The Super Summary of World History

by Alan Dale Daniel

  Even as insurgent warfare is thrust on the West the old form of all-out war is still a threat. Red China still possesses a massive army, navy, and air force that threaten neighboring nations. The survival of Taiwan depends on US military protection. Russia is rebuilding its old nuclear arsenal and improving its military to enable it to challenge the West. These facts force the United States to maintain both a reasonably sized, technologically proficient conventional force, and, additional, highly trained and mobile forces to thwart insurgents that may gain control of vital raw materials or nuclear weapons. Maintaining these dual forces is expensive, and deploying to long wars without obvious endings will drain the financial resources and damage the political will of the United States and other Western Democracies.

  In the war on terror, the atomic bomb changes everything. Now a small and otherwise inconsequential nation can literally destroy millions at one blow. If Iran or North Korea were unable to gain atomic weapons how much of a threat would they comprise? Without atomic weapons, the terrorist’s threat is much less viable. With atomic weapons a terrorist state can shake the world to its foundations. All this puts the entire world on a razor’s edge because there are so many nations controlled by leaders who would use atomic weapons without compunction.

  Lack of political will to fight the long wars of insurgency is the most significant threat to the survival of the Western Democracies. As monolithic religious sects take over nation after nation in the Middle East, and elsewhere, the challenge to the West becomes ever greater. Meanwhile, the Western Democracies will debate the morality, cost, effectiveness, and sacrifice necessary to win these wars and will most often decide to pull out after a few years or high casualties—if history is any guide. The citizen of the Western Democracies hold their military to the highest standards of warfare, while their enemies of are held to no standard whatsoever. From a “political will” point of view the West is in trouble. Contrary to many views on the subject, the United States and the West can lose the war against terrorism, and the consequences would be devastating for the world.

  US Civil Rights Movement

  1955 to present day (2010)

  The civil rights movement that began before the US Civil War, and ended with the nadir of Reconstruction, would return in the late 1950s and continue through the 1960s and beyond as the Reverend Martin Luther King and others began nonviolent opposition to laws in southern US states relegating blacks to inferior citizenship. A series of laws enacted by Congress, with substantial backing from people of all races in areas outside and inside the South, reinforced the political rights of blacks throughout the United States of America. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968 were just a few of the laws passed to insure civil rights for minorities. In addition, the blacks demanded social equality and equality in employment. Backed by the US Congress and the federal courts, the blacks managed to achieve substantial progress by the end of the 1970s. The civil rights movement continues in 2010, expanding to nonblack minorities, women, and homosexuals who now claim the US is an evil and unfair society.

  For reasons difficult to comprehend, after the blacks had gained numerous laws protecting the civil rights of all minorities and numerous laws, regulations, and court decisions giving opportunities that even went so far as to discriminate against whites, the blacks still argued for more. Worse, the leaders of blacks and other minorities began contending that the United States was a fascist nation unworthy of their support. This contention of an evil United States spread and became a commonly held belief in many minority groups throughout the country. For example, black churches openly teach that the Federal Government invented the AIDS virus to kill black people, and under so called “Liberation Theology” black and minority churches openly call for violence against the white race and the overthrow of the US government.

  What has been forgotten by a substantial number of blacks and other minorities (who by 2010 were majorities in many cities) is how the white race in America made sure minorities were protected and gained an equal place in society. In 1865, after suffering almost a million casualties in the Civil War, white northern soldiers and the US Congress freed the black slaves and passed Constitutional Amendments to protect their civil rights. In the 1960s, few blacks were in Congress when the civil rights acts were passed, and the judges from 1960 to 2010 making favorable decisions for minorities were white. Poor as this may sound, white America freed the blacks who now seemingly hate them. Somehow, freedoms won via the white majority caused blacks to believe they still suffer from oppression.

  This mind-set is irrational. In one black rally in the 1990s, a sign held by a black protester read, “It takes a nation of millions to hold us back.” The expression of this sentiment takes place after the Civil War and a million Union casualties, the passage of numerous civil rights laws by a white congress, plentiful federal and state court decisions favoring minorities by white judges, affirmative action (which is actually discrimination against whites), lowered entrance requirements for minorities in prestigious schools, and many other social and economic advantages bestowed in the name of race relations. On top of all this, blacks and other minorities received trillions of dollars over the years in financial aid from the federal and state governments, nearly all of which came from white America. How strange, that the groups most helped by America are the ones hating America so ferociously?

  Blacks argue the white majority had to give them freedom; otherwise, the black race would rise up and destroy America. Obviously, the blacks and their leaders forget what Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and many other tyrants did to their populations without incurring any real problems. Do blacks believe their efforts could succeed under Adolf Hitler? Is there any doubt Stalin would take glee in murdering every single black he could reach? If the northern whites and southern liberals had withheld their support in the 1960s, blacks could not have gained government protection in the South. It takes only a few highly placed members of government with a few troops to oppress the population as shown by the Nazis in France after 1940. The Nazis kept control of France with very few troops because any transgression was punished with barbaric severity which discouraged most people from being brave. It would have been the same in the South of 1960 had the white race throughout the US decided to ignore the plight of the blacks. Only in the Western Democracies would such a small group have so much impact on the laws and culture of a nation. And yet, the very system allowing this adjustment to take place by increasing their freedoms generates hate from blacks and other minorities beyond all reason.

