FiftyGigs—I’d say the Republican Party is anything but monolithic at the moment.  There is a deep divide between its established leadership on the one hand and the many dissidents who have appeared under the aegis of the Tea Party Movement.  The latter are themselves ideologically incoherent.  Meanwhile neo-cons and Wall Street types have drifted over to the Democrats which is where the money and power (and sanity) are these days.

If the Republican Party continues to fissure, the argument that lefties must vote Democratic to keep the even more awful Republicans out of power is going to lose a lot of its force.  2010 and 2012 might prove to be good moments for proggie excursions into electoral politics.  In any case, cowering under the skirts of the Democratic Party is not going to advance their causes much.

However, I don’t see any signs of serious activity yet.

gerard—This, by Frances Moore Lappé, might be of interest: “Enough Tea Party-Style Whining—It’s Time to Take Back Our Jobs and Businesses” (http://www.alternet.org/story/146386/) 

I don’t think you’re going to see much about that sort of thing on this website, though, where we generally get to read what the neo-cons and neo-libs say in the Washington Post and make fun of them.

to avoid any impression that i an crazy, or worse, check out this link.
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5251

the article discusses the reasons all of us can benefit from doing a bit of gardening. and, the benefits go far beyond just having better veggies. in tough times it can mean eating food, rather than going hungry.

beyond that, is someone offering a solution to our problems that goes beyond building a consensus over tens of years, or picking up a gun and shooting those who disagree with our views?

There are plenty of reasons to find fault with the
Democratic Party. It still has a left wing, a right
wing, and a center. Some see that as a weakness up
against the monolithic, fascist, Republican Party. I
agree it’s a problem within the confines of screwed
up Senate procedures.

I would argue that the source of the problem,
however, is the long-term degeneracy caused by the
conservative movement, now realized fully in the
make-a-buck organization known as Fox TV and its
affiliate, the Republican Party. You can accuse the
Democrats of being impure, infected by the same
disease as Republicans, but as a liberal, I believe
it’s human nature to be good. Whatever the disease,
it has afflicted conservatism, and made it’s way
through our entire social structure, including
government, business, and religious institutions. It
is manifestly a global phenomena, not just an
American one. It’s objective is the eradication of
liberal tradition going back to the Magna Carta.

Some progressives feel the cure is to create a third
party, as if a third party will be immune and
magically monolithic in some single-minded, preferred
way. They’re free to pursue that, but what do you do
in the meantime? Complain about the Democrats and
never about Republicans? If you don’t like Democrats
because they’re not progressive enough, then you
absolutely HAVE to despise Republicans, who clearly
are regressive.

At the risk of quoting a Bushism, if you’re not
helping the Democrats, you’re helping the
Republicans. I’m not saying that as a marketing
strategy, or as a political ploy suggesting
progressives have to “settle” for “watered down”
legislation. I believe that, of the two parties, the
Democratic Party provides the quickest, practical way
for you to attain your desired goals, so the question
is: who are you going to help?

Conservatives know very well what liberals stand for.
The proof is in their very attack. They’re attempting
to co-op terms like freedom and liberty and
patriotism and religion and entrepreneur precisely
because those are OUR terms. Liberalism is all about
all that for everyone.

When Gingrich gets on television and accuses the
President of compromising our defense by refusing to
nuke an enemy who attacks with biological weapons, he
knows full well he’s lying. He’s engaged in a
premeditated attempt to disunify while co-opting
liberal ideals to hide his true goal of undermining
the democratic principles which form the foundation
of liberalism.

Therefore, it’s pointless to broadcast that he’s
lying. The people he’s lying to don’t know or care.
In fact, they love to see liberals get upset. It
provides lively entertainment for couch potatos, and
validates their distrust of us.

Better is to make Gingrich reveal and defend his own
positions, even the co-opted ones. So, Mr. Gingrich,
should the people of Connecticut pay for Sweden’s
defense? Mr. Lieberman, why are you blocking the
treaty when your opposition strengthens the Iranian
nuclear program?

