Abandon Hope All Ye Who Vote Here

BY MICHAEL LINN JONES

I should preface my remarks with a short explanation as to why I haven't written in a while. The full truth is never short, but suffice it to say that there are two causes: not being able to see very well, and that other thing.

What is that other thing, you ask? It's not simple in its cause but quite so in its effect. While interested in the world aroung me, I've gotten to where I want to gag at any more headlines about this Little Rascals race for the White House. As a voter I realize that I have two decisions left to me before November, since my state doesn't hold its primary until May 6.

The Republicans took all the fun out of things with their loser-take-all system, leaving no prolonged and nasty struggle prior to their summer convention. The Democrats, meanwhile, concocted a real doozy this time, with accusations, innuendo, and unveiled insults flying all over the place. I'll look at that for a moment:

The choice (if you will be kind and call it that) is between a Harvard law professor turned senator and the wife of a former president turned senator. The professor hasn't quite got the knack yet of filtering his remarks before uttering them. His opponent, whose combined income with her ex-president husband totals a measly $109 million over 7 years, accuses the professor of being an elitist.

If they keep at it, the level of public discourse might actually reach the level of the ocean floor.

Just Wondering over at Vim & Vinegar regularly points out something that is lost in this sandbox-style election: there's all kinds of stuff happening RIGHT NOW that should wake anyone up. Like.....

The economy. Less said about it the better. It stinks, and it's going to smell a lot worse as time goes on. There was a joke going around in the 1970's in which a sign of the times was an unemployed airline pilot waiting in a gas line in his Volkswagen Beetle with $50 worth of groceries in the glove compartment. Back to the future I guess.

In a recent report, the average high school graduation rate was below 44% in a large number of cities. Nashville and San Jose did the best, with almost 77% graduation rates. If you need me to explain to you the long-term consequences of such numbers then you have my sympathy.

The Decider is still deciding, in his own rather spectacular way. His 9/11 speech, his Mission Accomplished speech, his Katrina speech....well, they all sort of got mulched and combined and now his assertive voice proclaims over and over that 1, he doesn't get it, 2, he doesn't care anyway, 3, rich is much better than poor, and 4, the American people may not be worthy of his leadership after all. With all the department creations following 9/11, with all the resources poured into intelligence gathering....no one seems to have informed the president that $4 a gallon gasoline just might be around the corner. But he isn't worried; all his friends say they're doing quite well, thank you. And that is all that matters.

This is ancedotal, and therefore has no weight except with and upon me. But recently I had to travel to Florida. Toodling along I-95 at 70m.p.h. (causing enormous inconvenience to those needing to go faster) I took note of the large number of rather expensive vehicles heading southwards for the annual Spring Break season.

It struck me that John Edwards had it wrong. We don't have two Americas. We have two completely different WORLDS. In my youth the Best and Brightest launched America into a quagmire. Their sons and daughters have done it again. Difference is, in my time every guy had to sweat the draft to one degree or another. What I saw blazing down the interstate that day was a class of people whose reality is so far removed from the reality in which I live that I'm left almost speechless.

These people have so many choices....ones that did not exist for the majority forty years ago and do not exist now. Maybe I saw a future president, vice-president, or speaker of the house pass me by that day. Years from now they can at least say they didn't avoid the draft, since there isn't one.

But what am I doing here? It's class warfare, right? I fail to recognize that my betters, whether then or now, are imperfect in their decisions yet totally immune from consequences. In fact, the "leaders" seem to crawl out of every bucket of manure smelling like a book-deal rose.

So be it. But the end result is such an imbalance of life; such a fission of realities that one side will never feel commonalitywith the other. Ever. I am a firm believer in the foolishness of having a multi-linguistic society. But I realize that as bad as that is, it doesn't compare to having people living in the same nation so separated.

In his book, TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY, John Steinbeck made the observation that with the then-new (it was written in 1960) vending machines, a person could travel across the entire United States without speaking to a single soul. It came true, but I don't think Steinbeck ever imagined we would travel our nation and not even look at each other.

The price to be paid for this political/economic Tower of Babel will be borne by the many. The few, the lucky, the self-chosen will remain aloof and wait until the dust settles.

The eyes say, "enough!" They blur and halt anything longer than this. The mind, though, travels on, trying to make sense....trying to see that glimmer of hope that the nation that was paid for with blood (not dividends) might return to an even keel.

