This is another of those complex wandering posts of mine. My defence is in the Title. There are no simple solutions. The script of Life is long and complex and Humanity is not the principal writer either. I thought images were needed too. The news is coming in thick and fast this year, at least it seems that way.

You will see this post contains a number of those images. These are of the consequences of wars and those of Nature’s Environmental activities. They all involve suffering and great loss of life. Those of the latter could have been minimised if the nations involved were not strangled by wars or by governments with fundamentalist, opportunistic or cheap squabbling agendas. Thus they are all linked by actions, reaction or interaction. There are underlying tragic themes of inevitabilities, some because this is how the way The World works, others because of Humanity’s short-sighted and narrow-minded follies, failing to learn that the ‘last war’ was not glorious, but was due to a miscalculation, one which continues to happen over and over again.

We start with War. Because nothing sells so well as War. Right? It’s buried deep into our frameworks. Warning: The Sardonic will be at work here– Every war can be justified, by all sides. It’s so simple. Of course, there are costs. But those can’t be helped, can they? After all ‘We’ had no choice, if We started it; it was because of because of ‘Them’, they were the threats. Look at our histories (well, the ones we wrote; not theirs those are all lies). So Reader let us start by looking at latest headliners in Gaza / Southern Israel

Palestinians Celebrate The Hamas Attack on Israel

Then Suffer The Aftermath

One Way How Israel Would Like Us To See It

Then Reality Came To a Music Festival

Meanwhile another war with ancient roots but with modern implications for ‘US’ (ie The West- these days usually comfortably two-steps removed from conflict but it’s getting closer)

Ukraine….

And lest we forget….

SUDAN

YEMEN

MYANMAR

NAHORONO KARABAKH

And this entire region

We didn’t even cover all of the wars. And we have not looked at the inter community violence which springs up in many nations or has festered at the low key for years.  So there will be no room here to consider all of the Human Rights, Regional and International Implications, much less the matrix of causes.

Meanwhile there are the constant reminders that despite the Deity complex some folk think Human posses or the antics of The Unholy Faith of Denial the Dynamics of this world has the last say, not us.

Earthquakes – No we cannot tame them. Unavoidable. BUT if there was less spent on wars, and tighter holds on corruption the damage to structure and life could be lessened

Afghanistan

Morocco

Syria

Turkey

Fires – Reading Books by Hack Deniers or Populist Politicians will NOT make these stop. Nor can these events be intimidated by guns. In some cases the luckless can’t outrun even outdrive these.

Canada

Greece

Hawaii

Floods– Common enough you say. In Libya this one was helped along by a decade long series of wars. Nearly 4,0000 recorded deaths; 9,000 missing, that was at the time of the event.

And we have not considered Famines nor Diseases nor the Serious Poverty that takes lives slowly.

The weighty truth being that none of these events are new by any means, a scroll through history will bring you examples of all these events and similar, even larger losses of life. However what shakes the fatalistic and providing you live in the comfier parts of the First World, complacent view is that TODAY.

We have the countless examples of what does not work

We have the technology to ease the suffering

We have the wealth to invest

We know how Corruption works

We have the scientific knowledge to open our eyes to solutions.

The problems being, aside from the Age Old ones of ignorance, prejudice, greed and so on. We know have a system that can spread lies world-wide at the touch of a button, and We fall for them, or We say the events are nothing to do with or, or What Can We Do. We also can twist technology to make it cause harm, theft, fear and hate. There is nothing corrosive or destructive We cannot do if we switch off our consciences and compassion. 

Ah Dear Reader. It all seems hopeless does it not? What can you or I mere small individuals do against such Flaws of Humanity or Forces of Nature?

I’ll offer you this yet again

There are no simple solutions.

The world is a complexity of cause and effect. I’ll give you one example. If cocaine and heroin had not become chic drugs to be indulged in by the comfortable as a recreation or the desperate as an escape and if the use had not be made ‘everyday’ in media and entertainment there would not have been the demand. If there had not been the demand there would not be the proliferation of powerful drug cartels in poverty struck nations. If there were not such desperate circumstances  there would not be floods of immigrants. Why the surprise? There has been a northwards drift in the USA for decades? Walls? Border Patrols? You’d need a small border and a Communist style state to cope with the flood of the desperate.  I could give you a Cause and Effect in Europe too. Yet….apparently the simple solution is more border patrols and populist governments. That is just a summary of one Cause and Effect and an addition. 

We come back to this then:

No populist solution will work to any problem, be it on the Left or the Right, or the Activist. Look at those pictures again, and again….and again. Is any one of those problems going to be solved by a line of spluttering outrage on social media? Is anyone really going to sort it all out in a few months? Do throwing paper towels help? Or suggesting one community moves out of an area? Or denying what is happening? Or blaming just one side? 

Neither you, nor I can stop what is happening or what has happened in the above images. What we can do though is adhere to a few factors. Compassion. Respect. Tolerance. Neighbourliness. And turn our backs on those who Deny and Distort. Those who spread Hate and Ignorance. Those whose incompetence and unsuitability is masked by Populism. 

Of course nothing will stop The Earthquakes or Volcanoes. Or Extremes of weather. But We can minimise the effects, for there are efforts being made. We can support those, and not listen to those babbling about socialism a subject they evidently know nothing about.

And there is the adage to remember which seems to be have many origins and is still being passed down:

“It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness” 

One person’s small efforts then? The intolerant still haven’t got the notion that ‘Snowflake’ is the stupidest insult ever. Why do they they think blizzards are comprised of? How do they think they can’t get their fancy cars out and about? Lots and lots and lots of snowflakes then?

Or lots of folk with little trowels working away, all together.

That’s how you actual drain a swamp.

Assuming draining the swamp is a good idea.

And by the way. If you do hit someone or throw something at them, don’t complain if they return the action. Those who start something don’t always get to be the ones to write the final script.

And to repeat; because some folk just don’t get it. Nothing is easy. And for those completely shorn of sense. Not everything that happens in this world is the result of a conspiracy.

Do something positive, help someone in some way. 

It’s a start.

Look at the above. We have to start, somewhere.