The Mirror of History

The story about medical experimentation in Guatemala is a harrowing reminder of our past, yet our reaction to this story is itself a snapshot of where our society is today, and I see a welcome image of hope for Progressives, in this time when disillusionment and disappointment seem to be almost overwhelming.

Amy Goodman's October 5 interview with Susan Reverby, the medical historian who recently brought to light the unpublished documentation of the project, puts the incident in perspective. As an authority on the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, she is very familiar with the social attitudes of those decades when the lives of some were simply and plainly not considered to be as worthy of respect as the lives of others. In the case of Tuskegee, poor black sharecroppers in Georgia who were found to already have syphilis were studied, without being told that it was syphilis that they suffered from, they were lied to about the nature of their medical treatment, and they were never treated for their disease, even after penicillin was found to be an effective cure.

The study in Guatemala is even more egregious due to the fact that individuals who were institutionalized in a prison and in an insane asylum, as well as some army soldiers, were actually infected with syphilis, surely without their knowledge, although what they were told was a detail that had been left out of these newly discovered physician's notes. And even in the atmosphere that allowed for the Tuskegee experiment to go on for forty years, from 1932 to 1972, Susan Reverby points to a comment in a letter referring to a statement by the surgeon general himself, showing that he knew that it would not be ethically acceptable in the United States, as the most shocking aspect of her discovery.

On one hand, it is difficult to acknowledge the wrongs of our nation's past. Many would prefer not to think about them. When Glenn Beck spoke of “restoring honor” to the United States during his rally in Washington, for example, his statement rang of the personal experience of a man who seeks to put his own past behind him. He said,

“Let's be honest. If you look at history, America has been both terribly good and terribly bad. It has been both, but to concentrate on the bad instead of learning from the bad and repairing the bad and then looking to the good that is still out in front of us within our reach— We have a choice today. We can either let those scars crush us or redeem us.”

When Glenn Beck looks into the mirror of history, while acknowledging the bad, he cannot bear to dwell for long on those painful aspects. Assuming that what has worked for him in his own life will work for the nation, he turns toward the language of religious redemption, seeing those shameful instances as a part of a necessary spiritual path, as all-too-human lapses, their lessons being those of faith rather than of seeking deeper self-awareness. And whenever Progressives are characterized as the “blame America first” crowd, this abject refusal to look in the mirror and take responsibility for our collective actions, particularly in the “America” that stretches all the way to Tierra del Fuego, the colossal societal disconnect is strengthened.

On the other hand is the hope that surrounds this story. I perceive this moment to be a brief flash of the hope that Barack Obama campaigned upon, the hope that progress brings. That we find this story to be so horrifying, that the president's immediate apology to the nation of Guatemala is seen nearly universally as the appropriate response, shows that the rate of progress is, like the growth of a child, slow and nearly imperceptible to those who are witness to it day in and day out, yet society is moving forward.

Furthermore, by facing up to the attitudes that decided that it was acceptable to do in Guatemala what was not acceptable to do in the United States, the story links us to other past actions that our nation has taken in the Americas that merit attention, if we want to find realistic answers to problems such as illegal immigration or improve our relations within the rest of America. Rather than fearing that our scars will crush us, or refusing to accept blame beyond doing so in seeking redemption, we must study our image in that mirror in order to link our past actions to issues that continue to affect us today.

Walt Long's novel, The Travelers, achieves this goal. It is a story about the smuggling of illegal immigrants through a community in southern New Mexico that not only humanizes all of the factions involved, but also makes the link between the social realities that so many of the travelers are escaping in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, and the part that the United States has played in helping to create those situations. This novel evenhandedly depicts the complexities of a vexing issue, offering not answers, but respect for the fact that it is as complex as the human character is.

Similarly, the past year's unveiling of classified State Department documents from the Nixon era merit close examination, as they go a long way in explaining how the brutal dictatorships that gripped the Southern Cone region of Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay were the results of a concentrated effort by the United States to weaken social movements that were becoming legitimized through democratic processes, thus threatening the veracity of the neo-liberal narrative.

“History does not refer merely […] to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it, the past, with us. And we’re ‘unconsciously controlled’ in so many ways, that history, the past, is present now in all we do.” - James Baldwin

Someone Who Cares

This is excerpted from No Stranger to Strange Lands: A Journey Through Strange Coincidences, Connective Thoughts, and Far Flung Places

In light of the recent Wikileaks of the Afghan War Logs, I am posting this segment from my book (which will be available VERY SOON) regarding the mess in Afghanistan.

Talk about someone who cares: Bill Moyers had an inspiring interview on his show, Bill Moyers Journal, last night, with Sarah Chayes. She used to be an intrepid journalist for National Public Radio, but was moved to action after the United States attacked Afghanistan to supposedly topple the Taliban, which, of course, we had originally empowered during the good old Cold War days to fight a proxy war against the Soviet Union's occupation of that country. She had been reporting from there, and decided to do something to try to actually help the beleaguered people of Afghanistan in some little way. So she opened a small natural soap factory, putting people to work on a sustainable product that gives them an alternative to poppy farming that is so prevalent there. Her company is called Arghand, and the all-natural hand-crafted soaps are available in the United States and Canada. The woman is a goddess of strength, love, intelligence, and determination, and Bill Moyers asked her great questions about what is really going on over there. The poppy business, she reports, is not being conducted by any criminal enterprise, nor by the evil Taliban, as our government likes to claim, but by regular businessmen, who are the only entities in the country to dole out any kind of credit to farmers, and so that is what they farm. Their business dealings are only slightly more complicated than any other business there by having to pay more bribes than usual. The term 'criminal' has no real meaning there, because everyone in the entire society is forced to be 'criminal' because of the lack of any kind of oversight or system of accountability. Everyone is forced to pay bribes up and down the line to get anything done, and to skim resources like development aid money just to survive, because a lethal combination of inflation and unemployment is crushing families there. She says that the Afghans don't want handouts, they want jobs and a government that functions. She draws a metaphorical picture of a town in the Wild West, where the sheriff needs to catch some bad guys, so he hires a posse, which is probably made up of some criminals willing to go and catch those bad guys for money, but when the feat is accomplished, the sheriff does not then put the posse in charge of the town. In Afghanistan, however, that is exactly what United States did. They placed real criminals in charge of the government, except for Karzai, who was the only one elected by the people, but who is powerless against the hugely corrupted system he oversees. Now, the U.S. claims that the Afghan people had their democratic vote, and it is up to them to hold their government accountable, which, of course, is impossible because they are being shaken down by their own government, not helped by it in any way. She is the only foreigner that people there see doing what should be done, which is to help rebuild the economy through business investments that offer jobs that will help them get back on their feet.

