The Greek patient - There is no end of history

OK, if it isn't the lazy, tax-evading Greeks who are the cause of their own evil, what is. As it turns out, it may not be a "what" as much as a "who". Let's pick up our (hi)story where we left off.

In 1974 a modicum of stability came to Greece. In June 1975, the Greeks applied for membership in the European Union. As of the 1st of January 1981, they became members. At the time, it will be remembered, there was no (almost) common currency: the Germans had their beloved D-Mark, the French (and others) their (individual) francs, the Greeks had their drachma. The European project was progressing nicely. The Brits came on board in the early 70s, and besides the Greeks, Portugal and Spain also entered in the 80s. At the end of the 80s, however, something happened that no one had really expected: the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc collapsed. There was now a new source of disquiet, namely the reunification of Germany.

We like to think of Germany as a sovereign nation, but in the aftermath of 1989, not everyone was as excited as the Germans about a possible reunification. The Brits held great reservations, as did their traditional rivals, the French. In fact at a meeting of the two Germanys, France, the UK and the US (the latter being the victors of WW2, of course ... a war that apparently still wasn't completely over), the French, in particular, demanded that the Germanys be allowed to reunite only if they committed to joining the fiscal union – what became the euro – as well. The Germans agreed, they reunified, and well, we know their story up till now. But what does this have to do with the Greeks?

There was a lot of euphoria surrounding the introduction of the euro. Anybody who was anybody in Europe, well, except for the Brits who were still trying to figure out where their Empire went, the Scandinavians who are really into doing their own thing, and some of the more recently accepted countries, wanted to join in the party. Europe was growing together. The idea of Europe was gaining strength within Europe (the geographical entity) itself. Things were looking up.

Of course, not everyone was as excited as the Europeans. The greatest Europe-skeptics, of course, were the Americans. I don't think I'm revealing any secrets when I say that they were downright suspicious about it all. Here was a group of countries coming ever closer together who were larger by population and growing in economic power at a disturbing rate. Americans may be competitive, but they hate competition. And now, these stodge-pots were planning on introducing their own currency, too. Everybody knows the US Dollar is the only currency worth having. Or did they. It appeared that those Old Europeans were getting just a bit uppity. They needed to be watched ... and we know where that's led.

In the end, though, as of 1 January 2002, 17 of the current 28 countries in the European Union formed a new monetary union. Which promptly sunk in value by almost 30% in relation to the American dollar. What did you expect? Didn't we tell you that was a bust?

Well, you told us, but was it?

The Greek patient - A first editorial excursion

Practically the entire recorded history of the Greek people is one of being occupied and oppressed by foreign powers. A part of pleasure of doing business with these uninvited guests is, of course, paying tribute (read: being taxed). That the Greeks haven't developed an historic love of taxes is hardly surprising. What did they have get out of paying taxes? Nothing. The money went away and never came back. It built lots of palaces and monuments for the overlords, it kept those potentates fat and happy, but there is no real evidence that the Greeks got anything – ever – from being taxed. I mean, what reasonable person wants to pay taxes if you get nothing out of it?

Come to think of it, though, Americans, who have allegedly enjoyed less than 250 years of democratic freedom, only pay taxes when they are threatened enough or forced to and go to great lengths to see that they pay as little as possible. The most recent American grotesquery, the Tea Party, wants to eliminate them altogether. Why? Well, there is the ever-present and very inaccurate big-government argument, but if you ask me why Americans hate taxes, it's because you don't get anything out of them. When we visited my Dad in Western Pennsylvania, he had plenty of stories about all the taxes he got to pay because the governor decided that his corporate buddies and donors didn't need to pay so much, but he never got much for them either. The roads weren't cleared well in winter. Those same roads were full of potholes. There wasn't much in the way of senior citizen support ... well, you get the picture. I understand why he hated paying taxes. You get nothing for it.

Considering that the Greeks have as good as never really been the masters of their own fate, I don't find it all that surprising that they themselves never really even set up a tax system. Since the occupying powers always made sure they would collect what they felt was their due, they had one and the Greeks didn't need one ... for nigh on two millennia ... and the Greek people saw again and again and again that taxes mean only that others get richer while you, the little guy, just get poorer and poorer. But, in too many people's minds, it's the lazy, tax-evading Greek populace that has brought the country to the edge of ruin. What a bunch of hooey!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not excusing nor justifying the situation in which Greece finds itself, but I am very adamant that those who maintain it's all the Greek people's fault are ignorant (in particular of the history of the country), arrogant (not having walked an inch in their shoes), and prejudiced (yes, those of love to think they know it all, have stereotypes dictating their thoughts). What I am saying is quite simple: we expect too much too soon.

