"2012 POLITICAL PERSPECTIVES"

We are hours away from the Presidential election. At this time, four years ago, I was publishing a “platform” in line with my own campaign for the White House. I suspect that you didn’t know that I was “running for President” back then, but I wasn’t running for the purpose of getting elected. Rather my campaign was a vehicle for creating a “political platform” in line with my perspectives on what was going on in this country, and what we could do to dramatically improve the situation.

Then, two years ago, I posted non-political statements on FB twice a day, for several weeks leading up to the election, encouraging people to vote. A few people responded to these postings in an antagonistically political manner, but that said more about them than it did about what I was saying.

This year I was tempted to throw my hat(s) in the ring again as a continuation of what I had been saying four years ago. However, another issue was nagging at me and I just didn’t have the time to address both of them (the platform and my growing concern) before the election. So, with a toss of the proverbial coin, I went with what bothers me most. No “running” this time around.

I have some specific recommendations regarding whom I feel people should support in November with their votes. However, I’m not going to make them right now. Far too many people are willing to settle for a sound bite upon which to hang their future. But often we find out, after the fact, that the pat answer that seemed so intelligent was based upon a foundation of wet sand. And the relentless surge of the surf of daily happenings and evolving awareness have all too quickly swept that foundation away. As a result, people find themselves believing in ideas that are grounded in nothing more than their blind, often conditioned, beliefs.

Today, if one were to pay attention to the overwhelming bulk of the “news” and opinions being expressed about this year’s election, one might think that this is a battle between “liberals” and “conservatives.” But nothing could be further from the truth. True, there is a “war,” of sorts, that is presently going on in this country, but it is not a battle between conservative views verses liberal views. Instead, this is a conflict whose roots stretch back beyond memory, through hundreds, and even thousands, of years of history. Before we look at that struggle, we need to see to its roots in order to better understand it.

Prior to Europeans arriving in North America, and what is now the United States, this area had been populated for thousands of years by native peoples who numbered between 2 million and 18 million, depending upon one’s sources. When separated by distinct language differences, there were estimated to be 50-60 major tribes, or nations, east of the Mississippi River. The Spanish estimated another 50 or more tribes/nations west of the Mississippi. That’s like saying that there were over 100 sovereign states, or nations, here before Columbus ever sailed. According to Wikipedia, George Washington and Henry Knox, the U.S. First Secretary Of War, set out to “civilize” these people and to absorb them into the new country that they were founding.

Unfortunately, through exposure to germs that were brought by the new European invaders, hundreds of thousands of native people succumbed to illnesses that had previously been unknown on this continent. That, coupled with acts of genocide and armed battles between the indigenous peoples and the intruders who wanted to take over their land, led to the indigenous peoples being practically wiped out. In fact, the “tribe” that met Christopher Columbus when he first landed, has no living descendants to this day. The entire peoples were totally decimated through disease, murder, war, and slavery. No descendants. Everyone, men, women, and children, gone, forever. Over the course of a couple of hundred years the previous inhabitants of this entire continent were almost wiped from the face of the earth, and most of those who remained were effectively imprisoned on what were termed “reservations,” where far too many became addicted to alcohol and other drugs in an effort to escape the recognition of their plight. During this time, the United States made, and broke, hundreds of treaties with these various nations.

And why did the newcomers want all of this land? The land was needed for farming and feeding those additional people who were on their way here. It was required to have room to house more and more people and the slaves that they began to bring with them. It would provide hunting range for those animals who slowly were disappearing from the areas that were being developed. It was needed as a place to mine gold and silver and copper and other metals and minerals without having to pay for the right to do so. Eventually, when sources of oil were discovered and new uses created for it, the desire for more and more petrochemicals fanned the acts of land theft through which this country was created and expanded.

I reference all of these facts because when I hear people brag about how great this country is and “how great it always has been,” I am puzzled by their ability to sweep all of the deliberate death and carnage of this country’s founding under the rug. I’m amazed at how easily we can ignore historical facts and the important part that they played in the building of this country, and the extended impact which they have today through their conditioned misperceptions. Look, it’s a fact that this country expanded partially through the use of force. When we claim this to be the land of the free, by my accounting, “free,” in accord with its very nature, includes everyone. Otherwise it is not true freedom, but rather a mere verbal sham used by the privileged to lie to the masses, while subverting the freedoms of those who stand in their way.

