No matter the city or town you live in there is a good probability that you know of the major drug usage and overdose problem that has been running rampant in western societies for the past few years. I speak of course of fentanyl which is 50 to100 times more powerful than morphine and its close relative carfentanil which is around 100 times more powerful than fentanyl and was originally used as a tranquilizer for large mammals like elephants.
Fentanyl and it’s relatives were legal in China up until 2017 at which point the government decided that the substance of which extreme minuscule amounts could kill hundred of people should not be available for mail order delivery around the world. However, the banning of the product did not stop the export of said opioids by nefarious individuals in China and what now probably involves other countries productive abilities as well, which has unleashed the not knowing if you are going to die when you ingest your psychological crutch, in whatever form of ingestion you choose.
The nefarious drug dealers I spoke of above have all the hallmarks of some shady characters of history past going back some 180 years previously and moving forward in time from that date. These pushers of antiquity however were mostly British, but also, French, American and a few other nationalities as well and they spawned what human record has come to know as The Opium Wars. Of these wars, which there were officially two(we will not get into the more modern golden triangle and golden crescent.)
It was 1839 and Britain was well established in their colonial domination of cultures and the natural resources that came along with such endeavours. China was an inward looking trading nation and was the terminal point on was known as the Silk Road, basically a trade route with many nations that exported quality products such as silk of course, spices, porcelain and others wares, along with tea, one of the things one mistakenly thinks of when you think of the British.
The British and other colonial powers wanted the quality products that China had to offer but China did not want most of the crap that western powers had on offer, leaving Britain with a trade deficit. Back then money and currency were actually based off of commodities and silver was the payment of choice for the Chinese at the time. As well China understood what happens to a society once western powers were allowed to wander around free of rein in a country. Hint, it went to shit most of the time. So the Chinese attempted to limit the British powers to strictly do trade from the port of Canton.
China, had a long history of opium use, which was part of ancient Chinese medicine and was eaten a lot of the time as well as smoked by all classes of society. So Britain, not wanting to part with their precious silver, in lieu, started to flood China with more powerful opium grown in one of their other colonies, India. Basically Chinese officials became tired of quality goods leaving China with not as much actual silver currency coming into the country but an extreme surplus of drug addicted Chinese citizens abusing the excess opium, which did nothing to strengthen the country, in fact the polar opposite, it severely weakened it. China’s neighbours took note of this fact and it had a negative effect in the years to come.
The war broke out in 1839 and lasted for over two years. Britain being the supreme naval power of the day defeated the Chinese on the sea as well as on land and forced the Chinese to sign the treaty of Nanking which basically gave the British 5 ports to run amok in China as well as ceded power of Hong Kong to Britain, which would not return to Chinese rule until 1997. And forced China to hand over millions of silver dollars in reparations, majorly crippling China in the process. So now the British had many a bases to rape the resources and culture of Chinese sovereignty.
So for the next close to 20 years British and other western powers extracted much wealth and the colonialists behaved badly in many forms. The Chinese did resist as well as they could, spawning the second opium war, to which the western powers again invaded the mainland this time entering Beijing where they killed, burned, raped and looted their way to another treaty that gave western powers access to more Chinese land, money and the legalization of the opium trade which allowed the Chinese to be routed on an escalated basis.
This eventually led to the Boxer rebellion in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Basically a revolt against foreign influences of occupying powers. Once most of the western powers were done exploiting and weakening China the Japanese came to swoop in with China being weakened by western exploitation and internal struggles for power. Britain had nothing on the Japanese who treated China with the disdain of subhuman animals by killing, raping and extracting as much wealth as brutally as they could and honing their skills for what was about to be unleashed by them, in part, in what has come to be known as World War Two.
Is it fair to draw a similarity between the western flooding of China with copious amounts of potent opium all those years ago as it is with Chineses fentanyl being shipped to the west by the ton? Well, one thing is for certain the same, it was and is sowing discord among each respective populations then and now but the Chinese are not anchored at any of our ports about to pillage their way to a capital city near you and sack it in spectacular fashion.
However China is currently buying up every resource and company that any country is willing to sell them, for their current economic rise is unlike anything before seen in history. And the saddest and scariest part is the money that they are buying said resources and companies which has for the most part being created by just pressing buttons on a keyboard as I am doing now.
It makes one wonder why I wake up early every morning, am never late, bust my balls all day to have 40% of my money stolen in taxes when literally every government in the world has let money become nothing other than an entry on a computing machine with silica chips, processors and a screen to name a few components and then they produce digital money out of nothing and flood the world with it. I guess it must be a sense of pride, doing what is right and following the good example my ancestors laid down for me to follow.
Money was based on commodities for almost all of human history for the reason that a lot of commodities are a daily necessity to sustain and improve peoples lives and it takes hard work to produce commodities. Hard work is a component of what used to gives money its value for most of history.
When the hard working, honest, productive, entrepreneurial, morally abiding members of society lose confidence in the system we are in for a world of hurt. I have spoken to many people in the last while who feel the same way. Their backs are very sore for having to carry a load that is beyond the limit of someone else’s monkey on their back.
Yet the elections are in season again and the political puppets are constantly hyping FREE MONEY to anyone who is ignorant enough to validate their perverted popularity contest based on pandering.
I would vote if the ballot had on it the option of implementing an actual democratic system engineered and maintained by people of intelligence and integrity .
CR