General Malaise

[morgan_dhu]

It's getting so hard to read the papers. Not that there's ever been all that much to cheer about in the news, but it's getting so damned ire-raising and depressing all at once.

If it's not war, torture, pestilence, famine, disaster and ruin, or the callous disregard of human rights around the globe, it's lying, cheating and general asshattery everywhere you look. What the fuck are we doing to ourselves, our neighbours, our fellow lifeforms, our one and only distressed and wheezing planet? Are there enough people out there who have a clue about at least some of this to make a difference? Or are we doomed to follow the bloody standards and beating drums of the people who want power and the accumulation of things more than peace, more than justice, more than compassion, more than clean air and water and soil? Is there any point in trying any more?

And yet, and yet... how do I live with the fact that I'm one of the relatively few who has some measure of choice in all this? I have the privilege - at least for now - to say "I don't want to think about all this stuff, I'll just sit back and enjoy the comforts of a middle-class western life," unlike those who wake up every day to the bombs and the guns and all the other threats to life and liberty and health and safety.

I think I'll go and howl.

Comments

[semiotic-pirate.livejournal.com]

the feelings you've described are like the rising and falling of the tide - when it reaches the ebb tide specifically. it is truly depressing sometimes to consider all that goes on in our world - and the more people there are that inhabit the world the worse it will get. (only because of statistics, more people overall means more people affected by their statistical percentage of whatever evils may befall them.)

there will be this movie on sometime in the next week (I believe) that takes us into the world as it will be, when we run short/out of oil without having prepared ourselves through alternative energy sources. it paints a scary picture of what might happen - kind of like the insanity that ensued when there was an oil "shortage" back in the 70's, except a lot worse.

did you know that the Saudi's have dirty bombs positioned in every single well they own? they did it right after the last iraq war. wonderful world we live in.