All of us are living in a world fulled by hatred and ignorance. We may try to hide it and disguise it with holidays and loving after school specials, but in reality hatred is the fuel that keeps our world turning. It is in grained in our psyche to be afraid of the unknown, but that fear should not have the opportunity to transform into hatred. In truth we hate because we don't understand. Christians, Muslims, Jews, Blacks, Whites, Asians, we all worship the same fictional entity, believe in the same arbitrary borders, and will kill to protect ones family. We do these because we believe that we love the previously mentioned items. Yet, let me ask you this, when can presumed love for ones own country, lead to hatred for another?
This christmas a nigerian terrorist was on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit and tried to detonate explosives during flight. This attack comes on the heals of the controversial decision Obama made on sending more troops to Afghanistan, and has more to do with my previous point then most of you may believe. This man had ties to Al-Qaeda, was on the terrorist watch list, payed cash for a one way flight to Detroit (come on he wasn't heading their for a job), and did not bring a single bag. It just shocks me that after two wars, billions of dollars, thousands of lives, the best defense we have against these assailants is a concerned passenger who notices a guy is attempting to light his own dick on fire. Yet, when the news of the attack breaks, the focus is not on how to improve air security, but how the two parties are viciously attacking each other. Hoping to build ground for the next election. This political jargon just illustrates how little politicians care about the people, and how selfishly they will work to help retain their seat come next election year. Next after the party mudslinging, cable news channels turned their attention to how Muslims are destroying the world. Yes, that statement alone should illustrate why I hate cabel news channels. Most muslims I know are peace loving people, no different from you and I, yet after 9/11 a vast portion of America seems to have adopted the notion that muslims are the lone source of evil in this world. Yet, these Islamic extremists have more in common with the KKK than you average muslim. In short, I am just fed up with how the world can generate so much hatred towards a group of people, solely based on the decisions of a few individuals.
O yeah, and if you haven't noticed our planet is fucked too "The most progressive U.S. President in a generation comes to the most important international meeting since the Second World War and delivers a speech so devoid of substance that he might as well have made it on speakerphone from a beach in Hawaii. His aides argue in private that he had no choice, such is the opposition on Capitol Hill to any action that might challenge the dominance of fossil fuels in American life. And so the nation which put a man on the moon can’t summon the collective will to protect men and women back here on Earth from the consequences of an economic model and lifestyle choice that has taken on the mantel of a religion.
Then a Chinese Premier who is in the process of converting his Communist nation to that new faith (high-carbon consumer capitalism) takes such umbrage at Obama’s speech that he refuses to meet – refuses, in fact, to do much of anything beyond sulking in his hotel room, as if this were a teenager’s house party instead of a final effort to stave off the breakdown of our biosphere.Late in the evening the two men meet and cobble together a collection of paragraphs which they call a ‘deal’, although in reality it has all the meaning and authority of a bus ticket, not that it stops them affixing their signatures to it with great solemnity. Obama’s team then briefs the travelling White House press pack – most of whom, it seems, understand about as much about global climate politics as our own lobby hacks know about baseball – and before we know it the New York Times and CNN are declaring the birth of a ‘meaningful’ accord.
Meanwhile a friend on an African delegation emails to say that he and many fellow members of the G77 block of developing countries are streaming into the corridors after a long discussion about the perilous state of the talks, only to see Obama on the television announcing that the world has a deal. It’s the first they’ve heard about it, and a few minutes later, as they examine the text, they realise very quickly that it effectively condemns their continent to a century of devastating temperature rises.
By now the European leaders – who know this thing is a farce but have to present it to their publics as progress – have their aides phoning the directors of civil society organisations spinning that the talks have been a success. A success? This deal crosses so many of the red lines laid out by Europe before this summit started that there are scarlet skid marks across the floor of the Bella Centre, and one honest European diplomat tells us this is a ‘shitty shitty deal.’
This deal is beyond bad. It contains no legally binding targets and no indication of when or how they’ll come about. There isn’t even a declaration that the world will aim to keep global temperature rises below 2 degrees C – instead leaders merely ‘recognise the science’ behind that vital threshold, as if that were enough to prevent us crossing it. The only part of this deal anyone sane came close to welcoming was the $100bn global climate fund, but it’s now becoming apparent that even that’s largely made up of existing budgets, with no indication of how new money will be raised and distributed so poorer countries can go green and adapt to climate change.
Over the past few years I have slowly come to the conclusion that corporate america is perfectly fine with destroying your soul. Every day millions of people travel to a generic office building, to sit in a seemingly identical cubicle, in order to do arbitrary work, so just they can make enough money to drown their sorrows in alcohol and the occasional weekend to Vegas. We are all too willing to trade in our identity and our soul for a steady 9 to 5, and some benefits. That previous statement scares the shit out of me. As a society, we should be harboring individuality, art, and expression. Yet, in reality we have a group of people, who when it comes to layoff time are numbers on a spreadsheet as opposed to real people with real emotions and ambitions. This militarization of the workplace is a key cause of hate in the world. We are all too willing to hate and fight with our fellow co-worker, for what, a corner office, a new title before our name? Seriously ask yourself, what is the point?
If their is a purpose to this rant, it is in the following. I cannot possibly fathom what in todays modern society motivates people to do such terrible things to each other and the environment. This past week we celebrated a new decade. Yes, we are now a corporate focused society which enjoys destroying the environment and others for our own gain. Oh and an iPhone has a slightly higher net worth than a human life. Happy fucking new year.
