How Can We Improve America?

"Ask not what your county can do for you, ask what you can do for your country?"quoth John F, Kennedy. We may not have voted for him ( I was too young) but were shocked and saddened by his death.

I can vote
Discuss politics civilly
Pay taxes
Try not to pollute the environment

Any other ideas?

Be engaged in local politics where truly one vote counts. Be aware of what goes on in the schools. Participate in the campaigns of potential legislators with promise. Support local businesses. Learn to live with quality instead of quantity. Be conservative with resources and generous with love and compassion. Volunteer for organizations in which you believe. Speak out in favor of practices that are positive in the editorials and against those that are harmful - wherever they are.

If you are not an activist person, make it easier for someone else to represent your thoughts through their behavior. I do not wish to canvas or make phone calls; but I do the data input to free up those for whom that is a satisfying activity.

What DK said.

Ann

Thank you Ann and DK.
Spreading good news helps too.
Avoid the negative.

I've mentioned it before - and again, because it's difficult for me to follow. But my church teaches that every thought is a prayer - thus we need to think in a positive direction or we are putting negative bits of energy into the universe to combine with each other. Instead, even our prayers and meditations need to be filled with assumptions and affirmation of the positive nature of the Spirit's love in this world and try to tap into that instead of the negative energy that is so easy to find and so difficult to shake once it grabs hold.

The Law of Attraction fits here.
What we are speaks so loud See: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/01/27/what-you-do-speaks/
I think if we live a life that we want to see in others, we will be doing more than words can say.

People will change only when they personally feel a need to change.

Abe F. March wrote:

I think if we live a life that we want to see in others, we will be doing more than words can say.

People will change only when they personally feel a need to change.

And that will happen when they believe in themselves, in their acceptability, and their own worthiness and value.

We have to believe that we are a part of a greater whole, that we have a reason to exist, and are capable of making a positive contribution.

Quote :

The most irrevocable expression of the separation of life from life today is the attitude of social groups within nations towards each other, and the attitude of nations themselves towards other nations. The walls of distance, in time and space, have been removed by technical progress; but the walls of estrangement between heart and heart have been incredibly strengthened.
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Thus, the state of our whole life is estrangement from others and ourselves, because we are estranged from the Ground of our being, because we are estranged from the origin and aim of our life. And we do not know where we have come from, or where we are going. We are separated from the mystery, the depth, and the greatness of our existence. We hear the voice of that depth; but our ears are closed. We feel that something radical, total, and unconditioned is demanded of us; but we rebel against it, try to escape its urgency, and will not accept its promise
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It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: "You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!" If that happens to us, we experience grace After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance.
Paul Tillich; The Shaking of the Foundations; "Chapter 19: You are Accepted;" 1955

http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=378

Annie

I've been taking a few minutes to reread some bits of this book, since I pulled the online version up to make it easier to quote, and ran across this paragraph from the second chapter. I remember it haveg a strong effect on me the first time I read it:

Quote :

There is a third element in the order of history, uniting finiteness and sin: the tragic law which controls the historical process, the law which ordains that human greatness utterly fall. There is human greatness in history. There are great and conquering nations and empires; there are even nations and empires which manifest a certain righteousness. There are princes and even good princes; there are judges and even just judges. There are states and constitutions and even states and constitutions which provide a certain amount of freedom; there are social orders and even some which provide a certain amount of equality. There are creative spirits and even some which have the power of knowledge and understanding. But just in being great and powerful and righteous they touch the divine sphere, and they become arrogant, and they are brought to nothing. They are without roots; they wither; the divine storm blows over them, and they vanish. That is the subject of Greek tragedy. That is the message of the prophet to the nations of the world. They are all subject to the law of tragic self-destruction, the bad and the good, individuals and nations, the weak and the heroic. And again the other order, the order beyond history and tragedy, appears at the horizon: He gives power to the faint and their strength is renewed, so that they shall mount up with wings as eagles.

Edward F. Edinger is a Jungian psychologist who wrote several books which compared the Biblical stories to psychology. In Ego and Archetype he made a similar comparison to Tillich's. He described what he called the "ego-Self axis," where we sort of play out that Greek tragedy thing of hubris, over and over, until some individuals, after a while, are able to break out of the cycle and reconcile the ego with our Archetypal Self(the "god" within - Holy Spirit - soul part of us, etc. I would have to look the passage up to say it better).

Ann

Thanks , all, great ideas!

Let's remember to count our blessings and laugh too.

The title to this thread is a challenging one to answer. How can We Improve America?

