CONNECTING THE DOTS: CONGRESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR WAR

We expected a resistance and defunding of the war from the Democrats after 2006. Instead, Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, representing one of the most liberal and secure Congressional Districts in the nation, took impeachment off the table, fully funded the war meeting Bush’s every demand, and passed FISA. Despite our wishes to get out of Iraq, our “peace” candidate Barack Obama wants to make additional war in Afghanistan as well as to maintain it in Iraq. We are again betrayed, impotent and frustrated. We have no power whatever over the powerful forces that insist on more war. On Sunday in an interview by Tom Brokaw, Al Gore made the urgent point that we must do very significant things to stop Global Warming within the next decade or we will be past the point of no return. Al seemed to assume that we could do something about Global Warming, and that we somehow have effective power. We clearly do not.

There are obviously forces influencing elected Democrats that are far more powerful, influential and effective than any ballot box force that we as voters can muster. What are those forces? I for one do not wish to be victim of the “fool me once…fool me twice…” syndrome.

The clearest analysis of our current impotence was written by retired UC Lawrence Livermore physicist, Manuel Garcia Jr. in a recent Counterpunch article entitled “Oiling the War Machine.”[1] His analysis is a great starting point to connect the dots that result in our voting impotence. Garcia’s own summary which he presents as a “thesis, without any claim of proof,” is:

“A military-industrial-congressional-complex (MICC) owns the US government and runs it as a mechanism of self-aggrandizement, as evident by the proportion of tax revenues that flow into military accounts

The self-serving purpose of the MICC’s militarized foreign policy (i.e.,war) is to expand its degree of control over all others, to achieve hegemony by the US, which is simply a vehicle for this clique.

The strategy for maintaining hegemony has 3 goals: 1, to secure hydrocarbon fuels for the US military;[2] 2, to control the access to hydrocarbon fuels by all others; 3, to control the economics of energy commerce.”

This is my own augmentation of the ideas of Garcia’s thesis summary:

· MICC includes Wall Street, the mainstream media including NYT, Washington Post, PBS and NPR, the Intelligence Agencies, and Academia, since all of these institutions support the complex, almost without question.

· MICC’s purpose is perpetual war, not only to maintain itself, but to maintain our fragile capitalistic economy that is in constant danger of depression and extensive unemployment.

· Congress is a critical part of the complex since congress must fund the MICC with the needed tax money obtained from us voters.

· By “the economics of energy commerce,” Garcia is talking about capitalism and the imperative need to maintain the dollar as the dominant currency of the world. He says that maintaining the dollar as dominant currency, is in effect like owning a casino and being able to take a cut of the action.

Garcia is writing about the real workings of present day capitalism as he observes it:

“How The Racket Is Set Up.

The owners of the dollar capitalist system use the power of the US government to extract wealth from the world.

The purpose of US military power is to keep other nations in the economic corral defined by the US dollar capitalist system. The military achieves this purpose by controlling as many of the source regions and trade routes of the fossil hydrocarbon fuels trade as possible. Control can be exerted by posing a credible threat: subsidizing Israel, Navy task forces in the Persian Gulf, overseas military bases and carefully placed missile defense radars; and control can be overt, as with the occupations of Iraq and Okinawa.

The economic cycles within the US corral are constructed to produce profits to the owners of the dollar capitalist system. Nations and populations that seek to leave the corral and cycle their natural wealth through non-dollar and non-capitalist economic cycles, to further their own domestic development, are seen as losses to the wealth extraction expectations of the MICC, and worse still as bad examples that could incite further rebellion, inspiring other client states to leap over the corral fence. These "bad apples" are subjected to threats (of increasing severity as they are decreasingly powerful), and in some cases overt aggression, in efforts to return them to their assigned roles in this system of wealth extraction.

The US dollar is a fiat currency backed by the threat of military force. Our Legions roam the Earth and everywhere our paper is accepted in exchange for tribute in the forms of natural resources and debt forbearance. The Arabs send us oil, the Central Americans send us coffee and bananas, the Chinese absorb our war indebtedness and shelter it as their savings account. Those who deny value to our currency do so at their peril, witness Iran, and recall the hostility to the former Communist bloc. Some imagine China has power over the US because it holds such a large quantity of US dollars, the stored monetized equivalent of the collective output of a vast and deeply exploited labor force. These dollars were exchanged for the gargantuan torrent of goods poured down the maw of American consumption. But it is China that is bound. If they were to withdraw their endowment of value to their US paper, by dumping US dollars on currency markets, they would only precipitate a collapse of the US dollar and thus simultaneously wipe out their own savings (and their prime export market). The Chinese people have had enough of a taste of money these last thirty years, even if at a modest level for most, that they are not prepared to go back to an agrarian Third World national lifestyle just to accommodate the political gesture of bankrupting the US currency. They would revolt, and this is far too great a threat to the Chinese Communist Party, the MICC of China, to risk provoking. So the US MICC is reassured that its bastard, American war debt, will be lovingly nurtured in its Chinese foster home.

… So, is the Iraq War a Peak Oil war, a resource-grab because of diminishing supply?, or is it a "favor to Israel" war engineered by an Israel Lobby, which must then be assumed to have controlling power in the US? The Iraq War is neither a simplistic "oil war" nor a simplistic "favor to Israel war." It is both an oil war and a favor to Israel because each of these is a contributing factor of this particular war to the larger purpose, the expansion of US MICC control over global energy resources and trade. The Iraq War is an attempt to increase political control over economic rivals by exercising superior military power.

Military control, over global energy resources and energy commerce, creates political power over economic rivals.

…. Within the MICC, the 2008 election is a contest between Barack Obama of the Democratic Party, and John McCain of the Republican Party, to determine who should take over the management of the unchanging prime directive. Each of the two potential executives will try to convince members of the MICC that they have the better business plan to achieve the goal they all agree upon: MICC world hegemony. Here, the Israel Lobby is seen as a constituency within the MICC. Because the management of the public mind for social control is now one of the major assignments of the national chief executive, and Barack Obama has demonstrated a flair for this, …, Obama is presently favored by popular opinion within the MICC. …”

(Emphasis Added by Doug Page. Obama is fully controlled by MICC, as is Congress, as is the Democratic Party.)

HOW DOES MICC MAINTAIN ABSOLUTE CONTROL OVER OBAMA AND THE DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS NO MATTER WHAT A MAJORITY OF US VOTERS WANT?

1. MICC maintains its grip on Congress by bribes, euphemistically called “campaign contributions.”

The profits from oil, arms manufacture are immense. We know that money is “the mother’s milk of politics.” MICC gives members of Congress enough money to induce them to overlook the wishes of voters.

2. Our market economy is extremely fragile, vulnerable to a major depression, and is the source of our jobs for which we are totally dependent for our survival.

