When the major business newspaper feels comfortable reporting on the disappointment of drug companies and hospitals, that their profits are down because not enough people got sick, there is something dreadfully wrong. Maybe the business friendly members of congress could authorize the “seeding” of respiratory infections in major cities, so there will be a “bump” in the stock value of cough drop, facial tissue and head cold products. It would be good for the economy and maybe help the job market. NOT!!
The good news is, that as we drive and fly less, unless “We” are wealthy, we will be exposed to less people, and will have less exposure to diseases. And we WILL be driving and flying less. Along with it, we’ll be finding ways to get things more locally. It’s called “relocalization.”
We have very big problems. I don’t want to hear Hillary or Obama sniping at each other. I don’t want platitudes. I want big picture, big vision ideas and plans on how they will face picking up the pieces of a United States that has been hit by a Bush/GOP nuclear bomb of economic, governmnental and regulatory destruction.
I want to know what the incumbents and freshmen running for congress are going to do to get things done, to face the huge mess that must be cleaned up. Good intentions are not enough. I want to hear about bold, tough, principled plans that are based on the harsh reality on the ground, not on fear of making waves. Anything less is not enough. Anything less is the worthless political failure we’ve been seeing.
The United States is in big trouble. Don’t plan on it every coming back to where it was— unless something really majkor happens. What could that be?
America needs a revolution. I was talking, the other day, to Garda Ghista, the organizer of the "Building a New World" conference coming in May—says “Evolution is gradual change. Revolution is accelerated change. We are meeting to discuss moving from evolution to revolution.”
Part of the reason we need a revolution is because , as Bernard Chazelle says, in his article, Saving the American Left: The Case for a New Progressive Creed “The American left is in the throes of an existential crisis. Some say it's a failure of nerve, others a loss of belief.”
Chazelle, a computer scientist at Princeton University, writes:
There is palpable excitement out there on the left. A pity there is no there there. America has lefties but no left.
The verdict is brutal. By virtually any measure, the United States is the least progressive nation in the developed world.(1) It trails most of Western Europe in poverty rates, life expectancy, health care, child care, infant mortality, maternity leaves, paid vacations, public infrastructure, incarceration rates, and environmental laws. The wealth gap in the US has not been so wide since 1929. The Wal-Mart founders' family owns as much as the bottom 120 million Americans combined.(2) Contrary to received opinion, there is now less social mobility in the US than in Canada, France, Germany, and most Scandinavian countries.(3,4) The European Union attracts more foreign students than the US, including twice as many from China. Its consensus-driven polity, studies indicate, has replaced the American version as the societal model to which the developing world aspires.(5)
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