The Can Kicks Back

 

Politicians love slogans and one-liners.  “It’s the economy, stupid.” “Make America Great Again.”  “Hope and Change”.  “Don’t Stop Believin’”.  “No Kings.”  “(blank) is a Threat to Democracy”.  “Ask not what your country can do for you…”  “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”.  And it goes on and on as far back as one chooses to go.

 

However, these politicians who love slogans don’t care much about reality. Confronting real problems and what it’s going to take to solve them may not keep them in office very long.  So, they make sure they say and do whatever it takes to stay in office; assuring us that one of these days they will get around to solving problems.   

 

Up until now this song and dance has worked pretty well for many of our politicians.  But eventually the problems become overwhelming.  People begin to realize that the government cannot or will not solve them. And no matter whom they vote for things keep getting worse.  

 

The most pressing problems for most Americans are Housing, Healthcare and Education. These are so upside down it will take years, certainly more years than an election cycle, to set right.  And that’s a big problem in itself.  Politicians live for the next election. They are reluctant to risk their careers on programs that are likely to alienate lobbyists and special interests; especially when the beneficial outcomes of those programs are both uncertain and more than a year or two away.

 

In other words, it’s going to take courage and sacrifice to properly address the crises in Housing, Healthcare and Education.  At this point the only people displaying any courage and sacrifice are those who cannot afford these things. Those with the money, position and power to solve the problems are likely to continue kicking the can down the road until the can kicks back.  Indeed we seem to be getting very close to that point.

Commentarii et Sententiae IV...I’ll Take Cleveland.

 

_When one thought the bar could not get much lower, the United States Congress has managed to lower it even further by digging a deeper hole.  The record-breaking shutdown of our federal government is just another sad chapter in the story of an ever- failing legislative body. The latest survey shows the country is divided (no surprise) on who to blame for the shutdown.  35% blame Republicans, 32% blame Democrats, 28% blame both parties and 5% blame “Other”.  I’m in the 5%.  I blame “we the people”.  We voted for these yahoos and those who don’t vote are no less guilty.

 

_Artificial Intelligence is rapidly becoming the 21^st Century’s “Easy Button”.  Much has been written about the impact AI will have on how we work, how we solve problems, how we communicate and perhaps most ominously, how we think. Every major step forward comes with both a blessing and a curse.  The Reformation and the printing press totally disrupted and transformed Christian Europe.  It spawned wars and revivals; and played no small part in the migration of millions of Europeans to the Americas.  The Industrial Revolution transformed manufacturing, agriculture and how we do battle.  It also elevated the power of capital and drove labor to organize in self-defense.  Without the Industrial Revolution there likely would have been no World Wars, no Holocaust and certainly no weapons of mass destruction. The Digital Revolution was another leap forward, totally transforming how we live today from the way things were when us older folks were growing up. The Digital Revolution opened the door to AI and now there is no turning back.  It is up to us to adapt, adjust and overcome.

 

_And finally, there is New York, New York.  I suppose desperate times call for desperate measures.  So now New York City has a Social Democrat (in reality a Marxist) mayor.  It will be interesting to see how Mr. Mamdani runs New York City.  It will be even more interesting to see how many other Mamdani-like candidates run for other offices around the country. And there are several other cities, congressional districts and perhaps even a state or two where a Mamdani could win. Tennessee Williams, the great American playwright and screenwriter once said America has only three great cities: New York, San Francisco and New Orleans; and everything else is just Cleveland.  These days, I’ll take Cleveland.

The Unexpected

“Oft expectation fails, and most oft where it promises,

And oft it hits where hope is coldest and despair most fits.”

-William Shakespeare  ‘All’s Well That Ends Well.’

People sometimes say that in the end things tend to work out the way they were supposed to.  Some Christians put a finer point on it saying God has a plan and all things work according to His will. However, even as a Christian, I must confess that I don’t know how or why things turn out the way they do.  But I do know that seldom is the end what I expected in the beginning.  And when it hurts, I try very hard not to blame God.

We all start out with hopes and dreams which motivate us and create expectations.  Then life happens.  Look under life’s covers, anyone’s life, and you will see mostly unexpected events and unexpected outcomes.  Hopes fade.  Dreams die.  Marriages don’t last.  Jobs don’t work out and careers go in an unexpected direction.  Children from good homes with all the advantages go wrong and their parents never saw it coming.  Accidents, illness, bad choices or other people’s bad choices, a great wind or a bolt of lightning.  All unexpected, or at least unexpected until it is too late.  

We live in a broken, chaotic world.  Some of us contribute to that condition more than others. But even the best of us cannot avoid reality.  We cannot imagine, much less expect planes flying into buildings.  A global pandemic in an age of modern medicine and miracle drugs?  Unthinkable and unexpected. Donald Trump President? No one saw that coming 25 years ago. 

History is loaded with the unexpected.  No one expected America’s Civil War to last so long or kill so many Americans.  In the beginning most thought World War One would be settled and over in months.  That’s not how it worked out.  When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor I seriously doubt they expected that in less than 4 years the United States would develop the atomic bomb and actually drop it on two of their cities?  Who could have imagined much less expected that in the twentieth century millions of innocent citizens would be killed or starved to death by their governments (both Fascists and Communists).  Go back thousands of years and you will find that most of the world’s great empires rose quickly and unexpectedly.  And after a few hundred years, just as unexpectedly collapsed.

Expect the unexpected. What is left to us is to hope for the best while expecting and preparing for the worst.  If we are among the fortunate, reality ends up somewhere in between.