History

     I guess that poor, unfortunate hebrew fellow who scratched out the first stick figures on Mt. Sinai, which later went on to become the foundation of the alphabets for the greeks, the romans, the indo-european nations, and even arabic and even geeze .... he really need not have bothered.

     Some things in history just happen over, and over, and over again, as if none of us had any access at all to history books recording the mistakes of our forebears.  You would have thought one tower of Babylon would have been enough, but no....someone had to go and build the World Trade Center, didn't they ....

     In particular, a great idea, great statesmen, leaders during trying times who bring men together to perform spectacular feats ... this has happened so many times, so many, many times ....egypt, the persian empire, ancient greece, the seleucid empire, the babylonian empire, the roman empire, so many times .... the spanish empire, the swedish empire, the french empire, the british colonial empire, the ottoman empire ... so many times ... the Third Reich,  the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ...  economic successes lead a people to begin to believe that they, as a people, are better than everyone else, that their system is better than everyone else, and that therefore the whole world needs to be "enlightened" and liberated ... and, just as sure as night follows day, they abandon the very principles that they originally began with and which helped to make them great and powerful, they build up their military, and build, and build, they raise torture and abuse, spying and extortion, not only of foreign citizens but also their own, they bankrupt themselves on the enormous costs, and they collapse into oblivion....

    So goodie, I guess we get to do it again, huh.  This time will be a doozie ...