This morning the New York Times web edition featured an article comparing the present political situation in the U.S., the issues, the way they are debated, the language used to that of the years immediately before 1861. The names have changed but the characters, the religious right, the liberals and the conservatives in a word the same mix is there. The author concluded that the U.S. and its parts are still fighting the Secession War.
The situation is not privy to the U.S., Canada is in the throes of a federal election. Our conservatives are using very old tricks such as denigrating and demonizing the opposition and talkingthe religious right’s talk. They even brought out the pork barrel. Their star candidate in the Lasalle riding went so far as to claim that Conservative counties would get, as is natural, more money than the others. The opposition is dismally disorganised and splintered.
Elsewhere on our planet the situation is no better. Democracy is progressing back to quasi dictatorships in many countries where the leaders call elections but reject the results when not in their favour. Other countries have been punished by world powers for not voting the way they should have according to superpowers.
In some parts, as in the Middle Ages, warring parties rape women, torture captives and burn villages. Schools are blown up and literacy condemned.
Maybe I should start looking for a suitable cavern?
I find myself in a mood of resignation. I think progress is in many ways illusory. All we can do is hope we don't find ourselves living through messy parts of the cycle. Perhaps I'm too pessimistic, but when I listen to some of the things people say with their bare faces hanging out, it doesn't look like 95% of humanity has ever really learned to think.
RépondreSupprimerMaybe some day? Let's hope.
RépondreSupprimerLook at what passes for the new.
RépondreSupprimerYou will not find it there but in despised poems.
It is difficult to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day for lack
of what is found there.
Hear me out for I too am concerned
and every man who wants to die at peace in his bed besides.
(The formatting of this excerpt was lost in the cutting and pasting. This is from William Carlos Williams.)
I have a friend who thinks the United States will tear itself apart in less than ten years. It will be the rich (and their toadies) against the rest of the people.
RépondreSupprimerIn Canada, Prime Minister Harper (when the leader of the Alliance) said if he got a parliamentary majority, he will change this country so much, nobody would recognize it as the same nation. I believe he will do that.
Not very comfortable days for ordinary Canadians.
Jenny, Victor Hugo once wrote that poets were the voice of God. Maybe we should listen a little more.
RépondreSupprimerRob-bear, so many countries are on the verge of tearing themselves apart, one more, one less what would be the difference. As for Harper's Canada I hope it will never materialize. Immigrating, and where my I ask, at 80 could be very painful.
Malgre que vous dites, je pense que le monde devient graduellement mieux. Tout semble etre aller pour l'enfer, parce que tout est rapporté dans les médias nouvelles de nos jours.
RépondreSupprimerAussi, c'est l'objectif des médias nouvelles pour propager d'alarme et de découragement. Ce attire plus de lecteurs et téléspectateurs.
Peut-être on pourrait mieux dire que pour chaque trois pas en avant, nous faisons deux pas en arrière?!!
Il est vrai que les médias, souvent mais pas toujours, exagère le mauvais côté des choses. Pourtant, Philippe, je trouve inacceptable de retrouver des comportements barbares dignes du Moyen-Âge lors de certains conflits peu importe où ils se déroulent.
RépondreSupprimerTrois pas en avant, deux en arrière, dites-vous. À ce rythme, quand même, nous n'avançons pas beaucoup.
It's scary:politicians in the pockets of rich people; lies and false prophesies; rich getting richer, poor getting poorer.
RépondreSupprimerYes, and we the poeple seem content with that since the U.S. gave a majority to the Tea Party and Canadians could, on 2cnd May, give a majority to our conservative kotowers.
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