Even if independents build a third party, realize
that conservatives are going to use the same tactics
against you that they’re using against liberals right
now. May I suggest you FIGHT Republicans now? And
make NOW the time to PROMOTE your ideas? That way,
you won’t be part of the Republican team, and you
have a realistic opportunity to achieve what you
want.

Unity is the cure.

50Gigs has an excellent handle on what I’ve been trying to say: The GOP is NOW all about building a new feudal empire, with themselves as gentry and the rest as serfs.

But what The Worm doesn’t understand is that this wishy-washy half-measures are far better than the destructive policies of the GOP.  They want to dismember every positive aspect of our government and leave on the military and tools to control the population and stifle dissent.

So the stim pack isn’t as good as it should be.  So that means it’s working slower BUT IT’S WORKING.

The bleeding has essentially stopped—unemployment has finally stopped rising.  Now the healing must begin.

On a dock in Izmir, Turkey, we saw massive amounts of long, giant arms.  What were they? Wind generator arms for the windy Anatolian plains.  Why don’t we see these on every American dock, going out of the nation? Why?

Answer that and you answer what is wrong with America’s economy.

my arm is still broken.  hurts like hell, so plesse expect and forgive typos.

No belief in a future by those over 40? when i turned 50. i was devastated - only 30 good years left! 73 begins next month - only 30 good years left. oh, woe is me!

Plan5t a tree! gardeners always have a future, and the are busy in the present time too. A fruit tree wiil help feed your friends and family when the transpo grid collapses.

start learning about the ‘community communes’ in venezuela. Find out how they are set up [town meetings, one person, one vote - much like new eng in the 1700s, minus the patryarchy stuff]

our society and infrastructure may/will collapse. so? i figure we have 30 good years left. let’s plant some trees and ideas about how to live better with less instead of whining about a lost cause.

all my veggies are growing madly. i used the cuban organic farming outline: a border of onions, garlic, basil and marigolds to discourage bugs. squash, beans and jicama in the center with a home grown and made trellis. the whole thing is 2’x20’. with 2 aux tubs.

if you have a wall and a balcony, or small yard, you too can provide for the winter. there are clumpimg bamboos that do well in most climates. many do well in tubs or barrels. they will provide handy, self regenerating mat’l for fences, garden trellises or stakes. some have edible shoots which are very high in protien.

if you have kids at home, insist they help. they will bitch and moan, but the skills may prove more valuable than an mba!

Voters had had it with Republican policies and elected a Democratic President,
sent a Democratic majority to the House and a Democratic ‘super-majority’ to
the Senate.

The Democrats have had ample forces & a year plus.

Here’s what a Democratic President, Democratic House & Democratic Senate
have done:

1.Ignored previous Republican profligacy, crimes, misdemeanors ?– e.g.
kidnapping, rendition, illegal wiretaps, torture, tax cuts for the wealthy. ??(Dawn
Johnsen, Obama’s recent sacrifice, opposed Bush-era torture; she wasn’t
among Obama’s recess appointments & just this week withdrew - Obama’s
practice of embracing Bush policies continues.)

2. Supported a stingy stimulus ... half of what was needed for jobs and ?
‘compromised’ away a third of the remainder in tax breaks.?? (Democrats &
Obama continue to preside over record unemployment for main street & record
bonuses for bankers - accelerating the shift of wealth from the middle class to
the top 3%.)

3. Accelerated $ 4.3 Trillions in Bush bailouts, ?guarantees and purchases of
private sector ‘assets’, at well above market ?value. (Accelerating the shift of
wealth from the middle class to the top 3%.)

?4. Escalated a meaningless & fruitless war.? (This week McChrystal noted ‘We’ve
killed so many innocent civilians.’  During months of agonizing closed-door
‘analysis and reflection’, we’re asked to believe neither Obama nor a General
said “We’re entering an insurgency, fewer than a dozen of our men and women
speak the language, fewer than that know anything of the culture,  we’ll be
going directly into citizens’ homes, farms and villages, we’ll be heavily armed
with high-tech lethal weapons, and we wont be able to tell friend from foe.
What do you think the chances are that we’ll be killing innocent civilians?”  No
one considered this?)

