Driving Into the Future

Yes, that is one dashing dash.

Sitting there, behind that wheel, I am sure the vehicle operator could sense that they were driving into the future.


And it was a fantastic future, with robots and flying things.
Dinner would cook itself, people would vacation on the moon.
Hell, there would probably even be some jet packs...


All of that would become reality because our national purposes were manufacturing and science.
People did things, by which I mean that the actually did stuff...with their hands, and their minds.
They were building the American dream.


Sure, there was some trouble.
There was racism and a developing arms race.
Folks were afraid of communists.
We had a few wars.
As I think about it, there was some discrimination for everybody but the white dudes.

Sort of what we have going today...


However we don't seem to do much making any more.

I mean we turn out pundits like there is an assembly line.
They do a pretty good job of manufacturing social discord.

We have got a shit-ton of "designers" these days.
That seems to be about as good as having a fantastic number of "DJ's" around.
At least we get a large number of people adept at making fancy coffee drinks for the rest of us, with that contingent.

We got awfully adept at making pretend money for a little while.
The wheels kind of came off that machine, though.

There is a whole "maker" movement, these days.
That seems to largely focus on the making of small, ironic, hipster crafts.
I am not sure etsy is really going to fix the economy.

We still do a great job of making things to kill people.
The industries that make tank, bombs and what have you are one of the few remaining strong manufacturing sectors in the Unites States.
So, we got that going for us.

Reportedly, we're gonna jump into the green industrial boom at any moment.
Some time after we finish propping up the free market.
We're water-headed tightwads, so I bet will have most of that stuff made off shore.



I am all for admitting that the American dream is dead.

I think we proved that theory right around the time I was born.



I am just a little sad that we have been so completely reduced to consumers.
For the last nine or so years, our purpose...our collective national goal...has been to go out and buy stuff - to stimulate the economy.

No space dreams, no exploration of the bottom of the sea...
Let's get through these couple of wars...

Just go out and buy some shit...


Doesn't quite seem like we're driving into the future.