About 1947 statisticians said that 94% of the wealth of the world was in the good ole USA, and 6% of the people (or something like that).
I was a young man, but I knew that couldn't go on-. Today the $30/hr auto worker is employed at '$10/hr or so, and the Mexican people, who used to live on about a dollar a day is now making $3/hr in an American factory. But the factories are moving to China where the labor may cost only $1/day. So proceeds globalization, fiercely debated in recent years and no doubt in years to come.
----------------------------------
Quoting (paraphrasing!) Barnett again:
The core: the 'civilized world' (the globalized world), connected with communication, transportation, commerce, and rules of procedure generally respected.
The gap: call it the Wild West of the 21st century, where 'justice' comes out of the mouth of the (21st century) six shooter
The U.S. military has become the sheriff, involved in beaucoup police actions-- in Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and a host of other places scattered over the world-- no, the gap. (This has already happened!!). The big wars are said to be in the past. (Unfortunately IMO Barnett has not dealt adequately with the present war in Iraq.)
When it comes to other things-- like the U.S. budget and deficits, the shortage of troops, etc. Barnett seems myopic; he doesn't seem to deal with them.
He has a vision of bifurcation of the war machine into a powerful army for the 'big wars' (hopefully not ever coming), and what he calls the System Adminstrator, with the kind of people who know how to wage peace (great shortage of them in Iraq, although Barnett did mention that in his 2004 book). They know how to bring 'law' in places where it's an unknown quantity. Then connection (globalization) can occur, raising their lot and quelling their discontent.
A neat scheme and optimistic vision of the future where the towns of the Wild West are encouraged to choose order over chaos, and replace violence with discipline, and consequent prosperity.
That would happen when these countries become connected.
I wish!
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Monday, October 02, 2006
Religious Absolutism
Reading Turbulent Souls led to the following reflection:
One of the less attractive features that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have in common is a significant number of loveless (no hateful) fanatics. Whatever territory they control some of them will to go to any length to protect the purity of their environment.
Stephem Dubner, born in New York in 1963, was in the third generation of a family of Polish Hasidic Jews who had settled in Brooklyn among multitudes of people of the same persuasion.
Stephen's father and mother grew beyond the tribalistic culture of their birth; his father served in the Army in WWII, and his mother began a budding career in ballet. They rubbed shoulders with gentiles, which most of their families had never done. More, they wandered into a community of Catholic youth, and in the course of time they became ardent Catholics; in their language they converted.
Their children were raised just a strictly, not to say rigidly, as they had been, but of a different religion. But these children went into the secular world and did not seem to be affected by the religious rigidity of their Catholic parents or Jewish grandparents.
There had been practically no communication across the first two generations. Stephen studied at Appalachian St. Univ in NC and then moved to New York City. Curious about his ancestors he restablished a relationship (after many lost years) and became better and better acquainted with the Jewish culture.
........
With Turbulent Souls Stephen Dubner has written a spiritual autobiography of the highest caliber.
Three examples came to mind of religious absolutism at its worst:
1. When Stephen's father became a Catholic his grandfather acted as if he had died and thereafter refused any further contact with him; he forbid his son's name to be mentioned.
2. Large numbers of Christian fundamentalists today support Israel avidly, not through any sense of kinship but because they hope to see them provoke Armageddon, a preliminary to The Rapture, where they expect to be definitively and finally separated from the rest of us.
In the last century bigoted and violent Catholics in at least one large South American country cut off the right hand of any Protestants they could find.
3. We have already been adequately exposed to the excesses of Islamic absolutists.
Thankfully a large proportion (probably the majority) of Christians, Jews and Muslims have not been infected by the aggressively exclusivistic brands of their faith. Love and charity are universal and include not only these three faiths but many others.
One of the less attractive features that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have in common is a significant number of loveless (no hateful) fanatics. Whatever territory they control some of them will to go to any length to protect the purity of their environment.
Stephem Dubner, born in New York in 1963, was in the third generation of a family of Polish Hasidic Jews who had settled in Brooklyn among multitudes of people of the same persuasion.
