Change. Is Our Responsibility.

For those of you that try to remain current, like I try to do, on the happenings of the United States we are probably all too familiar with the the current laundry list of ailments that plague this nation. An outdated infrastructure, a trillion dollar deficit on top of our calamitous debt, a poorly regulated health care system, an elite that is growing wealthier, a middle-class that is growing poorer, an ongoing war in the graveyard of empires, a global climate issue which is approaching irreversible, a sensationalist media (and public), and a democratic system that I believe does not allow for our elected representatives to address these long-term issues.
I, probably like you, understand the enormous undertaking our generation is going to have to take to resolve at least a handful of these problems, but I, probably like you, have done very little, if anything to address them. We live in a generation of bloggers, talking heads, inter-connectivity to the highest extent, and in short, brevity (Twitter forces us to summarize our actions in 140 characters or less.) We can analyze and discuss until we are blue in the face but what does that change? I don't have the answers to any of these great questions but I'm positive that we do. I don't have any of the solutions to these great problems, but I"m sure one of us will.
Last November I drove to the Obamapalooza rally in Grant Park. Grown men hugged, elderly women cried, college students sang and danced, and we were excited. I think we realized, far too quickly, that one person, one name, one hope cannot change a system two centuries old, but we can. This great nation is ours to inherit, but so are the problems.