The Thin Veneer

There have been a lot of negative things said about Donald Trump in the past couple of months. Well, people that think like I do have been saying a lot of negative things about Donald Trump. I suppose that somewhere there is an overweight, bearded sixty something guy writing about all of the many positive things that Donald Trump has done and will do if allowed to become the President of the United States. He would be wrong of course, but he is entitled to his opinion even if that opinion lies somewhere between moronic and insane.

To tell you the truth, the only person worth considering who is vying for the loftiest position in US politics is Bernie Saunders. I say that because he seems to be the only one of either party that cares for the people of the country more than he does himself. It’s possible that he is just a great salesman and I have bought into his rhetoric. Who knows?

I think Mr. Trump is dangerous in that he allows and encourages the base nature of his followers to rise to the surface. Hilary Clinton seems to be cut from the same cloth. I could be wrong and hope that I am because the “voice of reason” doesn’t stand a chance.

We humans pat each other on the back for all of our technological accomplishments and how far we have come from the humans of ten thousand years ago. They were savages! Well, perhaps. They selected leaders based on ability to hunt and or lead. The leader had to earn the respect of all the members of the tribe, and even the individuals that didn’t like him/her did have a grudging respect. They cared for their families and would work together with other tribes to make sure they all had enough food to make it through the winter. They lacked technology and yes, they could be quite savage at times, even fighting others if they had to.

Whatever evil that they did, pales in comparison to the evil we do on a daily basis. We fight wars to take other peoples resources, support evil despots so that they will grant concessions to our resource hungry country. We are not nice people, not nice at all.

Individually, we are nice enough, but our society just doesn’t care. There are many thousands of our neighbours who aren’t getting enough to eat, live in hovels and their children have little or no chance to rise out of the pit they are born in. We are proud that our society doesn’t have a caste system and all people are equal. Bullshit! Look around, how many of the people you know have managed to move out of the social strata they were born in. I’ve looked, the poor marry the poor, the middle class marry middle class and the wealthy marry the wealthy for the most part. They attend schools in their own neighbourhoods which are funded according to the income the parents make for the most part.

We will help those less fortunate than we are at Christmas and every now and then will give a beggar on the street a dollar or two which makes us feel good for the rest of the day. We have leaders who are more interested in getting elected than helping the poor and sick and they are very good at being elected, little else.

Our society has a thin veneer of civilization, but it can be stripped away in a moment if we allow the wrong person to become our leader. We shouldn’t elect a leader that looks good or has a billion dollars; we should make our decision on how that leader treats the lowest member of our tribe.