Is it just me, or is America spinning out of control??

[skooooo]

I keep thinking this must be a taste of what the 1960s was like. I'm just barely in my 40s and don't remember anything like this before -- I mean the Reagan era sucked, but there wasn't such fundamental changes in the country that I've felt in the last 4 years....

[boobooday]

1. I think you are right

It gets more and more surreal every day.



http://www.wgoeshome.com

[freetobegay]

2. It's not just you!

Hang on to your britches, it's going to be one hell of a ride!

[skooooo]

6. Compared to ..what?

I mean, were you around in the 60s? Was it as surreal as this or worse?

[historian]

12. this is worse

In the 60's there was a genuine feeling of anger and sorrow at the war and the damage it was causing but above there was a feeling the ordinary citizen could and would do something about it.

[OKNancy]

21. I disagree

1968 ( I was 19 ) was the worst year in my life.
Right now is weird, but not anywhere near like that time.
Friends died right and left in Vietnam, Bobby and Martin assassinated,
protests, riots......

I've often said it's the conceit of the young that think these are the worst times.

[bookman]

22. Interesting...

...I very often have said that 1968 was the worst year of my life too,
My best friend, John, was KIA in Vietnam.

[OKNancy]

38. I lost Robbie

still hurts after all these years.

[ezee]

31. I was 18 in '68, I agree.

[KansDem]

67. I wonder if what's going on now didn't start in 1968?

Who were the Democratic Presidents since then?

Jimmy Carter, 1976-1980--lost a second term due primarily to Iran (wasn't there a great deal of suspicion regarding the release of the hostages?)

Bill Clinton, 1992-2000--hounded by the VRWC every year in office (remember the well-orchestrated attempt to get him removed from office?)

Meanwhile, GOP:
Nixon/Ford, 1968-1976--Ford lost re-election due to Nixon's pardon;
Reagan/Bush, 1980-1988--tainted by Iran/Contra (see Carter);
Bush/Quayle, 1988-1992--tainted by Oil War I;
Bush/Cheney, 2000-....--well, you name it!

Awful lot of elections with "Bush" on the GOP ticket...:shrug:

on edit: to answer the questions of the original thread..."no" it's not you and "yes" it's spinning out of control...

[bloom]

13. I was young in the 60's

but I think it was worse than this - more upheaval - before it got better.

[FloridaPat]

16. I wouldn't call the 60's surreal. We young folks were pusing

envelopes right and left and had a common cause against the government. There were ideas. There were drugs. People actually did things and experimented with everything - good and bad.

But since * has been in office, I feel like I am living in a science fiction movie - which I guess means surreal. All my experience says one thing and the media says another. We've done all this before. Why haven't we moved on? War is not nice. How does a complete idiot get sold as a great guy, he steals an election, and no one says a word? Clinton was a creep and a liar and did everything wrong, but the actual guy doing everything "right" is a fraud and everyone thinks he's great. This is just too much.

Then the invasion of Iraq - I now understand Vietnam a let better now that in the 60's, and 70's. I don't understand why war is so popular. Give me a hint men - why do men like war so much?

[doni_georgia]

63. I was a kid in the 60s

But I remember there being a general feeling that people could really change things - make a difference. Now seems like so many people are snowed by this administration. It's like people have completely lost the ability to think for themselves. Why after all that has happened in this country in the last 40 years do so many people still believe everything our government tells them?!? I don't get it! I am really frustrated because most everyone I speak to acts like a brainwashedd zombie!

[RobertDevereaux]

65. Worse now...

Back then, we had real journalists and the pols hadn't yet learned to manipulate the media so well.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

68. Yes - at least back then the majority was up in arms. Now people are numb.

I think it's worse. There's only a small number of people who are really up in arms.

[troublemaker]

30. The 1960s were optimistic

Despite all the riots and the war and the incredible sense of cultural dislocation suffered by most people over 30 (and thus most voters), and the assassinations... despite all of that it wasn't scary.

Civil rights and color TV and NASA and a million other things gave a progressive cast to things--not to mention the Pill. Unlike today the culture was pretty damn vibrant.

How to put this... for all the perils society was still built on the future. After Reagan this nation has been psychologically apocalyptic.

The darkest downside to the 60s was the rise of the corporation but that was seen as futuristic by most folks. (2001 vs. 1984)

The hopefulness may have been like a post-war boom, because the early 60s combination of the Cuban Missile Crisis and JFK's assassination packed big emotional weight.

