Grow up, America

Ever since Ukraine successfully severed the bridge connection between Crimea and Russia, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has responded by sending waves of suicide drones against Ukrainian cities. One of the results of this is that up to a third of Ukrainians are without power as the cold begins to settle in, due to power plants being destroyed.

Now, based on this, one could forgive Ukraine if it decided to negotiate with Putin for terms to end the destruction. However, its president Volodomyr Zelenskiyy has been very clear: The terms are still Russia's complete withdrawal from Ukrainian territory, including Crimea.

I mention this to compare and contrast Ukrainian spirit with the pathetic response of  some Americans to high gas prices and general inflation. The threat of a fascist takeover doesn't impact them as much as having to pay extra at the pump, or pay thirty cents more for milk.

I'm listening to Mary Beard's SPQR, about the fall of the Roman Republic. Roman commentators of the time saw the gaining of an empire after the sack of Carthage in 146 BCE as the moment when the Republic began to unwind itself. Rome was suddenly awash with booty from all over the Mediterranean. Wealth and power corrupted the self-governing citizenry, with the elites trying to hoard the influx of gold and slaves and goods, and the poor trying to get what they saw as their fair share. As I listened to that, the parallels between Rome and America came into focus once again.

Since World War II and the ascension of the American Empire, our citizens have become more and more infantilized. Many of them are no longer able to suffer adversity with grit or determination. "First world problems" are existential threats which call for drastic solutions, like electing crazed Republicans to "fix" something which is a worldwide problem. Unlike in Europe, there are no threats of rolling blackouts or people freezing in their homes due to energy costs. If one compares our energy costs to those around the world, they're not even in the same realm. Countries like Sri Lanka literally convulsed in riots over the summer because there was no fuel to be had. The US is weathering the post-COVID economic disruption much better than any other major economy, including China, which seems determined to destroy itself with dictator Xi Jinping's ruinous "zero-COVID" policy. But because Biff bought a ten-ton gas guzzler, that's enough reason to give Kevin McCarthy the Speaker's gavel. It's farcical. But Americans are rightly considered by most of the world to be spoiled brats, taking their good fortune for granted and caviling when something gets a bit difficult. I shudder to think what this generation of Americans would do if confronted with a true emergency.

Except I don't have to imagine it. We all saw it with the response to COVID. Many of us did what we were supposed to do in a communal effort. But many didn't, and struggled against anything which would inconvenience their lives. Many of them wound up losing those lives because of their childish pettiness. And now the economic dislocation engendered by the pandemic is a reason to vote for the party which downplayed COVID for two years.

America needs to collectively grow up. It is the only guarantor of a stable world order. But a number of its citizens would prefer the world to burn as long as they can have cheap goods. This, needless to say, is how empires fall.