The Humanist 1000 Summers
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| Her friend acknowledged the uncertainty of the apparent status quo.
"I'm hearing an ominous silence from the great red tide inside our borders, the redneck states. Some of the things I've heard would make the Aryan Nations blush. Is the South going to rise again?" she stated rhetorically. Biersten was chagrined at the suggestion. “Americans don’t know their own history. If ever we repeat that period...” she said, lost in thought. 19. Linchpins Awaiting his conference with President Obama, Curt Leeman took a seat in an anteroom of the White House. A student of the American Civil War, he ruminated about how the situation was reminiscent of the last time Robert E. Lee would meet with President Lincoln before the commencement of the Civil War. One party would have to tell the other that half the country didn't agree with him and meant to do something about it. He was escorted directly into the Oval Office and was both alarmed and relieved that Obama was alone in the room with him. The President was his amiable but forthright self. "And who are you to be today Mr. Leeman, are you Yamamoto on the decks of the New Jersey, or..." alluding to their earlier phone conversation that morning. Leeman had combined a half salute with a wave of deference. He smiled reluctantly, always happy to discuss history... “Actually I was thinking more Lee signing off with Lincoln, if that ever happened, if you must ask. I'm here to await your direction, Mr. President." "Take it easy Curt, we have to work our way through this without too much drama. There really is some possibility of civil strife on our horizon here, and we have to be ahead of that curve. What's your read on the Pentagon brass, where are they on this?" Leeman put his prepared statement back into his buffer, warming to the possibility that Obama and he could come to some agreement that would preserve the integrity of the United States armed forces, or at least remove him from the spotlight. "I suppose it's no different than being the employee of a large company that just went bankrupt," he replied, "you wonder why it happened and everybody just goes home. It's not so easy for the company officers of course, they have to keep working and account for these things.” Obama liked his analogy. “A company goes bust, the military goes bust, quite a similarity actually. So let's ask what happens when that company goes out of business. The employees go home, what happens then? The company officers all had careers; some will find work but what of the others? And the firm's assets - what do they look like and who ends up with them?” "I prefer not to speak of the armed forces in that vein, with all due respect – Barack, if I may.” “Please.” “I'm not here to praise nor bury Caesar, and I realize that in these times, financially as turbulent as any war, that in truth these matters are not in my hands, and maybe not yours either. There’s too many people saying we’re moving too fast, giving up too much, that’s it political suicide and military treason - everyone has an opinion and a strong one.” He paused to await a reply, and Obama pondered. “Okay, let's break this out into its pieces. First of all the cantonization of the United States of America. That is still very much a nebulous concept for every nation in the world - it's not mandatory, it's an optional internal structure at present for resolving internal affairs under a UN mandate. Look at the uproar it's causing in China, we’re not alone in that regard. It'll be some time before we decide as a country whether to ratify those aspects and allow states to become cantons and so on. I think we can safely leave that on the back burner and deal with other, more pressing issues in the meantime. Personally I think it’s a non-starter here." "If you wish, Barack, that's your prerogative in your jurisdiction. Those structural changes are yours to read. However, when so much of our tax money is going to fund the UN's military instead of our own and people are asking me whether we’ll be towing the Navy to Singapore next week, I'm afraid that moves over onto my watch.” "Nobody's towing any Navy boats to Singapore, Curt, you've been reading too many yellow newspapers, and the wrong ones at that. The UN’s Singapore moorings will be the home port for their maritime arm as they call it. Personally I think most of the heavy fighting ships will go straight to the breakers. Their New York building has just been renovated and I don't think the UN'll be closing that anytime soon, they have those charter difficulties with New York. So personally I don't think they're going anywhere except that they’ve opened some Far East offices. So be it.” He became more resolute. “Those are not the big issues for me - I have to do something about the 4N boycott and I have to do it now. It took us five years to recover some semblance of stability for our economy, stop its free fall really, and it’s going out the window again, all because of nukes. The Russians, French and the British have