Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues The Obama Administration Fear Comes of Age

So starts an essay entitled "Fear Comes of Age."

I read it first a few days ago and thought about posting it here, but I didn't. I did, however, go back and read it each day, trying to figure out how to get a hook on it. Then, this morning, I was reading through "Irritating Things," where Ken Hill posted:

And that again reminded me of the essay.

I like a lot of what's in it, especially the idea that selfishness has replaced belief in many political ideas/goals and the implications behind why all parties are now alike. I know many of these things have been discussed individually here on RR, but I think what attracted me to this essay was how it pulled together so many issues. I'd like to know what you guys think.

Martha, thanks for that. I only wish I had written it myself.

I wrote a few years ago here at Reader Rant that my generation will be the first not to have as much wealth as its parents.

...from Martha's link:

Does this sound familiar here at Reader Rant? What's the difference between Barack Obama and GW Bush?

Perhaps explains my own oscillation between "right" and "left" depending on the issue.

Thanks for the link... I would like to have written the opinion, not just for the observation on neutrality, but for the wise analysis of the basis for the propaganda machine that rules our lives.

If we are to have a great awakening, where will it come from? I see no solution, and except for my interest as a fly on the wall of history, I don't particularly want to be involved.

I see the essay as being right on, except perhaps for the blame game about the heritage of sheepdom from parents and grandparents... I have no idea where that came from.


Selfish... sure... but I worked hard in the interests of my family. I did my time in public service. I devoted a goodly part of my life in the service of others... including 27 years in scouting... the church, and ten years in the military. I worked against what I thought was wrong, and supported by word and deed, my beliefs and convictions. My children had the correct start in life... legally and morally. I worked 80 to 90 hours/week for years, and did what I was supposed to do as a citizen. Not a saint, but not a sheep either.

With a little luck, my bride and I will survive, but I bristle a little when the suggestion is made that those were the easy years.

"Fear comes of age?" Perhaps "The arrival of the creeping oligarchy."

Anyway... I'd really like to see what others think... and if agreeing with the main points of the article... some kind of general approach to changing the inequities.

We all have a tendency to moan and bitch about what's going on... but what about alternatives? Liking Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich isn't an answer. I'm choosing to coast.

He strikes me as being a 'progressive' who is upset at having people rationally move toward a more atomistic stance out of a desire to survive and succeed in a hostile environment of exclusionary groupings created over the decades by his fellow travellers. We used to refer to such fellows as cry babies.;-)
Yours,
Issodhos
P.s. Blow-back is a btch.:-))

There are not the same financial opportunities for me today, as there were for my parents when they were in their early 40s.

By this point in their lives, not only did they have the house my bro and I grew up in - but they had four rental properties and took 4 weeks vacation a year.

...and to be quite honest, when I graduated from high school in June of 1985, the U.S. economy was not that great under Ronald Reagan.

The only time in my lifetime was there any prosperity, for me, was about 1996 to 2000. In 1998, my stocks in Network Solutions doubled and doubled and doubled.

If you remember, just prior to 9/11, the economy hit the skids again. There were restaurants in San Francisco closing because of the lack of business that summer of 2001 - then 9/11 hit and many restaurants, barely hanging on - just closed.

Thankfully, we are moving away from a world of exclusionary groupings into the atomistic world of freely associating individuals - a world where one person's ambitions and desires will never being amplified by the perverted strength of an exclusionary group to which the person belongs; a world where everyone acknowledges and lives by the great Truth: The Individual is the only legitimate entity and Property and the Individual are indivisible, neither having any meaning without the other.

I'm not sure I "get" what you're saying. Could you givr an example?