The Rot Leaks From the Top, Colltalers

Even non-conspiracists have noticed that the current global attack on democracy has at least one commonality: the creation of an appearance of chaos. It links institutional crises in the U.S., Europe, South America, and the Middle East, and it’s not random.
It’s central to the U.S. turmoil, promoted by the president and his sycophants, and essential for Brexit opportunists to get what they want. It’s behind the unrest in Brazil, Ecuador, and Iraq, and it’s been crucial to sending the world back to Cold War fears.
But the biggest and most immediate damage such a corroding strategy has been causing is to distract and sabotage efforts to reverse the existential climate emergency upon us. For now, as the Amazon Rainforest burns, this machine keeps soldiering on.
What could be traced back to deranged dreams of power of the likes of Stephen Bannon and others like him, now it’s a self-reliant, well-funded agenda proceeding with its demolition plan. And that includes bringing into positions of global leadership a class of unscrupulous would-be tyrants, walking time-bombs ready to trade their souls for a shot at becoming the main bananas.
For approximately three years now the world has been riding this out-of-control rollercoaster: rigging of the electoral system and prioritizing the wealthy and powerful. Meanwhile, the climate goes berserk on the account of boundless corporation greed. That it makes no sense, since no one may survive when the environment pays them a visit, is apparently not a question they ask ever.
In the U.S., one wonders what would it take to bring down a corrupt president, if Trump beats the rap and sails to reelection. With him, it’ll be more of the unsustainable same: big oil and

big pharma writing the regulations, and his family becoming richer.
Even if the U.K. Supreme Court, unlike its American counterpart, still honors its name, Boris Johnson has successfully diverted the attention off the evidently negative prospects of exiting the European Union, to his well-documented petulance. As a skilled politician, odds are that Britons may be ultimately won over, even if just to catch a little break, and let him wreck the place.
The catalyst to Brazil’s quick descent, from the world’s sixth-largest economy of five years ago to the institutional break down of today, is naturally Jair Bolsonaro. The apologist of torturers and civil rights foe, to whom the Amazon is a source of revenue, and his sons, entitled to share his office, has done more damage to Brazil in less than a year than even Trump’s managed in over two.
Most serious, obviously, is the tragedy of killing the planet’s biggest rainforest. Or his assumption, based on years of misguided xenophobia and paranoia, that the world has no saying on what nations do to the environment and their indigenous communities. Granted, Western societies have indeed been founded upon the genocide of their natives, but that doesn’t mean they should have.
Even with limited intellectual skills, though, he knows the importance of sowing chaos to justify a ‘no tolerance’ approach to dissent. Thus his approval indices always spike whenever he blames Brazil’s rising inequality, violent crime, and poverty levels on those most affected by his policies: the poor. It’s also odd his fixation on the U.S. under Trump, who probably ignores him.
Speaking of indigenous peoples, they’re at the front of Ecuador’s gentrification wars, whose clashes with law enforcement over the weekend have brought death and destruction to Quito streets. President Lenin Moreno, who despite his name is a center-right politician aligned with international capital interests, may lose his grip to power and solicit help from the military. Again.
The deadly protests which irrupted in Iraq surprised no one. We may’ve lost track of the U.S. occupation, but it was long enough to breed a fresh generation of angry dissenters, coming to age now. Like the Hong Kong protesters, they have not much of a choice: either die by lack of prospects for a decent life and/or freedom, or die for saying no. Bless them for choosing the latter.
That’s the world we’ve lived in these past few days, without elaborating on the new Atmospheric Science paper warning of the consequences of a war between India and Pakistan. Assuming that it’d quickly escalate to both nations’ use of their combined 500 or so nuclear warheads, it’d likely cause 125 million deaths, global famine, and Ice Age temperatures. Got the jitters yet?
It’s usually the most wonderful time of the year for the Swedish Academy which will hand out its Nobel Literature (2018 and 2019) awards this Thursday. But since its firing of secretary Jean-Claude Arnault, accused of rape, and revamping of its board, which did not give last year’s award, plus decades of controversial choices, things have been rather murky in the kingdom lately.
The good news is that two top runners for the Peace Nobel, to be given Dec. 10, are Greta Thunberg, their own native who’s now loved by millions and hated by some worldwide for the exact right reasons, and the legendary 89-year-old Chief Kayapó Raoni Metuktire, a Native Brazilian leader and environmentalist. They’re symbols for good, and so it’s the Nobel. Lets vote for them.
Our closing today is also about chaos and muddying of waters: impeachment of President Trump, which got off to a promising start, helped by, well, Trump. The variety of factual punches that actually landed on the Teflon-in-Chief has certainly brought a shy, quasi-secret smile to so many frowned faces. And fate’s little touch, having him helping it all, was the cherry atop the cake.
That is, as long as there’s a consensus that it’ll be a long, winding, and possibly dead-ended road. But it’s Ok because it had to be done, and it may bring up more than the dirt the president was bulling countries to dig up on presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son’s dealings in Ukraine. Almost a comic relief that mustn’t get in the way of kicking him out in 2020. Register to vote. WC

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