Saturday, July 26, 2008
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Where Sam leads us astray
Re: What Barack Obama Could Not (and Should Not) Say
by Sam Harris
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/what-barack
-obama-could-n_b_92771.html
There is much to like in this essay by Sam Harris, and in many ways it is spot on. My favorite line is "Like every candidate, Obama must appeal to millions of voters who believe that without religion, most of us would spend our days raping and killing our neighbors and stealing their pornography." As usual though, I believe he goes a bit too far.
His emotional appeal to reason seams most reasonable until one pauses to consider that those who have trod the path of “The Enlightenment” believed (and still do if our current foreign policy is an example) that their ‘superior’ outlook entitles them to enslave the majority of the world, the better to relieve them from their ‘darkness’ (and their resources)!
Setting up the straw man of false religion, he feels justified to ignore by lack of mention the mystical. Then knocking it down he establishes his new religion, in effect: “Behold, no reality exists but that revealed by the light of our reason!”
By that he means his own of course, though the allusion is universal. Alas, as always, the devil resides in the details. By this same measure we should abandon all science, since time after time as our knowledge expands our previous understandings are shown to be false—but of course we do not, we keep on perfecting our knowledge of the external world by new application of the same method.
While I would no more recommend throwing away the tools of science than would Sam, unlike him I have no trouble positing the existence of an internal knowledge, uniquely accessible only through following the philosopher’s dictum “know thyself.”
There is a doorway within human beings that reason, at least some forms of reason, finds abhorrent, because it cannot penetrate therein. We are nonetheless drawn to it perhaps, find it vaguely familiar, for from whence we have come and must one day return, willing or no.
Contrary to many proscriptions from the pulpit, we needn’t wait till we die to go there, but its shape is such that there is no room to bring along any of our favorite beliefs about ourselves or others, let alone possessions — nothing, in fact. There is no room for these things because in the realm beyond the door they are unnecessary, for it already is, and being complete has no need of them.
So we skirt along the periphery with our reason and our science, casting aspersions, pretending it doesn’t exist, debating whether light is a wave or a particle or something that can resemble both, while agreeing without the need for discussion that whatever it is it certainly is not self-aware.
Or, at times we prefer to erect a solid barrier in front of the door as an altar, on which we pile all our favorite descriptions as offerings (such as this poor one), until it is entirely blocked by the ‘light of our reason,’ and we feel secure to proceed in our lives in the knowledge that it doesn’t exist, and if perchance it does, our offerings have covered our bases and our ticket in is assured. Now on to the real business of life, the car payment, the mortgage, or if you’re a bit beyond all that, conquering the world.
This entrance was never made in a place that could be blocked by such efforts however, and can easily be accessed at any moment by any heart willing to pay the price of admission—everything, and nothing.
Few of us feel we can afford this, at least not until we have sampled everything else the bazaar of life has to offer. Lacking this primordial reference point, many strange things happen in “the marketplace of ideas.”
The ‘science’ of Eugenics was not unique to Hitler’s Nazis, nor did it die with him. How else do we explain a war that has stayed beyond its exposed lack of justification to kill one million people.
Though not apparent from this essay, Harris’ appeal to the light of reason belies his equally passionate fear of “Islamo-fascists,” and the lumping together of all the followers of Mohammed into this tent. While he expresses dislike of religious fanatics of all stripes, it is the “Islamo-fascists” that worry him the most.
Why, I wonder?
For myself, while I consider it a distortion of the term, using it I’ll say I dislike all “religious fascists,” those of the Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and Muslim variety being the ones I’m familiar with, but no less do I fear the atheist, corporate, and agnostic technocrats who use their mastery of science to threaten the world with destruction rather than be forced to bow (in their view) to the false god of communism.
While there is much fear to go around here, personally I find the atheist, corporate, agnostic, Christian and Jewish varieties more threatening to our continued mutual existence for the reasons that they are closest to home (mine), have access to the most powerful weapons by far, and have demonstrated little self restraint in using them.
While my faith may be small as a mustard seed and the love in my heart even less, some grace has allowed me to sample the nectar from beyond my own doorway. I am thus inoculated, spoiled forever I hope, from being seduced by such seemingly reasonable beliefs as Mr. Harris puts forth, which would confirm a third of the world’s people as my enemy, that I must actively fear and arm myself against.
Instead I stand with Martin Luther King Jr. in proclaiming my belief that my own government is the greatest perpetrator of misery and destruction in the world today, though in this it acts as a puppet controlled not by its own people. I fear most my compatriots reasonable beliefs and my government's rationalizations that find it seemly to kill hundreds of thousands of innocents to get the people they label ‘the bad guys,’ relieving them of their resources in the bargain.
This game is old as empire, the theocratic ones as well as the ‘democratic’ ones of the ‘enlightened’ nations; Spain, France, Britain and the United States, to name a few.
I have no problem harboring these fears alongside the recognition that lacking the referential orientation of contact with our inner source of being, we are all wandering around in the dark. This darkness is not to be condemned but alleviated. Reason alone will not do, for one person’s reason leads to another’s holocaust. “I think therefore I am” works only so long as we think the same.
Unfortunately no two human beings do, but we can remove ourselves from the game long enough to see we are all projected from the same source, unique but similar, and in fact connected. This knowledge requires no offerings, no tithing to build mega-churches or mega-missiles, but carries with it the burden that we act in the awareness of that knowledge, in a world that seems content to destroy itself rather than acknowledge this simple fact.
by Sam Harris
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/what-barack
-obama-could-n_b_92771.html
There is much to like in this essay by Sam Harris, and in many ways it is spot on. My favorite line is "Like every candidate, Obama must appeal to millions of voters who believe that without religion, most of us would spend our days raping and killing our neighbors and stealing their pornography." As usual though, I believe he goes a bit too far.
His emotional appeal to reason seams most reasonable until one pauses to consider that those who have trod the path of “The Enlightenment” believed (and still do if our current foreign policy is an example) that their ‘superior’ outlook entitles them to enslave the majority of the world, the better to relieve them from their ‘darkness’ (and their resources)!
Setting up the straw man of false religion, he feels justified to ignore by lack of mention the mystical. Then knocking it down he establishes his new religion, in effect: “Behold, no reality exists but that revealed by the light of our reason!”
By that he means his own of course, though the allusion is universal. Alas, as always, the devil resides in the details. By this same measure we should abandon all science, since time after time as our knowledge expands our previous understandings are shown to be false—but of course we do not, we keep on perfecting our knowledge of the external world by new application of the same method.
While I would no more recommend throwing away the tools of science than would Sam, unlike him I have no trouble positing the existence of an internal knowledge, uniquely accessible only through following the philosopher’s dictum “know thyself.”
There is a doorway within human beings that reason, at least some forms of reason, finds abhorrent, because it cannot penetrate therein. We are nonetheless drawn to it perhaps, find it vaguely familiar, for from whence we have come and must one day return, willing or no.
Contrary to many proscriptions from the pulpit, we needn’t wait till we die to go there, but its shape is such that there is no room to bring along any of our favorite beliefs about ourselves or others, let alone possessions — nothing, in fact. There is no room for these things because in the realm beyond the door they are unnecessary, for it already is, and being complete has no need of them.
So we skirt along the periphery with our reason and our science, casting aspersions, pretending it doesn’t exist, debating whether light is a wave or a particle or something that can resemble both, while agreeing without the need for discussion that whatever it is it certainly is not self-aware.
Or, at times we prefer to erect a solid barrier in front of the door as an altar, on which we pile all our favorite descriptions as offerings (such as this poor one), until it is entirely blocked by the ‘light of our reason,’ and we feel secure to proceed in our lives in the knowledge that it doesn’t exist, and if perchance it does, our offerings have covered our bases and our ticket in is assured. Now on to the real business of life, the car payment, the mortgage, or if you’re a bit beyond all that, conquering the world.
This entrance was never made in a place that could be blocked by such efforts however, and can easily be accessed at any moment by any heart willing to pay the price of admission—everything, and nothing.
Few of us feel we can afford this, at least not until we have sampled everything else the bazaar of life has to offer. Lacking this primordial reference point, many strange things happen in “the marketplace of ideas.”
The ‘science’ of Eugenics was not unique to Hitler’s Nazis, nor did it die with him. How else do we explain a war that has stayed beyond its exposed lack of justification to kill one million people.
