dispense the favors. Dependence is what happens to drug addicts. Our government wishes to be the biggest dealer on the planet, and, like any human organization, to grow.

Socializing healthcare is another great step forward for the misguided efforts of FDR in the 30’s, expanded with devastating effect by LBJ in the 60’s. This is the dream of the big government left: to hook up and buy the votes of the middle class—to turn them into a mushy, addled mass clamoring for mama government to come and give them a bit more mother’s milk.

This is a prospect for which all Americans should feel visceral revulsion.

The bureaucrats in Washington are seeking to extend their cold reach. We all know that nothing is produced in Washington, D.C. The Department of Energy has not made a kilowatt, the Department of Education teaches no children, and the Department of Agriculture (with more employees than farmers in America) has never grown a bushel of wheat!  

America does need healthcare reform. Costs are out of control for many reasons, all of which stem from the distortions caused by government intervention.

We need freedom of choice, robust markets, faith in ourselves, and a level playing field. These are the pillars upon which American greatness rests.

Friends: As you know, I care about America a lot, and I read something just now that cannot be ignored. We live in a democracy and we must participate if it is to work. Agree or disagree, but please take a minute to listen. The article below is about a 16 year old who was arrested in his home under the Patriot Act. I’ve thought and read a lot about government over the years, and this is what I’ve gathered. Please forgive the presumption, but this it also how those wise men who gave birth to this greatest of countries felt and would feel.  Governments, left or right, possessed of ever growing power, will, in the end, oppress and intimidate.   We must  embrace the responsibilities, which are many,  of freedom over the certainty, left unchecked, that untrammeled government power will morph into Big Brother. We cannot tell how long it will take and degree of oppression, but it WILL happen if we do not awaken to the mortal threat our liberty is facing.   If you think I am being alarmist, just read the article below and ask yourself whether we are more or less free than our parents and grandparents were when they were growing up.   Consider for a moment, after a Patriot Act and a Homeland Security department, the very names of which would send shivers down the spine of our founding fathers, whether we are really any safer? We are certainly less free.  Fear is being bred into us, from the swine flu to just about crossing the street, and it is in a fear and uncertainty that governments grow and freedom wanes. Political tacticians know this well, and fear is a consistent vote getter.   Freedom is a most rare, precious, and, thank God, uniquely American development in history of humankind. We have sacred responsibility to ourselves, to the hundreds of thousands of men who died for that freedom,  and to masses of humanity, now and throughout history, who groaned under oppression, to fight for our freedom and liberty. Yet, in a perverse and predictable irony, our liberty is being stripped away under the guise of protecting it. In the good name of public safety, we are being woven into a deadly cocoon. We are told that we live in the most free country in the world, and, in certain cases, especially in realm of choosing ones profession, this is true. But did a little deeper. Are we really that free? And cannot what freedoms we posses be taken at a moment’s notice? From the most trifling impositions of  government power to the most ghastly, we are uniformly heading in the wrong direction: We have to wear a seatbelts (in addition to getting a ticket, the government has made our own cars vessels of harassment if we don’t buckle up), we cannot smoke, can’t drink a beer at the age of 20, we have cameras following us and ticketing us if we brake a law (the number of which, both cameras and laws, increase every year), every website we’ve ever visit can be the subject of investigation, our precise location is at all times available through our cell phones, our calls can be monitored by the NSA. Even 10 years ago, much of this would be shocking. There is simply too vast an apparatus for total control and surveillance at the disposal of governments, controlled by the power hungry and the purchased, for us to go along as business as usual. We must accordingly be more wary than ever towards the growth of government. Instead, Americans are following a path into a dangerous labyrinth of an all-seeing and all-knowing government. Imagine if such vast power got into the wrong hands, or such power the hands of government bureaucrats more interested in themselves than the public. We already have reached the latter. There is a balance between freedom and security. In a national spasm of fear and paranoia after 9/11, Congress passed legislation (the Act)  aimed at terrorist. Not even ten years later is being turned against an American teenager. The has allowed federal agents to rip kids (read below) from their beds and detain them in direct subversion of a victim’s constitutional rights. Indeed, as you will read, he might have made a bomb threat in to his school. OK, not good. Very bad in fact. But this does not make him the kind of terrorist towards whom the Patriot Act was aimed. Government creep. Be very wary of it in all its forms. Without a bedrock belief in rugged individual responsibility and freedom to resist the siren calls of the nanny state, America will slip into abyss of failed attempts at human freedom. What we have achieved in America too rare, too hard fought, too great an example to the world  to be allowed to fail. To end with a little Jefferson who said: “Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.”  We are not a timid people.  Please write your elected representatives to express your concern, dismay, and, hopefully, revulsion to this use of government power. https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml   -Raj P. Bhakta Bottom of Form   Mom says Patriot Act stripped son of due processPosted: Apr. 29, 2009 Oxford, N.C. — Sixteen-year-old Ashton Lundeby’s bedroom in his mother’s Granville County home is nothing, if not patriotic. Images of American flags are everywhere – on the bed, on the floor, on the wall.

