I've been traveling widely during the coronavirus months, virtually of course and mainly via vlogs, or video blogs. Some in the United States, but largely elsewhere, Canada to Iceland, Scotland to France, Japan, New Zealand and beyond.
It's been interesting to watch via real people the pandemic response in other places, less primitive locations than the United States where the virus has been taken seriously both by governments and their people, where numbers now are down substantially and economies and societies are reopening --- carefully, with monitoring measures in place.
Quite a contrast to the United States, the world leader in both disease and deaths where there are few signs that anything will change in the near future.
Most of the places I visit in this manner have some things in common --- solid national healthcare systems, for example, accessible to all; leaders who while not necessarily loved universally are at least well educated and sane; an absence of primitive religion; far less of the poisonous racism that seems universal in the U.S.; little or none of the absurd flag-waving nationalism that masquerades as patriotism here.
So, "if you don't like it here why don't you move elsewhere?" Well, frankly, were I 40 years younger I'd think seriously about that, but it's a little late.
And none of this means there isn't hope, much of the burden of that on younger shoulders. We can all, however, work toward a return to responsible national and state leadership, battle racism with all our mights, back healthcare reform, rid ourselves of religions where the power dynamic focuses on demeaning and/or damning others and stop worshiping the bloody flag and start working on what it represents.
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