During my high school days, the country was in a pretty dark era of malaise. I remember one fall, I joined my friends, Dana and Larry, to talk about it.
High schoolers, by their very nature, are usually not necessarily in tune with the world around them. They’re more interested in their own social circle and the next big event. But this dark cloud was so deep, it created a sense of unease amongst us.
Behind our neighborhood was a large wooded farm that had been sold for subdivision development. At the time of our teen neighborhood ‘summit,’ there was much grading and land clearing going on. Home construction had yet to begin, but it was close. I remember the three of us sitting on a large berm discussing the state of the world and asking what the future would hold and trying to solve all the world’s problems.
We didn’t come to any conclusions on that autumn day so many years ago, but we felt fairly sophisticated in our grasp of world affairs and current events. We stated that day our country needed stronger leadership. Who knew that we were on the cusp of the Reagan Revolution?
A generation later, it seems the youth of today have begun the same sort of summit – in the form of the Occupy Wall Street movement. I will be honest and say, first, that I don’t really know much of the genesis of the protest movement nor do I know the key points on which the movement is founded other than overthrowing capitalism.
I’m not sure that’s the answer.
Secondly, I am generally not the protest type. Often, I would jokingly say that I protest the protests. But that’s not the focus of what I’m writing about today.
There is no question about the fact that, again, the country has plunged into a dark era of malaise. Again, the dark cloud is so deep, it has created a sense of unease amongst us.
The economy is shaky. Companies are not hiring. The current unemployment rate hovers around 10 percent, though experts say it is hard to get a read on an exact number.
Meanwhile, the housing bubble which burst some years ago has yet to re-form. Home ownership rate has decreased in the last five years. At that point, 70 percent of all occupied homes were occupied by home owners. Despite record low interest rates – ones that seem to continue to plunge to historically low marks – that homeowner occupancy rate now sits at 65 percent.
At the same time, new home construction is stagnant and around the corner and down the block, you can find any number of existing homes on the market for long periods of time while the owners try to cut deals to make improvements to help those dwellings sell.
Recently, we learned of a foreclosure in the neighborhood and saw evidence of that as the family hurried to move their possessions one sunny weekend. I’m sure it’s an all-too-familiar event that plays out over and over again during a time period that could hardly be described as sunny.
We’re fighting wars on foreign soils and terrorists continue to threaten us in our own land.
Even some of the venerable institutions we have come to depend on look less than stable. I passed a mail truck when I was out today at lunch and it made me wonder: Has anyone seen what’s going on with the U.S. Postal Service these days? At the same time, Congress seems more interested in scoring political points than solving political problems – on both sides of the aisle.
And, forget about turning to pro sports for an escape. It seems they have their own problems. The NFL lockout almost threatened the 2011 season; the NBA lock-out has already caused the cancellation of the first two weeks of its season. What’s next? I hear the MLB collective bargaining agreement, technically, expires after this World Series.
So, it seems we are at the same place we were in 1980, when our problems seemed large and the road out of despair seemed long. Late that October, Ronald Reagan asked his now-famous rhetorical question, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”
Sounds like we need another strong leader, like him, to lead us out of THIS malaise.
JG
(Source: youtube.com)
Originally posted 10/17/2011
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