But according to the United States government, the tenth-grade home-schooler is being held on a criminal complaint that he made a bomb threat from his home on the night of Feb. 15.WATCH VIDEO
Teen’s mom questions Patriot Act

The family was at a church function that night, his mother, Annette Lundeby, said.

“Undoubtedly, they were given false information, or they would not have had 12 agents in my house with a widow and two children and three cats,” Lundeby said.

Around 10 p.m. on March 5, Lundeby said, armed FBI agents along with three local law enforcement officers stormed her home looking for her son. They handcuffed him and presented her with a search warrant.

“I was terrified,” Lundeby’s mother said. “There were guns, and I don’t allow guns around my children. I don’t believe in guns.”

Lundeby told the officers that someone had hacked into her son’s IP address and was using it to make crank calls connected through the Internet, making it look like the calls had originated from her home when they did not.

Her argument was ignored, she said. Agents seized a computer, a cell phone, gaming console, routers, bank statements and school records, according to federal search warrants.

“There were no bomb-making materials, not even a blasting cap, not even a wire,” Lundeby said.

Ashton now sits in a juvenile facility in South Bend, Ind. His mother has had little access to him since his arrest. She has gone to her state representatives as well as attorneys, seeking assistance, but, she said, there is nothing she can do.

Lundeby said the USA Patriot Act stripped her son of his due process rights.

“We have no rights under the Patriot Act to even defend them, because the Patriot Act basically supersedes the Constitution,” she said. “It wasn’t intended to drag your barely 16-year-old, 120-pound son out in the middle of the night on a charge that we can’t even defend.”

Passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S., the Patriot Act allows federal agents to investigate suspected cases of terrorism swiftly to better protect the country. In part, it gives the federal government more latitude to search telephone records, e-mails and other records.

“They’re saying that ‘We feel this individual is a terrorist or an enemy combatant against the United States, and we’re going to suspend all of those due process rights because this person is an enemy of the United States,” said Dan Boyce, a defense attorney and former U.S. attorney not connected to the Lundeby case.

Critics of the statute say it threatens the most basic of liberties.

“There’s nothing a matter of public record,” Boyce said “All those normal rights are just suspended in the air.”

In a bi-partisan effort, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., last month introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives a bill that would narrow subpoena power in a provision of the Patriot Act, called the National Security Letters, to curb what some consider to be abuse of power by federal law enforcement officers.

Boyce said the Patriot Act was written with good intentions, but he said he believes it has gone too far in some cases. Lundeby’s might be one of them, he said.

“It very well could be a case of overreaction, where an agent leaped to certain conclusions or has made certain assumptions about this individual and about how serious the threat really is,” Boyce said.

Because a federal judge issued a gag order in the case, the U.S. attorney in Indiana cannot comment on the case, nor can the FBI. The North Carolina Highway Patrol did confirm that officers assisted with the FBI operation at the Lundeby home on March 5.

“Never in my worst nightmare did I ever think that it would be my own government that I would have to protect my children from,” Lundeby said. “This is the United States, and I feel like I live in a third world country now.”

Lundeby said she does not think this type of case is what the Patriot Act was intended for. Boyce agrees.

“It was to protect the public, but what we need to do is to make sure there are checks and balances to make sure those new laws are not abused,” he said.  

Mr. President if you really want to invest: Let’s go to Mars within a Decade!

