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.

Bears Repeating (and repeating)

~~~~~~~~~~~Libya, 2011~~~~~~~~~~~

"The truth is, they want you, you see, to be poor. If you don't know the reason, I'll tell you. It's to train you to know who your tamer is. Then, whenever he gives you a whistle and sets you against an opponent of his, you jump out and tear them to pieces."

Aristophanes: circa 422BC

Two World Wars, Vietnam, Iraq, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya.....Iran?