Tsunami of Inevitable Change

I don’t think it’s any secret that I am a fan of how the Internet connects us all around the world.

The power of what we once called the World Wide Web has been made even more evident to me over the last few weeks.

Tonight I have spent a great deal of time watching the horrible tragedy afflicted on Japan from the Richter scaled 8.9 earthquake and the ensuing tsunami that engulfed their northeast coastline. I watched it on the Internet.

Then it spread across the Pacific Ocean and hit the western coast of the United States and Canada, albeit much weaker.

And it dawned on me …

Over the recent months we have watched as the peoples of North Africa, Egypt, and then Libya found their countries entrenched in the “I’m madder than hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore” level of protests that has or will toppled those governments.

It spread like a tsunami across the Middle East – with little sign of slowing. Protests today were held in Saudi Arabia.

A tsunami ensuing after an earthquake whose epicenter is global and webbed together by Facebook and Twitter and other social networking sites.

I am not commenting at all on what they were protesting for. Nor what they hope to accomplish. That is not where my wonderment lies.

Basically, they want change.

Instead I am in awe of how merely being connected evolves to a collective force that can topple those governments that refused to change.

Governments simply washed away in a violent flood of demand.

It’s incredible.

All of the people on Earth are going through this internet induced earthquake together. Those that enjoy freedoms that others do not in different locations around the globe create a pressure on the less fortunate to stand up for their newly realized empowerment to fight for their collective rights.

Pressure, like the tectonic plates of the world causing each other to shift – at their fault lines - and shake the entire world as they move. And impact the other places with the repercussions.

And new faults are often created in the process.

Repercussions like drastically rising oil prices. Aftershocks from those repercussions like skyrocketing food and produce prices. The potential of crumbling economies should the tremors shake be too fierce or last too long.

This global political earthquake could shake for decades, resulting in explosive wars and shifts in alliances and trading partners, and changes in political power and gross national products – until finally a new balance is found – one that global collective can all be content with – if we survive the turmoil.

The shift in the political plates that hold our world together are now shifting – as the forces that pull the world wide web pressure our world to change shape.

But change is scary.

Lands where people have lived content with their freedoms and their higher standards of economy – well – they may not want change. That regional collective mindset that change is bad is also powerful – although often more apathetic than revolutionary.

Because we all know things change.

But no one knows what the result will be.

If the laws of physics are an accurate model – things in the end will equal out. Massive shifts will finally result – someday – in things being more equal – global equality.

Global freedom.

Global democracy.

It sounds incredibly idealistic, don’t you think? Almost sickeningly so.

But the ideal won’t be reached for generations. It takes generations for mindsets to change. It will take generations for old bigotries to fade away, for old hatreds to cease, for old loyalties to reshape and re-establish.

And the ride will be hell on earth.

It will be one long continuous earthquake, with a never ending tsunami of demanded change reaching all corners of the planet as each fights for new equalities while or to hold on tight to the liberties and freedoms they currently cherish.

I am not looking forward to it.

But it just seems to be inevitable.

Some of you will shout for joy. Others of you will scream in terror.

I’m really not looking forward to this.

As regional alliances fracture under the repercussions of change – like a loving married couple fighting over money problems – the people of those populations will suffer. Other regions will benefit as their standard of living rises – the wave of the tsunami is born.

But every year computers get faster and faster – and the ties that rope together our world wide web grows stronger and stronger as new ways to be connected evolve – global collaboration evolves with it – only not everyone will be collaborating together.

But will this make change come even faster?
Scary indeed, this brave new world – predicted decades before to happen in 1984 - by the famous science fiction futurist George Orwell. But Orwell wasn’t quite right. 1984 was when the desktop computers first made inroads to the global population – but the Internet did not become globally accessible until a decade later.

And the decade after that – as we figured out ways to use these personal devices connected by our World Wide Web – here we sit. Inching closer to Orwell’s result of one collective mind.

You can almost feel the ground shaking.

I’m definitely not looking forward to this.

It will not end before I pass away, nor before my children or their children, or even their children.

But I don’t think the world will ever be the same. For better or for worse.

And I don’t think we can escape to higher ground.

Our Hearts Go Out To Haiti

The scene in Haiti is horrific.

What Haiti is experiencing right now is so enormous in scale that our strongest descriptive words like horrific and insurmountable and tragedy and incomprehensible – seem meager and unqualified to describe it.

Like the recent catastrophe in China was. As was the catastrophe in Pakistan.

But the plates that comprise our planet earth are held together by only their sheer weight and the gravity of the earth spinning on its axis.

