Today's pic
is 'An Old Church' by LS Lowry. At the centre is the blackened
Church, probably once rising above fields now dwarfed in the mid 20th
Century by mills and smoking Chimneys. I like the girl in her red hat
and all the little dogs. This version may be a little small to catch the details.
Historians
of the future may well call this period 'the crisis of the 21st
Century' or more traditionally 'the crisis of the 3rd
Century' using the French Revolution's Year Zero as the starting
point. Like the original 3C-Crisis, a convergence of misfortune
challenges the assumptions of enduring civilisation. In this case I'd
cite the continuing failure of macro-economics, the endless
low-intensity conflict (still concentrated on the great
land-bridges), proliferation of nuclear weapons, the invincibility of
crime/corruption and of course, environmental changes. When there is
clear blue sea between us and the north pole then this last factor
will find itself properly back at No.1 barring some unforeseeable
catastrophe. Each one of course is fuelling the others and I've
usually put the breaking point at somewhere around 2020, however you
can never tell one way or another. Things can spiral downward from
diplomatic spat to nuclear stand-off in a matter of weeks,
alternatively people can put up with a seriously shit situation for
years and years and years. Apart from the French of course, who set
up burning barricades at the drop of a hat. Good on 'em! They're at
it right now. Hopefully ushering in a new epoch but...
It's hard
not to doubt it. Of course if the mobs were to actually over-run the
existing order in one of the major nations it would certainly shake
things up a bit. Obviously we have seen this within our lifetimes
with the overthrow of the communist oligarchies but it's not really a
brilliant comparison. The revolutionists of 1989 knew exactly what
was in store once the ruling Parties were thrown out; i.e.
Representative Democracy and Free-Market Capitalism. Today's
revolutionaries would be in a more similar situation to the
Bastille-stormers of 1789, having to make it up from scratch,
learning what they may from previous versions of the new world. More
similar to the cold-war ending uprisings are the continuing upheavals
in North Africa and the Middle-East that share the same sense of an
external support for the real internal anger. Such is the inertia in
these societies that even very impressive mass-action has only really
forced the elites in these societies to remove the most obvious
reeking corrupt elements whilst retaining everything else about the
society absolutely the same.
This has
rather gone off in an extreme and opposite direction in Syria where
popular anger was not strong enough to effect the necessary
settlement on an intransigent elite strongly supported by its own
sectional constituency who had seen how abrupt democratisation had
played out against secular notions of freedom in neighbouring Iraq.
The result of this unstoppable force meets immovable object stuff has
predictably been a full-on armed insurrection and military
repression. Like in Chechnya in the 90s, the moderates of the
opposition were either quickly killed, turned militant or just
side-lined through the irrelevance of their position. Whereas in
Chechnya the authorities could then drive their opponents into the
hills as extremist guerillas increasingly isolated from the
aspirations and moral norms of the civilian population, in Syria
this cannot happen. The rebellion has nowhere else to go and is
well-supported by neighbouring powers. Where is this one going to
stop? If you were in Power in Syria why not raise the stakes and use
those WMD and force the hand of the Americans? It seems that the
powers-that-be have left it a little late for a peaceful settlement
like Egypt or Yemen. Stoopid, Stoopid Americans (and us!) going into
Iraq like that on the WMD pretext. Means they have to do something if
Assad deploys. What if the flashpoints start flashing then? Georgia,
Israel, Iran etc. Kashmir, Formosa, Venezuela, Sudan. Congo, Sri
Lanka, Somalia, Kurdistan. The world of competing nation states is a
ticking time-bomb. Revolution today or war tomorrow! Probably both.
The fact
that a 1789-style epochal uprising seems so unthinkable tells you how
far we are from having any new ideas. In fact it seems more likely
that good old authoritarian utopianism will turn up again in the same
sort of places it turned up last time. It may even be to our benefit
you know. It certainly moderated capitalism having a collective
alternative working (sort-of) alongside it. If you ask me the fact
that the gap between rich and poor, at least in UKOGBANI and more
than likely in the US and Europe too, has expanded in the last 20
years is no coincidence. I'm sure there are other explanations. Never
fear Leftard pals! The victory of the 'Private/ Drive-It-Yourself'
Philosophy is really only temporary. Competition can't compete with
itself! Co-operation makes you more competitive. Competition forces
you to co-operate!
Well here's
the embed which confusingly is the title to this post. It's Neil
Sedaka's greatest song but I really think Captain and Tenille really
nail it. Lyrics a bit unnecessary again but meh! Sing along to this lovely, bouncy song. What is love, anyway? Now apparently I'm not the first to adress this rather important question.It is right this should be so. Well it gets a little bit confused
because the word has all these connotations like intense loyalty to
kin-folk, really, really wanting to get so close to another person
that stuff comes out of you or just liking someone or something a
real lot. Or apparently even what God feels about all of us all the
time? Yuck! Well I'll try presenting a unified term in accordance
with my entirely false and made-up religious beliefs: Love is the
desire every individual being experiences as their innate drive to
incorporate themselves into greater being. Where it is thwarted it
turns them into defectors against life itself. It is the realisation
of love, most evident as the emotion of compassion, that will pull us
back from the brink and turn the page from the long age of war to
the beneficent Empire of Crackers that is the only solution to the
crisis of the 3rd century. It's the next step forward
bringing into reality a world where a Universal Declaration of Human
Rights is written there in stone in all places where humans gather as
it was in the age of Ashoka and like in that enlightened ancient
Kingdom there will be a secret police so that the Emperor knows
exactly how nice everyone is being to each other.
