The illusion of illusion, or go kick a stone

The Vedas inform us that all that is around us is maya, illusion, if you will. That's a huge pill for many to swallow. We resort to Dr. Johnson's infamous refutation of Bishop Berkeley's immaterialist philosophy -- the first argumentum ad lapidem -- in which he kicked a rather large stone and exclaimed, "I refute it thus." That has settled the case for most of us, I suppose for the ensuing almost 300 years. But maybe it really hasn't resolved the issue at all.

For adherents of that latter-day religion known as Materialism, it absolutely conclusive, but like the zealous adherents of most religions, it is easier to ignore what doesn't fit into one's belief system than it is to accept what challenges it. It turns out that roughly 68% of the Universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the Universe. What's worse, even within that unrepresentative 5%, modern physics has shown us that atoms are not all that solid and consist mostly of empty space. Yes, there are explanations for the solidity, but they are, at the moment, our best guesses as to how things work. And that is fine.

There is nothing wrong with best guesses as long as we don't forget that's what they are: guesses. Too often, though, we simply forget, or we convince ourselves that what we experience as reality is reality as it really is. On the one hand, that helps get us through the day without major inconveniences and injuries, but on the other hand, it gets in the way as soon as we have no more stones to kick. At least this is the case with our experience of natural phenomena. Our experience of reality, in other words, works just fine and it only becomes problematic when we think that our experience is the only valid experience. Quite often it is not only helpful, but illuminating, to seriously exchange experiences with others. More often than not, we end up realizing that we have more in common than separates us.

What works for natural phenomena becomes more difficult when we're dealing with human phenomena; that is things that people do and say. Just this morning I read that Trump's newly fired campaign manager laundered his ill-gotten (or not properly reported) gains through a Washington lobbying firm with close ties to Clinton. And though underreported at the time, it is now fairly clear that Trump and Bill Clinton had a nice chat very shortly before the Donald decided to make his presidential bid. It would seem there's more empty space in a hydrogen atom than there is between the two separate parties vying for the world's allegedly most powerful office. The dismay I expressed a couple weeks ago seems somehow justified.

This isn't the only example of things not really being the way we are led to believe they are. In fact, it would seem that most of what we're being told, at least on mainstream and quasi-mainstream media is less news than it is ... well, for lack of a better word, propaganda. Personally, I'm not at all pleased with this development, and I'll be the first to admit that trying to find "real" news, or the "true" story (by which I mean the one that simply corresponds most completely to all known facts, or sometimes even "fairly reliable news" or an "insightful" story demands more time, energy, and effort than most of us can reasonably be expected to expend. It shouldn't have to be so hard to figure out life in this day and age, even if most of what I'm forced to hear about day in and day out is rather far-removed from my everyday reality.

The above is simply an example. I'm not condoning nor condemning. I'm convinced that everyone involved in every single aspect of this latest political mess believed that they were doing what needed to be done and that they believed their reasons were both reasonable and worthwhile. Once you take a step back from it all, however, it all looks pretty sleazy and messy, and, ultimately, extraordinarily dangerous and deadly, but I'm not convinced there's a secret cabal (the notoriously infamous "they") who are out to get us. By the same token, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that Clinton and Trump have much more in common with each other than either (or both) of them have with me, and I don't think it would difficult to make the case that their interests are very different from mine.

Now, don't get me wrong: it's not that I think that either of them, or any of those inside our outside the spotlight of political activity is reasonable or even respectable. I have -- for as long as I can remember -- had an intense suspicion of anyone who maintained, directly or indirectly, that s/he knew better what was good for me than I did myself. Those who on occasion did -- my parents, for example -- just didn't tell me that they knew, they demonstrated that knowledge, they kicked stones. And so, now in my old age, if you're just telling me, not showing me, well, then you're just spouting hot air, and I needed take that too seriously, unless you're spewing so much of it that it's contributing to global warming and then I'm forced to get involved.

Who knows, perhaps some of those humanitarian interventions we hear about all the time aren't really so humanitarian after all? Could it be that national and foreign policies are more often driven by desire for profit than a desire to help? Is it possible that some of that providing support for democratic forces elsewhere is a mere distraction from the destruction of democratic inclinations at home? Could it be that most of what we're being told simply doesn't square with most of what is actually being done? I have a rapidly growing suspicion that there is increasing disconnect between words and deeds ... not just in America, not just in Germany, not just in the corporate world, but everywhere I turn. There is a whole lot of illusion out there, that's for sure. It could even be that when we're dealing with human phenomena, illusion is the best we can hope for. I don't necessarily want to think that, and I'm pretty sure that isn't the case, and one thing is certain: that's not necessarily a comforting thought.

And so, once again, I find myself in a situation in which, like I argued a few posts ago, you just have to let go. When dealing with human phenomena, it could very well be that taking the old adage, actions speak louder than words, seriously may be the human equivalent of kicking stones. Maybe, just maybe, it's time to turn off the TV. Maybe, just maybe, it's time to put down that newsprint bludgeon you like to beat others over the head with. Maybe, just maybe, it's time to just let the yappers go on yapping and the screamers go on screaming. Maybe, just maybe, it's time to take a closer look at what the yappers and screamers are doing, and not just listen to what they're saying.

Maybe, just maybe, it's time to take a deep breath and a step back from all of that and allow a little common sense and actual experience back into your life. Kick a few stones, or maybe, just maybe, start thinking for yourself.

My fellow Americans, 'tis with heavy heart ...

As my old friend Julius C. used to say, "alea iacta". For those of you who don't know Julius, "the die has been cast". The stage has been set for the 2016 US presidential showdown. It's all over but the shouting; that is, all the shouting can now begin.

Maybe it was having the measles in 1956 and suffering through the disease as well as the only thing on TV -- the Republican National Convention -- that put me off (TV for one, but presidential elections for another), or the mere fact that it really doesn't matter who runs or who is elected in the end -- let's face it, nothing really changes -- at least not for the better, but for whatever reason it was, in the end, I'm not excited about this year at all, maybe even less excited than usual.

Growing up I went through the same indoctrination as everyone else, but I couldn't get all excited about it. It just didn't make a whole lot of sense. All that talk about democracy and democratic processes, well, it just never really jibed with what I saw all around me. Theory is one thing, experience is another. To reconcile these inconsistencies, I told myself that one was the ideal, the other simply the reality that we were working on to eventually come up to the ideal. It didn't take all that long to realize that there wasn't a whole lot of working-on-the-reality going on. There are too strong interests in the status quo that were, and are, willing to let the little matter of democratic ideals get in the way.

Back in those measly days, the Republicans came across as liberals (fiscal responsibility, high taxes, support for Social Security and unions, etc.) and the Democrats looked like they couldn't get their act together (Jim Crow South, voter suppression, but support for social programs and a desire for some kind, maybe any kind, of change). Remember, this was prior to the long overdue Civil Rights Movement and the first shift, in my lifetime, of the political center in America. In many regards, it looks like the parties have switched places since then, but that's not all that surprising. We know that in everyday language words can exchange meanings (e.g., for 250 years or so, "awful" meant what "awesome" means and vice versa), but in the active world of reality in which we live, this could simply be a matter of becoming what you hate.

