In these turbulent times, it is difficult to keep a steady course. It is difficult to obtain reliable information. I have seen various channels attempting to provide good reporting. An interesting channel is a podcast from the Hindustan Times. The advantage is that it comes from another part of the world. The link for this is https://youtu.be/a_90xFujA2M
It is a conversation with Jeffrey David Sachs, who is affiliated with Columbia University in New York. He does not belong to the Republican or Democratic party. He has broad and long-standing experience with all kinds of politicians worldwide. He presents himself as well-informed and also has ties to the Vatican. He is an independent person.

Towards the end of the 50-minute podcast, he makes an interesting proposal, namely to bring four politicians together around the table: Trump, Xi Jinping, Modi, and Putin. They represent more than 3 billion people.
J.D. Sachs does not hesitate to label Trump for the man he is: mentally disturbed. But you cannot exclude mentally ill people either. That does not make our world healthier or safer.

Another important point is that Modi of India has little regard for Christians and Xi Jinping has little regard for religion. Formally, Putin and Trump do.

This brings me to the questions: What makes my life meaningful? This applies to every human being. How can politics contribute to this?

This approach places the four gentlemen—women are absent—in an equal position. To compensate, the conversation should be moderated by the female journalist Ananya Dutta of the Hindustan Times. She hosted the podcast with Jeffrey David Sachs.
In this podcast, he was clear about the war in Ukraine: stop all aid to Ukraine and Ukraine must remain neutral. In doing so, he brings up the promise made to Russia that NATO would not move an inch to the east.

I refer here to the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, when the Soviet Union began deploying missiles in Cuba. The US viewed this as a threat.

The crisis was resolved by the US promise to remove missiles from NATO member Turkey. This was arranged behind closed doors, out of the public eye.

Another problem is that, at the beginning of this century, conservative Republicans wanted to declare the 21st century the American century. Their argument was that America sacrificed much by solving the problems in Europe during two world wars. Therefore, it has a right to compensation. (What rights would the former colonies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America have?)
The US has repeatedly stated that it determines what happens in the world. This is an extension of the American century.

What do we want to learn from our history, and what can we learn?

What motivated these conservative Republicans? This brings me to another topic that requires some reflection. We tend to think monolithically, in one dimension. The sixties were known as the hippie era, as if all young people from that time were hippies. That is not true. They were certainly influential, though. Clinton, Bush, and Trump are from the same generation as me, but they were not hippies.

What kind of people were the hippies? To understand this, it is important to look back at the time before.

I have long been convinced that many of my contemporaries wanted nothing to do with the hippies. How did they deal with the feeling of not belonging? Did they want to take revenge by rebelling against them?

It seems human to me to push back, though not without aggression. Violence is not uncommon in American society in particular. But that has its own background.

Finally, I would like to note that besides the so-called liberals and authoritarians, there are also conservatives who want nothing to do with Trump. Dividing the world into two camps is not peaceful. People will always be left behind, with unforeseeable consequences. I am adding a Podcast here with Swiss peace researcher Daniele Ganser: NATO’s Dirty Wars - The Legacy of Operation Gladio
https://youtu.be/3tcbrG8eG88
You can find a solid essay of 30 pages by Noam Chomsky and Robinson about the war against the Iraqi people via the link: https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2023/05/the-worst-crime-of-the-21st-century and read it in your native language using Google Translate.
Louis Bohte ofm