Perceptions

He looked and looked and looked again;
he rubbed his eyes and looked and then
he saw so clear, but knew not what
it meant to him, or so the thought,
until he tried to sort things out,
but then his mind was full of doubt
and still unsure his mind did stray:
the vision would not go away,
nor would the tastes, the smells, the sound,
all signals full load, all in-bound,
until his head would sheer explode
or maybe, it would just implode:
it didn't matter either way,
his self he tried so hard to save
to no avail, he'd lost his hold
upon his dreams – no, those he'd sold –
and so he tried to take firm hold
of what he saw; he thought he'd told
what was right, good, of course, the truth;
he thought he'd done so since his youth,
yet that was just a twist of fate
and breathing in, he tried to wait
but stumbling, grasping, thinking back
he couldn't say, he'd lost the track
or scent or trail or what it's called
and losing more, he was appalled
that he, so proud, of all he knew
could find himself in such a stew,
for this was stuff for simpler men
who rubbed their eyes and looked again.
But all we've got are senses, five:
without them, we could not survive.

It's all about perspective, or is it?

One of the most insightful, sometimes biting, and, unfortunately, too short-lived TV series ever produced was Father Ted. Those of you on the left shore of the Atlantic may not have ever heard of it, but it was, one of the few TV shows I have been willing to sit down and watch. I don't mention this because I want to plug the show, but because there was a scene in one of them that smacked me upside the head the first time I saw it and which has left a ringing in my ears ever since. Yes, sometimes, in the least likely of places, you can find just the key you need to open the door to a new world. And, thanks to the wonders of the internet, of course, I can share it with you (... and the important part comes after the tea kettle).

It's all about perspective, isn't it? But the real question that comes to my mind is, "How many of us are Dougals (that would be the young priest in the scene)?

You can scoff. Go right ahead. You can think I couldn't possibly be talking to you, but just how sure are you? After all, we love perspectives as postmodern denizens of Spaceship Earth. We live from perspectives. We thrive on perspectives. We live and move and find our being in perspective. Am I exaggerating? I don't think so.

Just what is "perspective"? Well, it's a way of looking at things, it's a particular way of looking at something, it's looking at something from a particular point of view; that is, it's a way of looking at something that depends rather essentially on the person doing the looking and the particular point from which the looking is taking place. If I'm looking at an elephant, let us say, from the front, then one of the most striking features I see is its trunk. If you are looking at the same elephant from the rear, well, then you have to decide whether it is the tail, what it hides, or whatever that is most prominent in your view of things. Having a particular take on a particular view that is particular to you has very much in common with what we call "opinions". And therein lies the rub, as Billy Quiverlance would say. When you get right down to it, perspectives are pretty much just opinions.

Now, for all of you who think I'm equating your way of looking at the world with looking at an elephant's butt, let me add that there is nothing wrong with opinions in and of themselves; not any more that there's anything wrong with looking at an elephant from the back or any other point of view. Opinions should be the result of thought, not a substitute for thought, but I do think you'll agree that there are far too many opinions that we are exposed to these days that have more in common with Dougal's comprehension of the world than Father Ted's. Yes, Bill, you are quite correct, the rub is beginning to chafe.

What most of us don't know, however, is that having a particular view of (any)thing(s) and knowing that it's our particular view is a rather new phenomenon in the evolution of the world. Oh sure, we all take it for granted, but it's really only something that we humans have been wrestling with for about the last 500 years. In geological or evolutional or even historical terms, that's not long ago at all.

It doesn't surprise me that Dougal hasn't fully come to terms with what perspective means. By the same token, it doesn't surprise me at all that most people don't deal with perspectives, and certainly not with opinions, very well. My problem is that in contrast to the show, where Dougal is rather quiet and reserved, today's Dougals are the ones making the most noise.

Isolation and massification

We're such big stuff, we Westerners, we highly-advanced, technologically-savvy, possession-addicted want-it-alls. Yeah, there's nothing that we don't think we deserve, well anything pleasurable, luxurious, flashy and envy-instilling, that is. Nah, there's not a resource so precious, not a landmass so pristine, not an environment so enlivening that we wouldn't sacrifice it to satisfy our greed, our need for more, our own personal satisfaction.

Oh, you can go to church on Sunday and pray all week that you don't get on the wrong side of G-d's wrath. You can believe for a whole monthful of Sundays that the witness you bore is some kind of get-out-of-hell free card. You can have undying faith that science is on your side or you're on science's and don't need any of that superstitious bunk. You can strut and parade and peacock your way all over town and through the mall, but in the end, I mean at the end of the day, when the sun goes down, when the cold dark of night engulfs you, you're still just another spoiled, overfed, frightened and lonely child, regardless whether your team crushed its weakly opponents or not. And when you drag your sad eyes open tomorrow morning, you'll only have the certainty that you're another cog in the wheel, a number in the system. Just when was it that you lost touch with everything that mattered?

Welcome to life in the postmodern world. Our world, t-h-e world, the only world we'll probably ever know, and it's a world of our own making. A world in which lifeless, soulless, imaginary (juridicial) entities, corporations, are people, and real people, people like you and me and our jerk of a neighbor are no longer even human. We're customers, consumers, clients who nobody listens to nor cares about once our wallets are empty. A world in which money, the love of which is the root of all evil, is free speech, and the more of it you have, the louder you can be. A world in which machines are programmed to make cookies all a bit different so that you get the feeling, have the illusion, that when you pull it out of the package, it was made just for you. A world in which we can individually customize any product or service to be delivered by a machine. A world in which machines are smarter, quicker, faster, more capable, and in the majority opinion more valuable than any single one of us.

Oh sure, you're you. You're your own person. You're in charge of your own life, but not in the least. From morning till night you're told what to wear, what to eat, how to dress, how to smell, how to talk, to be cool, to be noticed, to be twittered, if you're lucky, into your 15 seconds of fame. Sorry Andy, but we don't have minutes left for anyone anymore.