In 1776, as this new emerging country declared its independence from Great Britain, the Scottish economist Adam Smith was publishing his book “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.” This document would become an unofficial bible for the economic system that is known as Capitalism. Tragically, although the “wealth of nations,” as identified in the book’s title, is “the people” themselves, that claim has been co-opted by the “winners” of the competitive capitalist system as a justification of their own individual right to do whatever they think is necessary to create financial profit for themselves and their investors. And this all too often results in a policy of “the people be damned.” “But wait a minute,” I hear you say, “I thought you said that the people are the basis of the wealth of nations, not the individual.” Good observation!

As early founders of this country culled philosophical concepts and governmental examples of the past for insights upon how to create a more effective and efficient governmental structure, there was a battle emerging with roots stretching back into antiquity. Part of this conflict of beliefs and motivations is identified, though misunderstood, in Biblical scriptures.

Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religious systems share a belief in their origins being grounded in what Christians refer to as the Old Testament. Those documents begin with a creation allegory that presents a story of the origin of everything. In that scenario, after human beings are created, they are given dominion over all living beings. Well, that’s not exactly true. There is one being that Genesis does not offer up to our dominion (domination). And that one exception is other human beings. We do not have a divine edict that justifies our attempts to dominate one another.

Ayn Rand, in the movie version of her book, “The Fountainhead,” presents the following dialog between Gail Wynand (Ramond Massey) and Dominique Francon (Patricia Neal):

Wynand: “There is no honest way to deal with people. We have no choice except to submit or to rule them. I chose to rule.”

Francon: “A man of integrity would do neither.”

Wynand: “There are no men of integrity. I have years behind me to prove it.”

This viewpoint of a choice between only submission or rulership, and the accompanying false claim of a lack of integrity within humankind is a trap that ensnares us when we get sucked into the false belief of dualism. That’s the viewpoint that life is an ongoing struggle between right and wrong, between the rulers and the ruled. For although the affairs of humanity may appear to justify that dualistic view, we must not forget that each of us is endowed with the ability to choose, and we cannot, therefore, be forced without our consent.  The hold of dualism, however, encouraged by religious, corporate, and political institutions, is presently the dominate influence upon our view of reality.

It is my belief that where high stakes transactions are concerned we have long practiced the scenario in which a few strive to dominate the many. And that is a sickness that has, unfortunately, infected Capitalism, and has polluted far too many of our personal relationships. It has deified the pronouncements of Thomas Malthus, chief financial officer of the British East India Company, when he said “it is obvious that there is not enough to go around ” (a claim long ago proven wrong). It has perverted the discoveries of Charles Darwin into a belief in the divine right of the “strong” to be the ordained survivors destined to dominate the many. Capitalists claim the “strong” to be the “owners.” Communists claim the “strong” to be the “workers.” Some individualists claim the “strong” to be the intellectuals.” But as long as we continue to attempt to divide humanity into “us and them” scenarios, humanity itself, across the board, will be the loser.

Those who wish to dominate others all too often succeed in so doing because there’s a sort of Catch 22 involved in that human equation. When I look around the world, I am constantly astounded by the ability of human beings to make the best of their circumstances even if that only means making do, while the minority of power players ply their games of domination. By sheer numbers alone, I am led to believe that one of humanity’s strongest traits is its ability to survive the sometimes unsurvivable. I don’t believe that human beings are born by nature to dominate others. I believe, instead, that that is a trait embedded within us by our culture and our experience. And in a world of countless different cultures, the impact of that conditioning varies from place to place and from people to people. Yet it appears to be a common element within most cultures, the overwhelming masses dominated by the few.

So why don’t those being dominated rise up and overthrow the dominators? Because, to do so, one can easily be seduced into becoming the new dominator (that’s right, seduced by the dark side). The majority has no desire to dominate those who would dominate them. So the “tough guys” continue to play their games of dominion while the masses just try to live their lives without unnecessary hassle.

