The NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION
The NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION was established 4
April 1949. Treaties included Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France,
Iceland, Italy, Luxemburg, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, The
United Kingdom, and the U. S. The European Economic Community
was formed in March 1957 among Belgium, France, Luxemburg, Italy,
The Netherlands, and West Germany. Denmark, Ireland, Norway, and
The United Kingdom were admitted in January 1972. Greece was
admitted in January 1981, and the Treaty of Maastricht reformed
the EEC into the European Economic Union, a legally much closer
relationship, on 7 February 1992, to be implemented 1 November
1993. Greece and Turkey were admitted to NATO in September 1951,
and on 5 November 1993 Belgium, France, and West Germany
inaugurated Eurocorps, conceived to be the core around which a
European army could be built.
After the "Falling of the Iron Curtain" (Churchill,
Westminster College, Fulton, MO, 5 March 1946) the U. S. went
into a hysteric frenzy of fear over the USSR. The voices of
those few who had a grasp of the fractured Lenin-Marxist axis and
its failures, particualrly its inability to feed its populations,
were drowned in the "Chicken Little" wailing of rabid
anti-Lenin-Marxists. During the Reagan Administration "Defense
Spending" amounted to EIGHTY BILLION DOLLARS AN HOUR every hour
from 1980 until 1992 (WHEN THE PENTAGON WAS FOR SALE, Andy
Pasztor, 1995), octupling our national debt to EIGHT TRILLION
DOLLARS. The COLD WAR came into being at the end of WWII when
the imperialistic intentions of the USSR toward Europe became
obvious. Organization of NATO and the EEU came as tools of
opposition to these imperialistic tendencies. On 14 May 1955 the
WARSAW PACT, organized by the USSR as successor to the COMINTERN
and the COMINFORM, came into being to include Albania, Bulgaria,
Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania.
The Warsaw Pact collapsed in February 1991 as a result of the
collapse of the USSR. The EEU and NATO now function successfully
as stabilizer and maintainer of peace in Western Europe. The
former members of the Warsaw Pact politically now drift, along
with the former units of the USSR now dissociated with Russia,
aimlessly in an economic and political vacuum. It seems vital to
our interests that they be aided economically and protected
politically, and acceptance into NATO the EEU apparently provide
the best method to accomplish such a task. Russia historically
consistently has been imperialistic, and this drive has in no way
died out. The nations of the Warsaw Pact were integrated into
the armed forces of the USSR, with national forces split up and
scattered among the whole USSR armed forces, and all their
weapons standardized and produced by the USSR.
In the 14 July 1997 TIME there is discussion of liabilities
and benefits of expansion of NATO. The Czech Republic, Poland,
and Hungary have been accepted, and membership tendered to
Romania. Consider that the armed forces of new members will be
integrated into NATO Forces, and their weapons standardized to
NATO standards and usages. It will be virtually impossible for
any resurgent Russia to coopt the armed forces of those countries
once again. Integrated into the EEU, and with the common currency
(EURO) stability is much more likely, and economically good for
us. NATO should be expanded. Emory L. Warrick, Sr. POS 2401-C
Research by interested organizations reveals that some three
millions of land mines lay strewn across the landscapes of most
"Third World" countries. Published media research informs us
that more than SONE TRILLION DOLLARS ($1,000,000,000,000) worth
of weapons are manufactured and sold world-wide each year.
Stumbling onto land mines leaves many thousands of children and
adults dead or maimed each year. The TRILLION DOLLARS worth of
weapons represent money wasted. Economists assert that while
each billion dollars invested into the civilian economy creates
50,000 jobs, a billion dollars invested in "Defense Spending"
creates only 18,000 jobs. This spending on weapons provides the
mounts upon which the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" ride
(i.e., war, disease, famine, and pestilence).
This money is spent in essence to maintain "National
Sovereignty", an ideology whose time is long past. So long as
there are multi-national corporations whose financial influence
negates that of so-called "Sovereign Nations", then "National
Sovereignty" is a meaningless ideology. Dean WILLIAM R. INGE of
London's St. Paul's Cathedral declared, a propos of WWII: "A
nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and
by a common hatred of its neighbors." In his 1953 speech to the
American Society of Newspaper Editors PRESIDENT DWIGHT D.
EISENHOWER asserted:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every
rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft
from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are
cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not
spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its
laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its
children....This is not a way of life at all in any true
sense. Under the cloud of war, it is humanity hanging
on a cross of iron.
Should this TRILLION DOLLARS spent on weapons instead be invested
in medicines, food, infrastructure, and education it would result
in monumental social change which could improve quality of life
for all inhabitants of this planet. Unfortunately, Dr. RUBEN
LAMAR NORMAN, Jr. had it right: "There ain't no morality between
groups!!!"
It is a discouraging truth that things are not so simple. In
spite of the fact that all the developed nations who might take
action to ameliorate this situation style themselves as "Peace-
Loving Christian Nations", they are not about to go agaist their
own selfish self-interest. Hear ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD:
There are no whole truths: all truths are half-truths.
It is trying to treat them as whole truths which plays
the devil. .. I consider Christian theology to be one
of the great disasters of the human race. ... It would
be impossible to imagine anything more unChristlike than
Christian theology. Christ probably couldn't have
understood it. ... As society is now constituted a
literal adherence to the moral precepts scattered
throughout the GOSPELS would mean sudden death. ...
Religion is the last refuge of human savagery.
So long as thousands of children are losing life and limb, and so
many thousands of children are dying of disease and pestilence
when christian action could have saved them, and so long as tanks
and guns and bombs and missles are killing innocent civilians in
the name of "National Sovereignty" then we citizens of so-called
"Christian Nations" are falling short of our civic obligations.
Proliferation of arms should never be permitted in today's world,
and we should let our Congress know that just because "Defense
Contractors" have bought Congress, lock stock and barrel, there
is no reason to continue. Stop it. Emory L. Warrick, Sr. 2401C
In any discussion of nationalism it is vital to consider
various vectors bearing on the problem. Population is one of
these vectors. At the beginning of the first century population
had reached 250 million; by 1650 population had doubled to 500
million; by 1850 it had doubled again to 1 billion, and by 1920
doubled again to 2 billion, and by 1960 doubled again to 4
billion. World population now exceeds 6.5 billion, and will
reach 20 billion by 2050. One of the earliest settlements
discovered by archeologists was Eynan, a settlement of 300 hunter
Natufians dating back 12 millenia. Such isolation engendered a
feeling of social solidarity which we have come to know as
NATIONALISM.
Eynan was culturally homogeneous, just as contemporary China,
Japan, and Britain, are homogeneous, and in such environments
"nationalism" flourishes like as noxious weed. The model was
followed world-wide, precipitating continual conflict as
population growth forced disparate cultures into interaction,
even in heterogeneous societies such as the U. S. Growth in
educational coefficient (85% of adults have HS diplomas and 24%
of adults have baccalaureate degrees in the U. S.) has fomented a
shift from right-brain affect to left-brain cognition which makes
intolerable the inherent contradictions in ideologies and
cultural norms, as well as religion, and augumented the effect of
perceived "relative deprivation". Quantum advances in technology
of transportation and communication have stimulated homogeneous
expectations concurrent with heterogeneous cultural and religious
normative ideologies. Aggrevating the turmoil of all these
vectors are the problems of waste disposal, inadequate resources
for allocation, and crowding and lack of space. Heterogeneity,
crowding, ethnocentricity, cultural solidarity, all coalescing
into nationalism, results in intense conflict and violence.
Historically, politicians/leaders decide what social controls
are needed to dominate society, Shamans and religious figures
have revelations which give those social controls "Divine
Sanction", and politicians then use force to enforce such
cultural norms. The religions are based upon the concept of a
"Flat Earth" in a 3-tiered universe (i.e., God/Heaven "Up-There",
us here, and Hell/Devil "Down-There") with utterly no concept of
actual scientific reality, and anthropomorphization renders a
"God" having the worst characteristics of humans. War provides
the "moral imperative" needed to provide solidarity to these
societies, and this cohesive desire to defeat the enemies who
threaten us is what we call "nationalism", one of the most
destructive ideologies known to humans. Multi-national
corporations with no national loyalties, but loyal only to
profits however gained, further complicate the matter by creating
a world-wide integrated interdependent economy which transcends
any national boundries. When one considers that more than 130
automobiles are manufactured for every 100 which can be sold (cf.
ONE WORLD: COMING READY OR NOT, William Greider), and
extrapolate that to airplanes, computer chips, and all other
manufactured goods, one begins to understand the economic turmoil
of Asia, Latin America, and Russia, to say nothing of organized
crime coerced loans, never to be repaid, made by banks world-wide
including the U. S. NATIONALISM MUST GO!!! Warrick, POS 2401C
When one speaks of "nationalism" one must consider the
distinction between affect and cognition. The brain has two
hemispheres. The "right brain" processes information
affectively; the "left brain" processes information cognitively.