But none of that's important, really. The problems that were known then -- gerrymandering, excessively restrictive voting legislation, too much money in politics, the Electoral College, etc. -- are still with us today. That's half-a-century of awareness of very specific and very specifically undemocratic issues, and not a single one of them has been changed for the better. Oh sure, every now and then something cosmetic has been done, but nothing of substance. And, in some regards, the situation has gotten even worse. After all, we knew in which direction change-for-the-better lay, but that wasn't the direction in which we moved. And it's not as if it would be difficult to really change any of these things:

• a simple law outlawing gerrymandering could be passed
• another law designating a simple formula for determining representation (in the House of Representatives, for example), like "1 representative for every 500,000 people" and requiring fairer districting to reflect that could be implemented
• ending voter-registration requirements; attaining a certain age automatically gives you the right to vote

But none of that ever really comes up for discussion and I haven't heard anybody actually clamoring for that public discussion either (though you can find one neatly tucked away in innocuous corners of the internet). Granted, the Electoral College -- an institution that has certainly outlived its age, but certainly not its intent -- would be more difficult to tackle, needing a constitutional amendment and all (and we all know how idolatrously sacrosanct American holds its constitution), but that money-in-politics thing got changed the most: the US has shown -- and judicially upheld -- that certain forms of bribery are not only legal, but encouraged. How much more undemocratic can you get? Of course, most Americans don't get it, and are so caught up in their self-adoration that they don't even realize that most of the rest of the world has long caught on: America is really good at saying one thing and doing another. Sometimes I think they're trying to turn it into an art form. But it isn't and it's not going to become one.

It's not that people aren't thinking about how the system could be improved, or that it's all too difficult to understand the fundamental shortcomings of a two-party system But the system America has is the system an elite 200+ years ago wanted in order to keep "the people" in their place, so naturally, it's the system that the current elite are simply loathe to change. Why should they? It works very much in their favor. For example,

• 75% of Americans want terms limits for Congress, but there are none.
• 63% of Americans want to get rid of the Electoral College, but they've still got it.
• 58% of Americans want federally funded healthcare for all, but they've only got a system most of them don't want anyway.
• The vast majority of Americans support some kind of enhanced background checks for buying guns, but are they going to get any? You know the answer.

Let's face it, what the people want in America is hardly the issue. Any substantial, visible change has to go through Congress and it's obvious that Congress isn't about to do anything but work for its owners. The people just don't count. They're there for the show, and a show is what we're all about to get, once the real campaigns are launched. It may just be the worst show to be staged thus far.

In the midst of a system that is as overtly corrupt and undemocratic as this one, we also have a certain mentality at work that gives me pause to wonder. It is in presidential election times that one gets to hear the truly bizarre. America is the only modern, allegedly democratic nation in which the phrase "a wasted vote" makes any sense. The very phrase oozes with undemocratic sentiment, but it is thrown about and used as if it were somehow meaningful. The mere concept should be enough to make all our hair stand on end, yet in America it somehow does make some sort of distorted sense: in a consciously designed and implemented two-party system, third parties are per definitionem outside the system; they don't count ... and they never counted, and as long as the system remains as it is, they never will count.

(As an aside: Bernie never stood a chance. Had he not tried to elbow his way into the Democratic Party, he wouldn't have gotten even the minimal media coverage that he got. Don't believe me? Ask Jill Smith or Gary Johnson. Now that we know he never stood a chance in the Democratic Party, what option did Bernie really have? First past the post wins, and that's that. Now his still recalcitrant supporters who know they have been more or less blocked out of the system are being harangued not to waste their votes in this oh, so important "historical" election. Go figure.)

In the end, though, because of the way in which the system has been set up and in light of the fact that for as democratically inclined most Americans like to think themselves, barely more than half of the voting-age population ever makes it out to cast a vote for their delegate to the Electoral College anyway (which I don't take as a sign of a particularly healthy democratic mindset). And when we consider that traditionally, around 4% of these will waste their votes on a hopeless cause, and that, at least in the last 10 elections the winner has garnered on average around a mere 51% of the vote, we have the, allegedly, most powerful person in the world being elected by about 25-27% of the US voting-age population. That, my fellow Americans, is minority rule. It takes a vivid and creative imagination to spin that into an exemplary model of democracy.

This is, however, how a two-party systems works (and how it was always intended to work). Moreover, the most fundamental assumption underlying the system, the one that should, at least in principle, make it acceptable or at least remotely viable, is that whoever is running is worth voting for in the first place. There was a time -- in my measly and post-measles days -- when I thought for a moment that such elections were about positions and policies. We're all allowed to be naive in our youth. In the meantime, as this latest presidential primary circus has shown, positions and policies apparently don't matter at all. The whole affair has degenerated into little more than a popularity contest. One party has no real policies and positions at all, just a lot of hate and fear, and the other has some, but they're the same, old same-old, regardless of how "progressive" the internal opposition was in the run-up to the nomination. I find it exceedingly interesting that there's more talk now about unity and togetherness than there is about anything substantial. Trump is being sold as anti-establishment, though he's anything but anti-elite; Clinton is being sold as a rallying point, because she's established in the elite. Somehow I'm still missing "the people" in this alleged democratic adventure.

What is more, one has to search far and wide to find actual engagement with and analysis of the Democratic Party platform, for more than anything, this election is already being pitched as "historic" because a woman is running (though not alone, nor for the first time, but it just so happens for one of the only two parties that count). Already we are being encouraged, in particular women are being encouraged, to vote for the woman, merely because she's a woman. I don't know about you, but that strikes me as a particularly weak political argument, and there's nothing democratic about it. There's a lot at stake in this election, that much I will concede, and that's all the more reason in my mind to think really hard about if you're going to vote; if you are, how you're going to vote; and most definitely what you are actually voting for. The spin-wheels are already squealing that anything is better than Trump, but not why it is that only Clinton is that "anything".

And so, my fellow Americans, he we are, a decade-and-a-half into the 21st century and we're about to witness what promises to be one of the most unreasonable, dirty, hateful, mean, confrontational and potentially violent presidential election cycle ever. Oh, how far we have come. Oh, how rich and reasoned is our understanding of democracy and the democratic process. Oh, how proud we must be. This, my fellow Americans, is apparently the best we can do.

Though disappointed in my measly days, along the way I had hoped that we would learn and grow, just as all my adult guides expected of me. In my youthful naivite, I thought that's how the world worked. It doesn't. Learning, apparently, is what others are supposed to do. Still, I'm older now, just a little bit smarter in spite of it all, but not necessarily wiser. What I have seen this year will certainly be more than enough for the next four years, to be sure. I shudder when I think of the short-term. I'm concerned deeply for all our futures.

What I have seen that pains me most though is that we have apparently, been forced into submission to a "system" which has come to exhibit and represent all that it was meant to overcome.

My fellow Americans, thanks for the extra load of crap

It's not like I have nothing to do, nor that there aren't things I'd rather be doing. But, I'm not getting to them, because I have to spend way too much times "explaining" things that can't really be explained.

This week, the allegedly impossible happened: Trump was nominated by the Republican Party as their candidate for president. It's their good right. In contrast to lots of people I know, I'm all for democracy, even though I also know that it means you may get more than you bargained for or that you end up places you never wanted to be. I can live with that, but I don't want to have to live with trying to explain how things like this can happen ... in supposedly the most advanced country on earth ... in allegedly the greatest country the world has ever known ... in purportedly the zenith of Western culture.

My fellow Americans, you know and I know, even if the rest of the world hasn't caught on yet, that there is a massive disconnect between the marketing of a product and the actual product itself. After all, we grow up with exaggerated claims about everything. It's part and parcel of being American. The Greeks may have invented the word "hyperbole", but we filled it with life, everyday life. America is -- let's face it -- non-stop hyperbole.

It's hard to get that if you're not American. It's hard to understand that what is said has little resemblance to the reality it's supposed to describe and that what's shouted at the world shouldn't be taken all that seriously, for the most part. Words mean little in America. We're born pragmatists. It's in our blood: it's not what we say that makes a difference, it's what we do, and when you look at what America has been doing to the world since the last big war, well, you realize there's a reality there that lots of other peoples are having trouble living with. But that's a subject for another day.

Let's face it: the Donald -- the very moniker gives it all away -- is not presidential, and his wife isn't very first-lady-like at all. Oh, I'm not saying anyone else in the eventual race is cutting better figures here, far from it. You just have to realize that cute charm has worn off the American facade. Melania should have done her homework. I know students who almost lost their degrees for less plagiarism than she aired in her very short speech. In today's world of intellectual property, stealing others' words has become a mortal sin. Feigning ignorance, sloughing it off as cavalier, allowing for that much sloppiness at such a critical juncture is, well, inexplicable at best, but trust-eradicating at worst. Why do Americans expect so little of those who are going to represent them to the rest of the world?

