Wednesday, 30 November 2016


                       "And all the past is present." -    Robinson Jeffers

What a fascinating (and sorely needed) study!  It has something for everyone:  adventure, advice, amusement, answers, awe, drama, escape, fear, knowledge, warnings, wisdom, wonder, just to name a few.
With a promise that we may partially understand the present, as well as what, where, why, who, and how we are, History takes us back as far as we care to go.
As Astrophysics is part of History, we could start with the Big Bang some 13.2 billion years ago, and watch the unfolding of what could be just the present cycle.
As Chemistry is also part of History we could start earlier with the mother we may never know - that sun in whose nuclear furnace elements that make up our world and ourselves were forged.  We can share the exhilaration of escape and fantastic velocities as our mother sun became a giant super nova and spewed us out to form another sun and several planets, one of which became the home we love, yet abuse.
As Biology is part of History we can marvel at the beginnings of life on this planet some 3.5 billion years ago.  The proliferation and diversity of life that seemingly-simple cells created makes us ponder.  Was this all trial and error, or is there an intelligence in cells that prompts them to adapt to the environment?  The realization dawns that, if we are here now, some essence of our being must have survived for at least  3.5 billion years.  Each and every one of our ancestors had to survive in a world in which the vast majority of creatures born into it do not survive long enough to reproduce. And, in that last instance, we beat millions of other sperm to that one egg!  What winners we are! What survivors!  Having come this far, we cannot drop the ball now.
Because Anthropology is part of history we can follow our evolution, and how we became divided into thousands of different cultures, yet we remain one species.  To understand how we achieved this remarkable feat we must discover just how mobile and lustful we have been.  Endless migrations, endless wars, and sexual habits that continue to be quite unfair to the female of the species need to be assessed.
Because Religion is part of History we can study its evolution among humans from the Neanderthals, 150,000 years ago, with their invention of Animism and the belief that we are composed of two distinct parts:  mortal body and immortal soul, and that everything has a spirit that demands respect.  All other religions can trace their roots back to Animism which, of course, still survives with many tribes and, if we admit it, within ourselves.
We hear, from those who are loathe to expend the time and reflection necessary to learn from History, the lame excuse: Today's problems are so unique that we would be misled by studying a dead past."  Well, how dead is the past?
Artur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) wrote, However much the plays and the masks on the world’s stage may change, it is always the same actors who appear.  We sit together and talk and grow excited, and our eyes glitter and our voices grow shriller: just so did others sit and talk a thousand years ago: it was the same thing, and it was the same people: and so it will be a thousand years hence. The contrivance which prevents us from perceiving this is Time.”
Let us examine a few areas for our introduction.  These, and other areas, have been, and will be,
expanded in other blogs.
ABUSE OF RESOURCES:   So many examples of this will limit our introduction to just one: Mohenjo-daro and Harappa were two of the chief cities of the Indus Valley, Iraq, civilization (2500-1500 BC).  They were well planned with wide streets, sewers, flush toilets and indoor plumbing - and they enjoyed 200 weapons-and-war-free years.  As commerce and affluence increased they had to go further and further afield to get the trees to make the charcoal to fire their smelters. Eventually workmanship declined, lethargy grew, and the society, weakened from within, became the victim of ruthless, and more primitive, invaders.  
AFFLUENCE AND THE MILITARY:  Today's affluent youth disdain the rough life demanded by any efficient military service, and prefer to pay taxes to have less affluent people do the job for them. Nothing new here.  The Romans hired Germans and Huns; the Britons hired Saxons; and Asia Minor rulers hired Turks from Persia.  In each case the mercenaries eventually recognized the weakness in their employers, seized power, and moved in their own people.  Today, many in western states argue that it would be cheaper to pay an annual fee to the United States and let it support the military necessary to maintain world peace, just as the Royal Navy swept the seas of pirates and established the long, mostly beneficial, reign of Pax Britannica.  