Along the way the Nation of local business and small middle class towns was transformed into a global economy. As we celebrated the landmarks of Shirley Chisholm's seat in Congress and women in the NCAA sports, the arrival of cable television and shopping malls we lost sight of the hands of power.
We grew to accept that what we saw on the surface reflected reality. We traded our faith in ourselves for the opinions of experts. It crept from small sectors of highly specialized knowledge to a chronic cultural sense of malady that brings us life coaches and vitamin water, where everyone needs a Ph.D. to give an answer, but no one can ask the right questions.
Our fighting spirits have been stripped and instead all the problems are deflected inward. If something is wrong, it must be you! That confidence we had as individuals is was transfered to talking heads that a corporate media held up as knowing more and improving us and our lot in life.
Expertititis went to every corner of our lives and while some is helpful a huge amount was self serving, from the financial advice to the diets that has seen nearly every claim of what is good reversed or revised.
More than anything it has helped to create a sense of security and faith in our media as accurate reporters of what is happening in our world.
While talk of faith is common in discussions of religion, relationships, commerce and economics, it is less so in direct relationship to our leaders as a collective representation of our Government or our media.
Instead we hear about Patriotism, which is used as a tool to extract blind faith. We are supposed to have faith in our "leaders" and their ability to fairly direct covert operations, faith in the dispensing of justice, faith in the regulatory agencies, faith in a massive dysfunctional bureaucracy that doesn't have faith in one another!
We in the public are guilted, manipulated and even browbeaten into accepting, that to question this entity that swallows our tax dollars, is to have a personal failing. We are labeled as unpatriotic because we doubt.
To challenge the acts of those in elected office, who by definition are the public servants, somehow becomes reversed to an act equated with blaspheme against a Divine power.
So very much of who we are and what we do rests on our individual faith and where we put it. Our currency bears the phrase, In God we trust, but really it is the FED in whom we must trust to have a stable and solvent currency market.
It is the fiscal policy of 435 Members of the House, 100 Senators and an Administration we must trust with our fate as a Nation. When their policies leave our affairs in disarray, our savings squandered, our goodwill and reputation in the world tarnished what does faith do for us? Why do we still believe?
In very large measure the power of our government rests on the faith that the public will respect the lawmaking bodies, faith that we will give some of our earnings to keep it functioning and faith that we will remain largely peaceful and respectful of one another.
In exchange we as citizens place our trust in the individuals that make up the institution, to follow the public laws and to act in a manner we collectively call American values.
Though the exact definition of those American values are as different as each of us, they have some core tenets we can agree on that are not too different from those held by many of the world's citizens.
Those range from observing basic human rights and a respect for life, to honoring our obligations and keeping our word. It is the least we should expect from those who are elected as our representatives.
If they fall short of some ideal in their private lives we hear it. For my own part what anyone does behind closed doors as a consenting adult is of no interest, as long as it's not interfering with their job and they are doing that job well.
