Our transnational writer, Mr. Terry Field of Normandy
France and Sarasota, Florida, a born and bred Englishman, has awaken from his winter slumber and is once again at his keyboard. Here we have his most recent
thoughts on a number of issues troubling human beings in this era. - GNH
Brexit, Climate Change and the Fascistic Method. Weak
Reeds Bind Together by Terry Field
Since 1945 and the end of the previously
unimaginable bloodletting resulting from the final collapsed insanity of
nationalism and the total war of nation states ordered by the deluded and the
sociopaths, until the late 1970s all advanced nations, including the social
democratic societies in the West, and centrally planned composite-ownership
societies in the east, held broadly accepted ideas of how people should work and
live together. During this period,
religious imperatives were suppressed, and religious expression was marginal
and all-but unobserved as a significant social force.
Partaking of Florida sunshine in January, Terry, left, is thinking deep thoughts, seemingly oblivious to the smiles of the young ladies sharing a park bench with him.
Since the obvious collapse of state socialism and the final
collapse of European communism, this composite perspective that allowed for
social economic and political/cultural integration at the supra-national level seemed
to promise a peaceful future governed by non-nationalistic, logical-rational,
intellectually driven governance, but that was an illusion.
Now all that is in the past, nationalism is the dominant
vigor in the politics of most major states across the world. The imperative is
for the nation to take control of its citizens lives, and cross-national
co-operation is considered not only unnecessary, but also quite undesirable.
Military power is being expanded in old and new major powers, and old
agreements controlling arms are being thrown in the trash can.
The 19th century is our model. The Twentieth
century is no longer wanted.
In this transition, the political method of fascism has been
very effectively applied. What do I mean by this? Well, when anyone talks about
fascism, they and their listeners usually think about dictators wearing either
the crooked cross or the hammer and cycle, and the repression that goes with
it.
I mean something more attuned to the Roman meaning and
nothing else. In the US House of Representatives, either side of the Speaker’s
chair, there is a pair of bunches of fasces – bunches of reads binding an axe.
So what is this? It is the binding of many weak reeds together to make them
strong when together. That is a metaphor for the underpinnings for radical
social and political changes in direction. In essence, when a settled socio-political
structure is attacked by – often – small groups of focused, thoughtful, driven
people possessed of new and different ideas from those generally accepted – and
they would otherwise as mere individuals make no headway in changing minds - by
binding together and making a ‘common front’ in forceful argument and
persuasion they emulate the bunches of individual weak reeds.
They are thus powerfully
effective. One of the reasons they are so effective, is because nobody on the
old political dispensation either anticipated their onslaught, nor were they
prepared to argue equally forcefully against the projectors of these new (or perhaps
rehashed old) ideas.
The fascistic method is far and away the most powerful
political technique ever devised. It was the under-structure of the ‘Bolshevik’
revolution – a small tight driving inner political core, as opposed to the
‘distributed’ political movement of ‘Menshevism’. At this time of radical
re-direction of political thought and the direction of the major societies of
the globe, it is THE method that forces a wedge into the political world and
shatters it at lightening speed. I
anticipate this method will be used by many groups as they observe the power of
the method, and this in itself will further fragment the social fabric. It is
arguable that such an approach has been applied to effect in the British Labour
Party.
The ‘centre cannot hold’ when new or old novel ideas and
directions are thrust into the minds of the somnolent.
This disruption has, I suggest, has only just begun. And it
is NOT ‘right wing’ or ‘left wing’. It is a technique. And one that will change
our lives and we need to become aware of that to avoid a sense of unanticipated
crisis. I anticipate the European Parliament will experience change arising
from precisely this methodology in May.
The British political system has seen this powerful effect,
driven by highly talented political communicators within and without the
traditional political structures over the last three years in the Brexit
debate. The method has not only been very effective it has disabled the
opposition, shattered the utility of the parliament, who, in general, were
psychologically completely unprepared to fight with and respond to the same
techniques.
