Last night I watched A Little Princess with my granddaughters.. It was such a good movie. It opened the door to a thought process which took me around the world, as it was in 1914.
The world…darkest Africa, exotic India, Persia; just these names conjure up scenes in our mind of unexplored jungles and strange land unseen by human eyes; stalls of merchants hawking rare spices and carpets, the culture of India, with elephants used for transport, taking armies from one spot to another. Just the imagery is breathtaking, if you can get your imagination to cooperate. Each continent and every country within were unique. They were not ‘polluted’ by a blanket of outside influence.
Up until the latter half of the 20th century there has been the unexplored, the unexplained, the untouched. Then: enter MAN and all the lightening fast “progress”. But is it really progress? Man has lived in the same realm of existence up until the industrial revolution. Then…bam! Progress happened, one discovery at a time, from railroads to the telegraph and telephone, radio, mechanization, ground breaking vaccines and penicillin, television, air travel, outer space exploration, the launch of satellites into orbit..and the list goes on.
This progress includes the internet, which is either the best or the worst thing that has happened to the world. Gone are the little discoveries of a special place you found on your honeymoon or that one of a kind store full of rare books. It is now crowded and and ruined thanks to the big mouth of the internet.
I still have a passport full of stamps from the individual countries in Europe. France, Switzerland, Austria, West Germany etc. I remember when you had to get francs, marks, lire or pesos at banks before you could buy anything after crossing a border. The EU has stolen the individuality of each member nation. NATO is fostering “sameness” as well.
Their desire is that all the world be the same and people are falling for it. Today’s travelers want to land in Namibia and eat at McDonald’s. There is no more adventure. The unknown of trying new foods and experiencing a totally different culture is gone. It is near impossible because the individuality of nations is being stolen and replaced by one world. How absolutely dull! How predictably sedentary to always have the answer to any question at our fingertips. We say “I wonder….” and promptly pick up our phones to find out the answer to our “wonder”. Gone are the days of going to the library or tackling questions with a set of World Book encyclopedias. Buh bye.
You can go almost anywhere on the African continent and easily find a Kentucky Fried Chicken. I kid you not. KFC. America finds itself lacking a cultural identity and you are hard pressed to find any ennobling enrichment from America in 2022. The statues have been torn down and the cities gutted. Metropolitan areas are something to be avoided due to the rampant crime and homelessness. It has turned once beautiful cities like Seattle into what looks like Beirut. They used to be centers of enrichment, with museums, concert halls and parks. No more. The politicians are busy stripping Americans of their rights while telling us to look at Ukraine. We need to be looking for the rot in our own backyards.
Our complacency is going to be the end of us if we let this go on. Just because you believe you are in the “right” doesn’t mean that you won’t be in the “wrong” tomorrow. What unites us as a collective citizenry is much stronger than what divides us. But, that is the big secret. If we all figure out we are in the same sinking ship together, that is where the power is.
America needs to find the common ground and stop being pushed around by a bunch of elites that think our bodies and our land are theirs for the taking. This land is your land and this land is my land. Stop playing around with our lives.