The Unique American Empire

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Indrajit
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“Let me tell you about American exceptionalism.” (Still from American Psycho)


The White Empire under America is historically unique. Many empires have conquered earth, a few have conquered sea, but only one has dominated air so completely. America is the final and most fearsome avatar of White Empire, which had all the elements under its command. Earth, water, and air all bowed to its superior firepower. But that's all ending now. The White Empire is already history. It just takes a while for the bloody pages of history to dry.

Terms (White Empire)

The greatest whiteness of the White Empire is that it just blends into the background, like the white space on this page. I made up the name White Empire cause I got tired of repeating America+Europe+UK+Canada+Australia+Occupied Japan+Occupied Korea, etc. The greatest trick the Devil pulled was convincing the world He didn't exist. White Empire is like this, and this is an American innovation. The British Empire was proudly Rule Britannia but American Empire is the amorphous Rules-Based Order. Whose rules? Their rules. But they don't come out and say it. They are the hypocritical hegemon, and this has been remarkably effective. They just blend into the background and all the blood seems to come out of nowhere, from these random 'conflicts'. What's America doing in the middle of all of them? “Helping”. Total bullshit. They are the nameless evil, which is why I come out and name them. Call it White Empire, American Empire, America, it is what it is.

Names, names, the devil has so many names. They're all irrelevant when we don't even see the planes bombing us, or the bureaucrats taking our food away. It's all one continuous White Empire to those on the bottom, in what they call the Global South. For the people under unrelenting centuries of colonial power, White people just take turns beating us with different excuses. First it was because we didn't believe in their God, now it's because we do. Today all of the colonial countries ruled by America and they lecture us with secular values instead of religious ones, none of which they practice or believe. Same shit, different day, as my historical thesis leads.

"The greatest trick the Devil pulled was convincing the world He didn't exist. White Empire is like this, and this is an American innovation. The British Empire was proudly Rule Britannia but American Empire is the amorphous Rules-Based Order. Whose rules? Their rules. But they don't come out and say it..."

The nature of Whiteness is that it just blends into the background, like the whited-out apartment of the titular serial killer in American Psycho. That singular psycho kept his furniture covered and newspaper on the floor, as a more convenient background for ax murdering. The collective psychosis of White Empire does the same thing. They use 'international' institutions to cover up their war and siege machinery, and spread newspapers to sop up the bleeding. This unnamed, untamed empire is the backdrop of centuries of war and violence, culminating in the wild fury of genocide we're witnessing in Gaza. A new world struggles to be born and, as Gramsci sorta said, this is the time of monsters.

For a certain generation, asking them about White Empire is like asking a fish about water. “What the fuck is water?”  We swim in this world of endless bloodshed like fish swim in a world of endless water. The constant violence of the Empire is just the constant background, not foreground. We can't even perceive it, at least I couldn't for many years. The White Empire is clear, it's invisible, it's default. As the martyr soldier Aaron Bushnell said, “this is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.” Indeed, we take so much for granted that is outright abominable.

Until recently, America felt free to kill anybody, anywhere, anytime. To coup any nation, anywhere anytime, and then sanction their grandchildren's children if they defied. Aggression was just their sovereign right, and they were quite sanctimonious about it. America can point nukes at everyone, and has used them on innocent civilians. But if anyone even thinks about nuclear power that's a crime that their children must be traumatized for. America got the British government to arrest an Australian citizen (Assange) on American charges, like those countries don't exist at all. Because they don't. It's all one White Empire. In the same way, America got Canada to arrest a Chinese national for violating US sanctions, because Canada doesn't exist either. It's just America's chapeau. Can you see the contours of the White Empire now, as the background becomes foreground when you focus?

The White Empire is just a neocolonial mob family, with 'made' nations that can do whatever they want, and unmade (undeveloped) nations that get preyed on. If anyone tries to investigate a 'made' country like 'Israel', the mob boss will actually threaten the judges families. The G in G7 stands for Gangster, or Genocide if you're on the wrong side of it. This highly abnormal and amoral state of affairs is ‘what our ruling class has decided will be normal’. But none of this is normal. It's all evil.

America is the White Empire is the Evil Empire. What Americans fantasize about fighting in the dark of their movie theaters is what they actually walk into, as they step out. It's all one military-industrial multiplex, with politics as the real entertainment division. Totalitarianism, authoritarianism, fascism, every accusation is a confession. America is the most evil incarnation of empire ever known (selling your own rape-borne children into slavery? dropping nukes on civilian populations?) and, to invert Fidel Castro, history will not absolve them.

Discussion

let me spit. As the final avatar of White Empire, America commands all four elements, earth, water, air, and fire. Or at least it did command them, now it's all going to shit. Let's go through how we got here.