                This might come across as glib, however under some basic analysis, it is far more sound than throwing money into the financial black hole of insolvent banks and attempting the stimulate the reckless consumption that got us in the mess to begin with. Why? America has not invested in new technology for a long time.  If we are going to spend like mad, let’s get something for it!  Let’s DO something. Let’s develop some stunning new technology and shock the world with our wizardry. Like the development of the internet and other advances resultant from military and NASA spending, it will pay long term dividends to all Americans. It will lay the foundation for long term American economic growth based on American technological supremacy.For those worried about the environment, I’m sure we’ll have to come up some new energy technology to make it out there and back.  Regarding our slipping in math and science, I can imagine that the huge number of jobs generated by this initiative will lead to an adjustment of majors away from marketing and philosophy towards the hard sciences.  The trickle down from this spending will be immense of long term benefit, and which is more, America needs it.The economic growth under George Bush was of fatty, consumption based sort that left America LESS competitive vis a vis our economic rivals. We built houses we could not afford, guzzled $4 cups of coffee and bought fairly worthless gizmos from China on borrowed money. This is not a virtuous economic cycle.  It’s junk food growth.   This Wednesday, on his first formal day as President, Barack Obama will convene his team of economic advisors to develop a plan to attack our paralyzed economy. Foremost among the problems they will discuss is the seizure of the credit markets and our broken banks. Putting aside the laudable principal that bankrupt institutions should be allowed to fail, we have “injected” hundreds of billions into our financial institutions so that they might once again lend.  THIS HAS NOT WORKED. We’ve already largely spent $700 Billion dollars of money borrowed from China. We have assumed these real liabilities and bought phantasmagorical assets in return.  In addition to encouraging this recklessness going forward, we are barreling down a road financial ruin.                 I am resigned that our government is going to drop us ever more deeply into debt for the moment, and we might need to prime the pump a bit, however we must NOT resign ourselves that this money should be squandered.                    Let’s go to Mars! It will be a stimulus plan that will keep on giving. At this time when America is under global pressure from every side, we need a new trick. We need some good old American ingenuity and boldness. This found fit the bill.                GoAmericaGo!

Saving General Motors

It is in the national interest of the United States to preserve what is left of our manufacturing capacity. Accordingly, it is a proper use of the public purse to help save our automakers from dissolution. They are not beyond redemption; however a few key steps need to be taken for the infusion of public funds to make these companies viable in the long run.

Our politicians say as much, however there has been a lack of understanding of the root cause of Detroit’s problems as well as a lack of a comprehensive plan to turn the Big Three around. Below is a brief outline on how this can be achieved.