5. Gutted real financial reform & substituted finger wagging, silly ?taxes & fees
for serious structural & regulatory reforms, while banking fees continue up,
lending freezes, credit ?tightens, bank profits escalate, ‘bonuses’ rise and too-
big-to-fail remains the accepted premise. (The financial institution’s “failure”
simply meant Obama & the Democrats shifted more middle class wealth to the
financial industry to cover the loses to those ‘essential free market institutions’;
now, we’re told, “It was nobody’s fault; so why ‘be mad & punish the financial
industry”? They were only following the laws they’d written.”?? Obama & the
Democrats want the financial industry to write the ‘reform legislation’.)

6. Not helped people with bankruptcy & mortgages remediation. (Continuing
the shift of wealth from the middle class to the wealthiest 3%.)

7. Fiddled around & not passed a jobs bill.? (And, currently, holding up
unemployment compensation benefits. See 1-5 above for items more
important to Obama & the Democrats.)

8. Rejected the only option that would have simultaneously extended coverage
and cut costs (single payer). (20% of the premiums mandated to be paid can -
by law - go to CEO bonuses, lobbying, campaign contributions to ‘sympathetic’
candidates, advertising, marketing & fighting your claim [in a federally
mandated dispute-resolution process - you’ll not be provided government
money to help present your side]. Obama didnt want to direct more money to
health care; he felt it wasnt worth the fight.)?

Education, environment, infrastructure, alternative energy cry out for a public
response. Under the Democrats, all must await funding, while financial industry
& military interests are served first.

Voters sent Democrats to halt Bush policies, change direction & put the nation
on the course.

Looking at last year, wouldn’t voters naturally blame the Democrats for failing?

Precisely, FiftyGigs, which is why I quit the Repubs more than a decade ago—they don’t want to help the country, they just want to help themselves ... to power and wealth. Not that the Demos are much better; my favorite paraphrase from “Romeo and Juliet” is from Mercutio—“A PLAGUE O’BOTH THEIR HOUSES!!!”

I agree we need to keep up the infrastructure, but
this statement is completely wrong:

“If there is any subject that enrages those who now
call themselves conservatives, it is federal
spending.”

We have trillions of examples that disprove that
notion. Conservatism hasn’t anything to do with
principles. It’s simply opposition to Democrats. The
Republican strategy—keyed off talk radio and now
the mainstream media strategy of spinning everything
(democratic) as an attack on some core (republican)
value—is about fostering disunity to promote an
image of the Republican Party as capable of
addressing the problem of disunity without presenting
any actual unifying plan beyond subjugation.

Conservatives will attack any Democratic President,
and their attacks are becoming more virulent, and
they will become even more so unless we stand up to
them and challenge them on values.

Otherwise, we help them. We thrash about weakened,
disunified, evidenced by self-proclaimed
“intellectuals” obsessing about their own group’s
failings and short-comings, never attacking the
conservative threat. Thus serving to amplify the
conservative attack message.

When was the last time you mentioned that Republicans
simply want people to die and die quickly? That isn’t
just a health care talking point. It’s a truth. Take
a look at West Virginia for yet another example of
it.

What if we all reinforced that message in everything
we wrote and spoke and put on television and called
in to radio and mailed to the newspaper and commented
on blogs?

The answer is we’d find ourselves thinking of new,
imaginative solutions to the real problem—
conservative degeneracy.

Some people on the left are behaving like star
linebackers on a football team. Certain the
quarterback won’t run the play they think is best,
they sit out the game. The result of that strategy is
predictable. They lose.

Stop apologizing for incremental improvements and
fight. Hard. Sarah wants her pals to reload their
pistols? Find a howitzer.

Conservatives and Republicans represent degeneracy,
of government, of religion, of business, and the
signs of this are all around us. Even the smallest
achievement over them is a victory. If we make enough
small victories, they’ll eventually amount to
something.

