Our Founding Fathers forged the greatest nation the world had ever seen. The American Spirit was strong and vibrant. We went from a backwater of the British Empire to the most prosperous nation on earth, a beacon of liberty and optimism for all. Foreign observers like Alexis de Tokovil marveled at our Candue spirit. With a little determination and a bit of elbow grease, it seemed we could do anything. We funded our government with tariffs to keep the field level for our own industries, and we avoided foreign entanglements, leaving capital, labor and resources available for productive pursuits. With this simple system, this American system, we showed the world how it was done. We gave humankind the automobile. Then we taught them how to fly. We cured the world's ills with vaccines and penicillin and connected everyone with the telephone. Television and radio were American children. Often the inventors and discoverers were foreign born, but it was in the fertile soil of the United States where their ideas bore fruit. It might have gone on like this forever. But along the way something happened. It wasn't a change in the American people, but in the system that governed them. Some grew rich in America's economy, but the honest money they could win on the market wasn't enough. They wanted more, and they set about getting it by whatever method worked. They began to buy politicians and the politicians, beautiful little pets that they were, repaid the investment with interest. America has become a land where the rich hoard vast amounts of wealth, while the rest of us find it increasingly hard to get by. The richer they get, the more they spend on politicians, and the more the system responds to their desires, instead of our needs. Now jobs are moved to foreign lands where workers are paid a pittance, and investors can make a fortune. Our entire manufacturing sector is in decay, nearly a quarter of the workforce is unemployed with no relief in sight. As the tax-based erodes, our government cannot afford to inspect what enters our country. Goods, sometimes dangerous products, made with little to no supervision, keep flooding into an increasingly desperate populace who, lacking jobs and money, cannot resist the cheaper prices. It's a downward spiral. A never-ending cycle. Is there any way out? There is, indeed, but it's going to take our hard work to write the ship. Fortunately, that indomitable American spirit is still there, passed down through generations. It only needs the right conditions to burn brightly once again. The children of the people who flew to the moon. The great grandchildren of those who built the Panama Canal are strong and ready for a fight. A fight for the soul of this country. It's time to roll up our sleeves and clean up a mess. It starts by taking back our government from the rich corporate interests that have perverted it. We must elect politicians who will staunch the gushing of jobs to outsourcing, who will level playing fields so our industries can compete fairly, who will get us out of destructive foreign wars that weigh so many different resources. In this way, we can rebuild the middle class and strengthen a tax base that has waned over the decades of neglect. After nursing our economy back to health, we can tackle any problem that comes our way, from under-inspected foreign foods to China's currency manipulation. It's not going to be easy, but it is possible. Who better to do it than Americans? Who better than you and me?