Earth

America actually lost its ability to field land armies in Afghanistan. They haven't been able to take the field since, despite yelling at lots of people and throwing proxies in front of them. They're actually covering their retreat. The mad kingdom without a king went to the graveyard of empires and actually died there, the signal just hasn't reached their zombified brains yet. America simply can't raise the men (who are either too overweight, insane, or unwilling) or the matériel (it's all depreciating rapidly) to wage a land war in Asia, let alone three, like they're trying to. Their budget is just a measure of corruption, not power. Their bellicosity is bluster. America can't project land power at all anymore. The earth element is lost.

Water

I'll dwell more on water because water is is what made colonial empires different. Genghis the Khan and Alexander the Great went as far as a horse could go but could conquer no further (the Khans did try to sail, but unsuccessfully). The vast majority of ancient Empires were land predators, certainly not global naval powers. Even though China could make treasure ships the size of the Niña, Pinta, and the Santa Maria combined, they didn't want to. They came to places like Sri Lanka, gave gifts, and never came back. They were rich already. They didn't need anything.

The warring tribes of Europe, however, were a different story. They were needy. These savages lived in the most solar poor peninsula of Asia and had evolved to be especially violent and greedy. The Mediterranean Sea gave them lots of naval training, and they later used it to sail across the larger seas. Their ships were far inferior to the Chinese but, unlike the Chinese, they needed them. Necessity was the true mother of colonization, not innovation or exploration. Europe was poor and they attacked the places that had resources and wealth. They incarnated their greed as corporations and, once they did, baby gotta eat.

The reason for colonialism is not actually that complicated, and it explains why colonialism, racism, and climate change are, in fact, one phenomenon. Note that I said Europe was solar-poor. Solar energy (which also drives the winds) was really the only potential energy back then, with animal (including human) labor to make it kinetic. Even biomass (burning wood) requires sun to grow it, solar energy is what the burning releases. Even wind is ultimately driven by temperature differentials created by the sun.

Colonialism is described as a scramble for wealth, but what is wealth really measuring? All currency is just a call on future energy, the ability to make a stripper dance on a pole or the world to spin around a unipole. As Vaclav Smil said, energy is the universal currency. And that's what the mad colonial scramble was for. The rest of the world had the sun and the population to grow things. The sun is also why people down here are darker. Our pigment is a visible measure of solar energy. It's like we're charged up and White people are visibly depleted. Racism is just an excuse for energy vampirism, if you think about it.

Physics abhors an energy imbalance, and it is this force that colonialism uncorked. There was vastly more energy in the south than the north, and the colonizers made it into a circuit, using water as a conductor. This had been done at small scales before. Ancient empires (like the Egyptians or the Indus Valley) were usually connected along a river, because it's hard to move things or people without the magic of water. Land-based empires are of course possible, but very difficult to maintain without the pre-modern version of the Internet, the conductive power of water.

Water was what made colonialism possible, and it was initially a 'renewable' enterprise, adding just wind power, labor, and biomass. Sailing ships could take massive weights across massive distances and suddenly all of that potential solar energy of the south began flowing north (and back around) via the kinetic energy of oppressed people and slaves. Racism was the human processing of a physical fact, that the sun-poor were robbing the sun-rich, and wanted to justify it. Climate change is just the consequences of these acts, because moving energy around has consequences.

Moving matter and energy does 'work', and work creates heat, as per the first law of thermodynamics. We ignore this at our peril, hence the peril today. Water made this all possible. It was the original conductor which enabled the first global empires, what I call one White Empire, because what's the difference between the Dutch, Portuguese, and British to people like me? Just different ships over the horizon, come to take our stuff and sap our energy. Water is what lubricated this lunacy. The original White Empire was a water nation, but air is what made it into an apex predator indeed.

Air

Water empires were good enough for scoring filthy lucre. The stock market actually peaked in the South Sea Bubble and hasn't recovered since.

GFD: Stocks for the Very Long Run: The UK-100 and 327 Years of British Equity History

But enough is never enough when you've incarnated your greed as corporations, and given them the world to feed on. The discovery of fossil fuels meant even more (stored) solar energy to turn into 'work' leading, of course, to greater heat and entropy. Thermodynamic laws are real, unlike the vulgar laws of economics. While economics happily books profits every quarter, physics marks its ledger by centuries, and then rips up the economic ledger entirely. Thus it goes with what we so proudly call progress and history.

