By MARK DEVOLDER
Los Alamos

I have been doing some thinking about America.

The following is my attempt to begin working toward a better America.

It is clear to me that American Government (that is, Federal, State, and Municipal Governments), American Industry, and the American Public are broken. Specifically, the working relationship between government, industry, and the Public (including environmentalists) is broken.

There was a movie starring Randolph Scott made in 1943, “‘Gung Ho!’: The Story of Carlson’s Makin Island Raiders”. “Gung Ho”, a Chinese term, was introduced in the movie and defined as “To work together in harmony”. The Walt Disney movie, “Miracle”, about the USA hockey team winning the gold medal at the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympic Games discussed the need for the highest level of conditioning, speed, creativity, and importantly – team chemistry.

Thomas Jefferson said, “A little rebellion now and then is a good thing.”

Around 1990, Dr. Mary Good gave a Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Director’s Colloquium, which addressed National Science Policy, Industrial Policy, and Competitiveness. She indicated that large-scale industry and government need to work closely together. Only large-scale industry has the capability to achieve complex and expensive goals compared to what small business can achieve. She also indicated if trained researchers are not created by the American Academic system that nothing else matters. Dr. Good commented that the American Public does not understand how the American Free-Enterprise System works. She had many other comments which had merit.

Recommendation:

Los Alamos County Government is enamored with running surveys.

Generally, I do not think highly of surveys. However, it has recently occurred to me that government (the top dog since the Great Depression) needs to start getting input from individual taxpayers about how things are going with government, industry, and the Public.

As a start, the objective would be to find a way to help government, industry, and the Public work more effectively as a team (that is, develop team chemistry). The survey could have multiple choice questions about how things are going in a particular area (for example, infrastructure). The survey needs to include a comment section (that is, a lengthy comment field) and an action needed for improvement section (that is, another lengthy comment field). The survey needs to be distributed prior to elections.

Now comes the tough part.

The survey needs to be completed in order for people to vote.

If someone can come up with a better solution – fine.

I think that Benjamin Franklin or members of the Continental Congress said, “If we don’t hang together, we will surely hang separately.”