When a poor population has to make shelters and structures, they do not have the luxury of using state of the art engineering principles to survive the incredible force of a quaking earth.

Haiti just fought off two hurricanes – those structures withstood them.

The 7.0 earthquake's epicenter was only 25 kilometers away from the Port-au-Prince.

Cement structures crumbled and fell down on top of those who occupy them. With in an instant a huge portion of the population were expired. It will be sometime until we find out how many.

The majority of the remaining population is now homeless, without shelter or facilities or services.

The structures fall down and cover the roads the roads impeding the ability to get into the most densely destroyed area.

Earthquakes don't kill people – poorly constructed structures that crumble in earthquakes kill people.

Such an overwhelming catastrophe.

And as typically happens – humankind shows its best side.

I'm impressed with how hard the Americans are trying to help.

I'm impressed with how quickly the U.N forces pulled together to jump right in to do … something.

My God, where do you start?

I am impressed with the Haitian people who managed not to be crushed immediately getting to work to find those that were.

Impressed is not a grand enough term.

Right now it's a horrific exercise in rubble removal to look for survivors – and the sorrowful task of recovering the bodies. And the insurmountably urgent task of determining what to do with those bodies. Bodies of fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers and friends and loved ones – not just bodies – but the bodies of those that you love.

The heartbreak.

Tons and tons of debris must be removed to find those trapped underneath. But how do you move such mass quickly? Where do you put it after you remove it? How do you get machinery in there to move it? And how do you move it so gently as to not crush anyone who might somehow still be alive in there?

But also - as such tragedies unfold – you not only see the greatness of the human spirit, but also the despicable.

The looting has started. Chaos is looming like a finely balanced tight rope walker on a windy day. The dark side of humankind arises as well.

It's not constrained to only the Haitian's. The worst comes from the lands looking on.

The "elite" news journalists covering this event, and then I only mean the elite faces – who are taking this opportunity to be videoed holding the hand of a screaming boy in agony because his body is crushed and his parents are killed – only to add this to their portfolio of events covered to qualify for the elite status of journalists – then off to the next opportunity for advantageous video.

The Katie Courics and the Cooper Andersons. They should be banned from ever going such places. They add no further insight by their presence.

Ego. The side of the fifth estate that is journalism that I despise.

Then there are the political winds that swirl up from such catastrophes are as well despicable. Pat Robertson – the evangelist politico wannabe inferring the Haitians deserve this tragedy as their payment to a deal made with the devil. Or Rush Limbaugh declaring the democratic right and specifically Obama – using this event for political positioning.

If there was ever a pot calling a kettle black …

No help – just political posturing. Yes, I believe Robertson is more a political opportunist than a man of the holy word. The proof spews out in his words of contempt.

As well, we now must also be aware of the scammers trying to fool the rest of the world into giving money to phony aid programs.

But why is such a place as Haiti – so geographically positioned and so culturally rich – so poverty stricken to begin with?

History unveils the facts that Haiti's poverty is the result of the French forcing the re-payment of 70 million francs - a bill that in today's dollars would have been over twenty one billion dollars – as the remaining debt owed by Haitian freed slaves after succeeding in their battle for independence. The same era of time during the years of America's Deal with the French for the Louisiana Purchase.

In those days – Haiti was an incredibly rich and profitable nation as a shipping hub and exporter of tropical goods. But the high price of this bill allowed little left over to build a proper infrastructure. This problem further accentuated by multiple reigns of ruthless and greedy dictators – scraping the profits remaining to build palaces and fund their extravagant lifestyles.

But that is history. Those people are no longer around to blame or to hold accountable.

The task ahead of Haiti is enormous. They cannot solve this problem alone. They need to world to help.

What can we do?

What can we – people like me – people most likely like you – the common person in the landscape of the world – do?

We can give money.

We can't go to Haiti and start removing rubble. We can't go to Haiti and start performing medical aid. We can't go to Haiti and cook meals in person. We can't go there to physically assist in this disaster.

We would be in the way.

So we can give money.

As you sit this moment and read my words on your monitor or LCD screen or cell phone – please think about how incredibly lucky that you are that you are not going through this horrific tragedy. And think about how you would feel if it was you, or someone you loved deeply, trapped under rubble still – alive or dead – and how helpless you would feel not being able to do anything.

Then do something.

Do what you can do.

Send money.

Send a thousand dollars, or a hundred dollars, or ten dollars.

Anything will help.

Please visit http://www.redcross.org/ today and determine how best you can assist.

My biggest regret in writing this post is that I wrote it five days too late.