It’s More than Just Raising the Debt Ceiling

It’s More than Just Raising the Debt Ceiling
By Guest Blogger: Dr. Thomas W. Harvey

It should have come as no surprise that the Super Committee failed to cooperate in the attempt to lower the nation’s spending.  When the committee membership was announced, we should have known that it would not be successful as partisan politics would take over once again, just like it did last summer with the debt ceiling fight.

It is also evident that there has been no sustained growth in stock prices as the averages have “waffled” between 10,000 and 12,800 in 2011, but nothing more than that. With no growth in the stock averages, it is apparent that the market was not impressed with the current economic policy of the United States, even though the country had come out of the great recession of 2008 very quickly and corporate earnings have been strong. Yes, the unemployment rate is still high, but generally, it had seemed like things were good financially, but the market didn’t think so.  The Dow Jones has shown increasing volatility in the latter half of 2011. Was it the debt ceiling deal that caused the volatility or was it something more?

If it had been the debt ceiling deal itself, the markets would have shown weakness on the Monday after the deal was announced. That didn’t happen. So, there had to be more to it. But, there was something about the debt ceiling fight that was a concern. The bitterness of the Boehner–Obama stalemate was over their own political agendas, and it did not seem that they had the good of the country in the forefront of their thinking. Didn’t they realize that the world’s financial markets were looking for strong, coordinated leadership from the policymakers of the world’s strongest country?  The last thing they wanted was political bickering that was put ahead of the importance of market stability. So, maybe the debt ceiling argument was not the cause of the market reaction, but maybe it was the signal of something bigger that triggered the significant sell-off.

Predictably, the first vote on the debt ceiling package passed the House and failed the Senate right along political party lines, again taking direction from their leadership: Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner. That suggested that rather than thinking about what was best for the people of the United States, and also the world, they were more concerned about their party line agenda. And, then, we were two days away from default. They had to have known about this issue for months and could have resolved it very quietly, but they waited until the last minute for an ideological statement on their political purposes.  And, then, Standard and Poor’s downgraded U.S. debt two days later from AAA to AAa+, the first time since 1917 that the U.S. was not AAA. Serious losses were expected on Monday on Monday, Aug. 8, which were confirmed as the Dow declined 635 points, or 5.55 percent.

So, here’s the problem that the world sees, Watching Mr. Boehner, Mr. Obama, the Super Committee, and the rest of Congress bicker and fight publicly for their own political agenda has shaken the confidence of the world’s financial markets in the U.S. Instead of worrying about the economic welfare of the country, it appears that they are concerned about their own agendas. The bottom line…they would default on the debt of the strongest country in the world for political reasons. That shook the world’s confidence in the ability of Washington to lead the global economy, raised questions about its ability to solve the problems of 2011 since it hasn’t solved the ones from 2008, and posed ethical questions about the policymakers who would rather put their own agendas before the good of the country.

The Heffern Institute partners with Purple America® to explore ethical issues and to have dialogue about the values that have made this country great.  After interviewing thousands of Americans, Purple America® determined that there are twelve (12) shared values, one of which is Doing the Right Thing.  That is our definition of ethics.  In our view, having our politicians more concerned about their own agendas and not the well being of the country is not doing the right thing.  They should be the example for the rest of us to follow, and the behavior we witnessed last summer was anything but the standard for us to emulate.

It wasn’t the debt ceiling crisis that started this financial concern, but the debt ceiling pointed out the shortcomings of American economic and financial policy. The world looks to America for financial leadership, which is based on confidence and trust.  It doesn’t look like the financial markets believe that they have either one. The question becomes systemic: how to restore that confidence and trust? The answer is easy to say, but apparently difficult to achieve. Only true bipartisan cooperation and compromise of political leaders, in conjunction with the Fed and Treasury, will enable it.   That is, they must make a commitment to doing the right thing.  However, that will take a long time, and I sincerely hope we have it.

Dr. Thomas W. Harvey is associate professor of finance at Ashland University and Director of Ashland University’s Gordon E. Heffern Institute for Contemporary Financial Studies. Harvey also is founder of the Eagle Investment Group, a student-managed investment group at Ashland.

 

 

 

Hoping for a Muppet America

Hoping for a Muppet America

By Stuart Muszynski, Founder/CEO PurpleAmerica.US

“Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices? I’ve heard them calling my name. Is this the sweet sound that called the young sailors? The voice might be one and the same. I’ve heard it too many times to ignore it. It’s something I’m supposed to be. Some day we’ll find it, the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreamers and me.”

