Days 36-37 – 52 Books in 52 Weeks

The Moments When the Mountain Moved is the title of the fourth chapter of Simon Winchester’s Krakatoa. During the last 300 years, it has been surmised by some that the great volcano has erupted up to eleven times. Most historians and geologists regard all but three as legend. Winchester focuses on three years: 416, 535 and 1680.

First, 416 A.D. Most information about this eruption comes from a court poet who wanted to put together the history (complete history) of the island of Java. This “book” which was comprised of about 6 millions words written over thirty years. However, many critics say most of it is made up. The work is entitled Book of Kings written by Raden Ngabhi Ranggawarsita in 1869 (note: this is prior to the huge eruption of Krakatoa that the Winchester’s book is about).

In Ranggawarsita’s book, there are maybe two paragraphs about an eruption of Kapi (assumed to be Krakatoa). After discussion of Ranggawarsita’s sources (an ancient god via a tenth-century king who dictated the stories to scribes), and of scientific evidence taken around the world (ice core samples and tree rings) – Winchester, as most believe, concludes that there was not an eruption in 416.

But in A.D. 535, there is scientific evidence that there was something big that happened. As Winchester explains, “This evidence derives from the observation that volcanic eruptions, especially truly large ones that occur close to large places of habitation, trigger widespread social dislocation. People die in their hundreds, communications are severed, there is disease, ruin, a collapse of social order. And a barely recognized consequence of all this mayhem is that historical record keeping suffers. It becomes patchy and incomplete.”

After the supposed 416 eruption, none of this happened. However, record keeping around 535 in the Java area suddenly dropped off to 1/5 of the normal entries, then slowly built back up over the course of nearly fifty years. Also, there is scientific evidence from ice core samples and tree rings that there was some “major event that sifted dust around the world and caused the sun to dim and arboreal growing conditions to slacken” (page 128). Even more, there is a Chinese record of a huge detonation heard coming from the south.

Winchester then mentions a 1999 British television documentary (based on a book by David Keys) called Catastrophe that suggests that a 535 A.D. Krakatoan eruption was the primary cause of world-changing events. According to this documentary, it suggests that the eruption led to climate changes which caused a domino effect – to apocalyptic proportions. The climate change (according to the television program) led to:

-the fall of the Roman Empire
-the Black Plague
-the Dark Ages
-the birth of Islam
-the European invasion by the barbarians
-the collapse of the Mayan civilization
-the birth of at least four new Mediterranean states
-and more…

Winchester says, “And though the arguments promoting such ideas appear at times more than a little speculative, everything eventually distills into a single fact: Something enormous did take place somewhere in the world in the first half of the sixth century A.D., and it had a staggering effect on the world’s climate. But what exactly was that something? A volcano, by all accounts” (page 130).

What blew me away, a paragraph later, was that “very few halfway reliable scientific tests have ever been undertaken to indicate the date of Krakatoa’s previous eruptions. It somewhat defies belief that science has been generally content to allow historians to determine the story of Krakatoa’s past when rather more accurate methods…could give the answers…”

This was in 1999! Not the Middle Ages, not eighteenth century – this was just a decade ago! But due to the response of Catastrophe, this was remedied… sort of. Through carbon-14 isotope dating, all they were able to say was that there was a very large event sometime between A.D. 1 and A.D. 1200… and that it may have been large enough to trigger climate change and possibly the profound events that are the theme of Catastrophe. Of course, there is still a lot of speculation about the possible outcomes of such an eruption.

The event in 1680… well, it’s not much better when it comes to evidence. Winchester’s conclusion: something did happen, however it probably wasn’t very big since “official records” are silent about that time.

The last part of the chapter deals with the city of Batavia – and how it grew in size and importance up to the 1883 eruption. He also points out, which is key to the story of Krakatoa’s violent past, that the 1883 eruption was, “the first true catastrophe in the world to take place after the establishment of a worldwide network of telegraph cables—a network that allowed news of disaster to be flashed around the planet in double-quick time” (page 143-144).

Now onto something less exciting – back to Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Chapter five is entitled “The World War” – obviously referring to WWI. He simply goes on about his love and devotion for the country of Germany and how he wants to see it turned back in to its former glory days. Most of all he talks of his great desire to be in the military and his distaste of Marxism (yet again).

The next chapter, War Propaganda, has been the most interesting so far. If Hitler was a genius at anything – it was getting people to follow him through the use of propaganda. He states, on page 176, “But it was not until the War that it became evident what immense results could be obtained by a correct application of propaganda.” A couple pages later he continues with, “… for even propaganda is no more than a weapon, though a frightful one in the hand of an expert.”

Then he asks a question. To whom should propaganda be addressed? He gives two choices: the scientifically-trained intelligentsia or the less educated masses. His answer, “It must be addressed always and exclusively to the masses… so skillfully that everyone will be convinced that the fact is real, the process necessary, the necessity correct…” (pages 179-180).

He explains why it needs to be geared to the lower-educated masses and not the few higher-educated people: “The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous.” He says to pick a slogan and stick with it – harp on it – over and over and over and over.

Propaganda’s task is, “not to make an objective study of the truth…its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly” (page 182).

“At first the claims of the propaganda were so impudent that people thought it insane; later, it got on people’s nerves; and in the end, it was believed” (page 185). Here he was discussing the “enemy’s” use of “propaganda” during WWI, but think of things like the Pro-Choice movement. A hundred years ago, it would be obscene to think of killing an unborn child… slowly it became a matter of “it’s my body, I can do what I want with it”… and now people think it’s okay. They don’t see it as murder because one: they’ve been indoctrinated with the belief that it is just a “fetus” not a living human being; and two they believe that it is their body – like a kidney stone or something – again, being told it’s not a human, even though upon conception, it is a life form.

It’s ironic that people think it is of absolute vital importance to save the planet from global warming (as if we could) and yet think nothing of the holocaust that is happening under our very noses. Yes! Let’s save the planet but kill our children in the womb!

That’s how far the left wing liberals have been able to distort the morality, the views, and lives of people.