I wrote this in response to a client despairing over the ongoing nature of the Covid crisis. My own prediction? the virus will never be cured by a vaccine. Vaccines are not the protocol needed at this time--a paradigm shift has to happen so that there are ways of preventing cancer, aids, and these 'new' viruses that our wanton destruction of nature are producing. I think that a new pattern of managing commerce with Covid will get established by 2022 or maybe 2024; I think that the economic collapse of the USA will start to really show itself by late 2021 and that will take a decade or more to 'recover' from--and businesses like restaurants, coffee shops, bars, theaters will basically cease to exist. people will be economically forced to cook for themselves etc. as was the case in the 1930s, and in the 1890s -- the two most recent depressions...
in preparation for this year--these years--i have read "A Distant Mirror" - comparing the 14th century to the 20th; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Mein Kampf, and even Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (in 16 volumes). While I learned a great deal from Gibbon it is a mother of a task to read through all those pages! The others I recommend for your consideration - they are all even books on tape. A perspective on earlier eras of chaos and change is part of what allows me to engage with the short-term (2 to 10 years) darkness happening here. It is well overdue; the depth of racism in this country is practically unparalleled in the world, though there are certainly other pockets - South Africa, India (Muslims), Japan (gajin/Koreans) around the world. they will ripen in their time, hopefully this is the time for the US. also the US, along with Canada and Australia are really the only countries which have a culture entirely disconnected with that of the natives of these lands--that lack of respect for Place, and the effective absence of any spirituality in the culture mean that cruelty, corruption and violence are only negative if they get caught or get run over by a greater force... so at some point either this country will break apart into more cohesive and manageable entities (my bet) or some amazing leader - a Roosevelt or Churchill - will arise that can empower many groups with a willingness to cooperate. One of these things will happen, and then both rational life and civil existence will be restored...
