Solutions and Problems

Owlgarden People who know me well also know that I am no friend to Corporate greed and short-sightedness toward Energy policy, Employee responsibility (formerly known as loyalty), and the exploitation of third world industry in order to better the bottom line of an accounting sheet presented here in America. There are lots of problems with America, especially perceived if you're a liberal who has compassion toward all the hungry and impoverished people here and elsewhere around the globe. Industries like Automotive, Tobacco, and Petroleum corporations are failing the American people with their lack of motivation to address these issues and , by way of their international sales, this also fails the rest of the world . Our republican administration seems to want it this way by supporting corporations as if they were wealthy individuals- not as an infrastructure to our economy, letting these corporations perform terrible acts of irresponsibility toward the environment, and forgetting that generations following us will be left with a deathly planet of poison and disease. Rather than complain endlessly about this arrogant attitude (which I do elsewhere on this blog) I propose doing a bunch of stuff to help forward the cause of building a New World Order, not THAT New World Order based on terror politics in the Middle East and Asia, but replacing the conservative policies of our government with that of a peaceful initiative, future forward looking policies, and the rebuilding the attitudes of Energy, Health, Education, Transportation, and Media Industries toward a more social corporate responsibility. First off, you cannot blame American people for smoking. The key problem here is the tobacco industry and the failure of FDA to ban nicotine as a problematic ingredient. It is obvious to me, as a smoker, that I would smoke way less without the addictive qualities of nicotine, and probably not smoke tobacco at all if other substances of less addicting qualities were legalized. I find it weird that as a smoker who would like to quit, the government is not taking responsibility in this. I mean, the government should be telling the tobacco companies to shape up or pick up the tab. All instances of litigation of the 90's -billions of dollars - were mishandled and abused-dumped into lame-ass programs hardly benefitting anyone but the lawyers. The government has to step up and strike the industry where it hurts- and that's in the addictive fuel of nicotine. How do you do this? 1) Declare nicotine a controlled substance on the level of Cocaine and heroine. 2) Create a policy of 0% Nicotine in non prescribed products. 3) Let the tobacco companies continue the business but give them a time line to eliminate the nicotine in their products. 4) Encourage Big tobacco to grow Big cannabis instead. Why cannabis? Because it is economically sound to grow and has far more useful purpose in producing cloth, paper, and oils than tobacco has. Legalize it, don't criticize it. Secondly, There should be NO tolerance for lowering gasoline and industrial emissions standards at all. SUVs burning less than 25 miles per gallon should taken OFF THE ROAD. Trucks should be forced to comply with equivalent standards as well, and conversion to alternate energy propulsion systems must start today. . There are dark days ahead if this is not done now. We have the technology to build personal and industrial technologies that don't pollute and Americans will have to learn to move a little slower for the sake of the world. If America does this so will the rest of the world. This I know. Third, We have to change what we are teaching children. The Republicans and the Democrats seem to think that Arts, Music and Sports aren't that important compared to math scores and reading comprehension tests. By requiring schools to meet some politicized standard for learning isn't learning- it is Pavlovian training. Creativity through multiple means of expression, coordinating resources among communities rather than forcing them to compete for funds (children being the victim in this case) is not right. We have to turn this around and make Arts, Music and Sports the conduit for Math and Reading and social learning. We are in a society that is short on long term achievement and long on short term attention span. And we reward this. Growth, in a child, is combined process of society, parenting, learning by doing, and experiencing positive behaviors in peers and adults. Fourth and lastly, We are predisposed to some ancient Judeo/Christian ethic that does not reflect our society as a whole. Indeed, where our founders established freedom of religion as long as it was their religion to practice freely. People need their religion in order to cope with their own personal issues but in America we should not tolerate the demands of any particular religious morality- which by itself often is defined by a political infrastructure. All Americans have a right to believe what they choose to believe in, regardless of the Government. This includes Buddhists, Atheists, Polytheists, Satanists, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Sun worshippers, what have you... The government cannot discern between these cultures, nor should it referred to on our money, in our courts, or in government institutions anywhere. Time to take your religion home and to your preferred temple. Don't try to proselytize me, I have my own relationship with my own peculiar Godhead and I won't try to convert you either. I have more to say on how we should change our America -Today I see a decadent society starting to tumble into calamity and our nationalistic attitudes reek of fascism and exploitation with our own population and in the world at large. Time to change this now. Revolution starts at home. -Owlgarden