Author: R J Adams

Americans hate to be disliked. There’s a section of American society that cannot comprehend why, when their military invades another country, the populace fails to shower them with kisses and candy. In order to rationalise this in their minds Americans have deduced that the only possible reason these people hate them is because they themselves aren’t American.

Unfortunately, they got it wrong. In reality the caption should read:

“They Hate Us ‘Cause WE ARE Us.”

The title “Hero of the Week” must surely go to Margot Wallstrom, the Swedish foreign minister who, apart from the unfortunates who were victims of it, was the only member of the United Nations to be forthright in her condemnation of Donald Trump’s disgraceful apology of a speech given to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday.

“It was the wrong speech, at the wrong time, to the wrong audience.”

If any criticism could be leveled at Ms Wallstrom it is merely that she didn’t go anywhere close to far enough in her condemnation of Trump’s bellicose utterances. His language brought discredit on the office of President of the United States, and on the United Nations. No American president has ever publicly threatened to totally destroy another nation, and probably the last foreign leader to do so was Adolf Hitler. Venezuela’s foreign minister described Trump as the “New Hitler,” after the U.S. president called that country’s government “a corrupt socialist dictatorship,” and threatened ‘action’ against it.

Apart from Margot Wallstrom, the only other voices raised in protest belonged to Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, and the Bolivian president, Evo Morales, an ally of Venezuela:

“I am not surprised that a multi-millionaire like Trump attacks socialism. Our struggle will always be ideological and pragmatic.”

Where were the protests from the European contingent? Silence reigned, at least publicly. Macron only commented mildly on Trump’s assertion that the Iranian nuclear deal was:

“…one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into”.

By saying:

“Renouncing it would be a grave error.”

As the U.S. presidency of this unhinged ego-maniac progresses it’s hard not to notice how western politicians are falling into line behind him. Barely a vertebra of backbone exists between the lot of them. Are they really too scared to stand up to this monster? It’s obvious to anyone with even a whiff of intelligence that the man is no more capable of sanely leading the free world than a hungry shark could teach a school of herrings to dance a hornpipe.

For too long now Europe, in the guise of NATO, has willingly provided an aura of respectability to America’s misguided military adventures in the Middle East. It has resulted in the destruction of civilizations many thousands of years older than the fledgling U.S.A., the deaths, maimings, rapings, and displacement of tens of millions of innocent human beings, and it’s still ongoing to this day.

To all that slaughter and misery, not just in the Middle East but affecting many here in the West – in Paris, London, and many other cities throughout Europe – Trump would add the “total destruction” of a nation comprising over twenty-five million people. Can that possibly be considered the action of a sane person? Do our European representatives have the right to sit on their hands – to do and say nothing in rebuke? Is Margot Wallstrom the only one with the balls to denounce Trump, while all the men show themselves up to be eunuchs?

Kim Jong-un’s regime is brutal, but his people know no other leader. They are conditioned to protect their homeland against the Western devils:

^{One of many anti-American propaganda posters in North Korea}

They hate the West not because of any innate jealousy of our lifestyles, but because we’re the ones who, given the opportunity, would take their country away from them.

“They Hate Us ‘Cause WE ARE Us.”

If the West is drawn into a conflict with North Korea, they will fight with every man and woman they have. The only way to stop them will be nuclear weapons. That will annihilate much of South Korea, possibly Japan also, and likely bring Russia and China into a World War against the West.

But Trump wouldn’t let that happen. Or would he? Bellicose grandstanding eventually reaches a point where the only alternatives are to back down or “put the money where the mouth is” – to “put up or shut up.”

Egomaniacs like Trump can’t abide losing face. They’d sooner destroy the world than appear to show weakness. Unfortunately, given the example of the U.N. Assembly it seems unlikely other Western leaders will step in to stop him.

^{West Bengal, August 22nd 2017}

Hurricane Harvey has captured the West’s attention, mainly due to blanket coverage by the news media. It’s been hard to escape this drowning of a city, short of liberal use of the ‘Off’ button on the TV remote. While it’s to be expected that the American media would focus on this catastrophe in the home country, there was less excuse for blanket coverage from European channels, to the near exclusion of worse problems elsewhere in the world.

But why, you may ask, should we not participate in this sad spectacle of Americans forced from their homes and into the nightmare scenario of overcrowded ‘shelters’, with little hope of any home to return to once the waters have subsided? Why should we not feel the pain and suffering of others, share with them across the airwaves, or internet, our bond of love and affection for these fellow human beings in their hour of need?

There’s one good reason: deliberate media selection. Our news media selected Hurricane Harvey on a daily basis as the ‘désastre du jour’, while almost totally ignoring a hugely greater weather calamity that was occurring simultaneously eight thousand miles away from Texas, in India, Bangladesh, and Nepal. Twelve hundred people are known to have died, four million displaced, and while the BBC News did run a ‘special’ on Saturday, it was while most Brits were out shopping or watching the afternoon sport.

Does it matter? The mass media coverage of Harvey and Houston won’t change anything one iota. It still continued to rain. Prayers had no obvious effect on the weather, unless they made it worse, which is of course impossible to judge. All in all, the suffering of people in Houston was to most of us no more than a reality TV show at its best, an ongoing form of entertainment that only palled when the rain stopped falling, the crocs, snakes, and fire ants began to disperse, and North Korea carried out another nuclear test that caused yet more frothing at the mouth from Donald Trump.

