9/11 AND AMERICA'S CIVIC RELIGION

We Americans have feelings and beliefs about our country, our government and our capitalist economic system that have risen to the level of religious faith. Although these beliefs are very largely false, being in the nature of religious faith, they cannot be objectively questioned.

It may be enlightening to bring all aspects of this “religion” to our conscious minds so that we can evaluate whether or not it really coincides with our own experience, yearnings, moral, and ethical beliefs.

It may also explain why the official 9/11 story has risen to the same level of religious faith that is both unquestioned and unquestionable. “I just cannot believe that….”

THE TENETS OF “RELIGIOUS” FAITH ABOUT OUR COUNTRY AND OUR GOVERNMENT

• God favors America and blesses America.

• America is “of, by, and for the people.”

• .American motives are always unquestionably good.

• There are no classes in America.

• Americans do not take unfair advantage of other peoples and other countries.

• .America, and its businessmen and military are unselfishly helping other countries by bringing them democracy and progress. Any person or country that resists this help is a terrorist. America is justified in attacking and waging war against these terrorists.

• It is moral and right that America should dominate and use its power and wealth to impose peace on the world.

• All of the foregoing being true, America is above the law and should implement God’s will unbound by the UN, International Law, or Treaties.

When Americans pledge allegiance to the flag, and to one nation under God, Americans are demonstrating their unquestioned faith in this American Civic Religion as set forth above.

The actual facts of our country and our government are quite different.

We are not a government of by and for the people, and we never have been. A small wealthy leadership group actually rules us. Even though 75% of us want Universal Health Coverage and want to get out of the Iraq War, we cannot. Even though a majority of us elected Gore for President in 2000, the USSC selected George Bush to serve instead. Our nation maintains 700 military bases around the world in 40 countries to protect American businesses there. The US military has intervened in Latin America 15 times to help the banana companies get what they want. Between 1798 and 1945, despite the Monroe Doctrine, the United States militarily intervened in foreign countries 165 times. We are not a classless nation. There is a tremendous disparity of wealth and power between the ruling 1% at the top, and the rest of us. The small wealthy leadership group is no kinder to people and countries abroad than it is to us. The sole objective of this ruling group is to earn the maximum profit possible. Whether the US intervenes abroad peacefully, or by military invasion, it routinely compels the victim nation to abolish its welfare safety net, to privatize all publicly owned water, electricity, and oil works so as to create profit making opportunities for businessmen.

THE TENETS OF AMERICAN “RELIGIOUS” FAITH ABOUT CAPITALISM

• Our capitalist economy is ordained by God. There is no alternative.

• Capitalism unleashes modernity, progress, development and freedom.

• Capitalism is the best system the world has ever seen.

• Capitalism benefits and serves everybody

• Capitalism and democracy and interconnected and interdependent. Neither can exist without the other.

• Those who are not flourishing under capitalism have only themselves to blame. They are not trying hard enough.

Again, the facts on the ground are almost the reverse of what our faith proclaims.

Capitalism was created and is maintained by human beings, and human beings can choose other ways of organizing themselves to work together to meet their needs.

The leadership class benefits immensely from capitalism, the market and from America’s civic religion, founded on buzz words like “freedom,” “growth,” “future prosperity,” and “jobs.” We see this in the compensation of CEOs of major corporations and by the huge and ever increasing disparity of wealth between the rich and the poor. The rich are getting ever richer and the rest of us are getting poorer.

Capitalism which depends upon money and bribes for its political power, is the antithesis of democracy which rests on voting power of each citizen.

Every country abroad where U.S. business and military have penetrated has suffered impoverishment as a result.

Although a rising tide does not lift all boats in the real economy, all Americans rich and poor do benefit from America’s imperialism to some extent... Some of the benefits to the rich have trickled down in the form of cheap gasoline, food, clothing and electronic gadgets. Thus all Americans know at some level that we benefit from U.S. war crimes, toppling of foreign governments, and economic imperialism.

