Let's Pretend

The enormous advances in technology, in medicine, in the standard of living for the vast majority of those living in the West has blunted our awareness of what our great grandparents took for granted. That life was full of appalling and frightening events such as infant mortality, death in child birth, diseases and deformities of all kinds as well as crippling accidents, squalor, poverty, ignorance and of course war. It is only when there is a natural disaster, an early death in the family, a bad congenital defect, loss of income, war or civil unrest that we can no longer pretend to ourselves that we have escaped all the nasty things in life. It seems that we are encouraged by politicians and advertisers that things can only get better but we are guilty of deluding ourselves that nothing bad can ever happen. Bad things can and do happen all the time as the coal mine disaster in New Zealand, the earthquake there and the earthquake and tsunami in Japan remind us. We are also reminded that we do not control the earth but it controls us. When it comes to war and civil unrest though we are not entirely powerless and we should thus be doing something to help those wherever they are who want the yoke of an undemocratic regime removed from them. David Frum has an interesting article in the Telegraph today http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8386511/Libya-Barack-Obama-is-in-no-hurry-to-see-Gaddafi-go.html in which he theorises that Bummer is procrastinating about doing anything in Libya because it is possible Bummer believes it is better for the US if Gaddafi remains in power. This is a theory which is almost too horrible to contemplate but if true makes Bummer even less fit to be President than I had previously thought.