Summary: This begins a new direction for the FM website, shifting from reporting events to explaining why they happen and what they tell about our future. Enough news! Let’s understand why we are changing and see what lies ahead for America. Also, see the contest offer at the end!
An America changing
For over a decade on these pages I have struggled to describe what is happening to us, the strange nature of America’s social evolution. Six years ago I began explaining this era as “the Crazy Years” – from Robert Heinlein’s future history series. That series of posts had great descriptive power and readers enjoyed them, such as these …
- A key to understanding the news: the unexpected rules in our age of wonders.
- America is becoming weird. Here are some recent examples.
- We live in the crazy years, but can choose a different destiny for ourselves and our children.
- The common thread that explains so much in America — We have collectively chosen to send America into the “crazy years”. It is not too late to change course.
- We are living in the crazy years – Documenting the decay.
A year ago I began describing our decline in terms of its appearance – as ClownWorld. A nation whose institutions are falling like a row of dominoes (e.g., Boy Scouts, the Roman Catholic church, the CDC and FDA, many of our cities, our giant corporations, our military that can’t win wars (here and here), our society’s broken OODA loops, our unprofitable Empire). This series of posts were also popular. But I am not trying to entertain (although infotainment is profitable). I seek to help motivate people to work for America’s reform. That was the reason that I, with the help of others, created the FM website in 2007.
So I began looking to the future, attempting to describe what lies ahead on the path we have collectively chosen. Doomsters, as they have done for so long, predict running out of everything, hyperinflation, droughts and floods, civil war, a collapse of the dollar, the debt Ragnarök, and a host of other external disasters. As I have said for decades, all of these are possible but none is a likely future for us.
To see our future first we must understand why these things are happening. The answer lies within each of us.
America today, the old regime dying before the new rises
“The key to a great story is not who, what, or when, but Why?”
— Eliot Carver, media magnate in Tomorrow Never Dies.
The processes at work today are neither mysterious or difficult to understand. We just prefer not to see. The early generations of Americans built a regime – a society – of institutions to be run by an active citizenry. From community institutions, public and private (e.g., school boards, charities, service clubs) to national organizations – they were built on the foundation of an involved citizenry. People willing to work together to run and protect America whatever the cost.
Note the phrasing in the Declaration of Independence: “we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” Not a declaration to become Lone Rangers, but a commitment to take collective action and willingness to pay a high price for victory. These were the people who bled and died to create the Republic. Their descendants bled and died to preserve the union and end slavery. These were the people who responded to the growth of megacorporations by forming unions and struggling for generations to make them powerful.
It is a dead past, of interest only to historians and Hollywood as raw material to be mined and retconned.
Many people saw the decay of the institutions through which individuals ran America. One of the early and clear reports was by Robert D. Putnam (Harvard Professor of Public Policy), first in “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital” (Journal of Democracy, January 1995), then in his book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
Now the sound of collapsing social structures deafens us, one reason so many walk around with earbuds in their ears and we consume vast quantities of booze-drugs-games-TV to deaden our minds. It is why we live in ClownWorld, where we no longer even expect systems to work properly. That is the insight with which everything makes sense in America. Without their foundation of an active citizenry, of course our institutions collapse.
Our reaction shows the cause
“Żaden płatek śniegu nie czuje się odpowiedzialny za lawinę.” (No snowflake feels responsible for the avalanche.)
— Polish poet Stanisław Jerzy Lec in More Unkempt Thoughts (1964).
I have written hundreds of posts about our collapsing social systems, and had thousands of conversations about them in comments, social media, and emails. They are almost all identical in structure.
Reader: I am in XXX institution, and it does not work properly because of bad/corrupt/incompetent leaders.
Me: What are you doing to fix it?
Reading: Nothing; I’m helpless. OR Nothing; the cost to me would be too high.
Life is about values. These values are the death of the America-that-once-was.
“Choice. The problem is choice.”
— Neo in The Matrix Reloaded.
A new regime will rise. Birth is painful.
Doomsters predict only collapse because they believe nobody is smart like them. They are wrong about that, and so their forecasts are almost always wrong. ClownWorld is the transitional period between the America-that-once-was and a new future. Birth means chaos and pain for societies just as for individuals.
We can guess at the shape of the New America. To borrow a metaphor from physics, birth is a singularity beyond which we cannot see. We cannot foresee the New America any more than a baby can predict its future.