Every employee in America, in business, industry, NGOs, and academia, is dependent for his survival on a job supplied or funded by capitalist employers.

This employee works in an authoritarian setting for 8 hours a day for 40 years of his working life. During this time, his thoughts, his creations, his products are not his own. They are prescribed by his employer, owned by his employer, and used by his employer to make a private profit. We Americans are thus carefully conditioned to do and believe what those who have power over us, tell us.

OUR AMERICAN RELIGION IS FOUNDED ON THE MYTH OF REDEMPTIVE VIOLENCE.

Unfortunately, for 5000 years we humans have been addicted to what a great theologian, Walter Wink calls the myth of redemptive violence. It is a major component of our American civic religion. This is the myth:

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 ingrained in our consciousness that we do not realize that it is false.

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

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 civilization redeeming myth appears in Popeye, The Lone Ranger, Batman, Superman, cowboy Westerns, TV games, 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. This myth 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 or a President with the power of God. It is the basic theology of empire’s domination systems 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.

Intellectuals, employers, employees, capitalists, and socialists are unwittingly, addicted to this myth. The myth is totally false. It is the very core of our civic religious faith. 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 nor in China. Violence is not establishing democracy in Iraq.

The above tenets of faith about our government, capitalism, and redemptive violence are accepted without question by rich and poor, left and right, Democrats, Republicans, union members, employees, and employers. No candidate for elected office dares question any of them. The rich and privileged in countries around the world do not question them. There is a planet wide taboo in the main stream media of the world against questioning any of these tenets.

OUR CIVIC RELIGION, BEING MORE POWERFUL THAN WE REALIZE, INDUCES US TO ACCEPT THE OFFICIAL STORY OF HOW 9/11 HAPPENED.

Reflect on the above components of our religion that are simply PR spin and have little connection with reality. We believe them anyway. Our jobs, our survival, seem to us to depend upon our believing them, and having faith in them. It has been so for over 100 years.

We were holding these beliefs in these important matters that were in fact false, when 9/11 came upon us. We were already programmed and brainwashed to believe what our employers and what our government told us, no matter what the facts were. It is with this mindset that many of us say, “I just can’t believe that…..” about the disturbing questions raised by the official story of 9/11.

Because our civic faith and our national mindset can be shown to be false, we may, just may, be ready to consider disturbing questions about 9/11 that contradict the official story like the following:

Were there any powerful groups in the United States who, since at least 1990, were urging that the United States should invade and dominate Central Asia in exactly the same way that 9/11 enabled them to do?

Had any persons in the ruling leadership group prior to 9/11, expressed a need for a “Pearl Harbor type tragedy” so that the American people would support an invasion of Central Asia?

Who benefitted politically and economically from 9/11?

What caused WTC 7, never struck by any plane, to fall 7 hours after WTC 1&2 fell?

Who placed the grossly unusual stock market “puts” or options on the stocks of the Airlines involved, thus betting that the value of the stock would drop?

Who shut down the military Jet Fighters that normally intercept civilian planes that deviate even slightly from flight plans?

How can airplanes hitting near the tops of WTC 1 & 2 and their burning kerosene, cause buildings to fall with the free fall speed of gravity exactly upon the footprints of each building with the precision that only professional demolition experts can achieve?

Why was absolutely no one brought to account for dereliction of duty anywhere in our government?

Why has the Bush Administration tried its best to prevent and to impede any investigation at all?

Why was a close associate of Condi Rice, Philip Zelikow chosen by Bush to control the content of the official report and to write it?

Was Zelikow’s academic specialty useful to him in drafting the official report?

