Generations: Fractures

The great wheel of history turns, and another generation has taken its place at the top. While there are many things that can be said about the historic election just past the most obvious is that the change we have seen is simply due. The many faults in the Republican coalition which cracked apart during the last 8 years were, in many cases there at the start. A wise person with an eye to history would consider the faults that are present in the new majority to see what problems lie ahead – even though that seems like a major downer right now.

Continue reading

Generations: Passage

You wake up one day, and you go off to greet your parents. Maybe it’s at an airport, or maybe it’s just down the block. There’s one day etched in your memory as the day you realized it. That one day when the years of worrying about you and all the other things that crossed the lives of your parents are etched in their faces and pulled out the thinning strands of their hair. One day, your parents suddenly look old.

Continue reading

Generations: Played Out

The party platform is 35,000 words long, addressing just about every aspect of government and how it desperately needs an overhaul. It opens with a strong statement of purpose:

America is adrift. Our country moves agonizingly, aimlessly, almost helplessly into one of the most dangerous and disorderly periods in history. At home, our economy careens, whiplashed from one extreme to another. Earlier this year, inflation skyrocketed to its highest levels in more than a century; weeks later, the economy plummeted, suffering its steepest slide on record.

Continue reading

Generations: Empire

This is my fourth installment of a series examining how the election of 2008 might be changed by as much as 45% of the electorate belonging to the Gen-X or Millenial Generations. You can find the previous entries here:

Generations
Generations: Institutionalized
Generations: Do the Right Thing

The United States of America is, by far, the most influential nation on earth. Its economy is the largest of any single nation, just behind the European Union as a whole at 27% of the entire world GDP. Its influence is even more gargantuan when measured by total military expenditures, which in 2008 are $711 Billion or 48% of the worldwide total:

Continue reading