Every increase in educational co-efficient world-wide effects a
shift from affect to cognition. Since nationalism and patriotism
both are affective, rather than cognitive, functions the strength
of these emotions will vary inversely with the level of education
within any specified population. The type of social organization
of any society will vary with such educational coefficients.
In a society which can be defined (technically, not
religiously) as "catholic" or "tribal" (i.e., China, Russia,
Japan) the population effectively will be homogeneous, and the
individual will be valued "instrumentally" (i.e., as a means to
the ends of the society, not as an end in such an individual's
self). Social morality will tend to be "relative" (i.e., what
benefits the society will be "moral" without regard to absolute
values), and the "ends" will justify the "means". In a society
which can be defined (technically, not religiously) as
"protestant", or, in most cases, as "capitalist", the individual
will be valued "intrinsically" (i.e., valuable as an end in
oneself), and "social control" must be replaced with "internal,
individual self-control" is such society is to be stable and
provide security and serenity for its citizens. Values in such a
society, to be effective, must be ethical rather than moral, and
value each individual and individual rights equally without
regard to any other considerations. Dr. Reuben Lamar Norman,
Jr., is wont to say: "There ain't no morality between groups!!"
Here lies the essence of "nationalism" which is ethnocentric in
nature.
In the "weltanshauung" limned by "traditional science"
discreteness was possible, and the concept of delimited national
borders to effect distinct geographic nations maintaining
"arm's-length" relations were conceivable. With the advent of
"modern science" involving an electro-magnetic universe in which
reality inhered in "relations" rather than "entities", and social
groups must come to grips with intimate intragroup relations in
which there no longer exist discrete entities. To state a major
aphorism of modern science: "A change ANYWHERE in the system is
a change EVERYWHERE in the system." Isolationism no longer is a
viable option in the world of today. Quantum acceleration of
technological development in communication and transportation,
along with geometrical increase in population, all have conduced
to homogenization of disparate cultures, and conflict where
"cultural purity" has been defended by conservatives in the face
of such social change. "Nationalism" represents the quintessence
of such ill-conceived emotional resistance to such social change.
If this words is to survive through the 21st century then all
social processes must be cognitively, rather than affectively
based. Wars essentially are affective, as are medals,
patriotism, uniforms, "esprit d'corps", religion, and politics.
Compromise, as distinct from appeasement, is cognitive. Alvin
Toeffler hit a social nerve with his concept of "future shock".
Affect cannot cope with "future shock". Cognition can.
Nationalism must cease. Emory L. Warrick, Sr., POS 2401C
Between the eighth and eleventh centuries CE the Iberian
Peninsula was occupied by Muslim Moors thereby creating an
academic cauldron stimulated by the interaction of Jewish, Roman
Catholic, and Muslim universities. Among the vital academic
concepts contributed by the Muslim scholars were the arabic
numbering system and the concept of "ZERO. These concepts
facilitated the deverlopment of the capitalist system, and
eventuated in world-wide trade. In 1776 Adam Smith's THE WEALTH
OF NATIONS was published providing the formative concepts of
"LAISSEZ FAIRE" economics and "mercantilism" to economic theory
and capitalist practices. "Mercantilist Theory" stipulates that
industrial countries should "establish" colonies and use the raw
materials from such colonies to feel their manufacturing needs.
Such colonies were not permitted to develop any industrial base
of their own.
World wide trade has evolved into a world wide economy which
is completely interdependent upon every economy in the world.
The basic problem resides in governmental concepts of
"nationalism" and "sovereignty" when the multi-national
corporations with virtually infinite economic power totally
ignore such restrictions. The economic bubble is threatened
further by the fact that capitalism conduces to absolutely
radically uncontrolled greed and self interest when coordination
and control are essential to the health of such global economy.
Currently there are one hundred forty automobiles being
manufactured for every one hundred which can be sold, which means
that some economies will go bankrupt. These same situations
obtain for many other manufactured products such as appliances,
computers, and silicon chips. A central principle of modern
science and organic cosmology is: "A change anywhere in the
system is a change everywhere in the system"; in the 17th century
John Donne said much the same thing from the High Altar at St.
Paul's: "Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for THEE".
Even given the power of the multi-national corporations the
U. S. Government has achieved some objective control of those
corporations, even though organized crime has a powerful
influence. In economies in other parts of the world the cultures
permit nepotism to a staggering degree, and the concomitant greed
has conduced toward families and intimates of the "Head of State"
gaining control of industries and financial institutions, as well
as exercising such "nationalist" constraints of trade as tariffs
and taxation. Even more markedly have the forces of organized
crime in LDCs been influential in raping such national economies
and creating such economic conditions that final institutions and
currencies have failed disasterously. One cannot even begin to
participate in any local economy without the payment of truly
monumental amounts of "baksheese" to local political, criminal,
and patriarchial authorities. Examples would be Russia, Malaysia,
Indonesia, Korea, Thailand, Viet Nam, China, Laos, et al.
Overlaying all this is the drug trade, brought into being by the
legislation of insane profits into the enterprise by a misguided
Religious Right and their puppets in the U. S. Congress who get
election funding from the super-rich and their "human capital"
for organization from religious zealots; no wonder things are in
such a mess. POS 2401C Emory L. Warrick, Sr.
ISSUE ONE - SAFETY OF WORLD ANTE COLD WAR
Patrick Glynn opines that the end of the Cold War has created
extreme dangers for the world. He recognizes the separatism and
fragmentation resultant from this pivotal event, but does not
glimpse a primary stimulus for this occurrance. Alvin Toeffler
speaks of "Future Shock", stress placed on persons and peoples by
the inexorable process of change. Stress is a debilitating force
which motivates peoples to strive to resist such change and to
preserve the status quo, if not to return to the past. "Ethnic
Cleansing" is but this separatism carried to extreme. Glynn
asserts that contemporary peoples no long have past attachments
to grand ideas worth fighting or dying for, whether for evil or
good, but rather seem collectively to be losing such allegiances.
One must remember that such attachments were affective, not
cognitive. Religion, patriotism, and morality all are affective,
and humans tend to resist coping cognitively with reality. Glynn
considers contemporary problems to arise from questions of human
identity. Western civilization is seen to view the identifying
feature of being human qua human as cognitive coping activity.
He asserts that the Greek philosophical conceptualization of
humans as rational made possible the creation of extensive
political organizations on a non-despotic foundation. Socratic
philosophy conceived democracy as transcending human's self-
definitional differentia.
The Roman Empire is seen as falling to foes culturally,
intellectually, and technologically inferior to them. Rising
educational coefficients result in discoveries eliminating "awe"
which results in demythologization and detheologization thereby
effecting a shift from right-brain affective coping to left-brain
cognitive coping. "Future Shock" results as change is resisted.
The teaching of "multi-culturalism" in our universities is the
poisonous fruit of this, even more than the effects upon foreign
policy and regional conflicts. We either will achieve a unified
overarching American culture permitting ethnicity to the extent
that it does not impinge upon others, or we will perish. Glynn's
assertion of the critical danger to civilization is well taken.
Fukuyama, author of "The End of History", reacts as would
Voltaire's Dr. Pangloss. His voice, muffled by the sand in which
his head is buried, asserts "this is the best of all possible
worlds". "Who would trade the American automobile industry for
the German one; Diamler-Benz swallowed Chrysler. He asserts poor
people in Asia will get rich; the reality is that they won't in
1998. Japan forged ahead in spite of other recessions, and moved
away from past corrupt machine politics; one need only to read
news to refute that. "The most important security problem in Asia
is North Korea's nuclear program; what about India and Pakistan?
Fukuyama contends that fears arising from implications of
Yugoslavian turmoil are exaggerated. He asserts that the absence
of greaat-power contention will mean that ssectional strife wil
have only regional impact. He recognized that even though the
world is becoming united through communications technology that
it is being regionalized and disconnected politically. Investment
bankers have lost trillions. There is instability and confusion.
Fukuyamas errs; this is not the best of all possible worlds.
Emory L. Warrick, Sr. POS 2401C
ISSUE #2: NATO EXPANSION
Supporters of a strong and expanded NATO envision a growing
emphasis on collective security as evidenced in increasing UN
peacekeeping missions and other international collective efforts
at maintenance of peace. The assassination of Grand Archduke
Franz Ferdinand by Leon Colzolz in Serajevo ignited WWI, and any
effort to avoid any such political conflagration in the present
should surely be made. Harry Truman asserted that:
the free people of the world look to us for support in
maintaining their freedoms. If we falter in our
leadership, we may endanger the peace of our world - and
we surely shall endanger the welfare of our own nation.
Madeleine Albright maintains that America stands with Europe
because we understand, regardless of political affiliation, that
it is in our national and collective interests to do so. The
contempory mission of NATO is peace and cooperation with all who
will, and has aided realization of this century's most elusive
dream: A unified Europe at peace with every nation free, and
every free nation a partner. Albright sees a common purpose to
do for Eastern Europe what NATO did a half century ago for
Western Europe: To integrate new democracies, eliminate old
hatreds, provide confidence in economic recovery, and deter
conflict.
