Narcissism – excessive interest in oneself (Mariam-Webster)
- In Gaza, over a million Palestinians are at risk of starvation. Already, folks are dying from lack of food. The press describes it in the most basic terms: even their own employees working in Gaza, with jobs and incomes, cannot guarantee their own food needs. One Palestinian puts the daily search for food bluntly: “We might get killed, but we have to get food”. (BBC)
- At the Thailand/Cambodia border a growing dispute killed at least sixteen, and tens of thousands are “displaced”; running from the fighting. (BBC)
- In Nairobi, Kenya, clashes between protestors demanding police be held accountable for deaths and injuries, and hired thugs, continue in the streets. (Washington Post)
- Climate changes continue, as northern Finland and Alaska both experience unprecedented heat waves. The Finnish region of Lapland topped eighty-five degrees (Fahrenheit). (BBC)
America First
World War I taught Americans a stark lesson: Americans dying in foreign fields was difficult to take. Over 53,000 Americans died in combat during the brief twenty-month period the US was involved. Even more, over 63,000 died from non-combat causes. Many were lost to the “Spanish Flu”, a pandemic that actually originated at Fort Riley, Kansas and spread, with the soldiers, world-wide.
The immediate lesson America learned was: don’t be involved in world affairs. George Washington’s farewell address was often invoked: “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world…”. And so the America of the 1920’s avoided involvement with the rest of the world, including the League of Nations, proposed to end wars by our own President, Woodrow Wilson. Instead, we became an insular nation, hiding behind our “impregnable” oceans, and a stiff wall of import tariffs.
Extremism
But, like the Spanish Flu, the world was still able to seep through to American life. When the United States banned the production of alcohol for pleasurable consumption, the borders became opportunities for profit. Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean; all became channels for high-risk, high-profit smuggling. The first big rise of organized crime in the United States came from supplying Americans what they wanted: bootleggers selling illegal booze.
And when the US economy collapsed in the Great Depression, it took little time for that economic disaster to spread worldwide. Joblessness that peaked in the United States at 25%, went as high as 33% in other industrial nations. The existing governments failed to prevent or resolve the economic issues. That led to the growth of political extremism on both sides of the spectrum. Communism became more popular, as did Fascism. And the United States did little to stop extremism in the world. In fact, those same views found popularity in the US itself.
Pax Americana
Ultimately the world reached out across the “impregnable” oceans, and the US found itself in World War II. The authoritarian threats came from both directions: the Japanese military dictatorship to the West, and Nazism and Fascism to the East. America could have led the world towards peace after World War I. That was the intent of the much-maligned Wilson Administration. But rising isolationism, and Wilson’s own physical infirmity, allowed the US to turn away from leadership.
There was bipartisan belief that this should not happen again after World War II. And so the United Nations was “born” in San Francisco, with the specific intent of keeping the world from another global conflict. And the United States developed and led treaty organizations; NATO, CENTO, SEATO and the rest, to hold firm to the idea that strength could bring peace. For over seventy years, world conflagration was avoided.
Narcissists
But now the United States has turned inward again. The policy of the US Government is based once again on the principle of “America First”. The tariff wall is going up, and the President talks about the “strength” of our oceanic borders. In addition, America, “the shining city on the hill” of Ronald Reagan, is closing its doors to the “huddled masses yearning to be free”. The Statue of Liberty now represents the “lamp” lifted to reveal a “golden door” bolted shut.
We Americans are more worried about the “Epstein Files” and the duel between Trump and Fed Chairman Powell, or re-litigating the 2016 election; then we are about starvation in Gaza, or climate change, or potential wars throughout the world. Our “important” issues are ones of politics, culture and religion, not the needs of those throughout the globe. We are more worried about ourselves than the world we live in.
We are narcissists; only interested in ourselves: just like our nation’s leaders today.