To borrow from and paraphrase T.S. Eliot,

This is the way the nation ends,
not with a bang, but with a very profitable whimper.
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Cross-posted at Michaellinnjones.com

It's Not Often We Get To Relive History: Bush Out-Hoovers Coolidge

BY MICHAEL LINN JONES

By 1932 the economy was so bad that a children's rhyme came about that mentioned then President Hoover and his Secretary of Treasury, Andrew Mellon:

Mellon drove the engine,
Hoover rang the bell,
Wall St. blew the whistle,
and the country went to hell.

From the mouth of babes, as they say....it condenses into a short poem the feelings and beliefs at the time. Herbert Hoover got stuck with the policies of Calvin Coolidge, yet President Hoover was a captive of what John Kenneth Galbraith later described as "the conventional wisdom."

The Franklin Roosevelt administration came into office at a time when American business was looking for someone to save them from themselves. What Roosevelt did certainly alleviated many of the harshest aspects of the Depression, but never cured it. But at least he tried which is more than can be said for his predecessors. One good, and lasting side of FDR's time was the imposition of some common-sense regulation on American finance.

Since the 1970's, many of those regulations were removed by Congress, sometimes at the behest of the president in office. It all looked great, "unleashing the shackles" from business. The first inkling of the wisdom of this was the mortgage crisis of the late 1980's. We were returning to the "conventional wisdom" with a vengeance. Several years ago Congress passed, and President Bush gleefully signed something called the consumer protection act. I love their sense of humor. That law was written by, and for, credit card companies. It was to address the problem of the irresponsible behavior of individuals who ran up credit card debt and then declared bankruptcy. Keep that logic in mind.

Last Friday, President Bush gave a speech at The Economic Club of New York. You can't get more grassroots than that; a roomfull of millionaires/billionaires filling their shorts with fear; fear of losing what they have taken risks with other peoples' money for great personal gain. In Bush Acknowledges Weakness In American Economy by Jennifer Loven (AP writer), our president regurgetated thoughts expressed 80 years ago.

NEW YORK - Trying to calm jitters about the economy, President Bush conceded on Friday that the country "obviously is going through a tough time" but expressed confidence that it will rebound. He cautioned against overreacting to fix the problems.

In a speech to The Economic Club of New York, Bush said this was not the first time the economy has been rattled and that he is certain that it will ride out its troubles. "These are uncertain times," he said.

SNIP,

The president chose American's financial center as the backdrop — and the titans of finance and commerce as the audience — for his attempts to calm nerves from Wall Street to Main Street.

The Economic Club of New York is an exclusive, wealthy, largely homogenous group of top executives. Speaking before the gathering had Bush somewhat literally preaching to the choir — the 101-year-old group's new chairman is Glen Hubbard, the first head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers for Bush.

SNIP,

His main message, aside from optimism, stuck to Republican economic orthodoxy: warning repeatedly against too much government intervention.

For instance, while insisting his administration has an "active plan" to deal with the problems, Bush said he opposed several measures pending on Capitol Hill. They included proposals to allocate $400 billion to purchase abandoned and foreclosed homes, to change the bankruptcy code to allow judges to adjust mortgage rates, and to artificially prop up home prices.

"It's important not to overcorrect, because when you overcorrect, you end up in a ditch," Bush said. "It's important to be steady."

He said his administration would address the crisis "in a way that respects the ingenuity of the American people, that bolsters the entrepreneurial spirit and ensures that when we make it through this rough patch, that the driving will be smooth."

President Bush went on to lament Democrats' recalcitrance on approving more of those "free trade" deals that have done so much for American multinational corporations.

I love the bit where he emphasizes the growth of productivity was one of the strengths of the economy. That is a half-truth. Presidents Coolidge and Hoove also bragged about the growth of productivity. What all fail to realize is that increased productivity is useless if the wages do not rise in accordance with them.

To my dying day I will be a strong proponent of capitalism. It isn't pretty, but it creates wealth; no other system does. Greed is not good, but it's a much better catalyst in wealth creation, however it is distributed. That is the role of government to some degree; to curb the excesses of unfettered capitalism.

Two days after President Bush's speech in New York, it was announced that the Federal Reserve was loosening credit (again) for business. And, that it was involved in pulling Bear Stearns bacon out of the fire (by having it sold to J.P. Morgan for pennies on the dollar).

Some argued that Bear Stearns, an investment bank that screwed the pooch with subprime mortage notes, should go under...to deal with the consequences of its unwise actions. You know, like those individuals who got lectured vehemently several years ago when those bankruptcy laws were tightened.