                    – From the Muppet song, “The Rainbow Connection”

On Thanksgiving Day, together with my family, I went to see The Muppet Movie. It was the unanimous choice of my wife and I, and our two adult children, ages 27 and 23. I suspect the movie marketers rightly recognized a trend: that the movie would be popular not only with today’s children, but with families with grown children who long to recapture the smiles, hope and optimism they shared together when the children were young.

I suspect, too, that the writers of the movie understood that its timeless, wholesome message would resonate in a divided and what’s-in-it-for-me America where the Kardashians cash in while 14 million Americans are out of work and 46 million live in poverty.

In the new movie, Jason Segal and Amy Adams take Walter — a Muppet fan and wannabe — on a journey to Hollywood to see, then to save, the Muppet Theatre, which is about to be foreclosed upon by a greedy oil baron.  Each of the Muppets had gone their separate ways, without great success, to be their own stars. Led by Walter, the friends first find Kermit the Frog, who leads them to the other Muppets, where they come to the realization that, while no one Muppet can save the theatre, together they can, if they abandon their individual hurt, egos and ambitions for something greater.

But where are the Muppets in the real America? How is it that we’ve come to live in a time when Muppets behave more like leaders than our leaders do? How will we come together to save our show and who will emerge to unite us?

We need a Muppet America.

Many of us live an illusion that politicians, stars, athletes and other icons will change the course of history while we ordinary Americans tweet and watch reality TV. Others, such as the Tea Partiers and the Occupiers, are taking matters into their own hands. In a first step towards togetherness, they have found others of like mind. But the harder work is finding common ground with others of a different mindset so that we can continue to work together for a better America.

In a Muppet America, we would value saving the show over achieving our individual, group, or party’s interest. In a Muppet America, we would value togetherness and civility over divisiveness and mean-spirited, witty one-liners that make news. In a Muppet America, we would recognize that we, as Americans, are more alike than we are different.

I believe that the Tea Partiers, Occupiers, and vast majority in between hunger for that America. We all want the return of the bright promise of the American Dream. And while this may sound corny and trite, there are no leaders who are proposing bolder solutions. So maybe the bold solution is an amalgam of small solutions, led by ordinary people who create a positive chain reaction to be good, do good, and demand good, and in doing so, do well. Maybe then we can reverse the negative, selfish and destructive trends that, like bedbugs, have infested our financial system, political system and societal core.

We live in a country where men act like Muppets and Muppets act like men. But if we are to save our show, we each need to strive for a little greatness so that the goodness of America continues.

To see the how America’s values can help us get there, go to www.Purpleamerica.us

Follow Stuart Muszynski on Twitter at @purpleamericaus

 

Thanksgiving 2011: America Trusts God, but will God Trust America?

Rev. Dr. Calvin Butts, Jr.

Pastor, Abyssinian Baptist Church

President, SUNY College at Old Westbury

Board Member of purpleAmerica.us

 

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II

Democrat, Kansas City, Missouri

Chairman, Black Congressional Caucus

Co-chair, House Civility Caucus

 

Stuart Muszynski

Founder and CEO of purpleAmerica.us

Project Love Remember the Children Foundation

 

 

On this Thanksgiving of 2011, America is at a crossroads. Overall civility in politics and society is at an all-time low. Political leaders, placing party and re-election over doing the right thing, are not creating meaningful or sustainable policies. American businesses are not hiring. Working people cannot pay their bills or provide opportunity for their children. Markets are unstable. Untold numbers of Americans live in economic poverty that promotes a mental culture of poverty, hopelessness and distrust. The “99%” is starting to fight against the “1%”. Whether real or perceived, division is taking over.

Photo by: Ad Meskens

So why are we thankful to God?

By tradition, on our currency and in our courtrooms, Americans say “In God we Trust.”  Congress affirmed this pledge just a few weeks ago. But it is one thing to talk the talk; it is a whole other thing to walk the walk by acting worthy of God’s trust in us.

We hope, starting with this Thanksgiving, that Americans, led by Congress, can reach for that higher bar.

Thanksgiving presents us with moral lessons that can help get us there, and Thanksgiving, for us and our children, presents a teachable moment about who we are and what we stand for.

Rooted with Pilgrims who broke bread with indigenous peoples after they landed on America’s shores, Thanksgiving is an icon of goodness and decency. In an unpolluted land that presented both opportunity and risk to the Pilgrims, their first instincts were to thank the Almighty for their journey, their destination, and their warm neighbors.

