Archive for January 8th, 2009

Then and Now; The Danger of a Contemporary Depression

If we don’t fix our fiscal disaster quickly, we’re looking at a depression. It’s not likely we will experience a Depression, thanks to our recognition of several warning signs and a shift in government. The difference between today’s collapse and the Great Depression is that the last 8 years was spent, not only creating the conditions for this economic collapse, but also in a seemingly deliberate effort to erode our international relations. While we’re working on getting our country back on track in an economic environment that will require our full attention to heal, we risk sitting-duck status in a world whose varied sentiments for America run a widely negative gamut.

If we do nothing about our economy/infrastructure whilst losing our heretofore failed attempts at international diplomacy, these two problems threaten a more dangerous sum of their parts. I hope we manage a sense of humility in the face of a global schadenfreude that could arise out of the ashes of our collapse.

Positivity is Our Patriotic Duty

A few weeks ago, a little study about the contagiousness of positivity enjoyed several days upon multiple iterations on news sites and “buzz aggregators”. People are starved of it, and they're expressing it in ways that go beyond common sense considering economists’ bleak projections about what America will look like (it ain't pretty) if we don't do something and something big, something NOW. The danger of waiting risks losing huge demographics (I need to speak to the useless third of the population in terms they're sure to understand) of people who would otherwise not support sweeping, innovative, risky projects to reboot our economy.

Complain all you want about Obama's appeared drift to the middle. More than anything (more than fantasies of future economic models), we need consensus, efficiency, and courage from our leaders at a time when people are still impressionable. Leaders that decide, politically, to oppose this unprecedented drive for progression will pay dearly, politically; their constituents forever turned off to government, period. Obama is here to soothe those of us who still haven't realized the depth of our crisis and just how badly we need to put our minds TOGETHER.

Stop belly-aching. Stop nit-picking. This man is not lying to us. He's just begging us, ALL OF US, to get along. The realization of that will be, quite simply, our salvation.

The Civil War is set to officially end January 20, 2009. It's our choice whether that date will also mark the beginning of the end of America.