h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

When does something become the past? Tomorrow.

My Lord....

So what kind of statutory limit would you see as fair, Kea?

>>So I suppose once the original transgressors are gone, the blame game stops.<<

So in the case of the US, the original transgressors are still there, yeah?

I don't think about it in terms of a statute of limitations. I think about it in terms of the injustice experienced by peoples today.

then why'd you ask the question?

Some time ago - someone asked about the rise of extremist parties.

Extremism tends to get into mainstream politics when people are feeling oppressed and need to find someone to blame.

There are a lot of people in England currently who feel their jobs are being exported to India, or whose factory job has gone because the cars can be built cheaper in Poland, or who has lost his contract employment because workers from the new EU states can be employed for less.

They see someone standing up saying "these are the people to blame," and they happily leap aboard, they don't consider the wider implications of what they're getting into.

How does American Islamnazism translate into Antisemitism?
There is no question that the Americans have done an excellent job in flattening Iraq, including hospitals and many of the homes of perfectly innocent people. This is justified as ‘necessary collateral damage’ in order to get one man and a few of his followers, who are perceived and portrayed as a mortal threat to the United States. It is merely unfortunate they weren’t there and that the enire region is drawn into an irreconcilable conflict. Harry Burton continue to make billions-a-day.
There is no doubt that as a result of the destruction, there will be plenty of work there for the companies ‘rebuilding’ Iraq and the rest of the countries they destroy. With equal certainty, the American forces will now move on and flatten the next place where they feel threatened - it gets more certain by the day.

Nobody doubts the American might. No country on earth can withstand the onslaught of their vast superiority in both conventional and unconventional weapons but they cannot win the war in Iraq any more than they could win it in Vietnam or Somalia. The question arises, ‘why don’t they learn?’ America didn’t lose a single set piece battle in Vietnam but they lost the war. America persists in the same approach in Iraq, more troops, bigger and better weapons and all without the slightest attempt to try and understand their perceived enemy.

There appears to be a fundamental misunderstanding in American political thinking. Just as the American military think that spending billions of dollars on more and more sophisticated and deadly weaponry, victory will be assured, the government persist in thinking that they can buy the people. Anyone can be bought if the price is right. Maybe that is right in America. $25 million is a lot of money in anyone’s book but not one single Afghan, Pakistani, Iranian or whoever, has come forward with one iota of information as to the whereabouts of Osama Bin Ladin. It is inconceivable that this is simply because nobody knows where he is. It isn’t simply because those that do know, have such a devotion for the man that they won’t tell. It most certainly isn’t because they don’t need the money. It is, perhaps, because they have a fundamentally different basic ethos and think that what America is doing is wrong. No amount of money will change this. If this is the case the only way that America can ‘win’ is for them to kill every man woman and child in the place. No amount of bombing or pounding with tanks and artillery is going to change the minds of the people being bombarded, rather it will reinforce their beliefs and determination still further. The Iraqis have nowhere else to go, the Americans do – just as in Vietnam, they can go home.

At the heart of the American misunderstanding is a persecution complex, part of the puritan side of America, dating back to the Founding Fathers’ very reason for going there in the first place. These attitudes became entrenched in American politics and have now been reinforced by the re-election of George W. Bush. ‘Puritans’ as a political entity largely disappeared after the 17th century, but their attitudes and beliefs have continued to exert a powerful influence on American society ever since.

On the good side the Puritans made a virtue of the very qualities that have made America such an economic success. The concepts of self-reliance, frugality, industry, and energy, have all had a huge influence on modern American social and economic life. The Puritans’ belief in education was equally important in the development of the people of the United States as great innovators and thinkers. It is no coincidence that America can boast of more Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners than any other country. The Puritans’ idea of governance through a congregational, democratic church was the foundation of the country’s early politics and is the basis of modern American democracy.

There is however a darker side to Puritanism, one which predates the first American settlers. Puritanism as a political rather than religious philosophy is one of the most misunderstood. History, as taught in British schools, portrays Puritanism as little more than an unsmiling cult of self-denial. Most children who studied this era at all remember little other than that grim faced ‘Roundheads’ went up and down the country, dressed in black, knocking the heads off statues in churches, and banning all forms of entertainment. This drab view of Puritanism hardly equates with the conspicuous consumption of present day, Republican America; the ultimate consumer society. What is not taught in schools is that Puritanism was first and foremost, the product of an economic transformation that came about with trade becoming international rather than local, the forerunner of globalisation.