On Pakistan, she says, “It's been very clear to me, watching since 2002, that Pakistan has been buying us off, by a well-timed delivery of an Al Qaeda operative, which has then caused us to look the other way about the Taliban.”

On why the southern part of the country is so important, she says, “It's kind of like the marrow of the country's bones. Afghanistan was founded in Kandahar. Later the capital was moved to Kabul. It was really the capitol, the Taliban's capitol. It's also the part of the country that the Pakistani government has been able to control most successfully by-proxy. So, this is why 99 percent of the people in Kandahar believe that we are allied with the Taliban. Everybody thinks that America is allied with the Taliban.”

On the nature of the Afghan government, “We keep hearing in the West, about the democratically-elected Afghan government. And, oh, no, we can't get in there and interfere with any of these people, because they're the government of a sovereign country. Well, you could have fooled the Afghans. The Afghans – the only person who's really elected, who has any power, is president Karzai. But every other government official that Afghans interact with on a daily basis, they didn't elect. And they don't have any recourse. They've got no way of lodging a complaint against this person. Or nobody who can put any leverage on them... We're only fooling ourselves when we talk about this democratically-elected Afghan government.”

And on why Afghanistan is so important to the future of the entire world, "There are a lot of people, I think, both in the West and in the Muslim world, who believe in clash of civilization, who want to see the world as a place dominated by two irrevocably hostile blocs. I don't want to live in that kind of world. I think that we live in an interconnected world full of rich, flawed, varied civilizations that are inextricably intertwined. And, so what I'm doing in Afghanistan is working for that intertwined world."

In that sense, George Bush and Osama bin Laden are on the same team. Also, I would note that Afghanistan is in a state of true and absolute free-market capitalism, the kind that Milton Friedman had wet dreams about. That is the true result of that type of system – an unfettered, unregulated, free-for-all, where everyone has to fend for themselves, and only the strong and powerful survive. Lovely, isn't it? Maybe Grover Norquist would like to move there and see what it is really like to have a government small enough to drown in a bathtub.

see: No Stranger to Strange Lands Chapter Outline

other book excerpts: Studs Turkel, King Marketing and His Queen, Pursuit of Happiness, and Three essays from No Stranger to Strange Lands in which the topic ineluctably turns into an Ayn Rant

Monkey Business

Things To Do To Throw A Monkey Wrentch In The System And Get Our Government Back - Naomi Klein's suggestion comes at the end of this segment with Amy Goodman. The link to the interview with her and Noam Chomsky follows. And then follows the link to Micheal Moore's interview with Amy, where he is also demanding we find some way to get our country back from corporate control.

AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Klein, right now—well, you just flew into Park City, Utah just before President Obama’s State of the Union address. Your reaction to it?
NAOMI KLEIN: Well, I mean, we knew the spending freeze was going to come, but to me, it’s really striking. I think what this moment represents is the decision, which we all feared would come, to pass the bill on from saving Wall Street, from saving the elites of this country from their own mess, a bill worth trillions of dollars, to regular people in need in this country. I mean, that’s what a spending freeze really means.

And we have to look at it in the context of the debt crisis that is occurring at the state level. There’s deficit—huge deficits being run up. California is the most dramatic example, but you’re already seeing how students are facing things like 30 percent tuition increases. Women’s shelters are being closed. So, you know, when the President says freeze spending, that’s saying to the states, “We’re not going to help you. We’re not going to bail you out.”

So this is really—this, to me, all comes back to the top-down bailout that should never have taken place in the first place, the decision that was made to throw the taxpayer dollars at the banks, at the elites, no strings attached, not to help the people losing their jobs, losing their homes. And now the bill is being passed on, because the debt crisis, the private-sector debt crisis, which started this, the banks racking up these huge debts, was never solved. It was just moved. It was just moved to the public coffers.

And now Obama is—this is a Hoover move. This is a Herbert Hoover move. And I think we have to say very clearly, he is not FDR. And, you know, in the spirit of Howard Zinn, who passed yesterday, I keep thinking, you know, what would he say about the State of the Union? And I think he would tell us to refuse to pay this bill, that we need a debtors’ revolt.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/28/noam_chomsky_and_naomi_klein_respond

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/26/michael_moore_on_haiti_the_supreme

And here is a segment from Thursday's Headlines on DemocracyNow! about something very important that everyone can get involved in making happen:

Dems Seek to Undo Supreme Court Ruling on Corporate ElectioneeringAnd Democrats are gearing up to try to counter the Supreme Court’s ruling that corporations can spend unlimited amounts of money to elect and defeat candidates. In a five-to-four decision, the Court overturned century-old restrictions on corporations, unions and other interest groups from using their vast treasuries to advocate for a specific candidate. Speaking on the House floor, Democratic Congress member Donna Edwards of Maryland said she’ll introduce a constitutional amendment to revoke the Supreme Court ruling.
Rep. Donna Edwards:

“The American people already believe that corporate special interests and their lobbyists run the show around here. I mean, the halls are crawling with them. But that’s not enough. Now the Court says to the big banks, to the drug companies, to the insurance companies, ‘Hey, all bets are off, and it’s open season. Our elections are for sale.’ A law won’t fix this; we have to fix it in the Constitution. So today I’ll introduce a constitutional amendment so that we, the people, can take back our elections and our democracy. This is not the People’s House Incorporated. We are the people. It’s our house, it’s our Constitution, and it’s our elections. And we plan to take it back from the United States Supreme Court.”

In his State of the Union address, President Obama renewed his criticism of the Supreme Court ruling, saying he hopes Congress passes legislation “that helps to right this wrong.”

Here is a link to Guernica Magazine's interview of Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur that show that there is hope from within the system to find ways to fix it:

http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/1432/kaptur/

And finally, the link to the second segment of Thursday's DemocracyNow!, which pays tribute to Howard Zinn, who passed away on Wednesday. The world will miss you, Howard Zinn, but we are so glad that you could share your wisdom - that war is unpredictable; war involves committing evil for the sake of a possible future good; war corrupts everybody involved with it; and that Democracy is The People, not the structures of government.