The early immigrants to North America several hundred years ago came largely from European cultures that were long used to the games of dominance. In fact, it was in an effort to escape the domination games of church and state that many migrated to this new land. Unfortunately, those people carried that domination conditioning with them. And so the early settlers began forcing indigenous peoples into becoming slaves, working them to death in mines. Then as they spread their presence across the land, turning forests into farms, they started importing additional slaves from Africa. All in all, over 16 million Africans were brought to the Americas, the majority of them to Brazil. But about 1.8 million ended up in the United States, where they were bought and sold, used and oftentimes abused.

The U.S. Constitution, as originally ratified, granted to slaves only a 3/5 recognition as a human being. It was upon the backs of these people that capitalism began to thrive and flourish. I would venture to say that Capitalism would not have successfully survived those early years if it were not for slavery. I would note here that when the Constitution was first ratified, that none of the “rights” that American citizens cherish most were a part of the document. They were only added 18 months later in a group of amendments that have been called the Bill of Rights. The reason that these “rights” were not delineated at the outset was because it was generally recognized that there was enough disagreement about many of those “rights” that it was feared that if they were included in the original Constitution that it would never have been ratified. And they were probably right, for we are still arguing many of these constitutional “rights” 250 years later. Further, the overwhelming profession amongst the first members of this country’s Congress was the practice of law. That, in and of itself, begged for convoluted compounding of the initial motivation for the founding of this new nation.

There are a couple of other interesting things about the “original” Constitution (before it was even amended), and its predecessor, the Declaration of Independence, that I would like to note here. In a time today where a very vocal minority is calling for less and less government in a way that vilifies the very existence of government itself, I feel it to be important to remind those same people, who claim justification in their condemnation from a “strict constructionist” view of these documents, that it is in the Declaration of Independence itself that it says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Now most of us are familiar with the first part of that section, delineating “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” as “unalienable Rights,” but some of us seem to have forgotten the next part, “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Therefore, this government that many of these people seem to loath is actually us, the people, the citizens, the creators of the government.

There are some folks who would have us believe that those “just powers” have been usurped. By whom, you might ask? By bankers? By lawyers? By big international corporations? By illegal aliens? By sinister infiltrators from other governments and groups dedicated to this country’s overthrow? By terrorists? No, no, no. Nothing so complex. They believe that this country has been taken over by the descendants of the people that created it. That’s right, the citizens. And who do we mean by “citizens?” Well, the top wealthiest 1% own 42% of the country. The next 4% own another 27% of the wealth of this nation. So far, that totals 69% for the top 5%. The next 5% own 11% and the next 10% own 12%. That leaves a whopping 7% of the nation’s wealth to be divvied up between the remaining 80% of the people. That’s not “class warfare.” That’s just the facts. Nothing but the facts. One might think that the numerical majority should have joint ownership, but under Capitalism gone wild, that’s not the case.

I would next point out that if one looks at the original Constitution as it was written,  something very profound stands out. “What?” you ask. Why the first three words: “We, the People.” Those words are written much, much larger than anything else in that entire document. I propose that the typeface is at least 6 times larger than everything else. “We, the People.” Not “we the corporations,” or “we, the privileged class,” or “we, the extremely wealthy minority.” “We the People, in order to form a more perfect union.” Not “in order to pick your pocket or take over your lives.” And “People” is capitalized. I have always believed that there must have been an important reason for that.

A dozen years ago, I was shocked when it began to occur to me that “financial success” in the Capitalist system is always at the expense of others. Always. When I hear people argue that they “built it” by themselves, I am offended. In my lifetime I have worked for churches, colleges, universities, small businesses, Fortune 500 companies, state governments, local governments, the federal government, hospitals, and for private individuals. In every single one of those cases, my contribution helped to build and/or support those companies, businesses, and individuals. In a way, I am America. And, as such, I object to those who would make light of what I and hundreds of millions of other Americans, and slaves, and illegal immigrants have done that contributed to the building of this country and this society.