Though not apparent from this essay, Harris’ appeal to the light of reason belies his equally passionate fear of “Islamo-fascists,” and the lumping together of all the followers of Mohammed into this tent. While he expresses dislike of religious fanatics of all stripes, it is the “Islamo-fascists” that worry him the most.
Why, I wonder?
For myself, while I consider it a distortion of the term, using it I’ll say I dislike all “religious fascists,” those of the Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and Muslim variety being the ones I’m familiar with, but no less do I fear the atheist, corporate, and agnostic technocrats who use their mastery of science to threaten the world with destruction rather than be forced to bow (in their view) to the false god of communism.
While there is much fear to go around here, personally I find the atheist, corporate, agnostic, Christian and Jewish varieties more threatening to our continued mutual existence for the reasons that they are closest to home (mine), have access to the most powerful weapons by far, and have demonstrated little self restraint in using them.
While my faith may be small as a mustard seed and the love in my heart even less, some grace has allowed me to sample the nectar from beyond my own doorway. I am thus inoculated, spoiled forever I hope, from being seduced by such seemingly reasonable beliefs as Mr. Harris puts forth, which would confirm a third of the world’s people as my enemy, that I must actively fear and arm myself against.
Instead I stand with Martin Luther King Jr. in proclaiming my belief that my own government is the greatest perpetrator of misery and destruction in the world today, though in this it acts as a puppet controlled not by its own people. I fear most my compatriots reasonable beliefs and my government's rationalizations that find it seemly to kill hundreds of thousands of innocents to get the people they label ‘the bad guys,’ relieving them of their resources in the bargain.
This game is old as empire, the theocratic ones as well as the ‘democratic’ ones of the ‘enlightened’ nations; Spain, France, Britain and the United States, to name a few.
I have no problem harboring these fears alongside the recognition that lacking the referential orientation of contact with our inner source of being, we are all wandering around in the dark. This darkness is not to be condemned but alleviated. Reason alone will not do, for one person’s reason leads to another’s holocaust. “I think therefore I am” works only so long as we think the same.
Unfortunately no two human beings do, but we can remove ourselves from the game long enough to see we are all projected from the same source, unique but similar, and in fact connected. This knowledge requires no offerings, no tithing to build mega-churches or mega-missiles, but carries with it the burden that we act in the awareness of that knowledge, in a world that seems content to destroy itself rather than acknowledge this simple fact.
What Is To Be Done
The following is a presentation to a group containing several retired academics that meets monthly to discuss specific readings as they relate to the American Empire. The readings under discussion:
The Theology of American Empire by Ira Chernus
Evil Empire—Is Imperial Liquidation Possible for America by Chalmers Johnson
I’m going to take as a given that everyone has read the material. Since the title of this session is “What Is To Be Done,” rather than summarize I’d prefer to spend the time using the material as springboard and grist for discussion of how the individuals in this room can answer this question. Likewise I’m going to assume that everyone is conversant with the challenges presented by peak oil and global climate disruption, not directly covered in these readings but very much bearing on the same events under consideration.
Chalmers does an excellent job of analyzing our current predicament as a result of the militarization of our economy and political system, and how that has left us bereft of liberty. Chernus critiques our founding myths to present our current crisis of identity as a result of the abdication of the their softer side, attempting to avoid economic destruction by externalizing that destruction throughout the world.
Certainly the moral synthesis Chernus proposes around liberal Christian values is or would be preferable to the hypocritical round of shadow projection in which our current leadership and their supporters engage. However, even were it possible for an aroused populace led by an Obama of our most positive dreams, in a masterful feat of true leadership, to effect the necessary philosophical transformation Chernus describes, would this be sufficient to reign in the current malignant tendencies adrift, not just in America, but in the world at large?
I put to you that at present our national sovereignty has shrunk to the point that it serves primarily as a political fiction, selectively enforced to control populations and resources on which they reside, and in this the American population has become much the same as any other. As such no singular “American” solution would remove us from the reach of dangerous transnational forces, be they of natural or human design.
Yet I proffer this question in the belief that the limited power of even those in this room can be effective to promote meaningful change, provided it be focused at an appropriate target. To quote Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” While Chernus and Johnson make significant contributions to that end, I believe we can refine their efforts further.
Focus
Globalization is built on the ability to move capital and production from one place to another and then transport it for distribution, creating locally insufficient communities dependant on production for export and on imports to survive. It is a high-carbon cheap-oil dependant process that has allowed those at the levers of control to skim off the majority the benefits for themselves, and it must be reformed as much as possible to local control and production self-sufficient communities to resolve the issues of climate disruption, which will also solve much of the income inequality issue. We are fast approaching a natural limit to the Earth system, as far as humanity is concerned. We are one with the universe, whether we choose to perceive ourselves as such or not. When we choose not to, we act in ways unconducive to our perpetuation as a species. As we come to appreciate what exists, our thinking is better adapted to interact in the world. People with understanding will be motivated to act according to their mutual self-interest, as opposed to the difficulty of getting them to respond to exhortations to act according to their professed moral values. It is a challenge of education to help others perceive that the two now coincide.
If globalization has taught us anything it should be that the power of unchecked markets thus far has trumped all other social, political and moral values; even, it would seem, the desire for self-preservation of the species. Let me support this last bold statement with a personal example.
One of my recent clients was a very charming and personable man with a beautiful wife and two beautiful young children, who seemed to be the world to him. He seemed to be both model husband and father. As we got to know each other it became clear we held divergent views on topics of the day. As he believed in the imminent possibility of his financial success, he could not bring himself to find error in internalizing the values of a system that allowed for such success. I attempted to point out to him that this was leading to the global destruction of the Earth. “What of your children?” I said. “If nothing is left for them, how can it be right?”
He responded in a way that surprised me, but explained his outlook succinctly.
“I got mine. They’ll have to get theirs.”
Put another way, from the character ‘Lucy’ in the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz, “Stick it to the next generation!” I believe the end of the usefulness of this approach is now within sight of anyone with eyes to see.
My feeling as a citizen of this country has been increasingly that of being locked into a roller coaster ride. Our political process seems akin to arguing who should stand up in the front car to “lead” us. We ride the tracks laid down by our personal and collective greed, and our ability to stop the ride or change its directions seems very limited. If my feelings of helplessness are thus, how much more then are those of a citizen of the third world?
The fact is, however, that this apparent external limitation falls short when measured against an internal standard that tells me distinctly things are wrong and must change, and I am not alone in this feeling — it is increasingly shared by billions.
What I am trying to get at is that any solution for the crisis of this country is by definition doomed to failure, as no solution, whether apparently moral or otherwise, be it the triumph of social democracy or full spectrum dominance, will ensure the survival of humanity while it enshrines inequality. Such a “solution” will inevitably lead to the mutually self-destructive competition over resources in which we are presently engaged. Neither Chernus nor Johnson go as far as to make this claim, but it must become obvious to us all.
What is required is a shift to a paradigm that invalidates investment in the idea of success on the basis of the individual nation state, or even on the level of a single family. Why is this necessary? Because the world of human interaction being a non-distinct part of the natural world, rewards no such distinctions. Any proposal that neglects addressing the needs of all individuals simultaneously serves only to push the crisis away temporarily as it seeks to move it around from one area to another. Unaddressed, the core issues continue to fester and the area of crisis continues to increase. If Spaceship Earth is sinking, it matters little if you are in first class. Here the analogy fails, because as the most wealthy of us seek to become more-so the better to create their personal lifeboat, in this ocean of the future in the world we are fast creating, there will be no shore on which to land.
It is tempting and comforting to reach a place of acceptance with the process, to come to terms with one’s inability to leave the roller coaster and try to lay back and enjoy the ride, but there is a danger in doing so, outlined by Loretta Napoleoni in her latest work:
Reality shows help viewers daydream and deny their own realities, let alone the realities of others in other countries, whose lives rarely get even a consideration in anyone’s Nielsen ratings … The impact of hyperdebt mimics that of hyperinflation. It alters the connotation of reality, forcing people to embrace illusions in order to cope with socioeconomic decay. The hope is that what Middle America is experiencing will not open the gates to total madness. When the Weimar Republic finally collapsed, hyperreality was instrumental in the rise of the Third Reich. The perils of Nazism were grossly undervalued by a population that had lost the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality.
— Rogue Economics, 2008, Seven Stories Press, p. 45
While I recommend approaching the situation accepting that the outcome may be out of our control, we cannot let this substitute for taking action to avert disaster. If we do not recognize our potential failure we will lack the requisite motivation to create affective change; if we let the enormity of our situation overwhelm us, we will likewise be paralyzed into inaction. Rather than retreat into fantasy let us take it all in and meet the future clear-eyed.
