Somebody once said - it is impossible to locate the source of everything that one reads - that a particular person amassed an amount of knowledge that exceeded the capacity of his brain. It’s a bit like a disorganized woman who unexpectedly needs to catch a plane, realizes she is late and can only take one suitcase. In doubt about what to take or not take, she stuffs clothes and various other objects, without any kind of order, into the suitcase, to the point that she needs to sit on it in order to close it. The suitcase, groaning, ends up acceding to her wishes, but some of the clothes are left hanging out of the closed luggage, swaying like crazy ideas in the breeze.
The same thing occurs in the case of some intellectuals, who are unable to adequately digest certain topics. First, because they are morally indigestible and complicated; secondly, because in the highly insatiable - and active - brain of such intellectuals, there is no natural organic space for digesting so many ideas and so much information. The result is that which is seen, with a certain frequency, in dealing with some more polemic issues: it is not possible to discern the obvious that is more distant. Hence the comparison with the actual condition known as myopia, which is characterized by difficulty in distinguishing more distant objects, although objects close at hand are discerned with ease. Besides this, aggravating the problem, there is the almost required professional “pose”, or the impossibility of thwarting the powerful interests that drive us and which it is advisable not to contradict.
Amplifying such analogies, in the mental area, the equivalent exists of the stomach and the liver. The mental “stomach” represents the neurological mechanism of perceiving what one reads or hears. - “Did you read that article?” - “Yes, I did!” You read it but you did not properly digest it. The mental “liver” is designated with the task of filtering that which has managed to reach the “stomach”. Some minds are slow in their capacity to ingest knowledge, although they even have a reasonably developed mental “liver” - so-called “common sense”. Their problem is perhaps more glandular or neurological in nature, the result of visual or auditory problems, or the consequence of attaining an inadequate degree of literacy. Reads little, but “digests” much of what is read. They are people we call “sensible”, confident in their common sense. They are not “brilliant” but, like innocent children, say what adults do not dare to say: that “the emperor has no clothes”.
Other minds are capable of speed-reading but, paradoxically, are weak when it comes to joining the pieces necessary for formation of more judicious and balanced innovative convictions. In other words, they judge badly. A certain individual - once again, I beg forgiveness for not remembering his name - was considered to be the fastest reader in the world. In all certainty, a genetic accident, a caprice of nature, as he had not attended any kind of “dynamic reading” course. He had a kind of large “bump” on the back of his head, which may possibly have been related to his ability to read and understand, with incredible speed, whatever he read. Nevertheless, he wrote nothing and it seems that he spoke little. He was certainly lacking a mental “liver”, the filter capable of metabolizing what he read and composing something himself. Had he lived at a time of greater advances in genetic engineering, he would have been able to provide a few of the neurons or genes responsible for such fast reading skills - for grafts, thus fulfilling a need that is ever more necessary for the understanding and restructuring of our world. Whoever is intensely interested in what occurs on the planet and beyond it, in various areas, via the written word (my case and certainly that of the reader), would probably be thankful for the possibility of attaining a threefold or even a tenfold increase in reading capacity. Of course, as long as this is not at the cost of a decrease in critical judgment.
This long preamble leads up to the news that the USA has announced a new nuclear doctrine (New Start Treaty). In brief summary: the United States and Russia have resolved to decrease their respective nuclear arsenals by a third, by the year 2020. At the present time, it is estimated that each of these countries has 3,000 nuclear warheads. The “good news” is that, in ten years time, each one will “only” have 2,000 warheads - still sufficient to destroy planet Earth several times. Fewer times that now, but enough excess power to give cockroaches the right to replace use.
Firstly, it should be noted that a lot can happen in the space of ten years, making the intention of “denuclearizing” the world (in fact, only two countries) ridiculous in such a long period of time. If a new climate of global tension arises, with China or another country coming to assume a more aggressive role in the fragile balance of power, it is evident that, for reasons of security, both the USA and Russia would desist from compliance with this limited and incomplete target. Within a few years - less than ten - other actors, besides the USA and Russia, will also be participating on an equal footing (if not in terms of power, at least in terms of threat) in this astute game of poker that is called international politics, in which nuclear power has a significant role to play. When Israel became an atomic power, and Iran eventually comes to think of becoming an atomic power, the objective of both countries is that of ensuring they are respected. The stronger and more armed they are, the lower the chance of being attacked. The problem is that, with unilateral force comes the temptation of abuse. As I have already said in another article, the only reason why there was not a third world war in the 1960s - the “Cuban missile crisis”, remember? - was because both the USA and Russia were nuclear powers.
Another “interesting”, if not to say ridiculous, facet of the new “nuclear doctrine” was the American commitment (Obama needs to react more to the pressure he is subject to within his own government, i.e., Gates and Hillary) to not using atomic weapons against countries with no military nuclear capabilities, even if attacked with chemical and biological arsenals. Up to this point, nothing amiss. Now comes the reason for using the word “interesting” in the first line of this paragraph: the only exception in the “doctrine”, permitting a nuclear attack on the part of the USA, would be in the case of countries that disrespect the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which would represent a warning to Iran. “Disrespect” is a vague, flexible term. It does not necessarily mean attack another country with atomic bombs. According to the “new doctrine”, simply not agreeing with a resolution could be interpreted as “disrespecting”, authorizing an American nuclear attack.