I miss TaoWalker to jump in at this point, don’t you?
Thank you, Anarchissie.  Just an added note to point out that there are clumps of people here and there, poorly publicized, hence unknown to the majority. They are changing their lives significantly by adopting more human ways of living, making a living, and treating others.  One such change is calling itself “the Commons.”  TaoWalker used to allude to another way, but it was difficult to get a “feel” for exactly what he meant. Cooperative production centers and movements are arousing interest. Community-rebuilding is occurring in many cities. These are the beginnings of a more humane world.
  More specific knowledge of any and all these movements would be helpful on sites like this, don’t you think?

It may be that the U.S. has more infrastructure than it “deserves”, so to speak.  The U.S. has been living on the tab for a long time.  Even before it was explicitly on the tab, it was benefiting from the avid propensity of the rest of the world to fight and destroy itself.  At the end of World War 2, half of the world’s working manufacturing capability was in the United States.  Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the Soviet Union, Japan, Korea, China had all been wrecked and bankrupted by war.  Now, the shoe is pretty much on the other foot.  And so I think it’s quite possible that “we” really can’t afford our bridges and highways and the SUVs that roll around on them, and they’re just going to have to fall down.

This may seem pessimistic and cynical, but one might see it as a just rectification and an opportunity to repent and rebuild on a better basis.  But first, of course, there’s going to be a lot of theater to work through.

Mr. Freeze:  I absolutely agree that “long-term thinking” is not the concern of most people. The reasons for this are many and complicated.
  Nevertheless, online spaces like this are one place where some long-term thinking might occur. 
  Blaming other people, and expressing deep fatalism about the country and the world are not examples of long-term thinking and contribute a great deal to “short-term” thinking and panic.

We must remember that right-wingers don’t feel an obligation to debate anything logically. The hate lines/ the chasms are built, not allowing anything resembling intelligent discussion to flourish. Keep Americans dumbed down, keep them attuned to images and spectacle and let think tanks provide agenda-bound people with the dogma and slogans that emotionally feed minds already closed to thought.

Paul, the way to change the system is to get your congressman to support the Fair Elections Act at http://www.fairelectionsnow.org/more/summary

If politicians are to be beholden to their funders, those funders must be the taxpayers. We are paying for the elections anyway, a hundred times over when taxpayer assets are given away. I’d prefer the $6 per taxpayer per year this bill would cost. It would be a bargain at 100 times the cost.

Jack Lohman
http://MoneyedPoliticians.net

Aye, Mr. Lohman; “get rid of the System”—the poisonous, stinking System. But how to do so, when the scum who are behind the System are either allied to the State, or, worse, are part of the State? States, after all, insist on a monopoly of violence, and as Lord Halifax once said, “When a people contend for their liberty, they seldom get anything by their victory but new masters.”

Those far-right-wing oafs and dimwits who would welcome a “second American Revolution” or a “second Civil War” ought to think about *that!*

We will not rebuild squat until we rid of the system that caused the problem in the first place: our corrupt campaign finance system. Politicians took money from the elite and then passed back to them America’s assets in exchange. The massive transfer of wealth took from the taxpayers and families and made multi-billionaires of many.

During the last two years the Forbes 400 increased their wealth by $30 billion. The country’s wealth will continue its escape until we implement public funding of campaigns and we return the ownership of congress to the people. Or we have a rebellion.

I prefer the former.

Jack Lohman
http://MoneyedPoliticians.net

The problems of infrastructure are real.  But the energies spent here are not.
Most of the Wall Street bailout is or will come back to the government. One of the banks we bought into, we just sold at DOUBLE what we (the US taxpayer) paid for it.  GM is close to where we can sell our 60% share—and it should be for a healthy profit as well. AIG, well, that should NEVER have been allowed to get where it got.  We bailed our AIG, because Bush’s appointments from Goldman Sachs WANTED AIG bailed out—because if AIG failed, Goldman would fail.  Only reason for it.

I don’t see Goldman paying us back yet though.

Still, much of the bailout is a tempest in a teacup as we, the taxpayers, get our investment back at a profit.

It’s also true, hard to admit it especially if you are unemployed, that the stim and bailout are actually WORKING. It’s not that unemployment didn’t go down. It’s that unemployment FINALLY stopped rising.  Unemployment is a trailing economic indicator.  That means just about EVERY OTHER economic indicator has to be good before unemployment improves.

