This is not a happy post. While I try to stay on the positive and constructive side with respect to the needs for environmental reform and urban planning that incorporates natural processes rather than their destruction, I'm seeing larger forces playing out towards an endgame where everything stops. The whole ship goes down. Unless a game-changer comes along.All of us are increasingly disenchanted with the system as it exists in our country today; the polarization of the political parties are a symptom of the corporate takeover of what used to be government administration for the common good. Both parties have necessarily sold out and headed towards opposite poles, and none of the big problems are addressed or solved. It's all about who gets the money. Particularly now that budgets are imploding in the US across states and cities, and also in the European Union. The whole house of cards seems to be coming down.
The Goldman-Sachs ponzi scheme built upon CDO's and affordable housing mortgages has played out globablly, Spain being a prime example of what happens when homes are built upon sand - and bubbles. An excellent article in Alternet lays out the basics of the dysfunctional financial empire that was built around things that had no real value: debt.
This has created a deep disconnect with the American public, and a deep alienation with government. This is a very dangerous situation, especially during a recession when people are losing their homes and jobs because of the antics of Wall Street, unfettered by regulation or even common sense.
I can only hope that balance is brought into play across the globe, but that will involve a leveling of the playing field, as Thomas Freidman has pointed out in "The World is Flat" such that the first world living standards will necessarily drift down to approximate those of the third world. We can no longer pollute the planet and consume its resources as if the rest of the world didn't matter.
It matters tremendously.
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