Cultures, Economics, Featured, Politics, Psychology, Uncategorized, Women & Gender
You’ve probably watched TV news that shows police car chases, murders, muggings, armed robberies, police shootings, and —well, you name the violent crime. At first glance they may seem quite different, but they have one thing in common: The perpetrators in all those categories are almost all male. In fact, pretty near the only category of violent crime in which women show up at all is those that take place in families or with close acquaintances, and even in those the numbers are far smaller for female than for male perpetrators.
If you raise your eyes from those details of the exciting 24/7 news coverage to look at violence in the broader sweep of history, you immediately see that the initiators and leaders of all of history’s great episodes of violence are male. To name just a few: Gengis Khan, many of the Roman Caesers, the Moghul invaders of India, Napolean, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin—all men, every last one of them. And the generals of their armies? Again, all men. Most women don’t want to send their kids off to die in wars.
The big time financial whitecollar criminals and the legislators who write laws that give the rich brutal economic control over the poor are also mostly male. Looking at economic injustice, most people tend to fixate on the differences between the wealthy and the non-wealthy and blame the former—or if you’re one of the wealthy you probably blame the “agitators” among the workers and the poor. But there too, the primary architects of the injustices are mostly male.
Even the “sociobiologists” who look at gender differences and conclude that “human beings are inherently aggressive” are themselves mostly male. It took me some time to look carefully enough at their research to see that most such investigators included only males in their research study samples. Ah, so! Suddenly the light shines brightly on a fatal flaw in those research designs that scientists call “sampling error.” If a research study which finds that so-called “people” are inherently aggressive has only men as its subjects, then the only “people” it tells us about are men. Although women sometimes take a forceful or even brutal role, on the average men tend not only to be more aggressive, but also to have a stronger drive to dominate, to “be on top.” (This tells us nothing about any particular man or woman.)
It’s not for nothing that the Native American Iroquois Confederacy in Eastern North America gave women’s councils the final power over any decision about whether a tribe would go to war. It saved the lives of a great many young braves, and of the people in other tribes who might have been their victims.
When we apply all this to an analysis of the grave problems that male dominance creates, the clear implication is that if women and men had equal power in making the policies decisions about war and peace, criminal law, and the allocation and distribution of economic benefits, many things would be better. Less violent crime. Less selfish greed enshrined in law. Less war. Less production of weapons of personal destruction and mass destruction. Less of the environmental destruction and pollution that goes along with building and maintainng a huge military machine.
Requiring a feminine as well as masculine perspective in all major decisions would make far more money and resources availble for a whole spectrum of socially and environmentally beneficial purposes instead of building more and more nuclear missiles and bombers and aircraft carriers and submarines and tanks and. . . and . . . and. . .
Can you see it yet? We are so used to the oppression of a society whose every aspect is built on a blueprint of male dominance that most of us don’t see much of it. It’s like a fish swimming in the water. Ask the fish what “water” is and the answer you’d probably get is, “What are you talking about?” Since I’m male it took quite a long time for me to come around to realizing all that. But it’s obvious in many ways, almost everywhere I look.
Some feminist sci-fi and fantasy writing, like The Handmaid’s Tale and other related works, is meant to dramatize male dominance and oppression so well that it can’t be overlooked. But it can also have the effect of causing the reader to think, “Thank heavens things are so much better than that here,” and overlook the many subtle yet powerful forms of sexism that are embedded in numerous ways throughout society. As a blatant example, that we’re still swimming blindly through the dark waters of patriarchy that have led to so much of the cruelty and suffering of the past three thousand years of civilization, you might note the 2021 Texas Republicans’ legislation that offered people ten thousand dollars to sue someone who has an abortion. The legislators who passed that bill were 59 males and 10 females. That’s the naked hand of masculine oppression right there.
“But,” you might object, “what about the 10 females? There are some women who are anti-abortion, and who support other measures that give men power over women too.”
Indeed. There’s even an identified psychological pattern called variously “Identification with the aggressor” and “identification with the oppressor,” in which someone who is beaten down or oppressed feels a little power by identifying with those in control. And just as there are some men who display qualities we tend to call “feminine,” there are also women who have adopted “masculine” qualities—especially in the business world, where they are strongly encouraged and reinforced.
The sleeping giant of female power is beginning to awake. But slowly. Too slowly to stave off disaster on an apocalyptic scale—probably before the end of this century. Some places have realized that and have taken active steps to equalize male and female power in making the big decisions that govern the structure and process of society. Such as, for instance, in Costa Rica where the Constitution requires that an equal number of male and female candidate be put forward for most kinds of electoral seats. I believe that we need to take parallel steps everywhere, all over the world. Rapidy. Waiting for that to happen through a gradual rise in consciousness is just too slow.
I encourage you to look around with alertness to all the potential ways in which a more equal balance of masculine and feminine consciousness, and male and female power and control in our institutions, can lead to a lighter and brighter reality in your personal life, the lives of those around you, and ultimately our world.
