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Stress

[Q. how to write this post without descending into a workplace bitch...? A. I will not.]

I started my career in 1976, 35 years ago.

Asked today, “Grandfather, what is the most significant change you have seen in your time?”, I would answer, “very little.”

Earlier in time, there was little understanding of getting things done, but it was fun trying. Now, it seems, there is no more idea about how to get things done, but everything is stressful. The point, in fact, has become: STRESS.

A young (Turk) colleague, a physicist by training, relocated back to Australia. To become employed, he swallowed his pride and took a course in modern programming, (the latest fortnight), became certified and thence employed; quickly, though, a manager.

“How are things?”, I asked.

“I am under enormous, constant pressure from my management to squeeze the last ounce of performance from my reports”, he told me, with a pained look.

Yes, indeed. That’s it now.

Productivity increases. Inexorably. And torpedoes be damned…

After 30+ years, I gave up the high-tech, high-stress world to become a truck driver… and what do I find? working in a bakery?

The gladiatorial cut-and-thrust and bloodshed is around about similar. No escape.

Mindless.

I am coming back in my next life as Vlad, the Accountant, to eviscerate any and all who stand in my way.

Monopoly

“Judge a man by his questions, not his answers”, Voltaire

As the preface of a classic book on meteorology for aviators put it, “all weather is caused by uneven heating of the earth by the sun”.

I sometimes like to ponder whether all politics similarly results from our uneven circumstances.

Long ago, my mother, arch-conservative, was fond of making the pithy statement, “if, one Monday morning, we divided everything up equally between us all, by Friday it would all be back the same way again”.

She was, of course, rendering judgement upon Communism. But the same statement makes an equally pithy critique of Capitalism, don’t you think?

We’ve all had first-hand experience with the concept of Monopoly: one happy, beaming kid and the rest of us in tears. :)

The card game, Canasta, is similar. A player’s drawing power is based upon the contents of his or her hand. Mistakes or bad luck early in the game decide the outcome and the remainder of the game is just a dreary handing over of cards to the eventual winner.

Likewise, money confers advantages — particularly the ability to make more money.

I am not an expert on Karl Marx; I have not read Das Kapital. People who despise Communism delightedly dismiss Marxism in toto — in its entirety.

But whatever you think of the idea of socialism or communism as a solution to the problems of capitalism, Marx’ insight and critique of the flaws of capitalism is, as I understand it, his greatest and lasting contribution to knowledge. In particular, he deemed capitalism susceptible to monopoly, the inexorable concentration of wealth. Just as we see unfolding exponentially in the USA today.

And indeed, internationally, there is now a growing awareness of the related, Ponzi nature inherent, particularly in the debt-based form of capitalism.

Last year, a very bright friend of mine extolled the virtues of a particular political philosophy to me; a philosophy that has enjoyed far too little familiarity and support throughout history, yet one that made a strong contribution to the founding and nature of the American republic.

I asked him, “how does this system deal with and prevent the rot of monopoly?”. His answer was simply, “it doesn’t”.

Well, that’s OK. Because I have come to the conviction that every system of political organization suffers from this same defect: lack of a mechanism to fight monopoly and prevent it growing like weed in a waterway that chokes all traffic, commerce and, eventually, freedom.

The asymptote for monopoly in society is feudalism, or some modern-day, financial equivalent of it. At one time during the twentieth century, just about everyone in the West enjoyed a lifestyle more comfortable than the most powerful Chinese emperor of millenia ago, (when you include factors like health care, education, technology, travel). But all that is fast going by the wayside.

So think about this. If people lived as peasants and their rulers lived 100 times better by dint of power, would those rulers choose a world in which everyone lived 1000 times better than (the peasants) before, at the cost of sacrificing their own power to an egalitarian system, (yet still being ten times better off themselves); or would they choose to continue the status quo — to remain “on top”?

That is to say, does the rule of our masters, the oligarchic elite, bring us the most efficient economy and best quality of life possible? Or does it only maintain their power, privilege and luxury?

So what political system, do you, alert reader, favor? How does it combat the virus of monopoly?

How does it not, in the end, succumb to power, just as do all other systems?[1] And do you, in favoring your preferred system, overlook the “mote” of monopoly that inevitably corrupts it?

