I enjoy your letters a lot. The summary of the day’s news from a liberal perspective is thoughtful and separates chaff from wheat. Your great benefit to me is when you put the news into a historical framework and that has given me new insights into our society.
Recently in agonizing over the failures of our country to deal with its pr…
I enjoy your letters a lot. The summary of the day’s news from a liberal perspective is thoughtful and separates chaff from wheat. Your great benefit to me is when you put the news into a historical framework and that has given me new insights into our society.
Recently in agonizing over the failures of our country to deal with its problems a common theme occurred to me. It is not just that things are screwed up. It is that no one is doing anything about the things that are screwed up. Big ones like climate change, inequality, and racism are ignored but also lots of lesser things like medical care and guns, voting rights, immigration, education, police reform, and infrastructure fall by the wayside.
I wonder if you have a historical perspective on the United States’ dealing with these issues over time. I am an old man and have seen some of these things develop over the last few decades, but our history stretches much farther back, and I don’t have that knowledge.
The failure of America to make even the tiniest effort to deal with the pathology of guns was my wake-up call as to how deep the malaise is. The inability to deal with guns is directly attributable to the gun manufacturers providing resources and a framework for the propaganda that led to the quandary today. In my youth the NRA was a worthy organization providing gun safety training and even standards for the use of guns in a rural and semi-rural society. That society used guns but looked on them as tools, not as sexual or religious objects. The manufactures’ propaganda that someone was going to “take your guns away” was swallowed by a portion of the population who mythologized guns into manhood. That propaganda provided the Supreme Court cover to issue its ridiculous and stunning rulings on guns. A ruling that had not been the law for the previous 200 years. This blatant corporate framing and promulgation of the issue has resulted in our deplorable current cycle of random death.
Recognizing the gun manufacturer’s origin of the gun problem and seeing the Supreme Court’s newfound reverence for corporations in Citizens United and Hobby Lobby and its portending cut back on congress’s right to regulate interstate commerce have combined to give me pause. It causes me to question whether our problems and inability to deal with problems are and have been, simply, the result of the abuse of corporate and commercial power. I remembered a quote from the seldom quoted Calvin Coolidge, “The Business of America is Business”. And it resonated with that possibility.
Decent medical care for all Americans was first proposed by Truman but was defeated by the American Medical Society. Since then, even more powerful forces like the lobbyists and public relations flacks of pharmaceutical companies, the hospital associations and some doctor groups have made that even more difficult. The corporate-driven diminution of unions has restricted the development of employer-based systems that had once created healthcare for the working middle class.
Similarly, inequality has increased dramatically with refusal to tax the wealthy and the tamping down of the minimum wage and the emasculation of unions. Congress and the Supreme Court have come to the rescue of corporations when they have felt the need.
Education has become privatized and there’s great pressure to increase that tendency with vouchers and charter schools and tax cuts. Universities and colleges have become mostly concerned about career path, tenure, and the ability to pull in money from students, parents, and donors. This leaves the focus less on the values of exploration of ideas, and curiosity and the nurturing of maturity for young people. Those commercial concerns are manifested by the scrum for patents and trademarks in the scientific arena and for articles and books in the humanities that conflict with the values of teaching skills and making individuals better as opposed to richer.
The problems of racism are grounded in the idea that one human can enslave another to provide for their own commercial success. Racism is so pervasive in our society’s institutions and so tied to the forces of commercialism and corporate governance that it can get overlooked as only combining with the forces driving inequality. The red lining of real estate, predatory lending and school segregation are the easy tools of forcing racism in addition to the factors of inequality. The forces affecting inequality affect minorities harder than other people.
The obverse of my analysis is the defense industry. In that case the money bestowed on lobbyists and for “education” of the public, flowing through the corporate giants of defense industry and the military has resulted in a bloated defense budget. This absorbs huge amounts of our treasure. We spend more on defense that the next 25 nations combined which proves the correctness of President Eisenhower’s warning of the Military-Industrial Complex. The silliness of that effort is proven by our inability to use our “military force” to deal with Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, or Afghanistan. Our only tool for dealing with rogue countries is – economic sanctions.
The biggest problem our country – and the world faces is climate change. Our governments do little to address climate change and the private efforts are miniscule when confronted by government inaction or hostility.
Inability to regulate the financial sector and big tech emphasize the problems I see. The power of those industries and the individual owners becoming super-wealthy was turned loose by the Supreme Court and now they have increased their power rather than see reasonable limits to their desires.
