We grew up just in time to ride the wave of America's lost decade, which may turn out to be America's lost century. You look at the riots in Europe, the famine in Africa, and you wonder when it will hit here. Not too long if the dust bowl returns. All the steers in Texas are dying from the drought already.
Human history is an endless waltz of war, peace, and revolution. It certainly seems we are destined to take another turn if things keep getting worse. Our inept leaders are incapable of solving the simplest of problems. They will at some point be forced to cut programs that will most likely benefit the poor and middle class. After all, they won't bite the opulent hands that feed them. How much will average Americans endure before they fight back?
This is the scary part. You might not like what comes out on the other side. We always associate despotism, whether military or religious, with countries overseas. But upon careful introspection, one can see that the direction our social and economic system is heading is at best akin the fall of Rome, at worst reminiscent of the early stages of the Rise of the Third Reich.
Reason has been shunned in our society. In its place we have supplanted blind faith and sound bites. Hard right and far left. Idiocracy. A culture in which the education is so inferior, people are susceptible and encouraged to believe things that are absolutely ludicrous and at many times fundamentally contradictory. What hope can a modern culture have when opinion trumps science? When leaders are still able to invoke divine right as if we lived in the middle ages? Perhaps such a society does not deserve to exist. In all likelihood, this massive, endemic case of ignorance will lead to it's own downfall.
Who knows when it will collapse? A month, a year? My bet is on a decade or so. I wonder what the Vegas odds are on that.
I suppose it could be worse. I could be younger.
