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This message is not one of hope. I do not peddle hope but books. I am a firm believer that if we all read more and read wisely with good and clear critical minds at work, this country not to mention this world would be a much better place to live in.I hate what is going on now. Hate, not hope, that this energy of radical opposition to what is considered wise and temperate thought will help to push forward a real progressive agenda in my lifetime. At 61 I do not hold any false hopes. I am not in love with much that is discussed today as if there were time to debate.
That time is over. If, as predicted, by June the number of foreclosures goes into the millions more, then we are going to have no recovery at all. And if those unhopeful souls who sit in Congress chisel away at Social Security and Medicare so that those who rely on it will not be able to, there will be a real trickle down effect. The trickling down of rapid and depressing (as in Depression) economic factors that will just basically shut us out of the world economy.
We can all say that this is just the latest chicken little speak and that that will never happen. The country will not allow it to happen. But then we are all fools if we believe anyone is there to protect our interests.
My solution to it all must seem quite ridiculous. I advocate for a rapid and speedy reliance on books that actually explain and place in context what we are facing. I advocate for more library hours not less. I advocate for newspapers and magazines to stop now publishing all this celebrity circus crap (and that means you HuffPo) and get the real news we need into our hands.
That is also why I applaud what Rob does here at OEN. While I do not always agree with his stands on issues or with the writers who take stands here, I do believe that by organizing in this way the means to get news out there that would never find its own place in the blogosphere, a huge investment is being made.
We all need to do similar things in our own lives and with our own resources as best we can. We find these models everywhere and all around us if we take the time to search them out rather than checking on sports scores, stock tips, gossip news, etc.
We are at risk. We may not feel it ourselves this moment, but if we look around us, it is there. Seeing the numbers of boarded up stores, the number of food banks in need of constant help, the numbers of unemployed and even the number of hospital closings, empty apartment buildings, the requests from shopkeepers to do more business with them and the way those requests are made.
People, the world may not be coming to an end, but certainly the way we live is. SuperBowl or not, we are in danger of a form of speedy disappearance. Empires come and go and the denouement to this ending is never pretty.
Do the right things for us all and begin right now to listen and learn about the reality of life on our planet now. We will all benefit from us all working towards that end.