After thousands of years of human political experience, is periodic revolution the only recourse available to man, finally, to alleviate monopoly?

I have no answers to these questions.

From: The Monday Morning Quarterback

[1] About the US constitutional system, its boosters will say that it contains checks and balances upon government. Yes, it does.

But its Founders themselves did not believe these to be adequate, and expected that only periodic bloodshed would maintain its balance.

And even so, checks on government do not address the subject of private monopoly, the existence of which implies a distinct threat to the public and its system of government, no matter how perfectly balanced.

[2] Here’s a good term to know for the future: FEW. Food, Energy, Water.

Corporations are striving now to corner these resources in the world. Browse the following assorted links for a taste of the fruits of monopolistic capitalism:

Conscious Capitalism

by Max Krieger

When I look around me I see a lot of encouraging signs but I also see a political, military and industrial establishment that is fighting with all its might to squash what I think could be a very powerful merging of forces on both the motivated and moral “left” and “right” sides of the political spectrum. As I have mentioned previously I tend to be libertarian philosophically yet I find myself in agreement with many of those who the mainstream media tells me are on the “other side.” Side issues like who is “racist” and the ground zero mosque are used to emotionally separate us and we must not give into such tactics. I think the most important thing for people that really want to change things for the better and lessen the stranglehold of the current corrupt and dependency/warfare model that is the United States of America should do two things. First, find the issues that we can agree upon and secondly as Ghandi instructed us “be the change that you want to see in the world” and spread this idea to everyone you come in contact with. We must remember that we have the ultimate power as individuals and consumers and at the end of the day this nasty little system we’ve got going survives based on our compliance whether we want to admit that or not.

I encourage you to read the whole article…

Talents (part 2)

[In Talents part 1, I pontificated about talents and their connection with fulfilment.  :)]
Consider an object, a violin.  Perhaps a famous maker comes to mind.
Playing this violin to its potential requires considerable ability.
So also did the hand-crafting of the instrument.
Think then of the talent of the master who spent a lifetime experimenting with wood, strings, glue and varnish to develop an understanding of sound and its production, as well as an exquisite sense of tone and its use in music.
Then finally, think of the talent employed by those composing music for the instrument:
Allegro assai
Allegro assai

