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  hardie karges 7:10 am on April 4, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: history ( 42 ), politics ( 32 )   

  MUSICAL CHAIRS 

  Politics is musical chairs.  Wherever you sit when the music stops is yours, more or less, depending on how fat your butt is.  In the case of our political map, the music stopped about 1948, with the demise of colonialism in the aftermath of WWII.  With only a few exceptions, boundary changes since then have been the result of realignment, not conquests or land grabs.  Circumstances like these have a life of their own, following topographical boundaries and ancient animosities.  Most of the action of the last century has been the break-up of empires, first the medieval Habsburg and Ottoman, then the colonialist British, French, Dutch and Portuguese, and finally the Communist Soviet and Yugoslav states.  These fixed borders just might be the cause of much tension and stress, the fact that some countries have much land and few people, and that the ability to change that situation is limited.  It’s even gotten a bit ridiculous with the situations in Timor, Biafra, Nagorno-Karabakh, and others, but laudable, in my opinion.  If there’s ever to be a world government that’s truly effective, then there will have to be world political units that are meaningful.  If Dixie tries to secede again, though, then that’s going too far.

   

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  hardie karges 8:10 am on April 3, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: consumerism ( 5 ), technology ( 12 )   

  CARGO CULTS 

  The cargo cults demand obedience.  The cargo cults demand sacrifice.  The gods of the cargo cult are jealous gods.  More more bigger bigger, you have to build a longer runway to attract the jet planes of the really important gods with the really important goods.  Entire populations build symbolic ports and harbors to place upon altars in their own private homes to placate the restless gods looking for devotees to reward and the ignorant to punish.  Consumerism is a jealous god, a god without face nor gender, just legal tender, no idols nor idleness.  Hard unceasing work is the ultimate sacrifice, the only thing that will placate the spirit of a God with no name, only number.  These gods drink sweat, not blood, and count their conquests in sales, not souls.  The only conversions allowed are for currency, the arbitrage of circumstance, prostitution to a higher god, complete immersion in the blood of money, the word of the book of the united states of sacrifice.  Leave if you can and don’t look back.  The whore of Babylon disobeys and receives her Lot; Saddam and Gomer and Bin and Tony share a bed of their own making, the fearsome foursome caught in the act of the sins of their fathers, sharing shallow graves in empty deserts, forbidden fruits long gone to seed and drifted elsewhere, leaving the trees of life to their own devices.
   
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  hardie karges 9:31 am on April 2, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Apocalypse ( 12 )   

  And the Meek will Inherit the Earth 

  We’ve got bleacher seats for the Apocalypse, a bird’s-eye view of armies of the night, jockeying for position and positioning their jockeys for the final thrust to the nether never lands of the vast Godless underbelly.  Mindless middlemen follow the age-old instinct to put hard things in soft places simply because it is written, simply because it is there.  The things we love most are at the total mercy of the things we love least.  Assholes became rich and powerful by being assholes.  The meek will only inherit an earth that is spent and wasted.  The earth in its youth belongs to the young, the brash, the violent, bullying the hesitant into submission and following the war gods into battle.  Our sons are conscripted into the Janissary Corps and forced to the serve the state, becoming the thing we hate most, in order to ensure its safety.  We can’t destroy the state if our sons are defending it.  Hopefully we’ll get smarter as the Earth gets older and civilization spreads to the countryside, erasing those borders that divide us from ourselves.

   
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  hardie karges 10:57 am on April 1, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: America ( 59 ), communism ( 21 ), Europe ( 19 ), history ( 42 ), jihad ( 8 )   