Stephen's father and mother grew beyond the tribalistic culture of their birth; his father served in the Army in WWII, and his mother began a budding career in ballet. They rubbed shoulders with gentiles, which most of their families had never done. More, they wandered into a community of Catholic youth, and in the course of time they became ardent Catholics; in their language they converted.
Their children were raised just a strictly, not to say rigidly, as they had been, but of a different religion. But these children went into the secular world and did not seem to be affected by the religious rigidity of their Catholic parents or Jewish grandparents.
There had been practically no communication across the first two generations. Stephen studied at Appalachian St. Univ in NC and then moved to New York City. Curious about his ancestors he restablished a relationship (after many lost years) and became better and better acquainted with the Jewish culture.
........
With Turbulent Souls Stephen Dubner has written a spiritual autobiography of the highest caliber.
Three examples came to mind of religious absolutism at its worst:
1. When Stephen's father became a Catholic his grandfather acted as if he had died and thereafter refused any further contact with him; he forbid his son's name to be mentioned.
2. Large numbers of Christian fundamentalists today support Israel avidly, not through any sense of kinship but because they hope to see them provoke Armageddon, a preliminary to The Rapture, where they expect to be definitively and finally separated from the rest of us.
In the last century bigoted and violent Catholics in at least one large South American country cut off the right hand of any Protestants they could find.
3. We have already been adequately exposed to the excesses of Islamic absolutists.
Thankfully a large proportion (probably the majority) of Christians, Jews and Muslims have not been infected by the aggressively exclusivistic brands of their faith. Love and charity are universal and include not only these three faiths but many others.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Pacifism
In the dismal economic wilderness of the thirties an arch-criminal took possession of Germany (including the hearts and minds of many or most). Meanwhile pacifism reigned supreme in England, and likely much of the continent.
Hitler began to swallow up Europe, and enslave the conquered people. After he annexed much of Czechoslovakia, England's prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, went to Europe to confab with him and returning home announced "peace in our time", to great acclamation.
But the rest of Czechoslovakia soon became part of the Third Reich. Same for Austria. Then he invaded Poland, and the war began. When it looked like Hitler was about to take over their country, the Brits turned from pacifism ; they began to fight like demons.
Not so the Jews; they persevered in their pacifism and meekly allowed themselves to be slaughtered-- ten million of them.
In the long term England and the rest of the world paid a heavy price for their pacifism. Among other casualties something like 100 million people died in Russia, a trauma from which they have not recovered.
-------------
Sunday a man named John, who had spent most of his life is Laos and other countries of SE Asia rose at the Quaker Meeting to share a recent experience. He had been to that unfortunate land recently and visited a large cemetery where rested thousands of Brits, Americans, and others who had been prisoners of the Japanese. John was visibly affected by this and had difficulty finishing his message.
There had just been an anniversary of Hiroshima, which the Quakers had made much of. I knew that John was out of the mode among those good Quakers. After about 20 silent minutes I rose to share my WWII experiences. I pointed out that Cologne, and some other cities in Germany, had suffered a very similar fate, the primary difference being that more planes were used than at Hiroshima.
Agreeing that we all hate war, I ventured to suggest some positive effects of the dreadful WWII.
(Discussing this post with Ellie she pointed out that non-violence is a good and virtuous ideal in regard to protection of your own life or property, but less so when encountering horrible violence against others.
She went on to say that non violence led the Jews to go to the ovens like lambs to the slaughter, and we averted our eyes. Likewise with Somalia, Sudan, and many other recent victims of "ethnic cleansing". Can anyone do anything? Probably not because we are "good Americans" rather than members of the human race.)
I expected a torrent of 'rebuttals'-- with good reason. It came to me that John witnessed from experience while the others witnessed only a posture.
(It would not suprise me to receive a torrent of Quaker comments re this post; no, it would gratify me very much.)
Hitler began to swallow up Europe, and enslave the conquered people. After he annexed much of Czechoslovakia, England's prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, went to Europe to confab with him and returning home announced "peace in our time", to great acclamation.
But the rest of Czechoslovakia soon became part of the Third Reich. Same for Austria. Then he invaded Poland, and the war began. When it looked like Hitler was about to take over their country, the Brits turned from pacifism ; they began to fight like demons.
Not so the Jews; they persevered in their pacifism and meekly allowed themselves to be slaughtered-- ten million of them.
