Back to the real world

Submitted by Lindsay
Melbourne Australia!

"For a successful technology,
reality must take precedence over public relations,
for nature cannot be fooled."
         - Richard Feynman, 1986

(3/2021) As reported in an unnamed Texas newspaper, one of the Republican members of congress from that state said, ‘Donald Trump will be president until hell freezes over’. Strangely, he nearly got it right. Trump went, and Texas froze over. I guess this doesn’t make Texas a kind of hell, but it does highlight the sober truth that climate change is real, it is not going away, and the far-right conservatives are wrong. Indeed, they are wrong about many things, including that their wealth and their power will protect them.

What Joe Biden and every other clear-headed member of the human race face is the legacy of such beliefs. That is true, no matter the politics, race or religion held, because those ideas took America from being the greatest nation on earth, where a vibrant democracy squashed the tendency for dictatorships to form, to one that was intended become the personal property of a very few. In other words, a version of dictatorship would be introduced. They had a vision of unilateral power, and arranged things so that dissenting voices were removed, killed, discredited and humiliated.

The architect and CEO of all this was, and still is, Steve Bannon. He is, without doubt, one of the cleverest, most ruthless and farsighted men to live in the 21st century. His influence using Brietbart News allowed the rise in conspiracy theory and other wacky beliefs to proliferate. The power he had over Trump was enormous – do not believe they parted company, do not believe he was finished when he left the white house, that was just window dressing. But do believe his power reached into the highest echelons of the judiciary: For all his crimes he was never convicted, never served one hour in custody.

To give you some idea of the breadth of his vision, take Brexit. Cambridge Analytica, another of his brain-children, was directly responsible for helping to discredit Britain’s future in the EU. Easy to change people who had long-held resentments into a fervent cause - and we see the results appearing right now, with lines of trucks waiting to get in, millions of lost hours, the economy on the way down. Disquiet was always there, but there are now a lot of people who want back in.

Steve’s ability to produce chaos like this can mean only one thing – he is at heart an anarchist. Why would anyone want to do that? Live in a country that has no government? There can only be one answer: He will be the government. The supremo. (Of course, that has to be an exaggeration, but the reason is clear.)

He might even have got away with it, a lecherous figurehead at the helm while he pulled the strings, but like all demagogues he underestimated the intelligence of the people.

No matter how badly educated or ignorant they are, they have an innate sense of self-preservation. Trump might have seduced them with slogans, but his offhand pronouncements about drinking bleach were too blatantly stupid. They got angry with his idiocies, his disregard for them and their welfare, his refusal to help them in any meaningful way. So, they did what democracies allow them to do. They revolted and voted him out. Nothing Bannon and co could do about it. Nothing Rupert Murdoch could do either; Sky news fell to earth, and even the power of Facebook and its unregulated posts could not dilute the disgust the great majority felt.

This was all catalyzed by Trump’s pronouncements on COVID-19.

I’d guess at 98% of all citizens have no concept of such a disease, one where you cannot take a tablet to fix it, get a jab, or change your lifestyle. Viruses are the most primitive from of quasi-life, and provided the building blocks for every other form of life. They have always been with us, and always will be, but this one is devastating to today’s society where people are crowded together, believe they have the right to keep doing what they always have.

But, just when one was needed, a miracle occurred: Researchers and the pharmaceutical industry worked together and produced viable vaccines in a matter of months. More than that, they produced them at a record-shattering pace. You are being vaccinated at astounding rates, and it will not be long before the majority will have had their shots.

Good news? Well, yes and no. Getting back to the Trump/Bannon rhetoric that said, ‘if nothing is done, then herd immunity kicks in, and those that do not die will be immunized and able to rebuild the economy’. What a load of rubbish. If the virus did not constantly evolve into new strains, it might be, but these types of viruses evolve rapidly so they can continue to infect, (which they do not do that to cause us mischief, they do it to survive). There is no certainty that immunization against the new strains will prove effective; much more likely is that each year there will be new versions which we have to be inoculated against, exactly as happens with the influenza viruses now.

I guess the immediate COVID panic has gone, but many others remain. Domestic reforms are being put in place, and the results of those will permeate through the country in due time, but the big question is ‘when can industries get going again, can wages be increased from penury to possible’, and the most difficult of all, ‘can he get legislation through the senate?’

He has already put together a formidable team. Kamala Harris is like no other VP – she is a brilliant speaker, a personality that more than compensates for her bosses less memorable countenance, and people in charge of departments that have actually had experience in that area.

Notwithstanding the problems, everyone I speak to is quietly confident that the United States of America will once more be the great nation it was, and will assist rather than turning enemies into friends and friends into questionable allies.

You may have heard my sigh of relief from Melbourne, Australia.