That's (seemingly) a very 'good' question indeed. Just what should all these Syrian refugees actually do, that is, rather than 'simply' flee their rapidly sinking ship of state? I'm glad you asked.
For an entirely different and fresh perspective on this much-mooted point of contention, I seriously suggest you link in (in no more than about half an hour's time, I'm hoping) to my blogpost on my original blogsite. The opinion piece, entitled 'Who's To Say Who Should Stay?', reflects some considered thinking on my part over recent weeks and months, and utilizes a serendipitous reading I chanced upon just last Saturday in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's classic tome The Cost of Discipleship.
For those unfamiliar, my original blogsite is, and is located at:
http://nuffsaid:consideryourself-frombothsidesnow.blogspot.co.nz/(or .com/).
Friday, March 16, 2018
Thursday, March 15, 2018
Seven Sad and Sorry Years On In Syria: the more things change, the more they stay the same
The Scene and Setting: a battle-scarred wasteland of ruin and desolation, located to the east/north-east of Palestine...where Syrian Government forces, backed by the Russian military machine, fight it out with rebel forces and Sissii sympathizers in mainly urban enclaves throughout the land. In an odd cat-and-mouse juxtaposition with American forces supporting anti-Government Kurdish 'rebels' in the north.
The Diagnosis: Help for innocent civilians needed on every hand, especially for the establishment of 'safe corridors' out of danger into less threatened areas or out of Syria altogether as outcasts/refugees.
The Prognosis: Not too good.
Reason: The above military situation, topped off by a 'too little, too late' response by the United Nations, which has effectively been found to be 'missing in inaction'. As per usual.
No, you vehemently protest, the U.N. has indeed been involved, and on an ongoing basis, and for some considerable time, continually negotiating truces between the various warring parties. Yes, that's quite indisputable. It has indeed. But, really, where has it gotten things?
Only nowhere fast. It's been completely ineffective, ever lacking the military means and 'suasion' necessary to achieve its noble as, well-intentioned ends. True, its ongoing efforts to secure safe corridors for civilian passage out of conflict zones are providing a temporary breather or several to many Syrian civilians caught up unwittingly in the conflict...that is, until the next military assault and onslaught by Bashir al-Assad's forces with their Russian confederates...who, without batting an eye, readily regroup during said peace pauses and then swiftly move in once more like all-consuming locusts to devour yet another swathe of Syrian opponents cum neighbouring innocents.
No, on this one I'm entirely in agreement with New Zealand's former Prime Minister, Helen Clark, who recently remarked on how shameful the U.N. response to the entire saga has been. And how effectively impotent it and its new Secretary-General, the former Portuguese Prime Minister, has been in the apparently intractable conflict. And surely she should know. Yes, perhaps she's still resentful at having been pipped at the post (evidently by a country mile) by the new United Nations head, for that job, that's probably a given. Yet as #3 at the U.N. for the three years preceding her recent bid, heading the United Nations Food and Aid Programme, she's probably just as piqued knowing that she herself knew precisely the problem and what to do about it.
Supposedly. One can only assume that that was in the back of Ms Clark's methodical, detail-oriented and solution-driven mind. But even if she'd been U.N. head herself, how the heck can one get what has effectively been a sabreless tiger to exert any real coercion, moral or otherwise, over those (such as Assad and his Russian allies - let alone Sissii International) who have no inclination whatsoever to desist from their butchery and bloodshed. Little hope - in reality.
But dreams are ever free, and after all, without any such hope, we're ultimately all doomed!
The Diagnosis: Help for innocent civilians needed on every hand, especially for the establishment of 'safe corridors' out of danger into less threatened areas or out of Syria altogether as outcasts/refugees.
The Prognosis: Not too good.
Reason: The above military situation, topped off by a 'too little, too late' response by the United Nations, which has effectively been found to be 'missing in inaction'. As per usual.
No, you vehemently protest, the U.N. has indeed been involved, and on an ongoing basis, and for some considerable time, continually negotiating truces between the various warring parties. Yes, that's quite indisputable. It has indeed. But, really, where has it gotten things?
Only nowhere fast. It's been completely ineffective, ever lacking the military means and 'suasion' necessary to achieve its noble as, well-intentioned ends. True, its ongoing efforts to secure safe corridors for civilian passage out of conflict zones are providing a temporary breather or several to many Syrian civilians caught up unwittingly in the conflict...that is, until the next military assault and onslaught by Bashir al-Assad's forces with their Russian confederates...who, without batting an eye, readily regroup during said peace pauses and then swiftly move in once more like all-consuming locusts to devour yet another swathe of Syrian opponents cum neighbouring innocents.
