Avarice and arrogance will lead to no good.
Just as one human being - a living entity of a civilised society that has in the past paid such a high price to continually reach for a greater civilisation - to get to where we are - I now feel outraged.
Outrage coupled with great sadness and perhaps some shame also. Shame - because even though I did not vote for this government, or Trump or any of these shockingly failed leaders - I am still a member of the society that has brought this about. It has happened on my watch - during my life-time.
I feel outraged at the inflammatory, insulting language our leaders so often use - Leaders who seem to prove daily that they are unfit for high office - Leaders who consistently squander and waste our trust by their actions or lack off.
Perhaps I could be charged with naivety - but why do our leaders use such charged language? Why always the twisting of the facts and distorting of the truth? Why do they exaggerate and spin their stories to the point they become blatantly untrue? Why tell so many lies to the people they are meant to serve?
Yet we put up with this shambles in the name of democracy. Our current Prime Minister was voted into the leadership of the Conservative party by about one-fifth of one percent of our population. 0.2 % - That does not sound very democratic to me.
So Mr Johnson was enabled to hold a general election which he duly did - and won hands down. Democracy in action, I hear you cry. Yes - except that he won only by default. There was not anyone else to vote for - no one credible anyway.
His road to power began with him deceiving his friend - David Cameron and his long-term plans have worked - he has achieved his aim of getting his grubby hands on the levers of power. But no one voted for the "Daethvadar like" Dominic Cummings. Yet he seems to be running the country, or at least enshrining the policy for our Prime Minister. It is as if the "Dark Side" has invaded Number 10 Downing Street, and like a foul stench, permeates and infects the corridors of Whitehall power. All dissent is crushed and no one dare speak against the word of Number 10.
The Force appears weak if not defeated and the Jedi Knights seem to be absent. All hope looks lost.
But fear not - (I have to tell myself). Perhaps we are in our winter of discontent. The spring will return, and the sleeping bears will rise soon enough. Life is stranger than fiction.
A parent will tend to the needs of their child - yet we abandon and vandalise our Mother Earth - and at our peril.
Our World is sitting precariously on the edge of catastrophe and we, as the human population cannot just bury our heads in the sand and ignore the evidence of what is happening all around us. We cannot go on pretending not to notice. We need action - we must encourage all forms of activity that drive towards solutions, rectifying the issues that concern us all.
These global issues; over-population, Pollution of our planet and atmosphere and Global-Warming need attention now! I'm not too fond of exclamation marks - But NOW warrants one.
But what is just as alarming at the moment - is that the nations of the World are so noticeably politically unstable. Certainly more unstable now than ever before in my life-time.
It is the result of poor leadership; leaders who fail to address their fundamental duties; to keep their populations safe, secure, healthy, educated and fulfilled. To engage with world issues and understand that we are all connected. In other words, Leaders who fall asleep at the wheel - just as a driver might do. And of course, eventually, the road bends, or there is a slow vehicle in front, or a deer crosses the road, and inevitably, it ends up in a car-crash. Carrying on this analogy - the trouble is that some, if not most leaders, cannot even drive. So perhaps the number of crashes is unsurprising. And if they totally ignore the rules of the road - all other drivers are in jeopardy.
These failed Leaders are causing havoc in our world and democracy is sliding backwards as a result. We should all be concerned - and Trump - the supposed leader of the "free world" is one of the biggest culprits.
I keep trying to imagine what it would be like if I were one of those refugees. If I had lost everything - all that was dear to me. If my life had got to a place where anything was better than now? Would not any one of us look to hope? The beaming lights of hope around the World would shine as the future, a place to aim for. A place of refuge and hope. And if I were driven by my desperation to take the massive risk and chance my life - and worse, the lives of my loved ones, at least those that were still alive. If I were to take that risk on a boat crossing the Mediterranean Sea or trekking through hostile country - what would I want those with the power to help - do?
There but for the grace of God go any one of us. Surely we have been here before, so many times in our history; have we not learned the lesson yet? As John Donne put it all those years ago - "No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thine friends or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee."
For the love of God. For the love of whatever you hold dear. For goodness sake - do everything you can to help these unfortunate people. Raise money - raise awareness - petition your political representatives - but do something. Please. "They" could so easily have been me - or even worse, You?
Rick - Suffolk - UK - 2nd March - 2020
rick@notesfromengland
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