six of one and half a dozen of the other
I do believe that to an extent the rich world is using the environment as a weapon.
It is clearly letting certain areas be depopulated by disease (AIDS) by environmental damage (which also sparks off resource war) but perhaps more as a consequence of laissez-faire capitalist policies and greed than a deliberate desire to destroy these areas (if the infrastructure is trashed by earthquakes/floods etc, how are they supposed to get at the resources?)
If there is any “hidden agenda” in the world (and I don’t even think it is hidden nowadays) it is that if/when war/AIDS etc depopulate Africa and the Middle East it can easily be recolonised and turned back into some richer countries Empire.
What is worrying the Yanks though is that it could equally be Beijing rather than Washington which ends up running a lot of this empire.
you do have to be very careful of US-led conspiracy theories though. I’ve read loads since I first went on the net in the early 90s…
A lot of Yanks are only hostile to the UN because despite all its faults (such as enforcing global drugs prohibition and not being able to prevent Washington’s war) it gives poorer countries a voice at the global table and encourages people to share resources and reach common views.
Many American “activist” types believe in ultra-conservative individualism and would rather risk their lives or fight with guns than share resources with someone whom they didn’t totally agree with, and this fuels a lot of the conspiracy theories that emanate from this particular part of the world.
Its sad that society has to set up “global nanny state” organisations like the UN – but humans are mostly hairless chimpanzees who fight to be alpha male, are less likely to form stable groups like the orang-utan and to fight to keep the resources in their local area when they are limited.
there are a number of studies which allege that chimps in a big jungle are far more co-operative than those in managed parks with limited space (even the right on ones with big enclosures) or conventional zoos
The problem with “local immunity” is that unless mixed with progressive socialism is that is those with resources will use supply and demand to consolidate their power and replace a global élite with a local one – perhaps eliminating any opposition by force or denying them food/shelter so they die out.
We already had local immunity in Britain (and for that matter Asia) in ancient times; people formed tribes, warlords became kings and everyone fought bloody wars at borders.
Go and take a good look at a map of your favourite rave sites. A proper OS one – not the rubbish ones sold in petrol stations. Many of these sites are in areas where the borders between counties exist, where there is wood or water.
These borders exist because tribes fought to the death to gain control of the resources around them.
In more recent times (very recent times) people started talking more and fighting slightly less; by a combination of popular struggle and social development the elites very grudgingly gave away (with lots of strings attached) tiny parcels of land at border areas to become “public rights of way”
