Saturday, March 24, 2018

Cruelty, Savagery, Bullying, Delusion and Newspeak.

I have many USian friends. Gentle, kind, thoughtful and, well, sad and scared. I care about them. But I also see that protective bubble they wear: a nostalgic longing for the Kennedy or Lincoln or Obama USA. Without really parsing what those past USAs were. (Slavery? Slaughter of the Aboriginals?)

I, at this distance off at the edge of Canada, see 100 years of non-stop invasions of other countries, on some pretext or other. So many military installations in every corner of the universe as to be considered a form of ownership of the countries they inhabit. I, myself, live on a former US fortress which was abandoned some time in the fifties but was home to thousands of US military during WW2. All the battlements and armed gateways and arms manufacturing are long gone but the history remains. A reminder of the presence that transformed the landscape overlooking St. John's.

Now, it has all come down to this unstable moronic buffoon controlling the nuclear button to global annihilation. A man who is the butt of endless jokes. Endless jokes which gives everyone a quick mocking laugh but this does not alleviate the underlying fear which is ever present in all of us. That in a moment of rage, this bully can blow us all to smithereens. Who can incite hatred and othering for blacks and Muslims and people of colour in his own country.

He is the symbol of all that is corrupt in the country to the south of us today.

I'm grateful I still have the capacity to be appalled at each fresh murderous assault on schoolchildren by schoolchildren, at the massacres at concerts, at bombs, at the homegrown terrorism that seems to abide in every town, at toddlers shooting at mothers or siblings, men slaughtering their women partners.

But the fact that it is allowed to continue, day after day, year after year, chills my heart. So now we have the schoolchildren marching following the women marching, all marching like I remember Martin Luther King marching but the slaughter of the innocents continues, blacks, kids, gays, women in their homes.

It is a savage and cruel country indeed that can look into the eyes of these traumatized children and tell them nothing will change. And remind them that assault weapons are the right of every man, women and child to do with what they will.

It is a savage and cruel country that can look at millions and millions of their poorest and deny them life saving health care. Or plunge them into bankruptcy if they are middle-class and uninsured.

It is a savage and cruel country that can see seniors and elders eking out an existence in their cars with no home or health care, lucky to work part-time in a Walmart for sustenance.

It is a savage and cruel country that can drive by so many homeless who live in tents on the sides of the roads and under bridges.

It is mass delusion to call where they live the land of the free and the home of the brave.

It is newspeak to call invasions of sovereign countries "bringing democracy" or. sadly, "freedom".

For how can any country bring democracy anywhere when they don't have it themselves?

I leave on a note of hope from our cherished Leonard Cohen, RIP, written over 20 years ago.




31 comments:

  1. I just got back from the march in Washington and don't need a lecture from a Canadian. Have you never heard of Canadian government atrocities, no Canadian homeless, no Canadian gun violence? My daughter is a nuclear missile operator working this weekend to keep your country safe. With that little item taken care of, your country gets the luxury of spending very little on military. Enjoy your health insurance. But please keep Leonard. Alleluia.

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    1. Deflection. You are entitled, of course, to your opinions, as I am to mine, but I don't live in fear of assault weapons in schools gunning down babies and children. How can you think this is OK? I don't live in terror of bankruptcy due to my ill health. Or in my car because of no pension. Or being a target of police murders due to being black.

      And keeping Canada safe from what/who and when exactly?

      XO
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    2. We don’t think it is ok! Note she said she’d just come back from a March.

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    3. Please read my opening para and my subsequent comments.

      XO
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  2. Ours is a very sad situation in America. If you are wealthy and powerful here, then all is well and good. Life looks pretty good for those in the big houses and new cars and good jobs.

    I have said, and will continue to say, the worst is still out there. We have seen nothing yet. America may just have to answer for its atrocities this time around. It will be a dark day for the country when that happens.

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    1. I, too, DKZ, feel that we are seeing the tip of some dreadful iceberg. The kids give me hope but won't come into voting rights for quite a while, they are angry, justifiably, and see more clearly than those in charge what is happening.

      I read an article today by an American Muslim soldier who is terrified all Muslims will be rounded up, a la Hitler's Germany and put in camps, their properties confiscated.

