Wars and rumors of wars

In my several decades of living, I've become pessimistic about the nature and future of man. It's one of my greatest disappointments because I was raised to be an optimist. I was taught to see the glass as half full rather than half empty; to see the silver lining behind every cloud and to see possibilities rather than limitations. But mankind continues to disappoint me.

I'm a child of the '60s and many from my generation remember John Lennon's anthem to the Vietnam War: Give Peace a Chance. We didn't heed his advice and continued to fight and die for several more years until the politicians finally realized it was an un-winnable war using conventional military tactics. Wars have been an integral part of human history and they continue to be. People continue to rely on bullets and bombs rather than frank and honest discussions to solve our problems and as long as we do, peace will only be an illusion.

Man's inhumanity to man hasn't changed very much in my lifetime either. We still have the haves taking advantage of the have-nots whenever they can. Sure, there are people and concerns involved in humanitarian efforts as there has always been but there's never been enough and there isn't now. And when we research the inner-workings of those humanitarian efforts, we find many of them using the money donated by us to pay themselves and their operation rather than investing in trying to solve the problem.

The global soccer body, FIFA, was rocked with scandal last week when several top officials were accused of accepting bribes to give the World Cup, the world's most popular sporting event, to Russia and Qatar.

And as significant as this dishonesty is, it's only the tip of the iceberg. Money talks louder today than it ever has and everything is for sale to the highest bidder. This has meant a general eroding of the middle class in America to the point that it's harder to climb the social ladder of success in this country than ever before. We are much more like a caste system than a class system today, being born either into wealth or poverty with the strong likelihood that that's where we'll stay throughout our lives.

People have always lied, cheated and stolen to get what they wanted but research indicates more do it today than ever before because it is more socially acceptable. Because of that, it's hard to trust people anymore. Little more than a generation ago, our word was our bond and million dollar deals were sealed with a handshake. Today a handshake or a promise and a couple of dollars won't get you anything more than an overpriced cup of coffee because we've become a world of liars.

So there hasn't been much social and moral progress in my lifetime. We don't take care of people the way we used to. We don't care about people the way we used to. We don't trust and believe in people the way we used to. Those failures impact negatively on society and I don't see things changing for the better in the future. If people can continue to get the things they want through power and control rather than compromise and negotiation, they will and we will only sink further into the rabbit hole.

I remember when I was a kid that the major justification for doing something was because everybody else was doing it. If everybody else was doing it, that made it okay and that's what's happening on a much broader scale today, not only in America but all over the world.

Everybody's screwing everybody else so it must be okay!