Today is sort of like the 1970s. Now THAT was scary.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

45. I agree about the optimism

It really felt as if life was getting better all the time, more freedom, more material possessions, more scientific advancement.

By 1968, there were student riots and assassinations all over the world, as well as the Vietnam War going full blast and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, so it was the beginning of crazy times. Incredible social changes occurred in a very short time span.

Look at photos of college campuses in 1964: boys in coats and ties and girls in dresses and beehive hairdos, even during the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley. Compare them with photos from 1968: both sexes in jeans, sandals, and long hair.

Despite the presence of mutually assured destruction with nuclear weapons, I don't remember feeling gloomy or fatalistic during those years. I never heard anyone talk about leavning the country, except to escape the draft. I had one friend who emigrated to Norway, but it was because she went on a student exchange program and decided to stay there to escape a dreadful family situation.

We felt, rightly or wrongly, that the system would eventually right itself. The hardcore revolutionaries were always a minority, and the majority of young people were NOT activists of any kind.

I was a teenager during the 1960s and graduated from college in 1972.

[Demonaut]

48. would this be the reason bush is pushing for a new space program?

trying to put my head around this one?!

[tom_paine]

61. If you cannot understand, then you never will

More's the pity.

So sad.

Go right now and read a book, preferrably by one of the Founding Fathers.

It might not help for this, but maybe it will get you a little closer to the education that your answer suggests you need.

[izzie]

34. Well I guess it would be your age

I was born in '34 so grew up in WW2, what I can recall any how.Recall Little before the war. we had black outs, rationing on shoes, food, gas, and so many were off in the war. The 60's were a time I had kids and lived in the middle of the South and riots and Vietnam stuff. That was endless stuff going on. Right now things seem very up setting and mixed up. Some what like those two parts of my life. But it may be my age that sees it like this. Others of my age say the same.

[mhr]

3. The Beginning Of The End For Christian Fundies That Support *

eom

[PROGRESSIVE1]

4. Defeat Bush, Save America!

:kick:

[Politicub]

5. Maybe the right has overplayed its hand

and the country is going to experience a swing to the left.

[grytpype]

18. I would say so.

They've seized the opportunity of the stolen 2000 election to implement their dream policies, and they have resulted in disaster in every possible respect. Every respect.

We are going to have to retire from Iraq in defeat -- our first defeat since Vietnam.

The whole world is turned against us.

The government is bankrupt.

We are at greater risk of WMD terror attack than we were on 9/11.

What else could go wrong?

[bryant69]

7. Well, everything is faster these days

It's a reflection of the news cycle.

But we might be looking at the right wing having overreached an due to fall apart in the same way that the left fell apart in the 1960s (mostly 1968)

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[skooooo]

10. ......I thought the "left" overplayed its hand in the 1960s..

...and that's what lead to the backlash in the 1970s...?

[bryant69]

54. Yep.

You are right--i expressed myself inelegantly yesterday.

[Generator]

15. I agree everything moves so much faster

my head was just spinning trying to read all this news between the 9/11 commission/Iraq/Afghanistan and keeping up with the latest obstruction of justice by BushCo. It's strange times indeed. I remember Watergate but I was a kid then, and I remember Vietnam on the news every night. It reminds me of that, and I DON'T think that is hyperbole.

[AlinPA]

8. I was in my 20's in the 1960's. People were really involved then.

Today, people are out of it. I think our having a draft in those days made antiwar stronger. The civil rights issue was everywhere; the "gay marriages" issue is not as passionate as that was. Today its being opposed by the RW Christian crowd, but most everyone else except the affected people are uninvolved.

[mmonk]

62. It took time for that involvement to grow

to what it became in the late 60's early 70's.

[seemslikeadream]

9. Watch this video

http://www.ericblumrich.com/pax.html

[BattyDem]

17. Amazing ... yet disturbing ... video

Thanks for the link. :)

[jean]

23. The video is excellent - it should have it's own thread somewhere

[bpilgrim]

47. WOW

thanks for sharing that :toast:

peace

[Demonaut]

49. sweet site! thanks

[mike_c]

51. wow....

thanks

[seemslikeadream]

60. kick for the video

Thanks to everyone that watched it. I thought it was excellent

[BattyDem]

11. I keep thinking ...

So this is how the "sane" people felt in 1939 Germany.

