Crumbling Ideologies, Hope, and Baby Steps Toward Wiser Ways Forward

Crumbling Ideologies, Hope, and Baby Steps toward Wiser Ways Forward

www.EarthManifesto.com

A Transformational Body of Work, Waiting To Be Discovered!

Tiffany B. Twain, Doctor of Philosophy

November 1, 2008

Some embarrassed Texans on a jerry-rigged raft were once caught in a snag along the upper Mississippi River, just below Lover’s Leap in Hannibal. They ruefully observed:

“If all you ever do is all you’ve ever done, then all you’ll ever get is all you ever got.”

That makes sense down home. You betcha! It’s probably what Albert Einstein was trying to say when he noted: “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Remarkable, Really

A figurative tectonic shift is taking place in international economies and American politics due to the economic crisis and the revealed flaws of deregulatory policies and unfairly regressive changes in tax policy. The “Trickle Down” has gushed up into a new Gilded Age of extreme inequality of wealth, with 1% of Americans now owning 40% of the wealth. Alan Greenspan testified before Congress on October 23, 2008 and made a stunning admission: he was “shocked” to realize that the ideology of deregulation has been proven to be partially wrong. Many people saw the risks inherent in economic bubble stimulus policies. Some warned of an inevitable economic crisis. But those with dissenting voices were shut out of the debate by those who embraced the certitude of conservative ideologies that pander to dominant established interests.

Market-fundamentalist doctrines promote laissez-faire capitalism in recognition of a basic truth about human nature: people work harder when they are able to personally benefit from the fruits of their labors. This is why private farm plots were so much more productive than public ones in Soviet Russia during the heyday of that empire. This is also why centrally-controlled economies are not able to compete well with ‘free-market’ economies. But make no mistake about it: there is another aspect of human nature that market fundamentalism turns a blind eye to: greed.

Greed has a powerful influence on competitive impulses. Greed, when not sufficiently regulated, creates speculative excesses and scams that put the entire economic system at risk. This is particularly true when there is poor transparency in economic activities, and they are not subject to adequate control and oversight. Ideological blindness to greedy impulses is a significant factor that has contributed to the severe crisis that embroils the economy today. The detrimental consequences of the unwise stimulus of such drives confirms the historical lessons which caution us that we must prevent the most anti-social and dangerous aspects of these compulsions. But those lessons have been ignored and denied by the Greenspan/Bush ideologues.

“Selfish, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.” Ha!

--- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

History has shown over and over again that too little regulation creates conditions that allow the greater good to be subverted, and workers to be exploited, and investors to be whipsawed by volatile markets, and the environment to be unwisely damaged, and the stability of the economy to be upset by financial panics and recessionary times. This was glaringly apparent during the Panic of 1907, and again during the Depression of the 1930’s, and during the Savings and Loan debacle of the late 1980’s, and again after the dot-com bubble burst in 2001-2002. The lessons of history make it abundantly clear that the immoderate stimulation of speculative impulses creates economic bubbles that are destined to burst and cause unacceptably great harm to people.

Little guys, desperate, rob banks and are sent to prison when they are caught. In the mean time, trillions of dollars have been lost worldwide in the Panic of 2008, and many banks are nearly insolvent, requiring enormous infusions of taxpayers’ money to save them. None of those who assisted in facilitating this outcome by stimulating speculation and enabling corruption have been incarcerated. Countless of those who shrewdly exploited the rashly-conceived opportunity are sailing around the world with tens of millions of dollars in ill-gotten spoils. Not only do we let the fat cats get away with this, but we even submissively and ignorantly go along with the lowering of tax rates on their gains. As a society we seem happy to generously assess taxes on these people at low upper-end marginal rates that are obscene in light of the size of national deficits.

What else? Let’s see: Exxon just announced that it made a world record profit of almost $15 billion dollars in the three-month period from June 1 to September 20, 2008. It is an increase of 58% over last year. During this same period, struggling people have been dragged over the coals of hardships associated with high-cost gasoline. And of course in the background, we still have hundreds of thousands of troops and contractors occupying Iraq and Afghanistan. With this package of plans, Americans are nonetheless astonished that the Bush regime couldn’t even make it to the end of its reign before the consequences of their unsustainably idiotic initiatives overwhelmed the world!

The Calm before the Storm

Think about the fact that people strive harder when they personally benefit from the fruits of their own efforts. In the past 8 years, almost all of the benefits of increases in productivity have been taken as a prerogative of capital; they have not been shared fairly with workers. Great profits and advantages have consequently accrued to the benefit of rich people and investors, while at the same time the wages of workers have not even kept up with the rate of inflation. The result has been that our society has become less fair, less stable and less democratic --- and less sustainable.

By depriving people of a fair share in the benefits of productivity increases, we become more like the communist societies we feared so tremulously during the Cold War. In the former Soviet Union, collectivist farms were not productive because the workers did not have their own selfish interest vested in them. Yields were thus far lower than on private plots of land where the benefits of hard work were reaped by the workers.

The first big step we must take in our quest to make our society fairer, more stable and more sustainable is to elect a new president. We need a progressive leader who: (1) is extremely well-organized; (2) understands what we must do to ensure the long-term well-being of society; (3) is honest and open-minded enough to develop a consensus on right actions; (4) can articulate and clearly communicate the comprehensive nature of the challenges facing us; and (5) can motivate people to unite and positively accept a share of the responsibility for helping to accomplish the changes needed.

After reading this essay, see Sliding Doors, Shifting Perceptions and Transcendental Vision. It provides insight into Mark Twain’s perceptive perspective relating to the original Gilded Age of the late 1800’s. It also explores the issues involved in our neo-Gilded Age compulsions today, like economic inequities, social injustices and regressive taxation.