I have always maintained: the East Germans suffered under their dictatorship for 40 years, and it is ludicrous to expect that it will take fewer than 40 years to get everybody out of it. The Greeks have been in the modern sovereign-state business – as a full-fledged partner – for only 40 years as well. So they should be doing everything to the same degree of effectiveness and effectivity that others have allegedly mastered in two, three or five times as long. Right.

If you set the bar too high, others can't jump over it.

The Greek patient - A flash from the past

If you want to understand the present, you really have to understand a little about the past, and what hardly any of know anything about is Greek history, so I offer you the following for your information and edification. We are all aware that Greece is considered the Cradle of Democracy, but Greece as we know it is a very recent ... and I mean, very recent ... phenomenon.

Around 500 BCE the Athenians and others came up with the idea of allowing free (read: non-slave), native (read: non-foreigner), adult male citizens take a major and direct part in the management of the affairs of state, e.g., declaring war, conducting diplomatic missions, ratifying treaties, etc. This was handled either directly or via some form of popular assembly. This form of government of course applied to the rather limited city-states in existence at the time. About two centuries later, groups of these city-states formed confederations, perhaps the two best known being the Delian (led by Athens) and the Peloponnesian (led by Sparta, which, by the way, wasn't run democratically ... go figure) Leagues. These were not anywhere near similar to the country of Greece as it exists today. Once the Athenians started using League resources for their own benefit, things went downhill and by 146 BCE, the Romans were enjoying the full extent of Greek hospitality. They hung around till their own empire collapsed around 450 AD. Various peoples swept through the Greek countryside, for the most part, the Slavs and the Turks, until the Ottomans invited themselves in around the middle of the 15th century. They liked it so much, that they stayed another 400 years themselves.

Starting in 1821, the Greeks tried getting themselves together to get rid of the Ottomans. In 1832, with British backing (for the foreigners were still calling the big shots), they installed King Otto I, but as the name suggests he was the second son of Ludwig I, King of Bavaria (and as Bavaria's colors are blue and white, it is no surprise that the Greeks liked them so much they made their flag out of those colors, too). That lasted till about 1862 when they invited him to leave, as unceremoniously as they had invited him to come. But, as would be expected, they were still dominated in most areas by the Ottomans, who would remain in control until 1919 and the end of WW1, when they were forced to withdraw for being on the losing side of the war.

It is not unexpected that there was a lot of internal strife after the war. Though republics were springing up all over the place, there were still a good number of folks that still believed monarchies are better so the Republicans and Royalists trying to gain control. There was absolutely no stability nor a real government that lasted very long during this time. With the beginning of WW2, the Italians saw some easy pickings to the East, and before long the Germans were back with a vengeance, further suppressing the Greeks till the end of the war. Post-WW2 wasn't much different from post-WW1, except now it was the Republicans (the monarchy issue had somehow been resolved) and the Pro-Communists who were at each others' throats trying to gain control of the country. It goes without saying which side the USA was on in this struggle. Things got so bad that in 1967 an American-sponsored military junta took control of the country to stop the election of the left-liberal candidate Andreas Papandreou. The junta remained in control until 1974 when the first democratically elected government of Greece took office.

Yes, 1974, a scant 40 years ago. In other words ... and this is the real point ... there hasn't been much of a Greece, nor much of a stable government in the country for the past 2,000 years. Could it be that we simply expect too much too soon?

The Greek patient - diagnosis and recovery?

One of the nice things about the world is its linguistic diversity: there are so many different, and interesting, ways to perceive and communication things about the world. On the other hand, this diversity is limiting to most of us because we speak only one or two, or at best a few, of those languages. Consequently, trying to inform ourselves about what is happening on our little planet is met with not only qualitative challenges (objectivity, reliability, willingness to distribute, etc.) there are pure quantitative ones as well. If you don't speak or read, say, German, you most likely aren't going to get much news from German sources.

One of the issues that interests quite a few people these day is the situation in Greece (and Cyprus) and in a recent back-and-forth with an American friend, it became quite clear to me that when dealing with limited sources of information, it is difficult to get a full picture of a particular issue. Don't get me wrong, I have no pretentions of resolving either the issue or the access to information, but I do feel obligated to add more to the mix, if you will. Maybe there is more to the whole affair than most of us are aware of, so I would like to offer my own humble contribution.

In the posts that follow, I will be relying heavily, but not exclusively, on a recent German publication by Dirk Müller entitled Showdown: Der Kampf um Europa und unser Geld [Showdown: the fight for Europe and our money]. Herr Müller is known in Germany mostly by his nickname, Mr. DAX (the DAX being the German counterpart to the Dow Jones Average); his a journalist, with his own background in banking and finance, who specializes in finance, banking, and economic topics. He appears regularly on talk shows, is often interviewed in relation to banking and finance issues, and, of course, he is a relatively popular author as well, as he does have the ability to break down complex topics into a simpler, more easy-to-understand presentation. I'm not vouching for his complete authority, but I have to admit that even if I'm not his biggest fan, he does make an interesting and rather persuasive case for rethinking the Greek problem in the Eurozone.

