Ready for something new for a change?

Slowly crawling out of the darkness of shelter-in, we emerge to find a reformed world – a place of bizarre and unfamiliar phenomena. A new religion infests United States culture, something called Trumpism, an unsettling group similar to voodoo with conspiracies and denial of reality on a par with flat-earthers; people working from home in such numbers that large office buildings sit empty; the lingering death walk of Reaganism that brings Congress to a standstill; driverless 80-feet-long trucks on the highway; a grave, intensified class war pitting unbelievably rich against unbelievingly poor; collapsing colleges and universities with failed purpose, value and broken financing; empty shopping malls; veiled threats about rising oceans and storms; a flooded south, a burned west, a cold north and citizen migrations forcing changes in congressional representation; a weakening Europe, a rising China and still as it was before shelter-in, a pernicious Russia and a Middle East ravaged and ravaged again by imperialism, collapsed economy and extreme inter-religious/political confrontation.

It does seem similar to Charlton Heston seeing a sunken Statue of Liberty in ‘Planet of the Apes’, doesn’t it?

The pandemic can be blamed for concentrating a great amount of change into one single year. Working from home normally would have phased in over several years as new processes were tested, job descriptions changed and resettling home life with new work-at-home opportunities.

Donald Trump can be blamed for the Congressional crisis. Ordinarily, a change in the philosophy of government takes a decade or so but Donald crashed the primaries so badly that elected officials fear for their careers to the point of abandoning rational legislative work. Joining Donald in his abuses of due process are the victims of 40 years of Reagan economics – a working class distrustful of the US government for ignoring their plight. Throw in energized populist groups using gender rights, race and police brutality.

Reader, take a moment to catch your breath. With some luck, the nation may enter a period of boom economy if the infrastructure bill stays together and passes. The electorate needs to patch wounds, regroup its national identity and concentrate on getting an international momentum up to speed.

Oh, about something new, the wealthy nations of the world are preparing to switch to bitcoin accounts for government operations. Think about paying your taxes in bitcoin. The US calls theirs ‘GOVCOINS’.

Ancient Mariner