Babylon The Great
We live in interesting times. I suppose this could be said just about anytime in history but I really do believe this to be the case in the 21st Century. The process of globalization continues to rend entire cultures and societies from their natavist moorings and plunges them headfirst into a promised utopia where everything will be sweetness and light on a political, commercial, religious and cultural level. From whence does this order arise? Often, the United States gets the blame as the engine and some might say instigator of globalization but I believe if you look closely enough then the tell-tale signs of Western Europe come clearly into view in general and England in particular as they are the brain children of this new world order. Every idea that has sprung forth to fasten the world to one great system of interlocking springs and wheels hails from Europa. It is they not America that actually leads the way towards a uni-polar world in which all nations act with one accord on just about every issue and policy. A multi-national endeavor to smooth over the fault lines of nations, cultures, commerce and religion. This great goal I have dubbed, Babylon the Great, is clearly in the ascendant as far as the trend lines are concerned and is a worldwide phenomena. Babylon the Great has many heads affixed to its body that will need to be identified if one is to recognize the peril that emerges before us.
Political Babylon
Probably the single most recognizable institution for global governance is the United Nations. Born from the ashes of World War II and birthed in San Francisco as the political midway island between Asia and Europa it knows no boundaries. Almost all nations are granted a seat in the UN unless of course your political existence flys in the face of the Security Council's gaze such as Taiwan for the free-chinese or Tibet if occupied under the boot of a communist aggressor. Democracy or dictatorship, monarchy or oligarchy, all nations are given legitimacy in this global body. The UN is top-heavy with almost no degree of unity other than a solitary reactive hatred against the United States or Israel. Its apparent political weakness belies the corrosive acid that eats away at political sovereignty for if a nation does not belong to this "club" then surely it must be up to no good. Hence the power that forms the basis of its existence: political peer pressure. And who can doubt its intentions even if their will is executed poorly? Even the United States, clearly the Superman of the nations today, calls upon this dare I say "august body" to give legitimacy to its foreign policy as in the case of Iraq? Yes indeed my friends, if you are dispirited by the pace of Operation Iraqi Freedom then one cannot put the entire blame on the President of the United States as you can place the many mea culpas upon the United Nations. The Oil for Food program? WMD oversight? The Gulf War of 1991? All of these issues are the direct result of relying upon the United Nations for legitimacy and arbitration. The United Nations body may be corrupt but where ever its flag is flown, the nations genuflect before it and if they don't then they risk war from the collective.
Commercial Babylon
The single most engrossing act of sowing the seeds for a worldwide trading arena was the Bretton Woods Conference held in America towards the end of World War II. Forty Five allied nations attended this meeting and by de jure set up the a) International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, b) General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and c) International Monetary Fund. All of this accomplished under the political aegis of a Democrat controlled House, Senate and Presidency. A fourth provision was never ratified by the United States, at this time during WWII the Atlas holding up the Western World as the arsenal and army of democracy, that is, the creation of the ITO (International Trade Organisation) which later would be ratified in 1995 as the WTO (World Trade Organisation). From wikipedia we have this tidy little morsel to chew on:
The seminal idea behind the Bretton Woods Conference was the notion of open markets. In Henry Morgenthau's farewell remarks at the conference, he stated that the establishment of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank marked the end of economic nationalism. This meant countries would maintain their national interest, but trade blocks and economic spheres of influence would no longer be their means. The second idea behind the Bretton Woods Conference was joint management of the Western political-economic order. Meaning that the foremost industrial democratic nations must lower barriers to trade and the movement of capital, in addition to their responsibility to govern the system.
The need for postwar Western economic order was resolved with the agreements made on monetary order and open system of trade at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference which allowed for the synthesis of Britain's desire for full employment and economic stability and the United States' desire for free trade.