In the long term England and the rest of the world paid a heavy price for their pacifism. Among other casualties something like 100 million people died in Russia, a trauma from which they have not recovered.
-------------
Sunday a man named John, who had spent most of his life is Laos and other countries of SE Asia rose at the Quaker Meeting to share a recent experience. He had been to that unfortunate land recently and visited a large cemetery where rested thousands of Brits, Americans, and others who had been prisoners of the Japanese. John was visibly affected by this and had difficulty finishing his message.
There had just been an anniversary of Hiroshima, which the Quakers had made much of. I knew that John was out of the mode among those good Quakers. After about 20 silent minutes I rose to share my WWII experiences. I pointed out that Cologne, and some other cities in Germany, had suffered a very similar fate, the primary difference being that more planes were used than at Hiroshima.
Agreeing that we all hate war, I ventured to suggest some positive effects of the dreadful WWII.
(Discussing this post with Ellie she pointed out that non-violence is a good and virtuous ideal in regard to protection of your own life or property, but less so when encountering horrible violence against others.
She went on to say that non violence led the Jews to go to the ovens like lambs to the slaughter, and we averted our eyes. Likewise with Somalia, Sudan, and many other recent victims of "ethnic cleansing". Can anyone do anything? Probably not because we are "good Americans" rather than members of the human race.)
I expected a torrent of 'rebuttals'-- with good reason. It came to me that John witnessed from experience while the others witnessed only a posture.
(It would not suprise me to receive a torrent of Quaker comments re this post; no, it would gratify me very much.)
Saturday, September 23, 2006
The Gap
Two ways of winning the war on terror have been posited:
The President proposed that we 'hold to account' any nation that supports terrorism. Does he mean all of them? That would mean about 30 (at least) Iraqs, stretching into the next century. We might become a nation of warriors something like Sparta.
Clearly there will always be terrorists wherever underpriviliged populations are concentrated. We're talking about violent crime; 95% of American violent crimes come from ghettos (underprivileged populations- large numbers of people with no stake in our education or economy.
It's like that worldwide; one third of the world's population live in such places. That area includes the above mentioned 30 nations. They comprise what has been called the gap, the Barnett gap:
"To be successful the US military must stop thinking of war in the context of war but war in the context of "everything else", i.e. demographics, energy, investment, security, politics, trade, immigration, etc." (quoted from the wikipedia article on The Pentagon's New Map.
The book I got for $2 at a closeout store in GA. the map, worldwide, shows the core (largely the northern hemisphere) where globalization promotes a 'rule set' where conflicts are economic in nature and life is (relatively) good). The gap is the rest, where poverty, oppression, frequent military activity abound.
Barnett's idea seems to be that globalization (and cultural sanity) will progress, but bad actors (on the world scene) must be dealt with by a police force, like they are internally. The scary thing about his idea is that our military must act as the primary police agency.
His book elicited an enormous amount of dissent and hostility, and also considerable approval. I haven't yet decided which side I'll come down on.
The least you can say about Barnett is that his ideas are provocative.
The President proposed that we 'hold to account' any nation that supports terrorism. Does he mean all of them? That would mean about 30 (at least) Iraqs, stretching into the next century. We might become a nation of warriors something like Sparta.
Clearly there will always be terrorists wherever underpriviliged populations are concentrated. We're talking about violent crime; 95% of American violent crimes come from ghettos (underprivileged populations- large numbers of people with no stake in our education or economy.
It's like that worldwide; one third of the world's population live in such places. That area includes the above mentioned 30 nations. They comprise what has been called the gap, the Barnett gap:
"To be successful the US military must stop thinking of war in the context of war but war in the context of "everything else", i.e. demographics, energy, investment, security, politics, trade, immigration, etc." (quoted from the wikipedia article on The Pentagon's New Map.
The book I got for $2 at a closeout store in GA. the map, worldwide, shows the core (largely the northern hemisphere) where globalization promotes a 'rule set' where conflicts are economic in nature and life is (relatively) good). The gap is the rest, where poverty, oppression, frequent military activity abound.