Some Things are Simple and Straight-Forward

Good governance requires a proper balance between stimulated activities and systemic restraints, between unfettered capitalism and an overly-regulated system, between government collaboration with socially damaging extremes of corporate profit-making, on the one hand, and tight government regulation on the other hand. Societies do not prosper under either anarchy or martial law, so the ideal is to create a progressive system of incentives for people to work productively, and to simultaneously ensure that there are distinct disincentives to prevent systemic threats like financial disruptions, unstable speculative economic bubbles, and dangerous extremes of inequality.

Architects and engineers know that a durable building requires good design and solid foundations and competent workmanship and the right mix of cement and structural reinforcement. Conversely, they realize that poor design, inferior materials, shoddy workmanship, shortsighted corner-cutting, and too much rigidity results in the construction of an unsafe edifice that has an unacceptably short life span.

Businessman, political activist and philanthropist Leo Hindery talks about the dark side of deregulation and excessive industry concentration in his book It Takes a CEO – It’s Time to Lead with Integrity. Hindery writes about the deregulation of the airline industry and the problems which that move caused, which include massive government intervention for security. He also writes about the deregulation of the electric utility industry, which led to extortionate electricity pricing; and about the ‘gaming’ of the electricity market in California, and the collapse of Enron, which devastated the retirement savings of thousands of workers. He delves into the deregulation and concentration of media ownership, particularly of radio stations and television networks. Such industry consolidations have resulted in abuses and government interventions in reaction.

Corporate concentration in the media arena distinctly erodes the quality of news that Americans receive, and limits the diversity of viewpoints expressed. This poses great threats to the proper functioning of our democracy. Let’s demand that the Fairness Doctrine in broadcast media be reinstated by the Federal Communications Commission.

Needless to say, deregulation of financial industries has caused terrible consequences for people in our nation, as well as in countries around the world. It is currently quite unclear how much more far-reaching this damage will prove to be. But it seems apparent to me that we have backed ourselves into a foolishly tight spot, and an extremely risky and detrimental one, with the irresponsible fiscal and monetary policies of the past eight years. Drowning our government in a bathtub may have a nice ring to it, to ideologues like Grover Norquist, but drowning our best hope for salvation in an infinite sea of debt may turn out to be one of the worst plans in history, stubbornly anti-tax ideologues!

A National Foresight Agency?

Alex Steffen, the executive director of the online magazine worldchanging.com, talks about solutions-based ideas, not just problem-based ones. Steffen recommends “a bright green” approach to problem-solving that creates a more broadly-distributed and widespread prosperity. This “is crucial for gaining support for moves to protect the environment and for addressing poverty, public health, violence and civil rights.” He notes that desperate people are not good stewards of resources or natural systems. He writes: “We can design ways of living that offer a high quality of life with a fraction of the ecological footprint.” He also notes that if we are smart enough, we can design a system in which sustainable actions become good investments rather than burdensome costs.

Our current “ecological deficit spending” will almost certainly have severe consequences for future generations. We should not ignore the findings of the Global Footprint Network which indicate that we are accelerating our demands on the resources and ecosystems of planet Earth. We should clearly increase our efforts to create ways of life that are sustainable, instead of speeding in the opposite direction. Let’s create a Foresight Agency that is modeled along the lines of the British Foresight Programme!

The time is NOW to embrace such ideas! The United States should lead rather than obstruct actions to create a new cleaner renewable energy regime, and to prevent climate change disaster, and to make the world more just and peaceable.

“The crisis is a crisis in consciousness, a crisis that cannot anymore accept the old norms, the old patterns, the old ancient traditions.” … “It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

--- J. Krishnamurti, in the Internet film Zeitgeist Addendum

What’s the Story, Morning Glory?

When Ronald Reagan entered the White House in 1981, he said “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” With these words, Reagan launched his agenda of cutting taxes, eliminating regulations, borrowing heavily to finance big increases in military spending, undermining collective bargaining and union activities that would otherwise benefit workers, and advancing laissez-faire ideologies. These policies are proving to be extremely unfair and distinctly harmful to people and the economy and the environment. As a consequence of Reagan’s policies carried to an absurd extreme by Neocons and the Bush/Cheney regime, we are now dealing with an extraordinarily harmful and dangerous economic crisis. This disastrous state of affairs will help Democrats win a landslide in both houses of Congress and the White House in the November 4, 2008 elections. But great challenges will continue to beset us until truly transformational policies are enacted.

The pendulum has swung from New Deal big-government policies that built a strong middle class to the Reagan Revolution which dismantled the New Deal safety net and the regulations that kept our banking system secure. Reagan’s policies had the collateral advantage for his wealthy conservative supporters of dramatically promoting the interests of the rich at the expense of the middle class and the working class and the poor. George W. Bush jumped on the Reagan bandwagon and indulged in hyper-government spending and even bigger budget deficits. He also embraced the stimulation of social inequities and the ramping up of government intrusiveness against the civil liberties of Americans, and he used the divisiveness of war to advance Big Oil and other corporate interests in the U.S., the Middle East and around the globe.

Now the impetus is strong to have the federal government once again focus on creating fairer institutions and stronger regulations, and the chances are that the same forces of insider influence and political corruption which the right wing has allowed to damage our nation in the past 8 years will skew remedial efforts into a new set of initiatives that will be vulnerable to wrong-headedness, if poorly thought out and foolishly designed. To ensure positive public planning remedies, long-term impacts of decisions need to be taken into account. We must demand better outcomes by insisting on the implementation of wiser priorities and a far-sighted progressive agenda for a more sane humanity.

Amongst the most important things we need to do is to get Big Money out of the political driver’s seat by enacting comprehensive campaign finance reforms and creating publicly financed Clean Elections. We must also prevent voter suppression efforts. And we need to put in place revolutionary Congressional Ethics reforms to stem the tide of corruption in our government. It is ironic that the longest-serving Republican Senator in history, arch-conservative Ted Stevens of Alaska, has been convicted of 7 felonies for corruption and lying, and only one week before the November elections.