Despite tax breaks and concession, little or no regulation, and massive public spending, Capitalism is extremely weak and fragile, on the precipice of a major depression. The domination of our paper currency is maintained by existing and threatened military force. Forcing capitalists to halt CO2 emissions would bring us into a deep depression. Already existing levels of joblessness would become much worse. The fact is that we are in big trouble under existing status quo assumption and ideology, and there is neither political knowledge nor political will to change them. There are no plans on the shelf for sustainable, stable alternatives. Nobody wants to face the fact that capitalism is in death throes. Every individual, every culture and nation is the Western World is dependent for daily survival on the existing status quo and war. We cannot risk any change that might cause the loss of our jobs.

3. Senate Democrats, in secret contempt of voters, and in violation of the Constitution, intentionally maintain Senate Rule XXII thus making it impossible for Congress to implement majority will of the voters.

The Senate maintains a formal rule, Senate Rule XXII that requires the votes of 60 Senators, far more than the “majority of a quorum” to end debate and bring a nomination or proposed legislation before the full Senate for action.

There also exists in the Senate a procedure and a precedent for bringing a matter up for vote by the full Senate by vote of a simple majority of a quorum to end a so called “filibuster.” This procedure nullifies Senate Rule XXII. Most recently, it was the Republicans who threatened to use this Nuclear Option. The Democrats wanted to maintain the rule requiring 3/5 of the full Senate or 60 votes to cut off debate and to bring a matter up for hearing so badly that they yielded to Republican demands. Senate Rule XXII requiring the affirmative vote of 60 Senators to bring a matter up for hearing by the full Senate violates the Constitution which states in Article I, Section 5:

“…a majority of (the members of the Senate) shall constitute a quorum to do business.”

The House, governed by the same provision, has always cut off debate by vote of a simple majority. Senate Rule XXII thwarts majority rule in the United States, and requires a supermajority of 60 Senators to stop debate so as to be able to pass legislation. Our nation is polarized, almost equally divided on most issues. Because of this Rule, voluntarily maintained by all Senators, the will of a simple majority of voters cannot be implemented by Congress. We cannot get peace. We cannot stop funding the War. We cannot get fair taxes. We cannot get health care. This rule makes it far easier for MICC to control Congress and to ignore majority will of the voters. Ordinarily MICC thus has to bribe one Senator to stop legislation,[3] and if there is much public concern about particular legislation, MICC has only to bribe 41 Senators.

In 1993, Senate Rule XXII was used by Republican Senators, for the first time in Senate history, as a partisan tactic to obstruct majority will.[4] This writer, a retired lawyer, acting as a voting citizen and seeking effective voting power for his vote and the votes of other Democrats, filed suits against all 100 Senators seeking a formal Declaration of the federal court that Senate Rule XXII was unconstitutional.[5] All 100 Senators, including my own two California Senators, on two separate occasions, voted to have the Senate Legal Counsel appear in Court to defend the Rule. The Senators did not deny that the Rule was unconstitutional, and simply relied on an arbitrary rule established by Justice Scalia that the federal courts could deny “standing” to a voting citizen to bring such a suit. Under this standing rule, the Court can arbitrarily decide what it will hear and what it will not hear. So the United States Supreme Court as well as the Senate is determined to thwart majority rule of voters in the United States and to support MICC.

4. The MICC controlled major media that fully support MICC and deprive American voters of alternate views, real analysis, and the truth.

I consider this point to be self evident to those interested in the rest of this analysis. We need only remember the recent history of the New York Times in its enthusiastic, uncritical, un-analytical reporting of the War in Iraq.

E. AIPAC and the votes of most American Jews support MICC.

Israel is MICC’s largest military base in the Middle East. For reasons associated with the Holocaust and a form of post traumatic stress syndrome, American Jewish voters love Israel. They deny or ignore the fact that MICC uses Israel, Israelis, and American Jews as its capo. Jews world wide are vulnerable to hawk stimulated PR that the existence of Israel is threatened. The real rulers of Israel are right wing hawks, allied with right wing hawks and MICC in the US. Israel uses its Lobby, AIPAC to corral the votes of 5 million American Jewish Democratic voters to support MICC.

F. The influence of dope profits resulting from military operations covertly laundered into our economy and used for campaign contributions.

We remember from the days of Iran Contra and Oliver North that dope running and dope sales were an important component of our involvement in Nicaragua. Vice President Cheney and other persons involved then, are in power today. We know that profits from heroin and cocaine are immense. Who gets that money? Where does it go? We know that that money is laundered and invested somewhere. We can know little else for certain. There are some important clues:

According to Peter Dale Scott, where ever the US has gone for oil whether in Indo China, Columbia, or Afghanistan, the US has also been covertly involved in the dope trade.[6]

Reuters reported on June 26, 2008:[7]

“Narcotics supplies have increased sharply in parts of Afghanistan and Colombia where insurgents are in control, helping them fund their activities, the United Nations said on Thursday.
While cultivation of the opium poppy stabilized or dropped in many parts of Afghanistan, five southern regions controlled by Taliban militants produced enough poppy to double the world's opium output between 2005 and 2007, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in its World Drug Report 2008.

On the other side of the world in Colombia, coca cultivation rose by 27 percent in 2007, though coca leaf and cocaine production were concentrated in just 10 of the country's 195 municipalities, the Vienna-based UNODC said.
Afghanistan remained the world's top heroin producer last year while Colombia was the foremost producer of cocaine.”

Afghanistan produces 95% of world’s opium as of 2007[8]

UN Report shows Western Europe cocaine use is high.[9]

Michael C. Ruppert wrote in 2004:

“From 1994 to1999, during US military intervention in the Balkans where, according to the Christian Science Monitor and Jane’s Intelligence Review, the Kosovo Liberation Army controls 70 percent of the heroin entering Western Europe, Cheney’s Brown and Root made billions of dollars supplying US troops from vast facilities in the region. Brown and Root support operations continue in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Macedonia to this day.”[10]

G. Democrats lack a sufficient majority since many Blue Dog Democrats are really hawkish Republicans

We have forgotten that the Democratic Party has always included hawkish right wingers, some of them racists. We used to call them “Southern Democrats,” but not all of them were in the South. The racists have left the Democratic Party and joined the Republicans. We are left with Blue Dog Democrats who steadfastly vote with the Republicans in support of MICC.

H. The total absence of a moral compass in American politics.

The MICC has manipulated and exaggerated the dangers in the world so as to increase our fear, reduce our capacity for calm and moral judgment, and has unleashed the hate of others, the patriotic nationalism, the lies, and the suppression of dissent that constitute “the dogs of war.” It is now inconceivable that the US could hold a War Crimes Trial as we did following WWII. It is the US that is now guilty of war crimes. The US and its ally Israel now torture captured individuals and engage in preventive war as a matter of course. The US no longer pretends to care about people outside its borders nor the poor and middle class people in the US. We no longer attempt to put ourselves in the shoes of others. We do not believe that all men are created equal. We no longer care about the moral axiom that it is wrong for some to have more than they need when others are needy. “Evil is the absence of empathy.”[11]

.

