The ongoing madness of the world!

The world still seems to be going to hell in a hand cart. Like many people, I live in a safe middle class bubble and watch the craziness go on in other places. My own relative safety does not prevent it from being disturbing though.

May Day demonstrations in Paris turned into street battles between demonstrators and police, in that very French fashion!

Then there is Venezuela, where things are spiralling down and down. So many outside agencies (i.e. other countries) seem to have interests in the outcome. But POTUS seems to think that, while it’s all right for the USA to intervene, nobody else should poke their noses in.

“If Cuban Troops and Militia do not immediately CEASE military and other operations for the purpose of causing death and destruction to the Constitution of Venezuela, a full and complete embargo, together with highest-level sanctions, will be placed on the island of Cuba,” Trump said in a series of tweets. “Hopefully, all Cuban soldiers will promptly and peacefully return to their island!”

We seem to be back in The land of “Communist Plots”.

Here is Craig Murray’s take on the situation.

America has madness of its own going on.

Apparently the Guardian has obtained material showing that Washington state Republican representative Matt Shea and several associates regaled an audience with conspiracy theories, separatist visions, and exhortations for listeners to arm themselves ahead of a looming civil war, at a gathering at a remote north-eastern religious compound last year. This was at the 1918 God and Country event in Marble, in Stevens County, Washington State.

I get the impression they like these big events in the USA. There are the agricultural events like the 4H in Ohio, I think, which I read about in novels. These I can understand; a chance for farmers to show off their prize cattle and so on. But the God-botherer events are more worrying as they appear to encourage rather non-Christian activity.

In this case they were advocating the purchase of automatic weapons and stacks of ammunition. After all, they claim, the left are already doing so, especially the Antifa, an organisation I looked up online:

“a conglomeration of left-wing autonomous, militant anti-fascist groups in the United States. The principal feature of antifa groups is their use of direct action, with conflicts occurring both online and in real life.
They engage in varied protest tactics, which include digital activism, property damage, physical violence, and harassment against those whom they identify as fascist, racist, or on the far-right.
Activists involved in the movement tend to be anti-capitalists and subscribe to a range of ideologies, typically on the left. They include anarchists, socialists and communists along with some liberals and social democrats.Their stated focus is on fighting far-right and white supremacist ideologies directly, rather than through electoral means.”

The people involved in the Goad and Country event, which rakes place in a private compound, believe “that the United States should be a theocracy: governed by Christians, according to divine law.”

 Oh boy! What frighteningly crazy people! And they are allowed to carry guns around!

There is a lot of crazy theory around. Journalist Anna Merlan  went on a cruise for conspiracy theorists: the Conspira-Sea Cruise! (Splendid name!)

This was a boat full of people who believe in all sorts of conspiracies - the plot to kill Kennedy, the US government hiding bodies of aliens, mass shooting such as the one at Sandy Hook being staged by the government to boost support for the anti-gun campaign. It goes on and on. And anything that disproves the theories can be dismissed as part of the conspiracy.

And some of the conspiracy theorists are, or at any rate have been, advisors to President Trump!