We’re No Angels

I read (most of) Mamet’s piece. He seemed to be wrestling with two conflicting feelings.

On the one hand he feels like being concerned about the world’s problems (and there ARE problems…genocide’s happening, species are going extinct, the U.S. prison system is broken, etc.) requires you to be perpetually angry and guilty.

On the other hand he feels like his own life is going pretty swimmingly and has an overriding sense that people “get by” from day to day.

Which is it? A life of penitence or enjoyment? Doom-and-gloom or optimism?

My take: you don’t have to carry the weight of the world’s problems OR retreat into blithe solipsism. You recognize the problems, and do your part to help and leave the world a better place than you found it, and IN SO DOING come to enjoy life more and feel comfortable about your place in the world.

L8

David Mamet has not become less concerned with the world’s problems; he’s come to the realization that the best way for us to help the world is to live up to our own ideals.

Contrary to the ideas advocated by the current line-up of presidential candidates, both liberal and conservative, government is not the answer. Regardless of whether a Democrat or a Republican takes office, little will actually change.

Both sides will expand government power, over-extend themselves in pursuit of empire, temporarily appease voters by offering entitlements they cannot deliver, and in the process continue to debase our currency, our wealth and our potential.

Change will come when we alter our thinking and rediscover the Constitution and our founding principles. Only then will we be of any help to others.

It’s not David Mamet, but the rest of the world that has given up. They are no longer hoping we’ll come to our senses; they are beginning to move on.

You have eloquently summed up EXACTLY what I have been thinking all along! Bravo!

I would really like to hear what you have in mind– “remedies” for this pervasive governmental sickness. The governmental flatulence–and the waste by-products are clogging our fiscal intestines. As you stated, we citizens are being drained physically, mentally and financially by our failure to stay the course with our Constitution.

Is there hope for a full recovery?

Thank you!

Through education there is hope. If Americans can be shown all the things they discarded when they turned their backs on the Constitution, there is hope for a full recovery.

If and when that happens, of course, the battle will resume immediately.

“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” –Thomas Jefferson

Thank you for the reply. You seem to be very perceptive about our international missteps, as well as missteps in our own country’s ideals. Our ‘underpinnings’ are coming unraveled, thanks to our leader’s loss of focus–on both sides of the political aisles.

The media does little to keep an even hand on unbiased content, and spoon-feeds us with whatever soup du jour attracts the most attention. We seem to have lost our national–and community–focus, and our insight into what really matters.

Perhaps that is why I was drawn to Good Magazine–for ‘people who give a damn’. That says a lot in just a few words.

While the Dems and GOP duke it out, our financial markets keep taking big hits, and Peak Oil takes us down a slippery slope, I’ll accumulate some self-sufficiency information, and get acquainted to a future in this country that will most likely look quite different from what it looks like now.

Keep your focus…I’m interested in what you have to say to our ‘less-enlightened’ citizens (and that includes myself).

Thanks.

I think the snippet about Mamet being fed up with NPR and calling it “National Palestinian Radio” is revealing. Liberal ideas are forcing him to confront certain issues that he is biased against, and finally fuses are popping in his head.

In this case, perhaps Palestinians’ human rights issues don’t sit well with certain prejudiced aspects of his Jewishness.