The New American Story
Chapter 1. The Story We’re Told
All Americans want a good life for themselves and their families. They want to be proud of their country and to believe that it can live up to its ideals. A friend asked me recently if I thought dealing with our national problems was possible in the money-soaked political and media world we live in. I said “Yes,” emphatically—anything is possible in America. But no one is going to make us do the right thing. It’s our choice.
Either we can ignore our country’s problems until they’re so big that they’re almost impossible to solve or we can make the substantive decisions now that will secure America’s future. At this watershed moment, political courage and political action have to take precedence over ideology. Politics, like many other human activities, can become inflexible. Once that happens, what needs to be done to save the whole cannot break through. We are at such a moment.
How can ordinary citizens bring about a change in the political culture that will give us a fresh start and realize our best hopes as a nation? Will one of our two major parties seize the ...
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