Until the 17th century Britain was feudal, run entirely in the interests of the monarchy and the clergy. However, feudalism could, and sometimes did, exert a controlling influence over the exploitation of the lower classes, depending on the benevolence of the incumbent monarch. Nothing has changed and in countries that are still feudal, the fate of the poor is still entirely in the hands of the ruler. The Reformation and dissolution of the monasteries changed all that in Britain, radically and irreversibly. It gave birth to a new commercial class whose first reaction was to seize the monastic estates, ’enclosing’ the land and evicting the inhabitants.

The early Puritans denounced this and tried to preach that man should be charitable, justice should be maintained and that exploitation should be punished. This concept persisted throughout most of the 17th century and it was these beliefs that the Founding Fathers took to New England when they thought they were fighting a losing battle at home. However, they also took with them a deeply ingrained feeling that they had been persecuted and driven out. It is here that the seeds of America’s present day persecution complex were sown.

Back home such characteristics and beliefs could not survive the onslaught of commercialism. Land enclosure created a hitherto unknown form of gambling, a manic craze for land speculation. To control and cater for this new frenzy sophisticated financial markets began to evolve and with these, the new commercial class’ obsession with speculation spread. Thus began the concepts of stock markets and futures and with them, all the sophisticated tools of banking and accountancy that eventually led to the fiascos of the likes of Enron and WorldCom. Calvinism, a new and different form of Puritanism, became the preferred religion of the new commercial class, the traders, industrialists, bankers and moneylenders. Calvin taught just what they wanted to hear, there was nothing intrinsically wrong with money and commercialism was not unchristian. Money could be used to the glory of God, therefore money must be good. If money is good, it must be part of God’s Holy Ordinance.

Calvin gave them what the old order could not: a theological justification for commerce. Purification was an individual matter, a matter between you and God. From this doctrine of individual responsibility, the late Puritans forged a new theology. Traditional Christian belief was turned on its head. . If money was good, lack of it must be bad. Poverty was no longer a misfortune but God’s condemnation for moral failings of the individual. Wealth was no longer something to be regarded as a suspicious right for the privileged few but a blessing from God, a reward for sacrifice, hard work, determination and an iron will.

It was but a short and easy step to the final concept of the early 18th century Puritans, to tie their religious ideals of personal accountability and reward to their commercial ones of compensation for hard work and dedication. If God blessed traders with successful business, it followed logically that success for the individual in commerce must be good for the general public as a whole. The fact that the rich got rich at the expense of the poor, who got poorer, did not matter.

These austere and utterly ruthless businessmen became the new ruling class. They had an unshakeable belief, both in themselves and that they had ‘God on their side’. Money and commerce ruled and they saw the world, not as something to be enjoyed but a place to be conquered. What better way to distract people’s thought from the poverty of the lower classes than to pour scorn on public support for the poor? Helping the poor only made them lazier and drove them even further from God. What they needed to do was to work. What better way to justify such actions than to berate any form of moral deviation and pursue sodomites, fornicators, adulterers or any other forms of sexual license.

The growth of the British Empire is a vast, controversial and separate subject but with its expansion came a need to justify the wholesale slaughter and repression of entire nations. Although Calvin’s teachings could be adapted to suit the capitalists’ repression of the poor in Britain they didn’t lend themselves to the justification of colonial expansionism. Puritanism is, in one respect, one of the most elitist religions and in it you do not earn salvation by just signing up. Salvation is reserved for the good, the hardworking and the righteous; in their eyes, the rich. This made it hard to conquer the world in the name of religious faith even if ‘having God on your side’ helped. Fear, however gave all the justification they needed. Fear of the unknown, fear of ‘different’ races and mortal fear of the ungodly. Xenophobia is an easy human trait to manipulate. The traders went in first and could justify almost any atrocity they committed with the excuse of fear, even though they were some of the most fearless men in the history of mankind. ‘Get them before they have a chance to get you’. It took them around 300 years to discover that they could not win.

There is one other thing that the Americans have missed from the failures of British Colonialism and the use of fear as a political tool. The British Empire builders discovered very early on that it was impossible to colonise a new land and then sit back and reap the benefits. To have any control over their newly subjugated population they had to instil in them a fear of their neighbours and what better way than to keep them occupied protecting themselves from the threat of a different enemy.

It is exactly the same fear that the Puritan settlers in America used to justify the systematic slaughter of the Native American Indians. It was exactly the same use of fear that enabled them to set one Indian tribe against another. It is exactly the same fear that, in the 21st century, is being used to justify the expansion of the New World Empire. It is exactly the same fear that is used to set sect against sect and Iraqi against Iraqi.

