Malaise

Don’t you feel it? It’s all around us.

Everywhere.

At the mall.

When you’re at a restaurant with your family.

When you’re watching your kids play soccer on Saturday morning.

About the only place I don’t feel it is at church on Sunday morning. Maybe that should be a clue about what’s missing in our country today.

It really hit me last week when I was shopping for the kids at a neo-surburban mall in town. You know, the mall that was in fashion 20 years ago before the McMansion-villes sprouted out of nowhere outside of town demanding the latest fashionable outdoor New-Urbanist shopping complex. I was walking through this mall last week, that, to the credit of the Owner, has modified its appearance and size and shopping options to keep up with its surroundings and still the malaise was almost oppressive. No joy. No smiles on anyone’s face. People walking around as zombies, simply going through the motions. I started to wonder what is the origin of this.

Is it that people are really worried, downright afraid of where this country is headed?

Are people worried about their job, their future, their kid’s future?

Are they worried about living under crushing personal, local, state and federal debt and taxes?

Could it be people are starting to regret the way they cast their vote last November?

Or is that they are in a state of disbelief, shell-shocked even, as one crisis after another appears in the so-called press, just waiting for the next national or global crisis to emerge.

The last two years have seen changes here and around the world that, a few years back, seemed unimaginable. It’s almost hard to think back and remember a time when we didn’t live in a state of crisis and turmoil, and for many, despair. I can’t believe that I’m going to write this but for all of their shenanigans, the Clinton years almost seem like Camelot compared to the last two. It seems like today, people have pushed ‘pause’, just waiting for any good news, any sign that this period of profound change and financial loss is over. Any sign that we’re done with this numbing pattern of the weekly crisis.

As I was walking through this mall I started to wonder what will it take to remove the cloud of malaise gripping this country. As this pace, it’s worthless to project 3 years out as this administration winds down its first [and hopefully only] term. Certainly nothing that has passed Congress in the past 5 months and nothing planned on the horizon will lift this cloud. In fact, if cap-and-trade and health care reform become law, this malaise may become permanent or morph into something our Founding Fathers could have never envisioned; raw, unbridled, unchallenged power at the federal level, unimaginable federal intrusion into our lives, suffocating the liberty and creativity of every individual in this country.

I’ve read on several websites this notion of the 4^th generation….the idea that every 4^th generation, or every 70-80 years, there is a great and systemic shift, here and abroad. Looking back over our country’s history this hypothesis seems to have merit.

1770s-80s: Revolutionary War and our country’s birth.

1860s: The American Civil War

1930s-40s: The Crash of 29/The Great Depression/WWII

2010s:?????

It’s becoming apparent that we are in another one of those periods of great change some 70 years after the end of WWII. We have a global financial crisis that shows little sign of improvement. A domestic housing crisis that may get worse before it gets better with many exotic mortgages still in the pipeline that have to reset leaving millions more underwater on their house. We have unrest brewing around the world; North Korea, Iran, Russia/Georgia, Honduras, the list goes on and on. Tyrants around the world are trying to obtain WMDs, hellbent on consolidating their own domestic power for a purpose that is still unclear. It seems, at least today, that we are headed towards another period of inevitable and prolonged global war and conflict.

And here at home we have an out-of-control Congress cramming down 1,200 page bills on a day’s notice, created by a small, secret, select group with no input from the rank-and-file and no opportunity for opposition input or revision. A President about whom we know very little, and what we do know (and that was buried by the MSM last fall) should cause grave concern in each and every American. A past filled with a steady stream of Marxist, communist, socialist and radical influences. To those aware of these, what’s happening today in this country, the policies, the consolidation of power, the nationalization of industries, the advance of the State and its intrusion into our lives should come as no surprise. Obama is no moderate. He is cut from the same cloth as Castro, as Chavez, as Morales, as Ortega. He is a red-diaper Leftist.

And this cloud of malaise produced by Leftists could only be the beginning of their nefarious plans.

I, for one, refuse to give into the malaise and the loss of hope that seems embedded in our current societal state. I believe, to quote Bush 43, that there are ‘evil-doers’ in this world. And I believe that there are domestic evil-doers that are running this government. Why else can you explain that every bill proposed and passed, every policy shift planned is the exact opposite that common, rational sense would suggest is needed to repair this country and get it moving in the right direction. I also believe that these evil-doers know they have a limited window to accomplish their coup for they know once the sleeping giant of the American masses awakes, their time in power will come to a quick and abrupt end.

I sense that people are waking up and information is slowly getting to the masses. I’ve made a commitment to assist. I joined the local Republican Party committee. I’ve started blogging. I’m connected to people on Facebook and Twitter. I’m using these social networking sites to post whatever information I find, whenever I find it to my friends, family, colleagues, whoever……in order to educate people and make them aware of what we’re up against. To the extent my wife allows it, everything we do is now political; conversation, actions, contributions. We are of the mindset that you are either with us or against us; with friends, with family, with colleagues.

And it’s been a long time coming.

It’s the way the Left has operated for over a generation. It’s what required to turn the tide against the evil doers. It’s what’s required to combat and prevent malaise. It’s what’s required to win back our country, our freedom, our liberty.

I ask you......What are you going to do combat:

Malaise.