November 24, 2001

Western Civilization at Crossroads

The earth is dying

It cannot absorb the waste we impose on it

Replenish its resources at the pace we withdraw them

Sustain its species in the face of our assaults

Provide more oil, water or metals than it has

We can continue our tradition

Of murdering, maiming, plundering and enslaving to get our way

As we did in past centuries on all continents which were not ours

As we have done twice to our own selves this past century

And have continued to do to others these past fifty years

Our harvest will be more of the same

Worst perhaps, for we are changing life=s genetic make-up

Through the radioactivity we release by our nuclear detonations

Our technical manipulation of genes, including our own

And our steady replacement of diversity by single varieties, including among humans

Or we can realize that we have to share our earth with others

Produce waste only in proportion to our numbers

Have others= resources only to the extent they are willing to give them

Humanize all people, no matter their race, gender, age, sexual habits or abilities

Recognize the validity of political and economic arrangements other than our own

Our harvest would be more of the same

Better perhaps, for wealth and secrets for survival hide in diversity

And the half of our time we now spend devising ways to kill

Could be spent dreaming, playing, enjoying, developing ourselves

Bathing in the warm glow of community rather than alone in the cold wind of enmity

But first we would have to recognize that killers are made, not born

And for the first time in the history of humankind, raise our children to not need enemies

Not be enlivened by death, not seek revenge, not communicate through the infliction of pain

They would need to know that power to kill does not imply greatness of civilization

That technical prowess does not equate with morality

We have some fifty years in which to decide

For by then, if we continue our present ways

The earth will no longer be able to sustain complex forms of life

And strange living things may change forever the world as we know it today.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND NOTES

OUR EARTH IS DYING

Waste

Foster, John

The Vulnerable Planet B A Short Economic History of the Environment (Monthly Review, New York), 1993, 1999.

Gelbspan, Ross

The Heat is On B The Climate Crisis, The Cover-up, The Prescription (Perseus), 1998. (Developed countries produce over 60 percent of the world=s pollution).

Resources

Klare, Michael

Resource Wars B The New Landscape of Global Conflict (Henry Holt, N.Y.), 2001. (Developed countries use over 40 percent of the resources available to the human population, yearly. The United States alone uses approximately 30 percent of all raw materials, yearly)

WE CAN CONTINUE OUR TRADITION

Five Continents

Ahmad, Eqbal

Confronting Empire (In Conversation with David Barsamian), (South End, Cambridge, MA), 2000.

Fanon. Frantz

The Wretched of the Earth (Grove), 1963.

Hochschild, Adam

King Leopold=s Ghost B A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (Houghton Mifflin), 1998.

Johnson, Charles & Patricia Smith

Africans in America B America=s Journey through Slavery (Harcourt Brace), 1998.

Lindqvist, Sven

Exterminate All the Brutes, 1992. Translation, Joan Tate (The New Press), 1996.

Robinson, Randall

The Debt B What America owes to Blacks (Dutton, Penguin, N.Y.) 2000.

Rodney, Walter

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Howard University,) 1972.

Twice to Ourselves

The First World War

Lindqvist, Sven

A History of Bombing, 2000. Translation, Linda Rugg (The New Press, N.Y.), 2001, pages 2-5 and 40.

The Second World War

Gilbert, Martin

The Second World War, Revised Edition (Owl, Henry Holt, N.Y.), 1989.

Lindqvist, Sven

A History of Bombing, 2000. Translation, Linda Rugg (The New Press, N.Y.), 2001 pages 81, 83, 95, 102, 107-108, 147 and 175.

The Past Fifty Years

Blum, William

Killing Hope B U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II (Common Courage), 1995.

Chomsky, Noam

Turning the Tide B U.S. Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace (South End), 1985.

A New Generation Draws the Line B Kosovo, East Timor and the Standards of the West (Verso, N.Y.). 2000

Rogue States B The Rule of Force in World Affairs (South End, Cambridge, MA), 2000.

Klare, Michael

Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws B America=s Search for a New Foreign Policy (Hill and Wang, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, N.Y.), 1995,

OUR HARVEST WILL BE

More of the Same

Gonzalez, Juan

Harvest of Empire B A History of Latinos in America (Viking, 2000).

Johnson, Chalmers

Blowback B The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, (Owl, Henry Holt, N.Y.), 2000.

Radioactivity

Space Exploration and War Preparations

Grossman, Karl

The Wrong Stuff B The Space Program=s Nuclear Threat to our Planet (Common Courage), 1997.

Weapons in Space (Seven Stories, N.Y.), 2001.

Wars

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Lindqvist, Sven

A History of Bombing, 2000. Translation, Linda Rugg (The New Press, N.Y.), 2001, pages 111-112, 147 and 175..

Iraq, Kuwait, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan

Jawad Metni, Director and Producer, ADownwind B Depleted Uranium Weapons in the Age of Virtual War,@ Documentary Film, 2001. Summarized in an interview with Amy Goodman, Democracy Now, KGNU, Boulder, CO, 11/16/01. The amount of depleted uranium released has been as follows:

Gulf War (Iraq and Kuwait) 320 tons

Bosnia (*) 2 - 3 tons

Kosovo (*) 10.5 tons

Afghanistan (to date) 1,1000 tons (**)

(*) Slavs occupy a peripheral position in Europe. While European, they (like the Celts, Semites, Czechs, Slovenes and Slovaks), occupy an inferior position in the hierarchy of European Araces.@ Hitler=s expansion eastward for Lebensraum, would have made them the servants and workers for the Germanics.