I salute Johnson and Chernus for their contributions to our understanding of our predicament as the first step to a solution. This must immediately be followed by a second, that is, the proposal of an effective solution. I will borrow liberally from both, but to get to the second let me flesh out a bit more in broad strokes the first, that is, our current predicament in its philosophic and economic aspects, as a natural extension of what has come before.
It’s racism, stupid — no, it’s the economy stupid
We are aware that this country arose out of a struggle over differing economic destinies, between colonial (largely) slaveholders who sought to free themselves from those European Lords who took excessive liberties with them. They undertook great risk in this struggle, and half of them were ruined by it, yet from the beginning there was duality between the definition of freedom and its application, the groups to which it might apply. As racism was invented as a means to economic advantage, it stands to reason that the racist and sexist nature of the American project is both inherent and largely ignored, and has been selectively enforced in both foreign and domestic policy since the inception of our nation, the better to secure inclusion and cooperation, or the exclusion of others as the definition of “national interest” by a small number of individuals forming the ruling class might at any given moment require.
This American trait is not exclusive to America, and the hypocrisy of image versus action duplicates itself in the policies of the IMF, World Bank, and other global trade rules that require one standard for entering economies, and another for the established ones of America and Western Europe, to the benefit of the latter.
Should an Asian ascendance eclipse European control I don’t know we can expect better leadership of the global economy, given the previous track record displayed between Japan and Korea, China and Tibet, and Japan and China. In this respect racism, I would argue, is not a distinctly homegrown phenomenon.
A Muslim ascendancy engineered on petro-dollars and declining Western purchasing power, while not as scary as the crypto-fascists of this nation would have us believe, might still be a step backward for women world-wide if under the control of the more fundamentalist elements. As fundamentalism is fueled by poverty and other forms of political obstruction, this might dissipate over time if these issues are ameliorated.
No, really, it’s the environment
Neither, that is the Muslim world nor an Asian nexus, show any abiding inclination to fundamentally address the ecological crisis before us, before it would likely be too late. While the West is currently in a position of leadership globally, its ability to influence events in an appropriate direction diminishes with each day it displays its inability to do so, and no help is on the horizon. What then, would an appropriate solution look like?
Chalmers identifies racism as a core issue but does not expand this analysis to recognize that under current trends global capital, if allowed to continue unchecked, will likely not create solutions to our crisis in time but will be the death of us.
Although he does not quite lead us there, Chernus is correct as far as he goes in proposing that America’s problems arise from inherent contradictions, since (and even prior to) its inception, in its inability to deliver on the liberal Christian values it promised in a universal sense, either at home or abroad. Less accurate is his assertion that its salvation lies in a recommitment to these values on a Christian basis. Why should they trump Niebuhr, and what of the Niebuhr’s cousins in other faiths? While such values may form the uniquely American solution Chernus proposes, I find no reason to believe they could be adopted by enough of the populace at this time when we have had two hundred plus years to secure their successful practice in this country and two thousand plus since the time of Christ.
A uniquely American solution would be no solution to a non-American state, this is additionally so since nation states are fictions maintained to the benefit of a few. No solution that fails to address the problems of all will be recognized by all as a solution. Without such wide acceptance the direction of economic investment will fail to reform itself in a manner that could incorporate the compliance of enough of the population to avert ecological disaster. While appealing for a renewal of core Christian values may work for a significant portion of the US populace, it does so at the expense of re-enforcing the notion of the US as a Christian nation, which costs us in terms of perception abroad in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, and also in terms of multi-cultural unity at home, where the historical hypocrisy making use of the name of Christianity is broadly seen as moral cover for the most heinous acts, even to the present moment. The reassurance of “no, we really mean it this time” would justifiably fall on deaf ears, as the term has been co-opted and polluted with the political achievements of empire since the time of emperor Constantine.
So while the values Chernus describes are held by many both within and without this country as the most noble contribution this nation has made to human progress, the shadow of this is the acts this sense of exceptionalism has made justifiable, which is everywhere in evidence. To deliver on the liberal Christian values Chernus describes, one needs to place the well-being of universal humanity above that of the American nation state, a tough sell at home but nothing other than what the parable of “the good Samaritan” or “the golden rule” requires. The values described therein are human values enshrined in all three Abrahamic faiths. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is a core tenet of all three Abrahamic faiths whose adherents are now in conflict. Verse 5:32 of the Koran reprises a verse from the Old Testament (the Torah), “Whosoever kills an innocent human being, it shall be as if he has killed all mankind, and whosoever saves an innocent human being, it shall be as if he has saved all mankind.” This does not seem to have prevented them from coming into conflict over resources, but reminding them of it could not hurt. Such appeals may be effective in unraveling the hijacking of religion for political purposes. The usefulness of appeals to secure consent to a program of action that reflects core religious values should not be negated but would be most appropriate when restricted, I would think, to a discussion among those already strongly self-identified as practitioners of Christianity, Islam or Judaism, or in terms of right livelihood to practitioners of Hinduism and Buddhism.
Second, leadership implies followers, and our present leadership has done the world a service by making nakedly clear the hypocrisy at the very heart of our national project. For us to regain a role of affective interdependence with the peoples of other nations, a mea culpa is required of us. Half-way measures will not suffice. Even proposals that might be effective solutions will not be believed and will perhaps even be denounced because we are the source, absent an acknowledgement of our past misdeeds sufficient that a return to our old ways would be difficult. Along these lines I propose a ten point plan for our mutual survival as a standard for ourselves and our leadership. The ten points are synchronistic and mutually dependant, they cannot be cherry-picked out of supposed political expediency.
Ten points
1) Re-define what it means to be American to incorporate our actual history. Americans are in a crisis of identity. In order for America to fulfill its pledge to the universal values inherent in the phrase “all are created equal..”, an acknowledgement must be forthcoming of the racist nature of America’s domestic history, including genocide and ongoing dispossession of Native Americans; slavery, Jim Crow and ongoing differential treatment of African Americans and others of color in our justice system, indentured servitude/slavery of Chinese, Japanese internment and the immigrant bashing that continues to the present day, the use of the drug war as an instrument of persecution of the poor, and sexism to keep women in an inferior economic state.
2) Explain how racism and sexism are used for economic ends. An extension of this discussion into how manipulation of groups over inauthentic differences of appearance or culture results to the practical economic benefit of few.
3) Admit how racism and sexism have been and are applied in our foreign policy. Explain how this same process has historically extended into our foreign policy: in Vietnam, the Americas, Iraq, Israel/Palestine. Renounce our imperial stance, put up to local plebiscite any military base on foreign soil. Withdraw from Iraq. Withdraw exclusive support for Israel. Support multi-lateral talks to resolve political disputes that foster a Middle East Common Market to include Israel.
4) Admit that international disputes are economic in nature. The clash of civilizations is not one of values, but of access to resources.
5) Elucidate the necessity for international law. This would acknowledge the purpose of authority, any authority be it civil or national, is to provide a common basis of law that provides for the welfare and security of its citizens. That these can be culturally specific in any way as long as these criteria are met.
6) Accept administration of international law. Propose how such conflicts can be removed by adopting a common set of economic values, and international law.
7) Express that the unlimited accumulation of individual wealth is a cancer on humanity. To that end, enormous inequalities in wealth and income are counterproductive, leading to overproduction and resource depletion, and associated crimes borne of greed, envy, and desperation. Tax the rich. Bring corporate charters under government control. Reveal the fiction of Santa Clara County v. Union Pacific Railroad—corporations never legally secured the rights of persons.* Make executives and board members individually responsible for corporate actions. Corporations should be encouraged not to resist but to participate in the transition to local control and production based enterprise. *[Thom Hartmann, Unequal Protection, 2002, Rodale Press]
8) End nuclear. Both nuclear weapons (including DU weapons) and nuclear power are forms of energy whose use is detrimental for untold generations yet to come, and as such are crimes against humanity. Both must be phased out. Offer membership in multi-national energy R&D as replacement (see #10).
9) Adopt a new value system that reflects the reality of our circumstance. The crises that confront us globally are born out of unequal access to a depleting resource pool, aggravated by population growth. It is impossible to address this without acknowledging the history of inequality combined with the self-destructive nature of our civilization’s present use of resources, be it West, East, or Southern. Population growth must be addressed. Alternatives found (see #10).