Maybe the problem is just so pervasive that we have come to accept it as normal. No answers from me. The linear solution is to change the congress that makes things happen. But the power that exercises these abuses is also the power that decides who is elected to power and placed on the Supreme Court.
Larry, thank-you for your amazing post. We live in a world where even the facts you have based your observations on have become debatable. Without facts there can be no trust. Without trust there will be no action. The good news is that the majority of us have begun to accept this reality. Once accepted, actionable, real-time plans can be made to address the very real issues outlined in your post. I am very grateful you took the time to write it.
Thank you Larry. Reading your post has pulled together for me the threads I have been following for years. Unfortunately the patterns that emerge reveal how money and profit dictate who we are. The major flaws of capitalism have supported destruction of our environment, women and children living in abject poverty, our children being murdered in schools, so corporations can make money?
Your last sentence is most chilling: The power that exercises these abuses is also the power that decides who is elected to power and placed on the Supreme Court.
For 50 years I had held the belief we could make a difference and leave our country in a better place. It is because of Heather’s letters and this group i carry some hope but i am scared for our children and grandchildren.
For them we must gather together, for them we must act. While we still can. NOW.
I myself have just written a horrible post. But the situation is so dangerous... To keep out of jail, the madman will imprison most of the nation. This, at a crucial juncture in the world's history...
I feel that Drump doesn't give thought to being caught and punished for his evil and corrupt deeds. He's too vain. He has a following, and he has his Republican elected officials by the balls so to speak. He yearns to speak, control, and destroy. Just look at the deep obsession he had with Biden long before the 2020 election. The man was so obsessed he committed acts of criminality that got him impeached. His hold on the Republican party kept him in office. He knew he was going to lose to a Democrat as experienced as Biden. He said it in about every public nonsense he spewed running up to and after the election. His anger over not being reelected pushed him to incite those who adored him to commit violent acts. The man is an abomination to our country. Somehow we have caused this man to manipulate America. To act like a bully, baby, middle-schooler using his ignorance of the Constitution, the economy, and every topic needed to run a nation is what is sinking us. He has a minority of elected officials mimicking his words and actions with no consequences. He has like-minded crooks out doing his dirty work in order to get TBG back into power. He riles of the lower and middle class idiots to give him his power fix in rallies, in school boards, and his fake audits he demands of Republican state leaders. We got to get out and vote like our lives depend on it for any upcoming elections. Never vote Republican until this group loses it's grip on destroying the USA.
He has Hitler's gift of giving a voice to people's pent-up hatred, rage and resentment, a direct line to the lowest levels of the collective unconscious.
That's where he draws his power from, without this he'd be nothing.
This is what makes the poor wretch so dangerous. He too wants to take the world down with him when he goes.
Well, I certainly can't disagree with much you've written, but who's "we?" "They" are the ones who voted for that dim-witted monster because they are stupid, evil, bigots. (And so we sing as we march off to war...)
Thank you, Larry, your essay -- for that is what it is -- complements HCR's work perfectly.
Our economics have become divorced from the household, our technology is divorced from mankind too, autonomous, self-serving, we find ourselves on board an immensely powerful vehicle in a state of constant acceleration, and the motor driving it is an economic system...
WITH NO BRAKES.
NO BRAKES. And junkies drugged to the eyeballs on SuperCrack, SuperMeth and God only knows what.... shooting at the driver... screaming for more speed, Speed, SPEED...
This madness cannot go on. The collective psyche is already critically sick, delirious, the body of our society, the body social, politic, economic, can only follow.
I don't expect readers to grasp what I have just written, I hope, I pray that I am utterly mistaken... but do not believe that to be the case. Fever and convulsions seem inevitable and more will be needed to restore basic health than all the respite that the good doctors in Washington can offer.
This makes it all the more urgent, indeed crucial, to gather together and support the Biden Administration while citizens still can. To gain, to use the respite that's on offer.
Well said. A nicely eloquent description of the major problems we face that are being papered over and allowed to fester due to the unabashed greed, IMO, of the corporatocracy we now live in. Thanks.
Thank you for this essay. It touches on the failings that we've managed to amass, and that bill is now coming due with a vengeance. Someone alluded to our country being a frog in a pot of water that is now rapidly approaching boiling. We are heading towards an authoritarian oligarchy and the people who have been misled in believing that they are "true patriots" will be those bringing this civil war home.
Duane's analysis is equally applicable today. I submit we are at Stage IV. The question is do we collapse in 'authoritarianism or do we enter a 'transformational' change period?
