Time to Cancel Remembrance Day and Instead, Remember.
Some people have started asking versions of this question. Some are asking whether, if the lights go out this time, there will be any lifetime, just a nuclear extinction.
Many educated people, who are into history and geopolitics, know what this is referring to. Sir Edward Grey was foreign secretary of the British Empire during the “July crisis” or “twelve days” of 1914 leading up to the first world war.
In his memoir he recalled at that time looking out of his office as the gas lamps were being lit on St. James square. He recalled saying to his friend standing beside him; “The lamps are going out all over Europe. We will not see them lit again in our lifetimes.” Over generations this has become a kind of cultural meme in the history of the “great war” and of great power conflicts; the dark side of history generally.
The whole story of how that conflict got going still needs to be better known and understood by the publics of all nations. I am not going to get into it here. I say only that people need to understand how easy it would be for something like that to get going again.
Yet a look at the present international situation calls to mind another old cultural meme, from Hegel; “The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.” We need to learn from history. The leaders of most countries, especially the ones targeted by the Atlanticist empire, seem to have learned something from history.
Whatever you want to call it; the Atlanticist bloc, “the west”, the “Washington Consensus” or the “rules based order”, the leaders of this vague entity seem unable to learn anything or forget anything. They cannot believe that they no longer have the power they once had. If they start one more world war to try to restabilize their power, they are going to lose it badly.
There is a hysterical view that this will inevitably lead to a nuclear exchange which could end life on earth. It could. However, that famous nuclear clock has been at about two minutes to midnight for sixty years and this event has not happened yet, despite some dire situations.
If we die out this way, then we can say as we go out that we were nature’s mistake. But what scares me a lot more is the thought of a limited nuclear war; one that does not wipe us out but severely reduces the capacity of mother earth to sustain us. To roll out yet another cultural meme, this would make life “nasty, poor, brutish, and short” for some time, perhaps generations.
However, I do not think these scenarios are as probable as the people in charge of the said clock believe. The personnel in charge of the actual nuclear arsenals are mostly not that eager to end all our lives early. During the cold war between the USA and the old Soviet Union, the political leadership of the former constantly tried to drive the latter to “The Brink”, always convinced that the Russkies would back down. The Russians never backed down.
So I will look past the idea of a nuclear war. A brief exchange of conventional weapons is more likely. That will not last long; it is becoming obvious that the Atlanticists, the USA, NATO, will fall flat.
The western armies have been rotted out by the same economic and political forces that have wrecked their domestic economies and societies. They are obsolete in all ways. The Russians would beat NATO in four days and would likely get control of the North Atlantic as well. The Chinese would quickly drive the US Navy well away from the South China Sea.
To reiterate, the ossified old families who still control the world’s financial system are unable to believe this. Their Generals and Admirals are starting to believe it and are trying to get this through to them. The Russians and Chinese are making some demonstrations that help them make the point.
In all, a conventional war does not scare me much. However, it would accelerate the decline of the world economy which is already happening. That really does scare me.
We are starting to see hints of it now in the rising inflation and the supply chain problems, the growing inability of private or governmental organizations to deliver goods and services efficiently. The covid pandemic is helping this along. Mostly, though, it is the result of growing economic war between the producing and consuming nations. Of course Russia and China do most of the producing these days.
So, if the lights are going out, it will probably not mean another world war as in 1914 and 1939. There could be some fighting between states but civil conflicts within states are more likely and would be more destructive. The prospect is for a prolonged period of severe economic depression and political turmoil.
This could be as devastating to the vulnerable populations around the world as a world war would be. It could take a long time to come out of it. There is no way to predict what kind of world would come out of it.
Sir Edward Grey as he stood looking out at the street lamps of St. James park could not have guessed at the kind of world that would emerge from the war that was about to start. The lights really did not come on during his lifetime. They only came on again after 1945, after decades of war, depression, and social disruption had weakened the hold of the oligarchs.
He did not want war and probably did more that anyone else to stop the first world war from happening. But he was a very consensus based politician. When the Kaiser changed his mind and sent his army into Belgium, Grey gave up and went along with the declaration of war.
No one wanted that war except the banking families who funded the secret network of Cecil Rhodes type operators to carry out their dirty work. But these people engineered conditions where it was almost impossible to avoid a war. The descendants of these people still have a lot of control, but their power is fading.
These people may not be able to start another world war, but they are capable of creating havoc as they try to reassert their control. They could keep the lights dim for some time. In such unstable times, almost anything could happen.
To get to a better place, we need fewer people like Sir Edward Grey in important positions; people with a deep commitment to preserving the set order, who cannot question the real foundations of that order. The big difference between these times and now is that a lot more people realize that what is, is wrong, and must change. They just do not yet know what and how.
This is the only thing which will keep the lights on; for people to develop a single clear idea of a better way. Public discussion has become deranged as competing factions with huge resources all try to gain ownership of the public voice. A unified concept of a post oligarchic world must rise above this noise.
There are hopeful signs that this is developing and may be able to overcome the intense cognitive jamming, similar to but much worse than in the period just before the breakout of the first world war. That in itself will not be enough. The will must be there to break the control mechanisms of the old oligarchy.
Remembrance day is coming around again. Forget about the poppies. Do not think about how that war ended. Think about how it started. Think about how to stop another dark era from happening.
Do not let them turn the lights out again. Remember.