agreed to the inspection teams, India and China have already pledged to remove all weaponry, nuclear or not, once they sign. If we wait too long our manufacturing sector might head out for India the same way they headed out for China earlier. Right now I’m being told US factories might become competitive again.” “Barack, how can we ever sell that to the Pentagon? I'm tired of arguing with everyone I come into contact with there, I have no understanding of this process myself. Please realize - I'm an old soldier not comfortable with decommissioning the regimental colors - to West Point people that's the ultimate act of treason - to my classmates, my mentors and to all the wonderful people who built this fine country of ours. At the same time you're our Commander-in-Chief, and I'm here to serve." "The Pentagon, the Pentagon. Who runs this country anyway? Don't answer that... let's understand that neither one of us is trying to destroy the US military. On the other hand, we’re completely cornered by the boycott and the emergence of the UN, just as Russia and China are, and if the French and British can step down their nuclear arsenals I don't see why we can't start moving in that direction ourselves. Israel too. We’re all broke, it's time. I must never forget how close Kennedy came to starting a nuclear war with Khrushchev, and I can tell you right now I will not tolerate that sort of brinkmanship during my presidency, internally yet. You know my lifelong policy on nuclear arms and I’m not going to sit here and tell you that demilitarization is what’s bothering me at the moment. It’s food and shelter for our people, and jobs, jobs, jobs." "Let's discuss practical matters then," replied Leeman. "My read is that you've been in discussions with the United Nations toward re-commissioning the Nimitz as a disaster relief vessel, along with a transport task force to support it. Is my information correct?" "Preliminary, but correct. The assault ships are in there too. We have to do something symbolic to indicate that we are going to comply with the provisions of the 4N boycott. The Pentagon itself has acknowledged that carriers are just too large a target for any kind of major power in combat anymore, within current modeling. I have negotiated a deal with Ban whereby we would be credited with two full years’ contribution to the UN if we convert and assign such a task force to Singapore. It’s like we’re running a set of books with the UN now, because we are. We pay them taxes, send them invoices, it’s a new game. More than one carrier, by the way, more like six and why not? It would be the flagship deal if you like, that will lift the boycott for us. Provided of course that we schedule the phase-out and elimination of nuclear weapons in concert with the other major powers, concurrently." Leeman looked at him like a weary old bloodhound with no emotion left to give. "Well, as long as you're selling it to Congress, Mr. President," he said "I can pretend to know nothing about it,” he said resignedly. "From now on I'll just say “You’ll have to speak to the President about that.” "Works for me," Obama granted, "it's not going to be a state secret much longer." The two men agreed to reconvene again by the middle of the month. The year 2016 was turning into as tumultuous a year for Obama as 2012 had been. In the last year of his second term, he remained as popular as any president since FDR during his war years, but was struggling to maintain an atmosphere of calm within a nation that felt itself assailed from all sides. The deep recession beginning in 2008 had seen the US revert back toward its domestic interests, with less influence or caring for foreign affairs. The currency devaluation race with Europe and Asia had resulted in the US dollar being worth just half of what it had been when he had assumed the presidency in 2009, as all of the industrial nations printed paper money to pay debt and lower real labor rates, while recharging their banking institutions following their disastrous orgy of easy credit . When the Chinese Yuan began to rise incrementally in 2015, largely from the influence of their domestic savings and wider worker benefits, China’s manufacturing costs moved within hailing distance of those in the West for all but the most labor-intensive industries, and factories began to re-appear in Europe and America. While England and Japan remained fully in recession, these were in relative terms, as those societies continued to sell off overseas assets sufficient to maintain essential social programs. The long awaited economic ‘bottom’ had apparently been reached. Obama was nonetheless confronted with governing a country that was grateful for his stewardship pending a recovery, but sharply divided over the role and future of the military that had been blunted by the world’s gravitation toward the stewardship of the United Nations. The emergence of the UN had brought a flag waver out from under every rock in America. Faced with the plight of millions of homeless and jobless vagrants roaming US cities, mixed in with a