NATO intends to complete its internal adaptation by beginning
accession talks, accepting new members, and creating an Atlantic
Partnership Council open to new members. It is a positive
alliance, not directed against any nation, and not to be feared
by any nation not creating trouble. NATO realizes clearly that
no united, secure, and democratic Europe is possible without
Russian participation. The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland
will be included in NATO by year's end. Democratic nations have
failed twice before in the Twentieth Century to achieve these
aims. Today is the time to employ the vision, take the
opportunity, and build such a Europe.
Clemens reminds me vividly of Neville Chamberlain. Russia
has c.150 million population with a GDP c. $300 billion, about
half the GDP of California with 4 times its population, and a GDP
equalling that of The Netherlands. Except for the internal army
of the KGB (fully equipped and technologically advanced) and
SPETNAZ the Russian armed forces are destroyed. Clemens refers
to the cost of re-equiping the armed forces of those new nations
to be admitted to NATO, but does not address the difficulty
Russia would face should it entertain future imperialist
intentions aimed at the "near abroad". They would be unable to
provide spare parts to weapons, equipment and materials different
from their manufacturing base, to say nothing of providing
ammunition for weapons not chambered to the Russian standard.
This is to say nothing of the disorganization of Russian Armed
Forces, unpaid military personnel and workers throughout Russia,
and the resultant destruction of morale.
Most governments of central Eastern Europe welcome NATO
expansion so long as they are included. Ukraine is an exception.
It has a third the population of Russia and spends $1 billion on
arms, where Russia spends 20% of its GDP on the military.
Ukraine wants neutrality, and Belarus wants military cooperation
with Russia. Churchill asserts that Hitler could have been
stopped in 1933. Expand NATO now. Emory L. Warrick, Sr. POS2401
ISSUE 3 (10) PROLIFERATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS
On 11 September 1945 Secretary of State Henry Lewis Stimson
wrote to Pres. Truman:
If the atomic bomb were merely another, though more
devastating, military weapon to be assimilated into our
pattern of international relations, it would be one
thing. We then could follow the old policy of secrecy
and military superiority relying on international
caution to prescribe the future use of the weapon, but I
think the bomb constitutes instead merely a first step
in a new control by man over the forces of nature too
revolutionary and dangerous to fit into the old
concepts. I think it really caps the climax of the race
between man's technical power for destructiveness and
his psychological power of self-control, his moral
power.
Arms races, regional rivalries, and acquisition by other peoples
of advance weapons technology constitute a proliferation threat
disasterous to long-range global instability. The choice of 20th
Century governments to use advanced weapons in conflict exposes
civilians, as well as soldiers, to mortal danger. The use of
such weapons in the 20th Century has resulted in greater
destruction and number of casualties than in the preceeding four
centuries. These weapons currently consume a trillion dollars a
year, which is diverted from housing, medical care, food, and
education of the world population. Every 10 seconds a child
loses life or limbs to a landmine.
Lantis is in error. The heart of our nuclear shield were the
submarines, absolutely undetectable by any other nations
technology. The submarine fleet was divided into three parts,
with one third constantly on patrol. Before that third could
return to port, the next third had to be on station. Each
submarine carried 16 intercontinental missiles with 10
independently targeted nuclear warheads on each missile.
Submarine commanders were in direct contact wsith the White
House. Thus the panic when the Walker spy case surfaced.
A principle argument for maintenance of our nuclear arsenal
is maintenance of our power hegemony over the rest of the world.
America always has had a strong isolationist streak which has
expressed itself in extreme political nationalism. To maintain
such superiority it has considered necessary to continue testing
to guarantee viability of our weapons stock. Much of this
impetus has sprung from "camapign" contributions to Congress by
weapons and weapon's transporter manufacturers. Millions of
dollars have been poured into advertising to convince the public
of this need. The Soviet "Ministry of Misinformation" has done a
real job on our populace and government.
A vigorous opponent of nuclear armaments formerly was
Commanding General of our nuclear weapons establishment. The end
of the Cold War simply threw the nuclear proliferation problem
out of the frying-pan into the fire. Not only are we faced with
the disposition of nuclear waste have a "half-life" of millions
of years, posing wwhat amounts to a perpetual threat to all
mankind, but we face also the prospect of the acquisition by
every despotic ruler of LCDs of nuclear, biological, and chemical
weapons technology, along with the acquiring of missiles capable
of reaching enough enemies to start WWIII. Israel, Pakistan,
Iraq, India, Iran, and many other countries are now thought to
possess such technology. Churchill"s take on the nuclear age was
"the stone age may return on the gleaming wings of science". We
better wake up and face reality. Emory L. Warrick, Sr. POS2401C
ISSUE 4 (16) NATIONALISM
In 1773 and 1791 the German philosopher J. G. Herder
conceived "der volksgeist", the "folk-spirit" which allegedly
united the germanic peoples into one nation. In 1788 the German
philosopher Immanuel Kant enunciated his Categorical Imperative
"Duty is respect for the LAW". In 1781 Bismarck transmuted
Kant's dictum into "Duty is respect for the STATE. Hitler's MEIN
KAMPF took it from there into into WWII, after Kaiser Wilhelm's
abortive foray into WWI. Dean William R. Inge of London's St.
Paul's Cathedral asserts: "A nation is a society united by a
delusion about its ancestry and by a common hatred of its
neighbors." Dr. Reuben L. Norman, Jr., asserted, as an
undergraduate: "There ain't no morality between groups."
Cox distinguishes two types of nationalism: first is civic,
or political, nationalism (cf. America or Western Europe); second
is ethnic nationalism (cf. Eastern Europe, Armenians, or Kurds).
Cox enumerates 5 functions of nationalism: (1) identification;
(2) a means to mobilize economic, political, or military power;
(3) a centrifugal force (i.e., separation); (4) a centripetal
force (i.e., gravitational); and (5) a "gestalt" for resistance.
Among negative aspects of nationalism Cox lists imperialism,
glorification of the state, creation of enemies, overlap with
religion, discrimination against minorities, and competing rights
(which he trifurcates into ethnic, historic, and strategic
rights). Cox says that nationalism has been one of the most
powerful forces in the world for the last two centuries, regarded
as an inevitable companion to social modernization. There are,
however, indications that the usefulness or relevance of
nationalism may be fading.
Keane maintains that European nationalism is a powerfully
virile and magnetic of "closed systems of life" based upon fear.
He regards nationalism as a scavenger. He states that it feeds
upon the pre-existing sense of nationhood within some given
territory, transmuting such shared national identity into a
"bizarre parody" of its former self. Keane views nationalism as
a pathological form of "national identity" destroying
heterogeneity by reducing the nation into the "Nation", and
taking advantage of any democratizing influences by asserting its
validity and power upon all others. Keane asserts that
nationalism has a fanatical core, establishing boundries guarded
by internal and external border posts manned by border police
charged with maintaining internal compliance and preventing
external interference. Keane hopes establishment of the European
Community will damp some of these fires of hatred in Europe.
It would seem that Cardus and Estruch are blind to two
cardinal principles of Western Civilization. Philosophically, it
is a logical tautology that any argument (or ideology) becomes
absurd. Theologically, it is a given that the "Doctrine of
Original Sin" recognizes that human's innately are self-centered,
self-serving, and greedy. Given any opportunity to exploit
others and exercise power, those not having achieved the grace
of "other-centeredness" will take the ideology of nationalism to
its extreme. Their support of the virtues of nationalism seems
very weak. Cardus and Estruch do not establish that Nationalism
is an unmitigated virtue. Emory L. Warrick, Sr. POS2401C
IS ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM A THREAT TO POLITICAL STABILITY?
Two centripetal forces influencing Muslim unity are the UMMAH
and the sense of a common history. The UMMAH envisions a unitary
spiritual, cultural, and political community of Muslims adhering
devoutly to the SHARI'AH in a theocracy, joining spiritually and
politically in one great Muslim Community. Such a community
began developing with the Hijira in 622, continued in the Middle
East with the first four Caliphs, then the Ommayyads until 750,
and the Abbasids until c. 1100, and the Ommayyads in North Africa
and Spain from 750 until 1100. Islam achieved an intellectual
and cultural peak with abd al Rahman III. Centrifugal forces are
the tensions between Sunni and Shi'ite adherents, and a
secularism which has developed over disagreements concerning
interpretations of the Shari'ah. Secularists would tend to
divide the political state from the religious establishment.