Above all, the Big 3 have a perception problem. American cars are now excellent, however they remain haunted by blunders made in decades past. Admittedly, current perception has been shaped over decades during which Detroit’s products looked bland and were of generally inferior quality to foreign competition. The second of these considerations was more important in the seventies and eighties, however by the nineties quality had largely caught, but then design stayed poor. Someone who bought an expensive Cadillac or a Buick, for example, in the early ’80’s was bound to be highly disappointed to the point that they might never have gone domestic again. However, today, Buick, and to some extent Cadillac, has a wonderful lineup of vehicles, but almost no one under sixty would consider buying a one. American car brands too frequently have as much sex appeal as an overweight accountant.The past cannot be undone, so we must focus on what can be done now to save the Big Three from their self inflicted state of near-ruin.So, here’s an outline of a plan that would comprehensively save Detroit: 1)      Establish a National Automotive Task Force. America can once again dominate the world’s roads with our cars if we put our minds to it. Clearly current management of these companies has been uninspired at best; we need to bring in our best and brightest to help build cars for the coming generations. Young people today do not dream of owning a Pontiac or a Ford or a Chrysler. This can be change. How? Lets gets our best creative business minds, Steve Jobs of Apple, the founders of Google and Facebook for example, people who understand what consumers are going to want in their products, to help fashion a product and marketing plan to make these companies sexy again. Detroit knows how to make great cars, they are just boring to most young consumers. We need to people who “get it” in guiding long term policy otherwise these companies will go broke in the end. For that matter, the master of reinvention herself, Madonna, should be brought in to help advise the bean counters on how to remake themselves to appeal to another generation. The Task Force should function as the Board of the Big Three. 2) File for Bankruptcy with a government guarantee for car warranties of all cars sold for the next few years.  By guaranteeing the warranties, the biggest stated concern of Detroit that people will not buy from companies in bankruptcy is removed. As long as the cars are backed by a solid and generous warranty - people will buy. Why Bankruptcy?  Detroit has too much baggage, accumulated during times when they were much bigger, healthier companies. Pension and healthcare liabilities, union contracts which place them at a considerable disadvantage to foreign car companies manufacturing in the United States, and a dealer network that is far too large and costly to administer and supply, need to be renegotiated. This needs to be remedied and any commitment of public funds needs to be contingent on establishing the Big Three up as entities with competitive cost structures to their foreign rivals.3) Get Hollywood and the Media Engaged. Our President elect has a lot of clout here, and Unites States government should use its growing power to push those who help shape popular culture to help give a boost to public perception of American cars. On this matter, Hollywood and the media already try plenty hard already to shape public opinion; and saving our manufacturing base is surely of greater importance for the future of this country than, say, gay marriage   - an issue that they their influence mightily to support.  In conclusion, we need comprehensive out-of-the-box solutions to save our automotive industry. America is the country of ingenuity. It is what made Detroit, and the lack thereof has led to its sad state today. We can do this, and, if the money is well spent and properly deployed, GM, Ford and Chrysler can once again rule the roads, but anything less than a meaningful deployment of the great creative genius of this country will not work.For those concerned that this is not the place of government: that bell has already been rung. Furthermore, our government has traditionally been an active participant in the creation of our industrial might - from Alexander Hamiliton’s trade and economic policies in the 18^th century, to the railroads which girded our country in the 19th century and of the superhighways of the 20th century.  The key now is for the money to be well spent and contingent on a change in the way Detroit has been doing business. This is a great challenge to any government, but we the people must demand that our money be invested well.  We should establish a properly grand vision befitting this great country for the future of the American automobile - That American cars once again be the envy of the world!

Go America, GO! We honor our Veterans

Today we honor our Veterans, of all wars, and those currently serving in the Military.  We salute you, we thank you and we are proud of you.

Regardless of your political party, we all know none of us would be able to live the life we lead without the support of the military’s efforts.
“The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation.” - George Washington

“I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” - Nathan Hale, hung as a spy by the British at the age of twenty one - Sept. 21, 1776

“The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world…I can hear you, the rest of the world can hear you and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.” -George W. Bush

“Americans… still believe in an America where anything’s possible.” -Barack Obama

  Go America, GO!

Vote America, VOTE!

You know what today is, and this election day is projected to have record-setting turnout.  I brought a book to read in line, and if you are voting in NYC especially I’d suggest you do the same, or make friends with the people in line which is another way to meet your neighbors and fellow Americans.  We at Go America, GO! encourage you to exercise the unique privilege you have as an American: VOTE.  Use your voice by your vote at every voting opportunity, especially today.

Being able to vote is a fundamental component of being American.  I think of the many people in my family who are World War II veterans and what they fought for so I can vote, among other American privileges: my grandfather, who was awarded the Purple Heart as a member of the Third Division of the Marines in the Pacific, my Aunt Bette, who was one of the first women in the Navy, and my uncle Edward, who was president of his high school class at Farmington High School and was killed in the Pacific, aged 18, at Iwo Jima.  I also think of the Eagle Scout project my brother R.J. did in honor of this at the Iwo Jima Memorial in Connecticut.

Today we invite you to post your comments on what being able to vote as an American means to you.

-Chrissy

Wake Up, America!!!

Young Americans and future generations of Americans will be saddled with another TRILLION DOLLARS to our already staggering debt of TEN TRILLION DOLLARS. Accepting the logic that the cost of inaction in this self-inflicted financial crisis would be much more higher that one trillion, we must begin to think about how we are going to meet these massive obligations.

Sadly, a very large portion of this collective IOU of the American people is going to be financed by China, adding to already ONE TRILLION in IOU’s they already hold. This gives them even more leverage over us.

