Current Events – Presentation
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Third Saturday Seminar 2014-2015
Return of the Elders, Unleash your Wisdom
Session 07
Clouds Forming?
Curt Gibby
Saturday, 16 May 2015 (Third Saturday)
9:30AM til 12:00 NOON
ALL Open House, Friday 15 May (see the notice below)
Room B-102, Lone Star College – Montgomery
3200 College Park Drive – Conroe, TX – 77384 – 936.273.7000
This is our last meeting of the 2014-15 academic year. We will take the summer off and start up again in September as usual.
Since the “Cold War” ended the world has sort of relaxed. Russia was restructuring, trying to form economic alliances with it’s former satellites and republics and others. China has been busy creating their fast growing economy but now they realize they need access to resources to maintain the needs of their population. They have actually been developing this for years with economic agreements.
The United States for a while the world’s lone super power with its Western, Middle Eastern and Asian allies has maintained a slow but comfortable economic growth that has not been seriously challenged.
The end of the cold war started with the breaking away of the soviet satellites in 1989 and the eventual breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991
Others pointed out that no one really won the Cold War. The United States spent trillions of dollars arming themselves for a direct confrontation with the Soviet Union that fortunately never came. Regardless, thousands of American lives were lost waging proxy wars in Korea and Vietnam.
Most Americans found it difficult to get used to the idea of no Cold War. Since 1945, Americans were born into a Cold War culture that featured McCarthyist witchhunts, backyard bomb shelters, a space race, a missile crisis, détente, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Star Wars defense proposal. Now the enemy was beaten, but the world remained unsafe. In many ways, facing one superpower was simpler than challenging dozens of rogue states and renegade groups sponsoring global terrorism. See more here.
It seems like our whole foreign policy agenda has been dominated by events the events in the Middle East. Since 2001, with occasional minor distractions such as the Ukraine, the Middle east has demanded our attention, the lives of our soldiers and our countries financial resources. In spite of wise pronouncements that the problems of the Middle East cannot be solved militarily, that it is where our men and resources continue go. When we try to leave we find that the nations we were building are worse off than before. Colin Powell’s “If you break it you own it,” misquote has turned out to be true, or more accurately it owns us.
In the realm of global events, our America, 200 years ago amazed a cynical world by creating a sustainable working representative constitutional democracy which for all its faults still far out-paced the “old world” by creating an atmosphere of freedom and independence as we were growing, not hampered by many of the constraints of the old world culture, taboos and domination of state religions.
The 1824 the Marquis de Lafayette, a Hero of the American Revolution made a grand tour of the United States to the delight of Americans. A presidential campaign drew to a contentious close during Lafayette’s winter sojourn in Washington. …
All the candidates attended Washington festivities for Lafayette, including his address to a joint session of Congress—first ever by a foreigner. At a congressional banquet they heard Lafayette pointedly toast “the perpetual union of the United States. It has always saved us in times of storm; one day it will save the world.” – See more here.
The Promise of our Constitutional Democracy:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The Premise of Orwell’s “1984”
… after the Second World War, the United Kingdom fell to civil war and then was absorbed into Oceania. Simultaneously, the USSR conquered mainland Europe and established the second superstate of Eurasia. The third superstate, Eastasia, comprises the regions of East Asia and South-east Asia. The three superstates wage perpetual war for the remaining unconquered lands of the world, forming and breaking alliances as is convenient.
Now we and our allies are mired in the Middle East, and no longer the behemoth that could make the world tremble, or at least, not question our determination to fulfill our promises or threats ; it appears that China and Russia are moving ahead to realize their destinies, and quite possibly fall into the roles predicted by George Orwell. This will not bode well for the people under the governance of the three world powers.
In an effort to protect ourselves against hardcore insurgents we could easily devolve into a police states. Bin Laden used to brag that all he needed was to sent a tape to the news media to start another round of governments oppressing their peoples and wasting of money. Our Leaders and Politicians were only too eager to react to the bin Laden “Threat” after “911”
Apparently the Patriot Act which has been what enabled out intelligence community to get away with their excesses is up for renewal.
Please take a few minutes to check out the following articles. I think you will see some of the puzzle pieces that are falling into place. Not all of their actions pose a direct threat to the US, but We the People of the U.S. need to be informed and convinced that our leadership are engaged and looking after our interests, especially as regards to maintaining fair access to resources and navigation. I hope this is not too idealistic.
China: The New Peacemaker in the Middle East
David Grammig, May 3, 2015
Baltic Navy Shadow-Boxing Said to Reach Cold War Levels
By Reuters On May 4, 2015
Chinese Patrol Vessels Approach Disputed Senkaku Islands
By Rachael Gosnell On May 5, 2015
Why Putin Fears China
by David Tweed, February 15, 2015
As usual we will start out with Current Events (Distractions)
For Instance, what do we know of the Looming Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), there are serious questions about exporting jobs, but more importantly a serious threat to national sovereignty making law making bodies subject to lawsuits by corporations. Under NAFTA, corporations feel that their profits should be protected under the provision that prevents nationalization of corporate assets, a la Venezuela nationalizing the assets of our major oil companies.
At the moment the Democrats in the Senate have been able to prevent the bill from leaving committee that would allow the President to “Fast Track,” giving the congress on the option of only an up or down vote. And, apparently they will not be allowed to read much of the text of the agreement. So much for “transparency.” The President says we must have the agreement or lose out to the Chinese, whatever that means. He doesn’t explain.
Details of the Trans-Pacific Partnership
By the Way, What Happened to the road bond issue in the Woodlands?
LSC-Montgomery
3200 College Park Drive, Conroe, TX 77384
For more information, call 936.273.7446
ALL- Montgomery Links:
Academy for Lifelong Learning: LSC-Montgomery
Registration
How do I register for a class? You can fill out a registration form and submit it to us:
In person: LSC-Montgomery (3200 College Park Dr., Conroe, TX 77384),
Continuing Education/ALL Office Building E (Room 205)
Phone: 936.273.7446
Fax: 936.273.7262
Reminder for ALL members:
Please let us know if you change your address, phone number, or email. Call 936.273.7446 or email: MCALL@LoneStar.edu.
“Some part of our being knows this (the universe) is where we came from. We long to return. And we can. Because the cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” Carl Sagan
See you Saturday, in Room B-102
Curt Gibby
Director