Obama's Failed State
By Stephen Lendman
Information Clearing House
February 14, 2013
Obama's State of the Union address didn't surprise. It reflected
rogue leadership. It was beginning-to-end demagogic boilerplate.
Defending the indefensible took center stage.
Rhetoric substituted for progressive policies. Bombast assured
business as usual.
Priorities include waging war on humanity, force-fed austerity,
ignoring public needs, institutionalizing a repressive police state
apparatus, and cracking down hard on non-believers.
Doing so assures growing despotism, lawlessness, poverty,
unemployment, homelessness, hunger, and deprivation.
Obama's address targeted Medicare.
He called "medical care for the aged….the biggest cause of the
nation's longterm debt."
He lied. Military spending, imperial wars, Wall Street bailouts,
other corporate handouts, and tax cuts for the rich and business
bear full responsibility.
Falsely blaming Medicare for Washington's malfeasance reveals
bipartisan rogue leadership. It's indicative of what's to come.
In 2009, Obama prioritized cutting healthcare costs and, "restoring
fiscal discipline." He made doing so the top, "pillars" of his agenda
saying:
"We've kicked this can down the road. We are now at the end of
the road and are not in a position to kick it any further."
"We have to signal seriousness in this by making sure some of
the hard decisions are made under my watch, not someone else's."
"The big problem is Medicare. Its cost is unsustainable."
"Let's not kid ourselves and suggest that we can solve this problem
by trimming a few earmarks."
"The biggest cost drivers in our budget are entitlement programs
like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, all of which get more
and more expensive every year."
"If we want to get serious about fiscal discipline - and I do - we will
have to get serious about entitlement reform."
Medicare and Social Security aren't entitlements. They're insurance
programs.
They're funded by worker/employer payroll tax deductions. They're
contractual federal obligations to eligible recipients who qualify.
Obama did what he does best. He lied. He's a serial liar.
He supports wealth and power. He’s beholden to powerful monied
interests. They own him. He spurns popular needs. He prioritizes
letting them go begging on his watch.
He proposed massive Medicare cuts. In 2010, 2011, and last
November he urged more. He's waging class war on Americans.
He wants fundamental social benefits destroyed. He wants
ordinary people hung out to dry. He wants them on own sink
or swim.
In 2010, his Simpson-Bowles National Commission on Fiscal
Responsibility and Reform (NCFRF) recommended deep Medicare
cuts, higher Medicaid co-pays, and restrictions on filing malpractice
suits.
It urged other ways to end Washington's responsibility for healthcare.
Obama's address reiterated support. Implementation assures disaster
for millions.
Healthcare for millions already is unaffordable. Implementing
Simpson-Bowles makes it more so when most needed. Illnesses
will go untreated. Pain, suffering, and early deaths will follow.
Rogue leadership assures it. Obama reflects the worst of
irresponsible lawless leaders.
His jobs proposals reveal more. His address rehashed old schemes.
His September 2011, "American Jobs Act" promised, "putting more
people back to work" with no plan to do it.
It showed contempt for ordinary households. It was same old,
same old. It concealed another thinly veiled wealth transfer
scheme.
It included a laundry list of corporate handouts.
Excluded were ways to create jobs, stimulate growth, reinvigorate
Main Street, strengthen America's middle class, and help growing
millions of impoverished, disadvantaged households most in need.
Obama's address claimed trade deals offshoring jobs to low wage
countries create them. He urge support for current ones being
negotiated.
He wants the nearly completed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
adopted. It's a trade deal from hell. It's a secretive, multi-nation
agreement.
Adoption assures unrestricted trade in goods, services, rules
of origin, trade remedies, sanitary and phytosanitary measures,
technical barriers, government procurement and competition
policies, and intellectual property (IP).
Obama want secretive provisions established with no public
oversight or knowledge of their destructive harm. TPP aims
to rewrite global IP enforcement rules. It includes numerous
other anti-populist mandates.
National sovereignty is at stake. Signatory countries must
change domestic laws, regulations, and other policies to
comply.
What's known subverts US laws. Congress is left powerless.
Supranational TPP authority overrides national sovereignty.
Investor rights are prioritized over public ones.
Obama called for replicating TPP with EU countries. He urged
establishing a Trans-Atlantic Partnership. He prioritizes corporate
empowerment over human rights and needs. He's got much more
in mind.
He supports extrajudicial killing. He's got kill list authority. It's
official US policy. Drones are his weapon of choice. He appointed
himself judge, jury and executioner.
He wants anyone he targets assassinated. US citizens are included.
Rule of law protections don't apply. Summary judgment has final say.
No one's safe anywhere. There's no place to hide.
His address made clear where he stands, saying:
"Where necessary, through a range of capabilities, we will continue
to take direct action against those terrorists who pose the gravest
threat to Americans."
Police states operate that way. Murder, Inc. is official policy.
He claimed he "forge(d) a durable legal and policy (enforceable)
framework." He usurped diktat authority.
Doing so subverts fundamental international, constitutional, and
US statute laws. They're null and void. His say overrides them.
Unchecked power is policy. Full-blown tyranny's a hair's breath
away. Congressional leaders are supportive.
Obama's entire address reflected rogue leadership.
He wants public schools modernized by privatizing them.
His immigration proposal mocks notions of welcoming tired,
poor, wretched masses yearning to breathe free.
His energy program prioritizes drill, drill, drill.
His cybersecurity scheme involves no-holds-barred cyberwar.
His notion of economic prosperity is greater corporate
empowerment and enriching America's privileged.
His housing program lets bankers scam ordinary people.
His minimum wage proposal falls way below the poverty line.
His Afghanistan plan is permanent occupation.
His budget-cutting program targets vitally needed domestic
programs. His entire agenda reflects rogue leadership.
He's got much more in mind. He's four more years to wage
war on humanity. Expect him to take full advantage.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and his new book is titled
"Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity." http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33945.htm
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Monday, February 11, 2013
A Choice For Corporate America
Are You With America or The Cayman Islands
By Senator Bernie Sanders
The Huffington Post
February 11, 2013
When the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on Wall Street
drove this country into the deepest recession since the 1930s,
the largest financial institutions in the United States took every
advantage of being American.
They just loved their country - and the willingness of the American
people to provide them with the largest bailout in world history.
In 2008, Congress approved a $700 billion gift to Wall Street.
Another $16 trillion in virtually zero interest loans and
other financial assistance came from the Federal Reserve.
America. What a great country.
But just two years later, as soon as these giant financial institutions
started making record-breaking profits again, they suddenly lost their
love for their native country.
At a time when the nation was suffering from a huge deficit, largely
created by the recession that Wall Street caused, the major financial
institutions did everything they could to avoid paying American taxes
by establishing shell corporations in the Cayman Islands and other tax
havens.
In 2010, Bank of America set up more than 200 subsidiaries in the
Cayman Islands (which has a corporate tax rate of 0.0 percent) to
avoid paying U.S. taxes.
It worked. Not only did Bank of America pay nothing in federal
income taxes, but it received a rebate from the IRS worth $1.9
billion that year.
They are not alone. In 2010, JP Morgan Chase operated 83
subsidiaries incorporated in offshore tax havens to avoid
paying some $4.9 billion in U.S. taxes.
That same year Goldman Sachs operated 39 subsidiaries in
offshore tax havens to avoid an estimated $3.3 billion in
U.S. taxes.
Citigroup has paid no federal income taxes for the last four years
after receiving a total of $2.5 trillion in financial assistance from
the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis.
On and on it goes.
Wall Street banks and large companies love America when they
need corporate welfare.
But when it comes to paying American taxes or American wages,
they want nothing to do with this country.
