As a person of 56 years of age, I am sometimes envious of those who passed through life in previous times. Their circumstances didn't change that much – or so the narrative goes – because the political, social and economic environment altered very little over time. Just a Haley's Comet streaking through the sky every 76 years, seemed to provide an excuse for the crazy and bored people to predict great and awesome, often earth-ending events. They had to manufacture their drama. Ours is made by corporations, for consumer consumption – and by other corporations, that engage in the killing of our fellow human beings. They do it on a daily basis. It's a lot to watch. 

But that's a phony view of history, conjured up by a corporate-created academia that put forward the Great Men Theory of Life On Earth. Great Men had great adventures, men like Caesar, or a whole bunch of Caesars, and King this and King that. Sometimes there is even a Queen, who usually falls in love with a King. They have all the fun.

Meanwhile, the people that built the infrastructures, grew the food, made up the armies, made the babies – well, they're just props and flags in the kings and queens parades through history.   Kind of like Donald Trump and his entourage of disciples, or is it proteges, or apprentices. If it's apprentices, then Donald Trump is a Sorcerer. He conjures up lies bigger than his own ego, a miraculous thing. 

The truth is that human life on Earth in past epochs wasn't boring, at all. Every day was a sunrise to sunset bought by sweat and toil exerted under the most extreme conditions of tyranny by men who could afford swords, or who had clans of armed cousins and uncles, or could ultimately control the means of communications to such an extent that the suffering people thought they had no choice but to follow their leader – who was also their primary oppressor. 

Human fortunes have improved since those days. There are billions of us who don't think that the status quo is pre-ordained, that the current rulers are meant to be in their positions, that Europeans have a god-given right, bestowed by a European god, to rule the world. We are on the cusp of history – a history made by the people of the world, and not by the bullies and tyrants. 

Now, that doesn't mean that you will see this great crossover of humanity in your lifetime. Certainly, I won't see it. I'm something of a bully and tyrant myself, and wouldn't fit in to a better world. But that's what parents should bequeath their children – a better world than they could skillfully or righteously navigate, without infecting that world with their own, ancient baggage. The future world will not need our small squabbles, when they gaze on Haley's Comet. For Radio BC, I'm Glen Ford.

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