The range of human talents is astonishing.
If you could choose any talent with which to be imbued, which would you select?[1]
Most people in the western world hold a driver's license and are able to drive a car.  This skill can be taught to most people.  But a few drivers earn millions of dollars a year racing.[2]  This exemplifies the difference between a skill and a talent.  Passion methinks is the hallmark of a talent.
I am unable to whistle.  I suppose I could be taught to whistle a basic tune, if I had any interest in doing so.  Perhaps most of us would consider whistling to be too mundane to consider as a talent.  And yet, I rather think that if you were to search for the very best whistler in all the world, you would find someone with an astonishing ability — worthy of a YouTube clip, at least.[3]  :)
Now, in any contemplation of the subject of talents, how often does the consideration of money-making potential impinge?
If we are employed in some career in which we use our talents, we should count ourselves fortunate.  It is not uncommon, but it is such a reward — and it is certainly not a given.
We, homo sapiens, lose sight of the fact that we are also still animals and we share that same imperative to survive.  First and foremost, we put our abilities to work for our survival.  But as I have alluded, the gamut of human abilities goes quite beyond mere survival, just as our intellect and self-awareness goes beyond the bare minimum needed.
As Oscar Wilde put it most pointedly, "The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it immensely.  All art is useless".  We might scoff at him, (if we were to entirely miss his point), but consider for how long art survived only with the patronage and at the whim — and largely for the enjoyment only — of aristocrats.  Well perhaps, in these more democratic days and with the enjoyment of middle-class affluence[4], we have the discretionary income to dispose in ways that are not essential for basic survival, albeit still essential for our humanity.
Even sport, once just a recreation and community builder, has now been monetized by television and advertising; the very best sports people may earn a living doing that at which they excel.  (The rest of us must still treat it as a hobby, to be pursued in our "spare" time.)
Nevertheless, for those with a talent in art, literature, music or sports, it is for the most part still a very difficult and unreliable way to eke a living.
Of all the tens of thousands of talents that we humans exhibit, one of those is strikingly distinct in a peculiar sense.
Every talent is an expression of the individual.[5]  There are certain talents that have an affinity for groups of like-talented individuals, such as ensemble music and sports, as mentioned.  People assemble voluntarily to cooperate in the expression of these talents simply and for no other reason than their passion in the talent itself.
The uniquely different talent[6] that I now draw your attention to, dear reader, is that of the entrepreneur.  He or she has the ability and understanding to recognize an opportunity to provide a new, desirable and useful product, service or method to society and make a profit doing it.
This talent can sometimes involve just one person, (e.g. an inventor), but typically and especially these days, it is more likely to require the effort of a company of people performing numerous, disparate tasks.
In a perfect world, a company provides valuable services, employs people and makes a reasonable profit.
In short, in practice, an entrepreneur has the ability to "make money".[7]
Thus, for the entrepreneur, fulfillment may be sought absolutely without restraint because the exercise of his or her talent is perfectly suited to our world, as we have chosen to structure it: capitalistic.
To achieve this though, the entrepreneur may depend upon vast numbers of people giving up or severely restricting the development and pursuit of their own talents and fulfilment.  (Many will even be employed in jobs that require no skills at all: hence the term, "unskilled labor".)  People accept this because of the need for survival and employment is their only choice in a money-driven world.
Let's note then that top entrepreneurs set a new record in the exosphere for salaries that make those of baseball players et al seem like peanuts.  For business executives, there seem to be no limits to the financial rewards they may accrue.[8]
Finally, another quote from (the egocentric?) Wilde: "It is through art, and through art only, that we can realize our perfection; through art and art only that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence."
Or perhaps we could more generally say, "through passion, talent and fulfilment"?
Thank God it's Friday!!
[1] so, did you choose "top-level executive"?  ;)
[2] and it seems that every Australian driver with a 'P' plate[a] yearns to
    be one of those few!
[3] Or The Road To Meiringen.  Ask yourself, "why?"; but celebrate!
[4] ???!
[5] see Fountainhead
[6] I finished writing this article a week ago. It relates a view I have held for a number of years. And yet, I realized just this morning, upon waking, that it is flawed by a major fallacy. Entrepreneurs are not the only talented people who depend upon the labor of others. The same could be said of architects and engineers. An architect may conceive a design[5], but unless the labor to bring it to realization is willing and available, what is its value and where is his satisfaction? (This, in its own right, is a pertinent question.)
This is the value, I suppose, of trying to write up one's ideas for public consumption: it puts them to a stringent test.  I agonized all day whether or not to post this article, flawed or not.
But think of amateur railroaders — steam enthusiasts, say — who are compelled to weld and perform many other tedious operations in order to realize their vision.
Without willing labor, an architect may not realize his vision.  But the key difference between an architect and an entrepreneur is that an architect has only the beauty of his vision to convince others to cooperate in his quest; whereas an entrepreneur, gifted with the talent of money, has the purchasing power to convince others to give up their own talents, as necessary, for the realization of his scheme.
In any case, the choices we make in such matters should be clearly underlined and understood.
[7] Or as one wag[b] put it about the high-tech, business world we live in, "the ability to make a dollar move from the pocket of every passer-by into the pocket of the practitioner".
[8] The Rothschild concern, for example, is reputed to be worth 100T$.  (One… Hundred… Trillion… Dollars.)
[a] P for "probation".
[b] why, me.  (Of course.)
[c] And, yes, I know that my copious and irritating use of emboldening, underlining, footnotes[c], recursion[c] and repetition[c] is a pain in the ass, but it is my unabashed strategy to always go for the cheap laugh…  ;)
Next week, the conclusion: Talents (part 3).

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Capitalism in the USA Today

Is Obama a socialist?

Has he already ruined America?

To choose a single quintessential that characterizes the esprit de corp of the United States, that quality that defines it uniquely, I think I would nominate Capitalism.  [I also considered "freedom", "the US Constitution", "democracy" (American-style), "college football", ...]

Regardless of political stripe, Americans believe that the American vision is the product of hard work, ingenuity and free enterprise, largely unfettered by government interference.

Indeed recently, when a clear majority of Americans wanted the deplorable situation with health insurance fixed, the efforts to do so were easily thwarted simply by raising the spectre of Socialism.