Vietnam is the latest signatory to this economic arrangement that has grown to 150 nations and the headquarters of the WTO is located in Geneva, Switzerland which so happens to be the "summer home" to the United Nations in Europe. Any nation can join if its willing to allow its "economic nationalism" to take a back seat to the dictates from Geneva. Even communist nations which should by their very nature reject such an economic arrangement have embraced its "values" albeit in the form that best suits their society: gulag capitalism. This form of capitalism, using political prisoners as a labor pool, as practiced currently in the Asian communist nations and once practiced and perhaps even perfected under the Russians provides these nations with the cheap labor (in reality "free" labor) to compete with the more modern industrialized West in an WTO environment. Geneva sets the standards and everyone else must follow or pay the consequences in an economic blockade on a global scale.
Cultural Babylon
Once again Europa leads the way as the Hellene culture of ancient Greece is de rigueur amongst all nations of the world save Russia and perhaps even China. Feminism, homosexuality, hedonism, democracy, philosophy - things associated with the Greco/Roman world have come back big in the 21st Century. This may offer an explanation as to why we see a counterculture movement by Moslems both Sunni and Shia against the West in general and America in particular with the advent of International Islamic Terrorism. For them the worst possible outcome is to be swallowed up by the lascivious Western way which insults their ascetic modus vivendi. Could their reaction to cultural Babylon be a new Sunni Caliphate centered in Egypt and occupying all of Al Arabia from Morocco in the West to the river Euphrates in the East including the entire Arabian Peninsula to the south and up to Anatolia in the North? Even Russia knowing full well the significance of the Hellene Culture upon their once great Czarist Empire has rebelled when the mayor of Moscow recently banished a gay-pride parade in his city upon the pretext that the phallicphile gathering was "satanic". How will China or Japan fare against this nearly impregnable fortress of cultural deviancy? The Western Hemisphere of North and South America clearly have embraced much of the Hellene culture as Christianity clearly has been relegated to the cellar as the crazy aunt that Americans of all stripes think her to be. A world-wide phenomena indeed.
Religious Babylon
I might have relegated this part of Babylon to the cultural "head" but this really has taken a life of its own. Ecumenical religion has been embraced as the new "Pantheon of the Gods". Pick your poison: Catholicism? Protestantism? Judaism? Islam? Hindu? Buddhist? Shinto? Zoroastrianism? Animist? All are welcome in the new order to fit the template of global domination for a politically correct age. No one religion can claim exclusivity with God as this would mean that the other members would be false. Aphrodite? Mars? Zeus? Mercury? Jupiter? Does it really matter? Can't we all just get along? But it does become even more repugnant when we realize that the Catholic Church has taken the lead in being the "go to" guy as they are more than happy to offer their churches as the new temples of worship to the pantheon of gods. Will Rome once more sit supreme as the kingmakers they once were when the Pope crowned its emperors the secular rulers of God on earth? Even now we see the influence of the Pope as the titular head of Catholicism and ultimately all religious orders as he is the only religious figure in the world to receive ambassadors from the other nations of the earth. Will the old cathedrals of Europe and in the world that are so denuded of Christians today be filled up in the pews with the laity of other religions tomorrow?
Where the atheists failed in unifying the people of the world by their rejection of the gods, this new way will ennoble the Babylonian cause and bring legitimacy instead of revolution which has a far more effectual spiritual ardor to imbue the people for not only in this life but for the next as well. Communists denied that they had deified their leaders but now the worship of Caesar will become standard operating procedure as it is sure to be embraced openly. Even in the French Revolution at one point the idea of creating a new religion was considered necessary in order to prevent the revolution from breaking down completely into anarchy. Even in the 20th Century the fact that the global communist revolution dissolved into nothingness might explain why not believing in any divine god was a dead-end road.
Conclusion
Babylon the Great is the next great empire and no one country except Europa can lay claim to its vibrancy nor can any one nation escape its reach. Socialism is the yoke by which the entire earth is to be enslaved and naturally, this political/economic system was an invention of Europe. Has any nation eschewed a socialist construct upon their society?