Thank you, Howard Zinn, for your active patience.

http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/1432/kaptur/

Seven Twenty-First Century Social Sins

In honor of International Human Rights Day, The Seven Twenty-First Century Social Sins

1.Power without Wisdom
2.Pleasure without Awareness
3.Science without Humanity
4.Knowledge without Understanding
5.Politics without Accountability
6.Commerce without Conscience
7.Spirituality without Connection

I believe in a progressive philosophy of examining ideas from the past, processing them to find what about them is useful and not so useful in the present, and reworking them so that they can help us to move society forward - to progress. In this way, beautiful customs that have passed on through time can be respected and continued, notions that may have been the product of ignorance or that have become obsolete can be discarded, and new customs and traditions can be woven from those most durable threads of tradition, being reinforced in the process.

In keeping with this philosophy, here is my updated version of the list that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi laid out in 1925 in the journal, "Young India." His list of social behaviors to avoid was, of course, the product of his place and time, which was Colonial India struggling for self-determination and social justice. Gandhi's Indian revolution was truly innovative as a widespread social movement in its rejection of the use of violence, and his ideas, manifested by his actions, have been an inspiration to all who have advocated for social change through peaceful resistance – from figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Cesar Chavez, Lech Walesa, Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, Howard Zinn, Wangari Maathai in Africa, Ramzi Kysia of the Free Gaza Movement, to artists and musicians such as John Lennon, Bob Marley, and many, many more, from around the globe, representing all walks of life.

Although Gandhi's potent demonstration of the power of non-violent insistence upon change is timeless wisdom, this updated version of Gandhi's Seven Social Sins is necessary because the original applied to a world that has changed significantly since that time. In 1925, the idea of Communism was gaining ground, the European Empires were experiencing their final decline, oil dependency was on the rise, geopolitics were undergoing tectonic shifts, and Free Market Capitalism had yet to become the weapon of choice to be wielded by the United States in order to maintain its total dominance upon the world stage of today. In those years between the two World Wars, workers and poorer people of the world were demanding inclusion in the new kinds of governments that were replacing the waning monarchies, while those who had benefited from the monarchical structures and their hierarchical social constructs sought to hold on to their power and wealth. This was only one chapter in the eternal class struggle that stretches throughout the story of human civilization, but at no other time in history was the notion that the lesser classes might become enfolded into the structures of governance more energized, as the dismantling of old regimes gave way to new opportunities.

It was this wave of opportunity that opened the door to new ideas about how societies should structure themselves, and what pitfalls they should avoid, that Gandhi was boldly walking through when he presented his Seven Social Sins to the subcontinent of India and to the world. Here is his original list:

1.Wealth without Work
2.Pleasure without Conscience
3.Science without Humanity
4.Knowledge without Character
5.Politics without Principle
6.Commerce without Morality
7.Worship without Sacrifice

The differences between the two lists reflect very different attitudes that have arisen with time. Gandhi's version was just like his dress - simple, basic, unadorned. The list appeared, with no discussion whatsoever, for his followers to contemplate as they struggled to recreate an independent India. I have recycled Gandhi's list, demonstrating my philosophy of examining, processing, progressing, and have adorned it with a few new ideas of my own. As the people of the world seek ways to demand social justice in the face of the current economic uncertainty, a cohesive foundation for how to challenge social policies and philosophies that have failed to live up to their promises will be of the utmost importance. It must be stressed that this is a matter of basic human rights, not one of capital flow or market readjustments. Gandhi framed the struggle of the poorest classes of India as being the same struggle as the entire society's right to self-determination against British colonialism. This lesson that various social struggles are not fragmented, but rather, are all one and the same - struggles against wildly unequal distribution of wealth, against the hoarding of power, against the undermining of democratic principles, against environmental destruction - are all connected.

1. Wealth without Work - Power without Wisdom

The idea of, “no wealth without work” has its origins in the ethical argument against usury, or the charging of interest on loans, long seen as a social evil as well as a weakness of character. This idea appeared in the form of "just price theory," from the economic thought of the Middle Ages, and later, in Adam Smith's "Labor Theory of Value," both connecting a product's value to the labor used to produce it, which was further connected to the greater social good by its promotion of industriousness in individuals. As the Industrial Revolution dramatically raised the level of the world's commerce to new heights, economic theory leap towards new understandings, and capitalism based on credit and investment banking did away with the ethical frown upon what was once called "usury." In response to new imbalances that arose along with these changes, socialist philosophy took up the old slogan anew, as laborers felt the need to stand up for themselves, striving to once again recognize the value and dignity of work, to instil pride in each individual's role in society, to raise the status of the worker from that of the mere commodity belonging to the wealthy owners of the corporations that were steadily building their own empires.

Although the ideals behind "no wealth without work" may be noble and just, I feel that this phrase no longer resonates in today's world, where investment strategies and the use of credit have become acceptable means of obtaining wealth that offer some level of greater social good in society. The caveat here is that these means not be taken to excess, which is the hard-learned lesson of the economic collapse of recent years. There is a point of balance between being too dependent on borrowing and not borrowing at all. In a system that thrives on the flow of capital, more than anything else, it is of the greatest import to make sure that not only those who already have large amounts of capital to invest have access to credit. And, despite that tough lesson about handing out credit as if it were Halloween candy (indeed, on college campuses, credit card applications were literally handed out along with candy bars), there are some positive signs that "usury," when carefully initiated and vigorously regulated, can offer a greater good to society, as evidenced by the growing movement of "micro loans" to the world's poorest citizens. These people, often women who have come together to form small cooperatives in impoverished regions, do not need much to help them improve themselves and their communities.

My idea is to look at financing of any sort, in any amount, not simply as a means of trade for goods and services, but as a source of power. Money is power. Many things offer power, including social status, physical strength, pure numbers, access to government representatives, charisma, the secret to nuclear fusion, etcetera. As the lesson about depending too strongly on credit has taught us, so, too, does any kind of power require moderation. This moderation is a kind of Wisdom. Therefore, Power Requires Wisdom.

