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ON BUSH’S INVITATION TO THE TERRORISTS

A Rational Assessment Of The Human Condition

And A Call For Intelligent Action

 

by

Michael Andrews

An Embarrassed American

 

 

Let me first apologize for this intrusion, but after this tilt at the windmill I shall probably lapse into silence for a while.

 

Unless there is some significant response in terms of discussion or clarification, this will probably be my last message until following the upcoming catastrophe of the 2004 presidential elections. If Bush wins the ongoing process of the suppression of free speech will be institutionalized. The mere toleration of free speech will become the aggressive eradication of dissent by making the mere act of entertaining a dissenting thought a punishable offence. At that point dissent, already ineffective, will be impossible.

 

So let me say goodbye now to the American Dream, its halfhearted experiment with democracy and to Huckleberry Finn, the first American humanist.

 

To begin, let it be stated up front that if intelligent human individuals cannot or will not comprehend and think about the following issues; if the average human does not have the mental horse power to deal with complex issues critical to its own survival, then not only is democracy in principle unworkable, but the species is most certainly doomed to annihilation and homo sapiens will never earn the right to survival.

 

The vestiges of American democracy is analogous to the Library of Alexandria which suffered numerous assaults but was actually destroyed by neglect; not enough cared enough to matter.

 

It is also regrettable that the issues are long and complex. If you find that you do not have the mental juice to deal with these issues, or have no interest in these issues, or already deal with them in some other manner, then please pass this along to anyone you feel may have the cognitive and ethical resources to consider the collapse of the USA and the survival of the species. Perhaps this way, the initial broadcast will reach out to some significant number of readers.

 

A explanatory note regarding the use of the term “fascism.” On first consideration it seemed the term carried too much emotional baggage, is too inflammatory to be useful for the purposes of persuasion, and should probably be eliminated in favor of some terminology similar in meaning, but more neutral in tone. Further consideration, however, confirmed that the word fascism was too accurate to be dismissed. As a state based on the overweening use of military power, with a suppressed token democracy run by an oligarchic elite for the benefit of wealth, commerce and industry the United States of America has, in fact, become a fascist state. It can certainly be argued that it has not yet achieved the status of full blown fascism, such as that of Nazi Germany. However, the salient point is that the progress from semi democracy to fascism has reached the point of no return in America. In America, democracy is no longer able to reinstate itself by democratic means. And that is the death of democracy. It is now a government of the wealthy, for the markets and by the police. For all intents and purposes, America is a nascent fascist state. And so, the term stands.

 

 

 

IT IS APPROPRIATE TO DEAL WITH THE UPCOMING TRIVIA FIRST. The 2004 presidential election is not trivial in the sense that it represents a great human tragedy. It is trivial in that the tragedy is already fait accomplish.

 

Matters of fait accomplish are not worth debating; especially with those of limited mental resources such as the providers and consumers of conservative talk radio. Such intellectual poverty nourishes the conscious choice to remain committed to stupidity. An electorate committed to stupidity is not only allowed to vote, it determines the outcome.

 

The reason for considering the obvious here is to take note of the methods that will be employed by a Bush regime whose number one priority is to remain in power at any cost. All of these tactics can be initiated by the Bush regime, which relies on the fact that most of them can be claimed to have been initiated by conditions beyond their control. Every one of these conditions can also be engineered to establish climates favorable enough to encourage or to invite action by outside entities; such as Bush’s open invitation to the terrorists. Only the first method listed here can be claimed, although falsely, to be legitimate and fair. The second method is a matter of the cynical manipulation of public perception. The occurrence of any or all of these electoral stratagems will be a convincing demonstration of the type of junta that now controls the United States. Other than convincing a handful of the uncommitted it serves as dire warning for intelligent individuals to consider precautions in the times to come.

 

 

LOSING IS NOT AN OPTION

The outcome of the 2004 presidential elections is the pivotal fait accomplish in the bag. Losing is simply not an option for a fascist regime.

 

Bush will win the election by utilizing some or all of the following five methods:

 

1)     MONEY AS VOTES, MONEY AS FREE SPEECH

Perhaps as much as 5% of the electorate who do vote, vote by arriving at intelligent choices. Probably another 10% vote by making rational self serving choices. At least 85% of the electorate occupy a bell curve and vote how they are told. This is the stupid vote that determines electoral outcomes. This is especially true of the middle class which is too complacent, too apathetic, too unaware and too stupid to ascertain what is their own best interests or to determine their own political fate.

 

Incidentally, when condescending manipulators of public opinion tell the electorate how smart they, despite all evidence to the contrary, it is just one more insult to their limited intelligence. The first step to the recovery from stupidity is to acknowledge the condition.

 

Since money has replaced democracy, the way that they are told how to vote is simply by what message on mass media they hear most of just prior to voting. The inundation of media by political advertising is the critical mechanism in purchasing public office, and money alone determines the quantity and quality of the advertising propaganda machinery.

 

Money has already been declared the only legitimate form of free speech. Money is, although undeclared, also the only determining factor for swaying votes. In this sense, money is votes. This is mostly true in the obverse sense and is devastatingly powerful. It is the lack of money that denies free speech and lack of money is also the denial of votes.

 

By sheer dint of overwhelming amounts of ready cash, George Bush will tell the stupid 85% how to vote. Nevertheless, the purchasing of the presidency is considered to be both a normal and legitimate method. A depressing sign of the times.

 

In itself money is all that is necessary to win presidential elections. However, the Bush regime has proved itself so egregious in questionable behaviors and has so threatened the well being of the average complacent citizen, that further tactics will be employed to underpin the power of purchasing of votes.

 

 

2) ECONOMIC ISSUES

The trouble with money and power is positive feedback; the more you have, the more you get. The rich do indeed get richer and the powerful become yet more powerful. One of the abuses of power and wealth is the cynical manipulation of public perception about critical arenas such as the economy, quality of life and national security.

 

Consequently, there will be a concerted effort to create a public perception that economic well being is steadily increasing.

 

One of the most important public economic perceptions in presidential elections is jobs. Already the job creation statistics are being manipulated upward. The jobs created are of course, low paying, wage slave and minimum wage positions. Furthermore, there is every reason to suspect that optimistic job creation numbers have been skewed upward, if they are not outright lies. The middle class, which is the bastion upholding democracy, remains critically unemployed or threatened with unemployment. The middle class is slated, of course, for extinction. Nevertheless, they will happily vote for their own extermination.

 

Therefore, there will also be a concerted effort to create a public perception that job creation is steadily increasing and that somehow, miraculously, Bush is responsible for such beneficence.