We Americans are tired of the lying, cheating, deception and dirty-trick campaigning of our political system. We should not overlook the dysfunctional impacts of established churches being involved in politics; the separation of Church and State must be more strongly codified, and tax breaks for religious institutions that are politically active should be eliminated so that they are on fair footing with all other political action groups.

The Bottom Line

Awareness is the key. The bottom line is this: when our leaders sell the people some story, it should be the biggest picture version of the story instead of just a one-sided story, or a small-minded aspect of the whole story. We must present a story that acknowledges and addresses the causes of problems, as well as their symptoms. This is true of tax and economic policy; it is true of the role of war in foreign policy; and it is true of the role of the government in such arenas as banking regulation, health care, family planning, the Drug War and the oppression of sex workers. It is also true of religious fundamentalism: while it is profoundly desirable to allow people the freedom to believe in whatever religion and dogmas they desire, it is very undesirable to allow religious fanatics to control government and to impose their closed-minded dogmatic certitudes upon others. This is why a wise society establishes the freedom of speech and religion, AND why it is equally important to establish a strong separation between Church and State. These rules concern fairness and true national security, not just narrow ideologies.

The Empirical Nature of Pyrrhic Victories: When Capital Quashes Labor

In the early years of automobile manufacturing, Henry Ford paid his workers higher wages than were paid in other industries. He did this so that his workers would actually be able to afford to buy the products they were manufacturing. This philosophy is distinctly at odds with many of the capitalist motivations of today, in which influential corporations and investors gain great advantages for capital by ensuring that policies are enacted that limit the wages and benefits and collective bargaining powers of workers.

Denying workers the benefits of increases in their own productivity reduces mass purchasing power and erodes long-term prosperity. The Center for American Progress has published an analysis called “Understanding Bushonomics: How We Got Into This Mess in the First Place”. This analysis notes that George W. Bush’s economic policies have the opposite strategy from Henry Ford, and as such they have contributed to the current economic mess. Instead of striving to ensure that workers are reasonably compensated, the Bush Administration has worked tirelessly to undermine the prerogatives and job prospects of American workers by embracing flawed policies related to taxation, trade, debt, regulations, immigration, employment, offshoring, minimum wage and unions.

Passionate free-market capitalists like Jack Welsh, the former Chairman and CEO of General Electric, argue vehemently that lower taxes on capital are needed. He says the way to create jobs is to lower taxes on capital. He gets almost angry in TV discussions about unions. These issues are complex, but the bottom line is that we must find better ways to create meaningful jobs and fair compensation for work, so that less injustice is perpetrated in the name of prerogatives and high returns for capital and rich people.

This issue brings up thoughts about the Communist Manifesto. I personally lived through the years of propaganda and vitriol against communism during the Cold War, so I know that even writing about this issue creates a risk of engendering emotional reactions against rational ideas. The Communist Manifesto advocated that workers use the power of their enormous numbers to gain greater benefits in the face of the dominating influence of capital. With the severe trends of inegalitarianism that have been advanced in the past few decades, we should take a fresh look at these ideas.

The United States spent trillions of dollars on staunchly opposing communism during the 45-year-long Cold War. Oh, evil woe! Those communists are such a dastardly bunch of … other people! What, one might wonder in regarding the Cold War in retrospect, was the whole costly, hyper-competitive and destructive episode of anti-communism about? Why did we propagandize ourselves into such a frenzy of extreme fear of communism? Think about this honestly. The Communist Manifesto was written in response to a pure and simple movement: it opposed capitalist ideologies which give great prerogatives to capital while basically damning workers for wanting to get a fairer sliver of the economic pie. Communism was essentially an alternate theory of economic organization which said, “Workers, Unite!” There are a lot more workers than fat cat capitalists, so the best way for people to gain a better balance of power against the abuses of domineering capital is to organize together. I’ll bet we can find a better way of organizing our societies than the ways we have been pursuing in the last 8 years --- better ways for all people.

Make no mistake about the pervasive extent of the abuses of the capitalist system. In the first century of the Industrial Revolution, abuses by Big Businesses grew until they were intolerable. These abuses included shrewdly unethical monopoly practices, long working hours, low wages, unsafe workplaces, child labor, sexist and racist discrimination, and incomprehensibly irresponsible pollution and environmental degradation. A reform movement that was revolutionary in proportion was launched in response to muckraking exposés and a host of Progressive Era initiatives. Theodore Roosevelt’s Square Deal and Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and the great social and environmental advances of the 1960’s helped to deal with these problems. It is arguably the competition with socialistic ideas that has forced capitalistic societies to adopt many of the most important tenets of democratic socialism. You know, like some sensible regulations and some basic social safety net plans like Social Security and Medicare, etc.

Deep underpinnings underlie this epic competition between capitalism and communism. They are to be found in the fundamental conflict between the ideals of freedom and equality. When societies allow complete freedom, they tend to create big and growing inequities of opportunity and wealth. When societies try to enforce complete equality, freedoms must be severely curtailed. As in many things, an intelligent BALANCE is the best policy. So we should strive to create a well-managed capitalism in which reasonable freedoms are balanced with reasonable provisions for fairness.

Collaborate efforts should be championed so that we solve problems by bringing together business leaders, investors, universities, governmental agencies, non-profit organizations and community leaders who will work together for the common good. Cooperation can override competition, and make our societies healthier and more forward-looking.