No power without wisdom. No mere marketing of ideas without digging into the basis of those ideas, who is paying for the marketing of them, how they benefit certain individuals more than they offer any greater good, and how their very veracity might be in question. No unfettered freedom of access to government officials without some show of how the policies that one is pushing for would actually offer some greater good for society. No governmental position of power without strict mediation of how that power can and cannot be used. No trusting that those in power are there because they somehow deserve to be there, without any proof that they are capable or to be trusted with their power. No monarchy or dynasty. No impunity. No lack of oversight and regulation.

To tie power with wisdom is also to re-assert the relationship of those who hold power with those who allow them to hold that power. It is a reminder that in society, the many give tacit consent to their rulers when they do not voice their opposition to this relationship. If the many would understand that they, too, hold power - of numbers, of denial of services, of the ability to stop commerce, in entirely peaceful ways, especially when they can become organized and act in unison - then the powerful would be wise to look after the well-being of the larger community instead of only their own self-interests. And wisdom is, further, a connective and expansive force. It sees in terms of interaction rather than competition, relationships rather than enmities, community rather than self.

I feel that this framing of the issue, of no power without wisdom, without oversight or moderation, without connection, without a larger scope of vision addresses the ills of the modern world more than the framing of the issue as no wealth without work, as the former can be seen as a divisive point that can only degenerate into class struggle, in which the lower classes are viewed as committing one of the biblical seven cardinal sins - envy - while the upper classes are viewed as committing another - gluttony. The real sin here is that of generalization, which feeds the perception that the extremes of a situation are the norm, and that the actions of some represents the sentiments of all. The issues involved in class struggle are not simple. Rather, they are infinitely complicated, easily misunderstood by oversimplification, and inherently divisive. So, by replacing the reference to class struggle, as well as to the outdated connection of wealth to physical labor, with a very different characterization of wealth as a form of power, I hope to take a positive step forward toward the goal of reformulating how societies understand the problems presented by inequities of wealth and other types of power.

2. Pleasure without Conscience - Pleasure without Awareness

Mahatma Gandhi was devoted to a life of simple living, weaving his own clothing out of cotton, and minimizing pleasure and extravagances for the sake of spiritual purity. In this context, pleasure itself was to be avoided, and the having of pleasure was, if not sinful, then connected with guilt. I reject the idea of guilt trips that religious codes tend to impose, so I have substituted "awareness" for "conscience," and I believe that this admonition fits in with modern attitudes about how pleasure enhances our lives, which we should not constantly feel conscientious or riddled with guilt about. I feel that the 1960's cultural revolution - of progressive rock music, personal and sexual freedom, use of mind-altering drugs - ushered in a new understanding of how pleasure can actually enhance one's awareness in surprising ways, and is not always an act of pure hedonism, when that expanded awareness is a connective force instead of an isolating one. It is possible to have keen awareness while experiencing pleasure, if we put our minds to it, as opposed to closing ourselves off to the wider world and pretending that we are in some other reality. Celebrations such as Christmas and Thanksgiving are other examples of how we can enjoy ourselves while at the same time being thankful for the source of our joy. As long as we do not take things to extremes, do not celebrate for the sake of the pleasure itself, and make sure to remain aware of and connected to the larger situations around us, pleasure does not have to bring on pangs of conscience. Pleasure with awareness has the power to heal and re-energizing us to face larger realities with renewed vitality.

3. Science without Humanity

Einstein reiterated this idea with his famous quote, "It has become appallingly clear that our technology has surpassed our humanity." What Gandhi warned the world against, Einstein commiserated had happened. Einstein spoke of atomic weapons, but his observation goes well beyond that in today's world of i-phones and c-scans and gm-foods. The degree to which we do not understand how our gadgets work, let alone the consequences of their manufacture, distribution, and use, has lagged farther and farther behind the level at which we are enamored with them. And from this level of comfort with not understanding derives a tremendous disconnect, a fatal attraction to having no interest in understanding the world around us which leaves us dangerously vulnerable to campaigns of misinformation - the ultimate paradox of the "information age." So society becomes fractionalized, compartmentalized, separated into clusters of special interest groups, digesting information in small bits, sound bites, disambiguated twitters, and our ability to comprehend what it all means for our society, and what it says about us as human beings, gets lost in the onslaught of fragmentized info-porn. This is the nightmare that science fiction writers could not have dreamed up. The computers have not become frighteningly human-like, rather, the humans have become like machines. We must work to regain our humanity in the face of this advanced dependence upon technology.

4. Knowledge without Character - Knowledge without Understanding

Gandhi's idea of "no knowledge without character" carries the implicit meaning that it is "moral" character that must not be lacking. It seems to me that this kind of language was the norm in Gandhi's day, when speaking of how persons were to act in society, with all of the religious connotations included, whether those be Hindu or Muslim or Christian or any other. However, being a proponent of the idea that religion and "morality" are not necessary to motivate people to be upstanding and kind and generous, I want to get away from moralizing. The idea of "no knowledge without understanding," does just that - it takes knowledge out of the realm of a gift that must be paid for with morality and places it in the realm of a kind of power that requires a moderator.

To moderate knowledge with understanding seeks to take knowledge further than the mere collection of information. It ensures that the human element will be present, so that we will not be machines, nor will machines that collect information be anything like humans. To actually understand something is connective. It looks beyond the information and tries to make sense of it, using capabilities that only the human mind possesses. This is, in large part, what makes us human - to understand past, present, and future; to understand that when I do a certain thing, a predictable outcome will occur; to understand that symbolic sounds can be developed into language...

But "no knowledge without understanding" pushes us further, to keep learning new things, to strive to make sense out of what we know so far, to ask "why" after we know "what" and "where" and "how." It goads us toward the wisdom that, to paraphrase Socrates, a wise man understands how little he knows. And it entreats us to continuously connect all of the tidbits of information together into a larger understanding.

5. Politics without Principle - Politics without Accountability

Gandhi hoped that politics could be principled, that the political arena would be self-regulating, in a way similar to how the world of business was supposed to be mediated by such economic theories as the "invisible hand." Politics that lacked principle would be unacceptable to the citizens of a democracy. However, it seems that the opposite has come to pass, that politicians who choose to be principled cannot compete against those who are willing to market themselves insincerely, and worse, spend much of their energy attempting to demonize their political opponents - a process that continues on far past the political campaigns to infect governance itself. The result is that truths become buried under infinite levels of rhetoric, all constructive conversation on issues gets left by the wayside, and citizens become either polarized or cynical about the process, a situation that can only lead to a crisis of confidence in government. So the foundations of democracy - government by the people - begin to crack.

