○  energy and the national goals - a crisis of confidence  ○

serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy. as a people we know our past and we are proud of it. our progress has been part of the living history of america, even the world. we always believed that we were part of a great movement of humanity itself called democracy, involved in the search for freedom; and that belief has always strengthened us in our purpose. but just as we are losing our confidence in the future, we are also beginning to close the door on our past.

in a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in god, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. but we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. we’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.

the symptoms of this crisis of the american spirit are all around us. for the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years. two-thirds of our people do not even vote. the productivity of american workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the western world.

as you know, there is a growing disrespect for government and for churches and for schools, the news media, and other institutions. this is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning.

these changes did not happen overnight. they’ve come upon us gradually over the last generation, years that were filled with shocks and tragedy.

we were sure that ours was a nation of the ballot, not the bullet, until the murders of john kennedy and robert kennedy and martin luther king, jr. we we

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