No, on this one I'm entirely in agreement with New Zealand's former Prime Minister, Helen Clark, who recently remarked on how shameful the U.N. response to the entire saga has been. And how effectively impotent it and its new Secretary-General, the former Portuguese Prime Minister, has been in the apparently intractable conflict. And surely she should know. Yes, perhaps she's still resentful at having been pipped at the post (evidently by a country mile) by the new United Nations head, for that job, that's probably a given. Yet as #3 at the U.N. for the three years preceding her recent bid, heading the United Nations Food and Aid Programme, she's probably just as piqued knowing that she herself knew precisely the problem and what to do about it.
Supposedly. One can only assume that that was in the back of Ms Clark's methodical, detail-oriented and solution-driven mind. But even if she'd been U.N. head herself, how the heck can one get what has effectively been a sabreless tiger to exert any real coercion, moral or otherwise, over those (such as Assad and his Russian allies - let alone Sissii International) who have no inclination whatsoever to desist from their butchery and bloodshed. Little hope - in reality.
But dreams are ever free, and after all, without any such hope, we're ultimately all doomed!
Good on ya, Rand Paul - you've shown your quality. Now will the other - real - American men (and women) - as in Republican Party politicians, in this case - please step up...- that is, if any remain
Or has the once truly grand old party of such 'greats' as Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight David Eisenhower, and yes, *'even' Herbert Hoover, vanished without trace?
My question, seemingly rhetorical, is somewhat facetious, as there are a couple - influential - Republicans (senators both) who have indeed come to the fore in this time of crisis (and previously) and truly shown their mettle. In the **genuinely bipartisan spirit of the equally great Republican senator of the 1960s through 1980s, Washington State's Mark Hatfield - a man so genuinely decent, progressive and far-sighted he was even apparently considered a serious Vice-Presidential nominee for George McGovern's radical presidential ticket of 1972 - Kentucky Senator and would-be presidential nominee Rand Paul has just stepped up to the mark (along with John McCain, who has almost made a specialty of standing up to President Trump); in publicly criticizing (and staunchly opposing) the imminent appointment of two individuals notorious for their active support (in recent times past) of techniques of torture utilized by the American military. Rand's voice of independence has been well-noted over recent decades with his firm and unyielding opposition to post-9/11 U.S. Government infringements upon citizen rights, freedoms and privacy, and by his almost sole 'voice in the (Republican) wilderness' opposing American involvement in Iraq. Paul, like McCain - and that despite the latter's momentary lapse of judgment in selecting then Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his own presidential running mate in 2008 - has long shown himself a thoroughly independent 'operator', acting courageously 'in all seasons' quite irrespective of his formal party political allegiance. Thus proving themselves - in times of crisis when heroes and heroines are few upon the ground and exceptionally hard to locate - people of valour and principle, of integrity and decency.
*Whom I mention because the historical records suggest that - very similarly to 'Jimmy' Carter - while not a particularly effective (some would claim more an 'unfortunate') President, he, just like James Earl Carter, proved himself an exceptional human being and humanitarian (throughout his lifetime). The former thoughts were gleaned especially during a memorable course/university paper in American History I undertook when recommencing my two-decade-long university study in 2003. I also found it interesting how each of these two (Hoover and Carter) were replaced by similarly popular, sanguine, charismatic Presidents with 'the gift of the gab', who went on to serve multiple terms (Reagan probably being prevented from a third term by the Republican Party, post-FDR, passing a two-term limitation on presidential terms.) Hoover served 'on the ground' throughout Europe during and after WW1 (and indeed also following WW11), personally overseeing and organizing the distribution of emergency food relief to the hundreds of thousands, even millions, of displaced and homeless orphans and adults from Belgium through to famine-stricken Soviet Russia, silencing critics by declaring: "Twenty million people are starving...Whatever their politics, they shall be fed!" So respected did his name thus become, that he was literally feted by homeless orphans in post-World War 11 Europe, his name becoming synonymous with disinterested benevolence both at home (hence the term 'Hooverizing') and abroad (coined in Europe as tantamount to the same, i.e. charitable good works without hope or prospect of reward or recompense).
Or such is my memory thereof. Whereas President Carter's works of decency, goodwill, reconciliation and peace-building since leaving office have quite rightly earned him the reputation of achieving more and greater things shorn of the vestiges and prestige and accoutrements of elected office than many, even arguably most, presidents have accomplished during their tenure in office.
