What about a revolution in the West? Yes, we have free speech and the right to free assembly. No, our government is not routinely arresting and torturing citizens nor does it rule by fear and, compared to the ordinary people of the Middle East, living standards here are relatively good. We are a democracy, so what have we got to revolt about?
But it isn't about where we are, it's about where we are going. Democracy has certain safeguards that protect us from the worst excesses of dictatorship... and we are seeing these being slowly eroded. This is supposedly in the name of the so-called 'War on Terror'. The police are becoming more aggressive and we are seeing more incidents of police brutality and fewer incidents of successful prosecutions against police. This, we are told, is for our own protection. So, presumably, seeing police officers dragging a disabled student from his wheelchair and dragging him to a waiting police van is supposed to make us feel safer, is it? What was that about? It was not about terrorism and it was not even about dealing with the student protests. It was a show of power. It was a demonstration of what the police can get away with... and get away with it they did.
But we are not intended to feel safer by the extended powers and increasing brutality of our police. We are meant at first to be outraged and, as we become increasingly accustomed to it, to be cowed and intimidated. The police are being primed. Groomed, as it were, for the role that is planned for them in the envisioned and not-too-distant future. Giant corporations are showing themselves as the true leaders... or rather owners... of our societies. Small businesses are put out of business for transgressing Health & Safety regulations. They are prosecuted and fined. BP causes the biggest man-made ecological disaster in history and Obama has ordered the arrest and prosecution of... er... anyone caught gathering evidence of the true scale of the disaster. Banks go bust and are baled out by the taxpayers and then award themselves multi-billion pound bonuses while Cameron makes empty promises about stemming corporate greed. Has he? No. He has made equally empty promises about plugging the loopholes by which UK corporations avoid paying taxes. Has he actually done anything about it? No. This remains an aspiration.
Exactly how far do we need to travel before we realise we're on the wrong bus? While we are shuffling our feet and not wanting to make a scene, we are being led ever further into an Orwellian nightmare and, pretty soon the infrastructure will be in place to ensure that we cannot do anything about it. Here in Britain, the time and the circumstances are right for change brought about by the people. We have a weak, ineffectual Prime Minister, a crumbling economy, growing unemployment, rising crime levels, and a government so riddled with corruption that, if it were routed out, there would be nothing left but the scaffolding. What exactly is the cue we are waiting for, a trumpet blast?
Our leaders are now congratulating the people of Egypt yet, for the past 30 years, successive UK and US governments have courted, financed and supported a dictator that has kept the people in crushing poverty under a brutal and merciless regime. This is what our leaders euphemistically describe as "stability". Our leaders continue to support ruthless dictators with obscene affection while proclaiming that the Middle East is not yet "ready for democracy". Back home, the police powers continue to increase, police accountability continues to evaporate. If, as our leaders assure us, this is for our own good... to protect us from terrorism, why are they not actually nipping terrorism in the bud? Any meaningful attempt to eradicate the threat of terrorism must surely begin with our foreign policy. Terrorists are not mindless criminals. They are oppressed and disempowered people who are attempting to make some kind of stand against our support of the despotic dictators that reduce them to slavery. Yes, it is misguided to bomb public places and kill innocent civilians but they are trying to be heard.
If ever there was a time for revolution in the UK and certainly in the US, it is now!
Saturday 19 February 2011
Monday 7 February 2011
Taking charge
Everyone who is able has a moral duty to take charge of a situation that is otherwise out of control. What happens when the out-of-control factor is someone in authority over you? The same rule applies. If, in the opinion of the senior NCO, the officer's handling presents unnecessary risks, he has a duty to take command. Having officially taken command, the other ranks have a duty to acknowledge that authority unless it is, in their opinion, an illegal assumption of command, as in mutiny.
The biggest problem with anarchy is the name. It conjures images of angry people and riots. But it simply means the absence of a ruler. Do we need rulers? We need administrators and coordinators. We need organisers... but do they need to rule? Isn't that putting them in a rather dangerously powerful position? They need to have recognised authority to make certain demands and they need to be able to exert this authority over every member of the group. However, the combined authority of the group always outranks the authority of the leader. This is the natural insurance against exploitation and dictatorships. To rule must be by the consent of those over whom one rules.
However, the responsibility of ensuring our rulers rule effectively and fairly is ours, not theirs. We tend to want to leave all that to the rulers because we are all focused on our particular role. Doing the work the job requires and bringing home the pay, tending the house, tending the kids and, when we can, having fun. Our leaders need to coordinate all the functions that keep society ticking along and we need to be able to trust them to do that for the balanced good of the group. So what do we do? We select our leaders from the legal and business communities and put them into secretive, opaque duties where accountability is minimal and opportunities for corruption are limited only by imagination.
I made a reference on an earlier post to the chicken farmer who trains a fox to watch over the henhouse. How many repetitions of abject failure is it going to take before we conclude that maybe we ought to change some of the things that we're doing here. Giving our leaders power and the right to secrecy and the authority to take sole charge of any investigation into their actions that may be demanded is about as dumbass as training a fox to watch the chickens.
