"THINGS FALL APART"

Really, I almost hate to pick up the newspaper or to go online. What is going on in this chaotic world? We are witnessing the fight over debt limit in the U.S. or the Eurozone debt crisis or the Murdoch empire intruding into our lives. As we all tremble on the edge of a financial precipice, we also find our privacy violated ---or perhaps ravished would be a better word.

Obama and the Republicans are playing chicken---or is it Russian Roulette---on increasing the debt limits. The Tea Partyists are pushing the G.O.P. toward this precipice as August 2 looms nearer and nearer. Gunfight at the O.K. Corral revisited.

Meanwhile, here in jolly old Blighty, things are going to hell in a hand basket at increasing speed. Now the Prime Minister, David Cameron, is having his credibility sorely tested and, even more important, his judgment and leadership qualities questioned. Hiring Andrew Coulson, former Editor of “News of the World”, as his Press Secretary---against the advice of a host of confidants, including the deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, was a boo-boo of classic proportions. Also, being palsy-walsy with the Murdoch clan, having Christmas dinner with Rebekah Brooks, the recently deposed Editor of the now defunct “News of the World”--- all these associations do not sit well with the general public.

A man has a right to pick his personal friends, but is it judicious for the P.M. to get so buddy-buddy with yellow journalists and power brokers who love the chance to influence him? I think you can guess who were major contributors to Cameron and the Conservative cause in the General Election.

The opposition,the Labour Party, who has been in disarray since losing the General Election in 2008, is suddenly finding new life, a whiff of oxygen, in this scandal, and Ed Milliband, the Labour Party leader, is jumping on the Conservatives, and Mr. Cameron in particular, with both feet, demanding investigations, questioning Cameron’s veracity and leadership and keeping the Conservatives on their back feet.

I’m reminded of lines from W.B. Yeats:

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

That’s what scares the hell out of me---all that passionate intensity for the wrong reasons.