**Indeed even the highly contentious 1964 Republican presidential nominee (and long-serving Arizona Senator) Barry Goldwater, and the equally long-serving and far more controversial Alabama Governor (and independent president candidate in 1968 and 1972) George Wallace, later proved their own qualities in various ways, the latter's eventually radically resiling from his staunch, do-or-die segregationist stance - even to the point of appointing blacks into top positions in his Alabaman cabinet; the former proving a genuine bipartisan force upon Capitol Hill, from being one of the first to seek President Nixon's impeachment, through to declaring illegal the Reagan Administration's bombing of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas and/or equipping of El Salvadoran death squads, to his ultimately parting ways with the one-time Moral Majority, nowadays 'Religious Right', and then 'Christian Coalition', declaring his firm conviction that they were interposing upon long-settled American constitutional principles, and would indeed prove eventually to cause the demise of the Grand Old Party.
My question, seemingly rhetorical, is somewhat facetious, as there are a couple - influential - Republicans (senators both) who have indeed come to the fore in this time of crisis (and previously) and truly shown their mettle. In the **genuinely bipartisan spirit of the equally great Republican senator of the 1960s through 1980s, Washington State's Mark Hatfield - a man so genuinely decent, progressive and far-sighted he was even apparently considered a serious Vice-Presidential nominee for George McGovern's radical presidential ticket of 1972 - Kentucky Senator and would-be presidential nominee Rand Paul has just stepped up to the mark (along with John McCain, who has almost made a specialty of standing up to President Trump); in publicly criticizing (and staunchly opposing) the imminent appointment of two individuals notorious for their active support (in recent times past) of techniques of torture utilized by the American military. Rand's voice of independence has been well-noted over recent decades with his firm and unyielding opposition to post-9/11 U.S. Government infringements upon citizen rights, freedoms and privacy, and by his almost sole 'voice in the (Republican) wilderness' opposing American involvement in Iraq. Paul, like McCain - and that despite the latter's momentary lapse of judgment in selecting then Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his own presidential running mate in 2008 - has long shown himself a thoroughly independent 'operator', acting courageously 'in all seasons' quite irrespective of his formal party political allegiance. Thus proving themselves - in times of crisis when heroes and heroines are few upon the ground and exceptionally hard to locate - people of valour and principle, of integrity and decency.
*Whom I mention because the historical records suggest that - very similarly to 'Jimmy' Carter - while not a particularly effective (some would claim more an 'unfortunate') President, he, just like James Earl Carter, proved himself an exceptional human being and humanitarian (throughout his lifetime). The former thoughts were gleaned especially during a memorable course/university paper in American History I undertook when recommencing my two-decade-long university study in 2003. I also found it interesting how each of these two (Hoover and Carter) were replaced by similarly popular, sanguine, charismatic Presidents with 'the gift of the gab', who went on to serve multiple terms (Reagan probably being prevented from a third term by the Republican Party, post-FDR, passing a two-term limitation on presidential terms.) Hoover served 'on the ground' throughout Europe during and after WW1 (and indeed also following WW11), personally overseeing and organizing the distribution of emergency food relief to the hundreds of thousands, even millions, of displaced and homeless orphans and adults from Belgium through to famine-stricken Soviet Russia, silencing critics by declaring: "Twenty million people are starving...Whatever their politics, they shall be fed!" So respected did his name thus become, that he was literally feted by homeless orphans in post-World War 11 Europe, his name becoming synonymous with disinterested benevolence both at home (hence the term 'Hooverizing') and abroad (coined in Europe as tantamount to the same, i.e. charitable good works without hope or prospect of reward or recompense).
Or such is my memory thereof. Whereas President Carter's works of decency, goodwill, reconciliation and peace-building since leaving office have quite rightly earned him the reputation of achieving more and greater things shorn of the vestiges and prestige and accoutrements of elected office than many, even arguably most, presidents have accomplished during their tenure in office.
**Indeed even the highly contentious 1964 Republican presidential nominee (and long-serving Arizona Senator) Barry Goldwater, and the equally long-serving and far more controversial Alabama Governor (and independent president candidate in 1968 and 1972) George Wallace, later proved their own qualities in various ways, the latter's eventually radically resiling from his staunch, do-or-die segregationist stance - even to the point of appointing blacks into top positions in his Alabaman cabinet; the former proving a genuine bipartisan force upon Capitol Hill, from being one of the first to seek President Nixon's impeachment, through to declaring illegal the Reagan Administration's bombing of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas and/or equipping of El Salvadoran death squads, to his ultimately parting ways with the one-time Moral Majority, nowadays 'Religious Right', and then 'Christian Coalition', declaring his firm conviction that they were interposing upon long-settled American constitutional principles, and would indeed prove eventually to cause the demise of the Grand Old Party.
