Tonight I played drumset in a middle school production of Oklahoma. After the show (the kids did a very nice job, by the way,) I went out with our bass player. We spent some time mulling over random topics and eventually came into a discussion about the war, the economy, and the state of the American future.  He made a very strong point. In previous wars, it wasnt the leadership/military alone that kept this country successful, it was the sacrifices made by the people at home. Factories switched products. Women took their husbands jobs. People bought stocks, and sent whatever materials they could spare (rubber/nylon etc) to be used by the military. People came together as a community and as a country and made sacrifices for the greater good. 
We are now engaged in a war that is on a much smaller scale than the world wars, and yet we can't pull it together. Nobody is making the kind of sacrifices that people made back then, and they had much fewer luxuries than we do now. We have removed ourselves from the process. We complain about our leadership, and our military. we complain about big companies, and outsourcing and lobbyists and media. 
The problem isn't them. It's us. 

Change starts from the bottom up.  What can you do to help things? Do without. Do you have a problem with Nike outsourcing its jobs? Stop buying nikes. Upset about the dependency on oil? Ride a bike, or avoid buying that Hummer or SUV. Don't like the current leadership? Vote. Don't think your vote counts? Vote with your checkbook. You choose what you support when you choose what you buy. As long as there is a profit to be made from unethical practices, they will continue. 

So you may have to sacrifice some of your immediate comforts.  Isn't a healthy economy worth more than that foreign-made big screen TV? I'm not on this rant to criticize my fellow Americans. I just want to remind us all about the fortitude and strength of the American People. We have been seduced by comfort, But everyone here is descended from someone who wanted life to change so they MADE it change. Millions sacrificed safety and security to take a risk in this new western world. That will-power is flowing through every American's veins. Yes, we are stubborn, stubborn enough to outlast anything. Tough enough to do without. Everyone who traveled westward took huge risks. It's time to take some risks again.