A Start!


This blog deals with the future not the past, except in ways the past can inform that future. I want to apply the huge resource of elder experience, mostly retired today, to the problems we face now. If we don’t solve some of these the future will certainly be bleak. Perhaps leaders today can find something in our combined experience that will give them new insights. Please help me make this source interesting enough and rewarding enough for them to visit.

For now I’ll present four problems I consider major, and tentative solutions that I enthusiastically open for argument. I will not now deal with the war; it is beyond my scope.

#1, Our electoral process is collapsing under the weight of money. The founding fathers could not envision the instant communication of today and gave us little time between elections and, possibly, terms of office that are unsuitable today. They did not then see a need to federally fund elections. I do. If nothing else, because we are to a great extent being governed by Staff while our elected representatives feel compelled, the day after they take office, to get out and chase money for their re-election.
Getting elected today is a matter of how much money you can raise. Individuals, corporations, and unions use this to their advantage, and the idea of a candidate who can win on the strength of the contributions of the average voter is, it appears, as far gone as the dinosaur.


#2, Consumer capitalism and longevity present problems for the individual. In today’s world we see our legacy as relating to what we do in our working years. If we are fortunate enough to have this world years from now, people will, they tell us have very expanded life spans; perhaps one hundred and twenty years, with good health as well.
Do we then continue working twenty or thirty more years? What about the younger people moving up? Will they be content to allow that? If not, what do retirees do with forty or fifty possible retirement years? Clearly we have to find a new way to leave our mark on life, to feel we have done a good job with our lives.
Bill Gates gives us a direction. Perhaps we should all follow his example, with far less capital of course, and have our working life be the lead-up to our real effort, the work of improving our world in large and small individual ways.
Then we have the overriding question – how do we pay for all this longevity?
I am a capitalismphile(my word) but I think we have to look beyond its present form. To what…I haven’t a clue…help me!


#3, Where did childhood go---and why? Are we, as a nation, structuring our legal system to protect too many rights for felons and too few for children? We live in fear. We over-schedule our children in part because they cannot play alone outside. Good people hesitate to approach lost children on busy street corners expecting a “Where are you taking my child?!” shout from an equally frightened parent. Children recoil when strangers say hello, so we adults have learned not to. These criminals have always existed, but, it appears, not as they do today. What does this say about our society?
Is it the same in England, in France, Germany et al? How about Australia? Or in systems less similar to our own…our southern hemisphere, Asia? I honestly don’t know yet, but want to find out. If they do not have this as a problem, why not? Is it in their legal system…a more draconian approach to law enforcement perhaps?
If this is primarily an American problem, that would say a lot…about a lot!


#4, An afterthought - on immigration. I strenuously object to the booming Anchor Baby practice. That is when a pregnant woman enters our country, legally or illegally, for the sole purpose of delivering her baby here and “anchoring” citizenship for the child, and most probably for the entire family. There is a huge battle going on about illegal immigration and I will not get into that large picture now. This small aspect could be dealt with by either revoking the birthright as presently written, or by putting conditions on it. This effort would, I believe, have the support of the majority of Americans and could be done with due speed.
We are being taken advantage of, folks! It has to stop.

That’s it…for now. The ball, as they say, is in your court.