Whatever I have to say is, you should know, presented solely for your own reasoned consideration. You are, as always free to accept or reject anything I say on his behalf or my own, but I would ask that you do so in the spirit of enlightened discussion and debate, as outlined in the last five posts. Yes, there was a reason that I brought up those issues first. As an irregular contributor to the Daily Kos, I get involved too often in what are known there as "pie fights"; that is, stupid, senseless arguments about off-topics issues, such as my intelligence or the intelligence of my sources. Consequently, I'm going to tell you up front what the coming posts are about, namely:

1. There is more to the current Greek situation than meets the eye.
2. Not everyone involved is playing on the up-and-up.
3. Whatever problems/issues may exist in regard to the Greeks are a European ones.
4. The Greeks and Europeans should be left alone to resolve their own issues.

With that in mind, meet me next time for a bit of a history lesson.

Shoot the messenger

The more things change, the more they stay the same. In olden times, if the messenger brought bad news, chances were good he's pay for it with his life. It wasn't his fault the news was bad, but he paid the price anyway. In retrospect, we considered it a grave injustice, but we practice it everyday ourselves.

One of the underlying themes of my past few posts has been just this: our willing to shoot the messenger. In any discussion of a current event or current situation, the easiest, quickest, and most devastating response is to simply call the source into question. There are not a few people who actually consider themselves serious, critical thinkers who have nothing better to offer in the way of discussion. This is unfortunate.

The English philosopher R.G. Collingwood has been my role model for this. In his brief, but extremely readable, fascinating autobiography (called An Autobiography, in English; the German title was Denken, "Thinking"), he relates how most of his colleagues belonged to the Logical Positivist or Analytic schools of thought (the former being focused, according to itself as the logical clarification of thought, whereby formal grammars and logic play a dominant role; the latter being influenced to a great extent by mathematics and the natural sciences, allegedly focusing on narrow themes and logical precision ... that is to say, it's more a style than type of thinking). He himself fit in much better with what is often characterized as Continental Philosophy, in particular Hermeneutics (the art and science of interpretation and understanding). In their monthly department meetings, they would present their latest findings and debate them. Their biggest fear, apparently, was that Collingwood would want to take their side. He believed the best way to figure out whether a position or argument was valuable was to use it as conscientiously as possible. To do this, one has to delve into it and understand how it works. Too often, Collingwood revealed that the argument was a mere house of cards. You're right. He didn't have a lot of friends in the faculty. People who are looking for truth often don't have a lot of friends.

I miss guys like Collingwood. One of my two best friends from college feeds me regularly with articles and op-eds from publications that I would most likely never dream of reading. But, since he's a friend, and I respect him, of course, I seriously engage these readings and we discuss them, sometimes lively and heatedly, but in a very rewarding and satisfying manner. I always learn something, and often something important. He allows me to infuse a little of Collingwood's spirit into my own life. He does the same with the stuff I send him.

Unfortunately, my friend is pretty much one of a kind. I encounter far too many people who are busy building their own little bubbles in which to exist. I don't know why, I can only surmise, and for the moment I believe that this behavior is so widespread because there are simply too many things wrong with our world. Keep your job; whatever you do, don't get fired; keep a low profile; arm yourself to the teeth, if necessary; don't get involved; don't get out of line; but whatever you do, don't think too seriously about what you're doing.

And the best way to keep that process going is to simply shoot whoever shows up with something you really don't want to hear.

The art of understanding discussions

The most obvious and poignant example of not being able to discuss anything (reasonably or otherwise) is American politics today. I don't want anyone thinking I'm picking on the Americans in particular, but what they are showing the world these days is downright embarrassing.

When seen from the outside, all one notices is that two sides have crystallized which are, beneath the surface, surprisingly similar (invested with corporate influence, overtly oppressive, violent, undemocratic, hypocritical, power-obsessed, disrespectful of human rights ... the list goes on), but on the surface portrayed as diametrically opposed. When that organization that is allegedly representative of the people pass certain legislation, say, health care legislation, and the other side tries to repeal it 40 times, you have to ask yourself what the real issue is. When you have religiously questionable beliefs being passed off as reasonable arguments in a discussion, you have to ask yourself if these people are of sound mind. When you have tenets of a particular religious faith being presented in opposition to sound scientific evidence, and when you have the full-scale denial of scientific evidence because it doesn't fit in with what you want to be true, well, then you don't have much basis for any kind of discussion about anything anymore. This is no longer reasoned discussion or debate, this is childish misbehavior.

