Online report of the Progressive Review. Since 1964, the news while there's still time to do something about it.
December 12, 2017
Never ending war
Harpers = Estimated percentage of Americans for whose entire lives the United States has been at war : 21
.... For the majority of whose lives the United States has been at war : 46
1 comment:
Tom Puckett
said...
Oh? 21%, 46% ? Those stats are pikers!
According to Arthur Charpentier's page on the subj:
THE U.S. HAS BEEN AT WAR 222 OUT OF 239 YEARS
This morning, I discovered an interesting statistic, America Has Been At War 93% of the time – 222 Out of 239 Years – Since 1776, i.e. the U.S. has only been at peace for less than 20 years total since its birth.
http://freakonometrics.hypotheses.org/50473
The High Lama, in the movie Lost Horizon observed:
Look at the world today. Is there anything more pitiful? What madness there is! What blindness! What unintelligent leadership! A scurrying mass of bewildered humanity, crashing headlong against each other, propelled by an orgy of greed and brutality. A time must come my friend, when this orgy will spend itself. When brutality and the lust for power must perish by its own sword.
General Smedley Butler had a different take:
War is a racket. It always has been... A few profit - and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war.
OK, but those are both too simple. Leadership can't be that unintelligent and profit is OK. We could be making and selling things to better humanity, not drag it down, which would be not only intelligent but also intuitive / inspired!
Buckminster Fuller, in Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth, observed that historically heads of state were counseled by those who mistakenly thought that there was a limited "amount" of good. (This is wrong. "Good" is a concept, an idea, just like numbers, and we'll never have a shortage of the number "9")
Its possible that based on that assumption, leaders thought that population should be reduced and wealth should be concentrated by a few - those in Ruskin who wanted it. We only call that the top because of ranking by accumulation:
...in a community regulated only by laws of demand and supply, but protected from open violence, the persons who become rich are, generally speaking, industrious, resolute, proud, covetous, prompt, methodical, sensible, unimaginative, insensitive, and ignorant.
The persons who remain poor are the entirely foolish, the entirely wise, the idle, the reckless, the humble, the thoughtful, the dull, the imaginative, the sensitive, the well-informed, the improvident, the irregularly and impulsively wicked, the clumsy knave, the open thief, and the entirely merciful, just, and godly person.
― John Ruskin, Ad Valorem, Wealth Defined
Vonnegut in SH5 has the Tralfamadorians relay that all moments simply exist, like bugs trapped in amber -- "...there is no why, Mr. Pilgrim."
Yet, The Many Worlds Interpretation Of Quantum Mechanics posits that the world each second splits into an infinite number of possible worlds - each with its own "reality," all happening simultaneously.
Yoda said: "Oh, cannot get your ship out" and then showed Luke how to extract his ship from the swamp. Well, with all this, we should be able to find our way into a good future - not sure the exact mechanism beyond wishing or prayer or desire.
Darby O'Gill was told that when he wished for the big house to live in he should have wished for the servants and $$ to run the house. The point being, formulate your new reality carefully and don't be too focused on one thing to the exclusion of others; be specific! Else, you might end up with the Red Sox winning an impossible World Series from behind, but doing it in a world where W is president.
Cheers, Merry Merry, Happy Hapy, Tom
“Never forget that you are one of a kind. Never forget that if there weren't any need for you in all your uniqueness to be on this earth, you wouldn't be here in the first place. And never forget, no matter how overwhelming life's challenges and problems seem to be, that one person can make a difference in the world.” -- Buckminster Fuller
Luke: "I thought that was impossible." Yoda: "That is why you fail."
1 comment:
Oh? 21%, 46% ? Those stats are pikers!
According to Arthur Charpentier's page on the subj:
THE U.S. HAS BEEN AT WAR 222 OUT OF 239 YEARS
This morning, I discovered an interesting statistic, America Has Been At War 93% of the time – 222 Out of 239 Years – Since 1776, i.e. the U.S. has only been at peace for less than 20 years total since its birth.
http://freakonometrics.hypotheses.org/50473
The High Lama, in the movie Lost Horizon observed:
Look at the world today. Is there anything more pitiful? What madness there is! What blindness! What unintelligent leadership! A scurrying mass of bewildered humanity, crashing headlong against each other, propelled by an orgy of greed and brutality. A time must come my friend, when this orgy will spend itself. When brutality and the lust for power must perish by its own sword.
General Smedley Butler had a different take:
War is a racket. It always has been... A few profit - and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war.
OK, but those are both too simple. Leadership can't be that unintelligent and profit is OK. We could be making and selling things to better humanity, not drag it down, which would be not only intelligent but also intuitive / inspired!
Buckminster Fuller, in Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth, observed that historically heads of state were counseled by those who mistakenly thought that there was a limited "amount" of good. (This is wrong. "Good" is a concept, an idea, just like numbers, and we'll never have a shortage of the number "9")
Its possible that based on that assumption, leaders thought that population should be reduced and wealth should be concentrated by a few - those in Ruskin who wanted it. We only call that the top because of ranking by accumulation:
...in a community regulated only by laws of demand and supply, but protected from open violence, the persons who become rich are, generally speaking, industrious, resolute, proud, covetous, prompt, methodical, sensible, unimaginative, insensitive, and ignorant.
The persons who remain poor are the entirely foolish, the entirely wise, the idle, the reckless, the humble, the thoughtful, the dull, the imaginative, the sensitive, the well-informed, the improvident, the irregularly and impulsively wicked, the clumsy knave, the open thief, and the entirely merciful, just, and godly person.
― John Ruskin, Ad Valorem, Wealth Defined
Vonnegut in SH5 has the Tralfamadorians relay that all moments simply exist, like bugs trapped in amber -- "...there is no why, Mr. Pilgrim."
Yet, The Many Worlds Interpretation Of Quantum Mechanics posits that the world each second splits into an infinite number of possible worlds - each with its own "reality," all happening simultaneously.
Yoda said: "Oh, cannot get your ship out" and then showed Luke how to extract his ship from the swamp. Well, with all this, we should be able to find our way into a good future - not sure the exact mechanism beyond wishing or prayer or desire.
Darby O'Gill was told that when he wished for the big house to live in he should have wished for the servants and $$ to run the house. The point being, formulate your new reality carefully and don't be too focused on one thing to the exclusion of others; be specific! Else, you might end up with the Red Sox winning an impossible World Series from behind, but doing it in a world where W is president.
Cheers, Merry Merry, Happy Hapy, Tom
“Never forget that you are one of a kind. Never forget that if there weren't any need for you in all your uniqueness to be on this earth, you wouldn't be here in the first place. And never forget, no matter how overwhelming life's challenges and problems seem to be, that one person can make a difference in the world.” -- Buckminster Fuller
Luke: "I thought that was impossible." Yoda: "That is why you fail."
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