That has got to change. Offshore tax abuse is not just limited to
Wall Street.
Each and every year corporations and the wealthy are avoiding more
than $100 billion in U.S. taxes by sheltering their income offshore.
Pharmaceutical companies like Eli Lilly and Pfizer have fought to
make it illegal for the American people to buy cheaper prescription
drugs from Canada and Europe.
But, during tax season, Eli Lilly and Pfizer shift drug patents and
profits to the Netherlands and other offshore tax havens to avoid
paying U.S. taxes.
Apple wants all of the advantages of being an American company,
but it doesn't want to pay American taxes or American wages.
It creates the iPad, the iPhone, the iPod, and iTunes in the United
States, but manufactures most of its products in China so it doesn't
have to pay American wages.
Then it shifts most of its profits to Ireland, Luxembourg, the British
Virgin Islands and other tax havens to avoid paying U.S. taxes.
Without such maneuvers, Apple's federal tax bill in the United States
would have been $2.4 billion higher in 2011.
Offshore tax schemes have become so absurd that one five-story
office building in the Cayman Islands is now the, "home" to more
than 18,000 corporations.
This tax avoidance does not just reduce the revenue that we need to
pay for education, healthcare, roads, and environmental protection,
it is also costing us millions of American jobs.
Today, companies are using these same tax schemes to lower
their tax bills by shipping American jobs and factories abroad.
These tax breaks have contributed to the loss of more than
5 million U.S. manufacturing jobs and the closure of more than
56,000 factories since 2000.
That also has got to change.
At a time when we have a $16.5 trillion national debt; at a time when
roughly one-quarter of the largest corporations in America are paying
no federal income taxes; and at a time when corporate profits are at
an all-time high; it is past time for Wall Street and corporate America
to pay their fair share.
That's what the Corporate Tax Dodging Prevention Act (S.250) that
I have introduced with Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) is all about.
This legislation will stop profitable Wall Street banks and corporations
from sheltering profits in the Cayman Islands and other tax havens to
avoid paying U.S. taxes.
It will also stop rewarding companies that ship jobs and factories
overseas with tax breaks.
The Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated in the past that the
provisions in this bill will raise more than $590 billion in revenue over
the next decade.
As Congress debates deficit reduction, it is clear that we must raise
significant new revenue.
At 15.8 percent of GDP, federal revenue is at almost the lowest point
in 60 years.
Our Republican colleagues want to balance the budget on the backs
of the elderly, the sick, the children, the veterans, and the most
vulnerable by making massive cuts.
At a time when the middle class already is disappearing, that is not
only a grossly immoral position, it is bad economics.
We have a much better idea.
Wall Street and the largest corporations in the country must begin to
pay their fair share of taxes.
They must not be able to continue hiding their profits offshore and
shipping American jobs overseas to avoid taxes.
Here's the simple truth.
You can't be an American company only when you want a massive
bailout from the American people.
You have also got to be an American company, and pay your fair share of taxes, as we struggle with the deficit and adequate funding for the needs of the American people.
If Wall Street and corporate America don't agree, the next time
they need a bailout let them go to the Cayman Islands, let them
go to Bermuda, let them go to the Bahamas and let them ask those
countries for corporate welfare.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/a-choice-for-
corporate-am_b_2652176.html
By Senator Bernie Sanders
The Huffington Post
February 11, 2013
When the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on Wall Street
drove this country into the deepest recession since the 1930s,
the largest financial institutions in the United States took every
advantage of being American.
They just loved their country - and the willingness of the American
people to provide them with the largest bailout in world history.
In 2008, Congress approved a $700 billion gift to Wall Street.
Another $16 trillion in virtually zero interest loans and
other financial assistance came from the Federal Reserve.
America. What a great country.
But just two years later, as soon as these giant financial institutions
started making record-breaking profits again, they suddenly lost their
love for their native country.
At a time when the nation was suffering from a huge deficit, largely
created by the recession that Wall Street caused, the major financial
institutions did everything they could to avoid paying American taxes
by establishing shell corporations in the Cayman Islands and other tax
havens.
In 2010, Bank of America set up more than 200 subsidiaries in the
Cayman Islands (which has a corporate tax rate of 0.0 percent) to
avoid paying U.S. taxes.
It worked. Not only did Bank of America pay nothing in federal
income taxes, but it received a rebate from the IRS worth $1.9
billion that year.
They are not alone. In 2010, JP Morgan Chase operated 83
subsidiaries incorporated in offshore tax havens to avoid
paying some $4.9 billion in U.S. taxes.
That same year Goldman Sachs operated 39 subsidiaries in
offshore tax havens to avoid an estimated $3.3 billion in
U.S. taxes.
Citigroup has paid no federal income taxes for the last four years
after receiving a total of $2.5 trillion in financial assistance from
the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis.
On and on it goes.
Wall Street banks and large companies love America when they
need corporate welfare.
But when it comes to paying American taxes or American wages,
they want nothing to do with this country.
That has got to change. Offshore tax abuse is not just limited to
Wall Street.
Each and every year corporations and the wealthy are avoiding more
than $100 billion in U.S. taxes by sheltering their income offshore.
Pharmaceutical companies like Eli Lilly and Pfizer have fought to
make it illegal for the American people to buy cheaper prescription
drugs from Canada and Europe.
But, during tax season, Eli Lilly and Pfizer shift drug patents and
profits to the Netherlands and other offshore tax havens to avoid
paying U.S. taxes.
Apple wants all of the advantages of being an American company,
but it doesn't want to pay American taxes or American wages.
It creates the iPad, the iPhone, the iPod, and iTunes in the United
States, but manufactures most of its products in China so it doesn't
have to pay American wages.
Then it shifts most of its profits to Ireland, Luxembourg, the British
Virgin Islands and other tax havens to avoid paying U.S. taxes.
Without such maneuvers, Apple's federal tax bill in the United States
would have been $2.4 billion higher in 2011.
Offshore tax schemes have become so absurd that one five-story
office building in the Cayman Islands is now the, "home" to more
than 18,000 corporations.
This tax avoidance does not just reduce the revenue that we need to
pay for education, healthcare, roads, and environmental protection,
it is also costing us millions of American jobs.
Today, companies are using these same tax schemes to lower
their tax bills by shipping American jobs and factories abroad.
These tax breaks have contributed to the loss of more than
5 million U.S. manufacturing jobs and the closure of more than
56,000 factories since 2000.
That also has got to change.
At a time when we have a $16.5 trillion national debt; at a time when
roughly one-quarter of the largest corporations in America are paying
no federal income taxes; and at a time when corporate profits are at
an all-time high; it is past time for Wall Street and corporate America
to pay their fair share.
That's what the Corporate Tax Dodging Prevention Act (S.250) that
I have introduced with Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) is all about.
This legislation will stop profitable Wall Street banks and corporations
from sheltering profits in the Cayman Islands and other tax havens to
avoid paying U.S. taxes.
It will also stop rewarding companies that ship jobs and factories
overseas with tax breaks.
The Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated in the past that the
provisions in this bill will raise more than $590 billion in revenue over
the next decade.
As Congress debates deficit reduction, it is clear that we must raise
significant new revenue.
At 15.8 percent of GDP, federal revenue is at almost the lowest point
in 60 years.
Our Republican colleagues want to balance the budget on the backs
of the elderly, the sick, the children, the veterans, and the most
vulnerable by making massive cuts.
At a time when the middle class already is disappearing, that is not
only a grossly immoral position, it is bad economics.
We have a much better idea.
Wall Street and the largest corporations in the country must begin to
pay their fair share of taxes.
They must not be able to continue hiding their profits offshore and
shipping American jobs overseas to avoid taxes.
