The Onion recently ran an article entitled "Failure Now an Option" depicting sullen looking soldiers in their ACUs as the graphic. I don't think it's The Onion ragging on our troopers, since the gist of the humor piece is that Americans in general are starting to feel a lack of confidence and general malaise. The Iraq war is still going on, and despite some slow, steady progress, the bossman reminds us that we may need to be here awhile. I don't think Petraeus is a partisan conservative as Openleft proclaimed yesterday, because he's just being honest about what kind of commitment is required for the administration's stated purpose of ensuring a stable, functioning Iraq (as costly and depressing as it may be). The economy is in the stinkhole, the environment isn't doing so well, and this crop of presidential candidates is pretty lousy (let's just be honest here). Meanwhile, people distract themselves with the culture of self-absorption surrounding our latest trends of text messaging, facebook, and endless consumer products we don't need. Perhaps we are embarking on a new era filled with self-doubt similar to what followed the sex n' drugs revolution of the 60s. The only thing is we certainly haven't been privy to a whole lot of free love going on in the last 8 years of this decade (at least not on my end!). Sorry about the somber tone, but I'm just trying to tell it like it is.
On the plus side: Music is generally better in times of economic depression! The late 70s may have had unemployment and runaway inflation, but it was host to the birth of punk rock (The Ramones, Sex Pistols, Black Flag, etc.). When the economy was good in the late 90s all you had was a bunch of wussy folk-rock like Hootie and the Blowfish and Dave Matthews Band. So at least I've got some good tunes to look forward to as I sit on the street unemployed.
Jimmy Carter's mug reminds us of our everlasting Malaise
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The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 01/17/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
In 1990 there was an article in Time magazine called "Doing Bad and Feeling Good" http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,969312,00.html that expresed these same thoughts. This article had more to do with our education system, but hey, isn't that where we train our children? Now we have created a couple of generations of folks willing to settle for failure. Of Course those same people feel like the government should take care of them and owes them something.
Gosh, would you like me to take over your post. This is a subject that causes me to rant - as you can see. In fact, I have a copy of this article from when it was written and I was a teacher in Northern NM. I like your theory on music and the state of the union. For some reason, your thoughts on lack of "free love" made me laugh - no such thing as a free lunch, ya know?
Ms Bag Blog,
Please feel free to rant all you like as your comments are always cherished. No free lunches, eh? You sure got that right!
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