And yes, the Donald ... sorry, I got side-tracked ... he's everything we imagine a leader of the free world is not. (OK, he's now got a Boris Johnson from that other wannabe empire flitting through the world distracting attention from serious issues, but that too is another story for another day). He is unstatesmanlike, vitriolic, incoherent, uninformed, and ignorant of history; he is unaware of his own effect on others, easily manipulated, insensitive to others, and of questionable ethics and beliefs. Yes, yes, I know that even the most seasoned politician can be any of these things on a bad day, but this is Trump on his good days. I used to think it was cute and somewhat funny when people made jokes about a senile Reagan getting to close to the nuclear button, but I have to tell you, I'm not the only one in my personal environment who is worried about Mr. I-don't-have-to-think-anything-through-because-I'm-great having such serious access.

You know, and I know, and I've said as much before, you don't live in much of a democracy, but given the wide range of more-than-life-threatening issues on the table, it is really not too much to expect that you'd at least offer someone up for office who gives you the impression he could be taken seriously. Too many of my Trump-supporting Facebook friends are tying to push his "outsider honesty", but a billionaire is never an outsider to elites and having no tact is not the same as being honest. There are too many Americans who simply don't know the difference, and this is the behavior we have come to expect from pubescing adolescents, but not from office holders whom we are supposed to be taking seriously and whose words and actions can cause major upheavals in financial markets or peace negotiations.

A lot of people I know once did -- and still want to -- have a high opinion of America, but between the apparent increase in good old police brutality, the lost-the-plot gun stuff being reported, the obvious über-aggression of US-led NATO, and now the Trump spectacle, it's getting harder and harder to explain to them why they should be taking American seriously. I certainly can't explain it to them, even if I wanted to, because my own head wags and my own jaw drops on a regular basis, but apparently Mr. Trump is what some people envision as the "most powerful person on earth". I get shivers.

Now, I'm fully aware that the other half of the gruesome twosome to be running for office in America has yet to be officially nominated. It's a done deal, though, we all know that. And no one should think it is any easier explaining Hillary to my fellow, questioning-asking German citizens. Yes, they know she's Bill's wife, they know she held political office, they know she was Secretary of State, but it's not like she left a lasting impression on anyone around here. Well, maybe on the politically elite, but I'm talking about everyday people with every problems who have an everyday understanding of international politics. But they know what Wall Street is, and they know what Goldman-Sachs is and they who has close ties to big money and who doesn't and, well, that just raises a whole lot of other questions that, to be quite frank, I have little desire to try and explain, even if I had a coherent explanation to offer.

No, my fellow Americans, you have and you are about to make my life much more difficult than it need be. I can't explain how Americans think, because I'm not convinced myself that a whole lot of thinking is going on over there, at least politically. I don't understand the gun fetish, even if there is an alleged constitutional amendment supporting it. I don't get the massive police violence that we're seeing on the news so often. I don't understand the too numerous killings of unarmed civilians. I don't understand how corrupt and manipulated allegedly democratic processes have become, be they the passing of simple legislation, the refusal to nominate a supreme-court justice, or the curtailing of voting rights, or the circuses you call the primaries. I don't get any of that, and neither do my German friends and neighbors, but I can't explain it to them either.

Personally, I have no vested interest in who you decide to have run or who you decide to field as presidential candidates. One thing I do understand, though, is something I can't explain to them anyway, namely it really doesn't matter in the end who is finally elected president in America: nothing is going to change anyway. Not only do Americans not elect its own president, as the primaries showed this time around, they really have nothing to say about who ends up being candidate. But it doesn't matter in the end. Yes, we all like to act like and think that the President of the United States has something to say, but other than little decisions, like who gets X'd off the kill list or which tie to wear to the press conference, the real decisions, such as whether there's a drone-kill list at all, are made by others. What everyone here knows and has no trouble saying is how badly money has corrupted America's political system, and my only real recourse is to affirm that they're right: America is not politically driven, it is money driven. If the right people or enough people stand to make a profit, it will be done, regardless of the politics of the situation.

Unfortunately, they really don't understand that either. Well, to be honest, I think they don't want to understand it. Nobody wants to think that at bottom it's all about money. My mother taught me, though, that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, well ... I can understand that, even if I have trouble sympathizing with it. But we truly have to ask ourselves what real options do we have?

When you've run out of explanations, the best you can do, I think, is to motivate people to ask questions for themselves, so all I can do is repeatedly admonish my fellow German (and other European friends) to ask the only really relevant "political" question we have: cui bono? (Who benefits?) And that's the question I'm asking myself post-Republican National Convention: cui bono? That's the question everybody should be asking.

It's no wonder the world's in such bad shape

For all the wailing and gnashing of teeth that has gone on in the last week, we've got damn little to show for it. That little fiasco did, however, make a number of things clearer than most would like to admit, but they're not necessarily the ones we like to think.

You may not want to admit it, but Emma Goldman was right: If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.

Great Britain said they wanted out of the EU. There's not even the slightest hint that the process is even being seriously considered. The Tories apparently have to get their house in order. Why? What as it in before? It wasn't this vote that split it. The pranks and psychoses that were there before are now simply going to involve other people. None of this has anything to do with sovereignty or immigrants or lack of democracy on the Continent. The Brits have just as much democracy as anyone else: none. We're simply back to business as usual.

Believe me, I'm not picking on the Brits. They merely brought a couple of issues to the surface. As I noted recently, the US can't even pretend to have a democracy in any meaningful sense of the word. Though that doesn't stop them or their pundits from piping up. Both Juncker and Merkel this week have shown they have absolutely no intention of getting democratic about anything. Even people who think they did things right get to do them over again if the right people insist on it. Nothing to see here: it's just business as usual.

Hell, the only people I can see trying to make a point at all are the French, and we can't won't hear a thing about it because the European Cup (the European Soccer Cup for my American readers, and believe me, it's a big sports deal, in all senses of the word) is being played and the media isn't about to ruin such a fine sporting event. After all, there are advertisers to consider on the one hand, and ... well, you know, that is even more business as usual.

It's not really my place, but I have to tell you: democracy has nothing to do with voting or elections. Nothing. They like to tell us that the term "democracy" comes from the Greek and means "rule of the people", but you should know that ever since the term has been coined, the demos was considered a "mob" and there is no self-respecting elite in the world who is going to put up with mob rule.

Personally, and I'm as about as far away from an elite as you can get, I see their point, and I also see how well they can turn us into a mob when it suits them. Just look at the Brexit fiasco. Don't get me wrong, it's the not the end result I'm calling into question, it is the process of getting there that stunk to high heaven. We really need to think twice about getting into bed with racists and bigots (with a wink here to my American friends supporting Trump) if you don't want to be lumped in with racists and bigots. Voting, though, referendums, elections ... all those nice respectable outlets we're allowed to have ... they're just games were allowed to play to get us to think we have something to say. We don't. If we did, why are the French out in the streets? They have every reason to be: their government doesn't listen to them any more than yours listens to you. They have also experienced -- up real and personal -- just how much difference an election makes.

My question is: just when are we going to get it? just when are we going to realize that all of this "working within the system" is just a rather underhanded way of keeping all of us under their thumb?

Oh, I know what a lot of you are thinking ... especially the more paranoid and those of you who consider yourself smarter and more critical than the average mob person: he's seeing conspiracies, this one; maybe we ought to get him a tinfoil hat. That's OK. You are allowed to think whatever you want regardless of how silly it is. I'm not saying that there is some organized cabal planning the oppression of the rest of us, some nefarious and shadowy group plotting our enslavement. Here is what I do know, however:

• There is not a Western government that isn't dominated by special interests.
• There is not a Western politician who isn't influenced -- for or against -- by those interests.
• There are large corporations who are willing to spend a pittance on lobbying knowing full well their return-on-lobbying-investment will be worth every penny.
• There are very, very rich people who aren't going to share a penny with anyone else if they can help it.
• Those powerful corporations driven by profit and those rich folks have much more in common with each other than the rest of us think we have with each other, even if it is only their love of money.
• Neither of these groups is what we might call "democratically inclined".