Unfortunately, this is a fact of life.  For unemployment to improve, there have to be jobs. For there to be jobs, there have to be tasks that need to be done, tasks that add value, whether it’s sweeping up trash, digging ditches, or writing new software to meld home windmill power into the energy grid….whatever.

But, we have the 30 year legacy of Ronald Reagan killing our heavy industry to break the unions.  And they were broken. But with it, our rust belt industries were broken as well.  It all started with a tax incentive for corporations to “help” developing nations by opening factories off-shore.  1982. Ronald Reagan, a GOP Senate, and a defecting right-wing Democratic block that gave the House EFFECTIVE GOP control.

This is what we have reaped.

One of the TV networks had a 2 hour show this week about Americas deteriorating infrastructure. On the scorecard we rated between a C- and a D on every category with the end result being a D. Most of the infrastructure is 20+ years past the expiration date of safety, yet little is done about it.

When the electric grid went out under Bush 2 in 2003, the repugs cried it would cost about 4 billion dollars to repair it properly. Wow! Only one week of what they admitted they spent just on the Iraq war alone, but if they admit to 4 billion a week just for the Iraqi war, what were they really spending? How about all the total wars and all the MIC wasted spending every year just by America alone?

If we were ever to quit wasting borrowed money to continue this asinine quest of fighting terrorism perhaps that money would have been used to rebuilt and repair what needed to be done here at home rather than building it all in countries we blew up in the first place and once we rebuild them, the enemy? forces destroy what we just built brand new for them which we refuse to do so at home as we continue to crumble into dust and rubble.

As for defending America, we have no soldiers here to really defend us and against who should we defend ourselves from? Foreign nations or the gangs and thugs that are home grown?

The signs of a dying nation are a cut in services to the people. This is commonplace all across America today so what are we fighting for anyway except to make the MIC richer. It is certainly not to defend a dying nation we find ourselves as today.

America as it is now has no future.

It’s not only crumbling roads and bridges, that are destroyed, it’s the ability of people to pay taxes to support the government, because they have no jobs, and the jobs they do have are barely enough to even feed themselves.

Financial reform will not make any difference, even if bankrucpy reform is undone, or consumer protection is enacted to protect people from the predatroy lending practises of the credit card companies and banks.

Trillions of dollars have been burned up, and it’s not coming back, 35% of the population is on food stamps. Pretty soon it may be hard to buy gas, or get back from the grocery store unless your armed to the teeth.

Against this back drop Bernake insisted that Americans would probably have to accept higher taxes to keep from facing staggering debts.

Yet people cannot even pay the taxes they have now, many have to decide whether or not to feed their children, or watch them starve after the taxes are paid.

And I ask you has the thinking changed on Wall Street or at the Federal Reserve? Did they face any consequences for what they did to us? Or are they still living in Castles high up in the sky, untouched, clueless, unmoved by the suffering all around them. Suffering, which I might add, they caused by their greed and stupidity.

All this means, is that on Wall Street they haven’t gotten the message, and so it’s going to have to be a bigger one next time.

The whole point of working for a living is living in the future, hoping that the mortgage will be paid off in the future, the bills will be paid, the children will go to college, and that someday there will be a rest from back breaking scrimping, saving and coupon cutting.

Americans are crumbeling, just like the roads, their collapsing just like the bridges, their poisoned just like the air they breathe, the food and water they drink. In the future there was hope that all that would change, now there isn’t..

The future used to offer hope, not it only offers fear and dread, for what we all know will come.

Certainly, mrfreeze, they’d foolishly say “guns before butter”, not realizing that the State love war because it makes the State bigger and more powerful; “war is the health of the State”, as Randolph Bourne said 92 years ago. We’re a country of proud, stiff-necked, easily duped people who falsely believe that the State has only our best interests at heart. I fear it’ll take a very big shock to cure us of this.

Paul and Gerard - Thanks for the thoughtful comments.

Paul - I’d be willing to bet if you asked most Americans the question: Guns or butter? The answer would be guns. It’s all we seem to understand these days. It is what has led us to empire building, to justifying torture and a lot of other truly ugly behaviours and I see no end in sight. I believe that the Europeans, after having experienced enough carnage over the last several thousand years understand far more clearly what it is to NOT build the military industrial complex at the expense of other far more important things.