Cultures, Economics, Politics
Many who favor laws that prevent communities or counties from governing themselves and their enterprises as they see fit call themselves “Libertarian.” The word has a nice ring, doesn’t it? But most who use it have not considered the fact that it has three radically different meanings. As a result, it’s all too easy to slide back and forth among them as if they’re all the same thing. The three are:
Individual Libertarian. This means that every person is free to do as they wish as long as they’re breaking laws against physically injuring people or property –or not “shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. In a true individual libertarian regime a person can drink booze, smoke weed, fuck anybody who is willing, have total control over their own bodies and reproduction or non-reproduction, or earn their living as a sex worker. Reasonable regulation includes such items as limiting the right to drive after drinking alcohol, and requiring sex workers to have a weekly physical exam to make sure they’re not passing on diseases.
Some apologists for corporate brutality, intimidation, deception, or other misdeeds claim that really they’re doing good because philosophically they’re “libertarians.” Confusing such a viewpoint with an individual libertarian one is like a shell game in which everyone is tricked into thinking the bean is under a different shell than it really is. An individual libertarian philosophy holds that government has no business telling us how to live our lives as long as we don’t harm others people or living beings. For example, “Mr. Conservative” Barry Goldwater was a very strong advocate of women’s control over their own bodies and reproductive choices. That’s an individual libertarian position.
But a Big Business Libertarian outlook is different. It holds that a corporation or other business can or ought to be able to do as it pleases with no oversight or regulation by the community, the city, the state, or anybody else. How strange, since many who hold that view also lobby constantly for government contracts, subsidies, tax incentives, land grants, and anti-labor and union-busting laws. Many actively seek government regulations that will give them a competitive advantage or wedge of entry into some market. An attorney friend of mine who works with vampire corporations and the ultra-rich says, “Their lobbyists are like a plague of locusts. No matter how many subsidies, tax breaks, and concessions they get, every day they’re over at the state capital asking for more –and more—and more.”
The big business libertarian view holds that Wall Street, the big banks, other global corporations, and “the invisible hand of the market” will look out for ordinary people’s interests. Really?
The grain of truth in a business libertarian view (not just big business) that is that even small mom and pop businesses are too often hobbled by an excess of rules, regulations and forms to fill out that don’t help anybody anywhere. The longer a government or business exists, the more of these there tend to be. It’s useful to have periodic reviews to scrap those no longer needed, clean up the rest, and make sure they are all written in language anyone can understand.
Realistic freedom for businesses includes freedom from intimidation by other businesses as well as from unneeded busybody government interference. That’s where preventing monopolies and ensuring competition comes in. And a socially conscious business libertarian view ensures competitive bidding and no sweetheart deals like those that are so common in matters like weapons system procurement. History tells us that this is likely occur only when there is an outside overseer who enforces it.
A third variation is a Plutocratic Libertarian view. This is valuing liberty for the wealthy and powerful above all, clearing the way for them to do anything they please regardless of how greatly it impoverishes or injures others or nature’s other beings. A plutocratic libertarian system tends to give lip service to the idea that everybody is equally free, while it actually enacts all kinds of restrictions on those who happen to be poor and powerless. Such as, for instance, laws against “loitering.”
Today’s hard-right ideologues who call themselves libertarians tend to be of the second and third kinds. Very few are genuine individual libertarians. Why does this matter? Because if a corporate giant and an individual are both free to do as they please, the former usually has the resources to crush any individuals who get in the way—often using government as its tool.
The ideology that underlies big business and plutocratic perspectives is the idea that everybody will make the “best” possible decisions for themselves that they can, and that will result in the best collective outcomes. That’s true — IF the only thing we care about is making AMMAP (As Much Money As Possible) and care little or not at all about any other ethics or values. Or about who benefits much, who just a little, and who gets royally screwed..
Consider this: Most economists have pretty good jobs and make enough to live fairly well. Their personal experience has a major effect on their theories. Such as making big decisions about whether to use their available funds for a new Lincoln or a new Lexus. Then we can look at someone who is clinging to survival by the fingernails. An economist is likely to watch with detached interest as to whether that person will use his or her very limited funds for healthy organic non-GMO food instead of cheap food grown with heavy use of herbicides and pesticides, or instead goes to a dentist to get decaying teeth made bad by cheap food filled or pulled. That’s the kind of “freedom of choice” that billions of people in the world face.
Or step back and look at the international scene. Todays so-called “free markets” are, in large part, arrangements agreed on by attorneys for big business (often that’s the case even when they are negotiators serving at the behest of government) that are really not free at all. A large share of international finance and commerce, for example, is tightly regulated by global and regional bodies like the World Trade Organization. As a result, “free trade” is often trade governed by rules devised by giant multinational corporations. The corporations don’t want countries, states, or communities making any rules that interfere with their ability to do whatever they please, however harmful to people, other living beings, and ecosystems it might be. And they ask legislatures to pass laws that keep countries, states, or communities from passing regulations that stop Vampire Capitalist corporation from bleeding them dry. The only “freedom” they want is for themselves. They certainly don’t want others to see and hear their negotiations with each other, since those are almost always carried on behind closed doors with no representatives of the press of the public present. Whose liberty is that?
