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The High Price of Arrogance and the Bitter Harvest of Hypocrisy
The Twin Horsemen of the New Apocalypse:
Slowly, the nuclear genie escapes from the carefully constructed bottle of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, threatening the world with annihilation.
Inexorably, global warming advances across the decades as temperatures climb, fires rage, glaciers melt, droughts escalate, hurricanes intensify, habitats shrink, species disappear.
These, then are the twin horsemen of the new apocalypse: the prospect of nuclear war and the reality of global warming.
No biblical prophesy this. The pale riders mounted upon these steeds are men, and they wait eagerly at the gate, their time come at last. Arrogance is their vehicle; hypocrisy their fuel.
We are Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds
Imagine a world in which more than twenty-five countries possessed nuclear weapons, instead of the nine that do now. Imagine that number relentlessly growing, decade by decade until a hundred or more nations - all but the very poorest - were capable of detonating a nuclear device and initiating a nuclear holocaust. In such a world, the unthinkable would become the inevitable.
The only reason we're not living in that world today is that in 1968, the international community seized a rare moment of sanity and produced the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, stuffing the nuclear genie back in its bottle.
Led by Ireland and Finland, 189 states signed the treaty.
The NNPT was supposed to work as follows: Nations who had not yet developed nuclear weapons agreed not to pursue a nuclear arsenal. In return, nations possessing nuclear weapons agreed "to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control."
In short, the treaty was a quid-pro-quo. Nuclear have-nots agreed not to obtain nuclear weapons in exchange for nuclear haves agreeing to take real, verifiable steps to get rid of theirs.
Now imagine a nation that broke this grand bargain, and risked bringing forth death and destruction of biblical proportion. That nation exists. It is US.
Listen.
At the time of the treaty, South Africa, Egypt, Argentina, Brazil, and several other countries who were actively developing nuclear weapons suspended their programs. Five nations - the US, Russia, Britain, China, and France agreed to suspend active programs and begin negotiations to dismantle their stockpile. Countries capable of constructing nuclear weapons, including Australia, Norway, Japan, New Zealand, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Finland, South Korea, and host of others then had no incentive to initiate programs, and the world was moved a little further from the brink of a nuclear insanity. There have been leaks. Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea have all developed nuclear weapons.
But for years, the dream of a nuclear free world was a powerful card the world could play in constraining the spread of this deadly ambition.
No longer.
The nuclear haves - led by the US - have steadfastly ignored their responsibilities under this treaty. Indeed, under Bush, the US has scrapped the ABM treaty, sought funding for a new generation of nuclear weapons, and proposed to resume testing of nuclear devices, even as we've insisted that others abandon efforts to produce them. Thus, we approach the world as an arrogant hypocrite, and seem surprised that it is not working.
Climate: the slow-motion nuclear war
Forget wars, famine, pestilence and death. They are merely the stepchildren of global warming.
Hyperbole?
Consider this. The cumulative energy embedded in all fossil fuels is on the same order of magnitude as the energy that would be released from detonating all of the world's nuclear devices. So if we burn all of those reserves, in terms of energy, it is the equivalent of an all out nuclear war. But wait, you say, even if we were to burn all those reserves, it would take place over three centuries, hardly the same as a nuclear conflagration.
Fair enough, but try this little thought experiment, and in the words of Aldo Leopold, think like a mountain. In terms of geologic time, three centuries is virtually indistinguishable from an instant.
Over the four and a half billion years the earth has existed, the systems that sustain us have been sculpted carefully from the ether. Life appeared some 3.8 billion years ago - simple procaryotes living off of methane and sulfur. Oxygenators became dominant about a billion years later, and slowly, the orange sky turned blue. Painstakingly, the world we know evolved until a scant million years ago hominids something like ourselves appeared. Homo Sapiens - man the wise - evolved about fifty thousand years ago, and in the last ten thousand years, blessed with a relatively benign climate, we began our march towards civilization.
Now we look through the lens of our own life span and declare three centuries to be a long time. But to that mountain, the blinding death-flash of a nuclear holocaust, and the three hundred year combustion of fossil fuels are less distinguishable, and the consequences may be too. In a very real sense, climate change could play out like a slow-motion nuclear war, sans radioactive fallout.
Just as with the nuclear threat, the US is the biggest impediment to progress, and the biggest cause of the problem. In 2005, the US released 7.1 billion tons of GHGs. To put that in context, the US - with about five percent of the world's population - emitted about twenty five percent of the world's greenhouse gasses. Cumulatively, the US contribution to global warming dwarfs any other country's, and it will do so long after China supplants us as the largest annual emitter.
The Origins of Arrogance
Given the fact that we sit astride this heinous record of disregarding all elements of a sane world, on what basis do we now object to Iran or any country seeking to develop a nuclear capability? Certainly not moral grounds.
