TAKE CARE OF THE CHILDREN!
TAKE CARE OF THE CHILDREN!
Courtesy of a member of the Black Think Tank I was exposed to the following comments about President Bush:
From Bill Maher
Bill Maher's closing thoughts:Now, I kid, but seriously, Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you anymore. There's no more money to spend. You used up all of that. You can't start another war because you also used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people.Yeah, listen to your mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit card's maxed out, and no one is speaking to you: mission accomplished! Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service. And the oil company. And the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or spaceman?!Now, I know what you're saying. You're saying that there's so many other things that you, as president, could involve yourself in...Please don't. I know, I know, t here's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela, and eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote. But, sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man.Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire metropolis to rising water and snakes. On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two Trade Centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans...Maybe you're just not lucky!I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side. So, yes, God does speak to you, and what he's saying is, "Take a hint.”
When I got over my initial unadulterated glee at reading this and returned to a more sober, reflective and thoughtful turn of mind, I realized that Bush bashing is great, that it might even be therapeutic but it did not really solve the problem I perceive. I have never witnessed the people of this nation so demoralized, so lost, so close to giving in to monumental and debilitating despair.
It is not so for me. Indeed, I see this as a period of great opportunity. The moment in history when the American people could be shocked out of the lethargy that has gripped them, the moment when they might at last act to take control of their own destiny.
As usual, it depends on how the problem is described. What I see is the failure, the abject failure of the brand of democracy that has been practiced in this nation since the so called American Revolution. A revolution that seemed to have the potential to change everything because of the ideals it embraced and trumpeted, but like every other revolution everywhere on Planet Earth, it changed next to nothing because it was a sterile exchange of elites. The government of this nation passed from the hands of British aristocrats to the hands of American aristocrats.
Wonderful concepts, romantic ideas were promulgated and bandied about but these remained concepts, in precept not very much changed for the vast majority of the people.
Equality, justice and liberty remained for most ideals to be eternally, endlessly sought after but which somehow remained far out of the reach of almost everyone.
The cessation of conflict in World War Two ushered in another chapter of hope that functioning democracies could be created on Planet Earth. But in the United States of America, as in many of the so called democracies around the world, Liberals, Conservatives, Socialists, Communists, politicians of every ideological hue, all proved unequal to the task of changing the status quo inherited from Absolutism.
Humanity, it has become clear, over many millennia had become too dependent on coercion to get things done, and if this was no longer an option, too many found that they were completely impotent, that they could do nothing, nothing about poverty, nothing about hunger, nothing about health care, nothing about crime, nothing about drug abuse. I have been remiss in not mentioning another very negative effect of living in coercion based cultures; with coercion to fall back on for those who wielded power anything and everything was possible, they could fulfill all, or nearly all, their wants and desires. Over the period while coercion provided unlimited means to attain any end, creation of architectural wonders, unlimited productive capacities, untold wealth, required only men who would not faint at the sight of blood.
Without coercion, it was easier to pretend to attain social and political objectives, than it was to actually realize them. The delusion spread wider and wider, as politicians came to the sad realization of how obdurate a monolith was coercion based culture, attitudes and patterns of behavior that had been reinforced by being practiced since the beginning of the human story.
American Presidents beginning with Ronald Reagan were carefully crafted constructs promoted by easily corrupted and prostituted media. The persona of President Bush is an illusion created by ever more sophisticated and skilled Spin Doctors who over time have become more and more capable of doing more and more with less and less. The man never had any real accomplishments to boast of, he is completely flash and dash, the ultimate spin.
What is the object lesson of the catastrophe in the Gulf? It is that political corruption, government by opinion poll and surveys, by obfuscation and deceit, by disregard of every moral value and every vestige of good sense cannot produce function.
The people of this nation believed that they could interminably do what they wanted without being limited by the practice of moral values, without the discipline of good sense, that this hedonistic approach on the part of individuals, on the part of the government, on the part of every institution could result in progress and protect us from disaster and catastrophe.
Amazingly, it was believed that the nation could interminably pretend to practice moral values, that it could sweep under the rug every sign and portent that things were not going well, that individuals and the government could endlessly and eternally engage in a spending spree and live on credit. It was believed, since no one bothered to do anything about it, that pork barrel government would do just as well as an honest government.
This is not obvious from reports in the major media houses, because these came to be owned by the largest conglomerates and have grouped together to become a propaganda machine serving and perpetuating the status quo, completely abdicating and divorcing itself from the requirement to report the truth and describe the existing reality.
From the very beginning there was an attempt to pin responsibility for this catastrophe on the old saw, an “Act of God” beyond our control and, as usual, absolve everyone from responsibility. But it seems that this is not going to wash this time. It seems that old adage is true, that you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.
The American people are engaged in a real life episode from the television show “Cheaters,” they are being informed, they are being forced to confront the sere, brutal reality of the difference between concept and precept, of the dire consequences and calamities that can result from the gulf between what politicians say, and what they do.
The catastrophe that began to enfold when Katrina made landfall in the Gulf is like the video camera in the hands of the “Cheaters” representative, as the victimized partner has to painfully and tearfully confront the stark reality of the actions of the cheating partner, the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina has forced Americans to confront the monumental, monstrous, pervasive incompetence and corruption of those whom they have trusted and elected. The players in the television show are motivated by lust, insecurity and low levels of self esteem, the players in government are driven by much higher stakes and these higher stakes raise beyond ordinary credibility and credulity the level of deceit and obfuscation employed. But it seems the truth will out.
Years before becoming general secretary of the Reformed Church in America, I led a group studying global warming and the responsibility of the churches for preserving the environment when I served as director of Church and Society for the World Council of Churches. Even then (1990), a clear global scientific consensus warned that global warming due to human causes - especially the accelerated use of fossil fuels - was causing disruptive climate changes. And I clearly remember listening to scientists say that one effect could be that storms such as hurricanes would increase in their intensity and destructive effects because of warmer waters and changing sea levels. So a part of Katrina's fury was not completely "natural."
And there's more. New Orleans was built between the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico, with much of the city below sea level. Its vulnerability to flooding from hurricanes was partly protected by the wetlands between the city and the Gulf. These act like a "speed bump," absorbing and lowering some of a hurricane's force. But they've been disappearing, making way for shopping malls, condos, and roads, so 25 square miles are lost each year - an area the size of Manhattan. And the city has kept moving closer to the Gulf.
Moreover, the levees and dams constructed to protect the city and "control" the Mississippi deprive the wetlands from the sediments and nutrients that naturally would replenish its life. There's a lot "unnatural" about this "act of God."