As I mentioned in a previous post, People will not change unless they personally feel a need to change. That would also apply to Nations. Unless or until America feels a need to change, it won't. Perhaps with financial disasters, pollution that is affecting global warming, there may be "reason" to change. Instead of looking abroad and condemning how other people live, we should look within. We start with ourselves. How do we treat our neighbors and friends? The Golden Rule is a good guide. Change will not happen overnight. That is a problem in America. We want things yesterday. We have lost patience. Patience is something we can practice at home. If it can't be done today, wait for tomorrow. That may be a new concept for some.
As we get older, we realize that all the hurry didn't accomplish much. Patience allows us to think, to contemplate before taking action.

Abe,


Very good point!

Yes, Abe. Especially with our current situation. I am glad that our president has not rushed to judgement in the turmoil of the middle east this past couple of weeks.

I admire his cool head. I think that both he and our secretary of state are handling a potentially disastrous situation as well as anyone could.

Ann

We can improve America by retaining President Obama.

Agreed, Ann.

Just as people make up a corporation, people make up a country. So, we the people affect change. We can vote. We can set an example. We can express our concerns. We can refuse to accept mob rule. It takes patience and lots of persistence. Our voices can be heard.

There's a chicken/egg situation here. I feel it unfortunate that the Middle East had to erupt during a presidential campaign so that every move made by the present administration could be examined and proclaimed inept by Romney/Ryan. In a time of international crisis, a nation needs to stand as one mind to the world in spite of internal disagreement. Campaign rhetoric intended to undermine the President of the United States reflects the desire to get votes, not a contribution to world peace. That rhetoric would be slower and less damning if it wasn't a little over a month until election day.

Agreed, DK.
We forget that the world is watching. We want to be the leader. What do our actions tell the world? Our Pledge of Allegiance says, "One nation indivisible..." and yet politically, it is divisible to an extreme. Candidate Romney has shown the world how inept he is. His latest gaff is wondering why windows on an airplane can't be opened. We made fun of Dan Quayle when he told kindergarden children to add an "e" to potato. Now we have a would-be President that shows his incompetence and ignorance to the world. That on the heels of GWB that made America the laughing stock of the world. Obama has repaired much of the damage showing the world that he is intelligent and has compassion. He doesn't rush to judgment nor is he seen as one who will get us involved in a needless war. How to control an Ally that can get us into war is a problem yet to be solved.

You could always let us run your country for you like you do ours

9/25/2012

We have no leaders in this country, their all a bunch

of chickens running round with their heads in their hands.



Cheers.Joe..

That's a little extreme, Joe. We do have some statesmen, they are just hard to find among the career politicians who have already closed up shop and gone home with the country unemployed. After all, their pay, perks and pensions have no relation to their performance or days on the job. They answer to the sources of their campaign funds. They are simply in another world in which we are not engaged.

Score one for private industry: A local school run by a for-profit charter company closed its doors unannounced Monday, firing everyone and leaving the students in the lurch for someplace to attend since it was an alternative school and they are at the bottom of their choices. The reason for closing and firing everyone? Budget. Period. It's one of those public funded charter schools that are supposed to do such a great job of education.

That's the difference between private industry and government: When private industry runs out of money they fire everyone and don't care what happens to them. When governments have budget shortfalls, they can't just "fire everyone" because the services still need to be performed and those they fire will still matter - they are tax paying citizens. They cannot just be fired and forgotten. Students are still entitled to an education.

The privately owned charter school mismanaged their budget so they closed their doors and fired everyone and dismissed the students. Now, the public schools will have to pick up the students in classrooms already in session for a month. The teachers and principal will have trouble finding employment because any hiring for the school year has been done already.

paul.griffiths.7543 wrote:

You could always let us run your country for you like you do ours

This country is Abe's country--He is a veteran:)

Very experienced people on this forum take time to try out their ideas and share information from many different perspectives. The forum has several great aspects, one is that we have people who live in different countries and are, therefore, able to share an even broader world view. Many are in the U.S., so world events tend to center on the U.S. I am ashamed to admit that our country is just so large and in the middle of this political campaign - that I pay scant attention to any other country except our own and our own's relationship to another.

We are a young country. We can learn much from the older and wiser nations that manage to take care of all their people and stay out of war.

9/25/2012

Thank God , 44 more days and this political disaster

will be over and everyone can go back to normalcy...



Cheers.Joe...

Joe

Get my picture painted:)

9/25/2012

Alice..

Not till the fat lady sings.....Nov.6,2012

if you loose you owe me a 5 lb box of Godiva

chocolates.....



Cheers...Joe...

Deal!