The Tipping Point
History in general is replete with tipping points. Not to be overly dramatic but a point where as human civilization will not continue on the same path it has been travelling.
With the crisis in Ukraine (yes, that’s still a thing) and now the horrors coming out of the Middle East, we find ourselves once again at the crossroads of something major. 911 was one of those tipping points. So was the fall of the Soviet Union. Now we’re at another one of those tumultuous points. They tend to happen when things are left unresolved. It’s like water in the basement. A slow drip should be addressed quickly. If left to fester the drip becomes a crack that keeps getting wider with an ever increasing cost to fix. In the context of home repairs it is a financial cost, but when it becomes war and civilian casualties there is no price tag that can be fixed on what has been lost. All human life is priceless.
There are a lot of unresolved issues that have never been addressed that are starting to boil over simultaneously resulting in cataclysmic failures on multiple geo-political fronts. They were never dealt with swiftly – only appeased or, if you prefer, the can was kicked further down the road to a later date. Eventually you run out of road. In the United States it is the radicalism of political parties. The rise of this type of radicalism had been building like a tsunami for more than a couple decades. First as a trickle,[1] then in un-bashful blatancy by placing personal agendas and politics ahead of the country’s. What is dangerous about that is while that type of stuff drags on it weakens the structure as a whole; so when an unrelated catastrophe does strike the foundation is not prepared to deal with it. We saw it happen with 911, we saw it more recently with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and we see it now with the current war in Israel.
We are, if we are not there already, on the precipice of World War III. To say such a thing sounds almost cliche as in the past the question is continually asked, but it is hard to argue against the notion that we are not closer to WWIII than we once were. The question was asked with the Ukraine invasion, but even that is not resolved. World War I came about because of tenuous agreements and understandings. There were back door alliances and various skirmishes, but every one of them kicked the can down the road a little further. Eventually the tipping point came on June 28, 1914. Which from a big picture perspective is what we have today.
The horror that has come out of Israel is inhuman. Unimaginable. Uncomprehensible. What is happening in Ukraine is also horrific. These are two major theaters of operation right now in a geopolitical perspective, but its all against a back drop in the United States of a non-functioning Congress. The House Of Representatives is crippled without a Speaker Of The House, and there are both very serious domestic as well as international issues to be addressed. The refugee crisis has not gone away on the southern border. China and North Korea relations are fairly cool, Ukraine is battling for its existence, and now the Middle East has erupted. All against a self-crippled governing body because personal agendas are more important than domestic and global crises.I’m not offering up any solution to this – because the solution is pretty simple. Get it done. Answer the question, Are you a party member first and an American last? The seriousness of the current geopolitical environment is coming when western powers are at their weakest state in terms of leadership not seen in more than a century. It is for that reason the Doomsday Clock should be ready to update again very soon.
Is this what is meant by trickle down economics?