 

A second important public economic perception is the health of financial institutions such as banking and the stock markets. The stupid 85% already believe that this is somehow related to their welfare. It is not. It is related only to their fleecing. But be that as it may, they do feel warm and fuzzy when the financial institutions of the free market pyramid scheme are shown to be perpetually expanding. They feel warm and fuzzy about this for no other reason than that they are told to feel warm and fuzzy about this, and that, somehow, Bush is responsible for such beneficence.

 

Other more complicated economic issues which tend to be negative, such as deficits, debts, transfers of wealth, foreign outsourcing of jobs, declining social services and eroding infrastructure are handled in one of two ways; lying or downplaying.

 

Deficits, debts and the foreign outsourcing of jobs are handled with outright lies; astonishingly, we are informed that these outrages are actually good for the economic health of the nation. In fact, it benefits only the supra-national corporations. There has been no media informing the public that one of the main areas of job outsourcing is in the highly skilled technical professions. America is not only dumbing itself and forcing the middle class into poverty, and it is not merely giving away intellectual property rights. America is eliminating its very ability to create intellectual property in the first place.

 

Health care is an example of the misdirected program, or bait and switch. Medicare for example is supposed to be improved and sustained by an elderly prescription benefit. This acts to appear as an improvement while actually being engineered to destroy Medicare in the fine print.

 

Monumental transfers of public wealth into unregulated supra-nationals, declining social services and the eroding infrastructure, including education, hospitals, roads, power, etc are simply stated to be of little or no importance, denied, or declared as improvements.

 

Lies, damned lies and statistics become matters of uncontested fact when the stupidity of the public is conditioned by an avalanche of media and political ads.

 

 

3) NATIONAL SECURITY AND THE FEARLESS LEADER

 Because of the irrational belief that a proven war leader cannot be replaced when the Nation is threatened by foreign aggression, it is obvious that a winning presidential tactic is to promote threats to national security. It is, in fact, so critical to a presidential reelection that if no national security threat exists, it needs to be created.

 

Given the severe limitations and short term nature of the attention span of the 85% stupid, these threats should be engineered to arise somewhere between late summer and the fall preceding the election and be ongoing by election day 2004.

 

The Bush junta has an historical track record well established in this regard. There is little doubt that prior to 911 this junta knew that a serious external threat to national security was necessary for the overthrow of democracy and to guarantee the establishment of a fascist takeover.

 

 

 

THE TERRORISTS ARE AT THE GATE

This Reagan/Bush agenda had been well evolved since 1980 and remains the ongoing strategic goal of the ruling elite. It is always aimed at the goal of monopolizing wealth and power and retaining it at all costs.

 

The primary focus of the Bush regime was to turn Iraq into some sort of barbaric great Satan whose immanent overthrow of the US was undeniable; a leading member, in their minds, of the Axis Of Evil. Quite likely it is true that the junta thought much less of the threat of terrorist assault. It is well established that they knew of the likelihood of such an assault but no doubt also assumed that it would not be of sufficient magnitude to meet the needs of their agenda. But they also no doubt assumed that if such an assault did occur it could only further their agenda. And so, by ignoring the threat, they permitted the 911 attack  In fact, by ignoring it, they invited an attack.

 

This cynical and egregious permission to attack the American public is a risk free strategy, since they assume that they cannot be held accountable for an unspoken and tacit conspiracy. A conspiracy without a paper trail does not be proven to exist. But is a conspiracy, nonetheless.

 

Having placed their strategic energy into the demonization of Iraq, when 911 did occur they were unprepared for the magnitude and, in a thrifty rethink, needed to quickly attach the terrorism to Iraq, invade anywhere Islamic immediately, and institute a police state based on mob frenzy and the hysterical demands to combat the supposed threat of International Terrorism.

 

From the moment the first plane hit the tower, anyone and everything that opposed the agenda of the Bush junta would fall under the rubric of terrorism or treason.

 

In this response they did exactly what the terrorists wanted them to do, which coincided exactly with their own agenda. The strategic goal shared by both the Al Quaida terrorists and the Bush regime, an elite junta representing the fascist interests of the supra-national corporations, is the final overthrow of the remnants of US democracy. In this the Bush junta and the Al Quaida terrorists established a tacit and unstated conspiracy, based solely on the commonality of these goals.

 

War defines a nation. National security and foreign threat enthrones the Imperial War Leader. Internal dissent and loyal opposition solidify fascist dictatorships by providing unpatriotic traitors and the necessity for a national police and other analogs of the SS such as Homeland Security.

 

 

 

THE 9/11 COMMISSION AND BUCKETS OF WHITEWASH

or DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL

or NOT MY FAULT, NOT MY JOB, SOMEBODY ELSE DID IT

 

The 9/11 Commission is another of a long series of cynical jokes played on the public perception. It was convened for no other purpose than to provide a public platform, many millions of dollars of free publicity and campaign ads, for the sanitizing of the historical record and to pave the way for the presidential reelection.

 

 It is a masterstroke of subterfuge and misdirection. The commission very politely asks questions confined to the pseudo issue of what the regime knew about possible terrorist attacks before 9/11, what plans or policies did they have or not have, and what action did they or did they not pursue.

 

This effectively limits the issue to a pointless inquiry and it entirely hides the real state of affairs which is the tacit, and never spoken, conspiracy that was the only policy the Bush regime cared about in regards to potential terrorist attacks prior to 9/11. That policy was that if the terrorists struck it could only be good for their true agenda. So, do nothing, let it happen. In the event nothing happened they worked in a frenzy on their backup plan which was to demonize Iraq toward the ultimate goal of invasion.

 

The purpose of the 9/11 commission was to hide that policy.

 

A more insidious smoke screen is evident in the progressive dissent whose thrust seems to be that no matter what the failures of the Bush regime, there is a need to prevent more terrorist attacks at any cost. Although a reasonable idea on the surface, upon deeper consideration this masks an underlying concept which is not mentioned, let alone debated. That is the concept that what is meant by preventing attack is limited strictly to the military/police/economic coercion that can be implemented using the full force of the United States’ coercive powers. This, in turn, implies that the United States should be allowed to continue its policy of the economic plundering of the vast majority of the defenseless populations around the globe. This predatory economic oppression of huge populations is the breeding ground for terrorism. Instead of calling for kinder-gentler treatment of other less fortunate peoples, it is argued that the only tactic that needs to be addressed is the terrorism that is generated by American economic terrorism in the first place.

 

 

 

 

AL QUAIDA WON THE MOMENT THAT THE FIRST PLANE STRUCK the first tower. In a single attack they accomplished all their major goals and delivered a near fatal blow to American Democracy.

 

They could not have been so successful without the assistance of George Bush and his ruling junta. By kick starting the Bush agenda Al Quaida accomplished all the following:

1.      The end of American Democracy, including but not limited to, the destruction of civil liberties, freedom of speech, habeas corpus, search warrants, due process, open and speedy trial, etc.