And then, consider the victims. Those who have suffered the most are the poorest, and most of them are black. Twenty-seven percent of New Orleans residents lived below the poverty line, and many of those simply had no cars, or no money, and no way to leave. That also isn't "natural." The poverty rate, and the gap between rich and poor, continues to increase in this nation, and that is a national disgrace. More to our point, that's a sin, condemned by literally hundreds of verses of scripture. Those most vulnerable to Katrina have been kept on society's margins by persistent economic injustice and racism.(From “Acts of God or sins of humanity?” by Wes Granberg - Michaelson.)
The question in my mind is whether the excrement has really belatedly stupendously hit the fan? Will the majority of an aroused body politic for a period of time engage in recriminations and fulminations and then return to the business of being easy prey as they have been conditioned to be for many millennia, or, will they fully and completely embrace the once in a epoch opportunity presented by Hurricane Katrina and set about at last creating a just society, a government of the people, by the people, for the people?
For decades governments in the United States of America have facilitated the irrational and destructive development of industry and commerce, big money has combined with the governmental bureaucracy to overcome the efforts of groups wishing to preserve the environment and the ecology. Will in the wake of the catastrophe created by Hurricane Katrina, this trend continue?
Will it become apparent that the destruction of the wet lands around New Orleans contributed to the magnitude of this disaster? That the destruction of these wet lands, like the destruction of the Everglades in South Florida, was a consequence of politicians eschewing the common good to placate and ingratiate themselves with big money; and, create industries and enterprises that pay taxes and that can contribute to political campaigns?
Will the catastrophe in the Gulf precipitate renewed, sustained and enduring efforts to preserve the ecology and combat potentially dangerous effects of human industries and enterprises, for example global warming?
Will there be a concerted, determined effort to reform government, reduce waste, curtail spending and relieve the body politic of the burden of pork barrel politics?
Most importantly, will ordinary men and women, reflecting on the possible dire consequences of choices, to buy a condominium or site their homes in the valley of the shadow of death that the environs of New Orleans became, realize that when choosing a course of action, whether which politician to vote for, or where to live, or as they make any of the other seemingly innocuous choices that confront human beings every day, they must act intelligently, rationally and wisely, that they must consider all factors short term and long term, and that their choices must be mediated by moral values? Have we reached the end of one age of innocence, ignorance and naiveté in the human story?
I once worked as a Contractor Associate for a major long distance company, meaning I actually was employed and paid by a temporary agency, but was each day involved in the business of persuading consumers that had switched to another long distance company to return to the company that through a proxy had contracted my services.
All associates were required to attain a conversion rate of eighteen per cent to keep their jobs. This was easy when the lists we called on were new, but this got harder and harder as more passes were made through these lists, as more and more attempts were made to persuade each consumer on the list to switch back.
After several months of calling on these lists it became virtually impossible for most to attain the required conversion rate, yet the viability of the entire project depended on this rate being attained. To be specific the jobs not only of associates, but supervisors, managers, indeed everyone employed in this project required that the magic figure of an eighteen per cent conversion rate be attained, or that it seemed to be attained.
On one occasion a practice that was widespread but was unofficial and covert became official policy, associates were trained to record every call which did not result in persuading the consumer to switch back as a call back. This resulted in some seemingly remarkable conversion rates, given the number of passes that had been made on that calling list, some associates recorded conversion rates of eighty per cent. It also meant that consumers who had given several negative responses to our importuning them, as they sat down to dinner, as they attempted to watch television; whom we had interrupted as they helped their children with their homework, or as they attempted to have a quiet evening of solitude and relaxation at home, were documented as callbacks and called again, and again, and again.
One associate never employed that technique, and, as a consequence was summarily dismissed, that individual was me. Of course, no one said I was fired - an euphemism was used, I was told my assignment with the long distance company was completed.
It was a very difficult choice for me at that specific period of my life because I had recently learned that the mother of my child in Jamaica had just lost her job, and it would have been a wonderful opportunity for me to make up for past lapses and parental inadequacies I had displayed over the years, periods during which I had failed my daughter by being unable to financially contribute to her support.
I chose to place the privacy of strangers over my personal obligations and interests, I chose to follow the dictates of my conscience.
I related this story to illustrate that it is not only politicians who have to choose between the interests of this group or that, but that every human being in some guise or other confronts these choices. Such choices occur with much more frequency in certain social and political environments for example in South Florida, the scam capital of the universe.
Some choices may effect only a few individuals, or, a choice may affect thousands or millions of individuals but however many or few the choice impacts it usually is between the individual’s interests and the common good. And human choices and actions shape reality.
I wish to testify that in all my years as an adult in Jamaica, and latterly as a resident alien in the USA I have never witnessed anyone do the right thing when it meant that they would be fired or when it would redound to their social or economic disadvantage. I have been alone, a minority of one whenever a situation required that individuals stand up for their moral convictions. Yet the creation of a just society, the creation of functioning democracies depend on a bare majority of the body politic becoming habituated to doing the right thing.
That fact, if it is accepted to be true, should make everyone aware of the sheer magnitude of the task ahead. Another important concept to understanding and making the decision to undertake to travel the road to freedom and independence is the truism describing the mental approach of the majority, ‘beliefs are opportune they conceal interests.’
Human beings have a near unlimited capacity for self delusion. The agents of coercion based culture are habituated to using what higher mental processes they have developed to create justifications for self serving actions. They have great facility in twisting and distorting facts to fit their ends and objectives.
I remember with a clarity undiminished by the passage of time attending meetings of the national executive of the largest trade union in Jamaica and being able to predict how each member would vote on any issue, once I knew where their interests lay, how they would personally be benefited. I remember when a project to build a mammoth oil refinery was on the drawing boards . It was projected it would be sited in the constituency of the then Minister of Trade. A national election intervened and resulted in a change of government. Lo and behold when next the project was on the drawing board, the location had moved to the other end of the island - as near as possible to the constituency of the new Minister of Trade.
If I may quote the most illustrious Conservative alive, Karl Rove in his address to the New York Conservative Party to further illustrate the powerful tendency towards self delusion displayed by the agents of coercion based culture:
Forty years ago, Lyndon Baines Johnson, a proud liberal, won the Presidency in a landslide. His party held 68 Senate seats; 295 House seats; and 33 governorships.
In 2004 George W. Bush, a proud conservative, won the Presidency for the second time, receiving the most votes in American history. His party has now won seven of the last 10 Presidential elections. Republicans hold 55 Senate seats; and 28 governorships.
These facts underscore how much progress has been made in four decades. It has been a remarkable rise. But it is also a cautionary tale of what happens to a dominant party - in this case the Democratic Party -- when its thinking becomes ossified; when its energy begins to drain; when an entitlement mentality takes over; and when political power becomes an end itself rather than a means to achieve the common good. We need to learn from our successes - and from the failures of the other side and ourselves. As the governing movement in America, conservatives cannot grow tired or timid. We have been given the opportunity to govern; now we have to show we deserve the trust of our fellow citizens.
