Robert L. Terrell Blog

The full significance of the financial crisis bedeviling the United States, and much of the rest of the developed world, is clearly apparent to those who dare seek to acquire an up close and personal view of the massive, full spectrum collapse underway in Detroit. The once prosperous city used to be one of the nation’s most prestigious industrial centers, providing well-paying jobs, and upward social mobility to residents throughout southeastern Michigan. But this is no longer the case. Detroit is collapsing, and the tragic, seemingly irreversible process, is destroying the dreams and financial viability of an entire region crucial to the nation’s overall economic health and well-being.
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The homeless people on my block are being forced to compete with young professionals for midday squatting rites. The young professionals are attracted by a food service business that sells them gourmet coffee and lunch from a waist-high street-side window. Each working day, they pour onto the block and gather in front of the window from whence they acquire food.

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The current crises threatening stability in virtually every sector of U.S. society should be all the proof sane and balanced people need in order to understand that we are hovering on a precipice between extraordinary achievement, and dramatic, unalterable decline.  Given that, we all need to remain alert and aware regarding all the best things we can achieve, individually and together, as we move forward with great uncertainty, into a largely unknowable future.

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The firestorm of political controversy engendered by President Obama’s release of four Bush administration torture memos is not likely to subside any time soon. Moreover, there is every good reason to assume that the intensity of debate about torture, and other abuses commonly perpetrated abroad in numerous instances by U.S. personnel during the Bush era, will increase with the Obama administration’s upcoming release of incriminating photograph of some of those abuses.

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These are portentous times for the United States. There are many things to be grateful for, including the current ascendancy of mainstream liberal politics in the nation’s capitol.  The stock market is slowly edging upwards, and panic about the possibility of total financial collapse appears to be subsiding.      

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