The "Struggle" Continues
Frontline's airing last night of their documentary showing the economic plight of Two American Families, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/ , should tie together, for all citizens of this country, and the world, exactly what is happening, economically, to ALL of us!
Following the financial struggles of two families, one black, and one white, as they raised their children over a period of 20 years; they paint a grim picture of what lies ahead for this nation, and this planet -- unless we change our ways.
We have entered a phase of "individualism" in the "developed" nations, that pit race against race, wealthy against poor (within all races), husbands against wives, and children against everybody! In the "developing" nations, incomes were rising slightly (until recently-- they are beginning to slow and plateau); we're seeing this phenomenon played out in tribal and religious strife. This type of rabid individual and social behavior will, eventually, consume everything! There will be no "dream" (American, or otherwise) for anyone to pursue.
We've been here before! Read David Kennedy's "tome", Freedom From Fear, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_M._Kennedy_(historian), and you will get the full picture. The "rabid individualism" of the 1920s produced the social and economic devastation of the 1930s. The cure, then, for those economic and social ills, was the establishment of "stakes" in our economy for all classes and races, and a "Social Contract". That solution held until 1980. With the election of "Mad Ronnie" and the rise of the extreme right, those social stakes began to be destroyed; resulting in the economic rot we see rising in our country today.
From the founding of this nation, we have worshipped the "individual", (think explorer, conquistador, pioneer, cowboy, mountain man), while ignoring the cooperation and community they required to produce every "achievement" we now point to as a nation. From the beginning, the black slave and the native peoples were excluded from humanity, and from history, in the minds and the belief systems of the encroaching whites. That way of life is playing out under the demographic impacts of ageing and declining birth rates.
At the same time, we're busily destroying the Federal Government's powers that produced the cure to our economic ills in the 1930s. Get the picture??
Stay Vigilant! Let's get back to "basics"??
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