But that's "the system", as we all know it. But, you should know that I know this as well:

• The last thing they want is for US to think we might be able to do anything about it.

And they succeed, not in some grandiose, concerted, focused effort at suppression, but because it is simply too easy to get us quibbling amongst ourselves, to get us angry at each other, and to have us at each others' throats. It's so easy because they have convinced most of us that we're nothing more than individual egos seeking our own self-interest, and that we're really nothing more than losers if we think otherwise.

I'm sorry, folks, but it is really not any more complicated than that.

If change is going to come ... that is, change that in any way, shape and form is, or may be beneficial for ourselves or our children or our grandchildren ... we've got to wake up and not smell the coffee, but smell the stench of deceit, distrust and defeat that they shower upon us.

There are times when the bravest thing you can do is to just say "no". Now is one of those times.

If you don't like the world as you find it, if you don't like the world as it's being shoved down your throat, if you don't like the world that others have made for you, then it's your move. No political candidate is going to "work for you"; they're going to work for whoever pays them enough to get re-elected. No elected official is concerned about you; they are concerned about their constituencies and getting re-elected. Am I saying that there are no elected officials or politicians who are trying to make a difference? Not at all. What I am saying is that "system" is broken, so let's stop trying to fix it, but instead try setting up something new that works. What does that "something new" look like, how does it work? I have no idea, but it doesn't matter. Since when do you need me telling you what is good for you?

If you don't like the world as you find it, stop whining (or whinging, as my British friends might say) about lost opportunities and wasted votes. Get informed, get smart, get active. Most of all, start talking: to family, friends, neighbors ... figure out what is important to you and find like-minded people to help you achieve your common goals. Think big and start small, but start. And when in doubt, ignore the system. It wasn't set up for your benefit, that's for sure.

There is no one that can make a difference in the world other than yourself. Like it or not, it all starts with you. It's time you realized that and did something about it.

Is there such a thing as "Western culture"?

If I take my own "definition" from last time seriously, the answer would be "no", but that would be a bit short-sighted.

The factor that stops us is the first one -- Language -- for we in the West certainly don't speak a single tongue. In the narrower sense of the term "language", this is true, but we need to step back a bit and look at the bigger picture. Linguistically, most Western languages (Hungarian, Finnish, and Basque excepted) are at least loosely related. The number of Greek and Latin-based words that have found their way into all Western languages, often in their own language-specific forms yet they are still often recognizable (e.g., the differences between philosophia-philosophie-philosophy-filosofia, etc. are not all that extravagant). Very often, key concepts are shared, even if the words themselves are different (e.g., notions like "holiday", "illness", names of body parts, etc.); that is, there is often almost a 1-to-1, word-level translation possible. Keeping in mind my admonition to look for what connects rather than what separates, we need not dismiss language outright.

Similar, but perhaps not as obvious, comparisons could be made in regard to the other factors I identified, but what interests me most is what is not obvious at all, what is so taken-for-granted, that we don't think about such things at all. This is particularly evident in the Beliefs and Customs areas: for example, that marriage is between only two people and is generally done in a ritualized manner in front of witnesses; that the roles played by men and women are asymmetric; that the individual is special; that the notion of "property" held in very high esteem; that a scientific, objective approach to problem resolution is worthwhile; that reason is a good thing; that we have at least one holiday honoring our home country and that most of the other holidays have Christian roots. When I was young, however, much of this was much more apparent and, consequently, taken even more for granted. But there are indications that the underlying cement of Western culture is starting to crumble.

Our beliefs and customs most often found their expression through the medium of religion, and that's what's changing most quickly and most deeply. Even though Christianity is anything but monolithic (i.e., three primary divisions: Catholic Protestant, and Coptic; two flavors of Catholicism (Roman and Orthodox, the latter breaking down into a growing number of subgroups); Anglican, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Pentecostal Protestants, the latter three having split into innumerable specific denominations, as well as special-cases like Mormonism. What binds them together is much, much less than what makes them different. In times past, most people were either unaware or unconcerned about the differences, but these days, they are playing an increasingly important, decisive, and divisive role. Couple this with a dramatic rise in the number of individuals declaring themselves atheist (whereby, the vast majority of these are, I believe, merely agnostics), and a growing number of people who more or less reject religion altogether in favor of a much less clearly defined "spirituality", and it soon becomes rather obvious that what made us in the West a WE is rapidly losing its cohesive strength.

As is so often the case, these factors, trends, and developments are neither good nor bad, but that our thinking make it so. The current attempts to unify the West religiously to combat what is perceived as a more monolithic religious threat (e.g., Islam) clearly show just how disconnected we've all become. Maybe it is time to finally drop the notion of a "Western culture" all together. The world is getting smaller by the day, so perhaps it is really time to starting thinking more about what we can and do share and stop worrying at all about what makes us different. Deep down, we're hardly different at all.

What, then, is "culture"?

Nations are new. Cultures are as old as humanity's presence on the planet. There are, indeed, various kinds of cultures: tribal, local, regional, corporate, national, or transnational even. When we think and speak of "culture" these days, we almost automatically think of a "national culture", but only because we are often ignorant of all that history, anthropology, ethnology, and sociology may have to offer us. I'm not going to try to fill that gap, I'm merely going to point out a few salient features of "culture", because our ignorance is causing a lot of misery in a lot of lives.

In simplest terms, a culture is the language, customs, beliefs, and actions of a given group of people who feel bound together because of those four things.

1. Language is a strong component, to be sure. This is why one often speaks of the Anglo-American culture (which also includes, oddly enough, the Australians, and for some, the South Africans, but not necessarily (or at least not consciously, the Belize), or the German culture, whereby the language is spoken as well in Austria and parts of Switzerland, and these are included in the concept.
2. Customs describes "the way we do things around here". It includes holidays, like a big, family meal at Thanksgiving, or Santa Claus (or whoever brings Christmas gifts); and sports (baseball, football, soccer, lacrosse); and little things like whether people shake hands when they meet, and more.
3. Beliefs include the stories and myths that a particular group holds dear, be it the Pilgrim Fathers, Charlemagne, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, etc. These may be religious in nature, but they can also be secular and profane, like owning guns is a fundamental right, or all persons are created equal, or property rights trump personal rights.
4. Actions are what really defines a culture, though. These are the things a group does, not only because that's the way they do things, but because they believe they have a right to do them. It's not only the way a group acts towards others, but because they have always been able to act that way. In other words, the customs and beliefs often drive what a culture thinks it's OK, good, right and proper to do.

I would be the last person to say what a given culture says, believes, or does is good or bad or right or wrong. All I know is that there are a lot of different ways to slice the reality pie. What I also know, however, that there are way too many cultures on this small planet which think that however it is that they have decided to slice that pie is the "right" way, the "proper" way, the only "reasonable way" to slice it. My only response to that is, well, "bullshit".

Beneath, behind, and beyond whatever we think our culture "entitles" us to, we need to recognize the simple, unalterable fact that everything any of us, individually or collectively, say, believe, and in particular, do has effects on others; that is, anyone other than ourselves or our (cultural) group. We forget that all too often.

Whatever we think is good, right and proper is only what we think is good, right and proper. Some values are universal (not harming others, for example), but even these can be relativized once we start thinking that "our" culture is "better" than "their" culture. Unfortunately, that's where we are today.

We believe we are the good ones, and those "others", well, they're the bad ones. It turns out, however, that they are merely the others whether we like it or not, whether we want to admit it or not. Knowing what that otherness is and understanding what we have in common rather than what separates us are the true marks of the cultivated, civilized person. No more, no less.

