So, what are we to do?
This is a familiar question to opinion writers. Translation: You’ve told us what’s wrong with everything — and we agree. But, what’s the action plan?
Ah. The action plan. I hoped you’d never ask.
A reader recently wrote three of us Washington Post columnists along these lines: “I feel your frustration and fear,” she wrote, “but what are we to do to counter the insanity besides exercise our right to vote, express our opinions and make monetary contributions?”
Excellent question. Would that someone could answer it.
In such times, I turn to my personal wizard, Van Wishard, whom I’ve introduced in a previous column. A retired trend analyst, Wishard can’t stop his fertile mind from examining the problems of our age. To all questions, his answer is “globalization.” Nothing can be fixed or stopped, he says, until we come to terms with globalization as a profound psychological issue, not just a matter of economics or immigration patterns.
In one of his highly distilled observations, he wonders (but isn’t predicting) whether this may be our last election for a while. To Americans who already feel voiceless, their votes virtually meaningless as political parties seek to override their votes, this idea won’t much surprise them. Rather, they likely have already begun to feel resigned to a country no longer their own and a world that’s out of control.
