OPEN BOUQUET January

OPEN BOUQUET (January - February)

By William Markiewicz

(As other short items may follow, I've decided to group them together.)

Ooof!! It’s a big relief. One less in the nuclear club. (2/13)
Obviously Gulliver can feel at his best only among Lilliputians. North Korea needed nuclear weapons like a hole in its head; who would attack a small country without natural resources? But, like a poker player, it courageously resisted the pressure and threats, and with excellent results because now it will get what it really needs. Only countries with national resources can fear invasion; they really need the means to defend themselves. For Iraq it’s too late – probably, and for Iran we don’t know yet. Iran represents a danger for Israel. Israel’s best defence would be a quick peace with the Palestinians and with Syria (for the Golan Heights). The Arab fundamentalists will quickly lose steam in confronting Israel, and Iran, left alone, will not resist for long. If the US is on the road to confrontation with Iran, it is first of all because it is a war oriented superpower looking for pretexts for war. Iran, nuclear or not, like North Korea, represents no danger whatever for the USA.

Darwinian Universe (2/03)
A friend told me the following story: She took a cab and started a conversation with the taxi driver. She told him that she was Jewish and he told her that he was an Arab Christian, hated the Muslims, and had nothing against the Jews. One day an Arab stopped his taxi, greeted him in Arabic and asked the driver if he was a Muslim. When he learned that the driver was an Arab Christian, the passenger immediately got out of the taxi, spat inside and started to curse. Why do people have to hate even those they don’t even know?

All over the globe people hate each other because of their differences. I have only two answers: (1) We live in a Darwinian Universe. (2) Everybody has a right to love and to hate. In conclusion, without analyzing, we all have a right and duty for self defence and to defend our family and friends.

Lost Paradise of the Global Village Replaced by the Hell of Globalisation (1/12)
The Global Village concept would really bring Fukuyama's "end of History" and that would be for the best. True History has direction which is growth. If intentions and correct understanding go in pairs, the results cannot be other than positive. It has nothing to do with sentiments; the producer knows that he needs not only manpower but also a buyer; so slavery had no future. He had to remunerate his workers sufficiently for them to step up from lumpenproletariat to the middleclass. This is History progressing on its evolutionary path. Global village means collaboration at its peak. Global Village means that everybody is producer/ buyer simultaneously and there is enough of everything for everybody, and History, after doing its job, may, in effect, disappear. But the Lucifers of power had to intervene to artificially restart a competition that nobody needed anymore, from money power to aggressive military power. Was it, if I remember, during a conversation between Madeline Albright and General Clark that she said: "How would you feel, having a powerful army, and not using it?” If my memory is good, Clark expressed frustration at the very idea. So, History is reinstated to allow the powerful to blow off steam. Because the potential Global Villagers are unable to react, we're confined in a cage with ferocious tigers and History continues.

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William Markiewicz