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Waking from our collective dream

Gregg Lewis
Lewis, of Salem, is an architect, father and executive MBA candidate at Wake Forest University.

An article in the June 4 issue of "The Economist" titled "Detroitosauras Wrecks" describes in economic and political terms the tendency to protect the status quo. This tendency is most clearly exemplified with the failure of GM as it spent millions of dollars lobbying Congress to maintain laughable fuel standards for decades -- dollars that would have been better spent on innovation and pursuing the next generation of solutions. Why do we hold on to what we have with such a delusional sense of what it means for the future? If nature's rules reserve the most ferocious animal reactions to threats to the young of any given species, why have we failed so miserably to ferociously protect our children's future on this planet? Why have we decided that our principal obligation to our young is to fill their closets, bedrooms and playrooms with the latest games and gadgets?
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