Images from My World
Give Me Liberty or Give Me Phones. (New Jersey, 2018)
Chaos, America Style
I’ve seen it evolve for 78 years (6/17/44).
The Dalai Lama XIV had it right:
This presumes that the world actually is in chaos. And I think it is. I bet most of you do too.
Some say it’s always been in constant change.
I won’t argue about that.
But we live in America, where the rhetoric is:
We have a democracy, flawed but still best in the world.
Our system of capitalism works.
That’s where the chaos comes in.
One commentator, Richard Maybury, has been exploring social chaos since 1998 when he invented the concept of “Chaostan.”
Chaostan is the land of the Great Chaos. The area from the Arctic Ocean to the Indian Ocean, and Poland to the Pacific, plus Africa, Chaostan contains thousands of nations, tribes and ethnic groups who have hated and fought each other for centuries. Marbury’s idea is that Washington (the USA) has meddled in numerous quarrels with major consequences.
Marbury publishes a contrarian, some say libertarian, newsletter U.S. & World Early Warning Report.
Two quotes from the last two years:
“Political power is the legalized privilege of using brute force on persons who have not harmed anyone.”
Februrary 2020
“Nothing on the internet will ever be secure as long as governments use it as a battlefield.”
March 2021
Maybury has studied historical empires and sees America as the prime example of empire. From a recent letter:
All empires eventually fall. No one in Washington will admit it, but the U.S. has been an empire for decades now, and there has never been any reason to believe our empire would be immortal.
People who are power-seekers want more power, and they’ll sacrifice other things in order to get that power. One of the things power-seekers in a large government almost always sacrifice is the financial integrity of the country. They will bleed the whole economy dry just to increase their power. That’s a main reason empires fall.
We see it all through history. You can look back to any of the ancient empires… They’re forever wrecking their economies in order to increase their political power. So it’s no brilliant prediction to say the U.S. Empire will fall.
The fall of the empire is actually a wonderful thing. Empires are cancers, and it’s a good thing to excise them as fast as possible.
But the surgery necessary to do it is awfully painful.
If you look at any previous empires, the French Empire, the British Empire, the Russian Empire– these countries are all much better places today than they were when they had empires. America will be too. But we’ve got to get from here to there… and the process is very, very painful. We’re going to experience an awful lot of trouble because of it.
Government is brute force. Coercion. Chains. Prisons. Follow our plans or else. The political mind is the mind of a bully.
Typically, in every empire, it all continues until one day somebody looks at the books and says,
“Gee, we’re broke. We can’t do this anymore.” That’s when it all starts to come apart.
One of my favorite stories is about William Gladstone – the prime minister of England in the mid-1800s – and that’s essentially what he did. He just said, “Look, we’re going broke trying to prop up this empire. This is ridiculous.”
He started dismantling the British government’s power. He probably made more progress in abolishing political power than any other lone individual in history. It’s an amazing story.
Gladstone is one of the few peaceful examples of how all empires go down. They eventually realize they can’t play the game anymore. They realize they’ve exhausted their resources… They’ve bled the population dry.
Humans can only produce so much wealth, and the government is consuming this wealth in order to prop up the empire. Eventually, it all just goes under.
The absolute best thing Washington could do for the American people – if the folks in Washington were honest – is just announce that the empire is over. “It’s finished, we quit.” We’re going to withdraw our troops from all those countries around the world. We’re going to bring them home to defend America. We’re not going to meddle in other countries anymore.
After all, this attempt to keep the Empire alive is just squandering blood and treasure for nothing. We’re bankrupt. We can’t do this anymore. The attempt to preserve the empire – which means, largely, the attempt to keep Washington’s surrogates in power – is just dragging out the whole painful process and making it all the more expensive and hopeless.
If they’d just give it up, that would be the first big step in triggering the economic recovery. But they’re not going to do it. They’re power junkies. They’ll drag this thing out until – in the words of political philosopher Howard Kershner – the last bone of the last taxpayer has been picked bare.
The early Americans understood it well. But most people today have this attitude that the reason things are bad is the wrong people are in power, and if we somehow put the right people in power, everything would be okay.