2.      The termination of the American dream and quality of life

3.      Broke the back of the American economy by making it possible for the ruling elite as represented by the Bush junta to plunder the public treasury and the wealth of the middle class. The middle class will simply die off without a whimper and not be replaced. America is ineluctably plodding on to become a third world nation of two highly polarized classes.

4.      Established a police state: personified by Homeland Security, but far deeper and more extensive than that.

5.      Established an overt American military imperialism. By engineering America into making its own retaliatory terrorist attacks against Islamic states and populations and by attacking the very people whose lives should have been improved and whose help is crucial to the elimination of terrorism, Bush has only guaranteed a cycle of violence that will embroil America in a state of perpetual warfare. This war can only end with the defeat of American imperialism; either we go broke, are politically neutralized or the final military battles will take place on American soil.

6.      Isolated the US from it allies

7.      Established the US in world opinion as a dangerous and rapacious aggressor

8.      Created a state of economic warfare between the US and the rest of the world including its own major trading partners

9.      They greatly increased recruitment, funding, backing and legitimacy of Al Qwuaia itself

 

Al Quaida did not need a second attack. From the point of view of the terrorist agenda their strategic goals were already accomplished simply by the reactions taken in response by the Bush junta.

 

To accomplish the ultimate goal of completing the destruction of the American democracy, they still need George Bush. Of course, they can make due with a replacement for Bush so long as there are no fundamental changes in the fascist agenda.

 

It is entirely within the interests of terrorists everywhere and of Al Quaida in particular that George Bush gets elected in order to accomplish their goals. In order to get Bush elected, it is very likely that another terrorist attack will occur on US soil sometime during the critical period from the summer to the election day 2004.

 

By implication, an attack on American soil remains an open, albeit tacit, invitation to the Al Quaida terrorists from the campaign to reelect George Bush.

 

Such a strike will, by itself, guarantee Bush the election and it is nothing less than a good rational tactic for Bush to allow such a strike to occur and for Al Quaida to implement.

 

 

 

A SECOND FRONT on the terrorist threat to national security is the invasion and attack of another Islamic state and population. This can be of practical use to the reelection campaign both in concert with another terrorist attack on US soil, or as a backup plan in the event the attack is accidentally foiled.

 

In the critical period preceding the election there will be an escalation about the mythological weapons of mass destruction and fantastic proofs of links to terrorism to the two most likely candidates for the next American Liberation; Iran and Syria.  Both will be linked to terrorism, either those presumed fleeing from Iraq or of the more nebulous international flavor. Syria will be found to be the inheritor of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which like Green and Purple Striped Unicorns cannot be proven to not exist. Iran will, of course, be found to be developing nukes. North Korea already has them, but is far too dangerous to invade successfully at any time, but especially by election time. Qadafi correctly understood the dangers inherent in an American presidential election and immediately moved to defuse the threat by inviting nuclear inspections, thereby excluding Libya from the target list. Iran, on the other hand, does offer huge oil reserves begging to be plundered, but would represent a much more costly and risky invasion. Syria has no oil but would be by far the easiest military target and offers the extremely tempting benefit of linking the US Military Dictatorship in Iraq with the Israeli Military Dictatorship on the Mediterranean into a single, vast American Militarized Zone straddling the crossroads of the Middle East.

 

Not surprisingly, the conquest of Iran would link the American Militarized zone from Iraq, through Afghanistan to Pakistan. Conquest of Syria and Iran would make a wholly owned and operated American militarized zone from the Mediterranean, through its friendly ally India, to the Pacific and South East Asia.

 

Although invading Syria is the most likely tactic, it does present difficulties by being too easy and not much of a threat. Consequently, an attack against Syria would most likely occur just before the election, and held in reserve in the event the Al Quaida attack fails to materialize.

 

A more serious roadblock to the Bush aspirations is the justification for and the extortion of the costs of further military adventures.

 

However, such a radical escalation of the wars of foreign adventure will also, on their own, guarantee Bush the election.

 

 

 

A LESS OVERT STRATEGY ALREADY IN PLACE is to maintain the ongoing and ever increasing military aggravation in Iraq itself. Open rebellion, increased terrorist attacks and escalating American deaths are all to the benefit of the Bush for Reelection campaign. Presumably the unreserved hand-over of political autonomy to Iraq is at best a cynical joke.  It is a mere propaganda showpiece that will probably never come to fruition. In the event a PR show is required, it will be nothing more that an empty token, or puppet regime representing US agendas.

 

No matter what form the farce of the Iraqi hand over takes, the reality will be an ever escalating military war in Iraq. Noting that the unstated but fundamental reason for the conquest is oil, it becomes obvious that a long term American military presence in Iraq is mandatory in any case.

 

Any significant increase in military operations in either or both Iraq or Afghanistan would probably guarantee Bush to reelection.

 

 

A LESS LIKELY AID TO THE BUSH REELECTION CAMPAIGN would be a coup in Pakistan, ousting our puppet regime and requiring some form of US military intervention and/or a major anti-terrorism effort against Pakistan as a safe haven for Islamic terrorism.

 

 

 

ANOTHER INCIDENTAL BENEFIT TO THE BUSH REELECTION will be an escalation of terrorist attacks against allies. This will act to enlarge the world wide Bush military junta by enlisting foreign military aid, increase war profits by defraying costs, and will reduce negative world opinion.

 

 

 

LAST BUT NOT LEAST is the effort to stimulate the public perception of the presumed threat of domestic terrorism, which will probably be aimed at targets of opportunity such as common crime and illicit drugs, homosexuality, socialists, Islamic immigrants, progressives, and not least, the branding of loyal opposition as unpatriotic. Traitors will abound. Homeland Security will operate without restriction, habeas corpus, search warrants or due process. Internal threats to National Security, when properly managed, can  be at least as effective in reelecting a president as any foreign threat. The hysteria will most likely peak with the accusation that anyone opposing the Bush agenda in even the minutest degree is a traitor. This witch hunt needs to occur just prior to election time in order to retain its potency and before it runs the risk of lapsing into incredibility.

 

 

 

4) THE USEFULNESS OF MISDIRECTION AND SMOKE SCREEN ISSUES

One of the most effective means to control the vote of the 85% stupid is to divert their attention from the actual agenda and misdirect it toward real, but inconsequential issues.

 

Such issues are real enough, but have little or no effect on the true agenda of the ruling elite; that is, the monopolization of political power and wealth and the neutering of democracy. Such smoke screen issues include abortion, gay marriage, race, age and gender issues, prayer in schools, the ecology,  school vouchers, etc.

 

The misdirection of public attention into non consequential issues reduces the negative public response that would otherwise occur in the event that the primary smoke screen issues regarding the economy and national security fail to produce the required hysteria. Worse, the American voter could suddenly wake up, realize just what the Bush regime is doing, and revolt at the poles. This is about as likely as a squadron of flying pigs water-bombing Disneyland.