HOW DID CAPITALISM AND OUR DEMOCRACY GET OUT OF CONTROL SO AS TO MUTATE INTO A PERPETUAL WAR MACHINE?

Capitalism is fundamentally in conflict with voter controlled democracy. Capitalism’s power depends on its money to bribe elected officials, whereas democracy’s power is dependent on majority will of voters. The explanation starts with private hiring for the lowest wage possible in order to make as much profit as possible. This leaves some people unemployed without money to buy. Even in periods of full employment, employees are not paid enough to be able to buy all that capitalism produces. So capitalists shut down production periodically and a depression results. Capitalists tend to join together in monopoly to keep prices up. This makes things worse. Meanwhile, the accumulating money of the employers and those who invest with them, results in more and more political power and capitalists are able to get more and more public tax funds to keep things going in building highways and dams or in producing armaments. Capitalists then venture overseas seeking profit making opportunities, cheap labor and resources. They run into conflict with other capitalists from other nations seeking the same things. They call on the government for more armaments and for use of those arms abroad. Capitalists get richer and richer and use their money and power over the government to get more and more armaments and more protection abroad. Meanwhile, voter employees are staying even just surviving with their votes. Capitalism mutates into corporate state capitalism and finally into a political economy dominated by MICC whose purpose is perpetual war.[12]

Dated: July 26, 2008

Douglas R. Page, Tucson, AZ dougpage2@earthlink.net

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[1] Manuel Garcia Jr, “Oiling the War Machine, Counterpunch July 11, 2008 http://www.counterpunch.org/garcia07112008.html

[2] Maintaining fuel for the military is apparently a top Bush policy. Bush until recently continued to purchase 750,000 gallons of oil per week for the Elk Hills military oil storage facility. Bush did this despite the escalating price of gasoline and Bush also ignored pleas to release some of the stored oil to hold down prices. Michael Hudson, “How Bush has Pushed up Oil Prices,” Counterpunch, June 16-30, 2008, page 1.

[3] A single Senator can now place a “hold” on a nomination or on proposed legislation. His political party then backs him, and blocks a hearing without long speeches. “No longer does a Senator hold the floor for long impassioned speeches. Now they log their filibusters with the leadership, and the Senate pretends to hold them. Bill Dauster, “Its Not Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” Washington Monthly, November, 1996, p.34.

[4] 51 Congressional Quarterly 907,908 (April 10, 1993)

[5] Page v. Dole, Civ. Action No. 93-1546 (JHG)(D.D.C. August 18, 1994)

Page v. Shelby, Civ. Action No. 1:97CV00068 (D.D.C. January 13, 1997)

[6] Peter Dale Scott, Drugs, Oil, and War, 2004,, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc, Oxford, England

[7] http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USN25191109

[8] http://www.dawn.com/2007/08/21/top15.htm

[9] http://209.85.215.104/search?q=cache:F4uaHppHy0EJ:www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/pressrels/2006/unisnar264.html+afghanistan+cocaine+dollars&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us&client=firefox-a

[10] Michael C. Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon, New Society Publishers, 2004, page 71

[11] Ernest Partridge, “Evil as the Absence of Empathy,” Counterpunch, July 26, 2008, who apparently got this idea from Dr. Gustav M. Gilbert, a psychologist hired by the US to study the minds and motivations of Nazi War Criminals.

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/07/evil-as-the-absence-of-empathy/

[12] For more complete analyses of the dynamics of our market economy, see the author’s blog at http://www.thenewliberator.blogspot.com/

A SHORT VERSION OF WHY CAPITALISM IS FAILING US

To understand what is going on, and why we are losing our jobs and our houses and why global warming seems out of control, we must understand how our market economy, also called capitalism, works and how it interacts with our government.

As Doug Page, a retired union lawyer sees it:

Capitalism, the accurate name for our market economy, is constantly moving and growing, with an inner dynamic something like a tornado or a fast growing cancer. There never has been and there never can be a sustainable stable capitalism, since capitalism thrives on competition among those who can be the greediest and most socially irresponsible.

IT STARTS WITH THIS:

PRIVATE HIRING A private person with money hires a person without money for the lowest possible wage, in order make as much profit as possible for the person who already has money. The core formula, repeated over the decades by thousands of private employers, creates a small very rich and politically powerful elite group of employers while it produces millions and millions of employees who remain poor and never get wealth or power.

This twists into

MONOPOLY. Competition among capitalist-employers inevitably leads to the elimination of small employers and to a monopoly of a few large firms, with capacity to produce more than they can sell at a profit. They pay us employees such low wages that we cannot afford to buy what we have produced. We would lose our jobs and economic depression would result if nothing was done. Capitalism thus needs public control of monopoly and public money from taxing employees for stimulation to get things going again

This swirls into.

AN ALLIANCE BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND CAPITALIST EMPLOYERS. Capitalism badly needs our tax money to keep going. Our Government becomes a critical component of capitalism and to an ever increasing degree, capitalism and capitalist employers control the government. We employees have less and less voting power to get what we need from our government.

This moves into

IMPERIALISM. When profit making opportunities dwindle at home, capitalists, using the Government, the CIA and the Military go abroad to seek new profit opportunities, new resources, additional customers, and employees willing to work for lower wages. Capitalism at home tends inevitably toward capitalism abroad: Imperialism and sometimes War.

At the same time capitalism is destroying our planet home by

USING UP OIL AND RESOURCES, POLLUTION, AND GLOBAL WARMING. In its relentless search for profit, capitalist employers devour oil, minerals, timber, soil, and water, and dangerously pollute the earth and atmosphere. Good places to live, and to fish and to hunt are ruined.

Voracious capitalism moves yet again to

FINANCIALIZATION. Around 1980, The capitalist elite began increasing investment in speculation to make profit by buying, selling, and spinning off companies to produce the short term profit upon which the survival of capitalism depends. Capitalism, in this phase thus produces nothing that humans need, no food, no medical care, and no highways; It produces nothing except more profit and more political power for capitalists.

Capitalists use this money and political power to create

.

CORPORATE STATE CAPITALISM. Capitalism has mutated so as to cause the merger of corporate power with state power so that we now have corporate state capitalism whose powers are exercised solely to create socialism for the global elite at the expense and starvation of the rest of us. The elite causes the government to print massive amounts of paper money to rescue the businesses of the elite. It does nothing for us except to impose the burden of taxation and inflation on us employees. We suffer the loss of our jobs and things we need cost more and more, due to uncontrolled inflation.

During all of this, in order to control our thoughts, Capitalists have been creating

THE PROPAGANDA ARM OF THE CORPORATE CAPITALIST STATE. The capitalist elite owns and controls all the major print and electronic media, public relations and advertising agencies. The capitalist elite thus imposes the ideas and ideology that benefit the elite upon us. It controls even what we think about. We get no information analyzing capitalism and its effects on us.