How do we, the worlds biggest energy pig, justify our failure to ratify the Kyoto climate accords, and our failure to honor our obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which we did sign and ratify?
Do we simply assert that we are different? Special in some way?
A sizable number of neocons take precisely that point of view, referring to the US as the "Exceptional Nation." Indeed, it is this notion which has animated our foreign policy to one degree or another since the fall of the Soviet Union. Under Bush, it has become an almost religious conviction.
Presumably, this exceptionalism gives us the right to retain our nuclear weapons, expand our arsenal, and prevent anyone else - even those we threaten - from developing them. It could even be used to justify the fact that we continue to spew out GHG at more than six times the global per capita average.
It's worth examining the roots of this notion of the US as the exceptional nation. It was coined by De Tocqueville in the 1830's, and predicated on his observation that the US was unique in that it had no feudal tradition, was more centered on rights, merit, religious beliefs, and was more egalitarian. This, according to De Tocqueville, set us apart from the more state-centered societies of Europe, and allowed democracy to flourish here, more than anywhere else.
But it's a big leap to go from there, to where the neocons would take us - the US as exempt from the civilizing treaties of the global community, by virtue of this exceptionalism.
Of course, the problem with this arrogant stance is that it only works if other countries accept the neocons' self-designated version of the US as "exceptional."
If they don't - and why should they?- then our wholesale rejection of civilizing agreements such as the Land Mine Treaty, the Tobacco Treaty, the World Court, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and the Kyoto Climate Protocol looks less like De Tocqueville's exceptionalism and more like ignorant and arrogant jingoism.
Add to this list of ignominy that the US supports trade agreements that exploit labor and harm the environment and that, under Bush, we have consistently bad-mouthed the UN, essentially ignored the Geneva Conventions, preemptively invaded a sovereign nation, scuttled the chemical and biological weapons treaties, ignored our obligations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (to which we are a signatory) and publicly defended torture (water boarding is defined as torture in our own laws and in international laws) and "rendition," as well as acted to limit the freedom and rights of our own citizens by subverting both the First and Fourth Amendments, and the necon case for exceptionalism becomes little more than a weak justification for a destructive form of jingoism that does more to limit freedom than champion it.
The Harvest of Hypocrisy
With a record of hypocrisy like this is it any wonder that a foreign policy based on arrogance is a complete failure? Might it not be at least a partial answer to the question, why do they hate us and, more to the point, why do they hate us even more now than they did in 2001? Certainly, arrogance without portfolio is the weakest platform from which to negotiate and lead.
We the People of the United States have a choice about our country's and the world's destiny, and we will make that choice in the 2008 elections. On the one hand, we can choose to elect leaders who will continue to act as if we are not subject to the civilizing rules of the international community, while insisting others are. Down this path lies permanent confrontation, continuous wars and occupations, inevitable nuclear proliferation and nuclear brinksmanship, destruction of the climate that has sustained us since we appeared on the planet, a US that is increasingly isolated in the international community, and a world that is hurtling towards nuclear devastation and environmental destruction.
On the other hand, we can choose to be truly exceptional, not simply by honoring our international obligations, but by actively leading the world community toward peace, prosperity and sustainability. This is not only ethically correct, it is strategically smart, and it would make the US a leader in all the ways mere military might cannot.
Imagine a world in the process of destroying its nuclear weapons instead of its climate. Imagine the stature and influence that would accrue to the country leading that effort.
It would have a moral authority that would be unambiguous and undeniable.
Ghandi defeated Great Britain with the that kind of moral authority. Imagine, now, a nation with the military and economic power the US possesses, but blessed with Ghandi's ethical leverage, too.
Such a nation could walk across the world stage a colossus, and others would be forced to follow. It would be capable of building coalitions, blessed with allies, and capable of being a force for good that would be virtually unprecedented in human history. It would indeed be an exceptional nation.
There is, in fact, only one country capable of becoming that nation. Us. If we were to choose this path, we would truly deserve to be known as the exceptional nation, and it would be others who designated us so, not an arrogant and belligerent claim we made on our own behalf.
That's the real opportunity cost of the Bush administration and the Republican doctrine; that's the prize that will be lost if we allow the Democratic Party to be led by men and women of little vision and less courage, more interested in following polls than leading nations.
There is no other country that can deliver us from this apocalypse; there is no other time we can choose to lead. It happens now, or it can't happen. If we fail to call our nation to meet its destiny, the twin horses of the new apocalypse will ride, and we will sit astride them.
Our votes and our voices will determine which it will be.
This is either the blessing or the tragedy of our time.
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32 Comments so far
Show AllThe problem is that the controlling group in the corporate oligarchy running the US prefers policies with expectation of X profit and Y probability of world-wide nuclear war over policies with X/2 profit and Y/2 probability of annihilation, as if they completely ignore the marginal utility of money. They would rather make twice as much money even if it means twice as much risk for themselves and everyone else.
