The Red Brick Times

From a Wall Street Journal editorial by Peggy Noonan:

"I think there is an unspoken subtext in our national political culture right now. In fact I think it's a subtext to our society. I think that a lot of people are carrying around in their heads, unarticulated and even in some cases unnoticed, a sense that the wheels are coming off the trolley and the trolley off the tracks. That in some deep and fundamental way things have broken down and can't be fixed, or won't be fixed any time soon. That our pollsters are preoccupied with 'right track' and 'wrong track' but missing the number of people who think the answer to 'How are things going in America?' is 'Off the tracks and hurtling forward, toward an unknown destination.'"

Off the tracks indeed. Not wanting to be thought an alarmist wacko I very rarely admit my true feelings about the state of America today, that our country, our government, is a juggernaut whose fate is now out of anyones control. It's not Bush, the neocons, the religious right, or even the PACs who are responsible. They're just a symptom. Things got too big and too out of control before they came along. I never thought I'd live to see the Berlin Wall come down, much less the USSR disintegrate. I think maybe I'm going to live to see a change that dramatic in the USA too. My best guess? Either a regional breakup into separate countries ala the USSR or a centralized martial law style takeover. Reading the above editorial made me feel, for the first time, that I'm not alone in my thinking.

Posted 6:24 AM by whatley (3) comments

       Comments:

Too big indeed and out of control. You're right. I'm the wacko sitting next to you. When I call my (local) insurance agent to report a claim and he tells me to call an 800 number where I am finally connected (after much button pushing) to a woman who can barely speak English and resides in Austin who then calls someone in Boston who calls the local (Elyria) glass repair place to set up an appointment so I can have my window replaced (some moldy-assed bastard broke it in the library's parking lot the other night, looking for something to steal - from a librarian? idiot) then yes, that's absurd and things are outta hand. Just how does that make sense and save anyone any money?Too big. 2badd. Stupid.

# posted by  ralph : October 29, 2005 10:28 AM
 
Rome’s Empire lasted for 500 years and echoes through our lives 1600 later, but things moved more slowly in the old days. The techniques for extracting and purifying salt did not change for 4000 years until the arrival of mechanization in the 20th century. Since WWI the pace of technological change has increased exponentially, but our social institutions are mired in prehistoric tribalism tempered by a 200-year-old philosophy that is still under discussion.

When Rome fell the lack of central authority created what the Enlightenment termed the Dark Ages (nice symmetry there, don’t you think). As the closest thing to Rome in modern times, a technologically dominant culmination of Northern European history, the fall of the US will probably lead to a very well equipped Dark Ages. The things we use and the demand for will them not disappear only the government’s ability to regulate the nature of that commerce. Localities will be at the mercy of roving corporations extracting tribute in return for empty promises of imaginary security. The current politics is just the warm-up. We will prove to be a culture of shared values (real ones) or we will leave ourselves subject to the whims of Wal-Mart and Disney because they give the tribe a few trinkets and some soap.

The old saying “Fighting for Peace is like Fucking for Chastity” illuminates the point that utilization of the tactics currently in vogue only perpetuates the current trend. Karl Rove isn’t invalidated by finding a better Karl Rove to work for us, but touting some jargon laden failed ideology from the past or blindly supporting some untried remedy simply because we like its progenitor won’t do it either. Somehow we must start here with the way things are and have been and try to move ourselves toward a rational future. If we do not think a future based on the old rapacious industrial model is viable then we must not used the things it produces and accept the discomfort that entails. Or can we find a similar level of comfort through more benign processes of production, distribution and social regulation?

The option is to buy guns and prepare to fight over scrapes of rat meat. What’s it gonna be, boys?

# posted by  A. O. : November 01, 2005 11:17 AM
 
Back in the late 60's I looked around at the landscape in early spring and wondered why the leaves were not coming out and why the flowers were not beginning to bloom. I had read 'Silent Spring' and believed that nature was going on strike to teach us a lesson.
Spring came eventually but summer brought a flood that no one could believe (July 4, 1969). We have not hosted bears in Cascade Park since. I have thought ever since that a great apocalypse was rife. The chemicals, the nukes, the military/industrial complex. I was young, idealistic.
Today we wonder about the far right when they are hoping for armegeddon to begin in the Middle East in our generation, terrorists of all stripes, Yucca Mountain.
I think they had it right in the movie 'Men in Black'. There is always a mother ship on its way here to destroy the planet and life as we know it. Socrates thought that kids were disrespectful and out-of-control.
I still wonder if the flowers will bloom next spring. I think my gardening skills are not a passing fancy or hobby, but a Mad Max plan for survival after the fit hist the fna. I am old, skeptical. The dangers are still there, more horrible, more likely. How will six billion people endure a pandemic?
I hope my kids are ready to handle change on a scale beyond my imagination.

# posted by  Ray : November 05, 2005 6:08 PM
 
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