Down through history very few people make a significant difference
in the world. This blog post is intended to be an interpretation of unfolding current
events and is not meant to contribute to the argument over leadership in the
sense that world events changes the mind of leaders verses great leadership
creates significant world events. I am not talking about great presidents or generals
in wars or about catastrophic events such as the recent tsunami, or the man
made events like 9/11; I am talking about “evolution of thought”; how we look
at one another, in other words our culture.
As an old man and a long retired collage professor, I have
been exposed to many brilliant young people both in and out of the context of a
university and have watched them evolve as individuals over time in their careers.
When the name of one of these people appear attached to something, for whatever
reason, I pay attention. This morning on Facebook, one such person, a Belizean
I have admired since she was a small child, posted a note related to something Pope
Francis said. I thought it was unusual for a young person busy as she is in all
the ways of a young life to post such a serious note on Facebook among a
torrent of food recipes with pictures intermingled with pictures of pets and
family members, political diatribes, tidbits of wisdom, and funny clips usually
couched in a flood of attention getting four letter words.
Church doctrine has held social progress in the world in
check since the beginning of time. The foundation of “faith held beliefs” has always
been creationism or intelligent design, which put faith on one side and science
on the other side—making them either or but never both. Everyone understands
that there is no way to argue against the existence of God; the second someone
says, “God did it” that is the end of the argument. There is no way one can prove that is or is not true. There is
always an unbreakable circular reference; the Bible, “written by the hand of
God”, says or the Pope, “the closest person to God” says, etc. However, on an
empirical basis, since the “evolution” of humanization some 150,000 years ago, scientists
have explained almost everything; in other words, we slowly come to realize
that we do not need God to explain natural phenomenon: gravity, orbiting of planets,
the sun, rain, volcanoes, earthquakes, etc; in our modern world we know this
but refused to admit it.
I never thought that I would live long enough to see the day
when this worldwide cultural shaking realization would take place; when we as a
culture would say that God and science are two different things. It would take
an outstanding leader. This event happened and it is exactly to what my brilliant
young friend called my attention.
The Pope made comments, which experts said
put an end to the “pseudo theories” of creationism and intelligent design that
some, argue were encouraged by his predecessor, Benedict XVI. “The theories of
evolution and the Big Bang are real and God is not “a magician with a magic
wand”, Pope Francis has declared.”
When I add to this the thought that international politics is
changing, I feel doubly blessed to be alive to see these two changes taking
place. World peace has not come to full fruition but is going in that
direction. Just as church leadership has evolved, political leadership is
evolving. We have the 1945 formation of the United Nations built on the back of
the 1919 failure of the League of Nations. It took a devastating world war and
the horrific holocaust but at last we have a world peace organization. These events
all fit into a pattern. As pointed out in his book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, Steven Pinker
carefully document that people are killing each other at an ever-slowing rate. Our
news media prevents us from appreciating the overall reach of this decline in violence
as much as we should by always making bad news, at the international level as
well as the individual level, the lead stories; Russia is trying to dominate Ukraine,
ISIS is beheading people, this person killed that person, etc.
I have published several posts on this blog site referencing
the most significant but under appreciated change in United States Foreign
policy for the better and the part President Obama has played in that change. Almost
since the beginning of our nation, we have dominated the world business wise. We
did this by power “politick”, as so crudely exemplified by the way Secretary of
State Kissinger sought to dominate the world. We are 100 times stronger than
you are; therefore, if we want your oil we will take it; if we want a trade
agreement, we will write it, and if we want your territory, we will use it. There only will be peace if we get everything
we want. The events in Iraq demonstrated that policy at it worst; a bold military
take over of the economics of a sovereign nation because oil companies wanted
to do that.
All nations in the world looked up to us out of fear not
respect. President Obama is the first leader we have had, like the Pope, who has
realized that things have changed. For example, while talking to an Egyptian
woman yesterday, I pointed out that if they want to get their country in order
they are going to have to do it. “But you have to help us”, she said; yes, I
answered, but Egyptians will have to show they want help by voting to separate religion
from governance.
With our long history of doing things another way, this new multifaceted
concept of respecting governments of sovereign nations, forcing countries to do
things for themselves, in addition to the concept of separation of church and
state is difficult to understand both in those countries as well as in America.
We no longer want to overthrow and bankrupt the governments of sovereign
nations so multinational corporations can control their resources and their people
as Stephen Kinzer screamed out in his book, Overthrown:
America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq.
Obama is a super intelligent man who learned from Vietnam
that if people do not want to fight for themselves and that we should not spill
our blood and treasure to help them until they do. Listen to the confused and pitiful
cries of both Democrats and Republicans about Obama not putting boots on the
ground in Iraq and Syria to fight to install a Shia government in this country
or a Sunni government in that country. Bush did that in Iraq and see with it
got us. Our President recognized that both
the era of the Caliphate governments of over, that the “economic hit man” way
of doing business is ending. In
addition, Pope Frances recognized the end of religious denial of science is over.
Two great changes taking place in my lifetime. I hope they will be permanent
but fear the truth is otherwise. What is happening will be the case, at least
until a corporate controlled Democrat, such as +Clinton, or a Republican enters
the White House or white smoke signals a new Pope has taken power in the +Vatican.
Keep in mind that these changes are not happening overnight because of on or
two simple things. They are happening because
the mass of people want them to happen, and we happen to have two leaders who want
them to happen.
URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com
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