The Left predicts a great future from the vast social engineering projects they have run on America for several generations, using our children as lab rats (e.g., here, here), aided by their amnesia about the results of their previous experiments with Communism. The Right dreams of a return to the past, when the men of 1950’s America pick up their guns and restore traditional values (e.g., William Lind in his novel Victoria
My guess is simpler: look to the past to see our future, because history repeats. The Founders built America using the Roman Republic as a model. The Roman people eventually found the burden of self-government too heavy to bear. After a century of turmoil (60 years of civil wars), they got new rulers. This is America. While the process will be tumultuous for us, I doubt it will take that long or be that violent. As with the Roman Empire, I suspect the new America will be as or even more powerful than the Republic. See America isn’t falling like the Roman Empire. It’s worse (we’re falling like the Republic).
But it will not be run for our benefit. The citizens of Roman became pleasant peasants, as I suspect we will be. Let’s accept the inevitable result of our choices gracefully, and not whine about it. Here are a few sources of inspiration to survive the coming bad times.
I have begun to write about our future. This is perhaps the only subject worth discussing, the only thing that might spark a desire for American’s to control their own future. These posts will be the most mind-blowing ideas that most of you will see this year. Here is the first: the most radical prediction for America’s future. It’s much tamer than those that will follow.
“Every nation has the government it deserves.”
— By Joseph de Maistre (lawyer, diplomat, philosopher). From Letter 76 dated 13 August 1811, published in Lettres et Opuscules.
Contest
I will send a copy of Rome’s Last Citizen
For More Information
Ideas! See my recommended books and films at Amazon. For something different, see “The Swallow – a story of the WWII Night Witches.”
I highly recommend Martin van Creveld’s new book, Seeing into the Future: A Short History of Prediction
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. For more information about this vital issue see my posts about fear, about the Constitution, and especially these posts …
- A 4th of July reminder that America is ours to keep – or to lose!
- The danger facing America, the names of the guilty, and our best hope for reform.
- Our institutions are hollow because we don’t love them.
- Rome’s last citizen warns America: don’t repeat our mistakes.
- After Independence Day, look to America after the Republic.
- We have become cowards. We can become brave again.
- We gave our rulers the greatest gift that we can give.
- The Founders’ error dooms our Republic, but not the next.
See the past to foresee our future
The Founders looked to the Roman Republic for ideas and inspiration. In this time of peril, we too can do so. See two books about the people who were the poles of the forces that could have saved the Republic, but instead destroyed it.
Caesar – a biography by Christian Meier
Rome’s Last Citizen
Revolution and Counter Revolution….Reshape and Reform…
Often sparked by technological change, these waves across politics, religion, and socio-economic structures have sharpened the West for hundreds of years binding us together towards the end of history.
Dissolution and Descent into Islands of One…
The Great Loneliness is our next fear to overcome.
Is that the Singularity?
Larry-
Adding on as per your request. The above is my rift on Yeat’s Second Coming. Call it the Third Awakening. And, I’ve spent the last six months reading Chernow’s Grant and Titan, and I’m currently reading Adam Davidson’s The Passion Economy.
In this moment, while we’ve had the technological leap, we haven’t had the great spiritual revival, political reform movement, great war, or great depression that served us well in the past to bind us together. Instead, as you have noted, we landed in complacency.
I’d argue that it’s more that that. This Coronachan has a certain irony to it- we’re all now living as individuals. This was just below the surface over the last two decades. Now, it’s in the open.
Which drives the question, “What are we afraid of?”
There’s hundreds of forms of fear that man must overcome. Fear is the root cause of our complacency (lack of political involvement is a symptom of the fear). Fear of loneliness might be this generations. If you can confront that, then growth can evolve / thrive.
Additionally, for another view, Andrew Horowitz’s “It’s Time to Build” makes a good argument on where we could go.
https://a16z.com/2020/04/18/its-time-to-build/
-Mike
Mike,
Thank you for the explanation!
“Call it the Third Awakening”
The “Third Awakening” is a well-defined term. From Wikipedia:
My guess about the future assumes that religion is played out as an active force in American society, and there will be no “fourth religious awakening” in the next generation or two. Only time will tell if that guess is correct. Even if I’m wrong, I doubt that a religious revival will have much influence on the lives of the millennials. Beyond that, the future is very unknowable.
But, as future posts will show, the tinder has already been laid for a powerful social movement to become a great flame. Reshaping everything.
“Instead, as you have noted, we landed in complacency”
That’s the exact opposite of what I’m saying. There is widespread belief now that we’re in decline, with a dark future ahead. But we’re unwilling to do anything to avoid it. The comments to my posts about this amply illustrate this. People say that they are powerless, that the bad guys are too strong, or that for some reason our doom is inevitable.
