Everyone is entitled to my opinion.

The Better Neverland
October 25, 2012

We are on the precipice of one of the most thrilling and dynamic changes our species has ever experienced. 

The changes we face are as extraordinary as those we faced when the automobile first came about. Horses and wooden wagons were the norm. The automobile required different skills, technologies and workers. Suddenly, the wooden wagon makers, horse trainers, blacksmiths, the bridle makers, etc., were out of work, as new jobs emerged to feed the automobile. We needed rubber wheels, paved roads, parts makers, etc., not muckrakers to pick up horse dung. 

If we continue to move forward, people in old technologies will be unemployed, as they were in previous times. People can adapt--even old people like me. 

This next decade will set the stage for those changes--or hold us back. Change is happening quickly, so quickly that people are frightened. 

Some people are so afraid of change that they want to elect a man who vows to "Make America Great Again." He speaks of a Better Neverland, a time that mythically recalls the two decades after WWII when the soldiers came back from a "victorious" war and used the GI bill to get their educations. Within months the US military-based industries turned away from building tanks and airplanes to building a car for every family, stoves, refrigerators, and other domestic products. That's when we began building new suburbs, massive interstate freeways, and our need for steel, oil and coal for both consumption and production expanded. All of these elements led to near full employment. 

That economic, social, environment no longer exists, for the "Great Again" concept is fully rooted in old technologies, old social structures and old prejudices. 


The choice of moving forward, facing the future, or trying to turn the clock back is ours.