Oh, I don't think it would bother me, or the rest of the world, so much if Americans weren't so willing to take their current brand of incoherency a-peddling. There are issues that need to be discussed, such as climate change, capitalism, the financial system, globalization, the role of corporate influence, the role of national sovereignty, war, crime, aggression, human rights, just to name a few, but what we have, increasingly, is a situation in which no reasoned discussion; that is, no reasonable search for real solutions, is possible.

This infantilism that American politics embodies is spreading elsewhere. It apparently has no trouble trickling down. It is becoming increasingly difficult to talk to, let alone debate anything with others. Of course, I'm speaking of my own personal experience, but I don't think I'm all that different than most people. Who is actually willing to engage an opponent's ideas? Who is willing to read or consider "the other side's" positions? Who still wants to be reasonable about anything?

I'm very fortunate in that I still have a few friends and people with whom I discuss things that are tolerant enough to consider something other than what's in their own heads. How often have you heard statements like "Oh, you read that in The Nation/The American Conservative, well why would you believe anything written in that rag?" How many folks criticize Adam Smith but have never read him? How many reject Marx outright, but have never read him? How many people do you know who are willing, and able, to follow an extended argument ... say, something longer than a Tweet or a Facebook post ... and who can contribute to the discussion?

My hope lies in the fact that I know there are some folks who still can. My worry is that there aren't enough of them to end up making a difference. How many of you still think you can? How many of you want to make a difference?

The fundamentals of the art of discussion

What applies to any argument being contributed to a discussion (or a debate, which may be more formal or is simply more intense); that is, those factors we considered last time; are equally applicable to the discussion as a whole.

The matter of context is that arguments are centered on a given subject. Changing the subject in mid-stream is never a good idea, just like changing horses isn't. If the subject is, say, the role of austerity in solving economic problems, bringing up alleged cultural shortcomings of economy involved or insisting upon misconduct or weak decisions in past leading up to the crisis in the first place is simply off-topic. If we've got a problem, there is certainly room for valid discussions as to how we got into the mess in the first place. These are not, necessarily, arguments for a particular approach to a solution. Changing a whole society's behavior may take longer than we can afford to wait to get things headed in a positive direction.

Evidence is certainly applicable to any argument being made. And here, we're talking primarily about relevant evidence; evidence that has a bearing on the issue as a whole. One of the most dubious forms of discussion is the one that excludes certain types for certain reasons. We saw this most recently in the Bradley Manning trial, where the judge disallowed arguments by the defense that Manning acted, at least in part, due to the obligation placed upon him by the very Code of Military Justice that was being used to prosecute him. The motives one has for committing a deed are, in my estimation, invaluable in determining the severity of the deed. Nothing we humans construct -- particularly our so-called justice system -- is digitally accurate. Things humans do are never black or white, in fact, they are rarely black and white. There are numerous grey areas which need to be dealt with seriously and cautiously.

As for coherency and consistency, I think I'm pretty safe in assuming that every one of us has been involved in a discussion, at least once in our lives, in which at the end, no one really knew what was being argued about. Somehow the discussion didn't just get off topic (as pointed out in relation to "context" above), rather it got out of control. Not knowing what was talked about calls into question the time and energy that was spent talking.

One additional factor plays a role here, though. It is essential for the success of any discussion that the discussants acknowledge each others' worthiness to participate. If you consider your discussion partner inferior in any way, there's no use having a discussion, you are probably only trying to prove you are right. If you refuse to discuss certain topics with others who have a different position, then you are tacitly expressing that the other is unworthy of talking to in the first place. If you only want to engage the person, not his or her arguments, then you really aren't discussing at all (this is formally known as ad hominem argumentation), then you're wasting everybody's time. But in any event, you are demonstrating that you need not be considered as a serious discussion partner. In other words, if you aren't willing to learn, if you aren't willing to perhaps change/modify your own position based on the course of the discussion, if you are only trying to "prove" you're right, you're not discussing, you are merely pontificating, and Lord knows we've got more than enough of that going on these days.

An introduction to the art of discussion

One of the things we should have learned in school is how to discuss a topic, even a controversial one. I know, we don't have classes in logic and rhetoric anymore (which I personally find sad, but that's just me), but there are still ample opportunities, in all social-science and language classes at any rate, to develop the skills and abilities to discuss something reasonably. When we look around us, particularly at our political landscape, it becomes painfully obvious that even if these were taught in school, a lot of folks were either sick that day or were simply not paying attention. But that's another topic of another day.

