The soft, fluffy, cotton wool mindset that seems to have reduced most of the world's left/right political animals to a sort of sludge-brained Eloi have somehow convinced themselves and, seemingly, most of the population, that the secret of a happy life is now to log-on, dumb-down, spend-large, think-small (if at all) and care lots. Empathy is the new apathy. I feel, you feel, we all feel but ideally I feel more than you. Now, if a butterfly sheds a tear in Japan, there’s hysterical grief in New York.
From President Obama’s recent beer swilling love-in with a policeman and a crabby black professor whose brilliant IQ he demonstrated by breaking into his own house (the professor then cleverly got himself arrested by getting all mouthy with the policeman who had come to check out a reported burglary), to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s lamentable attempt at bonhomie on breakfast TV, our leaders strive to be our mates.
A few weeks ago, when Gordon Brown tried to get all pally with the nation over concerns that hirsute singer Susan Boyle was going loopy and spent his airtime discussing Boyle, while at that very moment Moslem psychos were dicing their British hostages (reader’s may recall that Boyle’s sudden fame and wealth coupled with her inability to shave her face had made her go insane). No doubt the link between sudden fame and madness might go some way to explaining Brown’s own transition from smug and inept, but little known Chancellor of the Exchequer, to smug, power-crazed, I-can-walk-on-water-and-heal-the-world loony, Prime Minister. Our leaders are now desperate to connect with the people and more importantly to be seen connecting with the people. To show us that they ‘feel’ and ‘share’ our concerns: that our issues, no matter how trivial, are now their issues. That these tears of concerns are crocodile tears and not butterfly tears is now irrelevant, if they feel then we feel and vice versa.
Obama maybe in charge of the most powerful nation on earth, but years of touchy-feely rhetoric from the liberal left/right intelligentsia, coupled with his predecessors' failings and perceived gungho US-style Jingoism, have created the USA’s first Presidential enoch. Obama may be black, but his balls are distinctly pink and, judging from the amount of make-up he’s wearing, possibly shrinking as well. So when Iran’s religious thugs stamped all over their people’s valiant attempt at protest it was no surprise that the US uttered barely a word in protest. It should also be no surprise that Iran is now storming ahead developing their nuclear bomb or that North Korea can can lob nuclear test missiles around with impunity . After all, what’s Obama’s new all inclusive US of A going to do to stop them? Have a group hug probably or, maybe, if Obama gets really angry, he’ll stamp his feet and buy a new dress - cos he’s worth it and anyway that’ll show ‘em.
Our leaders though are only reflecting the deeper ‘nicey’ malaise that is sweeping the West. Now that political correctness, health and safety mania, sexual, religious and racial offend-thee-not legislation and a total obsession with making sure that no one is hurt or emotionally upset by life we are collectively dumbing down and regressing so fast that soon we’ll all be on a par with the Taliban. Lest we forget the Taliban are a species that, in 2000 years, has barely evolved beyond the stone-age; not, for them two brain cells when one will do.
It is telling too that the UK’s Foreign Secretary, David Miliband and the Obama administration now want to arrange for talks and hugging with the Taliban. No doubt in this touchy-feely world we can overlook the fact that the Taliban blows up and murders school children in an effort to stop young girls being educated, that men can be killed for shaving and that being caught with satanic objects like a radio will get you thrown into a Taliban slammer. The liberal left/right coalition also conveniently ignores and turns a blind eye to the fact that the Taliban’s treatment of women is on a par with our treatment of battery hens only worse, given that we thankfully don’t stone chickens to death or burn them alive. Oh and lest we forget to the Taliban homosexuality is an abomination, so no same-sex beard love-ins in Afghanistan unless Susan Boyle decides to drop in for a sing-along and a bit of back door action.
We now have a world at the pinnacle of our achievement so far and we can either progress or, in a fit of mass hysteria, embrace a utopia that never was, can be, nor will ever be despite Obama’s pink testicles and Gordon Brown’s Saviour complex. What we have instead is a slowly evolving do nothing, want everything, emotional feel for everyone, upset no one, we are all equal, no gain cos we don’t want the pain, con trick. We are rapidly morphing from a can be, can do people, into a should we, can we, what if population of dullards not fit for anything except emotional turpitude and emphasizing with celebrities.
In the 1960s film version of H G Wells novel the Time Machine, the hero, played by actor Rod Taylor, stumbles across a seemingly idilic scene where young, good looking people sit around a river bank eating and drinking, seemingly without a care in the world. Suddenly a young woman falls into the river and starts drowning. She screams but the people ignore her cries and carry on eating and drinking, oblivious to her plight. These are the Eloi, a people who want everything but do nothing.
Then today a news story broke of a man who drowned in 18 inches of water after his car plunged down a steep bank into a stream. The rescue services and police arrived quickly along with a ‘health and safety’ officer who deemed the bank and water too dangerous for the men present to attempt to rescue the man and consequently a unit with 'water experience' were summoned from 50 mies away. While they waited for the second unit to arrive the men present sat around drinking tea while the man cried for help and died.
In the Time Machine the hero, in despair at what mankind had become, cried out to the Eloi:
"What have you done? Thousands of years of building and rebuilding, creating and recreating so that you can let it crumble to dust. A million years of sensitive men dying for their dreams, for what?!!! So you can swim, and dance, and play”.
Had the film been made now Rod Taylor would of course have hugged them...
No comments:
Post a Comment