Why America Should Resist Protectionism...

Recession's winds are blowing and America's strategic position is uncertain.A period of relative peace the world enjoyed from World War 2 up to the 90's wasn't due to America's military might. Squables over markets , expansion of empires to build markets , prowling for resources and raw materials had plunged the world into World Wars.Following the last war America began to stand up for and encouraged a world that respected sovereignty , a culture which rewarded work and fair exchange of goods and services.The Europeans were pressured to de-colonise and GATT was established alongside a stable system of currency exchange.These actions led to huge growth in world trade,finance and banking.Through the 50's and 60's the US was the dynamo that hastened economic development and many countries received US investments. By the early 1970's South East Asia became seething with it's own economic engines.These economic waves changed the views of other nations.China which used to be a spoiler slowly realised that closed doors for her would only lead to stagnation and financial backwaters.Much of the Third World began to rethink their policies.Once infatuated with socialism more and more Third World nations began to open their doors to trade and investment.Thus the US became a catalyst for these countries to slowly move towards modern societies with technological and other skills.But troubled voices out of Washington have been decrying trade imbalance , job losses , budget deficits and a clamour to put up barriers to America's markets.This would be fatal and halt the advancement of the free-market oriented developing nations.It would signal that the model provided through the 50's and 60's that made for peace and growth is no longer an available option and trigger a downward spiral of the world economy.Is America to abandon the contest between free market democracies versus controlled and alternate ideologies ? This will have disquieting consequences for the rest of the world.For forty years peace and political boundaries were possible because peoples have achieved a better lot through trade.If these oppoturnities are choked a return to the traditional ways of of conquest such as war becomes more attractive.Protectionism and dwindling trade means less growth for the developing countries.National debts will pile up , defaults will become common with heavy consequences for the international banking system. Developing countries may abandon democratic freedoms and severe and repressive governments may ride in.America has been the anchor of the of the world's free-market economies.It is encumbent upon America as the pre-eminent powerhouse to uphold the rules for progress and growth and not to put up tariff and limitation walls as these would then cause others to retaliate similarly and thus a replay of past depressions and even a return to wars to settle things.

The Horsemen In The Clouds

In 1883 the volcanic island of Krakatoa,Indonesia exploded.About 18 square miles and more than 300 feet above sea level the island suddenly disappeared with a gigantic blast that left a cavity 1000 feet deep.A column of stones,dust and ashes shot up into the air up to a height of 17 miles.Huge tidal waves 50 feet high panned out across seas - reaching Cape Horn 8,000 miles away and the English Channel 11,000 miles away.Sound blast of the eruption created atmospheric waves that went right round the world several times.This monstrous blast placed a veil of dust between the sun and earth for several months causing unusual and beautiful sunrise and sunset effects.But nature has a way of repairing itself.In 1952 a bomb was exploded on Eniwetok ( Pacific )- the whole island burned and practically disappeared - the resulting mushroom cloud was 8 miles across and 27 miles high while the canopy was 100 miles wide. More than 80 million tons of earth was vaporised... Radioactive mud fell out of the sky followed by heavy rain. Are these bomb tests , forests burnings , carbon emissions etc etc affecting our food supply chain ? Global climatic and thermal disturbances depriving the earth of much of the sun's heat? Disrupting the rhythms in the weather leading to harvest failures ? Wheat, milk ,vegetables , tea, coffee can be contaminated thousands of miles from the site of occurences of these man made blasts.The regular movements of winds and tides have given us the seasons by which we plough and reap. Radioactive water contaminates plankton the food of many types of fishes , which infect the larger fishes that prey on them and at the end of the chain we end up eating these larger fishes from off our tables .We are throwing a spanner into the works with our bomb tests , burnings and pollution and no nation admits that these may result in floods, drought and starvation affecting millions. As we continue to nuke our environment with the mass of humanity merely looking on with remote sympathy it isn't going to be long before the weather takes on the shape of the horsemen of the apocalypse.The UN hasn't teeth to enforce anything globally.It seems only military might is respected among nations.Nations go their own ways .So what is at stake ? Charles A.Lindbergh says it well : ‘The failures of previous civilizations and the crisis existing for our own show that man has not evolved the ability to cope with limitless complication.He has not discovered how to control his science’s parabolas......As earth’s most messy,destructive and defective animal , man’s record gives him little cause for pride. Our present intellectual superiority is no guarantee of great wisdom or survival power in our genes.

