Time > 7:05 AM
Date > 9/25/00
Place >Quezon City
The radioactive glare of the television screen illuminated the dark living room that I am sitting on right now. In front of me is the fat ugly face of President Estrada justifying his all out military attack on the Abu Sayyaf as a step in fulfilling the country’s goal towards a globalized national economy.
What on earth is a globalized economy?
From what I’ve read in the papers, and what I’ve seen in the T.V. it is the bulwark of making some sort of a one world economy and government by the means of using international economic, political, and humanitarian organizations to manipulate the globes’ macro-economy, political structure and society a contraption that will inevitably eliminate one’s individuality. . As seen on the Seattle riots at the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) general assembly it is unambiguously opposed to by political activists that follow the Marx, Engles and Leninists socialist ideals because of its capitalistic control of the populace; as well as the anarchists, punks and nihilists, for its ambitious and arrogant attempt to manipulate the free will of man.
If Karl Marx were alive today he would certainly be alarmed by this disturbing trend in the planets’ socio-political economic structure. It would be very possible that he would band with anarchists like: Bakunin, Kropotkin, Proudhon and all their followers to oppose this impending consumerist invasion.
Meanwhile, as globalization continues to be one of the main slogans in international politics, but it only manifested itself in economic matters, and its impact in political developments was hardly visible to the naked eye. There was only limited collaboration between nations even with regard to confronting dangers menacing all of them, such as ecological disaster, organized crime, and international drug trade. Terrorist operations continued in many parts of the world. A peaceful settlement was found in Chechnya, and in Ireland negotiations were under way, not for the first time, between the Irish Republican Army and the Protestant loyalists of Northern Europe, with Spain, was relatively free of terrorism, but elsewhere, especially in North Africa and the Middle East, there was a new upsurge. Attacks elsewhere, from Peru and Columbia to Sri Lanka and Kashmir to Mindanao and East Timor, revealed that this was not a specific Muslim problem but that ethnic and religious antagonisms were likely to express themselves in guerilla warfare and terrorism rather than full-scale military operations, which had become too costly and too risky even for large and powerful nations.
It could be probable that we are just waiting for ‘apocalypse’ to come.
Now as I wait for ‘the end of the world’ I could not help but feel fear at the thought of the seemingly impending annihilation of all life in this planet.
Want to know why?
Well…
…During the time that I was reading the gathered materials for this research I had read of nothing but: alliances of Western 1st World Countries, the rise of Communism, the Cold War, the United Nations, the Euro-dollar and the Internet, not to mention the fact that all these chaos are also prophesied in the Bible, but that’s a on a different context.
Now I somehow see myself as a futurist, like Karl Marx.
People say that Karl saw the future.
A splendid vision of sunlit egalitarian Karl Marx was probably the greatest visionary futurist of the 19th century.
But Karl got it all wrong.
The Soviet Union was a 20th century futurist society. If the streets, bridges, and railroads could be engineered, then economy, society and the human soul should all be engineerable –it only makes sense. Bring on centralized state planning, the magnificent ultramodern vision of Leninist scientific socialism. Free the economy from the bizarre whims of top-hatted Rockefellers and Bill Gates and the senseless petty greed of the bourgeoisie. Bring the full grandeur of the scientific method to bear. Analyze, reduce find the basic principles. Identify the trends. Anticipate the future demands. Channel the productivity of the best in the service of the rest. Put the full might and wealth of the State behind promising futuristic technologies like aviation, rocketry, electrification and nuclear power. The result?
Judge for yourself.
The Cold War.
The Space race.
The Nuclear Arms Race.
The Vietnam and Korean Wars.
Etc.
Karl Marx dream of utopia was a complete failure as opposed to Vannevar Bush.
He was a classic American futurist.
He was an electrical engineer, not a politician, but he told politicians what to do and they believed him.
Bush ran the Office of Scientific Research and Development during World War II, turning 6,000 head-scratching Yankee academics into the world’s first organized coherent military-industrial complex. He pushed the Manhattan Project. He founded the National Science Foundation and provided not only its intellectual underpinnings but also its political rationale. Bush even foresaw the personal computer-or, rather, the “memex,” the personal hypertext databank.
Vannevar Bush probably had more influence on the growth of 20th century science and engineering than any other single human being.
Come 1995, and Vannevar Bush is profoundly out of intellectual fashion. The enormous big-science Rocket State superstructure that grew from his vision is under unprecedented political and economic attack.
I wonder…
…If Bush showed up in Estrada’s Congress, he’d be despised as a goofy liberal highbrow. The country’s State Universities and Colleges (SCUs) were the nation’s premiere futurist outfits. Their services were deregulated and subjected to commercialization like OPEC produced oil.
Estrada’s Congress deliberately closes its eyes to the future, you can get it won’t have a lot of time and energy for anybody else’s visions
Like for example Mister President himself, he thought of globalization, so he declared war on the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Abu Sayyaf. Very off tangent if you ask me.
So now what do we got?
The stock market collapses; dollar exchange is soaring at the rate of one dollar for forty-six pesos; withdrawal of foreign investors; continuous demonstrations of leftist radicals, feminist movements and labor groups.
That’s a pretty good, first step towards globalization.
Ever notice how the terrifying bogey of the Arms Race has simply vanished from the cultural radar?
It skunk off with the same embarrassed reticence as its big shiny futuristic cousin, the Space Race
The biggest political idea on the planet today is the vision that people want to live for and die for, the vision they truly believe in their heart of hearts, is reactionary Islam.
The trend today is apocalypse now.
The End of History -
A code term for the across-the-board annihilation of progressive social visions-is at hand. (Still remember the Y2K Bug?)
We flatter ourselves when we think we’re putting an end to history.
The end of the world and the death of the future are always popular across the spectrum. James Watt left power, but lo! There was no Rapture. Just our national forests looking a tad more dusty, battered and acidic.
If we can’t control the future-
If we can’t make it do what we want
-What is there left to say or do about it? We’re all hip to nonlinearity –anyone with two brain cells knows that the future is unpredictable, even in principle. Science fiction writers still like to jabber about it, and they are more reckless than a lot of other basement prophets because they have so very little to lose.
But why say anything?
The crystal ball’s as cracked and clouded as the ozone layer.
Who are we kidding?
Why bother to gaze into the future?
In 50 years the world changes completely –but everyone who could notice and comment is shell shocked or dead.
These things aren’t a joke. Here’s why: >those who don’t know the past will repeat it. > A vision of absolute power is absolutely corrupting of vision. > Of the facts seem to fail you, try historical analogy. What the heck, at least it’s vivid. > Practically anything beats depending on Scripture. > Demographics really count. All the people who are going to run the world in 20 years are alive right now. > The future is always overplayed in five years. This is known as hype.
This is known as “history.”
If the topsoil goes, it all goes.
The classic Mayan civilization (now long extinct) had a superbly pampered class of brilliant astrological futurists.
When in doubt, wear more feathers, eat more peyote, and pierce your tongue.
Listen to Limp Bizkit, dance to Britney dress up like Marilyn Manson.
If the future were really predictable we’d all hung ourselves right after killing our children.
APOCALYPSE ALWAYS SELLS.
It sells like lipstick. Because it flatters our vanity.
When H.G. Wells, was dying, he somberly predicted the imminent collapse of all human civilization.
Real futurism means staring directly into your own grave and accepting the slow but thorough obliteration of everyone and everything you know and love.
Does this sound like fun?
It can be.
Just don’t expect it to move a lot of product.
posted by m35b @ Monday, May 24, 2004
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