The United States is in decline and in danger and, like nations throughout history, can fail.  Unless HispanicLatinos – continuously becoming a larger part of the national population – understand the circumstances confronting them and the country, they will jeopardize their own existence and further complicate the viability of America’s future.

The world today would look vastly different had America not come into being more than two centuries ago.  The accomplishments of the American nation are innumerable.  Americans changed destiny itself.  Pioneering vast advances in almost every scientific and academic discipline, they evolved into a global power and helped keep the world secure for the last 110 years.

With a form of government other than one anchored by the Declaration of Independence and ruled by its Constitution, the United States during the years might not have flourished under a free market so that the fate of humankind took a new course as America began to rise among the nations after 1900.  By the time fascist armies were threatening to overwhelm England during World War II, American strength could be counted on to turn them back.  A world with Nazi Germany, not the United States, acquiring nuclear weapons first and thereafter dominating Europe is too frightening a scenario to consider.  In the last century, too, America outlasted the Soviet communist threat by outspending it and now leads the global response to international terrorism.  The key to American power has been its economic success.

Any other nation with less creative a people would be exhausted by now, and today the world faces climate change, the emergence of highly productive economies that are turning the world into a murderously competitive arena and a communist China that once it fully harnesses the potential of its people will supersede the power of the old Soviet Union by many times and overtake the American economy.

In the new age the world faces, it is unthinkable that America’s standing be significantly diminished, much less ever go the way of other nations and civilizations that throughout time have vanished into dust and air.  Yet America can no longer pay its bills, the nation’s social challenges are profound, and the country’s fiscal problems boggle the mind.  Together, they could assume a self-destructive momentum that could be hard to reverse if the country cannot summon from its ranks new, effective and courageous leadership willing to explore new ways of thinking for the way forward.

In this context, HispanicLatinos do not have time to waste.  They must understand fully the changed nature of their peculiar circumstances: That they are being called upon to help steer the country into a new day, when it passes into the next chapter of its history.

America is an astonishing collection of innovative, creative and generous human beings, but is not immune from the truths wrought by Nature and therefore is not eternal.  Each new generation is responsible for continuing the American Experiment – and therein is the problem.  Too many Americans, although already experiencing hard economic times, might not realize that the world truly has changed.  Nations, after all, are conglomerations of human beings.  Like the human body, nations are born, mature and change over time.  Some live longer than others.

That nations can die and that only a renewed people can keep them alive should be at the core of new HispanicLatino thinking today.

Feel free to forward these blogs adapted from previous writings, with additional thoughts published invariably in between.