I can’t describe how relieved I am to finally be able to see a brighter hope for my country. In that light, I hope we Americans among other things do some serious thinking about our place in the world today. It seems pretty obvious now that we will no longer be the super-power we once were. Too much damage has already been done for that to happen. We have shown our dark side to the world, and they have taken notice. We may never be the guiding light for the rest of the world that we thought we were once upon a time. But, we need to try to salvage what integrity we can.

I hope President-Elect Biden does some “lessons-learned” to make a new path from these coming times. Of course, even that will require a paradigm shift in our mentality. For at least the last hundred years we have been plagued by the “Not Invented Here” syndrome. That is, if we didn’t invent it then it has no value to us. We need to get over that fallacy as quickly as we can. We need to accept that other parts of the world come up with some excellent ideas on how to do many things.

Here are a few of the areas that need to be addressed

Shift From “Us vs Them” to “We are all in this together”

I know there is a populist trend going on around the world, but I think it is the most prominent here. We need to understand how some nations have nurtured their national pride and then emulate them as much as possible.

Global Warming and Fossil Fuels

This is one of the areas I hope we have not totally lost out. Moving to a fossil free energy world will happen with or without us and if we don’t get on board pretty quickly we will definitely suffer the economic consequences.

Learning that the rest of the world is more than just a place to sell our goods.

We got to get over the idea that our goods will always be in demand. In fact, much of Europe sees our products as shoddy at best. They are finding alternatives to what the US offers them within their shores, and in many ways that is a good thing.

Making wise community decisions

The idea of “common good” seems to be imperiled in much of the world today. We were once, at least in my mind, a nation that celebrated our diversity and had the “common good” as our driving theme. Is it not too late to realize the perceived notion once again?

Understand that leadership is probably better placed on the female of the species

Ok, this is one that is on my list but likely not many others. Our Native American roots should have taught us if we had bothered to listen that the female of the species are better leaders than testosterone driven males. We need a female in the Oval Office and at least a true representation of females in our legislatures. That means 51% of our national congress should be female. We are no where near that now?

And finally, to understand that intelligence is not a left wing conspiracy

If you think education is expensive, imagine what ignorance costs? 😉