World War 1

The “great powers” are marking the centenary of World War One. Ironically the world is still at war. There are global and regional conflicts in progress. Rising tensions between India and Pakistan (two nuclear powers), civil wars in Iraq and Syria, as well as the on-going Palestinian Israeli “armed conflict” which continuous without an end in sight. Europe has not been spared the horrors of conflict in 2014 either. Ukraine has descended into a mutually agreed upon slaughter fest. Call it a proxy war if you like.

There are many things that can be done while one is asleep. Bellini wrote a delightful opera about somnambulism. However, it is difficult to share the same sense of fascination or repose even a century after the outbreak of the Great War. Somehow it defies any standard of human sensitivity to allude to the acts and omissions leading to the millions of slaughtered men and boys at the hands of the greediest financial and industrial elites known to recorded history as the result of “sleepwalking”.

America does not at the moment have a functioning democracy.
— Former US President Jimmy Carter