ESSAY:

Notes Toward an American Renaissance, Starting Now

Proposals on demilitarization, capitalism and corporations, work and meaning, health care, governance, and ecumenism.

In the last year, the most effective use of the vast American military in terms of building peace and friendship in the world was not the occupation of Iraq, but the comparatively tiny tsunami relief effort carried out be the navy in southeast asia. We should consider progressively transforming the vast logistical powers of our military establishment to the purpose of serving humanity, thus increasing our own real security in the process.

We need to re-examine society's contract with the corporation. If growth and profit for shareholders, and millions for top management, are the only value corporations recognize today, this is not the case for society. From society's point of view, the value of a corporation is to give productive employment to many individuals in an organized manner, such that the individuals' share of value created is greater than he or she could have managed alone. Depending on which view you choose, for example, large-scale outsourcing looks quite different.

There has been a growing movement to privatize what had been essential civic services administered by government in a manner accountable to the people. Corporations who make such essential services their business must bear, as part of the bargain, a responsibility to meet higher standards of transparency and accountability beyond those which govern ordinary corporations in the marketplace. We cannot afford a privatization which would allow corporate secrecy and non-accountability to undermine a century's long work building that degree of confidence and credibility in our social infrastructure which we enjoy today.

We must create a rational single-payer health-care system for America. It will cost no more in the long run than what we pay now, but can be vastly more productive of good health generally than our current non-system is. We need to do this for our citizens' sake, as well as the sake of our country, for a healthier citizenry will aid us in realizing our dreams.

Further, there are new dangers to prepare for. The human species has not been kind to animals. Whatever macro-life forms we don't eat, or keep as neutered pets, we consider pests. This latter category applies even to animals we like, such as the American buffalo, when it wanders from its quarantine. Many of the few remaining 'wild' animals we still hunt traditionally. Continuing like this, we can foresee a world where the only fauna left are ourselves and our feed animals. By then, a vast diversity of microbes will have been gearing up for the assault on the human genome, or that of our livestock, after millennia happily ensconced in now-extinct species. We will be hard-pressed in America to limit outbreaks of newly emerging diseases without an affordable, unified and universal provision of health care. The other industrial democracies do this, by varying formulas which we can study and learn from. We cannot allow entrenched health-care-industry interests to prohibit us from doing this.

We are also falling behind other nations in critical future skills such as science and engineering. We must urgently reverse this trend—but we should also remember that the purpose of education is ultimately not to compete with the Chinese for jobs, but to lead to the enrichment of the individual's life experience and therefore also that of society and culture. The quality of education won't improve by extending the school year, or by doubling a child's homework load, but rather with better learning environments, more inspired teachers, and a hefty dose of socratic method.

After a string of dubious election results. we must fix our voting system to restore confidence in the outcome. As Joseph Stalin said, "Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything."

If we wish to play a leading role in the world to come, we can no longer afford to see our house of government staffed with anything less than the best and the brightest we as a country can offer. We must lead American discourse away from the spasm of small-town xenophobia which set in after 9/11, toward a respect for other nations, other peoples, and international cooperation, if we want to be a player in the future, and not an obstructive bystander.