Is there culture beyond yoghurt?

Our English word "culture" derives from the Latin cultus which means more or less "tilling, cultivating, tending". The very roots of civilization can be recognized as it was when humans first learned to systematically till and cultivate the soil, to farm, that they initiated what we today refer to as "history": the story, the narrative of where we as a species have been. That, of course, is the most general, all-encompassing view of the situation.

There are individual, isolated and particular histories as well. At the other extreme we have individual histories, which we no longer call such, but rather call biographies. Just about any geographical region that you can name, has its own, often oral history. And, since the late 17th century, we find the development of national histories as well, many of which are intertwined. The history of the United States in unthinkable without the history of Great Britain, and its history is tightly interwoven with that of the Portuguese, Spanish and French, all of which were greatly influenced by the history of Rome and Greece, and voila we've got the makings of Western Civilization.

These histories don't only describe what this or that person or this or that group have done, they also describe means of expression (statuary in Greece and Rome, painting in the Renaissance, music in the 18th and 19th century, just to intimate some readily recognizable motifs), rules of interaction (e.g., Roman law), and institutions (in the West, primarily the Church) which have left an indelible impression on how we do things, how we express and how we organize ourselves, and, not the least, what we believe.

When we stop to reflect upon such things, they come into much sharper relief than usual. Our everyday mode of interaction with them is on the contrary subliminal, unconscious, assumed, or simply taken-for-granted. Whatever it is that makes a culture, however, takes time, long periods of time. There is never just one thing that distinguishes one culture from another, that's for sure. They consist of an amalgamation of traditions, legacies, stories, works of art and language, and more that operates so far beneath the threshold of consciousness that we have difficulty saying what they are. And many of them sit so deep, so firm that we have trouble recognizing them even when they are specifically pointed out to us.

What appears to happen, though, when someone, like Mdme Thatcher, rips the heart of the economic-political-social-religious-cultural matrix is that the entire edifice collapses and we end up with an every-person-for-themselves situation: John grasping firm to the political, Joan to the cultural, Jane to the religious, and Jim to economic. We become like the blind men describing the elephant, as a tree (if all you can feel is a leg) or a snake (if you happen to be holding the trunk) or a rope (if you've got the tail). We've got all of the pieces but no keystone to hold it all together.

How does a "we" become a mere "me"?

Although it has been a while, I've dealt with the notion of "Advent", what it's about, how it not only marks a change of seasons, but also what it means in a yearly sense.

There's no real need to rehash old themes. This year is not all that different from previous ones: there's too much trouble, pain, strife, war, death, and suffering going on out there; the greedy still can't get enough; the poor are still looked down upon, if they're not outright despised; the first salvos in the so-called "war" on Christmas have already been fired; and my own desire to hear a collective voice of reason in the hectic remains unfulfilled. Too few people care ... about any of what this "season" should bring; and even fewer are willing to budge even an inch out of their own self-righteous comfort zones to fill the season with any kind of reason.

Margaret Thatcher, the Female Godhead of Neoliberalism, maintained -- and her acolytes and adherents proclaim -- that there is no such thing as society; it is merely a collection of individuals. That is unchallenged dogma in the meantime, and even the briefest glimpse at anything calling itself news confirms its "truth". But, religions -- and neoliberalism has taken on this mantle -- cannot exist apart from cultures, so that is the next falsehood that must be destroyed, and all of us worldwide, though more markedly we in the West, are rallying to the Call for Destruction. Just like the often illiterate and ignorant destroyers of culture known as ISIS, even we non-military, supposedly peace-loving, non-violent types are just as effective as they are at destroying common history as well.

Without a society; that is, without some kind of social grouping that views itself as "us", it is difficult to imagine a culture forming. A culture, in this sense, the linguistic, artistic, musical, literary, and value-oriented backdrop that provides the context in which a given group can function. In certain regards it is all those unspoken rules, guidelines, customs and mores that let everyone knew "how things are done around here". That group will then organize itself in relation to other groups in civil (political) and economic (commercial) ways. Politics and commerce are, by their very nature, unable to support culture. Given the influence she enjoyed throughout the West, when Mdme Thatcher conceptually eliminated "society", she did as much to destroy our culture as Muslim radicals do when they go around blowing up cultural heritage sites or chiseling facades off of walls. We readily recognize the one, and deal very ineptly with the other.

Though only one example, it is indicative of why we find ourselves in crisis these days ... and everything has become a crisis. Whatever it was that made us "us" has been so weakened, so debilitated that we're left primarily with ourselves. And individuals are never a sound basis upon which to build.

End-of-the-year close-out

A long-term acquaintance of mine recently asked me why I'm so hard on Americans. My reply? They deserve it. Hey, they have it way too good and have no idea how good they've actually got it. Yes, yes, Thanksgiving has just past, but I didn't see (again) any sign that the celebration of the holiday had anything to do with its Spirit. For those who could: a big stuffed turkey and we're all a bit fatter, a bit dumber, and, of course, a bit happier.

C'mon. What do you say about a democratic nation in which less than 40% of the registered voters (notice I did not say eligible voters, or it would be even lower) turn out for an election? What do you say about a democratic nation that gerrymanders so that incumbents win and constituencies lose? What do you say about a country that overwhelmingly re-elects a legislative body that has an approval rating under 10%? I'll tell you what I say: it's just what I'd expect of a fat, dumb, and happy populace.

OK, OK, I'm being harsh again ... sorry. It's too easy, or, well, it's just too hard not to be. Oh sure, most Americans I know like to tell me that American society is so complex that no generalized statement is possible. They know, and I know, that such a statement is simply and blatantly absurd, but it's said anyway. Why? Because otherwise, somebody might have to do something about, well, anything.

Affordable-Care Act or no: 40 million un(health-)insured Americans; child poverty rate of more than 22% and rising; infant mortality rate ranked 34th (behind Croatia and Cuba); most extreme wealth-poverty divide in the industrialized world; world's 3rd largest population (whereby #s 1 and 2 have over three times as many people) but world's 2nd biggest polluter. Oh yes, there's just so much to be proud of.

It all wouldn't bother me so much if I didn't have so many other people I know telling me what a great place it is. When you look at it from the outside, it's anything but great, but the propaganda machine is churning both inside and out in a measure unknown ever before. I'd like not to be so critical, but I don't know how. With all that going on, I don't see a shred of evidence that anyone there really wants to do anything about anything. If the blacks protest (e.g., in the Ferguson aftermath), they're turning everything into a race issue. If Occupy protests against the banks, they are being radical. If one protests against Eternal War, one is being unpatriotic. If you feed the homeless on the streets, you go to jail. Give me a break. What about any of that makes sense?

No, the end of the year is upon us, and I'm going to turn my attention to other, more important matters. If Americans were all alone in their bubble island, I don't suppose I'd care, but they keep reaching out and touching the world, and what's even worse, most Americans think everyone else wants to be touched. No, if Americans want to do something, if Americans want to change something, then there's no better place than home. Get your own house in order before you start telling others how to clean up theirs.

And that's all I have to say about that.

On this day in history

Yes, on this day in history, November 22, 1963, more than half-a-century ago, John F. Kennedy, then President of the United States, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The assassin was allegedly Lee Harvey Oswald, but the circumstances surrounding this event, the consequences, the actual facts have been long obscured in conspiracy, fantasy, and delusion. We'll never know what really happened and why, and I'm not sure that it really matters in the end. Sure, I was an impressionable adolescent when it happened, and, yes, I think about that day from time to time (and sometimes when the date rolls around again), and, yes, it makes me wonder. (I told you: I wonder a lot; I always have and with each additional year of my life, I am given more reason to as well.)