This market economy at this stage makes is employees restless, angry, and unhappy. There is a potential that we employees would act negatively toward the capitalist elite. To prevent this, the Corporate Capitalist State moves toward:

CANCELLATION OF ELECTIONS, DECLARATION OF MARTIAL LAW, FRIENDLY FASCISM, WITH A DICTATOR. Thus the government and capitalism can ignore the plunder of our planet home, ignore our lack of jobs, ignore our hunger, ignore our illnesses, and ignore our needy old ages. We employees are in effect placed into wage slavery if we have any jobs at all. If we riot, we are placed in detention camps. If we starve nobody in control cares.

July 19, 2008

Douglas R. Page, Tucson AZ dougpage2@earthlink.net

.

MY SUBMISSION TO DANIEL SINGER COMPETITION 2007

WHAT MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH IN SOCIALIST THEORY IS NECESSARY IN ORDER TO MOVE THE PRACTICAL STRUGGLE FORWARD?

INTRODUCTION

The nurturing atmosphere for growth that children get in the human family differs from what they get in an institutional orphanage or a juvenile hall. Both family and orphanage provide for the material needs of members, but the human family provides an additional quality: the giving and receiving of sincere caring attention. This quality is customarily called love or agape. Most American families have in addition a religious or spiritual life. These additional qualities in a functional healthy family unleash spirit and energy so that each member can evolve to his/her fullest potential. Adults need this quality if they are to continue life-long growth. The strategy and vision of socialism now is that of an institutional orphanage with a lock on the door. It aims only to provide material needs, and accompanies that with great pressure to conform to the doctrinal model. Our actual human experience with Socialism is that it “produced a system that used terror as an instrument of social engineering.”[1] Domination in some form has always been required. Socialists do provide the much needed, but almost lost insight and wisdom that capitalism is an incurable cancer on human beings and the planet. Socialists know also that capitalism has not and never will meet human needs however it is reformed or controlled because it builds power in a few persons based on greed and violence, and the threat of violence and starvation.[2] Socialists are also well aware of the almost impenetrable trance[3] of people in the West who enjoy the material benefits of US domination. We socialists are well aware that the powers of corporate states have greatly increased while the channels for change through the ballot box are blocked by the oligarchy.[4] We who seek socialism need this quality of sincere caring attention as a root value in ourselves, in our socialist organizers and in our socialist vision. We need this even more than we need blueprints and program proposals. This discussion points to some ways to get this positive quality despite the seemingly awesome corporate-governmental power and to avoid the stifling domination and violence that have so far been a necessary part of both capitalism and socialism.

SOCIALISM NEEDS TO RECONNECT WITH THE SAGES PAST AND PRESENT IN ALL FIELDS OF HUMAN WISDOM SO AS TO OFFER A STATEGY AND A VISION THAT IS FOUNDED ON CARING, AND COOPERATION

Visions of socialism inevitably involve a conflict between two worthy values, a conflict between liberty and equality. E. F. Schumacher pointed out that enforcing equality for some humans will inevitably involve infringing on the liberty of other humans. On the other hand, enforcing liberty for some will inevitably leave many humans with unmet needs.[5] Neither value can prevail without serious damage to the other value. Schumacher called this a “divergent issue,” the unavoidable conflict of good values. These conflicting good values can only be harmonized by another value such as “love” which a family uses with children to reconcile freedom and discipline or “fraternity” that the French chose in the slogan “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.”

The point of this for us socialists is that socialism abhors such wisdom because socialism is wedded to science. Science rejects all sentimentality, insight, feeling, spirituality, and religion. Science, and hence socialism, have no means, insight, or knowledge with which to reconcile conflicting good values peacefully. The reconciliation of conflicting values cannot be had with rational experiment, argument, or debate. It is a fundamental part of science that one be objective and ignore all subjective thoughts or feelings. Science could enable Robert Oppenheimer to make an atom bomb, but science could not give him the wisdom to decide whether to make it, or whether to use it, once made.

Components like “love,” caring, sharing, and cooperation are not mentioned as core ingredients of present socialist theory. This is because they are part other fields of human wisdom that socialism has so far ignored. In secular language, Schumacher lists four fields in the map of human knowledge that he calls “The Wisdom Tradition.” They are:

1. What is going on in my inner self? In the philosophy of the East, this area is as vast and as worthy of study as the outer universe. This field involves human feeling, spirituality, the meaning of life, insight and introspection. It involves the uniquely human capacity to observe what we ourselves are thinking and feeling. This gives us the ability to reflect and think of intended and unintended consequences before we act. There is immense personal psychological benefit in simply asking one’s self, “What’s it to you?” before acting or speaking. We cannot begin to know of the needs of other humans unless we know of our own subjective thoughts and emotions. It has been a disaster that socialism has ignored this field of knowledge.

2. What is going on in the inner lives of other humans? We cannot have direct knowledge of this field. We can have hunches based on our own inner study. We may be able to verify our hunches by observation of body signals, and apparent moods and behavior. Most children are familiar with the axiom, “If momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” This field seems to be the root source of the value of compassion. Together with our own inner exploration, it allows us to put ourselves in the shoes of another. It fosters values of caring, sharing, cooperation and peaceful behavior. It is the root of family and civilization. It could and should be a root of both socialist strategy and vision.

3. How am I seen in the eyes of those around me? If we wish to have a check on our own irrationality, delusions, bad ideas, and craziness, we must be concerned with how we appear to others. We can thus have a check on our shortcomings of which we may have been unaware. Jim Jones, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and their “isms” could well have benefited from this field of knowledge as could have their victims.

4. What do I actually observe in the world around me? This is the field of science. It is useful in astronomy, chemistry, physics, and making atom bombs, and chemical weapons. This field requires the exclusion of all inner experiences like love, hate, hope, fear, joy, anguish, and even pain. One must objectively observe, measure and record. This field is startlingly compatible with capitalism and torture, since it imposes no curbs on violence, greed or aggression, and with the type of “socialism” that existed and failed in the Soviet Union and China.

These four fields have occupied sages, wise men, philosophers, and spiritual figures like Moses, Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed in the past and theologians, philosophers, psychologists, song writers, and poets in the present time. Before the 4^th field of Science came to dominate the planet, bright men studied, meditated and reflected on all these fields, not just the fourth, and they were honored and respected by the lay population.

Socialists are unacquainted with and uninterested in the sages past or present and what they are thinking because they are not scientific. The sages are non-rational which socialists sometimes confuse with irrational. They are spiritual, reflective, insightful, even religious men. They are respectful of science for what it can be used for, but their thoughts are not confined to or imprisoned by science. Socialists have much to learn from them as to both means and ends. These sages have much to learn from Socialists as well if Socialists can make themselves relevant, appropriate, and palatable by ingesting the Wisdom Tradition and its four fields of knowledge. This cross fertilization of insights is now desperately needed.