I wish, I dearly wish, that I had the space to reprint in its entirety this diatribe of self delusion, given the ‘success‘ of the Iraq Occupation, the three dollars a gallon we pay for gasoline, and, the irremovable, ubiquitous devastation in New Orleans. President Bush has said that Karl Rove is the architect of his political success and I wonder what Mr. Rove lists among the successes of Conservatism, does he list the voting machine scandal in Florida that caused his candidate to win his first Presidential election, or, the Swift Boat Advertisements, or, the role played by President Ronald Wilson Reagan in the destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger. It would be interesting to discover whether Karl Rove views these incidents as successes or failures. In the interests of brevity let me limit my attention to his comments on the difference between the way Liberals and Conservatives responded to the 911 attack:
But perhaps the most important difference between conservatives and liberals can be found in the area of national security. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding to our attackers. In the wake of 9/11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban; in the wake of 9/11, liberals believed it was time to…submit a petition. I am not joking. Submitting a petition is precisely what Moveon.org did. It was a petition imploring he powers that be” to “use moderation and restraint in responding to the…terrorist attacks against the United States.”
I don’t know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt as I watched the Twin Towers crumble to the earth; a side of the Pentagon destroyed; and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in the flames and rubble.
Moderation and restraint is not what I felt - and moderation and restraint is not what was called for. It was a moment to summon our national will - and to brandish steel.
The social and political reality that we confront as monolithic and pervasive as it appears is a totality produced by the choices and actions of human beings. As technology develops this becomes more and more true about the physical environment as well. In any country in which there is universal adult suffrage adults of voting age, whether or not they have exercised this franchise, are responsible for the destiny of the nation, for its progress or lack there of, for all its actions or inactions, and for any catastrophe or calamity that these precipitate.
It is time for citizens of this great Republic to accept responsibility for its destiny, for their communities and the nation as a whole, and bereft of coercion, they can only achieve this if they practice moral values, if they repair the damage done to their intellects by countless millennia of being agents of coercion based culture by accepting the discipline of truth, as I have done.
I present as an example of the positive effects of telling the truth this trenchant and prophetic analysis of the sere reality confronting the electorate prior to the most recent competition to fill the post of Chief Executive of this nation. The following article, authored by yours truly, appeared on the message board of my web site in June, 2004:
I think it is time to take stock, to closely examine the performance of the Democratic and Republican Parties who have governed this country for upwards of fifty years since the end of the World War Two, during what I would describe as the Modern Era in politics, to determine exactly what they have accomplished.
Things, as I am perennially and thus far ineffectually trying to communicate, are not always what they seem. If we were to examine the issue of progress in science and technology there is no doubt that giant strides forward have occurred during this period, this is impatient of serious debate, but what about the accomplishments of the Governments elected during this period?
Compared with the situation fifty years ago, are our children being offered a better quality of education in our schools? Have we made any progress in winning the war against poverty, crime and drug abuse? What about the state of the health services being offered to citizens? What about national security, what is the state of our armed forces, are they at a state of readiness that would protect us from any threat from outside or within? Most importantly, what is the state of the economy, are we producing goods and services commensurate with the vast productive capacity at our disposal, are our factories efficient? Are we developing new products at a cost that will allow us to have a positive balance of trade with other nations? And the bottom line, are the majority of citizens in the United States of America enjoying a better quality and quantity of life than they enjoyed fifty years ago?
There is another issue that is impatient of debate, the fact that successive Governments of the United States of America, during the past fifty years, have had more resources at their disposal than the Government of any other nation worldwide, they have collected more revenue than any other Government in human history during this period. What have they done with all that money, this is the question that needs to be asked during this election campaign?
If we spent several thousand dollars to purchase a first class ticket on an airline, then we would expect to receive first class service. If we spend the two hundred and eighty thousand dollars that is required to purchase a Lamborghini Diablo, my dream car, then we would expect that we would drive an top flight high performance automobile. Why are expectations so much lower in respect of our Government?
I dare to suggest that if the institution of the American Government was analogous to an airline, citizens who have continuously purchased tickets on that airline in the past fifty years by paying their taxes, instead of receiving the first class service they deserved, have flown in a precarious position on the wing of old crop duster biplane, always in danger of falling and losing their lives. In fact, many citizens have fallen and lost their lives as a direct consequence of Governmental incompetence, e.g. the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger.
The most damaging component of their collective tenure is the undeniable fact that successive Governments, protected from prosecution because of their statutory authority, have robbed, plundered and bankrupted the pension fund of citizens, the Social Security Fund, and, at the end have very little to show for it. They have spent not only the revenue they collected, they have also spent large amounts of the revenue that will be collected by Governments who will succeed them, who will have to pay the monstrous debts they have contracted, all to no avail.
If President Bush or Senator Kerry were truthful about why either one of them should be elected President, or why the Republican or Democratic Parties should continue to administer the affairs of the nation, they would have to admit that it is so that their respective organizations would be able to continue to control the pork barrel, so that they should continue to control the distribution of the scarce resources in the gift of the Government. It cannot be because they can provide national security, because they have not. It is not because they can educate the young of this nation, because with numerous opportunities, they have proven they cannot. It is not because they can be victorious in the war on poverty, crime or drug abuse, because this is clearly beyond their ideational and philosophical capacities. If they were all to just disappear, would the country be better or worst off?
The next catastrophe that will be visited on the American people because of the stupidity and incompetence of those they elect, waits, after power is transferred in Iraq. What will begin then is an unbridled, unprincipled, savage and overt competition for state power. The power to control the proceeds from the second largest pool of oil on Planet Earth, to have access to billions of dollars, to have caches of millions of dollars like those discovered in Iraq shortly after the occupation began.
Every election campaign in the USA has had as its primary objective the attainment of state power, the welfare of the nation has always been a secondary consideration, even window dressing, if it were not so how could successive Governments have failed so miserably in every area, in education, in national security, in combating crime and drug abuse? The war that will break out in Iraq shortly will have the same objective. That war will continue until a strongman like Saddam Hussein emerges. We have numerous recent precedents, what will occur in Iraq, will be close akin to the chaos that obtained in Eastern European countries after the dissolution of the Russian created and sustained Iron Curtain. With some one hundred and twenty thousand American soldiers caught, trapped in the crossfire
This is a period of great peril for humanity, a period when the freedoms that ordinary men and women have enjoyed for just a few decades may simply disappear. Liberty in the broad sweep of human history may be as transitory and fleeting as a beautiful rainbow after a shower of rain. It is a time for us to dig deep to preserve the foundations of democracy that we have created, and build solid edifices of civility on these bases.
It is time for truth, for a ruthless and relentless search for the truth. Implicit in the foregoing is an accurate description of human nature. Not the nature of the rich, or the poor, or of foreigners, or of members of minorities, or of women, but of the intrinsic nature of human beings.