10) Establish an International Development Council. To address this crisis, we must collectively acknowledge we are in the same boat, that our mutual right to exist is trumped by our relationship or lack thereof with the natural world. “The economy,” as a legislator from Oregon once said, “is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment.” To that end a review of the international laws governing trade, finance, and international property is in order. Sign onto the ICC, reform the UN Security Council. Establish an international co-development council for research and development to facilitate the manufacturing of alternative energies, the benefits to be distributed widely without restriction. This will mean as much as possible local production and control of energy and other resources, moving away from carbon and nuclear based forms.
Conclusion
The only way for us to secure our prosperity and live our professed values, even if they only be the preservation of our individual family, is to insure that our existence is of benefit to each other and the Earth. This must be more than a goal to be left to the next generation, but a reality we live and accomplish. Any politician who fails to address our core problems is merely rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, to offer better vantage to some over others from which to view our mutual demise. On the contrary, if we move to address the real issues before us, we will in a single stroke regain a meaningful role in the world, and many political side issues (for that is what they are), terrorism, peace in the Middle East, economic transition from militarism to a peace economy, incorporation of Russia into the European Market to end finally the cold war, will sort themselves of their own accord.
This point must be pressed, until it is inescapable. No technology will be able to come to our aid unless it be made available on the principles here outlined, or it will fall prey to the same economic forces that presently provide stewardship toward our mutual destruction. Our problem is first and foremost our view of ourselves. The transition necessary for our mutual survival requires cooperation on a vast scale in a short duration of time; there must be rewards for such cooperation. A transition attempting to preserve a system that rewards vast inequality will likely fail, securing our collective demise.
Overcoming perceived conflicts over private property rights that our national project and the subsequent laws of the global economy are enshrined to protect may be a tough sell. Never-the-less, I believe they must be challenged, our survival depends on it. This does not necessitate the triumph of communism, socialism, or any other ism. Rather, the eradication of corruption and re-ascendancy of rule in the interest of the people at large, without distinction by race, creed, color or nationality. As such it would fulfill the dictates of our nation’s supposed highest ideals, as well as most professed values of various religions.
So what is the appropriate attitude with which to confront our circumstances. It must be one that honors rather than negates the internal experiences that many identify with cultural religious traditions; it must be one that identifies without exception historical hypocrisies inherent in many of these same traditions; it must be one that without exception confirms the right of all to existence and equal access to resources, and at the same time recognizes our interconnection to the natural world, which now calls for self limitation and voluntary restraint on our reproduction and use of resources. So in short it is one that attempts to place equal validity on the parts as unique and significant pieces of the whole, and the whole itself, composed of its individual parts.
Some will attempt to label this sacrifice. Is it a sacrifice to refrain from cutting the branch on which one is sitting? A sacrifice to stop beating our head against the wall? A sacrifice to refrain from hitting our right hand with our left? Others will question sacrificing today for a nebulous tomorrow. The seeds of all our tomorrows are planted today. If war, destruction and death are what we want, we must plan for that. If on the other hand we want peace, we must plan for that.
Another world of humanity’s relationship with itself and the Earth is not only possible, it is demanded by current events. If we are to be able to shape it into one that may continue to support our existence, we have little time to be shy about demanding more from ourselves, each other and our leaders, to collectively rise to the challenge.
There is a confluence between the scientific literature, the demands of the political realities outlined by Johnson, the Christian values Chernus speaks of, and the cultural and religious values of other regions and faiths. Let us not hesitate to find it, for life is more than an academic exercise.
The Theology of American Empire by Ira Chernus
Evil Empire—Is Imperial Liquidation Possible for America by Chalmers Johnson
I’m going to take as a given that everyone has read the material. Since the title of this session is “What Is To Be Done,” rather than summarize I’d prefer to spend the time using the material as springboard and grist for discussion of how the individuals in this room can answer this question. Likewise I’m going to assume that everyone is conversant with the challenges presented by peak oil and global climate disruption, not directly covered in these readings but very much bearing on the same events under consideration.
Chalmers does an excellent job of analyzing our current predicament as a result of the militarization of our economy and political system, and how that has left us bereft of liberty. Chernus critiques our founding myths to present our current crisis of identity as a result of the abdication of the their softer side, attempting to avoid economic destruction by externalizing that destruction throughout the world.
Certainly the moral synthesis Chernus proposes around liberal Christian values is or would be preferable to the hypocritical round of shadow projection in which our current leadership and their supporters engage. However, even were it possible for an aroused populace led by an Obama of our most positive dreams, in a masterful feat of true leadership, to effect the necessary philosophical transformation Chernus describes, would this be sufficient to reign in the current malignant tendencies adrift, not just in America, but in the world at large?
I put to you that at present our national sovereignty has shrunk to the point that it serves primarily as a political fiction, selectively enforced to control populations and resources on which they reside, and in this the American population has become much the same as any other. As such no singular “American” solution would remove us from the reach of dangerous transnational forces, be they of natural or human design.
Yet I proffer this question in the belief that the limited power of even those in this room can be effective to promote meaningful change, provided it be focused at an appropriate target. To quote Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” While Chernus and Johnson make significant contributions to that end, I believe we can refine their efforts further.
Focus
Globalization is built on the ability to move capital and production from one place to another and then transport it for distribution, creating locally insufficient communities dependant on production for export and on imports to survive. It is a high-carbon cheap-oil dependant process that has allowed those at the levers of control to skim off the majority the benefits for themselves, and it must be reformed as much as possible to local control and production self-sufficient communities to resolve the issues of climate disruption, which will also solve much of the income inequality issue. We are fast approaching a natural limit to the Earth system, as far as humanity is concerned. We are one with the universe, whether we choose to perceive ourselves as such or not. When we choose not to, we act in ways unconducive to our perpetuation as a species. As we come to appreciate what exists, our thinking is better adapted to interact in the world. People with understanding will be motivated to act according to their mutual self-interest, as opposed to the difficulty of getting them to respond to exhortations to act according to their professed moral values. It is a challenge of education to help others perceive that the two now coincide.
If globalization has taught us anything it should be that the power of unchecked markets thus far has trumped all other social, political and moral values; even, it would seem, the desire for self-preservation of the species. Let me support this last bold statement with a personal example.
One of my recent clients was a very charming and personable man with a beautiful wife and two beautiful young children, who seemed to be the world to him. He seemed to be both model husband and father. As we got to know each other it became clear we held divergent views on topics of the day. As he believed in the imminent possibility of his financial success, he could not bring himself to find error in internalizing the values of a system that allowed for such success. I attempted to point out to him that this was leading to the global destruction of the Earth. “What of your children?” I said. “If nothing is left for them, how can it be right?”
He responded in a way that surprised me, but explained his outlook succinctly.
“I got mine. They’ll have to get theirs.”
Put another way, from the character ‘Lucy’ in the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz, “Stick it to the next generation!” I believe the end of the usefulness of this approach is now within sight of anyone with eyes to see.
My feeling as a citizen of this country has been increasingly that of being locked into a roller coaster ride. Our political process seems akin to arguing who should stand up in the front car to “lead” us. We ride the tracks laid down by our personal and collective greed, and our ability to stop the ride or change its directions seems very limited. If my feelings of helplessness are thus, how much more then are those of a citizen of the third world?
The fact is, however, that this apparent external limitation falls short when measured against an internal standard that tells me distinctly things are wrong and must change, and I am not alone in this feeling — it is increasingly shared by billions.
What I am trying to get at is that any solution for the crisis of this country is by definition doomed to failure, as no solution, whether apparently moral or otherwise, be it the triumph of social democracy or full spectrum dominance, will ensure the survival of humanity while it enshrines inequality. Such a “solution” will inevitably lead to the mutually self-destructive competition over resources in which we are presently engaged. Neither Chernus nor Johnson go as far as to make this claim, but it must become obvious to us all.
What is required is a shift to a paradigm that invalidates investment in the idea of success on the basis of the individual nation state, or even on the level of a single family. Why is this necessary? Because the world of human interaction being a non-distinct part of the natural world, rewards no such distinctions. Any proposal that neglects addressing the needs of all individuals simultaneously serves only to push the crisis away temporarily as it seeks to move it around from one area to another. Unaddressed, the core issues continue to fester and the area of crisis continues to increase. If Spaceship Earth is sinking, it matters little if you are in first class. Here the analogy fails, because as the most wealthy of us seek to become more-so the better to create their personal lifeboat, in this ocean of the future in the world we are fast creating, there will be no shore on which to land.