Here's the simple truth.
You can't be an American company only when you want a massive
bailout from the American people.
You have also got to be an American company, and pay your fair share of taxes, as we struggle with the deficit and adequate funding for the needs of the American people.
If Wall Street and corporate America don't agree, the next time
they need a bailout let them go to the Cayman Islands, let them
go to Bermuda, let them go to the Bahamas and let them ask those
countries for corporate welfare.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/a-choice-for-
corporate-am_b_2652176.html
Friday, February 8, 2013
Tribalism and Agreed-Upon Lies
Tribalism and Agreed-Upon Lies
”History is a set of lies agreed upon”, - Napoleon Bonaparte, quoting
Fontanelle
By John Scales Avery
Information Clearing House
Friday, February 08, 2013
It seems to be a part of human nature to behave with great kindness
towards members of our own group.
By contrast we often exhibit terrible aggression towards other groups
that are perceived to be competing with or threatening our own.
This profile of intra-tribal altruism and inter-tribal aggression is easy
to understand if we remember that our remote ancestors belonged to
small, genetically homogeneous tribes, competing for territory on the
grasslands of Africa.
Because all the members of a particular primitive tribe had closely
similar genes through intermarriage, the tribe as a whole was the
unit upon which evolutionary forces acted.
The tribe as a whole either survived or perished, and those groups
with the strongest, “team spirit” survived best.
Later in history, the invention of agriculture made it possible for
humans to live in larger groups, and ethical rules were invented
to overwrite raw human nature so that genetically inhomogeneous
cities, nations and even empires could exist with social cohesion
and without internal strife.
Because of ethics, cooperation became possible over larger and
larger areas.
Human culture was able to blossom, and the vast accumulation
of knowledge upon which modern civilization depends began to
accumulate.
Nevertheless, narrow tribalism remains today in the form of religious
bigotry and fanatical nationalism.
We urgently need a global ethic, which will unite all humans.
Members of tribelike groups throughout history have marked their
identity by adhering to irrational systems of belief.
Like the ritual scarification which is sometimes used by primitive
tribes as a mark of identity, irrational systems of belief are also a
mark of tribal identity.
We parade these beliefs to demonstrate that we belong a special
group and that we are proud of it. The more irrational the belief is,
the better it serves this purpose.
When you and I tell each other that we believe the same nonsense, a
bond is forged between us. The worse the nonsense is, the stronger
the bond.
Sometimes motives of advantage are mixed in.
As the Nobel Laureate biochemist Albert Szent-Györgyi observed,
evolution designed the human mind, not for finding truth, but for
finding advantage.
Within the Orwellian framework of many modern nations, it
is extremely disadvantageous to hold the wrong opinions.
The wiretappers know what you are thinking.
Also, people often believe what will make them happy.
How else can we explain the denial of climate change in the
face of massive evidence to the contrary?
But truth has the great virtue that it allows us to accurately
predict the future.
If we ignore truth because it is unfashionable, or painful, or
heretical, the future will catch us unprepared.
John Avery received a B.Sc. in theoretical physics from MIT and an
M.Sc. from the University of Chicago. He later studied theoretical
chemistry at the University of London, and was awarded a Ph.D.
there in 1965. He is now Lektor Emeritus, Associate Professor, at
the Department of Chemistry, University of Copenhagen.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33879.htm
”History is a set of lies agreed upon”, - Napoleon Bonaparte, quoting
Fontanelle
By John Scales Avery
Information Clearing House
Friday, February 08, 2013
It seems to be a part of human nature to behave with great kindness
towards members of our own group.
By contrast we often exhibit terrible aggression towards other groups
that are perceived to be competing with or threatening our own.
This profile of intra-tribal altruism and inter-tribal aggression is easy
to understand if we remember that our remote ancestors belonged to
small, genetically homogeneous tribes, competing for territory on the
grasslands of Africa.
Because all the members of a particular primitive tribe had closely
similar genes through intermarriage, the tribe as a whole was the
unit upon which evolutionary forces acted.
The tribe as a whole either survived or perished, and those groups
with the strongest, “team spirit” survived best.
Later in history, the invention of agriculture made it possible for
humans to live in larger groups, and ethical rules were invented
to overwrite raw human nature so that genetically inhomogeneous
cities, nations and even empires could exist with social cohesion
and without internal strife.
Because of ethics, cooperation became possible over larger and
larger areas.
Human culture was able to blossom, and the vast accumulation
of knowledge upon which modern civilization depends began to
accumulate.
Nevertheless, narrow tribalism remains today in the form of religious
bigotry and fanatical nationalism.
We urgently need a global ethic, which will unite all humans.
Members of tribelike groups throughout history have marked their
identity by adhering to irrational systems of belief.
Like the ritual scarification which is sometimes used by primitive
tribes as a mark of identity, irrational systems of belief are also a
mark of tribal identity.
We parade these beliefs to demonstrate that we belong a special
group and that we are proud of it. The more irrational the belief is,
the better it serves this purpose.
When you and I tell each other that we believe the same nonsense, a
bond is forged between us. The worse the nonsense is, the stronger
the bond.
Sometimes motives of advantage are mixed in.
As the Nobel Laureate biochemist Albert Szent-Györgyi observed,
evolution designed the human mind, not for finding truth, but for
finding advantage.
Within the Orwellian framework of many modern nations, it
is extremely disadvantageous to hold the wrong opinions.
The wiretappers know what you are thinking.
Also, people often believe what will make them happy.
How else can we explain the denial of climate change in the
face of massive evidence to the contrary?
But truth has the great virtue that it allows us to accurately
predict the future.
If we ignore truth because it is unfashionable, or painful, or
heretical, the future will catch us unprepared.
John Avery received a B.Sc. in theoretical physics from MIT and an
M.Sc. from the University of Chicago. He later studied theoretical
chemistry at the University of London, and was awarded a Ph.D.
there in 1965. He is now Lektor Emeritus, Associate Professor, at
the Department of Chemistry, University of Copenhagen.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33879.htm
Monday, February 4, 2013
Have We Lost Our Humanity?
Have We Lost Our Humanity?
By Robert Wolff
Op Ed News Op Eds
February 04, 2013
Our scientists are renowned. We know so much. But we know more
about the universe and about bacteria and viruses than we know
about ourselves.
Certainly, we know more than ever about the functioning of our
physical selves.
We have multiple imaginations about who we are and where we fit
into the biosphere, for instance. But somewhere we have lost
ourselves as humans.
We, meaning the western, "we" assume and accept that we are
totally apart from the earth and all other creators. We believe we
own the planet.
Most of humankind still knows that we are Mother Earth's children,
as the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, said. We are not the boss;
we do not own the world. If anything, the planet owns us.
Humans everywhere have rituals and beliefs that strengthen their
cohesion as a cooperative community.
We westerners, modern humans, have grandiose and unreal beliefs
about our unlimited power to do what we want. What we do with all
our power endangers our own survival and that of many other species.
I think that is because we know so much about matter, and so little
about the spirit that is the essence of life.
We have come to think that, "spirit" is unmeasurable and therefore
not scientific, not worth thinking about.
Perhaps because we think spirit is religion, and so outside the realm
of science that deals only with matter, another form of energy as
Einstein formulated.
The only rational something to pay attention to.
But to me the word, "spirit" does not mean religion. Religion is the
package, what we create around spirit. Religion is a form we give
spirit and we can make hundreds, thousands of forms.
It is hard to talk about, or define, "spirit" in a culture that accepts
only matter as real.
To me spirit is more real than matter. It is the awe that is at the
core of life.
Spirit is in what we call love, compassion.
