The recent continual downhill slide of our political theater may have surprised some folk. The debates and pundit pronouncements all tend to infer that there were alternatives. I wonder if they really can make that case. The existence of powerful forces within the government dedicated to the dismantling of large sectors of the government seems to be underestimated. In order for anything else than what we are experiencing to be remotely possible, there have to be ways of overcoming those forces. The circularity here is fantasticly clear: you can not force them to do the opposite of what they are dedicated to doing. So they are succeeding. Nor are their accomplishments reversible. "All the King's horses and all the Kings men...." will not put it back together. Meanwhile the "left" and the "progressives" seem to think that all they have to do is more of what they have been doing and they will fix it. What is wrong with this picture? Read on below and let us examine this further.
Having resisted the government in the 60s and 70s I can understand the power in the idea of reisitance. If you can stop the government from functioning you can win a lot. In the present setting this is more true than ever. Real power is not in the government. The banks know that. The oil companies and coal companies know that. The CEOs that serve the global economic organizations know that. The news media that keep the myths alive and the people in a fantasy world know that.
It would seem that left politicians, especially the so called "progressives" do not see it. I watch the things they write and cringe. What planet are we on? Certainly not this one!
Meanwhile, the global Climate and ecosystems are changing at an unbelievable rate. We will watch this unfold with the same impotence as we watch our illusory democracy melt away.
I was born in 1936. I am glad it was no later. As my life winds to its end I look with horror at the legacy we have condemned those who follow to endure. The whole of human adaptability migh not be reflected in the failure to cope with the problems I touch on here. I would love to be able to see hints of how the younger folk and their children will cope.
I write about mass insanity and addiction. The idea that whole cultures and even a global collection of cultures can be swept up in a contagous disease of the mind has become the center of my mind's activities. We seem to be caught in a pattern that can not be broken. If insanity is the doing of the same thing over and over and expecting the results to change we certainly are insane. Each time I try to say this I am treated like the person in Ibsen's great novel. If I am an enemy of the people, where are their friends?