Timothy J. Kunselman: Our division, extremism are costing us
Share this post:
I’m sure I’m not the only one who sees this — that we keep making the same mistakes, over and over again.
Ours is a country in which many amazing and good things have taken place and which continue to happen. A pandemic strikes and a vaccine is developed in an amazingly short time. A section of a major interstate is destroyed and it is back up and running again in less than two weeks.
Families lose everything. Children get very ill. Communities rally and money is raised out of love and concern.
Unfortunately, an egregious lack of foresight and self-serving ambition and pride (the bad kind) persist and will lead to our ruin if we do not change now.
First, there is climate change. Climate change is both natural and man-made. Why the long period of denial? It reminds me of the denial about cigarettes causing cancer. Everyone knew it was true, but look how long it took to do something about it. We can and must do something about it and fast, along with the rest of the world.
The powers that be seem to care only about the here and now and how it impacts them financially and politically. Do we have to see the tipping point pass and leave us with nothing but bad choices or no choices at all? Of course, we don’t have to do what we have always done, but we most likely will do so until there is a crisis that demands drastic action. The next time, there may be no going back to the beauty and peace of what once was.
I propose to our present and future leaders that they get in the game because they want to make life better for all now and in the future. I implore them to see opportunity instead of obstacles.
For example, I always wondered why labor and management could not work together to prepare for retraining and a move away from fossil fuels (we have less than 100 years of same remaining) so that long-term profits and employment without interruption could be guaranteed. Tobacco companies learned to diversify to other products to survive. They reluctantly did so only once the writing was on the wall that they were about to perish. There is money to be made with change and there is an environment to be saved, even if it has to come as a byproduct of actions taken for less heroic reasons. Wouldn’t it be great if families didn’t need to be decimated by layoffs and start over again?
It has been said that with continued development of technology, people will need to be retrained every few years. We need to accept this model. It costs companies valuable time and money every time they must replace and train an employee from scratch. We have seen the dawning of technological development in many fields, such as in energy and transportation. This should be seen as an opportunity which should be embraced, not turned into a political liability for thinking ahead and for the good of now and the future.
We can choose the smart path or we can have the path chosen for us. We aren’t going to like the mandate coming our way. The above illustration is just one example. The logic can be applied to other important issues, like immigration, education, race relations, individual rights. We don’t have time for any more of this extremism nonsense. Us against them mentality and repression and authoritarianism and imperialism and war are relics of the past.
I submit that our country can be both globalist and nationalist, each tempered by moderation and rooted in a realization that working toward the greater good is a tide which lifts all boats. We need leaders who are normal people with the wisdom and foresight to solve our problems, not make them worse.
Timothy J. Kunselman of Pittsburgh is a retired attorney.