Barnett's idea seems to be that globalization (and cultural sanity) will progress, but bad actors (on the world scene) must be dealt with by a police force, like they are internally. The scary thing about his idea is that our military must act as the primary police agency.
His book elicited an enormous amount of dissent and hostility, and also considerable approval. I haven't yet decided which side I'll come down on.
The least you can say about Barnett is that his ideas are provocative.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Great Trip and Lively Kid
We've always loved the Smokies, moved to NC in fact in 1961 to be near them. You might say our lives have revolved around those sainted mountains.
Gatlinburg, ugh! It used to be a lovely little town, but it's been overwhelmed with motels and tourists. However go a mile up the mountain, and it's pretty much like it was 50 years ago. Lovely!, smashing! inspiring! In the old days I used to flee to the mountains whenever my spirit was bruised. What therapy!
After our alloted (and treasured) time we went to a mid sized southern town to see Ellie's sister and fam. Great meal, but the conversation was loud and noisy. I've never been a great fan of casual adult conversation, and less and less so as the years go by. So I headed out of the dining room, but on the way I encountered this two year old; I grabbed him and turned him upside down. Scared him a little bit; he checked to see his mom and dad were still there, but he was kind of intrigued.
He followed me into the kitchen, so I asked him to show me his toys. He had a new one which he proudly exhibited; then we reviewed his farm. I went into the living room and turned on the TV, hoping to get the evening news. But he had other toys to show me: he turned on the video (country music), turned on (and off) the lights several times, turned on a small vacuum cleaner-- lots of toys to show Larry. I could see I wasn't going to get much out of the news.
I went off into the bedroom to read my book; my feet were getting pretty dead so I pulled the chair up next to the bed and put my feet up on it.
Soon the kid came in-- curious about my position. So I worked my legs up and down a few times. This excited him enormously; with my help he climbed up on the bed and began his own form of exercise: he would jump up and down a few times and then belly flop on the bed-- great fun!!!
His mother came; I thought she would stop him, but she was permissive; we both enjoyed his ebullience; I told her he ought to sleep well tonight.
After a while he had enough of that; he went back into the rest of the house where the adults were, but ever so often he would check on me and take a few bounces.
Then I heard his mother say to him that they must go home. He came back and asked me to help him up to the bed for another bounce, but I put my arm around him and told him his mother wanted him to go with her now. He obediently turned around and went out, but he came back to tell me goodbye a couple of times.
Say, that's some kind of a real kid.
Gatlinburg, ugh! It used to be a lovely little town, but it's been overwhelmed with motels and tourists. However go a mile up the mountain, and it's pretty much like it was 50 years ago. Lovely!, smashing! inspiring! In the old days I used to flee to the mountains whenever my spirit was bruised. What therapy!
After our alloted (and treasured) time we went to a mid sized southern town to see Ellie's sister and fam. Great meal, but the conversation was loud and noisy. I've never been a great fan of casual adult conversation, and less and less so as the years go by. So I headed out of the dining room, but on the way I encountered this two year old; I grabbed him and turned him upside down. Scared him a little bit; he checked to see his mom and dad were still there, but he was kind of intrigued.
He followed me into the kitchen, so I asked him to show me his toys. He had a new one which he proudly exhibited; then we reviewed his farm. I went into the living room and turned on the TV, hoping to get the evening news. But he had other toys to show me: he turned on the video (country music), turned on (and off) the lights several times, turned on a small vacuum cleaner-- lots of toys to show Larry. I could see I wasn't going to get much out of the news.
I went off into the bedroom to read my book; my feet were getting pretty dead so I pulled the chair up next to the bed and put my feet up on it.
Soon the kid came in-- curious about my position. So I worked my legs up and down a few times. This excited him enormously; with my help he climbed up on the bed and began his own form of exercise: he would jump up and down a few times and then belly flop on the bed-- great fun!!!
His mother came; I thought she would stop him, but she was permissive; we both enjoyed his ebullience; I told her he ought to sleep well tonight.
After a while he had enough of that; he went back into the rest of the house where the adults were, but ever so often he would check on me and take a few bounces.
Then I heard his mother say to him that they must go home. He came back and asked me to help him up to the bed for another bounce, but I put my arm around him and told him his mother wanted him to go with her now. He obediently turned around and went out, but he came back to tell me goodbye a couple of times.