I agree that business owners often put in incredible amounts of time and energy in order to achieve success with their companies. However, I have known people who were working 4, 5, and 6 jobs just to keep a roof over their heads, clothes on their backs, and food on the table. Is one kind of “work” better than the other kind? No. They are both necessary in order to guarantee business survival. But don’t ever forget that big profits are made at the expense of the many. And under other circumstances, that would be considered a crime. But let’s get back to our historical journey. When this country was less than 100 years old, attempts to bring an end to slavery were growing, causing those who relied upon slavery for their livelihood to move toward succession from the union that had been created almost 100 years earlier.

In 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, effectively setting in motion the freeing of the slaves. What happened next is not recorded in the history books. With the freeing of the slaves, the former slave owners needed human labor to replace those who had been enslaved. Likewise, however, there were hundreds of thousands of former slaves who now needed to make a living on their own. There were pluses and minuses on both sides. Whereas the slave owners were in need of a new source of labor, they were no longer responsible directly for feeding, clothing, housing, and otherwise looking after the wellbeing of their former slaves. The former slaves were now responsible for their own well-being. So the former slave owners paid new labor for what they used to supply to the slaves. And, as one might imagine, part of that new labor was in the form of the newly freed slaves. So whereas the former slave owners carried the cost of caring for the well being of their workers (slaves), now they paid some of those same workers to care for themselves. And one might think that this was the beginning of a major transformation in the concept of slavery, from people forcibly bought, sold, and enslaved by “owners,” to people who are enslaved by the demands of the economic system that has consumed their lives.

In 1869, the final spike was driven in a railroad line that spanned the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. The actual work on much of that rail line was performed by immigrants from China, who were treated essentially as though they were slaves, or one small step removed from the slavery of the time. As other nations and cultures began to be the origin of continuing waves of people coming to America’s shores in search of a better life, these people were often assigned to slave-like working and living conditions. The cultural prejudices that we still see today in racism have always been a part of the fabric of this new national experiment that opened its doors to an ongoing influx of new “slaves” to power the engines of industry.

With the advent of the Industrial Revolution at this same time, the labor scenario became more and more widespread as industry hired people away from their former labors and offered them a steady paycheck for a “job” (a relatively new invention) working on the line. Initially, what the average worker was paid was sometimes called “slave wages,” and there was a good reason for that, as I have just revealed. Then, along came Henry Ford. Ford, being a very astute businessman realized that if his workers could afford to purchase what they were helping to manufacture, then his sales would increase, raising his profits. So he began to pay “an honest day’s wages for an honest day’s work.” Oh, and how much was that? Why, $5 a day. Believe it or not, that was something that was unheard of at the time.

This inspired workers in other fields, and in order to achieve better pay for their invested work, they began to organize, and unions were formed. Today, those who are spokespersons for big business, often badmouth unions. They have forgotten that unions came into existence so that the workers that actually produced the products that a company sold were paid more in accord with the work that they performed. But, their jobs were still a modified version of slavery. We have forgotten that prior to the Industrial Revolution that people worked, but the idea of working “for someone else” in a long-term relationship, was not the norm. Today, working for someone else, someone who tells us what to do, when to do it, where to do it, how long to do it, why to do it, and how much we are going to be paid to do it, is the norm. Entire generations have grown up in this country and in other industrialized nations, believing that to be the normal scheme of things and the way things always have been. I, on the other hand, have come to realize that the classical concept of “a job” is a temporary anomaly created for and by industrialization. And as the power and scope of industrialization as we have known it is replaced by the Information Revolution, the concept of “a job” will disappear with time and become a thing of the past.

Today, industry has discovered that it is more cost efficient to the manufacturing equation to build manufacturing plants where cheaper slave labor can be obtained for pennies on the dollar. This has the added benefits of not having to pay labor to survive in the pricey American culture versus another country’s culture and it frees the business owners from having to adhere to the basic survival decency standards that have been won over the years in this country by organized labor and implemented with the oversight and regulations of our government.

Back in the day, when Capitalism was getting its foothold in the fabric of American society, there were individuals who took the ideas of Capitalism and plugged them into the Industrial Equation and generated tremendous amounts of wealth. To understand how this happened, one needs to understand how dramatically industrialization altered the economics of day-to-day existence. Prior to the advent of industrialization, most goods were produced by single individuals or small groups of individuals. There was pride in what one created, since one was completely involved in its creation. Over the years, people who were involved in similar creative work joined together in guilds and organized training criteria for their vocation so that the pride of expertise could be passed on from generation to generation.

