Race to the bottom

Dear Americans,

Will you allow this bunch of clowns to destroy America and the trust in democracy and the free world?!

This is the question. You, and only you, citizens of the USA, can now revert this course.

I mean, really?!?! Halt vaccine developments that could save hundreds of millions lives, now that AI would actually speed up the development?! Are we stupid, or what?! We give up to one of the most useful uses for AI, and use it instead for improving weapons of mass destruction?

The message of the US administration (and many other leaders of the world, unfortunately) is quite clear: they don't care about people's lives (cut investments in medicine and education), they care just about billions and power (and the most rapid way of gaining both money and power, which is war - the recent surge in "defense" spending is an obvious proof).

As much as I have hoped in 2022 for a Russian massive protest against the war in Ukraine, I am now hoping for an American protest against the so many stupid things happening these days in USA. 

Expanding War

I have just heard the results of a study in Germany, stating that 71% of the population does not follow news anymore, because these are mostly about war and are therefore depressing. I am sure this is the case in many (if not most!) of the countries, at least in the „developed world”.

So, most of the population is sick and tired of wars, fear war (which is the correct feeling towards the brutal horror that war represents), but their solution against news about the current situation is to close their ears! And accept, meanwhile, that more and more of the national budget(s) they work and pay for goes to buying weapons - more meand of killing other people... 

Now the war is expanding in the Middle East, the genocide in Gaza being now shadowed by the war (not yet full-scale, but evolving) between Israel and Iran, started by the attack of Israel just one day before a new round of negotiations between Iran and USA. The move of a US air carrier formation to the Gulf is a sign for extending trouble. Not so far away, war in Ukraine continues, and signs of escalation become more and more frequent - more weapons in the Eastern Europe increasing the chances for a regional war. 

Will a North-South wall of war and fire soon divide East and West? The third world war may be fought in Eastern Europe and Middle East (if the superpowers manage to contain it). Hopefully not, but maybe yes - because nobody (or not enough people) complain and urge for peace - even if the majority of us do not want another world war (or any war). 

Do we live in a sick society? It surely seems so.

Citizens, Beware!

As many are saying these days, the transition to totalitarianism is not a rapid shift, but rather a gradual, step-by-step process which may pass unnoticed until it becomes too late to stop.

One major purpose of the mess and chaos produced in the United States in recent months is to obscure a few things: (i) massive transfer of trillions of dollars from the „average Joe's” to the ultra-rich billionaires - be it in tax cuts, military contracts or plain fraud; (ii) the climate issue, which becomes an ongoing disaster, too late to avoid; and (iii) a new arms race which will lead to a new world war, terminal for the civilization as we know it. Actually, (iii) may be just a side effect of the first two.

About climate, the new administration already took out USA from the Paris agreement, an agreement which was still too weak to avoid crippling average temperature increases. We also know a stupid ruling, that the EPA is only allowed to issue a new regulation after cancelling 10 previous ones (this is really one of the most stupid laws I've ever heard of!). The funding for research in general, and medical and weather/climate specifically, was severely cut (see also the continuous bullying of the administration against the top universities in USA, with new shocking episodes every week!). Related to this, here is an interesting article about the Unidata project - providing weather data, now halted because of fund cuts (and suspension of existing already signed funding contracts).

And it is quite obvious why - people do not have to see the real (very bad) status of climate, and that we are on a way to disaster with increasing speed. That we cannot afford anymore fossil fuel burning, that we must act immediately if we want to have the slightest chance to avoid climate disaster. We have to be instead induced to be afraid of Chinese, Russians, immigrants and build up military power, and eventually go to war - this is more productive for the billionaires who will retreat on their islands and in their bunkers and survive when billions of people will die.

Time is short, and becomes very short. The window of opportunity for „us, the people” to reverse the present direction on the „highway to hell” is almost closed already.

Democracy

Nowadays, most people seem to think that living in a Democracy [solely] means that one can protest and speak freely against what the government and politicians decide and do. With the caveat that corporate media favor some discourses at the expense of the others, and influencing "public opinion" is a multi-billion dollars business - so actually, only the interests of the rich class are efficiently promoted.

This is a trap. Democracy is NOT just about protesting against decisions. Democracy means that the politicians, all who are elected by the people, must represent us in their decisions! We must ask from them to follow what the people wants, not take decisions in the interest of billionaires and against the interest of the people and then let us protest (freely and peacefully, and many times without effect) against these! They are our representatives and should act accordingly. Otherwise, if we are not active politically and just protest from time to time, the following three outcomes are inevitable:

- Our "threshold" of accepting decisions against our interests will inevitably increase - the natural effect of repetition and tiredness of protesting

- More and more frequently the protests will be ignored by the politicians. A good example is the one with the pension reforms in France few years ago, when millions protested, with no outcome.

- The rights to protest themselves will be progressively limited, while the Democracy will fade and regress towards an Oligarchy.

The solution: in our rapidly transforming world, we the people must exert control on our representatives in the Parliament and at the local/regional levels much more frequently than once every 4/5 years (during the elections, which are also crippled by misinformation). We must keep informed and push for implementing means of changing our representatives who are not speaking for the ones they represent - even monthly if it is needed. It may seem extreme, but it is the only way in which we can keep our representatives to really be our representatives - not following the interest of the big capital instead. And it is technically possible nowadays - but, as with all the rights, this will not come by itself, it has to be obtained.

Arms and death

In the turbulent times we live nowadays, we are induced into thinking that large scale military conflicts are inevitable in the (near) future, that our only chance is to produce more weapons - to discourage „the enemy” and be able to respond to an attack. As in Orwell's "1984", it doesn't matter much who's the enemy - as the US recently demonstrated big time, with the Trump administration including European allies in the "non-friendly" group...

Americans are fooled (by powerful, billionaire-owned media) into believing that Europeans and Chinese, and generally all other nations are stealing from them; Europeans are fooled into believing that Russians want us their slaves. The Chinese probably are closest to reality when they feel threatened, because the economic prowess of China fuels adversities from the other big powers, and many nuclear submarines are fishing in the waters around China...

The question is: do we, the people (of US, China, Russia or Europe) want war?

Because this is the present course: huge investments in weaponry in Europe (hundreds of billions taken from health, education, infrastructure channeled to "defense spending" - fast-track and largely unaccountable!), and be sure of the fact that these weapons will be used, one way or another! (against Russia, China, or internally between fighting groups within Europe)

USA rebuilds the nuclear arsenal, and invests heavily in new types of weapons, plus AI for military purposes, plus restarting the useless (and exorbitantly expensive) "space defense". China has to keep up and increases dramatically its nuclear arsenal. Russia already spends a large fraction of its budget for military, since they invaded Ukraine, and this spending is poised to increase.

I see a lot of people enthusiastic about more weapons, a more powerful Europe, etc - and I think they should visualize, when they speak about weapons, the bullets penetrating the skull of their beloved ones, fragments of human beings flying around after and explosion, buildings collapsing during bombings, the uncountable women and children raped and mutilated in each and every war - these could be their wives, their sisters, their kids. This is the war. Not the heroic stories in some movies. War is death, misery, torture. Think about this, next time you want more weapons in Europe. 

Why do we, the people of these countries, accept this situation? Why there were not powerful anti-war meetings in Russia in 2022? Why the opposition to the currently loudly proclaimed "re-armament of Europe" is quasi-invisible?! Why the Americans accept the culture of war and confrontation?

Is this the human civilization of the XXI century? Is this all we can? Because if the answer is yes, then we are all doomed, my friends.