Category: 2020

I wish I had better news to share, but there is no sense in burying our heads in the sand: It’s broken! Actually, it is so sadly and dangerously broken that I don’t know what it will take in order to fix it. However, humanity had arrived to such dismal precipices a few times before in our history, and, after we plummeted into the nadir we have managed to climb up again, though often quite slowly and painfully. Might this happen for our children and grandchildren’s sake? It’s possible.

There is an unsettling angst that is permeating our Planet. It is as if we are constantly sitting on the edge of our seats; as if we’re sloshing through quicksand never knowing when it will swallow us. Even those who do not listen to the News and Views anymore are affected by this feeling. It is all because this Virus that has engulfed the whole Planet has inadvertently caused not just disease and death, but has also bared so much inadequacy, hypocrisy, deceit and malfeasance that had been ongoing for decades and centuries while many of us were willfully blind, or woefully ignorant.

I feel that the most striking revelation coming out of the past several months is the fact that we humans are generally uninformed, malleable, tribal and selfish. Also, we have corrupt political leadership in so many places across this world! No one, though, expected that the United States of America would be classified amongst those places. No one! Least of all the American people who believe that they are exceptional! Really? Thinking of all this, I recalled a terrific book that a good friend once sent me as a gift. It was called: Sorrows of Empire by Johnson Chalmers and it was published in 2004 after our wars on Afghanistan and Iraq. Chalmers once stated that: “A nation can be one or the other, a democracy or an imperialist, but it can’t be both. If it sticks to imperialism, it will, like the old Roman Republic, on which so much of our system was modeled, lose its democracy to a domestic dictatorship.” I cannot think of any truer words, especially nowadays! In that same book, Chalmers said (my words) that if you can afford to buy a condo in Canada then you should go ahead and do that Pronto! In other words: Escape! Because, in his opinion, the United States was going downhill and pretty fast! There have been other writers and analysts who have written books and articles in this regard citing our undemocratic practices, bigotry, injustice, cruelty and our unwarranted hubris. Sadly, our arrogant, self-serving political officials disregarded those writings and, to the contrary, proceeded to encourage our Imperialism, our Meddling all over the world (and our vociferous denials of same), as well as our Military expenditures and amassing of lethal weapons that we are exporting to anyone who pays for them, thus ensuring that the world becomes even more dangerous, and, more ominously, that some of that weaponry would be utilized in order to subdue and quell protesting activist citizens. Look around you and tell me that this is not happening in quite a few places all over this world! Moreover, with the Trump Presidency we have seen how every law on the books can be manipulated, re-explained, re-defined and upturned on its head to suit the issue at hand, and that the Powerful have always, always and much before Trump, resorted to this tactic while both – yes, both! – political party hierarchies went along willingly in order to maintain their power despite some cosmetic slogans and acts with which they whipped us up and lulled us into thinking that they are looking out for us. Not so! Not at all! Therefore they should all GO! We need fresh, clean blood in our corridors of power if we are ever to have Equality and Justice.

This year the world is celebrating the 75th. Anniversary of the establishment of the United Nations, an event that happened after the devastation of WWII and that was meant to bring nations together in a forum that would promote peace, negotiation, cooperation and coexistence. Unfortunately, it has not succeeded in its mission as proven by the many horrible wars that have happened in the meantime and all that those engendered by way of the horrendous number of refugees and uprooted multitudes across the world, the human rights abuses that continue unfettered and unobstructed etc. etc. All these terrible events and the pain they caused have also led to the mushrooming of human trafficking whether for sex, or slave workers; the flowering and proliferation of drugs, drug overlords and gangs; money laundering; the increase in the numbers of oligarchs, strongmen and cyber-criminals amongst other wicked side-effects.

So, yes, it’s broken! It is very, very broken. And we have not reached the nadir yet! However, nothing has changed for the Ruling Classes and their Posses; the Media Characters and their Adjuncts, the Corporate Executives and their Minions. Nothing! They are still enjoying their same life-styles and    all else. But life has changed drastically for all of us as we fight each other over the wearing of a pathetic mask rather than focus on how to support each other in our quest to induce all of the afore mentioned to provide us with Equality, Justice and Peace! Quite pathetic!

