America simply doesn???t have time anymore for exhausting any options other than the right ones

 Winston Churchill was fond of saying that “America will always do the right thing, but only after exhausting all other options.” The authors of That Used To Be Us: How America Fell Behind In The World Is Invented And How We Can Come Back, Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum (pages 8-9 & 35) believe that it is urgent for America to come back and be strong again as a country. They believe our country is in a slow decline, just slow enough for us to be able to pretend–or believe–that a decline is not taking place.

They argue that this slow-motion decline has four broad causes.

~ First, since the end of the Cold War, we, and especially our political leaders, have stopped starting each day by asking the two questions that are crucial for determining public policy: What world are we living in? and What exactly do we need to do to thrive in this world?

~ Second, over the last twenty years, we as a country have failed to address some of our biggest problems–particularly education, deficits and debt, and energy and climate change–and now they have all worsened to the point where they cannot be ignored but they also cannot effectively addressed without collective action and collective sacrifice.

~ Third, to make matters worse, we have stopped investing in our country’s traditional formula for success, a formula that goes back to the founding of our country.  It includes a partnership between the public and private sectors to sfoster economic growth by: Providing public education, building and continual modernizing of our infrasture, keeping our doors open to immigrants, government support for basic research and development and the implementation of necessary regulations on private economic activity. That formula has allowed America to navigate the many turns it is faced in history. 

~ Fourth, we have not been able to fix our problems or invest in our strengths because our political system has become paralyzed and our system of values has suffered serious erosion.

The authors of this book, being optimists, will offer their own strategy for overcoming these problems.                                                                                

  I believe that these are barriers/causes that we as a country must respond to.  We can’t allow the “slow-motion” decline to continue.  It is time for each of us to commit    and contribute in intentional ways to move through these barriers as a country.