Spirit is the indomitable something of the people who struggled to
reach the poles despite inhuman odds, climbed the highest mountains
of the Himalayas.
Spirit is what makes children surviving a cyclone in Burma take care
of each other, when in the confusion no adults are around.
Spirit is what makes people all over the world make sometimes great
efforts to raise baby animals orphaned by hunters or poachers who
killed the nursing mother tiger, or elephant.
Spirit is the mysterious something we feel on a lonely beach when
happening upon an unusual, almost unreal, sunrise on a far horizon.
Spirit, I imagine, is what the first space traveler felt when he saw
the earth, the whole earth and understood the miracle of this ball of
matter that is alive, held in a trajectory around the sun by invisible
forces.
I'm not sure that only humans have spirit.
I wonder what animals feel at sunset: usually no wind, fading light,
birds who chatter loudly in a tree suddenly silent. Even the roosters
here stop crowing.
I remember a time when a friend and I were at a rocky beach. Her
dog could not stop bounding from one rock to another sniffing and
playing with the waves. Until it began to get dark. When a blood-
red sun lit up the sky at the far horizon the dog sat frozen at our
feet, as enraptured as we were.
Hiding, ignoring, or denying spirit makes a cruel culture. It leaves
us searching for ideals. Something greater, more important, than
the fear which drives us today.
A majority of, "We the People" chose the ideals so eloquently
spoken, but some politicians did not hear and perhaps had
more power through worshipping money.
The irony, of course, is that money is an illusion.
A piece of paper printed with the words, "ten dollars" is not worth
anything but the price of a printed piece of paper.
But seller and buyer accept the belief that it can buy ten dollars
worth of stuff.
History is full of occasions when suddenly people woke up and no
longer believed the worth of a piece of paper.
The wealth of the super rich is as illusional, it consists of numbers
in a computer that we let it intimidate us.
Maybe you think spirit is as illusionary as money because it does
not buy anything. Oh, but it does!
It does not buy material things, but spirit makes us human.
Spirit is what gives compassion.
Com-passion: with-feeling. Not doing to others what we do not
want others to do to us.
Isn't that the exact opposite of what our current culture does?
We do to others what we don't want them to do to us.
It is a law of nature, a law of the universe perhaps, that the
more we kill others the more the others will kill us.
But what do I know? I'm a 20th Century man, I don't understand
this century.
But I do know that a culture based on fear is not healthy. If
everyone and anyone is suspected of being a possible danger,
we make ourselves the danger.
A healthy culture is based on trust. It seems to me that is what
this Republic was meant to be by the Fathers.
Trusting that, "We the People" were honorable human beings,
trusted to want the best for all of us.
Yes, flawed because at the time slaves were not considered quite
human (although human enough to bear half white children). But
we corrected that.
Now we are plagued with the disease of mistrusting people of
another religion, another color, other thoughts. Distrust does
not a healthy society make.
We have lost the human.
Humans are not all alike, humans have unique qualities and talents;
that make ours a unique and talented society.
We cannot forget or ignore that humans have spirit even when it is
hidden behind one or more masks.
Anyone remember Dune, by Frank Herbert? Famous science fiction
of the second half of the last century. This is from that book the
first, the original:
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death
that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it
to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will
turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there
will be nothing. Only I will remain."
(The Litany of Fear, Bene Geserit rite, from DUNE, by Frank Herbert,
c. 1965)
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Have-We-Lost-Our-Humanity-
by-robert-wolff-130201-608.html
By Robert Wolff
Op Ed News Op Eds
February 04, 2013
Our scientists are renowned. We know so much. But we know more
about the universe and about bacteria and viruses than we know
about ourselves.
Certainly, we know more than ever about the functioning of our
physical selves.
We have multiple imaginations about who we are and where we fit
into the biosphere, for instance. But somewhere we have lost
ourselves as humans.
We, meaning the western, "we" assume and accept that we are
totally apart from the earth and all other creators. We believe we
own the planet.
Most of humankind still knows that we are Mother Earth's children,
as the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, said. We are not the boss;
we do not own the world. If anything, the planet owns us.
Humans everywhere have rituals and beliefs that strengthen their
cohesion as a cooperative community.
We westerners, modern humans, have grandiose and unreal beliefs
about our unlimited power to do what we want. What we do with all
our power endangers our own survival and that of many other species.
I think that is because we know so much about matter, and so little
about the spirit that is the essence of life.
We have come to think that, "spirit" is unmeasurable and therefore
not scientific, not worth thinking about.
Perhaps because we think spirit is religion, and so outside the realm
of science that deals only with matter, another form of energy as
Einstein formulated.
The only rational something to pay attention to.
But to me the word, "spirit" does not mean religion. Religion is the
package, what we create around spirit. Religion is a form we give
spirit and we can make hundreds, thousands of forms.
It is hard to talk about, or define, "spirit" in a culture that accepts
only matter as real.
To me spirit is more real than matter. It is the awe that is at the
core of life.
Spirit is in what we call love, compassion.
Spirit is the indomitable something of the people who struggled to
reach the poles despite inhuman odds, climbed the highest mountains
of the Himalayas.
Spirit is what makes children surviving a cyclone in Burma take care
of each other, when in the confusion no adults are around.
Spirit is what makes people all over the world make sometimes great
efforts to raise baby animals orphaned by hunters or poachers who
killed the nursing mother tiger, or elephant.
Spirit is the mysterious something we feel on a lonely beach when
happening upon an unusual, almost unreal, sunrise on a far horizon.
Spirit, I imagine, is what the first space traveler felt when he saw
the earth, the whole earth and understood the miracle of this ball of
matter that is alive, held in a trajectory around the sun by invisible
forces.
I'm not sure that only humans have spirit.
I wonder what animals feel at sunset: usually no wind, fading light,
birds who chatter loudly in a tree suddenly silent. Even the roosters
here stop crowing.
I remember a time when a friend and I were at a rocky beach. Her
dog could not stop bounding from one rock to another sniffing and
playing with the waves. Until it began to get dark. When a blood-
red sun lit up the sky at the far horizon the dog sat frozen at our
feet, as enraptured as we were.
Hiding, ignoring, or denying spirit makes a cruel culture. It leaves
us searching for ideals. Something greater, more important, than
the fear which drives us today.
A majority of, "We the People" chose the ideals so eloquently
spoken, but some politicians did not hear and perhaps had
more power through worshipping money.
The irony, of course, is that money is an illusion.
A piece of paper printed with the words, "ten dollars" is not worth
anything but the price of a printed piece of paper.
But seller and buyer accept the belief that it can buy ten dollars
worth of stuff.
History is full of occasions when suddenly people woke up and no
longer believed the worth of a piece of paper.
The wealth of the super rich is as illusional, it consists of numbers
in a computer that we let it intimidate us.
Maybe you think spirit is as illusionary as money because it does
not buy anything. Oh, but it does!
It does not buy material things, but spirit makes us human.
Spirit is what gives compassion.
Com-passion: with-feeling. Not doing to others what we do not
want others to do to us.
Isn't that the exact opposite of what our current culture does?
We do to others what we don't want them to do to us.
It is a law of nature, a law of the universe perhaps, that the
more we kill others the more the others will kill us.
But what do I know? I'm a 20th Century man, I don't understand
this century.
But I do know that a culture based on fear is not healthy. If
everyone and anyone is suspected of being a possible danger,
we make ourselves the danger.
A healthy culture is based on trust. It seems to me that is what
this Republic was meant to be by the Fathers.
Trusting that, "We the People" were honorable human beings,
trusted to want the best for all of us.
Yes, flawed because at the time slaves were not considered quite
human (although human enough to bear half white children). But
we corrected that.
