The three sources of our content in this essay are pre-eminently qualified to assess the problems facing humanity today in P-B. In the unconscious fog that characterizes the old narrative they can see well enough but beyond the mist, they cannot see. We cannot navigate across a fog-shrouded sea and expect to have a successful voyage. So our writers are correct in that the ship of fools is headed for disaster—but they are relatively clueless as to why our Titanic-like voyage is doomed.
First, is the article co-authored by “seniors” Richard and Dottie Lamm. The Lamm’s give us our first economic and social problem with no specific solution. We, the elderly, are the real “welfare queens” of American public policy because we are 13 percent of the population but get 60 percent of federal social spending, much of it subsidizing the well-off elderly. A new social policy should transfer money from the affluent to the poor, not from the young to the old, but try to tell that to the AARP. Consequently, day by day, decision by decision, budget by budget we consign our nation’s children and grandchildren to economic chaos.
The current administration (2006) is engaged in cutting taxes, making war and reducing social programs for the young and the poor. The Lamm’s are correct in who is going to pay for these short-sighted and selfish policies and the gross injustice of play now, pay later politics. …our political system gave voters more and more benefits every decade.When we couldn’t pay for those benefits, we started to put them on our children’s credit card. At this point the authors begin to intuit the approaching iceberg. Our worst nightmare is that these problems might be beyond the ability of democracy to solve.
The second article by Richard Leiby focuses on retired Army colonel Larry Wilkerson who was the chief of staff for General Colin Powell for 16 years. After 31 years of army service and 50 years as a student of American politics he is beginning to see into the fog a little better than the average person who seems content to trust our leaders to sound the fog horn and hope for the best. As a teacher who’s studied every administration since 1945, I think this is probably the worst ineptitude in governance, decision-making and leadership I’ve seen in 50-plus years. You’ve got to go back and think about that. That includes the Bay of Pigs, that includes—oh, my God, Vietnam. That includes Iran-Contra, Watergate.
Lots of problems but no answers and that’s OK because answers from problem-solvers contained in the old paradigm would be useless anyway. Until our leaders, which includes you and I, have the insight which reveals that all of creation is inter-related and inter-dependent and until we build a more sea-worthy vessel based on Simple Reality—then we are all going down with the ship. We all need to abandon ship and row for all we are worth for P-A in hopes that we can escape the undertow as the good ship P-B (Titanic II) goes under. The new ship (U.S.S. Simple Reality) can barely be detected through the fog—but it is there patiently waiting for the haze of human unconsciousness to lift. Pray for sunshine.
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References and notes are available for this article.
For a much more in-depth discussion on Simple Reality, read Simple Reality: The Key to Serenity and Survival, by Roy Charles Henry, published in 2011.
