We Americans can organize to fight a war against another nation. But we don’t seem to be able to organize to deal with problems like economic inequality, global warming. the mistreatment of the seven hated groups: the not-white, not-male, not-Christian, not-heterosexual, not-well-to-do, not-native-born, and the disabled.
We have done very well at organizing to explore space and to exploit the technologies that have come from that effort. We have done very well at fighting disease and public health risks. Medicare and Medicaid helped millions for decades but things seem to be slipping.
For a time, we did well at making college education affordable. I went to college in the 50’s and when I graduated I owed $2,000. I had the aid of scholarships, jobs before and after classes, and playing pool for money at night. I did borrow some money from the government to pay for my housing in advance and for tuition for my classes. But all that has gone away. Our education system is a disaster. It hurts the lives of millions of Americans when it should help them.
We polluted our planet for years but we didn’t know it. But when we found out the awful truth, we didn’t stop polluting.
So, now that the ICPP report has told us that we have 32 years to make difficult and sweeping changes to the ways we power homes and businesses, transport people and goods, and all the rest of our energy-dependent entities, the life-or-death question is “Who will save us from ourselves?” Who will command the resources needed to make changes in our way of life. Who can do it?
The Federal government, which ordinarily takes the lead role in war, exploration of frontiers, combating disease, and the like, is dysfunctional to the point of paralysis, and it is getting worse by the day. It is doubtful that it will ever be able to get its act together. The Framers warned us that our government contained a fatal flaw and they told us that they could not fix it. They told us that future generations, not the founding generation, would have to fix it, and if they could not or would not, the nation would be destroyed. As I look around, it is clear that our flawed system is verging on collapse.
So, what national institution will save us from ourselves? Will it be the news media, our colleges, the military, the fossil fuel industry, the NIH, the EPA, the television networks, the NFL, Homeland Security, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, our major religions? As things stand now, I can’t see how any of these entities will be able to do what needs to be done.
I have been worried about America’s future before. I remember when the USSR exploded its first atomic bomb. I was fearful. I asked my father what should we do? He said that the only thing we could do at that time was hope that Stalin would drop dead and be replaced by a sensible man. He did die, but the sensible man did not appear in Russia until Mikhail Gorbachev decades later. Now we seem to be restarting the nuclear arms race.
I was scared during the Cuban Missile Crisis when JFK was president. But he forced the Reds to blink and pull out of Cuba. Stability, of a precarious kind, ensued but now has gone away. Now Instability appears to be new international order.
Now I feel hopeless about America’s future and the future of the world. Nobody seems to even be focusing on the main problem. You know that in life the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. And in life the main thing is survival. I won’t live long enough to see global warming vent its rage in full, but I may see it bring on disasters that have heretofore been unknown to our species. Our descendants are headed into hell and their parents either cannot or will not do anything to save them from it.
So, who will save us from ourselves?