The painful truth is that the media gives us what we want. The sight of a huge conglomerate like Houston being systemically torn apart by nature is way more exciting than a load of perceived peasants, far away across the globe, drowning in their own paddy fields. After all, the latter is a relatively common occurrence…

…and they don’t have a life-size Barbie doll in four-inch heels gawping at them from the sidelines. Nothing attracts media cameras like a Barbie doll in four-inch heels striding nonchalantly into a disaster zone.

Meanwhile, Kim Jong-un is becoming more and more frustrated. No amount of threats, hydrogen bombs, or missiles aimed at Washington are proving effective in gaining him the respect he desperately wants from other world leaders. One has to feel a certain sympathy for North Korea’s diminutive leader. Even without being a nutcase, having a stature as wide as it’s long doesn’t easily draw respectful friends. One only has to consider the governor of New Jersey…

…Chris Christie, to understand that.

North Korea’s leader is angry. On his doorstep for the last sixty years have been thousands of U.S. troops and a vast assortment of technologically advanced military hardware. And it’s all aimed at him. To add insult to injury, every summer the U.S. and South Korean military stage wargames just to antagonise Kim and show off their military prowess. It’s enough to make a half-crazed, short-assed, dictator execute his uncle and assassinate his half-brother.

An even bigger wasp in the honeypot is another half-crazed, wannabe dictator on the other side of the world from North Korea, who believes his nation is the best, and the goodliest, and has God on its side – despite the fact that God was nowhere to be seen in the last Korean conflict, or Vietnam, or Iraq, or Libya, or anywhere else on the planet where the U.S. has tried to plant its military jackboots, along – of course – with its accursed flag.

Donald Trump is desperate to have a war, but it will have to be the biggest and best war the world has ever seen. For Trump, anything less would be a failure. His conundrum is how to achieve it and keep America intact. China, Russia, North and South Korea, and every other nation on earth could be obliterated, yet “frankly, my dear, Donald wouldn’t give a damn.” But he promised, “America First!” and by God and the whiskers of Steve Bannon, he’s not going to let his people down.

Even as these words are being typed a ‘Breaking News’ BBC banner proclaims, “US defence secretary warns any threat to US or allies by North Korea will be met by “massive military response”. ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis is gearing up for battle.

There’s a bevy of old and wise sayings: “every cloud has a silver lining;” “it’s darkest before the dawn;” “the sun always shines on the righteous;” “there’ll be bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover.” They were all invented to help us look on the bright side. After all, if Kim Jong-un does manage to land a hydrogen bomb on America it’ll prove the quickest way to dry out Houston.

And just think what a media spectacle that would make.

No, I’ve not been away on vacation, though with the atrocious August weather in northern France one is almost envious of those further south sweating profusely under a mammoth heatwave. Neither have I been ill, nor in any way incapacitated sufficient to prevent me bashing the keyboard. Truth is I can find nothing to write about.

Sparrow Chat isn’t just a repetitive tome mirroring the news. I like to think it comments on topics at least a little outside the mainstream media, but of late the whole world seems to be drowning in the two most obnoxious ‘T’s of the century (so far!) – ‘Trump’ and ‘Terror’.

There’s nothing to be written about either that hasn’t already been said a thousand times by every blog, Facebook page, Twitter account, TV news channel or online news rag. It saturates the mediasphere and hammers away at our grey cells every time the internet, TV, or radio is accessed.

In desperation I turn to the BBC’s “Future” magazine page for inspiration, only to find they’re running “Apocalypse Week”, and the lead image is of a huge atomic explosion, under the heading:

“THE MONSTER ATOMIC BOMB THAT WAS TOO BIG TO USE.”

What the f….!

The story concerns a Russian nuclear test in the 1960’s during the Cold War. The BBC has obviously expended too much time and energy on ‘Trump’ and ‘Terror’, to the point of befuddlement. Apparently, they now believe the 1960’s are in the future? Or, maybe they have no BBC “Past” pages and were just a bit short of content for “Apocalypse Week.”.^[1]

One other story from this doom-ridden BBC page concerns the supervolcano under Yellowstone Park, apparently due to explode any day and probably exterminate the human race, slowly, but inexorably. NASA has plans to prevent it by drilling into the magma chamber and pumping in water which, as it comes back out ‘super-heated’ will provide electricity in the surrounding area for thousands of years.

Hell, that’s great economics – if it works. Why is it that the thought of scientists planning to meddle with nature in such a way always sends a shiver down my spine? Probably because of sentences like these:

But drilling into a supervolcano does not come without certain risks. Namely triggering the eruption you’re intending to prevent.^[2]

At this point I gave up reading “Apocalypse Week”. There was another feature entitled, “Why do eclipses cause apocalypse fears?” I have no idea, but a guess would be because the media instills such ridiculous thoughts into people’s heads. Eclipses are a natural phenomena that occur all the time in the universe. Any fears of such an event are entirely irrational. My apocalyptic fears are far more rational: Trump, terrorism, and a world media obsessed with creating mayhem.

Happy to extract myself from the dark chasms of BBC horror I scroll down to the bottom of the page where those ‘Around The BBC’ features are placed. My eyes are drawn to an image of Scaramucci…

…and the caption, “How to keep a job longer than 10 days.”

Now, that might have been worth reading, had I not become convinced by the BBC’s “Apocalypse Week” that the world will probably have come to an explosive end before I could even get to the interview.

^{[1] “Apocalypse Week – a special series about the end of the world” BBC, sometime in the future (or was it ‘the past’?)}

^{[2] “NASA’s Ambitious plan to save Earth from a supervolcano” BBC, 17th August 2017}