So what am I wondering about this time? Simple: why do only Americans assassinate their major political figures? Sure, every once in a long while, someone flips out in the Middle East or in Israel and a well-known politician or Prime Minister is killed, but it's almost always someone "from the other side". No, Americans are pretty unique in that they elect someone to the highest office in the land, and then, later, for myriad, stupid reasons, they decide to end their term of office prematurely. Think about it:

• Including the current one, the US has had 44 presidents thus far.
• Four presidents have definitely been assassinated: Lincoln (#16), Garfield (#20), McKinley (#25), and Kennedy (#35).
• Two more presidents are at least rumored to have been assassinated: Taylor (#12) and Harding (#29).
• Two additional presidents were injured in assassination attempts: Roosevelt (#26) and Reagan (#40).
• And, there have been 13 assassination attempts on presidents not mentioned in the points above.

That's a pretty impressive list, if you ask me: 21 of 44 (that's 47%) have been killed, injured, or attempts have been made on their lives. Just how democratic is this? With the exception of Johnson (#36), every single president since Kennedy has been at least threatened with assassination. That doesn't make you wonder? It makes me wonder, I can assure you of that.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know what to think about that. My first reaction is, "the US is one violent society." Another thought that crosses my mind is, "why is assassination (well, murder, actually) considered a solution to anything?" More generally, "what does this say about the state of American democracy?" And the cynical side of me wants to know why America is held up as an example for anything political? Be honest. Who really wants a job in which almost half the holders have been murdered or someone attempted to murder them? And the country isn't even 300 years old! So young, so reckless, so irresponsible.

Yes, I wonder a lot ... more some days that others ... sometimes merely because the calendar gives reason to.

False dichotomies

We all like to think we're free ... we're not. We like to think we're secure ... we're not. We like to think we know something ... we don't. We like to think we can handle things ... we can't. We like to think we're on top of things ... we aren't. We like to think we have a say in what's going on ... we don't. We like to think we ... well, we like to think whatever we think.

Elections were just held in America. Did anything change? Nope. The Europeans are getting restless about TTIP. Has anything changed? Nope. The crisis in the Ukraine has been mollified by recent elections. Is the situation less tenuous? Nope. ISIS is still on the march. Are we any safer? Nope. The climate is changing. Are we any closer to a solution? Nope. The banking industry is acting as crazy as they were before the last crash. Are we going to see the next one coming? Nope.

We like to think we live in democratic societies. Do we? Nope. We like to believe that we're the good guys (politically, religiously, economically ... and I'm talking about the West here). Are we? Nope. We want to believe that everyone's out to get us (because we're the "good guys"). Are they? Nope. We like to think that we have a say in what's going on (wherever it is we happen to be living). Do we? Nope. We want to believe that things are going to get better. Are they? Nope. We want to believe that our children will have it at least close to as good as we had it. Will they? Nope.

Taken in isolation, none of these things is all that bad. It's the fact that we have to deal with all of them all at once that makes us uneasy. As good, everyday moderns, we think that things should either be one way or the other. Truth be told, it's hardly ever that way. That whole "50 shades of gray" thing was off the mark and beside the point. There's a lot more shades of gray and we have to deal with them every single minute of every single day of our lives.

The result? We end up creating false dichotomies that we have have to deal with and that we don't really understand: liberal/conservative, democracy/totalitarianism, capitalism/socialism, givers/takers, friend/enemy, saved/damned, freedom/slavery ... and the list goes on and on. Who really knows the difference? Where do we accurately draw the line? How do you really tell one from the other? To me, these are all legitimate questions that demand legitimate answers, or how am I to understand the drone-killing, war-waging, president who got more money from Wall Street than any of his predecessors being called a Marxist-socialist-imperial-dictator? It just doesn't make sense, but a lot of things don't make sense to me anymore. I used to think it was because I didn't understand, but I'm coming to realize that a whole lot of people who are claiming to know something, in fact don't know very much at all.

No, dear reader, the weirdness index is simply rising.

I would like to think

... that things aren't as bad as I think they are, that things are getting better, that we're somehow "getting it", that we're moving "forward" (whatever that means) or "making progress", that we're somehow more secure, smarter, or wiser than we used to be. But, alas, we're not.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that things used to be better and that we need to turn back the clock or calendar, or whatever. They weren't. We shouldn't. What I am saying is that you would think that we might have solved a couple of problems by now, but in truth we haven't. Think about it. Oh sure, we have a supposed cure for this or that illness, but it's only available to those who can afford it, and most can't; there are more people worldwide suffering from hunger than ever before; the extremes of poverty and wealth are getting more extreme; there hasn't been a year of my life (and I'm not youngster anymore) in which there hasn't been a war somewhere (and most likely in which my country of birth has been seriously involved); prices have never really ever gone down; and more than one economy in which I have been participating has tanked more than once.

It makes you think. Well, it makes me think, at any rate. But it's not getting any easier to make sense of it all.

Far be it from me to think that I'm some kind of isolated case. I'm not. Most of the people with whom I have to do, day in and day out, have historical biographies much like my own. For those of us who were once "in the middle", things aren't all that rosy. For those of us who got an above-average education without having to leverage the rest of lives, we realize that no matter who's in power, their power seems to somehow increase, while ours seeps away before our very eyes. For those of us who still like to think that we can think, well, I would like to think that we're not as dumb as so many would like us to be. But I'm starting to have my doubts. Serious doubts.

For almost a decade-and-a-half, I lived and worked in Silicon Valley in California. There were lots of bright people running around, to be sure. Some of them are rich beyond our wildest dreams today. Some are poorer than church mice. Some had the most clever ideas for products and services. Some believed the weirdest stuff that you can imagine. You would think that I most like had seen and heard it all. But I haven't. Today's world is weirder, crazier, more unpredictable, more elusive than anything I saw, heard, or experienced there. Why is that?

To be perfectly honest, I'd really like to know. From time to time in these posts, I try to explore the reasons. I've not decided on anything yet, except that we're not going anywhere fast. In fact, we're not getting a grip on anything at all. So, if you'll bear with me for the next couple of posts, I would like to air some of that thinking. Maybe you'll recognize where I've missed something, overseen something, misinterpreted something.

Who knows? I would like to think ...

The gods of Mammon

Be patient, gentle Reader, be patient; I'm almost done.

Sometimes you just have to get it off your chest. Sometimes you just have to let it out. Sometimes, you just have to vent as well. But, sometimes, you have good reason to.

I think I've isolated the real heart of the issue, the reason why, at bottom, America is the way it is and why most Americans are the way they are. I hate to be the one to break it to you all, but the True Religion of America is materialism. Down-and-dirty, straight-up, unabashed, self-effacing worship of the gods of Mammon.

It's a long and complicated, deep-seated infestation from the Puritans, I am sure, but everything in America in America is measured in terms of things. Things, not just clothes, make the man. The house (even if it's a McMansion), the car (which says more about one than just about anything else), the phone, the tablet, the watch, the jewelry, the places one goes to eat ... that's what counts.

I recently had the wonderful opportunity to see friends from America from "way back when". What did we talk about? Property, investments, retirement options, cars (or pick-ups), vacation opportunities ... that is, pretty much things ... things that one can "have". Value(s) translate into dollar values. You are what you have.

There are those who would hasten to point out that my position on "things" is the result of the fact that I really don't have a lot of things. I don't own property. I do own my car (but it's four years old and over-mileaged). I don't have "investments" to speak of. And I'm about to start drawing modest retirements from both the US and Germany (in other words, two almost-halves almost make a whole ... though it may be more like a "hole"). But, I really don't mind. That's just the way things are. I don't feel like a lesser person because I can't measure up to all the things that others have acquired. It's nothing I ever really wanted to do, and in that, I can safely say, I believe I have been quite the success.

No, in my life, other "things" have been more important than things: what one thinks, what one believes and why, what one knows, how one treats others, regardless of one's relationships, whether one practices what one preaches, how open one is, how tolerant, how forgiving, how honest, how true, how loyal and devoted, how caring, show sharing, how loving, how humble.

In this regard, I have found that I have been pretty much of a rebel, no matter where I have lived or worked. That's OK. I don't mind being different. I wish that more Americans wouldn't mind either. I suspect that there are lots of potentials there, but besides the gods of Mammon, Americans have to also endure the Caretaker of Conformity.