But, to the Bush administration....like the Coolidge and Hoover administrations....the worth of one bank is much greater than millions of individuals. Suddenly on Wall Street we don't hear the usual cries of "rugged individualism." Of course not; such a notion is silenced in times like these.

Simply put, if our economy is a ship, if it is taking on water, the first thing the captain is going to do is ensure the lifeboats are filled with the first class passengers FIRST.

The wealthy elites are, to borrow from Neil Young, the silver seeds of a grandiose future.

George Carlin was once asked if he thought we had a dope problem in America.

"Sure,' he said, " I think we have too many dopes."
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Cross-posted at Michaellinnjones.com

HILLARY LOVES YOU

BY MICHAEL LINN JONES

Following this presidential race can have adverse effects on one's appetite. That might be good; perhaps by November I'll have shrunk to the weight the doctors say I should be. Thing is, I choose to be stupid and follow the path of personal health self-destruction. While not a consumer of alcohol or drugs, I do adhere to Oscar Wilde's quote that "I can resist anything but temptation."

So imagine my consternation when I read this piece in the NEW YORKER, THE IRON LADY by Ryan LIzza. True, the article is certainly not complimentary of Senator Clinton, but one part sticks out there all by itself. It was uttered by Senator Clinton during an "economic summit" during the campaign for the Ohio primary. It took place in Zanesville.

It was as if the sheer display of iron-pantsed discussion would further underscore her insistent theme: the hollowness of Obama’s charisma. When one speaker offered encomiums to Clinton rather than economic prescriptions, she gently reprimanded her, saying, “We’re going to put a moratorium on compliments.” Then, with the bonhomie of a high-school health teacher, she turned the conversation back toward government programs to help people “quit smoking, to get more exercise, to eat right, to take their vitamins.”

Is Ryan Lizza making this up? The comment is apparently not "newsworthy" because it doesn't have "substance." In the modern media glossary, "substance" is defined as that which can cause the greatest amount of childish interest within the political sandbox. It should be looked at further, and since the big boys and girls won't touch it, I will.

Many moons ago I read Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience." 19th century English can be a handful to read, and Thoreau's prose adds to the challenge. But, what I gathered from his writing is that the individual is paramount. That is the acme of Western thinking. The government, or state, is secondary to the individual. In fact, our Constitution goes to some lengths in the Bill of Rights to expressly underline that notion.

When the state becomes the oppressor instead of the protector, then the individual has a choice: either submit or not. Submission is always less painful; at least in the short term. However, over time individuality will seek to assert itself no matter what the state says. What Thoreau wrote was studied by Gandhi and Martin Luther King. All three men were philosophers, pains in the backside to those who prefer people not to think. Thinking is painful, after all, and the struggle to maintain individuality in a politically correct word is an agony.

When Franklin Roosevelt died in 1945, a contemporary writer gave a good description of FDR as a leader. He was America's bus driver. With a grin and his cigarett holder at a jaunty angle, Roosevelt steered the country down some dangerous road and heart-stopping curves. Sometimes it was scary, but everyone knew that while he was in the driver's seat, he never stopped listening to the passengers.

That is apt, because we, the passengers on the national bus, are the sovereigns of this republic. Plain, simple citizens are the ultimate rulers of the nation. The past seven years there hasn't been a bus; we've had a spoiled brat in a soapbox derby car (that his daddy built) rolling downhill. And we've been expected to keep up with him while dragging bags of cement behind us.

And now....well, it looks like one candidate (or possibly all three right now) foresees her role as a herder; someone to herd those wayward souls who just don't get it. What I don't get is why the power of government has to be used to further a collective goal at the expense of the individual. The context within which I am speaking relates to personal behavior only. If the state declares that an individual's right to abortion, or sexual preferences, or religious preferences. THAT I can understand, as it is in the direction of government staying out of an individual's decisions. It does not matter whether I personally agree or not; the key point is that the individual is, again, to be protected by the state. No matter how stupid they are.

But smoking? Exercise? Eating habits? Vitamins? If this is the epitome of 220 years of a constitutional republic, then it is sad and disheartening.

We need another bus driver. And there ain't no room on the bus for a throne.
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Cross-posted at Michaellinnjones.com

Back To The Future: The Economic World Of Hunter-Gatherers

BY MICHAEL LINN JONES

The story of human social evolution goes roughly as follows: for eons people were hunter-gatherers, collecting food while moving from place to place. Such a life was VERY in tune with nature, resulting in very short life spans. Nature, after all, is not that friendly.