As Britain approaches the choice of leaving with no signed treaty,
or remaining and cancelling (via another plebiscite) It is possible that a similar
‘push-back’ by the most driven in the political landscape may be seen to use
this method. It will raise the stakes for both the commentators and the voting
public.
Both need to know that they are not stripped of their minds
just because they are assaulted by ultra-forceful political assault-troops and
charismatic leaders. Can people become so aware? Probably not in this short
timescale.
Climate Change
Time to tell the dreadful truth and
share the sense of awe and horror with the ‘man in the street’????
The Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change is assisted in
its deliberations by an extensive ‘editing’ panel that includes Saudi Arabia,
Russia, The USA, China the EU and Japan, as well as other superpowers like
Iceland. The report is affected by these actors.
The IPCC suggests now that we – the human race and the world
entire – have about eleven years and a few months (now) to ‘act’ in order to
avoid uncontrollable increasing global heating, climate change and internal
feedbacks that make anything humanity can do quite irrelevant. In simple terms,
after eleven years and a few months (amazing precision!) we become bystanders
to a removal of our and most life on earth in very little time indeed. The
logic is unavoidable. And unarguable. Or is it?
The IPCC reports understate the speed of change (it is
non-linear but second order change now, the IPCC has suggested a linear slower
acting anticipated change) and ignores or greatly diminishes the loss of Arctic
ice and the albedo effect, the release of methane from the shallow Arctic shelf
off Russia, and the release of CO2 and methane from the melting permafrost, and
the effect on CO2 release from warming of the lands south of the arctic arboreal.
In other words, the IPCC is NOT realistic and the eleven
years (and a few months) is probably a FANTASY NOW.
In addition, Many scientists suggest that the ‘sensitivity’
of the earth to CO2 is far greater than that assumed by the IPCC, and that the climate
now experienced, and the level of global warming experienced now is the product
of the CO2 and other gasses output to atmosphere by civilization (a heat
engine) up to about the mid to late 1960s.
In other words, we have not yet experienced the heating that
will come from the total – vastly increased ( and non-linear) CO2 and some
recent methane that has been emitted between 1970 and now. In simple words.
There is no ‘carbon budget’ left to burn.
Imagine then what is to come just from that.
SO What is the probable real condition?
The probable real condition is beyond terrible and all should
be awed by it.
It is very possible that we are at or beyond the point when
the global climate system is going to further accelerate to a level not seen
for more than 200 million years. It may well be now that there is nothing that human social order can do
in order to stop the removal of mammalian and most other life from the surface
of the earth.
Fantasists rejected climate change.
Terry has grown a beard, similar to the Old Testament renderings of Jeremiah, a prophet who warned but was little heeded in his time.
Their white noise is now dissipating. But the rising
awareness of the problem is of course couched in terms that there is always
some kind of solution. This is a reasonable approach – indeed the only possible
approach give the ‘public need not be disturbed’ eternal requirement for social
stability – and a social collapse serves no rational purpose today whatever the
probable future. BUT....
The IPCC talks about a ‘technology switch’ to try to save
ourselves that any rational economist will say likely destroys the prosperity
of the comfortable legions living in the rich world’s societies (denied by
many, but in reality unavoidable). That alone is why almost nothing is or
probably will be done. Despite the rising awareness.
Others suggest the IPCC assumed-CO2 removal from atmosphere
used in its models to ‘achieve’ its ‘2 degrees warming’ (really laughable,
since such does not exist, or where it exists is quite untested and really at
the level of the Wright’s ‘plane, minus
its ‘proof-of-flying’) compounds the unreality, and quite widespread skepticism
of the value of its committee’s deliberations.
IN SUMMARY, I suggest to you that we are very likely now to
be beyond the point of being able to control this dreadful rapid future progression,
to a world unimaginable, with little life left upon it and certainly not homo
sapiens or many other complex life forms, whatever the hopelessly incompetent,
and often completely corrupted governments of the world do or do not to try to do in order to ‘ameliorate’ the effects and
the extent of the changes. Physics is its own master.
In all this, we still use the fascistic method to play tribal
games.
Who now thinks survival is probable, or perhaps
even possible??