Gerard - Whenever I make the mistake of turning on the TV and watch the news (rarely), it is obvious that Americans are suffering from a malaise called “terminal 12-year-old syndrome.” Simply put, the monied elites have so dumbed-down and infantalized (I made that word up) us that our only purpose in life seems to be: buy shit and go into debt. Long-term thinking isn’t part of the equation.

mrfreeze, as I see it, the US military isn’t defending anything; it’s battling to maintain and expand the Empire—an empire that’s declining even as it fights in vain to shore up its ramparts in Iraq and Afghanistan. What an incredible waste! Historians will be puzzling over this for a long time; how the American Elite, regardless of party, could be so blind and stupid and hubristic as to spend money and lives to maintain and expand a dying empire when so much needed to be done at home.

mrfreeze:  One more thing:  I don’t know what the evidence is for not being “hard wired” to anticipate the future. But a definition of “future” would seem necessary at this point.  Is one’s idea of “future” tomorrow?  Ten years ahead? A hundred years?
  Stands to reason that those millions who are forced to scavenge in dumpsters for food will be mostly worried about tomorrow, and next week may rarely enter their heads.  Those who have a secure financial status probably can think in terms of decades ahead—when they retire?  When their kids are grown?  To whom will they leave their money?  Will endowing a foundation make them remembered longer after their death?  Will some new invention in the future put their company out of business? 
  Those who have the education or live close to nature may feel connected to the past and can perhaps look farther ahead.  What they see may be determined by attitudes that really are “hard-wired”—genetic inclinations etc., like depression, mood swings, imaginatioin, anticipatatory excitement etc.  (We know little about genetic matters.) Or culture-deterined ideas. 
  Also, looking forward by looking backward can of course be either encouraging or discouraging, depending upon what parts of history one looks back on.  Either human creativity is boundless and inevitable or human destruction cannot be avoided.  In which case, one usually makes a choice about what to emphasize.
  If I want my grandchildren to have a good life, I will probably want to emphasize hope—maybe even work to justify it. If I care only about myself, I won’t do much for the future.
  Come to think of it, centuries ago the idea of “heaven” was invented by somebody who thought he/she would like to live forever.  Ever since then, millions have insisted in believing there is a “heaven.”  Quite a long view—and probably
“wired in” by this time, if we are to believe literature from ages ago till now.
  Thanks for the brain-shot!

This morning on Diane Rehm, Ian McEwan, the author of a new book entitled “Solar” said something quite pertinent to this discussion:

As human beings, we are simply NOT hard-wired to think into the future very far. He spoke about the impending problems the world faces with global climate change and that fact that WE WOULD BE ASKING OURSELVES TO DO SOMETHING FOR PEOPLE WE WILL NEVER KNOW (OUR GREAT GRANDCHILDREN ETC.). Equally as interesting is the notion that investing in and rebuilding our infrastructure is the same thing.

I’m afraid that infrastructural investment is virtually impossible for most Americans to wrap their heads around because, simply put, we are too selfish, greedy and uneducated to act in the interest of others.

It kind of makes one wonder why we even have a military because it’s defending a country that is falling apart, literally.

