POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY JEFFREY SIMPSON IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
Jeffrey Simpson,
This is one fine piece of writing.
You have stated the situation with remarkable clarity.
Were I to sum the American situation up, I would say it is necessary for that tired old political bromide, the centerpiece of so many bloated speeches by local Congressmen at Fourth of July picnics, the American Dream, to be put into a well-earned retirement.
I think it safe to say, problems so long in their creation, with habits of thinking so deeply ingrained, are not going to be solved in a brief period.
The so-called green shoots we see may be nothing more than fragile plants, force-fed with fertilizer, destined to shrivel.
We may well be in for a long, dark period of adjustment.
Unfortunately, as with its many pointless bloody wars, the U.S., owing to its sheer mass, necessarily drags the whole world into the mess it has created for itself.
Any solution pumping countless billions into the economy and pushing banks and others to make credit available is just more of the same decades-long behavior.
Rather than taking the hit necessary to wring out the economy, a huge platter of more of the same is being served up.
I'm not sure this is the right thing to do, but the right thing is too painful for any politician to make policy.
In a sense, I think this points to an even larger issue, and that is the question over the very ability of a people like Americans to govern themselves sensibly, rather than a constant lurching this way and that, both in domestic and foreign affairs.