END
© 2021 by Victor Daniels. You may distribute this wherever and however you wish so long as it’s free. Any use in a manner that directly or indirectly earns compensation requires consent of the author.
Economics, Politics
Social Security — In the United States, of all government programs, it is one of the most successful and best run. Now well-off right wingers are trying to destroy it.
A year-in, year-out right-wing Republican agenda is to take a meat cleaver to the social security payments for old people and the disabled. Why? Because, we are told, “eventually the system will go broke.” You may or may not recall that the system was put in because many of the old and disabled had no source of income, They either lived on the edge of starvation or under bridges or depended their families for support. Depending on their families is the opposite of what the we need today. It causes people to have larger families so they will have someone to support them when they can no longer support themselves. In turn that pushes population upward, Instead, the world now badly needs to stabilize and eventually even reduce population. Resources and are declining and in some places overcrowding is incredible?
Why do the extreme right-wingers relentlessly push this agenda? For four reasons. First, so the rich can get richer than they already are. Too bad for the suckers in the middle and lower classes. It’s a classical plutocratic, anti-democratic classist agenda. The attack has four prongs. 1) Cut taxes on the very very rich so they can get even richer. 2) End the “defined benefit” system that guarantees that people will receive a specified amount no matter what the stock market does. Replace it with a “defined contribution” system that specifies how much people have to pay in each month but leaves how much they’ll get to the tender mercies of the economy is doing. “If the economy goes upward, they could get more than they expected,” say advocates. (But if the economy tanks, they could get zilch, or nearly zilch Tough luck, sucker. But the stockbrokers and insurance companies that would handle the “defined contribution” accounts and their stockholders would make a bundle. How nice! Really? ( like a slick salesman, they hope they can con enough people into supporting the proposals anyway.) 3) Carefully avoid mentioning that small adjustments in how much people contribute to the system now can easily provide them with a dependable defined benefits far into the foreseeable future. And 4) Sshhh — be completely silent about the fact that half the country’s budget goes into war and other military spending. Just one example: the fleet of incredibly expensive new F35s that most of the top generals say is a s a rotten plane. A small cut in unnecessary “defense” (i.e. war – most “defense” spending does nothing at all to protect the U.S. itself) spending could easily make up for projected shortfalls in social security funding.
These are, of course, the truths I see. They’re the way it looks to me. So is anything anybody says or writes about anything. As for those who (usually falsely) claim to have THE truth — beware the snake-oil salesmen!
Economics, Politics
“Any woman should have the right to a safe and legal abortion,” — First Lady Betty Ford, wife of President Gerald Ford
“If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.” — Seen on a T-shirt
On March 30, 2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump said that in his America abortion would be banned and “there has to be some sort of legal punishment” for women who have abortions. After fierce criticism from both left and right, he flip-flopped and said that not the women but the doctors who perform the abortions should be punished. Whether fines or prison time he didn’t say. Sounds like Fascism to me. And many Republicans talk about being “libertarian?” Despite their disavowals, Ted Cruz’ and Marco Rubio’s views sound pretty similar to me.
Let’s step back into history and hear what “Mr. Conservative” Barry Goldwater said. “I am frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in ‘A,’ ‘B,’ ‘C,’ and ‘D.’ . . . I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of ‘conservatism.’ . . . I believe a woman has a right to an abortion, That’s a decision that’s up to a pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders on the religious right.” 
In 1964 Democrat Harry S. Truman and Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower served together as honorary co-chairs of Planned Parenthood. That organization actually prevents a huge number of abortions by its extensive contraceptive counseling (which the Vatican and the American politicians who follow its script don’t like either.)
The Religious coalition for Reproductive Choice, a nationwide alliance of more than forty mainstream Protestant, Jewish, and other religious groups agrees. It says, “every woman must have the right to consider all options when she faces a problem pregnancy and the freedom to allow her to come to a decision that is in harmony with her own moral and religious values–without government intrusion. . . . The abortion debate in America is not a conflict between the ‘God-fearing’ and the ‘Godless’ but is instead a struggle between those determined to undermine religious freedom and those determined to preserve it.”
Jesus Christ was totally silent on both contraception and abortion, taking no position about either.
I dislike name-calling –especially in online comments where people hide in anonymity. I’m all for owning your own likes and dislikes instead of pretending that they’re reality. (Unfortunately many people can’t tell the difference.) But I’m pissed off. At the whole ultra-right-wing extremist Republican establishment. And a name that seems to fit some of what I like least about them just popped into my mind: Pseudo-Libertarian Fascism. These days that’s what extremist radical right-wing Republican politics (and that seems to be most of it) seems to boil down to, Unlimited freedom ( equals libertarianism) for big corporations, for the plutocrats (the very rich few who basically run things), and for religious imperialists who want to impose their ideology on everybody else. Meanwhile, they wrap themselves in the flag, play the national anthem loudly, and act like that justifies their views.
Me, I care about your Aunt Sadie and Sister Sue. Even if they’re dumpster divers. For that matter, even if they’re plutocrats. And I don’t want Trump, Cruz, Rubio, or misguided fundamentalist male chauvinists who are contemptuous toward the separation of church and state bending the government to make it force you to follow their agendas.