It is tempting and comforting to reach a place of acceptance with the process, to come to terms with one’s inability to leave the roller coaster and try to lay back and enjoy the ride, but there is a danger in doing so, outlined by Loretta Napoleoni in her latest work:
Reality shows help viewers daydream and deny their own realities, let alone the realities of others in other countries, whose lives rarely get even a consideration in anyone’s Nielsen ratings … The impact of hyperdebt mimics that of hyperinflation. It alters the connotation of reality, forcing people to embrace illusions in order to cope with socioeconomic decay. The hope is that what Middle America is experiencing will not open the gates to total madness. When the Weimar Republic finally collapsed, hyperreality was instrumental in the rise of the Third Reich. The perils of Nazism were grossly undervalued by a population that had lost the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality.
— Rogue Economics, 2008, Seven Stories Press, p. 45
While I recommend approaching the situation accepting that the outcome may be out of our control, we cannot let this substitute for taking action to avert disaster. If we do not recognize our potential failure we will lack the requisite motivation to create affective change; if we let the enormity of our situation overwhelm us, we will likewise be paralyzed into inaction. Rather than retreat into fantasy let us take it all in and meet the future clear-eyed.
I salute Johnson and Chernus for their contributions to our understanding of our predicament as the first step to a solution. This must immediately be followed by a second, that is, the proposal of an effective solution. I will borrow liberally from both, but to get to the second let me flesh out a bit more in broad strokes the first, that is, our current predicament in its philosophic and economic aspects, as a natural extension of what has come before.
It’s racism, stupid — no, it’s the economy stupid
We are aware that this country arose out of a struggle over differing economic destinies, between colonial (largely) slaveholders who sought to free themselves from those European Lords who took excessive liberties with them. They undertook great risk in this struggle, and half of them were ruined by it, yet from the beginning there was duality between the definition of freedom and its application, the groups to which it might apply. As racism was invented as a means to economic advantage, it stands to reason that the racist and sexist nature of the American project is both inherent and largely ignored, and has been selectively enforced in both foreign and domestic policy since the inception of our nation, the better to secure inclusion and cooperation, or the exclusion of others as the definition of “national interest” by a small number of individuals forming the ruling class might at any given moment require.
This American trait is not exclusive to America, and the hypocrisy of image versus action duplicates itself in the policies of the IMF, World Bank, and other global trade rules that require one standard for entering economies, and another for the established ones of America and Western Europe, to the benefit of the latter.
Should an Asian ascendance eclipse European control I don’t know we can expect better leadership of the global economy, given the previous track record displayed between Japan and Korea, China and Tibet, and Japan and China. In this respect racism, I would argue, is not a distinctly homegrown phenomenon.
A Muslim ascendancy engineered on petro-dollars and declining Western purchasing power, while not as scary as the crypto-fascists of this nation would have us believe, might still be a step backward for women world-wide if under the control of the more fundamentalist elements. As fundamentalism is fueled by poverty and other forms of political obstruction, this might dissipate over time if these issues are ameliorated.
No, really, it’s the environment
Neither, that is the Muslim world nor an Asian nexus, show any abiding inclination to fundamentally address the ecological crisis before us, before it would likely be too late. While the West is currently in a position of leadership globally, its ability to influence events in an appropriate direction diminishes with each day it displays its inability to do so, and no help is on the horizon. What then, would an appropriate solution look like?
Chalmers identifies racism as a core issue but does not expand this analysis to recognize that under current trends global capital, if allowed to continue unchecked, will likely not create solutions to our crisis in time but will be the death of us.
Although he does not quite lead us there, Chernus is correct as far as he goes in proposing that America’s problems arise from inherent contradictions, since (and even prior to) its inception, in its inability to deliver on the liberal Christian values it promised in a universal sense, either at home or abroad. Less accurate is his assertion that its salvation lies in a recommitment to these values on a Christian basis. Why should they trump Niebuhr, and what of the Niebuhr’s cousins in other faiths? While such values may form the uniquely American solution Chernus proposes, I find no reason to believe they could be adopted by enough of the populace at this time when we have had two hundred plus years to secure their successful practice in this country and two thousand plus since the time of Christ.
A uniquely American solution would be no solution to a non-American state, this is additionally so since nation states are fictions maintained to the benefit of a few. No solution that fails to address the problems of all will be recognized by all as a solution. Without such wide acceptance the direction of economic investment will fail to reform itself in a manner that could incorporate the compliance of enough of the population to avert ecological disaster. While appealing for a renewal of core Christian values may work for a significant portion of the US populace, it does so at the expense of re-enforcing the notion of the US as a Christian nation, which costs us in terms of perception abroad in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, and also in terms of multi-cultural unity at home, where the historical hypocrisy making use of the name of Christianity is broadly seen as moral cover for the most heinous acts, even to the present moment. The reassurance of “no, we really mean it this time” would justifiably fall on deaf ears, as the term has been co-opted and polluted with the political achievements of empire since the time of emperor Constantine.
So while the values Chernus describes are held by many both within and without this country as the most noble contribution this nation has made to human progress, the shadow of this is the acts this sense of exceptionalism has made justifiable, which is everywhere in evidence. To deliver on the liberal Christian values Chernus describes, one needs to place the well-being of universal humanity above that of the American nation state, a tough sell at home but nothing other than what the parable of “the good Samaritan” or “the golden rule” requires. The values described therein are human values enshrined in all three Abrahamic faiths. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is a core tenet of all three Abrahamic faiths whose adherents are now in conflict. Verse 5:32 of the Koran reprises a verse from the Old Testament (the Torah), “Whosoever kills an innocent human being, it shall be as if he has killed all mankind, and whosoever saves an innocent human being, it shall be as if he has saved all mankind.” This does not seem to have prevented them from coming into conflict over resources, but reminding them of it could not hurt. Such appeals may be effective in unraveling the hijacking of religion for political purposes. The usefulness of appeals to secure consent to a program of action that reflects core religious values should not be negated but would be most appropriate when restricted, I would think, to a discussion among those already strongly self-identified as practitioners of Christianity, Islam or Judaism, or in terms of right livelihood to practitioners of Hinduism and Buddhism.
Second, leadership implies followers, and our present leadership has done the world a service by making nakedly clear the hypocrisy at the very heart of our national project. For us to regain a role of affective interdependence with the peoples of other nations, a mea culpa is required of us. Half-way measures will not suffice. Even proposals that might be effective solutions will not be believed and will perhaps even be denounced because we are the source, absent an acknowledgement of our past misdeeds sufficient that a return to our old ways would be difficult. Along these lines I propose a ten point plan for our mutual survival as a standard for ourselves and our leadership. The ten points are synchronistic and mutually dependant, they cannot be cherry-picked out of supposed political expediency.
Ten points
1) Re-define what it means to be American to incorporate our actual history. Americans are in a crisis of identity. In order for America to fulfill its pledge to the universal values inherent in the phrase “all are created equal..”, an acknowledgement must be forthcoming of the racist nature of America’s domestic history, including genocide and ongoing dispossession of Native Americans; slavery, Jim Crow and ongoing differential treatment of African Americans and others of color in our justice system, indentured servitude/slavery of Chinese, Japanese internment and the immigrant bashing that continues to the present day, the use of the drug war as an instrument of persecution of the poor, and sexism to keep women in an inferior economic state.
2) Explain how racism and sexism are used for economic ends. An extension of this discussion into how manipulation of groups over inauthentic differences of appearance or culture results to the practical economic benefit of few.
3) Admit how racism and sexism have been and are applied in our foreign policy. Explain how this same process has historically extended into our foreign policy: in Vietnam, the Americas, Iraq, Israel/Palestine. Renounce our imperial stance, put up to local plebiscite any military base on foreign soil. Withdraw from Iraq. Withdraw exclusive support for Israel. Support multi-lateral talks to resolve political disputes that foster a Middle East Common Market to include Israel.
4) Admit that international disputes are economic in nature. The clash of civilizations is not one of values, but of access to resources.
5) Elucidate the necessity for international law. This would acknowledge the purpose of authority, any authority be it civil or national, is to provide a common basis of law that provides for the welfare and security of its citizens. That these can be culturally specific in any way as long as these criteria are met.
6) Accept administration of international law. Propose how such conflicts can be removed by adopting a common set of economic values, and international law.
