You guys remember the conversation between Nately and The Old Man in "Catch 22?" [View all]

[MrScorpio]

I think that we might be living out the Old Man's prophecy of our eventual self-destruction as a great American power.

The bigger ya get, the harder it is to keep from falling. Plus, a weak nation like wartime occupied Italy doesn't have that far to fall, it's weakness allows it to persist, even under the boot of a great power.

Great scene in that movie.

Forty-seven years after it was released, here we are today. We're well on our way to tossing ourselves on the empirical ash heap, along with the Romans, the Persians and the Spaniards. It's going to be a hard fall.

It's as if we're losing the ability and willingness to maintain our own cohesive vastness. The rejection of knowledge and education, the promotion of power, incompetence and corruption are all problems that we're not trying to solve.

Trump represents a form of arrogance, self-destruction and even cannibalism that many believe we should inflict on ourselves. The pure callous and uncaring nature of this time is not reassuring.

Personally, because the stakes are so critical, devolution can represent an existential threat. It's well beyond the prospect of coming out of other side of this present crisis of being less prosperous, powerful and influential. We have to consider whether or not we would survive as a species on this planet. Talk about being too big to fail.

Where we'll end up in the space of 4-10 years is a mystery. No one knows. But what's clear is that we all must generate a cooperative and appropriate sense of urgency about, not only our national prospects, but global ones as well. Our biggest obstacles are the small minded and the self-serving who are in the positions of power.

It's those people who have sent us into this downward spiral and who must be reckoned with.

By the way, I would have loved to have posted the referenced video clip from the movie, in order to add emphasis, but I'm writing this OP on my iPod and it sucks to add vids.

I watched to movie again last night and that scene had me thinking about our present state of affairs all day. You can't beat the classics.