And what's worse is that these estimates of profits and risks are wild guesses, and those in a position to make these wild guesses and take these unknown risks rose to such positions by taking unknown and reckless risks in their business careers and succeeding more through pure luck than anything else (the elites in the corporate oligarchy). When the system is such that gamblers rise to the top and make decisions for the whole of society, then it is inevitable that those gamblers will take reckless risks with the future.
Thank you. In the din of exuberant vitriol fueling the endless run-up to next November, we foreigners cower in the shadow that you describe. The arrogance of this admin's hypocrisy has long been clear to those outside America's borders. And the fear we experience is not the faux variety created by Rove/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz/Bush and company; rather it is the fear which history has taught us. This survival instinct recoils in legitimate dread as the strident voices of national greed bulldoze the planet.
Why aren't the candidates stepping up to these issues and truly debating what needs to be done?
Why does the American public appear so indifferent and why is it so ill informed?
What do we need to get the peoples' attention?
So many candidates and voters are wound up in the narrow issues of revoking or not abortion and not seeing the whole picture of what "right to life" really implies, for the entire planet. One understands their aim is to save Amercan embryos though they rarely state it. Why don't they care about birth malformations in Iraq resulting from the high levels of radioactivity produced by recycled uranium on American missiles, malformations not seen since the period post atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Maybe we need a new version of John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance," renamed "Give Life a Chance."
I'm so sure that it you went up to any American in the street and presented these questions of survival point blank he would be horrified and want to stop this terrible march. It's all this ignorance that is also fueling the forthcoing Apocalypse.
Nice to know that there's still a chance the world will end with a bang; thanks Bush. Seriously tho, the chances of the usa ever regaining the moral authority possessed by Ghandi is quite low. You're acting like an empire, and not a reasonably good one like the British did. Say what you will about the Brits, they did leave a legacy in their former colonies of respecting the rule of law. For the usa's empire that is not a priority, these days I doubt the yank mandarins even think about it. Creating your own reality indeed.
Hypocricy is contagious.
Atcheson disengenuously lumps Israel in with India, Pakistan and North Korea as having the Bomb.
It is still not known whether North Korea ever developed a weapon and the US is now setting up an inspections regime for that country.
Both India and Pakistan are relatively new nuclear weapons nations and have a handful of weapons (either developed by or with US aid).
Israel, on the other hand, is at the center of the nuclear "club," not on the periphery. Beginning in the 1960s, with the aid of France, Israel began its nuclear project in earnest.
Not long after, it began working jointly with apartheid South Africa on nuclear weapons development (as well as systems to contain and monitor people).
The US at first looked the other way and then got on the bus in a serious fashion by heaping billions of dollars on Israel in military aid. Though the US law says otherwise, Israel has used significant amounts of this aid to develop nukes and modify cruise missles, planes, rockets, ships -- and even submarines -- to deliver the bombs.
Israel, on a fairly regular basis threatens to use these weapons on its neighbors. Since it has violated international law by often using cluster bombs and DU weapons against its neighbors, there is no reason to disregard these threats.
Israel reportedly has 200-400 deliverable warheads, which makes it a leading nuclear weapons power, not a new or marginal one.
The point of all this is: to ignore the special US/Israeli relationship and Israel's outlaw status in military and nuclear weapons fields is to leave out a key piece about the danger of the US hypocricy in this arena.
It seems as if US-based writers are simply incapable of stating such obvious facts, which, in the end, undercuts the validity of their comments. In the Era of Armegeddon, such failures in logic and honesty are catostraphic.
"In such a world, the unthinkable would become the inevitable."
The irreversible mistake was inventing the bomb to begin with. It was possibly the evolutionary product of tribal rivalry plus cerebral cortex, popping up like Rosemary's baby in the demented incubator of WWII. We invented it and we used it, and then, having dimly realized what we had done, we tried to hoard the power while keeping the technology a secret. Einstein knew it wouldn't work, and told Truman so. Information is a liquid. How long before the Russian had it? A few years. The chain of inevitabilities began in the 1940s. And so here we are, in a world festering with animosity and nuclear recipes, lacking only a few dabs of plutonium to hit the market, waiting for the shoe to fall, soothing ourselves with the myth that we can stuff some kind of genie back into some kind of bottle. It's a little late for that. The only consolation is the perfect justice of it. What enemy has brought this horror upon us? Why, just ask Pogo.
The author decries the arrogance of exceptionalism, for which he faults the neocons. I think exceptionalism is an American mindset, based on wholesale ignorance of other societies, their freedoms, their health care systems, their life expectancies, the quality of their food and their lives. We are high on the list, but we are not numero uno any more. So it is surprising that the author reverts, at the end of the article, to the same arrogant assumption: "There is, in fact, only one country capable of becoming that (savior) nation. Us." Horse pucky. That nation is Finland, the people who got it right in 1968. America needs to sit down and shut up.
