A World Worth Fighting For

Okay. My husband Alan often struggles with email issues and asks for my help, whether to classify received messages according to the date or sender, or to attach a file, or to include a picture in the message body, as often happens to a good majority of people our age. Alan, however, is not running for president of the United States. He has been retired for more than 10 years; he doesn’t even work, nor he has the chance of influencing people, except perhaps myself and his two adult sons. It does not mean that he’s not brilliant, of course, capable of a deep understanding of what’s going on and even of forecasting what is about to go on.

Now, in all honesty, would you like to have a President of the United States who doesn’t know the first thing about emails?

Let’s face it. Most people are not “tech savvies” at all. They know how to “use” technology, but they don’t actually “understand” it. If they have any issue with their computers or cell phones, they call the specialist and that’s it.

This has rarely been the case with me. I did ask for help a few times, of course, most of them turning to my webmaster. By the way, I only hired a webmaster when my company’s website grew to the point of turning completely unmanageable by a person who does not dedicate herself to it 24/7. KBR’s website has now more than 500 pages live, figure that.

For this and other reasons, I’ve been following the “Clinton’s email issue” with a lot of interest. I started researching a thing called “domain,” which is the second part of the email address, after the “@”; and found out that Hillary’s Clinton private domain for emails is “clintonemail.com.” The domain had been initially registered in 2009, which makes sense — that’s when Hillary was appointed Secretary of State. Then it was renewed in 2015 — which signaled that she intended to go on using it — and is alive and well today, valid until January 2017.

The registrar data (registrar is where you register your domain, and you need to pay a yearly fee to keep it live) states that this domain is actually hosted with “worldnic.com.” However… when you go to worldnic.com there’s a red flag, and you are warned that hackers may be using your computer and stealing your data. In one word: It is not safe. Wow.

True: Although alive and hosted, the “clintonemail” domain does not have a website. By the way, it has just been disclosed that the Russians are not behind any hacking activity to expose Hillary. Julien Assange said so himself, in an interview. In the U.S. today, people lie with no second thoughts, nor a clear conscience of the true danger their lies may incur.

That said, we can finally move on to the next issue: the overthrown of a candidacy by inappropriate sexual behavior.

Trump’s? No. Anthony Weiner’s.

Oh well. Who cares about this apparently recurring pervert, right? I have no interest whatsoever in writing about this person; however, he was married to Hillary Clinton’s top aid, and that’s how his role came about: While investigating his alleged sexting with a minor, the FBI found thousands of emails pertinent to the Clinton’s case. And they didn’t come from a “.gov” email address! Surprise!

Although I obviously couldn’t shapeshift into a fly and land on a piece of cake, waiting for fate to unfold in Hillary’s private kitchen, I can perfectly envision the scene. Oh. My. God. She was so sure that this whole boring hassle had been already behind her! “And now this!”, she vociferates. “Stupid woman! Hideous man!”

She might be talking about her closest allies and most faithful friends, who knows. Never trust a man with “deviation” tendencies, or someone who texts you asking you to “take off your clothes and touch yourself.” Unless, of course, he’s your lover, and you’re both single adults in a sexting world. I had done it myself a long time ago, and, I must admit: This, combined with other passionate elements, had changed my life for the better. Much better: I found a husband and a faithful companion.

On the other hand, how could one possibly forget that for every email sent there is a mandatory recipient? And that those recipients have their own devices and their own way of dealing with them? Moreover, that the recipient (gender undisclosed) might have a partner with whom they share their devices, and this partner might… and so on and so forth.

That is, notwithstanding the result of these upcoming elections, we must accept a few things as indisputable facts.

Of course, the president of the United States wouldn’t have to deal with his email accounts himself on a daily basis… but now I not only understand, but also agree that there was indeed a potential danger in POTUS insistence to use his own Blackberry back in 2008… and there still is. You know what I mean.

It is practical. It is fast. It is tempting. But something is telling me the we will be forced to rethink our behavior concerning the use of email, texting and the like when dealing with sensitive information.

Like so many sensitive areas of our lives — and this would maybe, only maybe, include our sexual lives — our communication practices will soon need to regress to more traditional forms, unfortunately: the personal touch, I mean, talking and touching in person. Or have you already forgotten what that is?

That said, let’s move on to the last subject today. This week, in Brazil, a majority of so-called conservative officials were elected mayors around the country. It is the biggest downfall of the Worker’s Party since it has first been in office, which doesn’t come as any surprise, after the latest developments concerning the government corruption investigation.

Which left me thinking: What the heck had happened to the left?

Ah, the left, all that’s right, and worth fighting for… Traditionally, the left had kept the monopoly of social justice, equality, environmental issues and a myriad of other crucial subjects that truly matter, and must be continually examined and redefined.

They had been great about those in so many occasions, right? It is the power of the left, of the progressives, or liberals, you name it, that makes our society advance, and this has happened a number of times. It has happened to civil rights, to women’s rights, with the protection of minorities. It has happened when intellectuals, artists and writers reflected upon our lives and tried to advance our outdated concepts, making them work better for every one of us; and for that they have been persecuted, misjudged, fought against, many times violently, or even fatally. Those were social martyrs, and we must not forget that. Ever. They fought for all of us and made our lives a lot better, first through dreaming, “envisioning”; then by trying to make it happen. And that was always great.

But, bear with me for a moment: Every time the left was invested with power, the result has been invariably disastrous. They have destroyed countries, societies, families, and even entire cultures. They have lost themselves, and with their carelessness, their lack of touch with reality, they came this close to destroy us. I mean, to destroy the human race, through the manipulation of biology.

I wonder why. Are these not the same great people, the same revolutionary, valuable, loving people we all cherish and admire?

Yes. They are. But have you heard that old saying, “be careful with what you ask for?” Once they’re in power, and there’s no expressive contrary force to control them, that is, capable of stopping them from fulfilling all their “crazy” plans, from seizing the opportunity to make them happen, all those delirious dreams, those impossible feats that eventually take us forward… then there’s nobody to debate them, to reflect upon them, to erase from them everything that does not work, or will not work for the common good. That is, about 95% of those wondrous dreams.

When in power, the left  is invested with the certainty that they are simply the best. Everything they ever come up with is a wonderful thing; they are brighter, fairer, better, more creative and just; there is no stopping them. And the final result spells “dis-as-ter.”

Think about it; name whatever social (or economic, or political) issues you can think of and realize how many of them have been accomplished in recent times, and ultimately resulted in disaster, or soon will.

Therefore, for our own good, I believe we should vote conservative, in case this does not offend us deeply or jeopardizes our core principles — “conservative,” of course, meaning to “conserve” what had been working for ages. And generously grant the left the glorious task of continuously confronting it.

Don’t worry. There will always be enough people coming up with valuable, dreamy, incredible ideas that will, eventually, change our society for the better. Even more so if they are forced to fight for it, to heroically resist being destroyed for it, and thus, automatically, keep reflecting upon it, again and again. That’s what the young generations are for.

Believe me, it’s no good to get what you want too easily. We’re most probably wired to devalue it, and given free reign, to overdo it and lose all perspective on it, more or less like drug addicts.

That’s how I’ve lived my entire life: fighting for what I wanted, and sure as hell it didn’t seem fair to me. Yet, that’s what I now think is the right way.