Hello, Cruel World (with apologies to James Darren, 1961)
By
Leonard Zwelling
About eight years ago, the BW and I travelled with her cousins and their friends to South Africa. In the northeast corner of the country is Ngala part of Kruger National Park where we took jeeps into the wild to see the animals. We were very lucky and saw all of the “big five”: elephants, rhinos, lions, water buffalos, and leopards along with many other creatures. We saw them up close and in the wild. I don’t fancy zoos much since. They seem cruel. These animals were not meant to be in cages.
When our cousin got home to his podiatry practice, he told a patient about our experience and how we would go out to see the animals at dawn and dusk when they are about prowling and hunting.
His patient wanted to know if we went then because that was when “they feed the animals.”
Our cousin informed his patient that no one feeds the animals.
“Then what do they eat?” replied his patient.
He responded, “each other.”
I am reminded of this lately because the whole world seems to have been reduced to a malevolent circus of dog eat dog and survival of the fittest.
In particular, the United States, which used to be looked upon as a beacon of hope and charity in the world, has been changed, in a matter of months, into a Darwinian instrument of universal cruelty.
Yes, certainly there is an argument to be made to deport those illegally in the country. However, this should not be done without due process and I don’t care how many hearings that requires. It is wrong to have ICE agents round people up off the streets like storm troopers and send them to prisons in El Salvador. It’s wrong and it’s cruel. If those captured have criminal records, facilitate the hearings and send them back from whence they came, but have the hearing to be sure. And forget about the notion of sending illegals to third countries where they would be even farther from their countries of origin and among people not speaking their language. We cannot send people from Venezuela to Libya. Period.
In another example of MAGA-initiated cruelty, the Congress is debating budgets that will cut support of Medicaid, the program that pays for the health care of the poor, the disabled, the long-term care of the elderly, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The Republicans insist on these cuts so they can give a tax cut to those least in need of one. This, like the handling of illegal aliens, is cruel. People will be hurt. Just not poor people or city dwellers. Rural health care will be devastated. There are 70 million Americans whose health care is paid for through Medicaid. Cutting this program is cruel.
Finally, off our shores, the nation of Israel has shown itself to be courting the role of worldwide pariah. Even President Trump is shunning Prime Minister Netanyahu during Trump’s recent trip to the Middle East. Bibi is what is between Trump and peace in Gaza. Bibi is what is between Trump and getting Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords. Trump sees Bibi as between himself and a Nobel Prize. But Bibi is just cruel. Under the thumb of the settler and religious parties in his Knesset coalition, and seeking to stay out of jail, Bibi continues to bomb Gaza into smithereens. Trump Tower Gaza seems a long way off. If President Trump can get Hamas to release the last living American hostage, imagine what he might be able to do if Bibi would get out of the way. It is now up to the Israeli people to change governments from one of cruelty to one of openness to progress.
I understand that the world can be a cruel place. I expect that in the wildlife parks of Africa. Global warming is real and damaging many, including here in the United States with fires, floods, and storms of all kinds. Nature is known to be cruel. We do not have to be.
Mr. Trump has made cruelty fashionable again with the help of Mr. Musk, a compliant Congress, and an ineffective judiciary. American prominence in research and education is being undermined by cruel cuts in federal budgets and the federal work force. Thousands of good people have lost their jobs without even a hint that their effectiveness had been evaluated first. This too is cruel.
America used to stand for charity. Now it stands for cruelty. Will anyone still want to come here? Not if we don’t get a handle on this cruelty. This is not who we are or at least not who we say we are. And it surely isn’t what we want to be in the future.
Cruelty will not make America great again.
And, as for the James Darren reference above, Google him. He was famous once.
