Not so much Captain America: more Captain Jack

It's frightening watching an old friend stumble and fail.

In my teens and twenties  almost everything about America to me was fine and dandy. It had the music, San Francisco, the movie stars and great films - The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, Deliverance. It had the moves.  It had the Moon and that great 60's adventure. America offered a promise, a future. Not sure what it was to be but somehow it felt that what the US achieved today the rest of humanity would get a few years down the line.

There was the Vietnam War, the race riots, the drugs, the Mason Killings but overall America was the good guy. It kept the World from being taken over by Communism or falling into chaos. Even Nixon's fall from grace couldn't dampened down America enthusiasm to get things done. It was the Can Do Nation.

In the 70's when I visited there, I was amazed by the standard of living of the people I stayed with. In New York we stayed with a couple in a Brownstone just across from the Metropolitan Museum. We took a commuter train to Hartford, Connecticut and I was impressed by how punctual, airy and comfortable it was. In Philadelphia we stayed in a house in whose basement was a bowling alley. In St  Louise our hosts, a patent lawyer and his family,  had a nice house. The same in Stockton and Saint Francisco - the sun was always shining and everyone seem content.

Of course, we only stayed with white middle-class Americans with college educations and good jobs or vocations. The nearest we got to the underclass was with friends in the Bronx. They were Jewish and had lived there when it was a Jewish enclave - then by the 70's much of the Jewish community moved out and the poor flooded in.  On the subway we'd pass burnt out estates, derilict streets and factories. We travelled across the States from East to West on Continental Trailways. The stations were always in the crummiest part of the towns and there you saw people who didn't have large cars and large pay packets.

People we met were overwhelmingly kind and thoughtful. I lost my wallet on the train to Hartford. It was posted back to an address I was staying at untouched. We hired a car in Flagstaff to drive to the Grand Canyon, ending up in Las Vegas and staying in the nastiest motel. After travelling around the state and into Utah to visit the Zion National Park we returned the car to the rental company at Flagstaff. When I got back to England there waiting for me was banker's draft from the hire company - a refund of part of the rental charge. I was knocked out - by their efficiency! I'd never expect a British company to be geared up to do that.

That was a long time ago. 1976. The year of Jimmy Carter's election. Everything was so positive and optimistic. There hadn't been the two Shuttle disasters that exposed the shortcomings of  America's industrial complex. There hadn't been two disastrous military adventures in the Middle East. There hadn't been the Financial crisis brought about by America's corporate greed. There hadn't been the election of a demonstably unsuitable man as Commander in Chief.

Now America no longer has the ability or will to act as a peace maker. The US acts like a spoilt brat, frightened that its toys will be taken away. Aware that it has lost the goodwill of much of the world but blames others because of that. This pandemic has cruelly highlighted America failure in looking after its own people. I won't list the catalogue of shortcomings but to me the President's daily news conference is truly awful. He struts like a parody of Captain America but in effect is Mr Magoo.

Mind you there's no one else rushing to fill the void. We are in a very sorry state indeed.