The Keys to the Kingdom

Once upon a time there was a magic kingdom with a magic ruler. He was a very smart man who knew that in order to make his dreams come true, he needed more than just to wish upon a star. He got his brother to be his financial wizard and his best friend to be his artist and together, the three of them created wondrous worlds and built a huge empire. But even though the work was divided between the three of them, everyone knew who was in charge - it was the man with the dreams.

Later, a new generation came along when the kingdom was struggling. In order to strengthen their shrinking empire, a new ruler was given the keys to the kingdom and the people pleaded with him to save it. He turned the empire into a ruthless cash cow. He smashed his competition. He built up the empire's infrastructure and started snatching up rival and friendly empires around him. This once tiny magic kingdom became a behemoth empire trodding on friend and foe alike. Those who had been with the original king saw the dream quickly fading and the profit margin quickly rising as the bottom line for the kingdom. Criticism became rampant. Revolts began. And eventually, the empire began to fade again. Other empires started marching into territories that had once been the exclusive domain of this magic kingdom. The golden dreams of the vast empire turned to ash in their mouths. They sacked this new leader and turned to his replacement for help.

The first thing the replacement did? He found someone with a dream of what the magic kingdom could be again - someone who remembered the old kingdom and how wonderful it had been - and he put that person in charge of changing the empire back into what the kingdom had been before. For this magic kingdom, perhaps it was not too late to remember what it was that had gotten them there in the first place.

In November we have a choice in this country. We can keep going down the path we've been traveling, or we can embrace a new vision. New visions and visionaries don't come along that often. Most leaders only want to continue with the status quo. They don't want to rock the boat. They will point out how close they resemble the last guy. They will say that experience matters. They will laugh at the visionaries dreams as just fantasies. But they will have no new ideas and no vision on how to do things differently.

Perhaps that's what we want. Perhaps we're happy with things the way they are. Perhaps our pocket books are just fine, our education system is perfect, our way of life is the envy of the world. In that case, voting for more of the same makes perfect sense.

But if we're not happy with things the way they are, or we're struggling to make ends meet, to get our children through school, to see our country being mocked around the world for the arrogance and ignorance we've shown, then maybe its time for a change.

Sometimes when you reach a dead end, you have to admit it and try going a different direction for a while.

The rest are all details.