Swaying in the wind

"One impulse from a vernal wood
may teach you more of man
Of moral evil and of good
than all the sages can."
-Woodsworth
Always good to remind myself that I am only approaching true knowledge, or truth as some call it, when I start to realize that my ideas and opinions are just the wind that blows through the branches of my mind. I was raised around far more trees than people, and if I am grateful of anything in my life, it is this. As the tree grows stronger, the more weathered my bark becomes and the deeper my roots go, the easier it is to just let the wind howl.
How ferociously it does wail though. This has been a mighty year in the annals of human hysterics. As is always the case, I am impressed that more people didn't die and that the planet hasn't suffered a complete environmental collapse; which I reckon is good. Surely won't be much longer before our 7 billion strong species is visited once more by our longtime travelling companions of war, famine and plague. Probably best to just enjoy the interregnum and not feel too guilty about the ease with which I can live, for this too shall surely end.
The centuries since Capitalism's development have been fascinating, and if nothing else have given me the means to record my thoughts and share them with perhaps a billion people with little effort. Someone told me lately that humans are something nature has to live with and capitalism is something humans have to live with. I think this is a good way of looking at it. After much internal turmoil I have settled comfortably into my role as historian and human, no longer feeling the need to worry about the fate of all things. It is enough for me now to just to watch and learn. Perhaps this year I will finally master these symbiotic skills of observation and contemplation to finally become a truly tall tree.

All I can know is what the world does show
The more I grow, the more the wind does blow

Centrifuge Century

Some days when I do my daily rounds of the news it seems things spin so fast that some sort of social atomic fusion is bound to take place. Perhaps it already is doing just that. Here is a bit of mental buckshot at whats crackin' currently:

  Things in the Eastern Congo have started to escalate substantially. This region has been in complete flux since the Great War of Africa (1998-2003) when 5 nations and innumerable factions fought over controlling the mineral rich region. A few months ago a group named M23 broke away from the Congolese Military (mind you it really doesn't deserve the name 'military', more like militia levies) and started kicking ass and taking names. The leader of Neighboring Rwanda, Kagame, made emphatic arguments that he wasn't funding these people, but considering all the facts, he almost certainly is. The area is rich in gold, tin and tantalum, and economically is far more integrated into the economies of Rwanda and Uganda than the Democratic Republic of Congo. Having said all this there are hundreds of thousands of displaced people living in the region and the UN's largest peace keeping/ Humanitarian mission is primarily located here. When the M23 forces took the largest city of the region they behaved relatively well for African forces (aka not killing, raping and stealing everything they see), which once again indicates they are taking their orders from Rwanda. After a few days in control of the city and the UN army located at the local airport doing jack shit they mysteriously decided to leave, with absolutely no apparent military reason. Reports have also started circulating that long assumed oil reserves in the region are indeed existent. This is probably the most disturbing situation in the world that I'm aware of, but it has some competition.

    In Egypt President Morsi has been dealing with a fairly serious amount of opposition to his decision to give himself unlimited powers until a new constitution is decided upon. Given the intransigent opposition of the Mubarak era judiciary this is quite likely to be never. It is encouraging to see that the people on the street aren't buying into the old democracy-makes-everything-ok shtick and refuse to let anyone install themselves as a new dictator. When considering this country up until  last year held the record of longest uninterrupted tradition of autocracy in history, this is pretty damn impressive they are sticking to the whole civil government based on democracy concept. Good luck Egyptians, your probably doomed given the human tendency towards Oligarchy, but here's hoping you can pull it off.

   Back in the USSA Obama seems to have located his testical satchel, and finding it intact has concluded that showing them off would be a fun thing to do. Accordingly, he has told the press and the Republicans he is willing to go 'over the fiscal cliff' if they won't raise taxes on the rich. This cliff he speaks of is one of Congresses most hilarious pranks it has pulled on itself to date (right up there with the Civil War, ceding the power to declare war, and impeaching Clinton for a BJ). Basically they have made it so that if they don't compromise (which neither side will) then automatic spending cuts will be enacted, which will utterly sodomize the economy and poor Americans. Why, might you ask, have they decided upon such a daring and dangerous course of action? In short they are myopic fucktards whose parties are controlled by their fringes and whose voting base is correspondingly idiotic. This would be a lot funnier if America wasn't the unchangeable hegemon of earth due to its truly unparalleled obsession with military might and it's resulting intimidation of living things. Given this fact, the idea of America slitting its own economic throat is a little less humorous and a situation that would scare the living shit out of the rest of the planet if they weren't caught up in their own petty melodramas.

   Speaking of which, Syria is still fighting a full blown war among its various ethnic, religious and political factions. Shit just got even more complicated because the US labeled the leading rebel group, the Al-Nusra Front, a terrorist organization. In addition to this, Congress (how they find time for this amidst the posturing and bullshitting I know not) has started getting more turned on about the idea of letting our jets and missiles join the fun. You must understand that for a country that has spent so much on its military and genuinely believes itself to need to lead the world, it is really hard to stay out of a real war. This is especially true when that war is connected with one of your favorite make believe enemies, Iran. Luckily for the regime of the Assad Clan Russia is sticking with Bashar, so the US can't just send in the drone armadas just yet, but considering the fact that Iran has captured yet another American robot in its airspace, who knows.
  A lot of other stuff is going down, but I'm running out of time to type about it and at some point it all just flows into the great shit sea of insanity and therein is lost among the incalculable stank of past human behavior. It's one hell of a show, and the idea that we might write ourselves into such a completely impossible situation that the curtain must fall simply because all the actors have slain one another is a bit sad; but it is also a bit funny.
"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die." -Mel Brooks