What are the people thinking?

Like most of you, I'm hip deep in keeping the work thing moving and staying afloat while looking for a paddle. Which isn't all that bad a position to observe things. It's the sort of thing that keeps one honest and open to the larger picture. I don't believe I'm not overstating it when I say family and home are the things on most of our minds right about now. Having said that, it also isn't hard to notice that there are divisions forming in so many areas once thought solid and sacrosanct. The conditions having changed over the past thirty years, from the opening official toast of "greed is good", bringing with it a momentum of social applause and a mindset for what America was, and is.

It is that mindset that defined America in terms of international competitiveness via multinational corporations. "What's good for America is good for business. And what's good for business is good for America" became unfettered laissez faire capitalism. How can one not feel that to be a good thing? Personally speaking, I don't feel that is a bad thing. I believe it is a naive belief. In theory it can be argued that the 'trickle down' theory works. In theory it does. What is missing in the theory is the simple variable of basic human nature. One only needs look at the repetiveness of history on this issue. My interest isn't so much on the economic theory of good business, but the philosophical question it poses. Business in the context above, as equavelent to America's very prosperity and stability, then, to be protected as an entity or agrieved aspect of society, then has apparently some innalien rights or due process. Not being an attorney or legal scholar puts that thinking into my opinion column.

However, it doesn't stop us from realizing that there is much more to a healthy and vibrant society, America, than having just that, and a vibrant society is not one that is decaying within structurally. The citizens aren't held captive to the whims of high rolling investors and the fallout throughout the business community that is the lifeblood of working Americans. It is easy to lay blame at the feet of corporations, but I think it would be misplaced. I believe the basic issue is that we the people took our eye of the goal, our collective hands off the controls, to sit back and marvel at the opulence of materialism, allowing the train to become derailed right before our eyes. And now we can't believe our lieing eyes.

A number of years ago. . . more than I'll admit, while thinking on the issues stated above, it struck me of the perils to come with the continuation of the policies set forth at that time. I smuggly thought to myself that there would come a reconning, a social payment that would be so nasty as to be poetice justice for the mindless incompitence I was seeing. And, being one within the social masses, was included in that smug thought. Though I kept that thought aside at the time. And, as things usually do in historically repititive fashion, things have gone to hell quickly. What I hadn't factored into the early thinking was that those that bring about such social & economic devastation are not themselves caught up in the tidal wave that sweeps over the social landscape. It is us commoners that finally stare disbelieving as the wave lifts high, just before it comes crashing down and sweeps away pretty much everything.

I have come to fully realize the interconnectedness of the social body, the social spirit. The energy that passes through us as we find ourselves in the same leaky boat with what we are learning are our neighbors. We aren't alone, and we are far more powerful as a group than as an individual. Relearning the basic values of village, of tribe, of community. We are not strangers or in compitition with each other, even if we each sell our wares in the same market. It is apparent to me now that any poetic justice to be handed out won't be at the high end of the social strata. It is and will be us. And that doesn't make me feel smug. It brings a sort of resigned sadness philosophically, and a pain to the heart. Those people I see out there. . . are neighbors, even though they have a different zip code or state to call home. The thing that makes it all doable for me is knowing that at some point in time, there will be a social realization of interconnectedness and stewardship of our America. Which I truly believe was the original intent of our founding documents and the thinking that went into writing them. Things just tend to get altered along the way while erstwhile hands tune our destiny.