The Urge To Build

Historian Stephen Ambrose , who wrote among other books , Band of Brothers once stated that in his opinion that American servicemen upon returning from service in WWII wanted to build. Collectively they had witnessed and taken part in the mass destruction of great centers of the world. They now wished to build and rebuild their victorious nation. So we did. What went wanting from the years of the great depression , what visionaries thought needed. All seemed on the table. As an example , the Interstate Highway System , now named the Eisenhower Interstate System for the President that began the process. Eisenhower even put former General Lucius Clay in charge of securing the initial financing. We were serious. Bridges , highways , schools for baby boomer kids. A wide variety of infrastructure. Overall the voters supported these decisions and a sense of national pride became intertwined with a true sense of national purpose. They were not just building for themselves but for their children & grandchildren. New homes , businesses , universities. It even touched my hometown of Castleton/Schodack New York as citizens watched the Castleton Thruway Bridge rise from the western and eastern shores of the Hudson River. So....after this past recent midterm election I ended up asking myself . What happened? No talk of great projects , or aspirations. I heard alot of fear and retrenchment. Did not hear of infrastructure and the needs to do upkeep. Cancel tunnels and rebuliding projects. As a man who has a hobby of digging up the past I look now to ask what it says of our future with this current mind set. As nations such as China builds high speed rail , we rattle along on Amtrak. Graduation rates continue to decline way down from rates when I graduated forty yrs ago. All a sign of what I have finally concluded to be a stalemate. Frankly , at this moment I have come to the conclusion that the barbarians are not at the gate , they are inside and people like me are ones at the gate. We shall see in the upcoming 10 yrs or so who shall win this battle. I am not confident.