For the record, here are the views of some of America’s founding fathers about religious views and politics.
Revolutionary war hero Ethan Allen: “While we are under the tyranny of Priests, it will ever be their interest, to invalidate the laws of nature and reason, in order to establish systems incompatible therewith.”
Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence: “The priests have so disfigured the simple religion of Jesus that no one who reads the sophistications they have engrafted on it . . . would conceive these could have been fathered on the sublime preacher of the Sermon on the Mount. . . . It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself to resist invasions of it in the case of others. “
James Madison, a principal writer of the U.S. Constitution: “In no instance have… the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people. . . Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”
Thomas Paine, patriot and advocate for independence: “I fully and conscientiously believe that it is the will of the Almighty that there should be a diversity of religious opinions among us. . . . My mind is my own church.” And, “Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” Let’s keep it out of our private lives.
Abraham Lincoln said, “No man is good enough to govern another without that other’s consent.”
George Washington accompanied his wife Martha to Church but waited outside in the carriage while she went in to Mass.
In recent times, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm observed, “Women know, and so do many men, that two or three children who are wanted, prepared for, reared amid love and stability, and educated to the limit of their ability will mean more for the future. . . than any number of neglected, hungry, ill-housed and ill-clothed youngsters.”
Finally, opposition to contraception and abortion is a male agenda. Half the people of our nation are women. President John Adams’ wife, First Lady Abigail Adams said, “If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice, or representation. . . If we mean to have heroes, statesmen and philosophers, we should have learned women. . . . All history and every age exhibit instances of patriotic virtue in the female sex.”
NO POLITICIAN OUGHT TO DARE OPPOSE WOMEN’S SELF-DETERMINATION BY WOMEN OVER THEIR OWN LIVES. IT IS TIME TO RATIFY AN EQUAL-RIGHTS AMENDMENT BY ALL STATES THAT ENSURES THAT NO FUTURE POLITICIAN IN ANY STATE CAN EVER AGAIN PURSUE AN ANTI-WOMAN, ANTI-CONTRACEPTION, ANTI-ABORTION PROGRAM.
Note: Some of the material in this blog is cribbed from my own book, THE RADICAL WRONG: LIES OUR FOUNDING FATHERS NEVER TOLD US — Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Others Refute Right-Wing Extremists. It is readily available as an e-book or hardcopy at many online booksellers.
Available on Amazon
Cultures, Economics, Politics
WARNING:Mind-Exploding Outrage (that is, the Trans Pacific Partnership) Ahead,” writes the Hightower Lowdown. “Unbeknownst to most people, a cabal of corporate and political elites (including Presidents Clinton, Bush II, and Obama has stealthily negotiated international trade deals during the past two-plus decades that have fabricated, piece by piece, what now amounts to a privatized world government. It’s a secretive, autocratic, plutocratic, bureaucratic government of, by, and for the multinational corporations.” Its 29 huge chapters include “rules limiting what our domestic governments are permitted to do, plus new rights and privileges for corporations enforced through supranational closed-door tribunals. This adds up to a privately gated ‘government.’”
Wolves in sheep’s clothing? For a long time some folks have been worrying about a “world government.” Well, its closing in on us. And it’s a corpocracy. Obama is also promoting a Trans Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the European Union.
But the TPP is closer. Negotiations have been going on since 2005. It’s almost done. And who wrote it? CEO’s of giant multinational corporations, and their lawyers and lobbyists, in secret, behind closed doors. These include Halliburton, Chevron, PHRA, Comcast, and other such companies you know and love. Congress is being intentionally kept in the dark about what the TPP document says. U.S. Senator Ron Wyden says, “More than two months after receiving the proper security credentials, my staff is still banned from viewing the details of the proposals that USTR is advancing. Economist Robert Reith states, “It is incomprehensible that the leaders of major corporate interests who stand to gain enormous financial benefits . . . are actively involved in the writing of the TPP while at the same time, the elected officials of this country. . have little or no knowledge as to what is in it.”
Shhhh!—the remarkable media blackout
There is an almost complete news blackout about the negotiations. I did find one 2013 article in the Washington Post. Otherwise, silence, Almost everyone I mention it to says, “The TPP—what’s that?” It would change our society forever—but almost no one has even heard of it, despite great daily coverage of such events as a cat rescued from a telephone pole. But then, who owns the media? Maybe some of the folks who are writing the agreement—but that’s not for you and me to know.
What are the benefits—and what aren’t?
All of the above is presented to “We, the People” as a Very Good Thing. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative touts the TPP as a step “to enhance trade and investment among the TPP partner countries, to promote innovation, economic growth and development, and to support the creation and retention of jobs.” Doesn’t that resemble a replay of NAFTA, of which there have been far more complaints than kudos? Just a for instance—all those new jobs it promised—well, just as many old jobs have dematerialized as the new ones that materialized. Perhaps President Obama has not seen the figures that show that the income gap between the rich and the rest of us has widened since he took office. Not his doing, but reality nonetheless. Economists who have seen leaked drafts of TPP chapters say it would accelerate that trend. Economic growth, yes. But for whom? It would supercharge the growing gap between the great corporations and the very wealthy on one hand and working people and the poor. And between the nastiest of the Great Corporations and their competitors. For instance, in the U.S. Big Coal and Big Oil have already gotten penalties enacted to make biosolar energy less competitive. Some solar panel manufacturers are going broke, Almost everywhere the interests of giant corporations and those of ordinary citizens conflict, the megacorporations manage to slap The People and their smaller business competitors down (despite all those pretty ads you see on TV).
