Editorial:


Lesley Pocock,
Chief Editor, Publisher and Managing Director
medi+WORLD International
Email: lesleypocock@mediworld.com.au





Counting the Cost

War has ravaged the world since at least the recording of human history.

The economic cost for ordinary people has been as savage as the war waged against them. People have lost their lives, their homes, their children, their jobs, their income, their safety and their dignity. Their countries have been stripped bare of their wealth and moved into the pockets of the dictators and war mongers running these wars.

War has always been for the economic advantage of those waging the wars.

With the current advent of complete savagery replacing any attempts at maintaining civilisation and decency, we have even seen the return of nuclear weapons, the ultimate stupidity of humankind and the weapon of choice of the most morally bankrupt and feeble minded of leaders.
One of our midst, seen by some as a saviour, Elon Musk himself says we are heralding the advent of the new dark ages. Unfortunately those who will be escaping to Elon's "houses on Mars" will be the same greedy and inept people currently ruining this planet. There is no such escape for the ordinary and decent - the only people who will be able to afford to relocate will be those who destroyed this planet and took all the wealth in the first place - they will find another planet to destroy.

These wars and the endless posturing and stupidity of 'leaders' costs more than national budgets and loss of facilities and homes and regress of civil societies and businesses; they are causing us to lose something greater, our very future - the planet and its fertility and the destroyed lives of women and children.

It is women and children who bear the brunt of this endless stupidity and greed. Ever the men fighting the wars have the comparative blessing of ending their lives quickly while the women and children are forced to endlessly struggle and go without, be in danger of rape and violence, walk to other countries where they are treated as less than human in their desperate attempts to belong somewhere, their desperate attempts to eat that day, their desperate attempts for a normal and decent life and their searching for a world that actually cares about the insanity and injustice that brought them to this situation.

We can quote the financial costs of war (there is a lot of data available) but it is difficult to cost the loss of a viable planet and the loss of species, including our own, and the destroyed lives of innocent and good people.

We can also quote the economic advantages of educated and empowered women - not just in the terms of the effect on a family of an educated and working mother, but also in terms of world peace and national prosperity.

Someone has to be brave enough to say that those men who have been in charge till this date, and most of our history has been the 'time of men' with its wars, deceit, one upmanship, rape, torture, and corruption at the highest levels - the 'spoils' of being in charge - has brought us to this end. The questioning of the merit of such men wielding ultimate power and its effect on the lives of communities generally, is a sad lesson we must learn. Even in democracies it is far too often the same sort of men who seek power and use their power for corrupt purposes. I think it is fair to say that all people of the world, everywhere, have had enough. Currently we have the universally ridiculous position that the 'time of men' has all but destroyed the very planet we live on, as well as the lives of so many other creatures, who we all depend on in our linked genetics.
Civilisation in 2018 has become a world full of corruption and competing dictators, and warmongers. We all, men women and children, deserve so much better.

There are many good men who provide for and protect their families despite corruption and injustice of the systems they have to survive in. Courageous men fill roles in worthy organisations like the UN, Greenpeace, Avaaz, etc. The nightmare before us all is due to these fair and decent men and the women and children of the world not having any say in the conduct of the world.

It may be the nature of the beast, and it likely is, that the greedy and savage seek to rob and rule the world. But that beast now needs killing before it kills all the rest of us and all that humanity holds dear and has fought and slaved for, for the eons we have struggled against tyranny and injustice.

But these days and the "Me too" movement has shown more men at the side of aggrieved women and the wonderful direct and courageous young children in the Washington and global marches wanting a world that is not just better for them but one that is better for all, gives hope that the reign of the selfish and vacuous generations may soon be over.

Maybe a world with a female balance and equal influence would provide a better situation. We would certainly outlaw slavery, prostitution and child porn. We would also likely outlaw polluting and dirty industries and protect the animal kingdom.

The enabled lives of women and children with the good men in their lives walking beside them, may provide an ethical and sustainable world. It is the only thing about this current world that provides me with hope.