Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Thursday, May 7, 2020

We Are Living in a Failed State



We Are Living in a Failed State 


The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken.

George Packer Staff writer for The Atlantic

 When the virus came here, it found a country with serious underlying conditions, and it exploited them ruthlessly. Chronic ills—a corrupt political class, a sclerotic bureaucracy, a heartless economy, a divided and distracted public—had gone untreated for years. We had learned to live, uncomfortably, with the symptoms. 

It took the scale and intimacy of a pandemic to expose their severity—to shock Americans with the recognition that we are in the high-risk category. The crisis demanded a response that was swift, rational, and collective. The United States reacted instead like Pakistan or Belarus—like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering.

The administration squandered two irretrievable months to prepare. From the president came willful blindness, scapegoating, boasts, and lies. From his mouthpieces, conspiracy theories and miracle cures. A few senators and corporate executives acted quickly—not to prevent the coming disaster, but to profit from it.

When a government doctor tried to warn the public of the danger, the White House took the mic and politicized the message. Every morning in the endless month of March, Americans woke up to find themselves citizens of a failed state.

With no national plan—no coherent instructions at all—families, schools, and offices were left to decide on their own whether to shut down and take shelter. When test kits, masks, gowns, and ventilators were found to be in desperately short supply, governors pleaded for them from the White House, which stalled, then called on private enterprise, which couldn’t deliver. States and cities were forced into bidding wars that left them prey to price gouging and corporate profiteering. Civilians took out their sewing machines to try to keep ill-equipped hospital workers healthy and their patients alive. Russia, Taiwan, and the United Nations sent humanitarian aid to the world’s richest power—a beggar nation in utter chaos. ......................

Like a wanton boy throwing matches in a parched field, Trump began to immolate what was left of national civic life. He never even pretended to be president of the whole country, but pitted us against one another along lines of race, sex, religion, citizenship, education, region, and—every day of his presidency—political party. His main tool of governance was to lie. A third of the country locked itself in a hall of mirrors that it believed to be reality; a third drove itself mad with the effort to hold on to the idea of knowable truth; and a third gave up even trying. ............................

READ THE REST HERE.

5 comments:

Les Carpenter said...

It says it ALL. I have nothing to add but do await skuds appearance as it will, for me, be interesting to hear his perspective on this article.

Thanks for posting.

skudrunner said...

RN, Interesting article with a lot of darts thrown. We can all agree that trump let his narcissism drive his reporting on the significance of the corona virus. I do realize the entire country was distracted by the impeachment hearings and it was appropriate for the speaker to have a rally to celebrate their victory after being briefed on the virus. Trump is the leader of the country and ultimate blame falls to him.

What seems to be missing is the corruption and betrayal in the FBI and the length they let the director and schi-- go to to push their case. Now it is revealed that the previous administration, as swell as they were, was deeply involved in the deception. Still waters run deep.
We have a potential presidential nominee accused of sexual harassment which is being passed over by the media. We have a representative who lied to push an impeachment and we have the leader of the house tear up a speech that mentioned the virus because she said it was all lies.

You we live in a failed state and it is failing because the entire governing body from the head all the way to the tail is all about power and money no matter what it takes and they have the full support of the media.

Les Carpenter said...

The state uas failed indeed. One need only look back as far as January 21, 2017 to find the origin of its beginning.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Sorry, skud, you don’t get to trash President Obama with your opinions here.

skudrunner said...

I don't remember saying anything untruthful about the swell guy but I know you do not allow anything to be said about him other than praise so I will refrain from commenting about him.