Back ground for this post HERE
I don't often commend much in our modern culture, especially when it comes to gifts of discernment, but I listened to this old Eagle's song on my way to the office this morning and it seemed to hit a certain nail right on the head.
(picture at right - Ship Of Fools, Hieronymus Bosch , Louvre - Paris)
Well, ain't it a shame
(a)bout our short little memories
We Never seem to learn
The lessons of history
We keep makin' the same mistakes
Over and over and over and over again
And then we wonder why
We're in the shape we're in
Good ol' boys down at the bar
Peanuts and politics
They think they know it all
They don't know much of nothing
Even if one of them was to read the newspaper
Cover-to-cover
That ain't what's going on
Journalism's dead and gone.
(A Frail Grasp on the Big Picture - The Eagles)
Yesterday the stock market tanked a bit, Lehman Bros. did not get 'bailed out' by the Feds, Merrill Lynch was put up for grabs, and the politicians all weighed in on how, if they are elected, it will all get better.
Talk about a frail grasp on the big picture!
The "big picture" of American economics is that it is currently running on accumulated capital (pun intended). The years of foreign deficits in spending, the move to "service" based job formation, the farming out of production, and the extraordinary expectations of the American people about the standard of living to which they are "entitled", has generated one of the biggest soap bubbles of prosperity imaginable. In this country we have sold our intellectual property rights for a mess of pottage. We have intentionally transferred massive amounts of American know-how to people who are now more industrious and ambitious than we. They in turn are progressing beyond what we have given them and we are not keeping up. Manufacturing expertise, that set the standard for the world and made us the arsenal of democracy, is no longer available. GM cannot build a vehicle to compete with countries which just a few years ago, barely had paved roads.
The problem with our economy is primarily moral and spiritual. Until, as a people, we put away our foolish day dreams and lower our individual expectations, live within our means, promote jobs that pay a living wage competitive with foreign production, stomp on the hegemony of international conglomerates, and kill the graft in our political system, this ship of fools will remain our home.
The Eagles got it right. They think they know it all, (but) they don't know much of nothing. It's a frail grasp on the big picture.
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