The Moonspeaker:
Where Some Ideas Are Stranger Than Others...

THE YEAR OF LOST ILLUSIONS

The poignant and justly famous evangelical lutheran christmas church nativity, quoted from lebanese news outlet almanar, 6 december 2023.

I keep trying to start this essay, which when the title first came to mind and got stuck there, it seemed like it would be about the debacle of the official handling of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in so many "western" countries, and the ongoing implosion of late stage capitalism. Or on how no matter how much money the various governments and corporations spend to declaim how virtuous they are when it comes to climate change or the rights of the constantly expanded pseudo-acronym "2SLGBTQ++", their actions give them away. As they belly up to the podium at one news conference or another and declaim their respect for diversity of ideas and respect for free speech, while their actions reveal their declamations to be boldfaced lies. But when the entire gamut of mainstream media and much of the non-mainstream media is producing DARVO stories and images at a rate so high even they can't keep a straight face anymore, there hardly seemed a point to that approach. Certainly I am hardly the only person let alone the first person to be appalled to have so much proof that the worst of my cynical imaginings were fundamentally true. But evidently I was not nearly cynical enough. After all, it never occurred to me for a moment to imagine that a nazi would be honoured and given an ovation in the canadian parliament. Yes, even though I had already observed in the mainstream news all too many examples of events in which "western" powers flagrantly broke the international law they claim to uphold with a smirk and a shrug. "It's okay when we do it," the various PR representatives say in front of cameras and microphones, and add to their trendy social media accounts. "We're the good guys, whatever we do is okay, because we're good."

In canada, when the royal canadian mounted police helped kidnap Indigenous children to imprison them in residential schools, and the staff in those schools tormented those children, those staff and those police said much the same thing. They meant well, their actions caused terrible pain and suffering that reaches across generations, but their hands are as clean as their consciences are untroubled of the ones who survive from the residential school era, which has not ended so much as changed shape. Now the people who steal the children are police and social workers, together with too many foster parents. But they are allowed to do harm, because they are good they say, and they meant well, and a small harm is better than a big one, and if the harm is big after all, they'll stop doing it. They're responsive, and good, right?

There is so much talk every day, about not repeating the mistakes of the past, and how "western powers" lead the way into the future, because they take seriously the lessons of the past, and they are good. And since the leaders of those countries and the alliances among them insist that they know better than literally the vast majority of the world, after all, did not one of their wise representatives declare that europe is a garden, and the rest of the world is a jungle? And we all know that by a fascinating synecdoche, "europe" means the whole "west" as defined by being anglophone and politically affiliated with the united states. And since the "west" knows better than the vast majority of the world's population, and it is good, whatever is against international law is okay when they do it. It can be against basic human decency, because as long as they do it, because they assure the rest of us, they are good and they know better, it's okay for them to do whatever they want, as long as they do it.

Yes, I know. It has been far longer than a year.