MILLENNIUM ESSAY CONTEST ENTRIES; LOOKING FORWARD: WASTED PROGRESS

If we were to look ahead 100, 500 or 1,000 years, what would change? Certainly technology supersedes work. Machines slave, not asking for pensions, vacations or holidays. They'll never ask for a promotion or a pay raise. Think about it. They don't support families either. We had a minor flaw. Some things just don't change. A thousand years ago, money bought justice. True today in this society, unless you're facing an election, then you would deny it. Raising children didn't change, only the laws. Today you have to remember don't correct, just reward. Spankings can send you to jail, or your children can divorce you if they so desire.

Let us say war has gotten better. No need for ground troops. Hand-to-hand combat is a thing of the past. Today we can destroy entire cities from the other side of the planet. Civilian casualties we've always figured on having them. Perhaps next time. Yes, I sound despaired. When farmers can be paid not to raise crops while people in this world starve, what is right about that? Weapons capable of world annihilation are built. Most wars begin over a thing called religion. It's funny, considering the rule, "Thou shalt not kill." We fight for land, although there is plenty to go around.

Oil, equally distributed, no man would lack. In essence, we fight wars because after the second thousand years, we have again failed. Being the most intelligent creatures, we failed to learn there is a better way.

We can look back one thousand years and see so much progress, everything from the automobile to the ability to transplant a heart in order to save a life. Man has wasted a thousand years of overwhelming progress by following the wrong path. Just imagine a nuclear scientist studying medicine instead of the bomb. An F-16 pilot on a mission to space instead of a bombing run. There is no need for boundaries. No need for countries to strive for self-wealth while others starve. This is true, not just among borders, but within them as well. We, the most powerful nation on earth, the United States of America, has people living on the streets hungry. In the world around them, people worry that someone may take their excess of money from them.

So shall we say, in conclusion, that the past millennium was a success?? Perhaps man did find astronomical success in it. All he need do now in the next millennium is learn to put that focus in the fight perspective. If man can accomplish that, he can accomplish the unbelievable. A world in which all men equally share this great planet.

All can live as one. After all, this Constitution says "All men are created equal."