It’s been a long time since I’ve read anything by Noam Chomsky. It’s wonderful that he is still writing. He is always able to view problems from a different perspective that makes so much more sense that others do. Although solutions to our current political messes are not easy, I do not believe they are hopeless–just very difficult.
Cynthia, Chomsky has always been the deepest annoyance to the American establishment. I do my best to join your sentiment that things are not hopeless, just difficult. We seem in a stupor, mystified by disinformation and fear campaigns that keep us in the dark about the forces that keep us confused and feeling helpless. Then, all of a sudden, we read Noam Chomsky and a light goes on. But what to do? What to do?
What really gets my goat (to use an old-fashioned phrase), is the fact that there are super patriots out there that worry terribly that the United Nations is taking away our hegemony, and ruining the glorious United States of America, when here we have a truly grave threat to our self government which has been growing quickly and seems about to culminate in the probable (I fear) ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. I keep trying for other people’s children, my friends, my cousins, but sometimes I can’t decide why I try. We are a small collection of voices apparently crying in the wilderness.
To get myself out of the dumps I watch cute animal videos on YouTube, or even better, listen to Bach, or Shumann (3rd symphony), or other great music. Gordon, you have your architecture, the pictures…. We surely need these things sometimes.
Carolyn, I share the distress and find that music does for me what nothing else does, as is the case with your love of Bach and Shumann. We DO need those. In between those moments of beauty, and for us, hours of worship and contemplation, we do the best we can to speak what we think we know. Grace and Peace!
Whew! a part of me is happy I’m on my way out. Another part says, “Whew; it’s hopeless.” The saner part says, “Pick a piece of the problem and work on it like our life, and the life of the world, depends on it.”
Views from the Edge 
It’s been a long time since I’ve read anything by Noam Chomsky. It’s wonderful that he is still writing. He is always able to view problems from a different perspective that makes so much more sense that others do. Although solutions to our current political messes are not easy, I do not believe they are hopeless–just very difficult.
LikeLike
Cynthia, Chomsky has always been the deepest annoyance to the American establishment. I do my best to join your sentiment that things are not hopeless, just difficult. We seem in a stupor, mystified by disinformation and fear campaigns that keep us in the dark about the forces that keep us confused and feeling helpless. Then, all of a sudden, we read Noam Chomsky and a light goes on. But what to do? What to do?
LikeLike
What really gets my goat (to use an old-fashioned phrase), is the fact that there are super patriots out there that worry terribly that the United Nations is taking away our hegemony, and ruining the glorious United States of America, when here we have a truly grave threat to our self government which has been growing quickly and seems about to culminate in the probable (I fear) ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. I keep trying for other people’s children, my friends, my cousins, but sometimes I can’t decide why I try. We are a small collection of voices apparently crying in the wilderness.
To get myself out of the dumps I watch cute animal videos on YouTube, or even better, listen to Bach, or Shumann (3rd symphony), or other great music. Gordon, you have your architecture, the pictures…. We surely need these things sometimes.
LikeLike
Carolyn, I share the distress and find that music does for me what nothing else does, as is the case with your love of Bach and Shumann. We DO need those. In between those moments of beauty, and for us, hours of worship and contemplation, we do the best we can to speak what we think we know. Grace and Peace!
LikeLike
Whew! a part of me is happy I’m on my way out. Another part says, “Whew; it’s hopeless.” The saner part says, “Pick a piece of the problem and work on it like our life, and the life of the world, depends on it.”
LikeLike
Indeed. All of the above.
LikeLike