Then people discovered they could grow their food in one place. This was called farming. This method lasted to modern times, although in a very mechanical and corporate form.

The industrial revolution, starting in the 19th century, led more and more people to forsake farming for an urban existence. This also created a complex co-dependency between industry and those who worked in them.

Today in Bloomberg.com, Rich Karlgaard has this piece, THE DEEPER ROOTS OF ECONOMIC ANXIETY. I highly recommend the article, as well as the comments left by readers. They are quite revealing.

The U.S. economy is in better shape than the pundits, polls and press say it is. I don’t believe America is in a recession now. I don’t think one is coming. After eight months of anxiety and stock market turbulence, if the bad event hasn’t happened by now, I doubt it will happen at all.

The Fed is on the case. Bargain hunters like Warren Buffett are moving in, signaling a bottom. Small business is curiously robust despite the credit crunch. Employment is strong. Every commercial flight I’ve taken this year has been oversold.

Much as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would like us to believe 2008 is a trap door to the 1930s, they’re wrong.

So, there IS no recession, there is not GOING to be a recession, and all it takes is one man...Warren Buffet...to signal the bottom of something that isn't happening. Unless, of course, one considers Wall Street as the American economy. With all due respect, rather than Senators Clinton and Obama wanting us to believe 2008 is a trapdoor to the 1930's, it could also be said that Mr. Karlgaard's words could have been written by Calvin Coolidge or Herbert Hoover. In the economic funhouse that set up its tent in the 1970's, lip service is paid to the vast pool of unwashed consumers. The REAL decisions; the true engine of the economy, are those of the "investing class" who are better-educated, and therefore wiser, than a bunch of chocolate cherry-chomping chumps watching TV.

Cheap production technology combined with vast pools of talent, capital and consumers around the world guarantee a world of “extreme competition” (to borrow a McKinsey phrase) and ever-accelerating business-model evolution. What could slow it down? Nothing I see. Not even war.

What goes for companies goes for careers. Your career and mine can be disrupted more easily than before. The best personal career strategy is to assume that our jobs will be disrupted. Everyone needs a Plan B.

If you and I face up to these facts and trends and likelihoods, the world will look scary but thrilling, and full of opportunity, too. If we cover our eyes or imagine that politicians can protect us from change, the world will look scary, period.

As my MIT Sloan School host on Wednesday, Howard Anderson, likes to say: Welcome to a world where you will eat well or sleep well, but not both.

Question for the day: Economic populists such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton call for "change," yet ironically claim they can protect Americans from change. In a world where ideas and capital can move anywhere in the world at the speed of light and flock to cheap production technology and talent, what protections against the future can politicians give us?

If one is to accept the premise that this "new" economic mold is to be unquestionably adapted to, there lies a problem right on the surface. Hunter-gatherer mentality requires cooperation, whereas capitalism requires competition. As Herbert Hoover liked to say, "A man who builds a factory builds a temple. And the man who works there, worships there." Certain forms of capitalism require slavish devotion from labor. And slavish devotion TO the concept that all taxation is evil; that spending is good as long as it's not paid for, and acknowledgment that certain well-educated experts know all the pitfalls of capitalism. Of which there are none, of course.

It is amusing to hear the phrase "creative destruction" in the context of economic activity. If such were applied equally across the board it might make sense. The problem is, some destruction and creativity is more equal than others.

As regards Mr. Karlgaard's Question of The Day, economic populist is synomous with communisim to the investing class. There is great offense taken at "class warfare," even if it's been going on forever and it doesn't take an Einstein to know who has been winning. Senators Clinton and Obama offer some form of change....their policies do not differ all that much. However, they DO differ from the status quo, which as we all know is Latin for "the mess we're in." The protections that government can give us against rampant unchecked corporate supremacy is the only hope the 95% of the population have for a future that MIGHT be brighter.

Welcome to a world where you will eat well or sleep well, but not both. This is a credo for hunter-gatherers. There is no stability, only uncertainty. In a Sim-City economic theory bubble it sounds so exciting, so dashing. It prompts me to ask why some people get so incensed at "big government" (which they should) but bow to illusory "market forces" when it comes to big corporations. At least with big government you have SOME rights as a human being.

I believe that this nation cannot withstand another four years of Bush economics (a contradiction in terms anyway). Should a Democrat sit in the Oval Office with the same fealty to large corporate donors then we're confronted with the choice this November between a moderate Republican and a moderate Republican.