While one would reasonably expect politics to be principled, in its absence, what is needed is accountability. When individuals are found to be in blatant disregard of facts in their politicking, they need to be expelled from being involved in any way from the political process. Accountability would literally apply to accounting in terms of how much money is being spent on campaigns, and limits need to be placed, so that the process is not infected by its insipid undermining of the democratic process. And accountability would also apply in regard to openness of government, with fair access of all to their representatives, and a tracking of how much time and resources are being spent on the actual work of governance, along with further limits on how much precious time and resources can be spent politicking. Forcing the agents of government to account for their actions in a much more immediate and transparent way would go far to reign in the unprincipled politics that have caused so much confusion, polarization, and cynicism in today's political arena, and would begin to repair the foundation of democracy upon which the nation stands.

6. Commerce without Morality - Commerce without Conscience

While Gandhi spoke in terms of morality, I wish to move away from such terminology, for the reason that I have already stated, and also because of the danger of moral relativism. Morality is not universal.
It is dependent on society's mores, understandings, and distinct viewpoints. Not only does morality differ from society to society, but from individual to individual, as each one of us is free to develop our own belief systems within pluralistic societies that include many different religions and philosophies. Yet, some sort of code of conduct, some moderator, some set of principles, must apply to everyone in society, where we must all treat each other with a certain amount of respect, regardless of our personal moralities. A different framing of this concept would be to turn to "conscience," instead.

In this context, "conscience" does not imply guilt so much as empathy and compassion. When we are considering how to treat others in society, conscience can be our guide, as this goes beyond any religious moral code or belief system. The logic of "do unto others as you would have others do unto you" is as universal as any principle gets, having been present in systems of thought from Confucianism to Buddhism to Judeo-Christian-Muslim traditions to New Age philosophies to any thoughtful consideration of how to be a conscientious person. Similarly, when we have conscience about how our actions will effect the different strata of society and the environment, those larger entities within which we all operate, we connect ourselves with our surroundings and thus have a vested interest in doing those things that will help to keep those bodies vibrant and healthy.

This connective principle applies to all aspects of our lives, extending into how we conduct the commerce that is required in modern society to obtain most if not all of our vital needs. The idea that commerce is not a part of the human experience, that the same codes of conduct do not apply to the businesses that we create, participate in, and interact with, because these entities are not actual human beings, makes no sense, whatsoever. The strongest moderator of them all, beyond principle, beyond meek attempts at accountability that consist of fines which are simply worked into the cost of doing business, beyond awareness, which informs, but does not motivate to act conscientiously - conscience must be the moderator of commerce, as it is not something separate, but something that is at the very heart of the human experience and what society is all about.

Economic understandings that separate the "market" out from our daily lives and assume that scientific theories and numeric formulas hold all the answers to how money flows through society have been called into question again and again. Their failures to describe, let alone predict, economic realities might be remedied if they were to be reunited with human considerations, such as defining costs in terms of loss of productivity due to workers' health issues and attitudes, and with even more expansive evaluations of cost, such as the costs to the ecosystem imposed by pollution and environmental destruction. This expansive view of cost analysis might just find that there is a correlation between conscience and the well-being of our businesses in the same way that individuals find themselves to be happier when they are conscientious members of society.

7. Worship without Sacrifice - Spirituality without Connection

The name of "Mahatma" meaning "Great Soul," was given to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi while he was agitating for improvements in the desperate living conditions of poor workers in 1918, against largely British landlords, their militias, and their government supporters. He was arrested for his "agitating," which consisted of making detailed studies of the atrocious living conditions, leading clean-up campaigns, helping village leadership to initiate new school and hospital building, and advocating for the rights of the untouchables. He practiced Hinduism all his life, insisting that all religions were equal, their main purposes being to encourage compassion and brotherhood, while also all having their weaknesses to hypocrisy and dogma. As the title of his autobiography indicates, "The Story of My Experiments with Truth," he was dedicated to the search for Satya, or Truth. And he sought purity, simplicity, and self-sufficiency, practicing spiritual as well as politically-motivated fasting.

Mahatmas Gandhi was, of course, an extraordinary man, and his radical simplicity would be unacceptable in today's world, where appearances are all-important and we are bombarded by commercial messaging from all sides. Jimmy Carter was laughed out of office when he suggested that we all turn down our thermostats in the winter and wear sweaters instead. When the mantra of a whole society is "consumerism," because going without is pessimistic, unsupportive, and unpatriotic, it is extremely difficult to change attitudes and habits that seem to be rights rather than privileges. I can't help but note that Micheal Moore, who certainly isn't one for spending big on fancy wardrobes or expensive haircuts, is the closest thing to a modern-day Gandhi as we are likely to have, as he has been advocating an action plan that combines going without in order to get our personal finances back under control after such over-dependence on credit, involvement in the processes of government, and a program of person health as a microcosm of public health. In his most recent film, Micheal Moore, like Gandhi before him, has tied economic justice with religious-based ethics. Certainly, such concepts can
be seen as a kind of "sacrifice" that can be practical as well as spiritual.

Although this is a holistic approach to social ethics that seeks spiritual guidance, expressed as "worship" by Gandhi, once again, my concern about resonance in a society that emphasizes materialism over spirituality drives me to seek some other way of framing the issue that he was getting at that does not tie worship and spirituality to sacrifice. The idea is to find an approach that nurtures the whole person, so that however we each see ourselves, some sort of a spiritual dimension would be present in our attempts to find a social code that makes sense. My feelings on how this spiritual dimension can be interpreted in the most wide range of possibilities, by adherents to many different religions, or to no religion at all, is to advocate for spirituality as connection.

This connection would be with what we each understand to be "God," and with each other, and with nature. Any sacrifice that would come from the seeking of spirituality would be generated by the desire to connect, and therefore to give something of oneself, to look beyond personal gain, to purify ourselves with the aim of achieving deeper connections through such practices as meditation or prayer or ritual or song and dance or simply taking a moment to be in awe of the universe around us. At the heart of what it means to be a human being is to connect, in mirror of the synapses in our brains. Connecting is conscience, is accountability, is understanding, is humanity, is awareness, is wisdom. The connective principle is what I believe God to be, a higher purpose than the individual, that which we all seek in the form of love, comfort, community, one-ness of being.