One of the things we should have learned, for example, is that context matters. The expectations that we bring to, say, a newspaper article should be different than those we bring to an op-ed. We should expect less bias and more facts in the former, and not be surprised by more bias and fewer facts in the latter. Each, in its own way, has something to say, but they say fundamentally different things. Or, we might expect an historical novel to be less accurate fact-wise, say, than a history of the events in question, but this may or may not be the case. History is often written by the victors; novels are often written by seekers of truth. Things may be reversed, but to determine that, we need to investigate further to discover what the real story is.

Another thing we should have learned is that evidence matters. (This is one of those places where I think German has a leg up on English. In English we have the word "evidence", but the Germans have both Belege (evidence that supports or refutes) and Beweise (evidence that proves or is categorical). In many of my discussions with English-speakers (native or not), this distinction is too often a source of misunderstanding.) Whatever we maintain; that is, whatever thesis or assertion we advance, should be substantiated in some way by corroborating evidence. This can take many forms, depending on the subject of the discussion. It might be facts (that is, things that actually happened or can be verified as being as they are presented), theories (in the case of more abstract discussions where not all the facts are in), arguments of others (which should be sourced and accessible to other discussion participants), perhaps experience (if verifiable and relevant), or perhaps scientific studies (quantitative as well as qualitative) or similar research, and much more. In other words, we like to get the feeling that our discussion partner just didn't simply make up his or her arguments as the discussion was going along.

And finally, we should have learned that coherency and consistency matter. By coherency, I mean the fact that what is being presented makes sense in some way. A science-fiction novel may be very coherent, but since it lacks verifiability, we tend to push it into the fiction category. This may disqualify it is evidence in a discussion of propulsion technology, but it may be valuable as an outside-the-box example for a discussion of future propulsion technology. Consistency means that that the parts fit together well. There are no big leaps between parts of the argument, that there are no huge logical gaps (like the cartoon of the two scientists discussing a formula on the blackboard where the one says to the other, "... and here a miracle happens ..."), that the discussion is what we might also called focused.

These may appear obvious to many of you, but if you stop take a look around at what is being said and discussed everyday, you quickly become aware of how little of any of these three factors can be found. Maybe since we stopped teaching them, we've forgotten how to use them or why they are important. At least that's the feeling that I get ... unfortunately, too often.

The fundamentals of the art of understanding

Last time, I tried to show that we base our understanding of things, to a large extent, on assumptions we have about how things are, and that these assumptions are as good as never challenged. These assumptions lead to our biases about things. If they gain the upper hand, they become what we call prejudices. A prejudice is simply an assumption that one refuses to give up even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The question is, then, where do these assumptions come from?

Any number of situations and circumstances are involved. There is the culture into which we are born. Cultures are defined by what they take for granted about reality. The language(s) we speak also play an important role. There is no single one-to-one correspondence between one language and another; something is always lost in translation. Our socialization plays perhaps the largest role. By this I mean our family and immediate surroundings in which we grow up. There may be, say, an American or German culture, but how this culture is lived differs between New York and San Francisco as much as between Hamburg and Munich. The same holds true of language: dialectical differences emphasize some things and de-emphasize others. So, how our parents see the world greatly influences how we end up seeing the world and what we end up taking for granted. For the "good" child, it is because of the influences; for the "bad" child, it is in spite of them. Finally, our formal education plays an exceedingly strong role in all of this, for in school we don't just learn content, we learn how to read, learn, play games (of all sorts, even social ones) and what is acceptable beyond the boundaries of our own limited, personal communities.

Everybody does this. Everybody goes through this. And everybody conforms or does not conform to the pressures and learning processes all of this represents in different ways. We are, after all, individuals. In other words, the outcomes of the same process may be -- is most likely -- different from one person to the next, yet the underlying principle remains the same: assumptions, pre-suppositions, perhaps even prejudices are formed, and these are the basic building blocks of how we think, how we assess, how we evaluate, how we judge, how we discuss, and how we debate.

The big question that suddenly arises here, however, is how are we to know what deep, dark, secrets are lying beneath our discussion partners' or debate opponents' positions and arguments? How are we going to deal with them? The questions are legitimate, to be sure, but the answer is not as difficult to find as you may think: just like it says in the Good Book, "by their fruits, you shall know them". Yes, we only need take seriously what they are saying (or writing or doing) and a closer look at these can reveal what some of those fundamental assumptions are. We are then free(r) to deal with the arguments themselves. We can draw some reasonable conclusions about what might be driving a particular argument thereby making it easier to deal with the substance of that argument and not who in particular is delivering it.

