The brutal reality of our current situation is that we are in a crisis of many shapes.
Significant parts of our economy have tanked as a partial consequence of the global Corona bug, our biggest trading partner is exercising their power in ways we should have, but did not expect, and the ‘world order’ is as brittle as it has been in my lifetime.
- The US has thrown away its leading economic and moral role, (I give them the benefit of the doubt on the latter)
- The EU has become a toothless bureaucracy unravelling slowly despite the economic power of Germany trying to hold it together as insurance against the loss of the Euros they have pumped into many of the stumbling members, and the clusterf**k that is Brexit continues
- China is actively and aggressively expanding economic and military control around the globe,
- Our readiness to cope with the Corona pandemic on a consistent basis globally has been shown as terrible. This is despite many warning signs that viral pandemics (MARS, SARS, Swine flue, Ebola, Spanish flue, et al) caused by species hopping viruses are becoming a part of our survival challenge,
- and the climate is emerging as the existential crisis that might just finish off our species within a few hundred years.
A dystopian scenario.
Meanwhile, back in the comfort of Canberra, we fiddle at the edges, apportioning blame, while mouthing hopeful jargon and clichés and pissing away resources in a short term race for the next shot at the largess delivered by a parliamentary majority.
We have lost our moral compass, the core values by which we live in communities, the commitment to recognising the reality of the current, and building the foundations that will enable us to survive and prosper in the long term.
To go back to where we started, Admiral James Stockdale, the most senior naval officer held for 8 years as a ‘guest’ of the Hanoi Hilton expressing why he survived when many others did not: ‘You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end, which you can never afford to lose, with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever that might be’
We should be listening to people like Stockdale, and acting on their hard won wisdom. Instead, we listen to idiotic social media ‘influencers’, industry czars with a position to protect, and sadly, politicians with an agenda that has little to do with the long term best interests of those that are supposed to be serving.
Header cartoon courtesy Tom Gauld at www.tomgauld.com