Countersupporting Conjecture

John Fowles wrote about the concept of “countersupporting” in his book, The Aristos. His interpretation of the forces that shape history is compelling. Opposition strengthens what it opposes. Opposition galvanizes societies to achieve purposes that it could not otherwise realize. It is thus organizationally convenient for political parties to create and inflate enemies to advance their agendas. The threat of communism during the Cold War, and the threat of terrorism in the past decade, have been the two principal straw men that have been hyped up by politicians in order to exploit public fears. Using the divisiveness of insecurity, and the benefit of being able to more easily control people when they are fearful, Big Money exploits this deceit to gain power and help advance elitist agendas that help ‘the few’ dominate the vast majority. This is a clever strategy, especially for gaining an outlandish share of the spoils; but is it socially wise? No!

As Civilization Falters, What Do We Do Now?

Right now, poor people and the middle class are unable to contribute to helping save the world by investing in the well-being of our society and the environment. Right now, governments are severely strapped, torn between anti-tax forces and powerful spending drives for militarism, bureaucracy, economic stimulus, infrastructure investments, social programs like affordable public education and universal health care and Social Security, and generous largess to giant corporations and investors.

Nonetheless, we simply must make more focused investments in our own society, in the well-being of the populace, in infrastructure construction and maintenance, and in other forms of fairness-oriented equality-engendering initiatives. We simply must make epochal investments in an alternate energy regime to wean ourselves from our addiction to fossil fuels, and to supplant the use of non-renewable, export-dollar-costly fossil fuels that pollute oceans and the atmosphere, alter the climate, and encourage dirty politics and geopolitical strife.

Sometimes things are even more simple and straight-forward than they seem. Necessity marvelously clarifies the mind. Forget the hot button social issues. People, Unite! Forget all the ideological arguments, the economic fundamentalism, and the capitalist rationalizations. Ninety-five percent of the people in the world are unable to do much about investing in healthier and more sustainable societies, or in helping to reduce poverty and make sure we have social justice. Governments are likewise constrained, having borrowed themselves silly. But regular people and governments are just the pawns in the game anyway.

Let’s focus! Who could finance, who should finance, the necessary investments in a better world? Aha! Yes, the wealthy people could afford to finance it, those people who are demonstrably the Kings and Queens and Knights and Rooks in the chess game, and often the Knaves in our world civilization, to boot!

Well, this is poetic irony indeed! Those who can finance bold investments are the VERY SAME PEOPLE who (1) are benefiting the most from the way the system is, and (2) have been receiving the biggest portion of irresponsible profiteering and government largess, and (3) have ecological footprints that are huge, and whose outlandish consumerism is practically obscene in the face of the full scope of the world’s problems. Ah, poetic justice is to come!

What do we do? Simple. We require every person who has more than $10 million in net worth to pay 10% of their wealth into a Big Fund. Every nation does this in the entire world. Each country will control its own Big Fund. The proceeds are to be invested according to priorities determined by special bodies of citizens in each nation, people who are fairly chosen, with half of them representing center-right interests and philosophies, and the other half representing center-left interests and philosophies. Simultaneously, assess a 10% sales tax on all weapons and munitions sold every year in every nation, and put these proceeds into an international Compensation Fund, and then apportion this money out to all the Big Funds around the world to pay the rich people interest on the money they have had to contribute. Distribute this money to all the world’s Big Funds in the exact proportions of amounts that have been raised. There you have it --- a solution that figuratively takes care of three birds or so with just one stone! Strategic!

Maya Angelou and Nikos Kazantzakis

“The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain

and goes straight to the heart.” --- Maya Angelou

--- Comprehensive Global Perspective: An Illuminating Worldview

What’s the Matter with Kansas?

A century ago, Kansas was known for its radical politics and the activism of its workers and farmers. Today it has become quite socially conservative. What happened? This remarkable transformation from liberalism to conservatism has taken place in defiance of common sense, and contrary to the rational economic self-interest of the people of Kansas. Progressives and populists fought 100 years ago in Kansas to save America from ruthless industrialists and plutocratic rule by the wealthy. They opposed abuses of federal government power. Today, using shrewd and cynical Karl Rovian strategies and dirty tricks and divisive hot-button wedge issues, conservatives have managed to co-opt progressivism and make it reactionary. They have managed to get the common people to embrace inequities and inegalitarianism. Instead of Kansans being concerned by Big Issues, they have fallen hook, line, and sinker for God-fearing dogmas and gun-ownership protectionism and anti-gay prejudices and misguided false patriotism. This tale of the folly of Kansans highlights the sad legacy of Neoconservatism, which has caused so much harm to broader prosperity by means of trickery in the name of narrow special interests.

Rebelling Against the Great Backlash

This tale of Kansas embodies a “Great Backlash” that has taken place against the liberalism of the late 1960’s. This backlash mobilizes voters by using emotional social wedge issues, and then marries social and religious conservatism to pro-business economic policies. The backlash is exploited by using the energy of anger and frustration and religious piety to marshal support for an unrelated ‘conservative’ agenda that advances the narrow economic ends of the wealthy. The deafness of the conservative rank-and-file to the patent manipulative insincerity of ‘conservative’ leaders is one of the true cultural marvels of this “Great Backlash”. Read the provocative book by Thomas Frank, What’s the Matter with Kansas for deeper insights into the cynicism and hypocrisy of this strategy. The book’s final sentence is this: “Kansas is ready to lead us singing into the apocalypse. It invites us all to join in, to lay down our lives so that others might cash out at the top; to renounce forever our middle-American prosperity in pursuit of a crimson fantasy of middle-American righteousness.” (Let’s NOT do this!)

We are essentially allowing the gospel of religious righteousness and the unfettered power and privilege of the rich to triumph over the American Dream, devastating its hopes. Critical thinking is arguably the key to a better future. Ignorance and blind adherence to dogma, ideology, orthodoxy or evangelical religious doctrines are simply counterproductive and generally detrimental to society. Having an open mind is adaptive; having a closed mind is reactive and antagonistic to progress.