America is not in danger of neo-fascism but is in the grip of a neo-Puritanism. The rhetoric is not that of Europe in the 1930’s but is terrifyingly reminiscent of the worst rhetoric from Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries. America leads the world in communications technology and global connectivity. They should be striving to encourage people to understand each other, not fuel basic human fears and prejudices.

But PedanticBarSteward, you've totally neglected the sack of Copenhagen in your analysis! You've missed a key piece of the puzzle.

It would however be naieve to imagine that only the West links money with religious reward. Islam was founded upon the principle.

As the Muhammad said, Jihad is the pinnacle of Islam. A person who cannot wage Jihad with his soul is required to wage Jihad with his money, with his tongue, with his thought, and with any means at his disposal. 'He who equips a fighter – it is as if he himself fought.' You lie in your bed, safe in your own home, and donate money – and Allah credits you with the rewards of a fighter

So, with Islam you can buy yourself into heaven by donating money to what are, by Western definitions, terrorist organisations.

Look at the Hegira date - Christians did exactly the same in 1427. It takes time to develop - unfortunately America is developing backwards.

But we're looking at a modern-day Hegira. Modern communications have brought about a new diaspora but there hasn't been a cultural or philisophical revolution to drive it. Instead we see the extremists *following* the migrations and trying to re-impose the conditions left behind by the migrants.

It's not a case of Islam spreading, it's a case of Muslims leaving repression and ignorance behind and being pursued by the persecutors. It isn't the ordinary Muslims that shout for Sharia or special treatment, it's the radicals that need the State to legitimise the controls and methods they need to repress Muslims.

The first Muslims that came to Britain did not build Mosques, they prayed in dining rooms and living rooms of terraced houses. The Mosques came later, financed by Wahhabi money and staffed with fundamentalist Imams paid to bring the lost sheep back into the flock.

And American Neo-Puritanism - the spread of the - 'They are out to get us' syndrome just extends this. We need more guns. I watch cowboy films in a completely different light, these days - even Clint Eastwood - who I admire immensely. Look at some of his earlier films - he was extracting the urine in the sixties. Shoot first and ask questions afterwards. If someone tries to kill me - I might just want to build a church, mosque, shrine or temple. The FU2 syndrome.

But the American experience has usually been that violence brings solutions. Witness the Native Americans, WWI & WWII, Korea and even Vietnam. The thinking with Vietnam is that the military fought with one hand tied behind its back and "if only" the politicians had shown moral courage, the military could have prevailed.

Americans look to create a blank slate and start anew each time. In a country with so much room it engenders a mind-set totally different to that of Europeans. A crowded Europe with fixed borders and growing populations requires people to communicate & compromise.

Move all the 'European' Americans back home, give America back to the original occupants - then you open up another can of worms. Move the Israelis back to everywhere they came from. If you did that - there may be peace - but the Israelis would sell you a piece in the process.

Oddly I prefer the human hive style of living. Perhaps its time I moved to Tokyo, but I can't quite see a country (ours) where people own second homes or live in detached houses by themselves as overcrowded, merely poorly arranged.

Imagining that anyone is going to move anywhere en-masse is wishful thinking I'm afraid. It takes political maturity to deal with the here and now.

Israel is not going to disappear. The Arab States have been holding out false hope to the Palestinians for over 50 years. Don't forget, these people were told to leave the disputed territories by Syria, Egypt et al. They were so confident they would drive the Jews out. But they have failed, time & again. They have now backed themselves into a corner. They cannot concede that they cannot destroy Israel, as this would be a massive loss of face. The Palestinians are confined to refugee camps as a result. It is time the Arab world demonstrated their professed love of Palestinians by offering them citizenship in the Arab country of their choice and end the festering sore of the refugee camps. The Palestinians are caught in a limbo created by Arab machismo.

You're in a minority then Bouncy

It's the aspiration of millions living in bedsits and tiny flats to earn enough to buy a house of their own with a garden. Remember the "white flight" discussion?

CIA World Factbook
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/

GDP/capita
Israel: $25,000 (2005 est.)
USA: $41,600 (2005 est.)
United Arab Emirates: $45,200 (2005 est.)

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Who are the most effective merchants today? Is usuary really so inherently bad? Why would a person base such an elaborate theory on a dodgy medieval stereotype? Why do Jewish people get lumped together so easily? What has Cluedo got to do with all of this anyway?

More tough, hard-hitting questions. Perhaps the answers are not for us to know, but my money's still on the Colonel.

Having watched my parents struggle with the never-ending DIY trap for the past two decades, I reckon people want bigger houses than they can realistically use or maintain.

Most people seem to change their mind about living up close and in the city as they get older, maybe I will too.

Have you tried DIY in Gaza?