It is curious how much efforts do we spend to struggle with various kinds of discrimination unacceptable for our civilized society. Gender, race, sexual orientation, income - you name it! All these are good, but somehow we miss a discrimination of a much greater scale – AGE DISCRIMINATION.

AGEISM. Whether we are black or white, straight or gay, men or women, rich or poor, one day the most of us will get old.

There is something so heinous about ageism that it has to be cured completely, not simply treated.

Aging in America, and in the mordern world at large, became a crisis in general, long-term care crisis in particular. But it is not only national crisis, it is a global one.

However, America gives the mode for the rest of the world not simply because it is the biggest economy, but also due to the way it is the biggest. America’s immanent modus operandi is to expand and to prevail, and it does it splendidly, and it cannot do without it. What happens in America, ripples the rest of the world. In this way or another, the rest of the world, willy-nilly, consciously or unconsciously, is copycating the American practices and resulting conditions, even when it tries to resist those. If America will fail to take care about its elders, it will soon become the status-quo for the rest of the world, no later than one generation after. Sad perspective IF WE DO THINGS WRONG HERE.

The contemporary cultural and moral levels of the global society are disturbing. They are defined by the way the society treats its most vulnerable ones – the youngest and the oldest members. The animals do it better than we do.

There is an episode in one of the old German movies: an elderly women is crossing the road in the city downtown. She starts to cross when the light is green for her, but she is moving slowly, slower than the average pedestrian should move in the civil engineering calculations, so by the time the light goes red she still has made just a half of her way. Some of the cars that are anxiously waiting for their turn to move start to beep, some just rush in front of or behind her. No compassion. Technically, and legally, the motorists are right – their light is green. Compassion is neither a legal nor technical term. Everyone is right, but general situation is wrong.

Our morale is failing our elders. Unless we change it, we fall.