(**) As yet unconfirmed by the United States Department of Defense).

Technical Manipulation of Genes

Advanced Cell Technology, a small privately financed biotechnology company, has announced that it has successfully cloned human embryos. Democracy Now (Host, Amy Goodman), KGNU, Boulder, CO, 11/26/01.

Anderson, Luke

Genetic Engineering, Food, and Our Environment (Chelsea Green White river Junction, Vermont), 1999/2000.

Dawkins, Kristin

Gene Wars B The Politics of Biotechnology (Open Media, Seven Stories), 1997

Lappe, Marc and Bailey, Britt

Against the Grain B Biotechnology and the Corporate Takeover of your Food (Common Courage, Monroe, Maine), 1998.

Teidel, Martin and Kimberly Wilson

Genetically Engineered Food B Changing the Nature of Nature (Park St. Press, Rochester, VT), 1999.

Replacement of Diversity

Gedicks, Al,

Resource Rebels B Native Challenges to Mining and Oil Corporations (South End, Cambridge, MA), 2001.

Shiva, Vandana

Biopiracy B The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge (South End), 1997.

Stolen Harvest B The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply (South End, Cambridge, MA) 2000.

OR WE CAN REALIZE

Have to Share

Singer, Daniel

Whose Millennium? Theirs or Ours? (Monthly Review Press, New York), 1999.

Humanize All People

Abramovitz, Mimi

Regulating the Lives of Women B Social Welfare Policy from Colonial Times to the Present (South End Press, Revised Edition), 1996.

Parenti, Christian

Lockdown America B Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis (Verso, 1999).

Other Political and Economic Arrangements

Fotopoulos, Takis

Towards an Inclusive Democracy B The Crisis of the Growth Economy and the Need for a New Liberatory Project (Cassell, New York), 1997.

Herman, Edward

Triumph of the Market B Essays on Economics, Politics and the Media (South End), 1995.

Marable, Manning

How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America (South End), 1983.

OUR HARVEST WOULD BE

More of the Same

Danieli, Yael (Ed.)

International Handbook of Multi-generational Legacies of Trauma, (Plenum, N.Y.), 1998.

deMause, Lloyd

Psychohistory, Childhood and the Emotional Life of Nations (To be published. May be unloaded from the Internet at http://www.psychohistory.com), 2001, 7 Chapters.

Loewenberg, Peter

Decoding the Past B The Psychohistorical Approach (Transaction Pub., New Brunswick, USAP), Essays 1985 (With new introduction, 1996).

Fantasy and Reality in History (Oxford University Press, New York), 1995.

Van der Kolk, Bessel, Alexander McFarlane and Lars Weisaeth, Editors,

Traumatic Stress B The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body and Society (Guildford, N.Y.), 1996.

BUT FIRST WE WOULD HAVE TO RECOGNIZE

Killers are made

deMause, Lloyd

Editor, The History of Childhood (Jason Aronson, Northvale, New Jersey), 1974.

Foundations of Psychohistory (Creative Roots, Inc., P.O. Box 401, Planetarium Station, New York, N.Y. 10024), 1982.

AThe Universality of Incest,@ The Journal of Psychohistory, 19:2. Fall 1991. May be unloaded from the Internet at http://www.psychohistory.com), 17 pages.

AThe History of Child Abuse,@ The Journal of Psychohistory 25:3. Winter, 1998. May be unloaded from the Internet at http://www.psychohistory.com), 11 pages.

Griffin, Susan

A Chorus of Stones B The Private Life of War (Anchor), 1992.

Miller, Alice

For Your Own Good B Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, N.Y.), 1980.

Thou Shalt Not Be Aware B Society=s Betrayal of the Child (The Noonday Press, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, N.Y.), 1981.

The Untouched Key (Anchor, Doubleday, N.Y.), 1988.

Banished Knowledge B Facing Childhood Injuries (Anchor, Random, N.Y.), 1988.

Breaking Down the Walls of Silence (Penguin, N.Y.), 1990.

Not need Enemies

Churchill, Ward

A Little Matter of Genocide B Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present (City Lights), 1997.

Keen, Sam

Reflections of the Hostile Imagination B The Psychology of Enmity (Harper & Row, San Francisco), 1988.

Lifton, Robert and Greg Mitchell

Hiroshima in America B A Half Century of Denial (Avon/Hearst, N.Y.) 1995.

WE MAY HAVE SOME FIFTY YEARS

Mutations

Epstein, Samuel

The Politics of Cancer, Revisited (East Ridge Press, Fremont Center, N.Y.), 1998.

Fagan, Dan, Marianne Lavelle & the Center for Public Integrity

Toxic Deception B How the Chemical Industry manipulates Science, bends the Law and endangers Your Health (Common Courage, Monroe, ME), 1999.

Schettler, Ted, Gina Solomon, Maria Valenti and Anette Huddle

Generations at Risk B Reproductive Health and the Environment (MIT, Cambridge), 1999.