Stuck At Sea!

 

Looking around at our situation, doesn’t it seem like that to you? It does to me. We’re adrift on a sea of events, and try as we might, looking in every direction, we can’t see land.  We are looking for a safe harbor. Every day we get more reports of what this pandemic is doing to the every-days of our lives, people getting sick in droves, particularly the unvaccinated. In the less advanced countries without the vaccine supplies, the pandemic advances and creates new mutations which we will have to cope with tomorrow.

 

For we lucky few, scientific advances are bringing better and better means to cope, fourth boosters are improving resistance in the multiples and new pills are available to stop the disease dead. But billions out there don’t have a look-in and that’s where the mutations breed that may be much worse than what we have now.

 

And on the world scene we have a power-hungry China looming with every indication of malevolent intent. Iran is on the verge of nuclearization and the West seems to have lost its nerve. Russia is trouble-making as it is wont to do under Putin when the West is in disarray. Shiite Arab countries continue to go to hell in a handbasket and the Sunni’s are cuddling up to Israel for protection, having lost faith in America. Picture that!

 

And America? What can we make of our favorite guy turning into a gelding. Those who should be protecting its democracy are taking a wrecking ball to its constitution in the hope wresting an illegitimate claim on power. And the majority party is so riven with division that cannot get it together to do the right thing. And the one guy who could do something about it, and it isn’t the President, is worried only about being re-elected. But, can populism go too far, though, and kill incentives to invest and work?

 

Most of us are pretty busy worrying about paying the bills, ensuring our kids get an education so they can fend for themselves, keeping a job, getting a job, and staying healthy together with those we care for. All these winds whirling around our heads are not the kinds of things we want to worry about. Didn’t we elect some guys to do the worrying for us. Aren’t we paying them enough to look after themselves as well as us? What the heck is going on? What is the leaders in America can’t seem to walk and chew gum at the same time? How is it that so many people have all of a sudden gotten stupid? Is everybody drinking the Kool-Aid of Reverend Jones?

 

We can’t do much about the pandemic. A lot of people are working their butts off trying to find answers, getting the good stuff out, and saving lives. But Omicron is with us now, fiercely contagious. It’s no wonder our health people on the front line are worn to a frazzle. Services everywhere suffer as front-line people are falling victim to the virus, vaccinated and unvaccinated.

 

Can’t blame the guys trying to decide on health policy. We are caught in a catch-22. How do we protect ourselves and still avoid setting back the education of our kids back by years, destroying livelihoods with restrictions while the vast majority of us will do just fine if we follow mitigation efforts. What an awful job trying to find the proper balance! Whatever the decision you are going to be a bum for some people, even some very important people dealing only with the politics of it.

 

What is the proper line to draw? And sending out stuff to all the have-not countries? How can we ensure they will have the competence and the will to do their jobs ensuring that this pandemic doesn’t go on and on. It kind of looks now like we will have this thing forever like the Flu.

 

And how the ordinaries have changed? In so many places people engaged in the faithful performance of the jobs they have taken on are being threatened. Some are being replaced with people who promise to perform their tasks in a corrupt manner. Elected officials, despairing of re-election after refusing to engage in corrupt practices, are indicating their intention to withdraw from public service. Others who hope to continue, either surrender to pressure to support a corrupt former president, or totally mute any condemnation of what is occurring as the price of retaining their election aspirations. A lie repeated a thousand times has captured the belief and support of millions of Americans.

 

We want to say stop the world, I want to get off. But it doesn’t work that way. So many of us feel we are at sea and can’t get off this cruise to nowhere. When does this all end, and where will we be when it does?

It’s no fun at the Captain’s table, no fun with the crowd, and surely no fun in the scullery, with the sea continuing as rough as ever.