Now, we are involved in what Buckminster Fuller called a “GRUNCH of Giants,” A GRoss UNiversal Cash Heist carried out by international corporate and power hungry Giants. The steady growth of that worldwide rip-off is what has caused the reactionary growth of unions and regulations. The People are moving to protect themselves from the Money Monsters.

Today, thanks to decades of marketing and conditioning, many of us are willingly marching off like lambs to a slaughter, supporting those who could care less about us and our impending demise. The dominionists appear to be garnering a large following who are blind to their maneuverings. And now, through the democratic election process, the People have a chance to raise their voices in support of what they believe.

One may recall a couple of decades ago when the terms “compassionate Capitalism” and “compassionate Conservatism” rose in prominence in the daily reporting of the news. What most failed to realize at the time is that those two terms were oxymorons, created to pull a fast one on the belief system of the masses. The reason why the originators of those two terms were motivated to create them is because neither Capitalism, nor Conservatism, contain an ounce of compassion within them. Let me make that perfectly clear: compassion has nothing to do with Capitalism and nothing to do with Conservatism. Both are essentially self-centered and therefore unaware of the concept of compassion as a meaningful action. If either Conservatism or Capitalism were in the least compassionate, one wouldn’t have to point it out with a catchy phrase.

I’m running out of time to get this posted before the election. I am certainly not under any illusions that my thoughts will “change anyone’s mind,” but I do want to get my different perspective out there for the consideration of those who dare to think outside of the box. These and other thoughts are ultimately intended to be included in a book that I am writing upon political perspectives. As time allows.

A little over 20 years ago I heard someone testifying before Congress and stating that the world was changing and that the United States needed to understand that it was no longer essentially the boss of the world, that we needed to learn how to better work with other peoples and other nations if we intended to continue to grow and to thrive. I’m not going to tell you who said that, but I will tell you that it was not one whom most people might expect. It was refreshing to hear such clarity amidst the selfish clamor that makes up so much of Washington.

So now, for those who have yet to vote, I appeal to you to take the time, before you enter the polling place, to think long term and to consider future results and how they will affect you. And then see how that resonates with the feelings within your heart. Remember, also, that all institutions are temporary and that they can always be changed. Believe it or not, there are even ways to wipe out all debt without harming those to whom the debt is owed.

My wish for this election is that the People win and that the Dominionists are swept aside.

A Preliminary Look At Healthcare

About 20 years ago, I went to see my doctor because of a pain near my groin. I am extremely grateful to him, for he saved my life. It turned out that I had an incarcerated hernia, something that he was smart enough to intuit. And he took immediate steps to bypass the normal wait time imposed by the insurance company to get me right into the hospital that very day so they could operate on me. And, as I said, they saved my life.

My doctor was an elderly gentleman who had been practicing medicine since the Korean War. But he told me that he was getting fed up with medicine and was transferring his efforts to working for the government at a military base in Arizona. He said to me, “Several years ago big business came to the doctors and said, ‘There’s big money to be made here, boys. Step aside and let us show you how it’s done.’” Ever since that time, he contended, the practice of medicine had gone successively downhill. Understand what I am saying here. He was voluntarily leaving what had formerly been known as the private practice of medicine to finish out his life working in the socialized medical system of the military.

Today I have no health insurance. However, I am fortunate that I receive medical care through the Veterans Administration due to my having given four years of my life in service through the U.S. Navy. I am surprised about how impressed I am by the treatment that I am receiving through the V.A. What’s more, whenever I walk down the hallways of the local V.A. hospital, if I or anyone else looks or acts the least bit confused about where we are going, there always seems to be a friendly employee of the V.A. (doctor, nurse, clerk, maintenance worker) who is there with a smile and a pleasant, “May I help you.”