Many good points were made in both this article and the comments that followed.
The saddest part of our current situation is that there are still so many people willing to accept the argument that global warming is natural, even if humans have worsened it, and it is nothing to fear.
Actually, we have NO IDEA what the ramifications of global warming might be... in fact, we DO know that at several times in pre-history the Earth has shifted on it's axis... thus our magnetic poles are not the same ss our rotational poles at the moment. Ocean currents could make major changes, thus making some populated portions of the globe virtually uninhabitable... Coast lines and entire islands could become submerged.
We ALREADY know that just a few degrees in ocean temperatures can make hurricanes and cyclones much stronger, and bring severe drought to now fertile croplands.
We have seen the economic impact of drought on places like Ethiopia, Somalia, and other nations... imagine the damage that could be done by a comparable 20 year drought in the Midwest U.S.
Perhaps it IS unnecesssary to run around worrying about the sky falling... however, I think it is absolute idiocy to not consider the possibilities and devote serious study to contingencies.
So the US is the only country not following the Non-Proliferation Treaty? The other countries believed that we would abide by it? Suckers!
So you believe that voting in different corporate sponsored politicians will solve the problem? Sucker!
Americans must withdraw their consent from the ruling class and it's war-based, prison-based, money speculation-based economy. It won't be easy, but we have no alternative. We need to build an alternative economy and way of life, sustainable and equitable.
Voting for Democrats won't do it. Although you can vote for Kucinich to piss off the ruling class.
I agree with Atcheson, but I object to the implication nuclear "armageddon" is an imminent danger.
The risk of losing one or two cities to nuclear weapons is certainly on the increase.
But I'm not convinced that a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan, or Iran and Israel would cause the U.S., Britain, Russia, France and China to launch their their entire arsenals at each other without warning.
The cold war is over. NATO and Warsaw Pact forces no longer face each other in Germany. We are no longer at risk from the policies of nuclear "umbrellas", "tripwires" and "launch on warning".
To be sure, nukes are evil, and must be abolished. But using obsolete rhetoric about nuclear "holocaust" and "devastation" will only cause most Americans to cling more tightly to our bloated arsenal.
"We the People of the United States have a choice about our country's and the world's destiny, and we will make that choice in the 2008 elections. On the one hand, we can choose to elect leaders who will continue to act as if we are not subject to the civilizing rules of the international community, while insisting others are."
No, we don't have that choice; our elections are decided by money, media conglomerates, and those who operate the easy-fraud electronic voting machines. The world does not need a 'leader nation,' it needs America to tend to its own and become no more vocal or impact full than other countries. Scandinavia is the shining light of this planet; america is not and never will be.
jjohnjj:
A nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan, or any other countries, would be devestating to the whole Earth.
Those two countries have hundreds of millions of people, the pollution would spread worldwide through upper level wind currents (witness world-wide volcanic effects) and some form of "nuclear winter" would be sure to follow.
As horrible as the high-tech explosives of this era are, nuclear weapons are in a horrific class of their own.
As for a "nuclear exchange" between Iran and Israel: There won't be one. Only Israel has nuclear weapons. But their use would devestate the entire region -- including 'blow-back' pollution on Israel itself, and unleash a horrific backlash in the Islamic world against the West.
The long and short of it is that there is no way a nuclear exchange or attack can be "contained."
I believe that the conservative Neo-Con agenda is to deny global warming BECAUSE they see it as armageddon. In their eyes, when the rapture of global warming happens, half the worlds population will die, mostly in poor countries far away, and the chosen people, i.e., Americans, mostly rich white anlgo saxons, will be saved, and come through it all into a world without over population, etc.
we can choose to be truly exceptional, not simply by honoring our international obligations, but by actively leading the world community toward peace, prosperity and sustainability
Today, the world is realizing that it does not need the "exceptional" USA, and is better off leaving the "exceptional" USA behind. The world is re-gaining confidence that its "backwardness" in the face of capitalist/imperialist ridicule is and always has been the SUSTAINABLE WAY, where common sense is harnessed to benefit the entire society, to improve health and well-being, to reduce work weeks, to expand learning and understanding of the world we live in, and to protect and integrate our societies with the biosphere.
RTDURY -- Awesome posting !
Namaste
__ __ __ __ We must be the change
__ __ __ __ we wish to see in the world __ Gandhi
NSPIRE AND RTDRURY----So right---- As people who wish to have a LIFE-affirming impact on the planet, we must look clear-eyed into the face of the Beast. Unfortunately for so many US citzens, our attention has all too consistently and deliberately been mis-directed to the OTHER as the evildoers/threat. Thus we have been distracted from looking within and recognizing our blind allegiance to those who worship DEATH. Lulled into a sense of exceptionalism, we were successfully isolated from the rest of humankind and the ability to recognize our terribe impact on everyone else.
