Letter to my Comrades

[Demeter]

OpEdNews.com

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_josh_mit_061002_letter_to_my_comrade.htm


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October 2, 2006

Letter to my Comrades
By mitteldorf

So, you think things are looking pretty bad. Just because a rogue Republican junta has control of the Presidency, the Supreme Court, and both houses of Congress you're feeling hopeless. You find grounds for pessimism in the observation that the Congress has just granted a psychopathic president an arrogation of power not seen since 1215, and the fix is in for another rigged election.

Well, let me tell you, Comrade: You may think you're looking at hopeless, but you don't know what hopeless is. I'm not going to tell you you've got food on your table and a warm bed to sleep in every night. I'm not going to tell you about the loving family in your life, the sunsets and the lakes and the mountains. No, I want to talk to you about Evolution, and about the Military-Industrial Complex.

The long-term trend in biological evolution is from predation to cooperation. This is the well-worn road from parasitism to symbiosis: organisms begin as antagonists, and end up as brothers. The bacterium invades as a parasite, maximally aggressive, and quickly kills its host. Later generations learn that if they back off a bit and allow the host to live, they can infect a lot more hosts in the long run. And as the generations go on, the parasite learns not just to co-exist with its host, but to nurture and benefit the host. Parasitism has become symbiosis, not because the bacterium has any sympathy or morality or fundamental decency, but because evolution has taught it a lesson: If I am going to make my living by mooching off you, then the better you are doing, the more there is to mooch.

In human history, the long trend is from despotism to democracy, from a monarch who lives off the work of his subjects to a generalized sharing of the fruits of labor. This is not because monarchs eventually see the light, or because good triumphs over evil; it is because when the economy is prospering, there is more for the kleptocrats to steal than when the working class is enslaved. Business moguls who sit atop a thriving economy are richer than those who preside over an economy bled dry.

And so the Bush junta must fall. It will fall not because they are unspeakably evil, not because their radical agenda is dissolving the progress of centuries, or that they are rolling back notions of human decency that go back to the Magna Carta. The Bush junta will fall because their policies are disastrous for the Military-Industrial Complex.

MORE GOOD STUFF IN ARTICLE--DO READ!

Authors Website: http://mathforum.org/~josh

Authors Bio: Josh Mitteldorf was educated to be an astrophysicist, and has branched out from there to mathematical modeling in a variety of areas. He has taught mathematics, statistics, and physics at several universities. He is an avid amateur pianist, and father of two adopted Chinese girls. This year, his affiliation is with the University of Arizona, where he studies the evolution of aging.