Why is it seemingly impossible for a viable candidate for the Presidency in the United States to tell the truth?
“A society that has lost the ability to discern truth from falsehood can no longer be considered democratic.”
— Chris Hedges, in conversation with Sonali Kohatkar
I watched the debate with a coterie of like-minded friends. While somewhat satisfied that our guy, to the extent that he was our guy, acquitted himself adequately against his opponent, there was an universal sense of anticlimax in the room, to which Keith Oberman as a neutered shadow of his former self, in conversation with Pat Buchanan in the post-debate spin, was merely the icing on the cake. The range of debate was more and more limited as the night wore on, with unchallenged lies falling on all sides, like ripe fruit in the fall.
Why is it necessary that Obama constantly reiterate his intention to uptick Afganistan; to kill, not capture, Ben Laden; to deal harshly with the supposed threat from Iran?
Obama mentioned the middle class several times, but the poor only once, and failed to point out that the earmarks McCain railed against amounts to one percent of GDP, as our economy melts down under the weight of a three trillion dollar unnecessary war (fifty times Rumsfeld’s estimate of 60 billion), and military expenses that exceed fifty percent, before the housing bubble burst, which is only one in the bottom row of this house of cards.
Clean coal and nuclear in your energy plan, Senator Obama? When you factor in the all costs of production, including the costs to society, nuclear is a net negative and ‘clean’ coal is a pipe dream compared to the same dollar invested in the true renewables of solar, wind, tidal, wave or geothermal.
Accept Georgia and Ukraine into NATO? Just how non-paranoid do you think you can require the Russians to be? Do you really want to re-start the cold war with a nation that has 10,000 nukes lying around, whose bordering states contain as would be buyers Islamic terrorists? Whose economy is depressed in part due to our economic policies, such that those who look after those nukes are probably hurting for a little more domestic income?
Ben Laden appears to have taken credit for the deaths of close to three thousand US citizens on September 11, 2001 (though this is not included in his FBI wanted file for lack of evidence), and many before in the bombings of the USNS Cole, and the two US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Certainly that makes him a mass murderer, but there is obviously a method to his madness. Seriously asking the question “why they hate us” seems off the table, even if only to properly understand one’s enemy. Could it be the same reason he went to war against the Russians, which pleased us so much at the time that we helped him raise and train his army of mujahideen? That reason would be self-determination, what he sees as self-determination anyway, for the Islamic people (with himself as chief mullah no doubt), whose nations and resources have been preyed upon by Western governments and corporations since the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I.
Acknowledging this would take more than a thirty-second sound-bite, make Ben Laden look like something of a revolutionary, and probably not win any votes. It would however go a good way to explain why the more innocents we kill when we go after him with the heavy hand of our military, the more popular he becomes with people who would otherwise not care much for his ideological approach. Revolutionaries have always been viewed as terrorists by the established powers they oppose, and hailed as heroes by those who felt oppressed by those powers. This approach is pretty much guaranteed to loose the hearts and minds. Thus Ben Laden is now revered by many in the rugged terrain of Peshawar, an area that has not been successfully dominated since the time of Alexander the Great, who wisely protected his advance by marrying into a local royal family.
McCain alluded to this in his more cautious approach on Afghanistan and Pakistan, but his stay in Iraq for a hundred years and “bomb, bomb, bomb—bomb bomb Iran” will not win any friends either.
As mass murders go, we’ve killed more than Osama’s three thousand innocents in Afghanistan. If we turn our eyes to Iraq, a country we now generally acknowledge had nothing to do whatever with September 11th and posed us no threat, that number becomes closer to a million, and four million made refugees, breaking the support systems of neighboring governments still attempting to remain friendly to us.
Yet we remain, hesitant to leave before we have “stabilized” the nation, which translated from DC speak means insuring continued access to oil resources by western corporations on terms amounting to control. As much as we may value those lives lost on September 11th and consciously or unconsciously place them above the lives of those million others, we must allow that others value the lives of their loved ones as much. So where does that leave us in the eyes of the world, on the scale of justice? Our policies have served to impress on the world Ben Laden’s view of us. By this measure George Bush is Ben Laden’s biggest fan, and, unfortunately, neither the stated Middle East policies of Obama nor McCain will bring us the honor we seem to think we deserve and must find before we finally leave exhausted and bankrupt.
