Nothing About Baseball or Sports

The country has been besieged by “Sully Mania”; Sully being the nickname of the Captian Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger, III of US Airways flight 1549 that ditched in the middle of Hudson River on Thursday afternoon. What is so special about this man that all, young and old are fixated on him; outside of the hero part; he is a symbol of hope in bleak times; he may even overshadow the Inauguration of the new President.

On Tuesday Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States. In a period of hard economic times, record unemployment and business failures; he promises change; he promises to put America back to work. However for those of us waiting to see what the new administration will bring; we remain hopeful, but guarded; Washington has a way of working; and generally it is not to the benefit of the majority of American voters, but to the benefit of the few. Americas are skeptical that we have become a country of “me first, you later”. Captain Sullenberger represents the hope that “me first” can be banished from our society.

If the new President restores the US economy he will go down in the record books as a hero. He has a lot to overcome, because he is up against a crowd of rich and powerful me first people, Wall Street. To fix the economy, bad trading, lending, and business consolidation practices need to be stopped. Wall Street has been artificially inflating stock prices for years based on earning reports. Stock has been used like cash in business merger; one of the primary reason our economy has plunged. Stock like credit cards has no value unless the business succeeds.

So on Thursday afternoon, when Captain Sullenberger choose a water landing on the coldest day in NYC, he showed that there are still many Americans who aren’t “me first”. He represents the ability of people to make the better choice; the choice that will benefit the majority, not the minority. There could have been losers Thursday US Airways, lost an airplane and got a lot of negative crash publicity. However the plane will be covered by insurance and all the crash publicity has been countered by the ability of a flight crew to get everyone back to their families alive.

On Tuesday the new administration will ask all to make some sacrifices; while they fix the economy. Wall Street and big corporate executives need to take the biggest sacrifices. Much of our economic waste starts at the top of companies, with extravagant salaries, perks and bonuses. I say this; if one man could make a life or death decision based on what is best for all; then a handful of powerful and rich people can make a decision to sacrifice their extravagance to benefit the a majority.

“Sully Mania” is the promise that it might happened; that Americans will sacrifice to benefit the majority.

And for those of you people who still treat out soldiers like lepers. Remember this also; sacrifice is the heart of military personnel. They give up a lot for our freedom with the hope to protect those who cannot. Captain Sullenberger was one of those military men, before he became a commercial pilot. Maybe that made his decision easier Thursday; he was use to sacrificing.

We all want a nice comfortable life. But how comfortable must it be? It does not need to be extravagant. We need to make sure we have food, clothing and housing and a salary to pay for it. Being a common person is not a bad thing; however being an uncommon person someone who thinks of their self first and how to be as rich as possible is a very bad thing.

America is the land of the common person; granted our Founding Fathers were men with money and estates; however those men gave up their easy lives to establish this country. Had the Revolutionary War ended differently; all would have died on King George III’s gallows.

Its time for executives and unions to make sacrifices, to help this economy; follow Captain Sullenberger’s example and think of others, and not yourselves.