It is a crisis as small as your NEWBORN ; it is a crisis as big as PLANET EARTH...

"We must all learn to live together within Nature: all diners at her common table (commensal) or all learn to die together, frying up in the upcoming global climate meltdown."   (Blog Mission Statement.)

             
"Man ABOVE Nature no longer : we are all 'Nature' and we all dine together at a common table ; to paraphrase King Edward VII, "we are ALL commensalists nowadays ..."

This is this century's moral and political crisis - a crisis between this century's Commensality and the last century's Modernity ; a crisis much bigger than anything the 20th Century could throw up.

This because because despite all the violence and hatred between Communism , Capitalism and the various flavors of Fascism , they at least were all united in being Modernists, Modernists bickering amongst themselves over how best to butcher the Planet and its resources.

There doesn't seem, at first, to be any common ground between the Deniers (Fry-ers) and the green-minded citizen, but there is ---most people ultimately do want to live.

The fanatics - like Hitler and his gang - really did believe it was Better to be Dead than Red , but most us will do almost anything to live , waiting for a better day to come along.

When the temperature rises all over the planet, it might start to melt even the coldest, hardest hearts among the Modernist, leading them to see they must compromise their greed, if they wish to continue to live.

Let us pray that the greedy of this world are willing to settle for a half loaf, so the world can return to dining together, commensally, in more or less harmony....

It is a crisis as small as your NEWBORN ; it is a crisis as big as PLANET EARTH...

       

"Man ABOVE Nature no longer : we are all 'Nature' and we all dine together at a common table ; to paraphrase King Edward VII, "we are ALL commensalists nowadays ..."

Michael Marshall

This is this century's moral and political crisis - a crisis between this century's Commensality and the last century's Modernity ; a crisis much bigger than anything the 20th Century could throw up.

This because because despite all the violence and hatred between Communism , Capitalism and the various flavors of Fascism , they at least were all united in being Modernists, Modernists bickering amongst themselves over how best to butcher the Planet and its resources.

There doesn't seem, at first, to be any common ground between the Deniers (Fry-ers) and the green-minded citizen, but there is ---most people ultimately do want to live.

The fanatics - like Hitler and his gang - really did believe it was Better to be Dead than Red , but most us will do almost anything to live , waiting for a better day to come along.

When the temperature rises all over the planet, it might start to melt even the coldest, hardest hearts among the Modernist, leading them to see they must compromise their greed, if they wish to continue to live.

Let us pray that the greedy of this world are willing to settle for a half loaf, so the world can return to dining together, commensally, in more or less harmony....

" Commensal ---- or FRY !!!!!! "

"We must all learn to live together within Nature: all diners at her common table (commensal) or all learn to die together, frying up in the upcoming global climate meltdown."   (Blog Mission Statement.)

The choice is stark --- the debate will be heated.

We must all learn to live together: all diners at Mother Nature's common table, commensal --- or we will all fry together in the upcoming global climate meltdown.

The above catchphrase sums it all up very succinctly : "Commensal ---- or FRY !!!!" *


We will all be either Commensals or Fries : just as in different situations we all seem to end up either Roundheads or Cavaliers/ Union Blue or Confederate Grey / BLUE staters or RED staters.

In the old days, say up to about 1973, the choice was equally stark and the debate equally heated.

It was about dividing Humanity's strictly limited pie.

 How much to the workers ? How much left then to the bosses ?

A Zero-Sum Game.

Dressed up in its Sunday Best, it was the battle between Socialism and Capitalism.

It even engaged future King Edward VII.

Today there is a new battle, but still over the same old pie - more or less.

Today's Humanity Pie is much bigger --- much much bigger - and that is the problem.

Its bigger but it is making us sick - and making the whole world sick - because it is so big - too big.

One side of us says that unless Mankind learns to restrain its appetites and saves a little grain for Mother Nature's Golden Goose, it will stop laying its Golden Eggs for us.

The other side says we can , in effect, live very well without natural resources, nature's species - and to be frank about it - without most other people.

Like the birds and the bees and the trees, they are all 'useless mouths' consuming what could - and should - be Modernist Man's alone.

You know where I stand on this new debate that
is riveting and dividing all of Human Society.

 I believe Science has shown for over hundred years - even if most scientists won't admit it - that all multi-celled life on Earth is highly and totally interdependent on each other and above all on the uni-celled life forms living invisibly on and around us.

Only these tiny life forms can truly see us multi-celled beings as 'useless mouths' they could well live without.

We can't say the reverse.

We multi-celled beings are all parasites , feeding off the world the microbes made viable well before we ever got here.

