Does anyone else feel as though we are merely

[dawgman]

rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic?

Natural disasters.

Peak oil looming.

Wars engaged with no end in sight.

Economic Disaster.

I just feel like it is all window dressing. Lipstick on a pig as it were. We had opportunities to right this ship 40 years ago and now it is all over.

[lligrd]

1. Chickens Coming Home To Roost?

Well, if they are, at least we know why this time.

[Mojorabbit]

2. There is a lot happening

but if we have good leadership and go to the mat working on the problems we can mitigate some it. It will be dicey though esp if the financial bleeding is not stemmed.

[dawgman]

3. honestly that's the one that has me the most worried

if the USA is not a financial power the other things will be that much worse here.

[Echo In Light]

18. May explain a lot of the totalitarian systems/legislation now in place

Such measures haven't been implemented sans specific intention, aim, goals.

[Captain Angry]

4. It's not over yet.

Still a whole lot more can go wrong.

But a whole lot of good can still come.

Natural disasters have happened since the beginning of time. They suck. All one can do is prepare, or move to an underground shelter in North Dakota.

Peak Oil is certainly a problem, but one that can be avoided. We just need some amazing leadership. That's not going to happen in the USA, but I firmly believe that somebody in France, Germany or the Nordic countries will say "Check this out..." There are unbelievably bright people out there. Until it gets to be a national threat to somebody, it's not going to be resolved.

Wars are only being engaged these days by us. That will work itself out. We have a finite spending capability. It's called 300 million citizens. Only so many of them can go to war before the ones who are left stop it. The rest of the world will sit back and watch as we throw ourselves off of a cliff, and wish we'd figure it out.

Economic Disaster can also be avoided with leadership. We have the means, right now, today, to fix the underlying problems in our economy in the USA.

So, yeah, things suck, but they can be better. We'll see what November brings. If we get some leadership, or at least a slower rate of decline for a bit, maybe we can fix things up again.

[ConcernedCanuk]

7. "maybe we can fix things up again" - I don't think so

.
.
.

The USA has created global war.

They have spread weapons and hate all over the globe.

Even if the USA was to sink into the ocean and disappear,

The weapons and hate that they have proliferated will continue to destroy the world.

"mission accomplished"

[Captain Angry]

8. If we get stuck with McCain, I'm moving into your basement.

But back to reality. There are too many good people, and too many hard workers here that just need the ability to get to work.

It's easy to think that the USA has been responsible for all of this, but we sure had a lot of help. It's going to take a major unwinding of those priorities. Until we get a president that isn't out to scare the public, we aren't going to make any big leaps.

We need some strength in our politicians. If it shows up soon, I think we're ok. It's not going to be a fun time here for the next few years as we unwind the bad policies we've been living under, but we can get there.

[elocs]

5. You know, if you always predict rain and stay in because of it,

you miss a lot of sunny and beautiful days. Something always is and will be wrong or horrible for any of us at any given moment. I must admit that my life is pretty good even though I make little money. I am better off than billions of other people on this planet no matter how bad things may get here in the U.S. There are so many other millions whose lives are horrible compared to mine. I'm just not ready to throw up my hands and go out in the backyard and eat dirt. Life goes on and I simply do the best I can. I cannot control things, but I will not give in to despair.

[dawgman]

6. I fully understand your point.

I will not quit enjoying life. I will not quit raising my daughter or going to work. I will keep making payments and I will vote dem across the board this fall. I just have a feeling that it is too late and that I will be happy that my parents have acreage out in the sticks and that I and my family all have good bicycles.

[elocs]

9. You can only do what you can do.

If you really want to immerse yourself in "the sky is falling, the zombies are coming, and it's the end of the world as we know it" attitude, just spend some time on the peakoil.com forums where it is y2k around the corner all the time. I remember hearing Paul Harvey when I was a kid and he had thing about how there was no sense in worrying because nothing will turn out alright, except worrying is the fun thing. If you think something bad will happen, then just wait because it will get worse. It gets really wearing after awhile (the peakoil.com thing, I mean).

In whatever condition you find yourself in, if you are happy then it is not too late. I wonder who it is who gets to decide it is too late? The best things in life are not things.

[jobycom]

10. I felt that way in 92. Coming off the Reagan Error, it all seemed beyond repair.

Within two years Clinton had the deficit down, gas down, poverty down, wages up for the lower income earners, small businesses growing, crime down, FEMA on the way to being fixed, the US respected abroad again... It's amazing what a little good leadership and some skillful handling of politics can bring about.

Is it too late to curse Nader some more?

[ixion]

11. what Bush II has done even trumps the mess that Ray-Gun made... and

that was a nasty mess indeed. Clinton fixed many things, but he didn't stop the slide towards fascism that has greatly accelerated under b2. Because Clinton didn't bring sanity back by ending the so-called 'War on Drugs' it left the door open for its ugly younger brother, the 'War on Terror' which brings us right to where we are now.

[jobycom]

14. I don't think so. Reagan didn't murder a million people, but he was worse in other ways.

Reagan was a racist who pushed this nation back a generation. He kicked off his presidential campaign in Philadelphia, MS--a city famous only for the unpunished murders of three civil rights activists. Reagan's speech there was all about state's rights, which in the South at the time was code for "We don't want to desegregate." Reagan was all but explicitly telling the south he agreed with them, even including the murders that took place to squash civil rights. I was in Mississippi, I understood clearly what he meant, as did everyone else. And that's how he governed. He should be eternally damned for that alone.

