The most important issue facing America is not the economic crisis, the war against terrorism, our national debt, environmental concerns, education or health care.
The greatest issue is a loss of trust in our key institutions. This includes our government (all branches), financial institutions, corporations, the political system, educational institutions (all levels) and the media.
The degree to which trust can be restored will determine the future of America. It is awfully hard to regain trust once it has been lost.
I hope those at the highest levels in all of these institutions will realize this and do all in their power to restore the trust of the people.
If this is not done quickly, I fear a revolution will eventually occur. We do not need change as much as we need trust. Without it we cannot survive.
Bryan B. England
Pawleys Island
A Local letter to the Editor: Loss of trust
Posted in Uncategorized
Clearly stated, without trust all else is but sound and fury.
As a Brit across the water, I cannot comment on trust in the US. But in the UK we have exactly the same loss of trust in our institutions etc – ESPECIALLY the Church.
very well said. I agree.
I really am cofused. Many agree that it is a lack of trust. Yet, we may well have a record voter turnout for this election. It appears that voters are more satisfied with Congress that we think. They may well return Pelosi to the House and Reid to the Senate with even more Democrats and Senator Obama to the White House. That would tend to convince me that the voters are quite happy with things as they are, except for Bush. Statmann
Very true. The Episcopal Bishops, the Courts, the MSM, the President, etc.
I have no trust in any of these people.
Actually, while I write “the Courts” I have to say the judiciary in Virginia is very good and has long been a source of pride.
It could be that the erosion of trust has as much to do with manipulation by the MSM, Madison Avenue, Wall Street, and the like, using new technologies to accomplish it, as with changes in behavior of those trusted. I will never forget the occasion in 1982 or 1983 when I was employed at one of the major oil companies, and on a tour of the map-making facilities we were showed how the new digital technology they had acquired could so effectively be used to produce maps showing things as they actually are, or if it served the company’s purposes better, not as they are but as the company would like them to be, or would like to convince other parties things should be. It gave me a cold sick feeling inside at the time, and at that moment any trust I had ever had in a certain genre of American companies was seriously breached. The innovations in technology are, by some, seized as opportunities to attempt creating reality in their favor rather than accurately portraying it. The NYT’s screechingly blatant advocacy for Democrats this election season is another example of this. And the creation of a ‘narrative’ of the Episcopal Church for GC ’09 through Harvard-based workshops is yet another, though with less technological sophistication.
Perhaps this will all lead to a revolution, but it’s my fear that instead it will result in increasing submission to a technologically driven will, which as Christians we can see is expressly not the will of God.
A root cause, or rather the root cause, is that most Americans today
lack a shared experience. The generation of my parents emerged
from World War II with that shared background. It was that event
that they had in common that allowed a measure of trust to rise.
People in leadership could build consensus based on this. There has
been no such shared experience since then. Vietnam certainly was
not shared by all. The Civil Rights Movement was seen as affecting only one region of the country. We have become more self foucused
and looking out only with our own interests, not that of the nation.
#7
More to the point, America of that era was 90% white and Christian. It was a WASP nation, and everybody including non-WASPs ([i]especially[/i] non-WASPs) knew it. That America is being deconstructed in the belief that a nation can survive as a pure propositional entity, and at a time when the trend worldwide is entirely in the other direction.