The movie isn't really all that good. Faye Dunaway never did anything for me and Robert Redford is a Liberal Wienie who claims environmental credentials and then builds ski resorts in pristine canyons.
But this scene is a great one for those of us in the tin foil hat crowd. It was prescient in a manner few films show. The population growth and the frenetic rates of natural resource extraction during the last thirty years have set the stage to where the "Higginses" of the world will have greater and greater impact. The lumpen here in the US is going to start to see some shortages and pain in the next while. Some folks see the crisises beginning now, I see the game beginning in four to six years.
The sad part about it is that it is inevitable. This bald statement makes me unamerican in the most fundamental way. We have built the mythos of the American as a "can-do" positive mental attitude society who change the world to what they wish. According to this mythos, Americans are not subject to the dead hand of the past, our special relationship with God allows us to operate outside of the past.
History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."
-- Mark Twain
The words I think that we will be rhyming with are from three different stanzas:
- The Roman Empire under Diocletian and the crisis of the third century
- The Thirty Year's War
- The late Ming dynasty and the effects of the thoughts of Yangming Xiansheng
Since this is Memorial Day weekend, I am going to put off discussions of these until the next time. I have to wash clothes and get a barbeque ready. I trust that everyone will spend this weekend in a happy and productive manner, summer is almost here.
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