By MARK DEVOLDER
Los Alamos
I thought about America.
What follows is my attempt to start working towards a better America.
It is clear to me that the American government (meaning federal, state, and municipal governments), American industry, and the American public are broken. Specifically, the working relationship between government, industry and the public (including environmentalists) is broken.
There was a film starring Randolph Scott made in 1943, “‘Gung Ho!: The Story of Carlson’s Makin Island Raiders”. “Gung Ho”, a Chinese term, was introduced in the film and defined as “Working Together in Harmony” The Walt Disney film, “Miracle”, about the United States hockey team winning the gold medal at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid in 1980, discussed the need of the highest level of conditioning, speed, creativity and, above all, team chemistry.
Thomas Jefferson said, “A little rebellion once in a while is a good thing.”
Around 1990, Dr. Mary Good gave a Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Director’s Symposium, which focused on national science policy, industrial policy, and competitiveness. She said large-scale industry and government need to work closely together. Only large-scale industry has the ability to achieve complex and costly goals compared to what small businesses can achieve. She also indicated that if trained scholars are not created by the American university system, nothing else matters. Dr. Good pointed out that the American public does not understand how the American free enterprise system works. She had many other comments that had merit.
Recommendation:
The Los Alamos County government is passionate about conducting investigations.
In general, I don’t have a high opinion of polls. However, it has recently occurred to me that government (top dog since the Great Depression) needs to start getting feedback from individual taxpayers on how things are going with government, industry and the audience.
Initially, the goal would be to find a way to help government, industry and the public work more effectively as a team (ie develop team chemistry). The survey could include multiple-choice questions about how things are going in a particular area (eg, infrastructure). The survey should include a comments section (i.e. one long comment field) and an action needed for improvement section (i.e. another long comment field). The survey must be distributed before the elections.
Now comes the hardest part.
The poll must be completed for people to vote.
If anyone can come up with a better solution, great.
I think Benjamin Franklin or members of the Continental Congress said, “If we don’t stay together, we’ll surely stay apart.”