gun culture that was ubiquitous, cities and towns after dark had become a bad dream reminiscent of the Wild West. It was equally tense in the UK, where the collapse of the financial industries and their relocation to Asia exacerbated the continuous decline in manufacturing that threw so many men into the streets across Europe. The reaction to militarism and the wars left over from the Bush era came to a head in 2014, when Congress reduced the Pentagon’s military budget to a fifth of what it had been during the previous decade, as all sympathy for government spending outside of social programs evaporated with the deteriorating economic conditions. The continuing riots that plagued American towns and the escalating need for more police trumped high-tech weaponry. This reaction had reached its zenith with the redrafting of the 2nd Amendment, to stipulate that “The right of the People to keep and bear arms or to forsake arms shall not be infringed.” The beginning of that provision “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a Free State…” had been removed. The US Supreme Court, in a sequence of judgments from 2014-16 had ruled that this compromise, drafted in response to a clamoring for gun control following repeated incidents of mass murder, meant that citizens could declare themselves to be conscientious objectors when faced with military service. As ordinary citizens they had the continuing right to forward half of their national defense taxes to the United Nations as their contribution toward global security. Similar legislation was passed by the European community as an austerity measure, and provided as an option during each citizen’s annual income tax filing. Fiscally destitute and legally emasculated, the US military had become a shadow of its former self, and the rest of the world had followed suit with their own demobilizations, driven by the privations of a harrowing near-depression, and a growing distaste for the dangers and waste attending armed forces, which became an uncompetitive practice with international arms sales now illegal. A proposal before the International Court at The Hague could soon make the very manufacturing of any war materiel globally illegal, and this was anticipated to be another game-changing UN directive that would eliminate the remaining arms industries in the US, Britain and Russia. The task of rebuilding the ruined economies following this downturn had traumatized a once complacent Europe and Japan, both struggling to afford escalating food costs, and their citizens welcomed this global security arrangement for its least possible cost. When the UN offered to credit disarming nations a portion of their dues for decommissioned ships and major weapons systems, the ship breakers in China and India knew they would be busy. Finally, the lingering legacy of the Bush years and the influence that the Christian religious right had once enjoyed was in full rebuke by most of America, as it sought to rebuild its reputation within the world federation, whether consciously or not. Skepticism was supplanting much of organized religion, with a secular age anchored and abetted by the Internet now unfolding around the world. After Dutch and Canadian humanists began a campaign that polled the citizens of major countries on whether they favored becoming a ‘4N Nation’, a play on denigrating American jargon that stood for “Non-Nuclear Neutral UN” status, the media could not ignore the fact that every nation had resoundingly approved the idea. A tidal wave of tax funds now flowed toward a reformed UN, itself not yet divested of its undemocratic Security Council, which had vetoed such progressive measures for generations. It dare not do so now; the boycott knew no such authority. Onto this scene came a broad phalanx of humanitarian organizations bent on capitalizing on this renewed awareness for our species and the planet, concepts that had lain dormant for centuries in the shadows of industrial capitalism. Discredited under Communism, they championed the respected socialism models found in Scandinavia. The UN was enfranchised to displace all military bodies and their weapons systems, but remained sensitive to the new realities and granted extensions. Each country’s voting power was weighted not solely by its population, as the West had feared would happen, but factored with its monetary contribution in the previous fiscal year. The perennial claim that a few banana republics could out-vote entire continents had been allayed. Increasingly, the world’s currency was expected to be the Uno, a silver bullion coin the size of a Euro and bearing the logo of the UN, which could be minted of pure silver by any UN-licensed party anywhere in the world. It constituted its own collateral, which people came to demand following the notorious devaluations of paper money they had endured. With the growing scarcity of precious metals, the Uno currency appreciated and a gold Oro came into bank circulation - hard currency had returned to a status last seen in Roman times. The US, Holland and Israel had flatly