All this made me think back: Lebanon and Ireland, where in both places there was a clear reason for the conflict. In Lebanon the Maronite Christians refused to share equality and power with Muslims whose numbers were about to surpass those of Christians. In Ireland it was the Protestant North that refused to share equality and power with the majority Catholics. EQUALITY and POWER that happened along a religious divide, though Not due to the religion itself! Hence, clinging onto Power by whatever means necessary. This same scenario has also played out in other places – such as South Africa – where one faction thought they deserved to reign supreme over others whom they thought were undeserving of Equality, or Justice. Unfortunately, there are many other examples.

So: Welcome to the United States in the 21st. Century where history is being repeated and where the dangers and calamities ahead of us are sounding more dire, ominous and dangerous by the minute, and where, it seems, that there are not enough proud Americans who love their country more than themselves or their ideology in order to stop us from tumbling into the precipitous abyss ahead. It is so embarrassing! Who would have ever believed this even remotely possible?

Recently, the Lebanese President was asked as to where shattered Lebanon was headed, and his succinct reply was: To Hell! (His words. Literally!) If there are not enough Americans to stop President Trump and his White, Republican Lieutenants we will be going there along with Lebanon!

How on earth do we Escape this frightening future? That condo in Canada is sounding pretty inviting at this juncture!!

As the battle for the White House heats up and becomes down and dirty and quite dangerous I couldn’t help but conjure up an image to help me deal with all this crap, especially that The Virus seems to have unveiled a whole lot of rubbish that had been hidden for decades and centuries underneath the Glitz and Glamor of the whole Planet, and for which we have all been complicit in one way, or another.

When Virus flew at us it sent us scurrying for dear life! We are still scurrying and have not dealt with this Pandemic as we should have by creating a Universal and Unified System in order to beat it. To the contrary, it is a “go to it alone” approach during which each country, state and community has been trying to cope on its own and, even, vying as to who would be the first to develop a vaccine and, in that process, prostituting medicine for politics!  How utterly despicable!

As a Collective Humanity this Virus seems to have totally upended us, and, perhaps, now more than ever, we need to find ways in which we can Collaborate, Coordinate, Re-Prioritize, Re-Negotiate and Re-Think how we have been dealing with each other as human beings, as countries and with our Planet, otherwise, and sooner than we all anticipate, we might be really entering into the Dark Ages and annihilating each other. No exaggeration!

Imagine your closet where you have been too occupied with your life to do anything but grab stuff out and dump stuff back in, piling things on top of each other haphazardly. Months pass by until one day you open the closet and something flies out and zaps you. You freak out thinking that it was a moth and that your closet must be infested with them! So, you remove everything, air out or wash all items, disinfect and wipe the closet down, and then you proceed to sort everything out: hang washed clothes back up neatly; fold others tidily and place on shelves; sort a laundry pile; donation pile; trash pile etc. etc. All done!

Our Planet is that figurative closet. For centuries we have been using and abusing its resources so that our climate is suffering and hitting back at us with fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, extreme temperatures, disease plus all those across the world who are suffering due to these catastrophes! We have also been dumping rules, regulations, laws and systems one on top of the other randomly and with total disregard to anything but the “now.” One need only glance at our unfair tax code and see for themselves how lobbyists, corporations, special interests and corrupt lawmakers have skewed and messed them up so much and so often that they are ineligible and need a magician to decipher and try to make any sense of their mile-high codes. And, there is so much more rubbish in our governmental closets that it would take a book to enumerate all of them!

Also, we are, and at this point in time, undergoing upheavals, protests, and disenfranchisement in so many places across our World. Nowhere else, though, are citizens as armed-to-the-teeth as they are in these United States. This is precisely why, unless there is some sort of a Very Serious  Intervention to halt the madness gripping some in this nation, all of us will suffer the very serious and terrifying consequences. Hopefully, Political Leaders will wisen up and rise to the occasion, clean out their moth-ridden closets, update the laws and rules and see to it that they fulfill their primary duty of providing Equality and Justice to their citizens while reminding themselves that: “. . . personal prejudice and financial greed are the two great evils that threaten courts of law, and once they get the upper hand they immediately hamstring society by destroying all justice.” (Thomas More, Utopia) This is precisely where we sadly are!

