There's an old saying among four wheelers: "The better the four wheel drive, the farther from civilization you are when it finally breaks down." The corollary to that in Capitalism is "The more successful a manufacturing company, the more community wide disaster there is when the company finally stops competing there."

Whole communities. Decades of structure, and generations of working families building their ties together; all around the livelihood of making something. And then it just gets pulled out from under the entire community (either in major portion, or all together).

But that's just the way it is with Capitalism. Disruption, though quite a motivator for competition, is by definition a significant shaking up of things. And especially with hyper technology thrown into the mix now. And the really sad part is that all of that generational knowledge gathered into people, and structure, is still there. Still able to make things. Just not with the currently valued efficiency the world demands. And in letting that structural whole wither, and crumble away is a true crime social equity, and common sense. Of the highest degree.

That kind of whole, in case you have forgotten, is what swung from making cars, to making bombers, in very short order, I might add, for usual human institutions. And I say that not in the sense that we're likely to need mass produced bombers again, but in the sense that something else might crop up critical, and needed in significant quantities.

The problem is none of our political leadership, or our political structure for that matter, is ready to accept the fact that humanity as a whole is facing a World War 2 crisis. The enemy here isn't a Fascist despot, or an Imperial power, but survival itself. Between an ever increasing global population, decreasing resources, and ever more extreme weather, we are between the proverbial rock, and a hard place, but with the water rising rapidly. And though things aren't truly desperate yet overall, the time for that approaches. This when our focus should be nation wide mobilization to begin the many, long lead time developments, that will give us the flexibility, to lead the rest of the world in getting our species through this. As opposed to the "government as reality TV show" we have now.

If you do not understand this yet you are either: 1. Willfully ignorant. 2. Profitably anesthetized. 3. An idiot. or 4. You just don't care anymore.

It is my hope; my faith, that the majority of us are still none of these.

JANESVILLE: AN AMERICAN STORY