Plans within Plans

Atop the Stoa tonight, I'll answer some questions that have been asked so that everyone in the group can hear the discussions. Perhaps nagging questions will be answered that some are not asking.

One question was, "Why did Obama think what Bush did in 2002 was "dumb", but what he is doing in Libya today is "smart"?

Another question was, "How stupid can Obama be, burning up the middle east while saying that we need to be less dependent on oil, WHILE he is forcing most of our domestic oil production to be idle"?

Most of the other questions were variations on that theme.

So, here is my best assessment of the current situation.

Candidate Obama drafted within the MSM's wake in portraying our involvement in Iraq negatively. He shored up his base and pulled undecideds into his camp. President Obama has his own agenda that I feel is rooted in his un-American upbringing. His father was anti-colonial and a Muslim. His mother was a Communist agitator/dumb-ass young lady out to piss off her parents. Sorry for the un-professional assessment, but I calls it as I sees it. His mother taught him that America was evil, his father taught him that America was Imperial. All of the world's issues and problems are directly or indirectly caused by America and its policies.

American power and dominance are the causes of the world's problems. Therefore, America must be diminished. I believe that his drive towards debt, not Stimulus, is a drive to destroy our long-term economic viability. At its essence this is a truth. Not politics or re-election.

His oil policies are all part of his goal of bringing down our economy. He will rather pay Brazil to explore their oil reserves then allow our own market to develop our reserves. Developing our reserves brings in revenue to the government. We will not only give money to Brazil to drill oil (via the American taxpayer) but then be forced to pay higher prices at the pump to buy gas distilled from Brazilian oil. Yet more drain on the American economy.

When Iran had a revolutionary movement last year, Obama yawned. For weeks he yawned. Egypt begins to smolder and he is all over it. Ditto Libya.

I believe that the reasons for that is that Iran is a Theocracy (Islamofascist) and more in line with his father's value system. Communists love Islam because Islam is culturally opposed to the West. No other reason. Obama loves Iran because it is leading the charge against American leadership of freedom. Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen are all countries that have an "understanding" with the West. I will not even get into the Administration's activities with Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, and many of the Soros' organizations prior the "spontaneous" uprisings in Egypt.

He wants Theocratic governments in the Middle East. He wants counter-weights to US power in the world. He wants a new Caliphate to balance the Old World Europe, the United States, China, and India. His upbringing is one of revolution and communism, but his heart lies with Black Liberation Theology. He sympathizes with Islam because they have been such victims, and they serve as useful idiots for his movements' ultimate plans.

Is Obama this smart? No, not by a long shot. I've always said that he is an empty screen, displaying whatever his masters wish to display. He has assembled a vast number of czars and advisors to bypass the constitutional processes. They are working with international sympathizers to make all of this happen. We are brining material and intelligence to the rebels in Libya. those rebels have formed the backbone of Jihadist movements around the world. We are literally giving aid and comfort to our enemies. In a few months, our soldiers in other parts of the world will be faced with changing tactics of our enemies since we are now teaching them our tricks. Wonderful.

It is time for the Stoa to shut down for the night. I hope I have offered some thoughtful discussion material. I await your thoughts and comments.

Live well.

--Zavost

What do I see?

From the Stoa tonight, I wish to practice some active daydreaming. It is so easy to get bogged down in all the bad things going on in the world today. However, if you have read some of my earliest postings you will note that I look at change as evolution. Wars clear off the weak and the incompetent. Revolutions bring things to the fore that must be dealt with and not ignored any longer.

As a race we will work it out. We will work it all out, given enough time. Islam will be pacified. It must or there will be no progress. Mankind will be stuck, eternally in the 6th century. No, Islam will be pacified, much as Christianity was in the Middle Ages. Just as Judaism was in the first century a.d. by the early Roman Empire.

The world will become a melting pot, very similar, I believe, to America in the 1910's. Robust immigrant zones, all sharing their cultures, and their genes, to the surrounding enclaves of locals. There is much we can gain from one another, if we would just learn to tolerate one another.

If only the Ionian Greeks had not been wiped out by superstition and the Great Library at Alexandria was not burned. We would be in the stars by now, of that much I am absolutely certain.

From my Stoa I can see the world as it will be in a thousand years. There will be no more death, though there will be another controversy rocking our species. Do we turn in on ourselves and live virtual lives within our vast networks of AI constructs or do we maintain our physical forms and explore the deeper waters of space around us. I am going to say that it will be a bit of both. I see some of us living electronic lives and some living physical lives. Each will have a role to play in that future society. Self-aware computers, but computers with a soul. Not the soulless artificial intelligences that we are developing today. Starships, homes, and cities will be guided by the human brain, accelerated to the speed of electrons. Electronic avatars that work side by side with their biological cousins.