Now we are plagued with the disease of mistrusting people of
another religion, another color, other thoughts. Distrust does
not a healthy society make.
We have lost the human.
Humans are not all alike, humans have unique qualities and talents;
that make ours a unique and talented society.
We cannot forget or ignore that humans have spirit even when it is
hidden behind one or more masks.
Anyone remember Dune, by Frank Herbert? Famous science fiction
of the second half of the last century. This is from that book the
first, the original:
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death
that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it
to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will
turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there
will be nothing. Only I will remain."
(The Litany of Fear, Bene Geserit rite, from DUNE, by Frank Herbert,
c. 1965)
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Have-We-Lost-Our-Humanity-
by-robert-wolff-130201-608.html
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
The Untold Genius of Einstein
The Untold Genius of Einstein
By Andrew Dilks
Disinformation
January 30, 2013
“What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To
answer this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then,
you ask, in putting it? I answer, the man who regards his own life and
that of his fellow-creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate
but almost disqualified for life.”
So begins Albert Einstein’s The World As I See It, a collection of
essays, articles and letters written between 1922 and 1934 focusing
on the humane aspect of this scientific genius and revealing him as
a man of compassion and wisdom all too aware of the pressing need
for science to serve the well-being of humanity.
There are countless documentaries and books discussing Einstein’s
enduring legacy to modern science – few are unaware of his
contributions to the field of theoretical physics: the general theory
of relativity and the E = mc2 formula for mass-energy equivalence
are perhaps universally known (if not necessarily understood).
By comparison, his political and religious views go largely
unmentioned, concealed beneath the giant shadow looming
from his immense scientific achievements.
Reading The World As I See It and it is clear that overlooking this
aspect of Einstein’s life and thinking is a dramatic oversight.
On the meaning of life – a loaded subject on which “everybody has
certain ideals which determine the direction of his endeavours and
judgements” – Einstein writes:
“The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time
have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth,
Goodness and Beauty. Without the sense of fellowship with men of
like mind, of preoccupation with the objective, the eternally
unattainable in the field of art and scientific research, life would
have seemed to me empty. The ordinary objects of human endeavour
property, outward success, luxury – have always seemed to me
contemptible.”
While Einstein supported the political model in the United States of
America (a very different beast at the time of writing compared to
today) his sense of social justice prevented him from perceiving the
State as superior to man himself.
“The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me
not the State but the creative, sentient individual, the personality;
it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such
remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.”
Moreover, he saw how the shortcomings of political systems
undermined culture and society:
“The lack of outstanding figures is particularly striking in the domain
of art. Painting and music have definitely degenerated and largely
lost their popular appeal. In politics not only are leaders lacking, but
the independence of spirit and sense of justice of the citizen have to
a great extent declined."
"The democratic, parliamentarian regime, which is based on such
independence, has in many places been shaken, dictatorships have
sprung up and are tolerated, because men’s sense of dignity and the
rights of the individual is no longer strong enough."
"In two weeks the sheep-like masses can be worked up by the
newspapers into such a state of excited fury that the men are
prepared to put on an uniform and kill and be killed, for the sake of vthe worthless aims of a few interested parties. Compulsory military
service seems to me the most disgraceful symptom of that deficiency
in personal dignity from which civilized mankind is suffering today.”
Einstein’s unequivocal condemnation of the military is clear – he
views it as an institution which represents the ultimate debasement
of the human spirit.
“That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the
strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only
been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed.
Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense
that goes by the name of patriotism – how I hate them!”
Yet he recognized the dynamics which created the perpetual state of
military “necessity”.
“The armament industry is one of the greatest dangers that beset
mankind. It is the hidden evil power behind the nationalism which
is rampant everywhere.”
In later life, true enough, Einstein supported the Manhattan Project
and the creation of the atom bomb, but did so only out of the sense
of a pressing need to develop one before the Germans did.
Doubtless, he would have been unaware at the time – as most
were, and still are to this day – of the ties between the American
establishment and the Nazis.
The admittedly significant moral dilemma of the atom bomb aside,
Einstein’s pacifism is clear in his earlier writings, as is his awareness
of its potential shortcomings.
“A pacifism which does not actually try to prevent the nations from
arming is and must remain impotent. May the conscience and the
common sense of the people be awakened, so that we may reach a
new stage in the life of nations, where people look back on war as
an incomprehensible aberration of their forefathers!”
It is difficult to imagine how deeply his disappointment ran towards
the end of his life after the Second World War…
“We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human
beings.”
He also understood that the problem permeated through all aspects
of life:
“Exaggerated respect for athletics, an excess of coarse impressions
which the complications of life through the technical discoveries
of recent years has brought with it, the increased severity of the
struggle for existence due to the economic crisis, the brutalization
of political life – all these factors are hostile to the ripening of the
character and the desire for real culture, and stamp our age as
barbarous, materialistic, and superficial.”
What despair might Einstein have felt were he alive today to witness
the propaganda which passes for political discourse and the vain,
superficial cult of celebrity, the mark of a culture in seemingly
inexorable decline.
But underneath it all at the heart of Einstein’s thinking lies a sense
of optimism - a deeply profound understanding of man’s true
potential to be a fully realized spiritual being.
He views man’s progression from religions of fear to ones of morality
as a great step, and envisions a new religion emerging in the distance.
”The religion of the future will be cosmic religion. It will transcend
personal God and avoid dogma and theology.”
In an era when quantum physics is rapidly making discoveries which
have huge implications for metaphysics, Einstein too saw the
connection between science and spirit.
”Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science
becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the
Universe – a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in
the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.”
And our place in this, according to Einstein’s view?
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part
limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts
and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical
delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for
us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few
persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this
prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living
creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
http://www.disinfo.com/2013/01/the-untold-genius-of-einstein
By Andrew Dilks
Disinformation
January 30, 2013
“What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To
answer this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then,
you ask, in putting it? I answer, the man who regards his own life and
that of his fellow-creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate
but almost disqualified for life.”
So begins Albert Einstein’s The World As I See It, a collection of
essays, articles and letters written between 1922 and 1934 focusing
on the humane aspect of this scientific genius and revealing him as
a man of compassion and wisdom all too aware of the pressing need
for science to serve the well-being of humanity.
There are countless documentaries and books discussing Einstein’s
enduring legacy to modern science – few are unaware of his
contributions to the field of theoretical physics: the general theory
of relativity and the E = mc2 formula for mass-energy equivalence
are perhaps universally known (if not necessarily understood).
By comparison, his political and religious views go largely
unmentioned, concealed beneath the giant shadow looming
from his immense scientific achievements.
Reading The World As I See It and it is clear that overlooking this
aspect of Einstein’s life and thinking is a dramatic oversight.
On the meaning of life – a loaded subject on which “everybody has
certain ideals which determine the direction of his endeavours and
judgements” – Einstein writes:
“The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time
have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth,
Goodness and Beauty. Without the sense of fellowship with men of
like mind, of preoccupation with the objective, the eternally
unattainable in the field of art and scientific research, life would
have seemed to me empty. The ordinary objects of human endeavour
property, outward success, luxury – have always seemed to me
contemptible.”
While Einstein supported the political model in the United States of
America (a very different beast at the time of writing compared to
today) his sense of social justice prevented him from perceiving the
State as superior to man himself.
“The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me
not the State but the creative, sentient individual, the personality;
it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such
remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.”
Moreover, he saw how the shortcomings of political systems
undermined culture and society:
“The lack of outstanding figures is particularly striking in the domain
of art. Painting and music have definitely degenerated and largely
lost their popular appeal. In politics not only are leaders lacking, but
the independence of spirit and sense of justice of the citizen have to
a great extent declined."