Discussed elsewhere in today’s forum. I posted a brief by Knight Foundation called “Scaling Civic Tech”. Following debacle last week and exposure of Facebook, some conversation I had with military personnel during online learning during pandemic. Talked about new architecture of education and military progress on many things tech. One thing involves changing algorithms beyond limited social media and harnessing tech for civic engagement and more responsive government. It’s a transformational path.
There are informational paths to learn where business and how models are with this. I struggled for understanding but worth it because I have thought about need for change in architecture of public education.
Innovative tech, such as civic tech, can be part of a transformational model.
There seems to be a severe limitation in the excellent Duane analysis, certainly in current terms, in that it deals almost exclusively with governmental bureaucracies (and the most overblown ones, at that) without considering corporate bureaucracy... or the intricate web of interactions between the two monstrosities...
Things fall apart, the center cannot hold...
We are already at the stage when there’s no choice but to opt for transformation—otherwise total disaster is guaranteed. Look…
We face the failure of systems far larger than any bureaucracy, failure upon failure, all taking place at much the same time:
The current deliquescent form of capitalism—governance at all levels—in America, constitutional rigor mortis (in Britain, it’s already constitutional decomposition)—footling, totally irrelevant hyperactivity, surface effects, a society in which what we called “the short term” only twenty years ago... must seem an eternity—the confluence of all our foul polluted rivers-of-the-mind-turned-sewers.
And, barely beyond us now, the immeasurable, barely conceivable chain reactions arising from climate change—we speak of migration, it’s the stuff of our purblind politics. But we’ve seen nothing of what’s to come. NO-THING.
[At times like these criminal elements will always thrive, as we are seeing, not just in the United States, but with the worldwide emergence of criminal regimes—oligarchy. Crooks combine intuition and all the skills of the streetwise, to seize the moment... even if it’s no better than a successful heist while the Titanic goes down.]
Or simply - the government at the time of the writing of the constitution, bill of rights etc. was a very small bureaucratic "organization" - NOW? the government is immense & changes sure do need to be made. HOW these changes are made is the big million or trillion dollar question & by WHOM, right?
Boy,',,, you really put a lot in that letter Larry, and every bit of it pertinent!!! We, as a nation , the way we are headed, and it is all, in one way or another, attributed to big money, are going to die. It is NOT sustainable!!! We are rotting from the inside out….. And it is avoidable, but it does NOT look like we’re avoiding it. We’ve got to get big money OUT of politics, and particularly BIG special interest money out of our elections, and as special favors for the politicians……..
As I’ve said before, I’m old, 81 to be exact. And for that, in this day in age, I feel lucky, I get to die pretty soon!!! Although I hope it’s not to soon . Lol…..
Hi from another octogenarian! I'm reading Deep Adaptation re: Climate Change, and as Larry said, it is our most over-arching problem. I share your thoughts that I may not live to see all the coming tragedies, but our young people will suffer terribly.
A note of hope: Dear Friends of Heather; you might want to know about a movement called RAM which is calling moderate Republicans et al together to vote against the loose cannons in the party who are amassing power regardless of method. The RAM program will make recommendations for candidates REGARDLESS OF PARTY to vote for. It seeks traditional Republican values, which personally I believe are old-hat given the state of the world, but the point is, they know that forming a third party will not help them in the short run, but this method will advocate for decent, capable politicians to win elections and help "right" a sinking ship.
Thanks Hope, I'm becoming and old goat anyway, so why not be a RAM? I'm assuming here that you're talking about the Renew America Movement, not the 60s Maoists or the anti-Antifa group :) Forming a new political party is A LOT of work, but that is the scale of the task before us. I will research this group.
That is good, but decent doesn't seem to be what Republlican voters want these days. RAM is up against Trump fanatics who already have more than a foothold in many states. What we really need is for Trump to disappear, the sooner the better.
Thanx Larry for the rundown of our recent history of decline in the U.S. Like many others have mentioned already, it is a good wrap-up. Like many here with history, I too have seen these things first hand. Grew up with rifles & shotguns, collected guns pistols as an adult & was a member of the NRA long before it became a terrorist enabling organization. Those were innocent times before X-Ray baggage checks at airports, when you could actually carry two pistols onto a commercial airliner in a briefcase. (Yes, I did in 1966).