The immense potential energy and density of fossil fuels (especially oil) enabled airships, which was a world-warping change. Whereas World War I was fought with, mostly horses, World War II was fought with mechanized vehicles and planes (and lots of horses as well). Whereas WWI was the water-based colonial powers fighting amongst themselves, WWII was the water-phobic Hitler trying to leapfrog them all through fossil-fuelled land and air warfare. World War II was really the inter-imperial battle for a new type of empire, one that marshalled all the elements using the effective magic of fossil fuels. Millions of undead solar slaves that you could pipe through a tube. But Hitler didn't win that war. The racist totalitarian state that inspired him did. America. After World War II finally ended in 1991, they became the fire nation that ruled. And they ruled the air above all.

To this day, most commercial airplanes are made by the USA (Boeing) or their backyard bitch France (Airbus). Not that other countries didn't or couldn't make planes, it's just that the White Empire dominated. America inherited sea lanes and naval bases from the British, but its real contribution to White Empire was aviation. The most terrifying power of the US military is its ability to deploy a fully functional Burger King anywhere in the world overnight, followed by its ability to deliver nuclear weapons through the same mechanism.

America of course still relies on naval and land power. Like the many horses used (and abused) in World War II, old forms of energy use don't entirely go away, new consumption just stacks on top of them. America, however, is distinct from other empires because it commands both air and space power at a frankly godlike level. They can rain down death from above wherever they want, and frequently do. But they're not actual gods, because they can't control the weather, and the actual gods are teaching them as we speak. That's what climate change is. The revenge of the weather gods, largely unworshiped and besmirched for centuries now. This is their aeon.

The fact is that all this power, all the energy that colonialism unleashed (and capitalism capitalized on), has thermodynamic consequences. The first law of thermodynamics says that perpetual motion machines are impossible (ie an economy that grows forever) but White Empire has based its entire existence around that impossibility. Infinite growth forever on a finite planet.

Another implication of the first law is that work makes heat, and when you apply this to an economy that's supposed to double every generation (what you get at roughly 3% annual growth), things get crazy real quick. If we keep doubling the work we do every generation (a 2.3% growth rate), the waste heat alone boils the oceans in 400 years. Conventional economics obviously kills us over just a few centuries, but it makes a killing next quarter, so who gives a shit. As Keynes said, in the long run we're all dead, speaking for all dead economists.

The second law of thermodynamics is basically that tea gets cold, energy differentials settle and you end up with unpalatable muck. AKA entropy. The frenzied movement of energy around the world—first by land, then water, then firepowered air—has left only a massive mount of garbage and waste heat in the long term. All of our vaunted progress, it's just a fart in the wind, geologically speaking. Everything we measure as GDP is garbage, most of it within a year, all of it within geological timescales. Meanwhile the waste heat and radiation lasts much longer and is our only real legacy to future scientists, should they dare play with these dark arts ever again.

This process started when we first captured the elements via agriculture, increased when we moved them along water in river valleys, accelerated when we moved them across the waters of the ocean, then we really started cooking with gas with aviation. But all of these processes have a logical, mathematical end according to the most basic laws of physics. What goes up must come down. Disorder is easier than order. Fuck around and find out. The fall of America is really a part of the much greater fall of White Empire, and the even greater fall of the containing ecosystem. It's wheels within wheels, and the wheels are all coming off this century.

Conclusion

I've digressed but I hope it's digestible.

America is a historically unique Empire because it marshalled all the elements, but we are nearing the logical conclusion to this deep delusion. It is a blasphemous idea that the elements were ours to marshal in the first place and the gods are slapping us back into place. As they have done to every empire, ever, though it always seems surprising. Every empire that tried to conquer the earth has turned to dust, every empire that used water (via rivers) has seen it dry up, every empire that sailed the seas has gone under. Air is a seemingly supreme power but we still can't control the weather and—on a long enough timescale—the weather still controls us. The one aspect about American Empire that's not unique is that all empires must fall. Dumbasses to ashes, dust to dust.

Please scroll down to read about the author's background.



Lili News 029
  • In cynicism and power, the US propaganda machine easily surpasses Orwells Ministry of Truth.
  • Now the fight against anti-semitism is being weaponised as a new sanctimonious McCarthyism.
  • Unless opposed, neither justice nor our Constitutional right to Free Speech will survive this assault.


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Unicorns Are Real

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by Batiushka for the Saker blog


An autumn chill is descending on every European country, though in each country in different ways.

Gas-dependent Germany and Italy are desperate for Russian gas. It is not just homes, but whole factories that face imminent closure in energy-intensive industries. The result of that will be mass unemployment. By ‘mass’, I mean 20% and more.

In France, there is a popular rejection of President Macron who has told his people that they (i.e. not him) must suffer so that the Ukraine can ‘win’. September is the first month of the annual strike-season in France. French people do not like being cold. Expect some headlines.

In Latvia the Russian minority is fearful for their future, but so is everyone else. Heating will not be an option this winter. With a pension of just over 100 euros a month, many pensioners are simply going to die of the cold.