The solution to our problem is not voting out those who currently have their hands of the levers of power because those who replace them would exhibit and demonstrate that same intrinsic nature.
The solution lies in understanding that we have relied on coercion from the beginning of time and that undeniable, inescapable, inevitable necessity determined the nature of human culture.
If we had not become adept at using force our race would not have survived. But becoming adept at using force produced a certain mind set, it made us play a certain role when we confronted superior strength, and another role when we confronted the weak.
We were conditioned to playing the social roles of predator or prey. These roles are deeply embedded in our culture and in every one of our social institutions. For most of human history, governments have preyed on those subjected to them, husbands have used and abused their wives and consigned them to status and condition of property; those who managed production reduced those who produced to serfdom or chattel slavery; in the navy or army discipline was rigorously and brutally enforced by cruel instruments of torture like the cat-o-nine tails and summary executions for derelictions of duty.
Absolutism, a form of government wherein rulers had the power of life and death over their subjects, is the most sophisticated and long enduring form of coercion based culture. It is analogous to an avalanche that started high on slopes of the mountain of history, when man was a predator among predators, and it has been gaining speed, momentum and awesome power as it plunged precipitously toward the present.
I am suggesting that its mad, destructive career was not halted by attempts to create governments of the people, by the people, for the people, it simply adapted to the new conditions, adopted a new guise and became covert instead of overt.
I suggest it can never be stopped, will never be stopped without fundamental change in the existing culture. We must become adept in using positive reinforcements to motivate the other to act. I have used the approach of a used car dealer to a customer who walks in off the street, as against the treatment by that same individual of his favorite daughter. The approach to the stranger who walks into his showroom is predatory, that individual will be recipient of an upside down deal on the worst lemon on the lot. The approach to his daughter will be to give her the best deal he can on the most reliable car on the lot. Unless that daughter evokes his displeasure by wanting to marry someone he deems unsuitable, someone of a different race, or who is not economically viable.
We must find it in our hearts and minds to see the other, whether that individual be a complete stranger or a recalcitrant child not as prey but as someone worthy of our love and respect.
The question that beguiles most of my waking hours is how can I make humanity confront the true nature of the social reality in which we exist?
How can I cause a bare majority of human beings to rise above their selfish interests, their neuroses to see the past as it was? A period when the masses were seen as cannon fodder or hewers of wood and drawers of water. When the labor cost in any enterprise or industry was very low, because those who labored were not paid, they were completely dehumanized to be slaves or serfs. When the governments had no social costs because they had no responsibility for whether the masses lived or died, when there were no health services, no pension plan for the aged. When the accepted objective of the society, when all the energies and resources of the social system was committed to producing wealth for a small, a miniscule elite. If any other individual or group enjoyed anything above a subsistence existence it was by accident.
In every democratic country the stated and restated objective is to create a certain minimum quality of life for all citizens. Simultaneously, the degree and extent to which coercion - the engine which generated wealth in the past, that produced function in the past - that can be applied to any individual is being significantly reduced. Can anyone see that this is a contradiction in terms, that an alternative means of motivating behavior essential for production and societal order must be developed?
Can anyone see that for human beings to continue to function as they traversed the Middle Passage, whether as master or slave, they had to be able to insulate themselves from the horrors around them? That this is a paradigm for existence for all of human history. To function human beings had to become experts at being oblivious and unaware to survive whether as predator or prey.
How long have politicians been aware that hundreds of thousands of citizens were living in the valley of the shadow of death in the environs of New Orleans? How long have they remained passive and silent while hoarding that knowledge?
Can anyone see that the habit of insulating oneself from reality must be broken, as must the mindset of irrationality precipitated by that contrived lack of awareness?
Can anyone see that to attain the objective of creating a certain minimum quality of life for all the citizens of any modern nation must cost a great deal more than supporting a small elite? That this would require the creation of wealth undreamed of during all of human history.
Can anyone see that we have the technology and productive capacities equal to this Herculean task, that what is lacking is the motivation, and that what must be used to overcome this lack, to harness the maximum productive and creative energies of the populace to the national plow must be positive reinforcements? That there are two alternatives the carrot or the stick, and that when the stick, coercion is applied this obviates, makes unnecessary, dysfunctional, and downright counterproducitve acting for the common good.
Can anyone see that as coercion is the lynchpin of Absolutist regimes, so is positive reinforcements the motivation that must be relied on to create functioning democracies. That as oblivion is an absolute necessity in Absolutist regimes, the application of intelligence and the higher mental processes is the foundation of a democratic society. That as necessary as insensate arbitrary mindlessness is to the function of tyrannies, so are the precepts of compassion, justice and love essential to function in democratic nations.
Is there any catastrophe of sufficient magnitude that would cause a bare majority of human beings in any social system to perceive the total and absolute futility of competition as the ethos of human culture. The immediate response is that what is destructive is competition without justice and fair play. But the goal of competition must be to win, at whatever cost, this is the engine generating endless conflict.
I ask my race, when will you find the will to apply those ideas that have always been valued in concept but never applied in precept? When will you find the will and endurance to discover if the truth will make you free, when will you find the will to discover what would be the result if social relations were informed and imbued with justice, honesty, compassion and truth?
All of human history has been replete with conflict, suffering, tragedy, and catastrophe, when will we come to the realization that these are the product of the mindset embedded in coercion based culture, that to opt for interests over facts is inherently irrational and must result, soon or late in massive dysfunction; to choose might over right, must have a similar result?
It is time for the change, not the cosmetic change to a government composed of individuals with a different ideology and composed of different personalities, but the enduring, eternally redemptive change from deceit and obfuscation to honesty and truth; the change from the application of arbitrary power to the balm of simple justice; the change from mindless tyranny to creative intelligence; the change from animus, animosity and suspicion to understanding, compassion and love.
The most touching and poignant scene I witnessed as I observed from afar the tragedy enfolding in the Gulf was a man reporting the loss of his wife. He reported that he held on to her as long as he could but after a time they both knew that she would be swept away by the relentless pull of the rising waters. He reported her last words, she admonished him to, “Take care of the children and the grandchildren!”
These words broke my heart and caused me to shed copious tears because they encapsulated the message I have been trying, completely unsuccessfully, to convey to my race for the past twenty nine years of my life.
Children, whether they be Iraqi children, or American children, or Jamaican children, or Indian children, or German children; are completely defenseless and dependent on the adults around them for nurturing and sustenance. When we can create a matrix in which they are not physically or sexually abused, in which their rights are respected and cherished, in which they are socialized to the attitudes and aptitudes which will create for them the possibility of happiness - when we find the means to accomplish this sacred task, we will find that we have constructed a just society.
All rights reserved, copyright retained.