Revisiting Regurgitated Entrails - for a moment longer...
Re: a certain university lecturer of yesteryear
Notwithstanding that seemingly overly large self-serving of humble pie having been dished out (by myself at the conclusion of my last blogpost), may I respectfully suggest, as a necessary corrective:
there are people who have no place whatsoever in any 'people profession' much less educational institution/'institute of learning', lacking as they are in even the most elementary of people skills; (no offence intended, you understand - but let the chips fall where they well may...)
Nuff said.
Notwithstanding that seemingly overly large self-serving of humble pie having been dished out (by myself at the conclusion of my last blogpost), may I respectfully suggest, as a necessary corrective:
there are people who have no place whatsoever in any 'people profession' much less educational institution/'institute of learning', lacking as they are in even the most elementary of people skills; (no offence intended, you understand - but let the chips fall where they well may...)
Nuff said.
Wednesday, March 14, 2018
Yet While We're At It, If We Really Must Put The Boot In, May I Equally Respectfully Suggest A Couple Other, Very High-Profile, Seriously Major World Leaders...
Such as, for instance:
!Russian President Vladimir Putin
Never one to pussy-foot around when it comes to asserting his will and way, to promoting his own ego and grandiose sense of self for every compatriot to see, and his muscular physique and sheer physical prowess for every last besmitten Russian woman and girl to ogle, the one-time KGB agent and on-again, off-again President-Prime Minister-President, Emeritus Tzar for life Vladimir Putin leaves Trump well and truly in the dust, breathing up noxious, inorganic particulate matter...
What with the Russian Federation's Leader-for-Life (if he could arrange it) Putin, unabashedly gloating in unbridled fashion whilst promoting his grand nuclear strategy the other day - to bedazzle folks at home and terrify those abroad - by displaying the latest permutations and configuration of Russia's intercontinental ballistic missiles; while simultaneously dishing out the poison cup - no doubt indirectly through his loyal-till-death-do-them-part operatives - to his regime's sworn and steadfast enemies...*including this very morning as well to a fellow (now in London) who'd lived - and moreover also been poisoned etc - here in God's Own just a few years ago!
*No, apparently not, i.e. the words 'including this very morning...also'. Otherwise my words above stand, and are anything but fake news. What I should've put/added in above was simply that said former Russian (I believe, unless he'd hailed originally from Lithuania or another of the 15 present-day nations/one-time republic components of the former Soviet Union) - a Boris Karpickhov (sp?) - speaking livecast on TV3 tonight (NZ time) from a British TV studio panel interview, confirmed he'd personally been targeted back in 2006-2007 while living in New Zealand; i.e. walking a central Auckland street where **'a beggar' [homeless woman] had accosted him and sprayed him with a powdery substance (subsequently causing much ongoing physical discomfort). And evidently - understandably enough - now evidently had more than his share of concerns for his own ongoing safety in the U.K. in the aftermath of the recent well-reported 'international incident', compounded apparently this very morning (NZ time) in London by a similar event (of which I'm still a little hazy).
**But for Newstalk ZB's afternoons talkback host Larry Williams to use this incident (in NZ 2006/2007) to add apparent fuel to the ongoing fire to justify the continuing call for the banning of beggars from central Auckland streets, is not only doing a disservice for the myriads of genuine as homeless/panhandling dudes upon our streets, but it betrays an utter lack of rationality and under-standing of how a sophisticated spy operation as the Russian Government has ever run is actually undertaken - in the real world, that is. So keep your cheap shots for a better target, Mr Williams; homeless guys and gals and other beggars have more than enough upon their plate to be constantly served such endless self-serving drivel, and former Auckland Mayor, National Government Minister and Whangarei M.P. John Banks ***himself in comparison - despite his own various faults and failings - at least had the relative humanity (apparently) to take sandwiches down every Sunday evening (or suchlike) to a person in that position years earlier (on a regular and anonymous basis).
***As once revealed by a phoner upon a Sunday night talkback discussion/'this is/was your life, John Banks' (with Newstalk ZB's John McGowan) a decade or so ago.
Oh, and hey...and now I'm getting myself into even hotter water...what about a certain
!Chinese Premier/President Xi ('Winnie-the-Pooh') Jinping.
