logo
Feeling Let Down By Hope?


Barack Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize for promising the wold hope even though he shows no sign of delivering. Let down by hope? Why not embrace nihilistic despair? Or alternatively take responsibility for your own life and spit in the face of adversity. Live like a wimp or die like a warrior, the choice is yours.

Let Down By Hope - Embrace Nihilistic Despair.
by Iar R. Thorpe
October 2009

Following the shock of last week's announcement that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 had been awarded to Barack Obama in spite of nominations for the prize closing only a few days after he was inaugurated as President of the United States and the winner having been decided by the end of March, less than 13 weeks into his Presidency, many political leaders and pundits have written or spoken out in support of the award. Even the chair of the committee of international great and good has had to go public to explain that the award was made on the basis that Mr. Obama had brought hope to the world.

Hope. If we are awarding prizes for hope that should not the winners medal for the London Marathon be awarded to the obese guy who dresses as Donald Duck to take part every year? Surely he sets of with more hope than any other entrant.

Hope my arse. Hope is for losers, hope is what makes drowning men clutch at straws or the guy facing bankruptcy put on his lucky shirt and head for the casino to risk everything they have left on one last throw of the dice. Hope is what makes politicians talk of green shoots of recovery even as the currency exchange rate goes down the pan.

Hope is all the religious and superstitious nonsense in the world compressed into one four letter word. Hope is a four letter word. Hope is false, forlorn and misbegotten. The hope that springs eternal springs right up your behind.

Hope is what remained cowering in the darkest corner of Pandora's box when everything else had thrown caution to the wind and made the great leap into the unknown. Hope is the last refuge of those who cannot face reality. Hope is for fools.

Delve into literature and we soon get things put in perspective:

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
creeps in this petty pace from day to day
to the last syllable of recorded time.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
the way to dusty death…
Macbeth, Act V Sc 5

Macbeth had not time for hope then, he faced the inevitable with grim resignation thus showing that all talk of hope is empty, we all end up at the same destination. So many people spend their time looking for, hoping for a Messiah who will save and protect them and lead them to a Utopian future in a magic land bathed in golden light. The wise few are enjoying every moment of every day knowing we have all too few days left. Still even when our bodies become frail we can still laugh at the comical antics of the pompous fools who think their empty words and grandiose promises can fork some lightning and change the nature of things.

"We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars," said Oscar Wilde when he was looking at a stretch in Reading Jail. At least he understood that while we can look at the stars we can never touch them.

So where does hope stand in relation to reality. Shakespeare can guide us again when we are troubled about what the future may hold:

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Hamlet, Act 3 Sc 1

Having clarified things in his mind with these words Hamlet decides "Thus conscience makes cowards of us all." Hope is for those who fear death, the great unknown more than they fear life. It is without a doubt nobler in the mind to take arms against an endless sea of troubles and by opposing end them than to sit in a dark corner of a little box holding hands with hope. A Saxon scribe recorded the words of one renowned warrior who said that we are all cowards, courage lies in having the will to overcome fear and face death joyously knowing we have done our best and could not possibly do more.

To me that beats listening to some preachy wuss wimping on about hope and singing Kumbaya while relying on divine intervention to save us from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

The award of a Nobel Peace Prize to Obama because he "gave hope" is as ridiculous as giving Billy Graham an honorary doctorate in evolutionary science. If hope is all we have against our endless sea of troubles we have nothing.

So if you have been let down by hope and can't find the will to overcome adversity, embrace nihilistic despair. It offers nothing so you cannot be disappointed.

RELATED POSTS:
Privatise Profit - Nationalise Losses
Madness Gone Politically Correct
Evolution Lessons In Junior School
Ten 4 Ten
It's Getting Weirder On Planet Guardian
Climate Change: Is Science To Blame
A Future Of Medieval Serfdom
A New Socialism
PBR Disaster
Lib Dems Big Idea
ID Cards, The Taxman And You
A Roundup Of All Our Climate Change Posts Future Is Canclled
Debt Crisis Menu
Need A Crisis
Systemic Dishonesty
Darling's PBR Disaster
Copenhagen Climate Change Stink Of Corruption Brown: A Lust For Glory
Barack Obama Museum Of Creation
Small Nations Refuse To Kiss Obama's Arse
Obama And Whacko Jacko The Same Person
Obama's Nasty Nazi Science Czar
Biofuel Folly
President's Credibility Problem
Middle East Breakthrough - Staus Quo Preserved
Nukes Versus Hot Dogs

