We've never recovered our sense of balance since WW 2. By balance, I mean a sense of perspective, both of ourselves and the world around us.
I'm thinking about this right now because of today's death of Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay, the B-29 used to drop the world's first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, instantly ending 78,000 lives, with many more to follow in the months ahead.
I believe the bombs ended the war in the Pacific, saving millions of lives, both American and Japanese. Though some might disagree, I believe it can be said of WW 2, it was a "good war" and we can be all be thankful for the outcomes.
But lest I drift too far afield, we live with the legacy of that "good war."
Ever since we entered Korea and Vietnam in the flush of WW 2, and failed, we've been looking for another "good war" wherein the "enemy" is really evil and we're the good guys, innocent of guile and endowed with some "white man's burden" of saving the world from itself.
Our current president is drunk on the power of his office, and only the efforts of politicians and army officers have saved us from his malady.
Even now, in the twilight of his tenure, the sabers rattle over Iran. Foolish. Insane.
With an economy struggling to keep its head above water, a military stretched to the point of breaking, a world reputation ruined, the Republican Party disfigured by Christian wackos, this tiny Texas bully reverts to the most primitive of instincts.
God bless Paul Tibbets' family. And God help America recover from WW 2.