Yes, we're all our own selves, but selves disconnect from anyone who doesn't walk, talk, think, act, or like the same things we do. We're just lonely little selves. But you'll wave your home team's colors, or your school's or your company's or your country's, so that everyone can see that you belong, that you're one of whomever, but there your lonely self is merely an anonymous member/fan/alumni/citizen in the crowd.

Such is our postmodern world, and we all know, but few of us want to admit, that, well, things just can't go on like they are. Something has got to give. And it will, I can assure you. But the real question is, are you ready for it?

“You can’t crush ideas by suppressing them. You can only crush them by ignoring them. By refusing to think, refusing to change.”
― Le Guin, The Dispossessed

If you can't turn around, at least turn the wheel

Although I don't know how many times I have to say it before it becomes clear, it should be dawning on you -- even if ever so slightly -- that we can't go on with "business as usual", as if "business" were a good metaphor for anything.

The difference between what we say and what we do is huge. The difference between what we know would be good for us all and what we have is huge. The difference between what we believe and what is real is huge. The days of small-step changes are, well, for the most part behind us, if they even exist any more at all.

Don't you just hate it when that happens? Here we are, like frogs in the pot of water, thinking that things aren't as bad as everyone says and that with a tweak here, a small adjustment there; a declaration of commitment here and a gee-wouldn't-it-be-nice there; with a mere "return" to some odd values that were never actually there; well, then things would just be peachy keen and the world would be a nice place again. The water's boiling, however, and if we weren't frogs, our goose would be cooked.

But hey, as George Orwell once said, "In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." And he also said, "The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it." George was a wise man, and insightful on top of everything else. No, don't get me wrong: I'm not comparing myself to him in any way. I think he got it, and I like to think I understand what he's saying. I'm not (yet) despised by many (OK, a few, but who isn't), and for the most part those who don't want anything to do with me feel that way for reasons much more personal than whether whatever I say might have some similarity with "the truth". Fair enough. What I am thinking, though, is that in these days and times, even looking for the truth is close to revolutionary. I've never really thought of myself as such, but with each passing day, I find myself closer than I would have ever imagined.

Revolutionaries are a strange breed, that's for sure. You've got your Lenins, your purveyors of the guillotine-driven French Revolution, the slave-owners-seeking-freedom types of the American Revolution ... hell, all advocates of violent revolution have been short-lived, ending up like the despots they drove out (the Beelzebub-Devil problematic, as I like to call it). On the other hand, there are the Mandelas, the Gandhis, and Jesus, just to name the most well-known, who knew that if you want real change -- even necessary change -- you've got to find it in yourself first. And who is really ready for that?

And that, dear reader, is the rub: Folks much smarter and wiser than me (e.g., Buckminster Fuller, Jacques Fresco, Jim Hurtak, Stan Tenen, Valentin Tomberg, Gar Alperovitz, E.F. Schumacher, Erich Fromm, Jean Gebser, just to name a few) have all made the case that any and all real change starts with ourselves. We can't wait for others to set the tone. We can't wait for others to show us the way. We can't wait for others to take the lead. We can't wait for others at all.

I know -- and believe it or not, I understand -- that not many of you are willing to (radically) "turn around". I wish you could, but I know that's expecting too much. Given that we now think what we've always thought, we've simply got just more of what we've always got. Nevertheless, you can make a start, and this start involves simply stopping to think what you think and take a step back to give it a good look-over. Regardless of how compressed time-frames are becoming, the least you can do is ask yourself whether there might be other options for a better future available.

I pledged but not necessarily allegiance ...

As I noted last time, saying the words is just a way of "talking the talk". The real test of anything we say is whether we're willing to act on it ... to "walk the walk", to keep in tune with the rhyming metaphor.

I know lots of talkers. Lots. At the moment we're talking about American talkers, but I'm here to tell you: mutatis mutandis (a Latin phrase that means, "all the relevant changes having been made") what I'm saying here applies everywhere else I've ever been as well, and beyond. Again, this is one of those cases in which my fellow countrypeople carry their obsessions on their sleeve, but they're really not as exceptional as they might like to think they are. No, what I'm looking for are "walkers": people who are willing to put into practice what they preach, folks who are willing to do, not just say.

Even once we get past that swearing-one's-allegiance-to-a-piece-of-cloth thing and leave the realm of the actual for the more ethereal realm of the possible, what does this "oath" require? Assuming that the sayers are serious about that "one-nation" stuff, how long does it take for it all to break down? Two more words, as Fate would have it.

The original pledge, written by a fascist-friendly Baptist pastor who wanted to have it said with right arms extended forward (yes, as in "Sieg, heil"), didn't include the "under God" part. That was a 1954-we've-got-to-distance-ourselves-from-those-atheistic-Commies addition. If it's included, what does it mean for Americans today? If it's an essential or mandatory part, then, quite simply, no atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, Shinto, Taoist, and, conceivably, Moslem (though the stretch is not far) can say it in good conscience. I don't know how many of these there are in America, but it's more than a handful. There are those who insist that the phrase be included, even if it excludes so many fellow "patriots". Personally, I think we can leave it out because it wasn't there to begin with, and since the Commie threat has passed, it's doubly unneeded, but that's just my own little view of things.

No, what interests me more than anything else is what follows, that short little phrase, "indivisible, with liberty and justice for all". When I look across the Pond these days, I see anything but something "indivisible": right and left, Democrats and Republicans, gun nuts and concerned citizens, North and South, East and West, the racial divide, and the treatment of immigrants -- just to name the most obvious -- point to anything but indivisibility. Which talkers are doing anything about that?

The very last six words, though, are the killer: in a country that recognizes "affluenza" as a disease, that has a disproportional number of minorities in prison, most often for negligible offenses, that has the starkest income inequality in the Western world (and is in the top 3 worldwide) and that is home to the Patriot Act, the NDAA, the CIA and NSA, that has the most militarized police force in the "free world", well, I have to ask myself, what are the pledgers doing about this?