William E. Virtue
vox_pacis@hotmail.net
Courtesy of a member of the Black Think Tank I was exposed to the following comments about President Bush:
From Bill Maher
Bill Maher's closing thoughts:Now, I kid, but seriously, Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you anymore. There's no more money to spend. You used up all of that. You can't start another war because you also used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people.Yeah, listen to your mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit card's maxed out, and no one is speaking to you: mission accomplished! Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service. And the oil company. And the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or spaceman?!Now, I know what you're saying. You're saying that there's so many other things that you, as president, could involve yourself in...Please don't. I know, I know, t here's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela, and eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote. But, sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man.Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire metropolis to rising water and snakes. On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two Trade Centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans...Maybe you're just not lucky!I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side. So, yes, God does speak to you, and what he's saying is, "Take a hint.”
When I got over my initial unadulterated glee at reading this and returned to a more sober, reflective and thoughtful turn of mind, I realized that Bush bashing is great, that it might even be therapeutic but it did not really solve the problem I perceive. I have never witnessed the people of this nation so demoralized, so lost, so close to giving in to monumental and debilitating despair.
It is not so for me. Indeed, I see this as a period of great opportunity. The moment in history when the American people could be shocked out of the lethargy that has gripped them, the moment when they might at last act to take control of their own destiny.
As usual, it depends on how the problem is described. What I see is the failure, the abject failure of the brand of democracy that has been practiced in this nation since the so called American Revolution. A revolution that seemed to have the potential to change everything because of the ideals it embraced and trumpeted, but like every other revolution everywhere on Planet Earth, it changed next to nothing because it was a sterile exchange of elites. The government of this nation passed from the hands of British aristocrats to the hands of American aristocrats.
Wonderful concepts, romantic ideas were promulgated and bandied about but these remained concepts, in precept not very much changed for the vast majority of the people.
Equality, justice and liberty remained for most ideals to be eternally, endlessly sought after but which somehow remained far out of the reach of almost everyone.
The cessation of conflict in World War Two ushered in another chapter of hope that functioning democracies could be created on Planet Earth. But in the United States of America, as in many of the so called democracies around the world, Liberals, Conservatives, Socialists, Communists, politicians of every ideological hue, all proved unequal to the task of changing the status quo inherited from Absolutism.
Humanity, it has become clear, over many millennia had become too dependent on coercion to get things done, and if this was no longer an option, too many found that they were completely impotent, that they could do nothing, nothing about poverty, nothing about hunger, nothing about health care, nothing about crime, nothing about drug abuse. I have been remiss in not mentioning another very negative effect of living in coercion based cultures; with coercion to fall back on for those who wielded power anything and everything was possible, they could fulfill all, or nearly all, their wants and desires. Over the period while coercion provided unlimited means to attain any end, creation of architectural wonders, unlimited productive capacities, untold wealth, required only men who would not faint at the sight of blood.
Without coercion, it was easier to pretend to attain social and political objectives, than it was to actually realize them. The delusion spread wider and wider, as politicians came to the sad realization of how obdurate a monolith was coercion based culture, attitudes and patterns of behavior that had been reinforced by being practiced since the beginning of the human story.
American Presidents beginning with Ronald Reagan were carefully crafted constructs promoted by easily corrupted and prostituted media. The persona of President Bush is an illusion created by ever more sophisticated and skilled Spin Doctors who over time have become more and more capable of doing more and more with less and less. The man never had any real accomplishments to boast of, he is completely flash and dash, the ultimate spin.
What is the object lesson of the catastrophe in the Gulf? It is that political corruption, government by opinion poll and surveys, by obfuscation and deceit, by disregard of every moral value and every vestige of good sense cannot produce function.
The people of this nation believed that they could interminably do what they wanted without being limited by the practice of moral values, without the discipline of good sense, that this hedonistic approach on the part of individuals, on the part of the government, on the part of every institution could result in progress and protect us from disaster and catastrophe.
Amazingly, it was believed that the nation could interminably pretend to practice moral values, that it could sweep under the rug every sign and portent that things were not going well, that individuals and the government could endlessly and eternally engage in a spending spree and live on credit. It was believed, since no one bothered to do anything about it, that pork barrel government would do just as well as an honest government.
This is not obvious from reports in the major media houses, because these came to be owned by the largest conglomerates and have grouped together to become a propaganda machine serving and perpetuating the status quo, completely abdicating and divorcing itself from the requirement to report the truth and describe the existing reality.
From the very beginning there was an attempt to pin responsibility for this catastrophe on the old saw, an “Act of God” beyond our control and, as usual, absolve everyone from responsibility. But it seems that this is not going to wash this time. It seems that old adage is true, that you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.
The American people are engaged in a real life episode from the television show “Cheaters,” they are being informed, they are being forced to confront the sere, brutal reality of the difference between concept and precept, of the dire consequences and calamities that can result from the gulf between what politicians say, and what they do.
The catastrophe that began to enfold when Katrina made landfall in the Gulf is like the video camera in the hands of the “Cheaters” representative, as the victimized partner has to painfully and tearfully confront the stark reality of the actions of the cheating partner, the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina has forced Americans to confront the monumental, monstrous, pervasive incompetence and corruption of those whom they have trusted and elected. The players in the television show are motivated by lust, insecurity and low levels of self esteem, the players in government are driven by much higher stakes and these higher stakes raise beyond ordinary credibility and credulity the level of deceit and obfuscation employed. But it seems the truth will out.
Years before becoming general secretary of the Reformed Church in America, I led a group studying global warming and the responsibility of the churches for preserving the environment when I served as director of Church and Society for the World Council of Churches. Even then (1990), a clear global scientific consensus warned that global warming due to human causes - especially the accelerated use of fossil fuels - was causing disruptive climate changes. And I clearly remember listening to scientists say that one effect could be that storms such as hurricanes would increase in their intensity and destructive effects because of warmer waters and changing sea levels. So a part of Katrina's fury was not completely "natural."
And there's more. New Orleans was built between the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico, with much of the city below sea level. Its vulnerability to flooding from hurricanes was partly protected by the wetlands between the city and the Gulf. These act like a "speed bump," absorbing and lowering some of a hurricane's force. But they've been disappearing, making way for shopping malls, condos, and roads, so 25 square miles are lost each year - an area the size of Manhattan. And the city has kept moving closer to the Gulf.
Moreover, the levees and dams constructed to protect the city and "control" the Mississippi deprive the wetlands from the sediments and nutrients that naturally would replenish its life. There's a lot "unnatural" about this "act of God."
And then, consider the victims. Those who have suffered the most are the poorest, and most of them are black. Twenty-seven percent of New Orleans residents lived below the poverty line, and many of those simply had no cars, or no money, and no way to leave. That also isn't "natural." The poverty rate, and the gap between rich and poor, continues to increase in this nation, and that is a national disgrace. More to our point, that's a sin, condemned by literally hundreds of verses of scripture. Those most vulnerable to Katrina have been kept on society's margins by persistent economic injustice and racism.(From “Acts of God or sins of humanity?” by Wes Granberg - Michaelson.)