      And Puerto Rico, that lovely place, is abandoned and inhabitants are suiciding.

      I should unplug from all news, right?

      XO
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    2. I'm all for these kids dissenting, demonstrating, protesting, but the proof will be on voting day.

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    3. I so agree. I'm hoping they'll influence the adults around them. And that powerful Emma will some force to reckon with some day soon.

      XO
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  3. I wish I could live in your country, but alas, the door is closed to those with disabilities...All you mention is disgraceful, a black mark upon ideals we seem to have lost sight of entirely...greed and profit rule the day, and both parties can be bought. Nothing sacred in the hands of profiteers.

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    1. I keep hoping we will learn from countries like Iceland and Norway and Netherlands (Canada is far from perfect) and I worry so for USian friends who are appalled at how everything seems to be falling apart - not only the infrastructure and all this military spending making the wealthy wealthier. Capitalism run amok.

      There just has to be a balance. Fair and compassionate.

      XO
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  4. "It is mass delusion to call where they live the land of the free and the home of the brave." Indeed. The US government likes to boast about democracy but right now there's precious little of it in that benighted country.

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  5. I know Nick and the brainwashing is extreme, I see the defensiveness all the time. "Greatest country on earth", I imagine it is easy to say when the media excludes how life is in other countries.

    The US continually falls way far down the list of livable and/or happiest countries in the world.

    XO
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  6. I would not like to live there WWW.

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    1. The last time I was in the USA was here:
      http://wisewebwoman.blogspot.ca/2011/04/huddled-mass.html

      I was terrified.

      XO
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    2. I had a positive experience when I entered the US in 2015. All very straightforward. But maybe I was just lucky I didn't have some weird annotation on my passport that would have attracted the heavy mob.

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    3. You were lucky Nick. It depends on the airport. Or border crossing. I had another nasty experience the last time I went to South Carolina, driving. An obnoxious customs crossing guard.

      In the hundreds of crossings I made prior to Newark and Buffalo, both for business and pleasure, I had nothing but pleasant and warm experiences.

      The climate has changed. For the worse.

      XO
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  7. Dear WWW, My husband and I traveled from Houston to Washington, DC Friday evening to take part in the March for Our Lives. It has been a very dark time for most of us in the US. But yesterday was so uplifting, so inspiring that I honestly think there is hope for my country. I wish you could have been there with us to see the thousands of people from all over the U.S. carrying their homemade signs. The only good thing to come out of the nightmare in the White House is that we have been shaken out of our complacency and know that we must take action and make change happen...and follow the kids.

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    1. I had enormous hope too Florence. I said to a couple of my US friends: that Emma, she'll be president some day and they all had the same thought. I wept. The youth are showing the world. They are so wise. I find that same feeling with the youth around me including my granddaughter. They are so wise and compassionate.

      More than we ever were.

      XO
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  8. The morning after DT was elected, I attended a volunteer luncheon at the local wildlife refuge where the staff was worried what would happen, where I talked to a teacher who had to comfort her hispanic students later that day. I listened to my grandaughter tell me she was scared. I remember remarking to a cousin in Ireland that I was ready to move but knew we were needed here to fight as best we could. Yesterday I marched (and I am old enuf to remember marching for civil rights in the 50's)and tommorrow I am attending an event to help a local Democratic candidate. We just have to keep our focus right now but it is hard. I have never been a proponent of America is the greatest. We are all part of a world that needs the best in each of us.

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  9. Mary I admire your stoicism and your courage in continuing the battle for your country. It is just shocking to me that with so many good and honourable citizens that the US has degenerated to this degree.

    I view it as a wakeup call and these wonderful children are leading the way to a better future.

    I am firm believer in that there are far more good people in the world than there are evil. It is just unfortunate that the evil hold the money bags.

    XO
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  10. The weekend's marches were a hopeful sign that, in future years, new generations will not be as apathetic and complacent as many of their predecessors have been. I hope this new-found passion will pay off with, at least, some degree of change in government stances. If not, then I do fear for the future - here and everywhere. The USA has been slip-sliding downward for years, decades, and even during times which we were told were "good", times with a halfway decent president. Bad stuff was still going on...and on.