Even with a Democratic President and Congress and a large mandate for change, no change has been able to overcome this charge of socialism.

But as the Republican division desperately accuses Obama of being the Anti-Capitalist and having ruined the country in just one short year, its bewilderment and disarray is most palpable.

The grand failure of Ponzi Capitalism, embodied in the current financial crisis besetting the USA (and the world), has shocked Americans, and particularly Republicans, to the core.  "How did this go so badly wrong?".  "Where is The Invisible Hand of Adam Smith?", to discipline the market.  Even the Maestro, Alan Greenspan, claims to be shocked…

The Corporation
The Corporation

Now we come to what I believe is a fundamental disconnect in the political discourse: the capitalists themselves do not believe in free enterprise [freedom for their competitors and consumers].

The free market makes the best decisions and gets the job done, so people believe.  Competition not only weeds out the bad ideas and managers, but it holds prices down to cost plus a reasonable profit, as well as stimulating the search for continuous improvement.  Thus, free enterprise is good for consumers (the public) and provides incentive to companies to be responsive to and satisfy their customers.  And companies provide jobs as well as goods.  It is thus a win-win situation and everyone prospers.  This is the theory.

Capitalists, however, believe in only three principles: 1) profit, 2) lots of profit, and 3) unregulated, unlimited and unreasonable profit.

Competition and the free market are a brake and a limit on the amount of profit that can be made, benefiting the numerous customers, and only hardly the companies.  But corporations are driven to make profit and nothing else drives them.

(Here I want to express a novel thought.  Inasmuch as Americans define their country in terms of free enterprise, competition and freedom, then the wealthiest, monopolistic capitalists who work against those principles should be considered to be saboteurs and traitors.  Indeed, David Rockefeller candidly admitted in his 2002 auto-biography, Memoirs, to having spent a lifetime "working against the best interests of the United States" (and in favor of globalization).)

Now let's consider a corollary of the notion that capitalism does not actually favor free enterprise.

People view Big Business and Big Government as adversaries; incompatible; mortal enemies even.  That they are believed to be at odds with each other is precisely why the charge of socialism works so effectively in American politics.  In the simplistic view, governmental control runs counter to free enterprise.  (It does, but the deep question is, "whose side is Business on?": freedom or regulation…)

What if Big Business is no friend at all of Freedom and if instead favors techniques of coercion?  Then government becomes seen as a powerful tool for control. And since it so evidently may be bought with large enough sacks of gold, the situation suddenly hearkens back to the entrepreneur who liked the product so much that he bought the company!  For enforcing its monopolies, Big Business is so fond of Big Government that it might have invented it.  (And indeed: I think it did.)

Now one may consider anew why it is that corporations donate to candidates of both parties simultaneously.  They don't care whether a candidate is Republican or Democrat, as long as he or she is going to be successfully elected and — with their backing — beholden.

Obama is not a socialist.  He is a pawn.  Carefully chosen and groomed.  Just like Bush before him.

And the drive to ruin the United States (for the majority of its inhabitants) was started before Obama.  Before Bush.  Before Clinton.

These Presidential Commandos-in-Chief are just agents of the one enemy, the Plutocracy, its fifth column; no change, no change, no change.

From: The Monday Morning Quarterback

How to Reverse Financial Tyranny: “We Shall Prevail”

Text presented to the American Monetary Institute 2009 Conference
by Richard C. Cook

Global Research, September 4, 2009
Richard C. Cook – 2009-09-03

The world’s most important gathering of monetary reformers takes place each year in Chicago at the American Monetary Institute’s annual conference. This year’s event takes place September 24-27 at Roosevelt University . Chairing the conference is Stephen Zarlenga, AMI director and author of the landmark book “The Lost Science of Money.” For information and the list of speakers, including monetary economist Michael Hudson, see the AMI website at http://www.monetary.org/2009schedule.html. While personal matters will prevent me from appearing on-site, I have sent the following remarks. Segments of my six-part DVD, “Credit as a Public Utility,” will also be shown.

It is not difficult to come up with methods to solve today’s economic crisis through monetary reform. Many of us are doing it. The key, as I have been writing for the past several years, is to treat credit as a public utility, not the private property of the world’s financial elite.

