Watching the television news can be an agonising affair, especially for my wife.
She finds it distressing, and wonders what people could be thinking when they stomp through the lives of others, killing them, destroying their homes, towns and cities, and ending their ways of living.
“It’s madness,” she often says before either leaving the room or hanging on in the hope that the next news item will more uplifting.
And she is not alone. I have friend who says his wife becomes so depressed and disenchanted by television “news” that she refuses to watch it.
Aligning with the views of my wife and of my friend’s wife, is this thought from Professor Jeffrey Sachs who, during a speech at the Saving Humanity and Planet Earth seminar, said:
“The world has gone mad but especially the Anglo-Saxon world, I’m afraid. I don’t know whether there is any sense in our little English-speaking corner of the world. I’m of course speaking of the United States, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.”
Prof Sachs is an American economist, academic, public policy analyst, author and former director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University.
I’m sure my wife and those like her in the Goulburn Valley are not alone, as many others, including myself, find the sadness, violence and what seems like the collapse of the human society, portrayed as news, rather difficult to digest.
Let’s listen again to Professor Sachs:
“There’s something profoundly disheartening about the politics of our countries right now. The deep madness, I’m afraid, is a British Imperial thinking taken over by the United States.
“My country, the US, is unrecognisable now compared even to 20 or 30 years ago. I’m not sure, to tell you the truth, who runs the country. I do not believe it is the president of the United States right now.
“We are run by generals, by our security establishment. The public is privy to nothing. The lies that are told about foreign policy are daily and pervasive by a mainstream media that I can barely listen to or read anymore. The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and the main television outlets are 100 per cent repeating government propaganda by the day, and it’s almost impossible to break through.”
Most readers of this column would be aware of my concerns about the climate crisis (my wife supports me, but sees me as obsessed), but I stand with Sachs when he says the US “is dominated by the thinking of generals who are mediocre intellects, personally greedy, and without any sense because their only modus operandi is to make war”.
Politics in Australia is not dissimilar; if we cut our military budget in half, especially the nuclear submarines, we could resolve most of the social troubles endured by many Australians.
As for the “mediocre intellects”, science has told us repeatedly that our atmosphere, the stable envelope that has long enabled humans to thrive, cannot absorb any more carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and yet the Australia Government continues to press on with fossil gas and coal mining projects.
So madness is ubiquitous: the military/industrial complex is calling the shots, just as are the coal-mining and gas-drilling companies — so just like my wife, and those of a similar mind, I too worry.
However, I have the hope the good life of the Goulburn Valley will be preserved when those we have elected to run this country realise this is not the 20th century, and the troubles we face need 21st-century thinking, reason and logic.
And then, maybe, my wife and her ilk can get back to watching the news.
You can watch the webinar featuring Prof Sachs here:
‘An Asia Pacific NATO: Fanning the flames of war’ — https://tinyurl.com/5exu77uj