ON COVID-19: WHAT'S NEXT?

So, what is next for the world?  Is it Sally Bowles, flappers and bathtub gin followed by Nazis?  Or, will the world get serious and conquer education barriers, the filthiness and greed of organized religion, assure everyone has access to a doctor and medicine, and explore other worlds in the name of solving population problems on Mother Earth?

After the last pandemic that killed about 50,000,000 of our fellow citizens between 1918 and 1920, we turned to automobiles and airplanes to travel.  Music changed to happier and more moving tones [Rhapsody in Blue].  The movies got bawdier and began talking to us.  Women got out of their corsets and brassieres and began to talk back and win their place along with their vote.

Unfortunately, people went crazy and thought the stock market and business would grow forever, thinking an end could never happen.  And, about the same time a group called Nazis, along with their fellow travelers in Italy and Japan and Spain, popped up and diverted our attention away from enjoying ourselves and we began killing each other.

Is this what will happen after the Coronavirus is gone?  Will people go crazy for a while?  Perhaps we will want to have sex with anyone or anything that will stand still long enough to have our way with them…forget the consequences.  Or, will marijuana and other drugs replace the bathtub gin and everyone will just self-medicate to forget their troubles.  Will music make us move our hips again together or will it become dancing alone to our own drummer.  Maybe clothing will become optional for many.  Or, perhaps, we will decide that certain people do not deserve to breathe the air we share and we will figure out legal methods for annihilating them, removing them from the gene pool.

Why am I thinking of these things in this time when people should be thinking about loved ones?  Or, perhaps envisioning a more positive future?  Or, maybe how we could cure the world of this disease?  The fact is it is easy for me to think this way.  I am 72 years old.  I do not have much of a future in the post-pandemic world.  My life, for the most part, has been lived.  I will not be the same, nor live the same, in the post-COVID-19 world. 

I have been locked down in quarantine in my adopted country of Colombia since the morning of March 20, 2020.  For you math whizzes out there, that is 57 days as of 15 May 2020.  I am highly educated (Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, History and Business, respectively, along with graduate-level courses in Psychiatry and Philosophy).  I am highly intelligent (though not the best scrivener).  My brain thinks clearly in terms of what affects human nature. 

I am expecting that I will no longer be able to travel the world as I have done my whole life.  After all, I first arrived in Colombia when I was a 19-year-old U.S. Marine.  Though healthy now, I am expecting my body will continue to disintegrate with age while my brain remains active and thoughtful.  I also expect humans will remain the same, i.e. 20% will be good, 20% will be bad, and 60% will continue to utter, “I don’t give a shit.” I always factor in a plus or minus 5% for each category at any point in time.

So, we could be headed for Mel Gibson’s Mad Max country…very grim with every man and woman for themselves.  It could be a world where doctors would care for only those who can pay a premium and where anti-vaxxers have decided disease is for the brave.  It could be a place where we gave up on changing the environment.  Who needs a Brazilian rain forest when Brazilians need goods to sell to the world?  So what that some people lost their homes and do not have a place to live.  We can now sell ocean-front homes in Orlando and Atlanta and Sacramento.  Kids are dumber because all education is online, but what the heck there are no jobs worth having.  Collect a stimulus check and live on legal marijuana and Cheetos^®.

Not a great place to live, but I don’t care.  I won’t be alive to see it.  You chumps all decided that is where you wanted to be and you built it.  Good for you.  Give the people what they want I say.  That is why it is called democracy.  If you want a haircut or a gun in the middle of a viral pandemic, go for it.  What business is it of mine to tell you how to live?

Or, perhaps, there is another way.  Maybe after the virus has subsided there are left in society some sharp, educated, caring adults and children who do not think the world is doomed.  Perhaps there are people who are empathetic and care about their fellow human beings.  Maybe there even exist people who see a way to make changes for the better of all, not just for the few.  These people want the world to live better, not just scam the world to make a quick buck or Euro or Peso.  Of course, to accomplish this, they will have to start by changing the political leadership in their country. 

For the sake of discussion, let us think about changing the USA.  After all, it has been the dominant power in the world for at least the last 80 years.  Maybe that will last after the pandemic, maybe not.  But, let us think about what might happen. 

Perhaps the people elect occupants for the White House and the Senate and the House of Representatives who care about people, not corporations and only themselves.  The people who voted for them get behind these new leaders and push them to create a better place for people to live in peace and harmony in the USA and the world.

Let us start with giving up war, freeing up trillions of dollars better spent on people…food, shelter, education, healthcare.  Unless someone from another nation crosses our borders and destroys a tower or mall or even a single individual, we stay out of other countries militarily.  If, however, 15 Saudi nationals destroy a tower with airplanes, then Saudi nationals, sitting at home, will pay the price.  But, no more searching for oil and treasure around the world. 

Next, let us understand what stopping war and building an economy creating cell phone apps means.  People with skills like digging coal and rolling steel are no longer needed because there is no need for the product or we have created robots to perform the tasks.  We don’t need all these workers.  We could kill them off, perhaps with another pandemic.  But that would really suck, don't you think?  After all, who wants to tell someone their grandmother or sister are not needed anymore.

Instead, let us give them enough money to live on, say $2,000 a month.  Make it tax free.  No more need for Medicaid or food stamps or unemployment insurance or welfare.  Give people money for food and rent and leave them alone to care for themselves [America First].

Third, let us create a healthcare system that allows doctors and hospitals and clinics to take care of us without worrying about payment.  No more bankruptcy for inability to pay the high cost of care.  Let Medicare, like the Veterans Administration, negotiate pricing for pharmaceuticals and durable medical goods like wheelchairs and walkers.  This is real capitalism…if you cannot compete on price and quality, you go out of business.  A dollar in Manhattan, New York, is the same as a dollar in Manhattan, Kansas.  Pay every doctor and hospital and clinic the same amount for the same procedure.  Bonuses could be available on top of these payments for doctors and nurses and hospitals providing care in under served areas of the country or caring for under served populations.

For jobs, we will need people to build roads and bridges and power plants and windmills and airports and more.  We will still need a military and a government.  Let us create a service-for-all mentality.  Every citizen shall be required to serve a minimum of two years in local, state or federal government.  Everyone must learn to work with their fellow citizens and learn how to give to the community versus take from the rest of us.  Building bridges or learning how to fly a military helicopter, all have a place.  Perhaps even creating a hack-resistant military or power structure is in your future.

Whatever happens, I will not be here to see it.  I can only hope that people see doing good for others is better than being selfish.  Selfishness got us into the pandemic.  Selfishness is keeping us from solving the problem quickly.  Whether it is those who want to keep secret what is happening in their country or the silly gun-toting overweight Mid-westerners complaining they cannot go out and get a haircut.  Each is selfish and, therefore, not worth the skin wrapped around their bones. 

The selfish should pass on from this life quickly.  Those who understand they live in a world with others should prosper and grow.  Think of it like the coral under the sea that pollution killed.  Get rid of the pollution, cleanse the sea of its illness, and watch the coral regain color and radiance.