We did this. We handed over the authority to control our lives without even thinking to just check that they were actually sane. We let them get away with it. We let them rip us off because it's easier to just muddle along. So we wiggle along until we wiggle ourselves into a hole we can't reverse out of. We are entrapped into a slavery of debt. Our house gets forclosed because we assumed that the leaders had our best interests at heart. The company that employs you goes bust because you thought that banks were there to look after your money. It is ridiculously naive to hand such powers to questionable individuals in the way that we do.
If you had cockroaches, would you ask them to police themselves and ensure that they do not invade your kitchen or would you just get rid of them? I think there's a good chance that the cockroaches might have their own agenda. And so it is with politics. Every individual in politics has their own agenda and their career is the pursuit of the power to put their agenda into action. This isn't because they are evil. It's because they are individuals with dreams and hopes and fears just like the rest of us. But they are placed in a position that can so easily be exploited and abused and supported by the very powers that make the laws... what the fuck do you think they're gonna do?
Now the chicken farmer could rightly hold the fox responsible but the fox was doing what a fox is supposed to do. The chicken farmer's expectations were unreasonable. The chicken farmer is responsible for the decision to use a guard-fox and, consequently, responsible for any damage that results. We are responsible for the damage resulting from our ill-considered approach to selecting leaders.
We have got to stop thinking in terms of power and think in terms of function. How do we want our leader to function? How does the leader want the group to function? The leader must have some authority but the group combined must have the authority to keep the leader in check. It's about creative manipulation. It's about relationships. It is not about power.
Imagine a business model in which the manual and administrative staff owned the business equally as a cooperative but the managerial personnel were employed. Here is the hierarchical dilemma: The 'boss' is in charge of the business and must be able to ensure that his or her decisions are carried out or revised accordingly. The boss tells you what to do and you do it. This is the arrangement. But, as a group, you own the company that employs your boss. You have to trust your boss to make the right decisions. You select your boss on track record and you want a boss that will run your company smoothly and profitably, not one that gives you an easy time. You want a boss who can handle income and expenditure efficiently for the business, not one who will hand-out generous bonuses the company can't afford. Your boss is part of the machinery of your company and you want the machine to run smoothly and efficiently. Here would be a perfect balance of power.
In the army, a warrant officer is the highest rank of NCO and the lowest rank that earns the right to be addressed as 'sir'. Regimental Sergeant Major Ron Britton of the Coldstream Guards was in charge of officer training at Sandhurst in the 50s. All trainee officers held a provisional rank of 1st. Leutennant, outranking the RSM. His introductory address to new officers always included the clarification: 'I will address you as sir and you will address me as sir... but you will mean it.'
Authority and command is as much about personal qualities as hierarchical position. Whether or not you want to listen to somebody depends on whether or not your views will be equally sought. It is an ability to get others to listen... by also getting them to talk. A manner that leads people to trust your integrity. Whether you have any official authority or not, people will listen and there would be a natural inclination to follow your directions. Only when you are countermanded by a recognisable authority that focus shifts from you. You instinctively draw focus to you.
However, people in positions of authority, are not necessarily natural born leaders. They are probably (a) constantly worried about their own position, (b) loners with limited social skills and (c) constantly suspicious of everyone. They are not best suited to the task... yet they are running local government. When we use the term 'shyster', there are many 'professions' that aptly apply but 'businessman' and 'lawyer' comes up with alarming frequency. Either generally regarded to be unethical, mercenary and self-interested. So which particular stereotype is the gene pool from which we select our leaders? Remind me again. Oh yeah. The Shysters. Good choice.
We did this. We put these people where they are. We gave them the power that they have and we turn a blind eye as they create and defend structures of governance that nurture corruption. Is it because we are stupid like the chicken farmer and the fox? No. It's worse than that. We don't care. Just run the show. Make sure everything works. There's the treasury, there's the judiciary and here's the keys. Yes, yes. I subject myself entirely to your will and all that... right. I can leave it with you then, can I? We don't care how they do it as long as it doesn't bother us too much. When everyone is contented, no one cares who is ripping off whom or what's going on in the background of our realities. Things go wrong and we start looking for flaws in the system when the main flaw is that we recruit personnel from the professions in which the main talent of those who gain success is an uncanny ability to shaft people for money.
Am I missing something here? Do you think these factors might be important? Maybe right up there with blue eyes and a white smile? Where do these candidates come from? They seem to just appear. Nobody's ever heard of them and now they hear of nothing but as the two or three names are imprinted into our psyche: good guys, served in the armed forces, seen action, won medals nice smile... everything you want, eh? What about business interests and family connections? Look at those interests and think how they could benefit from a friend in power. That would give you an outline of the manifesto regardless of what they may tell you.