But the Royal Navy did this at the expense of British taxpayers who maintained parliamentary control.  Athens was a great and early democracy.  It was a friendly, proud, and open society, quick to defend its rights, but not prone to attack others.  In 477 B.C. about 160 nearby city states, to save the cost of independent forces, formed the Delian League in which each state would supply ships, arms, men, and/or money for a "common" fleet and army to be controlled by Athens.  Much later, the British lord and historian, John Acton (1834-1902) warned: “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  It was so even with Athens.  It gradually began to use its overwhelming force to curtail, then to destroy, all opposition and Athenian despotism became so harsh and hated that Sparta was helped by former Athenian allies to destroy Athenian power in 404 B.C.   Today, is the US in danger of doing the same?   There are some 7.5 billion humans now living on earth  Since recorded time we have killed in wars and skirmishes an equal number with immense associated destruction and suffering.  Thankfully, today many advanced countries have cut back on military expenditures but the bill still comes to $1.7 trillion annually of which the US spends 37%, more than the next 8 nations combined. It is spending history’s largest amount chasing mainly phantom threats This can lead only to aggression and dominance in a terrifying nuclear age.  Are not many of the threats we face today better dealt with by a no-veto UN better financed, organized,  and staffed? 
CANCER:  Slowly and painfully modern science has learned that smoke causes cancer.  Back in 1273 Edward I in England banned the cooking of meat over open charcoal as the smoke caused illness and death.  He disdained the habit of smoking.  As illness and death was not immediate, when Edward died, the prohibition died to return 700 years later.
CRIME:  Why do some species of birds steal from each other?  Why do wolves respect the property of other wolves?  Why did friendly Polynesians see no crime in stealing from Europeans?  Why could the British trust fierce Gurkhas to guard British property?  Why does the richest nation, the United States, have the highest crime rate?  Annually, millions of crimes cost billions of dollars, not to mention lives.  Why did Britain, where crime had been so prevalent that pickpockets plied their trade at the public hangings of other pickpockets, become a model of civil tranquility?  We could learn from Jeremy Bentham who, in the 1820s, streamlined British laws, making them easy to understand. Trials became fair, swift, and short.  Standard punishments, commensurate with the crimes, were meted out.  Then Sir Robert Peel formed his "bobbies" the first civil police force.  They were trained to be friends of, and helpful to, the law-abiding.
City living and transference of loyalties from families, clans, and farms to the state has increased crime.  Too little or too much affluence also increased crime.  Off the eastern tip of Papua, Dobuans existed on poor, rocky outcroppings and led a miserable life of hate and theft while nearby Trobrians, who enjoyed low-lying and fertile lands, led a happy and crime-free life.  During the Great Depression, when many were starving, newspaper vending machines had open containers for customers to leave their two cents that each edition cost.  This money was seldom stolen.  In the 1980s millionaire stock manipulators defied the law to amass more millions.  Since World War II, millions of refugees, high unemployment, increasing gaps between the rich and poor, and the breakdown of the family have all led to an increase in crime, even in Britain where some police now carry guns.
INFLATION:  Nothing new here either.  The current decline of the purchasing power of our paper and metal currency is a tale that goes back at least as far as 900BC in China with copper and 700BC when King Pheidon of Argus minted silver coins and King Croesus of Lydia (560-546BC) of Lydia minted electrum (gold-silver mix) coins.  This convenient medium of exchange then spread to Greece, Persia, and India.   The early and continued debasement of coinage by replacing gold and silver with cheap metals led to inflation.  Our silver dollars suffered the same fate.  Paper currencies started in the Tang Dynasty, China, 618-907 with Europe following in the 1600s.  Collapses, with all the suffering that entails, ensued in the Holy Roman Empire 300s AD, Italy 1470, Spain 1600s, Bermuda 1616,  Netherlands 1686, South Seas Bubble 1719, French Louisiana 1716, Confederate States 1860, Germany 1919 - and many others.  Current dangers are debt-to-GDP ratios: Japan 230%, Greece 177, Lebanon 134, Italy 132, Jamaica 132, Portugal 130, Ireland 110, USA 102, France 96, UK 89, Canada 87, Germany 75, Brazil 59, Poland 48, China 41, Russia 18.

