Healing America

Update: Stealing Truth - The John Fund Back Story

The Attorney General of New York has received the complaint as well as the incoming US Attorney General.

At the stroke of noon on Tuesday, January 20^th, America breathed a sigh of relief that echoed across the world. I say that and I am a registered Republican who understands the cost of blowing the whistle on Bush and his associates. Of the many things that George Bush destroyed the Republican Party was only one institution. The GOP, once the proud advocate of freedom, was destroyed, its mission extinguished. Our economy, our rights, the Constitution, and the respect America once held across the world are also dead.

The least important of these is, of course, the GOP. It is not political parties that matter, but people. From the streets of America, where veterans pick through trash cans and from Gaza where children are dying from head wounds inflicted by bullets paid for by US taxpayers, it is people who are dying without hope.

At one second past noon on Tuesday, January 20^th, a new president took into his hands the power to enact change. People across the country wept tears of joy. In Santa Fe 40 children, young teenagers, held their own inaugural party, recreating the event. They will never forget that moment.

Barack Obama has began a task of daunting proportions. Along with accountability, and the President has said this is also coming, Obama is calling for stimulus packages. These will jump start the economy and put Americans back to work. Obama named as his first priority America's infrastructure. Our bridges, our dams daily grow more degraded and dangerous to all of us. Engineers hold their breath as they monitor the deterioration, knowing lives are at risk as we saw in Minneapolis on Aug. 1, 2007. In California fifty percent of bridges are unsafe and those in charge know this.

Our veterans, who fought a war both unnecessary and criminal, are returning to homelessness, afflicted with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. We moved into the danger zone, unconscious of what was happening around us.

War was made on us by Bush and his predecessors, converting our governmental and economic infrastructure. Those who did this were motivated by greed. They intended to steal everything, including our future. What are bridges and dams but the visible part of the future we leave our children?

Romans built for millennia. Our bridges, dams and other public works projects were built to last just long enough for the politically connected contractors to cash their checks, paying off their political cronies.

All of them need to be held accountable. Go here to blow your whistle.

The problems we confront are enormous. By coming together we can solve those problems. Sharing information, identifying what works, and refusing to accept the status quo brings its own power. There was a time when families sat down together then Dad lost his job. They looked at the problem, deciding how to stretch the pennies. The president has given us such an opportunity. To use it effectively we, the people, need to ensure that the funds from the stimulus packages are used wisely. Those who will make those decisions locally and in Congress need to know the same old solutions from the same contractors cannot be trusted. These funds must be used to ensure rapid deployment of new technologies that last and provide jobs.

Paul Pugh, a long time environmentalist who owns Sequoia Valley Resources and has produced and tested many of the new technologies said, “Engineers realize now it is all about using the right product for the application. Archeology has part of the answer. We rediscovered how the Romans did it and went them one better. Pieces of clay pottery lasted thousands of years. Our products can do the same.”

Infrastructure built this way can be in use in the year 3000 for the same or less money, generating as many jobs now. These are technologies in use around the world. As Pugh says, “This is not rocket science.” Politics denied them to us before.

Changing how we build will change your own home. That home can become the heritage you leave your great-great grandchildren, it will need no energy for heating or cooling and generate all the power you need.

Returning veterans suffering from PTSD can restart their lives. Many see PTSD sufferers as permanently marginalized. Instead they can became the core for new ways to live well in community. All of us can and must do the same, we need to be open to new and better ways of living. If we take up that challenge we can build prosperous futures for ourselves as we rediscover what it means to be an American.

Michael Olson, the owner of Metrofarm and the author of the book of the same name has helped many begin making a living providing products close into urban areas, solving the problem of transport while providing healthier food options. Multiply him by thousands who have spent their lives on solutions that work. From transportation to communications there are solutions, not one but many. America Goes Home examines and lists solutions and you can find more yourself.

We can build bridges that span the centuries, leading to a sustainable future for our descendants.