Brave New World?
It’s been some time since my last editorial and I have to say I am quite confused lately, a quote that i read the other day expresses best how i feel these days: „Why are intelligent people unhappy and ignorant people very happy?” I guess the explanation is that intelligent people walk with their eyes and mind open while the ignorant ones live in a fake world built to protect their ego through this very ignorance and cowardliness. Fuelled by manipulative media, spearheaded by the United States of America and the decay of their political system into a charade led by a POTUS who pursues his very own interests in such obvious and shameless manner that even his friends at the GOP are turning their back on him.
But no need to look so far, what happens in front of our eyes is just as ‘entertaining’ – for the first time ever after the dictatorship of Franco a right-wing party has entered the political system in Spain. They call themselves ‘VOX’ – shall mean ‘voice’, even if I can not give them this atribute, as they are nothing else than a populist party with a clear right-wing orientation trying to camouflage themselves as a ‘conservative’ party. Talking about democracy (their slogan is ‘a political party for the renovation and reinforcement of democracy’) in this context is the same hypocrisy than calling all others communists when in reality they are nothing else than nationalists. And believe me, I know what I’m talking about and where a twisted understanding of nationalism can lead to (and so do the Spanish), I am German and my Grandfather was serving in the Second World War, I spent so many hours questioning him how he could have participated in a system led by Nazis. His answer was always the same, he said they did not know what was really going on as their only way to get news was through the ‘Reichsempfänger’, a radio that would only play a few channels controlled by the ‘Third Reich’ spreading wonderful news about the ‘Endsieg’ – the final victory, as propagated by Adolf Hitler. And every soldier that did not obey orders was shot immediately.
That may have been the case back then but nowadays there is no excuse for anybody in the free world, information is available 24/7, the problem lies in the very basic rules of the internet. Everybody can spread whatever they want, Yin and Yang are omnipresent and it has become a major challenge for everybody to keep a cool head in view of so much controversy. As a result of all this mess it has become more laborious to filter the vast amount of information flooding the net in order to get the truth than ever before, thanks to the majority of channels that are biased in one way or another and the monster that are our (un)social networks. And if that wouldn’t be enough already they are infested with hords of bots and fake profiles created by shady companies all over the globe working for anybody who has enough influence and money to get his propaganda out there by feeding the beast.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all shite, there are at least as many good things happening as there are bad ones taking place, if one is awake and looks for the good one will find it. And yes there are more and more people awakening as we are now once more heading towards the light, out of the darkness, starting with the Age of Aquarius, without going deeper as this would lead too far into the Rabbit Hole. With all this comes a higher awareness of people about what is going on on our planet. A 16 year old girl from Sweden, Greta Thunberg, who ‘suffers’ from Aspergers, a form of Autism, OCD and Selective Mutism or better said she can see and feel things that ‘normal’ human beings can not see or experience, is nominated for the Nobel Peace Price honoring her unmitigated commitment to Global Climate Change through her outstanding qualities in communication, and despite the intention of some politicians to ridicule her because she poses a threat as she does not speak the language of politics, but the language of the heart. That is why it is far superior to politics (watch her best speech so far for TED here). She and her fellow young pupils, students and activits from all over the globe are being heard, their voice (now that is a real voice) is getting stronger and stronger, and evidence is backing them up, so there is no easy way out of it. Today I read that the switch to Green would cost about 30 Trillion Dollars, whereas the cost for the damage done to our planet and rising health issues of our population (to say it nicely) would cost way more than 70 Trillion Dollars, not to mention that this is a one-way ticket. But wait, if you look at it from the other side it gets creepy, the higher the cost the bigger the investment resulting in more money some will make on it. So we are back at ignorant cowards with friends in high places, spiced with an unhealthy high dose of greed, knowing they are cutting the branch we all sit on, hoping for a smooth impact in this remake of ‘After me, the Flood’.
Fact is it’s so easy to get caught in triviality, irrelevance and insignificance in a world where people are valued by the number of their followers and top ‘influencers’ make enough money to buy a house with one single post that one can easily forget the bigger picture while taking oneself far too important resulting in the ‘arrogance of ignorance’ as our editor said last season in one of his letters. And yes I do agree, it is arrogant to be ignorant, it takes effort not to see what’s wrong and live a selfish life, maybe that is the reason why I sometimes tend to feel a certain agression towards ignorant people, knowing they are not worth any effort as you can’t beat them by argument. At this point I want to recite another quote “Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure you are not surrounded by idiots” by Sigmund Freud. And I am not saying that all ignorant people are idiots, even if there does exist a certain concordance. Oh gosh there are so many great quotes – “If you think education is expensive try ignorance” by Derek Bok, president of Harvard University. The list is endless, btw. we do have a huge section of quotes – we call it ‘Redeye to Redneck’, if you want to find out why have a look here.
So what to do? Following my intuition works quite well, the more I listen to it the more accurate it becomes, but this only works if you are awake – if you are fine with being fed by the beast without questioning then your intuition might be the least you should pay attention to as you might as well fall down dead or go nuts at any given time. But then, I assume, you wouldn’t have read this editorial so far, so I guess we are on the same page…
I don’t wanna leave our planet to the Trumps, the Vox, the ignorants and cowards, the conformists, the nationalists, the communists, the corrupt or any other radical movement trying to gain power in order to foster their very own twisted vision of our destiny. All those that are a threat to our future, not wanting to sacrifice their power tool that is money, in order to save the planet we live on. And come on, even if those 30 Trillions won’t be enough, it is the world we live in – earth, home to endless species, a divine creation, and it is our responsibility to do our very best to preserve this miracle of life. Noone ever has given us the right to fuck it up thinking we could get away with it.
Speaking of what to do, please go and vote if you can, I won’t tell you what to vote but please bear in mind what I just wrote when you go to the ballot box, we own it to our children and all living creatures on this planet we call home.
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Tags: Green Planet, Greta Thunberg, redeye 2 redneck