How I Fought To Get Back To The Top

Two years ago, Dyan Cannon was $150,000 in debt , unemployed for four years , alone and fighting the bank from taking her home in Malibu.She was down to little more than tears.Today she is on a winning streak,cresting exciting new projects and in love.This is Dyan's recipe for pulling out of a nose dive."There's only one rule to follow all the time, and that is be true to your higher sense of right.There is no formula.Perhaps Shakespeare said it best,'To thine ownself be true.'Now each of us is different, so the solutions to our problems are going to be different.But some things don't change , like , never sell yourself short on your higher sense of right.Don't sell the values that are basic to your self respect.BE TRUE TO WHAT YOU ARE.At one point of my career I finally arrived at a point I could not proceed-I was growing tired of the disparity between what was in the script and what happened when the picture was finished.Hollywood thought I was attractive and attractive women were not supposed to be much beyond that.Now Hollywood didn't do that to me.I did it to myself.I allowed it.I accepted the limitations.I was going from film to film and finally I said 'no more,I can't do this anymore.I felt that there was something missing.So I said to myself,'What are you going to do about this? 'I'll stop acting.That's what I'll do.Stop acting?What about the house , the car , the rent? Well, I'll do theatre.But what if theatre doesn't happen ?Soon there came a time when I couldn't pay the rent and the market said no more money , no more credit.They are going to take away the home from me.And then an offer came for a film.But it sickened me...because it was the same old kind of part.That's when I decided they could have my car , the furniture, the house,but that never again were they going to have me.Never,never,never!And from that moment ,it became easier for me to function,because I was standing on solid ground.... I went back to writing peotry, and making a little movie of my own about children.I went back to things that really pleased me.And...slowly I began to live again,to feel, to be myself.

"It Must Be Of The Spirit ..............."

'Men since the beginning of time have sought peace.Various methods through the ages have been attempted to devise an international process to prevent or settle disputes between nations....We have had our last chance....The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advances in science , art , literature and all material and cultural developments of the past 2000 years.IT MUST BE OF THE SPIRIT IF WE ARE TO SAVE THE FLESH."
General Douglas MacArthur , Battleship Missouri , 2/9/1945.

"One theologian ( Jesuit Father Karl Rahnev ) argues that if the image of God faded completely from our minds , we would slowly cease to be human.This means that we would retain our intellectual capacity,our ability to make ever more complex machines.But by cutting the umblical cord with God , our source of ethical vitality would be gone.Morally we would become nothing more than a species of fantastically clever monkeys.... For the truth is that we humans are all Jekyll and Hyde creatures and the monster within each of us is always striving to take over.Theologians call this the doctrine of original sin and it explains what we all observe but find hard to understand.Man can be and often is destructive and malicious.This propensity to evil cannot be corrected entirely from our own resources.We need external help to keep our dark side under control.That is what regular practice of religion provides." Paul Johnson , the author of The Recovery Of Freedom , Modern Times etc etc.

In all the annals of Mankind has a moral code been given to peoples such as The 10 Commandments ( Deuteronomy 5: 6 - 21 )?

Read More....

A Point To Ponder

There comes a point in your life when you realize:
Who matters,
Who never did,
Who won't anymore...
And who always will..
So, don't worry about people from your past,
there's a reason why they didn't make it to your future..
Give these flowers to everyone you don't want to lose in 2009,
Try to collect 12; it's not easy!

A " Salty " Death

Unrefined ocean salt is NaCl 98% plus over 80 trace elements.Pure NaCl ( table salt) is 99.9% "pure" a chemical as clean as heroin.Many cultures have acquired a taste for salt that borders on addiction.The average American eats 2,900 mgs to 4,300 mgs of sodium daily ( the recommended WHO dosage is 2,300 mgs ) thanks and no thanks to restaurant and processed food , snacks and other on-the-go foods . Half of Europe ( and most of Latin America ) consumes fluoridated salt which does just as lethal a damage as the former.
Almost 94% of salt produced goes to Industrial Users and only about 6% is channelled to food use.Salt has to be refined to remove impurities but when the process is over, most 80 of the trace elements are also taken out , leaving only sodium and chloride which suit Industrial Users . To what's left of the original salt content , aluminium hydroxide and aluminium silicate are added to bleach and prevent water absorption ( more than 40 additives are commonly used ) . Refined table salt that we consume makes it difficult for our bodies to absorb and process. Deposits of this salt build up in the joints of our bones , walls of veins , arteries , lymph system ducts , brain , urinary tract , sexual organs and glandular systems. This may eventually lead to loss of function and impairment of bodily vitality.