Visiting the Awakening Giant

I've just returned from a visit to the USA after sometime distant from the World's defender of democracy. I could witness to great satisfaction that some aspects of American Society that gave them credit in the past were still there, but I could also feel some old evils still present as well. As with many trips, there were good things and bad things to be gathered into my repertoire of experiences.

For instance, it was somewhat disheartening to see that many of the habits Americans have acquired during the age of Petrol Burning and Consumerism are still strong and show no signs of change. It was appalling to witness the waste of electrical energy perpetrated by Americans; as exemplified by shops in Miami leaving their air conditioning at full strength for the benefit of a single shop clerk whilst keeping the doors to their shops open to the streets on a hot September day. Equally disheartening was to find that the city of Miami proposes no evident recycling programme and that citizens do not have a habit of recycling. The level of waste generated by packaging was also noteworthy. Packagings for individual portions of foodstuffs seem like such a waste when you think that the packaging is far more expensive and harmful to nature than what’s inside of it. When will we all learn that petrol is finite and that we need to take charge of changing our habits? When will we learn that there are consequences to the predatory way of life proposed by Consumerism? The resilience against the changing of habits I felt from the average Americans with whom I had the chance to discuss such matters was another subject for surprise. It is as if they are surrounded in a womb of dreams and I was intent on ripping them from the warmth of their delusion. I was amazed to see many of them still blindly denying global warming as if it was a plot against their economy.

Yet, this is a people noteworthy for their capacity to seek justice, and therein is their hope for achieving new socioeconomic balance for themselves. This is a people proud of their history, their democracy and their will to be a strong nation. They are a people still investing in equal rights and still seeking to improve the availability of opportunity to all. I saw this when I visited the well tended University of Rochester, the fabulous Metropolitan Museum, and a somewhat degraded Museum of Natural History that still had much to offer its patrons. This was the reassuring point of my visit and it gave me a glimpse of hope in that the American people will find new balance to cope with the challenges of a new age in the History of Mankind. I was pleased to see that people on the streets are less indifferent to one another than they once were. I was happy to witness peaceful civil protests by public workers who debated the hard decisions their state governments were forced to make when faced with economic strangleholds; for it felt that they were talking to one another about issues of unsustainable concessions and the compromises that they are faced with to resolve them. I was content in a new government that is intent on promoting a just and more encompassing health system, and that is engaged in promoting a more sustainable economic model for Americans. The fact that American electrical resources are greatly a result of the burning of fossil fuels notwithstanding, I was glad to see that Americans are seeking automobiles that rely on hybrid electric and economical combustion engines, and that their government is sponsoring this change.

In summary, the wheels of change have begun to roll for this great nation. Though it will take time to see palpable results, I was left with every confidence that change will come – and for the better – for Americans and the world that looks on them as leaders.