This kind of spirituality does the opposite of separating us into different religions and sects. It manifests the idea that Gandhi expressed about the purpose of all religions being to instill compassion and brotherhood. Tragically, he was not successful at convincing the Hindus and the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent that their religions were of this nature, instead of allowing distrust and enmity to cause the division into what is today India and Pakistan. Gandhi was, in fact, murdered because of this rivalry, which he was trying to mediate, and today, these nations are still plagued with ethnic and religious violence.

Nonetheless, I believe in the will of the people to work together to bring an end suffering, to put a stop to violence that only leads to more violence, to push our societies toward progressive change by challenging the status quo and insisting, non-violently, that society must re-order itself so that all will enjoy the benefits of peace and more equitable prosperity. As for the current situation in the United States, the biggest hurdle that must be overcome is the influence of lobbyists and campaign donations on the political process. There needs to be a concerted, focused campaign toward reforming this system, led by a massive citizen's movement, because the politicians are not going to do it on their own. But behind this focused campaign, let there be a set of guiding principles. These are a start, a push toward the process of innovation to come up with new kinds of ideas that might resonate even more strongly. For if we consider the huge success of freeing India from British ownership that Gandhi did achieve through years of influential writing and speaking about his new ideas, acting positively, and sacrificing his freedom as he languished in jail for years, only to come out fighting once again, and then go on to look at all those who he inspired who have also been successful at instituting changes large and small, then our tasks will also appear to have achievable solutions.

Three essays from No Stranger to Strange Lands in which the topic ineluctably turns into an Ayn Rant

The following are three distinct essays excerpted from my book,

No Stranger to Strange Lands: A Journey Through Strange Coincidences, Connective Thoughts, and Far Flung Places,

which describe the reasons that Ayn Randian, Milton Friedmian, Free Market Fascist Capitalism should be discarded.

Our government should get involved in stimulating the economy by spending large amounts of money, being open and accountable, and balancing that by not lowering taxes and cutting back on military spending, and we citizens sould be telling them that that is exactly what we want them to do - to serve us instead of themselves and their doners, for once!

Tragedy And Irony

The sadness of bigotry and hardheadedness blanket this entire nation in layers of tragedy and irony. The tragedy of the enslavement of African people – the irony of the original Thanksgiving event, where the native people helped out the struggling Pilgrims, showing them how to survive in this new land, sharing their food and their knowledge, only to later be deemed inferior beings, not worthy of their lands or their cultures – the tragedy of the Civil War, that the righteous on each side were driven to such extreme violence – the irony that many of the romanticized episodes of the Wild West, involving “heroes” like Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody, were the results of so many armed and restless warriors from that horrible Civil War – tragedy that, as time went on, racism continued against the Black people in the South and a new wave of racism arose against the Chinese in the West – irony that the Industrial Revolution threw “modernization” into overdrive, creating a consumer society so completely dependent on corporations for food, clothing, medicine, transportation, communication, time-saving and life-enhancing gadgets, and energy to run those gadgets, all driven by massive media conglomerations that inform us what we need to buy next. The biggest irony here is that we are constantly reminded of how “free” we are, yet we have become slaves to our own existence. We have the right to free speech, religion, assembly, the press, and to petition our government, as Article I of the Bill of Rights declares, but these rights only exist in spirit, and are in practice minimized to apply only to those supporting this [the Bush] administration. And so, irony of ironies, tragedy of tragedies, this country – despite all the technology and information available, despite all of the lessons of history, despite the awareness of millions of people that our leaders have been lying to us and have manipulated the corporate media so insidiously that Orwell's dystopian world of doublethink has come to pass – this country has fallen from the towering heights into the snake pit of Fascism, lead there by fanatics, Capitalist fanatics, who are the snakes themselves, the embodiment of the Serpent in the Garden of Eden, who seduced Eve with its shiny perfect-looking waxed pesticide-laden genetically engineered apple – she didn't seem to notice that it was devoid of most of its apple taste... How easy it is to conjure up our symbolic archetypes! How powerful that imagery is, and the image of the Snake goes a long way: the slimy snake oil salesman; the sneaky snake in the grass; the Great World Snake that lives in a pit at the center of the world; the seething snake pit that even that icon of manly fearlessness, Indiana Jones, can't handle. The Snake is the ultimate in creepiness and deception. A massive, nation-wide pit of creepiness and deception has emerged, created by the Serpents of Free Market Fascism, who lead their followers over its edge and into its depths with promises of glorious Freedom and Happiness while curtailing freedom and offering only false choices. And just like in the Bible, from which that Serpent with its apple emerged, they have their own creation myths and lofty ideals that, when examined closely, can be found to be based on tortured logic, questionable constructs of reality, and pure arrogance - the same kind of inflexible self-righteousness that has always led to violence and abuses, always based on some kind of entitlement claims and moral value systems that are devoid of humanistic ethics or empathy for the suffering of others. Their bible is Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

Herein lies a major source of the sadness behind my anger: that so many have been swayed by the dangerously seductive ideology of this and other “free market” writings, this twisting of what constitutes “good and evil,” “morality,” and the motivations of caring people, without thinking through the inferences or consequences of what these ideas entail. They are meant to inspire and uphold the rights of the individual and connect Democracy with Capitalism, yet they end up vilifying the working and management classes – the very engines of their precious prosperity - and abhorring populism. In fact, it seems to me that the only thing Democracy has to do with their ideology is that it is not Communism or Socialism. They have one-upped the original Fascists in deceptiveness by utilizing that system while claiming to be Democratic. They particularly like to paint the wealthy as the victims of guilt-trips, do-gooders, and those who hate them for their greatness, thus painting taxes as the coercive looting of their wealth by the state. They are paranoid that everyone is after a piece of them. Do people realize that the basis for this ideology is that the wealthy (who are assumed to be so because they have made great achievements and are the productive element of society) should not be pressured by the lower classes (who are assumed to be so because they are lazy and jealous) into parting with any little bit of their wealth because Self-Reliance is the ultimate good and helping out the less fortunate only encourages them to not try hard enough? In their minds, they are wealthy because they are better, and they are the ones who are put upon to hold up all of society, the “atlases” of the world. This is the thinking, and it is sadly arrogant and self-righteous, yet it seems to sucker people in with the empty promise that all they really need to do is to seek Happiness through Self-Reliance, Achievement, and “Rational Self-Interest,” and above all, do not give in to evil Selflessness, and then they, too, can become one of society's moral leaders. Saddest of all is their dangerous determination not to be sad – to deny Sadness – to forget, and thus lose sight of the truth of the past – that this mighty nation has been built on the tears of many, many diverse and underprivileged peoples - enslaved, indentured, in debt – and has not always lived up to the promises that the Founding Fathers made. It all leads to a false sense of entitlement by those who are most entitled, a sentiment that things are the way they are supposed to be, that those who are most trod upon deserve their fate because they are weak and unworthy, and that this system should be supported even by them because it is the best that Humanity has to offer.