HISTORY, we can no longer afford to ignore you. Your guidance is essential.                          


Friday, 11 November 2016


    Because we are such slow learners and so forgetful. Throughout recorded history our Elite have used the less fortunate to cause billions of fellow less-fortunate humans to suffer and die to enhance Elite interests. Humans can take only so much of this before rebellion leads to results that benefit no one. Today, the stakes are much, much higher and fraught with dangers that could lead to the demise of our civilization. But, how much of the blame must be accepted by non-elites?
    How democratic is a society where the loser in an election gets the majority of the popular vote but concedes to the winner who tallies the most in something called an electoral college?
So, what dangers lurk in such a divided country? There are armed militia groups that numbered 149 but rose to 1,360 when Obama was elected and have since fallen to 1,096. They are lightly armed and are outnumbered 10-1 by the National Guard.
   But the US gun lobby ensures there are some 310 million individually-owned firearms in the country. From the assassination of President Kennedy in 1968 to 2015, 1,516,863 have been killed by firearms compared to 1,396,733 in all wars from The America Revolution to Iraq and Afghanistan.  This distributes the blame.
    For background, we need consider only a few similarities from our more-recent upheavals: Wat Tyler in England in 1381, the French Revolution of 1791-96, WWI 1914-1919, and the current Brexit and US election.
    In 1381, after the sufferings of the 1340 Black Death and the 12-pence poll tax to pay for the war with France, plus the preachings of John Ball, the Bernie Sanders of the time, who sought the end of serfdom, unrest was simmering throughout Britain. The spark came when a tax collector raped Wat Tyler’s daughter in Kent. Wat led a rebellion that attacked London, killing the Lord Chancellor, the Lord High Treasurer, then spread to attacks on the University of Cambridge. Wat was killed in a skirmish with royal troops. King Richard II, only 14, bravely rode in to meet the Tyler insurgents, promising to be their saviour, but this ploy was used to provide time to muster 4,000 other serfs who quelled the rebellion, executed its leaders, while killing 1,500 rebels.  Democracy was postponed.
    Four words “Let them eat cake” express the ignorance of the Elite and are attributed to the wife of Louis XVI, Austrian Marie-Antoinette, who was the Hillary Clinton of the French Revolution and attacked by the Donald Trumps of the day. She never spoke these words. She supported charities and showed concern for the poor. But, she was a powerful and extravagant women resented by the male chauvinists. Resentment of the status quo, including the attempt to raise 300,000 men to fight Austria, led to a reign of terror that took over 40,000 lives including Marie-Antoinette, Louis XVI, several notable scientists, and other elites. Finally, the revolution turned on itself, sending leaders like Danton and Robespierre to the guillotine. The slogan “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” had to be postponed until after Napoleon left the stage.
    In the horrendous slaughter of the totally-unnecessary Great War (WWI), German troops, totally fed up with fighting the British in the mud of Belgium, initiated truces culminating in the Christmas 1914 emergence of unarmed German troops from their trenches thus encouraging the British to do the same. A football game, comraderie, exchange of gifts and uniform parts spread along the line until 100,000 men were involved. Subsequently other truces occurred on the Western front as well as the Eastern Front between Austrians and Russians. There was great hope by the men, condemned to fighting the war, that it could end, but the media back home largely ignored this peace attempt. The brass, as well as young Charles de Gaulle, considered it treason so ordered artillery barrages to forestall peace. The slaughter and bitterness escalated.
    Another WWI fact we need to remember: Only 4 nations emerged from WWI as creditor nations: the UK was owed the most, followed by the US, Canada, and Argentina. The UK and Canada argued debts had to be cancelled. Britain had prospered by forgiving debts after the Napoleonic wars. US Republicans shunned Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points and his League of Nations to bring Germany back into the family of Nations. They refused the coal the UK and France offered to pay off what they owed the US. US Republicans forced them to put the screws on Germany, no more guilty of starting the war than the others, stripping it of its assets in reparations which created a severe depression and the complete destruction of its currency thus paving the way for the rise of Hitler. It can be argued that Republicans should be blamed for WWII.
    The Elite considered Brexit to be so economically and politically unwise that it failed to address legitimate  grievances that Brussels had become too autocratic and bureaucratic thus harming national aspirations. It was  a shock to the world when the voters actually forced it into law that will harm everyone. Successful voters are now getting many thorns among their roses.
    All of these preambles fade into irrelevance when compared to today’s problems and possible repercussions of the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States which, at the moment, is the world’s top dog with the world’s largest military and history’s largest interference in other countries. Its frightening nuclear capability that could destroy our civilization many times over is promised even further enlargement, forcing others into trying to catch up even though economically disastrous. The bitterness of the recent election reveals the US is too large and too dangerous to allow this dominance to continue. Even so, over-population, greed, and human-created global warming can surpass the threat of nuclear exterminations.
    Putin and Netanyahu were among the first to express joy at the victory of Trump whose conciliatory post-election words offer a glimmer of compromise and empathy. A Vladimir-Benjamin-Donald love fest may be good for world peace but is it acceptable to Syrians, Palestinians, or to an Iran that we have harmed far more than it has ever harmed us?
    The stark reality of the Oval Office can be quite sobering but is it enough to soften Trump’s boasted claims of disdain for the environment, non-US peoples and interests, women, other Republicans, immigrants, truth, the supreme court, his own workers and investors, and so on?  His “Making America Great Again” includes giving the Military-Industrial complex all it wants is considerably more hawkish that what we consider Hillary to be. And, who pays for it when Trump promises massive tax cuts for the wealthy?  And who dictates US foreign policy when munition firms can make sinful profits?
    But, are we not all to blame for the malaise that now infects us? Stand on any street corner in any city. The endless stream of pollution-emitting vehicles implies widespread prosperity. Jump into these cars and you will choke on stress and anxiety as occupants struggle to cope with a lifestyle far removed from their lengthy tribal backgrounds. Few today know that, when European settlers were stealing the Americas, thousands of them chose to abandon European lifestyles and join tribal groups as friendlier and less stressful.
    And, we have to stop blaming others when the fault lies with us. Canada delayed, as long as it could, offered-independence from Britain because Ottawa politicians benefited as long as they could blame London when necessary but unpopular legislation had to be passed.
    Perhaps we have no other workable choice but to continue on as though nothing is amiss. After all, our  relatively-immortal atoms, 40 trillion bacterial and 30 trillion human cells according to 2016 research, have no choice as to when they enter or leave this planet. Yet, for the sake of what we call a conscience, is it not imperative that each of us takes the time to glean a fraction of the enormous Truths out there in order to share empathy with other living things?  We are all in the same leaky boat.
    We have given Donald Trump enormous responsibilities and he does need guidance from you and me. Hillary and Barrack are being quite helpful but sorely need your help and mine (and Bernie’s) to transform Donald into something we can be proud of. Our survival is at stake. So let us improve Rudyard Kipling’s advice: 

Take up the Human burden -
The savage wars of peace
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when you goal is nearest 
The end for others sought,
 Prevent sloth and human Folly
 Bringing all your hopes to nought.