Our goals in the Middle East will not be realized by a “surge” in Afghanistan or “strategic strikes at high value targets” in Pakistan, as such will only impress further upon the majority of the population that we hold their lives of far less value than our own. They cannot be expected to fall in line with such a message. If we succeed in our goal to “kill” Ben Laden, ten more will arise in his place.
Surely, someone as bright as Obama knows this, just as he must know that the people of Iran should not be judged by a right-wing religious leader playing to his constituents. When our own nation and that of Israel have proven time and again we are willing to be the aggressor outside our national boundaries to ‘defend’ our ‘national interest,’ we only prove Ahmadinejad’s point when we proclaim him and Iran a threat for doing what they have every right under international law to do — which, rhetoric about the Zionist state aside, according to the IAEA, is all they are doing.
Those who do take a stab at telling the truth to the American people poll in the single digits, and are marginalized by the media, who owe their jobs to the military/government/media complex. Many in the public are becoming aware that the media are themselves mucking up the system in some way. From ferreting out the truth they’ve been reduced to funneling events to the public through the lens of their powerful owners, limiting the range of debate to that pitiful expanse we saw before us.
Perhaps if we are lucky survival will clue people in to paying attention to their own true interests before it is too late, rather than being stampeded out of fear into fascism.
Our guy encourages us to hope, and hope we must, that he has more integrity than he lets on and is smarter than the positions he takes, which I guess the polls inform him he must. At this point it’s a pretty slim hope.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
On the Limits
On the limits of scientific inquiry and religious dogma
The debates rage: atheists versus deists, evolution versus creationism, Christianity versus Islam, East versus West.
If we examine more closely why we identify in these broad categories, perhaps much of the conflict would dissipate. I say this in the awareness that in many areas scientists are peering into these connections, and many who take religion seriously take science seriously as well. What I address is how many of us in society identify and divide ourselves into these broad categories, without deeper examination or further exploration, unconsciously falling into the trap of tribalist stereotyping.
The scientific method is a process of verification to test our proposed knowledge base against the phenomenal world. The body of thought based on accumulated verifiable knowledge becomes the lens through which we perceive reality.
For many it becomes synonymous with reality. This, however, cannot be factually the case, for unless our scientific understanding is always a subset of all knowledge, no new understanding would be possible.
When pressed every scientist will acknowledge this, yet at the same time most believe their knowledge base and approach to reality superior to that of the non-scientific types. Having made this decision, they protect this belief from challenge, as though the adoption of their method of investigation made them automatically in possession of all the facts.
Those who adhere, from tradition or personal experience, to one or another set of descriptions of reality encompassing a belief in god, may be doing so without the realization that in defining god one places one’s understanding above that which they proclaim is infinite. If one’s definition of god is as all powerful, all knowing, omnipresent (as it is in the religious traditions I am familiar with), one can see the difficulty in attempting to place one’s understanding above such a god.
Both those who choose to view reality through the tools of science and those who prefer religious dogma can conclude in their enthusiasm that they know pretty much everything they need to know. It is when we behave according to this belief that we start to have major problems with reality, for it is reality that we are constantly in the process of experiencing, with greater or lesser understanding.
Speaking anthropomorphically for a moment, reality constantly responds to actions based upon inaccurate perceptions of it with consequences that make plain the limits of our understanding. Religion may maintain this is by design, science by default.
This argument, between religion and science, seemingly vast, is really a red herring. It matters little how we define it, since, if we were true to our method in either case, we would be humbled to acknowledge how little we do know.
Let us entertain for a moment, requiring a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief perhaps, the idea that all people are equal in intelligence and morality, but base their actions on a separate knowledge set, based upon separate sets of experience.