But, it's time to stop. It's time to review and re-evaluate. It's time to reconsider. There are going to be hard times ahead (and this is not just my curmudgeonly cynicism talking), and we are going to need each other more than ever before in our lifetimes. Maybe it's time to convert.

Don't shoot till you see the fear in their eyes

Some of you are probably thinking that I'm being pretty unpatriotic at the moment. There, I suppose, you are right. Personally, I see it as being non-patriotic, not unpatriotic. America could be such a nice place, but it's like I said back in July: it's just hard to deal with all the hypocrisy. I happen to agree with Einstein: patriotism is pretty much an infantile disease, like measles. But, if you like itching, well, hey, who am I to stop you? Isn't that what freedom's all about?

Truth be told, I'm just a bit frustrated at the moment. Since most of you Americans have never been anywhere else, you don't know what it's like to the "token Ami". Yes, I'm the one that family, friends, and acquaintances turn to for the explanations as to why America is bombing this place, or what Americans have against universal healthcare, or how it is that some many apparent "idiots" (their term, not mine) get elected to public office, or why there's a race problem, or how can so many so-called Christians advocate the death penalty. (And, yes, dear reader, I've been asked about every single one of those issues, and many, many more. As the great comics have all noted: you can't make this stuff up.)

In other words, since I was born there and since I still carry a blue passport, I am somehow, magically supposed to know why America ticks the way it does. And all I can tell them is, I didn't really understand it all when I lived there, and now that I'm here and I see what's going on, I understand it even less.

One of the issues that parents, teachers, educators, etc. have to come to terms with when dealing with children and adolescents is how to make them see that their actions have effects on others. That relationship between "me and thee" is a tough one to grasp when you're young. We all know, however, that some of them just never get it. They grow up still not understanding this simple fact of life. And it is this behavior that so many "outsiders" (Americans call the "foreigners") just don't get.

America spends more on defense and less on actual humanitarian aid than any developed country. They have the audacity to demand that others follow suit. While Americans like to think of their country as a benevolent patron, what the benefactors of that "benevolence" experience is more like a mafioso patron. America has unmasked itself: drone assassinations of "alleged" terrorists, the deceits, lies and threats from the perpetual surveillance state, the economic extortion and terror imposed by American manipulated "organizations", such as the WTO, the IMF and World Bank, the perpetual war machine ... this is all America seems to know anymore, and that is, to put it simply, a sad, sad story.

There was a time, and maybe even rightfully so, when America was looked up as the beacon of freedom in the world. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that beacon of freedom in more and more looking like a death-ray of terror. It may be time to regroup.

A deeper view from the outside

Let me say that I am fully aware that some readers were simply offended by the last post. How could I ... how dare I besmirch the image of "the greatest country in the world"? But who thinks it is? That's the party line inside the borders, and I know that for a fact from my childhood. But who else thinks so? Those immigrants who are so desperate to get anywhere other than where they are who sneak in illegally, risking life, limb, and liberty only to be thrown out again if they are caught? Maybe? All those brown people near oil fields who have been shot at, bombed, starved, diseased, assaulted, mishandled, demeaned, denigrated, and demoralized? I doubt it, but who knows?

How insulting is that very phrase, which is quick to fall from American lips for all those who did have the "luck" to be born there? Do Americans really think that there's no better place on earth? And upon what do they base that judgement: only 10% of the American population even possesses a passport, some never use theirs at all, and the majority who do use them to cross over into Mexico or Canada since the requirement for travel documents changed? So, who's seen what to know one way or the other? So again, we hear all the words, we know what each of them means, but together, well, they just don't give us much sense at all. Don't get me wrong, there are many positive characteristics about America and Americans ... and there are just as many for anywhere else and any other people, if you're willing to look. No, most of them never get out, and what's going on inside, well, that gives a lot of us on the outside pause for thought

What do we see? The greatest disparity between rich and poor in the developed world; lack of basic social safety nets (and a hard-line approach to getting rid of the rest of what is left); lack of universal healthcare; the most expensive healthcare system in the world; highest rate of child poverty in the developed world; highest infant mortality rate of the developed countries; a dysfunctional system of government; bizarros as holders of political office (and if you think Bachman, Cruz, O'Connell, Boehner, Gohmert, Paul, ... the list goes on and on and on); the gun fanaticism; the incarceration rate; the violence; the brutal police tactics; the science deniers; the religious fundamentalists who are forcing their beliefs into the school system; the most rapacious form of capitalism ever devised; the cult-like worship of money; the perpetual war machine ... you get the point. That's what it looks like from elsewhere. You need to maybe get out, take a step back, take a deep breath, and then look again.

It all wouldn't be so bad if it weren't so embarrassing for those of us who are asked why things are the way they are? Believe me, there is a lot of scratching-of-heads that goes on outside your borders. It also wouldn't be so bad if you would just stay where you are and only focused on yourselves. You could rape, murder, pillage and plunder each other all you wanted, and the rest of the world would have more than enough reason to respect your national sovereignty. Unfortunately, your government only wages its wars in other peoples' houses. The consequence is that when America implodes -- and it's doing its best to do so soon -- it's going to cause a lot of collateral damage, and the most likely victims are starting to get very uneasy about it all.

A view from the outside

It's that time again ... Americans are getting ready for their favorite unproductive activity: mid-term elections. Not being caught up on the inside, the view from the outside can be quite informative, if you allow it to be so.

Americans like to think they are special. They even like to think they invented modern democracy. What did the Greeks know? We' showed them, they say, and we showed everyone else how it's done. If it weren't for America, we'd all be oppressed in monarchical or tyrannical dictatorships or something of that ilk, or so the story goes. But, that view from outside is revealing in different ways.

Over in Hong Kong, students and others have been protesting and shutting down the commercial sector because the Chinese masters wanted to vet all candidates for their elections. The students asked what kind of democracy that was? And the answer is obvious: it's American-style democracy. Others, in secret or with a token show of transparency, determine who's going to run against whom. Where's the difference? And if that's not bad enough, the candidates selected aren't really all that different even if others -- mostly behind the scenes -- tries to color one of them red and the other blue. After all, how can you choose among more than two? So you're given the choice between red loser or blue loser. But, hey, this is America where losers can become winners! How long did it take me to figure that one out?

And then, right there in the land of the free, with all those billed rights: the highest judicial instance in the country decided that money talks, literally. It used to be one man (later, one person; most recently, one registered and validated ID-carrying person) one vote. Now the votes are counted in dollars before you even get started. Like I have long said, Americans truly have the best government money can buy.

The view from the outside shows us that in fact America has lost the plot. Yes, they love to think they are special, and the word they like best to describe that specialness (for there are negative kinds of "special" -- just think short busses) in positive and glamorous terms, so they call it "exceptionalism". But, let's face it: that's just another kind of "-ism", like consumerism, cronyism, or totalitarianism. And, let's not forget that aberrations are, by their very nature, exceptional as well.

Personally, I wish them a lot of luck in their predetermined game. They're going to need it. The world is watching, but rapidly tiring of all the senseless antics. It's time to get new clowns into the ring.

But, hey, maybe it isn't that way at all. Yet, it really looks that way from the outside.

... be changed?

Yes, ... be changed. Change is going to happen. That's just how things work. You can fight it, or you can be a part of it. This is one of those issues in which abstention is not an option.

Doing nothing means we will be changed. We'll have no choice, no influence on the outcome. We can only react, not act. Granted, we may not have much influence on the whole problem, but, as I pointed out last time, we always have the option of changing ourselves. And if we change ourselves, as pithy as it sounds, we have changed the world.

Now, what kind of change is within our control that might have a world-changing impact. I know that most of you figure you're pretty OK just the way you are, but I'm here to tell you that you aren't. You, me, everyone ... we all need to change, and we all need to make the same change: we have to stop putting ourselves first. What, you ask, are you talking about? My whole life revolves around others, and I'm here to tell you that it doesn't. You are the center of your own little world. We're all the centers of our own little worlds. And, that, my friends is the real issue.

