Not so long ago, we were a very confident people; we believed that the present was excellent, and the future looked to be even better! Nowadays, however, most Americans--at least, among the MSM--appear to believe that the present is bleak, and the future looks even worse! I am wondering what explains this. Could it be the recent appearance of the covid-19 virus? Or the 2016 election, to the presidency, of Donald Trump? Or--related to this--fears that the coastal elite are no longer in charge? Or fears of impending doom (due to either nuclear war; or climate change; or...well, you fill in the blank)? Thoughts?
Only the government can save you! Emergency! It's what the government, and the liberals want you to believe, and they won't be letting the perfect combination of events go to make sure the tell you as often as possible.
When I was a kid growing up in New York, the United States was actually united... we were a team. When Kennedy won the election for President, we all fell in behind him, supporting him, even the opposition. There were things we believed were inherently good... like the Constitution, the Flag and our parents. We watched "good guys" like Superman, Marshall Dillon, Doctor Kildare and Bat Masterson. Now kids grow up learning that there is no such thing as goodness. Nothing should be trusted. Ever. And now? That America is inherently evil, founded on racism. I'm glad I'm retired and recently moved to a wonderful small town in Texas that resembles Beaver Cleaver's neighborhood. Folks here still say "Yes, Sir" and "No, Ma'am" and proudly fly the flag every day. When we moved here the young man across the street knocked on our door, in his high school ROTC uniform, and asked if we needed any help. No one riots here. Our stores aren't looted and no one is burning down the center of town. Crime is all but unheard of here and we love our cops.
I live in a Texas country town that I feel relatively safe in - we have a real good County Sheriff - actual Texas Ranger retired, and the local police do not play games, which is fine with me. If anyone rioted or looted down town - a thousand armed Texans would show up. Overall, some pretty fine folks once you get to know them.
I think there are multiple factors. Economics - especially generational differences. A perception created by the media for four years, trying to do everything possible to make people think everything was terrible under Trump. Then of course the fear over the pandemic and the shutdown that was imposed on the society and economy. Some of this fear was real and warranted, some of it was part of the perception intentionally being created by the media. And then after all this, the abandonment and fall of Afghanistan. Any one of these single factors we could have a whole thread about discussing.
Could you imagine being born in 1990? When you turn 18 and graduate high school the American economy has its worse downturn since the Great Depression. When you turn 30 you are back on your feet and recovering and a pandemic hits and the economy shits the bed again.
It might sound silly but I can't help but think that the lack of war has made a difference. I mean war that requires a military draft. Most of today's military age citizens have never had to deal with being drafted into the military where you quickly learn the importance of relying on your buddy and him relying on you to accomplish a task. Now we have a generation of sniveling little babies who think the big man is evil because he wants people to vaccinate.
I joined a conscript (draft) Army and left a volunteer force. VOLAR (VOLunteer ARmy) is MUCH BETTER. The military is not a social action agency. Its sole purpose is to kill our godless enemies by the thousands, rearrange terrain and make cave dwelling an acceptable standard of living in the homelands of our enemies. A draft military is filled with people that don't want to be there and burden the military greatly. There is no need for a draft to help the military complete its mission. It is not the job of the military to make up for mistakes or omissions committed by mommy and daddy.
People on both sides of the aisle are becoming increasingly conscious to the fact that our government is not really run by or for us, but rather by and for a small group of wealthy elites in order to control us. Different people will point their fingers at all sorts of different examples and potential culprits of course, but generally speaking, they all recognize the same problem, and they're growing in number proportionately as our govt becomes increasingly beholden to the wealthy elite and increasingly authoritarian. But because there's such a wide variety in suspected sources and theorized agendas, there isn't a whole lot we can do about it as it just gets worse and worse. Its difficult to have confidence in a bright future in such conditions.
for starters, the govt controls more of how our money is used, and thus, we each control less of what we can do with our money. and one of things they keep spending more of our money on is giving more and more of it to big corporations
$450,000 to every illegal immigrant that broke our laws to get here? What has THAT to do with corporations? Unless you count Nancy Pelosis as a corporation...
They work cheaper, vote more cooperatively and are less concerned about their rights than you and me.
Amazing, huh? They break our immigration laws and get paid more than Gold Star families. America has gone crazy.
America has been corporatized. Big government and big corporations ally to make eachother stronger- corporations helping govt build a power monopoly and govt helping corporations build a resource monopoly. This has been the status quo/innevitable result of representative government ever since it was used to achieve the dominance of the Roman Empire ...and led to its collapse.