Now, considering that we goofed and handed absolute power to people who, we now realise in retrospect happened to be those most likely to exploit the situation in an orgy of mindless greed and shaft us for every penny we have, whose responsibility do you think it should be? The crooks who are fleecing us or the politically disinterested victims who, rather stupidly, put them there in the first place? The beneficiaries of a corrupt system are not going to take steps to make it less corrupt. They are going to make it harder to investigate. Which is precisely what is occurring. What cue are we waiting for? The whole system desperately needs an overhaul and of course our leaders aren't going to like it. Are we waiting for the fox to actually say: "Look here. I'm a fox. I kill chickens. I'm probably the worst choice you could have made..." because I don't think that is going to happen.
The changes that need to be made will not be made by those who currently hold power. In fact, they will be resisted by those in power. That is because they are, quite naturally trying to hold onto something they understand and that serves them well. As would you or I or any of us. There are no enemies here but there are opponents whose main weapon is power. Our main weapon is not recognising that power. Obviously, the less time we spend squabbling, the sooner we can see where we want to take Humanity.
But it will be up to us to put our house in order. Surely we can produce a blueprint for a better society. Not some political promise of brighter futures and all that bilge but a true blueprint, restructuring the balance of power for the benefit of Humanity. We, then proceed to put it into action to see if it works. The only thing that can stop us is the lack of will to even pay enough attention to avoid electing self-interested criminals. That's the problem. The fact that we are being shafted is only a symptom.
The biggest problem with anarchy is the name. It conjures images of angry people and riots. But it simply means the absence of a ruler. Do we need rulers? We need administrators and coordinators. We need organisers... but do they need to rule? Isn't that putting them in a rather dangerously powerful position? They need to have recognised authority to make certain demands and they need to be able to exert this authority over every member of the group. However, the combined authority of the group always outranks the authority of the leader. This is the natural insurance against exploitation and dictatorships. To rule must be by the consent of those over whom one rules.
However, the responsibility of ensuring our rulers rule effectively and fairly is ours, not theirs. We tend to want to leave all that to the rulers because we are all focused on our particular role. Doing the work the job requires and bringing home the pay, tending the house, tending the kids and, when we can, having fun. Our leaders need to coordinate all the functions that keep society ticking along and we need to be able to trust them to do that for the balanced good of the group. So what do we do? We select our leaders from the legal and business communities and put them into secretive, opaque duties where accountability is minimal and opportunities for corruption are limited only by imagination.
I made a reference on an earlier post to the chicken farmer who trains a fox to watch over the henhouse. How many repetitions of abject failure is it going to take before we conclude that maybe we ought to change some of the things that we're doing here. Giving our leaders power and the right to secrecy and the authority to take sole charge of any investigation into their actions that may be demanded is about as dumbass as training a fox to watch the chickens.
We did this. We handed over the authority to control our lives without even thinking to just check that they were actually sane. We let them get away with it. We let them rip us off because it's easier to just muddle along. So we wiggle along until we wiggle ourselves into a hole we can't reverse out of. We are entrapped into a slavery of debt. Our house gets forclosed because we assumed that the leaders had our best interests at heart. The company that employs you goes bust because you thought that banks were there to look after your money. It is ridiculously naive to hand such powers to questionable individuals in the way that we do.
If you had cockroaches, would you ask them to police themselves and ensure that they do not invade your kitchen or would you just get rid of them? I think there's a good chance that the cockroaches might have their own agenda. And so it is with politics. Every individual in politics has their own agenda and their career is the pursuit of the power to put their agenda into action. This isn't because they are evil. It's because they are individuals with dreams and hopes and fears just like the rest of us. But they are placed in a position that can so easily be exploited and abused and supported by the very powers that make the laws... what the fuck do you think they're gonna do?
Now the chicken farmer could rightly hold the fox responsible but the fox was doing what a fox is supposed to do. The chicken farmer's expectations were unreasonable. The chicken farmer is responsible for the decision to use a guard-fox and, consequently, responsible for any damage that results. We are responsible for the damage resulting from our ill-considered approach to selecting leaders.
We have got to stop thinking in terms of power and think in terms of function. How do we want our leader to function? How does the leader want the group to function? The leader must have some authority but the group combined must have the authority to keep the leader in check. It's about creative manipulation. It's about relationships. It is not about power.
Imagine a business model in which the manual and administrative staff owned the business equally as a cooperative but the managerial personnel were employed. Here is the hierarchical dilemma: The 'boss' is in charge of the business and must be able to ensure that his or her decisions are carried out or revised accordingly. The boss tells you what to do and you do it. This is the arrangement. But, as a group, you own the company that employs your boss. You have to trust your boss to make the right decisions. You select your boss on track record and you want a boss that will run your company smoothly and profitably, not one that gives you an easy time. You want a boss who can handle income and expenditure efficiently for the business, not one who will hand-out generous bonuses the company can't afford. Your boss is part of the machinery of your company and you want the machine to run smoothly and efficiently. Here would be a perfect balance of power.
