The current “reality” that the United States is largely ignoring is that it has re-elected one of the worst people in human history.
Will there be a price to be paid? To be sure, though it’s too early to know exactly what that price will be.
Here’s a piece of wisdom from Noam Chomsky.
As Arthur C. Clarke put it shortly before his death, “I try to be optimistic, because both optimism and pessimism are self-fulfilling prophecies.”
The reader who sent this question posed at left provided his one-word answer: Greed.
I’m afraid he’s right. As Socrates said, “All wars are about money.” And as our annual military budget gets ever closer to $1 trillion, all that cash needs a home, normally in proxy wars that are being fought all around the globe.
Of course, greed has horrific effects that push far beyond actual military hardware and personnel. Consider climate change as an example. Big Oil and its investors are profiting enormously from their actions that are warming our planet causing loss of land masses, droughts, fires, desertification, floods, loss of biodiversity, and ocean acidification. This, as our generals and admirals are aware, is in the process of creating huge national security issues as climate refugees are forced to emigrate from their homelands.
While Germany has a far-right party, the AfD, Alternative für Deutschland, which received 10.4% of the vote in 2021, there really is no equivalent to the low-brow MAGA movement in the United States.
Perhaps that’s because the average German is far better educated than most modern-day Americans, or because Germany underwent one of the world’s most humanitarianism catastrophes in the 1930s/40s, and the remembrance of it continues to affect its national ethos.
In any case, as shown at left, the vast majority of the German people understand that environmentalism is the only thing that can possibly save our home planet from ruin. There is something to be said for that.
As suggested at left, big money bets on science every single time.
As Aesop noted 2500 years ago, “A fool and his money are soon parted.” And, since generally the wealthiest individuals and corporations are anything but fools, they can be counted on to make decisions based on reason/science.
The rank-and-file MAGA supporter, on the other hand, has very little money to lose, and so there is little downside to poor thinking. These folks can be counted on to believe that climate change is a hoax, promulgated by dishonest scientists, the Hollywood elite, the anti-capitalist haters of America, etc.
The answer is simple: There are issues that are far higher priorities than Trump’s lies and criminality. More than half the voters in this country place extreme amounts of value on:
• The supremacy of white people.
• The rationing of healthcare.
• Ensuring that Central Americans cannot enter the United States.
• The rejection of science, especially that which pertains to the climate and pandemics.
• Making sure that diversity, equity, and inclusion, collectively known as “wokeism,” do not become a part of our culture
• Suppressing any technology that might threaten the fossil fuel industry.
As we read the words at left, a kind of incredulity comes over us. This couldn’t really happen, could it?
All this turns around the state of world capitalism. As long as our socio-economic system is based on greed, and ignoring the needs of other people, the answer is an emphatic no.
The United States, at 13.4 million barrels/day, is by far the largest supplier of crude in the world. Saudi Arabia is second at 10.8 million barrels/day.
I don’t wish to be mean to these people, but there is something both funny and appropriate about this.
Here’s an idea: If you don’t believe that the United States has border security, you could plan a trip with your daughter to the border and see what the ~64,000 federal employees are actually doing on a day-to-day basis (see below).
One of the benefits of the trip is that you will cease to be ignorant on the subject and stop making a fool out of yourself in front of literally billions of Internet users.
