The war in Ukraine rumbles on with no resolution in sight, people dying every day, billions being spent every month, every day another fool in the west making a stupid claim about Putin wanting peace.
The slaughter goes on in Gaza, and I certainly have no ideas about how to fix the underlying mess; meanwhile the Assad government continues to bomb civilians in Syria without anybody much caring, the mullahs in Iran have ridden out another attempt to oust them or at least get their attention, the civil war in Yemen has reached a sinister stalement, there are multiple active coups in Africa, Venezuela has threatened to annex most of Guyana, and governments across the globe are spending more on weapons "due to the increasingly severe security environment."
The oppression in China has ratcheted up to the point where a man with a small-time cooking show was attacked for posting a video about cooking fried rice too close to November 25, the anniversary of the death of Mao Zedong's son. The chain needed to link this video to anti-government activity has about a dozen links in it, but that is China in this hour.
And in the good places to live in Asia – Japan, South Korea, Taiwan – the birth rate has fallen to civilization-threatening levels.
American politics are ugly, but it's hard to put your finger on why; the actual policy differences between the parties are minimal, and campaigns are waged over symbols whose significance often eludes me. Mainly it seems to be about how much we hate each other. Asked what they want, voters often suggest things the Federal government simply can't do – affordable housing in cities, an end to homelessness, a reversal of all the price increases over the past four years, an end to inequality, respect for rural people, and end to police violence – or else things it has actually already done, like ramp up spending to fight climate change and trying to promote American manufacturing. By most objective measures America is thriving, but half the country seems to believe we are worse off than ever.
The number of people who have simply opted out of reality seems to be very large, although it's hard to tell, and also hard to gauge the significance of.
Looking forward, I don't see things improving much. I can't see any end to the war in Ukraine, or to the Israel/Palestine disaster. American politics will only get uglier as the election approaches. None of the awful regimes in the world seems likely to fall, or to get much better.
You all know that I try to be optimistic; my own life is going fine, and as I said it looks to me like America is doing fine, too. But there are a lot of dark clouds out there.
3 comments:
Asked what they want, voters often suggest things the Federal government simply can't do – affordable housing in cities, an end to homelessness, a reversal of all the price increases over the past four years, an end to inequality, respect for rural people, and end to police violence.
Things like "respect for rural people" are nebulous, but plenty of what you list is concrete and eminently possible.
The Federal government built the Interstate system, basically all of our National Parks, tens of thousands of bridges and roadways that are still vital nearly a century later, along with dams, hospitals, schools, airports, and even homes.
The Federal government has plenty of power to enact the kind of national legislation necessary to address a number of these problems.
New federal housing laws could mandate increases in public housing in cities all across the country; and could likewise establish federal minimum requirements for how cities address homelessness. If cities themselves don't want to cooperate, federal funding could be budgeted directly, and eminent domain could be employed to secure land.
Reversing recent price increases might be beyond the federal government - but increasing the national minimum wage to counteract said rising prices absolutely is not. The entire point of the minimum wage is to ensure that the poorest Americans are able to make ends meet when prices increase, and yet we've neglected to increase the minimum wage in proportion with costs of living over time.
"An end to inequality" is very poorly defined, but at the very least, reforms to federal taxes are perfectly possible. Tax corporations and the rich more heavily, and use those funds on public works and the public good across the nation. Inequality WILL NOT go away on its own - active redistribution is fundamentally required.
As for police abuses, this one is perhaps the most straightforward of all - restrict or even revoke qualified immunity for police. It is wildly unpopular, and is entirely federal in nature.
All of these things are in the federal government's power to act upon - they simply choose not to.
You forgot that the far right and petty nationalism is on rampage in Europe. And the world is getting hit badly by the climate change…
Nothing good ahead.
Even the Netherlands. The Netherlands!! We are beyond hope.
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