The world has changed so much in the last 35 years since I graduated from high school. We have personal computers, smart phones, the internet, HDTV. As a society we have made huge technological leaps. Unfortunately, we have not made similar progress socially. The gap between haves and have-nots continues to grow. The poor become more isolated and desperate. The rich live the lives of kings and sultans. If our older societies can teach us anything, we should pay attention to what the media has called the "Arab Spring". The people fight the awful, life-consuming oppression and choose death or uncertainty before slavery. Since we do it better and faster here in the US, we are likely to reach this point in an accelerated fashion as well. We are the new age of "de". We are de-funding some program or another, finding ways to destabilize economies, decreasing this or that. Imagine if we were making investments in ourselves, our neighbors, our cities, our communities.
