My Ego Conflict
I hate to call it a character flaw while still admitting the possibility that I’m sometimes loathe to reveal ‘insider information’ about the Neighbors At War website. But it’s clear it’s becoming a growing clearinghouse of ideas proposed to solve a serious social problem. Sure, I’m a mercenary trying to pump up sales of what my ego tells me is a pretty good book. At the same time, large numbers of people are actually coming together and learning and sharing ideas on how we radicals, we wretched masses of the discontented can come together to have a profound impact on changing a very flawed American institution.
But once again, the numbers are part of the story. And here they are. By the end of June more than 3 million pages of material from this website will have been taken into the public domain over the past twelve months and used, hopefully, to educate other people about the dangers of living in, or getting involved with a Homeowners Association.
388 thousand visitors have taken the time in the previous twelve months to read, copy and pass judgment on these pages. And that means that all 388 thousand visitors have decided that Neighbors At War, not only gives them a forum where they can exchange ideas, but it also gives them new ideas about understanding a unique American conundrum: Why are so many millions of Americans willing to voluntarily surrender fundamental human and Constitutional rights in order to ‘join’ mini-Socialist enclaves where ‘groupthink’ is used to homogenize the thoughts and behaviors of all other members. Is small-scale Socialism as expressed in the HOA model really as fearsome as many of us think? Spying on neighbors to model and control behavior just seems so fascist. What am I missing?
The following is being posted on a dozen of the most active LinkedIn military and veterans groups with a combined total of over 50,000 readers. But, much more social media exposure is needed by those more expert than I.
As one (like many others in the military) who have been tasked to turn around failed units (in my case, logistics and procurement units), I am quite aware of how difficult it will be to turn around or significantly restructure the giant VA department.
It will require very accomplished leadership with a well-documented “war plan” containing very clear objectives and measures of merit for the conversion and the resulting organizational components. Repeating the past half-baked actions will fail again.
Many decades ago, this nation simultaneously entered the losing wars in Europe and Asia and made the difference in totally turning the wars around and achieving total victory in about 3 years. Do we have such gifted and selfless leaders today to deal with the VA problems? If we fail, millions of veterans lives are at risk.
Of course, the leadership challenge to “fix” the VA is much less daunting for making military, reserve, guard and veterans healthcare services “acceptable”. But, unless serious efforts are taken by legislatures at both the federal and state levels and by highly experienced industry leaders to ensure the leadership and resources are provided to repair the broken systems for all veterans, the nation will fail again. And, our ability to continue to man the all-volunteer force with the highest quality people is likely to fail.
If “we” allow that to happen, it will be a monumental failure by our citizens and our veterans organizations. The obvious conclusions is that our military, veterans and their families must become activists for change. Regrettably, we can no longer wait patiently and trust that the “country” will “do the right things” for our people.
I would like to ask all that read this to send personal mail and call Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to act NOW to pass the bill allowing the VA Secretary to deal precisely and promptly with failed VA civilians. That is a CRITICAL element in beginning to change the failed VA culture. It must be allowed to pass immediately.