Chris has been doing some interesting ranting, over here, about all that politics and war stuff. It kinda coincides with my thinking, yesterday, while I was potting up some lovely tropical orchids for a client.
Simon Jenkins, ever perceptive, has managed to drive home
some really good points – even in amidst praise for the wonkified David Cameron. The whole thing is worth reading, chiefly because he’s sensible enough to point out that the whole talk about terrorists being a threat to western life and civilisation is ludicrous hot air.
Indeed, the greater threat to our whole
"way of life", as societies and cultures, is going to come chiefly through our reactions to the existence of violent extremism. So much of what is being done in the name of a war on terror – that
difficult and spoilt child - appears to be doing damage to ourselves and to others. It isn’t in the capacity of middle-eastern insurgents and alienated youth to be able to somehow endanger our very nation in some total way, and certainly not when compared to the psychotic and misguided actions of
the administrations of nation states themselves. The conduct of the middle-eastern wars, led by politicians in denial about their own lack of perception, is stirring up hornets nests of new problems for their peoples. The tough talk and revisionist approach to civil liberties of western citizens traps some in a terrible limbo, and the lives of the majority are curbed by increasing surveillance and restriction.
Terrorism hasn’t increased to the extent of rhetoric, except in the regions where wars and occupations have been conducted, despite the hysterical talk of some politicians. I sincerely hope this, as Jenkinds brands it,
"stupid foreign policy", and, indeed, the reckless approach to home affairs, is going to be marginalised with the advent of new leaders. For all our sakes.