The sages of today include theologians, people like Thich Nhat Hanh,[6] Dalai Lama,[7] Alan W. Watts,[8] Dorothee Soulee,[9] Sjoerd L. Bonting,[10] Walter Wink,[11] Marcus Borg,[12] Karen Armstrong,[13] and Matthew Fox.[14] Socialists can be enriched by studying them, and using their wisdom. Many of them are proponents of liberation theology. For reasons of strategy and personal enrichment, socialists might consider becoming liberation theologians as the Latin American priests did a few years ago. Socialists will find these theologians to be rational, and their ideas have a surprising and enriching correlation with socialist objectives. Some of the concepts that individual progressive theologians write about may be surprisingly inoffensive to socialists.[15]

Since an overwhelming majority of people are spiritual, Socialists wedded to “science” are impeding the realization of our vision. Socialists are not connecting with potential allies, and helpful insights. Socialists might consider participating in the spiritual traditions to support these modern progressive interpretations and to oppose those that are crazy, reactionary and enslaving.

One of the main obstacles that Socialists face in organizing and recruiting is the trance imposed on people by capitalism and its oligarchic media. The Oligarchy “informs” people that the status quo is the best that can be and that there is no alternative. The Oligarchy augments this trance with its proliferation of material goods in the West and with the threat of unemployment and starvation everywhere. So far, Socialists have not found a way to penetrate this very powerful and addictive trance. It is in penetrating this trance that religion, spirituality and progressive theologians can be very helpful allies. It is the essence of every religious tradition that human beings and their lives on earth can be better. Each provides disciplines, rituals and ceremonies that encourage and seek this better life. The Oligarchy, well aware of this progressive potential, has linked itself with right wing religious leaders who ignore or falsify this essence and divert the attention of people to other topics like sin, evil, terrorists, heaven, atheists, and Armageddon. Socialists must combat this and they have very real eager allies in the progressive theologians. These progressive theologians constantly seek to teach religious people about the caring, sharing, cooperative, peaceful essence of their spiritual traditions, and to refute the false and corrupting interpretations of right wing religious leaders. One of the principal themes of the spiritual traditions, properly interpreted, is that people should do what they have to do to survive in the status quo, but they should deny its legitimacy: “To be in the culture, but not of it” or “To render unto Caesar that which is Caesars, and render unto God that which is God’s.” The ultimate objective, common in all traditions, is summed up in the prayer uttered daily by millions of Christians: “Thy will be done on earth as in heaven.” It can and should be the role of Socialists to join with progressive theologians to help break the trance of the Oligarchic status quo and give concrete meaning to this spiritual yearning.

By contrast, the logical, reductionist, scientific approach of Socialism is unpersuasive uninspiring and incomplete. It has not appreciated or used the insights of spiritual people. I was privileged to make the personal acquaintance of Paul Sweezey and I have read his Monthly Review for over 50 years. I greatly respect his brilliant analyses of Capitalism and Imperialism, but his working definition of Socialism has always left me cold:

1. State ownership of the means of production
2. A national economic plan enforced by the State.

The definition ignores the values of most concern to me, caring, being cared for, sharing, cooperation and peace. It provides no way to penetrate the trance. It is valueless “scientific” socialism. It leaves all of the hard questions unanswered: Who is to control the State? How? By What means? For what goals or ends? It ignores the problem of conflicting good values such as liberty and equality. Is it to be achieved by violence? How will socialism deal with the immense differences among human beings? I know that Paul Sweezy had personal values like mine of caring sharing, cooperation and peace, but they were not a part of his socialist strategy or ultimate vision.

SOCIALIST THEORY MUST EMBRACE THE HUMAN WISDOM THAT EXPOSES THE MYTH OF REDEMPTIVE VIOLENCE, PENETRATES THE OLIGARCHIC TRANCE, AND BECOME ACTIVELY NONVIOLENT IN BOTH STRATEGY AND VISION

In my opinion, the wisest and most radical sage now living is theologian Walter Wink.[16]

Wink says the root of inequality, domination and exploitation is violence used by one human to assert power over another human. Men use violence or potential violence to assert domination over women. Employers use the threat of violence or starvation to assert domination over employees. Some socialist theory involved hating and overthrowing the ruling class by force and violence. “ Socialist” States like the Soviet Union and China used state violence allegedly to enforce equality, but more likely to enforce the privileges of the power elite, and to suppress dissent.

Multi-national capitalists use the awesome violence of the U.S. super power to enforce their domination over the people and resources of the whole planet. Israel uses armed violence to subdue millions of Palestinians in occupied Gaza and the West Bank and to control water, transportation, and almost all of Palestinian life. In both cases, vast edifices of power and privilege are protected and maintained by armed violence, accompanied by denial of this fact.

Unfortunately, for 5000 years we humans have been addicted to what Wink calls the Myth of Redemptive Violence. It is a major component of the Oligarchic trance. What is this Myth that Wink has identified?

There exists an evil that is a threat to the community. A strong man emerges among us who promises to rid us of the evil. The strong man kills the evil man. The strong man acts violently outside the law and apart from the community. This violence restores our sense of safety, law and order. We are personally redeemed with no effort on our part.

This myth is so much a part of our consciousness that we do not realize that it is false.

I present here my own short summary of Wink’s Chapter 1:

Our childhood TV shows, our comic books, many of our movies and our foreign policy are all founded on the false myth of redemptive violence. It promises to redeem, to restore order, law, peace and democracy, but it never does. This is our civilization redeeming myth that appears in Popeye, The Lone Ranger, Batman, Superman, Cowboy Westerns, TV games and in our foreign policy, and in the CIA. Notice that the cause of the evil is never discussed. It simply exists as a “given.” Nothing that the community did caused the evil. It often involves a projection of the evil within the community “out there” as an external evil.

The community believes that it is redeemed by this violence. The myth is the simplest, laziest, most exciting, uncomplicated, and irrational depiction of evil the world has ever known. The good guys always win. It survives in our religious institutions. This myth, and not Christianity, is the real religion of America. No bland Sunday School lesson once a week can match its power, its excitement, its addiction and its fascination. “Might makes right.” There is an underlying theology that the violent strong man has the powers of God. The strong man is thus a king with the power of God. It is the basic theology of Empire’s domination system, and of men’s domination of women. The Church becomes the kept court chaplain of the violent national security state. We patriotically obtain salvation by identifying with serving and dying for this violent State. The dead and the wounded are honored. They died for a “good cause.” The Myth is the essence of totalitarianism. We are devoted to this Myth because it seems so real.

Many intellectuals, workers, capitalists and socialists are unwittingly, addicted to this Myth. The Myth is totally false. It is the very core of the Oligarchic trance. The truth is that violence never works to achieve the stated idealistic objective. Violence did not achieve the stated socialist objectives in the Soviet Union. Violence did not achieve the stated socialist objectives in China. Violence is not establishing democracy in Iraq.

The one successful social revolution of modern times, the elimination of state sponsored racism in the United States was achieved by purposeful nonviolent resistance lead and taught by Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

Here are some of the reasons why violence will never bring us socialism:

• Capitalism does not create a wish for socialism among humans. Multinational capitalism and imperialism simply have not inspired employees to hate the system and to overthrow it by violence. As Thorsten Veblen wrote over 100 years ago, employees, instead, have a deep wish to emulate the rich.[17] Recent history of Nazi Germany shows that employees in any country are more likely to choose the Myth of Redemptive Violence under the leadership of an authoritarian strong man who promises to make things right.

