Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Jan 28, 2021 7:23 pm
What you say makes a lot of sense. However, with the rise of the Internet and global corporations, I also wonder if globalism is even stoppable.
That's a very real concern, of course. But if it proves unstoppable, it will not be because it's a better way for us to go, nor that it's the inevitable way for us to go. "History" certainly has no opinion about what course human affairs must follow. Arguably, God does; but not "history"
qua "history."
If we go that way, it will only be because we made a very bad decision, I think. We have the means to do otherwise.
After all, many of the globalists are super-wealthy people who, by the nature of capitalism have accumulated enough wealth to exert a lot of control over things.
Quite right. And the Davos group is a very good example of that...wealthy oligarchs who would like to impose global Socialism on us, and keep their own resources to themselves, while positioning us as their "experiment." And the media oligarchs now have no sense of fear of national authority anymore. Many of the international business magnates lost any such fear long ago.
How do we resist that? Well, we
can. We can, in fact, defeat it completely, if we wish to do so. We just have to insist we won't play along. Do we have the will to do it? That will remain to be seen, of course.
How do we stop them? Do we take their wealth away? If we don't, then that wealth will be used to gain more power.
I don't think so. In the first place "we" don't have a power capable of doing that. In the second place, there's no way they're giving it up of their own volition. But we don't have to roll over and let them take it, or worse, hand it to them with a sign of defeat.
If we do, then it seems like we might be treading down a path to socialism,
Oh, no...I think the opposite. I think the biggest way to fight is to reassert national sovereignty and democracy. That's the real alternative to what they're doing.
....they can conceivably produce a world of hurt for us--unless we curb their power through democratic means on a world wide scale.
Well, "democratic means," yes. But not by putting in place a tyranny worse than the one they're trying to fashion for us. Nations can refuse to allow their activities except on terms each nation defines to them. We can "opt out" of the Grand Plan they are trying to foist on us, and bring them to heel that way. America, especially, has that kind of leverage. And other powerful countries will opt out of the Grand Plan if America takes the lead. Soon these self-important "engineers" of our future will have no significant place to practice their manipulating...if we deny them space to do it.
But we need real national leadership from America on that. And right now -- let's face it -- we don't have anything like that.
It seems to me that scientists and academics are largely on the side of the people and what they are proposing seems to be a world where there is cooperation in a productive way.
They'd like you to think so. That's the "sunny face" I was talking about.
We don't seem to have much choice.
I'm going to suggest that's a very dangerous way of thinking, Gary. Because if the oligarchs and their ideological followers can convince us that their Grand Plan is inevitable, then we're not even going to resist. But we can. We just have to find the resolve to act.
You bring up a good point about a world government based in a single country.
I was thinking of a global government, Gary. Wasn't that the topic, after all?
...does that mean there can't be global cooperation between people of knowledge and learning to further the interests and future of humanity?
Here's the problem, though, Gary. "People of knowledge" are not special. They're smarter than most, but not more moral, necessarily. Humanity is really all the same in that regard: all levels have people of goodwill but also opportunists, solipsists, power-grabbers and even psychopaths. And unfortunately, the psychopathic types are sufficiently unscrupulous to undo all the good that the persons of goodwill might hope to achieve.
By combining, we make their jobs much easier. And disunited polity is difficult for a totalitarian to manage; but a conformist one is his playground. The bigger we make the combining, the bigger and juicer the target is at the top...and that's the goal of the totalitarian: to get on top of it all, and make everything his way.
Does that mean there can't be sovereign nations in the world?
Globalism is the opposite of "sovereign nation."
Yes, there are problems with the UN,
Oh, the UN is dead. Nobody takes that corrupt and impotent body seriously. Nor should they, as they've completely showed their colours in their simmering hatred of American freedoms and in their treatment of places like Israel, and their complete failure to act in the case of powerful but despotic regimes like China.
Some of the most existential problems humanity faces right now (possible nuclear war, global climate disaster) can only be solved through cooperation.
I don't think that's at all the case, Gary.
The problem is that the "cooperation" is only expected from one side. For example, many people at the UN excoriate the US for not "cooperating", but praise China for making practically no concessions at all. Well, when is China going to "cooperate" and stop sabotaging American industry, or spying on its allies, or free the Uighurs, or give Hong Kong free elections, or stop persecuting Christians? I can't see any of the those things happening soon, can you?
It sounds great if we "imagine all the people/ living for today" and so on. But that's at a very high level of optimism, one that doesn't actually drill down far enough into the details.
And what do we do with recalcitrant countries that insist on retaining their national identities agains the global collective? Do we wait for them to "see the light," and put off our globalist dreams, or do we storm them "for their own good," and take them over imperialistically?