“This Coronachan has a certain irony to it- we’re all now living as individuals.” {See the Urban dictionary definition of “Corona-chan”).
Diseases are normal parts of life from the earliest cities through the triumphs of modern medicine in the 1960s. They did not fragment or atomize people, as described in the many books I’ve cited about past epidemics. Our atomization is a result of collapsing social institutions, and was first apparent in the 1990s (Prof Putnam’s 1995 article is just one of many warning about this). I see no irony in the current epidemic.
“Which drives the question, “What are we afraid of?””
I’ve written hundreds of posts describing how fear has come to dominate our thinking. Like most phenomena, it is quite rational. We see, in some fashion, the result of our choices. We’re unwilling to make the effort and sacrifices required to change course – so we fear what lies ahead. It is about choice.
“Andrew Horowitz’s “It’s Time to Build” makes a good argument on where we could go.”
It is by billionaire Marc Andreessen. It is total nonsense, as are most op-eds by billionaires. Every paragraph is nonsense. Many are ignorance on stilts. But why bother rebuttals? The internet overflows with pleasing ignorance.
Hi Larry,
Interesting post and I will have to think before I post something for the content. In the mean time, couple of typos:
Heinline->Heinlein
But I not trying->But was I not trying
I have found that I seem to make more homonym typos than I used to…
Bill
Bill,
Thank you for catching the typos. They’re like ants, creeping in no matter what I do.
Are we a society refracted as we travel through a society of our own doing? The prism bends the light, gives it new direction and we discover then its component colors. Thank you Mr Kummer for this new adventure. It does not have to be a Requiem, not if we don’t want it to be.
Rene,
“It does not have to be a Requiem, not if we don’t want it to be.”
I suggest a rephrasing. “Wants” don’t matter. America what will be what we want it to be, if we are willing to pay the price for our vision. Considering the extent of the decay, I suspect reform will be expensive in terms of work and sacrifice – and risk.
He’s BAAAACCKK!!! And WAY smarter than Bond.
In answer to your question, you’ve correctly identified that a singularity event of some sort is coming. There are so many candidates to trigger it that it is hard to predict which one will finally do it. The triggering cause will determine the form of the new regime and that will collapse the number possibilities down to a reasonable number but will not foretell the actual outcome (the triggering event rarely leads directly to the final outcome).
My current favorite is a 4GW revolution (few guns, mostly a twitter war initially) fomented by an angry Trump after (if?) he loses this fall’s election but I’d be surprised if I was right. Moving down that trail a bit, Trump’s revolution is not likely to be the last war as other leaders realize how practical it is for them to harness the endless outrage of the average gullible American citizen.
This will, at least for a time, lead to partial dissolution of the United States. A foretaste of this came as a result of COVID-19 when 3 different groups of governors chose to coordinate among themselves due to a lack of Federal leadership.
After a period of considerable disruption, the average American citizen wises up and starts realizing that they’ve done themselves an almost inestimable amount of damage. What happens after that is anybody’s guess but I’d like to believe that the US model of active, engaged citizenry would be viewed as the best choice.
Please donate the copy of your book to the local library if I win. I’ve got too many books already (at least according to my bookcases) and I strongly support public libraries.
Pluto,
We’re talking about the unknowable future, the undiscovered country about which we can only guess. But I totally disagree with you.
I believe that historians will look at the Bush-Obama-Trump era as one of continuity. They will see the frothy emotional content — all were described by their foes as “Hitler” as an expression of a core Political Science Law. When tribes disagree about policy, they scream about policy. When the tribes have small differences, they call each other demons. Tribal boundaries must be maintained least leaders lose control of their flocks!
The people of Palestine were similar to the Israelites, so the Israelites decided to ultimate their penises and adopt weird dietary rules to maintain boundaries. Their neighbors are gone, dissolved into the mass of humanity. Only the Jews remain.
As for the Great Civil War When The Bold Americans Stand Up and Smite Their Foes, it is a fantasy by people who can’t bother to vote – let alone do political activity their forebears would consider routine. It is fantasy as they sit on their butts and watch TV and chatter on social media. It is less significant than the peasants’ protests during the Middle Ages. At least their leaders were insincere, and usually hung (or worse) for their commitment.
Larry: “But I totally disagree with you.”
All I can guess from your post is that you didn’t read my post carefully enough. Let me explain further.
Larry: “I believe that historians will look at the Bush-Obama-Trump era as one of continuity.”