• Violence spawns an unending spiral of violence. The anger, hatred, and killing and torture skills humans as a group need to attempt a violent overthrow of the status quo cannot and are not simply put aside even if the violence is temporarily successful. Violent overthrow of the status quo inevitably creates resentment and a determination by the victims to use retaliatory violence to regain what was lost.

• Violence teaches no leadership skills to deal with the differences among humans. There are vast permanent differences among us humans. The advent of socialism, whether achieved by violence or nonviolence, will not eradiate these differences. Some humans will still be fascists, conservative, uninvolved and unconcerned, liberal and radical, greedy and sharing. Socialists would then need to continue domination, violence and control, far beyond a modest police force needed in a stable community.

• Violence is counterproductive in creating the profound change of consciousness in humans that is needed to obtain and maintain socialism The reliance on violence to achieve a change in the status quo brings out in us humans traits of violence, greed, cruelty, hatred and fear. The consciousness emphasizing the peaceful, caring, sharing, cooperative traits of humans, the type of human consciousness that we need and want, is stifled and eradicated.

• We can never match the arsenal of violence available to the corporate state. Violent socialists can never hope to confront directly the overwhelming weapons in the hands of the Oligarchy.

It is long past time for us seriously to consider the revolutionary power of active nonviolence. It is neither passive nor violent. Active nonviolence is an alternate third way. Its goal is true democracy, one person one vote with effective equal voting power. The active nonviolence means of change is at least as practical and realistic as the use of armed violence. It has worked when it has been tried. The advantages of active nonviolence over armed violence are:

• Active nonviolence is based on timeless national, cultural, human, and religious values and principles such as equality, security, preservation, justice, democracy, love, forgiveness, caring, compassion, and understanding.

• Active nonviolence appeals to these values held by people and nations.

• Active nonviolence is less threatening than violence to ordinary citizens.

• Active nonviolence (unlike militaristic or violent methods) allows everyone to participate: women, men, elderly, youth, and even children; people from all traditional levels of strength and weakness.

• In active nonviolence, the means are consistent with the ends—they are the ends in the making.

• Active nonviolence has the capacity to reduce the effectiveness of police and state violence—the powerholders’ ultimate weapon---and to turn it to the movement’s advantage.

• A clear policy of active nonviolence makes it difficult for provocateurs to disrupt or discredit movements by promoting internal violence, hostility, dissension, dishonesty, and confusion.[18]

Luckily for us, trained facilitators, excellent training manuals, and training courses are available to help us get the wisdom and change in strategy that abandoning violence and domination requires.[19]

Anyone who proposes active nonviolence must be prepared to deal with the question: “What would you do with a Hitler who seeks to enslave you and commit genocide?” This question is the ultimate propaganda weapon of those who are entranced by the Myth of Redemptive Violence. It seems so logical and realistic and the answer seems self-evident. Beware.

At the outset, every one of us would do whatever is necessary to protect ourselves and our loved ones if we were personally attacked. The real question is not what I would do personally against a Hitler’s armed might, but what I would want my nation to do. So the question requires careful thought and analysis before one supports national armed violence.

1. Who is raising the question? Follow the money. What is his financial interest? Does he seek to deflect attention from some something else?
2. Are jingoistic emotional frightening words being used by the proponents of armed violence? Are you being manipulated by some person that seeks to maintain power and privilege?
3. Examine the truth as you know it. Are you personally in any immediate realistic danger? Is there time to consider causes and solutions other than armed violence? Or is it simply a theoretical question about alleged future danger?
4. Has the proponent of armed violence examined all the causes of the alleged evil and exhausted all of the alternatives to violence? This is a basic requirement before engaging in even a “just” war.
5. Have you considered the fact that our own nation’s imperialistic economic expansion supported by armed violence that is the main threat to the peace of the planet?
6. Which would likely result in the least human causalities, both of civilians and combatants: armed violence or active nonviolence?

Having done all that, we can then be ready to give active nonviolence a fair hearing.

The following are the essential components of a nonviolent socialist strategy and ultimate goal:

• An effective strategy to obtain socialism requires that each of us experience a profound change of consciousness. We must become aware of our own acceptance of the Oligarchic trance. We must learn to function within the status quo, but to reject its legitimacy. We must give up our addiction to the Myth of Redemptive Violence. We must recognize our own dark sides, our own potentials for violence. We must come to know that this violence can be intellectual, physical, verbal, spiritual, and psychological. We must come to know that an act by us that makes another feel “one down” or under attack will simply create a need for retaliatory violence by the other. We socialists must renounce our dream of “power over.” We ourselves must first learn the means of assertive nonviolence, consensus building, cooperation, and the capacity to give sincere caring attention to others, including enemies and capitalists and conservatives.

• Active nonviolence involves confronting our own fear and instead of fleeing or fighting, consciously choosing to act nonviolently. It accepts anger as a motivation, providing the anger is under control. It involves channeling our anger away from impulsive violence. It is neither fleeing, nor is it passively doing nothing. It involves active nonviolent resistance such as Rosa Parks refusing to sit in the back of the bus, or Martin Luther King Jr. marching into Bull Connor’s police line, clubs and snarling police dogs.

• Active nonviolence is founded on the assumption that every human being is a complex mix of positive and negative traits, and has a need to be cared for and to care for others. It involves a choice to try to connect with the inner decency in the person based on the fixed determination that the potential for decency exists in every human.

• Active nonviolence is an action of evolved humans giving caring attention even to enemies and violent persons, and of sharing and cooperation. It rejects and breaks the spiral of violence and retaliatory violence. As a start, it involves simply asking a dominating violent person or nation: “What’s wrong?” It would involve the U.S. asking Iranians: What’s wrong? It would involve listening to the answers. I know of an incident where a young woman observed a man beating his wife on the public sidewalk. The young woman, lacking the personal power or police presence to intervene physically, simply looked into the beater’s eyes and said: “What’s wrong?” It was a sincere caring question. It did not put down or criticize the beater. The man was suddenly awakened from his trance of anger, seemed embarrassed, stopped beating his wife and walked away. The U.S. and Israel do not ask their “evil enemies” “what’s wrong?” because neither wishes to hear the answer nor to surrender privilege.

• Active nonviolence assumes that conflict and differing wishes and views among humans will always be a part of life, both now and after the advent of the socialism of our dreams. We must learn to deal with these conflicts without violence.

In the many historical situations where active nonviolence has been tried, it has been effective.[20] The historical record is that violence is always used to preserve existing privilege, not to achieve fairness or equality, or democracy.

Active nonviolence is an implementation of the principles of Gandhi[21] and Martin Luther King Jr.[22]

The authors of Engage: Exploring Nonviolent Living at page 281 state its principles for themselves and for us:

Nonviolence is active, constructive, cooperative and creative power for justice, equality, reconciliation, and well-being of all that employs neither passivity nor violence.

