Jan 23 2011
Where To Begin
I apologize for the drop off in posting. After the madness of the AZ shooting and how the left insanely stuffed their feet into their mouths with their ludicrous demands for civility – until we learned the shooter was a 9-11 Truther who hated George Bush (and probably November’s election results) – I had to walk away from politics for a bit. This was more a straw-breaking-the-back moment than anything else. It had a huge impact on my attitude as the tragic death of a wonderful young life was wiped off the headline news and replaced with rabid liberals crying foul. Still disgusts me.
I have not been able to stomach the rabid political debate from either side since. Especially since some on the right can be just a few notches less volatile and overheated than those on the left. The truth is the fringes are mad with unrealistic anger, and it has always been the moderates in the middles who become the targets of their attacks. Rep Giffords just became the horrific worse case example of where the shallow, and at times childish, debate in this country has devolved.
We cannot even accept error and mistake on our own sides because of this ever heated anger. The zealots are wrong on so many counts now that need correction, but the idea of coming together to fix them is impossible. Global Warming and Climate issues have been lost to BS data and false alarm bells, while the science of genetics and evolution is under attack from science drop outs. I have yet to see the mature and serious debate coming from the new Congress on any matter. The usual suspects are ranting into microphones on Capitol Hill. I am not seeing enough ‘new’ out there, and I know that is because of the strangle hold the media has on who gets coverage.
Realizing we have reached perfect political paralysis in a position where we are bleeding our finances out and crippling the country for years to come has me less interested in political babble. I need to see something concrete and there is nothing happening. Sadly, there will be nothing happening.
On top of all this I landed on some work which is the epitome of bureaucratic waste. I am not going to go into details here on the blog, but the reality of how badly the government performs combined with the reality that the politics of this country is wandering aro8ubd without the spine to fix it has me wondering how much farther we must fall before there is enough heat to overcome the bureaucratic processes that act as a barrier to getting things right again. Things should be easy to fix, except all the dumb and useless laws and red tape required taht get in the way of making good decisions.
This new job is an anomaly in my business, not the norm. But it is an example of government run amok, and how even an army of good intentioned and capable people cannot take even basic steps in getting things back on course. The cancer is so wide spread and on auto-pilot, it may be there is no way to avoid the fall. If it all is this insidious and wide spread, then rooting it out may actually require extremely draconian measures against a lot of scared cows on both sides of aisle.
And the chances of that happening ….
If the best of America is embodied in the too late, sanctimonious, moralizing, halting, hallow, pep-rally offering by the President in Arizona, a true, heart-wrenching tragedy, then we are in trouble.
There is a real America, and time and time again we get fake, jocking politics. I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!
Surpise! Iran Talks Collapse
Man-emitted CO2 causing devastating global warming? Uh, no
9.4% unemployment going on 2 years
And we talk about how to get Sarah Palin killed.
[…] Lang the pianist says h more… Where To Begin – strata-sphere.com 01/23/2011 I apologize for the drop off in posting. After the madness of […]
And we have this incident in Detroit….
Unbelievable… Pianist Plays Anti-American Pro-Commie Song at Obama White House State Dinner. Lang Lang was invited as the evenings musical entertainment. Of course the evening was broadcasted straight to China. Is there no end to our incompetence? If the media won’t hold this White House to any reasonable standard, who will?
I sympathize deeply with what you’re having to deal with professionally, and also with your frustration with the political system. I want to encourage you to go on writing about it, if only to chronicle what you see, because I think in this post you have hit on something much bigger than you realize.
And what I mean by “bigger” is that this inertia, this inability to act in the face of an approaching catastrophe that *Everyone* can see coming – this is NOT just happening in your workplace, and it is NOT just happening in Congress – it is happening in the banks, it is happening in financial circles, it is happening in both the foreign and municipal debt markets, it is happening in the housing markets, it is happening in the attempt to sweep the foreclosure fiasco under the carpet, it is happening on a massive scale in the energy industry – and I could go on and on.
We, as a society, are not just hurtling towards catastrophe in one or two areas that drastically need attention – *Every* system we have is simultaneously hurtling towards the proverbial cliff. And the most perverse aspect of this is that this is widely known and acknowledged, BY the very people who have the power to prevent it! And yet no one feels that anything can be done about it because the inertia in all of these systems is seen as too great to overcome, EVEN though disaster and collapse will be the result.
I could give you 100 examples, let me just use the energy industry as an example, since I’ve been looking at that a lot lately. *Everyone* in the industry with experience – from the bottom levels to the top – knows that we are dramatically under-investing in new production, and that an economy-killing energy shortage will be an inevitable result in 2 – 4 years. They also know that so-called “alternative” energy ideas have failed across the board, and that increasing oil and gas production *NOW* is the only technology we have to avoid a drastic shortfall. What is the response to this situation from people IN the industry? A grudging acceptance of the reality that this country apparently *Has* to suffer a disaster before anyone will even start to talk seriously about it. Everyone in that business knows this is going to happen, and simply accepts it as necessary. No one is even going to try to avoid it, because they believe they will get nothing but condemnation if they stand up and say what they know.
And as I said before, it’s not just the energy industry. It’s the banks, it’s the debt markets, it’s housing, it’s the pension systems – everyone who runs these things *Knows* that they are all on disastrous trajectories, but everyone running these systems has decided to accept the proposition that nothing can be done until the crisis is upon us. Of course, the sad irony is that by then it will be far too late.
We look back on historical epochs where societies have marched into oblivion in lockstep and wonder how such a thing could possibly happen – how could *everyone* in a society go so wrong all at the same time?
This – what we are seeing right now wherever we look – THIS is how. I think it’s a noble task to at least chronicle our fall honestly and objectively while it happens.
I have almost stopped posting at my blog on HK politics because I might as well be beating my head against a wall.
I actually got talk to some of the Legco members a while back and they hae no clue. They honestly think that the answer to any problem is to hire another civil servant to study the problem.
This type of thinking inccidently exposses the problem with civility. There are large numbers of people that believe wwhole heartedly in a role of government that is not simply different but wrong. There can be very little if any compromise with people who believe that the answer to societies problems is less freedom. The very rhetoric of the left forces me, almost against my will to become a hyper-rightest.
That is not a thing I like to say
Fai Mao – The ruling classes there, as well as here, are now overwhelmed with a self-destructive timidity and an astonishingly foolish refusal to act even in the face of overwhelming and impending disaster. What this forces you (and every other rational person who sees the danger clearly) to become is not a “hyper-rightest” but rather, a true revolutionary – in the eyes of polite society, the most dangerous species of man that has ever existed. Embrace that reality – be smart, but embrace it. Your time is coming, and theirs is almost up.
“During times of universal deceit, telling the Truth becomes a revolutionary act.” – George Orwell
The gulf between head and the heart is so hugh that only the body can act to bring the two together.
Let the Truth of Love be lighted,
Let the Love of Truth shine clear,
Sensibility,
Armed with Sense and Liberty,
With the Heart and Mind united
in a Single, Perfect, Sphere.
Cygnus X-1, “Hemispheres”
You are always so wise WWS.
Welcome back… missed seeing your blog posts…
See ya
cathy : )