The question in my mind is whether the excrement has really belatedly stupendously hit the fan? Will the majority of an aroused body politic for a period of time engage in recriminations and fulminations and then return to the business of being easy prey as they have been conditioned to be for many millennia, or, will they fully and completely embrace the once in a epoch opportunity presented by Hurricane Katrina and set about at last creating a just society, a government of the people, by the people, for the people?
For decades governments in the United States of America have facilitated the irrational and destructive development of industry and commerce, big money has combined with the governmental bureaucracy to overcome the efforts of groups wishing to preserve the environment and the ecology. Will in the wake of the catastrophe created by Hurricane Katrina, this trend continue?
Will it become apparent that the destruction of the wet lands around New Orleans contributed to the magnitude of this disaster? That the destruction of these wet lands, like the destruction of the Everglades in South Florida, was a consequence of politicians eschewing the common good to placate and ingratiate themselves with big money; and, create industries and enterprises that pay taxes and that can contribute to political campaigns?
Will the catastrophe in the Gulf precipitate renewed, sustained and enduring efforts to preserve the ecology and combat potentially dangerous effects of human industries and enterprises, for example global warming?
Will there be a concerted, determined effort to reform government, reduce waste, curtail spending and relieve the body politic of the burden of pork barrel politics?
Most importantly, will ordinary men and women, reflecting on the possible dire consequences of choices, to buy a condominium or site their homes in the valley of the shadow of death that the environs of New Orleans became, realize that when choosing a course of action, whether which politician to vote for, or where to live, or as they make any of the other seemingly innocuous choices that confront human beings every day, they must act intelligently, rationally and wisely, that they must consider all factors short term and long term, and that their choices must be mediated by moral values? Have we reached the end of one age of innocence, ignorance and naiveté in the human story?
I once worked as a Contractor Associate for a major long distance company, meaning I actually was employed and paid by a temporary agency, but was each day involved in the business of persuading consumers that had switched to another long distance company to return to the company that through a proxy had contracted my services.
All associates were required to attain a conversion rate of eighteen per cent to keep their jobs. This was easy when the lists we called on were new, but this got harder and harder as more passes were made through these lists, as more and more attempts were made to persuade each consumer on the list to switch back.
After several months of calling on these lists it became virtually impossible for most to attain the required conversion rate, yet the viability of the entire project depended on this rate being attained. To be specific the jobs not only of associates, but supervisors, managers, indeed everyone employed in this project required that the magic figure of an eighteen per cent conversion rate be attained, or that it seemed to be attained.
On one occasion a practice that was widespread but was unofficial and covert became official policy, associates were trained to record every call which did not result in persuading the consumer to switch back as a call back. This resulted in some seemingly remarkable conversion rates, given the number of passes that had been made on that calling list, some associates recorded conversion rates of eighty per cent. It also meant that consumers who had given several negative responses to our importuning them, as they sat down to dinner, as they attempted to watch television; whom we had interrupted as they helped their children with their homework, or as they attempted to have a quiet evening of solitude and relaxation at home, were documented as callbacks and called again, and again, and again.
One associate never employed that technique, and, as a consequence was summarily dismissed, that individual was me. Of course, no one said I was fired - an euphemism was used, I was told my assignment with the long distance company was completed.
It was a very difficult choice for me at that specific period of my life because I had recently learned that the mother of my child in Jamaica had just lost her job, and it would have been a wonderful opportunity for me to make up for past lapses and parental inadequacies I had displayed over the years, periods during which I had failed my daughter by being unable to financially contribute to her support.
I chose to place the privacy of strangers over my personal obligations and interests, I chose to follow the dictates of my conscience.
I related this story to illustrate that it is not only politicians who have to choose between the interests of this group or that, but that every human being in some guise or other confronts these choices. Such choices occur with much more frequency in certain social and political environments for example in South Florida, the scam capital of the universe.
Some choices may effect only a few individuals, or, a choice may affect thousands or millions of individuals but however many or few the choice impacts it usually is between the individual’s interests and the common good. And human choices and actions shape reality.
I wish to testify that in all my years as an adult in Jamaica, and latterly as a resident alien in the USA I have never witnessed anyone do the right thing when it meant that they would be fired or when it would redound to their social or economic disadvantage. I have been alone, a minority of one whenever a situation required that individuals stand up for their moral convictions. Yet the creation of a just society, the creation of functioning democracies depend on a bare majority of the body politic becoming habituated to doing the right thing.
That fact, if it is accepted to be true, should make everyone aware of the sheer magnitude of the task ahead. Another important concept to understanding and making the decision to undertake to travel the road to freedom and independence is the truism describing the mental approach of the majority, ‘beliefs are opportune they conceal interests.’
Human beings have a near unlimited capacity for self delusion. The agents of coercion based culture are habituated to using what higher mental processes they have developed to create justifications for self serving actions. They have great facility in twisting and distorting facts to fit their ends and objectives.
I remember with a clarity undiminished by the passage of time attending meetings of the national executive of the largest trade union in Jamaica and being able to predict how each member would vote on any issue, once I knew where their interests lay, how they would personally be benefited. I remember when a project to build a mammoth oil refinery was on the drawing boards . It was projected it would be sited in the constituency of the then Minister of Trade. A national election intervened and resulted in a change of government. Lo and behold when next the project was on the drawing board, the location had moved to the other end of the island - as near as possible to the constituency of the new Minister of Trade.
If I may quote the most illustrious Conservative alive, Karl Rove in his address to the New York Conservative Party to further illustrate the powerful tendency towards self delusion displayed by the agents of coercion based culture:
Forty years ago, Lyndon Baines Johnson, a proud liberal, won the Presidency in a landslide. His party held 68 Senate seats; 295 House seats; and 33 governorships.
In 2004 George W. Bush, a proud conservative, won the Presidency for the second time, receiving the most votes in American history. His party has now won seven of the last 10 Presidential elections. Republicans hold 55 Senate seats; and 28 governorships.
These facts underscore how much progress has been made in four decades. It has been a remarkable rise. But it is also a cautionary tale of what happens to a dominant party - in this case the Democratic Party -- when its thinking becomes ossified; when its energy begins to drain; when an entitlement mentality takes over; and when political power becomes an end itself rather than a means to achieve the common good. We need to learn from our successes - and from the failures of the other side and ourselves. As the governing movement in America, conservatives cannot grow tired or timid. We have been given the opportunity to govern; now we have to show we deserve the trust of our fellow citizens.