I also grew up in a household where my dad was the "breadwinner" and we prospered on his single paycheck. Mom wanted to work and I remember the discussion whether it would be feasible due to tax changes with her income. When I got out of the service in the late '60s thru the '70s, I worked front line jobs for minimum wages and managed to live comfortably on it. How can anyone live on $7.50 an hour now? The system has definitely broken and the Repugnant Party doesn't care about the poor fools who still vote for them against their own best interest.
The bottom line to all this is the apparent mass insanity that has taken over our nation like some real life Zombie Apocalypse. I am in Floriduh, where our Insane Governor and the Repugnant Cult stacked Education Dept and even the Health Dept with a quack for state Surgeon General are fighting against proven health precautions to prevent spreading an airborne viral pandemic as if it were a political game instead of a deadly furtherance of the disease.
I am so appalled at this total disregard of science and the attacks on those who try to abide by sound preventive measures (I worked in Nursing, wearing a mask is just part of infection control). I fear for what will be the outcome of this. It won’t impact me personally as a septuagenarian without too much more future, but my grandsons & great-grandsons are going to be stuck in a Near Dystopian Future that once was relegated to fiction.
My take on the gun problem is that Rs want the peons to do the dirty work while they grab power. As for universal health care, it was to be part of the New Deal, but was killed by the AMA using two California political operatives who went on to help Rs. I recommend These Truths by Jill Lapore as an excellent history of the US and how we got here. The super rich think that their money will save them although climate change is so pervasive that is difficult even now to find a place not affected. I am elderly and glad for it without direct descendants. Meanwhile my dirt poor relatives in the midwest continue to do what they do best and have children. I hate to think what awaits them.
I have two great nephews who live in CA and are in a much better situation. However, my husband and I are appalled at the gifts that roll in for birthdays and Christmas making them little consumers of plastic junk. The latest this summer is some kind of computer game where you can buy your way out of situations which of course means sending money to the makers of this scam. In addition there are all these plastic figurines to buy. Younger people just shrug their shoulders at this. We give them money, most of which goes into their college fund and I wonder whether that will be viable when they reach that stage.
I read with interest that the most wanted toys will possibly not be available this Christmas as well as a lot of other goods which I guess are often sitting on container ships waiting to come in to ports. We have our Christmas shopping done this week as Powells had a sale and we buy each other books. We try to buy as locally as possible.
Our gift to our grandchildren a couple years ago were books from the San Diego Zoo. There are stories about the special animals saved and conservation. They got the small plush that went with the book. I felt better for having sent something educational. We were fortunate to have the author write them a personal message. We were weekly volunteers before the pandemic hit.
Also subscriptions to science kits that come monthly or bi-monthly. My goal is something that will keep them wanting to learn.
My 4 year old great niece loves gift certificates from her local books store, which I gladly give her. She already chooses her own books (Might have something to do w/her mom, who has a Master's degree in Creative Writing-LOL!)
That sounds great. Our list is fortunately very short and so it's money for our nephews and great nephews and a few things for other people that I am putting together now like some bay leaves from my garden. I also made apple butter for the first time in my life and i will give away some of that too. It's so good that I want to keep it all.
I’m old too, this embolden of evil went into high gear with the election of Obama. But it had been brewing for decades. From They Thought They We’re Free, Milton Meyer “The steps were so small, so inconsequential…”. Worth a Google
Actually, since Reagan!!! But it was actually brewing from before that, you might say ever since the republicans lost to FDR and his policies, but really started getting traction with Reagan……..
Larry. Thank you for your powerful response. "The power that exercises these abuses is also the power that decides who is elected is also the power and placed on the Supreme Court". Spine tingling!
I enjoy your letters a lot. The summary of the day’s news from a liberal perspective is thoughtful and separates chaff from wheat. Your great benefit to me is when you put the news into a historical framework and that has given me new insights into our society.
Recently in agonizing over the failures of our country to deal with its problems a common theme occurred to me. It is not just that things are screwed up. It is that no one is doing anything about the things that are screwed up. Big ones like climate change, inequality, and racism are ignored but also lots of lesser things like medical care and guns, voting rights, immigration, education, police reform, and infrastructure fall by the wayside.
I wonder if you have a historical perspective on the United States’ dealing with these issues over time. I am an old man and have seen some of these things develop over the last few decades, but our history stretches much farther back, and I don’t have that knowledge.
