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  hardie karges 12:52 pm on April 18, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: communism ( 21 ), Europe ( 19 ), history   

  MONDAY MORNING COMMUNISTS 

  It’s a good time to be a Communist, now that it’s totally discredited and can be re-discussed without mention of the Soviet Union. The Soviets never had a clue as to what they were doing, but Marx definitely did. He might have even been half right. Societies have come a long way over the last five thousand years in terms of human rights and physical wellbeing. Even Chomsky will admit that. The problem is that there is no guarantee of further improvement. Slavery only became eradicated when it became clear that there were better ways to reduce people into draft animals; i.e. cram them into cities. Communism is great at distributing wealth; it’s not so good at creating it. Europe did better with their social democracies, a multi-level system that allowed for individual initiative while still providing a vast umbrella and safety-net for everyone in society. That kept the Communists at bay, but put Europe at a competitive disadvantage with a resurgent US and UK, and a rising Asia, where labor unions are weak or non-existent. Though paralyzing labor strikes seem to have diminished sharply in the last twenty years simultaneous with the death of Communism, all is not well. Too many people in the US are either filthy rich or filthy poor, falling through the cracks, mitigated only by the vastness of the country and the fact that there are plenty of places to fall. Europe is more egalitarian; it has to be. Europe is probably the next best hope for mankind.

   

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  hardie karges 7:34 pm on April 15, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: drugs ( 7 ), history, OPIUM   

  OPIUM WARS 

  The Opium wars continue, countries being forced to open their markets at the point of a gun. Beware of what you ask for; you might just get it. Money brings us down to its own pathetic level. Share the wealth or lose it. Everything is for sale. The shoe fits many feet. The opium you forced them to buy now makes addicts of your sons, in attics and lofts and empty rooms full of dust and webs and Internet intrigues. Conspiracy can bring down empires with just a whisper, a rumor, the power of suggestion. What’s worse, the rotten core or the outside bruises? The battle-ax people are walking wounded from their own self-inflicted traumas, the curse of consciousness, guilt and responsibility, no longer a genetic advantage as hordes gather on the steppes and knock on a battered door.
   
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  hardie karges 5:56 pm on April 13, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: history, populations, racism ( 10 )   

  Races to the Finish 

  Racism begins at home, in the bed and in the head. We Gringos talk about 1.2 billion Chinese as if the very jaundice in our eyes were the direct result of some insidious ‘yellow peril’ virus seeking us out to invade and infect, DNA in a bio-degradable condom, a Trojan horse time-released to explode once inside, douching us with yellow rain, slanted eyes and a distinct preference for rice and noodles in slurpy broth. I assure you they’re much more justified in worrying about the 1.2 billion Gringos who dominate half the world’s landmass surrounding them. Figure India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal as a racial unit and you’ve got another 1.2 billion Indians right there. All races are in a dead heat, and the world shows approximately the same power distribution that it has for the past two thousand years, except for the Middle East. Religion comes in where race leaves off. Islam gets its billion by crossing more borders and impacting more lives than a capitalist Free Trade Agreement, oil being the secret weapon to grease the wheels of commerce, jihad being the dagger that forces the intransigent into submission. Ideology died with Communism, and religion as a unifying force in the third millennium is a long shot at best. It remains to be seen whether everyone can share equally in a market-driven world, and anyway, nobody’s going to wave a flag for capitalism. It’s strictly trickle-down theory, intravenous drip, better than nothing. Still, it works, if slowly, and almost anything is better than racism. The best way to end racism, of course, is to end race and blend the races. It can be fun, too, the cosmic blender. Just imagine: tropical blends, single-country blends, “John and Yoko’s”, café latte’ slurpees, trail blends and rocky roads. The expanding universe is now contracting, equal opportunity employment. Create the world in another’s image and likeness for a change.

   
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  hardie karges 7:44 am on April 9, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: history, MONEY ( 7 ), ROBBER BARONS   

  MONEY 

  Money is the root of all evil, not the love thereof, but the thing itself, green and crispy, infinitely malleable. Paper money is the best kind, inherently worthless except as fuel and toilet paper, legally tender in illegal tight spots. It comes from a checkered past of magic ritual undercurrents and shamanistic overtones to its present status as currency for pawns and plaything for bishops. The future is pure monopoly, hotels on the Boardwalk and houses on Park Place, rides on railroads and you get out of jail free. The new robber barons replace the old robber barons, and the world creeps forward on unsteady feet.