Nonviolence unifies rather than threatens; integrates rather than fragments and destroys; and seeks the truth rather than the conquest of one side over the other.

Nonviolence is a process that refrains from violence to break the cycle of escalating and retaliatory violence; to reach out to the opponent and to potential allies; to focus on the issue at hand; and to seek to reveal more clearly the truth and justice of the situation.

Nonviolence is organized love that includes loving one’s opponent. That is, it acknowledges, safeguards, and engages with the humanness, woundedness, and sacredness of the other, while actively challenging and resisting her or his violence and injustice.

LET’S START NOW!

If we are to renounce violence, force, the threat of force, and if we are to deal nonviolently and creatively with the differences and conflicts among humans, we must immediately prepare ourselves and the people we know. Active nonviolence provides the ideal place to get started. It provides not only a durable moral foundation for our socialism; the practice of active nonviolence is socialism now. If we truly immerse ourselves in the discipline of active nonviolence, we will realize that we are also creating the foundation for the socialism that we need and want: caring respect for every human; elimination of “power over,” domination and privileges based on wealth and power; an acute awareness of the oligarchic trance. In fact, the consciousness of active nonviolence is itself the conscience of socialism. The study of active nonviolence gives us a critical change of consciousness so that we can be active in the status quo, but totally deny its legitimacy.

.

Our “manifesto” should be:

People of this planet earth: Awaken! Become aware of the false “reality” of empire. Be in the world, but be not entranced by it. Take active nonviolence training. Study yourselves and your own habits of violence, and the effects of violence on you and others. Listen carefully to the needs of others. Be aware of your own inner motives. Acting together with others, engage in purposeful nonviolence to, resist evil acts, domination and oppression and to seek justice for all.

This will keep us very busy for the present. It is also the privilege of all of us to envision the ultimate socialist objectives. Without rejecting the traditional components of socialism, we offer a couple of our own ideas about the ultimate goal:

1. Our governmental and production institutions must be kept to a small human scale where we can know and care for each other, where democracy can be effective, and monitoring and auditing can be done.
2. We must provide institutions that meet the needs of those who are religious, traditional, right wing, conservative, greedy, and in need of strong leaders:
1. Allow a greedy selfish person to do and earn what he pleases alone in self employment so long as he damages no one else, but he shall not be allowed to hire another to make a profit, nor to invest his wealth to make a profit.
2. Provide a ceremonial leader, king, queen or chief for the larger governmental units, but give this “leader” absolutely no governmental power. (This wise concept is borrowed from England and the Scandinavian countries. It avoids our own disaster where people give an elected President undue authority, honor and respect along with immense political power)
3. Provide modest governmental financial aid to religious institutions and retreat centers and to the sages. (This also is borrowed from Scandinavians)
4. Select administrative personnel based on their capacities for caring, cooperation, sharing, (and being cared for) and create institutions that foster and promote these qualities.

There is an urgent need that we focus and prepare. When an immense multinational economic depression occurs, or when a national disaster occurs (from whatever cause) active nonviolent socialist organizers need to be prepared to lead a hungry, frightened, discouraged, and bewildered citizenry toward constructive nonviolent solutions. Socialists are now impotent, unorganized and unprepared. The Oligarchy now ruling us through both the Republican and Democratic Parties is prepared. It has caused its puppets that we elect to make laws and Executive Orders placing all governmental power in the hands of the President in a national emergency.[23] The President alone decides when there is an emergency. The reality is that we socialists must get ready to deal with this. We know from experience that the ruling Oligarchy will push for private market solutions and seek to dominate and manipulate us with false solutions and scapegoats.

Dated: July 20, 2007

Douglas R. Page, Tucson, AZ dougpage2@earthlink.net

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[1] John Gray, “Little Big Wars The Metamorphis of Conflict,” Harpers Magazine, July, 2007, 83.

[2] It is the hiring of one human by another for the lowest wage possible in order to make as much profit as possible for the hiring human that is the core dynamic of capitalism that generates immense wealth and political power for the hiring humans. Our socialism may have to prohibit hiring in order to make a profit, and authorize only self employment, cooperatives and partnerships. As Professor Rick Wolf wrote in MR “The egalitarian, solidaristic society envisioned by social democracy cannot be secured so long as it leaves in place a group of people with incentives and means to prevent that.”

[3] David Korten in his book From Empire to Earth Community labels this trance “the trance of empire,” but he fails to recognize the dynamics of capitalism that is the root of empire, and I prefer to label it the Oligarchic trance. It is the trance imposed by capitalist dynamics and the Oligarchic media that implants the following falsehoods and half truths, This Oligarchy in its media inundates us with the following “stories,” myths, half-truths, and outright falsehoods that dominate the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, and the intellectual life and citizenship of the entire Western World:

a. The uncontrolled market is the source of all good, and there is no alternative

b. We are a functioning democracy, with some flaws possibly, but they are correctible

c. Those who oppose “us” are “terrorists” who must be killed wherever they are. (From 1917 to 1990 our opponents were “communists.”)

d. A rising tide lifts all boats, so we need not be concerned about the compounding wealth some at the top.

e. Our business expansion abroad, is good for us and benign in its effects on people abroad. It is our Manifest Destiny to project our culture, our businesses, and our democracy over the entire planet.

f. Our military might is maintained and used solely to defend our democracy.

g. Israel is an ongoing victim of terror, and the Palestinians are terrorists. Israel is our democratic ally in the Middle East.

h. Any human who really wants to can become rich too.

Every human being in the Western World, who wishes to have a job, a career, and promotions with appropriate pay, must accept these basic “stories” without question. The “liberal” magazines, The Nation, The New Republic, and The Progressive accept them. A professor will get no foundation grant to study the social adequacy of capitalism. A Jewish Professor who tells the facts about Israel’s 40 year military occupation of the West Bank will be denied tenure. A young law school graduate can do nothing further “left” than to become a speech writer for Al Gore if he wishes to advance in the law. NGOs like Common Cause cannot and do not challenge these basic stories. Thomas Friedman could not survive at the New York Times if he did not support these basic myths. A bright career woman who works as a fund raiser for an academic collection must maintain her “contacts,” and her “network” in order to succeed, so she must “believe” in these basic myths. Thus the Oligarchy controls not only our information, but also what we are allowed to think about. The awesome power of the Oligarchy, coupled with our own wish to “succeed,” in effect puts us in a trance. .

[4] We now know that we voters do not rule. We have less voting power than ever. Ever since Republican Kevin Phillips wrote his Wealth & Democracy in 2002 we know that 80% of the money for the election campaigns of our elected representatives comes from the richest 5% of Americans. We know from the 2007 book of John Perkins, The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Man and the Truth About Global Corruption that we are in fact ruled by an oligarchy hat Perkins calls “corporatocracy.”