The Western interpretation of "human rights" is more
individualistic than such "tribal" societies as Muslims, China,
the Soviet Union, and many southern LCDs. Snarr concentrates
upon the UN approach to Human Rights. Snarr distinguishes among
three "generations" of civil rights. First he sees political and
civil rights, focussing upon individual rights and emphasizing
responsibility of states to refrain from interfering with these
rights. Secondly, he sees social and economic rights, involving
more of a socialist perspective, and involving rights to social
security, fair wages, right to union activity, right to an
adequate standard of living comprised of adequate food, housing,
medical care, clothing, and education, and the right to the
cultural life of one's community. Thirdly, he sees "solidarity
rights" reflecting the emergence of Third World nationalism with
its demand for redistribution of wealth, power, and resources,
among others. Such "ethnicity" tends to be centrifugal.
Female Genital Mutilation is the junction of the discussion
themes of Snarr and Rourke. This practice is not essentially
arabic, but is prevalent among North African and Far Eastern
Islamic groups while Arabic Islamic practices involve shaving all
female pubic hair. While secular Islamic adherents do not demand
the total draping of women, the more fundamental the
interpretation of the Shari'ah the more complete draping is
demanded. Islamists are equally insistent upon other practices;
Pipes asserts that fundamentalists demand: "Islam is the
solution." "Islamism" differs from traditional Islam; emphasis
on public life rather than personal faith, leadership
professionals rather than religious figures, and reaction against
any modernization. Islamists insist that the only possible
social structure for all peoples must be their interpretation of
the Shari'ah; all government MUST be a theocracy.
Pipes says the U. S. lacks a coherent foreign policy toward
Islamic countries because of liberal-conservative disagreement as
to whether such policy should be based upon conciliation or
conflict. Karabell asserts that one cannot predict Islamic
foreign policy by domestic policy. One should remember that the
"UMMAH" does not recognize political boundries, a conflict with
secular nationalism. Policy implications should differ by
countries in their effect. Don't get spooked. The oil is safe,
and civilization may survive. Emory L. Warrick, Sr. POS2401C
ISSUE #6 (12) HUMAN RIGHTS
Realists assert that the end of the Cold War did not mean the end
of power politics. Idealists hope people act in accordance with
core principles without fear of empowering enemies. This debate
regarding the wisdom of incorporating human rights standards into
foreign policy making is not an exercise in abstract principles
because vital policy choices and objectives are involved. If we
believe peace is promoted by democracy then Canada, Britain, the
U. S., and others should exert utmost influence upon the non-
democratic regimes to accept these principles. The use of armed
force may be permissible. The U. N., the U. S. and other allies
accomplished this "sea-change" in Haiti, and in other nations.
Tonelson would ask whether any government-centered human
rights policy makes sense in the post Cold War world. He asserts
all available evidence would indicate that such policies, however
morally compelling, are obsolete. He maintains that such
policies are torpedoed by forces which in the past inspired such
bipartisan hope for a new age of human rights progress. He
claims that the retreat of Soviet power in Eastern Europe and
end of Cold War confrontation among LCDs has exposed failure of
our policies in such areas as Bosnia, Rwanda, Haiti, Georgia,
etc. He would maintain that the disasterous conditions and moral
outrages in those areas are trivialized by reference to them as
"human rights violations. He appears to be a Reaganite fighting
"the Last War" of supply side economics, not realizing we have no
longer a "labor-based economy", but rather an "informnation-based
economy"; Tonelson does not seem to have a clue!!
Michael Posner posits that Tonelson's postmortem is flawed by
four of what Alfred North Whitehead defines as "uncritiqued
assumptions". Posner claims that Tonelson misrepresents the
origins of human rights, the scope and objectives of U. S. "human
rights" policy, reasonable measures to judge the effectiveness of
U. S. policies, and the view of our key allies regarding such
policies. Faced with 22 million casualties, most civilian,
during WWII, in addition to the 6 million Jews murdered during
the Holocaust, the U. S. and its allies felt compelled to amend
for their laggard response to such atrocities, and began to take
steps to prevent such atrocities in the future. Pursuit of a
"human rights policy" has been a prime motivation for the U. S.
for the past half-century. Posner asserts that Tonelson accuses
"liberals of using human rights to advocate using U. N. sanctions
or military force to oust repressive regimes", but that exceeds
core principles of human rights, challenging of governments for
mistreatment of their citizens. The civil and political covenant
requires, minimally, governments to allow popular participation
in choosing governments, rights to hold public meetings and speak
out freely without fear, and allow a free press.
Ratification of international treaties requires that states
accept core principles proscribing torture, slavery, or political
murder of citizens. The U. S. provides military aid to many
states in violation. We can measure progress by how indigenous
activists can act in their countries.Our human rights policies
have not antagonized our allies. Many U. S. allies factor human
rights into their foreign policies. The declining unilateral
ability of the U. S. to act must be considered. ELW,Sr. POS2401C
ISSUE #7 (14)- HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA
Poll respondents probably would agree strongly in principle
with items advocating civil liberties (e.g., freedom of speech,
assembly, press) and human rights (e.g., freedom from torture or
discrimination). If item 2 regarded condemnation of individuals
or states violating such principles fewer respondents might
agree. Should the next item recommend sanctions against such
violators fewer still would accept the idea. When use of force
to intervene and stop such violations is advocated only a small
minority would agree. Respondents who disagree with the last 2
items might justify such attitudes on the basis of cultural
relativism, when condemned practices may not be abuses, but are
practices disapproved because of our cultural biases. Such
respondents might also disagree on a pragmatic basis, fearing
that antagonizing the government might lead to retaliation
against citizens, or refusal to trade with the antagonist.
The PRC is an authorian state in which the Party IS the
power, members holding all top civilian, police, and military
positions above local levels. The Party demands stability and
social order, and is consecrated to perpetuating its rule.
Citizens lack any liberty to express any political opposition to
the Party or its rule. Marxist ideology has been superceded by
economic pragmatism as decentralization has increased the power
of regional officials. Party authority resides in economic
reform, social stability, fomenting patriotism, and control of
the security apparatus. They are Ministries of State Security,
Public Security, People's Armed Police, People's Liberation Army,
and the state penal, judicial, and procuratorial systems.
The Chinese government still commits widespread, documented
human rights abuses which violate internationally accepted norms
because of authority intolerance of dissent, fear of unrest, and
indifference to legal safeguards for individuals. Abuses include
torture and abuse of prisoners, forced confessions and arbitrary
lengthy incommunicado detention. Restrictions are imposed on
liberty of speech, press, assembly, association, religion,
privacy, and worker rights. In 1996 concentrated efforts were
made to cut off protest or criticism, and all public dissent
against the government was silenced by intimidation, exile,
imposition of prison terms, and administrative detention, leaving
no known active dissidents at year's end. Serious human rights
abuses persist in minority areas such as Tibet, Xinjaing, and
Inner Mongolia. Intensified repression of religion and other
fundamental liberties in these areas has been instituted.
The Information Office of the State Council of the PRC would
dispute these facts. It says the State Department misrepresents
those facts. For instance, "as soon as a people's court decides
to begin trial proceedings, it should seend a copy of the
indictment from the people's procuratorate to the accused no
later than SEVEN DAYS before the trial. With regard to the 76
year old Roman Catholic bishop they arrested, and who had
contracted pneumonia, it was alleged medication had been denied;
they asserted that Bp. Zeng had been detained for holding illegal
church services in his home. Allegedly Zeng"s illegal meetingsa
in recent years seriously disrupted the public order. China's
human rights abuses pose a severe problem. ELW,Sr POS2401C
ISSUE #8 (13) DOES DEMOCRACY PROMOTE PEACE
Democracy has spread in Latin America, Africa, Asia, Eastern
Europe, Russia, and in former Soviet Republics. Such changes
have persuaded some observers that the world norm might become
Western style democracies. In 1795 Immanuel Kant (PERPETUAL
PEACE) wrote that the spread of democracy would change the world
by eliminating war because:
"if the consent of the citizens is required in order to
decide that war should be declared...nothing is more
natural than that they would be very cautious in
commencing such a poor game, decreeing for themselves
all the calamities of war."
Some researchers using empirical methods have found evidence that
democracies seldom fight each other. For 30 wars occurring
between 1816 and 1988 one analysis concluded that over 90% of
these conflicts clearly were democracy vs non-democracy wars.
Another study concluded that among contiguous countries that
adjacent democracies were least likely to go to war.
James Lee Ray avers that Woodrow Wilson characterized WWI as
an effort to "make the world safe for Democracy". Kissinger
asserts: "Wilson originated...what would become the dominant
intellectual school of American foreign policy. NY Narcotic
Addiction Control Commission researcher Dean Babst published in
1972 ("INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH) an article concluding that "no wars
have been fought between independent nations having elective
governments between 1789 and 1941." Singer and Small disclaimed
validity of Babst's conclusion, but conceded that his observation
was essentially accurate (1976). In their efforts to discredit
Babst's conclusion they illuminated a distinction thus far
unnoticed, that democracy is an important pacifying force.
Psychologically, the most impressive evidence in support of the
democratic peace proposition is that no dispute or crisis between
states ever has escalated into an international war unless unless
one of the involved states was NOT democratic.
