Now for some contemplation,

For my thoughts,

Recently I was able to get the chance to reflect on all the hectic events around the world and could only conclude that we're going downhill. But then the thought struck me, "Downhill from what?" Were we ever as a nation and a world on top of anything? Was there a supposed golden age that this world enjoyed in Modern History? I couldn't find any time within the 20th and our short 10 years of the 21st century to actually point to "That's the hilltop!" Sure some may argue, what about the 50's and 60's when the American economic engine was booming and the world seems to be on the quick rise towards never-never-land. But then, what about the second Red Scare? What about the Apocalyptic Scenario of MAD? What about the failing education system that couldn't produce enough engineers and scientists domestically so we had to smuggle them from defeated Germany? What about what seemed to be an Military Industrial Complex spinning out of control? And what of the race riots? The social conflicts? The puppet states and their conflicts sprung up around the world by the two world superpowers? No, the 1950s and 60s are no hilltops, and even if they are, they're pretty flat.

So, why are we going down hill, when we started not much further from a valley to begin with? Where are we with respect to where we've come?

To the first question, I find my knowledge of the world inadequate to answer. It is after all based on one's own perception of values and accomplishments.

To the second question, I believe the following poster can answer readily.
http://www.firstworldwar.com/posters/usa2.htm

Think of the implications that just a little under a hundred years ago, the basic necessity of food is as valuable as oil fields and ammunition. Tell that to any American commanders stationed in Afghanistan or Iraq today, and they might laugh. Maybe in another hundred years, the same commanders, if they're still American that is, might laugh at the complaints of fuel and proper armor. Where are we with respect to where we've come? We've come far in terms of technological advancement. We now live in a society where the majority of our population doesn't have to go hungry during even war times. We are able to afford luxuries such as a public education system and social safety nets for the unemployed. Yet we squander these systems. We waste our social-political power on and biased ideologies. We let our great scientific community sit idly by and unfunded as we pursue in worldly things that flood Wall Street with unproductive short term stock prospecting. While our corporations are allowed to now spend without limit in election campaigns, we has a nation has created 0 jobs since the year 2000. 0 jobs in a decade, and with 30 million more mouths to feed. How are we doing? How are we progressing? The politicians up for elections yell "Now!", but those who sit in secure seats scream "Never!". How are we going to face the compounded problems of an overpopulated planet, a rapidly decaying political system, a shrinking economy, and uncertain environmental disaster?

Will we fall back to the world of the early 20th century? Two world wars in less than 40 years? Will we become ruled again by ideology and radicalism be it the burning rise of Communism or the marching armies of Fascism? Perhaps the names will change. Maybe the faces will be different. Still the results are the same. China lost 20 million people in 8 years of war with Japan not to just the hail of bullets and bombs, but to the gruesome hands of salvation and disease. That's 1 in 10. How will the globally dependent nations of the 21st century fare? 1 in 10 is now 600 million. Where are we truly with respect to where we have come?

I love the loud speakers that cry, "I fear for this country, for what it has become!" To me listening to these people, I find it easy to relate these loud speakers to those of the radicals who yelled "I fear for the Fatherland, for the Jewish peril!" Fear mongering defeats all logic in the so called stable system of democracy. We have come from that dark place that is the radicalism of the 20th century, but now we're heading back into the fray. What are these so called "Tea Parties" and "Grass Root" movements? Are they really different from the ideologies of this fictitious ideas of the "Folk" movements and the workers movements? What are these concepts of "A Nation of Islam" and "Righteous Jihad"? Have terrorism ever accomplished anything except to start wars and create illogical differences?

Now my thoughts have gone full circle, and I have just realized that history has gone full circle. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, radical ideologies were not commonly accepted as truths, but were pushed to the fringes of society. The world was enjoying the flowers of the first era of Globalization when peoples, ideas, and markets flowed freely, but under the firm control of self serving imperial interests. However, as social conditions deteriorate, and world markets begin to stagnate, tensions arise between these interests before exploding into the first world war. After the war, nationalism, instead of dying with imperialism, spread like wild fire as a rising Imperial Japan inspired other non-European peoples to fight for independence. In decaying Europe, this nationalism transpired to become Nationalist Socialism, i.e. Fascism, while the rest of the world entertained a mix of Fascism and Communism. After all, Communist Russia seemed, just as the one-party authoritarian state of the People's Republic of China seems today, to be flourish in a world of economic depression. Then the clash of ideologies begin as the radicals believe they and they solely have the right path to the future.

Funny how history tends to repeat itself. We too are in a world of Globalism with the big bangs that are the mass expansion of the internet and the cellular phone. We too are in a world of deteriorating social systems with a fast growing population, an aging health care system, and a unbalancing of the distribution of wealth. Finally, our market and those of Europe's have all been capped. Without real progress these markets will remain stagnant and will only stay afloat because of the faith growing markets still have in our own.

So then what about ideologies? Where are the titanic clashes of left and right? This is self evident. The quick and brutal radicalization of both left and right wing politics and the intolerance the people of this country towards realistic compromise are enough to push this democracy off the edge. This is also inflamed by the irresponsible and self interested actions of liberal and conservative media. Instead of remaining unbiased as they claim, both wings of the media have set out obvious agenda for ideological control through fear, uproar, and misinformation. In hind sight, it seems that our stable democracy is perhaps the most easy system to exploit, since mob rule is easy to control with sensational speeches. As for abroad, both radical Islam and the successful one-party system of China pose both direct and indirect threats to American ideologies. If America becomes a conservative state, i.e. Fascist state, then it'd approach radical Islam head on, and we might see the rise and fall of a third American Empire as well as another world war in our life time. If America becomes a liberal state, i.e. One-Party Oligarchy, then the ideological differences between liberal interventionism and China's central political control could bring us to another Axis versus Allies struggle seen in that of the second world war.

I'll end my thought journey with a bit of optimism. For almost every cross road in history unanticipated events may happen that seems to decide the way the world will march. Perhaps in the near future a common event may happen to the nations of the world and unite their ideologies. Yet at the same time, events such as the very recent Supreme Court ruling on election funding could direct our future into something that even this writer can not predict. Nations run by corporations may seem like plutocracy and dangerous at first. But, when one reflects on how well the world was managed in the 19th century by an aristocratic plutocracy (The Consort of Europe) for almost 40 years, one begins to wonder, how will a consort of corporates run the world? Will there be a Google Sphere that struggles with a Microsoft Sphere for markets and resources? Will students of the future struggle to learn the complex relations between corporations rather than nations? For all I know, where we are now will definitely not be where we will be, for better or worse. So whenever someone asks, "Will you answer the call of history?" I can only reply, all has been said, all has been done. The only difference is if there will be any step forward this time, and no one can answer that in the fog of a uncertain future.

R.C. Wang 25.1.2010
San Francisco