Those who wish to keep us in the dark, will continue to try to sever our common bond to all of LIFE, and sadly, it sometimes appears that they are succeeding all too well.
Chin up, LIGHTWORKERS, Life-affirmers, we are the many, and we are not alone. Whatever the reason for people stirring from their slumber/blindness, it is an inevitable awakening. The LIGHT beckons all to join and our combined blazing glory will not be extinguished.
Namaste
rtdury
thank you
Before one assumes that we could all survive a small nuclear exchange by other powers, one might want to refer back to discussions of the Cold War era concerning 'nuclear winter'. It would not take a full nuclear exchange of the entire arsenals of the US and Russia to kill off life as we know it on this planet.
Typing 'nuclear winter' into google led to this page, Carl Sagan's famous article on the topic from the early 1980's.
http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/sagan_nuclear_winter.html
"We considered a war in which a mere 100 megatons were exploded, less than one percent of the world arsenals, and only in low-yield airbursts over cities. This scenario, we found, would ignite thousands of fires, and the smoke from these fires alone would be enough to generate an epoch of cold and dark almost as severe as in the 5000 megaton case. The threshold for what Richard Turco has called The Nuclear Winter is very low."
The only 'good news' is that India and Pakistan don't seem to have moved from the Hiroshima style fission bombs to the next step of Hydrogen bombs (aka fusion bombs). Its the hydrogen bombs in the US and Russian arsenals that I believe have yields in the 40-50 megaton range. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs had yields more in the 20 kiloton range, so presumably the fission bombs of places like India and Pakistan would likely be similar. Thus today, they are below Sagan's study of 100 mt.
The bad news is that countries like the US and Russia that developed fission bombs typically had fusion bombs within a decade.
And more bad news is that Sagan is only considering the blockage of sunlight from the smoke and debris. There is also the radioactive fallout to consider. The record from nuclear testing and events like Chernobyl is that this will travel around the world.
In the 2008 elections, which likely nominee of either party would work to eliminate nuclear weapons? The answer is none. As the American people, we really aren't given this as a possible choice. To become a nominee of either major party, one has to have already bought into the idea of supporting nuclear weapons.
You certainly won't ever hear Obama, Edwards or Clinton saying anything else. Maybe some mealy-mouth language about wanting to contain weapons, but never, ever anything about America giving up its nukes.
And, the system is rigged such that the Kucinich's of the world won't ever get the nomination.
PS ... to anyone who's studied 'chaotic math', the idea of global warming is very scary. Such chaotic systems as the earth's climate tend to stay in 'orbits' that are similar, but not the same each time around. Each year is a bit different, but in relatively the same 'orbit'.
However, when such a system is 'disturbed', it can completely jump into a new orbit that hasn't been seen before. This happens very quickly. Maybe somewhere there was a line that was approached where if crossed the other 'orbit' becomes the preferred solution. An existing orbit can come close to that line, but no major change is noted. But if it crosses that line, it suddenly jumps to the other set of solutions.
All the models I've ever seen for climate change assume that the solution stays basically the same. The earth will get warmer, but its assumed to happen in a basically linear and predictable fashion of so many degrees over the next century.
Meanwhile, studies of ice samples from the polar regions instead indicate that the climate can change very quickly, maybe in the course of a decade.
COMarc - Yes, so very true.
Chaos theory (even Maxwell Smart's Khaos) is all about semi-regular (periodic cycles, as you mention), but then turbulence occurs, which has brought many an airplane down, and then there are the "strange attractors" that seemingly control the weird aspects of 'the gear switching' between different modes - nominally NOT a good thing. -- as that is the moment that THINGS CROSS the line.
For example_I_: CAT is clear air Turbulence, and detection needs special side looking radar to let airports know of such a serious risk to any plane nearby.
For example_II_: like cavitation on a speed boats motor, where more power does nothing - as you're spinning the prop in boiled water = air).
For example_III_: Ever hear evolutionists talk about punctuated equilibriums? Another aspect of very high genetic turbulence, where survival is radically altered and usually for the worse.
Just keep saying LAMINAR (linear, in a line smoothly) flow is GOOD, but turbulent and chaotic flow is really twisted and literally upsetting.
Once the Earth's feedback systems, equilibrium, and robustness of climate change tips over, who exactly in the re-THUGlican party is going to be able to find the RESET switch?
It - doesn't matter - as nature solves these types of problems on a several million year basis == trust mother nature here == she really does know how to take care of her HOME - by getting ride of all of the parasites mucking up the works!