[Postman]

20. I feel the same way..

It's easy to understand how fascism came about.

A conditioning of the people (Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage et.al.)

Corporate owned media

A homogenous realtionship between Gov't, Business and the Military

We are on the road to fascism and I fear for my country if Bush is re-selected

[BillZBubb]

32. The road to fascism is paved with bad intentions

What is sad to me is that in the 60's a good percentage of the young people actually gave a shit about the imperialistic use of the U.S. military by politicians. Maybe the draft was the galvanizing factor, but I would hope it was more than that.

Since the right has now made war and destruction a no pain proposition to the middle and upper class, nobody gives a rat's ass. The corporate media and Madison Avenue make creeping fascism easy to swallow.

[DAGDA56]

14. Yes and no...

I was just a kid in the 60's and the one thing missing today is the popular counter culture...aside from DUers, nobody in the media (Air America aside) is going public with the disgust we all feel for this fascist clique. Where are the post boomer musicians?

[Generator]

24. Oh I so agree

just hearing songs from the 60's seems so relevant to Today. Marvin Gaye's What's Going On-just brings me teary. What has changed?

[NuttyFluffers]

43. coprorate media control of music and artists

if you dissent you are relegated to a 'niche' market. it's easy to control dissent if you control the money and the microphone.

[supernova]

19. Hunter S Thompson

"Desperate men do desperate things. Stupid men do stupid things. We're in for a desperately stupid summer."

A DUer has this as a sig. Forgot who. But it's true. We could very well come to a boiling point this summer.

[Lindsay]

27. And if we DON'T come to a boiling point this summer

I'm afraid everything is lost.

I graduated from high school in 1964, so I do (despite jokes to the contrary, that if you remember the 60's you weren't really there) remember.

This is so much scarier because the popular media is so against us, and because the government is so much more willing to stomp on our constitutional rights. Yeah, J. Edgar Hoover had his files, and the police were more than happy to beat up on protestors. But we didn't have to go searching for this information...we heard all about it on the nightly news.

This is like Nixon on steroids...so much, much worse!

[supernova]

36. Nah. Why would you say that?

It's only lost if we give up, my friend. In the words of a very famous coach gone too soon, "Never give up. NEVER, EVER, EVER GIVE UP!"

You're only a couple of years older than my sister. I remember the 60s better than someone my age (41+) should. I agree things were a lot scarier then.

But I can feel it bubbling up even now. Depends on how we as a country choose to relieve the pressure.

edit: I should add that Hunter said that quote in Feb or March I believe. It's not old at all. He was talking about THIS summer.

[Daisey Mae]

25. It IS SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL.....

You are right except it is not exactly like the 60's .... I was old enough to remember and except for the war thing, this thing is much different...If you remember in the 60's there were protest rallies . and a median that was giving us a true story....we had a middle class that we will soon no longer have... ..... now we have protest zones that are out of sight... propaganda 24/7...........The Chimp therefore has no Idea just how angry we all are ,not that he cares.....no this is not the 60's... this is more 1933 Germany....These people have studied Mein Kampt and Machiavelli and are quickly clamping down on us....They seem to want world domination and are willing to sacrifice us all to achieve it...We have lost complete control of this government .....

[bloom]

26. I feel like America is spinning into the control

of corporations and "branding".


I'm afraid many people - middle-class on down (anyone without savings and assets) - are about to be left high and dry. That's when the real chaos will begin. The Depression II.

[ConcernedCanuk]

28. Think about it, from the States point of view, it is MUCH worse

.
.
.

Than, well, EVER.

Just as a sort of Barometer -

Name me a time in History that so many literally hated the USA,

Canadians don't hate so much as a rule, but sure are disgusted.

I was teen in the 60's, I did an essay on the Cuban missile Crisis, and was in Junior High when John Kennedy was assassinated.

There WERE problems in the 60's, but the USA had a better image around the world back then, well - 'till Vietnam

Thing is nowadays, Internet and all, people in every country can watch the shenanigans of Bu$hCo and gang in real time.

King George has me so concerned that I am either going to move away from ANY area that might be considered a target, or even another continent that Murikkan Kapitlists have no interest in.

OH, another thing too, even Russians on their blogs and forums don't consider the USA a REAL democracy.

now THAT's bad !!