Agreed, but that’s not what I’m talking about.
My argument was that Trump will lose the coming election (not at all sure that will happen) and his rabid Twitter-storm posts that follow will enrage enough of his followers in ways that successfully disrupt services from the US government. Just a few shooting postal employees delivering mail would do the trick, for example.
This would cause a backlash, not in favor of pathetic Biden, but against their neighbors who might be harboring evil thoughts against other postal workers. Astute demagogues on the left will use Twitter to fan the flames and watch with interest (from a safe distance) to see what happens. Trump will do the same on the right.
Not much actual shooting will occur but physical violence can easily breed social violence and it will vastly reduce the internal legitimacy of the federal government (perhaps strengthening the legitimacy of the state governments, perhaps not). Depending on how things play out, the transportation system could be semi-crippled and deaths from all causes could rise dramatically due to disruptions in the supply chain.
The Federal government would be paralyzed in dealing with this, partly because Biden is a poor choice to be President at his age, and partly because what I’m envisioning is mostly over-exercising of our first amendment rights without (mostly) crossing the line from civil (or uncivil) protests to armed conflict.
Pluto: “After a period of considerable disruption, the average American citizen wises up and starts realizing that they’ve done themselves an almost inestimable amount of damage.”
This isn’t rising up against our leaders. This is silence that follows moral and physical exhaustion and realization of past foolish behavior (the latter is a hope rather than a prediction).
Larry: “As for the Great Civil War When The Bold Americans Stand Up and Smite Their Foes, it is a fantasy by people who can’t bother to vote”
Agreed, again. I will admit that the hope that the involved citizen model of self-government is strictly a hope but it will be a logical one (at least for the short run) after all the screaming and pain that preceded it. Tyranny is at least as likely.
Pluto,
“his rabid Twitter-storm posts that follow will enrage enough of his followers in ways that successfully disrupt services from the US government.”
Pluto, my guess is that you are spending too much time reading social media and our hyper-partisan press. My point was that there is little policy change happening in the real world, mostly just the great bipartisan continuity so beloved by pundits – and a product of the Deep State (or Steady State, or whatever) that runs so much of the US Federal government policy.
So a few weirdos might get violent if Trump loses or wins, but our massive and and almost omnipresent security services will quickly round them up. The rest of America will cheer.
“This will …lead to partial dissolution of the United States.”
For decades it has been a widespread belief in the US that America is a house of cards, easily collapsed. Decades of such false predictions, showing the robust nature of America does not seem to deter new ones.
Larry: “My point was that there is little policy change happening in the real world”
Apparently I’m having troubles getting through to you for some reason. I’m not envisioning any sort of policy change that will trigger the coming mess and I can’t see through the mess to the other side (heck, I’m not at all sure that my pet theory will happen at all). So, once again, I agree completely with you.
Larry: “our massive and and almost omnipresent security services will quickly round them up”
Here I disagree with you. I think our massive and almost omnipresent security services will be the next institution to display their incompetence.
Even though they will probably arrest people, they may well do so in a way that stirs up even more trouble. Remember, I’m not talking about shooting trouble, just resentment and revulsion. Which will kill the current regime more surely than armed insurrection.
Larry: “The rest of America will cheer.”
As you have correctly pointed out, America is now a huge bag of individuals, most of whom feel nothing but disdain for most of their fellow citizens (I TRY not to be among their number). There’s cheering for almost everything. There’s also a lot of rage for almost everything, which is mostly stupid. It takes surprisingly few stupid people to start a war and its painfully hard to stop one once it takes root.
Am I confident that this scenario will occur? Not at all, it has maybe a 10% chance of occurring. Do I think this will lead to a better America if it occurred? Not really, tyranny is a much more likely outcome but I like to put a positive spin because pleasant surprises DO happen.
Biden will not represent any new policy changes but he will represent the increasing senescence of the current regime and give new ammunition for the Twitter Wars that will occur even if we avoid the 4GW that I described above. Trump’s no spring chicken so he will do the same if he wins the election.
Death comes for everything but we cannot know the time or place it will come for the current US regime. There are more potential trigger points for the metamorphosis of this country than you and I can possibly imagine and until we know the cause we cannot begin to understand what the next regime will look like.
Mr Kummer said “For decades it has been a widespread belief in the US that America is a house of cards, easily collapsed”
Sometimes expectations can create reality, when concentrated planning for an anticipated change turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Now of course our perceptions cannot change the laws of nature, but they do dictate how we react to those natural laws.
