I'm a patriot. I love my country. She's in trouble. Because she is, the world is. We're borrowing and promising our children and grandchildren will pay the debt. That's what a federal deficit is. We're at war. We're losing jobs and losing our homes. I started doing my piece of the job over a decade ago. I wrote novels with the direst consequences for corporate deregulation and taught the principles of economics. They're action-adventure science fiction for smart women.

Now, we either get to work fixing our country and creating jobs for our kids and grandkids, or they see us as real selfish and real stupid. If all you're going to do is stand around and complain about who the most of us picked as foreman, get off the worksite. Your country is in trouble. If you've got ideas, you've got the congress and a lot of organizations to get them to the foreman. We've got to invest our labor in building something for our kids.

Now, I saw this coming a long time ago. Excuse me, but if you keep using the people's accumulated labor to pay the richest people for trading it around and moving jobs overseas... That started in the seventies. Then there were all those environmental disasters in the eighties. Quite a few of them were sold to foreign investors to get everything out of them possible, before the EPA shut them down. They can't make a foreign corp clean up a hundred years of sawmill pollution.

A hundred years, do you know that's how old a lot of our public plumbing is? Do you know that's the age of a lot of 'hardware' technology that keeps America running is? Oh, yes, and bridges collapsing. Our children don't see any point in working hard in school. We've got thousands of people with advanced degrees out of work, and teachers don't make much. How did income become the basis of respectablity?

Yes, I understand how we got here and can do a good job of predicting what our current actions will do. Mayors across the country and students of history are saying, "We need a program like the WPA." I agree. We need to 'upgrade' the hardware with the knowledge and knowhow we've got now. The labor and inventiveness of the people of this nation is good stuff. It's the proven investment we can make for our children and grandchildren. Are you a patriot? Or are you just standing around bitching it's not being done your way. If you see there's a better way, you can send it up one of your many links to the foreman. Are you a patriot, or more interested in proving you can keep anything from being done than making sure this country can produce what your kids and grandkids will need to pay off the debt? Pick up tools and check where the foreman says you're needed, to keep more bridges from falling down under us. Is just standing around bitching and getting in the way the American way? Is it democracy? Is it in the best interests of all Americans?

Decide now the legacy you want for your grandkids. They're watching you. What are you teaching them an American does when the country is in trouble? Ignore the plight of your neighbors? Who cares, as long as I'm doing all right? You're selfish and stupid? I'm a patriot. I believe in the ideals of the United States of America and in democracy. The people have spoken. More of us think this is the foreman with the best first draft of a plan. You're in on the process of turning it into a final draft and reality. Are you going to get to work, or just get in the way? What's 'anti-American' when it's real obvious the country is in trouble?