I can’t believe I’m alive right now, bearing witness to a world in a state of emergency. And it feels like so much deja vu, so much repetition. The awe-inspiring part is that I now have access to a world changing in real time. I don’t know why it seems so much stronger now – haven’t I been awake for the last decade, more awake than before?

So why is it that everything before 2008 seems like a weird, numb, Kafkan dream? Why is it I feel like I have only just gained access to the vibrant pulse of world affairs? Why is it I feel like I traffic in a currency of knowledge and information, one which has supplanted the world of finance and capital in an unmistakable way?

***

So, I’ve been watching a lot of Al-Jazeera lately;

North Africa (Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Sudan, Somalia)
Japan (Earthquake, Tsunami, Volcano brewing…)
Madison, Wisconsin
the Persian Gulf & Arabian Peninsula
Wikileaks

All of it developing instantaneously, miraculously. So much to process, and yet, so many have tuned it all out – flippantly, ignorantly. The number of “well that’s what you get for attacking us at Pearl Harbor” facebook posts with reference to the Tsunami was so gut-churningly, idiotically evil it fucked up my Sunday – I cannot recall a recent example where I was aware, throughout the day, that I really loathed humanity, and everywhere I looked I saw more examples of why we here in North America both suck and blow.

We are an impotent society, yet we have the luxury of watching a world changing dramatically before our very eyes, yet what is being done to assist in this change?

My adult life has been dominated by years of misled and opportunistic intervention, and now, when humanitarian and peace-keeping intervention are so desperately required, the decadent West sits on its hands.

Qaddafi’s not gone yet… No ‘no-fly-zone’, his troops are fighting back and succeeding, and we watch.

American governor Scott Walker acting like a dictator, breaking the law on camera.

The American banking system is thoroughly corrupt, and the architects of the Great Recession are largely free, and well compensated – yet the struggling masses rising up against the corporate oligarchy? At home, eyeballs glued to multiple screens, staring at nothing of importance. Conspicuous self-indulgence, vanity, voyeurism, exploitation.

We are sedated.

We are sedated and mildly content, sufficiently detached from the rest of humanity and free of suffering to believe we’re somehow graced by god. And then that manifests itself as mind-controlled evangelicals praising earthquake’s and improvised-explosive devices as God’s supreme will and triumph over an evil, sick society.

More comments read and feared:
– See, this is why nuclear power isn’t safe
– Those aren’t refugees, their line-jumpers
– But Qaddafi will fight the Muslim Brotherhood!
– That Assange guy looks like a creep, why doesn’t he mind his own business
– Of course they deserved it, they’re atheists y’know…

We have achieved the Brave New World – it’s not a perfect fit, but the basics all seem to be here. And we’re incompetent – we’re lethargic and apathetic at a time in which dynamic connection and meta-awareness are available to anyone. It almost seems unethical not to stay abridged of all that is happening in the world right now, and moreover, to care. And yet we’re paralyzed with fear and inaction, crippling depression and helplessness. How terrible to be afflicted by an immoral malady we gave ourselves.