  I know of no one who has studied this phenomenon and how it came about. This odd sequence of events needs study because it defies reason. Of course, as I have pointed out previously, irrationality is a hallmark of human existence.

  Bureaucracy in the Modern World

  A bureaucracy is a group of officials who help leaders make and then carry out decisions. Such groups are extremely important in the modern world and have been around since ancient times. The Egyptian and Mesopotamian empires had bureaucracies. Rome had outstanding administrators (another word for bureaucrat) running its empire. In China, their bureaucracy leapt ahead of others with the invention of civil service, wherein a person had to test and qualify to become part of the administration and remained in place even if the government changed (well, not always). At least they came up with the idea of a professional group of people to assist the leaders in making and carrying out decisions.

  In the Dark Ages there was a widespread administrative breakdown. The notable exception was the Catholic Church which developed a very good set of administrators within a framework of hierarchical positions that still exists and functions well today. By the 1800s, with empires spanning the globe, good administrators were needed everywhere to keep faraway governments and government agencies running smoothly. England sent out its administrators with broad powers to deal with events in the colonies because these men could not wait for a reply from L
ondon before making a decision. One reason the English empire lasted so long was that its field administrators did a good job.

  As the world moved into the twentieth century administrators everywhere gained power. Modern governments needed more control over people. Governments had to control who obtained drivers licenses, medical licenses, mail carriers needed to know where to deliver the mail, cars needed registration for tax purposes and to help prevent theft, censuses were required to find out how many people lived in the nation, the military wanted civilians registered so the government could know who to draft in case of war, and on and on. By 1914, governments intruded on the lives of individuals as never before, accomplishing the imposition with bureaucracies tracking and ordering numerous aspects of life for their political masters.

  By the 1940s, these bureaucracies had developed to the point that dictators such as Hitler and Stalin could use them to control the population. The modern state with modern technology turned the bureaucracy deadly. The administrators of the Third Reich and the USSR were unthinking, machine like people willing to grind citizens into rubble for the sake of the state, if so ordered by their murdering masters. Without this newer and more thorough bureaucracy, the dictators would have had a much harder time ruling, but with modern bureaucracy the modern state could control individuals very closely. We must remember that governments are things in and of themselves. Government will act in its own self interest as it is not a benign entity. As such, a government will use whatever powers can be acquired to control or suppress people that can harm it or dilute its power. Every government, democratic or autocratic, will do this just because it is the government. Modern machines will increase the power of the government dramatically and thus reduce the power of the individual dramatically.

  The ability to categorize and track citizens has increased markedly with the expanding capability of the computer. This ever-multiplying capability to track every aspect of people’s lives amplifies the power of these unseen and unknown administrators who eagerly carry out any command, no matter how evil, of their political rulers. Bureaucracies now hold tremendous power because of technology and its ability to identify and investigate individuals in the populace. As powerful computers begin to correlate the substantial number of individual records such as birth, medical, employment, military, tax, and many more such items, they will also electronically combine this data, thereby multiplying the authority of bureaucrats—and the government. Computers combined with satellites make tracking vehicles and people much easier, and this too will add to the capability of the bureaucracy to control individual lives. Dictators and quasi-authoritarians could make full use of this kind of capability, and the bureaucracy will fully cooperate because it is their job to obey the orders of the government.

  This is a growing trend in the modern world. Without some supervision, the administrators can become dictators themselves. More administrative regulations are adopted in the United States than there are laws coming out of Congress. These regulations have large impacts on everyday people, their employment, and many facets of their daily life, but few recognize the administrative intrusion. In 2010, President Obama appointed over 100 Czars to oversee various aspects of his administration. To date, no one has reported the responsibilities of the Czars, what powers were conferred, and it is unknown to whom they report. The growth of a bureaucracy beyond legislative control is dangerous. Watching and controlling the bureaucracies is every bit as important as watching and controlling legislators, presidents, or the military because they can be freedom’s greatest threat.

  This growth of bureaucracy is an important part of world history. Without an improvement of the ability to carry out the demands of faraway governments empires could not have existed as they did in 1800. This same growth in administrative ability allowed modern states to evolve. We should note that if a needed bureaucracy does not operate well the public pays a high price. Bureaucrats handle emergency response, and deadly results are common where bureaucracies are nonexistent or poorly organized. The 2004 tsunamis hitting the South Pacific islands near Borneo devastated the area. Local bureaucracies failed to respond effectively; consequently, the number of deaths substantially increased.