G20 Witch Hunt.
Dollar Is Sinking
If Only The World Were Fair
Obama's Climate Change Bill
Obama Conkers The World
Let Down By Hope My Problem With God

Government By Fear And Panic
Liberate Your Civil Liberties
Schadenfreude is the zeitgeist
Obama 'Conkers' The World
The Climate Change Science Scam
Nature Does Not Negotiate
Peccavimus
Seven Profitable Habits Of Self Help Gurus
Obama and Michael Jackson The Same Person?
Stupid Evolution
How Stupid Are The Democrats
Barack Obama Museum Of Creation
America Is Collectively Insane
Let Her Breasts Satisfy Thee At All Times
Profitable habits Of Self Help Guru
Stools Of Satan Baby Bible Basher
Demented Mouse Science
What Are You? Man Or Mouse
Mnemosyne
The Jobless Society
Change Politicians Don't Get Survivors: State Of Emergency Declared
You Just Can't Be Too Paranoid
A Jobless Economy
Tommy Clod
We Don't Need No Edukashun
Ten 4 Ten
Giving Up On Work
BBC Weathermen To Be Sacked?
Poverty: Labour Succeeds Where Thatcher Failed
The Truth About The Economy, Education, Crime and Everything Else
Obama Ducks Berlin Celebration - It Was Not About Him
Ten 4 Ten

If you liked this, please give it a boost

Bookmark and Share

Close Window and return to menu
INFORMATION & NAVIGATION

navigate

CATEGORIES

Fiction
Wide World - travel
Health / Wellbeing
Nature
Real Lives - biography
Past Perspectives
Philo & Sophia
Fools & Dreamers
Comment & Opinion Faith And Spirituality
Poetry Life And Times
Books
Entertainment
Music
Arts & Crafts
Environment
Food
Science & Tech.
Bog of Blogs

Visit The
BLOG INDEX
and keep up with our
comments around the
web

TAGS
Climate Change
BLOGS
Boggart Blog

Little Nicky Machiavelli

Boggart Network News

BOGGART BLOG ARCHIVES

BBselect001 BBselect002 BBselect003 BBselect004 BBselect005 BBselect006
MULTI MEDIA
Spoken Word
Video
Music
Graphic Art

LATEST POSTS & COMMENTS

BULLETIN
New Posts
Former Government Adviser Condemns Green Scaremongering.
The trend among people who like to label themseves "scientists" to brush aside criticism from highly educated and well informed individuals outside their specialist field by saying "You're not a scientists, you don't understand science," arouses deep suspicion. We are rght to be sceptical and suspicious ...

Toyota Allegro Reminds Us Of British Carmakers’ Golden Age.
News of the recall of millions of Toyota cars because of a design fault that causes the accelerator to stick so the car goes faster when the driver wants to go slower has made a lot of older drivers nostalgic for the twilight of the golden age of British ...

Labour's Minimum Wage Scam
When you hear of a Conservative politician praising Labour for creating a 'flexible job market' that benefits British employers it does not ring true. What Lord Freud was really praising the government for was letting bosses screw their workers by turning a full time job into a part time job. Not the sort of jobs policy you expect from Labour but we're always said they are more Tory than the Tories.

Authoritarian Box Ticking Culture.
Among the things that have alienated people from the Labour party apart from generakl incompetence, is their arrogant and patronising conviction the public are resady to believe anything the government tells them so long as it is dressed up in statistics and delivered by some fresh faced, smooth talking Labour spinmeister. It is very like the authoritarian regime of Orwell's 1984

Evangelical Christianity Crucified
The Obama effect on American society seems to be the opposite of what was hoped for. Religious fundamentalism, particularly Evangelical Christianity seems to have more influence than ever while Obama's failure as a politician as well as his ...

Teen Binge Drinking Crisis
Politicians, medical experts and church leaders here in Britain are panicking about the binge drinking antics of teenagers. All around the country young people are getting rat-arsed and behaving in an offensive and embarrassing way. I've read things are pretty much the same in the other English speaking nations so we must wonder is something going on, is there some social trend that is

A Little Bit Of Knowledge Is A Dangerous Thing by fatsally

I know times are hard and people are setting themselves up as small businesses and that is all well and good, much better to work than to get depressed being fucked about by the Jobcentre, but you'd think people would...