Consider this:  We (especially in the U.S., but to some degree worldwide, and especially people over 40) have lost interest in the future.  Somewhere along the line the past became irrelevant and the present became hectic, all-consuming, massively out of control, demanding every bit of energy and attention just to keep things going and going and going, just to get from one day to the next. An experiment in perpetual motion with no time or energy left for the long view.
  Too many of us believe that history repeats itself inevitably, and can see enough evidence of stupidity to believe it. 
  The fallacies of such universal psychic myopia are now coming into plain sight.  People see that “things fall apart” but they also believe that power kept in hands beyond their control is inevitable.  Millions are scared, stumped, sad, lonely and oppressed. Millions are hungry and uneducated.
  Those who have captured the power and pull the financial strings have separated themselves from what they do, and from those they do things to. They live in a strange isolated cloudland., ignoring responsibility, ignoring suffering. They don’t allow themselves to see what is happening, don’t want to see it, and think that even though “things fall apart” they can save themselves.  They suppose “others” are too stupid and too supine to “deserve” a better life. 
  Under such circumstances, the inevitable signs of creativity, of new ideas, of ways to save ourselves either die a natural death or are overlooked as too difficult, crazy, scarey. Can’t stop war. (the economy) Can’t regulate pollution.(the economy)  Can’t prevent exploitation (the economy).  Can’t change the system. (the economy)  Can’t ...
  We will find what we look for.  We will get what we expect. The dark expectations are “part of the problem, not part of the solution.”
  Young people today are fully as creative, as eager, as inventive, as hopeful as young people always are.  We owe them to at least stop the
pervasive fatalism and at least make a start on solving the most obvious malfunctioning structures.
  It may mean pushing the oligarchs out of the way.
Maybe some of them will be bright enough to catch on
and start to help. But “we are the ones we are waiting for” as has already been said any number of times.

Consider this:  We (especially in the U.S., but to some degree worldwide, and especially people over 40) have lost interest in the future.  Somewhere along the line the past became irrelevant and the present became hectic, all-consuming, massively out of control, demanding every bit of energy and attention just to keep things going and going and going, just to get from one day to the next. An experiment in perpetual motion with no time or energy left for the long view.
  Too many of us believe that history repeats itself inevitably, and can see enough evidence of stupidity to believe it. 
  The fallacies of such universal psychic myopia are now coming into plain sight.  People see that “things fall apart” but they also believe that power kept in hands beyond their control is inevitable.  Millions are scared, stumped, sad, lonely and oppressed. Millions are hungry and uneducated.
  Those who have captured the power and pull the financial strings have separated themselves from what they do, and from those they do things to. They live in a strange isolated cloudland., ignoring responsibility, ignoring suffering. They don’t allow themselves to see what is happening, don’t want to see it, and think that even though “things fall apart” they can save themselves.  They suppose “others” are too stupid and too supine to “deserve” a better life. 
  Under such circumstances, the inevitable signs of creativity, of new ideas, of ways to save ourselves either die a natural death or are overlooked as too difficult, crazy, scarey. Can’t stop war. (the economy) Can’t regulate pollution.(the economy)  Can’t prevent exploitation (the economy).  Can’t change the system. (the economy)  Can’t ...
  We will find what we look for.  We will get what we expect. The dark expectations are “part of the problem, not part of the solution.”
  Young people today are fully as creative, as eager, as inventive, as hopeful as young people always are.  We owe them to at least stop the
pervasive fatalism and at least make a start on solving the most obvious malfunctioning structures.
  It may mean pushing the oligarchs out of the way.
Maybe some of them will be bright enough to catch on
and start to help. But “we are the ones we are waiting for” as has already been said any number of times.

Isn’t it still true that rich are getting richer? Thus, as before, don’t need cars to travel to work. So, this takes care of potholes.
And if the rich are even just staying rich and not getting richer, wars must be of some use for the rich.
No, of course not, for car drivers, and bus riders!

Btw, isn’t cia-army even getting stronger-larger rather than smaller? And aren’t solely the rich people who control army, cia, fbi, police?
Which means, this also doesn’t cost them anything and especially if they are getting richer.

And the system staying the same! Isn’t it? And it belongs to rich people for the benefit of rich people only.
Katrinas, forclosures, wars, joblessness [10, 20, 30%] come and go but the system stays.
And one expects amellioration? How so, black bro! tnx

The solution is simple, but to paraphrase Clausewitz, the simplest solutions are incredibly complex—end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan! Bring every American soldier, sailor, Marine and air"person” home from overseas! Change the country’s military- and foreign-policy posture from offense and maintaining/expanding the Empire to one of pure defense and non-interventionism! End ALL entangling alliances! Break the back of the military-industrial complex! Reduce the US military in size until it’s solely a defensive force, not one that can be used for offense!

And if we can’t or won’t do these things, I fear the consequences will be frightful for all of us—maybe sooner than we think.