A short list of what’s wrong with the TPP proposal.
- Protections against toxins and other unhealthy ingredients in food are weakened.
- Laws requiring “country of origin” labeling on many foods vanish.
- Freedom of speech is reduced, such as a company putting “Not GMO” on its labels.
- Safety laws can be invalidated.
- A law to protect people or the environment can be struck down, in the Lowdown’s words, simply if it shows that “the expected future profits” of corporate investors might be lower.
- States or countries with environmental or health standards higher than the TPPs can be sued for lost “expected future profits.”
- Present laws to favor local businesses are weakened or vanish. A company can sue a town that wants to keep its local character instead of getting overrun by big chain stores
- The approval process for generic drugs is slowed down.
- Some drugs will be delayed for years, such as one to fight cancer
- It makes it easier for big multinational corporations to swallow up smallr local corporations and companies worldwide.
- S., state and local governments could not have “buy equipment made in USA” when possible policies. The same thing goes for other countries.
- The document is being written in secret behind locked doors.
- Corporate challenges to laws protecting people or the environment are decided by secret tribunals with almost nothing to prevent conflicts of interest.
- A decision by such a tribunal is FINAL, with no appeal possible
- The conflict of interest is blatant. It is being written by those who stand to gain from it.
- All aspects of its negotiation, adoption, and implementation are designed to prevent citizen participation.
- It is written in obtuse, complicated language that appears designed to confuse.
The Devil in Disguise: Fast Track
Only one U.S. Congressman, Colorado Republican Hank Brown, read the full text of the 1994 GATT agreement. He had previously favored the agreement, but changed his mind after reading it. He didn’t have much time to read it. In 1974 President “Tricky Dick” Nixon devised a uniquely undemocratic ploy to bypass congressional consultation, one that appears unconstitutional to me, and conned congress into buying it. The U.S. Constitution charges congress with giving advice and consent on trade agreements. It says,
[The President] shall have power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the senators present concur.
Fast Track requires congress to act on legislation sent to it by the White House with a simple “yes” or “no” response, and no chance to offer any amendments, It never goes to congressional committees. It must be voted on within 90 days, with minimal debate. To me that doesn’t look much like the “Advice of the Senate” required by the Constitution. The Constitution also says,
All treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution of laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding. (Article VI, Clause II)
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles reinforced that point: “Treaties make international law and also they make domestic law. Under our constitution, treaties become the supreme law of the land.
President Bush the First lobbied heavily to renew Fast Track, which had expired. With its assistance, President Clinton managed to get NAFTA approved. It expired in 2007. Now Obama is asking congress to resurrect it for the TPP deliberations. In other words, congress would vote for or against whatever the corporate lobbyists put into the Treaty.
Trade is not an end in itself but a means to other ends. To declare that completely unrestricted trade is appropriate everywhere, in all circumstances, is like saying, “Penicillin is a great drug, so lets use it to cure everything.” France knows all this. It has “stubbornly” refused to lower certain tariff barriers that protect its farmers, because its farms don’t just provide food, but they’re part of the whole structure of French society.
The Lowdown goes one step farther. It says, “This is not a decision about trade—the TPP represents a tectonic shift in public policy that would radically alter the fundamental structure of our society and thrust a global corporate plutocracy on us. Shouldn’t we have something to say about that?
It looks to me like leaked sections of the agreement show that the god its drafters worship above all others is to gain the maximum possible profits for their corporations. Period. That attitude takes us along a path likely to end in a world where any form of democracy can exist. With the multinationals calling the shots, I do not imagine that the proposed treaty would be more advantageous for the smaller, poorer countries that would be part of it than for the U.S., and typically much less so.
“There are always politicians and technocrats ready to show that the invasion of ‘industrializing’ foreign capital benefits the area invaded. In this version, the new-model imperialism comes on a genuinely civilizing mission, is a blessing to the dominated countries, and the true-love declarations by the dominant power of the moment are its real intentions. Guilty consciences are thus relieved of the need for alibis, for no one is guilty: today imperialism radiates technology and progress, and even the use of this old, unpleasant word to define it is in bad taste.” Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan journalist and author.
Instead of Fast Track, I suggest a SLOW TRACK procedure in which the entire draft that is to be submitted to congress must be posted on both White House and all Congressional websites so that every interested citizen can read it and communicate concerns and suggestions to his or her congresspersons. Perhaps it could be put up at the rate of 50 pages a week, giving people time to digest it—and perhaps meet and discuss it in community groups. How about moving toward democracy rather than away from it? After all, it has been ten years since TPP was proposed. If there is going to be one, it ought to be one that benefits the people and protects the earth.
