THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

NEWS FLASH: TOMORROW IS COMING ANYWAY | 2004-08-21

During a catastrophe, a sane man thinks: 1) What do we have left? and 2) What can we do in this new situation?

During a catastrophe, what does a sane man do about the people running around in circles screaming, "All is lost!"? Does he sympathize with them? Does he say they are good folks and try to persuade them there is hope? Or does he go ahead and deal with the problem in front of him while he waits for the panicky people to stop wetting their pants and follow his example?

The only time a brave person has while the panickers are running around screaming is to do his job. When it comes to the people running around screaming, all he has time for is a quick slap in the face.

Whitaker Online is constant slap in the face to the "All is lost!" crowd. In the meantime, us grownups have work to do.

If we stop shrieking and start thinking, we will realize that a lot of the "Oh, God, all is lost!" problems will solve themselves.

For example, right wingers whine, "What about the growing minority vote? We are being OVERWHELMED! Oh, all is lost, all is lost!"

Votes are critical in a democracy. But there has never been a multiracial democracy in all of history and there never will be. In Iraq Saddam Hussein's minority took the helm. In Yugoslavia Tito's Serb minority took over.

We are being overwhelmed by minorities. So our future will not be democratic.

The group that called itself the Greatest Generation said it Saved the World and lost it. The group that calls itself the Greatest Generation declared that it saved democracy and lost it. That is the tomorrow their moral cowardice left us, and that is the world we will have to live in.