In the army, a warrant officer is the highest rank of NCO and the lowest rank that earns the right to be addressed as 'sir'. Regimental Sergeant Major Ron Britton of the Coldstream Guards was in charge of officer training at Sandhurst in the 50s. All trainee officers held a provisional rank of 1st. Leutennant, outranking the RSM. His introductory address to new officers always included the clarification: 'I will address you as sir and you will address me as sir... but you will mean it.'
Authority and command is as much about personal qualities as hierarchical position. Whether or not you want to listen to somebody depends on whether or not your views will be equally sought. It is an ability to get others to listen... by also getting them to talk. A manner that leads people to trust your integrity. Whether you have any official authority or not, people will listen and there would be a natural inclination to follow your directions. Only when you are countermanded by a recognisable authority that focus shifts from you. You instinctively draw focus to you.
However, people in positions of authority, are not necessarily natural born leaders. They are probably (a) constantly worried about their own position, (b) loners with limited social skills and (c) constantly suspicious of everyone. They are not best suited to the task... yet they are running local government. When we use the term 'shyster', there are many 'professions' that aptly apply but 'businessman' and 'lawyer' comes up with alarming frequency. Either generally regarded to be unethical, mercenary and self-interested. So which particular stereotype is the gene pool from which we select our leaders? Remind me again. Oh yeah. The Shysters. Good choice.
We did this. We put these people where they are. We gave them the power that they have and we turn a blind eye as they create and defend structures of governance that nurture corruption. Is it because we are stupid like the chicken farmer and the fox? No. It's worse than that. We don't care. Just run the show. Make sure everything works. There's the treasury, there's the judiciary and here's the keys. Yes, yes. I subject myself entirely to your will and all that... right. I can leave it with you then, can I? We don't care how they do it as long as it doesn't bother us too much. When everyone is contented, no one cares who is ripping off whom or what's going on in the background of our realities. Things go wrong and we start looking for flaws in the system when the main flaw is that we recruit personnel from the professions in which the main talent of those who gain success is an uncanny ability to shaft people for money.
Am I missing something here? Do you think these factors might be important? Maybe right up there with blue eyes and a white smile? Where do these candidates come from? They seem to just appear. Nobody's ever heard of them and now they hear of nothing but as the two or three names are imprinted into our psyche: good guys, served in the armed forces, seen action, won medals nice smile... everything you want, eh? What about business interests and family connections? Look at those interests and think how they could benefit from a friend in power. That would give you an outline of the manifesto regardless of what they may tell you.
Now, considering that we goofed and handed absolute power to people who, we now realise in retrospect happened to be those most likely to exploit the situation in an orgy of mindless greed and shaft us for every penny we have, whose responsibility do you think it should be? The crooks who are fleecing us or the politically disinterested victims who, rather stupidly, put them there in the first place? The beneficiaries of a corrupt system are not going to take steps to make it less corrupt. They are going to make it harder to investigate. Which is precisely what is occurring. What cue are we waiting for? The whole system desperately needs an overhaul and of course our leaders aren't going to like it. Are we waiting for the fox to actually say: "Look here. I'm a fox. I kill chickens. I'm probably the worst choice you could have made..." because I don't think that is going to happen.
The changes that need to be made will not be made by those who currently hold power. In fact, they will be resisted by those in power. That is because they are, quite naturally trying to hold onto something they understand and that serves them well. As would you or I or any of us. There are no enemies here but there are opponents whose main weapon is power. Our main weapon is not recognising that power. Obviously, the less time we spend squabbling, the sooner we can see where we want to take Humanity.
But it will be up to us to put our house in order. Surely we can produce a blueprint for a better society. Not some political promise of brighter futures and all that bilge but a true blueprint, restructuring the balance of power for the benefit of Humanity. We, then proceed to put it into action to see if it works. The only thing that can stop us is the lack of will to even pay enough attention to avoid electing self-interested criminals. That's the problem. The fact that we are being shafted is only a symptom.
Saturday 5 February 2011
Conspiracies! Conspiracies!
"Conspiracy theorist" is an interesting term, wouldn't you say? It carries a certain message: Crank! Lunatic Fringe! Ignore! Ignore! and suchlike. It is a term of dismissal; just a conspiracy theorist. The fact that this conspiracy theorist has probably scoured through endless data and gathered information that can be supported with hard evidence doesn't even come into it. He or she is just a conspiracy theorist.
How about a new term? How about Coincidence Theorist for those who maintain that there is no link between this piece of evidence and that piece of evidence even though it may appear so, due largely to the fact that they fit together like a fucking jigsaw. The 'Simply-say-it-is-not-so' brigade. By what criteria does a version of events so full of holes it's pathetic earn more credibility than a studied report supported by evidence?