People have forgotten just how bad it was in 92. Clinton did a lot to make this nation more liberal over the next eight years, but there was only so far he could go with a Republican Congress and an electorate still coming off the Reagan mentality. Clinton did what he could, and Gore was supposed to be the clean-up hitter, to take us further.

W has been worse at managing the details, but he's been a little better on race. Not much, but a little. I go back and forth on which I despise the most. Reagan was a slightly better administrator, but his divisive hatred makes up for that. Bush's court appointments have been worse. Both had disasterous foreign policies--most of the problems we've been facing were created or made worse by Reagan in the first place. Both had destructive economic policies and drove more people below the poverty line.

The right president can fix us. It's bad, but it doesn't feel as bad as 92 to me, aside from Iraq. Close, but not quite.

[ixion]

15. see, to me, it feels even worse than 92

more civil liberties lost, higher deficit, more war, inflation through the roof...it has gotten worse over the years, not better, IMO.

[asteroid2003QQ47]

19. "Reagan didn't murder a million people" What the FUCK!

Do your fucking homework, Reagan's Death Squads operating south of the border likely killed far MORE than "a million people."
Reagan was scumbag in every respect!

[vickitulsa]

12. I'm puzzled about what you left out of your list.

Namely, the biggie, imo: global climate change.

Perhaps all the other biggies next in line might be repaired or reversed in time to avert utter catastrophe on a global scale. But I'm believing by now that global climate change has already passed the tipping point, and it seems a number of reputable scientists are starting to agree about that.

If we who believe this are right, then it seems to me we're sort of like a Roadrunner cartoon -- the part where Wile E. Coyote has run straight off a cliff into thin air and there's this moment where he freezes there, hanging for a bit, while he realizes what he's done and what's about to happen. Then he sees it, and immediately he plummets straight downward.

In the cartoons, critters who do this are usually shown flattened at the bottom on the ground. Not a greasy spot, but a pancaked form of their bodies, still whole. And of course, they inevitably "rise again" and continue their lives undaunted.

I don't think that's the outcome we're going to experience, but I do feel most folks who are at least half-aware are poised at that point in mid-air, somehow hoping the fall won't kill them. Are we kidding ourselves? Or are we smart to deny that such a fate is inevitable?

Personally, I've accepted what I feel is the hard truth, and as one writer noted in a chapter in AA's "big book":

"Acceptance is the answer to all my problems."

Probably a paraphrase, but it's close.

IF in fact we face a calamitous end, due largely to our own contributions to the "natural" disasters that assail us on this planet, then it seems logical to me that we can at least "enjoy it while it lasts." The time before the total collapse arrives, that is.

You know -- make a fun game of rearranging those deck chairs! Cheer each other on and laugh together. Spend some time being real with those we cherish while we can all still be in a good mood much of the time, in the sunshine, as it were.

Maybe another way to describe it would be to say I feel a lot like I figure the Iraqi people must have felt in the run-up to the U.S. military attack and invasion of their country. Once they could see it was really going to happen, most of them probably accepted that fact, however reluctantly, and did their best to enjoy their lives up until the shit hit the fan and their world was shattered.

I don't know if that's fatalism or not. I don't think of it as nihilism, though. And I'm not depressed about the situation anymore, so that's good. In fact, once I gave up on humanity's ability to cease its own mad rush to destruction, I found I'm quite a bit happier and more content to simply savor whatever reasonably good time is left to us.

It would be awfully nice if human beings surprised me, all the same.

[Jamastiene]

13. Yes, we are SCREWN!1!@@!1

Fer sure.

[Quantess]

16. No.

before reading anyone else's responses.

[asteroid2003QQ47]

17. Ted Kaczynski nailed it!

SHIP OF FOOLS
http://homepages.compuserve.de/horstweyrich2/narrschi.h...

Once upon a time, the captain and the mates of a ship grew so vain of
their seamanship, so full of hubris and so impressed with themselves,
that . . .
<>
. . . the passengers and
crew became increasingly uncomfortable. They began quarreling among
themselves and complaining of the conditions . . .

[galledgoblin]

20. more like

trying to tie together anything that floats for makeshift liferafts and maybe a few of our more visionary and capable down below patching... but time's running out and there's dumbasses shoving children out of the way to save their skin and protesting the emergency engineering as too expensive and ruining the quality of the ship.



...I think I took that metaphor a little too far...

...and through a couple right angles...

[Ahpook]

21. I've had this little needle stabbing me in the back of my head

for years. Something is telling me this is all prescribed. I do hope things get better though

I would love to wake up one day and see the fatcats being dragged out of their offices by LAW enforcement. Not only them but the media shills putting them up. That includes the actual on air personalities spewing all of the lies for a paycheck, to the people showing the weather... just for good measure

One can hope

[varelse]

22. *raises hand reluctantly*

me

Although I really hate being part of this group... and I still hope we're all wrong about this... no offense intended

[dawgman]

23. love the screen name.

I am reading Xenocide right now.