5 II. Introduction: The Clash of Civilizations Human vs. Inhuman Civilization For our entire lives we have been engaged by “the clash of civilizations.” We have witnessed: • Democratic nations versus the Nazis; • A cold war with Russia; • A return of the medieval war between Christi- anity and Islam; • And now apparently the United States and European Union are cycling back into a cold war – some would say a “hot” war – against Russia. Variations on the theme of the clash of civiliza- tions include wars declared against invisible (and quite possibly non-existent) enemies, including: • The War on Poverty; • The War on Drugs; • The War on Terrorism. Then there were cultural and information wars such as: • Race wars; • The battles between the sexes; • Media wars. We have witnessed additional “races” such as the Arms Race and the Space Race that inspired pop- ulations to compete with each other. Technology has continued to expand the frontiers of warfare, its latest being cyber warfare. Throughout our immersion in perpetual war, several themes recur: • The perpetual search for cheap natural re- sources and labor that subsidizes one civiliza- tion at the expense of another; • The centuries-old struggle between the forces and economics of centralization versus decen- tralization; • The use of “divide and conquer” tactics to govern and control; • The success of Western civilization due to its superiority in warfare – both the overt and the covert applications of organized violence and psychological warfare known as mind control. As advances in technology and rapid globalization inspire the reinvention of just about everything, a fundamental question appears: will ours be a human or an inhuman civilization? This question represents the real clash of civilizations currently before us – with powerful forces arrayed on both sides. In many respects, the clash offers a high- tech variation of the age-old question of peace versus war. Can the human race prosper without more debt, crime, and war? A new President and his administration now grap- ple with how the United States, its economy and its role in the world will evolve from the Bretton Woods system created at the end of WWII and our uni-polar vision of the world. Will the United States successfully adapt to a more globalized, multi-polar world order? This critical discussion, begun in a rancorous campaign, is shrouded by partisan politics and a media “shriek-o-meter” that is distracting at best and dishonest at worst. At the heart of this problem lie the deep contra- dictions within the US economy that result from an economic addiction to debt, crime, and war. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” — The United States Declaration of Independence