There's often a fine line between our feelings of security and our faith. As we watch the stock market take its long overdue slide downward, many of the pundits add a caveat to the their reporting, that refers to something known as consumer confidence. It is true that our faith in the future and the bits of paper we exchange, drives the huge engine that is the US economy.

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Patriotism, Faith and Equality

It's surprising to think because few of us feel that power. As individuals we largely feel powerless to stand against the titans of industry and holders of high office, but every one of them draws their status from us. They amass it one dollar or one vote at a time.

They spend fortunes to stay one step ahead of us to determine what package we'll buy in a product or a politician, every resource available is focused on guessing what we need to hear or see to make that shift from our hands to theirs.

It has been a long time since we ordinary people have felt our own sense of power. There was a time in my youth when we all felt it. It wasn't all good, revolutionary change seldom is.

it was a time filled with turbulence and strife, where the struggle for power was as palpable as the hormones raging in the corridors of a high school. The identical seductive lure of the forbidden, holding some ultimately satisfying reward, drew us with a force that was more primal than premeditated.

Cities burned and small towns were torn between the comfort of what had always been and the unknown of what might be. It was in the news, in the music, there was a current in the streets that was at once electrifying and uncertain. The status quo was coming undone on every front.

To some it seemed the very fabric of society was being torn apart but for those who had been left out, without a voice or a chance to cross an invisible barrier it seemed like a chance to weave a new patchwork of inclusiveness and equality.

The rifts were everywhere, between the adults and the youth, the blacks and whites, the establishment and the anti-war protesters, the feminists and the chauvinists, it was within each of us as people. As Americans we were forced to collectively look at who we were as a people and what that offered to us as individuals.

It was an environment that begged or forced us to do soul searching to ask what we believed in for ourselves and our future, then challenged us to go commit ourselves to that goal with the faith that believing was enough.

The spirit of that time drifted away like the incense we burned; a scent that was a mix of blood and sweat, passion and abandon was replaced with scented sprays dispensed from night lights. A whole generation of Americans have never known their own power.

We have bequeathed them a culture of credit, where dreams are downloaded and what remains of the anthems for a new way have been transformed to commercials for new credit, new investments, new moods, new corn syrup drinks, with something added that promises to give a body what it needs for a better you if only you trust in the fantasy.

What we looked for then was a faith in ourselves to go make a different vision a reality. We gained confidence as leaders of every stripe inspired us to trust in ourselves, to make the dreams of a better tomorrow a reality.

So much was done with that enthusiasm, both Herculean challenges and little modifications. We put a man on the moon and brought our troops home from a war, integrated our schools and gave women the right to play school sports, toxic chemicals were outlawed and we began to clean our fetid National waterways so that life could return where there had been nothing but death for too long.

It seemed nothing was impossible and nothing we fought for in numbers was not better for our efforts. Our government saw a shift of power too as our faith became tied to accountability. The Freedom of Information Act and oversight legislation gave us the right to know what we were paying for and to have a way to demand that those who were sworn to serve us in office weren't serving other aims.

We Impeached a President and protected the integrity of the highest office in the land then went on to launch a revolution in technology that would usher in an information.

Buoyed by our faith in the rightness of our path, we watched welcome changes creep across the landscape of America. Women and minorities went from oddities to common sites on the campuses and at construction sites, in corporate offices, careers, professions and posts that had never welcomed them before.

By the numbers the news was of slow steady improvement, opportunity had replaced opposition and the focus went from all of us, to each of us with individual goals.

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.

But in their role as public servants we put our faith and trust in the fact that they strive to perform honestly and honorably, within the laws of the United States of America and for the good of the people they represent.

We have placed our faith in them and they in turn owe us their best effort to be our voice in government. Their power is drawn from our faith and key to maintaining our faith is what we believe they are doing.

This is where all types of faith share a common element. There isn't a way to measure faith by a yard stick or a scale; it is an emotional quality we hold within.

It is made stronger or destroyed by the words and deeds we use to measure that concept or institution or individual in which we are asked to put our trust.

How we learn where to put that trust rests heavily on both personal experience and what we come to accept as truth. Very often the quote used to express the problem with beliefs is Mark Twain's, "It ain't so much the things we know that get us into trouble. It's the things we know that just ain't so." In many ways faith is like that.

We the people of America have put our faith in our government, Democrats, Republicans and a few at either end and in between. They have failed us and betrayed our faith. There was a headlining article this week counting the number of lies that President Bush and the Administration officials told in the lead up to the Iraq War.

For some it's about time we had statistical confirmation, this comes a no surprise. Others may be shocked and for some it remains a point of baseless attack, by critics with larger aims. The extent to which we are willing to accept that is the degree to which we have faith in the sources that have given us the information.

Among the most extreme critics of the Bush Administration the littlest hint at evidence is enough and at the polar opposite are those who may never have enough fact to unsettle their belief. In large measure, each side draws its belief from faith in the American media to report honestly about our politicians and what they do that we haven't had the ability to investigate on our own before the Internet age.

Though I am as staunch a critic of this Administration as anyone, it isn't totally fair that there is a factor of transparency and level of scrutiny from public participation in news that none of George W. Bush's predecessors faced. In some ways this frat boy with the silver spoon got more than he bargained for; he stepped into a role that has for very long protected a far wider and more insidious threat to American Democracy.

That threat is our faith in the representatives in Washington to devote themselves to the public service as they have sworn to do. While each one has laid a hand on the Bible and taken an oath to defend the Constitution and government which it frames, they have looked the other way as our financial security has evaporated.

They have let our men and women in uniform come home without limbs to a fetid and decaying Veterans Administration facilities like Walter Reed, bled dry by private contractor IAP Worldwide, with former VP Dan Quayle and other insiders cashing in on the Board. Meanwhile 200,000 of uniformed service members are left homeless. We reward those who glad hand and shuffle paper for their own benefit and penalize or abandon those who fight for our rights.

When Wall Street suffers from its own excess and the reckless actions come due in a collapse of inflated values, suddenly Washington finds the motivation, instantly to act as one. The last time there was this much unity was the Congressional pay raise and this is the exact same thing.

It is not the usurious lending rates, duplicitous contracts or foreclosures, but the pain of the financial sector that the Washington power circle winces for. They cry for themselves, not those who have nothing but their hearts and souls to give for the country we love. On the surface there may seem to be differences between the parties, and the Clinton Bush values, but so much is opinion and talk about what might be not the record of what is done. Follow the money and that will tell you who is really supporting whom.

We as a country continue to have faith in them out of ignorance and deception that is like honor among thieves between the corporate servants in the Capitol and their counterparts reporting. As you feel your anger or frustration or desire for fundamental change grow inside you, remember their power comes from the dollars in your wallet.

Every time you see one in your hand, remember that there is a transfer of power possible and think what it is you're giving that power to. Know in no uncertain terms they hear you loud and clear when you vote your dollars. Put your faith back in your neighbors, your small and local businesses, your community agriculture and yourselves.

None of us can do everything and it isn't all or nothing, but every vote we make for change brings us closer to reminding Washington who really holds the power, in a language they can understand. It is in ourselves we need and deserve to have faith and bet your bottom dollar flex that power and they will tow the line.

Authors Website: http://pameladrew.newsvine.com/

Authors Bio:
Pamela Drew tracks the legislation, politics, science and spin surrounding the genetically altered foods. She is a freelance researcher, writer and documentary film producer living in New York City, where she works with advocacy groups and small producers to create sustainable farming practices and community based agriculture programs. Pamela is the executive producer of the controversial film 'Roundup Ready Nation ~ dying for profits' www.roundupreadynation.com