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That it hasn't happened yet, continues to amaze me. But sooner or later it will. Sooner or later our children, saddled with our debts, our endless wars and the ever more onerous demands of a predatory "national security state", will turn to us in large numbers and ask how it happened. They will want to know how the many millions of us who were lucky enough to grow up in the American middle class of the 1960s and 1970s, let it come to this. They will want to know why we who enjoyed personal freedoms and opportunities to "find our bliss", opportunities that they can only dream of, decided to leave them with a world structured, most of all, by fear and dread.
The smooth talkers among us--and there are many--will no doubt start by explaining just how complicated life really is, how processes over which we "have no control" such as globalization and terrorism, have chipped away at our good life and left them holding the bag. They will repeat over and again, and in one form or another, that these were "natural" and/or "unforeseen" developments that simply overwhelmed the ability our existing institutions. In other words, as they sit in the 4,000 square foot house they did not really need, a house that, in fact, no one really needs, they will paint themselves as victims of history.
They will of course being lying, to their children, and more importantly, for the umpteenth time, to themselves.
If they were really interested in have a profitable dialogue with their children, something that might actually begin the process of delivering us to a better place, they would start with something simple like: "Sweetheart (or Buddy), I guess we just forgot".
I guess we just forgot:
Yes, Sweetheart, we have forgotten a lot of things. And this is just the beginning of the list.
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That it hasn't happened yet, continues to amaze me. But sooner or later it will. Sooner or later our children, saddled with our debts, our endless wars and the ever more onerous demands of a predatory "national security state", will turn to us in large numbers and ask how it happened. They will want to know how the many millions of us who were lucky enough to grow up in the American middle class of the 1960s and 1970s, let it come to this. They will want to know why we who enjoyed personal freedoms and opportunities to "find our bliss", opportunities that they can only dream of, decided to leave them with a world structured, most of all, by fear and dread.
The smooth talkers among us--and there are many--will no doubt start by explaining just how complicated life really is, how processes over which we "have no control" such as globalization and terrorism, have chipped away at our good life and left them holding the bag. They will repeat over and again, and in one form or another, that these were "natural" and/or "unforeseen" developments that simply overwhelmed the ability our existing institutions. In other words, as they sit in the 4,000 square foot house they did not really need, a house that, in fact, no one really needs, they will paint themselves as victims of history.
They will of course being lying, to their children, and more importantly, for the umpteenth time, to themselves.
If they were really interested in have a profitable dialogue with their children, something that might actually begin the process of delivering us to a better place, they would start with something simple like: "Sweetheart (or Buddy), I guess we just forgot".
I guess we just forgot:
Yes, Sweetheart, we have forgotten a lot of things. And this is just the beginning of the list.
That it hasn't happened yet, continues to amaze me. But sooner or later it will. Sooner or later our children, saddled with our debts, our endless wars and the ever more onerous demands of a predatory "national security state", will turn to us in large numbers and ask how it happened. They will want to know how the many millions of us who were lucky enough to grow up in the American middle class of the 1960s and 1970s, let it come to this. They will want to know why we who enjoyed personal freedoms and opportunities to "find our bliss", opportunities that they can only dream of, decided to leave them with a world structured, most of all, by fear and dread.
The smooth talkers among us--and there are many--will no doubt start by explaining just how complicated life really is, how processes over which we "have no control" such as globalization and terrorism, have chipped away at our good life and left them holding the bag. They will repeat over and again, and in one form or another, that these were "natural" and/or "unforeseen" developments that simply overwhelmed the ability our existing institutions. In other words, as they sit in the 4,000 square foot house they did not really need, a house that, in fact, no one really needs, they will paint themselves as victims of history.
They will of course being lying, to their children, and more importantly, for the umpteenth time, to themselves.
If they were really interested in have a profitable dialogue with their children, something that might actually begin the process of delivering us to a better place, they would start with something simple like: "Sweetheart (or Buddy), I guess we just forgot".
I guess we just forgot:
Yes, Sweetheart, we have forgotten a lot of things. And this is just the beginning of the list.