Due to billions of years of concentration on selfish interests in which life creates and destroys life. Long ago a lone cyanobacterium stumbled onto how to crack open a water molecule, thus freeing Oxygen, a poison that killed almost all life on earth. But, in doing so, created photosynthesis that led to us who also stumble. Ask any chicken born and raised to satisfy our hunger: never knowing love nor respect, and suffering horrible living conditions. Just since 1918 hundreds of millions of humans have also suffered greatly from other humans. Our vaunted West with its high ideals shares much guilt. Our breakup of the heterogenous Habsburg and Ottoman empires, Poland, Germany, the Balkans, Africa, and the Middle East created continuing migrations, ethnic cleansing, and the thievery of homes, jobs, and wealth. Nor was Fair Play recruited for that recent USA election. In the 3 blocks of my long street there was one lone lawn hosting the Obama-Biden sign amid a sea of Romney-Ryan signs. Believing this lone couple had the wiser view, we joined them. Dawn revealed our signs torn out, confirming our view, so we replaced the signs - five times!
But, now that our side won, we are at liberty to criticize it. We all have faults, even you and me.
I dislike Obama continuing what he inherited militarily. A few Saudi Arabians, annoyed at US military presence in their country, concocted a scheme and stole our peaceful assets to enact a vile crime against those twin towers et al. Justifiably outraged, we retaliated but missed oil-rich Saudi Arabia, invading instead failed-state Afghanistan and oil-rich Iraq, causing many times our original casualties and damage to them and us. They resorted to suicide bombing so we call them terrorists, but both sides ignore the worth and sanctity of the human body. We developed drones where an operator in a comfortable chair with a cup of coffee can eliminate a foe, and anyone around him, thousands of miles away. Death now arrives at any time, anywhere, and unannounced. Is that not also terror? It does take the "Post" out of PTSD. Against whom do we need a military greater than the rest of the world combined that includes 11 carrier groups, WWII weaponry? How do we justify Guantanamo - and on somebody else’s island? Meanwhile our infrastructure continues to crumble and our debt multiply. If only the Military could fire condoms instead of bullets it would serve humanity.
Then Harper in Ottawa joins Obama in supporting the 64 years of Israeli aggression against Palestinians. Once upon a time, I too supported the Jewish longing for a homeland as I witnessed the Nazi horrors. Of the 13,750,000 undesirables exterminated, 44% were Jews, the same number of Germans and Soviets who starved to death in each other’s POW camps, not to mention the millions killed in post-war ethnic cleansing.
Now, this was a German crime aided by many others, including Canada and the US who turned away a shipload of refugee Jews forcing it to return to Germany for passenger extermination. Our two countries, with lots of room, failed to offer Nova Scotia or Florida as a Jewish homeland but picked on innocent, tiny, helpless Palestine still emerging from hundreds of years as part of the Ottoman empire and forcing it to accept evictions and loss of fertile land and to live in squalid refugee camps for decades. This on the basis that Jewish tribes once inhabited the area - like us Caucasians reclaiming the Caucasus. Censuses taken from 1800 to 1870 of 6 cities (Jerusalem, Safad, Acre, Hebron. Haifa, Nablus) show that only 7.5% of the population was Jewish (17% for Jerusalem). The post-1948 influx of millions of Jews, with considerable Western backing, has built Israel into a modern state but one that continues to nibble away at what was left for a Palestinian state, delayed forever by people like Netanyahu who have made Gaza a jail, actually against the wishes of many Israelis. In desperation, Palestinians have fired a few thousand ineffective rockets into Israeli-occupied land each time suffering massive retaliation that kills thousands and destroys vital infrastructure.
Shamefully, Canada and the US voted for Israel’s continued one-sided dominance when the UN overwhelmingly voted to allow Palestine the minimum recognition as an observer state.
And, even worse, Climate Change. Obama may be much more aware than Romney but he, and Harper, have yet to do enough to avert a catastrophe. Our greedy manipulation of a fragile environment has created a new geological age hostile to our runaway population surge. Compare our solar system with the human body. Both are incredibly complex with trillions of trillions of parts yet a single gene or a minute virus can completely change a human yet too many of us ignore the damage millions of tons of toxic waste we inject into the atmosphere are doing. Our "Occupy" movements, like the Egyptians, can not yet cease protests.
And Taxes. Obama, forget your sky-high $250,000 floor. We all must pay more taxes and embrace pay-as-you-go. Politicians can help by accepting lower salaries, fewer perks, and simplifying those tax forms.
And all the while Inflation has robbed us oldies of our savings. Who, or what, can rescue us?
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