Shafted

Remember the good old days of the “Free” library? Back when “user pays” was a swear word? Well these days you may be able to borrow stuff at no cost, but you have to get into the joint first….

Unfortunately for those who travel by car, and in the country that’s about the only way you’ll get to the library, there are only a handful on one hour spots for library patrons. For those who arrive late or need more time, you still get the free library, the only catch is, it’ll cost you 80 cents an hour!

As the sun approaches the end of the current stage in its life cycle, it will begin to expand and turn into a red giant. In consequence the world will heat up dramatically, all the surface water will evaporate and eventually every plant and animal will die. In other words, within 500,000,000 years the world will become a dead zone and it appears there’s nothing we can do to stop it.

If this is the case, it is imperative a strategy is devised to improve our prospects. Admittedly global annihilation is still in the distant geological-time future, but any proposed solution will take an incredible amount of time to implement. We simply don’t have the technology at present to save ourselves.

Solutions may involve space flight, but there may be nowhere to fly to. And using current technology, the closest stars with potentially habitable planets are so many light years away it will take generations to reach them.

Humans aren’t particularly at home in outer space. We need a space ship with food, water and oxygen, but we also need shielding from cosmic rays and artificial gravity to stop our bones from turning to jelly.

To save even a small fraction of the earth’s population by evacuation would require an armada of thousands of large space craft.

Civilization is only a few thousand years old. The technological revolution practically started in our lifetime. With millions of years to play with, we should be optimistic about mankind’s prospects for survival.

That is why it is important not to stuff it up now.

You can argue till you’re blue in the face about whether global warming is a consequence of human activity or a natural part of the earth’s life cycle, but if the disruptions are going to be on a grand scale as predicted, we have to try to do something about it.

This goes for all forms of environmental degradation.

It also holds true for man’s inhumanity to man. Grow up. Bury the hatchet. Unite. Remove the imperative of greed and exploitation from your life. Decide that you don’t need “more” after all.

Ultimately there is only one real challenge and it will affect us all.

Thankfully there are many countries and private corporations involved in the conquest of space. There still seems to be plenty of resistance to human genetic engineering, stem cell research and cloning, etc. These technologies may be the only ones able to provide a solution to our vulnerability in outer space. Bones that maintain their density in zero gravity, radiation resistant tissue, survival in low oxygen environments, skin that doesn’t explode with a sharp drop in air pressure.

These examples are traditional responses on a purely physical level which look at maintaining the current human form. Who knows what other possibilities will be explored – involving ideas that could stand our understanding of what it is to be human on its head.

We need a world which is conducive to research. We cannot afford a world where critical resources are diverted to fighting environmental catastrophes, wars, terrorism and the unimaginative narrow-mindedness of fundamentalism.

The sun IS coming – if we don’t put our differences aside and face the challenge together – we will all fry.

No weapons of mass destruction, no links to Al Qaeda, and now we know that they knew it all along.

So why did they invade? Did they feel like they were on a roll after “pacifying” Afghanistan? Did the son want to finish what the father had begun?

Or did the boardroom buddies identify an opportunity to make unlimited billions out of the American people?

All President Bush had to do was go to Congress and ask for the cash. Ask and ye shall receive. And in the process the military-industrial complex bleeds the US Treasury dry. But that’s not possible is it, for the Treasury is a bottomless pit of money. Just add it to the deficit tab.

So where does this money go? Forget about the New World Order. It’s the same old world of robber barons who are continuing to play us for fools while lining their pockets. Governments provide the conditions for war. The armaments industry provides the weapons. And if they both belong to the same club – watch out!

Note that whenever there is a war, academics crawl out of the woodwork to pronounce the war “just” or if they don’t like the perpetrators it’s a “violation of international law.”

And as long as it’s “just,” everything’s OK. The massacre of civilians is “regrettable” however collateral damage is a fact of life. The leveling of cities is necessary, to “eliminate terrorist sanctuaries.” Morally justifiable? Absolutely! “They started it and we need to protect ourselves.”

Without the smart bombs, the cruise missiles and all the rest, the scope of the destruction would be of a much smaller magnitude.

In the words of the gun lobby: “Guns don’t kill people, people do.” But in the words of anyone with a brain: “If you don’t have explosives, you can’t blow anything up.”

It is for this reason that the bomb producers must be made responsible for the products they manufacture.

A suicide bomber without a bomb is just an idiot. A government conducting a “just” war is all rhetoric and hot air, without tanks, artillery and missiles.

Those who are making billions of dollars profit from the manufacture of these advanced weapons should be made liable and pay for the rebuilding of houses and infrastructure that their weapons destroy, compensate the victims, as well as reimburse the Red Cross and governments providing humanitarian aid.

Just like the publican who juices up drunks and allows them to drive away from his bar, it is the armaments industry that converts a man with a stick to someone who can obliterate entire towns just by pressing a button.

The geniuses who created the war in Iraq came up with a brilliantly elegant sequel. Reconstruction. While half of Bush’s buddies fleece the Treasury to bomb the crap out of the dump, the other half grab the rest of the loot to rebuild it. Talk about shock and awe!

In order to establish some kind of equilibrium, armaments manufacturers should pay 95% of their profits into a compensation fund which can be drawn upon by the powerless victims of these global hooligans.

What you cause to be destroyed you must rebuild, at your own expense.