Carolyn Jack

Editor and CEO, Geniocity.com
A project of The Genius Group LLC

Recreating what can’t be fixed

Despite the hours of contemplation bestowed on me all last week while I waited for the next available tech-support person to answer, it didn’t occur to me until just now that my ordeal makes a good metaphor for the situation confronting our nation.

For eight years, Americans have been on hold, unable to reach help or take action themselves as our international reputation, environment, economy, educational system and Constitutional freedoms have been destroyed or defiled. And now that our new Tech-Supporter-in-Chief is finally on the job and trying to set things right, we’re beginning to realize that some of what was damaged may never be fully restored.

So, as I had to do with a couple of my blog posts, we Americans are going to have to reinvent what we’ve lost. If we’re smart and creative about it, we’ll end up with better stuff that we started with.

Education in the U.S. has been going downhill for decades and needs to be completely reimagined, starting with the 19th-century industrial assembly line it’s modeled on. Saving the life of our planet will require every brain cell we have just to bring the Earth back to the compromised state of health it was in 20 years ago. But if we choose the right new strategies and practices and stick to them, our children’s children may learn more effectively and have a cleaner, cooler world to live in. 

Obama has already begun to change how other nations view us, just by getting elected. But he’ll need our encouragement and ideas and, most of all, our willingness to change our behavior if the U.S. is to become, for the first time, a leader that other nations can trust to live up to our own stated standards, heed international law and work for the common good. Being truly responsible and fair - that’s going to take a serious self-makeover.

We’re going to have to realize that our livelihoods and our futures depend on the U.S. being a good global citizen and a center for creativity. 

Or else. Because we have met our tech support – and it is us.

Time to hang up that phone

 and take action!