I wish, I dearly wish, that I had the space to reprint in its entirety this diatribe of self delusion, given the ‘success‘ of the Iraq Occupation, the three dollars a gallon we pay for gasoline, and, the irremovable, ubiquitous devastation in New Orleans. President Bush has said that Karl Rove is the architect of his political success and I wonder what Mr. Rove lists among the successes of Conservatism, does he list the voting machine scandal in Florida that caused his candidate to win his first Presidential election, or, the Swift Boat Advertisements, or, the role played by President Ronald Wilson Reagan in the destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger. It would be interesting to discover whether Karl Rove views these incidents as successes or failures. In the interests of brevity let me limit my attention to his comments on the difference between the way Liberals and Conservatives responded to the 911 attack:
But perhaps the most important difference between conservatives and liberals can be found in the area of national security. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding to our attackers. In the wake of 9/11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban; in the wake of 9/11, liberals believed it was time to…submit a petition. I am not joking. Submitting a petition is precisely what Moveon.org did. It was a petition imploring he powers that be” to “use moderation and restraint in responding to the…terrorist attacks against the United States.”
I don’t know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt as I watched the Twin Towers crumble to the earth; a side of the Pentagon destroyed; and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in the flames and rubble.
Moderation and restraint is not what I felt - and moderation and restraint is not what was called for. It was a moment to summon our national will - and to brandish steel.
The social and political reality that we confront as monolithic and pervasive as it appears is a totality produced by the choices and actions of human beings. As technology develops this becomes more and more true about the physical environment as well. In any country in which there is universal adult suffrage adults of voting age, whether or not they have exercised this franchise, are responsible for the destiny of the nation, for its progress or lack there of, for all its actions or inactions, and for any catastrophe or calamity that these precipitate.
It is time for citizens of this great Republic to accept responsibility for its destiny, for their communities and the nation as a whole, and bereft of coercion, they can only achieve this if they practice moral values, if they repair the damage done to their intellects by countless millennia of being agents of coercion based culture by accepting the discipline of truth, as I have done.
I present as an example of the positive effects of telling the truth this trenchant and prophetic analysis of the sere reality confronting the electorate prior to the most recent competition to fill the post of Chief Executive of this nation. The following article, authored by yours truly, appeared on the message board of my web site in June, 2004:
I think it is time to take stock, to closely examine the performance of the Democratic and Republican Parties who have governed this country for upwards of fifty years since the end of the World War Two, during what I would describe as the Modern Era in politics, to determine exactly what they have accomplished.
Things, as I am perennially and thus far ineffectually trying to communicate, are not always what they seem. If we were to examine the issue of progress in science and technology there is no doubt that giant strides forward have occurred during this period, this is impatient of serious debate, but what about the accomplishments of the Governments elected during this period?
Compared with the situation fifty years ago, are our children being offered a better quality of education in our schools? Have we made any progress in winning the war against poverty, crime and drug abuse? What about the state of the health services being offered to citizens? What about national security, what is the state of our armed forces, are they at a state of readiness that would protect us from any threat from outside or within? Most importantly, what is the state of the economy, are we producing goods and services commensurate with the vast productive capacity at our disposal, are our factories efficient? Are we developing new products at a cost that will allow us to have a positive balance of trade with other nations? And the bottom line, are the majority of citizens in the United States of America enjoying a better quality and quantity of life than they enjoyed fifty years ago?
There is another issue that is impatient of debate, the fact that successive Governments of the United States of America, during the past fifty years, have had more resources at their disposal than the Government of any other nation worldwide, they have collected more revenue than any other Government in human history during this period. What have they done with all that money, this is the question that needs to be asked during this election campaign?
If we spent several thousand dollars to purchase a first class ticket on an airline, then we would expect to receive first class service. If we spend the two hundred and eighty thousand dollars that is required to purchase a Lamborghini Diablo, my dream car, then we would expect that we would drive an top flight high performance automobile. Why are expectations so much lower in respect of our Government?
I dare to suggest that if the institution of the American Government was analogous to an airline, citizens who have continuously purchased tickets on that airline in the past fifty years by paying their taxes, instead of receiving the first class service they deserved, have flown in a precarious position on the wing of old crop duster biplane, always in danger of falling and losing their lives. In fact, many citizens have fallen and lost their lives as a direct consequence of Governmental incompetence, e.g. the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger.
The most damaging component of their collective tenure is the undeniable fact that successive Governments, protected from prosecution because of their statutory authority, have robbed, plundered and bankrupted the pension fund of citizens, the Social Security Fund, and, at the end have very little to show for it. They have spent not only the revenue they collected, they have also spent large amounts of the revenue that will be collected by Governments who will succeed them, who will have to pay the monstrous debts they have contracted, all to no avail.
If President Bush or Senator Kerry were truthful about why either one of them should be elected President, or why the Republican or Democratic Parties should continue to administer the affairs of the nation, they would have to admit that it is so that their respective organizations would be able to continue to control the pork barrel, so that they should continue to control the distribution of the scarce resources in the gift of the Government. It cannot be because they can provide national security, because they have not. It is not because they can educate the young of this nation, because with numerous opportunities, they have proven they cannot. It is not because they can be victorious in the war on poverty, crime or drug abuse, because this is clearly beyond their ideational and philosophical capacities. If they were all to just disappear, would the country be better or worst off?
The next catastrophe that will be visited on the American people because of the stupidity and incompetence of those they elect, waits, after power is transferred in Iraq. What will begin then is an unbridled, unprincipled, savage and overt competition for state power. The power to control the proceeds from the second largest pool of oil on Planet Earth, to have access to billions of dollars, to have caches of millions of dollars like those discovered in Iraq shortly after the occupation began.
Every election campaign in the USA has had as its primary objective the attainment of state power, the welfare of the nation has always been a secondary consideration, even window dressing, if it were not so how could successive Governments have failed so miserably in every area, in education, in national security, in combating crime and drug abuse? The war that will break out in Iraq shortly will have the same objective. That war will continue until a strongman like Saddam Hussein emerges. We have numerous recent precedents, what will occur in Iraq, will be close akin to the chaos that obtained in Eastern European countries after the dissolution of the Russian created and sustained Iron Curtain. With some one hundred and twenty thousand American soldiers caught, trapped in the crossfire
This is a period of great peril for humanity, a period when the freedoms that ordinary men and women have enjoyed for just a few decades may simply disappear. Liberty in the broad sweep of human history may be as transitory and fleeting as a beautiful rainbow after a shower of rain. It is a time for us to dig deep to preserve the foundations of democracy that we have created, and build solid edifices of civility on these bases.
It is time for truth, for a ruthless and relentless search for the truth. Implicit in the foregoing is an accurate description of human nature. Not the nature of the rich, or the poor, or of foreigners, or of members of minorities, or of women, but of the intrinsic nature of human beings.
