This feels like a good time for our collective national conscience to pause and reflect about  the current circumstances. Nothing should come as a surprise, given the neo con philosophies that have goverened us, blind faith in America's big casino - the stock market, and a sense of entitlement that led average citizens to live way beyond their means through credit debt. However, I'm feeling hopeful.  In the context of history, a period of degredation, excess, lack of empathy, and injust war...is followed by an age of compassion and enlightened governing.