From Slovakia we have received the following:

‘Thanks for your email. Just to give you some idea of the current manufacturing costs here in Slovakia and to be brutally honest throughout the upside-down world, We paid last year 85,000 euros for electricity, this year it’s going to be around 500,000 euros. As of 1 Jan 2023, it’s going to be 1.2 million euros at best.

So that’s just the electricity, never mind the gas, the increase in raw materials, salaries and all other manufacturing costs, This is a hard way of saying it’s impossible to reduce and every customer of ours has to accept it or not. Surprisingly we have never ever been as busy! You cutting margins down low is of course difficult, but at least you have margins. We simply do not have anything to reduce’.

In Moldova the crisis is profound. As in Latvia and Lithuania up to half the population has fled their countries after they were pillaged by the EU (even though officially Moldova does not even belong to the EU!). Previously medicine came from the Ukraine. Now that is unobtainable, they have to use medicine from Germany. Only that costs ten times more. Quite simply, if you are very ill and you don’t have the money, this year you will die.

In Romania, which has lost a quarter of its population to emigration after the great EU pillage, and where a salary of 600 euros per month is considered very good, food prices are the same as in Western Europe, where average salaries are four to five times more, and diesel costs even more than elsewhere.

In Ireland, restaurants are closing because they cannot afford their energy bills, which have increased by 1,000% (yes, one thousand percent).

In London, the capital of the Brutish (sic) Empire, the Gauleiter Johnson finally admitted that, ‘British households will have to endure soaring energy bills as part of efforts to defeat Vladimir Putin….economic sanctions imposed on Russia have contributed to soaring global gas prices which have driven up household bills’. Analysts expect the UK’s energy price cap per household to rise from an already extremely high £1,971 today to £3,554 a year this October and to a completely unaffordable £6,089 in April 2023. A bill boycott is gathering momentum. Expect rioting and the looting of supermarkets by the hungry.

Did British people choose to endure this? No. Did British people plead to suffer so that they can defeat Putin in a local quarrel about a country most of them had never heard of until last February? No. Did British people refuse to pay for the abundant and cheap Russian oil and gas in roubles? No. Were they consulted about choosing the new Prime Minister? No. So much for ‘the mother of parliaments’….

In the oligarch-controlled UK there are now calls for Thatcher’s privatised utility companies, with their huge profits, generous payouts of dividends to shareholders, hopeless infrastructure, lack of investment and absence of government regulation, to be renationalised. Some have even commented that perhaps ‘the free market’ really meant the law of the jungle and that ‘privatisation simply meant Thatcher selling off public assets to her capitalist cronies and supporters’. Well, forty years late, but some people have finally got the message.

Enough. That is not what I wanted to tell you about.

In the last week of August, I left France and went to Wiesbaden. There I visited the magnificent Russian church, built in the century before last. Going round the cemetery with the graves of old aristocrats with their masonic symbols on their headstones (now you know why the Russian Revolution took place), I saw the relatively new grave that I had been looking for.


NOTE: Provocative and illuminating as Batiushka often is, we do not agree with some of her/his positions. For example the author's completely bizarre views (anti-communist/anti-Soviet) about the Russian revolution, its causes and its aftermath. Most Russian aristocrats were definitely NOT masonic, but (at least ostensibly) devout Christians. As well, we differ in that we are not pro-religion, while also rejecting the West's decadent values encoded these days in the "Woke manifesto". 

This was the grave of a lovely old couple, whom I had long known. I won’t reveal their names, just to say that their story would make a film, only so romantic that you would not believe it. However, if you are past the age of forty, you should have realised by now that real life is far, far stranger and far, far more incredible than any fiction. All I will say is that he was born in Saint Petersburg in 1916, was taken by his fleeing parents to Finland after the rest of the family had been shot, that in 1943 he had become a monk and a priest in Nazi Germany, and that in late 1946 the family had fled ruined Berlin for Peronist Argentina as Russian Orthodox refugees. And there, in 1948, he met a desperately poor Argentinian street girl who had been born in Italy. It was love at first sight. I don’t think I have ever met such a devoted and exemplary couple or ever will. They died in great old age within hours of each other.

Enough. That is not what I wanted to tell you about.

After I had gone down from the high wooded church-lands into the town of Wiesbaden, I saw a middle-aged woman wearing a T-shirt which said: ‘Unicorns are Real’. The words were not in German, but in English (even though, no doubt the T-shirt was Made in China). I began to wonder.

Was it just infantilism? The sort of escapism that funded the UFO industry, or Star Wars, or Harry Potter? The irresponsible and immature who are running away from reality?

