Life In the Time of Corona (Fifth in an unlimited series)

Details: Created: 01 May 2020

Life In the Time of Corona (Fifth in an unlimited series)

Chuck’s Note: My longtime friend Steve Slavsky wrote these comments after reading an article in The Intelligencer of New York Magazine entitled “Even Naked, America Cannot See Itself: In a time of plague, willful blindness is a coping mechanism” by Zak Cheney-Rice. Steve’s thoughts are reprinted here with his permission.

WHERE IS OUR DEMOCRACY HEADED?

Steve Slavsky

I have been concerned for several years over the fast growing economic gap in the United States and what it may portend for the future. Having studied revolutions that have occurred in many countries over the past 300 years, especially those since 1900, I believe we are reaching a very dangerous time in history for our democracy.

Things can go in many different directions, and no one knows the future, but I personally believe that we can't survive with our current state of affairs. It is not just the leadership, which is skewed toward maintaining or increasing inequality. It is the failure of us, as Americans, to alleviate the problem.

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

Do I know what to do about it? Not really. What I do know is that everything about our freedoms and our rights can be lost if we, as a country, move too far to the right or the left. What's kept us going all these years is the ability to listen to each other and to compromise. That ability seems to have almost disappeared.

As I get older, I realize more and more, that the opportunities I had as a lower

middle-class kid just aren't there for the majority of American youth anymore. Education has always been the way to move up the ladder of life and it's becoming less and less available for those who need it most.
I'm reminded a lot of the Roman Empire, and how its collapse led to a very dark time for the world. Not that it was really that great before that time--there was essentially a dictator and a plutocracy. Unfortunately, I see many parallels all over the world today. The U.S. doesn't have a dictator, but it certainly has a plutocracy whose members are only interested in enriching themselves with no interest in the common good.

Note: Steve Slavsky grew up in the Bronx where he attended public schools before graduating from the City College of New York. He served six years active duty in the Army and then worked for the Department of Defense for 27 years in the acquisition field. After retirement, he spent nine years consulting as a federal acquisitions expert.