Liberty cannot be
preserved without general knowledge among the people.
(John Adams, second
president of the United States)
This video came out two or
three years ago, but it's telling on so many levels that it is worth
looking at more than once. The reality is that it may be even more
pertinent three years later. The mere “tweaking” of the system
will not change anything.
Wealth Inequality in
America
The U.S. is now the most
unequal of all Western nations and has a lot less social mobility
than Canada and Europe. In the 2014 mid-term elections the voter
turnout was as low as the1830 elections, where only white male
property owners could vote. It is in the short-term interest of the
plutocracy (read globally) to keep it this way.
Trust us--it's far too complicated to explain to you. International trade benefits everyone. We understand, you don't have to. We're bringing the world together.... Do what you're told.
The congressman's facial expression was, for me, an Orwellian blankness, as he stated that further tax cuts for the rich would be good for the “job creators.”
While I did wonder at first if Representative Paul Ryan from Wisconsin, a Tea Party favorite, actually believed in his proposed draconian budget--a Gilded Age erotic dream--I concluded that he most certainly believed in what he said, at least a good part of it. Ryan is a true believer.
Over the past ten or twenty years there has been considerable research on how the brain functions and processes information and, while we hardly have a definitive understanding, we are a lot closer to knowing what takes place.
At the same time, a healthy skepticism is necessary when we even hint at some sort of neurobiological determinism in deciding, for example, whether or not a person can accept the science of climate change, economic fairness or discarding the status quo. Of course, those of us that want to develop a new narrative ought not to dismiss these neurobiological possibilities too quickly.
Writing the bestseller
No one said it would be easy to write the new tale. It never is. The “old” European-American story began in the 17th century with the Puritans, many of whom believed fervently in communitarianism, but by the time our Founding Fathers were putting together the country called the United States in the 18th century, these privileged white men were focusing on and fearful of too much concentration of power.
For our founders, “democracy” back then meant preventing “mob rule and the triumph of passion over reason to serve the ambition of the demagogue.” The spirit of 18th century European Enlightenment guided these quite extraordinary individuals.
It was Alexander Hamilton in June 1787 at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia who said, “Your 'people,' sir, is nothing but a great beast.” In the 21st century we've arrived at the pinnacle of pathological individualism that's fraying rapidly around the edges.
Of course our new story must have as a central component actual fairness and the actual opportunity for all of us to seek the “dream” if we choose to do so. As well, the story is incomplete if there is no expectation of civic responsibility and shared sacrifice on the part of everyone without exception. Thus the story begins. “It was a dark and stormy night.”
I can pay one half of the working class to kill the other half.
(Jay Gould, 19th century speculator and financier)
We are safer here than in that little boat.
(John Jacob Astor, standing on the deck of the Titanic as it sank, April, 15, 1912)
It's war. It's like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.
(Steve Schwarzman, Chairman of Blackstone Group, world's largest private equity firm, angry at President Obama for suggesting the 1% should pay more in taxes, 2010)
I hope Obama's teleprompters are bullet-proof.
(Foster Friess, multi-millionaire and initial supporter of Rick Santorum for president)
War is Peace, slavery is Freedom, ignorance is Strength.
A lot of us who love your country [America] do not see where change can come from. We see all the barriers you have now to structural and fundamental change. It feels like you've lost your amazing ability to adapt politically.
(Jon Johansson, political scientist, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand)
The creaking system
It was the “official” story shrouded in cobwebs that came to mind as I listened to some of the audio recordings of the recent Supreme Court debate on the health care law. I am neither a lawyer nor a constitutional scholar, but it was hard not to conclude that some of the justices were clueless about the reality of the American health care system, among other things.
One of the justices in particular stood out. Antonin Scalia, nominated by Ronald Reagan in 1986 and one of the better known proponents of Originalism or New Originalism, depending on your tolerance for minutia, came across as smug and arrogant. He wondered sarcastically if Americans would be forced to eat broccoli next and then proceeded to put on his “legislative” hat to muse about the votes in congress.