Much of the Christian Creationists’ creed is demonstrably false scientifically at this point, so they must close themselves off from the possibility of the full experience of reality in the present, in order to resist scientific understanding that conflicts with their religious dogma. Perhaps those who support interpretations of reality based upon religious dogma do so because they find within religious dogma explanations of unverifiable experience for which science offers no possible explanation.
Similarly, those who extrapolate scientific knowledge to exclude the possibility of an human conscious connection with the totality of existence, i.e. that the universe itself is ‘conscious’ in some way and this can be experienced individually, preclude from themselves the use of the most perfect instrument for an exploration of such a possibility; their own being.
This may be out of fear that any experience thus derived would be unverifiable, leaving them in an uncomfortable position vis-à-vis their peers. Their inability to acknowledge the potential validity of personal experience many describe as religious locks them in to acknowledging only that experience revealed to them through their five physical senses (as extended through science and mathematics), leaving unexamined much of the stuff of life that makes it interesting. They resist acknowledging publicly any experience that could be interpreted to reflect the interconnection of individuals to each other and the universe, in a direct systemic or energetic sense, for fear of not being taken seriously by their peers. This leaves them in a difficult situation when it comes to describing their own consciousness, and how it may relate to the whole.
The smell of a rose, the feeling of catching a wave, affection for a loved one, these may all be able to be described by examining biochemistry and physics, but these descriptions bear as much relation to the experience as telling a person who has never experienced sight that the sunset is beautiful because of the way the pink and orange clouds blend together. If this is the case with a simple sensory experience, what then of an experience of appreciation that transcends the physical senses?
The qualitative difference between the human experience and the scientific description of it is an area little examined by science but one consistently exploited by politics. Larry Beinhart in conversation with Suzy Weissman (Beneath the Surface, KPFK, Monday 9/22/’08) compared religion to alcohol; enjoyable, but if you overindulge, to drink and drive or zeal and fly would cause problems. I would add, the results of science can be useful, but when drunk on your method you’ll indulge in actions that will come back to slap you in the face (atom bombs, nuclear waste, DU et al pollution, cancer, global warming, terrorism, to name a few).
We might all benefit from allowing ourselves time for undifferentiated perception, that is, the luxury to observe life (starting with our own) without bowing to the pressure to define it in some way. The results might be hard to quantify and define, but real none-the-less, effectively altering our perception of ourselves, each other, and our place in the world.
In this way we open ourselves up to investigate the arena of experience that is both beyond our scientific ability to quantify, and beyond the limits of dogma to define.
The debates rage: atheists versus deists, evolution versus creationism, Christianity versus Islam, East versus West.
If we examine more closely why we identify in these broad categories, perhaps much of the conflict would dissipate. I say this in the awareness that in many areas scientists are peering into these connections, and many who take religion seriously take science seriously as well. What I address is how many of us in society identify and divide ourselves into these broad categories, without deeper examination or further exploration, unconsciously falling into the trap of tribalist stereotyping.
The scientific method is a process of verification to test our proposed knowledge base against the phenomenal world. The body of thought based on accumulated verifiable knowledge becomes the lens through which we perceive reality.
For many it becomes synonymous with reality. This, however, cannot be factually the case, for unless our scientific understanding is always a subset of all knowledge, no new understanding would be possible.
When pressed every scientist will acknowledge this, yet at the same time most believe their knowledge base and approach to reality superior to that of the non-scientific types. Having made this decision, they protect this belief from challenge, as though the adoption of their method of investigation made them automatically in possession of all the facts.
Those who adhere, from tradition or personal experience, to one or another set of descriptions of reality encompassing a belief in god, may be doing so without the realization that in defining god one places one’s understanding above that which they proclaim is infinite. If one’s definition of god is as all powerful, all knowing, omnipresent (as it is in the religious traditions I am familiar with), one can see the difficulty in attempting to place one’s understanding above such a god.
Both those who choose to view reality through the tools of science and those who prefer religious dogma can conclude in their enthusiasm that they know pretty much everything they need to know. It is when we behave according to this belief that we start to have major problems with reality, for it is reality that we are constantly in the process of experiencing, with greater or lesser understanding.
