On the banks of the Rio Grande

On the banks of the Rio Grande the broken body of a man and his 2 years old daughter lays facedown. They died overwhelmed by water still clinging desperately to one another in a parody of love turned to stone. In Washington a 70 years old billionaire with orange hair and the personality of a 2 years old pours hate and loathing out of his mouth. Although he is 70 he has the personality of a 2 years old and the thin skin that can only come from a large ego and the limits of unknowing. Like the little boy drowned washed onto shore in Turkey some 3 years ago the images food out across social media while those throughout the west bury their head in denial. “The strong men” like Erdogan, Trump and Oban turn their heads away and dress themselves in shark skinned suits and lead Pied-piperlike call masses of people away from compassion and concern. 

In Swansea the chattering runs on. They call upon admins of Facebook groups to take away the image. They claim to be non-political and yet this claim is a denial of their unknowing and ignorance. At best the image is so frightening that in a distant part of our mind we hide and fly from the image of our partner and child laying face down on a river bank far away. As the chattering runs on they deny climate change, the poverty of the third world and the arms trade.

Yet on the same page two or three weeks ago the chattering turns to moans about immigrants with 42 inch televisions who take all the jobs and also claim benefits. This is the Facebook page of Schrodinger`s immigrant. The discourse is strangely seen as non-political and yet the denial of death prevents a waking up to reality and so the images removed from their page and they go back to their happy chattering about food and holidays and the fear of the other. 

And yet deep within they know very well that climate change, shortage of meaning and a denial of the truth makes them uncomfortable as they shiver uncomfortably in the mornings. The family historian accuses me of lack of decorum and  fails to see his own denial. Conservatism long ago was revealed as empiricism tempered by prejudice. Welcome to the chattering of Swansea. The fear runs on the denial grows. There is darkness here and the chatters do not wish to look when the darkness in their world into sex with the darkness spilled from the mouth of the shark skinned billionaires who rule the world, listen to Forage and Johnson, let them tell you tales that keep the ghosts away until you are alone and afraid.