Apolitical

Those of you who know me should realize that I am, for the most part, apolitical; at least in the sense that I stay away from politics. But...that being said...you should read James Carroll's piece in Monday's Boston Globe. Moving forward, if you do know me, then you know that I am always right...and way ahead of my time...and there is nothing in his article that I didn't state eloquently 20 or 30 years ago (except for some analytical shit about the Balkans). But he does use one interesting fact in support of his premise (which, by the way, is that in American foreign policy...talk is cheap, and might makes right, and not only is it an illusion, but it is wrong). Anyway, back to the fact. There are more personnel employed in a single US carrier group (and we have eleven of them) than there are in the entire diplomatic corps. Personally, this astounds me. I would have surmised that there must be more overvalued Harvard and Yale graduates than that; more men and women in blue blazers and plaid pants than in the entire US military. But there is a first time for everything. I guess in this supposition I was wrong. Also, the United States military expenditures are ten times that of our nearest competitor. Carroll is right. We are ruled by the military.

In an adjacent editorial, John Sununu contends that the press is overlooking the natural tragedy in Japan, and overemphasizing the nuclear disaster, in favor of the more fear mongering and newsworthy spectacle. And he may be right, except for the fact that the nuclear disaster in Japan is merely another example of people killing people (in the name of corporate profit). I can accept natural disasters. Nature is, despite our haughtiness, beyond our control. Killing other people is something we do, and is completely avoidable.

In a third article, somewhere else in the paper, it is illustrated that babies have an innate understanding of the laws of probabilities. Babies are born as natural quantum physicists, fully capable of intuiting the serendipity the universe throws our way. Yet we, as if we know anything, continue to believe that the best course of action is to educate their natural creativity and intuition right out of them. The sooner the better. Go read Orbiting the Giant Hairball.

Anyway, in some convoluted way, all three of these articles tie together in my mind. And I am left with a few clear thoughts (highly unusual for me). The first? That most people, in every country, never even imagine killing another person. Yet we, in America, insist on believing that if there is a problem elsewhere in the world, whether it is our 'business' or not, the best way to handle it is to blast em with military might. We don't negotiate with anyone. Second? It is time to revamp all public and private educational systems. What we know will in no way benefit our children, given the misunderstood world that is pending on their horizon. Computers are smarter than they are, and all the knowledge we possess now will be obsolete by the time we teach it to them. Third, and perhaps most important? That I would rather be creative and intuitive than credentialed and profitable. All our paradigms need to shift. We owe it to the future. We've already fully desecrated the past. And we all know it. Even Barack Obama.