Speaking anthropomorphically for a moment, reality constantly responds to actions based upon inaccurate perceptions of it with consequences that make plain the limits of our understanding. Religion may maintain this is by design, science by default.
This argument, between religion and science, seemingly vast, is really a red herring. It matters little how we define it, since, if we were true to our method in either case, we would be humbled to acknowledge how little we do know.
Let us entertain for a moment, requiring a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief perhaps, the idea that all people are equal in intelligence and morality, but base their actions on a separate knowledge set, based upon separate sets of experience.
Much of the Christian Creationists’ creed is demonstrably false scientifically at this point, so they must close themselves off from the possibility of the full experience of reality in the present, in order to resist scientific understanding that conflicts with their religious dogma. Perhaps those who support interpretations of reality based upon religious dogma do so because they find within religious dogma explanations of unverifiable experience for which science offers no possible explanation.
Similarly, those who extrapolate scientific knowledge to exclude the possibility of an human conscious connection with the totality of existence, i.e. that the universe itself is ‘conscious’ in some way and this can be experienced individually, preclude from themselves the use of the most perfect instrument for an exploration of such a possibility; their own being.
This may be out of fear that any experience thus derived would be unverifiable, leaving them in an uncomfortable position vis-à-vis their peers. Their inability to acknowledge the potential validity of personal experience many describe as religious locks them in to acknowledging only that experience revealed to them through their five physical senses (as extended through science and mathematics), leaving unexamined much of the stuff of life that makes it interesting. They resist acknowledging publicly any experience that could be interpreted to reflect the interconnection of individuals to each other and the universe, in a direct systemic or energetic sense, for fear of not being taken seriously by their peers. This leaves them in a difficult situation when it comes to describing their own consciousness, and how it may relate to the whole.
The smell of a rose, the feeling of catching a wave, affection for a loved one, these may all be able to be described by examining biochemistry and physics, but these descriptions bear as much relation to the experience as telling a person who has never experienced sight that the sunset is beautiful because of the way the pink and orange clouds blend together. If this is the case with a simple sensory experience, what then of an experience of appreciation that transcends the physical senses?
The qualitative difference between the human experience and the scientific description of it is an area little examined by science but one consistently exploited by politics. Larry Beinhart in conversation with Suzy Weissman (Beneath the Surface, KPFK, Monday 9/22/’08) compared religion to alcohol; enjoyable, but if you overindulge, to drink and drive or zeal and fly would cause problems. I would add, the results of science can be useful, but when drunk on your method you’ll indulge in actions that will come back to slap you in the face (atom bombs, nuclear waste, DU et al pollution, cancer, global warming, terrorism, to name a few).
We might all benefit from allowing ourselves time for undifferentiated perception, that is, the luxury to observe life (starting with our own) without bowing to the pressure to define it in some way. The results might be hard to quantify and define, but real none-the-less, effectively altering our perception of ourselves, each other, and our place in the world.
In this way we open ourselves up to investigate the arena of experience that is both beyond our scientific ability to quantify, and beyond the limits of dogma to define.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Understanding freedom
“If you don’t have the freedom to understand, you won’t understand that you are not free.”
— Prem Rawat, speaking in Hamburg, Germany
We have received lessons in the last several years about how far governance through fear can be taken. Hopefully, we’ve learned our lesson. Next election may tell. Judging from past history, the advanced class is really a bummer. I sincerely hope we drop out.
This was made possible of course because of the classes we’ve received in our cities and towns. Fear is an uncomfortable emotion. Governance through fear is an unnatural state that must consistently be re-taught, lest one forget the lesson. The latest example before us is Troy Anthony Davis.
