If Germany had won the World War
There would have been:
No Communism.
No Cold War.
No nuclear weapon proliferation
No Israel
No Middle East crisis
No terrorists
No shortage of fuel
No cheaply manufactured products
No grid-lock in party politics
No inefficient and worn-out national infrastructures
No argument over global warming or delay in universal action
No economic melt-down
No unemployment
No Fords and Chevies,
only Beamers and Mercs
Hell! Seems to me the bad guys won.
The Scapegoat
In early times when the combined guilt of a population soured their will to be more caring of their neighbors and more creative in their lives, the chieftain would call forth the witchdoctors and have them cleanse the sins of his people. A goat would be brought forth and witchdoctors would wave their magic wands and transfer all guilt onto the goat and then offer it up to the gods as burnt sacrfice. With their guilts now miraculously paid for the people would be re-newed and start fresh again.
The Nazis have been our main scapegoat for the past fifty years. No matter how bad we are, none of us are THAT bad. In the meantime, unable to shoulder our individual and national guilts, like nuking cities filled with woman and children and napalming whole countries and all forms of unmentionable intrigues conducted by our secret services, including torture, our collective guilt has reached a point where not just the Jews, but the planet itself is being incinerated by our filthy carbon immissions and our pious attitude that it is not our fault. So the question is: Who will we use as the scapegoat this time? And who will wield the magic wand?
Oh yeah! Osama Ben Laden! And Saddam Hussein. And also Iran and North Korea.
Hells bells! We are okay, there are plenty of goats out there. And there is always a big chief who set it right for us.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
Africa’s Dark Age
The end of colonialism throughout Africa was several generations premature. Colonialism began in Africa on the wrong foot and left it on the wrong foot.It went in with imperialistic expansionist aspirations. A century of European occupation put an effective end to a Bronze Age agricultural system of traditions and customs that had been orderly administered by clan chiefs for a thousand generations. It then abandoned its colonies when the administration costs got too high, leaving 800 million people without the farming smarts they once had, nor the industrial smarts to compete on the world market. Hence the chaos we see today.
Part of the responsibility for the chaos in Africa today can be laid at the door of African intellectuals of post WWII, who where all educated in European universities and then thought that book knowledge was enough to lead their peoples into the 20th Century. Almost all of them studied for degrees in law or medicine. None in economics or engineering technologies. As a result they were not practically orientated enough to realize that their nations needed modern infrastructures as well as a solid base of well-trained conscientious tradesmen able to establish a viable industrial base, and that the colonials at vast expense were slowly doing that job for them. It was those intellectuals who first agitated for freedom of colonial rule and gave the Europeans the excuse they needed to get out, knowing full well the economic difficulties that lay ahead for Africans.
From a more general point of view related to the evolution of human consciousness, colonialism, since before the Greeks, helped to spread scientific ideologies and technology to less advanced indigenous populations. If we had been wise enough from the very beginning to realize that the spread of scientific knowledge should have been conducted in a teacher/pupil milieu instead of an attitude of master/servant, Africa and world society in general would be far more peaceful and more advanced than it is. To a certain degree this is what Christian missionaries tried to accomplish in sub-Saharan Africa. Though they helped to spread literacy among a vast oral-based culture, they had the problem of selling a superior white God.
In the 1980's I lectured on two dozen American universities and argued against divestment in South Africa. Post-colonial Africa needed more involvement from the developed world not less. But the anti-apartheid rhetoric was far too loud to get my voice heard.The evolutionary imperative that drives all specie to colonize and have significant impacts on indigenous populations is far from simple. None more so than humans. The great value I discovered when studying the colonization of Africa was how clearly it shows the repetitions of history. Africa is a living repository of much of the social turmoil and spiritual complexities of what happened two thousand years ago when Rome colonized the tribes of Europe and the resultant post-Roman chaos of the Dark Ages. Post-colonial Africa is now heading in her own Dark Ages. If not re-enlightened by us, she may well remain there for a thousand years. That need for technological training in Africa is desperate. Without it there is little hope. Tens of Millions of cooking fires every day is denuding her already sparse bushveld.
The technological assistence Africa needs must come in two forms.
Africa is still in the process of leaving a Bronze Age agricultural milieu. At least half of the people remain iliterate and another quarter barely able to read with little or no work-skills. Africa's transition into Her own Iron Age of industrial development must encompass a generation or two of training in basic industrial trades. This effort must be accompanmied by an orthodox scriptural dogma that ensures conscientious crafstmanship. Africa needs a solid foundation of well-trained school-techers, doctors, nurses, buiilders, plumbers, electricians, miners etc to build, man aand maintain a modern infrastructure. Roads, rails, communication lines, schools, clinics etc. originally built by the colonials was only partially done and is now falling to pieces.
