Aug 27 2007
An Excerpt from MOBS by Bill Bonner
Two Kinds of World Improvers The Daily Reckoning - Weekend Edition
August 25-26, 2007
Ouzilly, France
By Bill Bonner
MARKET REVIEW: TWO KINDS OF WORLD IMPROVERS
Can you really improve the world by telling it what to do? Or does it have to follow its own course to its own destination in its own good time?
We saw the two approaches to world improvement standing almost side by side one weekend in early 2005. The one on the silver screen wore a Nazi uniform. The other, in rural Normandy, wore the simple frock of a priest.
“I have devoted my entire life to making the world a better place,” said Adolf Hitler, or words to that effect.
“But, mein F¨uhrer,” explained one of his generals, “Berlin is nearly surrounded. We have no more ammunition. We must try to negotiate.”
“You, too? I am surrounded by incompetents and traitors,” came the reply. “We can never surrender. I’d rather put a bullet into my head. We have done all we could, so far. We must go all the way-to the end, if that is what is coming.”
“But, mein F¨uhrer, think of the suffering of the German people.”
“You want me to have compassion? My work was too important to let compassion or any personal motives interfere. So, don’t expect me to be compassionate now. And besides, the German people deserve to die, too; they let me down. They aren’t worthy of the great new world we were offering them.”
It was on a Friday evening that we went to see the new German film, Downfall. It was everything that Alexander the Great was not. While Alexander was made to look absurd and laughable, AdolfHitler looked very real-and pathetic. In Downfall, we see the Thousand-Year Reich coming to an end 990 years ahead of schedule. We see mature, battle-hardened generals who cannot bring themselves to disobey. There will be hell to pay, but they soldier on anyway. Many blow their brains out rather than try to come up with Plan B.
The Sunday after we saw Downfall, we went to the little church in Normandy. We introduced ourselves and the priest apologized for the small turnout and the humble circumstances. Looking around at the handful of the gray-haired faithful, it appeared that death was not only inevitable but imminent. There was hardly a person under the age of 70.
Later, in his sermon, the priest commented on Christ’s beatitudes. “We Christians are urged to be a ‘light unto the world.’ But what does that mean? Does it mean we have to change the government?
Or that we have to change the way people worship or the way they act? No, it means we have to change ourselves.”
This type of world improver hardly even dares to think about improving the world. He is much more modest. The best he can do is to make small private gestures in his own world.
“We are called to be a ‘light unto the world,’” continued the priest, “by lighting up our own little world. By visiting the sick. By welcoming strangers and newcomers to the community. By caring for the poor. By comforting those who suffer from sickness of the body or the spirit. We light up the world simply by being the decent people that Christ showed us how to be: by showing compassion, in other words . . . and by loving our neighbors as ourselves.”
But, in the autumn of 2005 Americans had come to believe not in being a light, but in packing heat. They believed in something they thought more dependable than traditions or gods-themselves. The whole nation seemed to have become a giant O. J.
Simpson jury, unable to imagine that its homeland boys could be doing anything but good. Pictures were exhibited on national television, clearly showing a U.S. marine gunning down a wounded prisoner. “This one’s faking he’s dead,” said the marine. Then, after a clatter of gunfire, “He’s dead now.” A poll taken the next day revealed that the crowd back home was fully behind its troops-three out of four people thought the Iraqi had it coming.
Americans believe themselves to be good people. How this special state of grace was accorded to them they do not know. How they might remain in such grace they do not ask. But they are sure they will get into heaven, even if they have to climb a pile of dead Iraqis to get there. Americans know they are good because their enemies are bad people. Can good people do bad things? Can bad people do good things? The questions are rarely raised and more rarely answered; one might as well ask a parrot to decline an irregular Latin verb. The few who take up the question at all quickly shut down their frontal lobes to avoid overheating and refer the matter back to more primitive parts of the brain for judgment.
Continued below…
Bill Bonner
The Daily Reckoning
P.S. The rest of this excerpt of our new book, Mobs, Messiahs and Markets can be found below…
