1 August 2015 — Slavyangrad

War In Our Time

The Crisis of Distraction

“Accepting the absurdity of everything around us is one step, a necessary experience: it should not become a dead end. It arouses a revolt that can become fruitful.” –Albert Camus 

In 2015 we are barrelling towards a third world war at breakneck speed and much like the First and Second World Wars, oblivion to this trend is commonplace. From the complete resurgence of fascism in Ukraine to the overt funding and training of terrorism, to the rapid erosion of the planet’s health, crises around the world are converging into situations that affect all of us. In the meantime what used to be real life has devolved into twenty-four-hour-a-day reality television. Most people do not care (or know) about Obama’s legacy as a warmonger and leader of the most war-hungry nation on earth; they do, however, praise his tweets to Caitlyn Jenner, and other shallow products of the western system of distraction. Whereas 2014 was one of the years in the 21st century in which the possibility of a third world war was reinforced as an inevitability, 2015 has become the year in which such a war is a matter of casual promotion by the mainstream press. The year 2016 looms on the horizon and with an American presidential election set to dominate it, the construction of fallout shelters is now an idea less absurd than that of any sort of peace under Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush (or perhaps Donald Trump?). Continue reading →