The failure of America to make even the tiniest effort to deal with the pathology of guns was my wake-up call as to how deep the malaise is. The inability to deal with guns is directly attributable to the gun manufacturers providing resources and a framework for the propaganda that led to the quandary today. In my youth the NRA was a worthy organization providing gun safety training and even standards for the use of guns in a rural and semi-rural society. That society used guns but looked on them as tools, not as sexual or religious objects. The manufactures’ propaganda that someone was going to “take your guns away” was swallowed by a portion of the population who mythologized guns into manhood. That propaganda provided the Supreme Court cover to issue its ridiculous and stunning rulings on guns. A ruling that had not been the law for the previous 200 years. This blatant corporate framing and promulgation of the issue has resulted in our deplorable current cycle of random death.
Recognizing the gun manufacturer’s origin of the gun problem and seeing the Supreme Court’s newfound reverence for corporations in Citizens United and Hobby Lobby and its portending cut back on congress’s right to regulate interstate commerce have combined to give me pause. It causes me to question whether our problems and inability to deal with problems are and have been, simply, the result of the abuse of corporate and commercial power. I remembered a quote from the seldom quoted Calvin Coolidge, “The Business of America is Business”. And it resonated with that possibility.
Decent medical care for all Americans was first proposed by Truman but was defeated by the American Medical Society. Since then, even more powerful forces like the lobbyists and public relations flacks of pharmaceutical companies, the hospital associations and some doctor groups have made that even more difficult. The corporate-driven diminution of unions has restricted the development of employer-based systems that had once created healthcare for the working middle class.
Similarly, inequality has increased dramatically with refusal to tax the wealthy and the tamping down of the minimum wage and the emasculation of unions. Congress and the Supreme Court have come to the rescue of corporations when they have felt the need.
Education has become privatized and there’s great pressure to increase that tendency with vouchers and charter schools and tax cuts. Universities and colleges have become mostly concerned about career path, tenure, and the ability to pull in money from students, parents, and donors. This leaves the focus less on the values of exploration of ideas, and curiosity and the nurturing of maturity for young people. Those commercial concerns are manifested by the scrum for patents and trademarks in the scientific arena and for articles and books in the humanities that conflict with the values of teaching skills and making individuals better as opposed to richer.
The problems of racism are grounded in the idea that one human can enslave another to provide for their own commercial success. Racism is so pervasive in our society’s institutions and so tied to the forces of commercialism and corporate governance that it can get overlooked as only combining with the forces driving inequality. The red lining of real estate, predatory lending and school segregation are the easy tools of forcing racism in addition to the factors of inequality. The forces affecting inequality affect minorities harder than other people.
The obverse of my analysis is the defense industry. In that case the money bestowed on lobbyists and for “education” of the public, flowing through the corporate giants of defense industry and the military has resulted in a bloated defense budget. This absorbs huge amounts of our treasure. We spend more on defense that the next 25 nations combined which proves the correctness of President Eisenhower’s warning of the Military-Industrial Complex. The silliness of that effort is proven by our inability to use our “military force” to deal with Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, or Afghanistan. Our only tool for dealing with rogue countries is – economic sanctions.
The biggest problem our country – and the world faces is climate change. Our governments do little to address climate change and the private efforts are miniscule when confronted by government inaction or hostility.
Inability to regulate the financial sector and big tech emphasize the problems I see. The power of those industries and the individual owners becoming super-wealthy was turned loose by the Supreme Court and now they have increased their power rather than see reasonable limits to their desires.
Maybe the problem is just so pervasive that we have come to accept it as normal. No answers from me. The linear solution is to change the congress that makes things happen. But the power that exercises these abuses is also the power that decides who is elected to power and placed on the Supreme Court.
Thanks for the hard work you put in.
Larry, thank-you for your amazing post. We live in a world where even the facts you have based your observations on have become debatable. Without facts there can be no trust. Without trust there will be no action. The good news is that the majority of us have begun to accept this reality. Once accepted, actionable, real-time plans can be made to address the very real issues outlined in your post. I am very grateful you took the time to write it.
Without facts there can be no truth, without truth there can be no trust. Maria Ressa.
Thank you Larry. Reading your post has pulled together for me the threads I have been following for years. Unfortunately the patterns that emerge reveal how money and profit dictate who we are. The major flaws of capitalism have supported destruction of our environment, women and children living in abject poverty, our children being murdered in schools, so corporations can make money?
Your last sentence is most chilling: The power that exercises these abuses is also the power that decides who is elected to power and placed on the Supreme Court.
For 50 years I had held the belief we could make a difference and leave our country in a better place. It is because of Heather’s letters and this group i carry some hope but i am scared for our children and grandchildren.
For our children and grandchildren.
