Tag Archives: politics

The Matrix

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Some readers sought an understanding as to why the mariner uses the movie The Matrix as an allegory in several posts where government or corporations are the theme. All the information you would like to know about the movie, a trilogy, can be found at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix#Philosophical_influences .

An exegesis: many years ago, computer networks and robots took over the world. Humans fought back by making the atmosphere permanently full of storm clouds, denying the Sun as a source of energy. In turn, the robots began breeding human beings as a source of energy, AKA human batteries that were kept alive in casket-like pods. These humans were fed a false reality such that they believed they were living normal lives as their ancestors had done. This false reality is called the Matrix. A small team of free humans fight to destroy the Matrix in typical science fiction manner. The trilogy is an entertaining set of movies to watch.

The idea of a “false realty” goes far back in history and encompasses many theoretical speculations that the world we engage in is not real but rather a figment of our imagination and greatly limited by our five paltry senses.

The mariner uses the “human battery” as an example that represents when citizens are ignored or impugned upon in favor of profit or false political authority rather than to be properly represented by our governments and corporations.

Perhaps most memorable was his reference to candidate Romney when he derided behind closed doors that 47% of American citizens were nothing but overhead (Oneness IV):

The 2012 presidential race caught candidate Romney admitting that forty-seven percent of the US population depended on government handouts. It was spoken with derision and contempt….. The woes of a beaten middle class would not be an element of reconciliation between lesser and greater realities. There is no act of compassion. To Romney and the attendees in that room, people are Matrix batteries.

During the 2014 election, it was obvious that gerrymandering had achieved the same effect making the majority of the population irrelevant – more or less batteries. While national polls showed 80-90% of the population preferred taking automatic weapons off the street, candidates were elected across the board that would defend gun rights to include not only weapons but armored vehicles and rocket launchers.

To counter the Matrix effect, we need only to rise up as citizens and demand two changes:

Remove census redistricting from party domination and gerrymandering.

Impose a term limit election rule that no candidate may run for public office if the term in question extends beyond the candidate’s sixtieth birthday.

The term limit issue is not as irrational as one may expect. What is the average age of all citizens? At what age does current culture and experience begin to pass by an elected official? We need only to look at the Supreme Court to see the damage outdated and myopic judgment can cause.

Ancient Mariner

 

Self Serving Utterances

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Today’s topic is doublespeak. Doublespeak is designed not only to confuse or fool others but one’s self as well. For example, it is common for an individual to speak of themselves as “fiscally conservative and socially liberal.” This phrase feels comforting; one feels that one is up-to-date on the political tone of the times. Actually the phrase is an oxymoron. One need only say, “Put your money where your mouth is” and the fallacy reveals itself. A fiscal conservative foremost will defend the need for fiscal worth and likely will not trade that for social responsibility.

Another form of doublespeak is “do as I say, not as I do.” There are many examples. An example from the left this time, an advocate of animal rights will decry the practices of sow birthing cages and beef veal pens while enjoying their pork or veal cutlet. From the right, one advocates freedom of religion but denies that freedom to anyone who may not support their perception of religious practice.

Then there is the doublespeak professional – the politician. The late night talk shows, including FOX, NBC, CBS, ABC, Comedy Central and MSNBC, had a field day with candidate policy positions before a primary and afterward. The republicans had to win the primary within extremely gerrymandered districts where the tea party held sway. If they won their primary, the candidate shifted their remarks toward the center to garner as many remaining votes as possible.

The same tactic revealed itself in politicians who decried President Obama’s policies while supporting the same legislation under President Bush. One exception is the proposed immigration reform by both Presidents that was not accepted by Congress in either administration.

The last form of doublespeak today is false advocacy. The most virulent form is the negative campaign advertisement. A candidate espouses an implied but unexplained position on policy by talking about an opponent’s errant ways. Debating in this way permits the candidate to do whatever he wants without defending his or her own policy declarations.

False advocacy is used by the individual citizen in daily conversation when the individual disagrees with another individual but will not express that disagreement. Instead, at best, a statement of faint praise is offered but clearly there is no intention of supporting the other individual. The second individual must be keen on body language to know the person does not mean what they say and is in opposition.

