EXPOSED

The pandemic…the sickness, over-crowded hospital emergency rooms, overworked and burned-out doctors and nurses, the daily fight to convince people that the vaccines are safe and work, the reality that 40% of Americans remain unvaccinated, the empty city office buildings, the empty commuter trains, crime in the subways and on the streets, more than three-quarters of a million deaths…is breaking America into pieces..

There is the endless anger, the way social media has become a trusted news source despite the endless flow of misinformation and disinformation making it a weapon of war, the sharp political divide heightened by confusion and uncertainty on the left and a fierce need to obstruct on the right, the battering of our elective democracy by people who don’t respect it but admire authoritarians either through need, belief or stupidity, always the racial conflict and the class conflict often intertwined – poor and powerless vs wealthy and powerful, the wokeness of progressives against the views of moderates using slogans that mask or distort the real need for change..

And yet if we take a longer historical view, the pandemic- a climate-born illness in our view – is a viral irritant, a two and a half year stimulant to all of this instability and the sometimes vicious exposure of our differences.

But more than that, the pandemic has torn the veil from weaknesses in critical areas that we either choose to ignore or refuse to accept – weaknesses that bring into question whether we are the ultimate World power that we have been.

THE HISTORIC VIEW

The American creative geniuses of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Carnegie, Ford, Edison and Bell helped set the industrial tone for a country that had depended upon agriculture to establish its growing power among nations.

Now with the arrival of an increasing number of European immigrants who were welcomed for the labor America needed, the country began developing an industrial power unknown throughout the World.

It would come to full flower during the years of World War II where America fought in Europe and Asia – an impossible task without that industrial might.

Every industry joined the war effort based on the recognition by Roosevelt’s cabinet that industrial corporations would be supportive if they made money in the process; everyone would turn to their industry into manufacturing ships, planes, artillery, munitions in amounts never seen before.

Everyone worked: women, ‘Negroes”, factory workers, miners, everyone joined the war effort in a national patriotism unknown until that time. Everyone worked. Everyone made money and American power was unmatched.

After the war, America’s industries returned to peacetime manufacturing. We made everything…everything. From large and small kitchen and home appliances and furnishings to clothing for the whole family…Pharma made the medicines we needed… we made cameras and film and the world’s first television sets…we made cars and boats and sporting equipment and all the agriculture that could be produced in the climate this nation embodied.

The World noticed because war-torn nations in Europe and Asia needed help…needed exactly what America and only America, could provide.

And so began the practice that turned America’s industrial might an economic delight that resulted in the development of America’s middle class…where working people could afford private homes and education for their families.

It was simple really. A country needed goods but could not afford to pay for them. America would lend that friendly nation money and that money would be used to buy American goods.

The 20th Century became the American century.

TWENTY MILLION CONTAINERS

What does America produce today that we need, that the World wants?

Not much. Some wheat. Some soybeans. Munitions and armaments.

Our agriculture produces seasonally and now the World sells us theirs too.

And fundamentally that’s it.

And so today we face a world-wide supply shortage due to supply chain troubles. The American ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, California cannot offload 20 million containers sitting on massive cargo ships for weeks in an endless line just waiting.

What is apparent is that the $19 trillion shipping business is in trouble.

With crew members on those massive cargo ships stuck for weeks on end, with port workers overwhelmed by empty containers that clog the shoreline and with truckers sitting for hours in endless lines. Much needs to be done to fix what is essentially a labor problem made worse by the pandemic triggering it all.

But for Americans what is most glaring is that we have become dependent on China not only because we have borrowed trillions from them to buy their goods (sound familiar?) but that becoming a service nation and not a productive one has made us vulnerable in ways we have never known before…but we definitely know now.

Inflation is caused by many variables but the chief one is lots of purchasing power and a limited supply of goods always results in higher prices. And we are seeing them every day in every way.

Like Covid-19 this will not go away easily or soon. Economic pressure like this always results in political pressure which will soon become severe.

POLARIZING

For the first time in a generation America is no longer in a foreign war. Instead we seem to be going to war against ourselves.

All of this coming at a difficult time. The country is literally fighting a disease that will not go away and at the same time fighting against itself because of Covid.

This war against the disease and ourselves literally began during its outbreak in the middle of the Trump Administration. According to one of his chief economists, Larry Kudlow, Trump asked him how the Stock Market was doing every single time they met.

As the Market continued to climb during his administration, Trump was convinced it was the measure of his success. It was that mindset that led him to significantly and continuously downplay the seriousness of Covid-19 even though he knew full well how serious it was and was quoted as saying so…a quote he never denied.

As his administration pushed successfully for the development of the very vaccines that are now saving lives, Trump was busy selling his feeling that it was no more severe than the flu.

And so began the unending fight to safely vaccinate America led by new President Joe Biden…A fight that will never end.

The Democrats revealed that weakness when they made Hillary Clinton their Presidential nominee twice. Then they made former Governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe their nominee to run again for Governor this year.

McAuliffe ran a sloppy, noisy campaign which reached its low point when he claimed parents shouldn’t be having their say about the education of their children. And now a Republican is Governor giving the party great hope for 2022.

While pundits look into the States where Biden won handily and see Republicans leading in Congressional races due in 2022, we look into the Democratic Party led now by an earnest, decent guy 79 years old, and see not a single name that comes to mind to lead it…and certainly not a group of leaders.

Looking into the Republican Party for a leader or leaders we only see Donald J. Trump. There are some others who can make a claim if Trump decides he has had enough of game playing…but among Democrats we see no one.

There is nothing wrong with the struggle between Democratic progressives and its moderates. Bernie Sanders, chief architect of the progressive movement, can’t help it if his young admirers espouse the right things but in all the wrong ways…and all in the name of wokeness. He did nothing to improve America’s educational failures over his long career and now sees the result.

And so as we carefully get together this Thanksgiving and worry more about the arguments that may ensue than whether the expensive turkey will be moist, all we can say with hope and good cheer is that this land of the fee and home of the rave, still draws the World in need to it… and remembering that no matter what…. Happy Thanksgiving.