It Has Gotten Better

D-Day + 70 years means much time for reflection.  The vets who risked it all way back when are apparently wondering about the present and the future.  The quick answer is, in part thanks to them, the world is a better place.  Yes, even post 9-11 and post financial crisis.  In most objective measures, it is better now: less war, less intra-state war, less poverty, more empowered women, less tyranny, less disease (despite Jenny McCarthy's best efforts), and on and on. 

We may perceive things to be worse since we have so much media and so much internet to remind us of all that is awful in the world.  But the aggregate statistics show that things are better.  Sure, it is trouble dealing with Iraq, Iran, and Syria these days.  But I prefer those threats to the bipolar, hair trigger cold war, where we came pretty close a few times to nuclear war.  Yes, there are more countries with nuclear weapons than before, but the hair trigger is not quite there.  Yes, Russia is obnoxious these days, but there is no threat of Russian armies marching across Europe, unlike the 1980s. 

The big threat to the future is not the tyranny of the past nor the xenophobia of the present.  It is climate change.  So, we have much to worry about, but we always did have much to worry about. 

So, thanks to the folks who sacrificed so much to make victory over the Nazis possible (especially the Russians who lost so much [they were led so poorly]).  You made the world a better place.  And it is still a better place.  Even with some regression here and there.