Simply looking at these United States, we have a Dangerous President who is playing with fire and with all of our lives. He has totally exhausted us, as well as the world. Moreover, his “sayings and doings” have eroded what little public trust there was in our institutions. This, by itself, is a dangerous recipe for anarchy!

In the interests of full disclosure, and though I do agree with a few of Trump’s “sayings and doings,” I view these from a totally different perspective than he does, whether it is “Conspiracies,” or the “Deep State,” or our Alliances and Enmities. He is a transactional and ignorant bully who demands quid pro quo agreements since he only looks through one narrow prism: himself, his reelection and the fascist ideology that he has adopted – again, for purely transactional reasons. On the other hand, I look at things from my Palestinian, Arab, as well as Progressive American and World viewpoint, and I have a long list of grievances in this regard, because I have been the Victim of the most brutal Conspiracy of all which ceded my land, my culture, my history to Colonialist Conspiracies without even asking me and while portraying me as the culprit! Moreover, the entire Arab World, and, especially, my second homeland, Lebanon, have also been subjected to one assault after another throughout my lifetime infuriating me on a daily basis. However I do wonder if it is worse for our Arab World now that most countries involved have been “Jared-ified” (a term coined by my daughter) and are falling in line one after the other in order to sign a peace deal with Israel? I wouldn’t be surprised if transactional Trump had told them: either you line up, or I am withdrawing and leaving you, your riches and your oil resources to Iran. They succumbed, and he ensured that we will control that oil forever! Meanwhile, have the Palestinians been screwed? Royally! Tragically! I do not know what options they have at this point, but, sometimes, whether  we are humans, or countries, we have to swallow the sword, painful as it is, and opt for co-existence – and being “Jared-ified” – rather than incurring more bloodshed and more sacrificing of another generation of children and young adults. I’m sure my opinion will rile up a whole lot of Palestinians and Arabs. However, I have always maintained that it would be easy to demand sacrifice when it is not my children and I who are being called upon to do that, and I cannot anymore see bereaved Palestinian mothers! There have been occupations and apartheid throughout the long arc of history and, eventually, wrongs could be righted. It might take one year, five, or decades. It will happen, though! Meanwhile, our part of the world has seen enough bloodshed, enough tears, enough uprooting, enough refugees, enough loss that we can do with a reprieve, even at this steep price! Hence, accepting the reality might be our best option for the time being, extremely hard and painful as it is! Note: For those hoping that a President Biden would do better in this regard, I say: Don’t hold your breath. US Foreign Policy regarding Israel has been consistently the same – minus a few cosmetic changes – throughout my lifetime. Moreover, it seems that with every new President no matter which Party he belongs to, things seem to get worse for us Palestinians. Sad, disconcerting, infuriating and unjust!

As to the many offenses on my Progressive American and World viewpoint they are numerous too, not least of which is our panic-button pushing MSM on both sides, their noise, their sensationalism, their playing us as they have always been! Nevertheless, what we are being subjected to by this President is so egregious and dangerous that it leaves me sleepless on many a night. I don’t know what the tea leaves are predicting for America’s future. However, I have a real and deep sense of foreboding that does not promise any certainties, or peaceful endings if things continue along this perilous path. What I am certain of is that we need to air out and disinfect our World Closets, drive the Virus and all other corrupt infestations out, wash away the deceit, lies and hypocrisy that have been for long clouding our vision from seeing all the injustice, inequality and consumerism that have lulled our senses. And, unless we clean up our act faster than fast, we will be going from bad to worse!

Are we capable of changing our ways for the betterment of Ourselves, our Countries and our Planet? We certainly are when we get over Our Selfishness, Our Greed, Our Arrogance and all Our Entrenched Enmities. It is not Utopian to aspire and hope for that outcome, because this Royal Mess should be curtailed, or ended!