History’s Might Have Been

One of many. 

This is interesting. Also, it is not generally known in the west what the rest of the world does when left on their own. I guess we all think they disappear into China cabinets and Matryoshka dolls and Lederhosen. Well, they’re not. China is currently investing huge amounts of money (trillions,) in building an infrastructure that will encompass Europe, Asia, and Africa. And it could have been done a century ago to an even greater extent.

After the Trans-Siberian Railroad was complete, the backers and leaders of the project wanted to continue it across the Barents Sea, across the Aleutian Islands, and into Alaska, where they would continue into Canada and down into the US. They had a concept down. A plan. All the expertise in building a railroad 6000 miles through wilderness that is frozen for over half the year. And they had the backing. On hand. In the bank. They had all they needed. A little jaunt across the north Pacific should be as easy as borsch.

Until a little jaunt called the Bolshevik Revolution banished the borsch. The money disappeared, of course. Just like Napoleon. Just like Hitler. Just like many countries over the centuries, and just like some clueless countries today, they all thought they could just waltz in and loot the vast wealth of Russia. Well, the Bolsheviks succeeded where everyone else had failed. The dreams of connecting five continents together imploded, gone in an instant. All that historic might-have-been visionary varnish vanished. Replaced by the greed of a few men who viewed the rest of humanity as raw material. Fungible. Workable. Disposable. And they are still trying to break Russia up into sweet and savory pieces. It doesn’t seem to be going well. It usually doesn’t.

Imagine if this project had been finished back then? At least the connection with Alaska might have been completed in a reasonable timeframe. Imagine a marker in New York City that read, 32,544 (20,221) indicating kilometers (miles) from Moscow to New York City like the one in Vladivostok that read 9,228? What kind of unfolding of European and Asian history, not to mention America’s contribution to it, might have happened? One of history’s great might-have-beens. Maybe it yet will be, again. That is, if we can stop thrashing around the world like a wounded and very pissed rhinoceros caught in a bog of its own creation and start working with the rest of the world to have a future.  

Maybe? (Click to see post.)

Ma Belle

It was so cute how, growing up, we had the Phone Company. American Telephone and Telegraph. AT&T. Notice the all caps? Now a-days it’s just at&t and the acronym at&t doesn’t actually mean anything because it’s a word now, not an acronym, and since words don’t mean anything today, why should letters?

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t sent too many telegraphs lately. Though come to think of it, all computer messages are in dots and dashes. We just call them bits. So we may still be in the age of telegraphy.

The Phone Company, Ma Belle, expanded to occupy all available, and weakly defended, spaces around it, as all gasses and businesses do. And they become too bloated. And bureaucratic. And unresponsive. So they got the ax. Ma Belle gave birth to many Baby Belles, who ruled the party lines throughout the lands. Some thought that was a good idea. Trust Busters. Bring down the beast, and all that. Some thought it was destroying a colossus to control a callous. Maybe. It’s everyone’s desire to control the colossus. But it’s no one’s desire to claim the consequences. Or to let anyone else be in control of the colossus’ wheel.

The eponymous results of Ma Belle’s cutting the apron strings with her numerous relations was a fracturing of communication. AT&T became a provider of long-distance traffic. Eventually getting into cell phones and Internet connections. The ubiquitous local phone companies kept busy cutting corners and making sure to get as much profit out of the layman’s class as possible. Bell Labs, in Murray Hill, New Jersey, used to be AT&A’s Research and Development lab. They developed the transistor there. And discovered the Cosmic Background Radiation. The new Phone Company sold off Bell Labs. It’s worth more as an accounts receivable today than as an investment for tomorrow. It’s only good accounting. It belongs to Nokia now. When they create something clever, we’ll just steal it.

No-one likes a monopoly. No-one likes a bureaucracy. No-one likes too much power in two few hands. But everyone likes service, technology, and instant gratification. Everyone likes a strong hand at the wheel. As long as it is their hand.

So, again we are here. Instead of Lily Tomlin and her ringy-dingy’s, we have Ma Google and Ma Facebook. Ever notice how these two companies don’t provide an actual service that requires a contract and just compensation for services rendered? Really? Who pays for all this shit? What are they doing and who are they cow-towing to for the funding?

It was seventy years ago that George Orwell wrote his classic, 1984. The year was 1948. For his book title, he decided to switch the last two digits of the current year, so it became 1984. That was a scary book. The antagonist, Big Brother, had a big Slavic face and a walrus mustache, achingly like Joseph Stalin. In the end Big Brother won. The proles were broken and the former intelligentsia were cracked and bitter, set against each other like rats. And afraid of being disappeared at any moment. I don’t recommend it.

I liked Animal Farm much better, because it portrayed the Fascist state as unsustainable. Once it ran its course of looting, mind control, and warping the animal brains at the farm into directions they all wanted to go into anyway, the inner politburo just started eating itself. There is no center to Fascism. No center to hold. The widening gyre goes haywire, and then spins off the axis. And then the proles are left to sort out the debris. I suppose empires do this as well. We certainly have no lack of historic references. A revolution does not produce a better society. Just another society after much suffering and repentance. As Franklin said, A republic, if you can keep it.

OK. Ma Belle, Ma Google, Ma Facebook. Things change. Things stay the same. Things get worse.

Things get better?