We have become a debtor nation - a nation DEEPLY in debt at that - and the horizon looks bleak: baby boomers are retiring. This event alone will result in the largest transfer of wealth -  from the young to the elderly - in American history.  Countries don’t rise by taking from the young and investing in the elderly. Most retirees will enjoy about two decades of retirement, with their Social Security checks and, much more costs, their medical paid for entirely by the tax paying populace. This price tag is above TEN TRILLION DOLLARS alone, and we not yet even begun to meet this baby boomer burden.

Consider our trade deficit of $800,000,000 a year. We have trillions of IOU’s outstanding in the form of our dollars sitting in foreign coffers.

These are not the statistics worthy of the greatest country in the world. They are statistics of a perenially bankrupt country like Argentina.

We must dismantle the socialist state we are creating (think socialized heathcare) to stave off a  slow and sickening European style dealth of managed decline and pathetic emasculation. Americans must save again and take care of themselves.  The financial independence of the American people is critical to the independence of the United States itself. A nation of  government-teat addicts cannot lead the world. If we don’t snap ourselves of our national overindulgence we will ultimately be overtaken by more vigorous peoples, as we see can see happening so painfully quickly every day.

As the gruesome chasm between our financial capacities and our obligations continues to grow, we will be forced to make decisions. These decisions will be made under duress, a bad time to negotiate, unless we begin to act now and with determination. Two steps are absolutely critical.

1) Raise the retirement age and cut benefits.

2) Become a manufacturing country again.

Focusing on the second:  Our currency in foreign hands have to come back to America ultimately. The question is merely whether foreigners buy the country, our banks, companies and real estate, etc. or whether they buys goods from us. Let’s sell them the latter.

If America doesn’t make anything, we will have nothing to sell them but our core assets. We cannot continue to allow China to artifically subsidize its products in the form of an undervalued currency while we lose more and more of our manufacturing edge - if we even have one anymore.

The American government must begin to lay out a long term plan for American solvency.

America is getting deeper and deeper into a hole. Every country has its ups and downs, the job for Americans today is to think about the long term, and not just in selfish terms, and how we are going to ensure that in another one hundred years we remain the world’s greatest nation. It is our choice, and only we will determine the answer.

-Raj

Go America, GO! Go for the Gold! Congratulations Michael Phelps!

The spirit of the Beijing Olympics is captured by the slogan: “One World One Dream,” but the dream being exemplified by the world is in essence the American dream, and the underlying message of Go, America GO!.

To quote the official website of the games:
It conveys the lofty ideal of the people in Beijing as well as in China to share the global community and civilization and to create a bright future hand in hand with the people from the rest of the world. It expresses the firm belief of a great nation, with a long history of 5,000 years and on its way towards modernization, that is committed to peaceful development, harmonious society and people’s happiness.

In order for the United States of America, in challenging times such as today, to overcome adversity, each individual citizen must embrace excellence in their own life and go for their own personal gold. A bright future is ensured here in America when we stand united in our pursuit of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and most importantly, when we own our individual dedication, achieving our highest potential. Such American ideals enable us to pursue excellence uniquely in the world and have made us the envy of the world. America’s 232 year consistent history has historically embraced the ideals of the games and has not conveniently adopted such ideals in the international spotlight. As Americans, we cannot allow ourselves to become stagnant, apathetic or satisfied to listen to national political figureheads fight our races that affect us, but not nearly as much as we affect ourselves. We are accountable for the effects our daily actions have on our lives. We must be the best we can be as Americans, and the athletes inspire us not only in their obvious talent but also in the class they show in letting their action speak louder than words, as shown in the men’s swimming relay that secured the gold in front of France’s silver that answered France’s verbal commentary prior to the race. Such success in the light of criticism and empty threats make American victories that much sweeter.

To quote the founder, Pierre de Coubertin, who ironically is French:

L’important n’est pas de gagner, mais de participer.
The important thing is not to win, but to take part.

Whether it is Michael Phelps’s and his team’s legendary performances in the pool, the flips of Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson or Eric Shanteau who is not only competing as an elite athlete but also battling cancer, that inspires you, let the Olympic performances carry your patriotism. Take part in pursuing an active role in all areas of your life. Keep America on top! Go America, GO! Best of luck to all athletes.