(Zelikow’s specialty: While at Harvard he worked with Ernest May and Richard Neustadt on the use, and misuse, of history in policymaking. They observed, as Zelikow noted in his own words, that "contemporary" history is "defined functionally by those critical people and events that go into forming the public's presumptions about its immediate past. The idea of 'public presumption'," he explained, "is akin to William McNeill's notion of 'public myth' but without the negative implication sometimes invoked by the word 'myth.' Such presumptions are beliefs (1) thought to be true (although not necessarily known to be true with certainty), and (2) shared in common within the relevant political community.)

Dated: April 25, 2008

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

POSTSCRIPT

According to Wikipedia, Karl Marx had something to say about stories and taboos imposed on us by people with power:

“By ideology they meant ideas that reflect the interests of a particular class at a particular time in history, but which are presented as universal and eternal. Marx and Engels' point was not only that such beliefs are at best half-truths; they serve an important political function. Put another way, the control that one class exercises over the means of production includes not only the production of food or manufactured goods; it includes the production of ideas as well (this provides one possible explanation for why members of a subordinate class may hold ideas contrary to their own interests). Thus, while such ideas may be false, they also reveal in coded form some truth about political relations.”

I was an attorney for unions. Although I have never read Marx, I have been influenced by people who have.

I recognize that there is a great taboo against anything thought to be “Marxian.” This taboo against Marxian analysis thus applies with special force to the analysis of 9/11. It may be that in order to understand either capitalism or 9/11, we have to use a Marxian analysis. It could probably be said that my analysis above is Marxian.

Here are some further Marxian ideas from Wikipedia:

“Ideology as an instrument of social reproduction

Karl Marx proposed that a society's dominant ideology was a part of its superstructure.

Karl Marx proposed a base/superstructure model of society. The base refers to the means of production of society. The superstructure is formed on top of the base, and comprises that society's ideology, as well as its legal system, political system, and religions. For Marx, the base determines the superstructure. Because the ruling class controls the society's means of production, the superstructure of society, including its ideology, will be determined according to what is in the ruling class's best interests. Therefore the ideology of a society is of enormous importance since it confuses the alienated groups and can create 'false consciousness' such as the fetishism of commodities. Critics of the Marxist approach feel that it attributes too much importance to economic factors in influencing society.

The ideologies of the dominant class of a society (dominant ideology) are proposed to all members of that society in order to make the ruling class' interests appear to be the interests of all. György Lukács describes this as a projection of the class consciousness of the ruling class, while Antonio Gramsci advances the theory of cultural hegemony to explain why people in the working-class can have a false conception of their own interests.

The dominant forms of ideology in capitalism are (in chronological order):

1. classical liberalism

2. social democracy

3. neo-liberalism

and they correspond to the stages of development of capitalism:

1. extensive stage

2. intensive stage

3. contemporary capitalism (or late capitalism, or current crisis)

The Marxist view of ideology as an instrument of social reproduction has been an important touchstone for the sociology of knowledge and theorists such as Karl Mannheim, Daniel Bell, and Jürgen Habermas, amongst many others. However, Mannheim attempted to move beyond what he saw as the 'total' but 'special' Marxist conception of ideology to a 'general' and 'total' conception which acknowledged that all ideologies resulted from social life (including Marxism). Pierre Bourdieu extensively developed this idea.”

A CREED FOR CIVILIZED SURVIVAL

Princeton Professor Bernard Chazelle wrote a provocative essay in Counterpunch on April 2, 2008 making the case that the Left has lost its way and no longer agrees on its core vision. http://www.counterpunch.org/chazelle04022008.html Chazelle argues that the Left needs a new creed. I agree, and the following is the creed that I propose for the consideration of all who consider themselves Left. Perhaps such a deliberation can help Liberals and Progressives clarify what they really want. In my view, a creed such as the following is needed for our civilized survival, no matter what our current political stance.

CREED OF THE LEFT

Our creed is founded on love, wisdom and compassion, on genuine caring for each other, each one of us both giving and receiving caring, and we shall compel our public servants to be caring to each of us in the fulfillment of their duties. We recognize the seemingly irreconcilable conflict between liberty and equality, between liberty and social justice. We shall harmonize the conflict by wisdom and love, by genuine caring for each human member involved, and not by power, domination, or competition.