Say, that's some kind of a real kid.
Friday, September 15, 2006
Forsaken?
Before he died on the cross, Jesus is reported to have said:
"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34")(also Psalm 22:1!)
Reading from page 42 of Elaine Pagel's Beyond Belief:
"At the desolate scene of the crucifixion Mark tells how Jesus cried out that God had abandoned him....and died".
IMO not true! He didn't feel abandoned! he was quoting the Psalm, assuming that the Jewish observers would know where the quote came from and remember what happened in the Pslam.
He was telling them what lay ahead!! Read the whole Psalm.
"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34")(also Psalm 22:1!)
Reading from page 42 of Elaine Pagel's Beyond Belief:
"At the desolate scene of the crucifixion Mark tells how Jesus cried out that God had abandoned him....and died".
IMO not true! He didn't feel abandoned! he was quoting the Psalm, assuming that the Jewish observers would know where the quote came from and remember what happened in the Pslam.
He was telling them what lay ahead!! Read the whole Psalm.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
A New Revelation
kubuntu
God wills us all to be computer literate
The invention of the desktop computer could be the greatest liberating force mankind has experienced since, well at least since the establishment of 'democracy' (sort of) in the New World, and perhaps as far back as that historical moment in Palestine and the consequent New Testament culture.
But all three of these above named moments had a cap. The cap came when another god emerged: he goes by many names; one of the most popular names in our time is free enterprise. The first dictate of this god was to believe that the general welfare is best achieved through the particular prosperity of a chosen few enterprising individuals, or conversely the biggest yacht raises all the little canoes,
A corollary to this is that general prosperity ensues when the general population remains dumb, fat, and happy.
The alternative god has put forth that program with outstanding success, notably at 325 A.D., the 19th century in America, and at Harvard around 1980. The effect on the three great liberating forces was --- de-liberating.
1. In the dark and middle ages believers remained compliant while an enormous structure of wealth arose in Italy.
2. Free education became more and more a matter of socializing children with the aim of making them obedient and free from dreams. In the 20th century dreams were provided by Hollywood and then by TV, all of which very satisfactorily dumbed and fattened the population especially making them profitable to the enterprising few.
3. We come now to the big event that led to Kubuntu:
Consumer computing was born in the late 70's. Prior to that computing was the domain of technocratic priests wearing white coats. With the invention of the desktop things changed. It was potentially a magnificent blow for 'freedom for the masses'-- if the masses would buy it.
In those early days Boston was the center: at Harvard and M.I.T. a new brand of managers came into existence. Many of them had ideals (liberte, egalite, fraternity, to lapse into French for a moment). But there were also some enterprising individuals more or less on the take.
One of these belonged to a group of students developing Basic (Basic means little today, but it was the door to freedom for a fair number of non-enterprising folk, among them yours truly. A door to democratization, mental and spiritual abundance opened for all who would come in.
Basic was very much of a cooperative and non-commercial venture, but the enterprising individual took basic and ran with it, and became a multi-billionaire and spawned hundreds, maybe thousands of little millionaires.
Their spiritual product was to develop a new generation of dumb, fat, and lazy computerists. Each paid a toll and bought a program for a fair sum. Soon every desktop (and laptop) on the market contained the program (with the toll or fair sum). Everybody was happy, and the enterprising community laughed their way to the bank.
But this free enterprise paradise had its share of troublemakers: some non-enterprising individuals started giving things away. Geocities gave away millions of websites, and their bounty returned to them seven fold (it was eventually sold to Yahoo for a few billion).
A similar thing happened with the first browser. Free Netscape really cramped the style, and the profits of the company browser until it was sold to AOL for billions; talk about seven fold!
The most serious threat to the computer dynasty came in the nineties at the hands of another Harvard student, this one from Finland.
In the 21st century the really big event came at the hands of a free spending South African billionaire. He released Ubuntu, a free operating system, rapidly becoming easier and easier to use. Then there's Kubuntu, the subject on my mind when I began this post. But perhaps it should wait for another one.
For now I can only tell you that ubuntu is a Zulu word meaning "A South African ideology focusing on people's allegiances and relations with each other" (Wiki)
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