This fellow evidently sees and styles himself in the same vein, only as the Chinese counterpart thereof, or the modern-day equivalent/personification/reincarnation (if you will) of one of China's ancient dynastic emperors. And having studied such a good 32 years ago at the University of Otago under the inspired and inspiring tutelage of a certain Political Studies Professor Stuart *Greif, Jinping's certainly placing himself amidst some illustrious company, not only that of communist dictator Mao Tse-Tung of half a century ago.
Yes, under Jinping's esteemed leadership the Chinese Tiger's roaring louder than ever before, though it's equally correct that it's managing to become a real economic powerhouse upon the world stage, even succeeding in lifting vast swathes of its citizenry into an ever-expanding middle class, whose membership now numbers into the 300 millions (if reports are correct). And the Chinese Government is taking a high-profile and celebrated role upon the global stage in tackling the climate change crisis. But for all that the influence of the Chinese Dragon only continues to grow and expand around the world, especially throughout the South Pacific, as the tentacles of the Chinese octopus gradually spread out further and further, seeking to engulf and gobble up each and every last vestige of perceived dissent and rebellion - especially (as with Russia) of (either present or former) Chinese nationals overseas. In this regards, to New Zealand's own shame, one needs look no further than the Key Government's formal ratification of an agreement with China to return Chinese citizens that Government wished to try for crimes back at home. In which regard the BBC reported extensively a couple years back as to how the Chinese authorities had evidently been found - as suspected - to have been behind the whisking off of five independent booksellers critical of the new regime in the supposedly newly autonomous Hong Kong.
*Though for Yours Truly perhaps 'Grief' would've been more apt, my ending up failing both the papers I undertook under said lecturer (though I generally did okay at Political Studies/Science (whether at Otago or Canterbury varsities, finally ending up with a 'minor', to my English major)); and to this day I happen to retain a pitiful and rather pathetic essay I had the effrontery apparently to present him with, his dismissive written comments/evaluation essentially being that: 'This doesn't even remotely approach being an acceptable effort'. Nuff said!
!Russian President Vladimir Putin
Never one to pussy-foot around when it comes to asserting his will and way, to promoting his own ego and grandiose sense of self for every compatriot to see, and his muscular physique and sheer physical prowess for every last besmitten Russian woman and girl to ogle, the one-time KGB agent and on-again, off-again President-Prime Minister-President, Emeritus Tzar for life Vladimir Putin leaves Trump well and truly in the dust, breathing up noxious, inorganic particulate matter...
What with the Russian Federation's Leader-for-Life (if he could arrange it) Putin, unabashedly gloating in unbridled fashion whilst promoting his grand nuclear strategy the other day - to bedazzle folks at home and terrify those abroad - by displaying the latest permutations and configuration of Russia's intercontinental ballistic missiles; while simultaneously dishing out the poison cup - no doubt indirectly through his loyal-till-death-do-them-part operatives - to his regime's sworn and steadfast enemies...*including this very morning as well to a fellow (now in London) who'd lived - and moreover also been poisoned etc - here in God's Own just a few years ago!
*No, apparently not, i.e. the words 'including this very morning...also'. Otherwise my words above stand, and are anything but fake news. What I should've put/added in above was simply that said former Russian (I believe, unless he'd hailed originally from Lithuania or another of the 15 present-day nations/one-time republic components of the former Soviet Union) - a Boris Karpickhov (sp?) - speaking livecast on TV3 tonight (NZ time) from a British TV studio panel interview, confirmed he'd personally been targeted back in 2006-2007 while living in New Zealand; i.e. walking a central Auckland street where **'a beggar' [homeless woman] had accosted him and sprayed him with a powdery substance (subsequently causing much ongoing physical discomfort). And evidently - understandably enough - now evidently had more than his share of concerns for his own ongoing safety in the U.K. in the aftermath of the recent well-reported 'international incident', compounded apparently this very morning (NZ time) in London by a similar event (of which I'm still a little hazy).
**But for Newstalk ZB's afternoons talkback host Larry Williams to use this incident (in NZ 2006/2007) to add apparent fuel to the ongoing fire to justify the continuing call for the banning of beggars from central Auckland streets, is not only doing a disservice for the myriads of genuine as homeless/panhandling dudes upon our streets, but it betrays an utter lack of rationality and under-standing of how a sophisticated spy operation as the Russian Government has ever run is actually undertaken - in the real world, that is. So keep your cheap shots for a better target, Mr Williams; homeless guys and gals and other beggars have more than enough upon their plate to be constantly served such endless self-serving drivel, and former Auckland Mayor, National Government Minister and Whangarei M.P. John Banks ***himself in comparison - despite his own various faults and failings - at least had the relative humanity (apparently) to take sandwiches down every Sunday evening (or suchlike) to a person in that position years earlier (on a regular and anonymous basis).
