JIM “PAPPY” MOORE: 20/20 Vision Re-Visited

By Jim “Pappy” Moore

The first column I published in 2020 is this one. I spoke in the first week of that new decade about my vision for the future of America in the new decade. Little did I know that Covid 19 would collapse the economy and send America into chaos which pitted Americans against each other. Knowing what we know now, the world was thrown into a period of mass movement of wealth to the very few at the expense of all of us, of all the small businesses crushed by a maniacal plan to boost major businesses and hurt the mom-and-pop businesses. We did not know the vaccines envisioned would be a dismal failure that would inflict great harm and divide us terribly. I want us to look back to four and a half years ago, to talk about my vision for America that first week of 2020, for us to reflect on what happened that year which hurt Americans so badly.

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The new year and new decade are upon us.  It’s been 100 years since the Roaring Twenties began, women got the vote, and Prohibition of alcoholic beverages became the law.  The Roaring Twenties were a mix of excess and deprivation, of high times for the stock market and bad times for farming interests.  By the end of the decade, the stock market had collapsed and The Great Depression had begun.  We must do better for this century’s decade of the Twenties.

What is your vision for the Twenties?  Is it more of the same?  Is it drastically different?  

My vision for the future is a return to some basic values and away from some new values that seem to dominate modern life.  Chief among these is the obsession with getting money and spending it audaciously.  It seems to matter little how the money is gotten.  What seems important is that it be gotten, whatever must be done to get it.  Men and women who attain wealth are deemed worthy of adoration irrespective of how they attain it.  This approach has given us the Kardashians, who are famous for being famous, for questionable morals, for outrageous conduct, but for living lavishly.

We must give more praise for achievements of substantive value, not achievements which garner substantive payoffs.   Soldiers, Teachers, Firefighters, Police, First Responders, Nurses, Skilled Laborers, Small Business Owners, and salt of the Earth citizens of every type are societal icons.  These are the everyday heroes of the real world.  No one gets rich in these endeavors, because choosing to serve is a commitment which places the achievement above the recompense it can reasonably garner.

We must demand better politicians.  Limiting their terms is essential to stopping the monopoly on power which rests in the hands of congresspersons who are loyal only to a few hundred thousand people but can be influenced by billionaires and global interests.  Anyone who has served in the U.S. House of Representatives over 10 years has served too long.  Anyone who has served in the U.S. Senate over twelve years has served too long.  And where do they get off paying themselves their full salary for the remainder of their life?  If the officers of a publicly held company voted such compensation for themselves, they’d surely be prosecuted for it.  Both houses of congress should be cleaned out of long-term members and new people sent in their place.  Term limits must happen.  Such a Constitutional Amendment can be passed by State Legislatures.  Get behind it.

We must stop confusing “new” with “better.”  Our phones and our televisions spy on us and feed the information to mega corporations who sell our private information to anyone who wants to buy it.  They amass information about you and know more about you than your relatives or your neighbors know.  When Big Brother was envisioned by George Orwell, he never thought Big Brother would be a host of privately owned businesses who would act as their own law, doing whatever they want to do and making government conform to their desires.  Smart phones have dumbed down an entire generation.  They are eating away at the social fabric that makes for well-rounded humans.  Children are losing their sense of community, their sense of emotional balance, to these hand-held monsters.  Put them in their place.  The worship of cell phones must end.

Copyrights 2020 and 2024, Jim “Pappy” Moore.  All rights reserved.