We proclaim that the eradication of violence is at the core of our vision and of our creed. We know that all wealth and privilege rests on a foundation of violence. We recognize that there is an immense existing imbalance of wealth, privilege, and power. We of the left have a judgment to make: Shall we arm ourselves to deal with the inevitable force and violence that present rulers will use? Or, shall we adopt the strategy of active nonviolence of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi? We of the left choose the strategy of active nonviolence. We know that existing power is totally dependent upon our cooperation by accepting employment within the status quo and by purchasing and consuming. In active nonviolence, we thus have immense potential power.

Our power depends upon our ability to communicate among ourselves and to trust each other. Our power rests also on our ability to withstand not only violence from our present rulers, but also to view with disdain their attempts to divide us and to manipulate us through their media. We therefore will judge our sources of information by whether or not they unconditionally support our creed, whether or not they urge the need for violence either at home or abroad, and whether or not their messages resonate with our own inner yearnings for truth, justice and peace as set forth in this creed.

We unconditionally guarantee every member of our human community the minimum resources for a life of dignity and a genuine sense of belonging to our human community; This shall include nutritious food; clean water; needed clothing; adequate housing; medical care; education through college and care in old age. We shall make sustainable use of our planet home and its resources. We shall protect normal humans from those who are anti-social or mentally ill.

We will require some members who have had much more to accept less, based on the moral principle that it is wrong for some to have more than they need when others are needy. We urge those who have more than they need to consider the benefits to them by sharing and by subjecting themselves to taxation: Preservation of our planet home; Social stability; Avoidance of Wars; Personal security; Avoidance of the constant scary existence and risk due to market volatility and capitalist business cycles.

We will limit population growth when required for the survival of all at the standards set forth in this creed.

We members of the human community shall control our ecological, economic, political, and social well being as to all matters that are subject to human control. We shall forfeit none of our human responsibility to the market, and none to the “Laws of Nature”

We guarantee to each member an equal right to flourish according to the capacity and ability of each, providing that member does no harm to other members.

We unconditionally guarantee to each member of our human community a fractional share of total political power to be exercised by majority will, subject only to the guarantee to the minority of dignity and a genuine sense of belonging. We are aware of the problems of huge political and economic institutions, and we shall limit their size to a scale truly manageable by humans.

Dated: April 12, 2008

Douglas R. Page dougpage2@earthlink.net

WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN THERE IS A SERIOUS ECONOMIC DEPRESSION?

RUDIMENTARY ECONOMICS

We live in the virtual reality (not truthful reality) of mature multinational capitalism. This capitalism is now in deep trouble, so much so, that some of us fear that we may be in for the worst world wide economic depression and political crisis that the world has ever experienced.
I was shocked to find from correspondence with University of Massachusetts Professor Rick Wolf that nobody is studying or planning for this eventuality. There are no alternate plans on the shelf. So, in the hope of stimulating others, this retired union lawyer will begin the desperately needed thinking and discussion.

ECONOMICS, POLITICAL SCIENCE OR POLITICAL ECONOMY?

First off, economics and politics are interconnected and interdependent. It is ridiculous to study economics without politics. It is asinine to study political science without studying economics. Alone, political science is neither political nor scientific. These disciplines have been purposely split apart to keep us in ignorance, and to preserve the lies, propaganda and ideology that underlie both economics and political science.

SO, WHAT IS POLITICAL ECONOMY ALL ABOUT?

Let’s imagine that this is 2015 and modern capitalism has totally collapsed. There are multitudes of hungry human beings. There are a few humans who have stores of food and arms, things that every body desperately needs. There are still capable people with skills. There is fertile soil, natural resources and water. The objective components needed for civilized survival exist. Capitalists refuse to invest to produce because there are no profit making opportunities, and because there is too much risk.