  The Death of America, the Re-Birth of Europe 

  It’s Europe’s turn to lead the world again, not as English or French or Greeks or Romans, but at the head of a united Europe that returns something to Russia that it took away from the Soviets, and respects its status as a major player in the community of nations.  America is not fit to rule the world any more.  They’ve made too many deals with too many devils, mostly previously under the guise of Soviet containment and anti-Communism, now mostly under the guise of increased oil flow.  When American tanks rolled over the Arabian Desert and into Iraq for the second time, they crossed the line.  The Afghan War was justified, slimly, to remove a Taliban regime that sustained al-Qaeda.  The Iraq War was not.  At that point al-Qaeda won in its quest to remove America as world leader.  If I were a Conspiracy Nut, I might think they planned it that way, themselves having no great love for Saddam Hussein.  Not that it’ll make any difference with respect to Israel; it won’t.  Israel is a fait accompli, and no more than a pretext for the current jihad worldwide.  But if Europe can unite, they’ll have accomplished something that’s never been done in history, which means they’ll have the moral upper hand to lead the world and set an example.  America did that once, until wars of independence became a rite of passage for a developing country.  Europe is now fighting a war of inter-dependence.  If they succeed, then look for a united South America, United Turkistan, etc.  FTA’s are a major step in that direction already.  America has gone too far in its excesses and its negligence.  European corporate executives don’t make a billion dollars a year.  Europe doesn’t leave half of its population without health insurance.  When Americans voted for George W. Bush in 2004, they voted for ignorance, greed, and selfishness.  Now the bill is due.

  Stiv is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    Stiv 7:28 pm on April 19, 2008 Permalink | Reply

    Yes, but you’ll be “leading the world” as Eurabia not really Europe any longer. The weakness of Europe has allowed that to happen. Have fun with that.

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  hardie karges 10:11 am on March 31, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: ego ( 33 ), history ( 42 ), Western civilization   

  EGO 

  Ego extrapolated leads to cultural self-righteousness.  This is what the West is doing, assuming that it is superior, given its preeminent position in the world over the last five hundred years.  That ignores its total lack of eminence for the preceding thousand years.  Whatever the greatness of Greece and Rome, they were no greater than many others were.  But they were ours.  Egypt, Sumeria, Persia, India, and China were theirs.  They all overestimated their greatness, made grave mistakes, and had to start all over again.  Of course, some mistakes are so grave that you can’t dig your way out.  We played God once before with the Bomb, splitting atoms just for the Hell of it, the absolute Hell.  Now we’re inside his genes, cutting and splicing as if it were nothing more than a Hollywood blockbuster, special effects, busting blocks and rearranging them as if it were all a game.  Ostensibly, we might cure some diseases, but what problems might we cause in the process of curing another?  This is the problem of egotism, personal or cultural; it knows no limits.  It can create great art and great entertainment without end, great families and great cultures.  It can also destroy everything that it creates, and more.  Cracking the code is one thing; re-arranging it is another.  The temptation is just too great and probably won’t be resisted.        

   
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  hardie karges 9:37 am on March 30, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: history ( 42 ), IMMIGRATION ( 4 )   

  IMMIGRATION 

  We’re all immigrants here, crossing oceans in search of something better, we know not what.  We worked until our backs ached and our spirits almost sank, saving every last penny for the long voyage to an unknown land with only scant knowledge of what lay ahead, just rumors and gossip.  The only thing that bound us together was faith in a God so close that we could feel it in every breath we took.  Crowding into steerage, we unrolled our bags and broke our bread, passing it around so that all could share.  The people nearby spoke another language, but it didn’t matter, because we’re all Americans now.  It’s always been this way.  It’s human nature to explore, see everything there is to see, look for something better on the other side of the hill.  Primitive men didn’t wander over the Bering Strait or over the vast oceans.  They were driven, in the candy-flake streamline baby of imagination.  The American Happy Hunting grounds were the all-you-can-eat buffet of all times, mammoth, camel, and horse for the taking, mammal, bird, and fish for the baking.  The stupid creatures never knew what hit them.  They’d never seen apes dressed in imitation of them selves.  They were laughing so hard that they never saw the spears flying, nor ever felt points so sharp.  “Those apes are good,” were the last words they ever thought, if indeed they could think.  Surprise is the greatest weapon ever invented, experience taking advantage of naivete’ standing there with its mouth wide open in a windstorm, hunger taking advantage of bounty in all its nakedness.