7) Express that the unlimited accumulation of individual wealth is a cancer on humanity. To that end, enormous inequalities in wealth and income are counterproductive, leading to overproduction and resource depletion, and associated crimes borne of greed, envy, and desperation. Tax the rich. Bring corporate charters under government control. Reveal the fiction of Santa Clara County v. Union Pacific Railroad—corporations never legally secured the rights of persons.* Make executives and board members individually responsible for corporate actions. Corporations should be encouraged not to resist but to participate in the transition to local control and production based enterprise. *[Thom Hartmann, Unequal Protection, 2002, Rodale Press]
8) End nuclear. Both nuclear weapons (including DU weapons) and nuclear power are forms of energy whose use is detrimental for untold generations yet to come, and as such are crimes against humanity. Both must be phased out. Offer membership in multi-national energy R&D as replacement (see #10).
9) Adopt a new value system that reflects the reality of our circumstance. The crises that confront us globally are born out of unequal access to a depleting resource pool, aggravated by population growth. It is impossible to address this without acknowledging the history of inequality combined with the self-destructive nature of our civilization’s present use of resources, be it West, East, or Southern. Population growth must be addressed. Alternatives found (see #10).
10) Establish an International Development Council. To address this crisis, we must collectively acknowledge we are in the same boat, that our mutual right to exist is trumped by our relationship or lack thereof with the natural world. “The economy,” as a legislator from Oregon once said, “is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment.” To that end a review of the international laws governing trade, finance, and international property is in order. Sign onto the ICC, reform the UN Security Council. Establish an international co-development council for research and development to facilitate the manufacturing of alternative energies, the benefits to be distributed widely without restriction. This will mean as much as possible local production and control of energy and other resources, moving away from carbon and nuclear based forms.
Conclusion
The only way for us to secure our prosperity and live our professed values, even if they only be the preservation of our individual family, is to insure that our existence is of benefit to each other and the Earth. This must be more than a goal to be left to the next generation, but a reality we live and accomplish. Any politician who fails to address our core problems is merely rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, to offer better vantage to some over others from which to view our mutual demise. On the contrary, if we move to address the real issues before us, we will in a single stroke regain a meaningful role in the world, and many political side issues (for that is what they are), terrorism, peace in the Middle East, economic transition from militarism to a peace economy, incorporation of Russia into the European Market to end finally the cold war, will sort themselves of their own accord.
This point must be pressed, until it is inescapable. No technology will be able to come to our aid unless it be made available on the principles here outlined, or it will fall prey to the same economic forces that presently provide stewardship toward our mutual destruction. Our problem is first and foremost our view of ourselves. The transition necessary for our mutual survival requires cooperation on a vast scale in a short duration of time; there must be rewards for such cooperation. A transition attempting to preserve a system that rewards vast inequality will likely fail, securing our collective demise.
Overcoming perceived conflicts over private property rights that our national project and the subsequent laws of the global economy are enshrined to protect may be a tough sell. Never-the-less, I believe they must be challenged, our survival depends on it. This does not necessitate the triumph of communism, socialism, or any other ism. Rather, the eradication of corruption and re-ascendancy of rule in the interest of the people at large, without distinction by race, creed, color or nationality. As such it would fulfill the dictates of our nation’s supposed highest ideals, as well as most professed values of various religions.
So what is the appropriate attitude with which to confront our circumstances. It must be one that honors rather than negates the internal experiences that many identify with cultural religious traditions; it must be one that identifies without exception historical hypocrisies inherent in many of these same traditions; it must be one that without exception confirms the right of all to existence and equal access to resources, and at the same time recognizes our interconnection to the natural world, which now calls for self limitation and voluntary restraint on our reproduction and use of resources. So in short it is one that attempts to place equal validity on the parts as unique and significant pieces of the whole, and the whole itself, composed of its individual parts.
Some will attempt to label this sacrifice. Is it a sacrifice to refrain from cutting the branch on which one is sitting? A sacrifice to stop beating our head against the wall? A sacrifice to refrain from hitting our right hand with our left? Others will question sacrificing today for a nebulous tomorrow. The seeds of all our tomorrows are planted today. If war, destruction and death are what we want, we must plan for that. If on the other hand we want peace, we must plan for that.
Another world of humanity’s relationship with itself and the Earth is not only possible, it is demanded by current events. If we are to be able to shape it into one that may continue to support our existence, we have little time to be shy about demanding more from ourselves, each other and our leaders, to collectively rise to the challenge.
There is a confluence between the scientific literature, the demands of the political realities outlined by Johnson, the Christian values Chernus speaks of, and the cultural and religious values of other regions and faiths. Let us not hesitate to find it, for life is more than an academic exercise.
Let’s face facts
Few things in life are certain but I believe this is one of them:
Human beings will not long suffer under conditions of inequality before their dissatisfaction mounts to resistance. This is not the unique province of Americans, though we laud it in our history. It derives from a person’s very being, their self image and their own self respect. That given, the unequal nature of the commercial system that has developed over the last several hundred years, leading to the present extent of vast territory under US influence and control, cannot long endure. It has been built and is held in place through (some would say) moral example, but also through military force, and the threat and terror of nuclear weapons, maintained at 750 foreign military bases, through an annual military budget as great as that of the rest of the world—combined.
This situation cries out to every person placed in a position of inequality around the globe for transition to a more equitable distribution of the world’s resources. These bare facts led George F. Kennan to articulate for the post WWII era the policy of force and subversion veiled by diplomacy, in a statement that would have made Machiavelli proud, that guided US leaders in garnering the majority per capita use of the world’s resources at the expense of creating enemies in every corner of the globe:
We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.
A succession of US governments have been fairly successful at cajoling the US populace to go along with this, in exchange for a minimal share in those benefits.
So, those who are unquestioningly committed to the enjoyment of this inequality must also be unquestionably committed to an unending war, at a time when the benefits from such an enterprise are fast disappearing for all but a miniscule number (war profiteers and oil men). It helps for one’s self image, if not one’s mental health, to live in denial of these facts, the better to feel morally justified in these wars, hot and cold, and enjoy their fruits. This, however, leaves us in the somewhat ridiculous position of wandering around asking each other “why do they hate us?,” when “they” have the temerity to strike back against “our” policies. This is the very question we need to be asking though, because its answer is the way out of our morass.
If we are to acknowledge our past behavior, which we must if we are to resolve this mess, then we must admit that while to us this may have seemed a good way (at the time, at least) to run the world, as to date we North Americans and Northern Europeans have enjoyed more of the benefits, it is less so for the majority of others. It is therefore unstable. We have started something we cannot finish. If you answer full spectrum dominance, I answer nuclear proliferation.
Add to this the following fact:
Global climate change is real. Its effects will be drastic enough to destabilize the global economy, through disruption of agricultural production (arable land turning into arid desert) and displacement of populations (reducing to desperation millions of people in every coastal nation on Earth due to the above and sea level rise). Our only hope on limiting the severity of its effects is to achieve global co-operation at shifting away from a carbon-based energy economy (coal, oil, natural gas and even ethanol).
Nuclear is no solution because there is not enough uranium ore on the planet to serve our needs, even if it could all be mined in time, even if there could be enough reactors on line in time to use it, which according to Dr. Nathan Lewis of Caltech is impossible. Even if we managed to surmount these insurmountable limiting factors we would merely succeed in tossing ourselves from the frying pan of climate change into the fire of irradiated un-disposable deadly waste and nuclear proliferation amidst political instability, before we ran out of uranium in twenty years or so. Effort in this direction is a red herring that will divert necessary intellectual resources and capital away from more effectual systems.
We need a global carbon treaty that serves the needs of developing and developed countries alike, as both will sink under these effects unless both are on board. This fact dictates a global transition to equity. “Don’t do as we do, do as we say” has worn very thin with the developing nations, and is a non-starter for climate negotiations. The US, with 6% of the world’s population consumes between 25 and 30% of the world’s resources, and is responsible for a like amount of global carbon emissions.
Responsibility for taking the first step to resolve these issues lies with the countries who to date have benefited most from industrialization while putting the majority of the carbon into the atmosphere, the wealthiest and therefore most capable of initiating the technological conversions necessary. The technology of avoiding this catastrophe is achievable. What is required is a major shift in our thinking.
This would be easy if we recognize the message the Earth is sending us. It is time for a new era in human relations—time to move beyond empire.
