CAN DO

I'll say something about the attitude of American business, it is can do. Far from there being 'nothing doing', because it was Sunday, I made real progress. Having spoken to Avner, the guy who sold me the bike, and whose friend, Brian, wants to buy it from me when I am done with it, I called, at Aver's suggestion,  the improbably but delightfully named 'Beamers Uber Alles' (beamers being a slang for BMW) repair shop. George, the proprietor, a BMW trained mechanic who set up on his own 18 months ago, guessed it was an electrical component called a 'hall relay'. First big surprise was that he was at work on a Sunday.

I swopped the rental car for a pick-up - no problem sir, second big surprise - and loaded the blue monster from the yard of the towing company, bill $290, and took the bike out to George who put the computer on it and confirmed his suspicion that it was the 'hall relay'.

I then emailed Brian to offer to half the costs of the repair and he has agreed.  So a delay until Weds but then off to Cape Cod.  All that remains is to see if my insurance covers some, if not all, of the cost of the breakdown towing charge.  It may.  And tomorrow I have to return the pick-up.  It seems my friend Stu will be able to take me out on Tues to the repair shop to collect the repaired monster, so I should be back at his house Tuesday evening with a repaired bike ready to set off for Massachusettes on Weds morning.

The problem was 100% rain related, the bike worked fine today, indeed George said it may well go on working fine so long as it doesn't get soaked again.  But better to fix the problem. Which is what we are going to do.

In the meantime Stu's partner, Jan the journalist, tells me that the Republicans are still in total disarray over a credible candidate to challenge Oh Bummer.  Despite all the horrific attitudes the current leading Republican candidates expound there are, actually, a serious core of Republicans who recognise that those front runners are truly barmy.  But a lack of a credible alternative screws them quite badly.  So Bummer creeps through the middle.  Put your bets on now.  It seems the Republican's best candidate is keeping his powder dry for 2016 when there will be no sitting President to oppose.

Just where the Declining Empire will be in 2016 is another matter.

Stu and I have a conversation about where all the money has gone.  He recently was with an Indian (thats the sub continent not native American) friend who detailed how India's economic surge is confined to the top 1% who re-cycle the money amongst themselves.  The same is true in America; 1% gets the cream and the rest of them can go hang.  The Tory government in Britain is headed the same way.  The bail out of Greece and so on is a bail out of bankers not the people of those countries. 

We concluded that our children face a difficult prospect.

Look at it this way.  My generation, those born, roughly, between 1945 and 1965; we ate all the pies.  We had the luck to profit from a brief real flowering of western capitalism.  Now you have to ask, as Stu and I did, where all the money has gone.  To that 1% of course.  Many of my generation are middling OK but the 1% are the new masters of the universe

The real sting in the tail is that we will just about manage without too much discomfort; although typically we are not part of the 1%.  Not only did we eat all the pies but, as we will live a lot longer than previous generations, and, by and large we are quite politically engaged and active, as opposed to young people today who are disillusioned; we will probably have a big say in running the pie factory for the next 20 years.  Talk about having your cake and eating it.  Don't ya just love democracy!

As I have tried hard to tell those I have met on my travels, this will end in tears.  And the collapse could come like a whirlwind; much quicker than we might imagine.

I am concerned about what faces my children, Stu his.  Less than a week to Patrick's wedding and how can I wish him and Julie anything but the best, but I can only look on all of this with trepidation.

Typically capitalism goes in long but clear cycles.  We are now in the gradual but inevitable phase of a slump.  Typically there is only one way out.  War.  That has always been the pattern. 

But who will fight who?  I have, tentatively, suggested that it may be a new civil war.  Between the 1% and whoever they can buy; and the rest of us. But again, typically, we have always found an external enemy to project onto our grief and hatred; anger which should properly be focused on those amongst us who put us into this terrible mess.  The 1%.

All of this was played out in frighteningly similar ways in the 1930's and 40's.  Result was a series of wars in which around 60 to 70 million of our fellow human beings perished.

That's why I have to repeat the words and the warnings of a poet of those times:

Dark Times

In the dark times                               

Will there also be singing?

Yes there will also be singing

About the dark times.

Now you might just say I am being critical to no avail.  Its all very well pointing out the injustices of the world but its not going to make any difference.  Well I shall leave you tonight, dear reader, with another poem.

The Critical Attitude

The critical attitude

Strikes many people as unfruitful.

That is because they find the State

Impervious to their criticism

But what is being called here an unfruitful attitude

Is merely a feeble attitude.  Give criticism arms

And States can be demolished by it.

Channelling a river

Grafting a fruit tree

Educating a person

Transforming a State

These are instances of fruitful criticism

And at the same time

Instances of art.