I see a vast ring encircling the Earth, miles wide and thick, millions of floating islands, held together by gravity, housing 99% of the human race. I see towers, reaching from the surface to the ring, to allow for easy movement between the nature reserves and parks below. Without humans, new species may develop advanced, tool-making intelligence. It will be our job to encourage and shepherd those younger species.

I see a vast web of colonies that stretch into the asteroid belt and beyond. Domes on Mars and mining colonies on the outer moons. A massive web of human life, easily traversed by our electronic brethren. Biological humans laying the ground for the entire species to expand into the Oort cloud and beyond.

I see all of us living together in harmony. I see us implanted with all sorts of devices and gadgets to keep us connected with everyone else, as needed, and to perform the tasks and duties of the era. Politics and resource management will be accomplished through vast collections of individuals, determining need and benefit. More and more layers of civilization will accumulate over our savage upbringing.

A thousand years after that and we will be several species. Some of us will have adapted completely to our new environments. Those that live on Mars and the outer moons will adapt to those gravity fields and environmental conditions. There will be an electronic version of humanity, content to live as pure thought, either immersed in selfish fantasy or engaged in collective discussion and debate, perhaps a segment of them exploring the physical galaxy with their brothers. Others will be seeking out the stars, on vast ships, seeking new worlds to explore and colonize. The travel times will have little relevance as I believe that natural, biological death will have been long since defeated.

Family, nationality, and culture will have long-since been redefined. We will have as much in common with the people of 3011 as those of 1011. Even less with those of 4011 then those of 11 a.d., the time of Augustus.

Those are times that I wish I could see. Likely, there will be a period where we bring our bigotry with us to the other planets and moons of our solar system. We may even wage wars on the scale of a solar system. Again, we will work it out, as we always have done.

With a wistful heart, I bade you good night from the Stoa.

Live well,

--Zavost

The Chinese Dragon

Upon the Stoa tonight I will delv deeper into my thoughts on China, as there as been a few requests that have been made of me to focus specifically on China and as it relates to Japan and the rest of the world.

China, and Chinese policy is complex and multi-layered; plans within plans, agendas within agendas, unknown to most of the Chinese people. I will attempt to untangle this Gordian knot somewhat tonight. I trust it will meet with your approval, if not your critical attention.

China, and the Chinese are ancient. The earliest Chinese cultures arose around the same time as the Indus river valley people (early Sub-continent Indians), the Ur river people, and the Egyptians. They escaped the barbarian invasions, of those earlier times, largly intact while the Indus and the Ur cultures were destroyed. Proto-chinese served as a root for many of the languages of SE Asia and was also the first culture in the area to develop an early written language, possibly one of the earliest written languages in the world.

China really enters Western histories with the Greeks and the Romans. It is possible that the Egyptians were aware of them, but I have not come across any material so far that would indicate this, though I would have to say that it is likely. In that time, there were several dozen kingdom-states spread out around the modern-day footprint of China (excluding Tibet, but including large areas of Korea and SE Asia).

Pre-Islamic Persia had dealings with India, which in turn had dealings and trade with China. The Silk road came into existence at this time.

Ok, ok, just got back from a long trip away from the Stoa and have decided that this needs to be right to the point.

China is currently consuming an ever larger fraction of raw materials, that is materials available via mining and/or fabrication on an annual basis. If the trends continue, China will be utilizing all of the worlds concrete, metals, and other materials just to support its internal economic demands within the next decade or two. Obviously, this is not possible, as the rest of the world will likely not give up its resources willingly.

China must create tens of millions of NEW jobs every year for the people that immigrate into the cities. China already regulates movement within the country; but the peasants are aware of the better life to be had in the cities. They know life can be better and will eventually rise up for a piece of that life. China has already had loads of trouble with them and it will only get worse. The uprisings swinging around the globe these past few months have touched China as well and they cracked down, as I expected them to. They can not tolerate anything that challenges the central committees.

The military is growing increasingly strong with double digit increases in military spending. This makes them both stronger and more independent-minded. Mark my words, the military likely has more pull over there now then they ever have had in the past.

China has bought hundreds of billions of dollars of US debt. Fools. This will hurt them when they need it the most.

China is a rising power and they will be a force to reckon with, but only if they are able to balance all the pressures that are building within their culture and their nation. I do not think that they will be able to control all those divergent forces forever and sooner or later it is all going to come crashing down. The countries all around China may be pulled into the pit with them. I hope not.

It is time to step off the Stoa and get some much needed sleep and rest. More from the Stoa once the teacher has had some sleep.

Live well.