Maybe the prognosticators are wrong, or maybe their ranks just haven’t yet reached the critical mass necessary to influence US politics.
My personal belief is similar to Mr Kummer’s: America is well-run. Not by us. Not for us.
https://fabiusmaximus.com/2018/10/02/america-is-well-run-not-by-us-not-for-us/
The US will dissolve once enough of its rulers believe that a dissolution is in their interests. Who’s to say when that might happen?
Welcome back! I look forward to future articles along this line.
My opinion is that our cultural troubles will not be cured by some grand event, although such events are possible. The first step is for individuals to make a commitment to personal integrity and to demand honestly and transparency from our social and governmental institutions. It is a long term game that many will not live to see the end of. We must lead by example and teach our children to take up the struggle to make our society one where decency and honour are real and not merely cynical posturing. We should find like minded people in whatever social organizations we are currently in and push for honest open government. If we can, form new organizations or take over existing one to push for an agenda of transparency. Keep it simple and practical.
When voting I currently advocate voting against every incumbent until we get politicians commited to transparency and honestly. Reward the virtuous and sanction the wicked.
If we follow this course, peaceful reform is possible.
Although retired, I am still somewhat active and pursue the goals of honesty and transparency. I may expand my community involvement once things loosen up a bit
Raymond,
I kind of agree with you, but IMO this grossly misses the mark.
“The first step is for individuals to make a commitment to personal integrity and to demand honestly and transparency from our social and governmental institutions. “
What does that mean. It sounds like thinking big thoughts while watching the screen. Nothing will happen at this late date, IMO, without organizing, hard work, sacrifices, and risking much of what we have.
Which is why, I believe, there will be no reforms. Until a real mass movement arises. Which I doubt we of the Boomers will like, although our incompetence made it possible.
Good question, this is what I mean
Step 1 is what I suggested, make a personal change
Step 2 is what you suggest: organise to make the necessary changes even if it means hard work and sacrifice
Social change will require both personal commitment and collective action.
I am optimistic that this is possible
WELCOME BACK…. Was getting worried.
Larry, there is a religion that is making a comeback that matches the citizens of the world as they are. It is paganism. Bishop Robert Barron is one that speaks of this. His comments have their own problems, so I am not trying to make more than is there.
Part of what you point out, in your comment of Judaism, was the staging of initiation of the religion to show one’s commitment. Most, if not all, manifesting of religion is still ongoing: tattoos, baptism cults, conformity to, delineation of, contemplation, physical enactments. There are not only messianic religions, but there are mystery religions. The elementary belief is self fulfillment.
I will not claim to know the victor, as if such a victory could be more than ephemeral when looking at the history of civilizations, but there is the necessity of organized social institutions that address faith and belief. This necessity is driven from the fact that when you look at humans on a genetic basis, we are little different than those of “ancient” times.
I see us heading more for an entrenched Maoist religious/cultural tribal conflict. Not 4GW made real, but persons and institutions using Maoist cultural tactics minus overt military tactics. I think Bernie, Republican “reforms”, and Never Trump illustrates that this use is current and expanding. In fact, IMO, the status quo has embraced this adaptation of 4GW, and is starting to use it themselves, as exemplified by the attempt to delegitimize Trump. With the revelations the the Republicans were mostly correct about the lawfare conducted against Trump, the senescence of the institutions involved, such as the citizenry, the branches of government, the bureaucracies, and our press, is an attribute for use of cultural/tribal 4GW. Credit to Strzok for using and recognizing this power, as revealed this past week.
Thus, we are heading for an empire that is not run just for the future 1%, but is run by, and for the bureaucracies. They will use the new 4GW as both shield and sword. They are already repositioning themselves as the victims of our times. And they may well be right, just as much as we citizens are the victims and not responsible. Both lies, but both acceptable by the two, which is important. The recent debacle between Trump and Democrats, is really, as pointed out, about the Deep State. This month, we are hearing the first cries of the hungry baby. There is still the birthing and postpartum to finish, but a new power is rising in Washington.
As always, YMMV. In this case, I see that the future is upon us.
John,
I hate to say this, but I can’t make heads or tails of your comment. I know the several meanings of “paganism” , and see no signs of it in America.
I am quite familiar with 4GW, and know several of the authors well. But that does not seem to be what you mean by the term. See the original article:
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Changing-Face-of-War%3A-Into-the-Fourth-Lind-Nightengale/2fd541a48abb544e1cd8dde7bdbd1fd8634b623d
This has its roots in Martin van Creveld’s concept of non-Trinitarian warfare.
