NationStates Jolt Archive

I was reading Peggy Noonans column (http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/)during lunch and she has pegged my feelings about the future of the United States. And it isn't optimism, either.
Whether our government is on the right track or on the wrong track and by how many points people think that's so just isn't important. What's really happening is that we're so far off the tracks that the train wreck is just around the corner.

The last part of the column was what really made me sure I'm right. About the train wreck that's looming out there. She was quoting a passage in a book about growing up with the Kennedys.

...Teddy was expansive. If he hadn't gone into politics he would have been an opera singer, he told them, and visited small Italian villages and had pasta every day for lunch. "Singing at la Scala in front of three thousand people throwing flowers at you. Then going out for dinner and having more pasta." Everyone was laughing. Then, writes Mr. Lawford, Teddy "took a long, slow gulp of his vodka and tonic, thought for a moment, and changed tack. 'I'm glad I'm not going to be around when you guys are my age.' I asked him why, and he said, 'Because when you guys are my age, the whole thing is going to fall apart.' "

So if even Teddy knows ...?

I already knew it. Why do you think I'm sitting on a small mountain of food and ammunition? And screwing to beat the band?

Okay, I won't sell the carbine, yet.

So if even Teddy knows ...?
Whaddaya mean "knows"... Hell, he has been active in CREATING the mess and is relishing the Irony that the world he helped create is going to implode on the kids nobody wanted anyway.

Welcome to the reality of Generational Paradigms.

So if even Teddy knows ...?
Well there goes my last shred of faith in democratically-elected governmnet....*sigh*

I was going to write something clever, but in a thread like this, it isn't worth my time and effort.

The future does seem a little gloomy, since the issues are more complex and come at us faster. Unfortunately, our leaders, and people in general, no smarter or more capable than they were generations ago.

If the problems become too complex, I'm concerned we'll consolidate them for solution -- like consolidating credit cards -- and create a single problem with a simplistic solution.

Rather than deal with nations individually, say in the mid-east, we re-define the issue as being mid-east wide. Call it the 'problem in the mid-east'. Finding broad solutions in this fashion often leads to war, among other possible negative outcomes.

It seems part of the human condition to over-simplify when the problems become overwhelming. It's a mechanism for coping when the mental resource is limited.

If that's the way the fat fuck feels he should resign. He after all has been a major force in it going off the rails to begin with.

Personally, I would imagine that it was just the booze talking, however. Someone should slap him back to rehab.