I personally believe in moderation and balance. Somehow in our societies we achieve balance by marching from one extreme to the other, and we have gotten way too far to the right. Rigidity and blind adherence to fundamentalist beliefs is dangerous. Flexibility and open-mindedness to fuller understandings are safer attitudes, and more propitiously adaptive. This is why we need reasoned debate to examine the tenets of conventional thinking and ideological certitudes.

Calling Again for a Paradigm Shift

We need a revolutionary paradigm shift to a new worldview. Rather than following failed Trickle Down policies, we need to try Trickle Up strategies. We should once again establish priorities that build the middle class rather than undermining it. We should, for instance, demand that the federal government give stronger support for affordable and well-designed public education, and create public works programs that increase investments in vital infrastructure programs. In light of the housing crisis, we should find ways to freeze mortgage loan increases that are causing foreclosures on people’s homes. Democratic ideas like extending unemployment benefits to people who lose their jobs and providing emergency aid to state and local governments would have positive economic ripple effects.

Ideological blinders allow us to seize on partial truths, in denial of more all-encompassing understandings. The truth in market fundamentalism is that free markets and free trade take advantage of natural self-interested human motivations to stimulate productivity and hard work. But, as discussed above, market fundamentalism conveniently denies an equally profound truth about human nature: that greed, when unfettered by sensible controls and limitations and transparency and oversight, always leads toward speculative excesses and increased risks of economic inequities and instability, as well as to fraud and corruption. A primary reason that Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto was to reject the capitalist ideology that champions the prerogatives of capital over the rights of workers. The fact of the matter is that a fairer balance is needed between the power of labor and the power of capital, and between the socially propitious impulses of self-interested motivations and the socially damaging impulses of stimulated greed.

Think about an idea that is presented in the film Zeitgeist Addendum: “Slavery is but the owning of labor, and carries with it the care of laborers. The European plan (of the Nineteenth Century) is that capital shall control labor by controlling wages. This can be done by controlling the money. … The fractional reserve banking policy perpetrated by the Federal Reserve, which has spread in practice to the great majority of banks in the world is, in fact, a system of modern slavery.” Watch the film online for deeper insight!

The Perversely Contradictory Duplicity of the Washington Consensus

Consider, for a moment, the so-called Washington Consensus. This in an economic ideology that prescribes the deregulating of financial markets, the lowering of taxes on capital, the strengthening of private property rights, the reducing of restrictions on imports, the imposing of austere social program budgets, and the privatizing of state-owned enterprises. Often, the Washington Consensus is used in foreign policy to devalue foreign currencies so that the U.S. can import resources at cheaper prices. It also often contributes to serious environmental devastation. The Washington Consensus is not actually a consensus of broad-based thinking, but rather a narrow laissez-faire ideology that excludes fuller truths and denies wiser understandings. It is an expedient and debt-manipulative tool of the dominant forces of capitalism which ignores deeper economic truths, and also ignores critically important social and ecological truths as well. Truths such as the fact that everything is interconnected and interdependent, and that we can no longer pretend that environmental concerns are a luxury, because in fact a healthy environment is a fundamental basis for the economic health and well-being of our societies. The Earth Manifesto opus, Comprehensive Global Perspective, explores this topic in extensive detail. Check it out!

Market fundamentalism abhors government interference in the marketplace when it comes to private profits. But it sure does conveniently embrace initiatives to increase corporate subsidies, reduce business taxes, assault collective bargaining powers of workers, mobilize the military to protect corporate interests, and generally externalize costs and risks onto society. This schizophrenic dichotomy appears to be an almost evangelical embrace of narrow ideologies rather than expansive visions of greater proprieties for the common good.

The ideological foundations of free-market economics and a consumer society are being repudiated by recent developments in the current economic crisis. Our financial elites seem to be out of touch and incompetent, blinded by greed and power, intellectually and morally bankrupt. The blatant corruption of our political system is facilitated by Big Money, with corporations and elites wielding large influence over both Democratic and Republican officials.

Living in a moment of rapidly changing history, it is hard for us to really fathom the transformations that are underway. Most people are in shock and denial. We cling to old structures of meaning and outdated ideas that describe them. We do not yet realize that many of our conventional political science and economic ideas are being altered, right before our eyes. As our reality is altered, we grasp, on a subliminal level, that laissez-faire capitalism is changing, but we are unclear where these trends are leading. We will soon return to basics, according to journalist Chris Hedges: to jobs and food and health care and affordable places to live. We will discard the old ideas that are still used by the Democratic and Republican parties, and learn to speak in a fiery language of populism. “We will turn with a vengeance on the 1 percent that has amassed more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined. The populist conflict will see a battle between a frightened and dispossessed majority and the corporations and elites who seek to ruthlessly cling to power and wealth.”

Americans have become disengaged over the years. Many stopped paying attention. This crisis has forced them to pay more attention. It directly affects our economic future and our ability to put food on the table. Outrage will lead to more involvement. This outrage will fuel powerful social movements that may tend either to right-wing populism or to the political left and progressive populism. “The question is not whether we will build state socialism. This process has already begun. The only question left is whether this will be right-wing or left-wing socialism.” The question is also whether authoritarian control of our nation will assert itself, or whether we will be able to preserve the civil liberties and democracy of our great republic. Right-wing populism of the Christian right is, according to Chris Hedges, the most dangerous mass movement in American history. We must emasculate it!

After the wrenching Republican political losses in the November 4 election, this hijacked political party will be in for a rough period of soul searching. Analysts and some party activists say losing the White House will highlight the pitfalls of relying too heavily on a narrow foundation of conservative Christians whose support has become crucial to Republican electoral success. How about moderates? How about those who feel that they did not leave the Republican Party, it left them!