Ray asserts there are 2 persistent myths apparently accepted
by consensus. The first myth maintains though democratic states
have not warred abainst each other, they are just as war-prone as
autocratic states in relationships with other kinds of states.
The second myth holds that while democratic states do not war
against each other, no one has produced evidence of causality as
opposed to association. One comprehensive review of this issue
reveals that while democratizing regimes are more war-prone than
stable regimes, states involved in transition to autocracy are
even more war-prone. A second analysis concludes dangerous
transitions to democracy are likely only when the state is
surrounded by autocratic states. Much of the energizing of this
debate springs from the implication that democracy potentially
can have a revolutionary impact on world politics, rendering
international war obsolete.
Research has not noticed that pacifistic states are without
exception "promiscuous", while war-states are "puritanical",
origins of which trend are lost in the mists of antiquity. Mary
Caprioli writes as a feminist radical. Consider school-teacher
Golda Meier or Margaret Thatcher. Everyone has gotten lost in
definitions. She does recognize constitutional and public
opinion restraints on decision making. The 1960s "hippies" had it
right: "Those who make love don't make war". ELW,Sr POS2401C
ISSUE #9 (11) PEACEKEEPING AND PEACEMAKING
No writers involved in this issue approachs the crucial
determining factor ultimately deciding this issue. That question
involves just where SOVEREIGNTY ultimately will reside - in
individual super-nations or an international federation capable
of overpowering any individual nation. Stephenson introduces
several historical concepts. In the 19th century the "balance of
power" motivated foreign policy by trying to prevent any alliance
from achieving overwhelming superiority. In the first third of
the 20th century it was "collective security", the seeking of an
over-arching alliance dominant over any possible individual
aggressor. WWII introduced "common security" out of which the
Comintern, Cominform, Warsaw Pact, NATO, EC, and EEC developed.
None of these ideological solutions provided an adequate solution
to the problem of security, and thus this debate issue.
Stepenson distinguishes between "negative peace" (absence of
war or direct violence) and "positive peace" (social justice and
absence of exploitation). She points out that for the UN
"peacebuilding" includes establishing social conditions conducive
to peace, "peacekeeping" means interdicting fighting among
parties, and "peacemaking" means enforcing conditions preventing
inter-party conflict. "Peacemaking" would include enquiry and
fact-finding, mediation and conciliation, arbitration, judicial
settlement, and use of force as a final resort. The dilemmas
confronting the UN are made insoluble by the propensity of the
international community to use force as "first aid" instead of as
a last resort. It is possible that UN problems of general
support and funding of operations may, in spite of popular
consensus, be due to overenthusiastic resort to force rather than
other options for solutions. It may be time for more intensive
debate regarding long-vs-short term, and violent-vs-diplomatic,
approaches to world peace.
Schwartzberg recommends a permanent UN armed force organized
along lines used by the USSR as described by Suvorov in INSIDE
THE RED ARMY, the "front system" commanded by one central
commander commanding all branches. This force would consist
basically of an army consisting of 3 corps (i.e., 100,00
personnel each), each corps having responsibility for 1 of 3
geographic areas covering the entire globe. Over a period of
time all nations would reduce armed forces to the levels of
domestic police forces, and all heavy armaments would accrue to
the UN force. Schwartzberg envisions roles for such a force as
congruent with the Chinese PLA (i.e., including "Peace Corps"
functions) in addition to armed conflict where necessary.
Recruitment would be voluntary, composed mostly of LDC recruits,
screened for the best possible personnel, unrestricted by gender
or race, skewed toward personal development in all areas,
designed to develop ployglot capabilities, and returned in less
than a decade to their own societies to aid in developing those
societies. All in all, the visionary scheme of an idealist.
Hillen attacks this vision at every point. He is intoxicated
by the concept of "national sovereignty". He considers super-
power force to be the only solution. His perspective is "Reagan
Era". He sees only "real-politick". His perspective is that of
Henry Kissenger redux. Emory L. Warrick, Sr. POS 2401C
ISSUE #10 (8) INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND GLOBALIZATION
International trade cannot be treated simply as an economic
matter because influential consequences are arising from these
activities which will shape our world environment in many ways.
Policy makers may believe trade should be governmentally
encouraged because such benefits are produced as jobs producing
export materials, revenues for purchase of imports, and corporate
profits. Most states attempt to control trade so as to minimize
liabilities and maximize benefits. Balance of trade deficits
tend to produce currency devaluations, price increases, and
accelerating levels of debt; whether capital inflows benefit or
harm an economy will depend upon capital sources, terms of
acquisition, and uses to which the capital is put. Free trade
ideologues attempt to deemphasize distributional effects, and
concentrate on the impact of trade on the whole economy, but
distributional consequences produce such self-evident political
effects that governments are more attentive to them than economic
theorists. Trade shapes wealth distribution among individuals and
nations, affects power and interstate relations among states, and
affects achievement of goals founded upon non-economic values.
In ONE WORLD; READY OR NOT William Greider presents adaquate
reliable data to show the effects and probable trend of economic
globalization. Rourke's introduction illuminates the important
point relevant to values; is buying products manufactured by MNCs
in other countries where businesses can pay starvation wages, not
provide benefits, and utilize child lable moral? Weidenbaum and
Albo give much opinion and precious little reliable data to
support their positions. It is interesting that many "American"
MNCs have shifted more than half, and up to three quarters, of
their assets overseas (e.g., Citicorp, Bankers Trust, Chevron,
Exxon, etc.). Weidenbaum does point out that Americans are
already part of globalization, and employees, customers,
suppliers, and U. S. investors increasingly are participating in
the international economy. Transitional enterprise is
increasing, and many overseas markets are more profitable than
domestic markets, but rich opportunities and high risk are twins.
The rise of the global market place opens new vistas of
opportunity for diversification of American investments in a
milieu of high risk. Even in view of current troubles, China and
Southeast Asia have become vital elements of globalization with
which Americans must cope. The continental European Community,
with its new "Euro", compels U. S. commerce to participate in
their markets; political and military issues create tensions
there, but do not slow unification progress. The U. S. economy
continues as the world's strongest, and U. S. companies rank at
the top in sales volume in 13 major industries. The business of
supplying armaments to superpowers has created substantial
economic wealth. The thrust of the global marketplace, however,
has shifted from government to private enterprise.
Aldo writes from a Marxist/Socialist perspective. He nit-
picks every issue. It is obvious that globalization has
disadvantages, but it is not going away. Unless it is controlled
and regulated it is going to crash. So much is self-evident. It
seems unlikely that failed Lenin-Marxism will be the controls
utilized. Aldo should wake up. Emory L. Warrick, Sr. POS2401C
ISSUE #11 (6) ADMISSION OF CHINA TO THE WTO
China desires to make the transition from a destitute
agricultural economy to an expected wealthier industrial economy.
Though having adopted many capitalist trappings, it stringently
retains its authoritarian, communist ideology. China's inability
to impose economic practices and responsibilities upon provencial
enterprises, while maintaining totally centralized economic
planning, makes it a problematic candidate for WTO membership.
WTO currently has 117 members. It has the organizational purpose
of policing economic practices among member nations in order to
avoid any advantage being taken by any member at the expense of
others. To admit as a member a nation unwilling to conform to
these accepted, consensual, pragmatic practices would debilitate
the organization, thus harming everyone.
Ross states that with favorable economies of scale and near
infinite supply of cheap labor, China promises to become a major
export power capable of overwhelming the domestic markets of its
economic competitors. Were China at the same time refuse to
offer opportunities to participate in its domestic market, such
policies could participate destabilizing responses by all major
economic powers. State-owned enterprises in China in 1995
produced 31% of industrial input, controlled strategic economic
sectors, and had heavy subsidization and preferential investment.
Concurrently the government refuses to enforce domestic policies
to protect foreign businesses. Admission of China to the WTO
would subject it to multilateral pressures to adhere to a self-
imposed agreement to adopt such trading practices in a specified
length of time, while it now accepts no agreement to reform and
modify its destabilizing trade practices. Current American
policy fails either to minimize the likelihood of international
economic instability or to improve Chinese trading practices.
Given a current trade deficit with China exceeding $37
BILLION the U. S. has sufficient motivation to do something.
