Toward a better future

Few people will be sorry to see 2009 fade into the history books.

Like an obnoxious uncle who overstays his welcome, the year wore on citizens.

The traditionally bright promise that always comes with the election of a new president faded quickly under the harsh realities of economic crisis and two wars. After one year of the new administration, the president was facing the kind of poll numbers and dissatisfaction usually reserved for the end of a first term, not the beginning.

And Congress went out of its way to prove it was more interested in political gamesmanship than it was in solving the nation's problems, with the best example being the debate over health care.

Ultimately, the hope of much-needed reform faded due to stubborn intransigence by both parties and influence of lobbyists' money. The bill before Americans today looks like it was written by the very people it was supposed to bring in check. In fact, no matter how much the president may desire reform, he should probably veto this bill on the grounds it isn't close to what was promised.

Between the health care bill and the Wall Street bailout, the last 18 months have demonstrated that Congress is clearly in the pockets of monied special interests, with the average American just a passenger along for the ride on the train wreck. We're not going to see any progress until we start electing people who clearly care more for the little guy than the fat cats.

If 2009 was not a great year, at least it was the end of the decade. The first decade of the 21st century was not one to write home to mother about. War, terrorism, excessive greed and poor oversight that led to economic collapse, the demise of civil liberties due to draconian and suspect interpretations of the Constitution, and a lot of hot air contributing to global warming with little substance to deal with impending environmental problems, all made the decade one that most of us will be glad to see gone.

It would be nice to say that the future will be brighter, but the immediate future remains grim. Congress hasn't given us any hope its members can actually work together to solve any problem. We'll be getting out of Iraq but going deeper into the quagmire of Afghanistan. The economy will rebound, but much more slowly that most recessions in the past, so full recovery is still several years away. And runaway technology will continue to outpace society's ability to assimilate it.

Yet, Mayan calendar aside, the future is never written irrevocably in the sands of time. It is, quite literally, what we make of it.

The hard times we've experienced can sometimes temper the steel of individuals and a nation. If we learn and grow from the experience of the first decade of this century, if we aspire to greater heights and insist that our leaders set examples of moral and intellectual standards, if we strive in each of our own, small, individual lives, to make the world just a little bit better, then the cumulative effect will be a brighter future for all.

We can't sit idly by and just let the tides of history roll over us. We must choose our futures and work to achieve them, and if we do, not even Congress can hold us back from greatness, as individuals, and as a nation.

So let us enter 2010 rededicated to a vision of a brighter, better tomorrow, and then work together to make it so.

-- Kelly Everitt