In this tradition, Thanksgiving is recognition that we are not alone in this world or in our land, that we are beholden to God, to our families and to our community. We do not operate as silos, separated from one another by miles of wilderness, but, rather, we are united in common traditions, roots, values and destiny.

The Founders recognized this destiny when they wrote the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, declaring that all people are “endowed by their Creator” with “inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Early thought leaders declared America the new “Promised Land” because of the opportunities and values it presented. Extending from that, early writers and leaders envisioned that, like the Biblical Israelites who traveled from Egypt to the Promised Land, America had a covenant with God to actualize values and principles. The world at the time of the first Thanksgiving was not a friendly world — it was a world of privilege for the few and tyranny for the many.

America changed that picture. In its founding documents, the authors espoused opportunity, equality, fairness and faith.

But like the biblical travelers, we have had our struggles with God and eternal values. In the interest of commerce, we instituted slavery. In the interest of expansion, we took over indigenous peoples’ lands. In the interest of male pride, we oppressed women. In the interest of profit, we oppressed workers. These blemishes on the American character are an undisputed part of history.

Along the way, we have paid dearly to reclaim values and, we suppose, God’s trust. Emancipation, Voting rights. Civil rights. Working rights. Safety nets such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, also, followed as we and our elected leaders combated bigotry, poverty and greed with our core values.

So at this Thanksgiving and beyond, with so much hanging in the balance, isn’t it time for Congress and others to get back to the values that have rescued us from the brink in the past?

Four years ago, Purple America interviewed almost 1,000 people on the streets of America. They were big business leaders and workers, small business owners and entrepreneurs, coffee shop and fast food workers, religious leaders, retirees, stay-at-home moms, students, doctors, lawyers, mail carriers, teachers, immigrants and homeless people.

They all expressed a common ground through 12 values — Equality, Faith, Family, Freedom, Love and Respect, Self-Expression, Doing the Right Thing, Community, Giving Back, the Good Life, Opportunity, and Success. These are not religious values, nor are they conservative or liberal, Republican or Democratic. They are righteous values that can earn us God’s trust and rebuild our trust in each other.

To Congress: If we say, “In God We Trust,” then let’s mean it by acting in ways that don’t violate God’s trust or that of the American people. As leaders and role models, we have a responsibility to lead in a civil, principled and God-like way. Partisan battles that lead us to political Armageddon don’t support the real cause of America.

To the American people: Let’s truly be thankful for the country God has given us, a country rooted in values and virtues that have inspired the world. Let’s not trash it or each other. Let’s live our values.

To business leaders: Be thankful to our country, whose citizens and values have enabled you to grow and prosper. It is time for you to be responsive to and lead through these values. Principled companies have discovered that values are good business.

And, at this time of national Thanksgiving, may we be authentic in thanking our country based on the way we act toward each other. Our faith and values have been and can again become our grounding elements. If we really trust God, then we must create a country where, because of its people, culture and deeds, God also trusts us.

To see America’s shared values and add your voice, go to www.Purpleamerica.us

Icons R Us: Me, You and Joe Paterno

BY STUART MUSZYNSKI, Founder/CEO, PurpleAmerica.us

The fall of college football icon Joe Paterno continues to be America’s most-watched story. Why? Why does the chronicle of yet another fallen hero resonate with us? What does it mean to us and say about the pulse of America?

There is no question that Joe Paterno achieved the American Dream. Through hard work, boldness, tenacity, and maybe even a slice of genius, he carved out fame, fortune and an amazing record of wins as the acclaimed football coach at Penn State.

America loves a winner. We believed he represented the best among us and the best about us — an icon of American brawn and character. And then we found that, to achieve and retain his stature and perhaps to protect a friend, he made a deal with the devil, sacrificing the personal safety and emotional well-being of innocent children. Maybe he thought he had too much to lose to protect those children. Maybe he rationalized that the program was more important than the individual. Or maybe dismissing a high performer was just too inconvenient. In any case, he thought wrong. He made a terrible and tragic mistake.

Do you still think, as a significant percentage of Americans do, that Paterno didn’t deserve to be fired? Ask yourself this: what would he have done if his own child or grandchild was among the molested? Would he have put them in jeopardy? Then things become much more clear.

You could say we pile on when an icon falls because some part of us enjoys discovering that our heroes are really flawed humans. Maybe that’s human nature. But I don’t see that as fully the case here. This column endeavors to look at the world through the lens of America’s shared values. When I do that, I see JoePa, as he was affectionately known, as one more icon who chose his comfort zone over the end zone, so instead of charging across the goal line with the ball held high, he tripped over the too-high value he placed on winning at all costs.

