Let’s face it, this has been a horrible year. The same wave of intolerance, frustration and hate that put Donald Trump in the White House is now a global phenomenon. The pure blood philosophy has infected not only the crazies in the U.S. but Europe and even portions of Asia.
2017 may be remembered as a crossroad in human history. That moment when the rulers of the world –oligarchs and billionaires, big corporations and presidents as well as the political elites–, choose to sacrifice the world’s future in the name of their own personal pleasure and selfishness. There is no secret about what wait for all of us at the end of the road of ecologic devastation, social injustice and economic isolation: The sixth big extinction period in the history of planet Earth.
In the verge of huge scientific and technical improvements, like the era of Artificial Intelligence, life expectancy over a century for millions, our world is turning in the direction of nuclear violence, fast growing economic inequality and the destruction of most of the values that around half a millennium ago defined the meaning of the word humane.
At the end of the day, results too easy and vane blaming of the pathetic state of the planet in the evilness of Trump and his pal Vladimir Putin, or ISIS and Iran, or the Koch Brothers and George Soros. Of course, that it’s not even enough to put the blame in our corrupt leaders or the endemic political weakness of us, The People.
2017 has been a year of mass shooting in a daily basis, the year of the return of the Nazis, the K.K.K and the white extremists that –also as a routine— using immigrants as their favorite target to feed their thirst for blood. Also, was a year when mother nature took revenge against us all with dramatic earthquakes, hurricanes and many other disasters.
It is true that the stock exchanges this year has shown record numbers. It is true that the unemployment data in the U.S. is better. But only the very cynics of the naivest can say that our societies are moving in the right direction.
The very same bad social mood that is behind the old generation, frustration that came with the economic order known as globalization, demonstrates that, as the classis Chinese curse says, we are living in some very interesting times.
Despite all of these, as history shows and the very wise already know, we must consider the classic idea that when we believe that everything is bad and lost, we always can change to the worst.
Beside the gains that should come from the pain. Pain for the hate rhetoric behind Trump’s Wall, his nasty twits against his political foes, social and racial minorities, women, immigrants, Muslims and mostly everybody else, behind all that we could have learned some fundamental lessons about what to do in order to recover the momentum of optimism and hope that came with the turn of the new millennium.
Therefore, in the name of this season mood, we wish you very happy holidays. After all, history also teach us that we are able to enjoy life until the very end.