And I thought to myself that I could not imagine any middle-aged Russian, Chinese, Indian, Iranian, African, Cuban, Colombian or Brazilian woman wearing such a T-shirt (unless, of course, they were so futile that they had married oligarchs). And then there came to me the words written by the British author G.K. Chesterton in his short story of 1925, The Oracle of the Dog: ‘The first effect of not believing…is that you lose your common sense’.

In other words, to wear such a T-shirt simply shows a lack of faith – in anything. And I thought how significant it was that the words had been written in English, the language of the Hegemon. And I thought, yes, this really is the end of the Western world. Because if you want to advertise your belief that unicorns are real, you have quite simply lost your mind and that from now on you will believe anything the Western world tells you. After all, it is only one step from ‘Unicorns are Real’ to:  ‘The great and noble Zelensky is winning the war in the Ukraine because our Western cause is just’.



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‘Massive Floating Time Bomb’: Decaying Tanker in Red Sea Holds 4x the Oil Spilled by Exxon Valdez

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Maxar Satellite image of the FSO Safer tanker moored off Ras Issa port, in Yemen, on June 17, 2020. Satellite image (c) 2020 Maxar Technologies

 

An abandoned supertanker holding more than one million barrels of crude oil has been slowly corroding off Yemen's coast, and a new study out Monday warns that the consequences of an "imminent" spill in the Red Sea could be graver than initially thought — cutting off access to clean water and food aid for millions of people in a matter of days and completely decimating the region's fishing stocks within three weeks.

"The possibility of a massive oil spill in the Red Sea is increasingly likely," write the authors of the peer-reviewed paper, published in the journal Nature Sustainability. "The Safer, a deteriorating oil tanker containing 1.1 million barrels of oil, has been deserted near the coast of Yemen since 2015 and threatens environmental catastrophe to a country presently in a humanitarian crisis."

In their analysis of "the immediate public health impacts of a simulated spill," the scholars estimate that "all of Yemen's imported fuel through its key Red Sea ports would be disrupted and that the anticipated spill could disrupt clean-water supply equivalent to the daily use of 9.0–9.9 million people, food supply for 5.7–8.4 million people, and 93–100% of Yemen's Red Sea fisheries."

The new study models the anticipated health effects of a spill — under various seasonal conditions and cleanup scenarios — over the course of three weeks.

The researchers write that "ports and desalination plants, crucial for providing fuel, food, and water, stand to be disrupted by the spill. We estimate that two weeks after a spill, Yemen's key ports of Hudaydah and Salif will likely be directly impacted."

"The spill and subsequent port closures will disrupt maritime transport across the Red Sea, rerouting many shipments around Africa," the paper says. "We expect fuel prices in Yemen to spike as a consequence."

The daily clean water supply for an estimated 1.0-1.9 million people would be threatened if desalination plants are contaminated, while another eight million people could lose access to running water if the spill closes ports, causing fuel shortages that shut down fuel-powered pumps or water trucks.

Moreover, hunger would be exacerbated by food aid disruptions and fishery closures.

"In the event of Yemen's Red Sea ports closing within two weeks of the spill, food aid will be disrupted for an estimated 5.7 (3.7–8.1) million people who currently require food assistance," according to researchers, who estimate that "if Aden's port also closes, a total of 8.4 (5.4–11.9) million people will not receive food aid."

Within one week, two-thirds to 85% of Yemen's Red Sea fisheries would be jeopardized, and within three weeks, that figure would surge to 93% to 100%, "depending on the season," the paper states.

The researchers "also estimate an increased risk of cardiovascular hospitalization from pollution ranging from 5.8 to 42.0% over the duration of the spill."

"The public health impacts of a spill from the oil tanker Safer are expected to be catastrophic, particularly for Yemen," the scholars write, adding:

Disruption of fuel imports is anticipated to shut down hospitals and essential services, at a time when Yemen already faces fuel shortages and only 50% of its health services are functional. Both fuel shortages and contamination of desalination plants are expected to worsen an existing water crisis, potentially leading to a resurgence of water-borne infectious diseases. Disruption to food aid would probably increase food prices and exacerbate an ongoing famine. The spill threatens to disrupt nearly all of Yemen's Red Sea fisheries, which would worsen food security and exacerbate Yemen's displacement crisis as workers seek new employment. Imports of medical supplies from aid groups would probably also be disrupted, further destabilizing health services.

Although "the long-term and global impacts of the spill" lie outside the scope of the analysis, the researchers acknowledge that they "are also potentially severe."

"Ecological and environmental impacts through wildlife endangerment and coastline contamination from large oil spills can persist for years or decades," the study points out. "In particular, the spill threatens the Red Sea coral reefs, studied for their unique resilience to seawater warming."

