09-28-2014, 07:02 PM
It is not possible to see the world change without implementing some of the reforms necessary to make the changes viable. That set as a preamble, how does anyone in government expect to keep the status quo? Is the status quo worth keeping and fighting for?
For one thing, Obama is in his second term of office and there should normally not be another one under his rule (if one considers that he hasn't got his hands tightly and firmly tied, like any other politician from either side of the board.) Maybe that's a thought.
For anyone in power, this is a juggling act. In a way, I'd rather know or believe that the one taking decisions actually knows what they are doing, rather than look like an inefficient, incompetent and ignorant fool. The presidency has become a highly qualified job in modern democracies and one should at all times remember that no liberty is ever to be taken for granted. Things happen. People like Hitler and Polpot happen. People are fooled, one way or another, into thinking maybe these people are the best solution in the short run... but without looking at what goes on elsewhere, how people handle things in other countries and other regimes, there might not be any salvation. I'm going to grant the US president that I trust in his understanding of the highly complex nature of the state of the world and the state of the United States which he has to lead internally and worldwide. I never felt as if I could trust the previous president of the US that way. He always seemed to blunder, to go from one mistake to the next... bumbling his way through the advances of capitalism. I'll grant him that he knew where his money was.
The 80s and 90s were times of great greed, and the powerful United States took it into its hands to lead the world towards so-called 'freedom' but not forgetting that this also meant being able to do big business and to take advantage of systems that were less favourable to local populations than the lucky (not all so lucky, though) American people.
What drives people in power to do wrong is when they can't think, or are unable to implement a degree of social cohesion and of fairness. I doubt that they get elected into power if the people electing them sees them unfit to lead them out of crises and to maintain a certain degree of law and order. President Obama has had to contend with a lot of ill will coming from his compatriots on such things as personal weapons ownership, health care reform and insurance, etc ... Inequalities in the States have sometimes become so blatant that its own people feels it can't take any more immigration, and there is a mindset in the USA that everyone is out to get them. Paranoia, which is well implemented by some factions but also by some of the press and media, comes to mind. Well, of course, anyone could be jealous of the richest nation in the world, but are those people going to come and invade the country? Not so sure. As, I mentioned before, it's a juggling act.
But it is time the huge discrepancies in wealth that the 80s and 90s created in the USA but also all across the world and particularly some states in Europe was addressed in a way that the people, middle classes and working classes particularly, think they have enough to live comfortably and are not running to the next job to make ends meet, nor that immigrants are going to take over. If we manage to keep our democracies secular and not under the threat of any religious thinking or law, we might manage to cope. It is important therefore not to go bankrupt, either financially or morally. Again the juggling act. It is interesting to think that the USA seems to feel threatened by the Islamists as much as we might feel it in Europe where a proportion of the indigenous population already is of Moslem faith. ( I'll add that this part of the population isn't necessarily the enemy of the state). It needn't be a problem if everyone remembers that religion is a private thing and that in no way should it influence our laws or our governments.
Back to the economic problems. Was it such a good idea to give all the manufacturing jobs to Asian emerging countries just to make a buck (or actually millions?)? Obviously not. This is something that happened quite drastically throughout the 80s and 90s. At least, I can remember a time when you went to the USA and actually managed to find products made in the USA. Not in recent years. Look under the product or on the label, it's all made in China.
Our societies, our forebears have fought for a more equal system and any government or politics that stifles the people by creating too big a gap between the haves and the have-nots is doomed to fail. I suppose that's what we call the Decline Of the American Empire... it inspired a Canadian film called just that just under three decades ago, though they saw it mainly through the prism of sexual liberation.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090985/
Such decline is also that of a number of Western countries, which, too content with their so-called fairness of treatment, have not seen rampant capitalism destroy what would be a model of cohesion.
Now, do we need another war, civil or not, to make this progress toward the future? With globalisation and an increasing amount of global concerns, which are not all to do with climate, humans need to learn about more tolerance. How, though, does one rally the human beings on our planet if we don't have, somehow, a common goal, and a similar way of wanting peace? Again, a long battle, one that can come, maybe, with better upbringing and education. The Internet has made the world a global village; now we know what's happening all over the place, but we are also contaminated by a whole pack of terrible lies, some of them life-changing. I think it is every citizen's duty to keep a close watch on what politics, economic factors and religions are doing and how we elect people into power. Some of the power machines, namely industrial lobbies, but also religious lobbies, have gained far too much power. Self-righteousness and personal gain never served humankind.