[leftofthedial]

29. The Viet Nam era was somewhat like this

There was a complete fragmentation between some anti-war people and those who supported the war.

It was never this blindly partisan though. Viet Nam was not a Democratiic versus Republican thing. I don't think there has ever been a period in American politics that were as partisan and divisive as today.

IMHO the difference is the multi-hundreds of billions of dollars the neoconservative movement has spent on a generation-long disinformation campaign. Through dozens of think tanks, talk radio, infiltration and now control of the mass media, incessant attacks on education and literacy, dirty tricks campaigns against their political opponents, and conscienceless lying, they have so distorted the nation's capacity to discuss, analyze and understand issues that our system has become dysfunctional. this has created a vacuum into which they have insinuated themselves and taken control. they are applying the principles of Total War against everyone else in the world. No one is opposing them.

They have created and mobilized a substantial minority, perhaps 30% of the population, who are utterly delusional. These "stepford citizens" vote, speak and advocate 100% neocon (GOP), even in the face of clear facts that doing so is not in their own best interest or in the nation's best interest. There is NO fact, no truth, no reality that will shake them from pure zealous partisan neocon support. If this was not made clear during the attacks on Clinton or during the 2000 Coup, the 9-11 testimony has exposed it.

Couple this with the simultaneous rise of an apathetic, functionally illiterate, ignorant "prole" class, numbering perhaps 50% of the population, and you have a nation ripe for totalitarianism. This is no surprise, since the roots of the neocon movement and the genesis of their tactics are in Nazi Germany.

I fear that there are only two possible resolutions: catastrophic social upheaval (with very "DU-politically incorrect" outcomes), or acquiescence to rising fundo-theocratic fascism.

[AbbeyRoad]

33. It's not just you

I wasn't alive during the 60's so I can't compare and contrast, but I feel like things are reaching a boiling point.

My mom has said that during Vietnam even though the government lied to people, the media provided a window for people to see what was going on over there. Now the media seems to either be intimidated by or working with the government(Fox, anyone?).

Of course, it's been kind of hard to ignore some of the stuff that's been going on in the past few days in both Washington and Iraq, but you still get the impression that war is a sterile machine. I think people need to see what truly happens in war. Americans realized the horror up close on Sept. 11 and in the days following. The rest of the world watched that footage with us. We should have the courage as a nation to not turn our face away now.

[DemLikr]

35. Skoooo, I think we're definitely spinning, but in the end the U.S. will be

fine.

It is beginning to feel like the Vietnam era. I was an adolescent at the end of that war, but paid lots of attention to the news throughout the war and Watergate later.

Who would think the Repubs would be stupid enough to do it all over again?

[mike_c]

37. the 60's provided perceived (if only so) alternatives....

I don't see any such alternatives today. It's time for another "f*ck yer stinkin' values" movement. An Alice's restaurant anti-massacre movement for the 00's!

[starroute]

39. The Sixties were a roller coaster ride

Incredible ups and incredible downs:

Great popular culture (at least from 1964 on.)

Far more domestic turmoil -- protests and riots and underground opposition groups.

Hippies, dropouts, drugs, psychedelia, alternate lifestyles, radical changes in clothing and hair.


What we have right now is more like a cross between the nuclear anxiety and anti-Americanism of 1958-62 and the political oppression of the Nixon years. It's the downs without the ups. Or it's like being in a slow motion car crash.

Something genuinely similar to the 60's may yet come around again, and if it does you'll really know the difference.

[gristy]

40. Great thread. Great posts.

Here's a kick back onto page 1 :kick:

[PfcHammer]

41. can I expect a return of hot pants ? that would really help me cope

with these impending changes

[absyntheNsugar]

42. Out of who's control? Ours? Too late....

Spun out of our control long time ago - now its up to the corporations who are doing a piss poor job...see the mess they've gotten us into?

SIGH...ok rant over

[indie_voter]

44. I will be 40 in a couple months

I barely remember a lot of the turmoil of the 60s.

I do remember there seemed to be hope mixed with the anger.

This feels different, because, imho, it is.

The Vietnamese were not going to come to our soil and kill us in retribution. It wasn't about religion but ideology. Communism vs Capitalism.

The extreme Islamic vision of martyrdom is frightening. The extreme view that all of us who don't believe are infidels thus fair game is frightening.