An introduction to the art of understanding

No one likes to think they don't understand something, especially if they're convinced they know something about it. We live in a very complex, dynamic, data-rich environment these days, and it is not always as easy to keep things straight as we might like. We're all busy. Few of us have any real time to ourselves, time to think or reflect or evaluate thoughts and ideas. Compounding the "problem", if you will, is that most everything we base our understanding on comes to us via language, and anyone who has ever seriously dealt with language as an object of study or who has learned, or even tried to learn, a language other than his/her native one knows that language is at best an ambiguous medium of communication.

Our lack of time to serious engage what we hear and read is a huge contributor to the problem of miscommunication and misunderstandings. There is no doubt about that. It is not the only cause. Just as serious is the fact that most people never had the opportunity to learn how to critically engage what they hear and read, and many who got a taste of it think they've mastered it, even though they haven't.

Don't get me wrong. I don't doubt for a second that this latter group is as sincere as anyone else, but we all have to realize that having an opinion should be the result of thought, not the replacement for thought. Thinking about things -- seriously thinking about things -- takes time, energy, skill, and practice.

Every one of us assumes much more about reality than we are ready or willing to admit. For the most part, most people aren't even aware that we start from some very fundamental assumptions. For example, there are those who believe that people are inherently bad (or evil or sinful or cruel or greedy or even some combination of these), others that humans are inherently good (or cooperative or social or kind or loving or perhaps some combination of these). In both cases, however, we are dealing with assumptions. This particular kind of assumption is actually called a pre-supposition; that is, we suppose it is so and hence we don't question its validity, because to us it is simply given that things are thus and so.

Assumptions are neither good nor bad, in general, we all have them and there are simply some things about life that we can't know for sure. The problem is that most of us are unaware of what our fundamental assumptions and pre-suppositions are, and as a result, we are not aware of how much they influence our understanding of what we see, hear, and read. For example, for a person who believes that people are inherently bad, stories of sacrifice and altruism will be met with general skepticism. One might even argue that these people were really doing what they did to gain something for themselves. On the other hand, someone who believes that people are inherently good will "explain" bad things that happen in terms of how abused or mistreated the perpetrator might have been which caused him or her to do whatever heinous deed is in question. What both of these simple situations have in common is that they are not reasoned, they are simply assumed. They are the starting points from which we start to build our understanding of the situations or events involved.

In our hectically paced modern lives, it is certainly difficult to find the time and focus to think about why we believe what we do, but it colors everything we think we understand. It doesn't make understanding more difficult, it only makes it, in the end, less certain.

Making the world a better place

When I was young, and idealistic, I believed I'd be able to make the world a better place, that I would be able to leave it better off when I left than when I came. It's awful when you realize that no matter what you did, things only got worse. My children should be angry with me. Fortunately, they're not. They don't think it's all my fault. They're good kids.

When I was young and idealistic, I wanted to be a teacher. That was all I ever really wanted to be, professionally. It was a given I'd go to college and get a teaching degree, which I did, and then I could start realizing my ideals. Funny how life always manages to get in the way. I never did get to teach in America, like I had "planned". Uncle Sam had other plans for me, even though he never asked me what I thought of them. Three years away from it all (but fortunately not in Vietnam) put me at the back of the teacher pack. Just another good idea gone to waste.

Most of my friends, girlfriends, and fraternity brothers did go into teaching. Most of them stuck it out for the required 30 years so they could retire, and most of them have. I'm still working, of course, because I never really got into that teaching groove like I had intended. Still, I managed to teach for a while, in Germany, at a boarding school, but fate determined that I wasn't going to change the German world either, I suppose. It didn't take all that long and I was on a plane to the States (California to be exact) and leaving teaching for good. Not that I wanted to, really. At some point you realize that you do what you have to do because of the family ... well, if the family means anything to you, that is. Mine did. And so I found myself out in the hard, cold world of business, and watching us produce the handbasket that was going to take us to Hell. I suppose I was making my contribution. I just never thought it'd be that one.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. I've been a very lucky guy. I may have never been able to do what I once dreamed of doing, but I got the family fed and raised, I met some extraordinary people I probably would have missed otherwise, and I learned one hell of a lot about life and the world as most people have to experience it. I managed to get an inside look at more than one culture and I've been able to experience a good chunk of the world.

But, that original dream is fading. I think about it a lot these days, and when I look around, I realize that at the moment, the world is in anything but a better state than when I found it. I'm not solely responsible for how it is, that's for sure, and just one little guy in this big, jumbled mess probably isn't a real recipe for success. Still, I can't help but wonder why it is that apparently I'm the only one that sees this. Just about everybody I talk to tries to convince me that the world's always been a pretty nasty place and you just have to make do the best you can. Maybe, but why do I just have to try to do the best that I can, why haven't we figured out how to the best that we can?

The world as it is cannot be the best that we can do, can it?