If we truly adhered to this concept, we would be able to see that a debt-based monetary system, where money only comes into existence through bank lending, can succeed only in isolated circumstances when a growth bubble outpaces the ability of the public to pay interest charges for the privilege of having money to spend and thereby to survive.

Whenever the growth bubble fails, as we have seen over the last three years, the system crashes, the financiers pick up assets for pennies on the dollar, and the cycle starts again. It seems haphazard and unpredictable, but we all know that the system was designed this way and that only the wealthy profit in the long run.

The rich use governments, through which they control politicians, bureaucrats, and covert operatives, to protect and enhance their power. Democracy is subverted. Once the rich have their host country firmly under control, they branch out to the rest of the world. The key then becomes the use of financial power to control the world’s resources through trade and currency manipulation and the management of legal codes and institutional rulemaking.

If social classes within the host country or foreign nations victimized by financial hegemony should happen to rebel, police and military forces are deployed to crush the rebellion. Educational systems and the mass media are employed to brainwash civilian populations by keeping them docile and compliant. A host of methods are employed, including false-flag terrorist events, to instill fear in the population and keep them beholden to the authorities for protection. Because the financial elite are parasites who kill their hosts, they must constantly ensnare new victims.

The foregoing is a complete picture of the present world situation. The last two hundred years have been marked by the march toward world conquest by the money-masters through the Anglo-American military-financial-intelligence colossus, combined with their bought-and-sold allies from the privileged classes of subservient nations.  

The outcome was in some doubt during the 1970s in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. But beginning with the Reagan Doctrine in the 1980s, where a decision was made to gobble up the world one small country at a time, the march forward resumed. The 1990-91 Persian Gulf War, the carving up of Yugoslavia later in the 1990s, and the conquest of Iraq and Afghanistan most recently have brought the Western alliance to the borders of Russia . The attack now continues through the Caucasus region, even as Iran and Pakistan are being isolated.

It may be controversial to say that Russia is the target. Why might this be so? It’s because the financial takeover by the West in the 1990s didn’t work. An independent Russia has made a comeback. They have a lot of nuclear weapons and know how to use them. The collapse of the Soviet Union, leaving the U.S. “the world’s only superpower,” created a far more perilous imbalance than most people are aware of. It’s an imbalance that has caused Western military planners—for instance with NATO—to dangerously overreach.    

The big question geopolitically is whether China can be induced to stand with the West. This was the objective of the effort beginning around 1971 under President Richard Nixon’s “Opening to China ” to incorporate China into the Western financial system. But today China increasingly seems to be standing alone, with the makings of a self-sufficient banking and industrial complex—and a stable currency—that is defying Western attempts at control.

Will there be an “oriental surprise?” Will China reach a point where it makes an irreversible decision to side with Russia or stand against the West? No one knows. Henry Kissinger wrote in the Washington Post on August 19, 2009, that keeping China as a friend to the West is essential for the “New World Order.” And yes, he used those words—this is not a big secret. The winds of change are also blowing in Japan , where the pro-American ruling party has just been voted out.  

Personally, I find this struggle for world domination repugnant—the complete triumph of the rule of materialism and violence. As Rodney King said, “People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?” Indeed, why can’t we see that life on earth, as Pope Benedict XVI recently pointed out in his encyclical Caritas In Veritate, is a gift from God to man, a gift that bestows on all of us the duty to treat each other fairly and with compassion?

So, in the face of the current world horror, what chance do monetary reformers have to be heard?

The answer, I believe, is that we are being heard. My mind goes back to 2003, only six years ago, when Stephen Zarlenga came to my office at the U.S. Treasury Department in Washington , D.C. , where I had booked him to give a presentation based on his book, The Lost Science of Money.  Later I worked with Steve on his first draft of the American Monetary Act. The time came when Steve began to meet with Congressman Dennis Kucinich, briefing him and others in Washington on monetary ideas.   

So much has happened since then. So many more people have become aware of the evils of the debt-based monetary system. We have seen Congressman Ron Paul ignite a national storm of revulsion against the Federal Reserve System. There is now even hope that the American Monetary Act might be introduced on the floor of Congress.

But it is also perfectly obvious that this is only a start. The start, however, has been made, though there’s a long way to go.

