Our Great Nation has a Terrible Fever. . .
Apr 26, 2015 14:06:28 GMT -6
Glencairn, Doug, and 6 more like this
Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2015 14:06:28 GMT -6
America is ill, and it has a fever. It needs some care, and concern.
America the beautiful is not quite as beautiful as it once was. Our visible infrastructure falls into ruin and neglect driven collapse in places as wide spread as Detroit, across to California. The childhood treats many of us knew, such as drinking water directly from a brook, river or lake on a camping trip, are now the type of bad idea that can land a strong person in bed for a few days, or even kill a weak one. This, due to toxic elements deposited across the environment by neglect and a lack of caring.
Our home of the brave, is not seeing as many brave members. This becomes evident where crime occurs on busy sidewalks and streets in broad daylight, while triggering no reaction from bystanders who go about their business. They pass on thankful, and thinking only that it was not them, this time. The truth of never having to see a next time, if action were taken in that moment, totally lost on our fellow Americans all too often these days.
This occurs on the floors of Senates and Representative chambers from City Halls, through State Houses, and up to Washington itself. In those lofty places, it comes in watching people who often had good histories of character and integrity, bending quickly to the siren's call of hard currency or the promise of further personal ambition being realized.
Land of the free, is coming to mean something entirely different from what that has meant in times past. The Bureau of Justice Statistics tell us this, in seeing that 6.89 million adults were under correctional supervision of some form in 2013. We can see by plain numbers, that meant almost 3%, in a single year, out of the overall national resident population. This can also be seen in the news and public square, where the sides of any issue of importance come to seek the other's silence, as much as their own acceptance, as correct or accurate.
These changes to the fundamental fabric that binds us to forming a nation are serious in the negative impact they are coming to have across a growing period of time. Points to be considered from those first three thoughts are no small thing in modern America. Yet, they are not the causes of a fever in America. They may well, to varying degrees, be symptoms of it, but not the cause.
It is a paranoia which runs very deep, having come from real and true fear after seeing real events. As no one needs reminded in detail, America took a hit to shake it down to bedrock on Sept 11th, 2001. The day before was a normal day in a nation at peace, and focused on economic development for future prosperity. The day after was a new world for most, and no clear sense of where to go in it, let alone how to travel there. The lack of damage, while world cities had shaken in smaller attacks for decades, had left America feeling invulnerable to anything truly historic or tragic happening in that way, here at home.
The day prior to this defining event would have seen open, loud and very public outrage at just a few of the measures taken afterward, and in the mission to prevent a repeat. If fear carried seeds, they were planted the day following that close to an extended period of the illusion of invulnerability.
That fear of a repeat attack faded fairly quickly in immediate concerns, but retreated to becoming a deep, central and constant part of life. What changed to cause this was not profound, beyond the numbers that define loss, and it having come in a place almost innocent to such injury before. The true threat had not changed, until the reactions confirmed the fear caused by the success of destruction.
The threat increased as the profit of a single success became too great to miss. Terrorists terrorize, and where terror lingers, the terrorist has won all the victory he ever sought to achieve.
The fever America suffers is one borne as much from anxiety and fear, as the paranoia those combine to form. To give meaning to this, a recent example shines strongly.
As this is being written, a 48 hour national security advisory to the public is closing and passing without incident. This period of time and the alert about it comes from intercepted communications which suggested there was something to be concerned about. Included in the advisory, is the fact the concern is general and non-specific. It warns of everything, and nothing. It is based on classified and hidden snooping on conversations which the listener was not invited to understand the context or purpose of. America once had great effort invested in human intelligence, and intelligence was a product of quality work as often as not. The reality now has evolved to electronics used to form assumption based on best educated guess work. It creates and almost comes to feed upon paranoia.
How does this turn out? That is a question many ask, to go by the tone of the nation today. This turns out how we want it to, in the simplest terms. It turns out how America chooses to face it, if it ever does.
In strength, America can some day look at its own actions, motivations, actual truth behind events, and end results.
In strength, America can admit where faults lay, where fraud entered, and where some may have simply taken jobs far above their abilities as otherwise capable people. In strength, America can self analyse and heal itself in time.
In weakness, America will fear consideration for anything of this nature. In weakness, the nation will seek to avoid dramatic change, as change suggests what came before did not or could not work, and suggests fault. In weakness, the United States will embrace the the status quo, while the trauma of that choice is felt by the youngest of the generations that are raised within it.
When the status quo to maintain is an atmosphere of alerts for threats caught on the wind, as unspecific whispers or deliberate campaigns of disinformation against us? Children who see that today will be that much further removed from a day before the world and our nation changed.
They will be yet another generation removed from a nation of peace, and prosperity. If paranoia so great as to be the fever our nation suffers most right now is the reality of children, then the generations they form will not only fail to unwind from the tension of recent years, but will perpetuate it, as all they know to do.
Strength, or Weakness? Health or Fever? Which will America ultimately settle with choosing, in the actual policies that form daily life? The defeated know only that it was better to win. The broken know only that is was better to be whole. The demoralized know only that it would be better to feel hope. The lost know only that it is better with the comfort knowledge supplies. I hope strength is the ultimate choice and I hope the choice is made or forced sooner, than later.