In the meantime, for all that to happen, a vast workforce of young foreign graduates, trained in the most advanced technological disciplines, needs to be injected into the continent to halt environmental decay and install the clean and sustainable energy needed for the industrial base to be laid. They must also help with the teaching process and deal with the disaster of AIDS.
Isn't that premise counter-intuitive? Wouldn't it make far more sense to encourage African liberation and self-expression given that you seem to see Africans as the ethnic group most closely connected to their pre-historical roots? Is the alternative not a case of the blind leading the partially sighted?The massive humanitarian requirement described above is one of the main reasons why I believe that the artificial barrier of money needs to be removed. While a monetary-based world economic system continues to determine human development and global management, Africa will continue to die and the rest of us will carry the guilt load into the future. It is our fixation that the carrot of money is the only way to get humans to behave like humans that is blinding us to reality. Trying to squeeze a profit out of every penny invetsed for the benefit of a tiny few takes all of us into the realm of insanity
Part of the responsibility for the chaos in Africa today can be laid at the door of African intellectuals of post WWII, who where all educated in European universities and then thought that book knowledge was enough to lead their peoples into the 20th Century. Almost all of them studied for degrees in law or medicine. None in economics or engineering technologies. As a result they were not practically orientated enough to realize that their nations needed modern infrastructures as well as a solid base of well-trained conscientious tradesmen able to establish a viable industrial base, and that the colonials at vast expense were slowly doing that job for them. It was those intellectuals who first agitated for freedom of colonial rule and gave the Europeans the excuse they needed to get out, knowing full well the economic difficulties that lay ahead for Africans.
From a more general point of view related to the evolution of human consciousness, colonialism, since before the Greeks, helped to spread scientific ideologies and technology to less advanced indigenous populations. If we had been wise enough from the very beginning to realize that the spread of scientific knowledge should have been conducted in a teacher/pupil milieu instead of an attitude of master/servant, Africa and world society in general would be far more peaceful and more advanced than it is. To a certain degree this is what Christian missionaries tried to accomplish in sub-Saharan Africa. Though they helped to spread literacy among a vast oral-based culture, they had the problem of selling a superior white God.
In the 1980's I lectured on two dozen American universities and argued against divestment in South Africa. Post-colonial Africa needed more involvement from the developed world not less. But the anti-apartheid rhetoric was far too loud to get my voice heard.The evolutionary imperative that drives all specie to colonize and have significant impacts on indigenous populations is far from simple. None more so than humans. The great value I discovered when studying the colonization of Africa was how clearly it shows the repetitions of history. Africa is a living repository of much of the social turmoil and spiritual complexities of what happened two thousand years ago when Rome colonized the tribes of Europe and the resultant post-Roman chaos of the Dark Ages. Post-colonial Africa is now heading in her own Dark Ages. If not re-enlightened by us, she may well remain there for a thousand years. That need for technological training in Africa is desperate. Without it there is little hope. Tens of Millions of cooking fires every day is denuding her already sparse bushveld.
The technological assistence Africa needs must come in two forms.
Africa is still in the process of leaving a Bronze Age agricultural milieu. At least half of the people remain iliterate and another quarter barely able to read with little or no work-skills. Africa's transition into Her own Iron Age of industrial development must encompass a generation or two of training in basic industrial trades. This effort must be accompanmied by an orthodox scriptural dogma that ensures conscientious crafstmanship. Africa needs a solid foundation of well-trained school-techers, doctors, nurses, buiilders, plumbers, electricians, miners etc to build, man aand maintain a modern infrastructure. Roads, rails, communication lines, schools, clinics etc. originally built by the colonials was only partially done and is now falling to pieces.
In the meantime, for all that to happen, a vast workforce of young foreign graduates, trained in the most advanced technological disciplines, needs to be injected into the continent to halt environmental decay and install the clean and sustainable energy needed for the industrial base to be laid. They must also help with the teaching process and deal with the disaster of AIDS.
Isn't that premise counter-intuitive? Wouldn't it make far more sense to encourage African liberation and self-expression given that you seem to see Africans as the ethnic group most closely connected to their pre-historical roots? Is the alternative not a case of the blind leading the partially sighted?The massive humanitarian requirement described above is one of the main reasons why I believe that the artificial barrier of money needs to be removed. While a monetary-based world economic system continues to determine human development and global management, Africa will continue to die and the rest of us will carry the guilt load into the future. It is our fixation that the carrot of money is the only way to get humans to behave like humans that is blinding us to reality. Trying to squeeze a profit out of every penny invetsed for the benefit of a tiny few takes all of us into the realm of insanity
Thursday, November 27, 2008
The Law of Love
God is deeply in love with Earth
She is His ideal mate
Her azure beauty astounds Him
Her fruitfulness fills His cup with nectar
The brilliance of their human child delights him
He would be perfectly happy to let the fullness of His love over-whelm Him
And bathe us all in His constant presence.