In addition, "the spill could hinder global trade through the vital Bab el-Mandeb Strait, 29 kilometers wide at its narrowest point, through which 10% of the global shipping trade passes," the paper states. "Exclusion zones created for cleanup could reroute traffic, and shipments will be delayed as ships potentially exposed to oil will require cleaning."

"Our results stress the need for urgent action to avert this looming disaster," the authors note.

As the paper details: "The visibly dilapidated Safer is single-hulled, meaning a breach will cause the onboard oil to spill directly into the sea. Water entered the engine room in May 2020 through a seawater-pipe leak, and the vessel's fire extinguishing system is nonoperational. A spill could occur due to a leak or combustion. A leak could arise through continued deterioration of the vessel's hull or by breach of the hull due to inclement weather; combustion could occur through build-up of volatile gases aboard the vessel or direct attack on the vessel."

However, researchers emphasize, "the spill and its potentially disastrous impacts remain entirely preventable through offloading the oil."

According to The Guardian, "Negotiations are underway" to unload the vessel, which is carrying four times the amount of oil released during the Exxon Valdez disaster in the Gulf of Alaska in 1989.

Despite numerous warnings about the life-threatening dangers posed by the decaying tanker — including one made last June by the head of the United Nations Environment Program to the UN Security Council — efforts to offload oil from the "massive floating time bomb" have stalled.

"Three-way talks between the Houthi rebels, the UN-recognized government of Yemen, and the UN have foundered," The Guardian reported. "UN officials have been unable to secure guarantees to maintain the vessel, including its rotting hull, which is now overseen by a crew of just seven."

"The UN has been seeking Houthi permission to inspect the ship," noted the British newspaper, "but the Houthis want undertakings that the vessel will also be repaired, an exercise that requires money the UN does not have available."

Reposted by Ecowatch with permission from Common Dreams.


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Immensely beautiful, the still wild Chilean Patagonia faces mounting challenges as it becomes integrated into the rest of the nation

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EDITOR'S LOG

Prefatory Note:

Dangerousroads.org provides a good, no-frills summary description of Chile's Route #7. 


The road, formerly known as Carretera General Augusto Pinochet, runs about 1,240 kilometers (770 mi) from Puerto Montt to Villa O'Higgins through rural Patagonia, in Chile. Most of the road is unpaved, ranging from quite good quality to absolutely horrible. If you are driving, you will not need a 4WD but your car will be suffering. You will probably have to take a ferry or two to get in or travel along the road. The Carretera Austral area is pretty wild, with often wild weather extremes. This area is characterized by thick forests, fjords, glaciers, canals and steep mountains. It has endless stretches of empty dirt roads surrounded by forests, mountains, glaciers and lakes, with scenic villages, free campsites and hot springs along the way.

—The Editor
—The Editor

Chilean Patagonia (Photo: Carlos Villalobos)

 

On route 7 into the heart of Patagonia | DW Documentary

A trip along Chile’s National Route 7, the Carretera Austral, takes us into the stunning wilderness of Patagonia - a place that many German emigrants chose as their new home almost a century ago. The Carretera Austral is straddled by mountain ranges, primeval forests, fjords, volcanoes and a huge ice field. It has taken decades to carve its way through the almost impassable terrain - even now a lot of traffic is forced to take a detour across the border into Argentina. The military dictator Augusto Pinochet made the construction of the road a national priority in the 1970s, sending thousands of soldiers to the region to work under the most adverse conditions. One of the last surviving members of Pinochet's junta, former military police chief Rodolfo Stange, talks about the road’s strategic importance for the regime. German marine biologist Vreni Häussermann tells us about a catastrophe in one of the Patagonian fjords - an event that underlines how economic expansion along the route has adversely affected the natural environment in southern Chile. On our journey we meet descendants of German emigrants who found a new home in Patagonia’s remote vastness after the First World War. An insight into the past and present of this unique region. 
 
 

Spanish language subtitles

Rumbo al corazón de la Patagonia | DW Documental

La ruta 7 de Chile, la carretera Austral, se adentra en la magnífica naturaleza patagónica, un territorio que los expatriados alemanes también eligieron como su nuevo hogar.  Usa el traductor para leer todo el texto. 

