Tuesday, February 21, 2006

A Week's Wisdom

In this one week I have learned the following:

In Iran it is the practice that poor little children who steal bread for they are hungry have their arms crushed under a truck – as it is the Islamic law.

In the US legal advisors to the administration assure us that it is perfectly acceptable for the President to authorize a small boys testicles to be crushed in order to make his father ‘speak’. And that the Constitution should not come in the way of the Presidents powers as ‘under such unusual circumstances of war’ it should be accepted that he is above the law.

The Democratic party in the US survives by infanticide – it kills its own – and is actually a kind of parasite or Remora that lives by cleaning or picking off the crumbs dropped by the host – the Republicans.

U S Corporations are sitting on $634 billions of uninvested cash hoards and non-US corporations on a hoard of $908 billions. And stock markets all over the world are climbing upwards while unemployment and underemployment – remains endemic the world over.

The US (the only surviving super power on the planet) debt is something like $8.2 trillion. And climbing.

Glaciers (fresh water) are melting faster than ever and the global supply of fresh water is shrinking faster than ever. (expected to drop by about a 3rd in the next 20 years)

What matters is not when oil runs out – but when we peak the hill and the production of oil becomes a matter of distributing steadily declining volumes – current projections say somewhere between 2008 and 2010. Close to a billion people in China and India are in line to buy cars. If you follow the tentacles of oil all through our societies and see how many things it touches – you will understand why even a 10% drop will lead to Armageddon.

I read about The End of the Dollar Hegemony written by Hon. Ron Paul of Texas.

Viral diseases are spreading across the globe with the wind.

Children in the US and Europe and the upper classes of other countries are drinking themselves to oblivion starting at ages of 13 on.

An anti-obesity pill is on the verge of a breakthrough. There goes the fitness industry.

Desperate Housewives are chasing Sex in the City with Friends, Apprentices and Survivors. And the Olympics are sponsored by the greatest collection of SUVs and beer kegs ever seen! This is being beamed in dozens of different languages the world over and local variations of them are flooding the airwaves – spinning out across the universe at the speed of light!

Google these issues. Connect a few dots on your own. They are not random events. They are not the product of some gargantuan conspiracy. They are not the work of the Devil or of God. They are however the collective result of our obsession with borrowing to the hilt against all equity we may at one time have had in the future and being completely delinquent with paying the mortgage. You see, instant gratification comes with it’s own in-built time bomb – when we are insatiably gratified now, what use have we of the future?

The only question that remains then is – why are we so obsessed with NOW! ?

I will for now leave that to your own contemplations. But also with one hint – it is not because we are sinners and neither because we are gods.