From the dawn of time through my 60’s childhood,
extended family & local community was the bedrock
upon which human beings built their lives.
Almost overnite, this has been replaced with a
screen-dominated, over-the-horizon frame-of-reference.
In one lifetime, we went from earth tones at conversation level
to a 24/7 earsplitting, technicolor, assault on the senses.
Human Beings have Never Lived this Way!
Nowhere and Never Has it Ever Been like This!
If we want any kind of a future we can rely on,
we need to again find strength at the Community Level.
Neighborhood by Neighborhood.
I would like to talk to You & Yours about making America’s neighborhoods strong and wealthy again,
uniting us in common cause around the things linked here:
+++ The Center +++ IEAs +++ Giving of ThanksDay +++
But before I talk about turning these into a reality, I’m gonna……
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…start with Ten Terrifying Truths
that shake the Very Foundation of
virtually every System-Level Support
upon which we’ve built our World.
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Using Facts We Already Know, not Opinions.
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Then I go on to propose
that the ‘60’s I grew up in
were, in many ways,
more similar to Ancient Rome
than the World we live in Today:
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Everybody did what their Daddy did,
and were physical wrecks by retirement.
Soon thereafter, they died and had a funeral,
within miles of where they were born,
with generations of relatives within driving distance.
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Computers? Internet?
They didn’t even have Plastic.
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No Franchises, either.
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They ate Home-Cooked Dinners,
at dinnertime, as a Family.
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Phones were chained to the Wall,
…one per House.
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The only Screen was a
small, blurry, B&W TV over in the Corner.
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Alone Time? Rarely.
People were at the CENTER of their jobs, their education,
their social interaction, their entertainments.
Their Everything.
People.
Just like Rome…
And, just like the Romans, my Grandfather left
VIRTUALLY NO FOOTPRINT
His Wood, Leather, & Steel, Horse-Drawn World
returning to the Earth after use.
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Today each of us leaves behind
a strip mall sized pile of garbage that is
Never Going Away,
the ‘Sea’ of Plastic smothering the Pacific
is all ours, virtually none of it pre-’60’s.
…within one short lifetime…
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I’ve lived long enough to to have lived through many things most other pundits have only experienced second hand, growing up in FDR’s World, then graduating into Reagan’s.
Straddling these two eras,
I bring a rather Unique Political Perspective,
feeling like I am the
‘Younger Brother’ & ‘Older Cousin’
of the Base of Today’s Republican Party,
having caught the Last Bus outta FDR’s America
before the Mills Closed and the Dreams Died.
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Back then, our Dads had Healthcare, Vacations, & Retirement,
Security, and Money in the Bank.
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Everybody Did.
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For Those that Raised Me,
Work was the Issue, not Money:
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…as in,
“Get a good education
so you don’t have to Work as Hard as We do.”
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Back then, Education wasn’t about Getting Rich,
…because Money wasn’t ‘the’ Issue.
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So I ran a Steel Mill Crane in the Summers
and graduated the University of Chicago
with Money in the Bank.
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Sadly, in 2016, fully 40 years later,
the Majority of Unskilled jobs in Pittsburgh
paid less per hour, (no benefits either),
than I got as an off-the-street,
unskilled, teenage, 1970’s summer hire.
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Is it any Wonder that my ‘Brothers’ & ‘Cousins’
back in flyover, Rust Belt America,
yearn nostalgic for those days back when…
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“America was Great”
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(FDR’s verrrry Democratic Party America, BTW!)
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(Then Reagan got elected and it seems we’ve been at each others’ throats ever since. We no longer know our neighbors, and the family is spread out all over the country. We live in fear of everything.)
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So…
Washington’s not gonna fix Washington.
Wall Street’s not gonna fix Wall Street.
And sure as tootin’ they ain’t gonna fix each other.
Thus…
If we want a Future we can Rely On,
We better start preparing for it Ourselves.
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Organize Better. Re-Divert Resources.
Maximize the Collective Power of ‘Community’
Empower the Individual.
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Non-Partisan, Common-Sense, Community-Level Stuff
that will unite ALL of us in Common Cause.
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Stuff that won’t sound like anything else being
Trumpeted about These Days.
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Any Age, Culture, Affiliation, Outlook, Quirk or Audience
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Community Groups., Political Groups. Educational Groups.
Business Groups. Church Groups. Military Groups.
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Young Republicans or Old Democrats.
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Whatever, Whomever, Wherever…
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(Especially powerful for multi-generational audiences.)
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HeyThere.BobSmith@gmail.com
Everything Changed
in One Lifetime.
…and it’s like we haven’t noticed.”
The Link below leads to what the World thought of Me
as a Hippie Bus Tour Guide.
I am humbled.
From there you can learn more about Me
and the things I’d like to talk about. Until then…
Sincerely yours,
Bob Smith