Political Economy is about this question:

How shall we organize our productive capacities as human beings to meet our mutual needs?

POLITICAL ECONOMY AT ITS RUDIMENTARY ROOTS

For purposes of analysis and discussion, let’s imagine a community of 100 people, men, women and children. There is one strong acquisitive man who has acquired substantial goods and property, who is a member of this community.

The strong man, the capitalist, would say to the other 99 members of the community:

I already have some of the things you want. Let me hire you to produce more things that you need. I will pay you wages. I will then sell you what you need. If you do not have money, and I have not been able to give you a job, you will simply have to starve. That is not my problem. You should have been more skillful or aggressive. That is the law of nature: Survival of the fittest.
For the more curious of you, since we are all connected members of this same small community, I will truthfully explain the dynamics of capitalism that have long been concealed:
1. Capitalism is fueled by human greed. I want more. I will put my greedy energy to your use to provide you with some of the things you need.
2. The core operating dynamic of capitalism is: A man with money hires a man without money at the lowest possible wage to make the money-man more money by producing goods which the money-man can sell. Thus, the goods that we thus produce may incidentally benefit you all, but that is not my reason for hiring you. I want to make as much profit as I can.
3. Capitalism rests on the concept of private property. I, the money-man, must be able to own and control water, soil and natural resources, so that I can hire you to produce. I need laws, courts and some governmental structure to protect my private property, and my right to hire you. It is convenient to have a medium of exchange, some kind of money so that I can pay you for your labor and so that you can buy my goods.
4. My only obligation is to make as much short term profit for myself as I can. I will pollute the air, waste resources, and buy oil, timber and water from the public at the lowest price I can. I have no obligation to avoid pollution, to conserve finite resources, or to avoid global warming.
5. In my short term pursuit of money and power, I choose simply to ignore the part of capitalism that inevitably causes it to fall: Capitalists simply do not pay their hired workers enough so that workers can afford to buy all that capitalists produce.
6. It is important to me and my future fellow capitalists that we privatize the production of all human needs and wants in order to provide as many profit making opportunities for capitalists as possible.
7. I am ready and willing to hire some of you as soldiers. You are scared and hungry. I will use you soldiers and my arms to protect you from other tribes that may enslave or kill you. I will also use you and my store of arms to make sure that we adopt capitalism as the way to organize human production to make me a profit.
8. I do not need or want democracy. I will rule. All I need from you is your labor, your loyalty to me, and your obedience. You are free to talk, to discuss and to suggest, but I will make the important decisions.

Our community of 100 people, meets, thanks the acquisitive man for his honesty, has exhaustive discussions, and decides upon the following community organization and policies for production of their human needs:

1. The strong man has power only if we work for him, buy his goods, and serve as his soldiers. He is totally dependent on us. We can choose another way of organizing ourselves to produce to meet our needs. We do not need to work for him, serve as his soldiers, or to buy his goods.
2. We wish to provide for every member of our community. We will leave nobody out, even if some are less skillful or less aggressive than some of the rest of us. We do not wish to live by the cruel law of the jungle. We choose civilization and compassionate caring for each other. Each of us has an equal right to survive and to flourish.
3. We will try to persuade the man with goods and property to share with us in this desperate moment, as a caring human being. If he will not, we shall simply have to take them from him. We have tried his capitalist system and it has failed us and it has failed him. We served him as hired employees for decades and he got his goods and property because of our labor. We need to start over with a new system.
4. We permanently reject organization by which some of us hire others. That creates and perpetuates a power and wealth imbalance. We shall work with each other to produce to meet our needs in self-employment, partnerships, and cooperatives. We shall also use our community as our employer, with the provisions that we are paid equally, and that we have an equal say in what the community does.
5. We as a community will create and publicize a production plan so that we can produce what we really need, avoid waste, and preserve our environment.
6. We reject the concept of private ownership of soil, water or natural resources. We own those things in common. We shall make careful sustainable use of those resources. We acknowledge the Gaia concept that the earth with all of its life forms is a living self-balancing organism. We humans shall strive to live in harmony with other life forms on the planet.
7. We can simply barter and trade with each other, but as we rebuild, things will become more complex. Therefore we shall establish a coin with an agreed value of one hour’s work. We can use this coin as a medium of exchange.
8. There will be other hungry humans and communities of humans nearby whom some might see as threatening. We shall say to those other humans and communities: “Join us. We need your skills and productive abilities. We will share our seeds, our food, and our goods with you, until you can be fully productive with us and help us.
9. We resolve to educate ourselves and our children so that we remain alert to the wealth and power imbalances that result from allowing one human to hire another human. We resolve that we shall never allow production based on such private hiring to be established again. We now see labeling us humans working cooperatively to produce what we need with the epithets of “socialism” or “communism,” as idiotic.