Mastel asserts that some China experts forcefully advocate the
administration putting aside its concerns and supporting
immediate Chinese admission into the WTO. Doing this would give
priority to political and security concerns above economic
concerns, and has the appearance of classic American Cold War
foreign policy decision making "gestalt" dominating China policy
for decades. The first of three basic reasons to distrust the
current Chinese compatibility with the WTO is formal trade
barriers, inclusive of tariffs, import licenses and duties, and
subsidies which in recent years have been changed in particulars
while compensating adjustments retained obstruction. The second
basic reason regards lack of any reliable rule of law which
presents virtually insurmountable obstacles to WTO membership so
long as national policies for trade regulations and tariffs are
ignored at the provencial and local levels; how does one predict
Chinese behavior in international commerce? The third basic
reason concerns a communist government, directed by complete
totalitarian communist ideology, and practicing Lenin-Marxist
economic control over industrial planning and subsidization,
price fixing, manufacturing quotas, and utterly unconcerned for
external interests and welfare; this poses quite a dilemma for
American economic policy makers. Emory L. Warrick, Sr. POS2401C
ISSUE #12 (7) CUBA SANCTIONS AND HELMS/BURTON
Castro, or someone in his armed forces, got aggrevated at
"small plane" fly-overs to drop opposition leaflets and shot down
a couple. That gave megalomaniacs Dan Burton and Jesse Helms the
opportunity to try to be President in lieu of Clinton by doing
"foreign policy". Their idea was that everyone in the world
should do exactly as those two want them to do, because they know
the "only truth". Unfortunately for them what they did failed,
as was usual. The measure was not so popular on the
international scene. Before the Canadian Parliament Mexican
"Presidente" Zedillo asserted: "Mexico and Canada consider
inadmissable every measure that ...erects (barriers) to the
detriment of international investment and business", which
statement also reflected EU opinion.
Lisio opines that by seeking to punish any foreign citizen,
government, or company not adhering Jesse's embargo, the U. S.
tests the boundries of international law. Cuba's subsequent
progress only confirms Burton's and Helms' ineptitude. These two
claim that no other issue or country in the world is more
important than Cuba to U. S. foreign policy, taking precedence
over relations with EU, Russia, Mexico, or Canada. TITLE I
involved proscriptions against loans, financing, or trading, or
membership in international organizations to which the U. S. was
a contributor. TITLE II outlines support to be given to a
"democratic" government in Cuba which specifically excluded the 2
Castros, and including requirements most undemocratic. TITLE III
seeks punishment of any who made use of American property seized
during Castro's takeover from the dictator Gen. Batista, ignoring
the principle of international law which legalizes the
expropriation of property by a sovereign nation.
TITLE IV recurs to Helms' favorite activity; denying visas
to anyone with whom he disagrees or dislikes. By delaying
enforcement of TITLE III President Clinton averted the flood of
retaliatory legislation by allies which Helms' foreign policy
ineptness would have provoked. The USSR collapse, and subsequent
loss of $5 billion a year subsidies, plunged Cuba into a disaster
from which its Lenin-Marxist "command economy" ideology could not
extricate it, the lack of subsidies resulting in reduction of
export production, in lower foreign exchange earnings, and thus
in diminished imports to alleviate the situation. On 26 July
1993 Castro announced to his people: "Today life, reality...
forces us to do what we would have never done otherwise...we must
make concessions", and make them he did, reluctantly. Castro
dismantled state farms and created capitalist style farmers'
markets and, despite higher prices, alleviated food shortages and
moderated inflationary black-market prices. He allowed self-
employment in over 150 "professions" (e.g., electricians), and
could reduce the 2.2 million government employees to 1.4 million.
Castro legalized foreign currency and dollar-peso
convertiblity. In spite of Helms, emigre, tourist, and loan
dollars flooded in. Castro eliminated 15 government ministries.
Cuba's economic progress since USSR days disproves sanctions
toppling Castro. Helms' Foreign Relations Committee admitted a
Cuban emigre to testify. The emigre loved Helms-Burton and hated
Castro's accomplishments. Emory L. Warrick, Sr. POS2401C
ISSUE #13 (9) FOREIGN AID
As technology developed in human history a parallel need
arose for means of goods transfer since no one completlely could
be self sufficient. Population growth and settlement required
such goods transfer largely become symbolic, which can be defined
as money or capital. Sazama claims 3 concepts to be central to
international finance. They are physical capital (i.e., Marx's
"means of production"), human capital (i.e., Marx's labor,
bureaucracys' Skills, Knowledge, Aptitudes), and financial
capital (e.g., stocks, notes, deeds). He says that only 15% of
the world's population live in MDCs while 80% of capital flow is
among these countries. These "capital flows" fall into 4
categories: foreign direct investment (FDI), international loans,
foreign portfolio investment, and international currency flows, a
substantial part of which results from profit motivated currency
movements for arbitrage and speculation (what "derivatives" do).
It is a fact of the world system that there are 2 economic
classes of countries. The North is industrialized and relatively
prosperous while the South is mainly nonindustrial and relatively
(or absolutely) impoverished. After all AID and debt adjustment,
debt is relatively most severe in African countries and standards
of living and degree of economic development are lowest in the
world. There are 3 views with regard to LDCs failure to thrive.
Some blame colonialism, some LDC culture, and some MDC failure to
bail out the LDCs. Grant indicates that 20% of world population
is living on less than $1 a day, and that children bear the brunt
of this poverty; 20% of U. S. children live in poverty, the
highest proportion of any MDC.
Grant claims that not science, but a much improved political
and organizational milieu, has begun to improve conditions.
Grant asserts that Lyndon Johnson deserves great credit for
leadership in mobilizing sectors of societies such as rural
credit, marketing, transport, foreign exchange allocations, and
media attention which were required for success. Frequent
illness, malnutrition, poor growth, illiteracy, high birth rates,
and gender bias are reciprocally poverty's worst symptoms and
most fundamental causes. The road to power for many
extremiet/terrorist movements, religious or political, is paved
with misery of the poor. Reducing poverty would give greatly
enhance efforts at democratization, and such progress would, in
turn, accelerate economic growth. A quarter-million children die
unnecessarily each week when minimal aid could save them,
iodizing salt, providing vitamin A, oral rehydration therapy
kits, educating children (including girls), and encouraging
breast feeding of infants.
The U. N. Population Division asserts: "Improvements in
child survival, which increase the predictability of the family
building process, trigger the transition from natural to
controlled fertility behavior." This in turn stimulated the need
for family planning, which Reaganite "Christian" bigots have
completely stymied U. S. aid. The ECONOMIST does not favor aid.
It asserts Asian countries thrived without aid, while African
countries failed with it. Since 1960 $1.4 trillion aid has been
given. It asks whether MDCs giving another $1.4 trillion would
help; it says experience says "NO". Emory L. Warrick,Sr POS2401C
ISSUE #14 (18) GLOBAL POPULATION CRISIS
The population of Mexico is added to world population each
year, 4 times the U. S. population added each decade; reasonable
people forsee a problem. Poverty spurs population growth, and a
6 billion population base coupled with endemic poverty in more
than 90% of our world has caused disasterous overpopulation.
Educational and financial improvements, and women's contraceptive
opportunities are inversely correlated to high fertility rates in
LDCs. The U. S. Vice-President, Al Gore, addressed these
problems 25 August 1994 at the National Press Club. Gore sees a
transition period resultant from the Cold War end resulting in a
drawing together of nations ecologically, economically, and
politically. It is necessary to recognize the profoundly altered
nature of the relationship between humans and the ecology.
Three factors produced a radical change in this relationship.
Philosophically we must alter attitudes toward the earth and our
future and accept our responsibility for consequences flowing
from our actions and behaviors. It has been said that a lag
between ethics and technology began in the time of Plato and
increased continually for the last two and a half millenia, we
having never learned to employ technology efficiently and
ethically. The third factor is the geometrically increasing
world population which developing consensus specifies must be
considered in the context of sustainable economic development.
It took ten thousand generations to reach a world population of 2
billion, which doubled in less than a half century. If one
graphs this exponential growth, and overlays on that graph the
trends in deforestation, greenhouse gas accumulation, ozone level
depletion, species extinction, top-soil loss, and global warming
these trends tend to show a sharp correlation to our original
graph.
Rapid population increase and overcrowding tend to the
degradation of natural resources and ecological disaster,
aggrevated by patterns of consumption and production of waste.
This population increase contributes to economic devastation of
social services in LDCs, resulting in low wages, poverty, and
economic disparity. It prevents adequate investment in human
resources and necessary infrastructure for economic development,
leading to discrimination against females, poor health, high
fertility, and miserable quality of life for the great majority
of world population. One can note that in 1993 that Rwanda had
the highest population density in Africa, and Somalia the fastest
rate of population increase. The population of Nigeria doubled
during the past 4 decades, and likely will triple in 4 decades
more, its population exceeding the total population of Africa in
1950, and its problems insurmountable. In another international
problem area, Afghanistan is the fastest growing country in the
world, and will double its population in just the next decade,
boding ill for the rest of us.
Avery is from the Hudson Institute, a Republican think-tank.
