The state of the Union may be strong. Clearly it is healthier than the condition of this country’s unions which grow increasingly imperiled. All considered, the state of the United States is ragged and schizophrenic as are most nations today.
Our situation mirrors that of the European Union fairly closely, where a similar struggle goes on between progressives who favor people and growth vis-a-vis backwardites who favor companies and austerity. At home, here we have “red” states that take more money from federal government than they give back to it, versus “blue” states that give more money than they get back from it, much of which supports the poor “red” states, excluding Texas which will turn “purple.” The EU contains poor nations that need support from the five richer, more productive nations. The rich ones want the poor ones to practice grinding austerity which debilitates their populations and prevents growth.
Many voices criticize the EU for its policy of putting business interests above social needs. Many Europeans fear drift toward militancy overseas, worrying that French action in Mali signals possible reliance on war to cement bonds of unity in Europe. They mirror Americans who fear that administrative emphasis on security and drone strikes may signal further erosion of constitutional freedoms, our personal and human rights.
If our United States is financially ragged and politicly split right down to the bone, it is still pretty rugged, though the workforce is severely weakened by long term loss of wealth with unemployment and regretable loss of skills, readiness to work, and with much-increased homelessness and poverty. Our future workforce is further threatened by over-costly higher education and the coming inflationary spiral from the Fed’s massive injection of fiat credit into the banking system without corresponding support for little debtors. The big banks and their attendant institutions have abused the bailout, abysmally, by breaking the weakly written and unenforced bargain in which they were expected to ease up on the little debtors. Instead, they massively enriched themselves by depressing everyone else, buying themselves out of hock and playing the markets without investing in substantive growth.
Yet on second thought, how strong can our union be with a house divided into red and blue states squabbling over everything while putting blame on others before taking responsibility for sensible governance? With so many so-called “patriots” wishing they could secede from the union, is our purported “strength” based on more than inertia? Face it, folks! The state of our nation is rotten. Too many otherwise good citizens have become philosophically denatured by bad rhetoric and divisive conditioning. Too many of us have forgotten our national ideals and the real nature of civilization. People on the political right have never felt more clear about the essentials, yet they have never been more savagely confused and vulnerable to barbarism from within themselves.
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