Bluntly

Any way you look at what’s currently happening, it doesn’t make any sense.

Forget about ‘we’re throwing away 30% of the food we produce while a third of us die of hunger’.
That’s ‘peanuts’. Not for those whose children go to bed hungry but…

People living on the northern side of the Mediterranean Sea had accomplished something marginally short of miraculous.
They had come up with an ideology which convinced them to respect each-other. Christianity.
They had been able to develop the best mechanism for allotting resources. The ‘free market’.
And the best mechanism for reaching decisions for the entire community. Currently called ‘democracy’.

In their attempt to understand, they have devised an extremely original manner of looking at things. ‘Science’.
Based on what they had learned through ‘science’, they had developed ‘technology’.

Working as a team – they used to respect each-other, as children of the same god – and making ‘good’ use of their technology, they had been able to conquer the rest of the planet.

At some point, Europe used to export almost everything – including coal, and import inconsequential things. Silk, spices, tea, sugar, cotton and tobacco.
At that moment, England was considered the factory of the world. It used to manufacture and export the most technologically advanced ‘wares’. Fabric, ‘china’, steel products, machinery, chemicals… And coal! Which was warehoused around the globe and used, eventually, by the English steamships plying the seas for commerce. And for war…

Look at us now!
We depend on our former colonies for much of our energy. Oil, that is.
We depend on the rest of the world for much of the fancy foods we currently eat. Brazilian beef, tropical fruit, fancy sea-food…
And we depend on China for cheap manufactured goods. From clothes to cameras to cranes. ‘White goods’, electronics – computers included, and almost everything else which is sold at decent prices.

Not to mention the fact that Europe had been the flashing point for three World Wars. I, II and the Cold one.
Not to mention the fact that as I write the biggest country in Europe – Putin’s Russia, is trying to annex some 15 % percent of one of its neighbors. Ukraine, also an European country.

If any of this does a modicum of sense to any of you… please let me know!

I, for one, am at a loss. I understand what happened – stay tuned, but I have no idea when we’ll figure out we’re on the wrong track. Going in the wrong direction.