Chief Ouray

It [the mining town of Ouray, high up in the San Juan Mountains of Southwestern Colorado] was named after Chief Ouray, leader of the Uncompahgre band of Utes that once roamed this area. Before the discovery of gold and silver up here, these mountains were of little use to the pioneers of this nation. The Utes came here hunting deer, elk, antelope, and other animals, to revel in the beauty and grandeur, to bathe in the sacred hot springs. These wandering people probably used peyote, which would have certainly enhanced their appreciation of their incredible landscape. That also explains the inspiration for their imaginative, colorful, intricately beaded artwork. By being mobile, they had the best of all worlds, joining into larger bands in sheltered, warmer places in the winter, enjoying family and celebrations, and then splitting up and going up to higher ground to hunt and gather, and maybe throw some seeds in a high meadow somewhere, or farm in the rich river valley a bit during warmer weather. Chief Ouray did what he thought was in his peoples' best interest, sadly underestimating the extent to which the dark skinned people were despised and dehumanized by the light skinned invaders. He was a man who knew four languages, who met with presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and Ulysses S. Grant, who was known as “The White Man's Friend” because he negotiated with the United States and even formed alliances with them in battles against his enemies to the south, the Apache and Navajo tribes. These Utes were known to be great warriors, and it seems that their leader understood the extent to which they were out-gunned and outnumbered by the Great White Wave, and thus sought to be diplomatic instead of confrontational. He was right about the unstoppable nature of Capitalism, and although he represented his people with great honor and diplomatic aplomb, in the end they still suffered the same fate as all of their other fellow natives. In the end, all they got was a state named after their tribe, a town named after their chief, a river named after their band, and banishment to a reservation in northeastern Utah. But Chief Ouray was a true Leader, a man with excellent leadership qualities, a man depended upon by his band to make sound decisions that directly affected everyone. It stands to reason that nomadic cultures depend upon their leaders heavily, because they lived on more of an edge, very intricately involved with nature's patterns, and so they had no tolerance for bad leadership. The Leader must have been a good leader, or he didn't get to lead. Thus, there was genuine trust amongst the members, which also allowed them to be more open to the sharing of their resources and division of their labor, all for the common good. They shared the products of their labor, and they moved about the land, utilizing and respecting it, but not owning it. In fact, the “Enlightenment” era ideas about “natural law” having anything to do with Labor and Property Rights does not apply to the nomadic, non-property owning societies that existed successfully all over North America for at least a thousand years, further proof that these “laws” are human created ideas, not something that comes from Nature. And so, the regal Chief Ouray could not have been the inspiration for Rand Land.

No, it was not the communistical, wandering ways of the original inhabitants of this place, but the newcomers, the railroad and the mining companies, with their “Captains of Industry” at the helm, the wonderful way that Capitalism brought all of these cute little buildings and the job opportunities for whores and construction workers and clerks and miners, and the rail lines and roads, and all those other signs of “progress” to this far corner of the world. Ayn Rand came to one of the most beautiful places on the planet, visited one of the hokier little hot spring resort towns, and became inspired by the Human Endeavor that built all the buildings and schools and roads and mines and such amidst this amazing natural wonder. She heard whisperings while she was in the vapor caves for a little too long, slightly ill from eating too much saltwater taffy, and feeling the effects of too little oxygen getting to her brain. Certainly, she stayed at the fanciest establishment in town, where the railroad executives stayed, and heard their whispers above those of the others. She heard how the mining interests had the indigenous people forcibly removed, how several thousand people had all come for the money, built these cute Victorian houses, and left when the mining business fell into decline. And she heard from the next wave of Tourism Capitalists. Somehow, she was motivated to crystallize her whole Rand-world, of “rational self-interest,” the seeking of individual happiness and fulfillment as society's highest calling, the entitlement to private property as reward for achievement, the need to repel the guilt trips that the non-productive members of society use to get the government to take away one's property, where the wealthy are hated for their greatness, and so they must not tolerate parasite, impotent, evil mediocrity, but must carry on in their moral calling as the put-upon, unappreciated, self-sufficient, creative, competents of society, seeking only the highest of ideals, the profound right to be happy, and to enjoy the fruits of their labors in the form of property.

How did she miss the call of Nature in this amazing place? How have humans for so long now ignored those voices of Nature? How have we “rationalized” our destruction of Nature, trying to claim that Nature itself causes us to act the way we do? We have misunderstood our place in nature in several respects. We have come to believe that we are above Nature, able to rule over it, conquer it, exploit it, that we are smarter than it. But we are only deceiving ourselves in this respect, unwilling to admit that our real understanding of Nature is much less than we like to think it is. At the same time, Western philosophy has gone down the path of claiming that things in human-created society follow certain “laws of nature,” so that Social Darwinism became a convenient rationale for the destruction of the indigenous societies around the globe by the mad rush of European peoples to stamp out their claims on the new lands being discovered. Even while many are insulted by the Darwinian idea that humans developed, through the process of Natural Selection, from the apes, these same people are perfectly willing to apply that same reasoning to human society, claiming that because the indigenous people the European explorers encountered were less “civilized,” less technologically advanced, pagan, often wandering, and much less well armed, they were “naturally” less Human, unworthy, and in need of being “saved” from their “evil” and “backward” ways. The conquerers felt sanctified by their own superiority. They were morally obligated by their religious beliefs as well as their social beliefs to spread the Great White Way, the way of separation from Nature, and faith in God and technological advancement. The Mormons actually tried to turn the relocated Utes into good, civilized, Christian farmers at the Res. in Utah, with Indian Schools and all that. They might as well have water-boarded them. They achieved the same end, which was near annihilation of their identities.

