Dear reader,

I am a normal person who has lived in and observed the world with increasing bemusement. Don’t get me wrong, there is little amusement in it, as I find both our beautiful natural environment and the social/economic one in which we exist ever more dilapidated. A keen follower of politics and international relations, and of things in general, for most of my life, I have witnessed left and right, black and white, male and female, and of course a plethora of nations blame one another for the ills of this world.

Logic dictates that no one person or group is solely responsible for either the problems or their solutions, and in this spirit I have long since burned my ‘scarf of affiliation’, and encourage you to do the same. Much like blind support for your favourite sports team, political affiliation blinds our view and closes our minds, not to mention our hearts. I believe that considering oneself ‘left’ or ‘right-wing’, or classing others as such, divides the world and blocks progress. The same is true of any hard-felt chauvinism, be it based on class, gender, race, religion or nationality.

I am an idealist at heart, and though I wish I didn’t care I do – care about what happens around me. For one thing, it is getting harder and harder to ignore. I’m no radical but was driven to express my thoughts in this way by a global society that makes less and less sense and is becoming threatening, and threatened. My concern has grown to a level of Weltschmerz, but I remain hopeful, and in expressing myself wish to be frank, open and honest, escaping the bonds of modern bigotry and thought control, but never intending to insult or hurt anyone; quite the opposite.