Love: It’s what Makes an America . . . America (Sorry Subaru)

We have been feeling both increasingly distressed, and then increasingly blessed over the past couple of weeks, as the pandemic moves into high gear, shutting down us, and much of the country. The distress is obvious, as COVID has begun dominating almost every aspect of life in America.  But the blessed part relates to the notion of people helping one another.

Personally, we live close to our daughter and her family. They have prevailed upon us to self-isolate. We are not ill, but we are of a seriously advanced age, 84 and 85. That makes us a special target of this nasty virus. So we wear protective gloves a lot, have largely stopped shopping, except when we can buy online and then have a drive-by pickup. But that method doesn’t begin to complete our shopping. So, our daughter has stepped in to buy as much of our weekly produce as possible. And then neighbors also stepped in to buy a number of items we forgot about with our daughter’s & grandkids’ shopping expeditions.

And what this all brings me to is the thought that the only way our world—humankind writ broadly—will be able to survive this pandemic is to begin changing our attitude towards one another. If all nations began acting like our neighbors and our family, we might be able to get through this mess and come out the other end as truly civilized human beings.

I think, for example, of our President and his PR team (Fox Fake News) labeling the Corona virus the “China virus”. He says he is just being “accurate”, since that is where the virus first made itself known to the world.  Then we have Iran wherein some idiots have decided that the US created this virus, so I guess they will be calling it the America virus.  Russia is hiding its version of the pandemic, but Putin is probably blaming it on Hillary, or Hunter Biden.

And my point here is that we need to stop this foolishness.  We all know technically and factually that China, or Russia or the CIA here DID NOT CREATE THE CORONA VIRUS! We know that.  The only reason we publically assign blame to someone or some nation is because we are all trying to maintain a position of power. Here, Trump is catering to his faithful supporters. He desperately wants to avoid blame for mishandling the crisis, because that would get in the way of his re-election.  In China, in Iran, in Russia or wherever, the same phenomenon adheres. If blame is being laid onto someone else, then that act is all about retaining power.  Trump, unfortunately, is someone who practices the blame-game routinely. Nothing is ever his fault. Everything positive is always because of his acts, his brilliant mind.   As long as Trump remains in power, this blame-game method of functioning will continue. It is who he is, and how he has always functioned.

The world may be entering a new stage of global functioning, one we humans have never before seen. Perhaps the dinosaurs observed something similar after that asteroid struck and began the annihilation of all dinosaurs. But we assume they did not understand what they were witnessing. Hopefully we have a better understanding of catastrophic events. Perhaps as never before, we may need an entirely new way of global government interactions.

After World War II, some of the world governments recognized that nations working together stood a better chance of avoiding the worst effects of human political stupidity (think Holocaust, think nuclear Armageddon)  if the world’s nations worked together in kind of a United Nations approach. I know, I know, that didn’t last all that long. How long was it between the ending of WW II and Korea . . . and then Vietnam???  Not nearly long enough.

But, for some reason, we thought we could compartmentalize such wars. Yes, we invited some of our global friends to participate, but still, we never got to an all-out global war.  Now, this pandemic cannot be compartmentalized. It has already struck nearly every place on the globe. For countries not yet infected, the operative word is NOT YET.  Russia is currently in denial, but Russia will look like all of the other countries sooner rather than later.  The virus does not respect borders, or relative global power. Nuclear bombs will not affect its behavior. Vlad the Impaler cannot order it to cease its nasty work in Russia, any more than Donald Stupidhead can order it away.  It takes no orders yet from anyone.  Perhaps, eventually, Mother Nature will intervene the way she always does for better or worse.

But it seems most likely that we, HUMANKIND may need to begin a new world order, one in which global leaders speak with greater respect to one another, if only to preserve their respective global domains.  If we don’t quit the blame-game and begin adopting some cooperative approaches to resolving the pandemic, sharing solutions, sharing technology, even sharing equipment, vaccines, etc., then perhaps we are the next dinosaurs.

At every corner of our globe, the people of the world need to begin standing up to flawed leaders and begin demanding that their countries work together, even if that means new leaders everywhere, as it surely does here. We need people with high intelligence, and people with a moral code that operates to preserve humanity rather than destroying it.

It isn’t complicated folks. We either band together to preserve humanity, or we all disappear together. Think of your kids and grandkids folks. This is no laughing matter. We need to stop killing each other. Stop calling names. Stop pretending that there are easy answers to complex problems. Bring in some intelligent people.

And that may well mean voting appropriately this November. Vote as though your very lives depended on it. Because, they do, they do.