It is no wonder one is encouraged not to speak of politics or religion. One of the mariner’s longstanding friends is a staunch conservative. The friend knows the mariner is, well, all over the place. We never speak of fiscal or social issues which is a shame; the utterances would be self serving but even more destructive to a good friendship. It was in the post “Oneness IV” where the mariner suggested that the reader pick one of the people you know that you have difficulty relating to because of your opinion of that person. Imagine that person without letting your opinion affect you. This takes a lot of practice. You know you are doing the right thing if you can feel a growing empathy. This is an exercise coined in the phrase “walk a mile in his shoes.” What are the good characteristics that you noticed?

As a parting thought, the advocacy for freedom of religion seemed to be a “do as I say, not as I do” form of doublespeak. Does the same apply to “one person, one vote?” Is the US indeed a democracy?

Ancient Mariner

 

The Common Working Person

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Debate about the spread between the wealthy and the rest of the country is receiving increasing attention by media. Better news channels like PBS and Aljazeera have held on air debates about unions, minimum wage, making the school system more competitive so more graduate high school and college and get better jobs and make more money (so that wealthy folks can make more money and those not-so-competitive students are weaned out of the “new” work force). Further, there have been discussions about the computerization age being the second half of the industrial age.

From dockside, the mariner observes that the first industrial age created millions of new jobs for the common working person while the second industrial, computerized age, takes jobs away from the common working person. The comeback by those advocating robotization of the workplace is that the common working person will be retrained for new kinds of jobs. Like what? For the mariner’s taste, there’s too much hemming and hawing at this point.

This is a broad, swampy subject. There are those, usually conservative or aggressively futuristic who are willing to do anything except assure a good life for the common working person. There are those on the other side that say there will be no progress until the wealthy are taken down a peg or two and government will oversee distribution and accumulation of wealth. While the latter team may have a heart of gold in behalf of the common working person, strategies are every bit as vague as that of uncaring conservatives and likewise doesn’t demonstrate a secure future for the common working person. The government is as good as the next election. From all past indicators, this is a bad bet.

Having set opposing shorelines, the swamp in between is not mapped, has murky water and poisonous snakes. It may be of interest to the reader to know that the current description of what a job is and how wages relate to that job was formulated in the 19th century – yes, the 1800’s. Government has tinkered with the edges until 1985 when government cut strings to any historic or traditional definitions. Nothing has evolved since so the 19th century definition of a job is still around but often ignored – especially worker rights and benefits that were applied early in the 20th century.

If the reader makes Big Macs or bacon burgers today, that is unfortunate. Computerization of burger production will be done by robots within five years (working models already exist). Stopping at a fast food restaurant will be exactly like stopping at a Redbox machine. Minimum wage may not be the big issue everyone thinks it is. Is there anyone who can describe a job environment for the common working person five years from now? For tens of millions of common working persons? Is there anyone who can describe an economic platform that assures a decent lifetime for the common working person?

What mariner hears from both shorelines are self-serving fake solutions. To extend the swamp metaphor, all the decision makers from both shores are wandering around the swamp in flatboats while the common working person is dragged behind in the murky water and poisonous snakes.

Helping assure quality of life for millions of common working persons will take a complete, high-powered team representing every quarter of the debate and, the mariner is saddened to say, that will not come for some time. Our society still is on a downslide, riding on the lives of the common working person.

Ancient Mariner

 

Sixth Extinction

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When the mariner was about twelve, he was reading one of his father’s textbooks that had a chapter on Thomas Malthus, a British economist who, in 1798, said that population growth would be destructive and would be the end of the human species. Being impressionable at that age, the mariner never forgot that warning. He has not thought about Malthus for a while but has always been aware of the impact of overcrowding on the earth in general and on the human race in particular.

Malthus based his prediction on the fact that population was a geometric growth pattern (1,2,4,8,16..…) and food sources grew arithmetically (1,2,3,4,5…..). Eventually, he reasoned, people would die of starvation. Among several opinions about how to control human population, the most memorable was to increase the death rate. Little did he know that science would not shorten lives but would extend them; now, on the horizon, people will live greatly prolonged lives. Further, science would boost food production to keep up with population growth.