I guess having a spare Earth, didn't quite get paid for, by all of the greedy 4th, 5th and 6th mansion BUILDERs, oh well - we'll a great view of the END
Namaste
__ __ __ __ We must be the change
__ __ __ __ we wish to see in the world __ Gandhi
Impeachment? Go here NOW and watch and listen from New Hampshire:
http://www.kucinichtv.com/
I think John Atcheson has said it all - - no further comment needed!
We can only have peace when all countries have nuclear weapons and Mutually Assured Destruction (M.A.D.). That is the unfortunate truth in a world run by conservatives.
Mucha Gracias John,
I have read your article with great interest as an inner-city adult from the infamous NYC housing projects. I have read some books on issues of empire and violence towards others. Particularly those of color..whether they are Arabs, Jews, Japanese, Filipinos and Latin Americans, and least not forget the Native Americans.
Arrogance and with power of nuclear weapons kills violently like Hiroshima or Nagasaki is a definite fear factor for most...As one who speaks English as a second language I have found that the hypocrisy of the English language is indeed a triple tongue babel and a greater weapon. Knowing friends from the inner-cities who served in Viet Nam, I read and experienced racism from the poorest fighting a war against others of color as less humans? Afro-Americans and Hispanics are doing the same in Iraq calling them...desert N...ggers or towel heads...Conditioning (corruption) of Language and control of media non-sense appears to work for poor of all races against others in poorer countries.
My observations are that many of color have had this similar observation some forty-odd years ago and we are now witnessing what we discussed in our youth. Like Prometheus stealing fire from the Gods...The white race steals and covets Nuclear power...Black race is the caretaker of water, Yellow race, caretaker of air and the Red race, caretaker of the earth. And the white race is the caretaker of fire. That's an ancient Hopi prophecy...Known to inner-city homeboy's long ago in the murders Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and many others...Andrew Goodman comes quickly to mind... When are the white boys coming home to peace and corporation with his brothers and sisters of color? I am still learning the English language and apologies for the syntax or dangling participles...This is not placing a guilt trip on any race...It's a natural observation, like the logic of the four natural directions of a compass out of balance...It gets into a deeper sense and intense observation when wondering of the ten directions...plain apocalyptic chaos.
I feel that making more nuclear plants is not a good idea. There is still no method for dealing with the deadly waste on the horizon as far as I can see. Is it possible that Isreal could destroy the United Stated with nuclear bombs? Yes, if they have two to four hundred of them. Probably with the means to get them here. I worry more about the madmen running our own government doing a false flag attack against us to further their demented agenda.
They have now anounced an agreement for permanent bases in Iraq. This has been their object all along. What they do is against my principals. I believe we could do things the right way and still live well. They are insane and greedy and should not have access to the control of power. Kucinich and Ron Paul are both decent human beings who I could approve of for the job of President and I don't believe are beholding to the power structure.
With luck and persistence maybe we can bring back our country to what it was a long time ago.
"The cold war is over. NATO and Warsaw Pact forces no longer face each other in Germany. "
Where are Russia's nuclear missiles pointed? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
Strength through Peace ©
By Robert R.Goldsborough III
Tempo 95
STRENGTH through PEACE, every other way is no way.
STRENGTH through PEACE now's the time to start, today.
Nothing less will do, nothing else can take its place
It's the right way: STRENGTH through PEACE.
It's the right way: STRENGTH through PEACE.
We don't need to be addicted to permanent war
That way's no way, it's the wrong way
We need STRENGTH through PEACE
Let the whole world know that we wish to be
Their partner in peace, not their leader through war. (chorus)
It's time to break the shackles of fear and lies
Violence creates violence and lifelong enemies.
We need STRENGTH through PEACE
Peace at home and throughout the world
Will never last if it comes through war (chorus)
We must be the change we wish to see in the world
Change begins with each of us and ripples out.
We need STRENGTH through PEACE
When the power of love overcomes the love of power
We will have peace
STRENGTH through PEACE
© copyright All rights reserved by Robert R.Goldsborough III 8/28/2007.
rrgoldiii@sbcglobal.net
PDA is conducting this straw poll to determine which of the currently declared Democratic Candidates our membership is supporting for President.
Polling is open until 3pm Eastern time on December 4.)
https://www.pdamerica.org/polls/poll-pres-2008-1.php
This article really says it all and none of our comments can refute the basic argument. Unfortunately for all of us, the United States will not emerge as the savior of the world this time.
Additionally, please see this insightful article that illustrates the economic situation that we face in the immediate future:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/11/26/2416/6198
GILBERTO: Interesting Hopi prophecy as per elements and the root races. Thanks for posting it.
Your are very welcome Siouxrose,
Native brothers shared the Hopi prophecy with me in San Francisco, circa 1968. And still Racism and coming together is a very touchy, sensitive issue, and many call it a class thing. No need to discuss what has been in so many countries and only the indigenous of America has been able to forgive the unforgivable.