We're barking up the wrong tree with our obsession with evidence. It isn't about proving that corruptions of law and justice are taking place and it isn't even about who is guilty. We are all guilty. Guilty for standing by and watching as they built a system of governance as corruption-friendly as it is possible to be. Then we gasp in horror when we find out that they are dealing in corruption. I mean... if you saw your ten-year old son enter the hen house... carrying an axe... and he closes the door behind him... well, aren't you going to feel a little more comfortable if you knew exactly what was going on? Wouldn't you want to... you know... keep an eye on the situation?
Forget evidence. Just assume that they are guilty. If we jump to the wrong assumption, well, no harm's done. This isn't a court house. The point is: can they? The answer to that is, of course: yes. The whole system has been designed so that they can milk it for all it's worth because it was designed by the very people who stood to gain the most from a secretive and opaque system that had plenty of scope for corruption.
So why do we have corrupt governments?
Well, excuse me... but who was it who effectively said: "We want you to be our leader. We have absolutely no idea what that job entails so you can make it up as you go. We don't care how you do it just as long as the fridge works, the TV works and the paychecks keep coming in"?
We give them the power to control our lives completely. And do you know what they have that gives them the power? What gives them the power to manipulate the economy so your company can no longer afford you and you lose your job and the banks foreclose on your house and suddenly everything you had now belongs to the banks that created the whole mess? What do they have that gives them such awesome power?
Your consent.
Yeah sure. They're wealthy... but only because they say so. Look, if I gave you a piece of paper with five dollars written on it and asked if you could change it, would you say yes or no? Obviously, that would depend on whether or not the piece of paper is something that you have been conditioned to recognise as an item of value. But what is its value? Who decides that? The banks. And what does its value actually mean? What is a 'dollar'? Or a 'pound'? What does it mean? It means nothing. It means that you are legally entitled to exchange this for a loaf of bread. I know... you're thinking Five dollars for a loaf of bread??? but I'm thinking ahead. One day, people will read this and say A loaf of bread for just five bucks!!!??? Which brings us to another irritating little characteristic which can only be enjoyed and exploited by the mega-rich: money kind of inflates. So the price of a loaf of bread today is several times the price it was ten years ago. Has the value of a loaf of bread changed? No. Of course not. A loaf that will feed twelve people is the same value as a loaf that would feed twelve 100 years ago...1,000 years ago. Value is stable because it is based on reality.
Price is based on fiction. What is it about a dollar bill that makes its value a dollar? It isn't the object itself because to make an identical copy would not produce a dollar. It would produce a forgery,which, no matter how good, would not have the face value of a dollar... although, as artwork, it may be worth more. J.S.G. Boggs, an American artist who draws banknotes, actually spends his creations... quite legally. He will buy a meal and give the Maitre'd the option of accepting the actual banknote or the subtly changed, hand drawn copy. Unsurprisingly, most choose the copy, recognising it as a piece of artwork. It's the ones who don't that are interesting. Boggs' work, although having no face value as currency, has an intrinsic value as artwork.
Now here is the interesting dilemma: Boggs' work is real artwork because it is hand drawn and beautifully executed. A such, it is valuable. People pay a lot for his work (unless you're a lucky maitre'd). But it is not real money. Real money has no intrinsic value and an abstract value is assigned to it. That value is a fiction. It is an invented representation of value. All money provides is a benchmark against which we can measure value. Because the value of money is a fiction, it is highly volatile. Fictional values can be manipulated and are constantly adjusted against stock prices so that fiscal values are constantly on the move. So, for money to be real, its value must be fake. For a Boggs original artwork to be real, the object itself must be fake. No wonder the FBI don't like him.
You see the whole money con? We are told that the value of money is subject to something called 'market forces'. Although a dollar is always a dollar, what it will buy fluctuates. What causes this fluctuation? Decisions. (A) will decide that he will pay no more than (B) for the commodity, (C) and (X) will accept no less than (Y) for his (Z). Numbers are being made up and manipulated and the price of stock either expands or contracts. The 'value' of the dollar is adjusted accordingly. None of this is real! Price is nothing more than a hypothetical value. We are, in effect, pretending that a dollar bill and a dollar's worth of sugar are of equal value. In reality, the sugar is worth far more than the intrinsic value of a dollar bill. So, for 'Face Value', read 'pretend value'.
Everyone will agree that gold is more valuable than iron. Why? Because gold is scarce and it costs more money. Being scarce doesn't make anything better than if it were not scarce so this is an artificial value. To make a rough assessment of comparitive intrinsic values, let's try to imagine what would happen if iron suddenly ceased to exist and everything made of iron disappeared. Buildings would crash, people would be lost at sea or falling from the sky... our civilisation would fall apart. Now imagine if it were gold that ceased to exist: the fillings would fall out of my teeth. Which is the greatest value to our society?
Fiscal value is the biggest lie of all. It is the lie with which the maximum number of people can be manipulated and controlled to the maximum level with the minimum of effort. Create a form of litter called money. Control what this litter will allow them to have by fluctuating its fictitious value. Then, when everyone's convinced that the lie must be the truth because it apears to work, you can then buy into the same illusion and live a life of excess and indulgence simply by accumulating lots of your own litter.