We’ve had promising starts before. Back in the latter part of the 19th century, the American public were far more attuned to ideas of monetary reform than at any time since. There was then a Greenback Party that elected members of Congress and ran candidates for president. The Populist Party understood monetary issues and the importance of a flexible and expansive currency. Henry George became the leading author of the day with his reformist ideas based on the principle that the earth was a commons from which all have a right to benefit.

But then, when the international bankers finally succeeded in taking over the country through the passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, the curtain fell. It wasn’t an iron curtain; it was a red velvet curtain, such as graced the windows of the rich financiers of the age who benefited. These financiers started two world wars to consolidate their dominion. They may yet start a third. The Reagan Doctrine may have made it inevitable.

But I do not believe the warmongers will have the last say. Even if they bring down upon us another world catastrophe, those who believe in the better side of humanity will eventually win, because our cause is just and our ideas are based upon truth. Without monetary reform there can never be economic democracy. But with it perhaps the chief cause of war can be eliminated: the unjust distribution of wealth among people and nations, where some get far too much and many get nothing.  

I strongly support the American Monetary Act, the movement for a basic income guarantee, and proposals supporting citizens’ dividends such as those of the Social Credit movement or the ones already in place through programs like the Alaska Permanent Fund. Even if such measures are not immediately implemented, the effort to promote them serves the purpose of educating millions of people.

Our present responsibility is getting the word out that there is indeed a far better way to do things and that real change is possible. That money and credit can empower people, not just enslave them. That debt is unnecessary when credit is viewed as a public utility. That technology when properly distributed can free people for higher intellectual and spiritual pursuits, not just eliminate jobs and force millions of people into bankruptcy and starvation. That, as Henry George and his successors have made clear, resources are for everyone, not just a few.

I have come up with my own proposal for immediate relief that I call “The Cook Plan.” One of the worst myths of our time is that for government to spend money it can only collect that money ahead of time through taxes or by borrowing. “The Cook Plan,” instead, would have the government print and distribute vouchers in the amount of $1,000 a month to any adult resident who applied.

The vouchers could be spent on necessities of life such as food, housing, clothing, transportation, or communication. They would then be deposited in a series of community savings banks and used to capitalize low-interest lending to individuals, students, small businesses, and family farms. The backing for the vouchers would be the new economic production they would engender at the grassroots level of every community.

This measure alone would take a giant step toward bringing about a healthy U.S. and world economy at the level of “We the People,” rather than the fruitless and hypocritical attempt to create “recovery” through bank lending and government deficit spending. “The Cook Plan” has met a positive response from around the world during the several months since I proposed it.

My views, while economically sound, have a spiritual basis. I believe in God, and I believe that man was created in the image of God. I believe that a world where we love our neighbor as ourselves and implement this love through social and economic policy is not just a dream, that it is the only practical way to live.

I believe in the family of man and the responsibility of man to be a good steward of the earth and the environment. I believe financial tyranny has done its best to destroy these values. But I see an upsurge of desire and commitment among people for a new day, a truly democratic society, and a life on earth that is organized and conducted sanely, compassionately, and wisely.

Those who attend such events as the American Monetary Institute’s 2009 conference understand all this. Together we will continue to work toward our ideals, no matter what disasters may intervene. It will take time and hard work, but we and those who come after us shall prevail.

Richard C. Cook is a former federal analyst who worked for 21 years for the U.S. Treasury Department. His book “We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform” is now available. He is also author of a book on the space shuttle Challenger disaster. His website is www.richardccook.com.

Richard C. Cook is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Global Research Articles by Richard C. Cook

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The Division (and Defeat) of Democracy in America

As I continue to happily explore Vox, I am still intrigued by the robust, often rancorous debate between liberals and conservatives.  My most striking sense is one of the seeming futility of the debate.

Both sides are convinced that it alone holds the truth — and that the other side is wrong, harmful and even evil.  Both sides believe that what the USA needs is its government, (Democrat or Republican), in perpetuity.  Both are saved from the reality of their claims by a system that ensures that government flip-flops moodily and inconclusively between one side and the other.

Put bluntly, the Democrats seem to believe that America is being ruined because the Republicans occasionally get a turn to govern.  The Republicans believe the flip-side.  How can either ever hold any hope for the welfare of the country?

