Discovering Secret Paths: the crazy world we live in
Beyond the roaring of those trying to boot Bernie Sanders off the political pitch, including fellow Democrats and much of the media, his grass-roots approach, which combines both intense social media presence, bringing a real discourse rather than summary, raging tweets, with intensive direct contact with voters rather than slogan-filled, mass-media shows, might well be the answer to Trump.… (Read more...)
Why on earth do some people believe the blatant lies of Boris Johnson or Donald Trump? That question has had me perplexed. Now I may have stumbled on the answer. To get to that I need to make a detour via Jeanne d’Arc and Greta Thunberg. As I often do, I am bringing together two (hopefully) unrelated images to create a new understanding.… (Read more...)
As the US threatens to withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council, objecting to criticism of Israeli shooting thousands of unarmed Palestinians, a UN report of that very council reveals the shocking level of poverty in the United States. In an interview on Democracy Now with Philip Alston, author of the report, it was mentioned that the US is the only country in the world where the overall life expectancy is decreasing.… (Read more...)
Elimination is the keyword that runs through many of the atrocious tales that assail us from around the world. Elimination is a solution to no problem. The wish to eliminate others as the source of our problems is based on a wildly false premise, that those people are to blame for our predicament and that by getting rid of them we rid ourselves of the threat we perceive in them.… (Read more...)
Bombs are never an answer to problems. No more than guns are. Repeatedly resorting to weapons as a solution to complex, conflictual situations is not a sign of strength or intelligence. On the contrary. It is an admission of weakness, of inability, of failure, of lack of imagination, even of insanity.… (Read more...)
While people drool over the sex scandals of the US president, more pressing and life-threatening issues go unattended.
Over a million people march the streets, most of them children and young people, listening to the inspiring speeches of student victims in a protest against guns and gun violence in the US.… (Read more...)
Elijah Abraham, student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school
No student should have to cover themselves with a dead student to survive. But I was that student.… (Read more...)
Brexit: what better illustration of how a new word can become the vehicle for so much wishful thinking, so many fantasies and such terrible nightmares, as well as a festering breeding-ground for divisive thinking and extreme ideologies.
First of all, there was a vote. A referendum. Living as I do in Switzerland which regularly holds such votes on all manner of issues, it is well known that many voters do not respond to the question asked, but a question of their own choosing.… (Read more...)