Alarmed by this turn of events, and like most humans having a dark side, the strong man tries a different tack to preserve his profit making opportunities. He tells the other 99 community members:

1. There is terrible danger facing us! The other communities around us are ready to attack us. Some of those people have secretly infiltrated us.
2. The other communities around us are different from us. They are a different race. They worship false Gods who tell them to kill us. There are hordes of hungry desperate people around us. They have weapons. They are about to attack us.
3. Wrapping himself in the flag of the community, the strong man says: I am strong. I have arms. Follow me! Protect your flag and your community! I will protect you and keep you safe from both internal and external threats.
4. In order to capture those evil persons who have infiltrated our community, I ask for your support and your cooperation. Tell me of suspicious persons or activities that you see. Be careful who you talk to.
5. To meet this threat, you must sacrifice. You must forego wage increases. You must accept a lower standard of living. You must pay taxes to me.
6. The strong man is aware that there are differences among the other 99 members of his community. Some are greedy too. Some tend to be more selfish than cooperative. Some are less bright and susceptible to his manipulation. The strong man works on them one by one and enlists several as his enthusiastic supporters and lieutenants.
7. We dare not wait for them to attack us. Our best defense is a strong offense. We must attack them before they attack us.
8. The 100 people of the community then accept arms from the strong man and embark on perpetual war with surrounding communities. They live by the law of the jungle with others. They accept martial law in their own community. They forget global warming. They accept environmental degradation.

When capitalism falls, which of the above choices will we make in our communities?

Dated: March 15, 2008

Douglas R. Page dougpage2@earthlink.net.

A NETWORK OF WISE PROGRESSIVES?

POLITICS OF MEANING IN 2008

Good of the Order

Introduction

For the last ten years, I have been greatly inspired and enriched by Rabbi Michael Lerner’s Politics of Meaning and by his insight that we humans have a profound yearning for connection in a human community, for mutual recognition, and for a higher meaning and purpose beyond selfish existence. To meet this need, Lerner urges us to commit to the building of a society that promotes caring, sharing, generosity, being cared for, awe and wonder at the grandeur of creation, sustaining the planet, examination of our inner motives, and active nonviolent resistance to injustice.

A few years ago, Lerner urged us to create Tikkun Communities named for the Hebrew word “tikkun” meaning “to heal and to transform” with a focus on promoting a two state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. At my request, Tikkun Magazine sent a notice of our organizing meeting to all readers in the Greater Tucson area with a population of 1 million. Beginning with his Berkeley summer workshop in 2005, Lerner urged us to organize the Network of Spiritual Politics with a purpose of injecting the politics of meaning into American politics, particularly the Democratic Party. I made an exhaustive effort to organize based on these concepts in the Democratic city of Tucson from 2004 to 2006. Despite Lerner’s claim that the yearning for a caring community was profound and universal, I could not recruit a single person who wanted to join, pay dues, and actively implement his visions either for America or for Israel and Palestine. Only 6 to 10 people would cautiously attend meetings for talk only. Since I still believe that Lerner’s basic ideas are valid, badly needed, and perhaps the only humane and civilized proposal before us, I have made an extensive research into the reasons for the failure, including my own shortcomings.