It is not the responsibility of them to not take full advantage of the fertile bed of corruption you have allowed them to assemble, it's your responsibility to do something about it. We keep demanding that they do something about it so they do this or that, which has a negligible effect because it isn't in their interests to change it.... and, by the way, only they have the power and authority to conduct an investigation into their actions in the event of strenuous demands for an investigation.
We're kind of asking the vandals to do something about the vandalism. It isn't going to happen. We are hoodwinked into believing that the only people who have the right to even decide whether or not an investigation takes place and the authority to effectively dictate the findings are the very people we want to investigate. It is no good waiting for a change in the law that would enable us to truly hold those in power accountable (notice the term is always in power. Never in service). We try. It fails. We try. It fails. How long is it going to take a chicken farmer to realise that training a fox to watch over the chickens was not a smart move? How many times is he going to repeat "Well, maybe this time..."? before it occurs to him that maybe it wasn't the fox's fault... well, not entirely?
So the question always comes back. What are we going to do? Jefferson said: "When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty". The fact that they have covered their asses by making any effective way of withdrawing consent for the leader's authority illegal also relies on your recognition of of such a law. They may say "Because I say so" but the reason the status quo is as it is is (are there too many 'is's there? No? OK) because you accept what they say. The commander gives the order to fire but the choice always rests with the infantryman. He is responsible for pulling the trigger and he does so because he chooses to do so. He thinks he has no choice. He thinks he is pulling the trigger because he was told to do so. He is pulling the trigger because he has surrendered his conscience, his right to question, his right to judge and any accountability to the hands of those he thinks are in control. He chooses to acknowledge the authority of another to demand that he commit acts that are repugnant to him and he chooses not to acknowledge his right to say 'No'.
We made this mess.... and we choose not to clear it up.
How about a new term? How about Coincidence Theorist for those who maintain that there is no link between this piece of evidence and that piece of evidence even though it may appear so, due largely to the fact that they fit together like a fucking jigsaw. The 'Simply-say-it-is-not-so' brigade. By what criteria does a version of events so full of holes it's pathetic earn more credibility than a studied report supported by evidence?
We're barking up the wrong tree with our obsession with evidence. It isn't about proving that corruptions of law and justice are taking place and it isn't even about who is guilty. We are all guilty. Guilty for standing by and watching as they built a system of governance as corruption-friendly as it is possible to be. Then we gasp in horror when we find out that they are dealing in corruption. I mean... if you saw your ten-year old son enter the hen house... carrying an axe... and he closes the door behind him... well, aren't you going to feel a little more comfortable if you knew exactly what was going on? Wouldn't you want to... you know... keep an eye on the situation?
Forget evidence. Just assume that they are guilty. If we jump to the wrong assumption, well, no harm's done. This isn't a court house. The point is: can they? The answer to that is, of course: yes. The whole system has been designed so that they can milk it for all it's worth because it was designed by the very people who stood to gain the most from a secretive and opaque system that had plenty of scope for corruption.
So why do we have corrupt governments?
Well, excuse me... but who was it who effectively said: "We want you to be our leader. We have absolutely no idea what that job entails so you can make it up as you go. We don't care how you do it just as long as the fridge works, the TV works and the paychecks keep coming in"?
We give them the power to control our lives completely. And do you know what they have that gives them the power? What gives them the power to manipulate the economy so your company can no longer afford you and you lose your job and the banks foreclose on your house and suddenly everything you had now belongs to the banks that created the whole mess? What do they have that gives them such awesome power?
Your consent.
Yeah sure. They're wealthy... but only because they say so. Look, if I gave you a piece of paper with five dollars written on it and asked if you could change it, would you say yes or no? Obviously, that would depend on whether or not the piece of paper is something that you have been conditioned to recognise as an item of value. But what is its value? Who decides that? The banks. And what does its value actually mean? What is a 'dollar'? Or a 'pound'? What does it mean? It means nothing. It means that you are legally entitled to exchange this for a loaf of bread. I know... you're thinking Five dollars for a loaf of bread??? but I'm thinking ahead. One day, people will read this and say A loaf of bread for just five bucks!!!??? Which brings us to another irritating little characteristic which can only be enjoyed and exploited by the mega-rich: money kind of inflates. So the price of a loaf of bread today is several times the price it was ten years ago. Has the value of a loaf of bread changed? No. Of course not. A loaf that will feed twelve people is the same value as a loaf that would feed twelve 100 years ago...1,000 years ago. Value is stable because it is based on reality.
Price is based on fiction. What is it about a dollar bill that makes its value a dollar? It isn't the object itself because to make an identical copy would not produce a dollar. It would produce a forgery,which, no matter how good, would not have the face value of a dollar... although, as artwork, it may be worth more. J.S.G. Boggs, an American artist who draws banknotes, actually spends his creations... quite legally. He will buy a meal and give the Maitre'd the option of accepting the actual banknote or the subtly changed, hand drawn copy. Unsurprisingly, most choose the copy, recognising it as a piece of artwork. It's the ones who don't that are interesting. Boggs' work, although having no face value as currency, has an intrinsic value as artwork.
