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With Democratic contender, Hilary Clinton, now set to become the party’s nominee for president, many outside America are left wondering why Bernie Sander’s hopes have been dashed so decisively, and the ‘Establishment’ contender allowed to gain outright victory.

Throughout the primary season, Republican voters have made a clear statement of their views towards the Washington establishment by turning out en masse in support of the somewhat bizarre Donald Trump. If his landslide victory weren’t a rebellion against the U.S. political establishment, then it’s hard to know what else it could be.

With corruption, corporate-control, and the will to bring government to a halt in order to get their way now rife in Washington politics, it seems almost unbelievable to outsiders that Democratic voters should yet again choose the Devil they know, rather than someone who promises to fight their corner in Washington on the issues they’re supposed to believe in.

Much is being made in the popular press of the possibility of a first U.S. woman president, but that hasn’t been the issue in this campaign. Clinton hasn’t made it to the nomination because she’s a woman. She won precisely because she is Washington establishment, and the American Left isn’t yet quite ready to embrace a contender who unashamedly calls himself a Socialist.

In America, socialism is equated with communism. The propaganda of the Cold War years still weighs heavy on the American mindset, particularly among older voters. It’s no coincidence that the majority of Sander’s supporters are too young to have been affected by McCarthy, in an era that judged anyone who dared question capitalism a communist.

America isn’t yet ready to jettison its capitalist ideals in favour of socialism. Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton are both evidence of that. The average Joe still clings firmly to the belief that America will one day rise again from the doldrums of Empire and take its place as the true leader of the free world.

They have yet to realise that it’s the very capitalism they worship that is inexorably strangling the world’s freedoms and confining us all to the fetters of a corporate-controlled society determined to abolish culture and humanity in favour of the artificial concrete jungle of marketing blandness that is so evident throughout the U.S. heartlands, with its Walmarts, Lowes, McDonalds, and a multitude of other conglomerates, dominating the landscape of every state, city, and one-horse township.

The American Democrat desperately seeks change, but not at any cost. For them, Bernie Sanders is a price too high. So, for now, they’ll conveniently forget the abysmal record of the first Clinton administration: the ‘three-strikes” law; ending Glass-Steagal; NAFTA; the Defense of Marriage Act; expansion of the War on Drugs (prison population doubled from about 600,000 to about 1.2 million during the Clinton years); 1994 crime bill (which expanded the death penalty to 60 additional crimes including three that don’t involve murder: espionage, treason and drug trafficking in large amounts.); the bombing of a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant that provided 50% of Sudan’s medicines; doubling of Iraq sanctions (begun by Republican president George H.W. Bush) causing infanticide in Iraq; failing to act when U.S. intelligence knew in advance of the upcoming Rwanda genocide that claimed nearly a million lives, and the escalation of foreign drug wars by multi-million dollar military aid to right-wing factions of the Columbian military that resulted in tens of thousands of civilian deaths, with hundreds of thousands displaced.^[1]

It’s not a great legacy for his wife to inherit, should she be elected president in November. One can’t help thinking that ‘more of the same’ will be the norm, if there’s yet another Clinton administration.

Frankly, the choice for voters come November is not an enticing one. The film, ‘Silence of the Lambs’ depicted a battle between two evils, one portrayed by Dr. Frederick Chilton, the jailer, and the other, the infamous Hannibal Lecter. It is, perhaps, too extreme to cast either Trump or Clinton in either role, but nevertheless, when U.S. voters go to the polls in November they will have to decide which candidate is the lesser of two evils.

As for Bernie Sanders, due to the present unease in American politics it’s likely that some form of social reform is not too distant. Unfortunately, unless he’s able to remain fit and healthy into his nineties, by the time the outcry is sufficiently loud to gain majority support among a normally reticent Democratic public, there may well be no Bernie Sanders around to take up the cause.

^{[1] “15 Ways Bill Clinton’s White House Failed America and the World” AlterNet, June 22nd 2015}

It may be risking an accusation of churlishness, but isn’t “going somewhat over the top” a reasonable criticism of the world’s media in its reaction to the death of Mohammed Ali?

He was, after all, a man who made his fame and money from pummeling the senses out of his opponents, in what is probably the most barbaric activity still considered a “sport” in the 21st century.

