The Future of America

Sometimes I can get pretty down about the country I live in. We do a lot of things, as a global entity and as a culture, that I'm not very proud of.
Election days are often days when I am not excited to be American, in the end.
But today I read this essay and started feeling hopeful again. It's by the son of a guy I went to high school with. His name is Eli, and he's 12 years old. This is what he has to say:

We are in a country of political and economic decline. We have put ourselves on the treacherous road to becoming a fascist country. In the way we are living, the environment has become devastated. We are cutting down all the trees... we are dumping trash into the ocean... While we may not be responsible for this we are not doing enough to make a difference, and/ or possibly change our ways. Not enough effort has gone into fixing this nation. We have truly become a self destructive civilization. While all this could have been fixed a while ago, it seems we are only too late. What have we truly given to the world? War, debt? Is that all we are? Cannot we become maybe a more peaceful nation, or perhaps one who has not caused harm to others? While we owe money... billions of dollars, the national debt continues to soar. We now depend on that funding, and if that funding was pulled, America would crumble. We would be no longer the land of opportunity, or freedom, but where people are trying to escape, trying to rid themselves of the responsibility of fixing this nation. We are lost. We, the people... we were the people, but that ideal has changed. Our democracy as a whole has been differentiated from other countries around the world. I am not saying that they are correct. They are almost as correct as we are. But we can do much better. We can fix America... But, it cannot be just us. We have to have more support. We need to help, and we need help to save our nation.