Ahead and Behind

It's getting harder to think of things to write about, partly because I'm losing interest in politics. There's not really anything happening in the political sphere right now that could properly be called a debate. Instead, we've got a timid and ineffectual liberal administration constantly under attack by howling lunatics, supposedly for implementing some sort of radical agenda. It's more farce than debate.

Among people I know and associate with, there's pretty much a consensus on what needs to be done. As individuals, as a society, and as a country, we need to learn to get by on less, especially less energy consumption, which means fewer cars, and driving those that remain fewer miles. We need to save whatever affordable petroleum-derived energy remains for those small, unimportant details that make survival possible, such as food production and transport. There are other trivial matters to consider as well, such as the fact that the fate of the earth depends on it. Of course this means we'll have to sacrifice the really big, important things in life, such as driving our SUV's to the mall to buy tchotchkes on our credit cards, and each individual household ferrying the kids to soccer practice, ballet lessons, obedience school etc., on a daily basis. Such is our cruel fate.

How we're going to accomplish these tasks, which would be relatively easy if we'd accept their inevitability and necessity, is anybody's guess, since the very worst people in this society continue running it and calling all the shots, by laying on bribes in high places and calling this activity "lobbying." Nobody has the slightest idea how to dislodge the rule of money, the deeply-entrenched "plutocracy," ruling this country.

Meantime, we continue expending precious resources, money and energy which could otherwise be turned to our rehabilitation and renaissance, to foreign wars and the maintenance of an overseas empire. Even after we have decided to end our foolish and futile attempt to rule the world, we'll still have to commit significant resources to defending ourselves, as we have made many enemies by behaving badly all over the globe. But the drones are still buzzing the Pakistani border with Afghanistan the last I heard.

People are having a hard time wising up, and our leaders and rulers are having the hardest time of anyone, as Fleetwood Mac's unforgettable lyric echoes down through the years, "Yesterday's gone..."

It's time for us to forget this lame political process and create our own world. If our leaders can't lead us anywhere except to death, then it's time for us to lead them -- by example.