Sometimes it is amusing and now and then informative to reread what one has written after the events discussed have past. About three months ago, when the presidential election campaign was just beginning I published a commentary on some of the issues and my concerns as I saw them then. On the day before the election I republished a slightly revised version in my blog, "Trenz Pruca's Journal." In rereading them my pessimism then seems inconsistent with my euphoria now.
In that post I included a photograph I copied from the blog "Being Liberal" that humorously implied that Mitt Romney fit the definition of a "parasite." Then I more of less continued as follows:
This is a cheap shot. People with wealthy parents are not necessarily parasites. He could have lived off his inheritance, instead Mitt chose to increase the “talents” given to him by making sure others had none. That was a cheap shot too. I apologize. I actually am one of the few on either side of the political spectrum who actually likes Mitt. I like the fact that he can continue to smile no matter what he is saying. He reminds me of a polished used car salesman. There I go again. I really am sorry.
Actually neither of men running for the highest office in the land impresses me as strong enough to resist the gathering storm rising up against us and eventually against them. The fabric of an American consensus has been ripped apart on every issue. We no longer (if we ever did) differ on emphasis or direction, but contest every issue raised as if there is no common understanding between us.
Left to their own devices, and not pushed by the needs of politics, from a policy standpoint they, Obama and Romney, probably are not hugely dissimilar (1960s liberal Republicans). However, I suspect that by inclination and by commitment and frankly by choice of party, Obama will prove to be more steadfast.
We are, after all, faced not with a single crisis or even a succession of crises.
We are faced instead with a series of system collapses each making the others more severe. Yet, the resolution of one requires the resolution of the others.
The liquidity crises reflects the collapse of demand and thus in turn eroding the value of the all too abundant liquid assets. Currently the plan by both the financial community and government is to move the unused assets around from one ginned up speculation to another until something happens that will remove the threat to their value.
The employment crisis represents in part a collapse of resource growth that will not be corrected merely by rebuilding outdated infrastructure. Helpful though that may be, it does not appreciably improve productivity. It only slows its deterioration. It probably cannot be improved anyway, at least not by any options available to us that we know of. Shipping jobs overseas is at best a short term solution.
A war will not be among the answers to the current economic crisis. It will only make it more grievous.
The environment is collapsing in that it no longer is an esthetic/conservation issue corrected by preservation. Nor is it making us sick in ways that can be remedied simply by removing the source danger. Today the environment has begun to turn deadly to individuals, humanity and most life forms. It cannot be resolved by more production furnishing surplus resources that enable us to preserve what is important. Nor is it adequate to remedy the specific activity that makes us sick. These solutions only make it worse.
World comity, which had been steadily increasing since WWII also is in danger of collapse and nations and their internal politics demand that they turn inward and protect themselves from the economic, social and environmental maelstrom that threatens to engulf them. But while that may be good internal politics it is probably disastrous policy (Germany is a good example. While Merkle’s policies may be good for her re-election, they are disasters for Germany in the long run).
The impacts of coming population migrations caused by global warming can at best be delayed in hopes that a long-term solution evolves. But from where is this miracle to come?
In almost none of these integrated world wide collapses is there a concerted effort to deal with either the specific collapse or the effects of them upon each other.
On the economy, the approach appears to be to hold on and reduce our efforts and expectations, whether short or long term, and hope something happens like it did once or twice in the past.
On the social level, while a huge number of efforts are under-weigh, they are a drop in the bucket from what is required and anyway they tend to address results and not causes.
Dealing with the rapidly evolving homicidal environment is left not to a concerted effort to combat it as though we were in a war but to vague hopes that something will happen at some point in the future that will save us.
If Roosevelt and Churchill listened to those who preached a similar religion then, we all will be speaking German or Japanese today (Except for Jews, Poles, Gypsies, homosexuals and a host of others [most likely Russians and blacks] who would all be dead).
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TODAY'S QUOTES:
"How is it they live in such harmony the billions of stars – when most men can barely go a minute without declaring war in their minds about someone they know."
Thomas Aquinas
"A willingness to kill members of ones own species is apparently correlated with with high intelligence. It may be that chimps and people are the only species able to figure out that the extra effort to exterminate and opponent will bring about a more permanent solution than letting him live to fight another day."
Before the Dawn by Nicholas Wade
"When you have a fire in an aircraft, there's no place to go exactly. And you can't find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft because the windows don't open. I don't know why they don't do that, but it's a real problem,"
Mitt Romney