Whistling A Hurricane.

Whistling In A Hurricane.

IDIOCY IS CRIMINAL, LOOKING SOMEWHERE ELSE, EVIL.

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[18 hours after the essay below was posted, to my very pleased astonishment, the UN Security Council passed a resolution authorizing “all necessary means” in Libya to protect civilians. The vote was 10 for, 5 abstaining. I want to congratulate the farsightedness of India, China and Russia, which overcame their concern about democracy intervening inside devious, democratically challenged countries. There is hope for them.

By contrast, Germany’s attitude was lamentable, anti-democratic, cowardly, symptomatic of a country that does not understand that democracy is worth fighting for, ahistorical, and anti-European. Merkel, who used to be a privileged youth of the fascist East German regime, seems to have returned to her questionable roots.

According to Le Figaro, BHL, Bernard Henri Levy, who climbed very late on the revolutionary train pushed Sarkozy, and then the West to war. Sarko worked on the 15 governments of the UNSC one by one, but the UN Resolution passage was acquired at last minute…. An encouraging case of philosophy in the driver seat.]

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Our civilization is an immensely complicated machine which thinks and feels. And it is getting more complex by the day. We cannot do without it. Without it, we, and all we love, will be dead, or dying. As the leaders exhibit this or that emotion, they drive events. Out of vile emotions, evil events. E-vil, indeed.

This civilizational machine has something in common with the doomed nuclear reactor complex at Fukushima, which could very well entirely melt, explode, burn, and not just force the evacuation of the world’s largest city. That would happen, in the worst possible case. But at this point, the reasonable thing to do is to proceed logically backwards from the worst possible case. So it is in Libya.

Proceeding from the worst often is the most reasonable, and should ever be more so, as we learn to see further, as we need to, as the machine gets ever more complex, and we need to steer the probability waves, just so.

So let’s suppose the worst has happened at Fukushima, with its 6 reactors, and 6 pools of nuclear combustible:

1) What would that worst be? Well, in the worst imaginable case, the pools where barely used nuclear rods are stored, would have dried up, and heated up so much that they caught fire. That’s the worst. The consequence would be "apocalyptic" (as the chief radioactivist in Europe put it in a diplomatic style reminiscent of yours truly).

2) So how do we prevent this worst possible case? Well France flew one hundred tons of boric acid (the element boron, B, stops neutrons, hence nuclear reactions), 10,000 anti-radiation suits, and various other equipment. South Korea will send some of its Boron reserve too. And a USA warship has provided high power water cannons. Anything whatsoever ought to be done to bring water to the pools.

If there is water, there is hope. No water, no hope. And the fall-out could be worldwide.

The crisis in Japan illustrates the necessity for catastrophic calculus. Catastrophic calculus would be employed after usual risk analysis.

For example the Fukushima reactors and pools had three systems for providing electric power to the water circulation system. This is typical of reactors, and other sensitive sites worldwide; pile up the safety systems locally. But if one piles them up all in the same place, they can fail all together.

Nuclear reactor complexes should have off site emergency cooling and anti-reactive systems, with their own autonomous, sustainable power (no pun intended).

The crisis in Japan happened because of idiotic geological analyses, idiotic engineering, idiotic risk analysis, and the amazingly idiotic storage, next to the reactors, of gigantic quantities of nuclear fuel. Yes idiotic is the word, there is no other that fits the perfectly idiotic strategies deployed, with delirious obstinacy over decades.

The attitude relative to Libya, a green light to its Pluto, Gaddafi, is even more idiotic, because it is giving a green light to the most brutish force. Today Libya, tomorrow, the world.

If you think the nuclear crazies in Pakistan and North Korea did not notice that the Libyan dictator and criminal against mankind could not be eliminated, when he could easily have been, I have soon to show you hundreds of nukes heading your way.

Ultimately the democracies will find themselves at war, for real, against immense forces with none of Gadhafi’s comic allure. And hundreds of millions will die, and fingers will be pointed out to today’s democratic leaders, desiccated dwarves apparently deprived of brains, guts,  hearts, and any respect or affection for their children, who will have to fight the war they brought. With their inaction.

Obama went to "fill up his brackets", in public on the sport channel, ESPN, something the rest of the world does not know what it is. In a literally critical situation, he produced himself as a well trained dog of the national mindlessness. Is that all he is?

"Filling the brackets" has to do with projecting team sports results for the rest of the year. You will not see the leaders of major democracies indulging in such circus, when the situation is as critical as it is now.

But this is the USA. The Americans got bread, they have to be given circus, and the joker in chief provides it on the sport channel. No doubt ESPN will know how to reward him someday. Thus the dog comes to the table. By the way, in Europe representing a brand on TV, or even alluding to it is against basic ethics. But, apparently the US president is the under assistant east coast promotion man.

A Roman philosopher and poet, Juvenal, was the first to observe that the backbone of plutocracy was for the emperor to provide " panem et circenses" (100 CE). Some emperors, namely Nero, Caligula, Commodus, entered the arena in person, and made a show of themselves. Obama is the last representative of a long tradition.

Americans are big on this sort of thing, obsessing about sports, so they can be small on the rest. Takes two to tango to Armageddon, People and plutocracy, a co-dependency of victim and torturer.

Instead Obama should have asked his underlings how come the armada the USA has deployed in Japan cannot bring water to the burning nuclear fuels. After all, the army of the USA is the army of Japan (Japan has only a self defense force, which is quite small, 40% of which is mobilized by the quake/tsunami).

