Letter to the Editor: Getting back to normal?

Getting back to normal?

Dear Editor, People talk a lot about getting back to normal. Getting back to normal? Things haven’t been normal in America for a hundred years. A hundred years ago we sent soldiers across the Atlantic to kick off America’s quest for European dominance. Since then, our domestic needs for health, education, and welfare have clashed with, and usually lost to, the need of our opportunistic presidents for military expansion. While defending the world against communists, fascists, emperors, and tin-pot dictators we forgot our own people. Our rich got richer, to be sure, but our middle class, working poor, and untouchable homeless got poorer. Declining unionization, declining skills, declining knowledge, declining purchasing power, declining jobs, declining solvency, declining families, and, lately, declining health ... all of this since WWI has not been normal for America. When will we get back to normal? Triple digit interest rates for the poor ... collapsing infrastructure ... courts captured by monied interests ... all national power in the hands of one President, one Senator, and one Speaker ... states in a shriveling dither of incompetence? Never might be too soon. Kimball Shinkoskey Woods Cross, Utah