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Dear Editor,
This, it seems, is the pivotal year. The moral war has been launched. By December 25, we will have learned whether George Orwell’s 1984 was an accurate prediction of the future or just a scary tale of what might have been.
2024 has already been billed as the ‘Year of the Democracies’ since there are so many nations going to the polls. But some are dark gestures – vile shadows of the process. In Russia, for instance, Vladimir Putin murdered or jailed his opponents yet still conducts a farcical poll and boasts of the result. Xi Jinping continues his act as pretend emperor, and the little dictators trail along.
The good guys are such as us, most of the Scandinavians and Europeans, the Kiwis and the Canadians.
The top dog in that happy pack for many years has been the United States, and this year their election is of enormous consequence. That is really where the future of humankind will be decided, and we won’t know the answer until a certain Tuesday in November.
We got off to a pretty good start with the peaceful election of the 72-year-old former General Prabowo, supported by his predecessor, the popular Djoko Widodo, in Indonesia. And in his State of the Union address, Joe Biden made a very good case for four more years. America’s electoral college will make the final decision, but my money is...