Yet I doubt that either side is at all contented with the current condition or prognosis of the United States.  Can the two sides even continue to co-exist?  Or are they doomed to be mortal enemies?

To be charitable — and to eschew strict, political definitions — I think of liberals as idealists who are dedicated to "fixing the future".  And of conservatives as realists who wish society to "learn from the past".  We know that "the devil is in the details" but why should these two impulses be contrary or mutually exclusive?

By these (admittedly loose) definitions, I view myself as both the realist and the idealist!  Surely, to make a better future, the two sides should be able to work together?

Again being charitable, I think of Americans as people made great by the desire to "live free or die", (as it used to say on my car's license plate).  Is there left no common ideal nor palatable future for Americans?

I have long had the sense that liberals and conservatives "talk past each other" and, hence, no traction is gained.  Let me explain the reason for my opinion, if I can.

(Not all political contention is about issues of money, but there are very few issues that are not; even some of those that, on the face, seem purely a matter of morality.)

The key disagreement between liberals and conservatives seems to me to be principally over government: revenue and expenditure.

Liberals see the defects and ills of our society and wish government to spend more money to combat these problems.

Conservatives refuse — and again, I will be charitable — not because, in the hardness of their hearts, they don't care about those suffering, but, let's say, because they distrust government and believe that government money is already being wasted, diverted and/or stolen.

The left-versus-right debate might be more productive if each side could somehow bridge this gap in addressing its opponent.  Specifically, the key issue is trust in government.

I don't think I can say much to aid any better understanding, but I should like to opine that, not only is government in the USA broken, corrupt and untrustworthy but, the current economic crisis is proving that that other, latter-day, unreformed anachronism — capitalism — is equally broken, corrupt and untrustworthy.  Nowhere in sight is The Invisible Hand of Adam Smith to magically correct the market-place.

(The top five holders of derivatives in the world — Citicorp, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo/Wachovia — are technically insolvent.  Congress is required by the Prompt Corrective Action Law to take these companies into receivership.  But Congress considers them to be "too big to fail".  Actually, I'd prefer to see them fail rather than the American people be looted and bankrupted by these companies and the likes of AIG…)

So I believe that both democracy and capitalism in America have proven themselves anachronistic and corrupt.  And that both are, in fact, co-dependent.  The corruption of one serves the evil of the other.  Therefore, reform of both is urgent and mandatory; else there will be no change people can enjoy.

Needless to say, this reform is going to require the concerted efforts of both sides of the political spectrum.

[Footnote: in this post, I have intentionally been simplistic, utilizing the conventional, uni-dimensional, left-versus-right spectrum used to classify political thought in the US.  This should not at all detract from the thrust of this post.]

From: The Monday Morning Quarterback

Next: Exodus 1

Political spectra: left vs right

[This is the first in a series from The Monday Morning Quarterback.]

I am impressed by the level of courtesy and thoughtfulness of discussion in VOX.  ("You are not in YouTube anymore, koan911.")  Inspired even: more than one Vocalist has recently attempted to understand the thinking of people at the opposite end of the political spectrum, a rare feat.

But what is this political spectrum?  In the US, and certainly according to the corporate media, it is left versus right.  Demographically, red versus blue.  Compressing the gamut of all political thought and expression into a single dimension may be useful for simplification and hence comprehension; it is certainly very convenient for the Democrat and Republican parties!

And yet the bitter unhappiness amongst voters in the US is most palpable.  Liberals believe that all will be right [sic] if only everyone would vote Democrat, and at every election, forever.  Conservatives also believe that America can be saved, but only if everyone votes Republican, every time.  It never happens and the electoral results change by a small percentage, oscillating in favor of one party of the other, but keeping the majority of incumbents… seated.  Nothing significant changes.  Really.  In terms of customer satisfaction, democracy in America is in deep trouble and has been for a very long time.  The US government is not serving the interests of society.  Nor, actually, is any Western, "democratic" government.  Dispute it??

The most apt comment [by an evidently-European commentator] I have ever encountered on the internet was about Western democratic politics and went as follows, (paraphrased):

"There you [Americans] go again, it's always about left versus right with you.  Whereas in reality it has always been about rich versus poor, the class struggle."

Interesting!  Another one-dimensional, political spectrum: "rich versus poor".