If we disappeared it still would be as viable - but if we got rid of ALL the microbes we ourselves won't be here very long - all of us would be dead in a few months.

Mankind's greedy environmental and climate changes won't really FRY the planet .

But it does mean, at the very least, that billions of humans would die.

At worse,we might even tip the world into a climate state where almost all but the tiniest multi-celled beings would die - leaving only the meekest of Live to inherit the Earth.

As the very last of our global corporate CEOs fries, I wonder if he (and it will be a HE for sure) will go off to 'that even hotter place' humming Alanis's tune, "isn't it ironic..."

* When the pioneers tumbled themselves
and their barn-fed pigs off the boat and into the New World's heavily-treed wilderness, they shoved their swine off into the woods to forge for themselves, telling them , "Root Hog ---- Die !!!!!".

Today, it much the same - either Mankind learns to live within Nature's means or he will fry up this Planet.

This is today's existential crisis for today's Modernist Man :

DENY... & FRY !!!

" Commensal ---- or FRY !!!!!! "

Michael Marshall

The choice is stark --- the debate will be heated.

We must all learn to live together: all diners at Mother Nature's common table, commensal --- or we will all fry together in the upcoming global climate meltdown.

The above catchphrase sums it all up very succinctly : "Commensal ---- or FRY !!!!" *


We will all be either Commensals or Fries : just as in different situations we all seem to end up either Roundheads or Cavaliers/ Union Blue or Confederate Grey / BLUE staters or RED staters.

In the old days, say up to about 1973, the choice was equally stark and the debate equally heated.

It was about dividing Humanity's strictly limited pie.

 How much to the workers ? How much left then to the bosses ?

A Zero-Sum Game.

Dressed up in its Sunday Best, it was the battle between Socialism and Capitalism.

It even engaged future King Edward VII.

Today there is a new battle, but still over the same old pie - more or less.

Today's Humanity Pie is much bigger --- much much bigger - and that is the problem.

Its bigger but it is making us sick - and making the whole world sick - because it is so big - too big.

One side of us says that unless Mankind learns to restrain its appetites and saves a little grain for Mother Nature's Golden Goose, it will stop laying its Golden Eggs for us.

The other side says we can , in effect, live very well without natural resources, nature's species - and to be frank about it - without most other people.

Like the birds and the bees and the trees, they are all 'useless mouths' consuming what could - and should - be Modernist Man's alone.

You know where I stand on this new debate that
is riveting and dividing all of Human Society.

 I believe Science has shown for over hundred years - even if most scientists won't admit it - that all multi-celled life on Earth is highly and totally interdependent on each other and above all on the uni-celled life forms living invisibly on and around us.

Only these tiny life forms can truly see us multi-celled beings as 'useless mouths' they could well live without.

We can't say the reverse.

We multi-celled beings are all parasites , feeding off the world the microbes made viable well before we ever got here.

If we disappeared it still would be as viable - but if we got rid of ALL the microbes we ourselves won't be here very long - all of us would be dead in a few months.

Mankind's greedy environmental and climate changes won't really FRY the planet .

But it does mean, at the very least, that billions of humans would die.

At worse,we might even tip the world into a climate state where almost all but the tiniest multi-celled beings would die - leaving only the meekest of Live to inherit the Earth.

As the very last of our global corporate CEOs fries, I wonder if he (and it will be a HE for sure) will go off to 'that even hotter place' humming Alanis's tune, "isn't it ironic..."

* When the pioneers tumbled themselves
and their barn-fed pigs off the boat and into the New World's heavily-treed wilderness, they shoved their swine off into the woods to forge for themselves, telling them , "Root Hog ---- Die !!!!!".

Today, it much the same - either Mankind learns to live within Nature's means or he will fry up this Planet.

This is today's existential crisis for today's Modernist Man :

DENY... & FRY !!!

When Modernity said MAN above Nature, they meant it ...

"We must all learn to live together within Nature: all diners at her common table (commensal) or all learn to die together, frying up in the upcoming global climate meltdown."   (Blog Mission Statement.)

The MAN bit I mean.

Modernists did (and still do) see women,children ,natives, savages,primitives, animals, ethnic minorities, the 'defective' and pretty well everybody else but themselves as part of Nature, far, far, far below them.

If you plug in  'well-off' ,'powerful', 'but still angry' ,'old', 'white' ,'protestant', 'males' you pretty well have the sort of MAN that still ,still, thinks he is not part of Nature but flying in a sort of reverie/haze/daze miles above it.

In his mind.

