While gazing out my back window, watching my two grand kiddies playing happily in the back yard, their faces lit with an immeasurable joy, seemingly without a care in the world ?

I began to wonder, what sort of legacy we'll be leaving the many generatons yet to come ?

With burgeoning debts and a european liquidity crisis; both here, the US, and the EUC.

The proliferation of global violence perpetrated not only on religious grounds, border disputes, leadership challenges, together with political dislocation and churlishness...?

The apparent slow-down in the jobs market, where many (well qualified) job seekers now, need to leave their home and enduring friendships, and travel immense distances, in order to obtain suitable employment.

Further Education, once relatively accessable, is now much more costly and difficult to gain admission. And with many experts from the Science of Pedagogy now accusing the educationalist, (these architects of the school curriculum), for the 'dumbing down' of many of the vital academic subjects, such as Maths, English and other important Science based subjects. So much so, Australia has now slipped well down the ranking of academic excellence, compared to a number of these hitherto, third world countries, where students there, excell in Maths, the Sciences and similar important academic subjects.

And finally Sport. Once, something to be very much admired, now taking a much higher profile on the world stage, not for exhibiting physical excellence and achievement, rather that of scandals, huge money discrepancies, dishonesty and rorting, fraud, and finally, performance enhancing drugs...?

Indeed ? Just what sort of legacy will we be leaving, for the many generations to come ?

I have both hope and fears old mate.
We lived in different era, not always better or worse but different.
We however had *Mateship* it is not yet clear that the country still has it.
ME the self interested generations is in control now.
But lets have a go at answering you.
My thoughts are set and I think war is coming,but hope I am wrong.
The African continent is about to see many Mali,s and that may bring bigger wars.
Every war brings more terrorist so unfortunately more of that too.
I have no real idea but am glad to have lived in my Australia.
Will watch in interest as the thread develops

Dear o sung wu,

We're got a world that's already overburdened
with social and economic problems.

What we need is social processes that develop and change
over time under the influence of government policies and
popular pressures.

I guess what I'm trying to say, is what I've stated in
the past - Whether we choose to destroy our civilisation
or save it it is a collective decision and one that
hopefully may well be made within our lifetimes.

If we can divert unprecedented energy and resources
to the real
problems that face us, including poverty, disease,
overpopulation, injustice, oppression, and the
devastation of our natural environment. We may yet
leave a worthy legacy for those who come after us.

We can only hope and trust that our ultimate choice will be
to enhance the life on this bright and lovely planet on
which billions of us share our adventure and not destroy
it.

However, I'm not too optimistic. Historically, new ideas
instead of being welcome for the opportunities they open
up for the improvement of the human lot have often been
seen as threats to those who've become comfortable in their
ideologies. Ignorance and vested interests are powerful
forces.

Does anyone seriously care about our "legacy"?
I don't, I'll raise my kids and then sooner or later die, what they and their successors do is of no interest to me.
The Depression/WW2 generation certainly didn't care about securing their their children's future or their protecting their heritage for that matter, they survived their purgatory in the '30's, fought the "good" war and then put their feet up and let the country fall to thieves and demagogues. Succeeding generations though full of big talk ,have until the tentative moves of last five years refused to take any concrete steps to secure the existence of their people and a future for their children. Nostalgia aside it's an undeniable fact that the last generation of Europeans who were capable of mass action in their own interests were the generation born around 1890.

Great topic o sung, so off with the rose coloured glasses, & look at the real story.

The west was built by men on low wages. Men got enough for food & rent on a four room house, & not much else.

Mum stayed home, but had lots of work to do. Mine made our clothes, sheets, pillow slips, curtains, & sewed up the material to recover an old lounge dad repaired & covered. There was no thought of owning a house or car, it was not even on the horizon.

Disability was covered by family, & even into the early 70s unemployment benefits were enough for plain food, if you camped free in a tent somewhere. It is a nice dream we can keep everyone comfortable, but not a possibility.

So sorry Lexi, poverty is something we can all share if we so desire, but can not alleviate for everybody. People will have to do it for themselves, or it won't be done. Trying to keep the so called disadvantaged in a style that a family struggles to achieve, with both adults working 24/7 is just not possible. This is Grease, Spain etc.

You talk about the devastation of our natural environment, but sweety, what else is there to use. If you want everyone housed beautifully, fed well, & given the best medical treatment possible, you ain't seen nothing yet. We are going to have to rape that environment brutally, to get all this out of it, for the entire population.

I'll bet the people of Grease now wish they had not been led into an indolent & useless lifestyle, by a mixture of kindness & political expedience.

Continued.

Continued.
Yes o sung, violence is a real problem. To stop it, we will have to make punishment so severe that the perpetrator will not want a second dose. That or lock them up until they are too damn old to cause any trouble.

Education is where I believe you have it back to front. Part of our problem is too much education, but of lousy quality.

When I was a kid, if you wanted a university education you had to get a scholarship. We'd be better off there again. Today we have even below average kids in bachelor of science courses, & they graduate. Tells you how much use that "Environmental Science" bit of paper really is, & so many others even more useless.

Of course government will hire them, give them an in & out tray, & waste taxpayer time & money stamping bits of paper.

Today we have highrise towers of bureaucrats, who have spent 4 years, mostly at taxpayer expense, getting an arts degree. Most of what they will do required an intermediate certificate education, & no more. Without that degree we could pay them less too. What idiots are we.

That intermediate certificate was all a kid needed to do a trade, including electrical, which needs math. Today, after an extra couple of years, they need a remedial math course to do that. Why this stupidity of 2 extra years for nothing? To hide unemployment, by keeping kids in school, when they'd rather be earning.

Back then they worked 5 days, & studied at night, making them almost worth having. If you needed a trench you used an apprentice with a pick & shovel, not a contractor with a back hoe.

We didn't have over-educated primary school teachers, after a 4 year university course. We sent them off to a teachers college for 2 years, then put them to work. It probably only needs a 6 month course to train one, but it did get them to grow up a little I suppose, there was a lot of wild oates sown at those teachers colleges.