Hope

My brother sends me a link to a polemic by Joe Bageant. My reply:

A passionate polemic, seductive in its combination of apparent political and financial savviness, high-level generalization, defrocked moral preaching, enemy-finding, self-pitying despair, self-castigation. Clearly one who has adopted Marcuse's Marxian-Freudian notion of "introjection". And one who secretly welcomes gotterdammerung because (surely) it is the necessary precondition of rebirth and the Golden Society. Don't believe his reference to species extinction - if he believed that he wouldn't bother to praise the international South American bartering system.

Yes, the system is in crisis - but it's fixable. The US medical system is about 3 times more expensive per capita than in the UK, there's a lot of room to cut costs. When the dollar crashes and house prices hit the floor, people won't have to earn the same money as before to make a living, and they'll begin to compete in the global market. And we surely don't really need the level of material possessions we have now, nice though it can be.

Where I do agree with this Jeremiah, is that a load of fat b*st*rds will have to be trimmed.

Put me down as a hope fiend.