Even now the edifice of tyranny is being built through technology never witnessed before by mankind. Just over a hundred years ago, there were no airplanes, automobiles, submarines, atom bombs, satellites, rockets, computers, or any other "modern convenience" and yet it feels that it has always been around. And we will see an even greater exponential explosion in technological advances far exceeding anything we may have realized. Even so, with that new technology, man has plunged into national and international war that has consumed hundreds of millions of souls since the beginning of the 20th century. What awaits us in the 21st? Will Babylon unify the world? and will that that be a good thing? Only time will tell.
Political Babylon
Probably the single most recognizable institution for global governance is the United Nations. Born from the ashes of World War II and birthed in San Francisco as the political midway island between Asia and Europa it knows no boundaries. Almost all nations are granted a seat in the UN unless of course your political existence flys in the face of the Security Council's gaze such as Taiwan for the free-chinese or Tibet if occupied under the boot of a communist aggressor. Democracy or dictatorship, monarchy or oligarchy, all nations are given legitimacy in this global body. The UN is top-heavy with almost no degree of unity other than a solitary reactive hatred against the United States or Israel. Its apparent political weakness belies the corrosive acid that eats away at political sovereignty for if a nation does not belong to this "club" then surely it must be up to no good. Hence the power that forms the basis of its existence: political peer pressure. And who can doubt its intentions even if their will is executed poorly? Even the United States, clearly the Superman of the nations today, calls upon this dare I say "august body" to give legitimacy to its foreign policy as in the case of Iraq? Yes indeed my friends, if you are dispirited by the pace of Operation Iraqi Freedom then one cannot put the entire blame on the President of the United States as you can place the many mea culpas upon the United Nations. The Oil for Food program? WMD oversight? The Gulf War of 1991? All of these issues are the direct result of relying upon the United Nations for legitimacy and arbitration. The United Nations body may be corrupt but where ever its flag is flown, the nations genuflect before it and if they don't then they risk war from the collective.
Commercial Babylon
The single most engrossing act of sowing the seeds for a worldwide trading arena was the Bretton Woods Conference held in America towards the end of World War II. Forty Five allied nations attended this meeting and by de jure set up the a) International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, b) General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and c) International Monetary Fund. All of this accomplished under the political aegis of a Democrat controlled House, Senate and Presidency. A fourth provision was never ratified by the United States, at this time during WWII the Atlas holding up the Western World as the arsenal and army of democracy, that is, the creation of the ITO (International Trade Organisation) which later would be ratified in 1995 as the WTO (World Trade Organisation). From wikipedia we have this tidy little morsel to chew on:
The seminal idea behind the Bretton Woods Conference was the notion of open markets. In Henry Morgenthau's farewell remarks at the conference, he stated that the establishment of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank marked the end of economic nationalism. This meant countries would maintain their national interest, but trade blocks and economic spheres of influence would no longer be their means. The second idea behind the Bretton Woods Conference was joint management of the Western political-economic order. Meaning that the foremost industrial democratic nations must lower barriers to trade and the movement of capital, in addition to their responsibility to govern the system.
The need for postwar Western economic order was resolved with the agreements made on monetary order and open system of trade at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference which allowed for the synthesis of Britain's desire for full employment and economic stability and the United States' desire for free trade.
Vietnam is the latest signatory to this economic arrangement that has grown to 150 nations and the headquarters of the WTO is located in Geneva, Switzerland which so happens to be the "summer home" to the United Nations in Europe. Any nation can join if its willing to allow its "economic nationalism" to take a back seat to the dictates from Geneva. Even communist nations which should by their very nature reject such an economic arrangement have embraced its "values" albeit in the form that best suits their society: gulag capitalism. This form of capitalism, using political prisoners as a labor pool, as practiced currently in the Asian communist nations and once practiced and perhaps even perfected under the Russians provides these nations with the cheap labor (in reality "free" labor) to compete with the more modern industrialized West in an WTO environment. Geneva sets the standards and everyone else must follow or pay the consequences in an economic blockade on a global scale.
