Saturday, January 13, 2018

No Wiser in 30 Years

      Back in 1987 Then US president Ronald Reagan gave a speech before the UN. In it he talked about how if the world faced an outside threat, an alien invasion type scenario it would force the world to reevaluate how we saw ourselves as a world.

       It's now just past 30 years since that speech, and it makes me saddened that we are still arguing and fighting over many of the same junk we were then. Our corporations are global, we chat we each other through text, voice and video real time around the globe. Yet for all the strides that have been made we still pursue weapons to destroy or deter each other that could annihilate everyone in less than some people take to commute to work.  In the US we still spend over 50% of our annual budget on defense spending.
       They say it's an unprecedented time of global peace and prosperity, with more children in school, and lower poverty rates, along with the world in general being safer now than it ever has been in recorded history.  Yet with all that, we still fight.  We fight over who's government is better, like anyone cares. We fight over who is following the correct God, as if we can discern the unknowable. We fight over who's fiat currency is going to dominate global trade.  It seems we are still children at the pep rally cheering out team on toward victory only to do it all over next week.
       While the earth struggles under our abuse, we even named earth-overshoot-day, with 2017 being the earliest yet. Now we are using a hefty portion of our electric generation in solving math problems no one needs solved, and calling it a revolution of currency. We may have come quite a ways since 1987, but I do not see that we are any wiser.

Jack Baldwin
aka PanseyBard