P. Oui’s Big Adventure

A gripping drama unfolds in the film The Wave by director Dennis Gansel. The film is based on a real-life high school classroom experiment in which students in a single week’s time went from being normal undisciplined cynical teenagers to a cohesive group that embraced authoritarian order and discipline and conformity. The film is a provocative revelation of the fact that human behaviors can be easily manipulated. We must try to structure our societies so that our collective national behaviors are manipulated in positive ways, with liberty and justice for all, rather than allowing shadow elements to ruthlessly drive us toward ruin and mean-spirited extremes of unfairness and greed.

“One is not free from the laws of nature, not free from the motivations of instinct, not free from the influences of social conditioning. Only knowledge is freedom; by imagination and reason we turn experience into foresight.”

--- Baruch Spinoza, a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Jewish origin

Money Makes the World Go Around, that Clinking, Clanking Sound

“Only the small secrets need to be protected.

The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity.”

--- Marshall McLuhan

Money in the form of coin and paper currency came into being to facilitate production and trade. It initially represented VALUE because it had intrinsic value, like gold coins. Later, it was supported by underlying assets like deposits in banks or implicit guarantees of governments to cover obligations by taxing people. Money was a convenient form of exchange that was adopted and guaranteed as “legal tender”, even when it became divorced from actual value and began to be created as debt.

Money created as debt? What?! Check out the simply-explained but mind-warping film Money as Debt on the Internet (google it!). It is very difficult to comprehend the complexities of how the global monetary system really works, but this film gives a compelling analysis. The film discusses in basic terms the nature of the “fractional reserve banking system” which was created to vastly expand the availability of credit to fuel economic activities in the world. This system requires central banks to protect against the dangers of regional financial panics and insolvency risks. Laws allow individual banks in the U.S. to loan out 9 times more money than they have in deposits. This is a clever provision for making profits that is called ‘leveraging’. When depositors lose confidence in a bank, the risk of a “run on the bank” by depositors to take their money out can quickly make the bank insolvent.

The film Money as Debt casts an astonishing, simple, but perplexing light onto the entire international banking system, which is fundamentally intertwined with debt, leveraging, interest expense, expanding money supply, taxation, inflation, and escalating resource utilization. This system is in some ways like a giant pyramid scheme, and the system itself may ultimately prove to be unsustainable. This explains why periodic episodes take place in which the system becomes vulnerable to crises of confidence and increased risks of insolvency and collapse.

The film Money as Debt provides provocative insights into how the banking system and our societies could actually be made sustainable, so that we would really be living within the limits of renewable resources and have a stable money supply, and even have --- shock! --- a non-profit government banking system that is fair, sound, value-based, non-inflationary, and independent of usury and private profiteering. Why not?! Reforms to the monetary system, like real reforms to the electoral system, run into incapacitating resistance in the form of powerful interests that are vested in keeping things the way they are. Wall Street and central banks and the investors that profit from the current system strongly oppose changes to the system. They even oppose the shining of light on this whole “secret”, and on ‘thinking outside the box’ in general. Until a crisis arises! Now is the time to better understand; now is the time to make positive progressive far-sighted changes!

Change will come, after sufficient calamity, sometime in the future. In the interim we will keep tweaking the system to balance public risk against the wonderful merits of private profit-making. In any case, we can probably keep the monetary system going much longer than other unsustainable practices --- like, for instance, the wasteful uses of fossil fuels in the face of Peak Oil and eventual production declines. So maybe it isn’t so critical that we embrace revolutionary reforms in this arena. Keep on tweaking!

Nonetheless, tectonic shifts are taking place in managed capitalism as the reality of the risks of unfettered speculative activities becomes obvious, and as the need for wiser rules and better enforcement becomes clear. Someday the issues of the “carrying capacity” of our Home Planet for our species, and of the unsustainable growth of human numbers that underlie all of these problems will be thrown into stark relief. At such time, humanity will be forced to make difficult decisions instead of figuratively sweeping such challenges under the carpet.

Someday we will be forced to reconsider our cherished beliefs that encourage us to reproduce without planning, with limited rights to choose, and without recognition of limits. We will also be forced to realize that our compulsion for endless consumerism cannot be sustained without tragic consequences. We are courting catastrophe for ourselves by blindly adhering to marketing, ideological and even Biblical strictures that say that we must religiously stick to the advice that God allegedly gave humankind: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” Enough of the subduing --- when does the wise stewardship begin?!

The Dawning of the Age of Aquarius?

Invocation: Lord, may these words find a receptive audience of people who truly care about fairness, peace, intelligent planning, good governance, and sustainable human activities. May this document be a Progressive Game-Changer!

Here is an interlude of lyrics from the rock musical Hair, which opened on Broadway in New York in April 1968:

When the moon is in the Seventh House
and Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars

This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius
The age of Aquarius
Aquarius! Aquarius!

Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revelation
And the mind's true liberation
Aquarius! Aquarius!

In the decade of the 1960’s, a protest song cried out that we are on the Eve of Destruction, but today’s economic crisis presents us with a great potential for a new Dawn of Correction. We are on the threshold of a paradigm shift, a tipping point, a dangerous opportunity in which we can choose to make positive growth choices rather than negative fear choices. We can choose to embrace intelligent ideas that are focused on progressive change, or continue to allow anti-progressive demagogues to implement their narrowly-focused agendas.

Our greatest problem today is that we are allowing subprime ideas to dominate our politics and our national decision-making. Vacuous and defensive certitude in these subprime ideas and the stubborn loyalty to them by ‘yes-men’ are seriously damaging the world. Meanwhile, the opportunists who pull the levers behind the curtain continue to be in control. The problem isn’t necessarily that we are letting sub-par people rule, but that our political system encourages the on-going ascendancy of the Establishment and an insidious war on good ideas. Our political and economic systems are focused on achieving short-term-oriented goals instead of honorable and honest objectives that are designed to make our world fairer, more just, more peaceable, and more sustainable.

