The orphaned West; The shame of what is done in our name
A photo essay heavily captioned
Looking back on my innocent public school years there was no shortage of cringe worthy jokes and taunts passed around among me and my playmates. Sometimes the verbal wars were escalated to well-honed grudges and fights in the school yard and trips to the principal’s office.
One such joke was that student “xyz” was our socialite if we were content with a ten watt light bulb. Another was: How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? The answer: One, but the light bulb has to want to change!
Those were wonderfully innocent days when the school yard was our fiefdom and the world beyond was unknown, not going much beyond city limits and occasional visits to my American cousins.
Hitler and Mussolini were names we knew and there were poorly informed debates on whether they were still alive, only much later did we learn Hitler suffered his bunkered death and Mussolini was dragged through the streets. Much, much later I was to learn their spirit and ideology lived on. Mussolini was so kind to warn that when corporations and governments merge fascism is rekindled.
Oh yes, we played “guns”, where killing was bloodless. Killing without compunction, pure theater, where the assailant lived on. Then came rabbit hunting with real guns.
Now I see the world in full measure as much as time and true grit will allow. Now we are in the age of chaotic mergers and interventions as the unprincipled principals burn down the “school houses”. I spectate the plunder and pillage and contend with survivor guilt as the “school yard” is bloodied from fence to fence.
There is no concern for body counts just the price of gold bullion.
Wars, bombs and genocides demean us. This is the megatonage killing our humanity so recklessly.
There is no shame in the halls of power as they cash in the dividends of war and bloody political graft. The multitudes of the West have been orphaned.
Too many US presidents have been over grown frat-boys playing the game of being ham-fisted pretentious diplomats when statecraft is the business of seasoned diplomats, with historical perspectives serving the national interest generating sound policy projecting into well wrought futures. Endless warfare and ruinous ideologies are sociocidal by any measure.
The USA has systematically rejected essential diplomacy in favor of bullying brinkmanship, only able to speak the language of war. It has much to learn from Russia and China who conduct their foreign policies through seasoned career diplomats.
It has never occurred to the West’s moribund elites that the quality and effectiveness of governance must be commensurate with the times. Politics in the 21st century can never be the robber baron marauder politics of the 19th…
"Now comes the transit age, the age of brass, When clowns into the vacant empires pass, Blinding the multitude with specious words. To them faith, kinship, truth and verity, Man's sacred rights and every holiest thing, Are but the counters at a desperate play, Flippant and reckless what the end may be, So that they glitter, each his little day, The little mimic of a vanished king." (see foot note)
For over the last hundred years political and economic classes of the West, especially so since the end of WW ll, have been so focused on wars, power and privilege. They have neglected the harsh reality that state craft and governance must also move forward, with the ability to address the momentous issues facing larger more complex societies. Instead they retreat into cowardly self-serving megalomania and ideologies denigrating and destroying democracy and the value systems going with it.
Doddering geriatrics linger in the halls of power uttering child-like invective. Narcissistic senators hold their hearings as bully pulpiteers, a flair for the dramatic, devoid of any convictions. Whole legislatures give standing ovations to war criminals and genocidists; their pockets stuffed with cash and their souls whored to the empire’s wars.
Americans, along with other Western governments should have serious concerns that too many key appointments are made on the basis of political cronyism, partisanship and ideology— hiring dough heads and handing monkey wrenches to serial killers.
Eminent diplomats like George Kennan lived to see his accomplishments undermined and regretted the growing influence of the CIA on US foreign policy, having served on the committee that founded it.
To sustain the empire, America’s brain trust, many of its best scholars, academics, economists and commentators are marginalized and considered dissidents.
Their is also a body of historic literature by prescient authors like C. Wright Mills, Chalmers Johnson, Stephen Kinzer and others as true prophets to the crisis America and the West now face.
The god father of American dissidents Noam Chomsky and others of his ilk are barred from the Mainstream Media (MSM) as it is propagandist for the status quo. It has to be asked how nations can survive when they so thoroughly denigrate humanist legacies and indulge in such blatant and systemic corruptions?
Now, as the crisis deepens and greater wars are becoming more imminent the status quo becomes more desperate and punitive toward its critics, refusing to show any contrition, compromise or dynamic progressive leadership.
Those of us living in the West for the last 75 years have lived a coddled/propagandized existence. This had led to the belief our dominance and impunity will last indefinitely. In fact we live in a rapidly changing world. Protected by the world’s largest military apparatus and the fatuous belief we are the exceptional societies, the chosen few who are the anointed custodians. Nothing could be further from the truth as there are other civilizations who have the right to peaceful co-existence on their terms. The intransigence of the West is isolating us and depleting our futures as the rest of the world moves on.
We fail to recognize the West only represents 12% of the world’s population. Western nations especially the USA are deeply in debt with poor social indicators. Western European countries have been devastated economically by blowback from the the ill-fated NATO proxy war against Russia. The EU countries are being heavily taxed to pay for the spiraling costs of continuous warfare. NATO members are being constantly hounded to pick up a larger share of the costs of Washington’s serial wars.
British Prime Minister Kier Starmer is cutting senior pensions to pay for current wars. CIA director William Burns has just announced his agency will be directing massive funding toward containing and warring against China. Even though China, like Russia want diplomatic detente.
As the US presidential election stumbles to its final conclusion there is a growing domestic crisis facing the US. The furor over the millions of ill-legal aliens entering the country is deeply resented by Americans burdened by the onerous costs of wars and now being displaced in their own homeland. While their government squanders trillions of dollars on foreign wars the homeland is on starvation rations. Further inflamed by the devastation of hurricanes, Milton and Helene, with no significant government aid and relief forthcoming. The voracious appetites of the empire are imploding the homeland.
We have come to worship the false gods of technology, suffer the false prophets of our times, and the weapons of mass distraction constantly bombarding our psyches. We slide from passive indifference to pathological apathy while our world is stripped away from us. There are the weapons of war and the methods of mass brainwashing are too prevalent in our decaying societies. What is done in our name goes beyond shame, it is the calibration of our imminent demise.
As orphan’s of the West we suffer the shame of what is done in our name as the school yard bullies blow up the future.
—Archibald Lampman, excerpt, The Modern Politician 1896
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In my opinion...again and again it boils down to RACISM...Overall, have the right colour of skin and no problems. Whiteness gives you smartness???