but the Law of Love holds Him back
He is not our ideal God
He does not match the image in our mind
He is far older than us
His habits are set by the laws of physics
They force Him to remain without Form
We are still too young to tear away the veil
And see that all form is energy
radiant with Divine Love
And so there is a barrier between Man and God
over which the fullness of His love cannot flow
er He embarrass us with the paucity of our return of love
and thereby sadden our lives
And so He must wait
Until we are born again
She is His ideal mate
Her azure beauty astounds Him
Her fruitfulness fills His cup with nectar
The brilliance of their human child delights him
He would be perfectly happy to let the fullness of His love over-whelm Him
And bathe us all in His constant presence.
but the Law of Love holds Him back
He is not our ideal God
He does not match the image in our mind
He is far older than us
His habits are set by the laws of physics
They force Him to remain without Form
We are still too young to tear away the veil
And see that all form is energy
radiant with Divine Love
And so there is a barrier between Man and God
over which the fullness of His love cannot flow
er He embarrass us with the paucity of our return of love
and thereby sadden our lives
And so He must wait
Until we are born again
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Future Predictions
Species extinction via a nuclear halocaust or environmental collpase remains a distinct possibility.
I we survive this is what I believe the future will be like.
The global language will be English.The script:
Chinese characters.Urban sprawl will be gone.
Private vehicles will be no more.
Agriculture will go indoors inside glass towers.
Most of the world's natural habitat will be reclaimed
Cities will be vertical, reach 10,000 feet, harness their own energy via atmosphere thermal differentials and their water via condensation.
No city will be located in a natural disaster area.
Mass transit will be by vacuum trains
The global occupational contract will be planet management
Fewer people will have families, but the families will be larger.
Child education will be conducted by parents
Politics will be governed by existential imperatives
All Iron Age religions will be history.
Atomic Consciousness will be a universal religion of spiritual thought and practice
All four of the major plagues of Mankind will be over
Utopia will be seen as the natural end result of our evolutionary purpose
The future of the future will be terra-forming in solar space
The evolutionary cycle of human consciousness will come to an end.
Death will be recognized as our next evolutionary step into a transcendental state of Cosmic Consciousness.
I we survive this is what I believe the future will be like.
The global language will be English.The script:
Chinese characters.Urban sprawl will be gone.
Private vehicles will be no more.
Agriculture will go indoors inside glass towers.
Most of the world's natural habitat will be reclaimed
Cities will be vertical, reach 10,000 feet, harness their own energy via atmosphere thermal differentials and their water via condensation.
No city will be located in a natural disaster area.
Mass transit will be by vacuum trains
The global occupational contract will be planet management
Fewer people will have families, but the families will be larger.
Child education will be conducted by parents
Politics will be governed by existential imperatives
All Iron Age religions will be history.
Atomic Consciousness will be a universal religion of spiritual thought and practice
All four of the major plagues of Mankind will be over
Utopia will be seen as the natural end result of our evolutionary purpose
The future of the future will be terra-forming in solar space
The evolutionary cycle of human consciousness will come to an end.
Death will be recognized as our next evolutionary step into a transcendental state of Cosmic Consciousness.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Redistribution of Wealth
Money is barter. It is a promisary note based on your service that you can exchange for goods and other services. The central problem with it is that it original expediency has gradually degenerated to a point where now 1% of the population can accumulate most of it with very little or no service offered in return. That corruption has now brought us to the brink of real chaos..
Using a printed promisary note as barter for services and goods without building into it a precondition that it cannot be issued by a middelman who offers no service of his own, that is what is corruptible. As it is now you can spend your life lying in the sun on the beach at Cannes and simply grow richer by accumulating interest on money your father or grandfather might have worked for by ruthelessly squeezing ever-larger profits out of the labor of the less educated or less gifted others, while decimating the natural resources of the planet in the process without investing in reparation. Or you can simply barter with money itself and charge interest simply for handling it. And most corruptible of all, simply gamble with it on the stock-market. In the meantime most of mankind contunues to toil for your benefit at minimum wages - or worse still ends up unemployed because the money in your bank would be devalued if you printed enough to employ and enrich all the people on the planet.
One should only be able to gain credit for constructive services and then use that registered effort as barter. In an ideal world the remuneration for services would be reversed - the more menial and labor-intensive the service is, the higher the credit should be. Extra individual credit would come via the encouragement of creative input that unquestionably improves the commonwealth - ie ideas that serve to make others and the planet better than they already are..
This is what we are trying to do now, but the unequal distribution and unfair manipulation of money for reasons given, has corrupted its original intent. We need a barnd new economic constitution that better defines constructive social ethics and which ensures a level playing field that cannot be manipulated.
