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U.S. War Against Asia |
PoliticsThe Titanic sails at dawn,
And everybody’s shouting: |
Most Popular Biography of Andrew Jackson Sponsored by:
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Featured Essay: Donald Trump's by William P. Meyers The definition of idiocy, or of incompetence, could be trying to do something, but the results being the opposite of what was planned. Donald Trump, who asserts he is President of the United States, is a major player in the current phase of the Slow Motion Apocalypse. But he is just one player in a complex world. He could speed up the Apocalypse, or he could slow it down. I will look at both possibilities in this essay. There are many drivers of the current decline in this world. The prominent one is the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere due to burning fossil fuels like coal, gasoline, and natural gas. That in turn causes the atmosphere and oceans to slowly heat up. That has already led to stronger storms, floods, droughts, and exceptional heat waves. Donald Trump denies the existence of climate change. He denies the scientific understanding of greenhouse gasses. He prioritizes economic growth, promoting the phrase "Make America Great Again." He is therefore dismantling the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and other protections for the environment. He has pulled the U.S.A. out of global environmental protection initiatives. He wants more drilling for petroleum and more energy production. He believes a low cost for gasoline will help fight inflation while boosting the economy. Let me first illuminate the creation of Donald's mindset. Trump was born June 14, 1946, an early post-war Boomer baby. His father was a successful real estate developer in New York City. As such he dealt with local politicians and criminals. What Trump means by a Great America is well summed up by a passage from The City of Anger by William Manchester, published in 1953. "He wondered what it would be like to be a boss, rich and dangerous. He saw himself in a swank office, surrounded by hoods, ordering Congressmen about, killing legislation, dealing heavily with labor leaders and tycoons. If a rival boss crossed him he would rub him out or have him deported. In high school, civics had been a dull chore for Charlie, but politics was mysterious and exciting. It was Edward Arnold, lighting a fat cigar in a paneled study, or Edward G. Robinson, roaring through the night in a big Cadillac, the trunk packed with stolen ballots.&qout; But it is not the 1950s anymore. The Numbers Racket has been replaced by state lotteries. The power of labor unions has seriously declined. Segregation by race is mostly dead. And the nations of Europe and Asia rebuilt the factories that were destroyed in World War II, bringing back competition to American industry. American factory work began to be moved overseas in the 1960s, and that accelerated in the 1970s, long before China was a factor. Most people in the U.S. no longer feel they need to pretend to be Christians. And morphine was replaced first by heroin and then by fentanyl. Meanwhile the fact that the earth is dying from human overpopulation (see Wonderful World of One Billion), fossil fuel use, and numerous other means of ecological destruction has become clear to anyone who bothers to examine the facts. Given his many transgressions against American law and American opinion, there has been little press coverage of Trump's attack on environmental regulations. Indeed, they will probably only speed up the Apocalypse a little bit, because they are merely a thin icing on the top of over two centuries of industrialism. What might have more effect is Trump's love of tariffs. Many economists now think that the new tariff policy will throw the U.S., and possibly the world, into a recession. As in so many things, economies have many variables, so it is possible that some other variable will counteract the negative effects of the tariffs. Yet we cannot rule out a significant possibility that Trump's polices will lead to something worse for the economy: stagflation (inflation + recession) or another Great Depression of the kind last seen in the 1930s. But what is lousy for Americans (particularly recent high school or college graduates) can be good for the environment. While at this time, after about a century of leadership, America is no longer the main polluter of the world (China is), it is still number two. In addition, much of China's pollution is secondary to her making goods for the American market. So a slow down in the U.S. economy could also slow down the emission of carbon dioxide in China, and in other nations. Again, given that most of the carbon dioxide excess was produced in decades past, the effect of an American recession or depression would only likely be to slightly slow down the pace of the Apocalypse. Honestly, there is not much hope at this point. We can hope that birthrates continue to fall, so the populations of the industrialized nations and rest of the world start heading towards a long-term sustainable level. We can hope that the Democrats win at least the House in the next election, and the Presidency in 2028, but they were not doing all that great of a job with curbing fossil fuel production either. [Disclaimer: I am an active Democratic Party member] There is going to be what evolutionary biologists call a bottleneck, a weeding out of species. We can make the neck wider by immediately adapting a one-child policy and clamping down on fossil fuel use; that would have to be on a global scale. The best way to do that would be setting up a powerful Global Environmental Protection Agency. We can watch the neck narrow if Trump and his gangster brothers (and sisters) are allowed to stay in power. Sadly, most Americans will just go about their lives oblivious until they are hit by heat, famine, or storm. So far this year the U.S. major crops look good, but keep in mind a sufficiently hot heat dome sitting over Iowa for five or more days, and extending into the surrounding states, could mean famine this winter. Prepping makes sense. Fighting the Trump administration would be a good thing, but Americans have evolved into a sad, unenergetic, smartphone and air conditioning hooked lot of Homo sapiens. The young people of today are not the young Americans of the 1960s. So most likely the gangsters will take over, the economy will fall apart, the world will fall apart, and then the great cycle will begin again, like it did after the Dark Ages of rule by the Roman Catholic Church. It is possible the Apocalypse will speed up and become obvious, either in America locally or in the globe as a whole, during this Trump administration. One thing is certain: Trump will blame someone else. He has never accepted the blame for his numerous lifetime failures. He will probably blame former President Biden, or the National Weather Service. |