If you have not visited your local V.A. Hospital recently, I highly recommend that you do so. When you do, remember that the people whom you see there seeking treatment are people who have given a part of their lives, and in some cases part of their bodies and/or part of their minds, to their country. They won’t be there in the coats and ties of the people who “run” our current health system. It’s obvious that some of them have probably never even worn a tie. But every time I visit the V.A. I am proud of each and every one of these people. And I am also grateful for the "socialized" medical system afforded by the V.A. If it weren't for the V.A., most of these veterans would have no health insurance.

The people who today are battling against changes in our national healthcare system remind me of the people who drove my doctor of 20 years ago to the more productive and successful system of military socialized medicine. These people are not concerned about medicine, or about people, or about healthcare. If you listen to them, they are concerned about dollars. They are concerned about the bottom line. The same people who systematically destroyed the practice of medicine over the past several decades now demand, through their highly paid surrogates, to be given the opportunity to work out the kinks in the medical system without any government interference. The fox is loose in the henhouse and it wants someone to restrain the farmer from ousting it.

These people have progressively corrupted the medical system in this country and now they want to be allowed to fix what they, themselves, have broken. Wake up, people, this isn’t about healthcare. This is about money, pure and simple. Did you know that there are insurance companies who deny claims not based upon the merit of the claim but purely upon the proven idea that if you deny every claim when it first comes in the door, some people will just give up and not fight that “decision.”

When opponents of healthcare changes scream about not wanting decisions made by government bureaucrats, do they stop to think about who is presently making most of the health decisions for those who are insured? If you don’t know who I’m talking about, then you haven’t called a health insurance company lately. If you can get through to a human being, the person that you will be talking to is, more than likely, a minimum-wage clerk. Not a medical clerk trained in the ways of medicine, but a clerk trained in the ways of protecting the bottom line.

One of the biggest complaints against improving the healthcare system today is “Who is going to pay?” Well, let me ask you this. If we continue to allow millions of people to be uninsured and underinsured due to the penny-pinching monopolistic policies of the insurance company bureaucracy, who is going to pay? Are we just going to let increasing numbers of people lie around and die? Who’s going to pay? The answer is that we all will pay. We will pay through becoming less human and the result will be a slow disintegration of our society.

The healthcare system shouldn’t be run by people whose number one goal is to keep a consistent healthy bottom line for their business. The people’s health should not be trusted to institutions that have proven time and again that their number one interest is not how to best serve their customers, those who, after all, are the source of the money that they greedily hoard and stuff into the pockets of their top executives. People used to criticize what they called the “me” generation. Well, we now live in an age of the “me” corporation.

To think outside the box where healthcare is concerned needs to start by completely throwing out the question of who is going to pay for it. But the opponents of healthcare reform will hear nothing of that. They rail against the government (need I remind you “of the people”) being involved in running any part of healthcare, but they are slaves to the “government” of big business that has lied to them so consistently through the constant inundation of false advertising and mindless talking heads on television and radio that bombard us incessantly with the lie of the so-called “Great American Dream.” I’ll talk more about that in a future post.

Right now, I have a challenge for each and every reader. Can you think outside the box where improved healthcare is concerned without considering the financial cost? Don’t worry. I assure you that the money can be factored in later. But if we allow money to be the determining factor on the front end of what we consider for the benefit of all of the citizens of this great land, then we will never get beyond the spare change in our pockets.

There are sources of money and of great wealth that have yet to be tapped. That, too, will be discussed in a future post. For now, don't worry about, don't think about, the money. Think instead about the various ways that we might provide good, sound, efficient healthcare for every man woman, and child. Think about it.

Think Outside the Box!

Thinking Outside of the Box

Thinking Outside of the Box is a phrase that we've all heard so much that many take it for granted without having a clue what it really means. I've been thinking outside of the box my entire life. That's not an easy thing to do. Oh, sure, some people get excited by the thoughts that I think, but there are also an uncomfortable number of people who dread what I have to share from the open fields of consciousness outside of the normal, linear box thinking of our society. However, I'm getting too old to let the narrow, shortsighted thinking of others bother me much anymore. So, if my interest in this endeavor remains high, I'll share my own brand of Outside the Box Thinking, particularly as it regards current events, with anyone who happens to stop by. Hope you get as much joy out of this as I do.