Now here is the interesting dilemma: Boggs' work is real artwork because it is hand drawn and beautifully executed. A such, it is valuable. People pay a lot for his work (unless you're a lucky maitre'd). But it is not real money. Real money has no intrinsic value and an abstract value is assigned to it. That value is a fiction. It is an invented representation of value. All money provides is a benchmark against which we can measure value. Because the value of money is a fiction, it is highly volatile. Fictional values can be manipulated and are constantly adjusted against stock prices so that fiscal values are constantly on the move. So, for money to be real, its value must be fake. For a Boggs original artwork to be real, the object itself must be fake. No wonder the FBI don't like him.
You see the whole money con? We are told that the value of money is subject to something called 'market forces'. Although a dollar is always a dollar, what it will buy fluctuates. What causes this fluctuation? Decisions. (A) will decide that he will pay no more than (B) for the commodity, (C) and (X) will accept no less than (Y) for his (Z). Numbers are being made up and manipulated and the price of stock either expands or contracts. The 'value' of the dollar is adjusted accordingly. None of this is real! Price is nothing more than a hypothetical value. We are, in effect, pretending that a dollar bill and a dollar's worth of sugar are of equal value. In reality, the sugar is worth far more than the intrinsic value of a dollar bill. So, for 'Face Value', read 'pretend value'.
Everyone will agree that gold is more valuable than iron. Why? Because gold is scarce and it costs more money. Being scarce doesn't make anything better than if it were not scarce so this is an artificial value. To make a rough assessment of comparitive intrinsic values, let's try to imagine what would happen if iron suddenly ceased to exist and everything made of iron disappeared. Buildings would crash, people would be lost at sea or falling from the sky... our civilisation would fall apart. Now imagine if it were gold that ceased to exist: the fillings would fall out of my teeth. Which is the greatest value to our society?
Fiscal value is the biggest lie of all. It is the lie with which the maximum number of people can be manipulated and controlled to the maximum level with the minimum of effort. Create a form of litter called money. Control what this litter will allow them to have by fluctuating its fictitious value. Then, when everyone's convinced that the lie must be the truth because it apears to work, you can then buy into the same illusion and live a life of excess and indulgence simply by accumulating lots of your own litter.
It is not the responsibility of them to not take full advantage of the fertile bed of corruption you have allowed them to assemble, it's your responsibility to do something about it. We keep demanding that they do something about it so they do this or that, which has a negligible effect because it isn't in their interests to change it.... and, by the way, only they have the power and authority to conduct an investigation into their actions in the event of strenuous demands for an investigation.
We're kind of asking the vandals to do something about the vandalism. It isn't going to happen. We are hoodwinked into believing that the only people who have the right to even decide whether or not an investigation takes place and the authority to effectively dictate the findings are the very people we want to investigate. It is no good waiting for a change in the law that would enable us to truly hold those in power accountable (notice the term is always in power. Never in service). We try. It fails. We try. It fails. How long is it going to take a chicken farmer to realise that training a fox to watch over the chickens was not a smart move? How many times is he going to repeat "Well, maybe this time..."? before it occurs to him that maybe it wasn't the fox's fault... well, not entirely?
So the question always comes back. What are we going to do? Jefferson said: "When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty". The fact that they have covered their asses by making any effective way of withdrawing consent for the leader's authority illegal also relies on your recognition of of such a law. They may say "Because I say so" but the reason the status quo is as it is is (are there too many 'is's there? No? OK) because you accept what they say. The commander gives the order to fire but the choice always rests with the infantryman. He is responsible for pulling the trigger and he does so because he chooses to do so. He thinks he has no choice. He thinks he is pulling the trigger because he was told to do so. He is pulling the trigger because he has surrendered his conscience, his right to question, his right to judge and any accountability to the hands of those he thinks are in control. He chooses to acknowledge the authority of another to demand that he commit acts that are repugnant to him and he chooses not to acknowledge his right to say 'No'.
We made this mess.... and we choose not to clear it up.
Friday 4 February 2011
The Chrysalis
What we are seeing in Egypt right now is absolutely unique. There is no leader yet groups of up to two million strong act as one; are of one voice. Individual visionaries have yet to emerge and this is seen as a weakness. I see it as their strength. Each one is motivated by a united heart, a united mind and a united intent. They are not united in varying degrees of allegiance to this or that ideology. They are united as Humanity. The lies and the illusions have begun to crack as if they had been the shell of some kind of chrysalis to keep us in check while we slumber... just as the caterpillar slumbers in its coccoon ...at least, I hope so... I can't begin to imagine what that kind of transition would feel like... although maybe we're about to find out.
