Terrible times in the world are nothing new. Looking back historically we know that there were always wars, revolutions, rivalries between leaders, killings measured in millions, bows and arrows, artillery, field hospitals with amputations when medicine was scant and not invented until Marie Curie helped with xrays, and lies were prevalent between defence teams and leaders and the lowly people. In fact the only thing that is different is that weapons have become more sophisticated and knowledge of what is happening, whether accurate or fake, is spread via the internet to the smart phone in your hand to read as you go about your daily business. Add into that global warming madness that world climates can be changed and millions of our money spent by hypocrites flying to meetings between idiots discussing our future you have the only difference between the old days and now.
If you look back at Kennedy and MacNamara and Vietnam and study Ho Chi Minh and communism back in that time of chucking out the French and Ho Chi Minh thinking like all communists do, and we have them in government here too, that the farmers are the first to go, as did Stalin, as do Starmer and Reeves, you get some perspective. The origins of the Vietnam war and the US and the horrors of mis-information that was given to the people of the United States at the time beggar belief. Thankfully Wilson did one thing right and refused to get Britain involved. For as much as I hated the Wilson government I will never forget that Wilson kept us out of Vietnam. If only Blair had done the same with Iraq and Afghanistan we would not have so many lives ruined and lost in our military.
No, nothing has changed except for the internet and the spread of information.
And that is the immense sadness. That after all that, nothing has changed.
ReplyDeleteIt never ceases to surprise me how people talk of terrible times we live in when in even the sort term of my own life, my mother growing up in the 1920s and 1930s lived in far worse times than I do, experiencing war, suffering, political malfunctions, atrocities, madness, lies, food shortages etc. deaths from TB still rife, Spanish flu, all of which took her family including her mother.
DeleteJust this week a fellow blogger mentioned a song about peace being particularly poignant these days. I replied along the lines that unfortunately, peace songs have been poignant throughout human history, as there has never been a time without wars going on in many places all over the world.
ReplyDeleteOur species has become more and more expert at inflicting suffering among ourselves (and of course on all the other species sharing the planet with us, too). Sadly, as much as we seem to be capable of learning, we don't ever learn to get along properly and let others live their lives the way they choose.
In my own school days I remember coming home to news bulletins at 6 pm showing world crisis in terms of wars and uprisings, anything from Cuban missiles to Algeria to The Congo, to Vietnam to fears of Reds Under the Bed, following on after I left school to N. Ireland, the Cyprus Emergency, later Bosnia and the Balkans and later still Rwanda. I am sure I have missed out lots of other notable uprisings and civil wars. People have short memories when they speak of the terrible time in the world at the moment. It is no more terrible than it has ever been.
DeleteI agree Rachel. I was only reading the other day about experts believe there was a volcano explosion around the thirteenth century. It rained for twenty years resulting in failed crops and the Black Death.
ReplyDeleteYes this is so Dave. And yet we have these idiots who believe they can change the science of climate. It is thought that the parting of the Red Sea was actually a tsunami event that happened.
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