Rumination on a Different Direction

It has suddenly crossed my mind that each nation in this fractious world should withdraw within its own boundaries and learn to live on what’s left of its own resources with whatever time is left before the complete collapse of civilization.

For the poorer countries it should be relatively easy because their lives are more engrossed with survival than with frills. They are accustomed to expecting less and dying sooner. But the resources of their own country would then at least belong to them.

It will be more difficult for the wealthy countries, because so many of the resources of other countries, including cheap labor, are what supply our creature comforts. This will be especially hard for the people of the United States who have been encouraged by our capitalist society to believe in the ethic of personal frolic and consumption, and to fear the personal shame of not supporting our country if we do not make the mall and world travel the cornerstone of our days.

Free trade does not appear to benefit anyone to any particular extent except the corporations and the very rich. The rest of us may benefit to some extent, but at the expense of the people who are employed by our corporations in foreign lands for meager pay, similar jobs that are lost to American workers, and the immigrants here, both legal and illegal, who can’t make a living wage in this country either.

Tribalism exists throughout the world. There is a great deal of tribalism within the United States: ­economic, political, financial, “social”, racial, and especially religious. When it becomes time for history (if there is anyone here to record it), the Great Divider will be remembered best for his faith-based fragmentation of his country and this world.

But it is not entirely his fault. Unfortunately, the Great American Dream of a country that said, after we got rid of the Indians, “Come one, come all, and we will live forever in peace and harmony” has become the world’s nightmare, aggravated by the increasing closeness in which we live.