The incipient rot

The gradual abuse of power is an incipient rot that often pre-empts the inevitable demise of a corrupt establishment. The current US Administration has shown clear symptoms of this rot over the past two terms of parliament. But the onset of the rot seems to go back further still and as often the case elsewhere in history, the intelligence agencies seem to be hand in glove, in this case the CIA.

At least since the start of the Cold War era, the USA Government has followed a principle of "own interest first" in any foreign or domestic involvement. On the foreign side, the scene is rather grim. Korea, Vietnam, Colombia, Nicaragua, Yugoslavia, Iraq I and II - its reads like a terror tale from medieval days. Then there is the neglect - if we could believe the overt motives of humanitarian concerns for involvement elsewhere - Rwanda, Zaire (now ironically called the Democratic Republic of Congo), Angola [1,2], Mozambique, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka. And there is the grossly misguided partisanship of modern international politics - Israel.

Domestically, things are taking on a rather gloomy tint as well. We had McCarthy and his witch-hunt in the 1950's; more recently the ongoing Republican collusion to stay in power and undermine rule of the country by the Democrats; the dilution of civil liberties by virtue of the Patriot act; the information scandal over Lewis Libby and CIA agents Joseph Wilson, which went over motivation for the Iraq war II; the newest CIA dismissal over the revelations of secret foreign detention camps.

The domestic rumblings in the CIA, if common opinion hold true, is a rather somber reminder how an intelligence agency becomes an instrument in service of a powerful few instead of the nation that pays its budget. This tendency can be noted elsewhere in history where the rot reached the core of the governing class. South Africa in the Apartheid days comes to mind. The KGB of the Soviet Union is another chilling example.

What scares me more than collusion of state power is the rot that seems to infest the recreational toys of the modern young American: War games; games of delinquency; games of pretence called roll playing. The ancient Romans on the way to the top and the fall that followed, entertained themselves on the brutality of gladiator fights at the Colosseum. There is an uncanny parallel with today in all this. The top rot starts quite at the bottom, as most rot do.

I stand aghast at the number of movies on a typical Blockbuster DVD shelf that deals in the topic of self-righteous violence as a means to an end. And this hogwash is rented as entertainment. There is enough of a market for such dribble to support hundreds such exemplars on the shelves. I should count them next time. All these movies were made in the USA. Look for the foreign movies and see what is on the shelf: Everything but violence and self-righteousness.

The inherent fallacy that one is right when one believes one is right as long as one has the biggest club in the club to enforce that believe goes hand in hand with the empty promise that all is fine as long as one is in fashion and cool. It would appear that too many US children grow up with a false sense of invincibility and an intellect fed upon instant gratification and violent games, believing as long as they are cool they are on top. What one ends up with is a crowd of self-serving manikins with overfed ego's that make it for either Congress or CEO so as to tell the rest of the world how it should be run and behave.

On the way up a wannabee member of this clan of sorts connects, pampers a few other egos, and collectively spends enough on an army and intelligence network to ensure that whatever they choose to believe will be enforced.

But the rot does catch up in the end. For Rome it was overextending itself logistically and leadership falling out of touch with the citizens. For the USA, it is not much different. The national debt is truly threatening to collapse the dollar. The military and political involvement outside its borders is threatening to outspend the economic generator of the country. There is a growing domestic outcry about the US leadership and ruling cliques that seem to exist.

Believing one is the cat's whisker should only be indulged in for a brief moment for therein lies an implied risk: That cat may just die one day - of natural causes, of course. That is the way of Nature, regardless of what one chooses to believe.

Unhealthy imbalance

The BBC has commented some time ago on a health report released from Geneva. The summary was grim and the details even worse. This report deals with health on a world scale. In the summary it is mentioned that while North and South America suffers only 10% of the world's diseases, it has 50% of the world's health budget and 30% of the health workers. On the other hand, Africa suffers 24% of the world's diseases and has only 1% of the world's health budget and 3% of the world's health workers.

Worldwide, there is an estimated shortage of 4.3 million doctors, midwives, nurses and support workers, according to the WHO.

For some years now South African doctors have been leaving the country for greener pastures in Canada and the UK. This drain on much needed medical experts is hurting the country. Part of the cause are the conditions in state hospitals that have deteriorated since the change in the political system in 1994. The Minister of Health has introduced a compulsory three year service in state hospitals for medical graduates. Such draconic measures are much despised by especially white graduates. In response, many have left the country and are still oversees.

Organisations such as MSF from France, do a great deal to address the health situation in elsewhere in Africa. But MSF cannot make too much of a dent in the problem, due to the sheer size of the problem. It is a moral dilemma that stands and begs at the door of mankind.