Changes in the Way the World Works

Hi, Everybody!

I've been thinking again. Watch out.

We are actually witnessing the beginning of a change in the way the world works. I haven't seen anyone else make this connection, but then it may be obvious to everybody but me.

Historically, there have been two major types of human organization on Earth. The first type is described by the concept of the nation. It has the following characteristics:

1. It is geographically fixed, with borders that normally do not move. You can find these borders on a map.

2. It is a group of people with a common goal to protect the nation in which they live, as an extension of self-defense. This is called nationalism, and in an individual is called patriotism.

3. Historically almost all wars were fought between these nations, up until about 20 years ago. These wars have generally been about either resources (including territory) or about ideology of government.

The second type of organization transcends national borders. They may have members in many countries. They have the following characteristics:

1. The organization has no fixed borders.

2. Members of these groups have an allegiance to the organization which sometimes exceeds the individual's allegiance to the country in which they live.

3. Most such organizations share some sort of belief system, or at least philosophy.

There are three major subspecies of this transnational type of organization. They are:

1. Terrorist organizations, such as Al Quaida

2. Regular religious organizations, such as the Catholic Church

3. Major international corporations, such as Exxon or Microsoft

Historically, transnational organizations have influenced national governments by political or financial leverage (such as is wielded by the Catholic Church or Microsoft).

However, we are now witnessing the manifestation of militant activist or terrorist transnational organizations which do and will continue to play a major part in the political life of the planet. These groups exert influence through force of arms, propaganda and outright control of certain conventional governments. They are extra-legal in the sense that, as an organization, they are not bound by the laws of any country; although their individual members are nominally bound by local law.

This 'paradigm shift' is radically changing the way politics works, as well as the way war is waged. As we have seen, conventional warfare works well against nations, but not so well when the enemy doesn't have borders. Different strategies will have to evolve. A nation fighting these borderless organizations is like a man swatting bees. You can swat a few, but it is very difficult to get them all. Note that these transnationals even have representation in our government (through their members who are in our government, or who vote), as well as directly controlling certain other governments, so even our internal political scene is affected. This is why unlimited (legal or illegal) immigration is such a bad idea.

It's similar to the mental shift that was a result of the American Revolution. Up until then, armies lined up in neat rows to shoot at each other. The colonists, on the other hand, shot from behind trees and rocks. The British thought this was not 'cricket', but they had to change the way they did things to accommodate this new tactic. Fortunately for us they didn't change their tactics until after the American Revolution was settled.

I don't know how this is going to play out, but the variety of different viewpoints present in our population, bolstered by legal and illegal immigration, and liberalism vs conservatism, is playing a part in it. It wasn't like this when I was a kid, but by the time I was in high school the near-universal disgust with the Vietnam War was causing the concept of patriotism to fall out of favor at that time. It became acceptable for a US citizen to criticize the US publicly. Up until that time, it was just 'understood' that the US was the best anywhere (still true) and almost nobody questioned it. The loss of consistency in a belief in the basic wholesomeness of our country leaves the door wide open for the growth of transnational terrorist organizations within our borders.

We're all in for a wild ride - you young people more than me. Good luck.

-Pop

Are All Politicians Corrupt?

Howdy, everybody;

Are all politicians corrupt? Probably not, but it does seem to be hard to find those that aren't. The Democrats, notably Pelosi and others, won the last mid-term election partly on the basis of Republican corruption. Their platform was 'end the war' and 'clean up corruption in congress'. Now it is obvious that the Democrats are just as bad or worse than the Republicans.

Pelosi wants special privileges regarding air travel for members of congress, to be paid by taxpayers. In some case military transport where none was required before, and in other cases adult children of members of congress - all paid by the taxpayer. Why are these people suddenly privileged? Don't these members of congress make enough money to buy their own tickets?

More important is the issue of earmarks in the process of creating bills in congress. The Democrats made a lot of noise about cleaning up earmarks, which are basically funding for pet projects of individual congress-critters that are tacked on to another more major piece of legislation, so that it gets passed along with the main bill in order to get anything done at all. This has been going on for a long time, and is a practice that should be outright abolished, as far as I am concerned. Instead of doing what they promised at mid-term, now the Democrats are making moves to not only protect earmarks, but to make it more difficult to prevent individual earmarks from being in the final bill. Basically they are trying to remove the right to debate individual earmarks before the bill goes to vote. Good grief! Besides that, Pelosi wants to rename earmarks to help hide them! How stupid does she think we are? It didn't take the Democrats long to get greedy.

Those are just two of many issues that I've come across in my reading. To be fair, I must state that I generally vote Republican even though I am not a member of that party. But I've about had it with the two-faced performance of the Democrats in the short time they've been in office. Besides being ineffectual - something like 108 days to pass a war funding bill because of playing politics - they say what they think you want to hear, then do whatever they want. And they think we're too stupid to notice!

I'm tired of the dishonesty in our government.

The nice thing about being an American is that we get to make up our own minds about this kind of thing. So far. But we do need to pay attention to what the congress-critters are doing, or that may not be true forever.

-Pop

Rainbows and Rain

Howdy, Everybody;

Day before yesterday, my wife and I saw a double rainbow! We were in the local Walmart parking lot. The primary rainbow was a full rainbow, and the secondary was a really bright 1/8 of the arc on the right side, and for a moment or two very faint arc on the left side as well. The left side of the secondary faded quickly, but the right was bright for quite a while.

That's probably the second or maybe third double rainbow I've ever seen, so I thought it was notable. There are things in the universe worth marveling over, even if we do know how they are created.

Yesterday, we had weird rain. We were sitting on the front porch enjoying the evening, facing out towards the highway. It began a very light rain - on a patch of our yard to the left, maybe 50 feet across. No rain to the right, no rain to the far left - just this patch. The weird thing about it was that it was stable for maybe five minutes. I've never seen in do that before, although once when I was a kid, it was raining on one side of the house and not the other. But just to rain in one spot for five minutes or so - remarkable!

I wonder what's next?

-Pop