Not that the nomads of North America were angels compared to white people. They weren't. They were warriors, sometimes bandits and raiders, they traded in and used slaves. There were certainly messed up parts about their cultures, just like there are messed up parts about ours. What happened to them was that they were treated as if they were of no value at all, had no lessons to teach, no knowledge to offer. Yet, they did have a kind of knowledge about the rhythm and flow of life in their regions of travel, the arability of the land, the sustainability of areas and the need to move around to allow regeneration, the pathways connecting places, the animal and plant life, natural medicines, locations of springs... And they knew that they were part of nature, not lords over it. They respected the earth, and spent much of their energy making ceremonies to celebrate nature and its gifts. Their gods did not separate them from nature, but were representations of different aspects of the natural world. Their gods did not tell them to reject this life and prepare for the afterlife. They were concerned with the here and now and the future of the world, as the people were charged with caring for the land and acting to bring forth balance, to actively participate in the cycles of nature.

So despite nature's grandeur, despite Chief Ouray's wise ways, the voices of Capitalism and Western philosophy rang through to Ayn Rand when she was here. She built a world in which being “rational” meant being disciplined and following what is only “human nature,” even though humans are not really that good at being rational and “human nature” is not really as it has been defined by philosophers like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. She built an ideology that distrusts and despises the government as well as the very workers that run the grand enterprises of the elite business leaders, while at the same time starting out on the premise that every individual has the means to accomplish great things if only they would apply themselves. But every individual does not have those means – only the wealthy and already connected people have those means. The vast majority of those people are not at the top of the social structure because they are in any way better than everyone else. Rather, they were just luckier, wealthier, better positioned to start with. And by distrusting and despising the lower classes, the elites have entirely misinterpreted the motivations of all of the people that work for them. People, for the most part, except for the always present criminal elements in society, don't want to mooch and leech off of the wealthy, nor off of the government. They simply want to be respected and valued for what they contribute to society. In Rand World, the free market system is the ultimate moral system, because, by the laws of Natural Selection and the pressures of the marketplace, unfettered free-flowing ideas will always rise to the top – only the best will be tolerated by the marketplace, only the most efficient businesses, only the best value items, only the most sound investments will survive the struggle. Only...only...the marketplace doesn't work like that. It never can. Money, property, value, these are all inanimate, human-created ideas. They do not exist in nature. They follow a different set of rules that are based on a more realistic characterization of the human creature, a better understanding of our own selves.

Accountability

Family is family, and it will always be so. Many times, traditional family structures work great for everyone in the family, but many times it does not. Many times, people take advantage of their positions and their relatives, and since the Abrahamic religions are all structured on that same framework, George Lakoff's Father Figure Framework, a system now exists where the Father Figure is absolute, unquestionable, unaccountable. If he is irresponsible, abusive, undependable, his underlings have no recourse but to put up with his abuse or inability. The authority figures in our society are supposed to be honored regardless of their actual performance. There is an unspoken assumption that somehow, “natural laws” have brought the worthy into positions of power and authority, and further, by virtue of their being in those positions, they are believed to be favored by God, even chosen by God. But the whole structure is corrupted by true human nature, the side of us that is greedy , egotistical, opportunistic, and inappropriately loyal to entities other than those that are supposed to be attended to. The emphasis in the current system is on the authority aspect instead of on the ability aspect. Society would be much better served to respect leadership and ability over mere authority. And this idea applies throughout all levels of society, from the highest levels of government down to the individual family units.

Accountability – it just doesn't seem to matter in that Father Figure Framework. I can imagine something better, something more just, more accountable, more flexible, a framework that does allow the best and the brightest to achieve those positions of power. It is a matter of breaking through the status quo to allow women and people of color to join in the leadership ranks while the good ol' boys conspire to hold on to all of their status. It is a matter of building communities and connecting people instead of dividing us. It is about respecting alternative ways of achieving goals, such as creating alternative family units, working up different frameworks, engaging in creative problem solving. It is about education and encouragement and sharing of responsibilities, then finding leaders who understand and respect the position of authority they have been granted and use their power wisely. Why have we resigned ourselves to settle for so much less?

This is where we need to Speak Truth To Power. The concept here is that people in any system give their tacit consent to be ruled. The authority of anyone is granted to them by the people who they hold authority over. When the ruler is ruling badly, the people have the duty to withdraw their consent, and to let those in power know that they have lost their authority over them by engaging in non-violent acts of civil disobedience, willfully disregarding the rule of the powerful, and by speaking up and communicating their positions clearly. Accountability through consent. This is a powerful idea, one that seems fully democratic, yet, it remains obscure and unknown to a society that does not pay much attention to what their leaders are doing. In fact, the concept has been completely twisted around by Ayn Rand with her “sanction of the victim” line of thought. Her concern is that the business leaders are the victims of “looters and moochers” and the government that aids them in trying to take away the leaders' well-deserved profits through taxation. The solution, according to Ms. Rand, is to refuse to be victimized, refuse to tolerate this stealing of their money, refuse to make any sacrifices at all towards a greater good in order to expel the parasite evil. It just makes me so sad. The idea that we consent to be ruled and thus cede power to the rulers has been hijacked by the powerful themselves and turned around to mean that it is they, the supposedly strong and good and productive, who must not allow themselves to be victimized by the weak and evil and lazy, that they are the ones whose consent matters, that they consent to lead society with their greatness, and they cede their consent to be taxed because they already help society enough by creating jobs for all the losers. So much for accountability. So much for social justice. And so much for reality, because the wealthy are victims only of their own paranoia and greed, while the not so wealthy are truly victimized by lack of resources, education, information, and opportunity. But, as always, the working classes are many while the wealthy are few, so the few do whatever they can to exclude the many, to keep their club small and exclusive, and to persuade the many that the status quo is how things were meant to be and that the leaders are doing a heck of a job. It is up to the many who do not hold traditional power to come together and understand that they really do hold a kind of power, that power to refuse to play by the same old rules that have kept them from achieving what they could in a more just system, the power to hold the leaders accountable.