OK, fresh off of the block, 2020 already sucks. It's presenting as a deeply wild year, one that causes acid reflux regularly through next Inauguration Day and maybe beyond. We're riding a crazy roller coaster with no guardrails and no recognizable track path and no OHSA to close it down. If you ever wondered what it was like to live during the national crises of the 1770's or late 1850's or 1930's or even the 1960's, this is our own time of national existential crisis.
So... let's take a moment to clear our minds a bit. Let's think on what life may be like living in December 31, 2029 as we will turn the page towards a new brand new decade. What do you think will happen over these next ten years? What will it look like heading into the 2030's?
Who knows, right? However, allow me to present several topic points that would shape the things to come. I strongly believe these actions are necessary for a better common life going forward. Of course, this isn't necessarily a prediction page. These points may or may not happen. But it is a listing of items that we need to get closer to realizing if we are to survive with each other in this country and on this planet. We might not accomplish these goals within our tumultuous decade ahead, but we could get much closer than we are now.
Movement towards Matriarchy. This heads the list because it is most important. It's my contention that our country and world need to turn further away from systems of patriarchy. While it has created immense wealth and privilege for a comparative few, and a comfortable lifestyle for many, patriarchy in general keeps an unfair world in place. It maintains power and control for those who operate through a top-down and zero-sum approach towards our fellow human beings. Patriarchy means men rule; might makes right. And in our country, it means the white men rule (although that has been slowly changing).
Now I'm not against white men, per se. I happen to be one myself. But our world and country is not homogeneous. And there are more women than men. Let's be reminded of Michelle Williams's words as she accepted a Best Actress award last week:
I know my choices might look different than yours, but thank God or whomever you pray to that we live in a country founded on the principle that I am free to live by my fate and you are free to live by yours. So women, 18 to 118, when it is time to vote, please do so in your own self interest. It’s what men have been doing for years. It’s what men have been doing for years, which is why the world looks so much like them. But don’t forget we are the largest voting body in this country. Let’s make it look more like us.
Right. Matriarchal values of cooperation and caring are essential towards achieving progress for the rest of my list. Without a greater rise of Women Power, we are stuck and screwed in a world where the "winners" are busy getting theirs and to hell with everyone and everything else.
Climate Crisis Mitigation. Oil and coal companies have known about where we have been heading since the mid 1970s. Their public approach has been to deny until they can't. There's just too much money to be made using their model than to make widespread energy source changes! So while we pass a tipping point that basically condemns our way of life from future generations, fossil fuel companies are busy getting their government representatives to de-regulate environmental restrictions on their businesses. And renewable energy continues to be poo-pooed at the highest levels.
I recall attending an Electric Utility demonstration back in 1984. There was a PR guy who explained how we got our power, how it was distributed, etc. He showed how fossil fuels were the primary source for electricity. He mocked solar energy, saying that if you expanded it by 100% it would only account for 1% of power needs. So I raised my hand and asked, "what if we raised it by 1000%? How about 100,000%? You're suggesting there's some sort of ceiling, and there isn't." The PR guy looked at me and shut down the presentation.
Today we have an oil-friendly Senator from Oklahoma bringing a snowball onto the Senate floor as an example of the Global Warming fallacy. And we have Australia burning, and its Great Coral Reef dying, and fish species expiring from warming waters all around the world. We need to create stronger cooperative international programs that ensure radical changes in energy sources. Otherwise our children and theirs will be facing life with routine killer drought, floods, unlivable heat, enormous refugee movements from uninhabitable lands, disease spread, and socio-economic collapse. Our species has become endangered. We need healers.
Fixing Democracy. To say that our system of governance needs updating is an understatement. Too often whole classes of people are restricted from voting, either by registration purges or reduced number of polling places or gerrymandered districts or signature challenges or felon records or funky paper-less voting machines or other corruptive stifling methods. Voting rights need to be enacted like what New York State is doing - when one turns 18, one becomes automatically registered! Why make it hard? This should be the easiest thing in the world.
But there's so much more. The entire Electoral College needs to be reformed or rejected - as currently structured, Red States will win close Presidential contests 65% of the time despite losing the national popular vote! This plays against "majority rules" of course. It represents Patriarchy at its worst. In addition, we need non-partisan panels that draw up fair and objective representational districts. "Citizens United" needs to be overturned so unlimited amounts of toxic Dark Money can be drained from the system. And let's reinstate the Fairness Doctrine and put Fox State News and Hate Radio out of business!!
Additionally, we will need to codify restraints on the Executive Branch and create much stronger Checks and Balances. The Trump Adminstration and the GOP Senate demonstrate how Bad Faith actors and their pursuit of power and control can ruin democratic representative government -- something our Founders never envisioned (their view was that men of the highest character would invariably rise to the top).
All thought systems evolve, and Capitalism is no exception. Its current direction is toward the way it was at the turn of the 20th Century. No regulations existed at that time, no oversight, no worker rights, no protections, nothing more than the ruthless pursuit of profits. Then reformers like Jane Addams and Upton Sinclair emerged. Unions formed. Teddy Roosevelt presented his trust-busting and anti-monopoly policies. It made a big difference.
But not enough to prevent the economic collapse of the Great Depression. Policy and legislative changes made by FDR during that time helped create the remarkable and sustained Post-War Boom that lasted, more or less, until 2008. It ended when specific safeguarding regulations had been removed. Today, even more economic guardrails have been removed, with more being recommended. We need to reverse this trend. We need to end the egregious income and wealth distribution model of today. It's unsustainable.
Health Care Becomes A Human Right. Well, this should be a given; however, it's still more of an economic right, if you can afford it. The nature of American health care system is conflicted. It can provide the best care in the world. But it cannot provide such care to many of its citizens. And the structure of health insurance that subsidizes this model corrupts an efficacious delivery of benefits, makes fraud an endemic problem, and creates a major and too often debilitating economic weight on people's lives.
America continues its anomalous role as an under-performer with health care delivery in relation to other "first world" nations. Its system of service distribution needs significant revamping. It's corrupt and inefficient. The administrative and operating costs far exceed other nations. Don't believe it? Check out this comprehensive and quite damning report:
https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2019/07/how-does-the-us-healthcare-system-compare-to-other-countries
Everybody Needs an Education. Having a good education is the best answer for the challenges of the next decade. No one disagrees with that. It gets contentious with what "good" means. And the debate usually revolves around public cost. And private profit. And even religion. There can be no argument that the U.S. position in elementary and secondary education is tops, because it is not. In fact, it's kinda embarrassing, according to this Pew Research Center study on our position in the world:
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/15/u-s-students-internationally-math-science/
Significant changes need to be made in what is taught, how it is taught and who it is taught to. The cost for future education will need to be determined by a simple maxim: The resources for a public education received by the richest student is required by the poorest student. Hoo boy, that represents a huge societal mindset roadblock. But it's necessary. And a more matriarchal and egalitarian society will pursue this. The result will be a true meritocracy.
Let Diversity Bloom. All these aforementioned topics will take time to transpire and transform our society. Certainly, we will need every bit of the 2020's to work on gaining traction. The 2030's will require a sea change surge in how our society operates. A generational upgrade. A huge shift in consciousness and self-awareness. All of these topics, and other institutional reforms, are dependent on the decline of the patriarchal mindset. It all may be achieved through our own pro-active choices, or by having painful circumstances dictate our lives to come.
1 comment:
One of your most poignant, and yet most esoteric posts yet, Mike. Thanks. I will be sharing this.
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