"The democratic, parliamentarian regime, which is based on such
independence, has in many places been shaken, dictatorships have
sprung up and are tolerated, because men’s sense of dignity and the
rights of the individual is no longer strong enough."
"In two weeks the sheep-like masses can be worked up by the
newspapers into such a state of excited fury that the men are
prepared to put on an uniform and kill and be killed, for the sake of vthe worthless aims of a few interested parties. Compulsory military
service seems to me the most disgraceful symptom of that deficiency
in personal dignity from which civilized mankind is suffering today.”
Einstein’s unequivocal condemnation of the military is clear – he
views it as an institution which represents the ultimate debasement
of the human spirit.
“That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the
strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only
been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed.
Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense
that goes by the name of patriotism – how I hate them!”
Yet he recognized the dynamics which created the perpetual state of
military “necessity”.
“The armament industry is one of the greatest dangers that beset
mankind. It is the hidden evil power behind the nationalism which
is rampant everywhere.”
In later life, true enough, Einstein supported the Manhattan Project
and the creation of the atom bomb, but did so only out of the sense
of a pressing need to develop one before the Germans did.
Doubtless, he would have been unaware at the time – as most
were, and still are to this day – of the ties between the American
establishment and the Nazis.
The admittedly significant moral dilemma of the atom bomb aside,
Einstein’s pacifism is clear in his earlier writings, as is his awareness
of its potential shortcomings.
“A pacifism which does not actually try to prevent the nations from
arming is and must remain impotent. May the conscience and the
common sense of the people be awakened, so that we may reach a
new stage in the life of nations, where people look back on war as
an incomprehensible aberration of their forefathers!”
It is difficult to imagine how deeply his disappointment ran towards
the end of his life after the Second World War…
“We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human
beings.”
He also understood that the problem permeated through all aspects
of life:
“Exaggerated respect for athletics, an excess of coarse impressions
which the complications of life through the technical discoveries
of recent years has brought with it, the increased severity of the
struggle for existence due to the economic crisis, the brutalization
of political life – all these factors are hostile to the ripening of the
character and the desire for real culture, and stamp our age as
barbarous, materialistic, and superficial.”
What despair might Einstein have felt were he alive today to witness
the propaganda which passes for political discourse and the vain,
superficial cult of celebrity, the mark of a culture in seemingly
inexorable decline.
But underneath it all at the heart of Einstein’s thinking lies a sense
of optimism - a deeply profound understanding of man’s true
potential to be a fully realized spiritual being.
He views man’s progression from religions of fear to ones of morality
as a great step, and envisions a new religion emerging in the distance.
”The religion of the future will be cosmic religion. It will transcend
personal God and avoid dogma and theology.”
In an era when quantum physics is rapidly making discoveries which
have huge implications for metaphysics, Einstein too saw the
connection between science and spirit.
”Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science
becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the
Universe – a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in
the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.”
And our place in this, according to Einstein’s view?
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part
limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts
and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical
delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for
us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few
persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this
prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living
creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
http://www.disinfo.com/2013/01/the-untold-genius-of-einstein
Sunday, January 27, 2013
The U.S. National Debt
The U.S. government has now racked up more than $16 trillion
dollars in debt.
The U.S. debt is now bigger than the entire U.S. economy.
The U.S. national debt was $10.626 trillion dollars on the first day President Barack Obama took office back on January 20, 2009.
The U.S. national debt as of today, January 27, 2013 is, $16.444 trillion dollars.
The U.S. national debt has now been increased by $5.8 trillion
dollars, or two-thirds of it's 2009 amount.
President Barack Obama has now overseen the largest debt
explosion in U.S. history.
So, how much is a trillion dollars?
Well, a million seconds is 11.5 days, a billion seconds is almost
32 years, and a trillion seconds is almost 32,000 years.
So, if you spent one dollar every second around the clock, it would
take you 31,688 years to spend a trillion dollars.
Now, If we wanted to pay down a trillion dollars of the U.S. national
debt, paying one dollar a second, with no interest, it would take us
almost 32,000 years.
Western civilization hasn't even existed for 32,000 years.
Washington’s crazed debt addiction is uncontrollable and endemic.
U.S. politicians have now strapped an inconceivably large debt
burden, directly onto the backs of the American People.
While often described as, “the richest nation in the world,” the
reality is, the United States of America is, "the most indebted
nation in the world."
No other government in the world even comes close to matching
the debt burden that has been dumped onto every U.S. taxpayer.
The U.S. government is rampantly incurring debt in your name,
and you have no way to stop it or to slow it down.
Standing in free speech zones with protest signs didn’t work when
it came to stopping the war(s) or when it came to stopping the
wall street crony bailouts, and it won’t work for stopping the debt
burden either.
The U.S. government has now overspent your money, not by $1
trillion, not by $2 trillion, $5 trillion, or even $10 trillion dollars.
The U.S. government has now overspent your hard-earned
money, and money not yet earned by your children, and by
your grandchildren, by over $16 trillion dollars.
You and I, didn’t overspend the $16 trillion. Our government did.
But you and I, and our families, are all now on the hook, for it all.
So, how long will it take for you and I, to pay for all of their
overspending?
To pay back one trillion dollars, at a rate of one dollar per second,
would take 31,688 years.
The median American household income is about $50,000 per year.
That translates to less than one tenth, of one cent, per second.
So, if your family earns $50,000 per year, and if you spend none of
that on food, rent, transportation, income tax or pursuing your own
happiness, and if you take all of your family’s household income and
use it to pay off just $1 trillion dollars of the current U.S. national
debt, it would take you and your family, "32 MILLION YEARS" to pay
off this debt.
Now, multiply that number by 16, because the United States of
America is now over $16 trillion dollars in debt, and 32 million
years, multiplied by 16, equals, "512,000,000 MILLION YEARS."
That’s five hundred and twelve million years.
That’s insane.
That's criminal.
That's treasonous.
That's our government.
That's our reality.
That's our cue.
Power To The People!!
Friday, January 25, 2013
Reclaiming Our Imaginations from 'There Is No Alternative'
Reclaiming Our Imaginations from 'There Is No Alternative'
By Andrea Brower
Common Dreams
January 25, 2013
We live in a time of heavy fog. A time when, though many of us
dissent and resist, humanity seems committed to a course of
collective suicide in the name of preserving an economic system
that generates scarcity no matter how much is actually produced.
To demand that all have enough to eat on a planet that grows enough
food, that absurd numbers of people do not die from preventable
disease, that utter human deprivation amongst plenty is not
tolerated, or that we put the natural laws of the biosphere above
socially constructed economic, “laws” is presented as unrealistic as
the fantasy of idealists or those who are naive to the, “complexity”
of the world’s problems.
If we create and recreate the world everyday, then how has it become
so supposedly absurd to believe we might actually create a world that
is honestly making the possibilities of egalitarianism, justice and
democracy?
Capitalism — the logic of subordinating every aspect of life to the
accumulation of profit (i.e. the “rules of the market”) has become
today’s, “common sense.”
It has become almost unthinkable to imagine coherent alternatives
to this logic, even when considering the most basic of human needs
food, water, healthcare, education.
Though many have an understanding of capitalism’s failings, there
is a resignation towards its inevitability.
Margaret Thatcher’s famous words, “There Is No Alternative,” no
longer need to be spoken, they are simply accepted as normal,
non-ideological, neutral.
What sustains the tragic myth that There Is No Alternative?
Those committed to building a more just future must begin re-
thinking and revealing the taken-for-granted assumptions that
make capitalism, “common sense” and bring these into the
realm of mainstream public debate in order to widen horizons
of possibility.
