the Humanity Quotient Score edition

NF, One L
Issue TWELVE

1. Intelligent Palestinians, on the whole, hate their fanatical deathcult leaders. Intelligent Israelis, on the whole, loathe their weaselly clever but evil figurehead. Intelligent Americans, on the whole, despise their dimwitted and morally bankrupt president. Intelligent Iranians, on the whole, fear their theologically bent and duplicitous clerics. Intelligent Russians, on the whole, cower before their murderously calculating and despotic kleptocrat. 
 
2. Intelligent Ukrainians, on the whole, are aware of their leader's frailties, but admire him for his courage and humanity. 
 
3. Intelligent Republicans, who comprise about 18% of the Republican total, still find a way to hate all of the above leaders, except secretly Netanyahu, who they think will lead them to The Rapture regardless of what else he does, and Putin, who they admire for his can-do poisoning, plus Trump, who deep-down know is a dangerous rapist clown but in the end might save them a little cash, so whatever. 
 
4. Intelligent Chinese, on the whole, regard their leaders as a 100-year project, and so having emotional attachments one way or another is irrelevant, plus China is really twelve different countries cemented together by the pretense of Communism in the form of pragmatic autocracy, and so technically have not had an identifiable leader since being conquered by Genghis Khan. Intelligent Japanese would like to return to 1636 and be completely shut off from the outside world, free to worship an animist form of Shinto, plus Miles Davis. Intelligent Australians will never pay off the debt of Rupert Murdoch, and there are no intelligent Canadians, because in their pluralist neutrality and general good humor, not to mention excellent health care, intelligence is #33 on the list of Ottawa’s concerns. France (Voltaire), Italy (Caravaggio), and Spain (Lorca) are all governed by wine hangovers, and Germany is too intelligent for its own good, although to some degree still riding on the combined reputations of Schopenhauer and Hegel. 
 
5. All of Africa can be excused for continuing to reel from the endless colonial plunder of its resources and people. The conflict between India and Pakistan transcends intellect and is more a quasi-sexual dance. The Irish hate the British and the British hate themselves and the Scots hate everyone and the Welsh are left to stare longingly at Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man for someone to direct a little enmity toward. 
 
6. Brazil, it must be said, can be forgiven all, and is a country of pure genius. 

7. So, my friends, and otherwise reasonably aware people of the world, it is time for a long, hard gaze into the mirror of the allowances made to our collective personal comfort and the equanimity of small pleasures, while the worst people in the world were out there, busily, furtively, seizing control. 
 
8. To be fair, we were sucked into the idea that there was a natural and inevitable forward arc of progress, and that a combination of expanding knowledge and biological imperative would lead us to a wider, more workable understanding of the world. Let alone our individual needs and desires. Instead, it turns out we’re just as greedy, myopic, and ethically limited as the Persian Empire 2,500 years ago, except with better (arguably worse for being better) technology. 
 
9. And hilariously, those extremely advanced Persian Achaemenids, who were minting gold coins before anyone even thought of making up Jesus stories, and even more hilariously, very magnanimously freed the Jews from Babylonian captivity and allowed them to return to their homeland, is now modern Iran! 
 
10. The only question left, at this perilously late date, when we meet in the wee hours in the Castle Of The Deep State, with candles and sandalwood incense and Eyes Wide Shut masks, is:
“What do y’all want to do about it now?”