I read somewhere that to really understand something is to be liberated from it. Yet, how can we liberate ourselves from our vain attempt at global progress which has, in all intents and purposes, destroyed the very place in which we live? Our world is collapsing, an implosion on a scale unimaginable just a few years ago.
As a species, we have accomplished incredible achievements in medicine, science, physics, technology and art. Men have walked on the moon and our scientists have sent spaceships to every planet in our Solar System. We seem to be capable of doing anything we want but two problems have dogged us for thousands of years: accomplishing peace and eradicating poverty.
After a history stretching back 6,000 years we have had true “eureka” moments of invention and creativity, promising a quantum leap in our development as a species, however, our environment is collapsing as is our society. Our resources are dwindling at an alarming rate. Animals, plants, fossil fuels, minerals, water, air and soil are all diminishing at an unsustainable speed while our population is increasing at a similar rate our ability to produce food is decreasing. We have a situation where nearly 8 billion people are trapped on a dying planet. Millions around the world are losing their jobs due to a pandemic and more than 50% of people who do keep their jobs in the near future, truck drivers, taxi drivers, delivery people, factory workers, receptionists, telephone help-line workers and many others will lose their jobs to artificial intelligence, (AI).
Billions of animals have been lost this year due to wildfires, drought, heat, cold, floods, disease, neglect, over-farming and natural disasters. Many billions of birds are dying around the world. Billions of fish have been overfarmed and are not being replenished which is causing a knock-on effect in our oceans causing other fish and mammals and sea birds to die of starvation.
Crops are failing on a Biblical scale around the world for the same reasons mentioned above plus, soil erosion. Farms are going bust due to Covid-19. To make matters worse, we are beginning to see huge populated areas of the world which are becoming impossible to live in, areas which for years have been heavily populated and teeming with life and vegetation. But now, for certain parts of the year at the very least, have become "unlivable," due mainly to extreme weather events such as wildfires, droughts, flooding hurricanes etc and it’s getting worse.
The population of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles, insects, bees and butterflies have seen an incredible decline of almost 70% since 1970. Just stop here and wonder! Can you imagine if 70% of humans had died since 1970 with the rate increasing? Well that is about to happen to mankind and we can’t stop it and it will happen much quicker than 50 years too. Why? Because it is too late to stop the decline, we have left it too long. Hard to get your head around it, isn't it?
The Coronavirus has hit the world hard, yet, somehow, it hit the West even harder. The virus has laid the seed for a new pandemic, one which has already taken root and is quickly spreading its tentacles around the world. This new pandemic did not start in China, this pandemic started in the West, in America of all places. The new pandemic is called civil disorder and we are seeing this new pandemic spread faster than Covid-19 because people have had enough, a deep division has developed, democracy is crumbling, the left hate the right and the right hate the left, the West is on the verge of collapse.
An old friend of mine said recently, "leaders and politicians cannot fix a spiritual problem with politics.” Indeed, dark forces appear to be at work, infecting leaders and people alike, hate, anger and confusion are on an unprecedented level and rising. Violence and hatred are spewing forth from people who have been dumbed down for years, a wave of silent pent-up anger boiling up inside people and Covid-19 has brought this terrible darkness to the surface and all the time, our environment collapses just as quickly as our society. As Stephen King once wrote, “it is a done bun, can’t be undone.”
Poverty and food insecurity will hit next, millions of jobs will have gone and the hard-working people of our society, the honest people, will soon find themselves homeless and out on the streets, a “useless society.” They are the victims of Western democracy and plutocracy. Incredibly, 1% of the world's population owns more than half of the money in the world. Governments and politicians are busy lining their own pockets, banks are grossly fraudulent. Yet our banking system, fat and bloated from an 8.5 trillion-dollar bailout in 2008, paid by the very people who now need their help are sharpening their knives ready to carve up more prophets when thousands, maybe millions of people are evicted from properties which have fallen behind in payments. I read somewhere, the banks want to introduce a tax for the privilege of people working from home? Tech giants have become more powerful than governments, some of these tech leaders have a Messiah complex and are driven to changing the world with dark and dangerous ideas. If Democracy is killing the poor, well, State socialism is protecting the rich. While there should be enough for everyone, the rich are being fattened up by the undernourished. For the few, plundering the poor has become a way of life.
George Orwell once wrote:
"The further a society drifts from the truth the more it will hate those who speak it." This is what is happening here in the West. The rich and the poor have become different species. "We the people," are being plundered while the ruling elite has become the plunderers.
This inequality is best seen in a divided United States of America. Billionaires and millionaires populate cities while poor, uneducated people roam the streets in abject poverty, homeless and often shoeless, their only interest in life is to find their next high or their next drink. An obesity pandemic has hit the poverty-ridden lower class, blissfully unaware or even unable to change a lifestyle which is an early death certificate for many.
Tent cities are popping up all over the US. Many hard-working people are now living in a tent or their automobile because property and housing are now only affordable to the rich and the middle-classes.
In the beginning, it was hard for us Europeans to understand what was happening to the United States of America in 2020, however, the same problems have arrived here in our own European society. American appears to be on the verge of collapse, Europe is not too far behind. The endless videos of unrest in America's cities have become very disturbing to see, however, recent trouble in European cities tells us the problem is ingrained over here too. Tolerance appears to have become a thing of the past, almost overnight, gone forever and replaced by hate along with anger and rage.
The number of Americans who say they can’t afford enough food for themselves or their children, never mind health insurance is growing and it is likely to increase as fast as the pandemic as some government benefits expire. Advocates and experts warn that an unprecedented crush of evictions is coming, threatening millions of Americans with homelessness as the pandemic continues to spread, how far behind is Europe, time will tell.
