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Mark wonders why there is so much hatred and if America is beyond saving.  “Holy hyper-partisanship Batman! Our democracy is seriously dysfunctional and we’re in danger of losing our nation because our system is broken. Can you fix it Batman?”
It’s that time again folks. It occurs every four years. The nation looks for someone we can believe in….a superhero that can heal the unprecedented level of political animosity that’s turned us into warring tribes rather than united Americans who go about their lives in the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. Enter the political candidates. This time it’s Trump and Biden. Different people saying the same things every four years. Mostly bullshit by the way and I confess that, I too, like many of you, tend to throw caution to the wind and get sucked into the belief that there is someone out there who can heal the polarization that has become America’s Achilles heel. The usual promise is to unite us; to bring the warring factions together because, well, only they have some kind of superpower that the other candidate doesn’t. And we find ourselves hopeful yet again.
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Clive asks whether the angst over mask wearing is productive?  In what seems like a classic case of failing to see the forest from the trees; friends, neighbors and social media seem to be more exercised by the morality and principles of mask wearing than with the far more consequential health and socio-economic consequences of Coronavirus.
To get your attention, and to prove the delinquency of our puerile debates on masks, here are a few alarming numbers. As a result of distressed socio-economic systems around the world, predictions are for an additional 6.3 million cases of Tuberculosis resulting in an additional 1.3 million deaths. An additional 769,000 deaths from malaria, and 550,000 HIV related deaths in sub-Saharan Africa alone. (1). Worst case scenarios suggest that an additional 100 million people will fall into poverty living off less than $1.90 a day. (2) To put those numbers in context, as I write, there have been 766,393 deaths worldwide from CV19, with 172,301 of those in the US and 41,361 in the UK. Yet the most vociferous, hostile and divisive debates are about wearing masks! |
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