An odd force of inertia and vested interest resistance spins us onward with a powerful impetus, obstructing progressive adaptation to change. Too often, greed and pride masquerade as economic wisdom and moral righteousness, and hate masquerades as love. We must restructure our societies to marginalize retrogressive forces and extremist dogmas and bad ideas and failing ideologies. We must stop allowing them to prevail. The smartest guys in the room are not automatically on the side of virtue and honesty and fairness and intelligent decision-making; often they oppose such socially desirable traits.

It has come to pass that our nation is channeling the Seven Fundamental Characteristics of the Decay of Civilization as if they were some virtuous Holy Grail (see these seven characteristics enumerated in Chapter #21 of the Comprehensive Global Perspective in the Earth Manifesto). The historian Arnold J. Toynbee ominously noted: "Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder." Let’s act to save ourselves!

Speaking of Salvation

Think of how the rest of the world regards us. One third of Americans adhere to the most conservative religious fundamentalism in the Western World. It is likely that if a reincarnation of a moral Jesus Christ walked amongst us right now, preaching love and tolerance and peace and turn-the-other-cheek forgiveness and charity toward the poor, such a Lord would be ignored or ridiculed, or slandered, shouted down, despised, persecuted, made homeless or even killed. If he were killed, it would probably be by an ignorant, hateful, gun-toting religious fanatic who expected Jesus to come in a different incarnation. The reborn prophet simply will not be announced by trumpeting horns, a brightly shining star, or a trio of wise men.

Speaking of Jesus Christ, it is valuable to think about the idea of “sublapsarianism”. This is the dogma that a Supreme Being created humanity, allowed a Fall, elected some people to be saved, and provides hope of salvation, but only for those who are true believers in this story. This type of myth was pervasive long before the Bible was written, and in many different cultures.

The End Times Rapture!, you say? --- Ha! This is fiction, folks! It turns out that the Jews will not, after all, be forced to either convert for salvation or be burned to death. “Nice try” by dominion-oriented fundamentalists on these prophecies that exploit archaic fears and hopes for a better afterlife for the few!

Dr. Nicky Stiletto recently said, with her cute stuffed cow and wonderful sidekick dog running in circles around her: “What’s up about that? The psychologist in each of us wants to know!” As Voltaire once wrote: “The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.” He also noted: “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” For deeper understanding of issues related to religion and true spirituality, check out Revelations of a Modern Prophet in Part I of the Earth Manifesto!

The most knowledgeable scientists tell us that the Earth will continue to revolve around the Sun for billions of years. The End Times that are relevant to us will be ones that eventually involve the extinction of our own species, and most likely of our own doing. We will no doubt do great harm to the Earth and its beautiful ecosystems and all the other plants and animals that share the planet with us … before our eventual demise. When one considers the rapid increases in the number of human beings on Earth and our unbridled competitive urges and our domineering aspirations and our ethnocentric foolishnesses and the “murder traits” that John Steinbeck talks about in his Log from the Sea of Cortez, it seems likely that these hard times may come sooner rather than later. They will probably come relatively soon from the frame of reference of the long sweep of geological time. More than 99% of all species ever in existence have gone extinct, and the fossil record indicates that the average species existed for about 5 million years before its extinction. Let’s see, our species Homo sapiens has been in existence for maybe 150,000 years. How will we make it to 5 million years? Or even another 1,000?

“Our fate is in our own hands to a large extent; no other species has ever had such potential control. If we want our species to survive another century, another millennium, another 10 thousand years, another 100 thousand years, or a million years --- mere blips in geological time --- we must begin to work together, rather than to ruthlessly compete and aggressively conflict. Intelligent long-term-oriented policy-making and progressive-minded ideas simply must gain ascendancy over shortsighted neoconservatism and short-term oriented ideologies.”

--- Comprehensive Global Perspective – An Illuminating Worldview

We sure could improve our prospects by adopting a good portion of the Progressive Agenda for a More Sane Humanity (see the Earth Manifesto Home Page for links to these ideas.)

In concluding my thoughts about salvation, I recommend Bill Maher’s funny and irreverent and oddly frightening new film, Religulous. The film gives audiences surprising insights into the bizarre nature of the cherished beliefs of some crazy religious fundamentalists. The “Creation Museum” in Petersburg Kentucky, which isn’t all that far from Hannibal, actually ridiculously shows dinosaurs and human beings playing together, eclipsing 65 million years of geological history in service of its dogma. Gosh, no need to let scientific facts get in the way of one’s dogma, I guess! And the “Holy Land Experience” in Orlando, Florida … people just seem to LOVE to see fictions reenacted like the bloody crucifixion of Jesus Christ! Let the ‘Truth’ go marching on, hallelujah! Does anyone have any spare time for more real truths?

Visceral Connections: The Intimate Impacts of Creative Destruction

Capitalist economic systems facilitate “creative destruction”. This concept was made famous by the economist Joseph Schumpeter. Creative destruction makes capitalism quite adaptive, since it is a process that allows innovation to transform markets, products, equipment, methods and organizations. But it can wreak terrible dislocations and hardships on workers and investors and the environment. To manage change well, individuals, businesses and governments must be more flexible and forward-thinking.

When creative destruction merges with ruthlessly exploitive aspects of capitalism, as elucidated by author Naomi Klein in her book Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, not only is our standard of living at risk, but so is our financial and physical and ecological well-being, and even our liberties and basic human rights are at stake.