Addenda

In terms of sheer labor inputs, and engineering difficulties, the Carretera Austral is in a class comparable to the "near miraculous" projects recently seen in China. We wonder indeed how long it would take the Chinese to build this highway across impossible fjords, glaciers, ocean expanses, and all. With their advanced machinery, proven skills, and legendary tenacity, who knows, maybe they would get it done in less time than anyone in the West would expect. Ironically, the "Carretera Austral" Project was pushed against all naysayers by Augusto Pinochet (the road was originally called Carretera Austral Gen. Augusto Pinochet), and may eventually serve to whitewash the dictator's innumerable crimes. Cynics claim Pinochet saw the project as a gigantic, bottomless pork barrel opportunity for his family and hangers-on. In any case, the ecological price of "developing" this fragile and precious environment is unquestionably bound to be high, perhaps prohibitive, even if the region is only kept as mostly a tourist reserve. The German documentary featured on this page suggests as much: the red tide ("marea roja") that killed hundreds and possibly thousands of whales, a mind-boggling number for an animal whose numbers remain fragile in the global oceanic ecosystem, is a tragic reminder that the human footprint should not be extended thoughtlessly.  Incidentally, Pinochet tackled this project as a military campaign, ordering tens of thousands of conscripts to contribute their labor for nominal wages.  


The Visionary


Onetime sporting clothes entrepreneur Douglas Tompkins may have permanently slowed down the development of Patagonia by creating national parks in the key northern segment of the region. Dedicated, and often heroic Chileans who shared his commitment to a pristine environment, helped him realise this vision.

Douglas Tompkins: Wild Legacy

Douglas Tompkins was a world-renowned adventurer, entrepreneur, and conservationist. Co-founder of The North Face and Esprit, Doug spent the first half of his life building successful, global brands, while simultaneously adventuring around the world, completing first descents of the world’s toughest rivers. In 1968 Doug embarked on a trip to Chile, driving with friends from California to the tip of Patagonia. Documented in the film Mountain of Storms, the trip solidified Doug’s place as a rock climbing legend. In the early 1990s, Doug sold his part of Esprit and moved down to Chile to do conservation work full time with his wife, Kristine McDivitt Tompkins, the former CEO of Patagonia, Inc. Together, over the last 25 years, Doug and Kris have protected 2.2 million acres, more land than any other individuals. The foundations under the Tompkins Conservation umbrella, along with their partners, have created five national parks in Chile and Argentina and are in the process of creating five more. A Wild Legacy tells the story of Doug’s incredible life, his lasting impact on the wild landscapes of Patagonia, and Kris and the Tompkins Conservation team’s efforts to continue his audacious mission. Doug was tragically killed in a kayaking accident on Lago General Carrera, north of Patagonia Park, on December 8th, 2015. Douglas Tompkins: A Wild Legacy was presented to audiences at the Telluride Mountain Film Festival on May 24th, 2016 during the festival’s tribute to Doug. “If anything can save the world, I’d put my money on beauty” – Douglas Tompkins The work goes on at tompkinsconservation.org.

 

Carlos Villalobos and the late Douglas Tompkins (r), visionary founder of Parque Pumalín. As a hands-on ecologist and key ranger, Carlos proved invaluable to the survival and success of this critical natural park.

 


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A HISTORY OF THE EARTH, a compelling new book by John Scales Avery

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise.


This essay is part of a series on cultural, scientific and esoteric matters.



By John Scales Avery
A new freely downloadable book

I would like to announce the publication of a new book, in which I have tried to sketch human history, from earliest times until the present, against a cosmic backdrop. The book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link:

http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/A-History-of-the-Earth-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf

The place of humans in nature

According to modern cosmology, the universe is almost unimaginably vast. It is estimated that there are 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the observable universe. Of these, many stars have planets on which life is likely to have developed. Thus our earth and its life forms are by no means unique.

We cannot claim to be “the center of the universe" with any unique justification. However, the earth is our home. It is important to us. As parents, we wish for and work for the survival of our children and grandchildren, and for all future generations of humans. We must also recognize our responsibility as custodians of the natural world. We have a duty to protect both human civilization and the biosphere. We must work with dedication to guard and protect the future of our precious and beautiful earthly home. 

Cultural evolution

When humans first appeared on earth, they were not very numerous, and not conspicuously different from other animals. Then suddenly, in a brief space of geological time, they exploded in numbers, populating all parts of the world, and even setting foot on the moon. This explosive growth was driven by what might be called an “information explosion”. 

All animals and plants pass on information from one generation to the next in the form of DNA, the information-bearing genetic material. Occasionally, mutations occur, and favorable mutations are preserved while the bearers  unfavorable mutations die out. Evolution by this genetic mechanism proceeds very slowly. Humans too, evolve by this slow genetic method, but in addition, they have another method of passing information between generations: cultural evolution.

Cultural evolution depends on the non-genetic storage, transmission, diffusion and utilization of information. The development of human speech, the invention of writing, the development of paper and printing, and finally in modern times, mass media, computers and the Internet - all these have been crucial steps in society's explosive accumulation of information and knowledge. Human cultural evolution proceeds at a constantly-accelerating speed, so great in fact that it threatens to shake society to pieces.

