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September 21, 2008
Grim Assessment
Whatever else is happening in Washington, a hurry-up restructuring of US financial institutions and the policies that regulate them is being carried out piece-meal, almost in secret, and under duress, in what is increasingly seen as a crisis atmosphere. There is also a Presidential Election looming and the nation is bogged down in a controversial war that has been going badly and sapping the economy to an unknown extent for over five years.it would be literally impossible to come up with a more desperate scenario, or a setting better suited for producing bad legislation. That’s especially so in view of two other considerations: wide spread thievery and dishonesty in and out of government were obviously at the root of recent financial debacles; also, based on what a recent study study of drug use and drug policy reveals about our own behavior, the prospects for our species dealing effectively with its problems in the near future are not very good; largely because the planet is now so critically overpopulated and we harbor two heretofore unrecognized tendencies that work directly against the recognition and solution of those problems: our individual tendency to cheat whenever we think we can get away with it, and our companion tendency to deny unpleasant reality.
As noted previously on these pages, without an accurate diagnosis, treatment becomes a guess and its success unlikely. I suspect that’s true for what ails us as a species as well as individuals.
On the other hand, the likelihood of our species undergoing the epiphany required to deal with its problems also seems remote at the moment; but that’s a situation that could change rapidly, depending on what happens next.
Doctor Tom
Posted by tjeffo at September 21, 2008 06:39 PM