The beast, the state and the empire

The ‘beast’ is raging all across the lands. By the ‘beast’ we mean the ‘mass,’ foot stepping the tradition of the founding fathers of the United States of America (Thomas Jefferson). To be sure, these erudite scholars were not employing the word lightly just in jest. They earnestly wanted a shorthand expression for what they perceived to be a perplexing behavior of the then undifferentiated ‘mass’! It is not for idle reasons, the phrases ‘mob justice’, ‘mob psychology’, ‘ mob rule’, ‘mob etc’ were coined. Be that as it may, why is the ‘beast’ on the rampage today?

20 Mishaps That Might Have Started Accidental Nuclear War

Ever since the two adversaries in the Cold War, the U.S.A. an the U.S.S.R., realized that their nuclear arsenals were sufficient to do disastrous damage to both countries at short notice, the leaders and the military commanders have thought about the possibility of a nuclear war starting without their intention or as a result of a false alarm. Increasingly elaborate accessories have been incorporated in nuclear weapons and their delivery systems to minimize the risk of unauthorized or accidental launch or detonation. A most innovative action was the establishment of the “hot line” between Washington and Moscow in 1963 to reduce the risk of misunderstanding between the supreme commanders.

The new colonialists

THERE is no exaggerating China’s hunger for commodities. The country accounts for about a fifth of the world’s population, yet it gobbles up more than half of the world’s pork, half of its cement, a third of its steel and over a quarter of its aluminium. It is spending 35 times as much on imports of soya beans and crude oil as it did in 1999, and 23 times as much importing copper—indeed, China has swallowed over four-fifths of the increase in the world’s copper supply since 2000.

Why the world should keep an eye on Djibouti

WITH the world’s Africa-watchers distracted by bloody events in Libya and Côte d’Ivoire, and elections in giant and chaotic Nigeria, it’s easy to forget about a presidential election in Djibouti. The tiny state in the Horn of Africa, wedged between Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, has only 860,000 inhabitants. But Djibouti’s importance is underscored by the presence of 5,000 or so French and American troops, a legacy of its status as a former French colony (it won independence in 1977) and a current western ally in the wars against terror and piracy.

Results from the election on April 8^th were swift and predictable: President Ismail Guelleh of the People’s Rally for Progress, who has ruled since 1999 (when he took over from his uncle), was re-elected by a landslide. According to Djibouti’s electoral commission, around 80% of the votes were cast for Mr Guelleh, slightly down on the 100% he officially achieved in 2005. Turnout was also reported as high, with 70% of the 150,000 registered turning up to vote. Polling day itself was, according to most accounts, a serene affair by sub-Saharan African standards.

Secret Weapons Program Inside Fukushima Nuclear Plant?

Confused and often conflicting reports out of Fukushima 1 nuclear plant cannot be solely the result of tsunami-caused breakdowns, bungling or miscommunication. Inexplicable delays and half-baked explanations from Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) seem to be driven by some unspoken factor.

The smoke and mirrors at Fukushima 1 seem to obscure a steady purpose, an iron will and a grim task unknown to outsiders. The most logical explanation: The nuclear industry and government agencies are scrambling to prevent the discovery of atomic-bomb research facilities hidden inside Japan’s civilian nuclear power plants.

The US-NATO Conquest of Africa

Militarization of the African Continent

The world’s oldest extant military bloc (formed 61 years ago) and the largest in history (twenty eight full members and as many partners on five continents), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, counts among its major member states all of Africa’s former colonial powers: Britain, France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany and Belgium.

After World War II and the groundswell of anti-colonial sentiment throughout Africa and Asia, the European powers were forced to withdraw from most of the African continent, though Portugal retained its possessions until the 1970s.

Most every new African nation adopted some model of socialist-oriented economic and political development and the continent as a whole more closely aligned itself with the Soviet Union, which moreover had for decades supported the anti-colonial struggles in Africa, than with the West, both Western Europe and the United States.

Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time

Famous for its exposition of the workings of the Anglophile American establishment during the first half of the twentieth century, the book is reputed to have “named names” to such a degree that the hidden masters of the world tried to suppress the unabridged edition. It did not diminish the book’s reputation that Carroll Quigley (1910-1977), a historian with the Foreign Service School at Georgetown University, made a deep impression on US-president-to-be Bill Clinton during Clinton’s undergraduate years at that university. We have Mr. Clinton’s own word on this.

As Quigley acknowledges, there are insuperable problems of perspective in writing about one’s own time. On the other hand, the book’s prejudices are fascinating. It was written at the point in the 1960s just before the American liberal consensus began to unravel. Perhaps as important for Quigley, that was also the brief interval after the Second Vatican Council when “liberal Catholic” did not mean someone who rejected all dogma and tradition. Beyond its value  as a period piece, however, the book occasionally transcends its time. Its remarks about the future, presumably a future more distant than our present, are close to becoming conventional wisdom today.