He began his missive by harkening back to the halcyon days of the Civil Rights movement and contrasted the spirit of that age with the “…sense of hopelessness so many Americans have been feeling as the nation is confronted with one enormous and seemingly intractable problem after another. The helplessness is beginning to border on paralysis.” He points out, fairly enough that the country remains sunk in “…the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.” He hits the nail squarely on the head, moreover, when he remarks, “The government’s finances resemble a Ponzi scheme.”
Herbert begins skating on thin ice, however, when he attempts to address the causes of the current discontents and the public response to the unpleasantness. He says, “Americans have tended to watch with a remarkable and frightening degree of passivity as crises of all sorts have gripped the country and sent millions of lives into tailspins.” Herbert then returns to those thrilling days of yesteryear, stating, “Where people once might have deluged their elected officials with complaints, marched for social justice, and created brand new civic organizations to fight for things they believed in, the tendency now is to assume that there is little or nothing ordinary individuals can do about the conditions that plague them.”