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that all those "rising to defend the pledge" are actually just doing their part to ensure that nothing about it holds true. It's just so much hot air. What we should be doing is protecting and helping the weak and maligned, seeking ways to come together, and speaking truth to power. But we're not. We're wishing for the "good old days" that were never really good, and are nothing but old.

The way out of the darkness is not behind you, it's in front of you.

I pledge allegiance ...

These are the opening words of a statement than every American school child was expected to render each and every day of school at one time. It probably persists today, but I don't know, for I'm not there. What I do know, however, is that more than just a few friends of mine bring it up again and again (on Facebook, for example) and there is a strong feeling that it's not being pushed hard enough.

It is, therefore, time to take a look at this pledge and ask ourselves just what is being said, and, in addition, whether we should be pledging it at all.

Note bene: for my non-American readers, this is an exercise in examining something Americans think is important. Consider it a lesson in cultural studies, or Landeskunde, as my German friends would say. In the next post, I'll take another look at it from a broader, more inclusive perspective.

The pledge, as originally written, is as follows:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation [under God] indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

First of all, a flag is a piece of cloth, in most cases, and it is, at best, a physical representation of an idea or an ideal. It doesn't matter which. What we find, first and foremost, however, is an oath to a mere piece of matter which has been, somehow, in some inexplicable way, be endowed with almost religious significance. Immediately, though, we are informed that the same degree of devotion, of submission, is to the republic that the flag is meant to symbolize, namely the USA. This entity is then described as a singular, united, unified "nation", which as of 1954 by legislative decree is imbued with divine oversight, that ascribes to and practices "liberty" (freedom in a political sense) and "justice" (equal treatment before the law) for all.

It's a nice sentiment, but is it applicable? When the pledge is expressed, it's a matter of "talking the talk". But, putting it into practice would be a matter of "walking the walk". But that's a topic for next time.

No, at the moment the question that is plaguing me, is how so many people who either believe or would like to believe that the United States was founded on sound, Christian principles, reconcile this pledge with their beliefs. Think about it:

1. There are numerous places in the Bible, especially the New Testament, that strongly indicate one shouldn't be swearing oaths.
2. While it is on the surface, at least, a pledge, it certainly sounds like an "oath", especially when you consider what the law proscribes for desecrating the symbol, let alone the "republic for which it stands".
3. The discrepancy between what it describes ("liberty and justice for all") and what is reality (one of the greatest disparities between rich and poor, the inordinate number of people of color who receive harsher punishments, even for lesser crimes, the repeated attempts to modify, say, voting laws to discriminate against those same people of color, the drastic differences in adjudication between "those well off" and others (e.g., "affluenza")

I have to wonder about how people get these things together in their minds. For the moment, I think it's enough for you to think about.

Yes, this is the pledge that many, many Americans hold to be sacrosanct, but before we even look at it in a critical way, questions present themselves that every one of us should be required to think about seriously.

The time game

There a quite a few people I know who yearn for the "good old days", you know, those times when the world was still OK. Most people are referring to their childhoods, and for those I've known since then, I can tell you that the times then weren't all that great.

But, we think they were (or at least like to think they were). Our perception of them over the passage of times makes them appear that they were. Most of all, we wish they were. Hindsight is 20-20. Time heals all wounds. Or, as Heraclitus noted, Time is a game played beautifully by children.

We are, however, no longer children. The relentlessness of the seeming endless march through morning, noon, and night. Our continual obsession with the past, our total ignorance of the present, and our self-induced fear of the future haunt us mercilessly. And we think that somehow time moves unerringly from some point in the past toward that most-feared point in the future, death. Then we remember, sometimes only fleeting, how beautifully we played the game of time when we were children.

What bothers most of us and what bothers us most is the fact that it seems to be moving faster, that it seems to be slipping away from us. We invented clocks to mark the hours and somehow know that a minute then was really no different from a minute now, but it certainly seems different. We all know that as we grow older our sensation of time accelerates, and given the fact that our lives are now driven by the clock, it seems all the worst. And then we find ourselves wasting time, even (ruthlessly) killing time ... how sick do we have to get before we realize that we've that we no longer have any idea how the time game is played.

So here we are, all grown up; our own persons; doing our own thing and making our own decisions; pretending to be large and in charge, bragging that we've paid our dues and know how to play the game ... but that's a much different game we think we know how to play. Sure, there are lots of folks who can play the get-what-you-want game, the pulling-the-wool game, the talk-big game, the act-brave game, and many more besides. But the real game, the most important game of all is the one we forgot how to play.

Too bad, too sad, it was the most fun game of all.

In a bind or facing a dilemma?

Some of you have probably asked yourselves at some time or another, "Just what does he do with all his time everyday?" It's a legitimate question, and it deserves a legitimate answer. It's very simple, really: I wonder. Yes, I wonder a lot.

Obviously, as anyone who has read even a small selection of these posts will tell you, I wonder about a lot of things. But the thing I probably wonder about more than anything else is whether "things" (whatever they may be, or whatever you may perceive them to be) are ever going to really change. Oh sure, there are little things here and there: the distribution of parties in Congress or parliament, the price of fuel, the weather ... everyday, normal, things. No, I'm talking about significant changes, like saving the planet, stopping global warming, invoking a more equitable economic system ... not-everyday, big things. The more I wonder, the more I wonder why I wonder.

Most people who are in a position to read these posts don't really want to change anything at all. They've got a little bit of whatever that allows them to at least think that things aren't all bad and that, basically, they're doing OK, and they're concerned that if anything fundamental changes, the world as they know it will come to an end. I can understand that. Really. I think it's unjustified and unnecessary, but I understand how someone can come to think like that. In fact, in the course of my wondering, I believe I know why it is so easy to start thinking like that: fear. Yes, simple, basic, fundamental, existential fear.