  In the United States, governmental educational institutions are failing as shown by falling scores on standardized tests and the graduation of students who cannot read their own diploma. Children graduate from high school unable to read or comprehend simple mathematical equations. This is a fundamental failure of the bureaucracy. Because education in the United States is a government bureaucracy it cannot be easily changed; thus, the children and the public continue to be the victims of this bureaucratic malfeasance.

  Not all bureaucracies are controlled by the government. The East India Company, run by its private corporate board in England, had a great impact on world trade and government policy. Other large corporations with well functioning bureaucracies have also dominated the world scene from time to time. IBM certainly had a massive impact on the world with its computers, and automobile companies have made a monumental difference in the world as did railroad companies in the 1800s. Without able and well functioning bureaucracies none of these business enterprises could have accomplished much, but with such bureaucracies they had a worldwide influence. Thus, the contradiction of modern societies needing well-functioning bureaucracies, but these same instruments of the state can be turned against the people with stunning negative consequences.

  The Future and our Ability to Discern the Future

  Art can tell us about the future, or so it seems. Painting, music, and literature foretold a dark era of chaos before World War I descended upon the world. In the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, the world is an orderly, unified, and beautiful place. In modern art, the world becomes unrecognizable, ugly, and chaotic. Classical music is a world of wonderful harmony, where everything fits together perfectly, and each note enjoys its exacting place. By the time of World War I music started showing the world as chaotic, disjointed, and ugly.

  Examining the world of art and music as of 2010, we enter a dark and chaotic place where humanity is without meaning, and normality is nonexistent. In modern paintings, artists smear feces onto a canvas and win art competitions. The public coffers paid for a painting of Jesus upside down in a bucket of urine. In a painting entitled A Bigger Splash, no person is present, and only the aftermath of the action of diving into a pool is seen. People portrayed in film are often dirty, evil, tattoo covered, smoking, drinking, drug using, violent, and immoral scum without purpose or direction in life. In films, sex is no more than an animalistic act with no purpose beyond personal gratification. The big city environment is portrayed as a filthy, graffiti covered, trash filled, dangerous wasteland where anything resembling classical normalcy is a joke. Propaganda films are easily sold as fact (Sicko, Bowling for Columbine, An Inconvenient Truth). TV programs in the post-modern era often reflect the meaninglessness of human existence (Sex in the City, Seinfeld).

  Music reflects the new worldview of nothingness and meaninglessness. In the classical era of symphonies, brilliant men were creating exceptionally complex musical compositions where every note was vital. Each note fit into its place with such precision that even the smallest nuance had meaning. If even one note was lost or out of place the overall harmony and perfection of the music was lost. In the 1940s, the music was also complex with many instruments playing together in a unified whole, and the accompaniment of the vocal artists joined with exactness into the whole (the Andrews Sisters, Benny Goodman, Glen Miller). These songs and musical numbers were a team effort where each person played an important part; accordingly, if someone were out of step or off-key, the entire piece suffered. In popular music of the 1950s through 1980s one could normally discern each note played and each word sung in a musical piece. In this era the music was simplistic with few people needed to perform the song or instrumental. Nonetheless, each note of the song was important, and leaving out a note or a word was noticeable, if n
ot destructive, of the whole.

  By 2010, music had devolved into stochastic sounds where volume is often more important than any other aspect of the music. So-called rap music had the simplest of beats, no musical accompaniment at all, and is reminiscent of the Gregorian chant of the Dark Ages. It is only lacking in the harmony found in the chant. In other modern music, individual instrumental notes are unrecognizable and the words of the performers blur into a haze of sound, usually covered by the almost-incomprehensible hammering of the instruments where individual notes do not exist. In modern music, individual notes or words have no importance. If a note or an entire range of notes disappeared few would notice. When words are noticeable, they are often vile in nature and espouse the worst of actions. Both the words and the music paint a dark and sinister world composed of little good and constant evil. Good is unrecognized in most post 1990s music as suicide, drug use, violence, and crime are extolled as desirable.

  Since the individual notes have no meaning or importance, the message is that the individual has no meaning or importance. Life has no meaning, just as the music, the notes, the vocals, and the performers have no meaning. Finding unity, order, beauty, or harmony in this music is impossible; therefore, finding unity, order, beauty, or harmony in the world is impossible.

  Post-modern music and painting depict a world without reason or meaning where the individual is without importance or value; in consequence, the arts say our world is dark, sinister, and filled with chaos. Note the painting “Vine” by Brice Marden (Figure 83). In this painting the world is without form or meaning, as the shadows and the substance merge into meaningless lines going nowhere and resulting in chaos. Note that a vine is a living growing entity, normally reaching for the sun and sprouting leaves, but in this painting even the vine cannot discern where the sun is and does not have leaves. The sun is out (note the shadows), but the vine is not reaching for the sun. It is lost and alone. Without leaves the vine is dead and without purpose like modern “life”. (Fortunately, anyone looking at a real vine would see extreme order, beauty, and purposefulness.)