"We, the citizens of America, are now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country and to restore its promise for all of our people.
Together, we will determine the course of America and the world for years to come.
We will face challenges. We will confront hardships. But we will get the job done."
When I was about eleven, during the cold war, I remember thinking that when I reached 70 or so we would have slowly and piece by piece solved America's problems.
Now in 2018 at 76 years old, I look back and see progress in some areas, but many more problems that now appear not just difficult, but nearly impossible to solve for they are now deeply engraned in our culture and government. And in the 20th century two unnecessary wars of historic proportions, started by America, that resultd in millions of deaths that we hardly remember.
What I had thought of as a great country had far more flaws than I realized. What I think at 76 is a few of those flaws have been reduced or eliminated.
But now I see a history lacking greatness, a horrendous dishonesty, a callus disregard for life and rights and a people who don't think about them. We burned witches and catholics. We committed genocide against Native Americans. We broke treaties by the basketful.
And we kept slaves. Which we freed, but now do not teach our children what cruelty slavery really was.
Then we were great for a few years, saving Europe in two world wars.
Then after a handfull of years we began a decline.
We believed our Constitution and economic system were flawless. And our religions perfect. And slowing began taking democracy away from our people. Unions, safety nets, taxation, eventually gave us something suggesting a feudal economy.
It gave us a Supreme Court, lobbiests, and a congress owned by the top 1%.
It gave us two wars fought for no reason, that killed millions of people.
It gave us a prison population, health care system and education system that would be embarassements fo many 3rd world countries.
And, irony of ironies it gave us a president, supported by the people most damaged by our economic system, who is too stupid to realize he is destroying the world. And a 1% too happy to give a damn.
And so we put out the most polutants, are responsible for the climate crisis and refuse to even acknowledge it exists. And make plans to make it worse.
For me, it makes doing this website a nightmare.