--Zavost

Obama votes PRESENT

I stand upon the Stoa tonight, wondering again why history and fate must swing around and around like carousel. I've had discussions with people who felt that fate, history, and individual choice must follow a straight line through time, but empirical observation simply does not bear this out.

Mankind pirouettes through space and time like a child's Spirograph. The exceptional individuals are those that break out of the cycle of circles and create something new. Just as with a hammer-throw, the hammer will always travel in a straight line once it breaks the circle. George Washington set aside the offers of dictatorship and nobility for the experiment that was America, as did Cincinnatus during Republican Rome. Napoleon took the crown of Emperor from the hands of the Pope and reinforced the cycle of rebellion and despotism in Europe, ensuring that things would not change in anyone's lifetime.

I see these dances playing out, all around my Stoa tonight. Despite the beauty inherent within nature and humanity, I can not help but see the dark blotches that stain our god-given divinity. It stands out like a cancer displayed upon an x-ray.

In Libya, the rebels who came so close to toppling al-Qaddafi are going to be butchered over the next few days. The UN and the rest of the world are only NOW actually prepared to do something about the air superiority of the Libyan air force. It will not come to anything. It is too late. It will require weeks of preparation for the US Navy to interdict Libyan airspace due to the size of the country and the Russian-built air defense network that will need to be taken out prior to any claim of superiority. The rebels corpses will be sinking into the sand by that time. This is just like Hungary in 1956, the Bay of Pigs in 1961, and the Czechoslovak Spring revolution in 1968. The more recent examples would include the failed coup of Saddam in 1991 under George 41. The United States tells the locals to rise up and we will be there to see them through to the other side only to then find something else to do, like wash our hair. Why do they still listen to us?

The Obama administration is taking a flamethrower to the Constitution and our Federal machinery, re-wiring the Cabinet postings with an army of Czars. A scaffolding has been forming around the old machinery and under people like Cass Sunstein, a new government will, and is in many areas, run independent of the old ways. Woodrow Wilson did this during his administration (1913-1921) with the Federal Reserve, the Tax Code, and many, many other little gems. FDR, the next major torch bearer for Progressivism (1933-1945) gave us the alphabet government (many of the agencies being declared unconstitutional in their functions), Social Security and Medicare; the two largest entitlements today that threaten to overwhelm our children's financial future. Cass Sunstein and the rest of the Obama administration are looking to "fundamentally transform" the United States. Round and round we go. How much damage we take this time, nobody knows.

Japan is leveled in a 9.0 earthquake, 33 ft+ tsunami, and nuclear reactors going critical, and the Obama administration pulls our soldiers OUT of harms way. The donations going to Japan are 1/5th of those that went to Haiti at this time after the initial disaster. What is going on with that? Has class warfare begun to affect our charity as well? Japan = Rich and Haiti = Poor? Obama casually mentions that there has been a disaster in Japan and then quickly moves on to more important matter, like his NCAA grid. Oh, yeah, Libya and the rest of the Middle East is burning...and a Jewish family is murdered in their sleep and the Gazans throw a party to celebrate the grisly murders. Never mind those, he is heading off to Brazil for a much needed vacation after his busy work schedule. When he was in the Illinois legislature, he voted "Present" more times then he actually voted "yea" or "nay" on bills. The exceptions were those that allowed children who had been born during an abortion to be subsequently killed post-birth and gun laws that allowed CITIZENS to be prosecuted for defending themselves against murder and rape with a fire arm of their own, even if they were legally allowed to carry it. How's that for a voting record.

The United States has willing stepped out of our role as Leader of the Free World. Without us at the helm things will fall into discord and war before Obama ever leaves office. Nature abhors a vacuum.

There are so many things I see eating away at the traditional fabric of my country. Schools are being told to monitor a students activities AFTER SCHOOL to ensure that there is nothing illegal going on, like bullying, huffing, or passing oregano spices to a friend. Only then, will the parent be informed, though that will take the form of "education" for the parents to recognize this Federally defined mis-behavior. Healthcare laws that will see my care rationed and my end of life choice taken away from me...on and on and on.

The Romans thought their power was eternal, though the depth of history denies this. Marxism and Communism have failed miserably in every century it has been tried in (Marx was never the first to think this way), yet American thinks they can get it right this time. All are insults to the dignity of man.

Rousseau said that, "man is born free and everywhere he is in chains" or words to that effect. We are born free in the eye of god and then promptly enslave our fellow man to do our bidding. Yet I still feel that Man is inherently good, noble and divine. I'm just glad that God did not think "Present" when it came time to think us up.

I bid you good night from the Stoa. I have warm soup waiting for me.

Live well.

--Zavost