When was the world what it ought to be? There are so many conflicting ideas, facts that nothing makes sense and no ideal makes sense. Between the two world wars ( the one written in capital letters), there was more global exchange than there is now. There was of course less political interaction, less social interactions and less informations in general on what was going on the other side of the world. Most of the informations would travel as fast as they could, most of the time disappearing in the midst of population who had no interest in distributing the news. All was irrelevant, all was transformed.
By the end of the twentieth century, we are all link together through phones, internet, television and even newspapers. It was not their own President the French saw in 1998 for the Monicagate, it was Bill Clinton, the man from Arkansas. Informations were finally global and everybody was free to interpret it as they wished. Of course, this is the illusion of every individuals as cultural biased would always reinterpret the information, leading Clinton to be an example for Berlusconi or an unlearned lesson for Wiener.
The world, by the end of the twentieth century was also a world united to solve all the problems. It would solve the debt in Africa, eradicate the hunger, see the tyrants of the world quiet down and it was in an engaged spirit that humanity would step into its third culturally-constructed millenium. It went alright until George W. Bush won against Al Gore in the elections. It is not a question of being political, it is solely how the democratic process got overruled that was significant for the rest of the world. Its leading power was transformed into an oligarchy of lawyers and judges ready to protect their own interests.
No wonder then that a band of terrorist acted on our worldly unconscious and taught the hypocritical hyper-nation a lesson that has never been correctly learned. It was somehow looked as a selfish personal attempt at harming the United States by an extremist group. It is the slight insult that we profess and feel guilty about as soon as we leave the insulted. We did not mean to be mean, we did not mean to be destructive and we know full well that it will come back to us in unexpected way. There was though inside our brain, in the back of our thoughts a growing frustration to say how it is, say what we think even when we are not ready to admit it to ourselves.
The U.S.A. before and after the 9/11 strike, did not believe in global warming, provided minimum help to developing countries and was all in all a great power that would show such a power for good in parsimony. Even the help for developing countries was a form of blackmail and not given blindly. There was a control on the spending ( American goods only) and on the infrastructure of the country ( no competition to the American goods). The U.S.A.had always a lot to offer for the world, and when it was most expected that this generosity which would have meant that this nation no one dared to compete against could have lead by example into a better future.
We had waited and nothing came but Titanic, Godzilla and the Matrix. Those were the promises of the American dreams. It was a society as stiff as the Victorians, as stupid as lizards and though everybody knew it was just a dream, no one raised themselves against it because America was a blockbuster. Nothing could stand against it, not even the Americans. This was the dream that was slowly coming out, the frustration felt by the world but whom no one dared to think to much out loud, by fear of losing the little they had gained from it.
What a surprise 9/11 seemed to be for everybody. And yet... nothing changed. Why nothing changed is because the Americans had finally the excuse for not caring for the rest of the world. It was just about rightfully defending their interests. And who would say there is something wrong in that? Except the rest of the world, which slowly started to see that there was something wrong with the whole unraveling of this situation?
The United States at the beginning of the 20th century had this same self-centered point of view over the world, something that totally disappeared after the world war 2. They did not want to join any global organizations and Woodrow Wilson had to defend the idea of being at the center of the world with a congress that did not give a damn about the world. Obama now finds himself in the same position as the congress is asking him what the hell they are doing in Libya.
I guess that there is at the moment a global zeitgeist of protectionism of the nation as the world crumble because of a clique of rich and we just like to blame the Other. We do not have yet identified an other, but it would be interesting to see who is going to come along. The similarities with the crisis of the 1930's has not only sprung in my mind, but it the mind of a few European leaders, an example being Sarkozy who in 2010 tried to make the Gipsy's the Other and found himself in an awkward position where the population went ' hey wait a sec' : they have not done anything wrong.
Hitler found actually the perfect scapegoat as the Jews in his time where holding some of the businesses of Germany and it was understandable to be jealous with a few of them. 70% of the lawyers for example were Jews. The problem was the profession and the system, but instead of saying so, which appears too complicated and intelligent for the general population, he found the symbolic representation of a frustrating system. There is no more equivalent. The families of owners around the world have different backgrounds. Everybody is a winner in the system, except that this is only an illusion, and that comparatively there are still a majority of losers.
The common grounds for the owners of the modes of productions are that they are from old families and that someone always grow to be a winner in these families and play his cards really well. It is true that there are some losers in these families, but they are eternally take care for until a succession of generations loose the ability to play the hands they have been dealt with. It is though the exception.
The frustration of the populations over the lies of the system, and the fact that rich families are coming back on the compromises they did with humanity at the end of world war 2 and at the end of the 19th century is not going to help them, but it is because they have managed to alienate every body but the the civil servants who have still a notion of allegiance to the state. The difference between a State and a private enterprise is that the private enterprise has no guilt cleaning up on a monthly basis any elements that is not productive enough to replace it until it finds a good element. The State, by providing the security of the employment has created a sense of protection that does not provide an incentive to work. But material gain is rarely an incentive to work, except for manual labor.
I do not know again where I have started, and how I should end. I do believe that we have a tension inside us between accepting the system and playing the game, and observing that the game is rigged. It has the appearance of a game, and the people who want to play try to play it well and want to always ameliorate their cards, their chances. Most people at some point tell themselves it is what it is and we should go with the flow, otherwise we loose. It is the fear of losing that blocks any reflection for better change. Instead, we legitimize our actions by looking at our competition and finding problems in their actions. No one likes to judge oneself action or unintended consequences of thoughts. ' We have played the game so we understand why it is played'. But who thinks about who sets the rules, who thinks about what we really want and not what we have been made to think we want ?
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