What you can do now: Derail FAST TRACK. The vote may be as soon as March. The first link below will tell you which congressperson to contact if you’re not sure.
See also www.cwa-union.org/no-tpp
http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/ (January 2015)
Economics, Politics
“Half a truth is often a great lie,” said Benjamin Franklin. In the U.S. we hear both the Republicans and the Democrats promising that their employment solutions will put people back to work, bring full employment, and ensure prosperity for all. Really? I have yet to hear any party or any business person or organization who has a real solution. S
Some policies make the job picture worse. For example, when they think no one is looking, Republicans sometimes actually say they want to give the country a good zap of unemployment from time to time to keep wages down and help break the backs of those unions that remain. When he was President Richard Nixon said it very explicitly. Party members since his time have acted in ways which show that they want just enough of a rise in employment to get elected. If they’re already in office, they want employment just high enough level to keep them elected. They certainly don’t want a rise in employment in West Virginia, where it might interfere with coal company practices of turning beautiful mountains into wastelands by blowing the tops off mountains to expose coals seams. Mining employment in West Virginia is one-tenth what it used to be when miners brought out coal from underground and God’s Own Country was not being turned into the Devil’s Wasteland. Also, all across the country in both public and private sectors full-time jobs are getting pulled apart into pieces that can be filled by part-time employees.
In regard to jobs, the Democrats are less hypocritical, more idealistic, and also pathetically naïve if they actually believe their own rhetoric. Yes, they do want less unemployment, jobs for more people, more job training, better jobs for the folks who have slipped from manufacturing into making fast food burgers for a fraction of their former pay. They would like to change that, and have less offshoring of jobs, and on.
But neither party says much about basic changes in society, technology, and economic organization that are responsible for today’s trends: automation, robotization, and the massive transfer of productive activity from labor to capital. That’s part of why the economic gap between rich and poor keeps growing. To be sure, the sledgehammers with which Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush smashed into little pieces much of the equalizing effect of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s graduated income tax and other measures to help the less fortunate did their part. But take all that out of the equation and there would still be Trouble in River City. It used to be that when you picked up your phone to call someone you got a human being on the other end. Now a few people with nice voices are hired to created digital recordings that allow one person to do the work a thousand used to do. It used to be that rapid transit cars had a human being sitting up front running them. Now a few people in a control room run enormous systems by remote control. It used to be that longshoremen actually loaded cargo into ships. Now a tiny fraction of their number run giant cranes that move containers from trucks and trains onto and off of ships. And so on. Some of this is great. Robot welders on auto assembly lines tend to do a better job than people, and so too with numerous other functions. But not all. When I go to the supermarket or drugstore I prefer to wait my turn in line than walk right up to the self-checkout machine. I’d rather not contribute to throwing another person out of work. And I certainly wish the Golden Gate Bridge District directors had seen fit to keep at least one lane operated by a human being who can accept cash instead of automating them all. You can surely think of your own examples where work that used to be done by people is now done by machines. That eliminates such matters as setting up pension funds and paying medical benefits and overtime. Most of all, machines do not organize themselves to demand that an enterprise be run in a more decent, humane, environmentally sound manner. They just do what they’re programmed to do.
One more detail. Every time a machine replaces a person, it is a transfer of productive capacity from Labor to Capital. Somebody owns that capital, and it’s probably not a worker. It’s a private equity company, or a corporation (or sometimes even a government agency.) That means more money in the pockets of capitalists and less in the pockets and purses of working men and women who lose their jobs. Meanwhile, immigration brings in more competition for the jobs that remain. In some regions, that’s sensible, because needed skilled workers are not available and can’t be trained rapidly enough, but can be hired from elsewhere. But in many cases, immigration that pushes up population makes it harder for people who lose their jobs to find new ones.
If you read Adam Smith, who is widely cited as the High Priest of Capitalism, you’ll find that his views were nothing like those of todays ultra right-wing extremists. He was concerned about working people and jobs. He disliked the nasty tactics and conspiracies of some companies’ owners or executives. Today’s capitalism differs radically from his views. Its essence is the ideological principle that making the most money possible is the goal to be pursued above all others, and that the few at the top of the ladder are entitled to everything they can get – no matter how many are harmed by their actions or how severe the environmental destruction. In many places even the law requires profit maximization. And if quarterly profits drop, “the market” –i.e. investors who want maximum profits, punish the company and may even try to take it over. So what’s the so-called “bottom line” here? It is that contemporary capitalism, with its imperialistic and monopolistic tendencies, will never provide as many good jobs as are needed regardless of whether Republicans or Democrats are running things. Indeed, “unlikely” is an understatement. As long as automation and robotization continue on anything like their present course, unwanted unemployment is guaranteed and will probably rise. Is there a solution? Will anything work?
- The one thing I see that appears likely to work, and that is working in some places already, is a variety of economic forms and solutions working cooperatively together.