In 1942 a Japanese general warned that they were suffering from "victory disease." Everything was going too smoothly; every goal was met and all opposition crushed. Such can be said for dedicated adherents to the status quo.

As regards making a choice between eating or sleeping, it's best to be reminded of an old saying, "The castle is safe as long as the cottage is happy."
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Cross-posted at Michaellinnjones.com
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AHMADINEJAD DISPLAYS HIS IGNORANCE ONCE AGAIN

By MICHAEL LINN JONES

OPEC comment drives oil close to $95 is the headline for this AP story by Pablo Gorondi.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, called the dollar a "worthless piece of paper," and said the cartel's members have expressed interest in converting cash reserves into a currency other than the U.S. dollar — a sentiment echoed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who called the euro a better option.

This is the best president a theocracy can come up with? What a putz. Referring to the dollar as a "worthless piece of paper" shows how ignorant this guy really is. Yeah, yeah, I know Ahmadinejad has it in for the U.S. We're the great satan, blah, blah, blah.

At least he could get his facts straight. Everyone knows that it's the U.S. CONSTITUTION that is a worthless piece of paper. Our own President Bush said so, and he should know since he's the Decider and all that.

His quote did not use the word "worthless" but the meaning was the same, I think. "It's nothing but a goddamned piece of paper" translates pretty close to "worthless" but then I'm no linguistic expert.

On top of that, President Ahmadinejad needs to do some polling of President Bush's "base," that is the "haves" and "have-mores" (as Bush refers to them). There ain't a one of them going to tell you that a dollar (or the puruit of them) is less valuable than a constitution, human rights, national security, or much of anything else.

So if the president of Iran has plans to wreck the U.S. economy, I have news for him. Someone's already way ahead of you on that score.

So you're wasting your time. Being Americans, we can destroy an economy better than anybody else.

We're # 1, after all.
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Cross-posted at Michael Linn Jones.com

WHY I BLOG

BY MICHAEL LINN JONES

I could make this a short piece by saying that some wisenheimer put a "this vehicle equipped with a driver's side windbag" on my car. That might describe me when I get on the soapbox about those things that both interest and concern me, but it doesn't explain the why of it.

The answer lies deeper than a quick answer can reveal. There are individual reasons, and many are complicated. But, one thing I believe all bloggers share: they CARE. They want to put forth thoughts that they firmly believe. In many respects that is enough. However, the surprise comes when one finds that those thoughts interact and sometimes change the perspectives of others.

Prior to blogging, public opinion was shaped and honed by those deemed "experts." The normal course was a journalist spending years doing their trade, eventually morphing into a pundit. It was assumed that someone with a degree in journalism and years of experience in covering politics would be best qualified to pontificate upon our governing process. As citizens we trusted them (and still do) to place into perspective the news stories that float around.

Although always having an interest in politics, I spent ten years as an expatriate. Upon my return to the U.S. I found I suffered from what I call the "Rip Van Winkle Syndrome." One of the thoughts that jumped out was, "What the hell happened to my country?"

It had changed but I wasn't here to see it. And, perhaps I had changed, too. I no longer took for granted many things that I had before. For the first time in my life I felt that America was "mine," in that my responsibilities to it outweighed its responsibilities to me.

A man once said of Ireland, "Here we have no present, or no future. We just have the past happening over and over again." That is not entirely true, but it does point out a huge difference between the European and American perspective. Every January now we hear the speech by Dr. King in which he states, "I have a dream....," but don't take into account that the nation as a whole has a dream....IS a dream to some extent.

In truth, most of the people on this planet do not dream; they survive. The difference between dreaming and surviving is astounding. So I came back and realized what a precious jewel of possibility America was, and is.

Yet unlike jewelry, dreams and aspirations can be tarnished. And like jewelry, they can be stolen or damaged. To see a false hope offered a nation by people intent on self-enrichment is to witness the attempted theft of the future.

That is why I joined the "piss and moan club" known as the blogosphere. Each generation is supposed to smile at the lens of the future, and I don't see it right now. I have no doubt that the metaphorical merde is going to hit the turbine in my lifetime. Material accoutrements, to the contrary, do not guarantee a happier future.

There is a quote from Sir Isaac Newton, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." If we look (and nothing gives you the incentive to do so more than not having your own country for a while) hard enough we realize we stand on the shoulders of giants: our forebears. The men and women who provided the gift of this platform are not the famous, but rather the unknown millions who lived their lives with an unceasing hope that things would always get better. Or at least turn out all right.