***As once revealed by a phoner upon a Sunday night talkback discussion/'this is/was your life, John Banks' (with Newstalk ZB's John McGowan) a decade or so ago.
Oh, and hey...and now I'm getting myself into even hotter water...what about a certain
!Chinese Premier/President Xi ('Winnie-the-Pooh') Jinping.
This fellow evidently sees and styles himself in the same vein, only as the Chinese counterpart thereof, or the modern-day equivalent/personification/reincarnation (if you will) of one of China's ancient dynastic emperors. And having studied such a good 32 years ago at the University of Otago under the inspired and inspiring tutelage of a certain Political Studies Professor Stuart *Greif, Jinping's certainly placing himself amidst some illustrious company, not only that of communist dictator Mao Tse-Tung of half a century ago.
Yes, under Jinping's esteemed leadership the Chinese Tiger's roaring louder than ever before, though it's equally correct that it's managing to become a real economic powerhouse upon the world stage, even succeeding in lifting vast swathes of its citizenry into an ever-expanding middle class, whose membership now numbers into the 300 millions (if reports are correct). And the Chinese Government is taking a high-profile and celebrated role upon the global stage in tackling the climate change crisis. But for all that the influence of the Chinese Dragon only continues to grow and expand around the world, especially throughout the South Pacific, as the tentacles of the Chinese octopus gradually spread out further and further, seeking to engulf and gobble up each and every last vestige of perceived dissent and rebellion - especially (as with Russia) of (either present or former) Chinese nationals overseas. In this regards, to New Zealand's own shame, one needs look no further than the Key Government's formal ratification of an agreement with China to return Chinese citizens that Government wished to try for crimes back at home. In which regard the BBC reported extensively a couple years back as to how the Chinese authorities had evidently been found - as suspected - to have been behind the whisking off of five independent booksellers critical of the new regime in the supposedly newly autonomous Hong Kong.
*Though for Yours Truly perhaps 'Grief' would've been more apt, my ending up failing both the papers I undertook under said lecturer (though I generally did okay at Political Studies/Science (whether at Otago or Canterbury varsities, finally ending up with a 'minor', to my English major)); and to this day I happen to retain a pitiful and rather pathetic essay I had the effrontery apparently to present him with, his dismissive written comments/evaluation essentially being that: 'This doesn't even remotely approach being an acceptable effort'. Nuff said!
Yet For All That Rose-Tinted, Possibly Pollyanna-ish Optimism...the sacking overnight (NZ-time) of United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is in itself a somewhat concerning development
If for no other reason, that once each and every last sane, sensible, level-headed and reasonable, rational person is expelled from the asylum, the lunatics left inside will not only have full reign, but moreover the chances of their wreaking merry havoc therein, and subsequently spreading their folly thick and fast throughout neighbouring communities, towns, cities, provinces/regions, nations - and yes, ultimately the entire globe...only increases in exponential proportions...
Tuesday, March 13, 2018
For All his 'Faults' - and they are both numerous, even 'innumerable', and incredibly variegated...the sitting American President:
is surely deserving of at least a little commendation (of late)...would not 'all men [i.e. people] of good will' agree? My question is rhetorical, but seeing as some (perhaps fairly understandably, I'll freely admit) regard Donald J Trump as virtually (pun both unintended yet simultaneously quite intentional) the devil incarnate (eminent position - he currently occupies - notwithstanding)..:
Let me suggest, as gently and respectfully as I can - no hard feelings, you understand - that it's in absolutely nobody's interests ('best' or otherwise); except perhaps that/those of a patently hostile, malice-ridden assemblage of onlooking ***other-worldly would-be earth conquerors; for this present world to go up in an incendiary smokestack of nuclear mushroom-style ruin and desolation. No, truly. And yes, whoever happens to be sitting in the Oval Office at the time. Admittedly even when the toddlers are in charge of the schoolhouse and its precincts.
Hence, ipso facto, whoever happens to get the credit - and who really cares, that's for kiddies in kindergartens, folks - let's all just be grateful, for a moment (or several), anyhow, that the lifespan of this fragile planet has thus been, ****hopefully, reprieved for a couple more months, at least... .
