The Unbearable Utopia of Progress

Looking back can prove wise council

When Taliban Tom settled down in his chair in that sweltering humid Bahrain evening, his beer in hand, we didn’t know he was going to make copper history, at least here on Medium.

Taliban Tom worked in Saudi Arabia with me, across the border. He wasn’t really part of the Taliban of course, and in fact they were near the top of the list of his sworn enemies. But in one of life’s little oddities, Tom, a Christian born again every day, confirmed Zionist and hater of all things not, worked in, as he put it, the ‘belly of the beast’; the sands of Arabia, with me. Although once a staunchly a Tea Party and now neo-MAGA Republican, he drove a Korean car in an area of the world where American cars were particularly admired. But he still had most of the prerequisites for his role: a wife plucked from the Philippines 20 years younger than him, a previous trucker employment with Halliburton and a posting in Thailand during the Vietnam war that he claimed made him a Vet. So when Taliban Tom sat back to offer a latest fundamentalist wisdom, he did it with some authority.

‘Progress is an abomination,’ he declared, after his usual opening remarks in deference of George Dubyah’s past regime, and smattering of offences about Trump’s.