Tracking trends

Dec. 31, 2000 - A paradox of the human condition is that our experience and
knowledge are based entirely on the past, yet our visions and decisions deal
entirely with the future. Nonetheless, the study of powerful trends is
helpful in suggesting likely future scenarios. We ignore these at our peril.
History is replete with warnings of readily foreseeable disasters ignored.
Trends in the gathering storm category that I think will be important in the
year ahead include:

- - The mindnumbing venality of this country's leadership - public and private
sector alike. We've only begun to witness the breadth and depth of the
public's cynicism about politicians, corporate executives, lawyers, judges,
doctors, educators, entertainers (athletes included) and other public
figures. "Big-business integrity is an oxymoron" is a sentiment I hear
expressed ever more frequently.

- - Slowing of the long-running U.S. economic boom. Cyclical economic ups and
downs are as predictable as sunrise and sunset. Moreover, there are too many
overvalued companies (albeit not as many as a year ago), too much overvalued
real estate, too much corporate and personal debt, too many hot spots around
the globe capable of exploding, all with potentially huge adverse worldwide
economic impacts.

- - One out of 140 Americans are in prison. These numbers now exceed that of
any other country in the world. The supposed land of the free has become the
ultimate police state. And half this prison population is comprised of
non-violent, victimless drug offenders, a consequence of the ever-more
futile and destructive drug war. Believing themselves profoundly wronged by
a profoundly hypocritical society, this large and rapidly growing group is a
ticking societal time bomb.

- - Systematic trashing of civil rights and escalating use of terror tactics
by police. Police of every ilk, from New York to Los Angeles and all points
in between, are engaged in law enforcement practices that make a mockery of
the Constitution.

- - Conversely, a positive trend so powerful it could ultimately overcome all
problems is the rebirth of the American spirit. The more such challenges
become evident, the more obvious it becomes how much we've been coasting,
living off the past, mortgaging the future.

Thomas Jefferson warned us that the price of liberty was eternal vigilance.
It's high time for us as a united people to dedicate our lives, our fortunes
and our sacred honor to reasserting the magnificent ideals of our
magnificent country. In my law practice, among friends, in news items buried
in the back pages, I see scattered but encouraging signs this is happening.

One example is a client who, based on a particularly harrowing recent
experience in Mexico, now views his life, and his country, in a new and
vastly more positive light - and is acting on these realizations. Another is
a report that almost 90 percent of Americans claim a spiritual (if not
necessarily religious) dimension is important in their lives - up from
slightly over half 15 years ago, with sales of books on the subject many
times what they were just a few years ago.