we've got to have peace

Was trying to get a hold of this idea which came to me -- this alternative "story-line" to explain why American leaders have allowed globalization, even though it hasn't been very good, in the short run, for our own economy.


It's like this ...


(maybe)


After the Second World War, the (then) new existence of the atomic bomb was perceived to mean that there could never be another vast, worldwide conflict like World Wars I and II, because mankind could be completely wiped out.  (Or almost completely, and that was seen as being even worse, for the survivors...I was tired of books and movies with plots based on that theme before I was out of grade school...NONONO...)


-------------------- [excerpt, Robert Dallek's LBJ bio] --------------- [and, P.S., remember this is in 1946, when people talked like this...] ------------- Dr. Robert Montgomery of the University of Texas... warned that another war in an atomic age would mean the end of humankind.  "We've got to live in a brotherhood of man," Montgomery declared.  "I don't like the idea, either, of being brothers to Russians.  And Africans, and Republicans.  And some Democrats.  But that's the way it is . . . . We've got to have peace.  We probably have to have one world government.  A United States of the world."


Paul Bolton, the news director at KTBC [Lyndon Johnson's Texas radio station], reported Montgomery's speech..."He is preaching salvation, yours and mine," Bolton said.  " . . . If he doesn't convince you that we must have a brotherhood of man, he'll . . . scare the living hell out of you."  Johnson placed Bolton's remarks about Montgomery's "most impressive presentation of the necessity for world cooperation in the atomic age" in the Congressional Record. ------------ [end biography excerpt]


__________________


"We've got to have peace."


And -- to that end:  globalization.
I think maybe that's what they're doing.
Theory:
The reason America's leaders agreed to globalization:


To make it so that people can have a livable economy in many places all over the world.


(and when we say "have a livable economy," what we mean is -- where people can work and earn a living, which = Live Indoors, and Not starve to death.  Then comes education, freedom of religion, democracy, not getting killed by other countries' armies, and not getting killed by their own governments.)


To make it so that there are viable economies in many places all over the world.


To make it so that there are viable economies in many places all over the world.


To make it so that there are viable economies in many places all over the world.


As Congressman Wilson says in Charlie Wilson's War, "...everybody lives."



My theory behind the idea of "Everybody lives" is, war and terrorism and other evils come about because there are people who are desperate.  (Desperate enough to follow Hitler.  Desperate enough to follow Osama bin Laden.  Stalin...)  If we can get a world economy going on where people can make a decent living all across the globe, then there will be fewer people who are desperate.


_____________________________


And -- to have a functioning, worldwide economy (livable economy; viable economy) is possible, now, because of the following factors:


Technology


The demise of communism.



____________________
Reasons why we want a functioning, viable worldwide economy:


1.  No more world wars; the earth & everyone on it does not get nuked
2.  We don't get killed by terrorists
3.  No more famine
4.  Immigration as an issue would be vastly reduced; people will be able to have a reasonable lifestyle in their own country; they won't all have to try to emigrate to U.S., Canada, and Western Europe
5.  Communism does not make a come-back
6.  Terrorism declines and dies out
7.  Under worldwide web instant-scrutiny, barbaric local lifestyle practices decline and die out.


--------------------------- "Everybody lives."



-------------------------- That's what it is, I think.  Our leaders were not trying to sell out their own country, or hurt the middle class (even though that's what happened, short-term).  They're trying to create optimum conditions for world peace (the "big picture), which is what everybody wants all the time, but we didn't used to think we could ever really have it.



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