Carter Speech from the 70's still talks to us today

The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.

The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.

The confidence that we have always had as a people is not simply some romantic dream or a proverb in a dusty book that we read just on the Fourth of July.

It is the idea, which founded our nation and has guided our development as a people. Confidence in the future has supported everything else -- public institutions and private enterprise, our own families, and the very Constitution of the United States. Confidence has defined our course and has served as a link between generations. We've always believed in something called progress. We've always had a faith that the days of our children would be better than our own.

Our people are losing that faith, not only in government itself but in the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy. As a people we know our past and we are proud of it. Our progress has been part of the living history of America, even the world. We always believed that we were part of a great movement of humanity itself called democracy, involved in the search for freedom, and that belief has always strengthened us in our purpose. But just as we are losing our confidence in the future, we are also beginning to close the door on our past.

In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.

The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world.

As you know, there is a growing disrespect for government and for churches and for schools, the news media, and other institutions. This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning.

These changes did not happen overnight. They've come upon us gradually over the last generation, years that were filled with shocks and tragedy.” END QUOTE

I suspect most of you to whom this was addressed will never read this far, but for those of you who have and who recognized the above as an excerpt from a speech by President Jimmy Carter delivered on July 15, 1979: an A+.  For the rest of us, it is enough to simply contemplate that this warning was delivered almost exactly a third of a century ago and its relevance is undiminished.  If anything, things are worse now than then.  Global warming, human population growth, Islamic extremism, shrinking arable land, ocean pollution, diminishing potable water and energy shortages are threats that have become more aggregated while the basic flaws in our social structure are undiminished and in many ways worse than ever.

I guess being able to see the future is no guarantee that it can be avoided.

So what is to be done?

In many of my rants, emails and conversations with many of you, I have expressed my worry and concern about the future and about my shame that my generation is the first in history to have left the planet a worse place for our descendants.  With all the acute problems we face and our apparent inability to form a government that is capable of even administering itself, much less begin to solve problems how can you not despair?  What can an individual do in the face of such monumental and daunting problems?

I have thought a lot about this and have been discouraged by the apparent inability of us as individuals to have much impact on these global difficulties.  Well, I am thought whining and wringing my hands and for me; I am simply going to choose to be more positive.  To take a conscious choice to not give in to despair and not add to the chorus of voices that proclaim the future of doom. 

To believe that things will be better in the future, I suppose is simply a leap of faith. 

The only evidence I have that it is even possibly justified is the simply joy and wonder of living that I see in my grandkids.  There is something inspiring and transcendent about the human spirit.  The joy and native optimism that we all have as children must be nurtured and allowed to displace the cynicism and pessimisms we see all around us.

It may not be much, but I am going to really try to follow the adage of “think globally and act locally”, by being more positive in my everyday life. 

I hope some of you can and will join me. 

I have been blessed with the gift of being able to see my grandchildren grow up without hunger or want and raised by parents of good character who love and nurture them.  I have been blessed with many wonderful friends and acquaintances from around the world who I cherish and whose memories I hold dear.  How can you not be positive in the face of all that? 

I hope you and your loved ones all have the very best of futures.