Squabbling Towards Autumn

 "Civilizations are born, often from the ruins of other civilizations. Like living organisms, they experience growth, maturity, old age and death."

                                                                                                              Neanderthal

America, and the West in general, are aging. We have past middle age and are moving towards the golden years. I don't mean to say that the age of the population is increasing, though that is true as well. We are not the same nation we were during WWII, where facing a threat to our nation, we mobilized the entire nation and became the biggest force in defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Fast forward to 2020, facing a pandemic that caused a draconian lock down in China, the West and the U.S., in particular, felt into disarray. Not only did our central and local governments performed very poorly, the population in general have also behaved erratically. The country that fought and won WWII had grown old. Today, neither our government or our people are capable of sacrificing short term pain for longer term gains. When the enemy, in the form of a pandemic, shows up, we are incapable of compromising across the political isles to fight it. We are incapable of helping our most vulnerable citizens to halt the spread of the disease. Even something so basic such as wearing a mask in public or shutting down the state to prevent the spread, have met with resistance, sometimes with citizens armed to the teeth. Covid parties, where young people intentionally infect themselves, have endangered the attendees and their family members. In WWII, many went to war knowing that they might not come back. Today, with the basic template of recovery laid out by the Chinese, the South Koreans and others, we, as a nation, have avoided doing the hard things, the only known ways to move us out of Covid-19, things like lock down, testing and isolation and treating the sick. Instead of being asked to sacrificing their lives like our war veterans, what was asked of us today is some inconvenience and short term economic pain. What we spent our energy doing instead is finger pointing. We blamed the Chinese, even though they have told us, by their words and their actions, about Covid for a good month and a half to two months and we have taken no action. We blamed the WHO, who was doing a very difficult job and should be our resources in a time like this. We blamed Dr. Fauci, who did the best he could under restrain from an administration that advocated injecting bleach and UV lights into the body to stop the virus. We even blamed Bill Gates, who use his own organization and money to help combat the spread of diseases all over the world.  

Covid-19 is an event that will end someday. The America that have shown to be so wanting during this crisis will need to turn ourselves around to maintain our place in the world. I am pessimistic that we are up to the task. Most likely, we will fall as an empire, just like the other empires in the past. In the next few posts, I will outline the factors that lead to this decline.