- Capitalism will have to return to its roots. (When the U.S. was young, to be chartered as a company the owners-to-be had to demonstrate that it would serve some public good. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were so afraid that the economy would develop much as it has done that they tried to add an eleventh amendment to the Bill of Rights that would keep corporations from going out of control, telling lies and damaging the public interest as many do today. It was voted down by a group of prosperous and powerful members of the Constitutional Convention.)
- Cooperative ownership and endeavor will play a much large part in the world’s economies. Experiments in this direction are already underway.
- All portions of international trade agreements that are injurious to workers or other people or that prohibit any nation or region from protecting its environment will automatically be null and void.
- All international trade agreements will have to be made in the light of day, with citizens of the concerned countries and reporters of diverse viewpoints able to be present and report what is happening. No more secret, closed-door negotiations by corporate leaders appointed by their governments as “trade representatives.”
- The discipline of economics will have to be transformed from figuring out how the few can make the most to figuring out how to configure economies at every level into forms that will be beneficial for most citizens and protect ecosystems.
- Everywhere, people in local communities will begin meeting together to develop new forms of production, exchange, and consumption that will bring the communities together. (This is quite different from the present system in which a few wealthy and powerful citizens put up the money to get candidates who will favor their interests elected, so that the city of county is governed with the intent of enriching them even more.
This blog entry is obviously not a comprehensive answer to the problems of jobs, employment, and economic organization. Today, no one and no party has such an answer. Rather, it offers my reflections and seeks to provoke your own reflections. Collectively we need a transformed sense of purpose and direction in our economic endeavors so that they will serve both the material and the deeper psycho-spiritual interests of all the people. To provide those “good jobs” the politicians talk about, we need to start deeply rethinking and transforming the very structure of our economy.
Economics, Environment, Politics, Psychology, Spirit
Mental flexibility and rigidity is a crucial matter. Either one is usually both an attitude and a habit. Yesterday as I was reading posts about the polar vortex’s possible contributions to the January 2014 extreme colds and storms in the Eastern U.S., (and much less publicized, climate scientists’ opinions that it may also be causing the blocking high pressure area off northern California that has given the usually rainy and foggy winters of the redwood country less rain in the last year than the desert cities of San Diego and Phoenix, which has caused my spring to stop running), I noticed something interesting. The intelligent and thoughtful comments tended to include a lot of detail and information about diverse phenomena related to climate change, whereas the boorish comments that insulted previous posters, primarily by people who denied that any changes in climate are actually occurring, were for the most part devoid of any knowledge or details about real phenomena. They just parroted opinions of others who thought similarly.
As I read, it occurred to me that those who posted almost all the comments could easily be labelled “INQUIRERS” or “DENYERS.” An Inquirer is somone who actively seeks out diverse best available information about something, usually from a variety of different kinds of sources and in considerable detail. A Denier is someone who forms opinions based on repeating what others have said and does not go looking for additional information in anything resembling an openminded way. They know what they believe and don’t want anyone to question it. Reminds me of a time many years ago when in the middle of a discussion a friend said, “Victor, you really don’t like to be contradicted, do you/” It hit me like a brick. I had viewed myself as SO OPENMINDED. But what she said was so true at that moment in that context that I had to admit it. It was the beginning of a long-term change in attitude. Now when I find myself stubbornly holding onto some belief or opinion despite what others say, my discipline is to NOTICE THAT I’M DOING SO and then say something like, “Of course, I may be mistaken.”
For all you denyers out there, please understand this: The main thing you are doing is defending your self-centered egos. You believe that you are not an OK person if your belief about something is wrong. The reality is that there is no dishonor in changing your mind, in acknowledging that you were mistaken about something. Dishonor lies in snotty, judgmental put-downs of others who disagree with you. THAT’s small minded. THAT closes down your ability to grow, to change, to discover. If that’s not the case with you, you can ask yourself: “What’s in it for you to hang on so tightly to you attitude, belief, opinion, or preconception?” What about it are you attached to? The approval of others who are parroting the same opinions? Or . . .? Doing the best you can to answer that question in an honest way could be an important step in your life.
Of course my classification of online commenters, and for that matter everybody else, into Inquirers and Denyers is urealistically dualistic. Actually people are not just one or the other, but hold attitudes along a continuum that runs from flexible openmindedness to rigid clinging to their preconceptions. Many people fall somewhere in the middle. It appears to me that fewer of those in the middle tend to make online comments than Inquirers and Denyers. And some Inquirers dig up a lot of information to support their views but are nonetheless rigid and judgmental. Little in the realm of the human psyche is totally cut-and-dried, either THIS or THAT. (Back to Venn Diagrams and mathematical set theory for the demonstration.) But in the clouds of bloggers, comment posters, and purveyors of editorial opinions (so labeled or disguised as so-called “news”), an great many of the aforementioned authors sound like either Inquirers or Denyers.
Note: I have used the spelling “denyers” instead of “deniers” because the dictionary defines the latter as “a unit of weight by which the fineness of silk, rayon, or nylon yarn is measured,” and “a French coin, equal to one twelfth of a sou, which was withdrawn from use in the 19th century.”