 

 

 

5)     WINNING AT ANY COST: WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, CHEAT

Finally there is the ultimately powerful, but less definable tactic of wining at any cost. Imperial dictators will take any step necessary to ensure victory.

 

Naturally, it is preferable to keep the natives quite by making such steps appear to be both legal and fair. But if necessity demands, then public opinion be damned, they will opt to take legally questionable and obviously unfair steps to retain their monopoly of power and wealth.

 

The Bush junta has a well established track in this regard as well, and has often enough proven itself capable of taking whatever means required at whatever cost necessary to retain power. Florida 2000 is the most obvious precedent.

 

If the going gets tough, imperial fascists will circumvent all restrictions based on fair and democratic elections. Voting fraud is the least subtle and ownership of the judiciary is the most powerful means. Declaring a military emergency in response to some manufactured national security threat is extreme, but possible.

 

These are measures of last resort when all else fails, such as the in the Presidential election of 2000.

 

Cheaters, contrary to another popular misconception, prosper more often than not.

 

 

ONE CAVEAT AND DON QUIXOTE

Although a rational projection of things as they stand almost guarantees that Bush will be the next reigning emperor, for the sake of sanity and the spirits of intelligent activists there is a single caveat.

 

In a complex system novelty does occur, the unexpected arises and surprise happens. There is always the chance that the unexpected will scotch the Imperial takeover.

 

Bush himself is more than adequately stupid to commit an incompetent blunder of sufficient magnitude to lose the election. But the crew that runs this fascist junta is not. So, although it is unlikely an election-losing faux pas will happen, happy accidents sometimes do.

 

For that reason alone the Don Quixote approach must be encouraged. A doomed attempt in support of a noble but hopeless cause is preferable to allowing evil to triumph by doing nothing at all. An active opposition to imperial fascism must flourish for the sake of ethical health, for intelligent sanity and if for no other reason, in the event of a happy accident, a practical alternative must be in place.

 

 

 

 

CLUTCHING AT STRAWS

John Kerry.

 

 

 

 

EVEN IF BUSH LOSES, BUSH WINS

 

Even if by some happy accident John Kerry wins, Bush still wins.

 

Kerry is little more than another Bill Clinton. Clinton sold us all down the economic river in his obedience to the Reagan agenda by granting a license to the supra-national corporations and to the wealthy elite to operate at will as economic predators around the world, without restraint, without even minimum regulation. This was called GAT, NAFTA, the WTO and the World Bank. It was effectively a continuation of the elite agenda firmly entrenched by the Reagan administration. It not only removed national regulation but granted the right to plunder the US economy and transfer huge amount wealth into supra-national entities.

 

Both Kerry and Clinton know where their bread is buttered.

 

As such, the fundamental Reagan/Bush agenda will remain intact and the best that could be expected is that catastrophe will take a little longer.

 

Optimists may wish to believe that this will buy the time necessary in order to correct twenty four years of entrenched fascism.

 

More power to them. Unfortunately, in America democracy is no longer able to reinstate itself by democratic means. And, in forty years no progress has been made on the issues that truly count. In fact, democracy, civil liberties, freedom of speech, the public media, the judiciary and a congress free from the influence of bribery have all been lost. The democracy does not have a single institution remaining capable of effecting serious change. Irrational optimism that assumes a little more time will aid in turning America around really only represents a failure to acknowledge the true magnitude of the American collapse, and the institution of strategic voting between two destructive choices is nothing less that a vote against the existence of democracy itself.

 

In addition, even allowing that Kerry might actually want to improve things, he will have no power to do so.

 

The control of the ruling elite over the House is absolute. The Senate is contested and is perhaps the only realistic stopgap against the elite agenda. It will not be able to improve anything, but it might slow down the American demise.

 

The ruling elite already owns and operates the judiciary.

 

Finally, there is no underestimating the power of money to dictate national policy. Once money was allowed into the voting process, it was a one way trip down a slippery slope to a fascistic oligarchy. The Senate will vote the way they are paid to vote.

 

The sad fact is that the institution of democracy in the United States is no longer able to correct itself by democratic means that are at once both legal and nonviolent. That means democracy is dead in the US. As Justice William O. Douglas wrote, in such a case only violent revolution could restore it.

 

As long as the fascistic oligarchy is established before the demise of the middle class, violent revolution in the US will not be a factor.

 

 

 

NADER: SURPRISE HAPPENS, NOVELTY OCCURS AND THE UNEXPECTED ARISES

In 2000 there were three good reasons to vote for Ralph Nader as a third party candidate.

In 2004 the reason for a protest vote pales relative to the catastrophe of a Bush win.

 

The two remaining reasons are more profound issues than any single presidential race, especially one that will make as little long term difference and for which, in any case, the fix is already in, as in Bush v. Kerry.

 

The significance of both remaining issues is strongly based on the fact that the Republicans and the Democrats are nothing less than a single party owned and operated by the oligarchic interests of wealth and supra-national corporate interests.  So:

 

1.      A vote for Nader, or some intelligent third party, is a vote for the institution of democracy itself.

2.      A vote for Nader, or some intelligent third party, is a vote for the existence, viability and potential for the institution of third parties as an alternative to the single-party disguised as two-party status quo.

 

The distinction between the Republicans and Democrats is strictly a matter of PR styles. The pseudo-progressive veneer of the Democrats only serves to capture the vote of a moderate/progressive constituent, but it makes absolutely no difference in the final outcome. The Reagan/Bush oligarchic agenda will proceed in any case. Any real inclination on the part of the Democrats to affect some real change is strictly a matter of futile wishes and is encouraged in any case as a snare for capturing votes in the bait and switch game of political power.

 

In this sense, even though a vote for Nader may be a vote for Bush, it is also true that a vote for Kerry is most certainly a vote for Bush.

 

The bottom line is that a vote for Nader is not about Bush v. Kerry. It is a vote for the institution of democracy itself. No doubt this is another futile gesture, just another tilt at the old windmill in a society in which democracy is already dead.

 

But, based on the concept that in a complex system surprise happens, novelty occurs and the unexpected arises, and based on the infinitesimal chance that some third party could arise and effect a reinstatement of Democracy in the US, then it is not an altogether hopeless vote for the way the world ought to be.

 

Not bloody likely.

 

The issue for Nader himself is whether by running or not he will help or hurt the possibility of the existence and viability of an actual and significant third party; whether it will help or hinder the institution of third parties in principle.

 

If he runs and makes a poor showing it bodes ill for the future of third party efforts. If he abandons his run, then it is an admission of the defeat of the third party concept.

 

If he runs with a decent showing then it may contribute to some future effort by some third party’s attempt to reinstate democracy in the US.

