Thank you for your summary of profit over people. We have been called the richest nation in the world 🌎. And yet as far as community and relationships one of the poorest. Scandinavian nations surpass us in this area. Norway 🇳🇴 uses is oil profits to help its people and others. Even China 🇨🇳 does more than America 🇺🇸 for their people. For our very survival we must change our mindset from profit back to people.
And I must also add that one of the best things our country ever did was foreign aid, but it also became our weakness as so many of our own problems were left untouched.
Very good essay--again, a apt X-ray of what ails us...
Reading this causes me some pain--a deep spasm of nostalgia (the pain of missing home)--Not for my literal home--sadly, it wasn't the place a sane person would miss--But for the small-town-ness of my childhood Queens, New York neighborhood...
I say "neighborhood" because we weren't separated, like legitimate towns, from other neighborhoods by stretches of highway, or forests or bodies of water. In the city it was all one big structure, broken by various commercial no-man's-lands of factories or used car lots.
But once you got into a distinct "neighborhoos" like mine it had most the components of any small town in the country at large...
Not to wax too nostalgic--a common symptom of the old--but I have lived long enough to see the whole country tuned into a place where everyone is constantly connected and, at the same time, everyone is a stranger; this is the great irony of our time. Without understanding just how it happened, we awake in 2025 to find ourselves in a no-mans-land of thick-walled commercial/emotional/political silos-- and, as you suggest, we inevitably feel alienated, lonely and disenfranchised.
BUT--at least for the time being--we are all STILL human. We want human companionship; we need human society. From there, it doesn't take much for a demagogue to politicize/monetize this state of disconnection and separation--to "unite" OUR tribe against THEIR tribe... To get fat and rich off the panic that comes from mass loneliness, desperation and anger.
Anyway, as always, you've written a great analysis of what we once had and what has been lost.
The question is, of course, can it be retrieved. Maybe history doesn't work that way; maybe its nothing but dead-end Malthusian mathematics until we extinguish ourselves and evolution starts all over again... I confess that I'm too cynical too have much hope--But it's always possible that people will wake up and discover they're being robbed and treated like herd animals; And--provided there are still elections-- vote these criminals out of office...
I so appreciate your words. I am in process of composing a Letter to the Editor in answer to a guest columnist who wrote an Us versus Them rant about her neighbors. You articulate many of the points I’m trying to make.
Truly written. Possessions are a major barrier to human interaction. I own almost nothing, spend very little money, have control of my time, and envy no one 'wealthier' than I am. I understand, however, an economy based on munitions and other non-essential things can't function fairly or successfully as a corporate capitalist system.
Covid didn’t help. But before that, people started putting up privacy fences…my back yard is completely surrounded by neighbors’ fences — neighbors that I don’t know. Before the fences I knew my neighbors.
Thank you for your summary of profit over people. We have been called the richest nation in the world 🌎. And yet as far as community and relationships one of the poorest. Scandinavian nations surpass us in this area. Norway 🇳🇴 uses is oil profits to help its people and others. Even China 🇨🇳 does more than America 🇺🇸 for their people. For our very survival we must change our mindset from profit back to people.
And I must also add that one of the best things our country ever did was foreign aid, but it also became our weakness as so many of our own problems were left untouched.
But, not untouched because of foreign aid, which was a miniscule part of our budget.
This is so true. The dismantling of USAid was very upsetting.
Very good essay--again, a apt X-ray of what ails us...
Reading this causes me some pain--a deep spasm of nostalgia (the pain of missing home)--Not for my literal home--sadly, it wasn't the place a sane person would miss--But for the small-town-ness of my childhood Queens, New York neighborhood...
I say "neighborhood" because we weren't separated, like legitimate towns, from other neighborhoods by stretches of highway, or forests or bodies of water. In the city it was all one big structure, broken by various commercial no-man's-lands of factories or used car lots.
But once you got into a distinct "neighborhoos" like mine it had most the components of any small town in the country at large...
Not to wax too nostalgic--a common symptom of the old--but I have lived long enough to see the whole country tuned into a place where everyone is constantly connected and, at the same time, everyone is a stranger; this is the great irony of our time. Without understanding just how it happened, we awake in 2025 to find ourselves in a no-mans-land of thick-walled commercial/emotional/political silos-- and, as you suggest, we inevitably feel alienated, lonely and disenfranchised.
BUT--at least for the time being--we are all STILL human. We want human companionship; we need human society. From there, it doesn't take much for a demagogue to politicize/monetize this state of disconnection and separation--to "unite" OUR tribe against THEIR tribe... To get fat and rich off the panic that comes from mass loneliness, desperation and anger.
Anyway, as always, you've written a great analysis of what we once had and what has been lost.
The question is, of course, can it be retrieved. Maybe history doesn't work that way; maybe its nothing but dead-end Malthusian mathematics until we extinguish ourselves and evolution starts all over again... I confess that I'm too cynical too have much hope--But it's always possible that people will wake up and discover they're being robbed and treated like herd animals; And--provided there are still elections-- vote these criminals out of office...
I so appreciate your words. I am in process of composing a Letter to the Editor in answer to a guest columnist who wrote an Us versus Them rant about her neighbors. You articulate many of the points I’m trying to make.
Well, here's a perspective that gets no exposure to fresh air - at least not in my capitalistic sphere of existence.
Thanks for bringing us to face the essence of reality.
One of the best works on this subject is missing from the suggested readings: "Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything Is All of Us", by Jon Alexander. https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/citizens-why-the-key-to-fixing-everything-is-all-of-us-9781912454884/new
Truly written. Possessions are a major barrier to human interaction. I own almost nothing, spend very little money, have control of my time, and envy no one 'wealthier' than I am. I understand, however, an economy based on munitions and other non-essential things can't function fairly or successfully as a corporate capitalist system.
So very well said. Concise and on point.
Money In America
Money In America: that’s how we keep score.
No matter how much we get, we want more
Even though we may not know what we want it for.
Money In America: that’s how we keep score.
The difference between what I want and what I need
Seems like the very definition of my greed.
How much of the many, many things that I buy
I think I ”really need to have” because I bought a lie?
Money In America: that’s how we keep score.
No matter how much we get, we want more, more, more.
Even though we may not know what we want it for.
Money In America: that’s how we keep score.
Where wealth is your worth, you are what you possess -
What a place of unchecked wants and unhappiness!
Life measured by the SQ FT of your primary residence
With so many homeless doesn’t make much sense.
Money in America…
Disappointment comes when our wants get denied.
If we control desire, we will be more satisfied.
Tolstoy speaks of one man’s loss because of his greed
In his tale asking “How much land does one man need?”
“His servant picked up a spade and dug a grave, long enough for Pahom to lie in-
And buried him in it. Six feet from his head to his heels was all he needed.”
“Money, I’m tellin’ you, son – that’s how we keep score.
You go to work; you got enough? Then work more, more, more!
How else would we know we’re better than the poor?”
Money In America: that’s how we keep score…
Covid didn’t help. But before that, people started putting up privacy fences…my back yard is completely surrounded by neighbors’ fences — neighbors that I don’t know. Before the fences I knew my neighbors.