Whichever of the two, even if both larger-than-life high-flying politicoes are ultimately responsible; again, who really cares? It doesn't matter a jot or tittle. You might indeed be right in your own evaluation/assessment, spot on in fact, and correct to the very nth degree even...but may I, again ever so respectfully, suggest and point out: if we're all dead, d'ya think we'll be around to extol your superior wisdom?
So stop, for just a sec (or two), in order, if not to positively give due credit where credit is due, to at the very least refrain (for the briefest of interludes) from ye usual petty party political, partisan bitching, bickering, nit-picking and just plain ('I can't stand the man' (I mean, oaf) ) ideological point-scoring and other assorted 'holier than Trump' self-indulgences...to do the following: celebrate with all men and women and children of good will a small 'win' for homo sapiens and all other Earth-bound creatures.
But please, oh pretty please, don't hold it against dear old Mr Trump that he honestly just can't help himself, for real, that he's once again chosen to trumpet (pun all too fully intended) his own supposed involvement in/contribution to such a (******highly temporary, no doubt) stay of execution for Planet Earth. And meanwhile, for all us supposed 'adults in the room', let's not do the 'ole 'hate the sinner whilst loving the sin' thingamy by emulating 'the Donald' himself...but rather just 'thank our lucky stars' (if that's the way we're inclined and all we can do): that the impending spectre of nuclear winter has been - at least temporarily - deferred for all beings that on this earth do dwell.
Yes indeed. That'll give us all due cause for pause and food enough for thought for some time to come.
**(From title: 'numerous, even 'innumerable, and incredibly variegated'): Too many indeed to easily cite here, and embracing a wide swathe of territory, that's for sure.
*(From title: 'all his faults'): Comprehending errors, mistakes, personality failings and flaws (as well as quite arguably the morally disqualifying act of cowardly evading the draft - while cynically employing that old 'last refuge of a scoundrel', patriotism, whenever it's tended to suit his own political purposes and agenda, including to 'dis' the likes of genuine war heroes such as Arizona Republican Senator John McCain)...but not here referring to the evidently well-founded allegations swirling around 'everywhere' of far more serious, even heinous, ********crimes of passion, shonky business dealings and employment practices (let alone the seething charges, now entering America's highest legislative bodies, of nepotism, gerrymandering election results alongside doing so by collusion with a foreign power of the most powerful and hostile type (i.e. effectively committing treason)).
***Eat ya hearts out, all ye comedians/comediennes of New Zealand's TV3's weeknightly 'The Project'.
****Of course ongoing, never-ending 'developments' in that *****other constantly simmering global (nuclear) hotspot, the Middle East, only ever seem to progressively worsen (outside of President Obama's own various reprieves a few short years back), and give no such cause for optimism, only for rather hopeless pessimism.
*****Though as 'we' were reminded this morning (on Kathryn Ryan's RNZ National 'Nine to Noon' show) by a longtime expert on the world's nuclear arsenals and deployment, we tend to hear little about the ongoing waxing and waning and waxing tensions between two other nuclear weaponry-wielding neighbours, i.e. Pakistan and India; whose rhetoric has often been just as worrisome!
******For with two *******madmen running this particular 'show', naturally some legitimately feel 'it's only a matter of time', and not, 'which one blinks first?', as it was with the three seriously intelligent - and essentially decent-minded and humane - statesmen of yesteryear, Cuba's Castro, the U.S.S.R.'s Khrushchev and America's Camelot President 'JFK' (during their own state-of-the-art brinkmanship in the 'Bay of Pigs' nuclear standoff).
*******Without even mentioning a whole assortment of present-day supposedly much more sophisticated, sensible and intelligent world leaders, and two (larger than life characters) in particular. And no, I make no reference here to one of the leaders of the historic Brexit referendum result, a certain much-pilloried Boris Johnson, who I for one regard as all of the immediate above - minus the descriptor 'supposedly'. And his idiosyncratic 'rough and ready' style detracts not one iota from that intriguing, endearing persona!
********Though admittedly not being the sole 'perpetrator' of some of these sordid affairs even amongst the generally, supposedly hallowed chambers of American presidents, his - at least apparent - combination of so many (in one individual) is enough to stagger the imagination, surely.
Let me suggest, as gently and respectfully as I can - no hard feelings, you understand - that it's in absolutely nobody's interests ('best' or otherwise); except perhaps that/those of a patently hostile, malice-ridden assemblage of onlooking ***other-worldly would-be earth conquerors; for this present world to go up in an incendiary smokestack of nuclear mushroom-style ruin and desolation. No, truly. And yes, whoever happens to be sitting in the Oval Office at the time. Admittedly even when the toddlers are in charge of the schoolhouse and its precincts.