I see JoePa as yet another American Joe who forgot to balance the importance of Success  and The Good Life with the moral urgency of Doing the Right Thing. He may not have stolen millions like Bernie Madoff, but he stole the innocence of children so he could conveniently continue his winning tradition. And he stole from people like you and me who bonded with him in an unwritten contract that exchanged admiration for something that goes beyond money:  the need for heroes to represent values and principles that make us better people and ultimately a better nation.

We have seen this Joe far too often in American sports and entertainment before, and we have seen this Joe in a litany of politicians, business leaders and Wall Street super-stars. We saw this Joe in the Bishops who looked the other way while priests were abusing children. In fact, we’ve seen so much of this Joe that it would be easy to become cynical and accept this kind of behavior as normal.

It is not normal, but it’s sadly present in our culture, not just with Joe but with ordinary Americans like you and me. In the 1960s Kitty Genovese was brutally raped and murdered outside her New York City apartment while 38 on-lookers watched from their apartment windows and did nothing. In schools, 160,000 children are bullied every year as people stand by. In America, civility is in the sewer, yet most of us stand by in the interest of getting on with our lives. JoePa is just another example of the indifference or moral tradeoffs we all share.

I would like to suggest that we take a break from looking for our values embodied in icons – a sure set-up for disappointment – and start looking at how we can embody American values and create a country that lives its values.

Whether we consider ourselves conservative, liberal, Republican or Democrat, most Americans want an America that stands for something. We want a country that achieves while representing goodness, not the neglect of others. At the heart of it, isn’t that what Occupy Wall Street is about?

I’m not saying that America is a country where everyone achieves at the same level. Not everyone can be Joe Paterno. But every Joe can notice and help. And everyone can broaden their definition of success to include limits on what we are willing to trade off.

Jimi Hendrix once said, “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” Maybe he had a point.

For more information on America’s shared values go to www.purpleamerica.us.

Follow Stuart Muszynski on Twitter at www.twitter.com/purpleamericaus.

 

 

American Values Have and Will Heal Our Nation’s Wounds

By Guest Blogger: Terry Gould

The young boys arrived at different times over a two-week period in June of 1969. Eighteen and nineteen year-old kids only months out of high school, but decades away from their childhoods. Childhoods that had fallen victim to the Vietnam War. A war that sent them back home to a hospital bed; their bodies mangled, limbs amputated by land mines, and their spirits wrecked by the reality of their futures.

They came from many different backgrounds and from so many small communities across America; a microcosm of middle and lower-middle class families. Among these wounded Americans were Protestants; black and white, Methodists, Baptists, Catholics and Lutherans, and a Russian Jewish kid.  No one knew—or cared— if you were Democrat or Republican.

None of them wanted to be here, none of them asked to be here.  But life, circumstances and fate had delivered them to this place.  It would be a place where their very survival would depend on the deepest sense of honor, respect and compassion for one another.

Inside the hospital they built a family, a home. And like any home, it served as a place to gather, to belong, to struggle, to play, a place to find support and ultimately, a place to heal. And every day of healing brought them closer to the day they could go home.

But go home to what?

Outside the walls of their transitory refuge was a country at war with itself. America was at war over the war in Vietnam. The country, it seemed, was on the brink of chaos. The anti-war movement divided communities and pitted brother against brother, family against family. The public hostility, disrespect and vulgar actions directed at those wearing the American uniform were hateful, humiliating and shameful.  And it hurt.

But from inside the hospital looking out, their family, wrought out of necessity, saw a country that was still America. It was still their home. It was still the place they were going to live out their lives and contribute in the same way they had supported one another.

Today, our country is a reflection of the America they experienced forty years ago; a divided and caustic self-image from a war within.

America has changed, but our values have not. We have two wars with thousands dead and tens of thousands of wounded coming home, that hasn’t changed. What has changed is the America they are coming home to. A country divided not by an anti-war movement, but by the cultural wars dividing Americans. This “war” has been created by the politicians’ constant and persistent manipulation of our values. Manipulating issues and convincing many that the issues are equivalent to our values. But we Americans share a set of values that transcend wars, they outlive political motivations and they overcome divisiveness. They are the values we all share as Americans that have little or nothing to do with our political views.

Just as the country healed from its social chasm over forty years ago, it will survive the current division of the so-called cultural war. Through compassion, understanding, reaching out, and living those values we all share.