All this came back to mind when Elizabeth Kolbert was interviewed on television. She is the author of a new book titled The Sixth Extinction, An Unnatural History. (Henry Holt & Company). Readers may be able to watch the interview on Jon Stuart’s webpage, http://www.thedailyshow.com/videos

The title derives from the fact that five great extinctions have occurred in the history of living things on Planet Earth. Most know about a meteorite that hit Earth in Mexico and ended the era of dinosaurs. Check Wikipedia or search “five great extinctions” for more information. Kolbert portends that humans are the cause of the sixth great extinction.

The book is drawn from scientific research and trips around the world with experts on climate, oceanography, ecology, animal and plant specialists and others who study living things and their habitats.

To make a detailed analysis brief, Kolbert’s point is that our species once existed only on the plains of Africa and now has spread to every spot on Earth, that is, every habitat of every plant, animal, fish, invertebrate, bacteria, and has altered every single ecosystem. The result of this overpopulation, especially by a species that is extremely high maintenance in its use of food, space, materials and energy, is that tens of thousands of species are falling into extinction on a continuous basis.

Not only are there so many humans that other species are crowded out (cities and sensitive estuaries filled in for the benefit of real estate development to name two), humans are a dirty and careless bunch. Humans are the cause of innumerable destructions of habitat by deliberately invading them (farming and river dams to name just two). Humans carry diseases that kill not only humans but other plant and animal life as well, spew chemical damage into every habitat on Earth, and alter climates to such a massive degree that animals from whales and polar bears to tiny fish, bees, coral species and plant life over the entire Earth are dying or being deliberately killed.

We are an uncaring lot. However, what goes around comes around. No longer can our profit be measured solely by spreadsheets and bottom line profit and loss. We are undermining ourselves day by day, even as the riverbank slowly gives way to its river. Is life in the matrix* our future, where robotic life forms are the only survivors?

Malthus would be horrified.

Ancient Mariner

*reference to movie The Matrix, where humans live unknowingly in a matrix of coffin-like life support units and are used as batteries to generate electric power for a lifeless robot reality.

Cities

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Books on cities present a view of how future economies will be organized. The following two books in particular see through today’s international chaos and give the reader a glimpse past the event horizon, where nations and corporations will be disassembled and brought back from the world of “too big to fail.”
The Metropolitan Revolution, How Cities and Metros are fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile economy. Katz and Bradley, Brookings Institution Press, ISBN: 978-0-8157-2151-2

An uplifting read that exposes a new energy in cities that are going broke under the current Federal system. The key attributes for cities are planning for the future instead of the election cycle, finding local funding outside the Federal structure and cooperation between political parties, major institutions and unions.

Chapter 7, Toward a Global Network of Trading cities, expresses a rise in city power and economy. What we tend not be aware of is that cities, particularly in China, India and Brazil, are exploding in population, are centers of commerce, and have assets that make them independent of national monetary policy. Increases in international trade will make cities independent leaders in GDP.

In the United States, not a population powerhouse, cities like Denver, New York and regional agreements in Ohio are taking the lead in a sociological revamping of what a city means to its citizens. Citizens are willing to raise taxes to pay for infrastructural improvement. Denver, a complex group of smaller cities, has the largest public transit project in the country. Large cities in the US go abroad to increase trade without the help of the Federal Government and, largely, not even their own states.

If Mayors Ruled the World, Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities. Benjamin R. Barber, Yale University Press, ISBN: 9780300164671

This is another book about the emerging role of cities in ways that displace national and international relationships. Barber poses the question, “Is the nation-state, once democracy’s best hope today democratically dysfunctional? Obsolete?” The answer, says Benjamin Barber in this provocative book, is yes. Barber says cities and the mayors who run them can do and are doing a better job.   He says cities worldwide share pragmatism, civic trust, participation, indifference to borders and sovereignty, and a democratic penchant for networking, creativity, innovation, and cooperation. Throughout the book, Barber demonstrates how city mayors, singly and jointly, are responding to transnational problems more effectively than nation-states mired in ideological infighting and sovereign rivalries.

The mix of growing population in cities around the world, including the US, the fact that “the buck stops here,” with respect to day-to-day operations, and an ability to generate income through trade with different nations, make cities the political and economic power for the future.

The danger for social justice issues lies in the independent nature of cities. There are important objectives for national governments: sustained democracy, human rights, equitable income for workers, health practices and safety.