Cultural Babylon
Once again Europa leads the way as the Hellene culture of ancient Greece is de rigueur amongst all nations of the world save Russia and perhaps even China. Feminism, homosexuality, hedonism, democracy, philosophy - things associated with the Greco/Roman world have come back big in the 21st Century. This may offer an explanation as to why we see a counterculture movement by Moslems both Sunni and Shia against the West in general and America in particular with the advent of International Islamic Terrorism. For them the worst possible outcome is to be swallowed up by the lascivious Western way which insults their ascetic modus vivendi. Could their reaction to cultural Babylon be a new Sunni Caliphate centered in Egypt and occupying all of Al Arabia from Morocco in the West to the river Euphrates in the East including the entire Arabian Peninsula to the south and up to Anatolia in the North? Even Russia knowing full well the significance of the Hellene Culture upon their once great Czarist Empire has rebelled when the mayor of Moscow recently banished a gay-pride parade in his city upon the pretext that the phallicphile gathering was "satanic". How will China or Japan fare against this nearly impregnable fortress of cultural deviancy? The Western Hemisphere of North and South America clearly have embraced much of the Hellene culture as Christianity clearly has been relegated to the cellar as the crazy aunt that Americans of all stripes think her to be. A world-wide phenomena indeed.
Religious Babylon
I might have relegated this part of Babylon to the cultural "head" but this really has taken a life of its own. Ecumenical religion has been embraced as the new "Pantheon of the Gods". Pick your poison: Catholicism? Protestantism? Judaism? Islam? Hindu? Buddhist? Shinto? Zoroastrianism? Animist? All are welcome in the new order to fit the template of global domination for a politically correct age. No one religion can claim exclusivity with God as this would mean that the other members would be false. Aphrodite? Mars? Zeus? Mercury? Jupiter? Does it really matter? Can't we all just get along? But it does become even more repugnant when we realize that the Catholic Church has taken the lead in being the "go to" guy as they are more than happy to offer their churches as the new temples of worship to the pantheon of gods. Will Rome once more sit supreme as the kingmakers they once were when the Pope crowned its emperors the secular rulers of God on earth? Even now we see the influence of the Pope as the titular head of Catholicism and ultimately all religious orders as he is the only religious figure in the world to receive ambassadors from the other nations of the earth. Will the old cathedrals of Europe and in the world that are so denuded of Christians today be filled up in the pews with the laity of other religions tomorrow?
Where the atheists failed in unifying the people of the world by their rejection of the gods, this new way will ennoble the Babylonian cause and bring legitimacy instead of revolution which has a far more effectual spiritual ardor to imbue the people for not only in this life but for the next as well. Communists denied that they had deified their leaders but now the worship of Caesar will become standard operating procedure as it is sure to be embraced openly. Even in the French Revolution at one point the idea of creating a new religion was considered necessary in order to prevent the revolution from breaking down completely into anarchy. Even in the 20th Century the fact that the global communist revolution dissolved into nothingness might explain why not believing in any divine god was a dead-end road.
Conclusion
Babylon the Great is the next great empire and no one country except Europa can lay claim to its vibrancy nor can any one nation escape its reach. Socialism is the yoke by which the entire earth is to be enslaved and naturally, this political/economic system was an invention of Europe. Has any nation eschewed a socialist construct upon their society?
Even now the edifice of tyranny is being built through technology never witnessed before by mankind. Just over a hundred years ago, there were no airplanes, automobiles, submarines, atom bombs, satellites, rockets, computers, or any other "modern convenience" and yet it feels that it has always been around. And we will see an even greater exponential explosion in technological advances far exceeding anything we may have realized. Even so, with that new technology, man has plunged into national and international war that has consumed hundreds of millions of souls since the beginning of the 20th century. What awaits us in the 21st? Will Babylon unify the world? and will that that be a good thing? Only time will tell.
posted by Bruce R. McConnell | 12:04 PM
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