I am fascinated with the unravelling of fascist strong-arm regimes in the Middle East. It will only be a matter of time before the Domino Effect levels all the bullies and the people can speak for themselves and rule their own lives.
With China next in the tipping line, all bets are off as all balls are in the air:
Large numbers of plain-clothed and uniformed officers were deployed in Beijing, Shanghai and several other Chinese cities after anonymous dissidents issued a call on Saturday to any disaffected Chinese to gather and chant slogans for freedom and democracy.
In the event, the calls appeared not have penetrated far into the consciousness of ordinary Chinese as the authorities censored Chinese microblogs, made pre-emptive arrests of up to 100 known activists and mounted a deterrent show of police presence on the streets.
Revolution is great.
No, really.
But then what?
We wars will be won — yet the real human battle has yet to begin — because, by the year 2050, the planet we inhabit will be “unrecognizable” according to the United Nations:
The United Nations has predicted the global population will reach seven billion this year, and climb to nine billion by 2050, “with almost all of the growth occurring in poor countries, particularly Africa and South Asia,” said John Bongaarts of the non-profit Population Council.
To feed all those mouths, “we will need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the last 8,000,” said Jason Clay of the World Wildlife Fund at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
How in the world do we feed nine billion people with the limited resources we have now, when we can’t even feed the seven billion people we have right now?
Sure, we can increase manufacturing of processed foods and genetically altered crops and we can use chemicals and science to enhance the taste and digestion of “non-food products” that will fill you up while letting you down — but will that be enough?
Can science save our starving stomachs?
The children will be the first and the last to most suffer.
If hunger is the residue of peace, and if the wages of sin is death, then what will these human uprisings have really won? A starving society? A worldwide battle for crops and water — and not oil! — in 2050?
We need to think about the extremes that the world is necessarily extrapolating upon us and find ways to assuage the infant hurt while celebrating the human wonder of self-appeasement.