Wrongo’s Lessons Learned in 2020

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, Manhattan Beach, CA – December 2020 photo by Linda Patterson

As 2020 draws to a close, it’s time to reflect on the hard lessons we’ve learned (or relearned) by living through 2020:

  1. Essential workers aren’t valued. In most cases, they do not make enough money to take time off, even if they’re sick. Few received the PPE they needed to do their jobs, and so they caught the virus in higher numbers than non-essential workers. We shouldn’t be taking these people for granted. Hardly any political group genuinely cares enough about the interests of essential workers to put them above their political agenda.
  2. The federal government is fully capable of doing the unthinkable. Like failing to rein in a president that has no regard for norms or laws. Or, by protecting us from cyber terrorism and spying. Or, by an administration purposefully mishandling a pandemic. Republicans have developed a clever way of inoculating themselves from accountability.
  3. The House and Senate are broken. They care more about their opportunities for personal advancement and wealth, than about doing what’s needed for the country. If you doubt this, remember that it took 51 days for Republicans to ram through tax breaks for the rich in 2017. It took 219 days for them to act on a second 2020 relief package that originally passed by the House on May 15, 2020
  4. Americans no longer care about each other. A common refrain heard throughout the pandemic was that “we’re all in this together.” Not true. We’re on our own. If this doesn’t change, it will eventually be the downfall of the country. It hasn’t always been this way. But now we’re out for ourselves, and we’ll do anything to get what we think we need.
  5. Outrage shown by Republicans is different than the outrage shown by Democrats. Just this week, Republicans are outraged by Jill Biden using “Dr.” as a title. Jill Biden has an Ed.D. degree. Republicans have decided that hers is a phony degree, and that the title “Dr.“ should be reserved for MDs. Jill Biden wasn’t elected, and neither she, nor her dissertation, should be a subject of outrage on the right. Last week, Biden’s soon-to-be White House deputy chief of staff, Jen O’Malley Dillon, dropped several F-bombs, including one in which she referred to Congressional Republicans as “a bunch of f***ers.” Naturally, Republicans’ outrage flowed from a group who support a guy who has used profanity in public for years.Democrats OTOH, seem to be outraged by 300,000 Americans dying. They’re outraged by the continued killings of Black Americans by police. They’re outraged by the Republicans’ unwillingness to handle immigrant children humanely. Perhaps you can see the difference.
  6. People haven’t the slightest clue about how to use facts and statistics. For most, facts and data are abstractions, while emotional arguments are very real. Use of science in every-day decision-making may vanish in one generation.
  7. We’re seeing an acceleration of things that were coming, but have arrived sooner than we anticipated. People who can work from home will continue to do it. More post-high school students will take online courses. Some routine medical consultations will start as virtual meetings with tests done at testing facilities before moving to in-person sessions. Office space in cities will be less expensive for at least a decade. High speed internet is now a necessity for all of us.
  8. Health is to be treasured. This is the great lesson of the pandemic.
  9. Sheltering in your family bubble demonstrates your privilege. It has a lot to recommend it: Fewer chances for infection, more time to get to spend together, some chance for personal growth. Don’t dwell on the negative, dwell on the time spent learning something new. Family is paramount. Whether “family” means those related to you by blood is secondary. “Family” can be your support network, your spouse and offspring, your significant other(s), any group you choose.
  10. There will be the pandemic equivalent of something like a Covid-20. What lessons will America learn that makes us better prepared next time? Do we need more than simply better presidential leadership?
  11. Pundits know nearly nothing. Did any of them have a pandemic on their watch list for 2020? How many saw a second stimulus package taking 219 days to pass the Senate? This means Wrongo, too.
  12. Elections will always have consequences. We must do a better job of seeing through the BS answers offered by candidates at all levels of government. We need much stronger guardrails to protect our democracy from another charlatan.
  13. Financial markets are mysterious and resilient. They are adaptable beyond anything Wrongo imagined possible when he was on Wall Street. How many foresaw the stock market crash and the follow-up boom? America learned that “small business” is often large corporations that manage franchises.
  14. America’s corporations, while seemingly innovative and impressive, are not our friends. The big tech firms are far too big and like all corporations, do not have our best interests in their business plans. Our social media interactions drive many people’s lives, and how easily something on social media morphs into political influence is dangerous to America’s well-being. Very often people’s “principles” are nothing more than social signaling.
  15. Wrongo may have lived through the best years of the US. You may wish it weren’t so, but the sixties through the nineties may have been the peak period of US success. Our citizens were at their wealthiest, they still had pensions. Our prominence around the world was unquestioned. Wrongo’s heart goes out to those who are young now, in 2020.

What you learned may be different. In fact, it should be.

Facebooklinkedinrss
terence mckenna

The issue made over Jill Biden is interesting. I want to ask the complainers, do you tell your (niece, wife, sister, cousin – many in the soft fields are women) that their career is a lie? I have a niece studying for a PhD in sociology. Should I tell her it is bullshit? In some ways I agree that many dissertations are nonsense (I have a BFA and MFA so know a lot about bullshit). But in fact none of the complainers will do so. And Jill Biden is likely well prepared to be an academic administrator, which is what her career objective would be (if her husband’s career didn’t have its late blooming).

The bottom line is that they did not pick on Dr Biden because she has demonstrated her incompetence, they simply picked her out for her name – and used it to make noise.

Republicans complain about cancel culture (and I agree somewhat) but they are fully engaged in their own hate mongering, whether it was to make noise over Michelle Obama wishing to suggest we eat more vegetables or when they condemned Barack Obama for his choice to be a community organizer.