As today’s Americans come home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, wounded, limbs and bodies shredded and dismembered by the “new” land mines, IED’s, the Vietnam Veterans are there to help .They are committed to ensuring that the promise and the future for these new veterans is better than the future they were facing so long ago. That’s what America’s values are all about.

Honor, respect and compassion; these are the intangibles embedded within the hearts and souls of each of us, it’s the very fiber of those kids so long ago, and not so long ago—so young, so American. They were and are now, strangers in a strange place; a place where they learn who they really are, what they are made of, what they mean to each other.

We are all strangers in a sense. Strangers, until by chance we hold a door for someone, ask for directions, pay-it-forward at a coffee shop, give up a parking spot or remove our caps for the National Anthem. These are the simple and basic values inherent in all of us; the values that make us uniquely American. This is the invisible force we witness in the actions of Americans every day of our lives. The force that brings us together, keeps us together and proves once again, we are far more united than ever before.

Guest Blogger  T. L. Gould was born in Akron, Ohio, and spent his childhood in rural towns across Missouri before joining the Navy in 1968. Following a 30-year career in business, Gould moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he resides with his wife, Barb. Gould received a Silver Star from the Military Writers Society of America for his book, “How Can You Mend This Purple Heart.”

Honoring our Vets: When the Color Purple Comes Together

By STUART MUSZYNSKI, Founder and CEO, PurpleAmerica.us and DALE BEATTY, Co-founder, Purple Heart Homes

“…unbelief is a terrible thing. And so is the hurt we cause others unknowingly.” – The Color Purple

Today, we honor our veterans, both living and deceased, for their bravery, their courage, their monumental sacrifice to our country. Leaders everywhere will speak about the cause they fought for, but few will speak about the everyday values they represent and can inspire us to live. Like the Purple Heart medal that is bestow upon veterans who have been injured or killed in defense of our country, and like the names of our two organizations – Purple America and Purple Heart Homes – those values are neither red nor blue, they are purple.

Veteran Cory Collins in his Purple Heart Homes renovated kitchen

Why purple? Because purple is a blend of red and blue. When our all-volunteer military men and women enlist to serve our nation, they don’t sign up to serve a red state or a blue state, or one political faction but not another, they serve America.

Intuitively, they know that to be American is a way of life built around a set of loosely-defined but widely shared principles or values.

Instinctively, they know it is our common ground that makes the nation called the United States the country we know as America, and they believe it is important enough to leave their families thousands of miles behind to risk life and limb to defend it. What is the common ground that, today, some politicians would have us believe no longer exists?

Four years ago, with America fragmented between red states and blue states, Purple America interviewed almost 1,000 Americans on the streets of eight communities, asking just that: “What are the values that connect us as Americans?” and “What do Americans stand for?”

Many of our politicians and financial influencers may have forgotten, but every day Americans remembered. Whether in the “conservative” south or the “liberal” north, their answers were similar: Equality, Faith, Family, Freedom, Love and Respect, Self-Expression, Doing the Right Thing, Community, Giving Back, the Good Life, Opportunity and Success. These are the ideals that, despite party affiliations or geographic differences, everyday Americans hold dear even today. Especially today.

While Purple America exists to re-connect America with its shared values, Purple Heart Homes enacts them every day in extraordinary ways. It is one thing to talk about values, another to walk the walk, and quite another to continue to walk that walk after one has lost a limb or suffered a traumatic brain injury. But that is the case with Purple Heart Homes.

Purple Heart Homes Co-Founders Beatty & Gallina with veteran Kevin Smith on his new walkway

Launched by two friends, both disabled veterans, to assist the other veterans who have covered our backs and been tragically wounded while fighting for our nation, every one of the 12 values that Americans admire are evident in the activities of this organization.

Purple Heart Homes builds customized, barrier-free homes for disabled vets who need assistance re-entering American society. When they do, the outpouring of appreciation that’s shown by Americans tells us that American values, at the grassroots level, are strong. Clearly, Americans want to pay back those who have paid it forward.

On this milestone Veterans’ Day, as we proceed toward a potentially divisive presidential election, perhaps we can resolve that America must not win the battle but lose the war: we must not lose our ability to have a civil conversation based on our common ground. We have enough fallout from war – death; disability; broken lives. Former President Jimmy Carter once said that while war is sometimes a necessary evil, it is evil, nonetheless. So is continuing a war of words at home.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the color purple, historically has symbolized richness and sacredness. And what could be more precious, more sacred than the values that are the fabric of our nation and its only real safety net? When we, knowingly or unknowingly, dishonor the common ground that binds us together as a nation, we disregard the sacrifice made by our veterans.