rejected the UN’s schedule for removing nuclear weapons, along with its proposed provisions prohibiting the manufacture of any war materiel, and the 4N boycott was targeted to isolate them and other laggards until they complied. The remaining nations with nuclear weapons had to accept onsite inspectors immediately or face a boycott with a rapidly narrowing focus. President Obama oversaw a US economy no longer hamstrung by high wages, thanks to the deep dollar devaluation, but in danger of succumbing to another wave of anti-American sentiment, that threatened to return the US and its ‘allies’ to being world pariahs, still caught in a ruinous trade boycott. Although Russia signed, China and India were dragging their feet pending the accession of the Americans. Leeman’s whining was a revisitation of military interference that disgusted the struggling US President, along with many decent Americans, and its menace was one reason he had accepted a second term - this was unfinished business. Three generations of Americans had grown fat, uneducated and indebted in the decades following WWII, with a belligerent sense of undeserved entitlement that had come crashing down beginning in 2008. The enduring ‘recession’, which economists conceded was simply the new status quo, could nevertheless revive the traditions of enterprise and hard work in this innovative society, faced with starting over. But would it wander into a nastier direction instead? The President would have to convince his own citizenry to embrace the new world realities, to tend to its widening pockets of poverty, to abandon its weapons culture conclusively. It was a necessary transition that was obvious to everybody except the Americans, it seemed. These questions would be answered soon. 20. Kodes Increasingly, McGlade was being tormented by ‘Gethsemane’ moments, and Alexa could see that he was not enjoying his few days’ respite at their home by the lake. “You’re supposed to be playing your guitar and growing your hair, flying the plane again,” she tried to smile, “instead you just sit here on the porch and claim writer’s block. Why do you have to follow work with more work?” “I don’t know,” he replied. “I’m always asking myself that, and I’m not finding any answers. Sometimes I think I’ve cooked up more than I intended, other times I ascribe these events as being inevitable - you know, this disarmament-UN brouhaha - it’s all moving so fast that I’m finding it hard to separate out the threads, and where and how it all fits together. It’s not something we can stand back from; it keeps coming at us in waves. When is Kodes coming by? I respect his take on these things.” “He’s back in his house this weekend, I think, why don’t you ask him down to the boat and we can meet you there for supper later – I’ll bring down some Vietnamese, or whatever Miranda can suggest.” McGlade then busied himself with some overdue chores and decided to use the rest of the day to go to Victoria and buy himself a near-new truck. In a moment of madness he also ordered in the small Chinese tractor he had convinced himself was indispensable to his little two hectare estate. Kody Cloudwatcher was happy to hear from his friend that Saturday, and drove down to the fish docks and Blond Air for some boating talk - always a welcome respite from the travails of the world. As McGlade had observed during their once-frequent squash games - amid other such diversions as golf, boating, and flying – all these pastimes are theatre writ large, with yourself as player, and you never realize what stress you have been under until you experience how liberating it is to hide in an activity that sequesters you from the real world. But today, McGlade wanted to discuss the real world, not avoid it. He had seen Kody’s old pickup pull into the parking lot, and watched on deck while he tipped his hat to one last idle fisherman, before stepping aboard. They punched fists together, the old hippy handshake being relegated to rare occasions, two very old friends and sufficiently retro minds. “Is your sailboat still in here? - I don’t see it,” asked McGlade. “I’ve sold it three times already, still waiting for one of them to pay. It’s on the hard behind the house and that’s where it’ll stay until then.” McGlade recalled a favourite story of Kody’s, from a weekend sailing regatta some years back wherein a bottle of whiskey had been hidden in a treasure hunt, and sure enough, it was the native boy Kody who had deciphered the clues and extracted it from its hiding place ashore. “Imagine trying to hide a bottle of rye from an Indian.” he’d recounted. McGlade broke open a fresh one and placed it on the chart table. He pointed at the south end of Valdes Island, with his ongoing Archenteron project. “Here’s a case in point.” he said. “This ‘development’ as the regional planners call it is coming under all kind of scrutiny when it’s basically nobody’s business but the Union’s – it’s a goddamned glorified graveyard is all it is and you’d think we were assembling an atomic bomb there.” “That may be its purpose in some people’s