Anachronistic human emotions

Today, human greed and folly are destroying the global environment. As if this were not enough, there is a great threat to civilization and the biosphere from an all-destroying thermonuclear war. Both of these severe existential threats  are due to faults our inherited emotional nature.

Our emotions have an extremely long evolutionary history. Both lust and rage are emotions that we share with many animals. However, with the rapid advance of human cultural evolution, our ancestors began to live together in progressively larger groups, and in these new societies, our inherited emotional nature was often inappropriate. What once was a survival trait became a sin which needed to be suppressed by morality and law.

 

Today we live in a world that is entirely different from the one into which our species was born. We face the problems of the 21st century: exploding populations, vanishing resources, and the twin threats of catastrophic climate change and thermonuclear war. We face these severe problems with our poor cave-man's brain, with an emotional nature that has not changed much since our ancestors lived in small tribes, competing for territory on the grasslands of Africa.

Ethics can overwrite tribalism!

After the invention of agriculture, roughly 10,000 years ago, humans began to live in progressively larger groups, which were  sometimes multi-ethnic. In order to make towns, cities and finally nations function without excessive injustice and violence, both ethical and legal systems were needed. Today, in an era of global economic interdependence, instantaneous worldwide communication and all-destroying thermonuclear weapons, we urgently need new global ethical principles and a just and enforcible system of international laws. The very long childhood of humans allows learned behavior to overwrite instinctive behavior.

A newborn antelope is able to stand on its feet and follow the herd almost immediately after birth. By contrast, a newborn human is totally helpless. With cultural evolution, the period of dependence has become progressively longer. Today, advanced education often requires humans to remain dependent on parental or state support until they are in their middle 20's!

Humans are capable of tribalistic inter-group atrocities such as genocides and wars, but they also have a genius for cooperation. Cultural evolution implies inter-group exchange of ideas and techniques. It is a cooperative enterprise in which all humans participate. It is cultural evolution that has given our special dominance. But cultural evolution depends on overwriting destructive tribalism with the principles of law, ethics and politeness. The success of human cultural evolution demonstrates that this is possible. Ethics can overwrite tribalism!

Ethics for the future

In the long run, because of the enormously destructive weapons, which have been produced through the misuse of science, the survival of civilization can only be ensured if we are able to abolish the institution of war. We must also stop destroying our planet through unlimited growth of industry and population.

Besides a humane, democratic and just framework of international law and governance, we urgently need a new global ethic, an ethic where loyalty to family, community and nation will be supplemented by a strong sense of the brotherhood of all humans, regardless of race, religion or nationality. Schiller expressed this feeling in his “Ode to Joy”, the text of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Hearing Beethoven's music and Schiller's words, most of us experience an emotion of resonance and unity with its message: All humans are brothers and sisters - not just some - all! It is almost a national anthem of humanity. The feelings which the music and words provoke are similar to patriotism, but broader. It is this sense of a universal human family, which we need to cultivate in education, in the mass media, and in religion.

Educational reforms are urgently needed, particularly in the teaching of history. As it is taught today, history is a chronicle of power struggles and war, told from a biased national standpoint. Our own race or religion is superior; our own country is always heroic and in the right.

We urgently need to replace this indoctrination in chauvinism by a reformed view of history, where the slow development of human culture is described, giving adequate credit to all those who have contributed. Our modern civilization is built on the achievements of ancient cultures. China, India, Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, Greece, the Islamic world, Christian Europe, and Jewish intellectual traditions all have contributed. Potatoes, corn and squash are gifts from the American Indians. Human culture, gradually built up over thousands of years by the patient work of millions of hands and minds, should be presented to students of history as a precious heritage: far too precious to be risked in a thermonuclear war.

On our small but beautiful earth, made small by technology, made beautiful by nature, there is room for one group only: the family of humankind.

Other books and articles about  global problems are on these links

http://eacpe.org/about-john-scales-avery/

https://wsimag.com/authors/716-john-scales-avery

https://www.transcend.org/tms/2020/11/free-online-books-on-serious-global-problems/

I hope that you will circulate the links in this article to friends and contacts who might be interested.

John Scales Avery (born in 1933 in Lebanon to American parents) is a theoretical chemist noted for his research publications in quantum chemistry, thermodynamics, evolution, and history of science. Since the early 1990s, Avery has been an active World peace activist. During these years, he was part of a group associated with the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. In 1995, this group received the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts. Presently, he is an Associate Professor in quantum chemistry at the University of Copenhagen. His 2003 book Information Theory and Evolution set forth the view that the phenomenon of life, including its origin and evolution, that including human cultural evolution, has it background situated over thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and information theory.
 
 
 
 

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