For them we must gather together, for them we must act. While we still can. NOW.
I myself have just written a horrible post. But the situation is so dangerous... To keep out of jail, the madman will imprison most of the nation. This, at a crucial juncture in the world's history...
I feel that Drump doesn't give thought to being caught and punished for his evil and corrupt deeds. He's too vain. He has a following, and he has his Republican elected officials by the balls so to speak. He yearns to speak, control, and destroy. Just look at the deep obsession he had with Biden long before the 2020 election. The man was so obsessed he committed acts of criminality that got him impeached. His hold on the Republican party kept him in office. He knew he was going to lose to a Democrat as experienced as Biden. He said it in about every public nonsense he spewed running up to and after the election. His anger over not being reelected pushed him to incite those who adored him to commit violent acts. The man is an abomination to our country. Somehow we have caused this man to manipulate America. To act like a bully, baby, middle-schooler using his ignorance of the Constitution, the economy, and every topic needed to run a nation is what is sinking us. He has a minority of elected officials mimicking his words and actions with no consequences. He has like-minded crooks out doing his dirty work in order to get TBG back into power. He riles of the lower and middle class idiots to give him his power fix in rallies, in school boards, and his fake audits he demands of Republican state leaders. We got to get out and vote like our lives depend on it for any upcoming elections. Never vote Republican until this group loses it's grip on destroying the USA.
He has Hitler's gift of giving a voice to people's pent-up hatred, rage and resentment, a direct line to the lowest levels of the collective unconscious.
That's where he draws his power from, without this he'd be nothing.
This is what makes the poor wretch so dangerous. He too wants to take the world down with him when he goes.
Well, I certainly can't disagree with much you've written, but who's "we?" "They" are the ones who voted for that dim-witted monster because they are stupid, evil, bigots. (And so we sing as we march off to war...)
Thank you, Larry, your essay -- for that is what it is -- complements HCR's work perfectly.
Our economics have become divorced from the household, our technology is divorced from mankind too, autonomous, self-serving, we find ourselves on board an immensely powerful vehicle in a state of constant acceleration, and the motor driving it is an economic system...
WITH NO BRAKES.
NO BRAKES. And junkies drugged to the eyeballs on SuperCrack, SuperMeth and God only knows what.... shooting at the driver... screaming for more speed, Speed, SPEED...
This madness cannot go on. The collective psyche is already critically sick, delirious, the body of our society, the body social, politic, economic, can only follow.
I don't expect readers to grasp what I have just written, I hope, I pray that I am utterly mistaken... but do not believe that to be the case. Fever and convulsions seem inevitable and more will be needed to restore basic health than all the respite that the good doctors in Washington can offer.
This makes it all the more urgent, indeed crucial, to gather together and support the Biden Administration while citizens still can. To gain, to use the respite that's on offer.
I'm old, been watching for decades. Bill Moyers warned us... Rupert slandered him from even before Fox.
A chilling but accurate assessment…I’m sorry to have to agree with you.
Agree.
Well said. A nicely eloquent description of the major problems we face that are being papered over and allowed to fester due to the unabashed greed, IMO, of the corporatocracy we now live in. Thanks.
Thank you for this essay. It touches on the failings that we've managed to amass, and that bill is now coming due with a vengeance. Someone alluded to our country being a frog in a pot of water that is now rapidly approaching boiling. We are heading towards an authoritarian oligarchy and the people who have been misled in believing that they are "true patriots" will be those bringing this civil war home.
I was not sure where to post this, but here it is. This, historically, is not a great mystery. I recommend a thorough reading of a classic in systems analysis. See https://duaneelgin.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Limits-to-Large-Complex-Systems.pdf
Duane's analysis is equally applicable today. I submit we are at Stage IV. The question is do we collapse in 'authoritarianism or do we enter a 'transformational' change period?
Discussed elsewhere in today’s forum. I posted a brief by Knight Foundation called “Scaling Civic Tech”. Following debacle last week and exposure of Facebook, some conversation I had with military personnel during online learning during pandemic. Talked about new architecture of education and military progress on many things tech. One thing involves changing algorithms beyond limited social media and harnessing tech for civic engagement and more responsive government. It’s a transformational path.
There are informational paths to learn where business and how models are with this. I struggled for understanding but worth it because I have thought about need for change in architecture of public education.
Innovative tech, such as civic tech, can be part of a transformational model.