Using a printed promisary note as barter for services and goods without building into it a precondition that it cannot be issued by a middelman who offers no service of his own, that is what is corruptible. As it is now you can spend your life lying in the sun on the beach at Cannes and simply grow richer by accumulating interest on money your father or grandfather might have worked for by ruthelessly squeezing ever-larger profits out of the labor of the less educated or less gifted others, while decimating the natural resources of the planet in the process without investing in reparation. Or you can simply barter with money itself and charge interest simply for handling it. And most corruptible of all, simply gamble with it on the stock-market. In the meantime most of mankind contunues to toil for your benefit at minimum wages - or worse still ends up unemployed because the money in your bank would be devalued if you printed enough to employ and enrich all the people on the planet.
One should only be able to gain credit for constructive services and then use that registered effort as barter. In an ideal world the remuneration for services would be reversed - the more menial and labor-intensive the service is, the higher the credit should be. Extra individual credit would come via the encouragement of creative input that unquestionably improves the commonwealth - ie ideas that serve to make others and the planet better than they already are..
This is what we are trying to do now, but the unequal distribution and unfair manipulation of money for reasons given, has corrupted its original intent. We need a barnd new economic constitution that better defines constructive social ethics and which ensures a level playing field that cannot be manipulated.
Friday, November 21, 2008
A Cashless Society
All the various forms of western government have had centuries in which to prove they are capable of managing the lives and fortunes of large populations. So far all they have managed to do is lift less than a third of the global population partially out of the mire. In the propcess they enslaved millions to help build their empires and have left in their wake a raped planet and billions of people more destitute than they were before. And now they are screaming for massive bail-outs in order to halt the entire global economic system from complete collapse. Trust in printed promisary notes is now at an all-time low.
The call for a mass change of direction has never been more popular. What is not fully grasped is the depth of change that is needed. The need goes beyond ending the Iraq war, party politics, better health care, better schooling and a better energy policy.
The value of money is based on its scarcity. There is not enough printed money to pay for all that needs to be done to get all the people on this panet employed and eating three squares a day. If we stay locked into any of the existing economic ideologies, Obama will never find the money to pay for half of what is needed. The only real long-term answer lies in ending the practice of using money as the prime medium of exchange. We are ensuring future shock by continuing to support a flawed system that places artificial barriers against investing in the large-scale long-term engineering projects that are needed to stop us from destroying the home planet.
Money will always have endless loopholes for corruption. All games of monopoly eventually end up with only one winner, no matter what social rules are imposed. In the end the only wealth we have lies in our built-in work ethic, our technological genius and our personal sense of honor. Whether we pay for services via money or some form of trade, it is only via our trust in each other that really ensures a fair deal.
A social philosophy based on Custodianship instead of ownership is both Earth-friendly and people friendly. Its natural ethical foundation trancsends the artificial limitations of Capitalism, Communism and Socialism. Nothing ensures a pure state of efficiency like a culture based on ethical restraint. Nor does anything less than an ethical mind-set ensure the highest grades of motivation and creativity. Custodianship does not reduce all of us to the lowest common denominator, it elevates all of us to a an equal level of wealth and well-being.
Bowing before Baal has to end. Now seems an ideal moment to get up off our knees and stand on our own two feet.
The call for a mass change of direction has never been more popular. What is not fully grasped is the depth of change that is needed. The need goes beyond ending the Iraq war, party politics, better health care, better schooling and a better energy policy.
The value of money is based on its scarcity. There is not enough printed money to pay for all that needs to be done to get all the people on this panet employed and eating three squares a day. If we stay locked into any of the existing economic ideologies, Obama will never find the money to pay for half of what is needed. The only real long-term answer lies in ending the practice of using money as the prime medium of exchange. We are ensuring future shock by continuing to support a flawed system that places artificial barriers against investing in the large-scale long-term engineering projects that are needed to stop us from destroying the home planet.
Money will always have endless loopholes for corruption. All games of monopoly eventually end up with only one winner, no matter what social rules are imposed. In the end the only wealth we have lies in our built-in work ethic, our technological genius and our personal sense of honor. Whether we pay for services via money or some form of trade, it is only via our trust in each other that really ensures a fair deal.
A social philosophy based on Custodianship instead of ownership is both Earth-friendly and people friendly. Its natural ethical foundation trancsends the artificial limitations of Capitalism, Communism and Socialism. Nothing ensures a pure state of efficiency like a culture based on ethical restraint. Nor does anything less than an ethical mind-set ensure the highest grades of motivation and creativity. Custodianship does not reduce all of us to the lowest common denominator, it elevates all of us to a an equal level of wealth and well-being.
Bowing before Baal has to end. Now seems an ideal moment to get up off our knees and stand on our own two feet.
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