His diety is profit. He writes for The Washington Times Corp.,
parent of the WASHINGTON STAR. He ignores the effects of
pesticides. He ignores erosion. He ignores deforestation and
waste disposal. He recognizes that Africa's problem is bad
government, a cultural artifact. Emory L. Warrick, Sr. POS2401C
ISSUE #15 (17) IMMIGRATION RESTRICTION
Many countries are reacting to increased immigration
pressures by severely restricting immigration. There are now 2.8
million illegal immigrants living in Western Europe. There are
probably more illegal immigrants in the U. S. to go with 20
million legal immigrants now here. The basic problem seems to
inhere in an innate racism in our people, since the calls for
restriction coincide with the declining proportion of Northern
European immigrants as against increasing proportions of Asians,
Africans, West Indians, and Latinos. Yeh Ling-Ling, writing for
the Republican USA TODAY MAGAZINE would oppose open immigration,
probably because Republicans never have been able to forsee the
consequences of their actions. Hard-Right Republican Christians
never have been able to feel christian compassion, nor have they
ever been able to countenance investment in human capital.
Passive, resigned people do not immigrate, but rather stay
where they are and suffer. It is the best, brightest, and most
aggressive people who immigrate in hope of a better deal out of
life. The greatest resistance to immigration arises from the
bottom quartile of our population who have lost adherence to the
"Puritan Work Ethic". Those migrating to the U. S. have had to
earn every morsel of food and "luck" they possess. They also
come from societies whose best schools produce better educated,
competent, and harder working individuals than are produced by
our schools. As a result, the contribution they make to our
society is of much more value than their cost to us.
George Soros, who recently contributed $1 billion to the
Russian economy is a first generation immigrant from Hungary, as
is TIME "Man of the Year" Andrew Grove, CEO of Intel. Nobel
Prizewinner Paul C. W. Chu, first generation Chinese immigrant,
Univ. of Houston physicist, discovered superconductivity which
bodes to immeasurably enrich us with its applications. Millions
of HIV/AIDS victims may survive because of TIME 1996 Man of the
Year David Da-i Ho, Chinese immigrant from Taiwan, who initiated
administration of protease-inhibitor cocktails to victims.
DuPont-Merck, Wang, Intel, Microsoft, Netscape, Sun, and Applied
Materials are just a few whose technological dominance is built
upon immigrant contributions. Robert Kelley, Jr., President of
the SO/CAL/TEN association of 200 high-tech California companies,
says: "Without the influx of Asians in the 1980s we would not
have had the entrepreneural explosion we've seen in California."
David N. K. Wang, V-P of Allied materials, Inc., claims that
because of immigration: "Silicon Valley is one of the most
international business centers in the world."
Take away the immigrants and you take away the talent base
from which such centers operate. In 1988 the National Research
Council reported: "a large fraction of the technological output
of the U. S. is dependent upon foreigh talent, and such
dependence is growing." Well over half of all engineering
doctorates from American universities go to immigrants, and one
third of U. S. engineers are immigrants. U. S. voters need to
wake up. We no longer can afford to ignore the facts. By pursuing
a liberal and strategic policy on immigration the U. S. can
guarantee the 21st century will again be an "American Century"
of scientific dominance. Emory L. Warrick, Sr. POS2401C
ISSUE #16 (15) UN WORLD CONFERENCES
These UN Conferences reveal clear evidence of a growing
awareness of vital needs to protect the environment, control
population growth, ensure women's rights, and address other
global problems which involve global implications, and require
global solutions. These conferences have no ability to make laws
or agreements legally binding on sovereign governments, but have
immense impacts, leading to establishments of NGOs and IGOs. One
has only to look at the attention attracted by such conferences
to realize their importance. The Cairo Conference provoked a
furious battle over such issues as women's reproductive rights.
Timothy Wirth indicates that during the past 3 decades the world
has grown increasingly interdependent, U. S. interests becoming
intricately intertwined with peace and prosperity all over the
world. American interests are not well served by isolationism;
such tragedies as Rwanda might have been avoided by progress on
stabilization of population and prevention of environmental
degradation.
The Clinton administration did not initiate these major
conferences, but rather has participated in them to advance
international progress on new and emerging global concerns
affecting U. S. and world interests. Some of the core principles
advanced by the U. S. in an effort to enhance world peace and
prosperity have to do with necessary and universal human rights,
adherence to democratic decision making, open markets and free
enterprise, sovereign responsibilities of States, necessity of
equal rights for women, and environmental protection as a
guarantor of long-term economic progress. These conferences
promote a creative effort on the part of the world community to
come to grips with common, long-term, global challenges in the
face of budgetary restraints resistance to elaborate programs.
When they are successful the plans for action developed at these
conferences serve as structures by which individuals, groups, and
nations can prepare implementation of carefully negotiated
recommendations. The conferences have conduced to governmental
accountability, provoking the type of global "action-plans" with
agreed upon compliance standards which allow for quantification.
The conferences have instilled a measure of accountability to
leverage compliance of reluctant nations displeased with basic
standards of human rights and decency, free enterprise, rule of
law, environmental protection, and basic health.
International negotiations following the Rio Conference
yielded agreements combatting desertification and fishery
depletion by commercial interests. Human rights have been
enhanced by ensuring voluntarism as the basis for family size
decisions. Promoting basic education , particularly for girls,
has helped advance women's roles world-wide. Millions of people
are better off because the U. S. stood up to those nations trying
to dilute international human rights standards under the guise of
cultural peculiarities. Jesse Helms, as Chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, invited a Venezuelan female member
of the Holy See Delegation, and fanatic anti-abortionist, to try
to discredit all the accomplishments of these conferences. Her
presentation was replete with misinformation and interpretations
skewed to complement ideology. Emory L. Warrick, Sr. POS2401C
ISSUE #17 (5) GEOPOLITICS vs CYBERSPACE
In consideration of the relationship between geopolitics and
cyberspace language is a vital component, because language
provides spectacles through which we view reality. When language
reflects the "weltanshauung" of traditional science any change is
resisted, but change occurs. Change involves the functionally
increasing coefficient of educational level among the population
of the United States and the entire world. This is a QUALITATIVE
social change unlike any social change experienced by any society
in prior human history. The consequences of this change in
social conditions, latent and manifest, have been incalculable -
future shock incarnate. This change produced an uncontrolled
experiment in changing social conditions came as a by-product of
the increase in educational coefficient, caused by population
density increase resulting from immigration and fecundity.
Rise in educational level fostered technological advance
fostering centralization of production and services, producing
rapid urbanization. Functional increase in population density in
other societies brought immigration to this country which further
aggrevated our population density here. Health improvements
provided by medical technological advances by research efforts
motivated by WWII yielded fecundity of our fertile population
which further aggrevated population density in the United States.
Functional increase in population density, along with the process
of urbanization, fosters increasing contact among different
cultures, and both have contributed tremendously to
heterogeneity of urban populations. Concurrently, rising levels
of education and literacy increased usage of left-brain cognitive
functioning which has increasingly supplanted the right-brain
affective processes which were effective in shaping social
relationships prior to these social changes. Left-brain
cognitive processes are characterized by analysis and questioning
of social values and norms, and comparison of these values and
norms with sensate data and extra-cultural experience.
We have developed 2 distinct populations, one of which
"understands" geopolitics and the other "understands" cyberspace.
"Geopolitics refers to 'the relation of international political
power to the geographical setting'", something concrete one can
touch, feel, and see. Cyberspace is "out there", a conceivable
ephemeral presence which senses cannot apprehend. The arguments
of Colin Gray with regard to geopolitics, economics, territory,
naval strategy, and "the man on the ground with the gun" are
effective and well taken. He explores weaknesses in the argument
for the primacy of cyberspace intelligently and cogently. The
"weltanshauung" of Libicki is totally different because Libicki
sees cyberspace as a work in progress, changing radically each
nanosecond, each change bringing progress.
One must conceive this progress in terms of a geometric, or
functional, increase in effectiveness. Libicki states that with
any given year the ration of information to force declines. He
grasps "information counter-attack". He assumes that peace will
continue for a while, and cyberspace will not be used for "Trojan
Horses". He also understands that any speculation on cyberspace
must realize the inevitable may take longer than thought. Both
considerations must be entertained. Emory L. Warrick, Sr POS2401C
ISSUE #18 (3) ISOLATIONISM vs INTERNATIONALISM
Mayhap the most important insight of Western Civilization is
the "Doctrine of Original Sin", holding that humans are born
self-centered but having the capacity, through Grace, to become
other-centered. Many humans never make this transition, and for
them no one else exists or has value. On the national level this
toxic value expresses itself in terms of "Nationalism" and
"Isolationism". This country was not solely isolationist until
WWII, and then univocally became internationalist, but rather
there was this tension and ambiguity always among Americans with
regard to this issue. Isolationists consider that collapse of
the USSR and the Cold War removed the main rationale for
internationalism, they feel that U. S. economic power relatively
has declined, and they feel isolated from global instability. The
idoelogical fulcrum upon which this controversy rests is the
concept of the purpose of the national government.
