![]() The rebellion of the world against ‘American Exceptionalism’ began in earnest once America was no longer seen as a benefactor to the world. This exploitation of the sense of victimhood continues to be the primary dynamic in the 2022 US Midterm Elections and will indubitably dominate the 2024 General Election politicking and propaganda. The exploitation of this sense of victimhood in those who have lost their dignity in American society has fomented the rise of fascist-like leaders to compete for the helm using hate-based propaganda that polarizes society. ![]() Trump exploited this loss of confidence and pride and sense of selfness in the American Working Middle Class to win the 2016 Presidential Election. All tolerance of others vanishes in favor of defeating those ‘others’ who don’t see eye-to-eye with us. ![]() Life becomes religion against religion, culture against culture, females against males, race against race, nation against nation. We lose our belief that we are viable creatures and meant to live here on earth with one another. The big problem these days, as inequality and social repression and hate rise between peoples, is that our good feelings about ourselves are sliced and diced and ripped away from us. they lose their freedom to feel that they are the heroes of our own lives. When disrespect, negativism, authoritarianism and autocracies take control of nations and peoples the people lose their sense of dignity, i.e. What Happened to Us? I marveled at how relevant this poem (repeated below) written more than forty years ago (I hadn’t read it since then, until today) is totally descriptive of what the world is going through now. The supply of young workers was rising, the share of the elderly was still low, and robust, mostly unrestricted immigration from the Global South to the North would continue to prop up the labor market in advanced economies. No one had to worry about the massive build-up of implicit debt, in the form of unfunded liabilities from pay-as-you-go social security and health-care systems. Debt crises posed no threat, because private and public debt-to-GDP ratios were low in advanced economies and emerging markets, and growth was robust. Trade liberalization had been in full swing since the Great Depression, and it would soon lead to the hyper-globalization that began in the 1990s. ![]() Similarly, terms like “deglobalization” and “trade war” had no purchase during this period. ![]() And I didn’t fathom that artificial intelligence might someday destroy most jobs and render Homo sapiens obsolete, because those were the years of the long “AI winter.” The term “pandemic” didn’t register in my consciousness, either, because the last major one had been in 1918. Moreover, after the US-Soviet détente and US President Richard Nixon’s visit to China in the early 1970s, I never really worried about another war among great powers, let alone a nuclear one. Most of us had barely even heard of the problem, and greenhouse-gas emissions were still relatively low, compared to where they would soon be. I grew up in the Middle East and Europe from the late 1950s to the early 1980s, and I never worried about climate change potentially destroying the planet. Many of these threats were not even on our radar during the prosperous post-World War II era. NEW YORK – Severe megathreats are imperiling our future – not just our jobs, incomes, wealth, and the global economy, but also the relative peace, prosperity, and progress achieved over the past 75 years. ![]()
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