We're pretty much programmed that way. From the time we can hear, we're told we have to look out for ol' #1, that if we don't take care of ourselves, no one else will, that you have to be your own person, that you can't take crap from anyone else, that you have to get yours before the others get theirs. We get it in varied and subtle ways, but we get it day and night, 24/7, on the Web, on TV, on the radio, at work, at school ... simply everywhere and everywhen.

While I will be among the first to admit that there are those of you who have done a pretty good job of resisting, but even you haven't gone far enough. For those of you who I've described quite accurately, it's obvious that you have to get started on yourselves immediately. But we all need to change, either in direction or intensity ... it doesn't matter to me, but we have to start putting others first ... not saying we put them first ... actually putting them first.

It doesn't have to be everyone all at once. This is something you can do in small steps, if great leaps are not really your thing. Pick one person a day (or week or month ... no, a year's too long) and put them before yourself: literally, figuratively, seriously. You can start local, too. No need to pick some unknown person from sub-Saharan Africa (unless that's where you happen to be), you can start with your family, friends, next-door neighbor. It doesn't matter, as long as you do it.

If we all do it, I suspect we have a chance for a better future. Yes, it means fundamentally changing the way you think, but what's wrong with that? I mean, if you always think what you always thought, you'll always get what you always got. It's that simple. Still skeptical? Fine, be that way, but when the world does go to hell in a handbasket, you won't be able to say that no body ever gave you the chance to save it. I did.

Change or ... ?

Things aren't what they used to be, and for the vast majority of us, they're not getting any better. There is not just one single thing that's bringing us all down.

It's not just that the political system is broken, or that capitalism has gone off the deep end. It's not just that we're changing the climate and destroying the planet through our addiction to plastics and oil. It's not that our schools are failing or that people are simply getting dumber. And it's not just a matter of crawling into our own little cocoons and ignoring anything in the world that doesn't quite suit us. It's not because we've lost our faith in God or that gays can marry or that women want equal pay. Oh sure, there's a bit of truth in each one of these things, and each one, in its own way, is contributing to the feelings of powerlessness and helplessness that each and every one of us feels each and every day.

Things change all the time and every one of these things has changed and will continue to change as long as we're alive. Some of them could be show-stoppers, like an environmental collapse, a large-scale armed conflict because of food or water scarcity, or perhaps a global financial meltdown. Any one of these things could happen, but these are all things that we, as human beings, have significant influence over. Fewer activities that aggravate the climate, better distribution of resources, particularly essential resources, and a more equitable financial system are all within our power. The problem as I see it, though, is that they are not within the will of most people. We think these are big-ticket items, and we're just too small, too insignificant to have any real influence on them.

In the undeveloped world, we know (or at least suspect) that too many are simply embroiled in an everyday struggle for existence. In the developed world, we see this becoming increasingly the case: rising unemployment, downward pressure on wages, unstable employment when you have it, low-wage jobs, often part-time (even if you're "lucky" enough to have more than one), rising costs of food, rent, transportation ... the list goes on and on. What can any of us little people do about all of that? That's a good question, and I can assure you, there is no easy answer.

We can choose to do nothing, and hope for the best, but we all know deep down that the best will be the worst. If any one (or more than one) of those too-big-to-do-anything-about systems fails, we'll have no choice but to merely react. And when we all react at once, it isn't going to be a pretty sight. On the other hand, even though we may not be able to directly change and of the big things, the one item over which we (should) have complete control is ourselves. Yes, in the end, regardless of what you think about any of it, it all comes down to you anyway. Change or ...

What I do get, though

There are some of you who figure I'm just another Bush basher. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Sure, he was an awful president, but I can hardly remember a time when we had a good one. It's an impossible job, I suppose. I certainly wouldn't want it, but there are those who do, for any number of reasons. I don't particularly care what they are, because for as long as I can remember, none of them -- at least judging by their actions -- had much to do with me or you or any of us little folk. I can't help but feel that they really don't care all that much.

And for those short-term thinkers who think I'm playing the left-right card, I'll have to disappoint you there too. First of all, the political left and right was a creation of the 19th century, and that's where the idea belongs. We should be beyond that. After all, it is 2014. Even more poignant is the fact that the US doesn't know what left and right is. Politics there, when seen from the outside, where I am, is simply a matter of conservative and even more conservative. To be perfectly honest, America became a one-party system a long time ago: that one party may have two tiny wings, if you will, but truth be told, there's really not a dime's bit of difference between them when you get to looking closer.

No, it's all about power in the end. With Obama, it's not always obvious, only when he starts persecuting whistleblowers or droning innocent civilians. With Bush, it was easier. It was more obvious. His whole crew was about power, and violence, and they didn't hesitate to let everybody know. Clinton was truly slick enough to create enough diversions that we overlooked his deference to Wall Street and his commitment to US hegemony. Bush I was just a weak Reagan, and Reagan was an actor, pretending to be president but really just trampling over little people and waging fake wars for fake reasons, supporting wherever possible macho Central American dictators. Carter got the boot for not acting macho enough; Nixon and his henchman Kissinger were all about secret illegal wars in and around Vietnam. The top priority, in all cases? The common factor amongst them all? Image. An image of power. An image that scares others into doing your bidding. The unfortunate state of affairs is that really starting with Reagan, it has become more direct, more in-your-face, more violent, more aggressive, more intolerant, more ideological, and downright meaner.

And oh, by the way, this is not about government power either. Americans love their limited-government ideology, but oddly enough, those who are truly wielding the power can use that to distract most people from what is really going on. The shredding of the Constitution, the gutting of the Bill of Rights, the pervasive surveillance, are one side of the coin, but it's not because the government per se has something up its sleeve. No, as the old saying goes, "follow the money": the supremacy of property over human rights, the recent Supreme Court rulings on money as speech, the unjust legal system, the for-profit prison system, the privatization of the education system, and all the rest of these moves are put in place not so the government has more control, but rather that certain moneyed interests have more control ... of the government. When you take a step back, you realize quickly that what we normally think of as "the government" is merely a strawman for the real powers that be.

In keeping with theme that started this thread, I can only add, that going with this particular flow strongly reduces the likelihood that what you're doing is honorable.

Can anyone save us?

And so, it would seem we've come full circle. When we reflect back upon the last few posts, we see that none of the disciplines or institutions that we might expect to come to the rescue can or will.

Science is capable of developing deep, insightful and helpful knowledge, but if we ignore it, we do so at our own peril.

Technology can solve lots of problems, but not all problems, and it is up to us to help it decide what's worthwhile and what is not.

Politics has become beholden to special interests, but it is we, the populus who have reneged on our responsibility to get involved and keep their noses to the wheel.

It should be clear that "the market", as it is currently practiced, is simply a degenerate extension of the political sphere. Money can never be the measure of anything, but we have essentially turned it into a god in its own right.

Turning the "religious" corner, we see that Jesus showed us the way, and he admonished us to follow suit, but we've chosen to ignore that.

And God, if He exists, according to His own accounting, told us all that if we don't do it, nobody else will.

This is where is all comes together. Regardless of whether we're religious or not, believers or atheists, in the end, we're all in this together. Regardless of what we may think is true and right, at bottom, we're all in this together. When all is said and done, there is no outside force, power or agency that can, or will, suddenly step in and snatch us from the jaws of destruction.

No, if anything at all is to be done or can possibly be done, we have no choice: we -- you, me, our families, everyone we know and don't know -- are the only ones who can do anything at all.

We have already raced past the crossroads, but it may be that we can backtrack far enough to take the other road. Whether we do or not doesn't depend on anyone or anything other than ourselves. As Pogo put it so aptly so long ago, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

If this enemy is to be defeated, however, only we can do it. Who's up for the challenge?