JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A PERFECT STORM BREWING IN AMERICA? A MISMANAGED PANDEMIC – ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL TURMOIL – GREAT UNREST OVER SOCIAL INJUSTICE AND SEVERE ECONOMIC INEQUALITY – INCOMPETENT AND UNCARING GOVERNMENT – BUSY WITH THE BUSINESS OF HURTING AND DESTROYING OTHERS RATHER THAN FIXING ANYTHING – SOME THOUGHTS ON THE CORONAVIRUS AND THE FUTURE OF OUR SOCIETY – COMPARING ASIA TO THE WEST

John Chuckman


COMMENT: UNCERTAIN TIMES FOR AMERICA


World-record numbers of infections and deaths and a sudden new strong upsurge in them, both due to incompetent management of the nation’s affairs; associated massive economic and financial disorder with deliberately-induced trade wars and illegal sanctions magnifying the insecurity of the  world’s economy; unhappy large-scale demonstrations across the nation over past and present injustices; and deteriorating relations with the world, including both friends and opponents – those about sum up America’s current situation.

All of this comes to an extremely polarized American society, one where no one of any conviction or belief can say anything without generating waves of hostile criticism and sarcasm. Technology has magnified the reach and impact of the most thoughtless and inconsequential views, the kind of views which many years ago might have been limited to a few schoolyard insults of scribbled graffiti. So traditionally straightforward a matter as wearing a protective mask has become weighed down in vicious arguments, name-calling, and even fistfights.

At the heart of many of the divisions in American society is the stark reality of just how frighteningly unequal it has become through reckless government policies around matters of taxation and debt and military spending, much resembling France in the 18th century.

The pandemic has highlighted that stark reality, as have the demonstrations over a long history of grave injustices. There is a palpable sense of the heartlessness of American society, its lack of empathy. And that sense is not mistaken. It is a society so dedicated to Social Darwinism that it does not have a national healthcare system and embraces guns and war almost as though they were religious experiences.

America’s government – all major parts of it - commits large resources and a great deal of time to such matters as maligning and attacking China or Russia or Iran and attempting to overthrow countries like Venezuela or Cuba or Syria, not focusing its attention on deadly serious problems of health and economics and its own civil society. It is almost a public confession of godawful government, government ready to dedicate resources to destroying others rather than fixing anything at home.

These are indeed uncertain times for America. The only certainty about the outcome is a great deal of unhappiness ahead. These events could well become the perfect storm for extreme civil disorder, civil war or revolutionary uprising. People who have been made to feel they have no stake or importance in society can become very desperate people.

I never imagined such conditions arising in America, a place that for the decades of my lifetime has pretty well floated along like a cloud, the occasional thunderstorm disturbing, but not seriously threatening, the stability.

This is a country that continued the pointless, truly vicious war in Vietnam for a decade, suffering only one period of civil strife over the rising death rate for American conscripts. It continued until it had killed 3 million Vietnamese, a million Cambodians, and created a landscape from hell with poisons and explosives left behind that would continue killing for decades. But, except for a brief time, the music never really died in America.

And it somewhat repeated the performance with the brutal, meaningless Neocon Wars in the Middle East. It has destroyed several well-run societies, killed a few million souls, created many millions of refugees, and continues killing today. Because there were no conscripts involved in the more recent wars, there was virtually no opposition to them in American society.

But the uncertainties around a rapidly-growing disease, rapidly-growing economic and financial turbulence, social disorder based on a long history of injustice, a terribly inept national government serving only the rich and influential, an entire world affected, and the insane insistence and waste of resources on the effort to have America dominate the planet, when it cannot even run its own society – these constitute an extraordinary set of circumstances, and I think no one can safely predict the outcome.


NOTES ON THE CORONAVIRUS AND OUR FUTURE SOCIETY

Some facts we have learned about the virus suggest the possibility we may not be able to control it completely without the tremendous economic cost of adopting new ways of living. Immunities to the virus, as in recovered patients, only last a limited time, a couple of months, and you can be infected more than once. The virus continues to mutate and, already in the recent past, produced a stronger strain.

Even if a good vaccine is discovered – and all major countries are working on candidates almost on a Manhattan Project-like basis – we have the unholy attitude against vaccination which has taken fierce hold in many Western countries, almost a kind of mass hysteria.

We see the same thing around so simple a measure as wearing a protective mask, which is intended to protect not just the wearer but others near him or her. Serious study has shown that wearing a mask is the single most effective measure a person can take, yet a great many actually view such a reasonable measure as a form of tyranny. It is a very revealing attitude concerning a society’s empathy and willingness to make just the slightest sacrifice for the common good.

It is notable that societies like China or Vietnam do not have those problems, and it is not a matter of their governments using armed force against citizens. It is simply a greater intuitive acceptance of social responsibility. I think it does suggest something about those likely to inherit the earth.