Purpose

Lately I've been mulling over the idea of national goals. I haven't really considered it before actually. What happens when a nation or society has no unifying goals? If you look at the US' recent history, you can see that we seemed to thrive when we had a sense of common purpose. In the 30's we were trying to get through the Depression. In the 40's, it was WWII. In the 50's and 60's it was defeating the commies and the space program. Look at the 70's though. It was a period of disillusionment and drift. In the 80's we resurected the commies again, and we were trying to pull out of a recession. Since 1990 though...it's pretty much a void as far as any sort of unifying issue or purpose for the US. What seemed to take its place was a fractious divide between the left and the right. "The War On Terror" seemed like it might fill that void for a time, but the major players overplayed their hand and ended up just further exacerbating the ideological division within the US. I think the public is generally pretty cynical about the government's efforts, both overseas and domestically. The issue has been overly politicized and the public feels manipulated (with good reason, in my opinion). I'm beginning to feel that if a leader emerges with an agenda of goals for the US to accomplish (I'm talking real goals here, with deadlines and accountability) he or she could be very successful. I think that a people yearn for good leadership and want to know what they can do to help. Americans see themselves as "can do" people. If someone clever enough to recognize this comes along in '08, they could run away with the presidential race.
So what should America set as national goals? What do we want to fix, or improve about our society? I think the time is NOW to begin this discussion.