The difference is we are spawning generations of religious extremists who are out to get us in a way we were not doing in Vietnam.

This is far far worse.

[monchie]

46. This isn't really like the 60s...

It's more like the 50s...the 1850s.

On Election Night 2000, the red and blue state election maps really began to bring that idea home to me. Right now we're really in a Cultural Cold War, with the more progressive, primarily center-left forces concentrated in the Northeast, upper Midwest, and the West Coast, and the more regressive, extremist far right forces concentrated in the old Confederacy, the High Plains, and the Intermountain West. Just as you could trace the roots of the Civil War back a few decades to the South Carolina nullification crisis, the Cultural Civil War has deep roots in the demonization of liberals and the rise of right-wing talk radio during the Reagan/Bush I Era; some roots do go back further, mostly the right's nostalgic, rose-colored worldview of a perfect, pristine pre-1960s America.

And just as there were strong pockets of Confederate sympathy in the North in the Civil War Era, many of the blue states have large patches of red, especially in rural areas. Meanwhile, the blue oases in red states tend to be few and far between (e.g., Austin TX, Athens GA, Boulder CO, NC's Research Triangle), just as Union sympathizers were relatively rare in the Confederacy.

I don't know where this divisiveness is leading us, but it probably won't be toward secession of states. Red America's goal is to seize complete, unchallenged control of the federal apparatus rather than secede from it, and blue America's red pockets have more than enough power at the ballot box to prevent a secessionist movement from ever taking root. But it does seem to me that unless the far right extremists/neocon coalition is soundly defeated at the ballot box and moderate and sane conservative (e.g. McCain, Lugar, etc.) Republicans take back control of their party, we're headed down a road toward a very dark place indeed.

[DivinBreuvage]

57. This is an excellent post, monchie

Lucid, concise, and extremely perceptive.

It's a little frustrating sometimes to see so many people looking for historical parallels and stopping after a mere 40 years. History is full of examples of societies going through a period of building tension and then erupting into immense social upheaval; Germany in 1933, Russia in 1917, America in 1861, Germany in 1848, Haiti in 1791, France in 1789, America in 1775, England in 1642, England in 1381, France in 1358, and I'm sure others can name other examples.

It's frightening to think that we may well be in one of those cycles now, and I don't want to be. But why not us? We have no claim to make us more special than any of the other nameless millions who suffered through earlier social crises.

[NuttyFluffers]

50. Economy, Conservative Slant Spectrum

you guys forget these things. the economy in the 60s wasn't on a precipice (which now it definitely is). also 60s was the middle of a very liberal time in america, ushered in by FDR. these swings in liberal/conservative normally take @50 years to peter out. reagan ushered in the swing to the right, and not just the right, the religious far right. we are now in the middle of this phase. it is so very different than the 60s because of these two unbelievably important things. the set up of deregulation and gigantism in the economic sector mixed with a wholly conservative zeitgeist spells for a very bloody time. this is the reason such scandalous things that'd make the summer of '68 burn the totality of america barely gets a front page nod from media. only the rest of the world is watching with baited breath - we here in america are, in general, careening blissfully to the edge of oblivion.

maybe time will prove me wrong, and i pray to god that i am, but we need more than prayers and optimism. what we have is very serious. by this summer we'll find out how serious that is...

[Snoggera]

52. Yes, the Spinnee's

can only handle so much spin from the spinner's before their minds become spun spider webs filled with rotting mush.

I know why monks want to be left alone. The modern mind is more than overflowing with words and thoughts that others have implanted over the years; so much so that it is difficult to remember who the hell we even are.

I need something to eat. Let's see, I can call Pizza Hut or drive thru Hamburger Heaven. I hear they serve healthy, nutritional meals these days. <sarcasm>

[Matilda]

53. From the outside looking in, it's pretty surreal.

Knowing that the American Leader (?) is really a dimwit being
controlled by right-wing freaks who really do seem to be a bit
mad, and wondering why everybody can't see it.

We're all involved, because nobody knows what insane thing Bush
is going to do next, dragging the rest of the world along with
him, but we can do nothing about it - can't even vote against him.