The Looming Bankruptcy of General Motors

No company epitomized America’s industrial might, its wealth, and its freedom like General Motors. It was the world’s largest company, generating more revenue than the GNP of most nations. It churned out the cars people around the world aspired to own. At its peak, it was the largest private employer in the world; the company engaged nearly 500,000 Americans in the enterprise of making automobiles.  (Fast-forward to present, America’s largest employer is Wal-Mart, a company dedicated to selling cheap Chinese goods sold through a poorly-paid workforce.) The story of General Motors decline is epic and tragic.  It is a story of how hubris and incompetence can bring down even the mightiest. It is a story of how those on top, losing vigilance amid plenty over time, become fat and complacent. It is a lesson we Americans, especially in view of the serial blunderings of the Bush Administration, should take to heart.  In 1980, GM dominated the global automobile business, with nearly 50% share of the US market and a third of the world overall. Only seven years ago, GM tried, and failed, to hold market share at 30%. Today, it is struggling to maintain a 20% market share. That is a 33% decline within a decade.  Last year, GM lost its standing as the world’s largest car maker to Toyota.  By the end 2008, the once-mighty company will not even remain largest seller of cars in its home base of the United States. Pathetic. And sad. In 1953, GM’s CEO declared “What’s good for GM is good for the country.” It was true then and it true now. It IS good for America to be the home of the world’s largest industrial firm, and it is bad for America for that firm to go bust and be bought piecemeal by the Chinese in bankruptcy. How did this happen? It is not the fault of the Japanese carmakers. It is not the fault of the UAW, although that union made matters much worse.  High oil prices are not to blame. GM will go bankrupt because of arrogance and incompetence. Like the hubris of the Bush Administration, GM management felt that it’s financial and market power were so great, that they were invincible. They felt that whatever they built the people would buy - and for a long time they were right. They built junk Vega’s, diesel engines, and Citations, to name a few gems, by the millions. Now, although they have turned their quality and styling around, Americans look abroad for quality and prestige, and GM is in a death spiral. GM cannot possibly turn itself around without a bankruptcy restructuring. It will emerge a mere shadow of its former self.  Let us hope that much of their valuable technology and sophisticated manufacturing techniques are not purchased for pennies on the dollar by the Chinese who will take the factories home and re-export to us the cars we once made. Putting aside for a moment that bankruptcy of GM is emblematic of the industrial decline of America and our ability to make things outside of cheeseburgers and movies, the lessons of GM are lessons of which the next President of the United States should be well aware: Even the mightiest, after decades of arrogant and stupid decisions, can fall. A million little cuts, untended, can bleed you dead. The demise of GM is indeed a sad event in American history, let is resolve that the fate of GM will not be the fate of America.

Do You Believe in Miracles? Go America, GO!

As I was discussing the fundamentals of Go, America GO! with someone that moved here from Canada in the late 1970’s yesterday, I realized that that era was not dissimilar to the nation’s demeanor today. He explained the challenges of thirty years ago, which Raj and I are too young to remember clearly, and articulated how America really needed a quintessential moment of triumph, which came in the form of an gold medal for the men’s hockey team. Sports imitate life, and Americans need to translate the enthusiasm they have for their sports teams into productivity in their own lives.

The Reagan era came and went in the 1980s, followed by prosperity in the 1990s, and as what goes up must come down, all has come down.

Unlike the 1980 US Olympic hockey team, the United States today is not in an underdog position. We are the top superpower in the world, and to defend such status, we must return to the principles set forth by our founding fathers. In Colonial America, our founding fathers were the underdogs. They believed in miracles, and also in hard work. Then 204 years later so did Herb Brooks. His hardnosed style and penchant for hard work laid the fundamentals for success. If he was here today I believe he would embrace the ten principles set forth by Bhakta in “Go America, GO! Ten things you can do to save America.”

Today, who is going to be the Mark Johnson to tie up the score? Who is going to be the Mike Eruzione to secure the victory?  [Mark Johnson seen below right with the author]

The greatest sports moment of the 20th century - as titled by Sports Illustrated- is what Go America, GO! would be if it had skates.

What will be our medal for 2008? What will be today’s moment of triumph? That is up to you, America. Each person must exemplify personal responsibility so collectively all Americans can live a life like that hockey team once did, piled up on top of each other on the ice in sweet victory knowing that dreams do come true.

Only in America.

Go America, GO! We believe in miracles.

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