Friday, February 26, 2016

It's better to die trying

In defence of socialism... or those whose concern for others outweighs any selfish consideration...
 
Those who lean to the left can seem whiny and sensitive, quick to complain in shrill tones when most people just want to get on with their lives. There is a natural tendency to over-compensate, as in the hard-core feminists of the seventies who seemed to eschew their own femininity. But there is justification for those who have been wronged to feel anger. Women have a legitimate reason to feel excluded and victimised by society, especially in the non-western world and the education of women is the key element in rehabilitating any dysfunctional society, as has been shown by many developing world NGO projects. But that is perhaps an argument for another day.

We are in a process of gloabalisation and we must learn tolerance and acceptance. We have no choice. As you say, the reality overpowers any personal aspirations we might have, be they for an impossibly egalitarian idyl, or for an old-fashioned white-picket-fence homogeneity. The world is a soup and all its people are necessary ingredients. We used to live far apart from one another. Now we are together. You cannot change this reality, but be consoled, no species is better equipped to adapt than humans.
I firmly believe that if mankind submits itself to the base instincts of greed and willful ignorance we are double fucked. It is not easy to question the morality of one's day-to-day actions and their likely implications and it gives some of those who do it a big head. This can be off-putting, but it is becoming more and more necessary to find a way forward which includes all of humanity and not just the usual elites who have misled so many times for their own gain. DDT was once considered safe to use at home, now fracking is the Godsend. But there are easier and safer solutions to all of our problems. We need to empower communities and stop looking to the elites for ideas.

If educated people with access to knowledge and resources, which are the result of many generations of enlightened thought and hard-won freedoms, do nothing to resist the calamitous trajectory of the human race, then where we will find ourselves in fifty years time doesn't bear thinking about.
You might like Trump's willingness to rock the boat, but don't be fooled by his rhetoric. He's just a very ambitious establishment man with megalomaniac tendencies who will buy you with promises and sell you to the highest bidder when he no longer needs your support. This does not make him much different from a lot of other politicians. It is his unapologetically racist, paranoid rhetoric that sets him apart. The only one who cast a similar shadow in recent history and whose populist appeal was as broad and inexplicable, was AH...sorry Godwin...