Hence, ipso facto, whoever happens to get the credit - and who really cares, that's for kiddies in kindergartens, folks - let's all just be grateful, for a moment (or several), anyhow, that the lifespan of this fragile planet has thus been, ****hopefully, reprieved for a couple more months, at least... .
Whichever of the two, even if both larger-than-life high-flying politicoes are ultimately responsible; again, who really cares? It doesn't matter a jot or tittle. You might indeed be right in your own evaluation/assessment, spot on in fact, and correct to the very nth degree even...but may I, again ever so respectfully, suggest and point out: if we're all dead, d'ya think we'll be around to extol your superior wisdom?
So stop, for just a sec (or two), in order, if not to positively give due credit where credit is due, to at the very least refrain (for the briefest of interludes) from ye usual petty party political, partisan bitching, bickering, nit-picking and just plain ('I can't stand the man' (I mean, oaf) ) ideological point-scoring and other assorted 'holier than Trump' self-indulgences...to do the following: celebrate with all men and women and children of good will a small 'win' for homo sapiens and all other Earth-bound creatures.
But please, oh pretty please, don't hold it against dear old Mr Trump that he honestly just can't help himself, for real, that he's once again chosen to trumpet (pun all too fully intended) his own supposed involvement in/contribution to such a (******highly temporary, no doubt) stay of execution for Planet Earth. And meanwhile, for all us supposed 'adults in the room', let's not do the 'ole 'hate the sinner whilst loving the sin' thingamy by emulating 'the Donald' himself...but rather just 'thank our lucky stars' (if that's the way we're inclined and all we can do): that the impending spectre of nuclear winter has been - at least temporarily - deferred for all beings that on this earth do dwell.
Yes indeed. That'll give us all due cause for pause and food enough for thought for some time to come.
**(From title: 'numerous, even 'innumerable, and incredibly variegated'): Too many indeed to easily cite here, and embracing a wide swathe of territory, that's for sure.
*(From title: 'all his faults'): Comprehending errors, mistakes, personality failings and flaws (as well as quite arguably the morally disqualifying act of cowardly evading the draft - while cynically employing that old 'last refuge of a scoundrel', patriotism, whenever it's tended to suit his own political purposes and agenda, including to 'dis' the likes of genuine war heroes such as Arizona Republican Senator John McCain)...but not here referring to the evidently well-founded allegations swirling around 'everywhere' of far more serious, even heinous, ********crimes of passion, shonky business dealings and employment practices (let alone the seething charges, now entering America's highest legislative bodies, of nepotism, gerrymandering election results alongside doing so by collusion with a foreign power of the most powerful and hostile type (i.e. effectively committing treason)).
***Eat ya hearts out, all ye comedians/comediennes of New Zealand's TV3's weeknightly 'The Project'.
****Of course ongoing, never-ending 'developments' in that *****other constantly simmering global (nuclear) hotspot, the Middle East, only ever seem to progressively worsen (outside of President Obama's own various reprieves a few short years back), and give no such cause for optimism, only for rather hopeless pessimism.
*****Though as 'we' were reminded this morning (on Kathryn Ryan's RNZ National 'Nine to Noon' show) by a longtime expert on the world's nuclear arsenals and deployment, we tend to hear little about the ongoing waxing and waning and waxing tensions between two other nuclear weaponry-wielding neighbours, i.e. Pakistan and India; whose rhetoric has often been just as worrisome!
******For with two *******madmen running this particular 'show', naturally some legitimately feel 'it's only a matter of time', and not, 'which one blinks first?', as it was with the three seriously intelligent - and essentially decent-minded and humane - statesmen of yesteryear, Cuba's Castro, the U.S.S.R.'s Khrushchev and America's Camelot President 'JFK' (during their own state-of-the-art brinkmanship in the 'Bay of Pigs' nuclear standoff).
*******Without even mentioning a whole assortment of present-day supposedly much more sophisticated, sensible and intelligent world leaders, and two (larger than life characters) in particular. And no, I make no reference here to one of the leaders of the historic Brexit referendum result, a certain much-pilloried Boris Johnson, who I for one regard as all of the immediate above - minus the descriptor 'supposedly'. And his idiosyncratic 'rough and ready' style detracts not one iota from that intriguing, endearing persona!
********Though admittedly not being the sole 'perpetrator' of some of these sordid affairs even amongst the generally, supposedly hallowed chambers of American presidents, his - at least apparent - combination of so many (in one individual) is enough to stagger the imagination, surely.
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