The mariner has mentioned before that a trade agreement among Pacific Rim countries called The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) attempts to override all precedents associated with the above list. TPP is a dangerous “trade” agreement and should be vetted publically. At the moment, the President is trying to fast track the agreement, which essentially takes Congress, media and citizen opinion out of the picture. TPP is the exact opposite of the national role needed for the future.

Ancient Mariner

A Blissful Place

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Like many of you, the mariner feels a need to respond to greater tragedies in the world. However, there are two points to be made. First, he will solve not one great tragedy no matter how hard he tries. Second, No matter how much the mariner learns through personal education about a great tragedy, his knowledge inflames only his own soul.

A similar opinion is reflected in a few responses to posts. The mariner must agree with the general premise. True, he will not live long enough to see many great tragedies resolved – if they ever will be resolved. So find something pleasant to do until he dies.

However, a look backward through written history shows that tragedies have been overcome not by one or two powerful individuals but by hoards of people who took matters into their own hands. Discounting the contributions of science and technology, this has been the case most of the time. Further, no set of population has agreed to the last person that a given premise is absolute. Without elaborating, freedom marches could not have occurred with Martin Luther King alone. He had a few companions. Also note that both racism and “paid” slavery still abound. Still, the freedom movement made changes to American culture. One must, over the millennia, take one step at a time.

Occupy America and Tea Party movements are more evidence that it takes more than one person’s angst to change culture. To quote a great American phrase, “E Pluribus Unum.” It takes one hundred pennies to make a dollar. Consider yourself a penny – can’t make a dollar without you. To be more absolute about individual responsibility, be a citizen who votes – a power for change few citizens have had in history. 48 percent of eligible Americans do not vote. The mariner would recommend voting in caucuses and primaries as well. Further, when was the last time you shared your opinion with an elected representative?

The counterpoint is made. Yet, there is truth in the first paragraph. This modern age requires more than a millstone and corn to make breakfast. Although each of us is only one person, we as individuals are super-engaged in every level of local, national and global society. Our lifestyle is dependent on every level of local, national and global society. Our personal lives face daily confrontations that simpler times did not require. Further, in simpler times, tasks generally did not require much stress on the deeper machinations of our personalities.

In the United States, given a few exceptions for the wealthy and starving artists, having a job most of our life is an absolute requirement for survival. That means working steadily all day five days a week (a fairly recent limitation created by collective bargaining – but I digress). It means doing more than that if one needs to assure job security and lasting success. Virtually every job is stressful because time, not our own, is of the essence.

In the United States, children and parents and grandparents and cousins and friends disburse all over the world, leaving less of an envelope of unspoken comfort and protection. It is both blessing and curse in our American culture. As we have moved from an agricultural society to a post-industrial, technology driven society, a new festival has emerged – the family reunion. Used to be every day was a family reunion, though too much of a good thing can sometimes be too much. The mariner is reminded of a good friend he knew during the 1960’s. The friend said, “Never been more than 54 miles from home.” Queried about why, he said he never felt the need. He was an older farmer; he and his wife had four generations of family nearby.

So while we are more involved in our society than ever before, we tend to find less in the way of curative family and friend activities. In effect, were it not for a spouse, a great many individuals literally would live more than a day’s travel to a family member. Those without family or spouse emotionally have a harder life and tend to shape their lives in a way that guarantees curative time with friends and in solace.

The Western World is captivated by the noise and innovation of democratic capitalism. We tend to forget the healing aspects of religions that never experienced a Puritan-driven reformation, never heard of James Smith or John Maynard Keynes. One of my favorite anthropologists, Joseph Campbell often spoke of the need for each of us to have a blissful place. His definition of bliss was for religious purpose as well as emotional. Nevertheless, it takes training to sustain a blissful place. Perhaps that is why yoga and new age movements are growing in popularity – these movements reflect a need solved long ago in Hinduism and Buddhism – two religions that never faced western influence until the world grew too small. Still, as religions, they do not fare well in Western culture. Find solace in Pilates or Tai-Chi.

The mariner concedes we need solace. He also advocates that the world needs our constant attention because of human, chemical, planetary, and equality dynamics – but he digresses.

Ancient Mariner