And we....well we are destined to be part of the shoulders ourselves someday. There's no reward for it, only the knowledge that we tried. And in life, that is good enough sometimes.

Let us hope that a future generation someday looks back upon us as being worthy of admiration. This might sound quaint to some, yet that is what I believe to be possible.

My faith in the American government is limited. That goes for the political process, too. At my age I reserve what faith I have for the American people.

As long as we refrain from navel-gazing we'll be okay. And so will those coming behind us. We owe them that much.
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Cross-posted at Michael Linn Jones.com

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THE COCOONING OF AMERICA

BY MICHAEL LINN JONES

In a recent post at THE GUN TOTING LIBERAL, Buffalo Brown put forth some thoughts in this piece, ALMOST A RANT. Mr. Brown laments the type of thinking that results in an employer deciding employees' lifestyles off the job.

When employees lose their right to have a personal life away from work, the Age of Feudalism returns. When you combine Feudalism with the Nannyism of the government, we become a nation of slaves.

As in all of his writings, I find Buffalo Brown's thinking provocative. As a blogger that's what he's supposed to do; make one think about something a little more deeply instead of just passing by and assuming that lump in your life is normal and should not be disturbed.

This morning I was listening to a radio interview of Eric Burns, in which he came forth with the opinion that in post-Revolutionary America, the Founding Fathers were just as anxious to achieve fame as anyone. But...and it's a very big but....the definition of "fame" was radically different. Burns said that "fame" meant that someone had done something that made the nation better. Even if the technology had existed, a Paris Hilton wouldn't have been famous. Personally speaking, I STILL don't see why that individual is famous even considering the times we live in.

I got to thinking about those "times we live in." And truthfully I am not that secure in the opinion that we are better than generations that preceded us. Something has happened over time...we all know that change is one constant...but still, there is something amiss.

We accept too much. We accept things because we have handed over the reins of individual life to entities that in the end cannot tolerate the individual. It is quite an un-American approach to life, but then the question arises as to what "American" really means.

Priorities change; standards change, and people change. Using rough figures, the U.S. lost 400,000 in World War II, 35,000 in Korea, 60,000 in Vietnam, and now approaching 4,000 in Iraq/Afghanistan. At a glance the 400,000 lost in World War II seems an easier number to accept than 4,000 lost in Iraq/Afghanistan because the larger number died during a struggle for something easisly definable.

But I think it goes beyond that, however. As a nation; as a people we have become less tolerant of combat deaths. In fact we have become less tolerant of sacrifice in general. Any serious notion of relating 299 million Americans to the other 1 million involved in the military would be greeted with derision. For example, why not impose upon ourselves a 50 m.p.h. speed limit nationwide (it was 35 m.p.h. in World War II)? Or slap a large tax on people AND corporations to pay for this war?

Because that is...ridiculous. The war belongs to...someone else. Those involved in the fighting and dying belong to a very small minority. Our children are too precious to sacrifice for anything. It's almost like.."let me get my kid accepted at Duke and I'll put a yellow ribbon magnet on my car, ok?"

Cynical, but accurate enough. For while other things are going on in the world, the populace has wrapped itself in a grandiose cocoon. Said cocoons are wrapped in a brightly colored insulation of indifference.

In the 19th century Karl Marx said that religion was the opiate of the masses. We have come a long way from that notion; the commonality of purpose has been cast aside for individual interests.

We have a government official telling us that Americans are going to have to redefine personal privacy; that we must trust the government and corporations to safeguard that information. But to claim that personal information is just that? No. But that generates a very small discussion....a much greater wind blows about Paris Hilton saving drunk elephants or Britney Spears running red lights with her kids in the car.

We demand what has always been referred to as "personal freedom" but actually mean personal indulgence. If an employer decrees that his/her employees shall live, think, breathe, worship, marry, etc. in the manner prescribed by said employer, then we have, as Mr. Brown says, a resurgence of feudalism.

Many years ago I read a marvelous autobiography by David Niven entitled "The Moon's A Balloon." To borrow from that, a cocoon is a balloon, too. And like a balloon it can burst.

And maybe, when it does, we all might start talking to each other again, like a modern family during a power outage. If we're lucky some person, movement, or thing will pull the plug on what we haughtily consider a reality.

In the meantime, enjoy the fruits of submission. While in our cocoons we have no idea that those sweet grapes we're being fed are actually the droppings from the south end of a horse.
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Cross-posted at Michael Linn Jones.com
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This post kindly featured at MemeOrandum