[5] E. F. Schumacher, A Guide for the Perplexed, (Harper & Row Publishers Inc. 1979), 121.

[6] Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ, (The Berkley Publishing Group, A division of Penguin Group [U.S.A.] Inc., 2002)

[7] Daniel Goleman, Destructive Emotions A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama (Bantam Dell, A Division of Random House Inc., 2003)

[8] Alan W. Watts, Myth and Ritual in Christianity, (Beacon Press, Boston, 1968)

[9] Dorothee Soulee, Against the Wind, Memoir of a Radical Christian, (Forest Press, Minneapolis, 1999)

[10] Sjoerd L. Bonting, Chaos Theology, St. Paul University, Ottawa(2002)

[11] Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers, Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination, (Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 1992)

[12] Marcus J. Borg, The Heart of Christianity, (Harper, San Francisco, 2003)

[13] Karen Armstrong, A History of God, (Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1993)

[14] Matthew Fox, Original Blessing, (Bear & Company, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1983).

[15] Modern progressive theologians offer such concepts as the following: Nobody can prove the existence or non-existence of God or of a loving or creative intelligence and energy in the universe. However, most humans have always yearned for a reality beyond ordinary experience, and the yearning seems to be a part of human DNA. For many centuries, most sages have found it meaningful and useful to assume the existence of a loving God. Zen Buddhists put much more emphasis on the teachings of Buddha, but in effect Buddha occupies the place of a loving God. In this 21^st Century many non-believers or outright atheists addicted to alcohol find help in the spiritual program of Alcoholics Anonymous by “faking it until they make it,” that is by pretending that God exists and getting on with the Program.

God is love…at least this is the reliable component that humans can experience. God is in us and acts through each of us. God is neither male nor female and is certainly not a bearded man in white robes sitting in the clouds making angry judgments about us and sending sinners to hell.

We each have the capacity to be ongoing loving co-creators with God if we choose to do so because God is in us.

God created all humans (along with the rest of creation), loves each of us humans, sinners included, and expects us humans to give each other sincere caring attention as God does. This may be a root of our socialist and Constitutional concern with equality and socialist vision of a compassionate political economy.

The Christian doctrines of Virgin birth, Resurrection from the Dead are not literally or historically true, but are nevertheless profoundly meaningful stories and metaphors that give meaning to our existence for some humans.

Evil, sin, hell, the Holocaust, and wars are part of the chaos of the universe in a sense similar to the chaos of modern physics. A loving God, and loving human co-creators with God, struggle to bring order and love to this chaos among humans, and to make meaningful adjustments and accommodations to avoid the effects natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, hurricanes insofar as is possible. There is a realization that some chaos is a permanent part of the universe co-existing with a loving God as it is in nuclear particles.

Ancient Ritual and Ceremony deserve respect for being reminders of the foregoing values and to maintain and preserve the human wisdom so far accumulated.

Ritual and ceremony, long tested by human experience, can bring order to the irrational dark sides of us humans, which if unchanneled, can lead to mob behavior, National Socialism, holocausts and the insane doctrines of Jim Jones in Guiana.

Since the word “love” has so many meanings, progressive sages make clear here that the love involved is caring for others, being cared for, sharing, cooperation and the absence of angry violence.

Institutional Religion does as much harm as it does good. This is because basic insights and teachings have been codified, stripped of meaning, ignored, misinterpreted, or used by rulers to manipulate the people or to achieve secular political power. Religion has been and is the opiate of the masses. The Church continues to be the Chaplain of Empires.

[16] See Note 11

[17] Thorsten Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, (Kingsport Press Inc., Kingsport, TN , 1979 [First published in 1899] ), 68

[18] Bill Moyer, Engage: Exploring Nonviolent Living, Pace e Bene Press, Oakland, CA (2005). , page 184

[19] Two excellent training manuals exist: Ken Butigan and others, From Violence to Wholeness, Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service, Las Vegas NV (2002) and Laura Slattery and others, Engage: Exploring Nonviolent Living, Pace e Bene Press, Oakland, CA (2005). The latter training manual was designed for more secular persons who may not find meaning in the stories of Jesus in the Bible. Training Facilitators are available from the Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service, from the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, and from the Fellowship of Reconciliation. These organizations also schedule several 3 day training workshops each year in the U.S. for individuals who wish to attend.

[20] Walter Wink in his book, Engaging the Powers (See note 11) quotes the work of Gene Sharp at page 244 where Sharp found 198 examples of the use of nonviolent power from 1350B.C.E.to 1991, ranging from the Jewish women refusing the order of Pharaoh to kill their babies, the women on both sides in Lysistrata withholding sex from their soldier husbands, up to 1991 when thousands of Soviet demonstrators protected President Boris Yeltsin from an attempted violent coup.

[21] GANDHIAN PRINCIPLES From Engage: page 281

Nonviolence holds that all life is one.

Nonviolence asserts that we each have a piece of the truth and the un-truth.

Nonviolence is rooted in the idea that human beings are not reducible to the evil they commit.

For nonviolence, the means must be consistent with the ends.

Nonviolence underscores “difference without division”: we become our truest selves the more we j

Nonviolence is a process of becoming increasingly free from fear.

Nonviolence is the desire for, and action on behalf of, the well-being of all.

[22] MARTIN LUTHER KING JR PRINCIPLES From Engage: p. 160

Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people.

Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding.

Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice, not people.

Nonviolence holds that voluntary suffering can educate and transform.

Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice.

[23] The John W. Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2006 (PL 109-364), was signed October 17, 2006, by President George W. Bush. The Act has a provision called 'Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies'. Thus the President can declare a national emergency and take over the government, using the Armed Forces to implement his will. This is implemented by another Executive Order: 11051: The Director of the Office of Emergency Planning authorized to put Executive Orders into effect in "times of increased international tension or financial crisis". It is also to perform such additional functions as the President may direct.

This Act augments the vast authority already taken by Presidential Executive Orders.

E. O. 12919 was signed into law by President Clinton June 3, 1994, which gathers together into one document the 11 Executive Orders set forth below. This means that FEMA would take over 28 Executive Departments and Agencies whenever the President of the United States declares a national emergency. This was all made possible by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1933 War Emergency Powers Act, which authorizes the President to suspend the Constitution.

• 10995 - Seizure of all communications media.
• 10997 - Seizure of all electrical power and fossil fuels.
• 10998 - Seizure of all food resources, farms and farm equipment.
• 10999 - Seizure of all transportation and control of all highways and seaports.
• 11000 - Seizure of all civilians for work under Federal supervision.
• 11001 - Federal takeover of all health, education and welfare.
• 11002 - Authorizes FEMA to order Postmaster General to register every man, woman and child in the United States.
• 11003 - Seizure of all aircraft and airports.
• 11004 - Housing and Finance given authority for population relocation.
• 11005 - Seizure of railroads, inland waterways, and storage facilities.

Does anyone doubt that the 5 current conservative Justices on the Supreme Court would uphold the Constitutionality of a President declaring such martial law?