I see something emerging here. I see a liberated Humanity. Liberated from the only bonds that hold one to brutal regimes that rule by fear: the fear itself. There is a vital rule in effective leadership that even gorilla troups have figured out. The Alpha Male might seem to throw his weight around but, by and large, he is necessary to keep the troupe together and protect them. So he has to be the biggest, toughest, meanest sunnuvabitch in the whole group. But no gorilla is stronger than the united group. When the Alpha Male becomes too aggressive or is an inadequate protector, he is ousted by the group. He needs their consent to retain the position. By what perverse and distorted process of evolving logic did this instinctive inclination to select an Alpha Male lead us to arrive at a choice like David Cameron?
The Rule is: The ruler must be bigger than each individual but cannot be bigger than the group.
The leaders coordinate the establishment of strategies to acheive the shared needs of the group. Their job is to focus intention into action and they gather the skills around them to best acheive that. In order to do this, he or she must have the authority to direct the individuals and, in an open society, this does not have to be done brutally and should only be done for the benefit of the commonly held Greater Good... not for profits or rake-offs. The Group as a whole, however, has a collective authority over the leader and must have the authority to direct or remove a leader. This would be a true democracy.
Unfortunately not even the blatantly corrupt systems we mockingly refer to as 'democracy' come anywhere near that. Well, OK. It's not really a problem and it won't be too far into some bizarre and pointless conflict (if it arises) before we realise that. We don't actually have to play the game. We have just witnessed a repressed people, brutalised by an inflexible tyrant stand up and exercise its authority. Egypt has shown what can be done and against the toughest and most brutal odds.
This is a lesson for the leaders of this contrived simulation of democracy in which we feel so comfortable. Romans had a system for maintaining a compliant society: Panem et circenses or Bread and circuses. Keep them fed and keep them distracted with mindless entertainment and no one will be moved to consult their conscience. Well, this slumber is just the shell of the chrysalis. Truth is reaching a global audience (OK... you have to sift through a lot of tosh to find it but you recognise it when you see it). Deception, the substance of illusion, has been rendered ineffectual. The internet is the fertile soil from which this new transparency is springing. Without deception, the illusion crumbles and, without the illusion... well... remember that final confrontation scene in The Wizard of Oz?
Lies create the illusion, illusion creates the fear and fear commands unquestioning loyalty. These are the vital elements to maintain a dictatorship. Lose either of these and the rest just falls apart. When the people abandon their fear, a dictatorship is not possible. Leaders must lead on merit, not force or influence. We are seeing something truly Great in Egypt.
I see something emerging here. I see a liberated Humanity. Liberated from the only bonds that hold one to brutal regimes that rule by fear: the fear itself. There is a vital rule in effective leadership that even gorilla troups have figured out. The Alpha Male might seem to throw his weight around but, by and large, he is necessary to keep the troupe together and protect them. So he has to be the biggest, toughest, meanest sunnuvabitch in the whole group. But no gorilla is stronger than the united group. When the Alpha Male becomes too aggressive or is an inadequate protector, he is ousted by the group. He needs their consent to retain the position. By what perverse and distorted process of evolving logic did this instinctive inclination to select an Alpha Male lead us to arrive at a choice like David Cameron?
The Rule is: The ruler must be bigger than each individual but cannot be bigger than the group.
The leaders coordinate the establishment of strategies to acheive the shared needs of the group. Their job is to focus intention into action and they gather the skills around them to best acheive that. In order to do this, he or she must have the authority to direct the individuals and, in an open society, this does not have to be done brutally and should only be done for the benefit of the commonly held Greater Good... not for profits or rake-offs. The Group as a whole, however, has a collective authority over the leader and must have the authority to direct or remove a leader. This would be a true democracy.
Unfortunately not even the blatantly corrupt systems we mockingly refer to as 'democracy' come anywhere near that. Well, OK. It's not really a problem and it won't be too far into some bizarre and pointless conflict (if it arises) before we realise that. We don't actually have to play the game. We have just witnessed a repressed people, brutalised by an inflexible tyrant stand up and exercise its authority. Egypt has shown what can be done and against the toughest and most brutal odds.
This is a lesson for the leaders of this contrived simulation of democracy in which we feel so comfortable. Romans had a system for maintaining a compliant society: Panem et circenses or Bread and circuses. Keep them fed and keep them distracted with mindless entertainment and no one will be moved to consult their conscience. Well, this slumber is just the shell of the chrysalis. Truth is reaching a global audience (OK... you have to sift through a lot of tosh to find it but you recognise it when you see it). Deception, the substance of illusion, has been rendered ineffectual. The internet is the fertile soil from which this new transparency is springing. Without deception, the illusion crumbles and, without the illusion... well... remember that final confrontation scene in The Wizard of Oz?
Lies create the illusion, illusion creates the fear and fear commands unquestioning loyalty. These are the vital elements to maintain a dictatorship. Lose either of these and the rest just falls apart. When the people abandon their fear, a dictatorship is not possible. Leaders must lead on merit, not force or influence. We are seeing something truly Great in Egypt.
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