The life we lead, the lives we live are tenuous at best. They can drastically change or end suddenly, without warning, for no apparent reason at all. Just ask anyone who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness without having even suspected they were ill, or someone who lost a loved one in a traffic accident or plane crash, or someone comes down with a major illness and sees their life savings flushing down the drain. There are more than enough of these people around, and there is not a thing that any of them ever did to "deserve" their fate. It was simply the luck of the draw, bad luck, if you will. It wasn't their "fault". They didn't do anything wrong. They are not being punished by any Higher Power. Whether you like it or not, and whether you want to admit it or not, lots, if not most, things in life are simply decided by pure chance. Or are they? We know all that rags-to-riches, Horatio Alger crap is no more than that: just crap. If working hard translated into financial success then practically all the women in Africa would be billionaires, but they're not.

And that brings me to my bind, or dilemma ... I haven't yet decided which: how do I get any of you to see that things really aren't the way you think they are? You, I, we all live under the delusion that those simple platitudes we were fed as children, those inspiring Bible quotes we get at Sunday school, those "authoritative" descriptions of how things are are, well, untrue. And if that's too strong a word, how about inaccurate? inadequate? irrelevant? impractical? less than factual? I don't care. You choose.

Oh, I know that there is a good number of you who know that you need to sit down and seriously re-evaluate a lot of things you believe. I also know that most of you will give it a bit of thought and then you'll put it aside. At some point, though, what we think and what we believe has to line up with what we do. It's this latter part that is so often ignored. It's about what we do.

And that's what I wonder about more than anything else: when are we going to actually DO something?

The 4th of July

Yes, yes, yes, it is that time again. Break out the BBQ, fire up the coals, get ready for the fireworks ... it's time to celebrate. This is a big day for Americans, that's for sure, but what is it exactly they are celebrating? This is not a question that just sprang to mind. I've been asking it for most of my life. Most Americans will tell you, it was on July 4, 1776 that America declared its independence from Britain and became a new nation (though it took a war and 13 more years to establish that fact), signaling a new era in the development of the nation-state and enshrining freedom and liberty as the hallmarks of this new phase of existence.

Now, I really don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but right here at the outset, I find myself confused. Historians agree that the Peace of Westphalia (1648) marks the birth of the modern nation-state. The USA certainly wasn't the first, and as we have seen over the course of the last 366 years, nation-states come and go. Just ask Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, if you don't believe me. There are older people in the Czech Republic who have had three different nationalities in their lifetime and they've never left their village. Just what kind of a role does the nation really play in our lives?

And how is it that these people -- or any of us for that matter -- become citizens? I have an American passport because I was born there. How did I come to be born there? The luck of the draw. There is no rational reason why I couldn't have been born in Sub-Saharan Africa or in China or Tibet, or on some Lapp island above the Artic Circle. We place absolutely no value on chance or coincidence in any other aspect of our lives, but when it comes to which passport you can get, one's place of birth is a really big deal. A mere chance event has everything to say about one's loyalties, one's obligations, and one's commitments. Why is it only applicable in this case?

OK, maybe it's about the ideas of Freedom and Liberty. Well, back there in 1776, only white, male property owners were free. There was still indentured servitude; women were chattel; slavery was not only legal but acceptable, and we were on the threshold of carrying out the systematic and ruthless genocide of all those people who were there before the Europeans came to "settle this savage land". What does freedom and liberty mean to these people? And, how free is a country with a concentration camp in Guantanamo where they can send their own citizens without due process (provisions of the NDAA)? How free is a country which brutally suppresses peace demonstrations (cf. reaction to the Occupy movement)? How free is a country that spies upon and collects data on its citizenry for no other reason than they they can? How free is a country that enslaves its more fortunate young people with life-long debt and which denies opportunites to its less fortunate (read: poor) youth? How free is a country that blatantly expects more for itself than for any other country (say, like Iraq)?

Don't get me wrong: I love holidays as much as the next fellow, maybe even more. I love celebrating and having a good time and being able to spend quality time with family and friends. You will have to excuse me, however, if I don't get all choked up and teary-eyed. I'm saving that for such a time that the USA (or any other country, for that matter) actually makes an honest attempt to live up to the ideals they claim to hold so highly. If you want me on your side, walk the walk, don't just talk the talk.

Maybe not nuts, but not completely sane either

You don't have to be a cogent observer to notice that most folks like to hear what suits them and tend to reject things that don't agree with their own prejudices. We tend to hang around with people we agree with more than those we tend to fight or argue with all the time. I think we all know that in the long run this doesn't do a lot for us. Sooner or later, we start missing important facts and information, and the quality of the decisions we make starts deteriorating.

This was reinforced in particular by an article I read on what our brain does wrong (allegedly). We tend to emphasize the negative, see meaning in things where there may not be a lot, we overlook the obvious, we place too much value on what we think others think and our attention is easily captured and distracted. Most of these, according to the author, were valuable traits when we were young as a species wandering aimlessly across the savannah, but now that we live in a highly techonologized complex environment, all these once helpful features of our minds are now just a burden. In other words, we have evolved to be the way we are, but we evolved wrong.

I don't know about you, but this conclusion struck me as absurd. It fit right in with the problem I described last time: we believe in something but act differently, we are unreasonable and inconsistent in our behavior. Yes, we -- our brains -- are susceptible to error ... but here is the crux: there's not a thing we can do about it; it's simply how we evolved. I'm sure the article's author had a more positive intent, but anyone really paying attention quickly sees what a two-edged sword this conclusion is. On the one hand, if we can't help it, we're not responsible; we're off the hook. On the other hand, it casts a healthy shadow of doubt upon the accomplishments, the wisdom of our science.