The sixties didn't have the same doom-laden feeling, because we
were young, and believed that we could really change things, so
we had hope. Now I'm older, war is even more terrible, and really,
even Nixon at his worst wouldn't have gone firing off in all
directions like Bush. Bush is more frightening because I really
don't think he has any concept of the possible consequences of
anything he does - someone else has always cleaned up after him,
but things may be getting to a point where nobody can clean up
the mess he's making. The White House is more concerned about
putting out a positive spin than actually trying to find solutions
to the problems he's creating, and there's an awful feeling of an
ever-increasing spiral of violence that just may really be quite
out of control.

[hiphopnation]

55. Yes and no.

In a way that it always has been, I s'pose. Me, myself, I have to stay positive for I'm too susceptible to severe depression. :(

But I'm reminded of a verse from that silly "Free to Wear Sunscreen" song which is as follows:

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

It may apply. Maybe not...

edit: how's that for skirting the issue? LOL!

[mmonk]

56. Not seen anything like this before

I'm still waiting for my generation to get back in touch with its conscience and hit the streets again to protest like we did in the late 60's early 70's. Have we all become repubs or are we all too old? What's the problem?

[sendero]

58. the 60s

were a time of turmoil, but also of hope, of optimism, of a feeling that we could really make a better world. I was a bit young to participate, but all you have to do is listen to the popular music of the time to see what a special time it was.

I don't expect to see a time like that again.

[Bridget Burke]

59. What's so great about "control"?

Controlled by whom? The three branches of the government are controlled by the Republicans.

The media, as others have noted, are more "in control" than back in the 60's. It's time for some of those folks to get OUT of control.

[bobbieinok]

64. 60s and today

(I was in grad school south of SF from 61 to 68.)

The 60s had hope, energy, excitement, feeling of change.

There wasn't the constant religious right drone all the time.

There was some talk radio maybe, but it wasn't a big deal.

In academia, there was a lot of discussion/worry about an increasing number of people who were getting all their news from TV; there was concern about fewer people reading news papers or news magazines, in which there was time and space to give context and background. Also the written word allows the reader to stop and reflect about what has been read; it can also be reread.

The media was diverse. In addition, as David Halberstam said of TV and the civil rights movement, TV was still new and looking for news. That was also true of TV in regard to Vietnam.

The federal courts protected individuals and groups from local and federal govt actions and against corporations. (Overly rosy picture, but compared to today!!!)

BUT THE MAJOR DIFFERENCE IS

...The right learned from the 60s.

Now they control all 3 branches of the fed govt and the media.

The military learned from Vietnam: control what the public is allowed to see about the war. They clearly applied what they learned from Vietnam in Gulf War I; the control is much better now.

They are 're-playing/re-doing' the 60s with nearly complete control of the American people. This time they WILL get it RIGHT......

66. YES - READ ABOUT IT

READ ABOUT IT HERE:

[Oddman]

69. This is BAD!

Even Vietnam and Nixon didn't destroy and split the country like this shrub has done. And the cast of characters is even worse if you can believe it! They have caused so much destruction in their first 3 years!!! God help us if he gets re-elected.




”bush is my hero, he gave me a $30 tax cut so I could get a case of beer”

Hey bu$h - Money Doesn’t Buy Everything . . .
http://www.arts-america.com/priceless.htm

[polazarus]

70. I think

The general discussion board is spinning out of control. Every thread seems to be in panic mode.

[opihimoimoi]

71. Before the Healing of major infections....comes the Lancing of the wound.

The discussions we enter here is the pain before the Cure, hopefully that is.

All of us are but grains of sand but should we gather to form a major DUNE, our weight would be significant. Discussions, here on the DU and elsewhere, are part of the process.

Let us work towards a cure for this sick Nation.

What sickness some Americans might ask they being wealthy and comfortable?

Homelessness.
National Debt over 7 Trillion and Climbing
Ignorance Level much too high.
Out of Control Spending, Annual deficits over $500 Billion.
Poor Focus in terms of Goals.
Education system not producing properly.
The Wealthy making the Political Decisions through major influence
.... thus many Laws and codes benifit themselves.
Poverty Level much too high. Inadequate systems/funding to properly address.
Too much Waste and not enough focus for our children of the future and the present. We leave a very poor legacy.

and the list goes on. We could so much more but we are too absorbed with our pleasures and comfort that we forget the future for our children. After all, could we expect more from the elder crowd who vote more often for themselves??

The Young generation needs to get out and vote for themselves too. We need a balance of sorts. When voting, The young should start thinking, WHATS IN IT FOR THEM in the long term.

Ignorance stifles pondering this question.