Why has the Georgia board of parole seen fit to ignore the facts, that seven out of nine witnesses against him have recanted, claiming coercion by the authorities, and one of the remaining two implicated Troy to prevent himself from being charged with the crime? Why must his execution go forward at this point when his case has garnered letters of support from Pope Benedict, former President Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, The European Union, Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, Congresswoman Shelia Jackson Lee, Congressmen John Lewis, Congressman Henry Jackson Jr., Bob Herbert of the New York Times, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, among others, urging that the facts in the case be revisited? That justice may, at long last, be served, since Troy has been in prison since 1991?
No. To question the verdict at this point would be to question the system that gave rise to his sentence, and that would be to trouble the foundation on which we stand. The system requires periodic sacrifices, so that fear, which has become synonymous with order in the minds of its supporters, be maintained. An example, no different in effect than a lynching, must be periodically given, that it does not matter who you are, where you are, what you have done in your life, or if you are guilty or innocent; the power of your life and death is outside your hands in the power of the state, and to this power you must bow.
We make pretty phrases about equality in our laws on paper, and claim we are a nation of law, not of men and women, but we are a society of men and women, and this is how we choose to live: Rush to judgment, sacrifice the innocent to the idea of security, and leave unexamined the unequal nature of our society that leads some, often living in desperation, to perform acts of violence.
The police are our Praetorian Guard defending the gates of our homes, which we’ve mistaken for our freedom, from the barbarian horde in our very midst. Such is our mindset. It is less important therefore that the right person be charged for the crime, than that an assault on the system be avenged. This attitude was certainly on display in the media from the moment the crime occurred, so it is little wonder that it seems to have prevailed all the way through to the parole board hearing.
Now at the eleventh hour, a stay has come. May it allow time to examine facts which I believe will lead to an acquittal of Troy, for I am convinced he is innocent, but more importantly time for us to acquit ourselves, before we commit murder in the name of security again.
— Prem Rawat, speaking in Hamburg, Germany
We have received lessons in the last several years about how far governance through fear can be taken. Hopefully, we’ve learned our lesson. Next election may tell. Judging from past history, the advanced class is really a bummer. I sincerely hope we drop out.
This was made possible of course because of the classes we’ve received in our cities and towns. Fear is an uncomfortable emotion. Governance through fear is an unnatural state that must consistently be re-taught, lest one forget the lesson. The latest example before us is Troy Anthony Davis.
Why has the Georgia board of parole seen fit to ignore the facts, that seven out of nine witnesses against him have recanted, claiming coercion by the authorities, and one of the remaining two implicated Troy to prevent himself from being charged with the crime? Why must his execution go forward at this point when his case has garnered letters of support from Pope Benedict, former President Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, The European Union, Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, Congresswoman Shelia Jackson Lee, Congressmen John Lewis, Congressman Henry Jackson Jr., Bob Herbert of the New York Times, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, among others, urging that the facts in the case be revisited? That justice may, at long last, be served, since Troy has been in prison since 1991?
No. To question the verdict at this point would be to question the system that gave rise to his sentence, and that would be to trouble the foundation on which we stand. The system requires periodic sacrifices, so that fear, which has become synonymous with order in the minds of its supporters, be maintained. An example, no different in effect than a lynching, must be periodically given, that it does not matter who you are, where you are, what you have done in your life, or if you are guilty or innocent; the power of your life and death is outside your hands in the power of the state, and to this power you must bow.
We make pretty phrases about equality in our laws on paper, and claim we are a nation of law, not of men and women, but we are a society of men and women, and this is how we choose to live: Rush to judgment, sacrifice the innocent to the idea of security, and leave unexamined the unequal nature of our society that leads some, often living in desperation, to perform acts of violence.
The police are our Praetorian Guard defending the gates of our homes, which we’ve mistaken for our freedom, from the barbarian horde in our very midst. Such is our mindset. It is less important therefore that the right person be charged for the crime, than that an assault on the system be avenged. This attitude was certainly on display in the media from the moment the crime occurred, so it is little wonder that it seems to have prevailed all the way through to the parole board hearing.
Now at the eleventh hour, a stay has come. May it allow time to examine facts which I believe will lead to an acquittal of Troy, for I am convinced he is innocent, but more importantly time for us to acquit ourselves, before we commit murder in the name of security again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
