Its a strange place..no one is running the world right now, strange, yes…very strange, George W Bush has said his farewell speech, more subdued than goodbye, tired of the weight of command, he is just glad to get out of here and go home, personally I feel sorry for the son of a gun, he was over his head at the start and never rose any higher since, the office can age and tire a man, but for W it is more beaten than buggered, one last flight, one last look out of Air Force One’s windows at the country he presided over, “Goodbye Mr President”…
In starting these Journals (I hate the word Blog, It sounds like your going to the toilet!), I wanted it to be a reflection of the world, but they have turned angry, so is the world angry?..I wanted to try to see how it can be a better place, but history can produce some fireworks that happen to you, and the last six months have been a turning point in history like none other, it has been a ride like no other, for people like me I loved every minute of it, you may gasp in horror at that thought, but I feel like I am living history, instead of just reading about it, for that it is exciting and adventurous, something to talk about in my old age like my Dad talked about the Second World War, he hated it of course but it held a certain fascination that he survived it and made himself a better life by marrying my mother and getting me to school on time.
I have absorbed the Economic Crisis, like it was my own, the Presidential Race, the last days of the Bush empire, the speeches, the rhetoric, the bad CNN and Fox News nonfactual reporting, and their fabulous amazing and stupid, holograms…My own BBC is not any better, The Mumbai reporting was simply a joke even by their usually high standards..but the media is another journal waiting to be written, I wanted to write to deliver ideas to make this a better place to live, but ended up hopefully not being a rant, but history had other ideas and the idea of writing to organise what is inside your head, by putting it down and finding opinion you can see if you are seeing things in their correct order or observation, to know that why things happen because of the right reasons, to work out the facts and clearly see the correct picture..
..but here I have found myself angry, pounding the keys in sheer impatience, as with life the correct picture can be two sided or many sided, my view maybe not your view, or the Christian View, Muslim View, Political View and so on…that is why we have our differences and even wars, you can’t put things into simple right or wrong boxes, but to lay them out can help you find a thread, it may be wrong, but it could be right as well, sometimes you have to tell it like it is, The one thing I really hate is smallmindedness, I don’t care if your view is right or wrong, but at least try to see both sides of the argument, the idea or a view before making a judgement, however when you do and you have looked at the facts and seen both sides of the story then that is what it is and that is that…but at least you have thought about the idea or philosophy, and that is what i write…in time i may see my own huge miscalculations, as i believe that we make our decisions or ideas and statements that are right or wrong at that certain moment in time, and I accept that a new angle or more information can change the view it once was totally around to another new complete observation, this is the perils of Journalism, but you are just reorganising your thoughts and views..to make sense, to understand to record for that is the soul reason the Journal or any journal is created in the first place.
but why angry?..because people who should know better have behaved badly, this is of course nothing new in history, but here it affects my beliefs, even my own freedoms, well Do-Dah for you, you may cry, Mr cry-baby..but that is not my point, as people with the amount of information now affecting the globe, we are all now connected together, it is the “Global Village” as some dunk head from a university coined it, but we are wired together, there are no borders, no seas to divide us, we are now enmass able to think as one, the history channel is there 24/7 to discover and show up our past mistakes, great universities to learn and debate the past…and yet I could throw a brick at Tony Blair..Why?
Because he did a dumb thing, he also did a thousand right things, but for once he did a really, really dumb thing, against me, my country, my home, my own people, and that is where the danger is, Tony Blair is a smart man, very smart, but he had one major failing…idealism..believing in his own infallibility to change anything, its like a rock star that believes that he is the centre of the world, but in reality he just sings nice songs and wears silly clothes and gives us a good time, he can’t fix Africa or stop Global warming, that is really other people’s jobs like Tony Blair.
A hundred years ago you would accept a decision to invade Iraq, he pushed me so i pushed you back, but today…no, sorry its not acceptable, and a learned man like Tony, and with all of his cabinet he only had to look out of his window at the protesters and flags walking past 10 Downing Street and screaming at him, I didn’t want him to do it, he didn’t ask me if it was the right thing to do, he just did it and so did little Aussie Johnny Howard, but that is because he wanted to climb up onto the world stage and play with the big boys..But Tony put me into the position that if I flew and landed in Singapore and two of Mr Bin-Laden’s brothers in arms boarded my flight and wanted to make a statement over the Indian Ocean, my passport was my execution..I am a nice person, everyone at my local coffee shop says to their staff, “he is a nice person, says thank you and how are you”, they smile and don’t scowl when I approach them, I try to see good in everything, but I am angry because Tony should have known better, was a better man than that, yes Prime Ministers have to make impossible calls of judgement, but in this case, because Tony did what he did, he made me a target in another country, he made the world unsafe when he wanted to do the opposite..point is we told him not too…but he still did it, why?
