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The Discontent of Our Winter

By Horace Coleman

The economy is bad and may get worse. The natives—at home and abroad—are restless. The first thing many newly-elected Tea Party members did after being elected and oriented was to look for ways to finance their re-election campaigns.

Boots on the ground at LA demo, March 19, 2011. Photo by Horace Coleman.

Did you hear President Obama say that the US produces 2% of the world's oil but consumes 25% of the world's oil?

Or, get the news that some California state legislators feel so in danger that they want permits to carry concealed weapons?

How about the US and henchmen making Libya a "no fly zone" for the Libyan air force? Even though our Secretary of Defense didn't think that's such a hot idea, what with us already being in one war whose outcome really isn't settled and another where "progress" is—at best—dubious.

Meanwhile, Sarah Palin complains about Congress' budget cuts being too small. The size of the federal deficit is more important than the well being of the nation's residents. Bust the remaining unions and reduce federal and state employees' benefits. Folks having less discretionary income won't have a negative effect on the nation's economy. The trickle down economy will enrich every one—at the top of society.

Rag on teachers when you don't have any thing better to do. Anyone can teach—although not necessarily well.

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist and a New York Times columnist, recently wrote:

"Count me among those who were glad to see the documentary "Inside Job" win an Oscar. The film reminded us that the financial crisis of 2008, whose aftereffects are still blighting the lives of millions of Americans, didn't just happen—it was made possible by bad behavior on the part of bankers, regulators and, yes, economists."

"What the film didn't point out, however, is that the crisis has spawned a whole new set of abuses, many of them illegal as well as immoral. Leading political figures are, at long last, showing some outrage. Unfortunately, this outrage is directed, not at banking abuses, but at those trying to hold banks accountable for these abuses."

Political commentator and journalist Ronald Brownstein wrote a piece in the National Journal with the subhead "The problem isn't that public-sector workers have too much retirement security. It's that everyone else has too little."

Having drunk the traditional Kool-Aid, the general public is more interested in seeing that slightly better off workers get less than those worse off. You have to wonder if the greatest threat to the American people isn't the unholy combination of American practices and people.

The VVA Veteran has an article in it entitled "A Few Well-Chosen Words" written by David Willson. Willson discuses Vietnam vets who are poets and well regarded or relatively unknown but good writers.

Several VVAW members are in Willson's rankings. In alphabetical order they are Jan Barry, Horace Coleman, David Connolly, W.D. Ehrhart and Gerald McCarthy.

Barry and Erhart also have edited important anthologies by Vietnam vet poets; McCarthy has written scholarly articles and presented papers about Nam vet poets at conferences.

LA demo, March 19, 2011. Photo by Horace Coleman.

What many here think is that America—claiming that title for the US alone as citizens tend to—is "the exception to the rule." What too many people here choose to consciously ignore is that every super power or empire that ever was had periods of advance and decline before an inevitable and permanent fall from global center stage.

It might be a combination of regional, religious, ethnic or internal/external conflict that made a nation or empire get the historical hook. It could be economics, politics, or climactic change. Maybe sexism played a role. Perhaps excessive dynasty, oligarchy or plutocracy had a hand.

Perhaps excessive, ineffective and decadent oligarchies and plutocracies sped up falls. How about vastly extreme and unequal social divisions? Others superior technology, civilization, ideology or will? Whatever the combination of actions, circumstances and causes, the failure of an individual, system, or society to "meet the challenge" (what ever that might be) can be fatal.

Stay tuned. That US invented "Chinese" curse has come true. We are living in "interesting times!" Can you say "over stretch" or "incompetence?"

Horace Coleman was an Air Force air traffic controller/intercept director in Vietnam (1967-68).