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    1. I agree T. People don't want to recognise that Obama had blood on his hands too, so many massacres committed in his name on foreign soil and Guantanamo may be just the tip of a terrible iceberg too as some as saying.

      I've been an advocate of the young, this new inspiring generation for quite a while now having seen it in those I know. There are no scales on their eyes. They know.

      XO
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  11. I think the one good thing that has come from this dreadful man being elected is that it has energized people to stand up and get involved.

    And I've said it before and I will say it again and again: those kids organizing and marching are magnificent.

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    1. May the fire continue in all their bellies, Elle, they are the hope and the future.

      XO
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  12. Americans still defend their country and its actions, not just under Trump but since the second world war. Maybe the atrocities at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were so vile they had to justify them somehow, and ever since that justification has become easier with each passing atrocity. All in the name of 'freedom' and 'democracy', of course. Have you noticed how George W Bush has become a much more acceptable president since Trump arrived in the Oval Office? Today, a war criminal is suddenly an okay man. Sad to say, Obama is now almost Godlike - though less so to the families of the many innocents he blasted out of existence with his drones, or the thousands he deported at dead of night, often with children left to fend for themselves with no parental guidance.
    A land of corruption and malice; a land split asunder into tribes feuding constantly, hatred of one's neighbor a common rule.
    I fear my own country is following a similar path.

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    1. I'm with you on these observations, RJA, I only write about them on occasion as the true horror throws me into a PTSD fugue state. You were fortunate to get out, but like you say all countries are becoming more unethical and history is tampered with. Whitewashing Obama et al is part of the scenario. The true horror of the reality of his/their actions in the name of some oxymoron or other in sovereign countries might cause a true rebellion.

      The children are leading the way but for how long?

      The true underbelly of the nation is evident in the attacks on them.

      XO
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  13. There is a line in Gone With the Wind - "How closely women clutch the very chains that bind them!" Substitute people for women and you have an explanation for those that defend in the US what they condemn in other countries. We are indeed living in a terrifying time, when politicians allow the murder of children so they might keep their own power. Of the past 3,400 years, humans have been entirely at peace for 268 of them, or just 8 percent of recorded history.

    We are a warlike, cruel race, no matter what country's boundaries we live within. We cover it under a thin veneer of culture and religion but there's no hiding it from ourselves. We are capable of kindness but when it comes to yours vs mine, we are dependent mostly on our biology. Aggression has been described as a product of both biology and environment so it would appear that were we to change our environment we would, eventually, through evolution, alter our biology to favor altruism and cooperation. That's the hope I see in today's young people- their cry for justice for more than just themselves.

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    1. The nearest security blanket is held tightly, I agree Pauline. We have our own Trump-like icon now heading a provincial Conservative (Tory) party here. People said it couldn't happen. I knew it could. And he could be heading in a few years to Prime Minister of Canada. Full of hate, spewing venom.

      Canada is not exempt from these elected horror shows.

      I remember one of Michael Moore's docs laying the foundation of the US on slavery, violence and threats. Maybe eventually becoming part of the DNA. Who knows?

      I am heartened by so many of its citizens calling foul and literally millions marching in protest even to show others they're not alone.

      XO
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  14. I hate to hear you painting all of us with such a broad brush. Our recent election was a product in part of a mass propaganda push. Did you know that the overwhelming majority of Americans are in favor of gun restrictions? But the people in power are owned by the NRA. It's like blaming all the British for Brexit and the likes of Theresa May. Many of us here are organizing, protesting, and pushing others to vote for change. Our young people give me great hope that the tide will turn again.

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    1. SAW - I opened with this: "I have many USian friends. Gentle, kind, thoughtful and, well, sad and scared. I care about them. But I also see that protective bubble they wear: a nostalgic longing for the Kennedy or Lincoln or Obama USA. Without really parsing what those past USAs were. (Slavery? Slaughter of the Aboriginals?)".

      Not all.

      XO
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  15. What is that saying about those who live in glass houses.... And talk about name calling! What a show of ignorance. President Trump was elected President because we see him as our last hope. Sounds to me like you have been brainwashed in your opinions. Most of us Americans would like our country back. That is why we voted for President Trump.

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