Here's another potential resource for using tech to increase civic engagement. https://cpd.colostate.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/48/2020/05/The-Wise-Collaborator_-A-New-Ideal-for-Civic-Decision-Making-National-Civic-League.pdf
Excellent article, thank you Charlie. Equally interesting that it was written in 1977.
I agree we are probably in Stage IV and the question of which direction will we end up moving toward is the source of my sleepless nights.
There seems to be a severe limitation in the excellent Duane analysis, certainly in current terms, in that it deals almost exclusively with governmental bureaucracies (and the most overblown ones, at that) without considering corporate bureaucracy... or the intricate web of interactions between the two monstrosities...
Things fall apart, the center cannot hold...
We are already at the stage when there’s no choice but to opt for transformation—otherwise total disaster is guaranteed. Look…
We face the failure of systems far larger than any bureaucracy, failure upon failure, all taking place at much the same time:
The current deliquescent form of capitalism—governance at all levels—in America, constitutional rigor mortis (in Britain, it’s already constitutional decomposition)—footling, totally irrelevant hyperactivity, surface effects, a society in which what we called “the short term” only twenty years ago... must seem an eternity—the confluence of all our foul polluted rivers-of-the-mind-turned-sewers.
And, barely beyond us now, the immeasurable, barely conceivable chain reactions arising from climate change—we speak of migration, it’s the stuff of our purblind politics. But we’ve seen nothing of what’s to come. NO-THING.
[At times like these criminal elements will always thrive, as we are seeing, not just in the United States, but with the worldwide emergence of criminal regimes—oligarchy. Crooks combine intuition and all the skills of the streetwise, to seize the moment... even if it’s no better than a successful heist while the Titanic goes down.]
Or simply - the government at the time of the writing of the constitution, bill of rights etc. was a very small bureaucratic "organization" - NOW? the government is immense & changes sure do need to be made. HOW these changes are made is the big million or trillion dollar question & by WHOM, right?
Maybe we need a new 'operating system'?
You think?
Yep. And the 'powers that be' aren't going to be happy campers. The Hopi call it the coming of the 5th world.
Boy,',,, you really put a lot in that letter Larry, and every bit of it pertinent!!! We, as a nation , the way we are headed, and it is all, in one way or another, attributed to big money, are going to die. It is NOT sustainable!!! We are rotting from the inside out….. And it is avoidable, but it does NOT look like we’re avoiding it. We’ve got to get big money OUT of politics, and particularly BIG special interest money out of our elections, and as special favors for the politicians……..
As I’ve said before, I’m old, 81 to be exact. And for that, in this day in age, I feel lucky, I get to die pretty soon!!! Although I hope it’s not to soon . Lol…..
Hi from another octogenarian! I'm reading Deep Adaptation re: Climate Change, and as Larry said, it is our most over-arching problem. I share your thoughts that I may not live to see all the coming tragedies, but our young people will suffer terribly.
Yes, they and future generations will loathe us.
Write this to all politicians!
A note of hope: Dear Friends of Heather; you might want to know about a movement called RAM which is calling moderate Republicans et al together to vote against the loose cannons in the party who are amassing power regardless of method. The RAM program will make recommendations for candidates REGARDLESS OF PARTY to vote for. It seeks traditional Republican values, which personally I believe are old-hat given the state of the world, but the point is, they know that forming a third party will not help them in the short run, but this method will advocate for decent, capable politicians to win elections and help "right" a sinking ship.
Here is a link to an opinion piece in the NY Times by Miles Taylor and Christine Todd Whitman outlining this plan. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/11/opinion/2022-house-senate-trump.html
Thanks Hope, I'm becoming and old goat anyway, so why not be a RAM? I'm assuming here that you're talking about the Renew America Movement, not the 60s Maoists or the anti-Antifa group :) Forming a new political party is A LOT of work, but that is the scale of the task before us. I will research this group.
Yes, it is the Renew America Movement. I think a RAM would be a good logo beside the donkey and elephant!
That is good, but decent doesn't seem to be what Republlican voters want these days. RAM is up against Trump fanatics who already have more than a foothold in many states. What we really need is for Trump to disappear, the sooner the better.
Thanx Larry for the rundown of our recent history of decline in the U.S. Like many others have mentioned already, it is a good wrap-up. Like many here with history, I too have seen these things first hand. Grew up with rifles & shotguns, collected guns pistols as an adult & was a member of the NRA long before it became a terrorist enabling organization. Those were innocent times before X-Ray baggage checks at airports, when you could actually carry two pistols onto a commercial airliner in a briefcase. (Yes, I did in 1966).
