It used to be that the worst we could do was to kill off a few of our own species by instigating nasty but localized disasters...
think: Chernobyl, Hiroshima, the Holocaust, Cambodia's Killing Fields, Bhopal, WW1, Iraq...
with a little minor 'collateral damage' thrown in such as loss of habitats and some consequent reduction in biodiversity.
Global evils are a relatively new creation of mankind.
It all started somewhere in the 1950s when we created enough nuclear firepower to completely destroy all life on earth.
Now, that's definitely global!
Of course, TODAY the United States of America can be proud of having the ABILITY, and all on their lonesome, to destroy a hundred earths.
Russia may have more, or less and China? Then there's Israel, India, South Africa, Great Britain, France, Germany, Ukraine and now Brazil too and maybe a few others.
So, let's say, for the sake of argument, that's another few hundred worlds worth... and now we know why the forward thinking astronomers are so excitedly looking for habitable earthlike planets. We have to do something with all this 'globalicidal' firepower, something extra-terrestrial.
Well, when we do get started, (on using all of that lovely firepower) but hold on a minute, what if we don't majestically unleash?
It's six of one to a half a dozen odds on that the other global reality that we have produced will get us later if not sooner. That's the reality where we pressed an anonymous red button a while back and without ever realizing it.
We never had
intended any such harm, nonetheless, we are well on our way to warming our own little globe so much that it will destroy all of life - at least life as we now know it.
The exciting part of that is that it does give evolution a fresh start, and maybe (just maybe) something as purely self destructive as humankind will not result the next time round. But then, it is nature, "red in tooth and claw"
(1) that we are talking about! Heaven forbid, It could even be worse - maybe, we're not so bad after all?
So, this is not ultimately about survival. It looks like sooner (odds on), or later (also odds on), we will most certainly cease to exist, by our own hands desist forever.
So, it certainly is now about what we are going to be doing in the meantime.
I think it would be nice if we could go out in a blaze of glory. I really do think that here is something that despite our dark side we can perhaps manage. What I suggest is that knowing we're going to go, if only for a few short instants, let's try for a change not to do any more harm to any others for whatever little time we have left.
Now, is that such a big deal?
Think of posterity.
Think of what some species in the year 3,000 is going to find as they sift through the archaeological dust. Era after era of nastiness, wars, destruction, one-upmanship, weapons of destruction and then weapons of mass destruction and then wars based on spin about WMD that
never existed, and then... peace.
Peace,
did I hear someone say
PEACE????
And the Ngobel Prize in History for the year 3,001 goes to - #$(*&%)@@*!!!, for the discovoverery of "Peace"...
"The History of Peace"
A richly and horrifyingly illustrated guide to the heroic end of what can only be termed as the most unimaginably uncivilized species to have ever gained intelligence.
It all began in the year 2007, when the species
Humanus selfdestructivus realised that they were soon to no longer exist.
#$(*&%)@@*!!! finally succeeded in translating the digital data after almost 300 years of deciphering in base 2, and the result is the publication of a truly remarkable document that has been miraculously preserved. The story recounts how, when this realisation of imminent and irrevocable demise suddenly spread on the WWW, the entire
Humanus selfdestructivus decided, mysteriously, and courageously, to spend their last years alive on the planet Ge, in PEACE...
(1) Canto LVI, Alfred Lord Tennnyson, "In Memoriam"
On Myanmar, my own Indian government, democratically elected and the upholders of one of the worlds best constitutions has chosen to sell itself down the river of looting the helpless.
It used to be that the worst we could do was to kill off a few of our own species by instigating nasty but localized disasters...
Something about this article on Jimmy Carter taking on a hostile bunch of cops in the Sudan [title link] reminded me powerfully of my dad (H.A. Carr). When he got the bit between his teeth he was going to get wherever he had determined to go, and no one, nothing, was going to stop him.
, are kept under wraps quite actively by the MNCs that quietly operate there. We have posted about the timber mafias before and this recent TIME article shows how the MNCs, backed solidly by their hypocritical countries of origin, have gone so far as to subvert critically important international aid organizations like the Wold Bank to help them to quietly do their dirty work.
At issue across the world today is the question of basic human rights. The most endangered right is the right to freedom of speech, but freedom of opinion/religious belief, the right to a fair trial, and rights of habeas Corpus have also been shot full of holes.
route to economic prosperity for the 'developing' nation. In this model the involvement of MNCs is a basic requirement. The MNC brings in the technology, the knowhow, the foreign markets, and the working business models, that are together the key ingredients of success. The MNC is also well capitalised and can afford to wait until all the pieces fall into place to generate its profits. In the process, jobs are created, infrastructure is developed and a nation's economy is supposed to 'develop'. But that's all a pie in the sky theory. It sounds plausible. It sounds good and so we choose to believe that this is what development means, that this is the win-win formula 
that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are all trying to promote - this holistic and positive model that will bring prosperity to poor 'underdeveloped' nations.
