The Big Idea

Big ideas from small minds is a recipe for disaster.  Globalization is the big idea that epitomizes the concept.  It redefines the word 'disaster'.  It's not that the people who promoted the idea weren't smart - just the opposite in fact.  They were very smart, just not smart enough.  They were experts in their field, but experts have a narrow field of vision.  What was good for the bottom line of technology corporations has not been good for the world upon which the vision  has been inflicted. 

The big idea of globalization was to wire the world with an Internet capable telecommunications system bringing modernity to the deepest, darkest, most primitive regions of the world.   The evangelists of enlightenment by fiber optics dazzled political leaders with the profit potential of creating demand in the developing regions of the world.  The scripture in the Technology God's bible taught that the investment of developed world dollars in cable, computers and software was the equivalent of giving fire to cavemen allowing them to leap from the Stone Age to the Space Age in a single bound.   If only the starving people in Africa had access to the Internet, they could jump online and order seeds from Monsanto; order tractors from John Deere; and pesticides and fertilizer from Dow Chemical.  That's quite a vision isn't it?

It will take a century or more for historians to document the cascading disasters that are the result of the flawed Big Idea - the irony of which is that the developed world from which the Big Idea sprang - is collapsing and poverty around the world is increasing - not diminishing.  The lesson that human beings apparently must re-learn time and time again is that when men attempt to elevate themselves to Gods, their human flaws are magnified concurrent with the exhibition of ego.   

September 11, 2001 was the inevitable result of the Big Idea.  High crimes and misdemeanors have been committed in the name of Globalization by men - not in caves, but in boardrooms and the chambers of government.  Evidence of the crimes were exploded in the buildings that were demolished.  With the demolitions, the illusion that the American government operated with good intentions for the world and was led by men and women of integrity exploded in the clouds of dust.  The illusion of Americans as being strong, and brave - standing up for what's right - gone.  The illusion of truth, honor and justice as ideals valued within American society - gone.  What has been revealed is an American character that is like a diseased tree - strong looking on the outside, but rotten and hollowed on the inside. 

The importance of the 9-11 event will never fade no matter how much time passes because it was the day that Evil triumphed over Good and our leaders told us to "just go shopping".  Nothing more need be said.  

Vicky Davis
September 11, 2009