(In the nearly 20 years I lived in the US, I came to think of political debate there as a Punch-and-Judy show with the crowd of bystanders (voters) being worked over by professional pick-pockets. Corporations gained legal access to make contributions to political campaigns back in the 70s and I always marveled at companies donating to BOTH parties but had never puzzled why. It doesn't take a lot of thought, though, to deduce the reason and the mind is instantly repelled by the repugnance of the conclusion.

For fun, I googled this Punch-and-Judy metaphor and came up with: nothing new under the sun.  Other people have also referred to the two-party system in the US as "Dumb and Dumber", evoking a well-known movie.)

According to Orwell, choice of symbology affects the range of expression of ideas and may indeed be used to limit it.  Perhaps this is why the corporate media are continually leading us to constrain our thinking and debate to the matters of left versus right?

So, how does this spectrum, "rich versus poor", measure up in comparison with left versus right?

Maybe it is not so different.  After all, there is the stereotypically superficial view in the US that the Democratic party represents the disadvantaged, the down and out, the poor.  And the Republicans represent the rich, the wanna-be rich and those armchair economists who believe in economic miracle theory such as "trickle-down economics", (the British class ethos of cap in hand, eyes cast downward, "yes, guv'nor").  Superficial though it certainly is, yet this  idea of Democrats representing the poor and Republicans the wealthy might begin to explain why the middle-class is continually being screwed.  :)   Not that I can ever imagine Ms Pelosi has ever sat around a camp-fire under a railway bridge, huddling to keep warm — although at the rate California is going, maybe she and Arnie will soon get that opportunity.  Bottom-line is that Americans are much more comfortable with left-versus-right than with rich-versus-poor because it is a tenet of American society that it, society, is classless.

Great.  Now let's propose a completely hypothetical, political spectrum purely for the purpose of contemplation.  It's long and thus needs to be written down the page.  ("Fellow Vocalists, lend me your ears!"  :) )  This vertical orientation suggests a nomenclature for it: up versus down.  Which further suggests a semantic mnemonic for it: the welfare of society, (up or down).

The table, Up vs down, which is the heart of this article, has been lost in translation from Vox. I’ll attempt to reconstruct it from faulty memory sometime in the near future. Apologies for this terrible oversight.

Up vs down


I have several suggestions to make about the above.

1. assuming for the purposes of this exercise that we all squeeze ourselves onto this spectrum at the closest point to which each of us can agree, then you, and everyone you know and everyone they know (2 degrees of separation), are statistically likely to find yourselves philosophically in either of the two upper-most camps in this delineation, or even upward of there; unless, of course, you are lucky enough to know Tim Geithner, Ken Lewis or someone from their club.  "Mister, can you spare ten million bucks…"

2. nevertheless, there is a natural flow or devolution downward; unless society is constantly fighting this flow, things tend downward, not upward.  Work begets success; success begets money; capital begets ownership; ownership begets power; power suppresses competition bringing it into conflict with the representatives of the people; the representatives are bought and subverted; the government, working now for elitist interests, comes into direct conflict with the interests of the people; the people are subdued and oppressed…  The coin of this spectrum is clearly wealth and concomitant power.  And the trend is the suppression of democracy.

3. the US was(/is?), as recently as the Cheney administration, arguably totalitarian.  See what Naomi Wolf had to say in 2007.  (And for similar ideas, compare Umberto Eco's "Eternal Fascism".)

The big question facing us today is, of course, whether the American people — by exercise of its quadrennial, binary vote — has succeeded in staunching the downward plunge, with the agency of the admittedly very appealing Barack Obama, (who came seemingly from nowhere as if chosen for this battle).  To think it has, you have to bet your country that politics is indeed confined to a single dimension, left versus right, as advertised by the corporate media, and that the country's direction can be reversed in the span of a single Tuesday in November once every four years.  I am waiting to see the changes I can believe in and the matter — one of fundamental faith — is getting most urgent now, I assure you.

As long as ordinary people keep on believing politics is only about left versus right, it is true that they may have less on their minds to worry about.  Life goes on.  Until, of course, things hit bottom.

From: The Monday Morning Quarterback, (with a nod to Snowy, esteemed Vocalist).

Next: Western Democracy

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