For one thing, Obama is in his second term of office and there should normally not be another one under his rule (if one considers that he hasn't got his hands tightly and firmly tied, like any other politician from either side of the board.) Maybe that's a thought.
For anyone in power, this is a juggling act. In a way, I'd rather know or believe that the one taking decisions actually knows what they are doing, rather than look like an inefficient, incompetent and ignorant fool. The presidency has become a highly qualified job in modern democracies and one should at all times remember that no liberty is ever to be taken for granted. Things happen. People like Hitler and Polpot happen. People are fooled, one way or another, into thinking maybe these people are the best solution in the short run... but without looking at what goes on elsewhere, how people handle things in other countries and other regimes, there might not be any salvation. I'm going to grant the US president that I trust in his understanding of the highly complex nature of the state of the world and the state of the United States which he has to lead internally and worldwide. I never felt as if I could trust the previous president of the US that way. He always seemed to blunder, to go from one mistake to the next... bumbling his way through the advances of capitalism. I'll grant him that he knew where his money was.
The 80s and 90s were times of great greed, and the powerful United States took it into its hands to lead the world towards so-called 'freedom' but not forgetting that this also meant being able to do big business and to take advantage of systems that were less favourable to local populations than the lucky (not all so lucky, though) American people.
What drives people in power to do wrong is when they can't think, or are unable to implement a degree of social cohesion and of fairness. I doubt that they get elected into power if the people electing them sees them unfit to lead them out of crises and to maintain a certain degree of law and order. President Obama has had to contend with a lot of ill will coming from his compatriots on such things as personal weapons ownership, health care reform and insurance, etc ... Inequalities in the States have sometimes become so blatant that its own people feels it can't take any more immigration, and there is a mindset in the USA that everyone is out to get them. Paranoia, which is well implemented by some factions but also by some of the press and media, comes to mind. Well, of course, anyone could be jealous of the richest nation in the world, but are those people going to come and invade the country? Not so sure. As, I mentioned before, it's a juggling act.
But it is time the huge discrepancies in wealth that the 80s and 90s created in the USA but also all across the world and particularly some states in Europe was addressed in a way that the people, middle classes and working classes particularly, think they have enough to live comfortably and are not running to the next job to make ends meet, nor that immigrants are going to take over. If we manage to keep our democracies secular and not under the threat of any religious thinking or law, we might manage to cope. It is important therefore not to go bankrupt, either financially or morally. Again the juggling act. It is interesting to think that the USA seems to feel threatened by the Islamists as much as we might feel it in Europe where a proportion of the indigenous population already is of Moslem faith. ( I'll add that this part of the population isn't necessarily the enemy of the state). It needn't be a problem if everyone remembers that religion is a private thing and that in no way should it influence our laws or our governments.
Back to the economic problems. Was it such a good idea to give all the manufacturing jobs to Asian emerging countries just to make a buck (or actually millions?)? Obviously not. This is something that happened quite drastically throughout the 80s and 90s. At least, I can remember a time when you went to the USA and actually managed to find products made in the USA. Not in recent years. Look under the product or on the label, it's all made in China.
Our societies, our forebears have fought for a more equal system and any government or politics that stifles the people by creating too big a gap between the haves and the have-nots is doomed to fail. I suppose that's what we call the Decline Of the American Empire... it inspired a Canadian film called just that just under three decades ago, though they saw it mainly through the prism of sexual liberation.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090985/
Such decline is also that of a number of Western countries, which, too content with their so-called fairness of treatment, have not seen rampant capitalism destroy what would be a model of cohesion.
Now, do we need another war, civil or not, to make this progress toward the future? With globalisation and an increasing amount of global concerns, which are not all to do with climate, humans need to learn about more tolerance. How, though, does one rally the human beings on our planet if we don't have, somehow, a common goal, and a similar way of wanting peace? Again, a long battle, one that can come, maybe, with better upbringing and education. The Internet has made the world a global village; now we know what's happening all over the place, but we are also contaminated by a whole pack of terrible lies, some of them life-changing. I think it is every citizen's duty to keep a close watch on what politics, economic factors and religions are doing and how we elect people into power. Some of the power machines, namely industrial lobbies, but also religious lobbies, have gained far too much power. Self-righteousness and personal gain never served humankind.
![[-]](https://gayspeak.com/images/duende_v3_local/collapse.png)
Virgo
Capricorn