Un abrazo,
Gilberto
Whether health care, big business, environment, energy alternatives, toxicity in the environment or any and all of these it comes down to who has the courage to talk about all of them rather than focusing on the pin head. You want to hear about health care? The advance of environmentally based health problems by a toxic environment and air related pandemics is what we are looking at in the next few years with rising temperatures
The people of the USA have been so ill informed as to what a change would really do to this country that they have forgotten that no one could be worse than George Bush. . . No one! The real problem is not Kucinich as president, the problem is that he puts his emphasis on the wrong problem at the wrong time. The problem is getting him into a credible platform of ideas and I say to him while impeachment is necessary, it is unlikely. There is not enough time and the issues most pressing are again avoided, like the environment and those really important before the congress now! The issue of the election will affect the economy and the future of the USA as no other. None of the candidates are really talking on the major points the environment in association with the economy or health care.
The environmental news coming out is not new but it is very grave and keeps being pushed to more urgency as new research comes to light. If any one reading this comment cares to look at the website of NASA, the research papers of James Hansen in particular that were published long before gore was on the scene and many since, they would understand that we really can not deal with much more than one degree to two and half degrees Celsius of warming at its maximum to ward off the most serious effects of industrial societies pollution and to offset this growing catastrophe. At about two and half degrees warming which is presently in the pipeline we will be dealing with about 550 ppm of carbon in the atmosphere, a rate actually above the tipping point of one and half degrees warming. This is the absolute figure to avoid the major positive feedback loops that are starting and scheduled to kick in by 2020 or earlier if nothing is done quickly. Positive feedback are starting now with methane now being released on the tundra into the atmosphere a four times addition to greenhouse gasses and causing the poles and glaciers to melt more rapidly, or has no one noticed?
The below scenario excerpted from the climate articles here on commondreams tell us clearly without rapid change runaway climate change and their feedback loops are in reach within 10 to 30 years if nothing is done rapidly. The positive feedback loops will melt the remainder of the glaciers and perhaps dump Greenland into the sea as well. Also, the melting of additional ice-shelf's at the poles. That means perhaps a 3 to 30 foot ocean rise by the end of this century, but the process is beginning now and in 20 years or less without rapid change in economic direction the human race will reach a point of no return. The press continues to bend the information toward the global economic agenda thus minimizing it. India for example is less concerned about climate change than they are about economic production, although their neighbor Bangladesh is slipping into the sea . Still in India, there are several moves in the direction of smaller is better concepts of reality.
There will be sufficient human displacement of people on this planet to bring American citizens into a nightmare scenario that makes the present Mexican border problem a walk in the park. What about the transfer of health risks as a result of this problem? Not to mention water and food related issues and the economy, always the economy
Yet is seems the political discussion rests on the complete list of talking points in isolation, such as Clinton's health package and its cost, rather than what is really at stake the complete interrelated package of all these issues and more. The media reduces the public debate to its most simplistic level and all here are arguing about one issue or another rather than the entire package . The media keeps the public dumbed down for obvious reasons they represent the money people. As a result we become unable to talk about moving radically to deal with climate change the first and major issue which affects all other issues and is completely related to economic change.
The world does not have (much later) before a more aggressive approach to all the issues beginning with climate change now! Remember New Orleans? Within next 10 to 20 years is where it all hangs. If nothing is done very soon it will mark the beginning of the end for the human race. Those appear to be the facts and no technology will stop runaway climate change once it begins, indeed if we look at the melting poles the worst case is much more apparent than formerly believed . . .it has already begun!!
Perhaps it might be too late now, according to James Lovelock it has begun. James Hansen at NASA makes a very compelling case for the time frame of the stay in office of the next president of the USA and so does the un. I think anyone who really wishes to be informed should go to the websites of these people mentioned here or the IPCC. It is technical information but worth taking the time to inform yourself. The answer is to start working quickly for change and vote for those candidates who speak of change and another direction and who represent ideas rather than special interests. For example the best work would be to defeat the pro-business Clintons and elect Kucinich or Obama or possibly a joint ticket while we know they have an outside chance they are the best possibility for change.
But we all know business interests will prevail with Clinton capturing the vote and a pro-business a vote at that against the environment. No one running on the democratic side could be worse than bush. Anyone who can think understands that the business interests control the environmental agenda and most candidates. The republicans will continue the work of burying the planet as will pro-business democratic candidates most of whom have been bought, whether by health interests or anything else concerning big money.
The facts of the science is what is important. What the environmental facts really suggest is economic depression in the west in the near term. But if we are really serious about saving the planet (no one wants to hear that if they are connected to big money) it means voting for change!! But environment, water, energy production these are the real issues of this election campaign but no one would dare mention them in association with change in economic direction for fear of defeat.