I also grew up in a household where my dad was the "breadwinner" and we prospered on his single paycheck. Mom wanted to work and I remember the discussion whether it would be feasible due to tax changes with her income. When I got out of the service in the late '60s thru the '70s, I worked front line jobs for minimum wages and managed to live comfortably on it. How can anyone live on $7.50 an hour now? The system has definitely broken and the Repugnant Party doesn't care about the poor fools who still vote for them against their own best interest.
The bottom line to all this is the apparent mass insanity that has taken over our nation like some real life Zombie Apocalypse. I am in Floriduh, where our Insane Governor and the Repugnant Cult stacked Education Dept and even the Health Dept with a quack for state Surgeon General are fighting against proven health precautions to prevent spreading an airborne viral pandemic as if it were a political game instead of a deadly furtherance of the disease.
I am so appalled at this total disregard of science and the attacks on those who try to abide by sound preventive measures (I worked in Nursing, wearing a mask is just part of infection control). I fear for what will be the outcome of this. It won’t impact me personally as a septuagenarian without too much more future, but my grandsons & great-grandsons are going to be stuck in a Near Dystopian Future that once was relegated to fiction.
My take on the gun problem is that Rs want the peons to do the dirty work while they grab power. As for universal health care, it was to be part of the New Deal, but was killed by the AMA using two California political operatives who went on to help Rs. I recommend These Truths by Jill Lapore as an excellent history of the US and how we got here. The super rich think that their money will save them although climate change is so pervasive that is difficult even now to find a place not affected. I am elderly and glad for it without direct descendants. Meanwhile my dirt poor relatives in the midwest continue to do what they do best and have children. I hate to think what awaits them.
As do I, my grands will live in a world very different from Mine. Not a good thing
I have two great nephews who live in CA and are in a much better situation. However, my husband and I are appalled at the gifts that roll in for birthdays and Christmas making them little consumers of plastic junk. The latest this summer is some kind of computer game where you can buy your way out of situations which of course means sending money to the makers of this scam. In addition there are all these plastic figurines to buy. Younger people just shrug their shoulders at this. We give them money, most of which goes into their college fund and I wonder whether that will be viable when they reach that stage.
I read with interest that the most wanted toys will possibly not be available this Christmas as well as a lot of other goods which I guess are often sitting on container ships waiting to come in to ports. We have our Christmas shopping done this week as Powells had a sale and we buy each other books. We try to buy as locally as possible.
Our gift to our grandchildren a couple years ago were books from the San Diego Zoo. There are stories about the special animals saved and conservation. They got the small plush that went with the book. I felt better for having sent something educational. We were fortunate to have the author write them a personal message. We were weekly volunteers before the pandemic hit.
Also subscriptions to science kits that come monthly or bi-monthly. My goal is something that will keep them wanting to learn.
https://shopzoo.com/pages/san-diego-zoo-wildlife-alliance-press
Yes, I'm a big proponent of giving something to learn. Science and animal magazines, etc.
Love that your gifts are books. I am trying to find gifts of experiences also.
My 4 year old great niece loves gift certificates from her local books store, which I gladly give her. She already chooses her own books (Might have something to do w/her mom, who has a Master's degree in Creative Writing-LOL!)
That sounds great. Our list is fortunately very short and so it's money for our nephews and great nephews and a few things for other people that I am putting together now like some bay leaves from my garden. I also made apple butter for the first time in my life and i will give away some of that too. It's so good that I want to keep it all.
No, from Salem, Oregon, and originally from Elkhart, Indiana.
I’m old too, this embolden of evil went into high gear with the election of Obama. But it had been brewing for decades. From They Thought They We’re Free, Milton Meyer “The steps were so small, so inconsequential…”. Worth a Google
Actually, since Reagan!!! But it was actually brewing from before that, you might say ever since the republicans lost to FDR and his policies, but really started getting traction with Reagan……..
McCarthy contributed some "manouvers" to the playbook too.
Thank you for this thoughtful post.
Larry. Thank you for your powerful response. "The power that exercises these abuses is also the power that decides who is elected is also the power and placed on the Supreme Court". Spine tingling!
Stalin said it's the people who count the votes that matter. Republicans buy this 100%
Thank you so much for this
Thank you Larry.
Larry, you have covered so much in this synopsis that I work through for answers daily. Much appreciated and looking forward to your next post.
Thank you for a powerful essay Larry describing the historical arc of my lifetime also. It’s heartbreaking and true.