It seems to me that the editors of the “nuclear doctrine” forgot that if Iran, several decades ago, at the time of the Shah of Persia, signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it would be sufficient for it (in order to be free of the stigma of violation of the Treaty) to request withdrawal from the NPT, based on that stipulated in article 10. For example, Iran could allege that its withdrawal is for reasons of security, considering that its mortal enemy Israel enjoys undeniable military superiority and, by all accounts, nuclear superiority too, as it always makes implicitly understood but not explicitly confirmed. On requesting its withdrawal, within a period of three months, Iran would be legally free to do whatever it saw fit within its nuclear facilities, without being subject to inspections, as in the case of Israel, which is not party to the NPT and, for this reason, has not been bothered by the international community.
The Obama administration (at least Obama himself, as an individual), well intentioned in its desire for world peace, needs, we believe, to be bolder in its objectives. It needs to establish global disarmament as a priority agenda, not only in the nuclear area, but also in the area of conventional weapons, which kill more people than atomic weapons, exactly because they do not intimidate those who fire them. It is not sufficient to restrict limitations to nuclear weapons. It is estimated that around fifty million people died in the Second World War, counting both civilians and military personnel, the victims of cannon, torpedoes, machine guns, bombs and bayonets. It is this that needs to end. In order to demonstrate that nuclear weapons even inhibit the slaughter, suffice to say that from 1945 (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) to the present day, there has not been a single death caused by a nuclear explosion. There have only been atomic tests, without deaths. Deaths due to radiation have only occurred by accident, as in the case of Chernobyl (Ukraine) in 1986. During this same period, how many millions have died the victims of conventional weapons, in wars in Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Middle East, Africa, etc?
Wake up Gates and Hillary! The great solution is to disarm the world! How to do this? By creating an active agenda, discussing mechanisms that effectively guarantee the security of all countries and populated areas that aspire to statehood, as in the case of the Palestinians, for example. A clarifying campaign, with a view to explaining to the world, in all languages, that it is necessary to discuss, right now, how to amplify the powers of the UN, with the objective of creating a type of single global government, in the form of a Federation that dispenses all countries from the immense expenditure necessary for maintaining individual armed forces. Why maintain around two hundred armies, navies and air forces? It would simply be sufficient for each country to maintain a force for keeping internal order, as already occurs in the case of all states of any federation.
In the hypothetical case of an invasion of Earth by aliens, all nations would certainly unite, in an organized manner under one command, to fight the enemy. As such a threat does not exist, it is to be hoped that the incentive (unfortunately necessary) of fear of an extraterrestrial invasion comes to be replaced by fear of an “internal invader” already dangerously present amongst us in the form of environmental pollution, local wars, attempts to acquire nuclear weapons capabilities, global economic crises, unemployment, disorganized migratory movements - with virulent responses on the part of those countries most “invaded” - hunger, drought and poverty in general.
It is clear that such an undertaking - the creation of a global democratic government - will take years, but taking a first step in this direction is the equivalent of striking a light in the depths of the dark tunnel traversed by humanity. Obviously, the nuclear arms industry will feel itself to be threatened, arguing that such pacifism will mean thousands of unemployed, as well as a decrease in tax revenues. On the other hand, industries manufacturing conventional arms will certainly favor nuclear restrictions given that, with such a “doctrine”, there will be greater demand for traditional weapons. “Well’ - they could argue - “all countries, or groups, need to defend themselves, one way or another”. It would be possible to resolve the problem of unemployment in the arms industry, with government financial assistance, through a change in activity in “x” years. With less spending on the purchase of arms, the same sum would be directed to the manufacture of more useful things than the constantly innovatory material of death and destruction.
Some readers will say that this story of “world government”, with all countries relinquishing part of their sovereignty regarding foreign affairs and human rights, is a crazy utopia, and that the world cannot - and perhaps should not - function like a well-adjusted clock.
I disagree (doing nothing more than follow the lead of great thinkers - too numerous to mention here), believing that it is the right and even the obligation of the human race to attempt to imitate a well-adjusted clock, with all hands working in harmony. It is the obligation of every politician to fight to see not only his country, but also all the countries in the world, free from the misery and conflict that originate from the supposed right of each head of government to decide whatever he or she wishes, babbling the old mantra of “I have total authority in my country! Other countries can sort out their own problems! Their suffering is even educative, ha, ha, ha!” Patriotism of this type, today, with globalization, is a vice rather than a virtue.
The ideal of seeing the world functioning like a well-regulated machine, with a minimum of suffering is, at base, an ember that glows weakly, with little hope, in the imagination of many human beings. At least in the imagination of those that suffer - the vast majority. And the breath blown on the ember of hope does not need to come from ideologically opposed cheeks. Armed ideologies have already killed more people than tuberculosis, syphilis, typhus and leprosy collectively - begging your pardon for the bad taste of such a pathogenic emphasis.
(9-4-2010)