Human beings will not long suffer under conditions of inequality before their dissatisfaction mounts to resistance. This is not the unique province of Americans, though we laud it in our history. It derives from a person’s very being, their self image and their own self respect. That given, the unequal nature of the commercial system that has developed over the last several hundred years, leading to the present extent of vast territory under US influence and control, cannot long endure. It has been built and is held in place through (some would say) moral example, but also through military force, and the threat and terror of nuclear weapons, maintained at 750 foreign military bases, through an annual military budget as great as that of the rest of the world—combined.
This situation cries out to every person placed in a position of inequality around the globe for transition to a more equitable distribution of the world’s resources. These bare facts led George F. Kennan to articulate for the post WWII era the policy of force and subversion veiled by diplomacy, in a statement that would have made Machiavelli proud, that guided US leaders in garnering the majority per capita use of the world’s resources at the expense of creating enemies in every corner of the globe:
We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.
A succession of US governments have been fairly successful at cajoling the US populace to go along with this, in exchange for a minimal share in those benefits.
So, those who are unquestioningly committed to the enjoyment of this inequality must also be unquestionably committed to an unending war, at a time when the benefits from such an enterprise are fast disappearing for all but a miniscule number (war profiteers and oil men). It helps for one’s self image, if not one’s mental health, to live in denial of these facts, the better to feel morally justified in these wars, hot and cold, and enjoy their fruits. This, however, leaves us in the somewhat ridiculous position of wandering around asking each other “why do they hate us?,” when “they” have the temerity to strike back against “our” policies. This is the very question we need to be asking though, because its answer is the way out of our morass.
If we are to acknowledge our past behavior, which we must if we are to resolve this mess, then we must admit that while to us this may have seemed a good way (at the time, at least) to run the world, as to date we North Americans and Northern Europeans have enjoyed more of the benefits, it is less so for the majority of others. It is therefore unstable. We have started something we cannot finish. If you answer full spectrum dominance, I answer nuclear proliferation.
Add to this the following fact:
Global climate change is real. Its effects will be drastic enough to destabilize the global economy, through disruption of agricultural production (arable land turning into arid desert) and displacement of populations (reducing to desperation millions of people in every coastal nation on Earth due to the above and sea level rise). Our only hope on limiting the severity of its effects is to achieve global co-operation at shifting away from a carbon-based energy economy (coal, oil, natural gas and even ethanol).
Nuclear is no solution because there is not enough uranium ore on the planet to serve our needs, even if it could all be mined in time, even if there could be enough reactors on line in time to use it, which according to Dr. Nathan Lewis of Caltech is impossible. Even if we managed to surmount these insurmountable limiting factors we would merely succeed in tossing ourselves from the frying pan of climate change into the fire of irradiated un-disposable deadly waste and nuclear proliferation amidst political instability, before we ran out of uranium in twenty years or so. Effort in this direction is a red herring that will divert necessary intellectual resources and capital away from more effectual systems.
We need a global carbon treaty that serves the needs of developing and developed countries alike, as both will sink under these effects unless both are on board. This fact dictates a global transition to equity. “Don’t do as we do, do as we say” has worn very thin with the developing nations, and is a non-starter for climate negotiations. The US, with 6% of the world’s population consumes between 25 and 30% of the world’s resources, and is responsible for a like amount of global carbon emissions.
Responsibility for taking the first step to resolve these issues lies with the countries who to date have benefited most from industrialization while putting the majority of the carbon into the atmosphere, the wealthiest and therefore most capable of initiating the technological conversions necessary. The technology of avoiding this catastrophe is achievable. What is required is a major shift in our thinking.
This would be easy if we recognize the message the Earth is sending us. It is time for a new era in human relations—time to move beyond empire.
Education American Style
RE: high school student threatened with expulsion for handing out stickers for a demonstration.
Surprise, surprise. Someone decides to exercise their freedom of speech rights, and the principal finds it threatening and disruptive. Why threatening, why disruptive, such that the punishment for handing out stickers is expulsion from school?
Because the job of education, as this principal sees it, is to turn out thoughtless yes-men and women, highly trained yet highly uneducated, automatons who will lend their support and their lives to whatever the system requires of them. The student's actions were certainly disruptive of this effort, so certainly (some bloggers argue) she should be expelled.
Another telling example of this mentality, as it is applied under our nation's auspices in Latin America: Kevin Danaher was talking to a Guatemalan woman whose husband was dragged from their home and hacked to death with machetes by the military in front of her and the children. "Why, why did they do this" Kevin asked.
Because he was teaching his neighbors how to raise rabbits. "You have to understand the structure of society and the rules of power here" she explained. The people have been driven off the best farmland, and so are a captive labor force for the large plantation owners, who grow for export. "So if we do things like teaching each other how to raise rabbits so we can feed ourselves, without being forced to go and sell our labor for a dollar a day, that is subversive, given the structure of this system."
["10 Reasons to Abolish the IMF and the World Bank" Kevin Danaher, 2001, Seven Stories Press, p.17-18.]
Power resides in the people, but only if we use it. In our nation now many people don't know what freedom is. They are frightened of freedom, either having it or seeing it used. They think if someone uses their freedom of speech it might threaten their ability to afford cheap gas for over-priced, unnecessarily over-sized, useless (in terms of how they're actually used) sport utility vehicles, or buy what they want at the mall.
This is not freedom but arrogant stupidity, and it will destroy our nation and the Earth, if we let it.
True freedom entails the responsibility to recognize the rights of others. Lacking this I am a despot or fascist thug, more enslaved than ever to fear and hatred.
True education entails encouraging others' critical thinking, not punishing them for it.
As Thomas Jefferson said,
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all.
I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere."
It is a lesson we should all take to heart.
Surprise, surprise. Someone decides to exercise their freedom of speech rights, and the principal finds it threatening and disruptive. Why threatening, why disruptive, such that the punishment for handing out stickers is expulsion from school?
Because the job of education, as this principal sees it, is to turn out thoughtless yes-men and women, highly trained yet highly uneducated, automatons who will lend their support and their lives to whatever the system requires of them. The student's actions were certainly disruptive of this effort, so certainly (some bloggers argue) she should be expelled.
Another telling example of this mentality, as it is applied under our nation's auspices in Latin America: Kevin Danaher was talking to a Guatemalan woman whose husband was dragged from their home and hacked to death with machetes by the military in front of her and the children. "Why, why did they do this" Kevin asked.
Because he was teaching his neighbors how to raise rabbits. "You have to understand the structure of society and the rules of power here" she explained. The people have been driven off the best farmland, and so are a captive labor force for the large plantation owners, who grow for export. "So if we do things like teaching each other how to raise rabbits so we can feed ourselves, without being forced to go and sell our labor for a dollar a day, that is subversive, given the structure of this system."
["10 Reasons to Abolish the IMF and the World Bank" Kevin Danaher, 2001, Seven Stories Press, p.17-18.]
Power resides in the people, but only if we use it. In our nation now many people don't know what freedom is. They are frightened of freedom, either having it or seeing it used. They think if someone uses their freedom of speech it might threaten their ability to afford cheap gas for over-priced, unnecessarily over-sized, useless (in terms of how they're actually used) sport utility vehicles, or buy what they want at the mall.
This is not freedom but arrogant stupidity, and it will destroy our nation and the Earth, if we let it.
True freedom entails the responsibility to recognize the rights of others. Lacking this I am a despot or fascist thug, more enslaved than ever to fear and hatred.
True education entails encouraging others' critical thinking, not punishing them for it.
As Thomas Jefferson said,
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all.
I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere."
It is a lesson we should all take to heart.
The savage in the mirror
published in The Santa Monica Daily Press
Dear Editor,
While the title of Thomas Bowden’s column is spot-on accurate (“West is indebted to Chris Columbus,” October 8, 2007), reading between the lines I’d have to say his reference to “frightened savages” was a bit of shadow projection.
What the ‘West’ is most indebted to Columbus for is his assistance in instigating a program of slave-powered genocide, which led to the enrichment of all the European colonial powers, including by extension the United States. To persist in ignorance of the nature of how the ‘West’ achieved dominance over other population groups, or worse, to justify these acts, is quite a fete.
I’m no analyst, but what I venture to suggest is that the ‘frightened savage’ Mr. Bowden claims to see in America’s past, is none other than a reflection of Mr. Bowden himself, in America’s present. In convincing himself (and others) of the greatness of Columbus and the superiority of the West in general, he hides from himself (and others) all the racist acts of murder and thievery on which the West’s economic superiority was (and is) built. If one can accomplish this, it is easy to extend the underlying rationale of theft through genocide into the present.
These truths may not rest easy on one’s conscience. Though relegated to the unconscious, they will yet attempt to make their presence known, in an effort to heal the psyche.