Economics, Environment, Politics
Some laws that regulate extractive mineral operations are just plain upside down. Take fracking. Companies that use the process don’t have to tell ANYONE what’s in the cocktails of chemicals they use because it’s a “trade secret” that the laws exempt from disclosure. Even when some of the substances in those cocktails are known carcinogens, or known to be otherwise poisonous or harmful to the health of humans and animals, and even though some of that fluid often ends up in the water supply for drinking or irrigation, the companies can keep it secret and keep on knowingly injecting poisons into the earth and the water. And with offshore wells, into the ocean, as has been done in the Santa Barbara channel.
I label that as criminal. The corporations doing it are criminal and the corporate employees who are doing it are criminals–all the way from the CEO and members of the Board of Directors who are in the know to the chemists who concoct the chemical brew to the workmen who are actually drilling the holes and pumping in the chemical brew. And the politicians who write the laws that let them do it and let them keep their formulas secret are criminals. Every one of them ought to be sent to jail or barred from political office.
The basic question is simple and the answer is obvious. What is more important–the good health of the people who live in the regions that are getting fracked, or the maximization of fracking companies’ profits? It is that simple. And the answer is obvious to any thinking person who is honest with himself or herself.
Personally I applaud the states that have banned the process of fracking completely, and I’d like to see it banned in coastal waters that are under federal authority. But I have no power to do that in states or countries where the fracking companies are paying off the politicians to let them keep on using the process. But even there, I think there may be a fairly straightforward solution. Establish an agency that oversees tracking and ban anyone who has been employed by the fracking industry from working in it. That agency will employ some bonded employees who are trained in both chemistry and toxicology. They and no one else will have access to the formulas of any substance used in tracking, and their job will be to make sure that no toxic substance is included, and to test batches of tracking fluid to make sure they are compliant. “Bonded” in this case means that they are sworn not to disclose the contents of these fluids to anyone except for informing the personnel in the agency who are empowered to stop the company from using them or to shut down the operation. Disclosure to a competitor would carry a penalty great enough to deter the bonded chemist-toxicologist from any temptation to so disclose. Such a procedure would probably provide adequate protection of the public’s health. If the politicians or tracking companies are unwilling to go along with that, then the people should rise up, stop the operations entirely, and toss the franking politicians.
Cultures, Economics, Politics, Spirit
We all have our pet peeves. One of mine is self-righteousness. “I am good and righteous and just and you are bad and maybe even wicked and evil.” Not that I never fall into it myself, but I try to notice it and pull out when I do. What are the earmarks? The self-righteous person fancies himself or herself better than others who think or act differently, or who look or sound different. If it’s one of your own tendencies, the chances are you don’t much notice it. You think you’re just in touch with reality. If it’s someone else and you agree with them, you may react that same way. But if you’re anything like me, you probably curl your lip with distaste and dislike (even if only internally and invisibly) when someone else gets into a self-righteous schtick. It may be a raving rant like many of the venomous online “comments” sections or it may be snide and subtle, but either way it has several unfortunate effects.
First, it often involves projection, a common and often destructive psychological mistake that can easily torpedo our relationships. In projection I see you as the living incarnation of whatever qualities I dislike and refuse to recognize in myself. I deny my own inner reality and experience, project it onto you, and then either denigrate you or try to exterminate you, as if in doing so I could get rid of the disliked and unrecognized qualities in me. The projector does this over and over and over again. It is highly visible, and almost always present, in the phenomenon of self-righteousness.
Second, whether it appears in religion, politics, or in a marriage or other couples relationship, it often leaves whatever sense of shared community we might have had in tatters. After an incident or two, if you’re on the receiving end of the self-righteousness will always be at least a little on guard, at least somewhat reluctant to reveal your thoughts and feelings. This leads to a more distant relationship.
Third, you just might want to get the self-righteous SOB back, especially in contexts like politics and religion where in-group imperialism often runs rampant – WE are better than those other jerks and we’re going to run things our way and impose our ways on them. You end up with results like male committees and legislatures making decisions about women’s reproductive rights that take away women’s freedom (in some cases in direct violation of their own professions of a libertarian ideology). That can lead to a lot of bitterness and desire for revenge.
Fourth, self-righteousness often requires a person to lie to himself or herself. In something like eighty or ninety percent of situations there are at least two or three viable ways of looking at the situation, and sometimes half a dozen ways or more. The ability to consider such multiple perspectives increases internal communication within oneself and also increases a person’s creativity. A self-righteous attitude requires you to deny the possible validity of every view except your own. It commits you to your own monologue and makes it very difficult to engage in any potentially constructive dialogue. And who wants to listen to know-it-all blowhards besides people who already agree with them?
Finally, to anyone with the eyes and ears to see and hear, it boils down to ego. “I’m better than you are.” We’re better than they are.” And then it all to easily slides into, “and so I’m justified in doing whatever I want to you,” or “we’re justified doing whatever we wish to them.” And of course often it turns into being the other way around. The organization, or our authorities, or some other influence requires me to do terrible things to you, and so I slide into the lie of self-righteousness to justify it.
But in the end, development as a person occurs when we work on shrinking our self-centered egocentrism, not when we inflate it. Self righteousness takes us in the wrong direction.
