I
started to write these Chronicles 17 days ago with two objectives. The first
was to give myself something to do at a time of year when I am more or less
imprisoned by the bad weather; and the second was to show the world that even
approaching one’s 90th birthday, there is some life left in the old
dog yet, that I could write such dazzling insights into the state of the world
as would astonish the two or three people who might stumble upon them.
It is as to the second of these
objectives that the jury is still out. In fact, to carry on the metaphor, I
think I could say the jury is not only out, but has virtually disappeared into
the mists. All those imagined dazzlements, those brilliant and daring insights,
have remained annoyingly elusive. What
has replaced these imaginary and desired wonders has been a stream of
reminiscence of the most commonplace kind.
But, as has been said before me, wot
the hell, wot the hell, toujours gai, toujours gai, a saying that has become my
mantra in my old age. This was invented
by a newspaper man, Don Marquis, who in his 1916 column in the New York Sun created the characters
archy the cockroach and Mehitabel the alley cat, who, after the family had
retired for the night, would jump on to the heavy old typewriter, and astonish
the readers with their satirical analysis of the current world. At my age, I
find Mehitabel’s injunction to archy provides me with an adequate defence
against the imperatives pressing on me from the outside world. (archy has no
capital because the cockroach could only move the keys by jumping up and down
on them, and since the shift lock required two keys, he wasn’t able to manage
it.)
There’s a certain amount of
self-analysis involved in writing these chronicles, or self-criticism, as my political
self would call it, and one thing I have noticed in recent years is that I have
developed a tendency not to read stuff that I know in advance I won’t agree
with. Does this mean I have become, or am becoming, bigoted in my old age? I
tell myself self-righteously that I know all their arguments off by heart, and
it would be a waste of time to listen to them one more time.
The result has been that, politically
speaking, I tend to watch only programmes, and to read only commentaries that
fit neatly into my preconceptions. In relation to the evil Trump, for example,
I have never had any doubts from the get-go that the man is narcissistic to an
extreme degree, full of bloated pomposity, a serial liar to boot, and unfit for
the office to which the mistaken Americans have elected him. No question about
all that, for me, and I am always astonished when one of his partisans is asked
for their opinion, and they deliver a ridiculous paean of praise for his every
great idea, his distrust of Moslems, his hatred of blacks, his insults against
Mexicans and women, his obsession with building a wall to keep them all out, as
if these were all minimal requirements in the defence of the great US of A.
Yea, verily, make America great again!
Madness! Eventually, a more sober voice might arise who will say he is
handling his office brilliantly, keeping everyone of his detractors off guard,
fulfilling his bizarre promises, one by one, and could certainly be heading for
re-election in 2020.I regard these people, especially those who might who show
a modicum of sense, as either totally corrupt, or bordering on insasnity.
Well, there is no point in pretending
otherwise: I am lost, totally lost, to those arguments. I worry a little
sometimes that perhaps I am accepting too easily, too uncritically, the
presumptions of, say, Noam Chomsky, who, for my money, is the American above
all others who knows what is really happening in this benighted world, and who
has the courage to describe it, loud and clear.
So, the global issues line up for me
without a scintilla of doubt:
* the Palestinians have been
illegally invaded and oppressed by the Israelis
* the State of Israel is on a suicide
path than can only end in tragedy
* there is only one cause for the
rise in tensions with Russia: NATO has broken its promise and moved their
troops right up to Russia’s borders
* capitalism can admittedly produce
more goods than any other economic system, but it has become a full-blast
oligarchy
* it is scandalous and unacceptable
that wealthy countries like Britain, the United States and Canada should have
so many poor people, so many children going to bed hungry. But this is
inevitable in a capitalism world
* with the money wasted on space
travel and various other scientific marvels, every child in the world could be
fed and go to school
* our governments are controlled by the
wealth owners and their corporations, who pay for politicians to win elections,
and thereafter have them under control
* the main threat to world peace is the
United States, with its 840 military basses scattered round the world
* it follows, therefore, as the night
follows day, that Canada should do everything possible not to act as a lapdog
of the US.
I
have not a doubt about the truth of any of these propositions, and frankly, I
am not interested in hearing the rationalizations put forward by the minions of
the enemy.
As to the specifics by which these
controlling powers are to be reeled in, I am ready to hear argument. But basic
to all policies should be the public interest, not the public interest about
which the corporations are always prating, but public interest as represented
by public ownership of essential services, such as water, electricity, clean
air, publicly provided affordable housing and health care for all, public
ownership of banks and insurance companies, a far-reaching public interest to
be represented by public ownership of, to use a now discarded phrase formerly used
by formerly social democratic political parties, “the commanding heights of the
economy.”
This is not to say that every corner
store must be publicly owned: we have learned enough from the last century of
communism, socialism and capitalism
competing against each other, of how each
works and where each fails, to realize that such draconian interventions can
bring an economy to seizure.
Yet one thing is sure: the major
problems confronting our species today cannot be solved by private ownership of
production, or even by the nation state. We need to think of ourselves as
citizens of the world, collectively responsible for ensuring our Earth’s survival.
A good start would be to get rid of
anthems and flags.
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