Bandow was part of the Reagan Administration, and like
Reagan and his henchmen, never could conceive anything beyond the
end of his nose. Their language, syntax, logic, and perspective
derived from traditional science, and none ever could comprehend
"interrelatedness". For them the only purpose of government was
to protect assets of the rich, and to insure that the rich got
richer at the expense of the poor. All this intervention cost
money, and might result in the rich having to pay taxes as they
were forced to do during WWII. George Washington, accurately,
saw the oceans as barriers insuring our security, but external
reality intruded even then. Republicans resis all change, and
have never understood that reality has altered the conditions
upon which our original isolationism was based.
Bandow asserts that advocates of interventionist foreign
policy have advanced many lofty justifications; to protect human
rights, promote democracy, ensure stability, stop aggression, and
and enforce international law and order, but he sees these as
irrelevant. He sees gross, not proportional, monetary costs. He
claims that "We today do not have a single soldier, airman or
sailor solely dedicated to the security mission within the U. S.
He overlooks Reagan's "Drug War" involving our armed forces, and
the tasking of Military Intelligence/CIA/NSA to spy on us as
citizens who might disagree with the government. Unfortunately
the growth of technology has conduced to a world totally
interconnected. We now have problems with communication of
disease, dispersal of biological/chemical/nuclear weapons, the
reach of terrorism, and other international problems.
Anthony Lake and Sandy Berger have got a grasp on the reality
of our problems. They understand isolationists would destroy
many tools used by America for the last half century to maintain
world leadership. Key elements of our foreign policy have been
international peacekeeping,aid to emerging markets, economic
support for peace, fighting drug trafficking and terrorism,
foreign assistance, and a strong military. They believe that our
success is endangered, under attack by new isolationists from
both left and right. They would deny our nation necessary
resources, beseige our engagement in world affairs, and imperil
our leadership. We must not allow their budget cutting to
disembowel U. S. leadership. Emory L. Warrick, Sr. POS2401C
Language provides spectacles through which we view reality.
Our language derives from traditional science. This desk, for
instance is assumed to be real because it is concrete. It is a
seething mass of energy, different from the air only in that the
molecules are more tightly packed. One needs to read about
Clerk-Maxwell, his 4 equations for gravity and magnetism , and
our electro-magnetic universe.One needs also to read THE DANCING
WU-LI MASTERS by Gary Zukov which deals with sub-atomic physics.
Its not the desk which is real, but its relations to the rest of
the universe.
Lets consider the "Yellow School Bus" my students used to
hear about. One must be educated, not trained, to understand - to
apprehend - "A change anywhere in the system is a change
everywhere in the system. Consider a 1x106 gallon hydraulic tank.
While these changing conditions affecting the status of
women were transpiring in the religious developments in the
English speaking world there was vigorous change going on in the
economic sphere as well; these developing politico-economic
changes were to have far reaching effects on women. Between 1750
and 1800 the population of England increased from six millions to
nine millions of people. The "Enclosure Acts" had reached a peak
during the latter half of the Seventeenth Century resulting in
most of the serfs being pushed into urban conglomerates at the
precise time when the population was increasing. John Kay
constructed his loom in 1733; James Hargreaves devised his
spinning-frame in 1764; and Samuel Crompton perfected his "mule"
in 1779. This machine did the work of two hundred (200) hand
spinners. The cotton gin of Eli Whitney (1793) made available
the raw material for those machines for which the steam engine of
James Watt (invented in 1769 and manufacture begun in 1780)
provided the power to forge the Industrial Revolution in Britain.
The factories became places of torment for whole families
from the youngest children (even two year olds could carry
bobbins from machine to machine) to dying elders, all working
fourteen (14) hours a day seven days a week year in, year out,
until they died. The "Enclosure Acts" were the result of
mercantilism applied to a native rather than to a colonial
population. The "Enclosure Acts" were enacted so that sheep
could be grown to provide wool as raw material on which the
factories could operate. This moved the peasantry back into a
subsistence existence and virtually required that the home be
broken up. Woman was dispossessed. The difference between an
agricultural and an industrial economy is the difference between
being self-sufficient through growing and making all the things
one needs versus a situation in which one must have money to buy
necessities provided by other people who have made, grown, or
bought these things themselves; if one has no money one starves,
and if one has little money one starves slowly.
One variable having received remarkably little research
attention is behavioral outcomes contingent upon differences in
functioning of right-brain affect and of left-brain cognition.
Technically defined, a "catholic" society is an homogeneous
culture where individuals are instrumentally valued, this value
deriving from their group membership. A "protestant" society
would be an heterogeneous culture with individuals intrinsically
valuable in and of themselves, independently of other factors.
Examples of "catholic" societies would be China, England, tribal
societies, and ancient hebrews. Contemporary North America would
represent a "protestant" society; a "catholic" society would be
rural; a "protestant" society urban. Values in a "catholic"
homogeneous society are consensual and can effectively be moral
in nature; values in a "protestant" heterogeneous society are
pluralistic and must be ethical rather than moral to be
effective.
Very often the U. S. has functioned as a spontaneous and
extemporaneous social laboratory where changing social conditions
and social forces operated as uncontrolled experiments yielding
illuminating results. This enabled social scientists to envision
more clearly the effects of these changes when they occur in
other societies and nations. One such change involves the
functionally increasing coefficient of educational level among
the population of the United States. National Educational
Asssociation research informs us, from census data, that:
1. In 1915 only 3% of the US population had completed 3rd grade
2. In 1920 just 3% had completed 8th Grade
3. In 1940 just 3% completed 12th grade (High School Diploma)
4. In 1950 just 3% completed college (Bachelor's Degree/BA)
5. In 1960 just 6% held the Bachelor'Degree/58% held HS Diploma
6. In 1970 16% held BA and 3% held PhD (1980 data unavailable)
75% held HS Diploma
This represents a QUALITATIVE social change unlike any social
change experienced by any society in prior human history. The
consequences of this change in social conditions, both latent
and manifest, have been incalculable - future shock incarnate.
Another uncontrolled experiment in changing social
conditions came as a by-product of the increase in educational
coefficient, and as a consequence of population density increase
resulting from immigration and fecundity. In 1920 the population
of these United States was 10% urban and 90% rural. By 1970
those proportions had reversed leaving our population at more
than 90% urban and less than 10% rural. Rise in educational
level fostered technological advance which fostered
centralization of production and services which fostered rapid
urbanization. Functional increase in population density in other
societies fostered immigration to this country which further
aggrevated our population density here. Health improvements
brought on by medical technological advances fostered by research
efforts motivated by WWII yielded fecundity of our fertile
population which further aggrevated population density in the
United States.
Functional increase in population density, along with the
process of urbanization, fosters increasing contact among
different cultures. Both have contributed tremendously to
heterogeneity of urban populations. Concurrently, rising levels
of education and literacy increased usage of left-brain cognitive
functioning which has increasingly supplanted the right-brain
affective processes which were effective in shaping social
relationships prior to these social changes. Left-brain
cognitive processes are characterized by analysis and questioning
of social values and norms, and comparison of these values and
norms with sensate data and extra-cultural experience. Left-
brain cognitive processes effectively expose immanent/inherent
contradictions in value systems and institutions. Religious
belief, patriotism, and other centripetal social vectors suffer
first.
Migration to America - Religions/religious wars North/
econonomics (see above) South
Africans enslaved Africans and sold them to Arabs who sold
them to Caucasians
Ozone, TN - Blue Ridge Mountains - Ozone radical = O1/H2O2
is hydrogen peroxide, releases O1 radical for cleansing/ N2O from
fertilizer used to attempt increased per-acre production affects
ozone/hydrochlorofluoro-carbons (CFCs and HCFCs) wreak havoc on
the ozone layer - the ozone layer blocks UltraViolet-B (UV-B)
radiation causing malignant melanoma, inhibits growth, metabo-
lism, and photosynthesis affecting soybeans, sugar beets, beans,
sorghum, wheat, peas, tomatoes, lettuce, potatoes, etc. - dis-
rupts marine systems, destroys planckton (foundation of marine
food chain)/ genetic markers = blindness in sheep and rabbits,
cancer in cattle, in southern hemisphere, frogs "genetic sports"
in northern hemisphere
hydrocarbon fuels create SO2 which combines with O2 to make
H2SO4 which is acid rain, causes desertification, deforestation
(leads to erosion and pollution of water supplies), crop failure,
destroys wildlife and marine habitat
Tectonic plate shifts resulting in volcanic eruptions on
land and under sea - global warming - effects on arable lands and
food production -
Weber sin cycles/RC vs Calvinism/Predestination God hates
poor people - Republican greed/Reaganism/Televangelism/$60
million this year to Congress by HMO/Health Insurance/Politicians
blind - cannot see beyind end of nose
Kudzu and tobacco lugs/stems pulverized cheap source of
vital protein, low tetrahydrocanabinol Cannabis substitutes
perfectly for tobacco in soil composition, climater, and
environment
birth control allowing intercourse without fear of pregnancy
empowers and frees women - may be the most important social
advance and social change of the 20th century
Solar, wind, and water power (oceans/temperature and wave
action) - storage is problem.