The Trojan Horse

Virgil, the Roman epic poet of antiquity, wrote the famous epic poem the Aeneid a few decades before the birth of Christ. The Aeneid tells the legendary story of Aeneas, the Trojan hero who made a journey to present-day Italy after the fall of Troy. He is said to have founded the city of Rome. The Trojan War had pitted the Greeks against the people of the walled city of Troy. The reason for the war? Three of the goddesses of the Greek pantheon had quarreled bitterly over a golden apple inscribed with the words, “to the fairest”. Zeus, the supreme ruler of the Greek heavens, told Aphrodite and Athena and Hera that a prince of Troy named Paris would decide who was the fairest of them all. Paris famously chose Aphrodite in the ‘Judgment of Paris’. This Greek goddess of love and beauty had promised that she would reward Paris for his favoritism with the love of the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen of Sparta.

As luck would have it, Helen was the wife of the wealthy and powerful Menelaus, the Greek king of Sparta. When Paris met the beautiful Helen, he was smitten, so he abducted her and fled to Troy with her. A thousand ships were sent to get the fair-faced Helen back, and a terrible ten-year siege of Troy ensued. “Beauty, terrible beauty!” intones Homer in the Iliad. (Always blame it on the woman, right Eve?)

Finally, after many futile years of fighting, a clever ruse was hatched by Odysseus, the Greek king of Ithaca. A giant hollow wooden horse was constructed and left for the Trojans, who dragged it into the city and prepared to celebrate the end of the war. During the night, Odysseus and 50 warriors emerged from the horse and threw open the city gates and the Trojans were massacred to the last person by the Greeks.

This classic strategic military deception gave rise to the modern adage, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” Those who profess to offer to do good often have hidden motives. Take, for instance, the United States in its support for the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization. Read on!

The Sophisticated Trojan Horse of Modern America: Strategies of Empire Disguised as

Ideals of Free Trade and Economic Development

Development can be beneficial if it is managed carefully and intelligently. When it fails to recognize larger impacts on resources and ecosystems, development can be harmful. The foreign policies of the United States sometimes advance ‘economic shock doctrines’ that involve ideologically-driven initiatives such as those of the Washington Consensus. This policy cocktail was developed as an economic and political prescription for developing countries. The Washington Consensus consists of a set of market fundamentalist policies that have become tarnished for their unfairness, their exploitive use of debt, and their frequently harmful and destabilizing impacts. The Washington Consensus prescribes the opening and deregulation of financial markets, and the reduction in import restrictions, and the privatization of industry in general. Often, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Treasury Department have used Washington Consensus proposals to browbeat other nations into adopting budgetary austerity that hurt their people by exacerbating poverty, unemployment, inflation and social instability. They also have been detrimental to goals of sustainable long-term development. Some say that the so-called Consensus contributes to a “regulatory race to the bottom” and even to the necessity for eventual costly government bailouts. IMF policies have in the past made economic downturns worse, and even sometimes helped to precipitate them.

Many countries in Latin American have recognized the insidious failings of IMF policies and stopped borrowing from the Fund. Fairer foreign policies, in my opinion, would make for much better international relations!

An Even Bigger Perspective

The fundamental existential questions of philosophy are:

What is the ultimate nature of the Universe?

What is real?

What is the meaning of life?

Who are we?

Do we have free will?

Why are we here?

What should we do with our lives?

How can we cultivate higher purposes that serve society without being hijacked by

materialistic pursuits, destructive activities and foolishly shortsighted behaviors?

Can we attain enlightenment?

Philosophy and science have certain unsuspected affinities. For instance, two types of instruments have allowed humankind to see the Universe with dramatically clearer perspective: telescopes and microscopes. These instruments have given us the ability to more clearly understand the universe, and our place within it. Telescopes gave us an astonishingly expansive insight into the scope and nature of time and space. They were invented by Galileo, and soon after their invention the earth-centric view of our solar system gave way to the more accurate knowledge that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and that the Sun is only one of billions of other suns in our Milky Way galaxy. These clearer ideas about the universe allowed us to see the stars in the ‘firmament’ as entire solar systems and other galaxies, rather than just mythological astrological constellations or heavenly points of light or sparks from God’s eye.

Microscopes, on the other hand, gave us the ability to see ever smaller views of matter and life. They gave us insights into the causes of diseases and the structure of matter and cellular life. These discoveries led to remarkable advances in physics, technology and medicine. Since light consists of photons that are bigger in size than electrons, scientists eventually discovered that by bombarding something with electrons, an electron microscope can detect significantly greater magnification and resolution than a microscope that relies on reflected light. Electron microscopes work on principles similar to the greater sensitivity to detail of finger tips in feeling an object rather than elbows!

The applications of instruments such as these, and of others like spectrometers, are far-reaching. They have expanded our understandings and led to great scientific advances as well as deeper introspections into fundamental questions of science and philosophy. Nonetheless, curiously, ignorance and denial and cherished anti-scientific myths have gone marching on, with stubborn insistence, as if knowledge is not better than ignorance for our future. I feel strongly that knowledge, not ignorance, is the key to hope of a better life on Earth. Creationists, repent!

I highly recommend viewing a new two-hour Internet film, Zeitgeist Addendum. (The original Zeitgeist Movie is also compelling: see “Reflections on War” in Part I of the Earth Manifesto for a discussion of it.) The Zeitgeist Addendum deals with a host of issues that are explored in the Earth Manifesto, such as the little-understood role of banks and the Federal Reserve in monetary policy and debt and money creation, and the dangers of using economic hit men and “jackals” and military aggression in foreign policy, and the folly of allowing the ‘corporatocracy’ to control our government, and the wrong-headedness of the ‘war on terrorism’, and the like. Check it out!

In conclusion, clearly-conceived ideas and understandings can lead us to a fairer and more intelligently realized future. My hope is that the ideas in the Earth Manifesto contribute greatly to such a better future!

Truly,

Dr. Tiffany B. Twain

Hannibal, Missouri

SaveTruffulaTrees@hotmail.com