<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><title></title></head><body><div style="font-family:Arial;">Jochen,</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">re: 'broken American dream'</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Speaking as a disillusioned hippie-radical-revolutionary: this famous fragment from Yeat's poem, <i>The Second Coming</i>, feels very relevant.</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><i>Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;</i></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><i> Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,</i></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><i> The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere</i></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><i> The ceremony of innocence is drowned;</i></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><i> The best lack all conviction, while the worst</i></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><i> Are full of passionate intensity.</i></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">I was a hippie first, naively believing in the possibility of an life affirming society. Inspired by fiction as varied as <i>The Harrad Experiment</i> and <i>Stranger in a Strange Land</i> (actually all of Heinlein).</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Vietnam was a roundhouse to the jaw. How and why could government be so evil and misguided? (A, perhaps, secondary trigger was the demonization of Timothy Leary and proscription of psychedelics.) I became a radical and revolutionary (still have my copy of Mao's Little Red Book) and did make bombs (literally). Statute of Limitations applies to my other activities, but will only mention there were many.</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">For me and my cohort, the forces that malformed government, and thereby society, began, in earnest, in the mid-1930s. Government became an instrument for forcing people to conform their behavior and their beliefs in accordance with the ideals of whoever was in power. Did not matter what "side" (democrat, republican, plutocrat) the power brokers belonged to, all had the same basic goal, control everyone else. (And get rich of course)</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">"Anarchy was loosed upon the world," here in the US around 100 years ago and the wasteland we inhabit is vast. Trump is a mere dust devil disturbing bits of detritus.</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">davew</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div>On Mon, Apr 21, 2025, at 12:48 AM, Jochen Fromm wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite" id="qt" style=""><div><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-variant-position:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space-collapse:preserve;" dir="auto">Marcus, your reply makes me wonder if you have voted for the orange guy in the White House. If yes, would you do it again? Here from Europe it looks as if the orange menace leaves a trail of destruction on his way between the Golf Club in West Palm Beach and Washington and back. To use a meteorological metaphor for Nick: the guy who is wearing orange makeup acts like a tornado out of control that destroys everything in his path - the economy, the retirement savings, and the last remains of the American dream.</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-variant-position:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space-collapse:preserve;" dir="auto"></span><br></div><div dir="auto"><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-variant-position:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space-collapse:preserve;" dir="auto">-J.</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-variant-position:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space-collapse:preserve;" dir="auto"></span><br></div><div><br></div><div align="left" dir="auto" style="font-size:100%;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);"><div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: Marcus Daniels <marcus@snoutfarm.com></div><div>Date: 4/20/25 6:58 PM (GMT+01:00)</div><div>To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com></div><div>Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The broken American Dream</div><div><br></div></div><div class="qt-WordSection1"><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">It seems to me to be a little more scale free than that. I just paid my quarterly taxes. The thing that bothers me is not that it a significant cost, but that it is not a responsible spending plan. I am pouring money into a Medicare program that is becoming insolvent and creating increasing deficit spending. It seems to me that if my taxes are 5% higher, that’s fine if it fixes the problem. But many won’t step up to that 5%, so my reaction to those people is: Let’s let this thing fail. Private insurance it is. I am now much more inclined to aggressively write off business expenses than see my productivity go a losing enterprise. I am sick of cheap people.</span></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p><div style="border-right-width:medium;border-right-style:none;border-right-color:currentcolor;border-bottom-width:medium;border-bottom-style:none;border-bottom-color:currentcolor;border-left-width:medium;border-left-style:none;border-left-color:currentcolor;border-image-outset:0;border-image-repeat:stretch;border-image-slice:100%;border-image-source:none;border-image-width:1;border-top-width:1pt;border-top-style:solid;border-top-color:rgb(181, 196, 223);padding-top:3pt;padding-right:0in;padding-bottom:0in;padding-left:0in;"><p style="margin-bottom:12pt;" class="qt-MsoNormal"><b><span style="color:black;"><span class="size" style="font-size:12pt;">From: </span></span></b><span style="color:black;"><span class="size" style="font-size:12pt;">Friam <friam-bounces@redfish.com> on behalf of Jochen Fromm <jofr@cas-group.net><br><b>Date: </b>Sunday, April 20, 2025 at 7:47 AM<br><b>To: </b>The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com><br><b>Subject: </b>[FRIAM] The broken American Dream</span></span></p></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Stephen Marche's article about the state of America leaves me with the impression that the only thing that all Americans still have in common is the feeling that the country is broken. Stephen writes: </span></p><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">"<span style="color:black;">The country clubs are rife with men and women, in incredible luxury, complaining bitterly about the state of the country. The richest and most powerful, the Americans who have won, who have everything, are still not happy, and why? Their answer is that the American dream must be broken."</span></span></p><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/apr/20/american-dream-trump-canada</span></p><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">-J.</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div></div></div></div><div>.- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-..</div><div>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv</div><div>Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom <a href="https://bit.ly/virtualfriam">https://bit.ly/virtualfriam</a></div><div>to (un)subscribe <a href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a></div><div>FRIAM-COMIC <a href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a></div><div>archives: 5/2017 thru present <a href="https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/">https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/</a></div><div> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 <a href="http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/">http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/</a></div><div><br></div></blockquote><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div></body></html>