America the beautiful is not quite as beautiful as it once was. Our visible infrastructure falls into ruin and neglect driven collapse in places as wide spread as Detroit, across to California. The childhood treats many of us knew, such as drinking water directly from a brook, river or lake on a camping trip, are now the type of bad idea that can land a strong person in bed for a few days, or even kill a weak one. This, due to toxic elements deposited across the environment by neglect and a lack of caring.
Our home of the brave, is not seeing as many brave members. This becomes evident where crime occurs on busy sidewalks and streets in broad daylight, while triggering no reaction from bystanders who go about their business. They pass on thankful, and thinking only that it was not them, this time. The truth of never having to see a next time, if action were taken in that moment, totally lost on our fellow Americans all too often these days.
This occurs on the floors of Senates and Representative chambers from City Halls, through State Houses, and up to Washington itself. In those lofty places, it comes in watching people who often had good histories of character and integrity, bending quickly to the siren's call of hard currency or the promise of further personal ambition being realized.
Land of the free, is coming to mean something entirely different from what that has meant in times past. The Bureau of Justice Statistics tell us this, in seeing that 6.89 million adults were under correctional supervision of some form in 2013. We can see by plain numbers, that meant almost 3%, in a single year, out of the overall national resident population. This can also be seen in the news and public square, where the sides of any issue of importance come to seek the other's silence, as much as their own acceptance, as correct or accurate.
These changes to the fundamental fabric that binds us to forming a nation are serious in the negative impact they are coming to have across a growing period of time. Points to be considered from those first three thoughts are no small thing in modern America. Yet, they are not the causes of a fever in America. They may well, to varying degrees, be symptoms of it, but not the cause.
America today has a serious fever from what can simply be described as profound paranoia.
It is a paranoia which runs very deep, having come from real and true fear after seeing real events. As no one needs reminded in detail, America took a hit to shake it down to bedrock on Sept 11th, 2001. The day before was a normal day in a nation at peace, and focused on economic development for future prosperity. The day after was a new world for most, and no clear sense of where to go in it, let alone how to travel there. The lack of damage, while world cities had shaken in smaller attacks for decades, had left America feeling invulnerable to anything truly historic or tragic happening in that way, here at home.
The day prior to this defining event would have seen open, loud and very public outrage at just a few of the measures taken afterward, and in the mission to prevent a repeat. If fear carried seeds, they were planted the day following that close to an extended period of the illusion of invulnerability.
That fear of a repeat attack faded fairly quickly in immediate concerns, but retreated to becoming a deep, central and constant part of life. What changed to cause this was not profound, beyond the numbers that define loss, and it having come in a place almost innocent to such injury before. The true threat had not changed, until the reactions confirmed the fear caused by the success of destruction.
The threat increased as the profit of a single success became too great to miss. Terrorists terrorize, and where terror lingers, the terrorist has won all the victory he ever sought to achieve.
The fever America suffers is one borne as much from anxiety and fear, as the paranoia those combine to form. To give meaning to this, a recent example shines strongly.
As this is being written, a 48 hour national security advisory to the public is closing and passing without incident. This period of time and the alert about it comes from intercepted communications which suggested there was something to be concerned about. Included in the advisory, is the fact the concern is general and non-specific. It warns of everything, and nothing. It is based on classified and hidden snooping on conversations which the listener was not invited to understand the context or purpose of. America once had great effort invested in human intelligence, and intelligence was a product of quality work as often as not. The reality now has evolved to electronics used to form assumption based on best educated guess work. It creates and almost comes to feed upon paranoia.
How does this turn out? That is a question many ask, to go by the tone of the nation today. This turns out how we want it to, in the simplest terms. It turns out how America chooses to face it, if it ever does.
In strength, America can some day look at its own actions, motivations, actual truth behind events, and end results.
In strength, America can admit where faults lay, where fraud entered, and where some may have simply taken jobs far above their abilities as otherwise capable people. In strength, America can self analyse and heal itself in time.
In weakness, America will fear consideration for anything of this nature. In weakness, the nation will seek to avoid dramatic change, as change suggests what came before did not or could not work, and suggests fault. In weakness, the United States will embrace the the status quo, while the trauma of that choice is felt by the youngest of the generations that are raised within it.
When the status quo to maintain is an atmosphere of alerts for threats caught on the wind, as unspecific whispers or deliberate campaigns of disinformation against us? Children who see that today will be that much further removed from a day before the world and our nation changed.
They will be yet another generation removed from a nation of peace, and prosperity. If paranoia so great as to be the fever our nation suffers most right now is the reality of children, then the generations they form will not only fail to unwind from the tension of recent years, but will perpetuate it, as all they know to do.
Strength, or Weakness? Health or Fever? Which will America ultimately settle with choosing, in the actual policies that form daily life? The defeated know only that it was better to win. The broken know only that is was better to be whole. The demoralized know only that it would be better to feel hope. The lost know only that it is better with the comfort knowledge supplies. I hope strength is the ultimate choice and I hope the choice is made or forced sooner, than later.
Fever is sometimes a mere symptom of something worse, and then, occasionally, fever becomes the cause of demise under its own power.