But not only that: in the worst possible case, the safety of the USA is engaged (and not just by the evacuation of Tokyo). Obama is commander in chief of the USA, but, also, de facto, commander in chief of Japan. What does he do on this critical day? He "fills up his brackets". Ah, but his unworthy predecessor, emperor Justinian, before he destroyed millions in the name of Jesus, and his triple head, never missed a game. Morons had it easy in history, so far.

Our civilization feels, and thinks out of its feelings. It was one of Bush’s big themes: feel the wrath of democracy, and it will spread. That much was correct. But, of course, Bush was dissembling: he was mostly pursuing aims antagonistic to democracy and civilization. Still is. A general confusion reigns ever since.

It is true that democracy needs wrath to defend it. It is no coincidence that Republican Rome, Britain and France have been among the world’s most aggressive societies. (Interestingly, when Rome became a fascist empire, its wrath on exterior enemies mostly disappeared, proving that the Roman expansion had been propelled, indeed, by the wrath of democracy!)

Don’t expect Germany and Russia to understand that too well: they found themselves at the end of the Franco-British gun all too many times, and they are perhaps a bit too fresh at democracy themselves. Merkel certainly does not seem to have understood well that Germany’s banks and industries profited of the profligacy of the PIGS (Portugal Ireland Greece Spain). And that now Germany has to contribute, having well profited. Russia of course understand that it is its right to torture the Caucasus, just as Gaddafi has the right to torture Libya, Benghazi and the Cyrenaica…

By decisively deciding to be indecisive with Gaddafi, Obama gave a green light to all bloody dictators. Qadhafi has no legitimacy whatsoever; he made a coup, and never conducted even one fake election, and sometimes all his streets killers are paid mercenaries from other African countries (they wear yellow helmets). But, OK, his torturers are first class, and he does whatever it takes to subdue his people, and to provide oil to the West. All notions well appreciated in Washington, DC. Moreover, Kadhafi is a first class plutocrat, adulated by his peers, the world’s financiers of the kleptocratic type.

So Obama winked to Kadhafi, while waging his finger, the sort of ballet of gestures the charming Dr. Saif al Islam al Gadhafi is prone to do, smiling, on TV, as the great showman that he is.

Asked pointed question about the weasel behavior of his administration, Obama’s spokesman blurted out incoherently that they had to consult with "international partners".

I knew the concept of ‘friends", or "allies". But "partners"? Who are these "partners"? Russia, China, India, Libya? Having long been a "partner" to Japan, GE, General Electric, having sold cheap melting, exploding reactors to the land of the rising sun, at Fukushima, among other places, is now "partner" to China… Selling American secrets. And rules behaviors… China now tells us to stay out of Libya? Why don’t we tell China to stay out of Tibet? (Check the distances and the history, on both sides.) And what is exactly India doing in Kashmir? A bit the same as Qaddafi and Russia do with their contradictors?

By giving a green light to Gadhafi, Obama gave a green light for Saudi Arabia to invade Bahrain, and crush the budding democracy there. Which is exactly what Saudi Arabia did. A blood bath ensued.

If Qadhafi, and his family of bloody world class gangsters win, it is not just the Arab spring which dies.  It is not just the awe and respect for democracy which die.

In truth the armed democracies have to lead. If they do not, fascists do, fascists did, and fascists will. Lead.

When democrats become meek and uncertain about morality, as Obama has, fascists start to believe they can get away with anything. That is what happened in 1936, when, in a comparable war, part of the Spanish army attacked the Spanish people.

Democracy did not fight back in 1936. Hitler, Mussolini, fascist Japanese generals, and other fascists, worldwide, got very encouraged.

France and Britain wanted to get rid of Gaddafi. His dangerous presence will have to be extirpated someday, one way, or another, because he is a deadly danger to the neighborhood.

The USA ought to remember that France and Britain are not just allies and fellow democracies. They are who the USA mostly come from. Without France’s massive armed intervention in the fight of the American people against the English king, the USA would not exist.

Does Obama know any of this? He sure acts as if he did not. If he did, Britain, France and the USA would have cratered the Libyan’s dictator’s runways long ago (it’s super easy to do). Democracy does not ask authorization from infamy to proceed decently.

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Patrice Ayme

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Note on President as promotion man: One of Confucius’ most famous ideas was:”The gentleman is not an utensil.” By appearing on ESPN, right of a large, capital letters, bright red ESPN logo, intermingled with the Presidential Seal, Obama, showed clearly what his office was all about. In ancient China, the gentleman was not an utensil, in the modern USA, the emperor himself is a utensil. 

In 1965, when Obama was 4 years old, the Rolling Stones made the excellent song: “The West Coast Under Assistant Promotion Man”.

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Note on the fascist mass homicidal dictatorship in Libya: When Al Qaeda attacked the USA, it was based in Afghanistan. Afghanistan was attacked officially to remove Al Qaeda from there, after an ultimatum to the Taliban to do just that. Then Al Qaeda went to Pakistan. Did the West then attack Pakistan? No. Why? Because Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and a lot of them. The Gadhafi gang is smart enough to understand that. So it will acquire the weapons.

China has looked the other way, according to leaked US state department, when North Korean weapons transited through China. China plays tough, and is determined to use Africa as a commodity backyard (although it is already well endowed with Tibet and Xinjiang, among other vast regions).

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On storing seven times more nuclear fuel next to nuclear reactors than there are in the reactors themselves: “the vast majority of the fuel assemblies at the troubled reactors are in the storage pools, not the reactors”). (I will write follow up essays on the nuclear and geological idiocies at play, because they will no doubt play an even greater role, looking forward; it will be made clear that it is far from being just a Japanese problem; actually the low cost reactors were made by GE, and the geological absurdity was, and is, global).

Tags: Fukushima, Libya