   
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  hardie karges 8:43 am on March 29, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: history ( 42 ), Horses   

  HORSES 

  The history of humans is all about horses.  The only cultural developments of note between the agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution are the rise of cities and the domestication of horses.  Navigation is also significant, but I suspect pre-dates the agricultural revolution.  I think western historians have a blind spot in this area due to their own slow development, and subsequent disregard of others’ in the South Pacific and elsewhere.  But nothing compares to horses.  The history of the domestication of horses parallels most of the history of world civilization and is intrinsic to it.  When horses were domesticated enough to pull two-man chariots, warfare was revolutionized.  The advanced cultures in the Middle East were quick enough to recognize the change and adapt.  But for the primordial culture of Europe and the decadent Indus Valley culture of India, it was too late.  Indo-European speakers took over.  When horses became domesticated enough, and people became skilled and brave enough, to ride bareback a thousand years later, a new era emerged again, that of the steppe raiders, almost unstoppable in their ability to raid cities and then retreat to safety.  Only iron armor was able to stop their onslaught.  Fast-forward another thousand years and throw in iron stirrups, and they were unstoppable.  Thus began the true age of cavalry and horse-powered transportation, refined and polished until finally made obsolete only by the development of wheeled vehicles powered by internal combustion engines.       

  raceclubs is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    raceclubs 4:37 am on February 25, 2010 Permalink | Reply

    Interesting article – where would moderncivilisation be without horses! And now the future of horsearacing is going virtual!

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  hardie karges 8:58 am on March 28, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: TRANSHUMANCE   

  TRANSHUMANCE 

  Transience has gotten a bum rap.  Throughout history it’s the nomads who were braver, stronger, smarter, and more creative.  It may even be part of the human DNA makeup, like physical exercise, without which humans don’t function properly.  Religious and other convictions for possession aside, one of the main differences between chimps and us, is our reliance on meat.  This not only provided essential nutrients, but required extensive social organization to procure.  Of course for nomadic herders the main course was milk, not meat.  You don’t eat your stock, except for all but the most studly males, until they no longer give milk.  Thus was born the cheese industry, and beef stew.  With dairy products as the principal food, human bodies grow tall and strong-boned.  Vegetables, fruits, and grains obtained by gathering and trade for dairy products make a superior diet.  Whenever they lived in symbiosis with planters, even though numerically smaller, the herders RULED, as with Tutsis and Hutus, Fulanis and Hausas, Mongols and everybody else, everybody else and Slavs.  This situation persists until ameliorated by the equalizing effects of industrialization.  But though cows have always been the basis of the dairy industry, they were not the most valuable item of the herders.    

   
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  hardie karges 7:53 am on March 27, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Caucasus   

  Caucasians Unite! 

  Sandwiched in between its big brothers Russsia, Iran, and Turkey, seventeen million people live in the countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, occupying an area the size of Washington State.  Not even counting the Indo-Europeans, Semites, and Turks, all with relatives elsewhere also, Caucasians proper (?) comprise dozens of languages related to nothing else in the world, except possibly Basque, and most not even related to each other.  Roman history records that they used eighty interpreters to communicate there.  Groups long lost to the tides of history left contingents there to give anthropologists work, including Iranian Scyths and Kipchak Turks.  Apparently the area long served as a geographic bottleneck, funneling people to the East out of Africa early in human history and funneling people to the south or west off of the Eastern steppes, probably the source of the main drama in human history.  Why white-skinned people are referred to as ‘Caucasian’ is another matter.  Though certainly better than ‘Aryan’, its origins are confused, and is essentially a misnomer, though it might have some historical veracity in referring to people who coalesced to the north of the mountains.  There a genetic mutation for reduced pigmentation must have conveyed a selective advantage (in the snow?) on the white people who resulted.  The rest is history.

   
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  hardie karges 7:39 am on March 26, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Africa ( 4 ), Great Rift   

  The Rift 

  Africa is cracking up, slowly but surely, just like clockwork, albeit a big-ass clock.  India’s long gone, with Madagascar hot on its trail.  Arabia’s not quite so sure, but don’t expect it to return anytime soon.  Rifts don’t heal that easily.  Future geographers will see soon see an island to rival the size of Greenland out there any day now, give or take, say, fifty million years.  Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, and large parts of Ethiopia and Mozambique will have their own little mini-continent.  Uganda could go either way.  God help Rwanda and Burundi.  They need it.  They’ve got enough rifts already.  Unfortunately a large portion of the Earth’s fresh water is locked up in those lakes in the rift.  That’ll all be lost to the open salty sea.  That’ll be bad news for some flamingoes and baboons.