 

Contrariwise, given the fact that no democracy can create itself by democratic means and given the nearly inevitable institutionalization of fascism, perhaps it really makes no difference at all.

 

Where the electorate is 85% stupid, dig your fox hole deep.

And, as Tarzan said, where there’s life there’s hope.

 

Therefore, praise the Democracy and pass the shovel.

 

 

 

THE FATE OF AMERICA POST ELECTION 2004

The only variable in the rational projection is whether or not Bush wins. If Bush wins the destruction of America will proceed with savage rapidity. If Kerry wins the destruction of America will take a little longer.

 

A rational projection of current conditions and trends predicts the following events:

 

Civil liberties, democracy and freedom of speech will whither away. The wealth will be drained away from America into the coffers of the supra-national corporations and the ruling elite. The US military will become mercenaries working for supra-national corporation interests until it is defeated or until the global free market pyramid scheme collapses. The middle class will die off in any case, leaving America as a third world entity, probably broken up into easily controlled geo-political subdivisions, and comprised of two polarized classes. Its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, the largest in the world, will be parceled out to the highest bidders. There will be a general collapse of complex, interrelated systems such as the loss of democracy, civil rights, infrastructure and quality of life. Healthcare will become a program of  institutionalized euthanasia, essentially a program of death by neglect. The only healthcare planned for the Boomers is euthanasia.

 

There follows the very serious risk of global economic collapse, resulting in opportunistic nation states pursuing predatory wars and economic extortion rackets, most likely based on oil, natural resources and food.

 

There will be a strong global rising of fundamentalist agendas and oppression.

 

China and the remnants of the European Union will replace the US as economic producers and major markets. Islamic fundamentalism in association with oil producing nations will become major economic forces. The third world, including America, will continue as economic slaves and economic cattle until the collapse of unregulated free market capitalism within a finite global system. This will precipitate a general global collapse which may include global economic collapse, global ecological catastrophe, global plague, global starvation, global decline of infrastructure such as power, communications, internet, healthcare, etc. and including, finally, global wars utilizing weapons of mass destruction.

 

It is not a far reach to imagine that in the twilight of the human species the final wars of human annihilation will be fought between the forces of Islamic fundamentalism with their monopoly on oil, and the Sino/Japanese based coalition of manufacturing, over population and consumer markets.

 

The collapse of the American culture is no longer deniable. It only remains to be seen whether it will disintegrate with savage rapidity, or gracefully decline over a period of a generation or two.

 

The time is approaching for intelligent individuals to consider leaving the US. In the past it was possible for courageous and intelligent individuals to flee to the New World, the American Frontier, or to simply invade some defenseless third world culture.

 

Unfortunately, there may no longer be any place left to flee to, except for the fantastic realms of sci-fi wish fulfillment such as under the sea habitats, outer space, artificial habitats in Antarctica, etc. In an era of globalized markets and power structures, there may be no place to flee that is neither predator nor prey. Perhaps the best to be hoped for is some place out of harms way when major global systems collapse.

 

But a far worse scenario must be seriously considered: the threat to the survival of the species.

 

 

 

THE THREAT TO HUMAN SURVIVAL

Whether or not America survives in any recognizable form after the holocaust perpetrated by the Bush agenda, there is an ongoing and serious threat to the human species.

 

Any one of the following global systems are in immanent danger of collapse, and the collapse on any one will very probably trigger the collapse of the rest:

1.      Overpopulation

2.      Economic collapse

3.      Global Pestilence, plagues and pandemics

4.      Globalized wars, utilizing weapons of mass destruction

5.      Ecological Catastrophe; air and water toxicity, ice age, greenhouse effects, rising or lowering of ocean levels, volcanic eruptions,  astronomical  collisions, destruction of the ionosphere, radical deforestation, earthquakes, radical deforestation and species kill off, etc

6.      Global Starvation

7.      Infrastructure Collapse; water, power, communications, transportation

 

There are only a few possible mechanisms that can have any effect on lowering the probability of human extinction. Genetics, if there is more time than probably exists. A mass interconnected media such as the internet resulting in real democratic control over the human condition.

 

But by far the most likely condition that could increase the chances of human survival would be the improbable evolution of Homo Sapiens into an intelligent species. Any species that is complicit in its own extinction cannot, by definition, be considered to be intelligent.

 

 

 

THE STATE AND EVOLUTION OF HUMAN INTELLIGENCE

 

The great mass of the world’s human population still lives under the tyranny of ethical troglodytes, moral cretins and intellectual nematodes such as the Bush/Cheney junta. It must be made clear that this current set of particularly vicious troglodytes represent a long history of a class of predatory elites who have misguided human destiny since their ancestors first stole cattle from a hard working neighbor. In fact, they still pursue a bronze age economic system based on theft and slavery and currently operating as free market fundamentalism.

 

The pathos is that humanity at large and over periods of millennia have simply allowed such troglodytes to misguide the species right to the brink of annihilation without protest, without so much as a token of resistance.

 

Not too bright.

 

But then, the sad fact that must be admitted is that homo sapiens is not an intelligent species. As such, we have no particular right to or hope of survival other than by accident, chance or miracle.

 

The use of the term “intelligent species” is arbitrary and needs narrow definition. It could just as well be called homo sophia, a wise species, the smart guys, or simply the new guys.

 

Whatever the terminology, the concept that needs to be defined is that an intelligent species does not comply with, let alone engineer it’s own annihilation. More to the point, an intelligent species does not allow a small subset of aggressive, amoral humans of lower or impaired intellect to engineer the annihilation of the entire species and simply do nothing about it.

 

Obviously a number of intelligent human individuals do not make an intelligent species.  An intelligent species would probably involve the intellectual elevation of the least member, the general elevation of human thinking, the uplifting of ethical standards and human empathy, and very probably the evolution of a species wide, or global brain. Such a brain is dependent on some communications technology similar to the internet. This intelligent species would immediately seek to control its population levels, regulate its economies, eliminate warfare, establish global democracy, protect critical resources, institute global social nets, improve its chances of survival and begin to plan for an eventual migration off planet.

 

There is a crucial distinction that must be drawn in order to define intelligence as it is applied here. This critical distinction is the difference between rational thought and intelligence.

 

What most humans think of as intelligence usually involves information storage or fact warehousing, and rational thought, often defined as linear thought, discursive thinking and/or symbol manipulation. This is the ability to follow rudimentary logical processes, perform mathematical functions, utilize language, balance a checkbook and follow baseball statistics.

 

While nearly all functional human beings have the potential for rational thought, the vast majority are barely able to make use of even the most rudimentary rational functions. On the whole, most humans live at the limbic level, humming the tune of the current rock star or mumbling the nonsense broadcast by the local radio talk imbecile. For the vast majority of human beings, rational thought is minimally used to achieve only the most necessary survival tasks and as an instrument to realize irrational wants and needs.

