The Washington Post has an article about the forthcoming national election in Mexico, out today, that says that "more than two dozen candidates have been killed leading up to the June 2 vote; hundreds have dropped out of the race. More than 400 have asked the federal government for security details. The campaign of intimidation and assassination is putting democracy itself at risk." All of this is, of course, part of the individual cartels wanting to ensure that local officials are friendly to their interests. Democracy in Mexico is not at risk, it is in the process of being destroyed, and the exact same thing is happening in other parts of Central and South America as well. The most egregious case being Haiti, where open warfare has been ongoing for some time. Add to this situation, all-out industrial war in Ukraine and Gaza, and Radical Islam on the march throughout Northern Africa and you have too much of the world involved in too intense warfare. The idea that we are seriously considering another such conflict in East Asia is beyond stupid. All of this while here inside what used to be the beacon of democracy, we are at each other's throats and in the process of destroying our own democracy. South American cartels have a foothold in our urban centers, our police structure is in tatters, and our court system is crumbling. The kiss of death may very well be that too many Americans seriously doubt the integrity of our elections, which will, if not genuinely corrected, inevitably lead to more mindless demonstrations, rioting and, eventually, actual insurrection.
I ask myself why and conclude that it is because society has changed not only here in this country, but throughout the world. Society. Not laws. Not dictators. Not crooks. Society. I believe that governments are created not by individual leaders, but by large groups of followers and that these followers generate the leaders that they willingly follow. The fighting that erupts is the result of friction between the groups as articulated by the leaders. Articulated, NOT given birth. The America that I was born into went through the horrors of the Second World War and American society was formed by those people. That society elected leadership that honestly tried to create a better world that would eschew violence. They failed abysmally and the American people turned away from policies that tried to lift others and increasingly focused on ways to maximize our own prosperity. In the process, we also grew used to being number one. We took it as our due. Others around the world came to resent our dominance and developed leadership that chose to confront our dominant position in the world. You and I responded by ignoring and/or minimizing their success. The idea that we ignore China's success in allying itself with Iran while simultaneously destroying the Uighur community inside China is absolutely amazing. Hell, we don't even discuss the fact that both India and Pakistan are participating in BRICKS. We save our anger for Mexico that permits the Chinese to sell us the illicit drugs that we American citizens are demanding so that we can better fuel the imaginary world that we live in.
We are at the point where our antagonists are growing stronger and we are growing weaker. Coalitions are emerging that unite disparate societies around their dislike of us while we increasingly seek to isolate ourselves from "foreign entanglements." The most dramatic recent example being Afghanistan, but there are a plethora of other examples. Examples ignored by us as being inconsistent with the pretend world that we wish existed. Haiti is where Mexico is headed and our only real concern is that it is no longer safe to go surfing in Baja. We have more important things to consider. We have to improve society's use of pronouns, we have to get the price of gasoline down while simultaneously protecting the climate, we have to increase the number of potato chips that money-grubbing companies put in their potato chip bags, we have to decide how old the fetus should be when we snuff it, and we have to ensure that everybody respects our feelings.
The fact that there is open warfare all around us is the other's fault and has nothing to do with us, because we are minding our own business and wishing everyone well. We are the best educated people in the entire history of mankind, we are the beacon of democracy, and, most important of all, we are way too nice to be any part of the problem. Our cities are really not as bad as people say they are even though business is moving out and citizens are too. We have become suburbanites, working from home, buying our needs on line, and socializing with each other on Zoom and Social Media. We wear our masks as a badge of honor and shun those that would see the world differently than do we. We are not prejudiced. We are right.
Tik Tok. Tik Tok.
No comments:
Post a Comment