While applauding his stance over the Vietnam War, for which American society of the time crucified him, and begrudgingly accepting his work for black equality – although the Nation of Islam was a highly suspect organisation – it’s ironic to note that the thousands of white people pouring out their grief at Ali’s passing were more than once condemned by Ali as his ‘true enemies’.

His poor health can almost certainly be attributed to the damage he suffered in the boxing ring over many years. In this way he was no different to other boxers who rose to fame, and died early, from their beatings.

With a lull in the U.S. election, and the boredom of ‘Brexit’, it’s easy to see why the media is making such a fuss of Ali’s passing. Less easy to understand is the political fawning over a man quick to condemn the white political establishment. Ex-president Bill Clinton will give a eulogy at the funeral, and the present incumbent, Barack Obama, on hearing of Ali’s death, stated:

Muhammad Ali shook up the world. And the world is better for it.”

Unfortunately, he failed to explain just how the world is so improved, and how worse off we would all have been had this man never existed.

There is no wish to belittle Ali’s achievements in the boxing ring, nor as a champion of the U.S. black community, but he was no ‘God’ in life, and neither should he be treated as such in death.

If there’s one thing the internet’s really good for it’s highlighting the human species at its worst. The lack of coherent thought, sanity, or rationalization, abundant in our fellows is difficult to condone when thrust at us through the pages of Facebook or Twitter, and picked up by the gutter press to spread the gospels of hatred, venom, and self-righteousness.

The latest episode of humanity’s lack of love for its fellow beings has emerged in the furore whipped up by the sad, though necessary, killing of Harambe the gorilla at Cincinnati Zoo recently.^[1]

As an animal welfare inspector in the U.K. for fifteen years, working for the largest animal welfare charity in the world, the writer would dare anyone to accuse him of lack of compassion towards those creatures who share this planet with us. If we fail to extend that compassion to our own kind, and restrict our emotions to those classed as “poor dumb creatures” then we risk our motives becoming ego-based, and consequently worthless.

No-one will ever know if the gorilla at Cincinnati Zoo, whether deliberately or accidentally, would have harmed the three year old boy who fell into his enclosure. Equally, no-one will ever know whether he would have protected the youngster and gently held him until officials could return him to his parents.

Because no-one can know the outcome there was only one right course of action. It was taken and the boy was saved, returned to anxious parents who, because human beings are not machines, had inadvertently taken their eyes of their child momentarily, allowing the curious little boy to do what a three-year-old will sometimes do – get up to mischief.

Images similar to the one fronting this post, display to the world that there are those who place the life of an animal above that of a three-year-old child. The venom and aggression shown to the parents of the child reveal the fractures that exist in our relationships with each other as human beings. Failure to place oneself in the position of, firstly, the parents desperate for the plight of their offspring, and secondly, the agonizing decision of the zoo staff, forced by circumstances to kill one of their beloved animals, is becoming all too common as human beings band together on the internet, intent only on focusing their ill-felt viciousness on innocent members of their own species.

“There, but for the grace of God,” is a simple thought sadly lacking in the minds of those so quick to condemn.

While the media circus was focused on the tragedy at Cincinnati Zoo this week, in Australia a 42-year-old woman, enjoying a paddle on the beach with her friend one moonlit night, was grabbed by a saltwater crocodile and carried off into the sea, never to be seen again.

In California a swimmer lost a leg in a vicious shark attack. Meanwhile, in Iraq innocent people are dying yet again in Fallujah as the U.S. backed Iraqi army attempt to drive ISIS out of the city.

Where are the placards demanding justice for the woman eaten by the crocodile, or the swimmer now missing a leg, or the poor children being slaughtered yet again in Fallujah?

Stuff happens. The world is a dangerous place. There will always be accidents – tragedies we can never wholly guard against.

There’s a time and place for demonstrations and waving placards. This was not one of them. There is no blame to be attached to anyone for what occurred. Gorillas are normally placid animals, but can turn dangerous when threatened, or they become confused.

The woman eaten by the crocodile, the swimmer who lost his leg to the shark, were victims of accidents. Sadly, there was no-one around to shoot the crocodile, or the shark, before they could do what came naturally to them.

The little boy in the gorilla enclosure at Cincinnati Zoo was in some danger. It was fortunate there was someone available who could save his life. For that we should all be grateful.

Had the child been killed or maimed by the gorilla, what then would the placards have read?

^{[1] “Cincinnati Zoo gorilla shooting: Police to investigate” BBC, May 31st 2016}