What This Country Needs—and Doesn’t
Bob Maschi


America, and the planet, are facing catastrophic problems. And I’m not referring to anything that is beyond the control of humanity like super volcanoes, meteor strikes or alien invasions. Instead, I call out the very real threats caused by prolonged recession, the greed of the wealthy and their corporations, climate change, the melting of Fukushima and Chernobyl along with the forever danger of planting missiles all over the globe like pins in a cushion.

So what does this country need? For a start, it needs engineers and architects, construction professionals and planners to rebuild our collapsing infrastructure. Bridges need repairing. Highways need upkeep. Older buildings need updating. Public transit really needs to become a priority again.

We need doctors and nurses and other health care professionals to help care for our aging population. We’ve known for decades that when the baby boomers began retiring we’d have a horrible health care crisis. Well, as expected, that’s happening. And this country did pretty much nothing to prepare for it. And now we can add in the additional health care needed by our obesity-causing diet of fast food and chemical additives.

We need scientists and technology geeks to help cure the planet of all the poison pollution we’ve pumped into it. We need rapid development in clean transportation and alternate energy. We’ll need research into how to best treat all the ills we are creating for ourselves and our planetary co-habitants. We need intelligent solutions to help cure the earth of its two-legged virus.

We need a new generation of law enforcement. And, no, I don’t mean police who shoot unarmed black men nor those who engage in pointless actions like the war on drugs. We need police who’ll charge after the politicians who seek campaign bribes. We need officers to arrest the greedy bankers willing to collapse the economy for their own benefit. We need prosecutors to convict corporate polluters who claim their profits are more important than our planet. We need Judges to imprison the war whores who send our young men and women off to die in battles based on greed.

Last, we need jobs to put all these people, and everyone else, back to work. There is no lack of important things that need to be done. And time is running ever shorter.

But instead of an increased social energy to educate and train a generation of college grads, what do we get? We get adhesive strips put on our collapsed economy. We get a new environmental crisis nearly every day. We privatize colleges that only offer degrees in skyrocketing tuition. And we allow abusive student loans that discourage the young from higher education—and punishes those who are daring enough to pursue it.

What don’t we need? More Democrats and Republicans and their failed economic system leading us into the abyss.

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