Sorry, I don't buy it. After I left the Army I went to work for guys like Boeing and Lockheed. Boeing had a huge heart. When my boss at Boeing left to join a defense startup, we all thought he was nuts. A couple of years later, when the startup failed, Boeing accepted him back, with a pay raise and extra benefits to cover the new baby he had that had special needs. That's not a heartless big corporation... that's a corporation with heart. Lockheed had me traveling the world talking to military folks about what they needed and wanted to have in warfighting systems. I would find out what they needed, then return home to lead teams of engineers to conceive, design, build, test and field what they needed. I was a single dad and they helped me a lot to balance job and family. Lockheed, too, has a big heart. So i don't buy this "big, evil. corporation" stuff. Success isn't evil.
Well it wouldn't work if everyone saw them as evil. And most of the people that make up corporations are just regular people looking for success and looking to do good works in the process. But they arent in charge. Money is in charge. Shareholders. For example, Vanguard Group owns ~7% of Boeing. Thats enough to ruin Boeing if Vanguard really wanted to, by, for example, selling all their shares and starting a market stampede that tanked Boeings value in the market. And that 7% is only what Vanguard owns on paper. There's no telling how many shares are owned by the same people in Vangaurd Group but not through Vanguard Group, as surely the members of Vanguard Group invest in other companies as well. Vanguard owns ~$6T of assets from other companies, and Boeing is only worth about $122B, so tanking Boeing wouldn't hurt Vanguard all that much. Now I'm not accusing Vanguard Group of anything because quite frankly I've only heard about them in the course of googling Boeing just now. Maybe Vanguard Group is a great bunch of folks. This is just an example of what could happen and what does happen elsewhere in the corporate world. If Vanguard wanted Boeing to do something 'evil,' and Boeing was convinced Vanguard would be willing to ruin Boeing if Boeing didn't do it, Boeing wouldn't have a lot options in the matter. They would likely do it as long as they thought they could do it quietly. And likely Vanguard with its T's of $ of large portions of shares in many other companies and industries would be happy and able to help them do it quietly.
Boeing paid me in stock for exceptional performance and everyone had "profit sharing". There wasn't a day when I went to the lunchroom (a great facility) at the Boeing Helicopter plant at Ridley Park outside of Philadelphia that the employees weren't all talking about how Boeing stock was doing. We were all excited about doing well since we all owned some. It was a great environment where we all cared about how the company was doing.
Thats great. Corporations arent dumb. They know the better they treat people, the better work those people are going to do for them and the more money everyone makes. ...but thats only because of competition. As more and more corporations leverage out (or buy out) their smaller competitors, there becomes less and less alternative companies to work for, and corporations have to offer less and less compensation (money, benefits and general happiness) to their workers because desperation is also a strong motivator to work hard. And thats the direction we're going. Corporations are getting bigger, there's less sources of competition, and more and more companies are ultimately owned by smaller and smaller (and wealthier and wealthier) groups of people (who often turn out to work in govt, its worth noting). Unless this trend is reversed, we will eventually be in a situation where the entire private sector is owned by the same small group of people (or single person, in theory), and gone will be the days of employers seeking to appease employees. Instead it will be the employees who compete to see who can do the most work for the least cost because there is no where else to make a living and its either that or total abject destitution. "Competition is a Sin" John D. Rockefeller, creator of the Standard Oil monopoly "The 4th richest man who ever lived according to Money magazine."
The only way to have a bright future is if we tell all white people how inheriting evil and racist they are
Competition is wonderful. Competing in baseball, football, lacrosse, and wrestling helped me understand how wonderful winning was. That experience helped me excel from the Army to Boeing to helping high school kids as a Physics Teacher. (I really stunk at basketball though.) Winning in business is fun. I won some really big contracts for Lockheed, Boeing, Fairchild, etc that enriched THEM... and ME. I found myself on a bridge east of Ba'aquba in Iraq one day and the spirit of WINNING saved the lives of a bunch of of us. I had a roommate at West Point that was the son of a seamstress (no dad around) that was raised in a urine smelling tenement in Spanish Harlem. His spirit of WINNING led him to be a doctor today. Another West Point roommate, son of a coal miner, is a retired Colonel today. Competition is wonderful. If you don't understand, that's ok. I understand. And my son understands. He's a Cornell grad and a full partner in a New York law firm. That I understand and he understands is enough. I'd like for YOU to understand too. But if you don't, that's ok. I am responsible for myself and my son. You can do what you want.
What part of "Thats great. Corporations arent dumb. They know the better they treat people, the better work those people are going to do for them and the more money everyone makes. ...but thats only because of competition." made you think I'm anti competition? Civilization itself is founded on competition. And I am pro civilization, just for the record.