Manning, cowardice, and silence (Update)

This morning there was an interesting press release posted at truth-out.org, namely that a petition has been started, to be signed by those who would be willing to serve part of Manning's eventual sentence.

While I'm fundamentally not a petition fan, since they are simply too easy to ignore, I was taken by the fact that the purpose of the petition was not to defeat evil, rather

The goals of the petition are to let Bradley Manning know how much we appreciate his work as a whistleblower for human rights. The petitioners also want to let the sentencing judge, the convening authority and anyone else who reviews the case see that many Americans strongly support Manning to the point where they are willing to go to prison for him.

This caught my attention, of course, because it specifically addresses the complaint I raised in my recent post that there was too much silence surrounding the Manning case. This silence, as we know, is being enhanced by the mainstream media. As the propaganda organ of the powers-that-be (TPTB), it has little, if any, interest in justice. In fact, it's hard to speak of justice at all these days. But, be that as it may ...

The chances that anything will come of this may be small. As one commenter already noted, "talk is cheap", but talk still "costs" more than mere silence. I, for one, am happy to admit that I was at least partly wrong in my assessment, even if my overall point has not been thereby refuted: TPTB oppress (and torture) the little folks because they can, and they protect the real villians, because they are the villians themselves.

As of this writing, over 3,500 people have signed. If you are interested, you can find the petition here. Of course, more information can also be found on the I Am Bradley Manning website.

The Snowden snow-job

There was a very wise man once who remarked that "by their fruits you shall know them". He was, I'll admit, a bit of a rebel, perhaps a downright troublemaker, but I like to think of him as a courageous individual who was willing to not only call 'em as he saw 'em, but was right about most of what he saw.

Talk's cheap. We all know that, and some folks make a career out of cheap talk. Lawyers spring to mind, but, as is too often the case, politicians elbow their way to the front of the line. And while the vast majority of Americans, for example, have little, if any faith, in their elected officials, and even though an increasing number wail and moan about too much government, too many of these people are willing to accept the assertion that Edward Snowden is not only a criminal, he's a traitor. It's easy to say, but it's difficult to prove. Of course, a lot of us are wondering if it will ever come to that ... proving it, that is. After all, like with Bradley Manning, he was guilty upon arrest, the conviction was merely to legitimize it all after the fact.

Like Manning, Snowden, released classified information to the public. There's no question about that; like Manning, he's admitted to it. Like Manning, he believed that he could no longer be apart of that nefarious apparatus that was doing the collection. He felt "the people" had the right to know. Unlike Manning who exposed the war crimes of the American government, Snowden exposed the civilian crimes that same government was committing: the unwarranted, whole-scale collection of data and meta-data of communications by its enemies, sure, but also its friends and its own people.

What surprises me more than anything else, like in the Manning case, is the silence. There should be outrage. Snowden did us a favor, whether we like it or not. He confirmed the suspicion that so many of us have had for so long: our own government thinks no more of its own people, no more of its allies, no more of its supporters than it does of its enemies. That is paranoia writ large. That is possibly schizophrenia. It is a strong indication that America is sick. Very, very sick.

But, Americans take it. They've pulled in their heads into their little turtle shells and will continue to believe, to tell themselves, how great, noble, and honorable their country is, how proud they are to be Americans, lying to themselves and showing the world that what once may have been great is now decrepit, what once may have been noble is now deceiving, what once may have been honorable is now treacherous.

America no longer leads by example, unless hypocrisy is worth emulating. The self-proclaimed "land of the free and home of the brave" has become its own prison led by violently inclined cowards who know no more reason, only force (any country refusing to extradite Snowden will be punished). By what right? Since when does might make right?

It's a sad day, not only, but especially for America. By their fruits you shall know them.

Manning, cowardice, and silence

It's been about a week ... enough time to cool down and take a more reasonable look at recent events. As Dark Helmet said in "Spaceballs", "There's an upside, and a downside ...". The upside was that in the first round, Bradley Manning was found not guilty of "aiding the enemy". The downside is that there was this trial -- if one can even call it that -- at all.

When crimes become known, when suspects or perpetrators are identified, our sense of justice calls for a trial. When this happens so selectively, when suspects and perpetrators are treated so inhumanely, and when punishment is the sole aim, then it is difficult to speak of justice at all. And if there must be punishment at all, wouldn't it at least be some semblance of justice if it were to fit the crime? When none of this holds, which is the case with Bradley Manning, all you are left with is a travesty.

We know that leading and not-so-leading figures on Wall Street lied to, cheated and stole from the public and their investors causing the biggest financial meltdown in modern times. Innumerable laws were broken, and in the aftermath death and destruction followed. We know that lives were destroyed, suicides committed ... we know who the perpetrators are but they will never be brought to justice. They will never even be charged.

