If this story isn't disturbing to you, it's only because you're looking at it as an isolated event. I would encourage you instead to take the time to put it in context with everything else going on in the United States. If you can unplug yourself from the noise of the world and do that, you will see this for what it really is; an integral part of a much larger whole, and a single step in a journey that is only just beginning.
Chipping away at border wait
Is something very similar to this written in the pages of What So Proudly We Hailed?
Yes.
And in that story, did the people of the United States welcome it also?
Yes.
And did they eventually come to regret it?
Oh, yes. Very much so.
But by then it was too late.
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4 comments:
I read your book, "What So Proudly We Hailed." It isn't my usual genre of reading, but I couldn't put it down. It has this eerie ring of "knowing" about it that makes it all seem very possible, very likely in fact. It didn't read like fiction. It all felt read and was a real eye opening page turner. When discussing it with family and friends, we all realize that the things in there are only a breath away from being reality for us in this country.
I'm reading the article you linked to in your article about it being a great time to be poor. I think it greatly disturbing how this country is equalizing all of us by making us all poor and ensuring our children will have a future of owing money to pay for corruption of the upper eschelon.
We saw this coming years ago when people stopped saving money and started living above their financial abilities by putting their WANTS on credit cards. Our government did the same thing. They built us an economy based on credit and sold the future to people who couldn't afford to pay. What were they thinking?
Respectfully,
Kimber Dixon
Thank you for your comments Kimber. WSPWH was very personal; for half a year I "was" Gideon almost every day as I wrote it. It was almost like writing a journal. I imagined myself in his place, doing what he was doing and asking myself the same questions that plagued him and, like him, not knowing the answers. There are still parts of it that I have difficulty reading; I start getting emotional. (A man's way of saying that I start to cry).
As to your question, I can only hope that our current state is due to the result of incompetence. To believe that it could have been done purposely is a far darker thought. In the end, though, it makes no difference. As Gideon would say, "If you fall off a cliff and die, would it really matter to you if you slipped or were pushed? Either way, you're still dead."
-Blaine
Blaine,
Thanks for your comment. The article I was referring to was the one about the second great depression. I read it through more carefully after my initial posting to you and was really put on edge by the things I saw in there.
It drove straight to the heart of the problem in the first sentence: "This country has been living in false prosperity since the early 1980s."
The gripping part for me is the conclusion that all we are doing with this bail out plan is perpetuating a false system which is all smoke and mirrors. Even though people in general seem to be getting that we can't continue to live beyond our means, the government still doesn't GET IT. The pork attached to the bail out bill was example that there is no intention on the government's part to do business any other way than the way it has always been done.
They are fixing a credit crisis by borrowing from our future earnings. They are propping up companies who seem to profit only by lending money. Wise lending is one thing, but buying bad mortgages for overpriced homes is only a temporary fix. At some point someone has to pay the piper.
The idea that our government will soon be in the banking business right out front and in the open gives me the creeps. It ought to give many more people the creeps.
One of your recent posts mentions that poor people will be better able to weather the coming crisis. I think what is upon us is going to be a great equalizer of people. The ones who have been practicing frugality will be far ahead of those who mortgaged their future by living beyond their means. They already have been practicing the art of contentment and the skill of making ends meet. The government should be looking to the frugality movement for some hints on how to fix the present problems instead of trying to continue to do business as usual.
A last quote from the article "The Second Great Depression." >The irony of our current economic system is this: If everyone lives within their means, the economy will collapse. Spending money we don't have is what's driven our country for the last 3 decades.<
What a chilling thought! By being wise with our finances and reining in our love for "things" and reforming from a shared pastime of living beyond our means, we will hasten the collapse of the economy.
We certainly have been challenged to live in interesting times!
Thank you for your commentary here. It is certainly insightful.
Kimber Dixon
I agree with everything you said, and it is indeed a very interesting spot we're in today.
I saw this phrase the other day in one of the many financial articles flying around in the past weeks regarding these huge investement houses & corporations; (they) "privatize the profits, socialize the losses".
We've always had the rich, we've always had the poor. In that, nothing changes.
- Blaine
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