This one picture pretty much sums up the state of America today. And it’s more than just a touch ironic coming as it does on Memorial Day weekend when we are supposed to be honoring the sacrifice of those who died to make America “free”.
In case you were asleep or in Ozarks Missouri this weekend, perhaps a little background explanation is in order.
This was the cover of the New York Times this weekend:
It’s 1000 names with snippets of their obituaries following. That represents 1% of those who have died in the last two months, due to the ineptitude and callous disregard of the warning signs by this evil administration.
So, from my standpoint, the top cartoon pretty much sums up the failed state of America on Memorial Day weekend 2020.
A death toll approaching 100,000 lives. A Greater Depression on the cards. A nation “reopening” despite all that. Congress offering no real support or aid, gridlocked. A lunatic President telling people to inject bleach. Guess what he’s doing this weekend? Golfing. Do I really need to go on?
These are shocking events. They stun the rest of the world. America has the world’s highest death toll, by a very long way. And there appears to still be no strategy, plan, or agenda. None. For dealing with the economic or public health consequences of the greatest catastrophe in modern history. What the?
Nothing works in America, those Americans left who are still thoughtful and reasonable people say, shaking their heads. That’s another way to say: America’s become a failed state.
Failed states tend to share a few key criteria. First, what it says on the box: governments aren’t able to govern anymore. The rule of law has broken down, democracy has been shredded, elites get away with whatever they like. Second, failed states aren’t able to provide basics for people anymore. And third, because they aren’t able to provide basics, life becomes a brutal battle for self-preservation, and norms change: to ones of cruelty, brutality, even hate and violence. Sound like America to you, yet?
It is to weep.
These were real people, as were the folks we honor on Memorial Day. With lives and dreams – all crushed down because humans could not find a saner way to run the planet, and a specific segment of America decided that having an unfit person as President was just fine. As long as it owned the libs.
The future owed us better, and a lifetime of work was not for this:
One hundred thousand.
A number is an imperfect measure when applied to the human condition. A number provides an answer to how many, but it can never convey the individual arcs of life, the 100,000 ways of greeting the morning and saying good night.
The New York Times, May 24, 2020
Reading that list was heartbreaking. Will it be enough to end this horrid administration and put Trumpito and his cabal under the jail? We shall see in November, that is if there’s anyone left by then. xo