The New Yorker, 10.16 It's time for unity, Don't sweat the differences

IT' S TIME FOR UNITY, DON'T SWEAT THE DIFFERENCES, A GRANDFATHER'S WORDS FROM THE HEARTLAND My honest appraisal of America by a Midwestern grandfather in the fall of 2009 is one of division. A pole today or perhaps a survey to be printed next week, the results are the same, our nation is divided along, party lines, philosophical preferences, culture, class, ethnicity, and perception. At an historical moment of great testing, America needs to come together as a people to face an economic challenge not seen since the Great Depression. We are facing a continued loss of jobs, increased national debt, home foreclosures, and minimal indicators of economic growth and expansion. Blame is being laid at the feet of, former Presidents, President Obama, the Congress, media, conservatives, liberals, Republicans, Democrats, healthcare reform, foreign military conflicts, government programs, wall street, climatologic, most anything. Our nation can only achieve the successful recovery needed, if blame and disunity cease. For synergy to succeed, we must come together as a people. Whether or not he received your vote Barack Obama is now our President, the problem of growing debt is now our inheritance, the loss of jobs and the need to create new ones is now our challenge, President Hoover learned too late in 1929-31 that an unusual increase in productivity can have a negative impact on employment resulting in too many products chasing an inadequate amount of income, and outsourcing as companies attempt to curtail productions costs. We must create and restore jobs to the nation or the percentage of jobless will continue to rise. Recently, Senator Chris Dodd criticized bank for failing to make more credit available to individuals and small businesses. Recently, Associated Press writer Tom Raum, alerted us to the fact that "even with an economic revival, many U.S. jobs lost during the recession may be forever lost and a weak employment market could linger for years. That could lead up to a new normal of higher joblessness and lower standards of living for many Americans, some economists are suggesting." Raum points out that auto and contraction industries can no longer lead us out of recessions Writing in the Hofstra University Economic Report, November/December 2003, Dr. Irwin Kellner offered several solutions to ameliorate the paucity of jobs in his recession. He expressed the need for the country to make it more attractive for business to produce goods and services in the U.S. Kellner went so far as to suggest that the government do even more along the lines of approving a one-time tax holiday to companies that return to the U.S. profits and jobs they have been keeping in nations outside the country. He also suggested the used of our unemployed ( including returning veterans) to be used as a powerful work force for a WPA style project to upgrade the nation's infrastructure. The main roadblock to job creation-restoration and economic recovery remains our devastating divisions. We came together briefly after 9/11 and the world marveled at America's resiliency and resolve. Let's set our criticisms and vitriolic rhetoric aside for our national health and economic recovery. Please consider this grandfather's plea, for in the last analysis, rather than conservative or liberal Republican or democrat, I am first and foremost an American
Dr. Alan G. Phillips