Editor's note: Robert Faber writes occasional columns for AnnArbor.com about aging, politics and other issues.

I was too young at the time of the Great Depression to understand what was happening, but it was clear even to my child’s mind that it was a universal calamity and that it was happening to everyone.

My parents, who had struggled through abject poverty, finally to succeed in opening their own store and building their own house, lost it all in 1932 -- like almost everybody we knew. By the late 1930s, we -- again like almost everybody we knew -- had come back enough to help some of those homeless people lining the streets seeking handouts of food or money or help of any sort. The economy had collapsed, the country seemed to have collapsed, but we all shared that collapse together and joined each other in trying to mend the wounds.

Then the war came and we all shared that together as well -- the fighting and the glory and the sacrifices. The draft, putting into uniform draftees from all segments of our population, built our armed services into a force representing all levels of our society. And those who had not volunteered or been drafted spent much of their spare time collecting scrap metal or pieces of rubber trash that could be used in the war effort, or by entertaining the troops at one of the many USO Centers.

And those people who had managed to accumulate a few dollars over the years used it to buy War Bonds to help fund the war. We all shared the spirit and the needs and the trauma of the war -- and we all shared it together.

And during the war, those who were not fighting and were finally making up for the Depression’s many years of financial struggle -- entrepreneurs showing record profits and workers enjoying incomes they had never seen before -- accepted new rules designed to meet new needs. The most wealthy were taxed up to 94 percent of their income and defense workers had their wages frozen. In one way or another, much as we all suffered in the Depression, we all contributed to its recovery.

And then we grew into the 21st Century -- and it is all falling apart. Corporate influence on the system has expanded with the recent Supreme Court decision to allow unlimited corporate funds to flood the political marketplace. Unrelated, but following the same path, such new corporate mercenaries as Blackwater and KBR, assuming many of the tasks previously provided by branches of our military, have gained a new level of influence in our affairs of state. And the draft has been discontinued, thereby ending one of the obligations of citizenship and further muting the voice of the People.

To a large extent the public has been taken out of the mix, a change noted and lamented in a speech by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates: “Whatever their fond sentiments for men and women in uniform, for most Americans the wars [in Iraq and Afghanistan] remain an abstraction. A distant and unpleasant series of news items that does not affect them personally … warfare has become something for other people to do.”

The commercialization of our current methods of waging war is reflected in the history of the Vietnam War. It was the public protests -- antiwar rallies, high-profile celebrities loudly condemning the war, young people publicly burning their draft cards -- that pressured the government to reverse its policies and finally end the war. And although such complex issues as war and international diplomacy and global economics should not be left to the public to decide, they are still their issues -- concerning their lives and their futures -- and they must be kept in the loop.

One of the flaws in extreme seniorhood is our inclination to look at the past and see what we want to see, perhaps limiting our vision to the good that was and the dreams that could still be. That naiveté may not be the stuff of historians, but carefully attended could help steer a people toward a better tomorrow. And that, I suspect, is what I have here produced -- a segment of our past that may be more romantic than accurate, but which aids and embraces the image that we like to believe is still representative of who we were and who we could still be -- if not needlessly squandered.

The people who made our country were a remarkable group of citizens, but to a large extent it is now the country that makes our people. And more than any other country in the world, our nation’s people are generous, sympathetic and reliable. The changing climate of our politics should not be allowed to change that -- it has become too important a part of our tradition to allow it to fade away.

Bob Faber has been a resident of Ann Arbor since 1954. He and his wife, Eunice, owned a fabric store and later a travel agency. He served a couple of terms on the Ann Arbor City Council. He may be reached at rgfaber@comcast.net.