More Americans may by now have warmed up to the idea that revolution and upheaval cleans out the societal rot. After all, it was Thomas Jefferson who talked about the “tree of liberty” needing to be”refreshed” periodically. But a lesser known aphorism by our third president observed that an “ignorant” nation cannot be free.
It is however not blood in the streets or some Syrian style apocalypse that needs to be flowing at the present time in the U.S. but a new story, one that's true and reflects a 21st century world. We're way overdue.
Who gets to decide
The narrative needs to say that liberty, freedom, fairness and social justice must all be present if we are to have a country worth caring about. You don't get to choose the one or two items that you like and discard the rest.
Yes, millions of immigrants arrived in America in the early 20th century seeking “freedom,” but America was also founded on genocide and slavery and only one form of slavery ended in 1865.
We're clearly at a crossroads today and accepting the fact that the cavalry isn't coming and George Washington, Abraham Lincoln or FDR won't be arriving to make it better may be the most difficult concept for Americans to come to terms with. As well, a new story is of course threatening to some.
I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, some one else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition.
(Eugene V. Debs, American Labor Organizer, in speech in 1910)
A segment of what passed for the Southern intelligentsia in the 1840s and 1850s wanted to create European feudalism in America. But as the historian Louis Hartz said more than fifty years ago in his classic The Liberal Tradition in America, “When we penetrate beneath the feudal and reactionary surface of Southern thought, we do not find feudalism; we find slavery.” He went on to say, “Fraud, alas, was the inevitable fate of Southern social thought.”
A new feudal America
Yet, after 150 years from the start of the American Civil War, is it possible that a unique American feudal society is taking shape, not just in the South but throughout the country?
Will we create a distinct American peasantry (while naturally denying its existence) protected by the self-proclaimed lord of the manor … who may be an investment banker, a coal magnate or possibly an arms dealer. As we've already invented our own Magna Carta—U.S. Constitution—we'd need an assembly of lords. The collection of empty vessels called the U.S. Congress will likely suffice for the time being. This potpourri of feudalism and the early nation state will be our teachable moment.
The Census Bureau reported last week that million of Americans are racing into poverty, in many cases people having no place to live and needing food banks to avoid real hunger. A report by the International Monetary Fund and the International Labour Organization state that nearly half of unemployed workers in the U.S. have been out of work for more than six months and the average duration is nine months. The trends are not encouraging.
The report, Projection of Jobs and Education Requirements Through 2018, offers a glimpse of America's decaying educational system in an increasingly competitive world. The report claims that the U.S. will fall short of the needed number of people requiring postsecondary degrees by 2018, state-by-state.
At the same time, as the article Infrastructure, Deficits, and Global Recovery points outs, the global economy will require high levels of infrastructural spending for economic growth, at a time when governments are calling for deficit reductions and reduced spending.
A year or so ago the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated that $2.2 trillion will be needed over the next 5 years in the United States to get our infrastructure up to “acceptable” standards.
Creating dynasty trusts
For a basic primer on wealth and power in America read Wealth, Income and Power. The lord of the manor is waiting for its peasants, and for all intent and purpose we Americans are dutifully shuffling up the hill waiting for instructions in a gloomy, less democratic economic scenario--which leads finally to the people's representatives in Washington, DC.
The degree of irrelevancy of the U.S. Congress can be debated, but while the feckless Democratic party is largely a nuisance the Republican party has turned into a bizarre cult, where seemingly its combined brain power couldn't light a broom closet.
Not even a good novelist could have created a cast of character like the Republican senators and their stand on climate change. See Grand Old Deniers-Nearly All GOP Senate Candidates Deny Global Warming. In fact, as we have learned, Representative Mike Castle, who was running for the senate in the Republican primary in Delaware and who was one of the few Republicans that publicly stated his belief in the science of climate change, was defeated by a strange woman that wandered out of an old Monty Python sketch.
And finally, an op-ed piece by Tom Friedman of the New York Times.
We're lucky to be working for such a good master....
We could hang the bastard once and for all and start over again....