The solution to our problem is not voting out those who currently have their hands of the levers of power because those who replace them would exhibit and demonstrate that same intrinsic nature.
The solution lies in understanding that we have relied on coercion from the beginning of time and that undeniable, inescapable, inevitable necessity determined the nature of human culture.
If we had not become adept at using force our race would not have survived. But becoming adept at using force produced a certain mind set, it made us play a certain role when we confronted superior strength, and another role when we confronted the weak.
We were conditioned to playing the social roles of predator or prey. These roles are deeply embedded in our culture and in every one of our social institutions. For most of human history, governments have preyed on those subjected to them, husbands have used and abused their wives and consigned them to status and condition of property; those who managed production reduced those who produced to serfdom or chattel slavery; in the navy or army discipline was rigorously and brutally enforced by cruel instruments of torture like the cat-o-nine tails and summary executions for derelictions of duty.
Absolutism, a form of government wherein rulers had the power of life and death over their subjects, is the most sophisticated and long enduring form of coercion based culture. It is analogous to an avalanche that started high on slopes of the mountain of history, when man was a predator among predators, and it has been gaining speed, momentum and awesome power as it plunged precipitously toward the present.
I am suggesting that its mad, destructive career was not halted by attempts to create governments of the people, by the people, for the people, it simply adapted to the new conditions, adopted a new guise and became covert instead of overt.
I suggest it can never be stopped, will never be stopped without fundamental change in the existing culture. We must become adept in using positive reinforcements to motivate the other to act. I have used the approach of a used car dealer to a customer who walks in off the street, as against the treatment by that same individual of his favorite daughter. The approach to the stranger who walks into his showroom is predatory, that individual will be recipient of an upside down deal on the worst lemon on the lot. The approach to his daughter will be to give her the best deal he can on the most reliable car on the lot. Unless that daughter evokes his displeasure by wanting to marry someone he deems unsuitable, someone of a different race, or who is not economically viable.
We must find it in our hearts and minds to see the other, whether that individual be a complete stranger or a recalcitrant child not as prey but as someone worthy of our love and respect.
The question that beguiles most of my waking hours is how can I make humanity confront the true nature of the social reality in which we exist?
How can I cause a bare majority of human beings to rise above their selfish interests, their neuroses to see the past as it was? A period when the masses were seen as cannon fodder or hewers of wood and drawers of water. When the labor cost in any enterprise or industry was very low, because those who labored were not paid, they were completely dehumanized to be slaves or serfs. When the governments had no social costs because they had no responsibility for whether the masses lived or died, when there were no health services, no pension plan for the aged. When the accepted objective of the society, when all the energies and resources of the social system was committed to producing wealth for a small, a miniscule elite. If any other individual or group enjoyed anything above a subsistence existence it was by accident.
In every democratic country the stated and restated objective is to create a certain minimum quality of life for all citizens. Simultaneously, the degree and extent to which coercion - the engine which generated wealth in the past, that produced function in the past - that can be applied to any individual is being significantly reduced. Can anyone see that this is a contradiction in terms, that an alternative means of motivating behavior essential for production and societal order must be developed?
Can anyone see that for human beings to continue to function as they traversed the Middle Passage, whether as master or slave, they had to be able to insulate themselves from the horrors around them? That this is a paradigm for existence for all of human history. To function human beings had to become experts at being oblivious and unaware to survive whether as predator or prey.
How long have politicians been aware that hundreds of thousands of citizens were living in the valley of the shadow of death in the environs of New Orleans? How long have they remained passive and silent while hoarding that knowledge?
Can anyone see that the habit of insulating oneself from reality must be broken, as must the mindset of irrationality precipitated by that contrived lack of awareness?
Can anyone see that to attain the objective of creating a certain minimum quality of life for all the citizens of any modern nation must cost a great deal more than supporting a small elite? That this would require the creation of wealth undreamed of during all of human history.
Can anyone see that we have the technology and productive capacities equal to this Herculean task, that what is lacking is the motivation, and that what must be used to overcome this lack, to harness the maximum productive and creative energies of the populace to the national plow must be positive reinforcements? That there are two alternatives the carrot or the stick, and that when the stick, coercion is applied this obviates, makes unnecessary, dysfunctional, and downright counterproducitve acting for the common good.
Can anyone see that as coercion is the lynchpin of Absolutist regimes, so is positive reinforcements the motivation that must be relied on to create functioning democracies. That as oblivion is an absolute necessity in Absolutist regimes, the application of intelligence and the higher mental processes is the foundation of a democratic society. That as necessary as insensate arbitrary mindlessness is to the function of tyrannies, so are the precepts of compassion, justice and love essential to function in democratic nations.
Is there any catastrophe of sufficient magnitude that would cause a bare majority of human beings in any social system to perceive the total and absolute futility of competition as the ethos of human culture. The immediate response is that what is destructive is competition without justice and fair play. But the goal of competition must be to win, at whatever cost, this is the engine generating endless conflict.
I ask my race, when will you find the will to apply those ideas that have always been valued in concept but never applied in precept? When will you find the will and endurance to discover if the truth will make you free, when will you find the will to discover what would be the result if social relations were informed and imbued with justice, honesty, compassion and truth?
All of human history has been replete with conflict, suffering, tragedy, and catastrophe, when will we come to the realization that these are the product of the mindset embedded in coercion based culture, that to opt for interests over facts is inherently irrational and must result, soon or late in massive dysfunction; to choose might over right, must have a similar result?
It is time for the change, not the cosmetic change to a government composed of individuals with a different ideology and composed of different personalities, but the enduring, eternally redemptive change from deceit and obfuscation to honesty and truth; the change from the application of arbitrary power to the balm of simple justice; the change from mindless tyranny to creative intelligence; the change from animus, animosity and suspicion to understanding, compassion and love.
The most touching and poignant scene I witnessed as I observed from afar the tragedy enfolding in the Gulf was a man reporting the loss of his wife. He reported that he held on to her as long as he could but after a time they both knew that she would be swept away by the relentless pull of the rising waters. He reported her last words, she admonished him to, “Take care of the children and the grandchildren!”
These words broke my heart and caused me to shed copious tears because they encapsulated the message I have been trying, completely unsuccessfully, to convey to my race for the past twenty nine years of my life.
Children, whether they be Iraqi children, or American children, or Jamaican children, or Indian children, or German children; are completely defenseless and dependent on the adults around them for nurturing and sustenance. When we can create a matrix in which they are not physically or sexually abused, in which their rights are respected and cherished, in which they are socialized to the attitudes and aptitudes which will create for them the possibility of happiness - when we find the means to accomplish this sacred task, we will find that we have constructed a just society.
All rights reserved, copyright retained.
William E. Virtue
vox_pacis@hotmail.net
posted by voiceofpeace at 9:45 PM
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