President Obama's bus tour of the Midwest is designed, smartly and necessarily, to inspire Americans, to instill a sense of pride in our country and its future. In his address this week, the President lauds the discipline, integrity, responsibility, creativity, resourcefulness, and determination of regular Americans. We are not the problem, the President says. Rather, politicians in Washington need to live up to our high standard of behavior and whip together a plan to reduce our unemployment and debt.
This may all be true, but as an American myself, I am neither convinced nor inspired - not yet. It's not that I don't trust President Obama as a person, and I do have faith in myself and my fellow citizens. But when the President met with small business owners, what did he see? What, exactly, was he inspired by? Do they have functional, unique business strategies? Are they making use of social media and green technology? Are they producing or marketing local goods?
President Obama, I want to be inspired, and I am willing to be. I was inspired on June 24, when you announced the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, a program that connects scientists and entrepreneurs to the funding necessary to pursue their ideas. You told me of the brilliant minds at work throughout the nation's top research institutions, and you cited specific examples of their work.
Stale platitudes will not inspire me. It's easy to say that we're hard-working, that we're the greatest country on earth. But to be inspired, I need to hear real stories of contemporary American success. So you met with inspiring small business owners. What did they tell you at your meeting? What are they doing that's so great?
There is one other item that would really inspire me, something that's been missing from political discourse for most of my life. Why doesn't President Obama, or any other national politician, tell us that we're smart? Sometimes politicians say that students and professors and scientists are smart. But never the American people. What if the President said, and believed, that we are the smartest country on earth? That we are honest, hard-working, and intelligent? As an incidental bonus, the President might finally shake the persistent notion that he, himself, is "elitist."
I have a hunch that if our politicians could believe that we are, for the most part, intelligent, discerning, and engaged citizens, we would live up to this promise. Maybe being smart could become cool - not only among schoolchildren, but among business owners, construction workers, and football fans. Maybe we would watch less TV. Maybe we would read the newspaper, try a new book, and encourage our kids to come home not with a B, but an A. Instead, too many Americans remain obstinately ignorant, distrustful of information, feeling hopelessly uninformed. And as a result, we are left prey to unscrupulous politicians who continue to game us with bogus economic theory, indulging our prideful ignorance.
I know that I would be more inspired not only to work hard, but to think hard, if President Obama believed in our country's brainpower. Every day in America, I encounter individuals who are pleased, a little amused, by their own ignorance. Maybe being ignorant would not be as funny if President Obama led our nation to believe that we are smart and thoughtful. Because we are. I am sure of it. But no matter how intelligent we are, it won't do us any good if we don't believe it.
This may all be true, but as an American myself, I am neither convinced nor inspired - not yet. It's not that I don't trust President Obama as a person, and I do have faith in myself and my fellow citizens. But when the President met with small business owners, what did he see? What, exactly, was he inspired by? Do they have functional, unique business strategies? Are they making use of social media and green technology? Are they producing or marketing local goods?
President Obama, I want to be inspired, and I am willing to be. I was inspired on June 24, when you announced the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, a program that connects scientists and entrepreneurs to the funding necessary to pursue their ideas. You told me of the brilliant minds at work throughout the nation's top research institutions, and you cited specific examples of their work.
Stale platitudes will not inspire me. It's easy to say that we're hard-working, that we're the greatest country on earth. But to be inspired, I need to hear real stories of contemporary American success. So you met with inspiring small business owners. What did they tell you at your meeting? What are they doing that's so great?
There is one other item that would really inspire me, something that's been missing from political discourse for most of my life. Why doesn't President Obama, or any other national politician, tell us that we're smart? Sometimes politicians say that students and professors and scientists are smart. But never the American people. What if the President said, and believed, that we are the smartest country on earth? That we are honest, hard-working, and intelligent? As an incidental bonus, the President might finally shake the persistent notion that he, himself, is "elitist."
I have a hunch that if our politicians could believe that we are, for the most part, intelligent, discerning, and engaged citizens, we would live up to this promise. Maybe being smart could become cool - not only among schoolchildren, but among business owners, construction workers, and football fans. Maybe we would watch less TV. Maybe we would read the newspaper, try a new book, and encourage our kids to come home not with a B, but an A. Instead, too many Americans remain obstinately ignorant, distrustful of information, feeling hopelessly uninformed. And as a result, we are left prey to unscrupulous politicians who continue to game us with bogus economic theory, indulging our prideful ignorance.
I know that I would be more inspired not only to work hard, but to think hard, if President Obama believed in our country's brainpower. Every day in America, I encounter individuals who are pleased, a little amused, by their own ignorance. Maybe being ignorant would not be as funny if President Obama led our nation to believe that we are smart and thoughtful. Because we are. I am sure of it. But no matter how intelligent we are, it won't do us any good if we don't believe it.
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