We know that Bush and Blair, but primarily Bush, lied, cheated and stole (in this case, trust) from the American public and plunged the country into unpayable debt and an unwinnable war. He is responsible for the deaths of upwards of a million people ... Lady Macbeth couldn't live with even one ... and he authorized the use of torture and terror, all in the name of Freedom, so he, too, will never face a day in court, even though what he did was both illegal and utterly immoral.

But, Bradley Manning, who, for whatever reasons, committed much lesser wrongs, who has not caused a single death, who has merely exposed the hypocrisy, two-facedness and immorality of the supposed "good guys", well, he's looking at up to 136 years in prison. And to top it off, he has been mistreated, tortured, abused, maligned, and set upon by a media thirsting for blood, and what do we hear? Silence.

Most people don't know what he did. Most people have not taken the time to consider what information he actually released. He never argued that he did and he even tried to give his side of the story ... not so that he would be exonerated -- he never expected that apparently -- but so that others would understand why. We know for a fact that at least once he took seriously his duty as an American soldier to report human rights violations to his superior officers. We also know for a fact that his superior officer not only failed to follow up on Manning's plea, he participated in its suppression (which is punishable by the same code of military justice that decided it needn't bring charges at all), and so it all falls upon the shoulders of one rather defenseless individual.

Those who have the most to say have the most to lose and they also have the means -- fair or foul, right or wrong -- to defend themselves. Those who are at the bottom of the food chain are expected to say thank you for being torn to shreds by the lions instead of the tigers, or something to that effect. These are clear signs of cowardice. Manning will be made an example of, for whatever petty crimes his oppressors deem fit. Those who committed the real crimes, the big crimes, will go free to be praised and applauded by the ignorant.

No, no one ever said that life is or would ever be fair. But we as humans know what justice is and we know how to achieve it, but we are choosing cowardice instead. The oppression of Bradley Manning is an act of sheer cowardice. And matching that is the silence of all those who know how he has been treated and what is to become of him is no way commensurate with whatever wrongs we believe he may have committed. And that silence is simply shameful.

Is there anything left to save?

For reasons that I will go into at another time, at last check, in my mind, the following things are seriously, if not irreparably, broken (and this applies universally):

• ourselves (self-absorption, self-centeredness, greed)
• our societies (competition instead of cooperation; blame-the-victim mentality)
• our environment (global warming, excessive carbon emissions)
• our political system (totalitarian regimes, pseudo-democracies, special interests)
• our monetary system (irrespective of currency, debt-based)
• our financial system (value of debt grossly exceeds value of what we can produce)
• our economic system (too few have's & too many have-nots, unequal opportunity)
• our infrastructure (insufficient tax revenues, privatization, special interests)
• our education system (test-score mania, privatization, excessive costs)
• our justice system (Bradley Manning, incarceration rate, SCOTUS)
• our value system (theocracies, pseudo-theocracies, social Darwinism)

Oh, I suppose the list goes on, but that's about all I can handle at the moment. I'm neither whining nor complaining. Rather, I'm merely observing. For each one of these areas there are, without a doubt, more than enough "experts" running around with diagnoses and panaceas, and for the most part, these are well-meant, but nevertheless wrong. Each one looks at its own given area and ignores that some other area is equally affected. If we weren't so screwed up ourselves, our societies would be in better shape. If we had a reasonable monetary or financial system, the economy wouldn't be such a problem, and there's a lot that could be done about the environment, education, and infrastructure. That kind of thing.

Overarching everything, though, I would place our value system, for it is this that determines, at least in a sense, what it is we care about at all. Although religion once attempted to do that (and I'll let history be the judge of how successful it has been ... for it was, and to a certain extent still is, the case that religion provided different cultures a common meeting ground), that, too, has devolved into a mumble-jumble of creeds, factions, and belief systems that simply legitimize -- well, attempt, rather unsuccessfully, I might add, to legitimize -- one group's superiority over another. That is especially what religious fundamentalism (of any flavor) is all about.

It is possible, by virtue of some yet-foreseen miracle that we might be able to salvage (I'm not sure about save) perhaps the infrastructure, perhaps parts of the environment (but I doubt enough), but that's about it. Without a value system, an agreed-to set of values that are valid and applicable to everyone -- regardless of race, color, religion, creed, culture, or nationality -- we will never be able to decide which of the items on that list we should even try to save.

Why am I less than optimistic? Well, because of the first item on that list: ourselves. When it comes to change, we all know, that is definitely something that everyone else needs to do, but not ourselves, and that's one reason we can never work off the list. If you can't get past the first item, you've no chance of ever getting to the end. It will just be the end.