As we honor them, let’s also honor the values that are the collective DNA we share as Americans and for which they fought. Let’s discuss, debate and refine the ideas and solutions that can stem from these values. And above all, let’s remember that the enemy is not us.

To see America’s values in action go to www.purplehearthomesusa.org. To see how our shared values connect us, go to www.purpleamerica.us .

Follow Stuart Muszynski on Twitter at www.twitter.com/purpleamericaus.

 

Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party: Is there a Bridge over America’s Troubled Waters?

By STUART MUSZYNSKI, Founder/CEO of Purpleamerica.us

Americans both on the left and the right are at best discontented and at worst angry. While the two sides appear to be mired in disagreement, if you look closely at the signs and slogans of the Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party movements, they are strikingly similar: Washington is broken; the Middle Class is broke; Corporations are insensitive; Taxes are too high; We the People are not receiving value; We have no voice; Nobody cares.

Then there are, in the middle of these two extremes, many Americans who just sense that something is wrong, and worry that there is no path to fix it. But history suggests otherwise. Like the 1969 song by Simon and Garfunkel suggests, there is a bridge that, since our Founding Fathers laid the foundations for this nation, has served to bring us together, and still can.

I’m on your side; When times get rough; And friends just can’t be found; Like a bridge over troubled water; I will lay me down; Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down.

This bridge is the values that underlie America and connect us. I would like to suggest that America is discontented because many of our leaders are disconnected from our values, and because our political and economic systems have not delivered results that reflect our values. But America’s values themselves, at the grassroots level, are alive and well.

On the anniversary of 9/11 this year, I was at Project Love’s annual Searching for Teen Leaders ceremony, presented by Walmart. Project Love is an organization that conquers bullying by transforming school cultures.

During that ceremony, 10 teens were recognized for their leadership skills. These teens raised money for Haitian relief, built self-esteem in disabled children, helped veterans returning from abroad, motivated their peers to promote kindness and developed a suicide-prevention program. In everything they did, the values of equality, faith, freedom, family, giving back, doing the right thing, the good life – the values that are at the heart of what it is to be American – were plainly evident. The inventiveness of these teens in reaching their goals and influencing their peers to help them was truly remarkable.

But where is our leadership? How do the results of their efforts reflect our values? Clearly, there is great goodness in America, but lately, it seems to bubble from the ground up rather than to trickle down from the top.

Our country’s discontent is also reflected in our schools. Children mirror any societal dysfunction. Bullying and disrespect litter the halls in both their real and their virtual worlds. Yet thousands of teens who have gone through Project Love programs have demonstrated that when they are effectively re-focused on the values that unite us, they go to work to correct what’s wrong in their schools and the world.

I’ll take your part; When darkness comes; And pain is all around; Like a bridge over troubled water; I will lay me down; Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down.

Right now, not just our children, but all of America needs to refocus, reflect and remember who we are. The values that America has traditionally stood for are not religious or ideological. They are not red; they are not blue. They are our shared aspirations, hopes and dreams, grounded in a civil discourse started by our forefathers and that has defined our nation for more than 200 years. They have been recognized as unique since Alexis de Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America in 1835.

So what’s the disconnect between the Occupy Wall Street protesters and the Tea Party? It’s not as drastic as you might think. Both value freedom. Both value fairness. The Tea Party is focused on freedom and getting government out of our lives. Occupy Wall Street wants some government intervention where it can help to bring about fairness. Freedom and fairness are not polar opposites, they simply need to be balanced in a manner that is acceptable to most Americans and delivers the results most Americans want. That balancing act is what America is all about.

As we debate our nation’s future, only our shared values can take us where we want to go. They have helped us to thrive as a nation, end slavery, improve civil liberties, cultivate the American Dream and become the envy of the world. They can help us now, particularly if we remember to hold our leaders accountable for living up to and delivering to us systems and results that reflect what is important to all of us, ultimately what America stands for.

Sail on Silver Girl; Sail on by; Your time has come to shine; All your dreams are on their way. Like a bridge over troubled water; I will ease your mind; Like a bridge over troubled water, I will ease your mind.

 

You can sign a pledge to honor these values at www.purpleamerica.us, and you can see the shared values that almost 1,000 Americans in eight communities told us still matter.

Follow Stuart Muszynski and Purple America US on Twitter at www.twitter.com/purpleamericaus