The New Dark Age

I spoke to a "breakout" group of these progressive Christians about the democratic nature of agriculture - why many small family farmers are essential for good food, good health, and democracy.

Other speakers addressed social, economic and environmental issues. The heart of the dilemma is the continuation of the seventeenth-century metaphysics that has been legitimizing the mechanization and dehumanization of the world.

Global warming is but one, if not the most lethal, of the tragedies engulfing the planet and its growing population, now at the seven billion mark. Indeed, the "climate change" conference in early December 2011 in Durban, South Africa showed clearly the moral depravity of the rulers of the world - sacrificing the children of the world and the earth on the altars of petroleum and coal companies.

Feudalism, 2011 style

I am a historian. I see a dark-age precedent in the present impasse. The first Dark Age lasted for several centuries. And the name, Dark Age, is equivalent to a Europe stripped of its Greek and Roman culture by Christianity and conquering barbarians. The rediscovery of the Greek and Roman texts in the fifteenth century ended the Dark Age.

Like the feudal lords of the dark ages, our "leaders" in 2011 don't like democracy and the sense of fairness, equity and justice inherent in democracy. That's why they allow foreclosure of homes, by far the most humiliating and violent act against families. Millions of Americans have been losing their homes through foreclosure.

American politicians, however, live in a different world. In large measure, they are millionaires or servants of the oligarchs owning corporations. They don't mind that the vast number of Americans is being impoverished by wilful policies of the banks and other corporations. They prefer serfs to citizens.

These new dark-age managers are destroying Greece, for example. The IMF and Europe's central bank are squeezing Greece so much that, in addition to bringing poverty to millions of Greeks, they are also demanding the shredding of a few pockets of outstanding scientific research taking place in the country that invented science.

On October 19, 2011, Stamatis Krimizis, a Greek American scientist with a distinguished record of accomplishments at NASA now heading Greece's National Council for Research and Technology, sent a letter to academic scientists, pleading with them to intervene with their governments to help Greece in any way they can. He warned, "the grave present danger is that the [Greek] research infrastructure, as well as many other essential institutions relevant to its upgrading, may disintegrate due to the inordinate pressures being placed on the country."

However, the thoughtless and ungrateful bankers and corporate managers demanding all their money back from Greece forget that without Greece they would still be living in caves. They share none of the humanistic ideas of the Renaissance – The desire to read and learn from the Greek and Roman classics, appreciate beautiful art and architecture, and employ their inordinate wealth for the betterment of America, much less Greece. They care less about the integrity of the natural world.

Like Dark-Age barons, international bankers and members of the industrial-military-academic complex have embraced death in nuclear bombs, genetic engineering, nuclear power plants, industrialized agriculture, perpetual war, and fuelling higher temperature for the planet.

The antidote of a Renaissance