   
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  hardie karges 7:10 am on April 4, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: history, 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 10:57 am on April 1, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: America ( 59 ), communism ( 21 ), Europe ( 19 ), history, 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, 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, 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, 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.       

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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 9:55 am on March 22, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: history   

  World History 

  We tend to think the world’s getting smaller, but that’s been coming on a long time, coming back to where it started, I guess.  We may have all descended from a single group of DNA-improved hominids that may have numbered no more than a couple hundred in their formative years.  It may have taken thousands of years to get out of Africa, but hey, better late than never.  The transportation systems in some of those countries still probably aren’t much better; ditto for life expectancy.  We’ve come a long way since then, choosing sides as gooks and honkies, so that we’d have somebody else to fight when we aren’t busy fighting with ourselves.  We even took the fight to America, honkies claiming the turf even though the gooks got there first.  Or did they?  The more we separated, the more we came back together.  Aryans took their Motown chariots over the steppes all the way to India in the second millennium BC, kicking gook butt the whole way.  Then Alexander, representing the honkies again, showed his troops how to ride bareback and proceeded all the way to Central Asia in the fourth century BC by the southern route.  Well, that kicked over a hornet’s nest, you can be sure.  The gooks invented stirrups and then Genghis Khan and his brother Don finally returned the favor fifteen hundred years later, kicking honkie and gook butt alike.  They screamed down out of Outer Mongolia, and took China, central Asia, Persia, Russia, and half the known world as their province.  This new state of affairs was not lost on some merchants of Venice and the Catholic Church.  They decided to capitalize on the situation and thus capitalism was born, peddling trinkets to homies all over the world.  Money is the measure of motion, a great scientific discovery.  Then when European sailors realized you could sail south of the Equator and not fall off, it was a whole new ballgame all over again, the Age of Discovery.  Muslims and Chinese already knew that, but, situated at the crossroads of trade, the Muslims were the problem, not the solution, and the Chinese were chicken shit.  They had gunpowder, the magnetic compass, and printed paper, but couldn’t think of a thing to do with it, except print more money and gamble it away.  The Middle Kingdom expected the world to come to them.  Meanwhile the homies back in Africa didn’t do so well.  Their average life expectancy never got much past that of our chimpanzee and gorilla cousins.  When British tightwads discovered that the money they hoard and the gadgets they create could spur industry that would revolutionize the world, creating more and more money in a never-ending spiral, a big wad of cotton candy fluff was born that looks a lot like our modern world.  Welcome to it.  Good luck out there.   

  Geoffrey Thomas is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    Geoffrey Thomas 3:45 pm on March 22, 2008 Permalink | Reply

    Geofrey Thomas exploring how time works

    I’ve been exploring the idea clocks tell us time us excatly as the great scientific thinker and hero of the scientific world Albert Einstein said all along about time.

    He siad clocks slow down when we approach the maximum speed of light. We all read about this in any science manual on Albert Einstein’s theory of reality. But the theory says only from that point of view. Some of us believe time comes to a stop as we hit the maximum speed of light.

    We’d think the horrific G-forces of extreme velocity like that would be an ideal force and energy for use in distorting space and time catalysis for time travelling.

    However, if it’s only a point of view thing, as time stops at light speed from our point of view, and then what does the environment’s time lines point of view see us as?

    I’ve been exploring in my blog all this called, (http://) time travel and parallel universe theorie (.blogspot.com/) how we observe the environment’s time pass not only from our point of view when we’re at maximum speed of light but also from the environment’s point of view of us at that velocity.

    When we think of it, we observe the hour and minute hands of clocks frozen in time at any given moment just as we would expect to see clock arms stopped in time if we were at the maximum speed of light.

    Despite “us” seeing the environment frozen in time at the maximum speed of light “from the environment’s point of view” would probably see us speeded up in time.

    Something tells us despite the fact the hour and minute hands appear to be frozen in time at any given moment they’re not. It appears we observe the hands are moving though time stopped in time at the same time.

    Yours The explorer of time

    Geoffrey Thomas