We can’t leave this task to the pages of peer-reviewed journals
and classrooms of social theory, these conversations must enter
also into the family dining rooms and TV screens.
Here are some thoughts on conversation starters:
Alternatives could never work.
Does capitalism, “work”?
Even by its own indicators, as we’ve become more capitalist (i.e.
neoliberalism), economic growth and productivity has actually declined.
Today’s globalized world is too complex to organize things any
differently.
Of course the world is complex.
Each of us is a bundle of contradictions and we need look no further
than the dynamics of a single relationship to make a case for social
complexity.
But things are also quite simple.
We live in a world where one billion people go hungry while we
literally dump half of all food produced.
Can we not come up with a productive socio-economic system
that also meets people’s most basic needs?
The gift of today is that we have the ability to reflect and draw-upon
many forms, past and present, of non-capitalist social organization,
and to creatively experiment with blending the best of these
possibilities.
The fact that we are more connected than ever before and have
advanced so far technologically gives us more possibilities, not
less.
Because of our, “Human Nature” we can only create economic
systems based on competition, greed and self-interest.
This is not only utterly pessimistic, but plain wrong.
Again, we can start by remembering all sorts of societies that have
existed through history. Then just look around and ask the question,
what motivates you and the people you know?
Fields as diverse as neuroscience and anthropology have mounted
evidence showing humans’ incredible capacity for cooperation and
sensitivity to fairness.
We are actually all quite capable of anything; but it is up to us
to decide how to use our capabilities, and of course that will be
dictated by what our social systems encourage and teach us to
value.
If there is one thing that can be said about, “human nature” it is
that we construct ourselves from within our societies and we are
incredibly malleable.
Freedom is only realizable through a free-market.
Attaching our values of freedom to the market is not only
de-humanizing, but it also fails to recognize how one person’s,
“freedom” to economic choice is another’s imprisonment in a
life of exploitation and deprivation.
There is no possibility for freedom and emancipation until we are
all free, and this will only come through a much richer and deeper
conception of human freedom than one that is premised upon going
to a grocery store and, “choosing” between 5,000 variations of
processed corn.
Capitalism is the only system that encourages innovation and
progress.
Progress towards what?
And how does enclosing common knowledge through intellectual
property rights, or excluding most of the world from quality
education, or depriving half of humanity from the basic life-
sustaining goods needed to function healthily, lead to greater
innovation?
Just begin to imagine the innovative possibilities of a world where
all people had access to everything they needed to live, to think,
and to contribute to the common good.
Things could be worse.
Of course they could, but they could also be better.
Does the fact that we’ve lived through bloody dictatorships mean
that we should settle for a representative democracy where the
main thing being represented is money?
Things are getting better.
Can we really say that things are getting better as we head towards
the annihilation of our own species?
Sure, we may have our first black president and be making small
gains in LGBT rights or in women’s representation in the workforce;
but let’s not neglect the fact that capital is more concentrated and
centralized than it has ever been and that its logic now penetrates
into the most basic building blocks of life.
I think we should give ourselves more credit than to settle for this,
“better.”
Change is slow.
Slow is not in the vocabulary of the corporations who are stealing
our common genetic heritage, or their buddies who are getting
rich playing virtual money games that legally rob us all.
The enclosure of our commons and the concentration of capital is
not happening slowly.
Whether we acknowledge it or not, change is happening, what is
up for grabs is the direction of that change.
The best we can hope for is “green” and “ethical” capitalism.
The logic of this belief is fundamentally flawed because it assumes
that within capitalism, businesses can prioritize anything above the
bottom-line.
In actuality, businesses that commit themselves first and foremost
to being truly and fully ethical and green will find it very difficult to
stay in business.
Of course there are great models of ethical business, worker-owned organic farms, for instance, but these cannot thrive and become
the dominant norm when they are functioning within an economic
structure that concentrates wealth and power in the hands of
Monsanto.
And while we should support these alternatives that exist within
capitalism, we need to recognize that it’s way too little, way too
late.
Structural change must (and will) happen, one way or another.
Getting rid of capitalism means abandoning markets as a tool
of social organization.
This is not necessarily true, although perhaps we would do best
without markets anyways.
Societies have existed that have used markets but restrained
oligopoly capitalism, and many brilliant thinkers have envisioned a
transition to a society structured by norms of equality and sharing
where markets do play a role.
I’m not advocating for or against any specific proposals here, but
the point is that this assumption is historically inaccurate and we
have barely begun to give serious thought to other possibilities.
People don’t care.
People may be distracted by consumerism, may only have enough
energy to struggle to pay their bills, may be fearful, may lack access
to good information... but none of these things mean that they don’t
care.
Show anybody an image of a starving child who works in the cacao
fields but can’t afford to eat (much less taste chocolate), and they
will feel disgust.
The charity industry is thriving precisely because so many people
do feel implicated in the revolting manifestations of capitalism.
But people’s sense of outrage has been channeled away from
collective political action and towards ethical buying and holiday-time
charitable donations.
Without an honest and sophisticated society-wide conversation about
the structural issues we are facing, people’s care is reduced to
individual guilt and disempowerment.
People won’t stop consuming, plus all the poor people want what the
rich people have.
Of course they do!
Doing away with capitalism doesn’t mean resorting to primitivism,
or abandoning all of our washing machines, or leaving the poor
destitute.
While of course there are limits to the earth’s resources (fossil-fuels
in particular), this doesn’t mean that we can’t organize a productive,
equitable and sustainable social order that includes many of the
comforts of modern life and excitements of technology.
We need not abandon desire with capitalism.
In fact, getting rid of capitalism gives us the best chance of having
time to organize a sustainable system of consumption before it is too
late.
Staying hooked into capitalism may actually be the quickest route
to primitivism.
Capital’s enclosure of our commons, our common resources, genes
and even intellect, has been accompanied by an enclosure of our
imaginations.
We need to re-claim and re-orient what it is to be “realistic” from
the falsehoods of There Is No Alternative.
This is not a call for pure imaginations of some future utopia. It is
not a fantastic plea for a sudden and complete dissolving of all the
social structures that currently pattern our lives.
Instead, it is a call to take what is already going on all around us, all
the time cooperation, sharing, empathy and let these aspects of our
humanity that we most cherish guide our future.
To begin to re-direct and re-structure our social systems towards the
things we most desire and value, caring for and cooperating with one
another, true participation and democracy, human freedom and free
time, peace and co-existence and in doing so, to watch these things
begin to flourish.
If it is naive to believe that we can structure society to reward
goodness instead of greed and prioritize people instead of profit,
then I’m fighting until the bitter end to maintain my naiveté!
Things become possible when we believe they are possible; so let’s
start believing.
Andrea Brower is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at
the University of Auckland. She has been very active in alternative
food and global social justice movements, and spent several years
co-directing the non-profit Malama Kauai in Hawaii, where she is originally from.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/01/25-2
By Andrea Brower
Common Dreams
January 25, 2013
We live in a time of heavy fog. A time when, though many of us
dissent and resist, humanity seems committed to a course of
collective suicide in the name of preserving an economic system
that generates scarcity no matter how much is actually produced.
To demand that all have enough to eat on a planet that grows enough
food, that absurd numbers of people do not die from preventable
disease, that utter human deprivation amongst plenty is not
tolerated, or that we put the natural laws of the biosphere above
socially constructed economic, “laws” is presented as unrealistic as
the fantasy of idealists or those who are naive to the, “complexity”
of the world’s problems.
If we create and recreate the world everyday, then how has it become
so supposedly absurd to believe we might actually create a world that
is honestly making the possibilities of egalitarianism, justice and
democracy?
