It’s completely understandable. 

  For five hundred years we Western males have been fanning out across the oceans exploiting weaker less developed peoples, like Central, South America and Africa, and trading with the stronger ones, like the Middle East, India and China. 

  Then, thanks to scientific inquiry and development allied with incessant war we pulled decisively ahead. From 1800 AD the West was far and away the technological and hence militarily dominant civilization on the planet. Trade morphed into naked unapologetic conquest. It was no contest, and we wielded our might with merciless fury upon anyone and everyone who stood in our way. 

  By 1910 Western Europe, including its colonial siblings Canada, the United States and Australia ruled the planet with an iron fist. 

  But the home side fell to quarrelling over the spoils and after two devastating World Wars only the United States was left to shoulder the ‘white man’s burden.’ And it did so with great aplomb! It was the ‘beacon of Democratic light’ in a world threatened with Satanic Communism championed by the ungodly USSR. It was all buncombe of course, but few, especially in the West, bothered to question it. 

  1991 was a glorious confirmation of US manifest destiny when the ‘autocratic’ USSR collapsed towards ‘Democracy,’ though rather than help in this momentous transition the West took the opportunity to kick its erstwhile ‘enemy’ while it was down. 

  Well, neither Russia, nor India or China, nor even the Middle East starting with Iran agreed to stay down and subservient. Slowly, each in its own way rose, they invested, they adapted, strengthened and threw off Western hegemony. 

  Each in its own way strove to stand up and take its rightful place on the world stage. 

  And that’s where we are today. 

  The once dominant West is subsiding while the rest of humanity learns, grows, develops and modernizes. 

  Where does that leave us Western males and the inborn almost maniacal purpose that fanned out and conquered the entire planet? Who are we if not the finest examples of ‘free individuals’ in our ‘liberal democratic’ nation states exporting our ‘noble values’ to a benighted world, while incidentally importing pillaged resources and energy from that very same benighted world and leaving them in abysmal poverty?

  Well, here at the Omphalos Cafe we welcome the changes afoot today…

  Evolution and change is Life…

  And Life is ALL there is…!