Now, I don't believe the science is completely wrong. This whole idea about suitable genes surviving does have a certain attractiveness about it, but it ignores the fact that whatever gene we're talking about is part of a pool of genes that all humans have. In other words, it ignores the role of others in evolution and even Darwin was convinced at the end that cooperation was a stronger evolutionary force than competition. Unfortunately, the article's author wasn't capable of making these finer distinctions. Where the author really got off track, though, was in the implicit assumption that these behaviors (listed above) are hardwired into our brains; there's nothing we can do about them. This is simply untrue. What all of those features have in common, if you stop to take a closer look, is lack of awareness. We are not consciously present enough in our own lives. We are on autopilot too often. It's time to get back in the game (of life).

Being on autopilot explains a lot about why we are the way we are and how we got into the particular predicament we humans are in. Our preferred way is, of course, the path of least resistance. We simply can't afford that any longer. Whether we like it or not, it's time to wake up and get with it.

Are we nuts?

Yes, negotiating the highs and lows of observing my fellow human beings is not without its risks. Sooner or later, though, all of us observers ask ourselves the very same question: "Are we nuts?" Really, at some point we all start asking ourselves if we humans are mentally unbalanced, or worse.

Think about it:

• we don't listen to reason
• we ignore facts we don't like
• ideology substitutes for thought more often than not
• we question as good as nothing
• we act against our own best interests, and
• when we react, it is usually violently

Those aren't the signs of a happy, healthy individual. It's even worse when birds of a feather start flocking together. It too often ends up looking like a murder of crows, not a gaggle of geese.

To top it all off, as a species it is starting to become clear that we're suicidal as well. You don't think so? What do you call what we are doing to the environment. Denying global warming doesn't make it go away. Merely saying the oceans are really big does reduce the rate of acidification. Declaring bankruptcy doesn't make the water in West Virginia safe. On a global scale, Bill McKibben's 2012 Rolling Stone article, "Global Warming's Terrifying New Math", explains the three numbers spelling our doom in a way that any reasonable layperson could understand: We can't afford a 2^o C increase in the Earth's temperature (as was agreed to in Copenhagen in 2009), but we're already way ahead of schedule (the temperature has gone up 0.8^o C since then); it is clear that the atmosphere can take - best-case scenario - only 565 gigatons more of CO₂ by 2050 to stay under the two-degree mark, but we're already three-quarters of the way there already. The Fossil-Fuel Masters of Disaster, though, have 2,795 gigatons of CO₂ identified in current reserves, and they're doing all they can to find even more. We may not be able to handle a fifth of that, but they're looking for more. C'mon folks, their profits are our deaths. It is really that simple.

America, of course, was long the world's top polluter, but since they've outsourced most of their manufacturing to China, the Chinese have taken over the bad-boy role. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter who is the worst in the end, what does matter is what, if anything, any of us plan to do about it. The result of my observations is we're not going to do a damn thing. We're deluded enough to think this is all someone else's problem. To make matters worse, Congress, for example, has single-digit approval ratings, but 75% of the bozos there are going to get re-elected next time around. So much for democracy, eh? (And, by the way, if you think it is substantially different elsewhere, you're mistaken. It's not.)

No, I don't think it's all that unjustified to wonder about humanity's sanity. I just wish I knew how to make sense to crazy people.

Just spinning my wheels

Did you ever have that feeling that you're just not getting anywhere? Like you're stuck in the mud and your wheels are just going round and round, spraying muck, blowing smoke ... but you're not budging an inch? I do, from time to time, and this happens to be just one of them.

A friend of mine got on my case last week about being so negative ... why couldn't I find something positive to contribute? Another was on about me not being specific enough, not providing solutions (as if just anyone can simply identify issues). One of my kids wanted to know why I wasn't more involved. Someone else noted that I was being more quiet than usual. And I suppose they're all right. At least in their own ways.

The fact of the matter is it is difficult being an observer of human nature. Yes, I spend an inordinate amount of time (probably while most of you are sleeping) thinking about what makes humans tick and why. This is always a balancing act on the razor's edge between general and specific. Though too many people don't know it, we humans are all pretty much alike: we share a lot in common, not the least of which is our most fundamental attitudes toward our lives: we'd like them to be as hassle-free as possible but know full well, things will not go smoothly. OK, I don't personally know anyone literally struggling to survive, but I would imagine that that last statement of mine still sums up pretty well what they want. To them, perhaps, it is a dream; to us, however, it is a wish.

The greatest challenge to observers like me, though, is trying to figure out why we insist (at least it appears to me as a type of insistence) on doing things that are in our own worst interests. For those of us in the industrialized, developed West, we know our oil is running out, so we demand even more; we know that fossil fuels are shortening the life span of the planet, and we demand to use more; we know that big money is robbing us of our and our children's future, and we demand they be given even freer reign; we know our governments are abusing and restricting our long-fought-for rights, and we demand that they speed up the process; we know that our corporate overlords are repressing us and squeezing us dry, and we encourage them every chance we get.

I'll be the first to admit it: I just don't get it. There's no escape for any of us, regardless of which catastrophe is coming our way, be it the environmental one, the financial one or the political one. And they're all heading our way.

When I talk of these things to individuals, I get a lot of agreement and lots of good suggestions about what might be done. Yet, when I look out into the world, at our communities, regions, nations or trading blocks, there's not a hint of any of that to be seen. I keep hoping I'm missing something, but I have a nagging suspicion that I'm not, really.

Yep, just spinning my wheels ...

Helpless or hapless?

Lately I've been wondering a lot about whether there really is any hope for the human race. Yes, I know: it sounds simply awful. How can I be so negative? It's easy actually. How can the rest of you be so positive?

To me, some things are just obvious: global warming, peak resources, wealth inequality and unbridled greed, personal agendas and interests, broken systems, too much suspicion, hate and fear, just to name a few of the most obvious. Of course, if we can't, or won't, recognize nor acknowledge them, we can't do anything about them. What is also obvious to me is the fact that we can't go on like this, at least not all that much longer. We're pushing the envelope, but it's not the innovation one, it's the one labeled destruction.