Change You Can't Believe In
by James Dahlberg
For his first contribution to The Daily Stirrer James looks at how the popularity of Barack Obama, the Yes We Can" man has collapsed from the record levels seen right after his inauguration as President to the latest polls that make him the most unpopular president ever after a year in office. The economy, unemployment, the disatrous health reform bill and weakness on foreign polcy have played a big part but how much is due to the failings of man himself.



Massive Overdose Protest
by Ian R. Thorpe

Te Merseyside Skeptics Society (or more accurately the selective Skeptics Society as they only seem to be skeptical about what it is fashionable to be skeptical about) are going to protest about himeopathy today by gathering outside Boots Chemist, Liverpool and taking massive overdoses of homeopathic remedies...Right, who gives a shit, but this is a very funny post on the irrationality of the protesters without supporting homeopathy Homeopathy: Massive Overdose Protest



GO TO Boggart Blog Back Catalogue for links to older posts

COMMENTS AND RECOMMENDED READING AROUND THE WEB
Campbell's Crocodile Tears
The Times reports on New Labour bully boy Alistair Campbell's faux tears during a television interview. Were Doctors Serial Killers? Amid a tsunami of scepticism about medical science and climate change science and complaints that scientists should stop trying to claim they are superior to the rest of us comes a shocking claim that in the past medical researchers would routinely muder patients to obtain fresh corpses for experiment. Interesting stuff...

Obama 0 Einstein 3 In a quasi - scientific paper authored jopintly with Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe which attempts to tie Einstein's theories on the nature of the Universe to his own ideas based on the spaced out hippie stoner philosophy of solipsism, Barack Obama demonstrates that the extent of his arrogance, narcissism and seklf aggrandizement are not subject the the normal laws of physics...
Keeping Old Content Alive
How to give old content a longer tail.

The Unconstitutional Obama
Even as the US Democrat party and the supreme court start to get twitch about Obama's obvious comptempt for the American constiution and democracty itself the people who have pursued him from the start are still on the scent.

Why Is Climate Science On Trial American Interest asks why the climate change science we were told was "settled" came unravelled so easily under scrutiny

Scientists: You Are Fallible Simon Jenkins calls time on the scientists who get huffy when asked to explain their often irrational conclusions.

Brainwashing America's Children. Those who called us conspiracy theorists when we wrote of The Cult Of The Obamessiah when we said the "Progressive Left were trying to deify Obama are now giving themselves away. Here is the evidence, the life of The One presented in a book aimed at five to seven year olds. For Washington DC read Waco Tx.

As an ad on to the Daily Stirrer artice Minimum Wage Scam in which Labour's claim that their minimum wage regulations have helped the poor as a sham here Michael White reports how a Conservative in an attack masquerading as praise excoriates "the people's party for theor duplicity. In Praise Of Lord Freud

More BBC Pro Labour propaganda. Liberal Democrat leaning Quaequam blog takes the BBC to task for it's soft coverage of Labour's authoritarian and unjust equality bill.

Dan Hannan makes The Case For Voting Conservative We would not agree with this argument of course but it is a damn good case for voting anybody but Labour.

A Presumption Of Guiltyishness The increasingly authoritarian government has ideas about abolidhing the court's presumption of innocence.

Taking A Punt On MMR. With the Wakefield witch hunt out of the ways it's time for a sensible discussion. Obama Sexual Blackmail Campaign
Obama's latest idea to drum up support for his strugging helth system reforms has more than a whiff of desperation about it.

Apple iPad: The Disappointment Deepens. More on the iPad and another technology pundit wonders what exactly it is for? First Thoughts On The new iPad from Apple.
So how has Apple's much hyped (nothing new there) gadget been received? Shane Richmond in the Telegraph is reserving judgement on a machine that tries to be all things to all men but does nothing all your other gadgets cannot do. Alex Chancellor in The Guardian says it's pretty and the marketing is slick but who needs one. He's sticking to his old fashioned diary FOR OLDER COMMENTS from our blog index click here. MORE FAVOURITES

Home
Top Of Page
Back Catalogue
Our Comments
FEATURESThe Daily Stirrer
Boggart Blog Central

Comedy Main
Comic Verse
Cartoons
A Tale Told By An Idiot
General
Fiction
History
Thought
Poetry
Science & Technology
Elsewhere

Boggart Blog Daily
Little Nicky Machiavelli
This writer at Authorsden Gathering
Delicious Greenteeth
Boggart Network News