Capitalism — the logic of subordinating every aspect of life to the
accumulation of profit (i.e. the “rules of the market”) has become
today’s, “common sense.”
It has become almost unthinkable to imagine coherent alternatives
to this logic, even when considering the most basic of human needs
food, water, healthcare, education.
Though many have an understanding of capitalism’s failings, there
is a resignation towards its inevitability.
Margaret Thatcher’s famous words, “There Is No Alternative,” no
longer need to be spoken, they are simply accepted as normal,
non-ideological, neutral.
What sustains the tragic myth that There Is No Alternative?
Those committed to building a more just future must begin re-
thinking and revealing the taken-for-granted assumptions that
make capitalism, “common sense” and bring these into the
realm of mainstream public debate in order to widen horizons
of possibility.
We can’t leave this task to the pages of peer-reviewed journals
and classrooms of social theory, these conversations must enter
also into the family dining rooms and TV screens.
Here are some thoughts on conversation starters:
Alternatives could never work.
Does capitalism, “work”?
Even by its own indicators, as we’ve become more capitalist (i.e.
neoliberalism), economic growth and productivity has actually declined.
Today’s globalized world is too complex to organize things any
differently.
Of course the world is complex.
Each of us is a bundle of contradictions and we need look no further
than the dynamics of a single relationship to make a case for social
complexity.
But things are also quite simple.
We live in a world where one billion people go hungry while we
literally dump half of all food produced.
Can we not come up with a productive socio-economic system
that also meets people’s most basic needs?
The gift of today is that we have the ability to reflect and draw-upon
many forms, past and present, of non-capitalist social organization,
and to creatively experiment with blending the best of these
possibilities.
The fact that we are more connected than ever before and have
advanced so far technologically gives us more possibilities, not
less.
Because of our, “Human Nature” we can only create economic
systems based on competition, greed and self-interest.
This is not only utterly pessimistic, but plain wrong.
Again, we can start by remembering all sorts of societies that have
existed through history. Then just look around and ask the question,
what motivates you and the people you know?
Fields as diverse as neuroscience and anthropology have mounted
evidence showing humans’ incredible capacity for cooperation and
sensitivity to fairness.
We are actually all quite capable of anything; but it is up to us
to decide how to use our capabilities, and of course that will be
dictated by what our social systems encourage and teach us to
value.
If there is one thing that can be said about, “human nature” it is
that we construct ourselves from within our societies and we are
incredibly malleable.
Freedom is only realizable through a free-market.
Attaching our values of freedom to the market is not only
de-humanizing, but it also fails to recognize how one person’s,
“freedom” to economic choice is another’s imprisonment in a
life of exploitation and deprivation.
There is no possibility for freedom and emancipation until we are
all free, and this will only come through a much richer and deeper
conception of human freedom than one that is premised upon going
to a grocery store and, “choosing” between 5,000 variations of
processed corn.
Capitalism is the only system that encourages innovation and
progress.
Progress towards what?
And how does enclosing common knowledge through intellectual
property rights, or excluding most of the world from quality
education, or depriving half of humanity from the basic life-
sustaining goods needed to function healthily, lead to greater
innovation?
Just begin to imagine the innovative possibilities of a world where
all people had access to everything they needed to live, to think,
and to contribute to the common good.
Things could be worse.
Of course they could, but they could also be better.
Does the fact that we’ve lived through bloody dictatorships mean
that we should settle for a representative democracy where the
main thing being represented is money?
Things are getting better.
Can we really say that things are getting better as we head towards
the annihilation of our own species?
Sure, we may have our first black president and be making small
gains in LGBT rights or in women’s representation in the workforce;
but let’s not neglect the fact that capital is more concentrated and
centralized than it has ever been and that its logic now penetrates
into the most basic building blocks of life.
I think we should give ourselves more credit than to settle for this,
“better.”
Change is slow.
Slow is not in the vocabulary of the corporations who are stealing
our common genetic heritage, or their buddies who are getting
rich playing virtual money games that legally rob us all.
The enclosure of our commons and the concentration of capital is
not happening slowly.
Whether we acknowledge it or not, change is happening, what is
up for grabs is the direction of that change.
The best we can hope for is “green” and “ethical” capitalism.
The logic of this belief is fundamentally flawed because it assumes
that within capitalism, businesses can prioritize anything above the
bottom-line.
In actuality, businesses that commit themselves first and foremost
to being truly and fully ethical and green will find it very difficult to
stay in business.
Of course there are great models of ethical business, worker-owned organic farms, for instance, but these cannot thrive and become
the dominant norm when they are functioning within an economic
structure that concentrates wealth and power in the hands of
Monsanto.
And while we should support these alternatives that exist within
capitalism, we need to recognize that it’s way too little, way too
late.
Structural change must (and will) happen, one way or another.
Getting rid of capitalism means abandoning markets as a tool
of social organization.
This is not necessarily true, although perhaps we would do best
without markets anyways.
Societies have existed that have used markets but restrained
oligopoly capitalism, and many brilliant thinkers have envisioned a
transition to a society structured by norms of equality and sharing
where markets do play a role.
I’m not advocating for or against any specific proposals here, but
the point is that this assumption is historically inaccurate and we
have barely begun to give serious thought to other possibilities.
People don’t care.
People may be distracted by consumerism, may only have enough
energy to struggle to pay their bills, may be fearful, may lack access
to good information... but none of these things mean that they don’t
care.
Show anybody an image of a starving child who works in the cacao
fields but can’t afford to eat (much less taste chocolate), and they
will feel disgust.
The charity industry is thriving precisely because so many people
do feel implicated in the revolting manifestations of capitalism.
But people’s sense of outrage has been channeled away from
collective political action and towards ethical buying and holiday-time
charitable donations.
Without an honest and sophisticated society-wide conversation about
the structural issues we are facing, people’s care is reduced to
individual guilt and disempowerment.
People won’t stop consuming, plus all the poor people want what the
rich people have.
Of course they do!
Doing away with capitalism doesn’t mean resorting to primitivism,
or abandoning all of our washing machines, or leaving the poor
destitute.
While of course there are limits to the earth’s resources (fossil-fuels
in particular), this doesn’t mean that we can’t organize a productive,
equitable and sustainable social order that includes many of the
comforts of modern life and excitements of technology.
We need not abandon desire with capitalism.
In fact, getting rid of capitalism gives us the best chance of having
time to organize a sustainable system of consumption before it is too
late.
Staying hooked into capitalism may actually be the quickest route
to primitivism.
Capital’s enclosure of our commons, our common resources, genes
and even intellect, has been accompanied by an enclosure of our
imaginations.
We need to re-claim and re-orient what it is to be “realistic” from
the falsehoods of There Is No Alternative.
This is not a call for pure imaginations of some future utopia. It is
not a fantastic plea for a sudden and complete dissolving of all the
social structures that currently pattern our lives.
Instead, it is a call to take what is already going on all around us, all
the time cooperation, sharing, empathy and let these aspects of our
humanity that we most cherish guide our future.
To begin to re-direct and re-structure our social systems towards the
things we most desire and value, caring for and cooperating with one
another, true participation and democracy, human freedom and free
time, peace and co-existence and in doing so, to watch these things
begin to flourish.
If it is naive to believe that we can structure society to reward
goodness instead of greed and prioritize people instead of profit,
then I’m fighting until the bitter end to maintain my naiveté!
Things become possible when we believe they are possible; so let’s
start believing.
Andrea Brower is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at
the University of Auckland. She has been very active in alternative
food and global social justice movements, and spent several years
co-directing the non-profit Malama Kauai in Hawaii, where she is originally from.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/01/25-2
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