As the difficult year of 2021 draws to a close and we begin to prepare for a challenging year 2022, I think it is important that we, as a nation, redirect our energies to some important and urgent national priorities. The years of 2020 and 2021 were fraught with knee-jerk reactions to an avalanche of unanticipated events. And those reactions were tainted by political considerations over the needs of the nation. Covid briefings became opportunities to aggrandize the stature of the president but had the opposite effect. In 2020 President Trump was blamed by some for hundreds of thousands of deaths from the pandemic, in 2021 President Biden was blamed by others for even more hundreds of thousands of deaths. Adversaries moved troops to the border of the Ukraine and flew sorties into Taiwanese airspace. The economy tanked from government imposed lockdowns and the recovery blocked by emergency benefits that were better than going back to work. Money was thrown at our problems with reckless abandon in an attempt to not only relieve suffering but also to gain political advantage. One side wants to restrict access to voting to guard the integrity of the electoral process while the other side wants to eliminate all restrictions on voting (both sides more motivated by the opportunity for political advantage than real concern for democratic principles). And all this mayhem has left American citizens confused, dispirited and unhappy with the state of our democracy.
Urgent Priorities
Urgent Priorities
Urgent Priorities
As the difficult year of 2021 draws to a close and we begin to prepare for a challenging year 2022, I think it is important that we, as a nation, redirect our energies to some important and urgent national priorities. The years of 2020 and 2021 were fraught with knee-jerk reactions to an avalanche of unanticipated events. And those reactions were tainted by political considerations over the needs of the nation. Covid briefings became opportunities to aggrandize the stature of the president but had the opposite effect. In 2020 President Trump was blamed by some for hundreds of thousands of deaths from the pandemic, in 2021 President Biden was blamed by others for even more hundreds of thousands of deaths. Adversaries moved troops to the border of the Ukraine and flew sorties into Taiwanese airspace. The economy tanked from government imposed lockdowns and the recovery blocked by emergency benefits that were better than going back to work. Money was thrown at our problems with reckless abandon in an attempt to not only relieve suffering but also to gain political advantage. One side wants to restrict access to voting to guard the integrity of the electoral process while the other side wants to eliminate all restrictions on voting (both sides more motivated by the opportunity for political advantage than real concern for democratic principles). And all this mayhem has left American citizens confused, dispirited and unhappy with the state of our democracy.