From the horse's mouth

Wars. Poverty. Corruption. Inequality. Helplessness. Hopelessness.

The U.N. secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, at the opening the General Assembly proceedings, painted a bleak picture of this moment in history. “We are living in a world of disquiet,” Guterres said.“A great many people fear getting trampled, thwarted, left behind,” he said. “Machines take their jobs. Traffickers take their dignity. Demagogues take their rights. Warlords take their lives. Fossil fuels take their future.”

“The problems of our times are extraordinary,” Ibraham Mohamed Solih, president of the Maldives, an Indian Ocean island nation threatened by the rising waters of climate change, said at the U.N. General Assembly.

“We are living in times when the magnitude and number of lasting crises is constantly increasing,” said Igor Dodon, Moldova’s president.

“We have had enough wars. We don’t want new wars,” said Iraqi President Barham Salih,

From Roch Marc Christian Kabore, president of Burkina Faso, came this understatement: “International news has been marked by tension.”

“The challenges of planet and people are colliding with far-reaching consequences,” said Belize’s foreign minister, Wilfred Elrington.

“The world today is not a peaceful place,” declared Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

“The number of conflicts on the planet has not declined and enmity has not weakened,” said his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. “It is getting harder to address these and many other challenges from year to year. The fragmentation of international community is only increasing.”

“The 2020s could be remembered in history as a turning point, or as the moment when multilateralism lost its way,” Rwandan President Paul Kagame said.

But a few policians are getting the message

“There is only one common homeland and one human race. There is no Planet B or viable alternative planet on which to live,” said Gaston Browne, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, an island nation in the Caribbean.

The Socialist Party offers a remedy to the many social ills of this sick society, not palliatives, but cures.