Charles Fredricks
Dear Editor,
While the title of Thomas Bowden’s column is spot-on accurate (“West is indebted to Chris Columbus,” October 8, 2007), reading between the lines I’d have to say his reference to “frightened savages” was a bit of shadow projection.
What the ‘West’ is most indebted to Columbus for is his assistance in instigating a program of slave-powered genocide, which led to the enrichment of all the European colonial powers, including by extension the United States. To persist in ignorance of the nature of how the ‘West’ achieved dominance over other population groups, or worse, to justify these acts, is quite a fete.
I’m no analyst, but what I venture to suggest is that the ‘frightened savage’ Mr. Bowden claims to see in America’s past, is none other than a reflection of Mr. Bowden himself, in America’s present. In convincing himself (and others) of the greatness of Columbus and the superiority of the West in general, he hides from himself (and others) all the racist acts of murder and thievery on which the West’s economic superiority was (and is) built. If one can accomplish this, it is easy to extend the underlying rationale of theft through genocide into the present.
These truths may not rest easy on one’s conscience. Though relegated to the unconscious, they will yet attempt to make their presence known, in an effort to heal the psyche.
Charles Fredricks
Courage before government
We live in a time when our government, by its actions, has demonstrated its belief that its citizens are its property; to use as it will, towards whatever ends it sees fit, with or without their approval.
Of course they seek and elicit our willing approval. To that end they have become skillful manipulators of public opinion. They have been successful in convincing some people our only path to security is for our one nation to expend its treasure and life’s blood in an attempt to dominate the entire Earth, sacrificing even the freedoms we hold dear when necessary to achieve this end. They apparently have also been successful in frightening many of the rest of us into silence, by maintaining their policies represent the will of the majority.
Those who presently lead this nation, and those who support them, are ignoring the natural order of life, a basic axiom of democracy, ensconced by Thomas Jefferson in our Declaration of Independence: Power and sovereignty flow from the people to government — not the other way around. If we are to recognize the truth of Jefferson’s words, we must conclude that there are not two types of people on the face of the Earth — exceptional Americans, and everyone else — but only one. Such an endeavor as that envisioned by our leadership, therefore, is doomed to fail.
The wiser course, then, must be to use our liberty, thus proving its validity, rather than cower in silence from our government, accepting whatever benefits they allow, enduring whatever demands they require, in their pursuit of global dominance.
Either course could lead to our demise, but death is inevitable in any case. What is in our control is our character. As a wise man once said: sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character; reap a destiny.
Let us develop the habit of courage before our government, in order to reclaim our national character, and reappoint our destiny.
Of course they seek and elicit our willing approval. To that end they have become skillful manipulators of public opinion. They have been successful in convincing some people our only path to security is for our one nation to expend its treasure and life’s blood in an attempt to dominate the entire Earth, sacrificing even the freedoms we hold dear when necessary to achieve this end. They apparently have also been successful in frightening many of the rest of us into silence, by maintaining their policies represent the will of the majority.
Those who presently lead this nation, and those who support them, are ignoring the natural order of life, a basic axiom of democracy, ensconced by Thomas Jefferson in our Declaration of Independence: Power and sovereignty flow from the people to government — not the other way around. If we are to recognize the truth of Jefferson’s words, we must conclude that there are not two types of people on the face of the Earth — exceptional Americans, and everyone else — but only one. Such an endeavor as that envisioned by our leadership, therefore, is doomed to fail.
The wiser course, then, must be to use our liberty, thus proving its validity, rather than cower in silence from our government, accepting whatever benefits they allow, enduring whatever demands they require, in their pursuit of global dominance.
Either course could lead to our demise, but death is inevitable in any case. What is in our control is our character. As a wise man once said: sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character; reap a destiny.
Let us develop the habit of courage before our government, in order to reclaim our national character, and reappoint our destiny.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Forgiveness and survival
Tomorrow King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia will convene a conference in Madrid, the proposed purposes of which are to defuse interfaith tensions, and at the same time preserve morality. To guide their efforts I proffer a fundamental maxim, common to the faiths of all attendees, in the hope that the results can be more than window dressing.
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”
This thought forms a core tenet of all three Abrahamic faiths, now in contention and conflict in the Middle East, and elsewhere. Obviously, if it were followed faithfully by all, the conflicts we presently suffer would not exist.
How is it that this core maxim is so easily ignored? It is only possible to do so if we refuse to acknowledge that the “other” is worthy of our respect; and so all movements that seek religious justification for political violence begin with this premise, that the “other,” because of their obvious transgressions, falls outside the realm of human consideration.
We often seem to be doing the opposite. The opposite might be stated, “causing you pain will not cause me pain,” and this seems to be the case. What I do today may or may not be observed, or judged by society, or acted upon to be punished or rectified in any way. So it is easy to assume, especially with a differential of power that may likely or even certainly delay any response to my actions, that I may successfully act on the principle, “causing you pain will not cause me pain,” especially if I can further confuse the issue with a religious interpretation that defines the object of my aggression unworthy of mercy or compassion. I would like to examine why this might not be the case, and why “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is actually a more realistic approach to mutual relations.
First, ‘the golden rule,’ as it is called, describes in human terms a manner of action that comes from balance and creates balance; while its opposite stems from and implies imbalance and exacerbates imbalance. Imbalance constantly seeks balance; if I oppress another, they will seek ways to free themselves from my oppression. If I am oppressed, I will seek a way to right the balance. So while I may feel obliged today to cause another pain with impunity, I automatically open the door for them to return the favor tomorrow, if not with me personally, then with someone else. Once enough actors on a limited stage are operating on the same principle, sooner or later everybody touches everybody else.
So let us recognize that first, the world is a limited stage. In fact even one’s own body is a limited stage. If I harbor ill-will toward another, it resides within me, so I am its first victim.
Second, the universal principles under which humanity has come into existence have not changed over time, but other things perhaps have. Our scientific understanding of the world has advanced at the same time that our population has increased, to the point we are capable of recognizing that our actions are crowding other species off the planet, and soon, unless we adapt our manner of being towards each other and the planet on which we reside, we will crowd ourselves off as well.
The crises that confront us seem varied — climate disruption, running out of oil, food shortages, water shortages, population pressures, political conflict, religious friction — yet they have a common root; our inability to recognize our extended being. If we recognize the other as ourself, it becomes easy to treat them rightly.
I recently visited Jordan and Syria, to speak with Iraqi refugees. Many had members of their family, their tribe, amongst the Sunni, Shia, and Christian faiths. This had not prevented them from coming together at family gatherings, and celebrating what they had in common. They assured me the current conflicts are of recent manufacture, a result of external political tensions playing themselves out.
Jews, Christians, and Muslims have existed in the same neighborhood largely in harmony for centuries, with some exceptions, the present and recent past being one. Hitler consolidated his power by focusing German desperation over their economic dispossession at what he thought was an easy target, the Jews, and laid the foundation for the current conflict. When the West sought an easy solution to the Jewish refugee crisis after World War II in the recognition of Jewish dispossession of Palestinians, a new round of refugees was created, and the first story was laid.
Now as my nation has become hostage to imperial dreams of global dominance, its latest victims are one million dead, and four million new refugees joining others. As resources become scarce, divisions are created where none previously existed. Local control is crushed into chaos and despotism, in which strong external actors believe themselves free to extract wealth.
We in the West must recognize our responsibility in the creation of this crisis, and with that recognition comes the responsibility to do our utmost to contribute to its solution. Yet, we are not alone.
East or West, there is only one path to its resolution, and that is forgiveness. Revenge is an endless road, leading nowhere. Forgiveness is what I would ask if I had offended others, knowingly or unknowingly, and hope to receive. It is what I must offer others who have offended me, if I wish to regain my personal balance, or become the same as that which I hate. It is our only hope for a future together.
To follow the admonition “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” there cannot be separate laws for those of one faith over another, those of one nation at the expense of another. This has profound implications for any state that resorts to theology for ethnic and political divisions, such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and including the United States and Britain. We must find it within ourselves to accept the other as ourselves, and treat them as we wish to be treated, or proudly wear the label the greatest of hypocrites.
This demands we share and respect the Earth that sustains us all. It will take our mutual cooperation to chart a path to survival. The alternative is endless war for dominance, bearing witness to the destruction of the Earth that sustains us as we battle over diminishing resources, and our mutual demise.
The choice seems simple, but it is ours to make.
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