 

An intelligent human uses rational capacity to determine needs, not merely to fulfill them. An intelligent species would use its intelligence to control and regulate primitive systems in order to guarantee the survival of the species, and to pursue more worthy goals than intra-species cannibalism.

 

Even though it is rarely used, still, rational thought remains a potential for nearly all human beings. And facility with rational thought is often confused with intelligence. Certainly it is what is measured in the misguided attempts to quantify intelligence such as IQ tests. But rational thought is not intelligence. Rational thought is merely one necessary component of intelligence.

 

Intelligence begins with rational thought, and even if it may end in wisdom, along the way there are other necessary conditions, the first of which is that it must be used for more than ciphering the local celebrity news, lip reading the sports section or making enough money to attract a trophy bride.

 

Intelligence also involves the habitual use of rational thought and the application of it to critical problems. Intelligence is a habit that requires practice. Humans who do not practice thinking do not become intelligent.

 

Rational thought alone is content to remain within the strictures and paradigms of the initial genetic programming and the biological laws of the jungle. It seeks to fulfill genetic imperatives rather than to determine or transcend them.

 

There is a discernable progression from low level awareness to human intelligence. This progression begins with the simplest of life forms whose behavior is determined by mere reaction mechanisms to environmental conditions. The reaction mechanisms are genetically programmed into the species.  As brains get larger and more complex, learning becomes involved, which allow behavioral responses that are not contained in the genetic programmed responses.  In higher species, there is something like a society which is able to transmit learning from one generation to another, so long as the generations retain continuity. In the human species there is also culture, which is a device that transmits learning across discontinuous generations and across sub cultures without the necessity of direct human continuity or the sharing of genetic information. At the highest level of mental capacity we know to exist, human individuals are capable of using their intellects to behave in ways that are in fact contrary to basic genetic programming when such programming is deemed harmful or undesirable.

 

In all this there is a progression from mindless obedience to genetic programming to the ability to learn, think and transmit information that transcends the base line genetic programming, and, at times, to even behave contrary to such programming. It aims at controlling the environment it inhabits and at taking responsibility for its own survival and evolution.

 

Base level programming operates entirely within the biological laws of the jungle and has primarily to do with the continuation of a species, but does not deal with its ultimate success which results in over population and extinction.

 

To be intelligent a human individual or a species wide human brain would have to fulfill this critical qualification. In order to be intelligent a rational entity must be willing to use its intelligence to transcend it programming.

 

This implies that there is no biological purpose for intelligence unless intelligence learns to take over the determination of its own fate. An intelligent species must transcend the laws of the jungle.

 

Submissions to theories of social Darwinism are, in fact, stupid.

 

 

 

RAPE AS METAPHOR FOR LAWS OF THE JUNGLE

It is necessary to both identify harmful behaviors that have derived from primitive laws of the jungle and how they relate to the possible evolution of intelligence, and to define what intelligence is and what an intelligent species might look like.

 

The crucial concept in defining an intelligent species involves the consideration of a human behavior for which there is no adequate term available to describe it. This behavior is associated with the most egregious and dangerous elements derived from the biological laws of the jungle. When a species has been so successful as to achieve domination over the global ecosystem, these biological imperatives involving aggression, coercive force, predation, unbridled competition and the suppression of empathy threaten the very survival of the that species.

 

This human behavior is most simply defined as the human use of other humans. It is always a use by coercive force involving some benefit accruing to some human, or group of humans, at the expense of and to the detriment of some other human or group of humans. This activity is predicated on the distinction of humans as a whole into two artificial classes; some humans are defined as predators and other humans as prey. This artificial distinction is in turn based on the false assumption that this is just the way things are; based on the biological imperatives and on the immutable laws of the jungle.

 

It is true that biological ecosystems are based on models of complex systems, and are based on the eater and eaten. Big fish do eat little fish. This is most often confined to relations between species, those between predator species and prey species. Only the human species has redefined itself as divided into predators and prey. This distinction masks the reality of human cannibalism. By this case alone, humans have already demonstrated an ability to chose to transcend certain laws of the jungle that apply strictures against cannibalism as well as the evolutionary principles that supposedly promote the survival of the species.

 

It is also true that biological programming dictates that any given species will populate itself up to the limits of its available resources and then die in its own excreta. This is exactly the behavior of yeast in a vat of grape juice and exactly the projected path of human population growth based on a rational assessment of the laws of the jungle. There do exist the potentials of genetic manipulation and space travel, but they remain on the practical level of wish fulfillment and the fantastic notions of religious afterlives. Even if possible, there is not enough time or dwindling resources left before we self-destruct to get any significant portion of the human population off planet.

 

Certain low level intellects among human beings have used this concept of the immutable and absolute nature of the laws of the jungle to justify the right of some humans to prey on other humans; the crude apologetics of social Darwinism. It is, in fact the most fundamental assumption of free market theories. The variations on this idea of the coercive human use of other humans includes: rape, slavery, murder, war and economic predation.

 

Rape is by far the most compelling and direct metaphor for the human use of other humans. It is coercive, physical, immediate, obvious and brutal. It is not different in kind from the other variations, except in its immediacy and its limitation. The rape of an individual effects only one person and a handful of associated humans. It does not effect huge populations.

 

Slavery is a another obviously coercive human use of other humans; as obvious as rape, but less immediate and applying to entire sub populations. There have been a number of types and styles of slavery throughout human history beginning with actual chain and shackles slavery, such as war captives or the black slave trade. Another flavor is serfdom, representing a reduction in overhead, inconvenience, expense and maintenance for the slave master. Serfdom was less personalized  than the classic chain and shackles slavery and permitted some balm to soothe the guilty conscience. Although child and sex slavery exist to this day, the predominant modern equivalents are wage slavery and economic cattle.

 

Wage slavery is far more profitable to economic predators because the overhead of policing and maintenance is reduced to the lowest possible level. It not only relinquishes the economic predator from ethical concerns, it even justifies itself as doing good for the wage slave. It is worth noting that the wage slave is consistently informed that he is free, and that he should rejoice in being allowed to be a wage slave, and furthermore should gladly kill other wage slaves who presumably threaten the security and freedom of the wage slave’s right to be a wage slave. The myth is that being a wage slave is a desirable privilege. The facts are somewhat different.

 

Economic cattle are those masses of human beings whose lives, labor, resources and wealth are extorted from them, usually by some legal means of extortion; whether it is the theft of labor or resources plundered from defenseless third world nations, the theft of resources by war such as the invasion of Iraq, or the theft of labor, lives and resources by the stroke of the pen through institutions such as the World Bank, trade agreements, the WTO, or economic embargo. By far the most prevalent form economic cattle extortion involves property ownership, control of food, health and survival resources, by tax collection and other legalized forms of theft. The salient point here is that all free market systems that incorporate the concept of profits are based on some form of slavery or another.