A redirection and a retooling of the global economy and of America is in order and that is not a popular issue on wall street or people invested in wall street. . .most everyone in one way or another.
We have to change rapidly and move to a none-stop production of environmental invention and energy alternatives for the western world and developing nations rapidly. It also means rapid technology transfer for the developing world without delay, this may save us some time. A cut of 80% of the carbon emissions within the next 10 years is in order and it must be done beginning now and well on the way before 2012 the next date for Kyoto. Kyoto is a western world fabrication to tell us we can keep polluting while where figuring a way to deal with this crisis economically.
A change of the present direction of economic production and fast move in a different direction economically for the use is what is required by anyone that can think and put simple figures in context of this crisis. The world is waiting for this move by the Americans and watch the dollar rise rapidly once this plan would be announced if ever. This is why this upcoming election is so critical and the results of it will determine whether the human race survives. . . . It is that critical! The economic change in direction could possibly reemploy a lot of people who have lost their work in the polluting industries. This is the challenge to America to remake itself after eight years of the Bush/Cheney regime. It is equivalent to a fight for survival that required the retooling of America at the outbreak of WW 2. It requires change in the so-called war on terror, a bush fabrication advanced by the media which is a money centered mind conditioning creation and finally it means leaving Iraq, and using those resources to fight the real enemy to survival, the western consumer, hydro carbon based, societies of the western world.
Who knows that might mean less of an investment in china and more of an investment the western world for a healthier environment, the Chinese might follow that example as well.
Which candidate will say this to America? Which candidate will really tell the truth? If they did they wouldn't have a chance in this election because Americans don't want to hear that! Any one having the courage to really tell the truth would find themselves on the next train to Siberia. But the economy is the issues and that is determined by the war in Iraq. The illegal bush-war that Kucinich wants to impeach bush for takes us into another direction and not thought out. He is focused on the lies of bush rather than the future of the world.
The production of alternative energy will soak up the idle job market, indeed it is doing so now! With a shift to the priority of economic production and development directed at saving this world and its equilibrium, means in simple terms a crash economic change which is vitally necessary, without that we are done. If any one thinks that we can continue with an oil economy and business as usual with a consumer based society, they are living in the world of denial which so much of the western world occupies. The below is a light message compared with what the truth really is: from UN sources of information!
The world needs to spend 1.6 percent of global economic output annually through 2030 to stabilize the carbon stock and meet the 3.6-degree Fahrenheit temperature target. Rich countries, the biggest carbon emitters, should lead the way and cut emissions at least 30 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050. Developing nations should cut emissions 20 percent by 2050, the UNDP says."
The above is letting you down lightly is really not what the actual projections are. The world will crash in on the global populations is what the information below is saying. There really is no place in this discussion for a 5.4 to 7.2 Fahrenheit degree rise in temperature. . . .this scenario painted with the these numbers below is a different planet closer to mars not earth. The news media play with numbers like the lottery. We can tolerate one to perhaps two and half degrees warming at the outside, . . .in the next 50 to 90 years. . .that's it!!!!! An additional 3 degrees to five degrees Fahrenheit is three more degrees greater than this climate and its creatures can sustain or endure without collapse!! This quoted from the recent un assertions here in commondreams:
"a temperature rise of between 5.4 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit (3 and 4 degrees Celsius) would displace 340 million people through flooding, droughts would diminish farm output, and retreating glaciers would cut off drinking water from as many as 1.8 billion people, the report says." this is an understatement and conservative.
The above report is economically associated and conservative as well as misleading!!! Forget this idea of 5.4 to 7.2 Fahrenheit of warming that is the Martian landscape because it allows for the runaway positive feedbacks to take hold. Whomever believes this world can sustain this degree of warming is either working for the American enterprise institute, a conservative think tank or is gathering this information from the laboratory at XXON/Mobile!!??????
Meanwhile the group here is discussing who will give us better health care on a dying planet and impeachment of bush a good way to avoid dealing with the truth. We can be suspect of anyone who says they have the truth. The need for understanding this current cast of characters wanting to be president is important. None of this group has the faintest idea of what we are really dealing with in terms of global warming numbers concerning the environment, and if they did they would not tell the public. They know its bad and their advisers are telling them they can't deal with this issue to get elected by the masses.
These are the people above who are worrying where their next bag of groceries comes from and the money to pay the rent! They really don't give a damn about the environmental issues. . And no time for thinking about 10 to 20 years from today that has no realty attached to it for most Americans or the rest of the four and half billion people on this earth in the same situation. . . .
Or, for the rest of the population working for and controlled by big business and big money. . .that is what this election is really about and if one thinks about the complexity of all these interrelated issues we know that we can not beat the odds that business will win. That means the future for humanity is limited even for the one percent that has everything.
IKE