Condemned. That is what we are according to the sentiments of historians. We have, in our hour of need in today's times, forgotten the warning that if we forget about history, disregard it, we will be condemned to repeat it. And so here we are. Again.
WWI was a time of strong men rulers, demagogues, emperors and kings, and unruly times for the world. Recent past had scores of wars, small and large, proxy wars in some cases. The streets were rife with warring sectors of citizens with great unrest among the lower classes of society even as the upper classes reveled in their excesses.
And the various 'prophets' called out warnings but no one was listening. Thus a shot against an heir to a crumbling throne caromed through the tangled lines of alliance and off the world was to war and off marched the millions of men, off to slaughter in the poppy fields of Flanders, in the bloody trenches that took as much as 60,000 men in one day of fighting at the Battle of Somme.
The fields were soaked with the blood of the population of Europe. Britain never recovered before she was entangled in yet another World War which was actually an extension of the first war as no lessons had been learned and the situations were the same. Once again we had demagogues who ruled with iron fists. Once again we had men who refused to listen to history, refused to hear the ominous notes of the martial music. Once again the streets were filled with marauding hordes.
Fast forward into the future and watch the era of dictators take hold. Watch the lessons of two world wars go down the drain. Watch the growing class hatred, the growing difference between the classes, the inequalities of society and the ever present hatred of the 'other' as defined by various hate groups. And follow this repetition of history into present times.
Today the world is once again rife with demagogues, including one right here in what is supposed to be the bastion of freedom, of democracy. Worse yet, this demagogue has inspired the haters and the hatemongers to crawl out of the woodwork, into the open. The lines of hatred extend through the world and cross borders.
So we find groups of haters marching through the street. We find opponents meeting them and crash!! We find the hatred of others strong once again and its stink fills the earth. So all Moslems are bad, and Jews are hated once more with people taking selfies with a statue of Hitler in front of a background of the gates to Auschwitz. Even the adherents of supposed peaceful religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, are killing with a mighty sword. And above all we have the demagogues and the uber wealthy and the growing distance between the haves and the have - nots, the lack of care for the poorer classes and the crushing of the middle classes and soon it will be even worse if Trump's tax plan goes forth. Much worse.
So where are we now? Here in the country of supposed impartial justice, we have judges who are bigoted and ignorant being appointed for lifetime positions. We have sheriffs who adhere to rough justice, who believe in rough justice, if we can even use that term, that word, justice and it seems at times that we have gone backwards, so far that the past is now meeting the present and designing the future in ways of which we should be very wary.
We have states which seem never to have emerged from Reconstruction times, where benighted people are supporting an alleged sexual pervert, a child molester, a person for whom the White House is asking for more time, tsk, tsk, so unfair is the accusation! The rot among men who were mistakenly thinking they were living in the Middle Ages and ruled over all below them in terms of power and influence was exposed and its ugliness keeps growing.
Political rot is evident in the return of nepotism, of violated ethics, of the political dirty business of gerrymandering, and now the interference in our political sovereignty and our most valued rite of free elections by an enemy of ours - who has the President of the United States vowing for him and dissing his own people.
So where are we now in terms of history? Unfortunately not at a good point. Alliances have been trashed, countries have taken huge steps in the violation of other countries, people talk of hate and killing, guns in this country, assault rifles, are amassed at a growing, obscene rate, and we kill more people in mass killings then any other country, especially if they are not at war. Supposedly we are not at war and yet, and yet, perhaps we need to rethink that thought. And we had better rethink the position of a man who has isolated us among the countries of the world.
"He who does not learn from history is condemned to repeat it." So we have been told many times over in so many words. Why have we not learned that lesson? Where do we go from here? Your nightmare is my nightmare. Can we not wake up from it? Had we better do so and quickly? Think about it.
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