 

Murder is as immediate and personal as rape, unless of course it is mass murder or murder removed by some distance or accomplished by intermediaries. Murder is very often socially institutionalized as in the death penalty. Nevertheless it is an extreme form of the coercive human use of other humans and involves a wide spectrum of motivations, from theft and competition for resources to emotional and irrational motivations such as jealousy, revenge and anger.

 

War is the ultimate form of human cannibalism and human predation on other humans. It is less pervasive and less insidious than the system of wage slavery and human cattle. It is nevertheless, an extreme yet common human use of other humans. The ultimate coercion is the wholesale human slaughter of large numbers of other humans. The motivations underlying a behavior as horrendous and violent as war largely arise as conflicts between coteries of ruling elites squabbling over plundering rights. Often it is merely a means to reduce an inconvenient excess population, or merely to increase monopolies of power and wealth, similar to the motivations and strategies of presidential elections.

 

In all these cases the human use of other humans is by coercive force, against their wills and detrimental to their well being. In every case lack of empathy is the predominate moral mode. It represents a savage form of human cannibalism at its most brutal and at its most subtle, at its most pervasive and at its most immediate and personal.

 

There is no adequate terminology or word that describes and encompasses this diverse range of human cannibalism and use of coercive force. As metaphors rape and slavery are probably the most effective in representing the full spectrum.  Rape is the best metaphor, since unlike the callous claim that there are happy slaves, there are very few claims that there happy rape victims.

 

Rape then, as metaphor, represents a behavior regarding the coercive human use of other humans, against their wills and to their detriment, considered as a natural and immutable law of the jungle, and in which humans, as animals, are forced to take part, over which they can exert only minimal influence and which, as a natural species, they can never transcend.

 

Systems of free markets and social Darwinism are all forms of rape.

 

 

 

HOMO SAPIENS AS AN EVOLUTIONARY END POINT

The most fundamental concept in the troglodyte mind is that laws of the jungle are absolute, that biological evolution is the only evolution and that the current state of human evolution is final, complete and immutable. On this view human behavior is forever subject to its genetic programming, to models of animal behavior and to the reigning laws of the jungle.

 

This is fundamentally wrong. The primary reason for such a concept is not rational, it is a form of pragmatic propaganda. It is absolutely necessary for the troglodytes to make their human cattle believe this fiction in order for the human cattle to not call into question the right of human predators to rape, pillage, plunder, kill, murder and maim human prey. In this view the human predator class, is, after all just a condition of the law of the jungle that big fish eat little fish. It is, in fact, almost their biological duty to thin the herd.

 

It is altogether mysterious that there is no known biological necessity for the evolution of rational thought, let alone intelligence. It serves no purpose beyond successful overpopulation and eventual extinction.

 

So, at this point there are only are only two alternative hypotheses; either intelligence is a biological and evolutionary experiment that has led nowhere and serves no particular purpose, or it is an evolutionary development that has some as yet unmanifested purpose.

 

In the first alternative the species is saying, “It’s been grand. Now its over. Goodbye to all that.” In which case, a rational assessment of the human condition would probably suggest two, at most three more generations and then, oblivion.

 

The second alternative is the central thesis of this paper.

 

The only possible use for the evolution of intelligence would be for the human species to regulate and transcend the laws of the jungle and to take responsibility for its own survival and fate and, ultimately, to engineer its own evolution.

 

The implications are vast. It means that there is no necessity for extinction. There is no justification for the pointless suffering that humans cause to other humans by use of predatory and coercive force. It means we are wasting our time and precious resources pursuing primitive, mindless, trivial, stupid and ethically dubious patterns of behavior such as free market economics. It means we can be in charge of our own evolution and the universe we inhabit. In means we could become an intelligent species. It means that there is some purpose to our existence after all; some purpose beyond competing, eating, excreting and reproducing.

 

It means we have a right to a well regulated economy. One that serves all of humanities needs. We have better things to do as a species than to play stupid games with stock markets, banking, war, capitalism, economic predation, wage slavery and being economic cattle waiting for slaughter.

 

It means we have a right to and a moral responsibility to reduce and control our population levels.

 

We need to spend our time and energies on real problems; disease, old age, death, starvation, longevity, science, technology, space travel, survival, genetics. artificial intelligence, knowledge, contacting other intelligent species, and, god knows, the pursuit of wisdom would not be out of line.

 

The central thesis is that unless we can evolve into an intelligent species, the species is doomed.

 

 

 

 

EMPATHY AND INTELLIGENCE

Even with all the above criteria in place a rational being is not intelligent without a developed sense of empathy.

 

Without empathy critical data is missing for the development of an intelligent individual. The knowledge of and respect for other sentient beings is so large and important that without it a rational being can never arrive at an intelligent description of  reality.

 

Without empathy a rational being is missing the ethical criteria necessary to evolve into a mature individual and remains locked forever in a state of infantile egotism. No matter how good such a person is at manipulating the stock market, balancing his bank book, diddling with his computer, solving equations or manipulating the lives of other people, he can never become an intelligent human being. In fact, a highly capable rational human without empathy simply becomes a more dangerous predator.

 

More to the point, without empathy rational beings cannot construct a functioning culture that promotes the survival and evolution of the entire species, which is to say, the species itself can never achieve intelligence.

 

For example, without empathy an unintelligent species will promote the hypothetical well being of unborn fetuses at the expense of the real needs of billions of living, starving and disease threatened children.  This is not intelligence, it is stupidity at work.

 

Without empathy a rational being can never transcend such laws of the jungle that drive us to rape, slavery, murder, war and economic predation.

 

Without empathy the human species will not survive its own biological imperative to populate itself into extinction.

 

 

THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN RATIONAL THOUGHT AND INTELLIGENCE

To summarize, the distinction between rational thought and intelligence is that intelligence begins with a facility for rational thought but, more importantly, how it is used and what it is used for. This distinction between rational thought and intelligence is based on:

 

·        The habitual practice of thinking; that is the constant use of rational thought and applying it to critical problems.

·        The use of rational thinking to determine needs rather than merely using it as a tool to fulfill needs.

·        The use of rational thought to transcend the primitive programming that is inherent in biological and genetic behaviors.

·        In order to mature, correctly assess reality and to ensure the creation of cultural institutions capable of sustaining human survival, empathy is a mandatory constituent of intelligence.

 

 

 

ON THE FATE OF THE SPECIES AND OF HUMAN STUPIDITY

On this view, the catastrophic threat to human survival is not the simple threats of over population, plagues, ecological collapse, rape, war or predatory economics. The greatest threat to human survival is human stupidity.

