“Hindsight is worth a million bucks” … but is it worth the loss of millions of lives?
The ignorance of our so-called leaders is exposed when real leaders can say, “I told you so.”
(2 min read)
Nobody was listening then. Is anyone listening now?
Bill Gates, one of the more enlightened animals in the genus homo sapiens, told us in 2015 – 5 years ago – “We’ve actually invested very little in a system to stop an epidemic … We’re not ready for the next epidemic.”
“If anything kills over 10 million people in the next few decades, it’s most likely to be a highly infectious virus rather than a war,” Gates said. “Not missiles, but microbes.” – Bill Gates, 2015
Photo: cbc.ca
Trump, Trudeau, Conte, Sanchez, Ford, et al, have no excuse (I shouldn’t equate anyone with Trump, but he’s just the ultimate con-man in a bunch of ill-prepared politicians). Actually, they have nothing but excuses, and a massive lack of integrity, courage and character – not to mention knowledge – in the face of this disaster. And yet, we keep electing these “second-tier-capability” leaders and ignore the intelligence and wisdom of people the likes of Gates – many others have issued similar warnings.
Political leaders don’t deal in reality, they deal in electability. Now we know how disastrous that is to the electorate.
Here are two recent articles (March 25, 2020), written in the midst of the imploding health chaos and they are a frightening confirmation of the old saw, “… I told you so!” The article by Paul Rogers includes the 2015 TED talk by Bill Gates (8 min) – embedded below – and the other by Madeleine Kearns, which references a much earlier story from the Bible that tells how Egypt prepared, in advance, and was ready for its seven year famine.
Despite these foreshadowings, we, the product of modernity’s science and technological wizardry, have learned little about planning to protect ourselves. We’re having too much fun getting rich (an embarassing few), getting obese (a non-embarrassing many), accepting growth for growth’s sake, and living in the present – to hell with the future. Not giving a good damn about our grandchildren’s way of life. Let them figure it out. We did; they can. If they have a chance.
Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.
So here we are, prepared to fail. Actually, failing in real-time, right before our eyes, right in front of our dying colleagues, friends, neighbors and soon, many of our families.
Nero may have fiddled while Rome burned, but Trudeau, Trump, et al are fiddling while their citizens die.
Where are our governments? Unprepared. Slow to react – fiddling. Still not listening or learning. Throwing billions and trillions at the problem – band-aids on a hemorrhage – and expecting us to accept the transparency of their ineptitude.
For the weakness it [Ebola crisis] had exposed was not merely “that the system didn’t work well enough” but rather that “we didn’t have a system at all.” – Bill Gates, 2015
Read these two articles and take stock of your leaders.
This is not only a “global failure,” it is a failure in every nation, state, province, city, neighborhood and every political riding. It needs to be fixed – starting now. It’s “code blue” or “code 700,” everywhere. And it will be a critical emergency in every upcoming election until we get leaders who will do the right thing, when they should, not when the virus as already left the barn. BTW, like Bill Gates said, the barn doors are still open and there are more deadly viruses waiting to run wild. It’s not a matter of if, it’s simply when.
Coronavirus: Bill Gates predicted pandemic in 2015 by Paul Rogers (less than 3 min read). Read more >>
We Should Have Listened to Bill Gates by Madeleine Kearns (less than 3 min read). Read more >>
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so why is it accepted as a benchmark by most leaders?
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“People are the worst”
Coming 2026
My personal history is the stuff they write books about. And that's what I am doing. The working title, "Chains of My Father: Marry White."
"The ghostly image of the tragic mulatto trapped between two worlds." - Barack Obama
This perspicacious line from the Prologue of Barack Obama's "Dream from My Father" wrenched my aspiration into action. I started writing, furiously. Unlike Obama's perspective, my pain had been for the opposite reason: I was not seen by whites as a "tragic mulatto," rather I lived every day of my childhood hoping whites were not "searching my eyes for some telltale sign" that I WAS mulatto. This is my story.
It's historical fiction because I cannot find enough records to substantiate all facets of the story. I've combed the genealogy, traveled to my father and grandmothers' birthplace, walked the graveyards, searched the churches and ... well, all the facts aren't there. I have written three books based on the genealogy of other families but my ancestors emerged from a journey that left too few records – slavery.
My paternal, great grandmother was a "freed slave." My grandmother, Amelia, was born to a mixed race slave named Mary (we do not know her last name) and a white, French plantation owner, the Count de Poullain, in Grenada, West Indies. Amelia was raised in the "Big House" and in adulthood, in an attempt to escape her black heritage disowned her mother, telling her, "Get out and never come back." Amelia, as a mother of twelve children, enshrined into the family commandments, "Marry white." Many did, including my father. My mother was a lovely, white, Anglo-Saxon protestant born in England. They met in Canada where my dad studied and became a doctor.
It has taken five generations for the descendants of Mary to free themselves from the stigma of their black heritage but today my children embrace it. Unfortunately, the past 250 years have been a wasteland of bigotry, racism and bullying. But, on closer look, we see not only the brutality, fear, violence, and murder but also the self-respect, dignity, love, kindness, perseverance and indomitable spirit.
As of the spring of 2025, the depth of historic perspective and the sweeping inspiration of oppressed people has created a two-volume duology of which I have only arrived at the middle of the 19th century. 1840 is the year my great grandfather was born, the beginning of Volume II, and he's pushing me to make sure our story is published by the summer of 2026.
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