Most of us are, well ... the Germans have a nice word for it ... überfordert. The verb fordern has the basic meaning of "to make demands of", hence too much is being asked of us; we are overtaxed, overburdened, overstrained, and overextended, all at the same time. We have trouble keeping up, not just with the Joneses, but generally. Getting through the day relatively unscathed is considered a masterful accomplishment for most of us. I'm sure most of you would like to think that there's a whole bunch of stuff "out there" that is causing this, but truth be told, the problem is simply "in here" with ourselves. We've got to get ourselves sorted first.

But what does that mean? Am I saying that we all need therapy or something? Well, I'm sure there are some who do, but for the most part, we need to take a moment and think seriously about what it is we truly believe. I know, that sounds rather abstract, and a lot of you are wondering what the hell I'm talking about. To most of you, it's clear what you think and believe, what opinions you hold, which political directions you favor ... at least you think you do, but I'd be willing to bet that you don't.

Oh, I don't doubt that quite a few of you know what you think, but I'd be even more willing to bet that you really don't know why. I say that because my experience has shown that most people don't even think it's necessary to ask the question. Granted, there is no requirement to ask why; no one can force us to either, but if we don't, we run the risk of watching everything around us simply get worse. And things are getting worse, whether you want to acknowledge it or not.

When we know (or feel assured as to) why we believe what we believe, we are more grounded, centered, and confident. We can act with more authenticity in the world. Things may be tough, but we know why. There may be challenges, but we have an orientation from which to confront them. Things may appear hopeless, but the chance still remains that we can do something about them.

When we don't know and when we don't even ask why, we reduce ourselves to mere pawns in the larger game. Our opinions will change in simple reactions to external stimuli. We give up our innate human abilities to at least influence our own lives. That, to me, is a good working definition of "hapless".

But thinking makes it so

For those of you who aren't convinced, I'm not necessarily trying to persuade you to believe anything in particular, rather, I'm only asking that you stop for a moment and think about what it is you believe, and even more than that, to think about why you believe whatever it is you believe. That's really not too much to ask, is it?

What we think we deserve, what we think people are responsible for (whatever "responsible" means in that context), who we are accountable to, or if we're accountable at all, what it means to have "earned" something, what role luck plays in our (and everybody else's) lives ... these are all topics (or issues, if you will) that we all need to think about. Why? Because they form the basis of the kind of world we end up living in. The world in which you find yourself is just there ... it happens to be where you woke up, if you will recall, but does it have to be the way it is? Is there anything we can do to make it different?

Most of you know full well that things do change and can change and that individuals, or at least groups of them, can effect that change as well. That's what the Civil Rights Movement, for example, was all about. It's also what Nazism and fascism in general was about. It's what feudalism and capitalism are all about as well. All of these things "just are", on the one hand, but they are also things that were not there once, were there, and are not, or may not be there at some later time. We all know things change, some in and of themselves, and others because the changes are consciously made. Change just is, as well. It can be a good change, it could be a bad change; it could be to our advantage, or it could be to our detriment.

Shakespeare, of course, has something to say about this, just like he has something to say about most things that matter. To him (as he puts it in Hamlet, Act 2, sc. ii:

... for there is nothing either good or bad,
but thinking makes it so.

Yes, "but thinking makes it so". Yes, we decide. It is our duty to decide. But, as I look around these days, I don't see a lot of deciding going on. I see a lot of accepting. I see a lot of averted glances. I see a lot of folks looking down at and shuffling their feet. Yet, not only don't I see a lot of deciding happening, I don't even see much of discussion going on either.

What does that say about our own thinking? What does that say about us? What does that say about what we might "deserve"? The extent of injustice, inequality, unfairness, and illegality that we see in abundance around us says a lot about who we are and who we have become. I don't like what I'm seeing. Do you? If not, what are we going to do about it?

The Guy II

So, why do I think I understand that guy, and what difference does it make?

Most of us like to think we're that guy, but we're not. Most people aren't even close. I'm not accusing anyone of anything. That's just the way it is. We'd like to stand out, but we don't want to feel the heat. We'd like to oppose, but we don't want the pain. We'd like to be the one who's different, but we don't want the rejection. Most people I know would be cheering and saluting. Why? Because they are merely everyday people like everyone else, like most of the people in that picture. We think it's the Germans, but it could be anybody. It could just as easily be Americans.

No? Think about this:

The leaders of America (for the past decade at least) are guilty of war crimes, just like the German leaders back then. America engages in unjustified and unjust military actions to further its own interests (e.g. Iraq), and it will exert great pressure on countries which dare to resist falling into line (e.g. Iran). The government has passed a number of laws that suppress, if not oppress, its weakest and most vulnerable citizens (or why is Social Security on the budget-bargaining table?). The State is anything but adverse to using excessive violence against anyone who takes it upon themselves to call them on their misdeeds (e.g. Occupy and Bradley Manning). It has instituted and enforces draconian laws that target certain ethnic minorities (e.g. highest incarceration rate in the world and a disproportionate number of these are Blacks and Hispanics). It is also willing to manipulate its own legislative and judicial processes to benefit certain, selected, special interests at the expense of the greater population (e.g. the 0.1%). It indoctrinates its young with revisionist history (e.g. was the US' treatment of the Native Americans genocidal or not?), and it declares unabashedly that its own patriotism is of far greater value and of a higher moral quality than anyone else's in the whole world (e.g. the Global War on Terror) ...

Oh, I could go on, but being able to come up with so many parallels so quickly, so easily, truly unsettles me. Americans today are really not all that different from Germans then. The motivations, the causes may be different, but the effects are too disturbingly similar to ignore.

