How Can We Expect to Get the Right Answers if We Fail to Ask the Right Questions?

7 Critical Questions for 21st Century Americans

In order to reveal the right answers to our current economic dilemma, Americans must first step outside their conventional 20th century boxes and be willing to ask the right questions. In that light I’d like to contribute the following 7 questions in an effort to initiate discussion, and to see what kinds of 21st century answers they might inspire.

1. Do we Americans really want a democratic government of the people, by the people, and for the people? In other words, do we really want to take the responsibility for governing ourselves, or do we prefer to subcontract that responsibility out to others who will gladly tell us what to do?

2. And if we really want that kind of freedom and responsibility, are we willing to dedicate ourselves to all that’s required day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, and generation after generation in order to earn that kind of fully human opportunity?

3. If we answer these first two questions in the affirmative, then how can we systematically democratize the free market economy without resorting to heavy handed government, socialistic leaning regulations that tend to undermine individual initiative, creativity, and innovation? To my mind, this is the 64 trillion dollar question of the 21st century.

4. Along the same lines, how can we systematically democratize the modern, top down, hierarchical, autocratically oriented corporation within whose walls most Americans spend the highest percentage of their productive lives?

5. How can we systematically get ownership/management and labor working on the same side, pulling in the same direction, at the same time, towards the same ends, working in harmony, instead of constantly at odds with each other? Miraculous things could occur under such a synergistic scenario.

6. How can we systematically shrink the cancerous wealth gap that threatens any precarious experiment in democracy, and realistically address poverty in America and the world without government mandated, cyclical redistributions of wealth?

7. How can we have a legitimate democratic political system without a democratized economy? In other words, when wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of a few at the expense of the many, what’s to stop the rich and powerful from buying up, owning, and operating the American government, and running it to suit their own self serving ends?

Rick Osbourne
Osbourne.rick@gmail.com

An Open Letter to Sarah Palin from Chicago: Thoughts on How to Turn Red and Blue States Into the Re-United States of America

Dear Governor Palin,
In my 62 years of life, I’ve discovered that if you’re willing to search long enough and hard enough, there are very few people with whom you can’t find ONE issue on which to agree. Now I want to confess right up front that I’m from Chicago and I’m an unapologetic supporter of Barack Obama, which means there are plenty of issues on which you and I disagree. But after scouring all the possibilities, I’ve finally discovered one issue on which we are kindred spirits. That’s the issue of home schooling.

You Betcha We Can Agree on Home Schooling
Yes, you and I are both strong proponents of home schooling. We came to our conclusions for different reasons. You came to yours due to your religious convictions. I came to mine due to the 17 years I spent in the teaching ranks and seeing what we were doing to our nation’s kids in the name of education…whether in public or private schools. So despite the fact that you and I are on opposite ends of the political spectrum in lots of ways, there is at least one point on which you and I strongly agree.

One Turns Into Two, and Two Into Four, etc.
Furthermore, with that one point of common ground in mind, I suggest that if I were ever offered the opportunity to sit down (no pre-conditions please) with you in order to explore our respective motivations for being in favor of home schooling, my bet is that we’d find another issue or two on which we could also agree.
And if we were to explore those next two issues, we’d probably find more and more things on which we could agree. In fact if push came to shove, my bet is that we’d find more things on with we agree than on which we disagree. And in the process we’d find common ground on which to respect each other. Furthermore, on those issues where we disagree, we could do so respectively without calling each other names, or thinking that the other was a flaming idiot for disagreeing with us.

Dividing and Conquering Americans
The bottom line here is to recognize that modern politics (the Atwood/Rove School) is so incredibly adept at finding things on which people disagree, and then pitting red states against blue states, men against women, blacks against whites, union workers against non-union workers, Christians against Muslims, gays against straights, young against old, businesses against government, that we the people are so thoroughly confused, frustrated, distracted, and angry we forget that for the most part, most people want the same things out of life, and there’s almost always more things on which we agree than disagree. All that makes our current process of divide and conquer politics (and hate mongering) absolutely abominable.

Sarah’s Phone Number?
I know Senator Obama is way ahead of me on this line of thinking and now that he’s won the Presidency, maybe we can once again move toward becoming the United States of America instead of the Divided States of America. But Sarah, if you’d send me a phone number, I really would love to speak with you and explore the home schooling issue…just for starters.

Sincerely,

Rick (The Writer) Osbourne
Osbourne.rick@gmail.com
630-495-3445