 

Homo sapiens has not hitherto shown any capacity to effect its own survival by taking intelligent action. By using rational thought primarily as a weapon, it has certainly dominated the ecosystem, but it been completely unable to respond intelligently to its own self annihilation. This occurs when a successful rational species runs out of worthy opponents and turns rationality as a weapon against its own kind; the internalized aggression of same species cannibalism.

 

It may well be a condition of the evolution of intelligence that a rational species cannot bootstrap itself into intelligence. In fact we are probably too stupid to choose to become intelligent. That means an intelligent species can only evolve from rational animals by happy accident, by outside intervention or by some condition of the universe akin to the Anthropic Principle.

 

 

That leaves only three potential future scenarios left to humans:

 

1.      STATUS QUO.

This is the idea that we populate up to some hypothetical maximum at the expense of huge losses to the ecosystem, still feed ourselves by genetic enhancements, overcome plagues with science, and still remain sane enough to avoid some form of suicidal self destruction.

 

Some even entertain the fantasy that some portion of the ruling elite can somehow escape into space to spread the cancer of human culture around the galaxy, while cheerfully leaving the mass of humanity to strangle in their own excreta. But this assumes that there is enough resources and time left to engineer such a marvel. There is not.

 

This also presupposes that we avoid natural ecological and astronomic catastrophes.

 

It is not even remotely likely that there is enough time left for the successful completion of such fantastic scenarios before we populate ourselves into insanity, war, economic collapse or pestilence.

 

It is furthermore not probable that human life as represented by the current status quo can survive overpopulation, stupidity, rape, and the disappearance of critical natural resources such as fossil fuels, and so ultimately the current status quo must become either option 2 or option 3.

 

        2.  ANNIHILATION

The annihilation of the species through stupidity is a very real possibility. We are just rational enough to engineer the means to annihilate ourselves. In fact, we already have the means at hand.

 

The only happy thought if this scenario obtains is that perhaps the Anthropic Principle holds, only with the proviso that the evolution of intelligence transcends biological organisms. In which case, after homo sapiens succumbs to its own stupidity and genetic programming, and to the self fulfilling destiny of the laws of the jungle, that perhaps artificial machine intelligence has evolved.

 

Machine intelligence requires a less friendly and stable ecosystem. It does not need a delicate biosphere, a breathable atmosphere, has a high rate of resistance to biological predators and microorganisms, is indifferent to toxins, and has no cultural and biological baggage such as sexual reproduction and animal behavior to encumber it. In other words, machines could behave more humanely than humans behave.

 

As such, the offspring of your desktop computer has a greater claim to intelligent survival than your children do.

 

        3.  POST CATASTROPHIC SURVIVAL.

This scenario assumes that some isolated pockets of intelligent humans survive the coming collapse. It is, perhaps, the only optimistic thought applying to human survival. It is also more probable than either option 1 or 2 in that it would be extremely difficult to annihilate a species so widespread as homo sapiens.

 

But the outcome does rely strictly on the luck of the draw.

 

First, significant numbers of intelligent humans must foresee such an eventuality. They must remove themselves to some isolated place out of harms way. They must archive the culture, history, science and technology in a transmittable form.

 

And finally, they must be prepared to pass on a sane culture to an evolving intelligent species.

 

Alternatively, the human survivors could be comprised largely of dull normals, barely rational troglodytes barely able to perform only the most rudimentary rational functions, and encumbered with the same old culture, complete with entrenched animal behaviors and totally subservient to their genetic programming. It is entirely likely that in such a scenario savage competition and brutal feudalisms would dominate the human landscape. In other words, business as usual.

 

In either case there is a another, more serious obstacle. By then human stupidity would have wasted away a good deal of the survival and energy resources necessary to rebuild human culture to levels equal to that prior the catastrophe. It may be that any given species only gets once chance at evolving into intelligent survival, and in failing exhausts its critical resources and sinks into oblivion.

 

On the other hand, even without critical resources it may be possible for intelligent survivors to control their population, conserve resources for critical uses, cease wasting time and energy on non-productive behaviors such as war and bronze age economic systems, and yet be able to rebuild a global human brain, an intelligent species capable of space migrations.

 

It is possible, but only if the species survives.

 

If there are not enough resources left, then the human species is doomed to repeat ever diminishing historical cycles until they degenerate into hunter gathers waiting for the sun to go nova.

 

If you chose to hope for a warm and fuzzy fairy tale scenario, perhaps a passing space culture of an actual intelligent species drops by, takes pity on a bunch of doomed, aggressive hairless apes and transports them to some hospitable zoo planet. Who knows, perhaps an intelligent alien species could even kick start intelligence in a species of failed rational apes.

 

From the above, any rational analysis of human prospects does not give high odds for reaching a happy ending.

 

The only intelligent and hopeful course of action is for intelligent human beings to prepare for the possibility of a happy accident and then hope for the best.

 

 

 

PIONEER MOVE ON

If the species is not intelligent enough to chose to become intelligent, then the only course of action open is whatever actions intelligent human individuals can take to promote conditions favorable to the evolution of an intelligent species, even if it only might occur by a happy accident.

 

Certainly one suggestion is for intrepid and adventurous young people to tear up roots and leave the US for more promising locations. This is the obverse of the 19th century pioneers populating a putative wilderness of the New World. It involves the same pioneer spirit abandoning that now overpopulated and bygone wilderness for another more virtual wilderness. It is a matter of pioneers moving on to a virtual culture based on a network of sane and intelligent individuals.

 

This course of action involves finding some geographical area with self sustaining resources, some potential for political and cultural evolution, a minimum of smoke screen problems (racism, sexism, ageism, religious fundamentalism, polarized classes) and certainly a place out of harms way in the coming collapse in all its many possible flavors.

 

A more robust solution is for many like minded individuals to establish communities dedicated to the common agenda of human survival and evolution.

 

Such communities would have to be wealthy enough to establish themselves as self sustaining, wealthy enough to buy protection from the predatory invasion of human troglodyte culture; that is, pay taxes, appear unthreatening, render unto Caesar whatever it takes to be ignored by the troglodyte culture at large. It needs to be wealthy enough to archive the critical information about culture, history, science and technology. It may also be useful to archive the genetic basis for rebuilding a diverse ecological. Cloning and genetics would be mandatory. Alternative energy sources a requirement.

 

Better still, such communities around the world could, given time, establish themselves as an interrelated network dedicated to their mutual survival when global human culture collapses. The odds of survival increase with group cooperation. Such a network of intelligent humans can only be established while media such as the internet still exist. When the world falls into a final communication blackout, some method of reopening communications would have to be implemented.

 

No doubt, such geopolitical safe zones exist only sparsely, or exist as potentials only. Still, many such communities linked by the common goals of human survival increase the probability that some humans will survive who are capable of passing on the information necessary to evolve into a truly intelligent species.

 

 

A MODEST PROPOSAL