It's hard for me to believe that Germans now are all that different from Germans then. I find it difficult to believe that Americans then are so different from Americans now. But, appearances can be deceiving – both then and now. I can't help but wonder what someone like me sixty years hence is going to be thinking when he looks at a picture of Americans now?

The guy in the picture stands out in his crowd. Are you standing out in yours? It would seem to me that if you're not condemning what is wrong, your condoning it. Now, more than ever, we need to be that guy.

The Guy I

A picture someone posted on Facebook is haunting me. It showed a circle highlighting an unsmiling man standing in the middle of a crowd, his arms folded demonstrably across his chest. He appeared annoyed. Everyone else was standing with their right arms extended, palms down, giving the now notoriously infamous Nazi salute. Many were cheering.

The picture's caption was simple. It said: Be this guy.

I can't get that picture out of my head. I'm assuming the people in the picture were Germans. They don't have to be, but it really doesn't matter. Just about everyone who sees that picture is going to think they are Germans anyway. That's just the association most of us will make. We like to think Germans – Nazis – nasty – cruel, mean, violent, vicious.

It's not a good thought. It's not accurate. It's stereotypical.

Not everyone in that picture was a Nazi. Not everybody who was saluting was a Nazi. Not everyone in that crowd was a bad person either. But, that also doesn't matter. Most of us think: you're saluting, you're cheering, you're a Nazi, you're guilty.

That's not a good thought either. Be the guy. That's a good thought.

We cannot know whether any of those saluting and cheering was doing so out of conviction or only because they didn't want to draw attention to themselves. We know where one guy stands. The rest? It's all speculation. But, even that doesn't really matter.

We think we know, even if we're not sure. We act according to what we think we know. That's what we believe.

For a long time, most people simply thought the Germans were not very nice people. There are a lot of Germans today who still think they not very nice. These folks feel like they, as a people, should have tried harder, and because they didn't, they let a lot of bad things happen. I can tell you that it's going to take a long time for all of them to come to terms with that past – whether deserved or not. Some of them will never get over it completely.

The Germans are, though, at heart, good people, as people go. They are warm, hospitable, friendly, open, curious, interested, and socially minded. Their basic life philosophy these days is "if my neighbor's doing well, then chances are that I'm doing pretty well too". Sure, they can be direct to a fault and they may not laugh at every joke (or even know a joke's been told), but they mean well and they try.

So, what's haunting me?

I identify with the guy. I've been told often enough in my life to get with the program, to get back in line, to get in step, to stop being the oddball, to, well, conform. I don't particularly mind people (parents, pastors, teachers, coaches, commanding officers, bosses, to name a few) telling me that. It doesn't bother me all that much. As far as I'm concerned, if they're telling me that, well, then I must be doing something right. No, I may not be the guy, but I understand him.

Why? I'll tell you next time.

Banking on an apology

In all fairness, I think I owe any of you who actually read (and even tried to understand) the last 10 posts an apology. No really.

How utterly boring was that? Honestly. What amazes me more than anything else - well, other than I wrote it, and more so that some of you read it - is that it was that we exchanged our society for this: an illusory lunacy, full of lies, deceit and dishonesty, leading only to so-called material wealth (in this case, money), and for this some folks are willing to not only lie, cheat, and steal, they are ready to kill and maim as well.

You think I'm joking?

You may not know anyone personally -- or maybe you do -- who lost so much in the crash that they threw themselves out a window or chomped down on a gun barrel "inadvertently" pulling the trigger, but there are people who did just that. There were people who simply lost their homes, were thrown to the wolves on the street, who are now living in a tent city or under a bridge, who may have caught an incurable illness as a result. Hell, there are people with major health issues now who can't afford insurance or care, who worked hard all their lives and have a mere pittance to exist on now that they are old and unproductive and have been more or less thrown on the scrap heap. Societies, at least in principle, represented morals and values and discussions were conducted against a backdrop of what was reasonable and desirable for everyone, for the community-at-large. Economies have no room for values, morals, or - heaven forbid! - concern for the well-being of others. Economies are simply about money, no more and no less.

Societies were composed of members; economies are composed of competitors. And even though we don't like to, and try hard as hell to, avoid thinking of it that way, that is also part of what it means to live in a world in which money is simply more important than people and a few choice legal rights are far more important than any human rights will ever be.

I say the world we live in, because it's just the space in which we find ourselves, it's not a society. At least not anymore. I suppose it could be, if we wanted it to be, but I really don't see a lot of indication that that's what's on the horizon.

Through a gla$$ darkly X

In capitalism, risk is supposed to be borne by the actor. In this recent case, the risk was private, but the loss was made public. This is an aberration unheard of in the annals of finance. What is more, it was institutionalized, made policy, expressed as the truth of the realm, but in fact, all of the rules were changed to suit the Wizard and the rest of us were literally left holding the bag.

In my day, people taking risks were considered gamblers, and gamblers did not have much of a reputation, well, at least not a good one. They were most often considered greedy, dishonest, deceitful, and unreliable. How is it that we turned the gambler into the pillar of society. I'm sorry, but I just don't get it.

I have nothing against capitalists in principle, as long as they play by their own rules, take their risk and losses like mature individuals and demonstrate by their own actions and behavior that they understand which world it is in which they operate. But, they have made their problems into my (and your) problems, and they have convinced the powers-that-be that it is only good and right and proper that the rest of us should not only pay for their mistakes, but that we should reward and continue to honor them because they are the rich, the powerful, the masters of the universe, the best and brightest ... which they aren't, never had been, and never will be. And that's, quite frankly, what turns my stomach every time I hear or see others fawning over them, kow-towing to them, catering to them and their wishes, believing their lies, their deceit, and never, ever questioning what they are doing. Why? Because for the most part, we have been repeatedly told that we can't understand this highly complex, if not complicated, world of modern finance.

Really?