And I mean that literally not figuratively - these guys sorta, half, admit that their bodies are part of sordid, damp, sticky, icky, Ole Nature.

But their minds, their minds !!!

Their pure Platonic , all-seeing, all-hearing, all-knowing, minds.

They are not part of part of Nature, but rather live in a parallel universe of mathematics, logic, rationality, utilitarianism .

Cool, calculating ,un-emotional, un-sentimental Man.

This is the sort of wet dream that all well-fed ,well-off, underworked & over-praised teenage boys have.

The sort of day-dreams you have when mom and dad wait on you hand and foot and you grow up thinking the whole world is your oyster.

Spoil your child and he will end up, inevitably, spoiling your world - your whole world, from the top of the atmosphere to the bottoms of the ocean.

If our teenage sons still have these wet dreams when they grow up, then the world knows them Modernists ( or Republicans or Soviets or Fascists or Progressives.)

However, rather like the Pharisee said long ago,  "I thank God that I am not a Modernist ---- I am a Commensalist..."

When Modernity said MAN above Nature, they meant it ...

Michael Marshall

The MAN bit I mean.

Modernists did (and still do) see women,children ,natives, savages,primitives, animals, ethnic minorities, the 'defective' and pretty well everybody else but themselves as part of Nature, far, far, far below them.

If you plug in  'well-off' ,'powerful', 'but still angry' ,'old', 'white' ,'protestant', 'males' you pretty well have the sort of MAN that still ,still, thinks he is not part of Nature but flying in a sort of reverie/haze/daze miles above it.

In his mind.

And I mean that literally not figuratively - these guys sorta, half, admit that their bodies are part of sordid, damp, sticky, icky, Ole Nature.

But their minds, their minds !!!

Their pure Platonic , all-seeing, all-hearing, all-knowing, minds.

They are not part of part of Nature, but rather live in a parallel universe of mathematics, logic, rationality, utilitarianism .

Cool, calculating ,un-emotional, un-sentimental Man.

This is the sort of wet dream that all well-fed ,well-off, underworked & over-praised teenage boys have.

The sort of day-dreams you have when mom and dad wait on you hand and foot and you grow up thinking the whole world is your oyster.

Spoil your child and he will end up, inevitably, spoiling your world - your whole world, from the top of the atmosphere to the bottoms of the ocean.

If our teenage sons still have these wet dreams when they grow up, then the world knows them Modernists ( or Republicans or Soviets or Fascists or Progressives.)

However, rather like the Pharisee said long ago,  "I thank God that I am not a Modernist ---- I am a Commensalist..."

Lack of CALORIES & CITIZENS, not lack of CHROMIUM & COAL stymied combatant nations during WWII ....

Its usually said that a lack of strategic natural resources - ferroalloys, petroleum, even coal was the downfall of Japan and Germany.

Don't buy it.

They began to run short of these materials in 1945, months away from losing a six year long war of attrition.

Running short of these materials moments before their defeat was more of a sign rather than a cause of their collapse.

The empire held and controlled by Germany between 1940 and 1944 was more or less the area held by today's EU --- just as the empire that Japan held in those years was the same as what we call the South East Asia Economic Tigers.

These two areas then and now, along with America and the former USSR, were the powerhouses of the globe - in terms of people, industry,science.

Yet these two empires failed to either adequately feed their subjects or turn them into willing citizens, prepared to work hard and die hard for those empires.

Lack of food and lack of civic support worked together in an entangled way --- if the subject people had felt warmly towards Japanese and Germans ,they would have produced the food to fill their bellies and quiet their dislike.

Lack of Calories is just another way to say lack of Citizenship and vice versa.

The modernist rulers of these empires failed to treat Nature (or people they considered lessors/close to Nature) with the respect they deserved and then paid the price when their potential strong empires collapsed from within --from lack of supporters.

The Soviets also failed to feed their people and while they inspired the naive, the rest they had to drive into battle with guns at their heads.

Things weren't so dramatic in the American and British empires but even there relatively few people were willing to volunteering for  infantry, eager to drive the Japanese and Nazis from their conquests.

People did not flock to the colors in a sort of moral crusade.

Instead, they saw its as a grimly necessary 'job' and plodded into battle led by generals equally cautious and uninspiring.

True, food was more or less adequate in these empires.

But the ruling people (and the subject peoples) of  empires based on a mild form of racism were hardly going to go all out to defeat other empires that were also based on racism, now were they ?

In the end, it took six long , costly, years for a half dozen world-sized empires to defeat two relatively small empires --- hardly an inspiring record...