eyes,” Kody observed. “The HU and everybody else understand that it could end up as a repository for cloners, and that is front burner stuff these days.” More ‘front-burner’ stuff, thought McGlade ... I’m sick of it and the world too... “What say we fire up the leakers and toodle on up there?” suggested Kody. McGlade hesitated, then agreed – “I’ll ask the gals to meet us at Fernwood at 7pm and we’ll idle back?” It was a noisy day at the marina, and listening to the diesels hum from the foredeck for a couple of hours was the de facto ‘silence’ that McGlade craved. Kody loosed the lines, McGlade swung the boat on its twins and they were away. As they motored out McGlade sent a text to his old friend Arnie Schroeder, who agreed to join them and come aboard at Fernwood dock as well. As the diesels warmed and Blond Air slid between the many anchored boats at the head of Ganges Harbour, McGlade went below and came back to the bridge with a joint of BC bud freshly rolled and already alight. Kody didn’t usually partake, but the afternoon was compelling and he felt that he’d drink less if he had a toke to go with it. “That’s my excuse too,” laughed McGlade. The two men were content to begin the hour-long loop out of the harbour and through the pass at low speed; they then turned the boat up-channel and continued toward Valdes twenty kilometers away. McGlade turned on the autopilot and steered with the hand-held, as the men soaked up the sunshine from the forward deck. From there the engine left running was a muted pacifier, McGlade often turning the second one off during a slow cruise. The bow waves whispered sweet nothings, that signified nothing and wafted away all worry. “Why does the Archenteron inspection bother you, what can anybody do about it?” Kody asked. McGlade looked wistful. “In my book they can read that I foresee the day when humanism comes to full fruition and the species actively provides lasting stewardship for each of its member’s genetic records. From that they rather correctly conclude that the presently hoary subjects of cloning and immortality will come to the fore, and that it may be our intent to implement them. And I’m not about to deny that, but I envision those things coming to pass in the greater fullness of time, not tomorrow. The book is called ‘1000 Summers’, after all and there’s no point in leaving everything up to the Transhumanists. We can plan better than that.” “Transhumanists?” “They explore all the possible manifestations of the human body and brain, along with their fancied incarnations in the centuries to come.” “I see. Ya sure.” said Kody. “Yes indeed – one of their main points – Kurtz is noted for this – is the predicted emergence of what they term the ‘Singularity’, which is the inflection point where our technology becomes not just smarter than us, but ostensibly begins to take control – that’s how I understand their position anyway.” “So how does that impact you and humanism – I don’t see your two outfits being on the same rails?” “Well, for one I do believe that Transhumanists have a valid consideration, whereby society and technology and our abilities together become a chaotic soup from which anything can crawl out. The supposed Singularity personifies that. It’s occurred to me that the Catholic Church faced this situation with the Renaissance, with secular Greek thinking, and the advent of science.” “Interesting, though”, said Kody “so how did the Catholics deal with it, how should we deal with it, how would you deal with it? I don’t see such a miasma of possibilities being amenable to any a priori strategies.” McGlade looked up at the passing shores of Galiano Island to starboard, and pointed to them. “I see it as a moving process, not an event or point like the Singularity, which is just a characterization of humanity’s loss of pre-eminence in our little universe. We’ll deal with each point of land as it appears and navigate around it, being mindful of the rocks that lurk below the surface. I called that the navigation principle, if you remember. While the Transhumanists worry most about the Singularity, I’m being criticized for involving humanism in cloning and immortality talk.” Directory: wp-content -> uploads -> 2015 2015 -> Police Militarization 2015 -> 2015 ihbb championships: hs history Bowl Round 4 – Prelims First Quarter 2015 -> Wrtp/big step · 3841 W. Wisconsin Ave., Milwaukee, wi 53208 2015 -> Rao bulletin 1 December 2015 html edition this bulletin contains the following articles 2015 -> Darton College 2015 -> Training Workshop on Planning and Implementation of Multi-Sectoral Development Programme (MsDP) in Bihar Date : 6th 2015 -> Rao bulletin 15 June 2015 html edition this bulletin contains the following articles 2015 -> Rao bulletin 1 September 2015 html edition this bulletin contains the following articles 2015 -> Rao bulletin 1 August 2015 html edition this bulletin contains the following articles 2015 -> Science, and transportation united states senate Download 0.94 Mb. Share with your friends:
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