I don’t see much hope of bouncing back when ordinary Americans are reacting to this crisis this way — by destroying property in adolescent fits and blame projection.
Yes, I can understand the frustration of losing your home and maybe even your entire portion. But if we don’t keep our wits about us as people, what’s going to happen when the really stupid folks get riled up?
I always remember on September 11th, an interview I saw with someone who had been in the WTC. They said the reason so many people got out is that people reacted with amazing order. They keep in lines to the side of the staircases. They let people entering from the various floors in in an orderly way. They made way for firemen and the disabled. It was an amazing picture of LITTLE PANIC.
What your friend sees in those homes is the opposite of LITTEL PANIC. It is not orderly, sober or rational. It will not come to a good end.
I remember feeling really bad in the 79-82 era.
Carter had really put the nation in a bad place, and “malaise” or worse was the predominant mode.
Energy, inflation, unemployment, weak foreign policy, it was really a tough stretch for the USA.
I remember thinking my daughter who was born in 80 would likely have a difficult future, maybe even under control of the Soviets. Now she’s 30 with 3 kids of her own and doing well, not easily but well.
I’m not sure who the next Reagan will be but I’m optimistic we will flush the Baraqqis and get things headed in the right direction. Pray for gridlock and God Bless America!
A lot of how we the people in this country react to truly hard times depends, I think, on how we perceive it. If some people feel they are suffering or more threatened than their neighbors, then you see the behavior like in those houses: revenge, resentment, lashing out. If, on the other hand, the people perceive the threat being common to all, then they react as in 9/11.
While I think a lot of civility and class in people at large have declined in the past several years, I also feel people still can rise to the noble in them if called to such by leaders or circumstances when the threat is to all and perceived as such.
Unfortunately, Obama and Co. are experts in divide and conquer. They split people into interest groups and encourage them to point fingers at each other instead of the real culprits (usually the politicians). This does not bode well in the coming struggle as we try to get out from under the problems they are creating. As long as they can, they will divide and conquer, until the people wake up and see their real enemy.
Yes it will, but how we get there might be ugly, as it was in the 1770s and the 1860s.