Who’s In Charge?

After my last post the world seems to have reversed in its orbit.  This is what it’s like to live in a time when no one is in charge and everyone else is to blame (except the ones that are supposed to be running things). 

Not only that, whereas one of the many bugaboos of the 20^th Century was Moral Relativism, we now live in a time when there are no moral underpinnings at all. The era of Alternative Facts has lead our nation into a much more painful and harrowing experience of the current pandemic than it needed to be. 

The World Health Organization (WHO), according to our current President, “missed the call,” on the COVIID-19 virus. In one way, he was right — before the pandemic began its laughing gallop across the globe, WHO ranked the U.S. as the most prepared and capable nation on the planet when it came to dealing with a new and highly contagious virus.  Our response, so far, is, by many measures,  the worst of the developed nations. From best to worst, most to least, this occurrence was as deliberate as it could have been: facts were not only ignored but contradicted – this pandemic was declared a hoax. The actions that were taken were in 180° apposition to those recommended by the people that knew what they were talking about: exposed government employees were sent straight back to their homes and families, EXTRA hands were shaken, extra hugs and extra parties, even extra church services… all up until two months after the sirens were blaring, and in many cases it continues. At this writing the governors of eight of this nation’s states, Governors, continue to ignore the facts and maintain a collision course with a deadly virus as if it were a speeding ticket that they can choose to contemptuously ignore.

As noted in my previous post, Michael Lewis laid it all out in his book, The Fifth Risk, which recounted the dismantling of the U.S. Government’s administrative machinery and the populating of it by an Allsorts collection of people who are as corrupt, ignorant, sanctimonious and angry as anyone could imagine. The one thing they all have in common: they mindlessly suck up to the worst among them, our President.  Just like Allsorts, which are all differently shaped and colored, but all licorice; this group represents an insidious variety  as well — but they all love our President.

So, whether its (mis)managing our nation’s response to a pandemic or rendering a decision as to whether a know carcinogen can be added to a Certified Organic coffee, there is no one in charge (but probably someone willing to accept a charge card).

And it is spreading: the idea that the system, or what’s left of it, should not be managed, but gamed instead.  This is happening not only across our nation, but over the earth, not so much like a particulate virus but a slippery, sinister bacterial slime…each day advancing a little further and coming soon, to a neighborhood like yours.

My question is, then, can we do anything about it? For the purposes of this forum, I am asking my fellow specialty coffee people how we conduct ourselves in such an environment, but the question goes deeper.