Evolution
China has gone all out to create a brand new image of itself for the world to see, but for all the bling and glitter, China is still China. China is still a dictatorship under the guise of communism, still expansionist, and still rules with disregard for the suffering it causes.
There does look to be more individual freedom than perhaps most of us had thought, but we should remember that this is tempered by an absolute taboo on dissent of any kind. The people are free to adhere strictly to absolute loyalty to their government, and within that framework they may engage in business, become wealthy, have parties and wear anything that does not offend their owners. They are owned. Chinese citizens are still the property of their overlords.
They can be relocated and their towns turned into lakes because of dam projects. They can be sent to Tibet to fill that hapless little country with so many Chinese that Tibetan culture is forever lost.
They can be imprisoned for life and Big Brother Brainwashed for yearning for true democracy and true freedom. Their women can have their “extra”, “unlawful” babies cut from their wombs and killed, they can have their water supplies horribly contaminated with heavy metals and other poisons, that cause great sickness and death, and have no power to stop this “progress”.
Freedom in China is rigidly controlled and what we’re seeing during the Olympic Games is carefully manipulated propaganda, including the winning of all those medals by them. Some of their gold-medalling gymnasts are under the age limit, many of their medalists were obviously given scores exceeding the quality of their performances. The Chinese government has gone to enormous pains to ensure that their athletes did better in the competitions than any other nation, entirely in order to make China look superior.
The Olympic Games are supposed to be non-political but these Games come off looking fixed. All those excessive scores for Chinese athletes look a lot like bribery of judges and those under-age little girls that were utterly ignored by the IOC look like deals made under the table as well.
Next door to China, we have Russia, also expansionist and becoming much more threatening lately with their takeover of little Georgia and blaring threats against any other free bordering nation. Such as Poland, where the U.S. will soon be installing an anti-missile system 100 miles from Russias border. This has the Russians positively frothing at the mouth.
No one is going to do anything much about Georgia, partly because they practically invited Russia to invade them by attacking South Ossetia but mostly because Russia is Europes primary supplier of oil and natural gas. However, knowing from long experience how the Russians behave like crude thugs, - and Putin is no different - they will undoubtedly use their clout as primary energy suppliers to attempt the actual physical takeover of Europe, nation by nation. There’s nothing subtle in the way the Russians do things.
This can only lead to violent conflict, something the Russians seem to enjoy anyway. They have a mindset similar to the Muslims in this regard, so it will be interesting when they try to take over more Islamic territory, which they will. Look what happened in Afghanistan when they tried to dominate there.
If they become involved in a serious conflict in Europe, I can easily see the Chinese taking full advantage of it by invading and occupying their best oil and gas producing areas with hundreds of thousands of troops, and the Russians choosing to nuke those areas rather than let the Chinese have them, since they won’t have the troops to divert to repel the Chinese and they certainly would not allow China to annex part of Russia. If they bomb their own real estate and not China, would the Chinese refrain from replying with nukes? The Russians would think so but the bottom line is that they wouldn’t give a damn either way.
When you have two huge and competing dictatorships run by arrogant men with superior attitudes, history has clearly shown that, without exception, there will always be war. This is how far we have come from hairy primates beating our chests at each other. It’s just bigger tribes now with fancier clubs. Not much else has changed including human nature, which plainly has changed the least.
War is the normal human condition. The purpose of periods of peace is to regroup and rebuild in preparation for the continuation of war. If this isn’t true, then will someone explain to me why it is that millions of people will follow one man into war and certain death? Knowing that few will survive, knowing that their families, their children, their entire society and culture may be destroyed?
In between our now massive conflagrations, we do know how to have a good time, in an aggressive sort of way. For instance, we have the Olympic Games.
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Russia is still the real danger, followed by China. For all its unpredictability, Iran could not be a real military threat to the US for at least 50 years and, given its total failure even to keep its own oil industry running, not even then probably. I cannot see the fundamentalist Islamic government surviving that long , too many Iranians hate it.
The idea that the missile shield and expansion of NATO is really to do with containing “rogue states” is complete bollox, Bush must think we, the general public, are all total idiots. He would never expect to fool the Russians.
Not that, given my first comment, I disagree with Bush’s strategy, only with the transparent agrressiveness of the approach. A threat is measured by a) Capability and b) Hostile intent. You ALWAYS plan for the first and develop your own capability but you do your best to mitigate the second by improving relations where you can. That is where US foreign policy goes so badly wrong, whether it is dealing with Russia or Islamic nations. “Smile and carry a big stick” We have forgotten how to smile. Maybe Obummer would do better at that, but would he forget the big stick?
As for human nature, it never changes but in many ways we are better likened to a swarm of bees rather than individuals. Human societies have a momentum of their own and (when we are not dragging them backwards by immigration from backward societies) they evolve generally for the better. Our laws, our institutions, our education, the standards and principles that most of us accept, for all the deviations and nonsenses, are better than any of us.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:09 pm
The expansion of NATO actually is containing a rogue state. Russia.
I don’t know about the swarm of bees metaphor. How about “an overpopulation of monkeys”? Take a look at how one of the “sacred monkey” swarms acts in India and tell me how we’re different.
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:56 am
Monkeys do not write down and enforce laws for a start.
August 23rd, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Neither do bees. I thought we were talking about group behavior, not politicos.
Both metaphors work, depending on your view of humans generally.
August 23rd, 2008 at 6:43 pm
No, spontaneous group behaviour is very much based on human nature, pure self interest.
I was specificially talking about the formal rules of society, laws, conventions, what is taught. Why are things that go on in some Islamic societies so appalling? are Iranians fundamentally different to us? Not in my view, it’s only the formal rules of their society, what they were taught.
Human societies evolve much as organisms do I reckon by a similar process of natutal selection and conferred advantage. Assuming material prosperity continues to improve and immediate survival does not once again become our main concern, there will be a natural tendency for radical Islam to die out, why? because it makes people miserable and over time it will be eradicated.
August 24th, 2008 at 5:28 am
My next post is going to be about human nature and Islam, and I don’t think it will be what you might expect to hear from me.
Tomorrow, Sunday, I’m off in the morning on a rock club field trip, so maybe tomorrow evening I’ll get it written.
I disagree heartily about our metaphors. Humans are related to monkeys, not bees. We act like monkeys, and monkeys have formal rules too. Sorry, bees, no. Monkeys, yes. Monkeys make huge piles of brownstuff too. I would think you’d be cheering for the monkeys. Ole, monkeys. Ole! Don’t you have a monkey living next door to you or is he entirely pike fish?