[FRIAM] The broken American Dream

[Jochen Fromm]

If you describe it like this then "government" sounds like a giant entity that wants to crush and suppress us or wants to take away our freedom. IMHO it is helpful to think in systems and subsystems. The military certainly tries to force people to align their behavior in order to make them well oiled cogs in its war machine. Parties and religions try to convince their members to follow their core ideas and ideals. Corporations try to convince people to conform their behavior and their beliefs to there world view to buy more of their products.To me it looks like the world as a whole has come to a turning point. If I travel by train through the country, the world here in Europe looks largely like the world 40 or 50 years ago. But if I look more closely then most factories are gone, the coal mines have closed and the oil fields in the North Sea are exploited.There are giant terminals in our ports and harbors where the container ships from China and the oil tankers from Saudi Arabia arrive. We seem to have reached peak oil now, which means we have consumed half of all oil reserves in the ground. Coal reserves might last a few decades longer. The problem is if we consume the other half of all fossil fuels then large parts of the world could become inhabitable and the other half will drown in plastic waste. I fear Mr. Trump is unable to comprehend the magnitude of the crisis. How could he if he spends his time on Golf courses and doesn't even listen to his intelligence briefings. Destroying the economy based on exponential growth might be good if it is replaced by something more sustainable which does not ruin the environment, but this is not what he is trying to do. He is clinging to an illusion, to an abstract idea of greatness and glory, to a broken dream. The coal mines and factories will not come back. And they were never great in the first place. My great grandfather worked in a coal mine and fought in the trenches of WWI, and both places were hell on Earth.-J.
-------- Original message --------From: Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm> Date: 4/21/25  4:05 PM  (GMT+01:00) To: friam at redfish.com Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The broken American Dream Jochen,re: 'broken American dream'Speaking as a disillusioned hippie-radical-revolutionary: this famous fragment from Yeat's poem, The Second Coming, feels very relevant.Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.I was a hippie first, naively believing in the possibility of an life affirming society. Inspired by fiction as varied as The Harrad Experiment and Stranger in a Strange Land (actually all of Heinlein).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.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)"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.davewOn Mon, Apr 21, 2025, at 12:48 AM, Jochen Fromm wrote: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.-J.-------- Original message --------From: Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com>Date: 4/20/25  6:58 PM  (GMT+01:00)To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The broken American DreamIt 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. From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of Jochen Fromm <jofr at cas-group.net>Date: Sunday, April 20, 2025 at 7:47 AMTo: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>Subject: [FRIAM] The broken American DreamStephen 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: "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."https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/apr/20/american-dream-trump-canada -J. .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-..FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listservFridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriamto (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.comFRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
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