Don't get me wrong, I don't claim to know all the ins and outs of the details of all the nonsense that they perpetuate, nor do I think it is necessary to do so. What we need is a basic understanding of how "the system" works so that we can recognize them for what they are: gamblers, and gamblers who play with other people's money. Your money, my money, pensioner's money, anybody's money but their own. And that simply has to stop.

The system they created isn't really much of a system, it is a shell game, a sleight-of-hand act, an illusion. We need to put some reality back into the system and they need to be put back in their place. As long as we can't, or won't, acknowledge the reality behind the illusion, they can continue to act as badly as they have so far and we will continue to be victimized by them and their elected henchmen.

At that moment that we traded in our society for a mere economy, we placed money (and property) rights above human rights, we made money the measure of all things, including ourselves. I'm not convinced that was a good idea. When the good St. Paul was writing his letter, he was, of course, talking about a different kind of salvation, but if we want to save ourselves from this nonsense, we need to understand what is going on, or as Paul put it "see [things] face-to-face"; that is, see things for what they are. It's not rocket science, it is business, it is a little economics, and it should be a whole lot of common sense.

It's time to expose the man behind the curtain.

Note: This series was originally published in slightly modified form on the Daily Kos.

Through a gla$$ darkly IX

What happened in the run-up to 2008 was seen by everyone involved. Anyone who tells you differently either doesn't know or is being disingenuous. Anyone who has the slightest understanding of how banks work, both commercial and speculative could see that what was being done was neither wise nor prudent nor even truly worthwhile. It wasn't going to benefit anyone but the slickest and quickest. And when the house of cards fell, the Grand Capitalists stepped forward with the cry, "But, we're too big to fail!". And most everyone believed them (Iceland is a notable exception). What to do, what to do?

If anyone has been following even casually, it does not take much to understand that the "size" of these institutions; that is, the size of the numbers on their balance sheets, was in most cases hopelessly and shamelessly inflated. In terms of actual value, most of it was made up. We like to think that financial instruments are backed by something real (a car loan with a car, a mortgage with a house, money by gold or the like), but the truth is they aren’t. The so-called "value" of all the bundled paper at the time of the "crash" was six times the world gross product.

A national or regional or even world gross product, it will be remembered, is the estimated value of all the resources, products and services in possession of or produced by a given entity. In this case it was the world and the paper was "worth" six times everything the world can do. I'd say that is just slightly absurd, and to act as if it that "value" (of the paper) is "real" is patently absurd. These institutions weren't any bigger than the legendary Wizard of Oz. It is known: Beware of the man behind the curtain.

To add insult to injury, this fiction of "value" was treated seriously and the most basic rules of capitalist economics were ignored. You will recall that riskier investments (e.g. a loan to a first-time home-buyer) often carry higher interest rates than well-secured or trusted loans. That's why local banks were once more successful, for they could better estimate their degree of risk. That risk, of course, was expressed in terms of interest rates. The higher the rate, the riskier the investment; that is, the less likely it will turn out.

So, if I can buy a savings bond that will yield around 1.75% interest, I can buy a similar Greek bond that will (possibly) yield (on average over the past 15 years) 7.7%, well, yes, I perhaps stand to make more money by "investing" in Greece, but there is equally a greater chance that I won't earn anything at all. Some people like the increased risk (you have to bet a lot to win a lot), and I suppose they should be allowed to play that game. But, I also believe that they should play the game, and I should have nothing to do with it at all. The speculator's losses shouldn't be my losses. But that's what was done to the rest of us. Exactly that.

Note: This series was originally published in slightly modified form on the Daily Kos.

Through a gla$$ darkly VIII

Picking up where I left off, in my bank, some of the loans that I have made are good, sound, loans. Some are, for whatever reasons, a bit of a stretch. Perhaps the people will lose their jobs when the factory shuts down or someone with a loan gets ill and loses their job for that reason, or perhaps someone simply misjudged the reliability of the loan recipient and it doesn't look like the bank is going to get their money back. In the traditional system, the good loans offset the bad ones and the trick was to make as few bad ones as possible. Now, however, we have other possibilities.

Let's assume that Mary, one of the bank's new employees, has a brilliant idea. Why not take some of the good loans and some of the bad loans and wrap them all up in one single bundle. You then get a rating agency to give it a AAA stamp-of-approval and then you simply sell the whole bundle to someone else for some set price, a price that is perhaps lower than the whole bundle if counted individually, but more than if the bad loans in there didn't get paid back.

You have two advantages: first, you are rid of part of your risk, and two, you have immediate cash in hand to turn around and loan out or invest and not have to wait until all the individual payments from all those individual loans come trickling in. And that's what they started to do, in various ways, with various colors and variations and who knows what all, but pushing these bundles of paper around – which are, it should be noted, a "derivative"; that is, an "investment" that derives from other forms of investment – becomes so popular and so many folks are getting used to speculation of all kinds that before long side markets show up where these things are bid upon, traded, exchanged, and who knows what else and everybody is just have a grand old time making up such derivatives and finding others who are willing to buy them or bid on them.

Again, it doesn't take a genius and just a moment's reflection reveals that the value of these bundles is pretty fictitious too. All of sudden there are bundles upon bundles that are bigger and bigger and all of them are "safe" because they've been rated safe, which increases my safe capital in my own institution, which means I can loan out more money and make more investments to grow and grow and grow and get richer, richer and richer. The only problem is that deep down beneath all those levels of paper and in spite of all the creative ways of accounting for these "instruments", as they were called, there's really nothing real at all. The "value" and the "worth" of any individual bundle was not the same. The bundles were once backed by whatever those bundles represented but once bundles were bundled and further bundled – the process can theoretically go on indefinitely – well, if you ask me, it all just starts getting absurd. One day someone is going to wake up, realize they are being sold a bill of goods and the house of cards could come tumbling down.

Welcome to the financial crisis of 2008.

Note: This series was originally published in slightly modified form on the Daily Kos.