Sunday, May 18, 2003
The war is over, on to the endless war:
The last shooting war (fish in a barrel?) is near forgotten. The peace was forgotten in advance of the event, but now we play catch up. Hurry up and catch up, I understand a lot of actual people are needed to make things whole. And the bombings across the middle east, and northern Africa speak to the ongoing war. President George W. Bush said that the war is not endless. But his statement of a goal is ephemeral. This 'down payment' on a war machine looks to suck up resources endlessly.
The economy:
The economy sputters. Though the 'market' and 'society' are dependent on psychology to drive entrepreneurial effort, repeating the mantra that 'things are picking up' and 'our program creates jobs' are not in themselves sufficient to change the public sentiment. People need evidence to believe the teller. There is a litany of real problems that are outstanding, and they come to the fore when times get tough. Medical care, housing costs, full time employment, and an atmosphere of hope all suffer. The Roman Empire ran into this as well. At some point it stopped expanding, being able only to try and protect itself, and through corruption and a failure to compete with its neighbors, it fell. Are we as a society and economy able to suppress internal corruption, to be honest with ourselves? As the dollar drops in value our living standards are starting to be constrained. I hear that Porsche sales are down greatly in the last year.
The people are wiser than the politicians infer in their position statements and advertisements. We don't need to accept their force-fed slogans. We are to form our own judgements, and to act upon them without overt permission from a higher authority.
posted by Nick 1:59:00 AM
