Depression 2.0

I cannot claim to have used this nomenclature first, but I think it best captures the America of today. The photo at right is the one that most strikes a chord in me that this guy is what a politician and national leader should be. Those speeches he made during the campaign in literal downpours really touched me. My favorite President of my lifetime has always been Carter, and at worst, this guy in the rain is already at number three behind Jimmy and JFK. Will he displace either or both of those guys from their lofty positions before the next four or eight years are up? The answer will most likely be found in how he handles Depression 2.0.

I have always been as aware as anyone that the predicament we now find ourselves in has been brewing for decades. I have said since 1970 that that was the year it all began, and nothing has effectively changed my mind from that position since that time. It began because all products and all trends have a somewhat definable marketing lifespan that includes a birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, maturity, and a death that hurts and saddens at least someone. This concept applies to cars, computers, music, drugs, art, religion, sports, slogans, psychology, and all sorts of megatrends. It applies to every product and every category of products. It applies to everything we think about and defines exactly how we think about those things. Up through 1969, America could afford to constantly expand and procreate in every conceivable way, but a few things began to reach their limits in 1970.

We passed through a decade of evolutionary change in The Seventies. Jimmy Carter's derogatory unpopularity stems from the simple fact that he asked Americans to question their imperialistic expansionism and to control their behavior patterns. The right wingers adore Reagan still today because he told America we could continue, and even increase, our deification of wretched excess through various methods of cheating our way toward short term goals and profits. Now it has all come crashing down. It was unsustainable in the first place. It was all a big Well, duh! Cheating at anything can take you only so far and then you hit a wall. This time the wall is popularly called Depression 2.0.

The differences between The Great Depression and 2.0 are too numerous to expound upon here. Ten of the big ones are: (a) population, (b) demographics, (c) agribusiness, (d) global warming, (e) peak oil, (f) a looming water crisis, (g) global turmoil, (h) globalization, (i) income inequality, and (j) credit and debt levels. There is no word astounding enough to describe our current situation.

I hope President Obama is thoroughly aware of all these pressing issues. I hope he doesn't attempt in any way to restore our economy to the way it was. That would be a disastrous decision simply because it is nothing more than a pipe dream for all the right wing nutcases. All you have to do is to read those ten issues over again. We cannot go back. We might be able to think we have found our way back temporarily, before one or more of the ten bites us on our exposed butts. Drop your pants and hang your moon out there if you think we are ever going to successfully return to the innocent bliss of 1969, or the Yuppified deceit of 1980, or the technological song and dance sung by Fleetwood Mac in 1992.

If we are to develop any sort of positive future for America, it must be a time of contraction. We must throw the wretched excess out the window of the SUV. We must create a new paradigm for America. We must become the nation that President Carter so unsuccessfully asked us to become. We must ask the question of ourselves that John F. Kennedy so famously asked. Contraction must become our new megatrend if we are to survive. The Second Civil War must end and we must work together to attain our survival. The audacity of hope must drive us to contract most of the trends that we have so blatantly developed to excess. Success will not lie within one big contraction of one big issue, but the gradual contraction of many issues. The right wing will have to contract its development of the prison culture. The left wing will have to contract its immigration culture. Wall Street will have to contract its money culture and the Christians will have to contract their evangelical culture. Television and Hollywood will have to contract its greedy entertainment culture and our politicians will have to cease the use of hot button issues to substantively effect a race to the bottom.

We must become a more compassionate country. We must become a less greedy culture. We must begin to place more value on education, intelligence, learning, and the humanities. We must re-learn how to thrive as human beings instead of consumers. We must create a new era of production and progressive thought. We must learn to once again be what we all thought Americans were in the first place. We must follow this intelligent, compassionate, dedicated leader not only to the light, but also through the rain.