A visitor arriving to our planet from outer space would discover a world filled with chaos and anger and, parenthetically, a world that is leaderless and rudderless. The world order that was so familiar to most of the world just a few years ago has deteriorated, leaving many of its inhabitants scared, confused and concerned for the future of the globe. Ironically, people are less concerned about a nuclear exchange or an intercontinental world war – though, no doubt, these issues are at the periphery of their thoughts. Most are concerned with such basic issues as personal safety, jobs and, law and order in their respective urban centers as, for example what we have seen of late in London, Philadelphia , or Cairo. And, there are those who are preoccupied with the collapse of the global economic structure, its consequences on global markets and the prospects of a worldwide depression.
Pictures shown on TV show images that are hard to believe, they defy realities we have known for decades. The burning streets of London when juxtaposed with the recent royal wedding; Egypt’s dictator Hosni Mubarak, humiliated and helpless in a cage on trial in Cairo, when only a year ago a confident Mubarak set out to anoint his son Jamal as his successor. And in Syria, Assad is killing his own citizens literally “in front of a watching world.” All this seems perhaps unreal, lets say a bit surreal, but in the brave new world of Obama and Cameron it has become a reality.
CBS News reported on August 13, 2011 on “Stubborn poverty and high unemployment, services slashed due to recessionary budget cuts, a breakdown of social values, social media that bring people together for good or bad at the speed of the Internet, and finally a handful of actual attacks, isolated and hard to explain, by bands of youths in U.S. cities.” The report pointed out that “Racial friction is an uncertain element. In Britain,TV images have shown mixed-race crowds creating mayhem. In recent mob violence in Philadelphia and Milwaukee, attackers were black and victims white. Even though it’s unclear how much race motivates today’s mob violence, many see it as one of a combination of factors, which together make the grip of American law and order feel less secure.”
Peggy Noonan in her Wall Street Journal column of Friday August 12, 2011 wrote “What we’re seeing on the streets in Britain right now is something we may be starting to see here [in the U.S.]”
While London and other British cities were burning, the United Kingdom’s police force appeared helpless in facing off against gangs of hoodlums undeterred by figures of law and order. The “tough” words of Prime Minister David Cameron did not put fear in the hearts of British gang members who are, in large measure, the sons and daughters of immigrants, and whose arrogance is a bi-product of the British multi-cultural legacy. In America, the ruinous economic policies of an amateurish president, Barak Obama, have caused the S&P to downgrade the U.S. credit rating and plunge the U.S. into a social and economic mess.
The pro-western Arab regimes of Egypt and Tunisia have collapsed, and the prospect of increased Islamization – of the Sunni variety – appears likely throughout the Arab Middle East. In the meantime, the Arab world faces increased economic hardships, instability and chaos.
The countries of the European Union are also falling apart, mired with mounting debt along its southern tier. European, over the years have become increasingly self absorbed, Godless, and hedonistic. European elites who have allowed a wave of immigrants from the Third World – mostly from North Africa’s Muslim states – while the birthrates of native Europeans which have been well below replacement levels, are now reaping what they have sowed. Europeans live for today with little thought of tomorrow – a lifestyle some psychologists might describe as clinical depression.
The collapse of U.S. and global economies that began the slide towards depression in 2008, revealed the critical absence of global leadership. There are no leaders with the stature such as Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, or even Bill Clinton. The tragedy for the U.S. is that this one time super-power is being led by an former community organizer with no executive experience who is incapable of effectively handling the crisis of confidence he has created.
The people in charge, whether in Britain or the U.S. have no idea how to solve the economic and social crisis engulfing large swaths of the world. Laws upheld for centuries in the West are not being enforced or are being simply overlooked and criminal gangs in London and Philadelphia, and gangster leaders like Assad, Gaddafi, and Ahmadinejad are not being held accountable and punished by the U.N. or brought down by a super-power like Obama’s U.S.A. The criminal gangsters and the incompetent western “leaders” have broken the rules of civilized behavior and there is no one to set them straight.
The upheaval being experienced throughout the West world and beyond is bound to spread to China through the Internet and the social media. In India we have seen anger over the culture of corruption gaining steam, which bodes ill for the current government. And, as repression has its limits. Putin’s Russia may soon experience the people’s frustration via their social networks as well.
In this crazy new fearful world, the lines between right and wrong have been deeply blurred, and there is no longer any pretence of decency and morality. Israel, an open and pluralistic democracy is seen by the U.N. as the constant villain, and regarded by the Europeans press as “the most dangerous state in the world.” An EU poll ranked Israel above Iran and North Korea as a threat to world peace. And, the UN Human Rights Council, which President Bush declined to join, but whose membership President Obama eagerly accepted, boasts a membership that includes Libya and Saudi Arabia – both such strong “models of human rights and religious freedom observance.” To make matters even stranger, U.S. President Obama panders to the Muslim world and only under duress relented on his appeasement of Iran and Syria while pressuring the Jewish state to make suicidal concessions.
Not too long ago, America’s voice was heard wide and strong, and there were consequences for those states and groups that harmed U.S. interests or broke the international moral code. Nature, it is said, abhors a vacuum and in the absence of leadership and a moral compass world chaos and mayhem have become the norm.
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