Monday, September 06, 2004

Thoughts during a Storm

Thoughts during a Storm;

It’s been the last two days of a storm that just rages outside my general area, and it gave me some time to think about things. News events and talk radio during this time has put me back under the mental tutelage of Michael Savage.

I never really put the information all together until it came to me, the ideas really became re-enforced as I looked at a blog covering some events in Europe.

The forces reeking havoc in the world, the extreme Islamic ones, were people who we were either fighting against in WWII or who were aiding the enemy.

The Muslim states that are being slow in aiding us, sided with the Nazi’s at least on a passive level. They only declared war on the Nazi’s when it was clear the war was over, and that they needed to be part of the “United Nations” to be in the UN.

The nations who served as Hitler’s Quislings or allies by and large seem to be against us, except those nations who served under the yolk of communism and Italy.

The Dutch or the Belgians are with us to, but the fault lines from WWI or WWII are pretty much the same as they are now today.

The more I reflect on these kinds of things, seeing the Russians cleaving towards Israel and the US and away from the Frankish approach, is this the War that will define my generation?

My parents generation was defined by a civil war, a war fought without any real bullets (except for things like Kent State). A Civil war over more then just a war, it was a war to create some kind of peaceful utopian society. A Fabianist Utopia to be sure, a war against what their parents stood for. A war their parents won because like those generations that came before them, they eventually had to “buy in” to the system.

Their parents, my grant parent’s generation fought wars for survival. They first fought to survive during the depression when the muscle and might of the United States became weak and impotent, then a War to save humanity from two great evils. They fought a war to free Europe and Asia from the Yoke of genocidal nationalists, and later fought a cold war against communists. As their children fought against their system, trying to turn their swords into plowshares, they still fought for our survival.

Both of these generational struggles were defined by a War, but the war was not all that came from their struggle. So as we Struggle against the forces of terrorism and salaif based oppression, what other things shall define the conflicts this generation is forced to meet?

We have a system of broken national security, where we have soldiers built for our grandparent’s wars, while we now fight a war against non-state and pseudo-state actors we have many real state threats left. So we have to build a war machine that can fight the traditional war in places like China, North Korea, and Iran if needed. And we need a war machine that can strike anywhere in the world those non-state actors who are just as much a danger to our safety. Do I have the answer to that riddle, nope but I think some one needs to look for it. Making piecemeal solutions has been a hallmark of the solutions our parent’s generation has brought to government. Some one needs to get the job done, not half-a$$ it.

As our Parent’s generation and the labor warriors of our grandparent’s generation built a social safety net, it was a good thing for the world of that day. These things now serve not just here, but in the rest of the world as a time bomb waiting to explode. Social Security and Medicare without a serious course correction will demand 2 trillion dollars in today’s money. That’s not for some new trust fund, that’s for every year. The same altruistic ideology our parent’s generation has makes any real correction the “third rail” of American politics. Just as in Germany and many other countries their third rail of social welfare was touched, and broken, so to it must be in this country if we have anything left but broken dreams.

Our generation needs to work towards a world where the largess of our parents is restored, much as the depression was a product of the largess of the decades before it, the isolationism and financial mismanagement as well. As the population globally starts to decline, how will we build the nanotechnological marvels we seek? How will we go to Mars and the stars? Or will we put our treasure into more altruism like our parents, and expand the dole mentality to another generation.

We are the greatest nation on earth, but just because we have great social ills doesn’t mean that the government must have the ultimate answer. Or the society either. Should the individual not be brought to bring some of the answers to bare for himself? Or will we have to wait till some one finds the way to reinvent the wheel of social welfare systems?

These are my thoughts while I rode out the storm.

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