Monday, August 13, 2012

More News from the Future from Toronto


News from the Future
World Future Society Conference 2012 Toronto
By Paul Rux, Ph.D.
Once a year, the World Future Society, the leading practice group for experts on discovering likely future trends, holds a three-day conference.  To it come 500-600 experts from all parts of the globe to share their foresights about what probably is coming down the “pipeline” to shape our futures.
As a Professional Member of the World Future Society, who has designed and teaches online courses about trend forecasting for doctoral students at Jones International University, this writer was eager to attend and “mine” the conference for “nuggets” about emerging trends likely to shape our future. I would like to “share the wealth” with you through quick summaries of some “nuggets of foresight” that “bubbled” to the forefront of discussion in various conference workshops in which I participated.
The first and most important “nugget” concerns Mexico.  During a break in one of the sessions, this writer turned to introduce himself to the man sitting behind me.  He was a high-ranking military officer from the Pentagon, where he is a “war planner.”  I asked him if he could share some of his current work.  He answered, “Mexico.”  Members of the Mexican Army are right now in Washington to work with the Pentagon on how the United States of America will support a probable war there against the drug cartels that threaten to destroy the government of Mexico.  I said this confirmed what I had heard two years ago from a former member of the State Department who told the audience at another conference in the USA.  This country has branch plants operating in Northern Mexico; there also is oil in Northern Mexico.  It is highly unlikely that Washington will allow drug cartels to seize these assets.  Moreover, if the government of Mexico collapses, we can expect a flood of refugees coming north to escape the violence.  While we bleed in the Middle East, Mexico is getting ready to explode; Mexico is right here, on our border.  There is no way we can “sit on our hands” while Mexico slips into criminal anarchy.  Is war in Mexico likely?  The Pentagon thinks so, for it is preparing to fight one there in the near future.
The second “nugget” comes from the Dominican Republic.  During the conference, a panel of five “futurists” shared with us the “latest news” from their countries.  The panel member from the Dominican Republic, a young woman with a graduate degree in international relations from an American university shared with us how her country coped with a recent food crisis, which was “news” to this writer.  According to her, stock market speculators trade on average $4 trillion dollars worth of food every day.  The result of this manipulation of food supply costs plunged Dominica into a food crisis.  People could not afford to pay the “jacked-up” prices that the Wall Street “banksters” wanted for the food under their control.  As a result of this food crisis, Dominica convened a “national conference” where the various political parties there set aside their partisans ambitions to find a way to make sure their people could eat.  This stunned this writer!  Imagine Democrats and Republicans in America sitting down to agree on what is good for the welfare of the American people.  Don’t hold your breath for this kind of thinking and action here.  In Dominica, the government – all parties together – resolved to stop stock market speculation in food stuffs there.  The national conference declared that every Dominican had a right to enough food to eat.  People come first, and profits come second.  After her presentation, this writer told her how badly his country needed the political capacity to come together for the good of the American people.  He told her how painful it was to hear Dominica could do it and realize we cannot.

The third “nugget” was painful.  It came from the Pentagon war planner.  After telling this writer about the presence of Mexican military planners at the Pentagon, he also added that military planners from Vietnam were also there!  Vietnam and the Philippines are at odds with China over control of the oil in the South China Sea.  The US is hatching war plans to back up these countries against China.  The tar sands of the Province of Alberta in Canada have twice the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia; the war planners in Washington are getting ready for possible military action over oil in the South China Sea!  Earlier during our chat, the Pentagon planner told me how he was a draftee in the Vietnam War and had remained in the military.   Imagine.  Here is an American Vietnam Veteran working with his former enemies - who at one time literally tried to kill him - as allies.  I told him that I did not want to pull any “scabs,” but I asked him what the Vietnam War was all about if the Vietnamese, who were a colony of China for centuries, have been anti-Chinese all along, natural allies for us.  “Yes, the Vietnamese have a ‘gut’ hatred of the Chinese,” was his reply.  Beyond that we did not go; it is a hard topic for Americans. 

The fourth “nugget” was a complete surprise.  It came from the panelist from Azerbaijan, a well dressed young woman, a “fashion plate,” who looked like she stepped off the pages of Vogue.  Our media constantly bombard us with images of how primitively dressed women in the Middle East are in comparison with ours.  Her presence and polish suggested our media engage in propaganda to help to justify our wars in the Middle East – for oil, of course – against primitive killers and religious fanatics.  Her PowerPoint pictures of her home country also caught me totally off guard.  Instead of mud huts, we saw modern urban centers which looked like cities in America.  This progress, she said, was the result of the huge deposits of oil and natural gas in her country.  These resources have enabled the Azerbaijanis to move quickly into the 21st century.  They even have an Azerbaijani future society which conducts trend forecasts about the possible and probable future of the country.  This was a surprise, but even more stunning was her invitation to this writer to attend its annual conference in Azerbaijan in 2013!  I knew Azerbaijan borders with Iran; reluctantly, for I did not want to create a “downer” after her super update, I asked her about possible war with Iran.  She pointed out that two million Azerbaijanis live within the borders of Iran; another one million are refugees from Iran in Azerbaijan.  Yet, despite their severe border problems, she saw no reason for war between Azerbaijan and Iran.  Meanwhile, in the United States of America, halfway around the world from Azerbaijan, we hear constant “drumming” for war between Iran and America from “chicken hawks” in Washington.  Perhaps this writer will make it to the annual conference of the Azerbaijani future society; the “war drums” must stop banging here first.

Paul Rux, Ph.D. (Wisconsin-Madison) lives in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin.  He has presented workshops at the Washington, D.C. conferences of the World Future Society and published in its journal, The Futurist.    Last year he was part of an online, global research group on the future of teaching trend forecasting for the European School of Business, Wiesbaden, Germany.   www.paulrux.net

  


No comments: