RANT: SLIDING DOWN A SLIPPERY SLOPE

  

A SHORT NOTE ABOUT HOW EVERYTHING seems to be going faster and faster these days, one example being the rapid deterioration of the United States, with its hollowed-out industrial base (all those jobs and businesses going over seas to low wage countries) and the incredible debt burden now standing at over twenty trillion dollars and nearly a trillion per year in interest payments! As well, the decline of the dollar as the global currency of trade, once a given in the decades following WWII is on the ropes. Now, more and more countries are using local currencies to evade the financial strictures^* imposed on them by the United States and its 'weaponized' dollar. 

👉The system of global trade and finance, brought into being during the 1944 Bretton Woods¹ summit where the post war years were envisioned and shaped, that system is over, as many commetators suggest. It's another data point exposing the failing American empire as it loses it financial mojo, along with its vaunted military might, as seen with its current military fiasco venture in the Persian Gulf. Again, the emperor or the empire has no clothes and everyone can see behind the curtain whose really in charge.

MOST TRAGICALLY, and most costly in blood and treasure (on all sides) was the “War on Terror” begun in in the  shadow of 9/11 during the Bush presidency. America spent trillions of dollars over nearly two decades in failed wars of choice halfway around the world. The cost of these wars has all but bankrupted the country.

  

AS WE GO FORWARD, marching bravely towards our imagined future, we fail to realize that the carpet of the past behind us is rolling up ever faster, what with nuclear Armageddon or the climate crisis increasingly at pace with our forward march. And when we finally see, too late of course, that the past is catching up to us, we then sprint forward in a desperate attempt to outrun the consequences of our actions. Eventually we’ll either run out of carpet or be rolled up entirely and thrown into the dustbin of history unless we heed the lessons of those who have gone before us whereby civilizations of one sort or another, large or small, do indeed come to an end, strangled to death by hubris or willful blindness, or both. Endings are rougher than beginnings because there is a lot to lose empire-wise. People and politicians cling to things that are precious to them and hold fast against the winds of change as they scour away everything, or most everthing that remains entrenched and unwilling to change.  The question is: Will we remain victims of the coming changes or will we adapt and change ourselves? Only time will tell.

 

SOME SAY, tongue in cheek mostly, that the next species to emerge into sentience and roam the world will be racoons (Procyon lotor), a mammalian example of creatures that can survive in most environments, especially where there are garbage bins to tip over. Personally, I’d like to see whales, another mammalian, especially friendly Grays (Eschrichtius robustus) or giant Blues (Megaptera novaeangliae), take the lead on things as they leap forward into conscious self-awareness—though maybe they’re already there, aware of themselves, aware of us as they patiently wait in deep ocean waters for the handoff, so to speak, from Homo sapiens when we crash and burn and go down the tube, nuclear Armageddon or the climate crisis being the top two contenders that may bring about our demise. (There are more waiting in the wings, of course). 

👉Thus, we race desperately forward to our imagined future, not heeding the looming consequences stemming from our actions, both past and present that doggedly follow us. We will need to endure those consequences, to reap what we have sown, and pay our debts in the decades ahead, debts to the world we share with so many living beings (plant and animal alike). We must pay our debts to fellow humans we have abused, past and present. We must pay our debts to the environment, to our world and to Gaia, and those debts must be paid in full. 

  

Cheers, Jake. _______________________________________ 

 

* “The Bretton Woods Agreement was a 1944 pact that set up a new global system of fixed exchange rates tied to the U.S. dollar and gold.” (Investopia) Bretton Woods is in the state of New Hampshire.

 

1. One example being the United States using “sanctions” which are illegal under international law because they have been imposed unilaterally by the United States and not approved by the United Nations or other international regulatory bodies. 

👉Currently, some thirty countries are under sanctions of one sort or another imposed on them by the US. Four billion to five billion people are under US sanctions which is an extraordinary number and a symptom of American hubris and its blind faith belief that America is a benign actor in its role as “global hegemon”, a role that was activated in the early 1990s when the Soviet Union collapsed and the “Cold War” ended with America emerging as the world’s sole “superpower”. Today, that role is being challenged by an increasing number of countries that turn their backs on the US dollar and the heavy hand of the United States that imposes its order as ‘top dog’ in the world, sanctions that primarily benefit rich oligarchs at the expense of the rest of us. Nice.

 

AT THE CLINIC WITH A JOB TO DO

(Gratuitous sexual humour. Enjoy.😏)