He wanted to save the Iraqis, its a bold statement, and no doubt the decision was made in good faith, but I needed our boys to protect me from al-Qaeda and their rampaging rhetoric, for that I would gladly state my British nationality, you may say i was already a target, I was, but suddenly every Muslim and Arab was after me and not just a ragtag of disbelievers in Pakistan, my odds had just shortened to the point I was a target everytime i left Australia or the United Kingdom, the decsion made the whole world unstable, and this is my really, really angry part..it did exactly what Bin-Laden expected us to do, he won, make no mistake, he kicked their bloody asses and laughed, and he is still winning, David beat Goliath, they divided the world between them and us, why…stupid…Tony Why?..as Blair was the one man who could have stopped George W Bush from his own imperialism, you say George would have still gone into Iraq, yes, but without the British, the Australians may have thought twice, without the Aussies and on their own the United States may have thought maybe we should wait, but Tony should have known better, it was a battle he knew could not be won, period, and would be unpopular, it was political suicide and so it was..
I am angry that the Americans should know better, I like Americans, but their stupidity in allowing their stupid overlong over expensive voting system that allows people like George W Bush gain power without everyone voting, and that a nominated judge can overrule a whole country and install anyone they like or want, and is thankful they have put things right on Tuesday, but they could have brought the world too close to World War Three, by their arrogance, head in the sand insulated environment, rhetoric entertainment media and I don’t mean Hollywood (oh, and yes maybe Hollywood as well), I mean CNN, ABC and mostly Fox News for their sheer incompetence in their reporting and balancing of facts and what is passable as news and the balance and checks that they should be doing as part of their job as the nation’s conscience, but mostly where Presidential puppies and irresponsible advertising are more important than starting a Third World War, yes the Americans are finally angry, but five years too late, was still more interested in Paris Hilton’s buffoon Ads and “Joe the Plumber” even in the last few months of the most important election in their country’s history, you could state this this is a little light humor in a long drawn out campaign, but the problem is it is not, it is ignorance, like not knowing that Australia is not Austria, god help us if the want to bomb Europe, Sydney will get it, America is like Australia it is a young country, but it needs to grow up, if you want to be the Big World Superpower, well with that there is a responsibility, a huge mandate to be a leader and to act like a leader and that Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character and not a national Icon of presidential importance.
After this weekend there is a new world order, Australia has already changed its leader, Kevin Rudd is a strong youthful politician like Barack Obama, The United Kingdom has retired Tony Blair, Gordon Brown is living on his ability to be a man of change or a man of the past, I know soon my country will change as well, a change of mood can defeat Terrorism and its blind faith, the world can be united behind us against them, that is the whole world of Muslims, Christians, Jews, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Brazilians, Africans and Europeans in fact all the people that are against a few Terrorists, yes we can make our world safer, by showing them it is not acceptable for any cause to kill Innocent people that have done them no wrong, yes they have arguments of failed wars or boundaries to their cause, but we can help their children by not to be allowed to hold machine guns at twelve years old for no other reason than win untenable political goals, that is not acceptable, and the United Nations will need to step up to allow the world to speak and act in cases of these brotherhood battles, the days of Imperialism wars are over, the world is too damn small and to damn populated to cross boundaries and invade for the sake of imperialistic goals and we have to find a better way of sorting out our arguments, and we are grown up enough to do that, we have bigger things to sort out than fight each other, saving our home, feeding billions, creating a better life for our children that is better than the last one, this is our responsibility, our future is a stake, too move forward the lessons have to be learn’t, we are intelligent enough to finally do this, and to not do so is our own stupidity, the after Dot Com bust, 9/11 the economic crash is the final..final warning, behave, we are all in this together, its not yours its ours, all of us together we are now interconnected like never before, things are different, we are all in this together, its not them or us, its us on our own.
This weekend is a pause too take stock, a truce in no mans land on Christmas Day, were we have come from and more importantly were are we going, there are immediate issues that have to be attend too, but once they are done or on their way, we have to set out a new agenda, a responsible one, for us, our home, our impact on this planet, our very survival…and then I can stop being angry and write about how this world can be better and not treated with irrelevance, or silly humour, greed is dead, survival is more important, friendship better still…
Goodbye George W….and thanks for all the Fish! (Douglas Adams)
Welcome Barack..now lets get down to business….
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