I’ve read quite a few descriptions of the last decade being passed around the media. Paul Krugman from the New York Times’ called it the “Big Zero”. In the United Kingdom they are calling it the “naughties” and some are simply calling it the “zeroes”. After a little thought, I decided to label the last ten years as the “Aught to Have” decade.

It seems to this writer that there were many things we “aught to have done”. Our leaders and their allies have spent most of the last decade explaining away and correcting missteps made out of ineptitude, hubris, miscalculations, lies, malfeasance, incompetence, greed, ignorance and corruption.

I too, feel guilty of not having participated in this sort of mass delusion. I “aught to have” listened to those who spoke so eloquently of hope, positive energy and the influence it has on us. That universal belief that someday, someway, I will wake up from the drudgery and banality of my day to day, to find my problems having magically disappeared. If I’d only had “faith” and “believed” in the essential goodness of humanity, i.e. God, everything would be provided for me.

Call me a cynic. But that sounds like the same load of crap teenage suicide bombers are sold before they slaughter innocent people for whatever insane religious/political cause they barely understand.

I will take blame for my part in this mess we have created. There are some many “aught to haves” from the last decade that I believe there is plenty enough blame to go around. As they say, it’s hard to shovel crap without getting it all over yourself!

Here’s a short of list of things the collective “we” ought to have done:

We “aught to have” listened closer to warnings of attacks by Islamic terrorists before 9/11.

We “aught to have” stopped worshipping Alan Greenspan and his religion of unfettered markets, while there was still a chance of stopping the recent crash.

We “aught to have” kept counting hanging chads in Florida and not allowed the Supreme Court to select our President.

We “aught to have” searched the 9/11 hijackers before they got on those planes.

We “aught to have” held George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld accountable for their total incompetence in protecting Americans on that day. (Maybe they should be “waterboarded” to see what they actually knew. Just a thought!)

We “aught to have” allowed government regulation of derivatives and other risky financial markets. (Thank you, Greenspan, Rubin, Summers and Emanuel for NOT allowing regulators to protect the investors in this country!)

We “aught to have” impeached George W. Bush for lying to the Congress and the American people and taking us into Iraq.

We “aught to have” had investigations into looting of the government by defense sub-contractors like K.B.R. and Halliburton.

We “aught to have” held a trial for Dick Cheney’s outing a C.I.A. officer—a federal offense—or shooting his friend in the face on a drunken hunting trip. (Well I think that’s an offense everywhere except Texas, Wyoming and some parts of Missouri and Arkansas.)

We “aught to have” never allowed the government to destroy our civil liberties with the Patriot Act I and II.

We “ought to have” made it harder for anyone to find your personal information on the Internet.

We “aught to have” closed down Guantanamo Bay and prosecuted the White House lawyers who justified using torture and held them responsible for the inhuman actions of soldiers at Abu Ghraib and other illegal detention centers around the world.

We “aught to have” found Osama Bin Ladin and his lieutenants and have them in chains.

We “aught to have” created a viable third party to challenge the duopoly in American politics.

We “ought to have” signed the Kyoto Protocol and taken a leadership position in the debate on climate change. Instead Bush hired pro-business scientists to dispute the existence of global warming. It’s akin to hiring a Christian Scientist as your medical doctor! “There’s nothing wrong with you and even if there was, I wouldn’t do anything about it!”

We “aught to have” never hired a crying football coach to the Chiefs. I love Dick Vermeil, but we’ve been crying about the Chiefs’ mess since he retired.

We “aught to have” thought twice about getting rich through buying and selling homes, as peddled by late night TV hucksters. (You too can be rich and with no money down!)

We “aught to have” questioned the theory that America was destined to be the police force of the world. (What makes us think other people wants us bossing them around?)

We “aught to have” stopped China from purchasing (and stealing) sensitive military and computer technology only to resell them openly to our enemies.

We “aught to have” not given the Taliban millions of dollars in drug interdiction money while they allowed their citizens to starve and harbor those trying to destroy us.

We “aught to have” held our ground against Communist/fascist China becoming our main trading partner. Who doesn’t love lead tainted toys and defective machinery. They now own most of our national debt. (Maybe Bernanke, TIME’s “Man of the Year” can answer this question: Who owns who?)

We “aught to have” let Wall Street and the greedy banks go under. Maybe then they could have learned some lessons about what Greenspan called a “failure in his ideology.” But no, they are still fighting any new regulation on their activities. For shame!

We “aught to have” allowed Rush Limbaugh to remain deaf. After years of pooping in our ears, making us deaf to the truth about his being a hypocritical, doctor-shopping, drug addict. (Get well soon, Rush!)

We “aught to have” fought the insurance companies and health care lobbyists from controlling the debate over expanding health care to all Americans. (What is going to happen to me when I can’t buy over priced, high deductible private insurance?)

We “aught to have” banished the cult of celebrity and its retarded jet set cousins back to the pages of the National Inquirer. (Gossip is not news!)

We “aught to have” legalized marijuana for medical and personal use. Taxed it and stopped contributing to the Mexican drug wars by keeping it illegal.

We “aught to have” gotten a light rail system up and running in the Kansas City area and made it reliable for people to actually use mass transit.

We “aught to have” stopped people from getting triple mortgages on their homes and banks bundling them as investments. Allowing Wall Street to gamble on whether the poor could meet their balloon payments was a fix. (I’ll take five points against the guy with two jobs trying to pay off three house payments! Sounds like a safe bet to me!)

We “aught to have” called on Dick Howser’s ghost to come back and give the Royals at least one winning season a decade.

We “aught to have” stopped the media consolidation pushed by Michael Powell, the delusional former head of the FCC. (Especially when a billionaire foreigner who meddles in the internal politics of America, is allowed to own Direct TV! Thanks Rupert Murdoch. Did you get enough money yet or will Fox be squeezing Time Warner—forcing a blackout or higher rates for cable subscribers.)

We “aught to have” not believed our own propaganda. America is not the greatest empire the world has ever seen. We are not the only beacon of freedom in the world, as we teach our kids in school. History shows that all empires fall eventually. Ask the British Empire, whom we have to keep bailing out from the brink of total decline and irrelevance.

Well, on second thought, maybe I should have called the last ten years, the “aught nots”. Because there were just as many things we shouldn’t have done, as there are things we should have. Mistakes are a part of life. The only distance between knowledge and stupidity is the learning and growth we make in between them. We “ought to have” learned that by now.