There’s little appreciation for the fact that political power itself is the problem. It corrupts morals and the judgment.
And no matter who you put in there, he or she will likely end up making a mess.
He doesn’t paint a rosy picture. Right or wrong, he IS prolific. He has written more than a dozen books on economics, world affairs, and history. He’s out of the mainstream, thinks out of the box which makes him more interesting. At least he comes up with ideas about why we as individuals and as a country (empire) are experiencing what feels like historically high levels of stress.
Africa
All of Africa is included in Marbury’s Chaostan. I don’t think much (or know enough) about Africa.
Start with the scale. Look how much of the rest of the world could fit into that continent:
Next, there are 54 countries considered part of Africa. Looking at the list, I recognize most of the names, but I must admit that at least six are off my radar. I googled them:
- Benin (formerly Dahomey) (population 11 million)
- Burkina Faso (21 million)
- Cabo Verde (500 k) (Port for contraband for centuries)
- Comoros (900k)
- Eswatini fka Swaziland (1 million) (National dish is Karoo roast ostrich steak)
- Lesotho (2 million)
- Sao Tome + Principe (200k) (“Island Paradise of the World”)
Alive or Dead?
Sometimes we just don’t know about famous people.
There’s a good website to find out: http://www.whosaliveandwhosdead.com. It has Actors/TV celebrities, musical performers, other performers, political figures, athletes and sports figures and authors and others.
For some silly reason, the other day, we wondered about Bob Barker, the game show host for half a century. As of today, he’s alive and 98.
Truth and Consequences
Think it’s the Truth?
When people say…
“I’ve never googled myself.”
“Putin is a monster. Ukrainians are 100% victims.”
“I haven’t smoked weed in 10 (30?) years.”
“A woman’s right to choose has nothing to do with men.”
“My parents spanked me. I’ll never lay a hand on my kids.”
“I liked the pictures, but I read the whole book.”
STUFF
It’s EVERYWHERE!
Of course, we all buy stuff online. I definitely don’t go to stores nearly as often as I used to.
76% of Americans buy online. Amazon is by far the largest in the U.S. E-Bay is second.
Together they sell far less than the two biggest online sellers in China, Taobao and Tmall, both of which are part of the Alibaba Group.
So what? So, about 20% of all stuff is sold online these days. It’s likely to grow in the coming years.
Back to the Dalai Lama: have objects become more loved than people?
How much of your time is spent focused on stuff? I’d like to think not much of mine, but counting my frustrations with computer and video technology, I spend way too much time trying to figure out how to get stuff done and not doing it.
The Kids
The emphasis on stuff has continued to the next generation.
Maybe it’s the curmudgeon in me, but I wish it was going the other way.
Watching them become who they are and the joy they bring goes way beyond anything material.
Nice to see June busting out all over. Stay well…seeya July 1.
Don’t forget to check out the strawberry full moon on Sunday night, June 14.
Tom
PY-O-MY 
EMPIREs, POWER, SURGERY…and BEAUTIFUL PROGENY! Thank you, Tom, for another fine post with PERSPECTIVE. Yours, –Bj
Tom, Maybury is interesting throughout. He’s a libertarian and his antecedents are Hayek and von Mises, not my cup of tea. But he’s smart and has some interesting ideas. My ideas are different. I see empires as interesting models. They come and go, of course, and when they collapse the conditions of life can be very bad indeed. But empires are human constructs, one of things, according to Vico, that we have made and therefore can know (although I believe we do create things that we don’t quite know; we can talk about this some other time). As such, empires partake of all our frailties, strengths and mortality.
Is the EU an empire? There’s no emperor, but it covers way more territory, peoples and languages than the Holy Roman Empire ever did, and probably has more real authority than it did, too, even without the Pope’s blessing. We should all join.
I wonder what Europe would be like today if the ancient Roman Empire had not existed. You could apply the elements of this question to a lot of institutions. Thinking along these lines might yield interesting insights.
Always an enjoyable and thought provoking read! I found the graphic of all the countries that fit into Africa fascinating.