A modern warfare paradigm: reconsideration of combat power concept by Gintautas Razma represents the Maoist political war I am envisioning with tribal adherence and cultural norms re-enforced by the WWW and the present partisan news groups: Instead of combat power, political power; instead of the physical battlefield, the political battlefield. Not fought as the founding fathers envisioned, but as envisioned by a Maoist.
The paganism, I am referring to is the old paganism set to a modern tune. It is the old gods of Eros, Power, Wealth, etc, just in Modern dress. It is not complacency, but in self indulgence in this moral scheme. That is what the Bishop and others have been pointing out. You can see some of this in the Tele-evangelists who are obviously in it for money, sex, and power.
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Larry,
I’ve read most of the responses proffered here so far and it seems to me that most of them are looking at scenarios that play out in the very short run. I do not believe anything of any magnitude happens in the near term. I agree with you, just a continuation of the clown show for the foreseeable future.
I do not believe that any real change comes during a time of plenty, which has been the prevailing climate for a generation. This is the point in which the absurdities rise to the surface and are promulgated as normal. And normality is derided, hence all of the madcap SJW antics etc. It’s mostly just noise. As much as we’d like to believe we’re on a higher plane, humans are still animals and will continue to function the same way we always have. No amount of legislation or education will quell mankind’s primal urges, the sexes are not evolving into some fantastical new domain because of the pronouncements of a few privileged idiots who have way too much time on their hands.
But I do think that this kind of blather is going to have a profound impact on the children. I do not know if it will be the next generation or the grandchildren of the current generation but this attempt to jerry-rig nature is going to blow up in their faces. The children who grow up in this kind of a climate will probably turn out to be exactly the opposite of what they intend. Scoreless games and gender gerrymandering is going to create a generation of uber competitive people at some point who might turn into some form of nationalistic movement.
No, its when “aberrant” behavior will get you killed that the real change happens. It will take a prolonged period, a generation, of real destitution before the Clown show ends. Forty years, fifty years, I don’t know. Will it resemble Germany in the 30’s? Hard to say.
As for now, I see the country going back to very much the same routine as before the pandemic. There will be sports again air travel again etc. People’s memories are very short. It’s only a continuation of the prevailing decline. More businesses get lopped off and do not return. But we haven’t had any come to Jesus moment. I think that is very evident in the sort of businesses that are being cast as heroic now, i.e. nail salons and hair dressers. The vanity industry really.
There is an old cliché that states a person should choose their battles wisely because some of them may be of no value to anyone. This documents the wisest battle for me. My primary objective is to advocate for a national achievement of activity resulting in a common good, instead of activity that will only benefit some segment of society. Our nation already displays excessive levels of inequality that can and should be reduced.
While many people believe President Bone Spurs (Donald Trump) is responsible for many of this nation’s deficiencies, I hold the people who either support him, or remain quiet about his harmful control, to be more responsible. Those millions of people are not, in my mind, inherently bad – but they obviously prefer activity that is disruptive to what I call a common good. (That term is difficult to define because it can change, and it resides in the perceptions of people all over the world, not just within an individual’s line-of -sight.) PBS is a very poor leader, but his control of our lives is allowed by our society.
He is dangerous to the U.S. because of his character and personality traits. Those are best described by the following adjectives: dishonest, selfish, stubborn, cruel, narcissistic, ignorant, racist, misogynist, and xenophobic. Each has been amply demonstrated by his past actions and statements, so the need to justify them is not useful here.
I see only two ways I can participate in this battle. The first is to vote. The second is to provide a clear statement to as many people as possible, understanding that repercussions may occur, and that any progress will likely be slow – and have many up and downs. While it’s not obvious how I can achieve the second, the first is readily doable today. Like PBS, I have a mail-in ballot for next week’s local election. But what might happen in November?
We trumpet our strong points and whisper our weak ones. I think I’ve been fairly consistent during my life about being willing to challenge perceived unfairness. Deviations from perfection are not readily admitted by most people. By using the word “fairly,” I’m suggesting there have been times when staunch opposition to gross inequality was not performed, for many reasons.
The current pandemic situation will make next summer’s reality (2021) much different than last summer’s (2019). My predictive capability is not sufficient to describe what those differences might be. There are too many unknowns. But we may have an opportunity to make some societal improvements during this very destructive situation. Education, economy, environment, energy, and freedom are a few of the areas where we might of necessity discover new ways of accomplishing things that work, instead of things that we’ve always done, or that we want to work.