My Own Shortcomings

I know that I am judgmental, impatient, and zealous. I write with passion, but I have trouble speaking passionately and appropriately in public situations where passion might be needed. I am doing inner work on these problems, and I am seeking input from others.

Who Wants to Implement The Left Hand of God in the Civic Arena?

Lerner is promoting an Old Testament version of what Christians call the “social gospel” in his book The Left Hand of God. It is no more appealing to most Jews, than the social gospel is to most Christians. Although I vigorously support the “social gospel,” most Christians have always shunned it. Christians will support charities, but only a tiny percentage of Christians wish to act on Christian ideals in the political community so as to challenge the status quo that creates the need for charity. Like Jews, their most profound wish is to maintain the cohesion of their religious communities and thus they shun anything “political.” So Christians as such, would have no more to do with either Tikkun or the Network of Spiritual Politics than Jews.
I have come to the conclusion that most Jews justifiably suffer from something like post traumatic stress syndrome from the holocaust and centuries of persecution that lead them to love and worship Israel no matter what its right wing hawkish leaders do. Most Jews could not accept Lerner’s ideas and saw him as a “self hating Jew.” They ignored Lerner’s interpretation of the Torah, the Talmud and Jewish tradition. They uncritically supported the Israel Lobby in American politics and its powerful influence in the Bush Administration, on the Democrats in Congress, and its strategical alliance with the Christian Right.

It appears that our religious institutions and we ourselves are captivated by what David Korten calls the “trance of empire” and so far no one has been able to break this trance or raise serious opposition to the Conventional Wisdom and to so called hawkish realism. What is it that impedes popular acceptance of the politics of meaning if it seeks to answer a fundamental universal yearning?

What Exactly is the “Spirituality” of the Network of Spiritual Progressives?

I reread the basic texts supporting politics of meaning. There are three. The most important is Rabbi Lerner’s The Left Hand of God. Another was written by Lerner’s “deepest friend,” Peter Gabel with his The Bank Teller and Other Essays on the Politics of Meaning. Finally there is Lerner’s Healing Israel/Palestine. Both Lerner and Gabel are Jews. Both were active participants in what they see as the “heightened sense of social connection and moral purpose of the 60s,” what the rest of us call the “hippie era.” Both are very bright, sensitive and insightful human beings. Both are Phds and both have studied Marx and Freud. Both are therapists. They co-edit Tikkun Magazine. In 1970, Gabel founded and taught at The New College of California to continue and propagate the values of the 60s and the insights and values of the politics of meaning. (It may be significant that The New College is now near bankruptcy, apparently no more successful than the Network of Spiritual Progressives.) Gabel’s book is silent about Israel, but Lerner “loves” Israel, seeks to avoid “the blame game” despite Israel’s Zionist effort to capture ever more land for Jews, and seeks a “two state” solution that would maintain Israel as a Jewish State. Lerner lived in Israel for a time and he apparently remains a Zionist although a radical Zionist to this day.

Both Lerner and Gabel are properly critical of our obsession with science and our ignoring the other sources of human wisdom. Both believe in a creative intelligence in the Universe, e.g. God. Both are somewhat sympathetic to “creationism.” Both correctly point out that science provides no basis for judging what is moral or what is good. Gabel seems to find his foundation for values in the 60s and seeks to bring back the community, values, feelings and insights of that era. For me the 60’s values are insufficiently rooted in long term human experience for a moral political movement in 2008. Lerner’s sets his foundation for values in the prophets of the Old Testament, the Talmud and the Torah, and the insights of other major religions. This is far more to my liking and serves us well for private inspiration for civic works. One can tell from the depth, humaneness, and progressiveness of his proposals that Lerner is really basing his politics of meaning on the Wisdom Tradition. Lerner does not acknowledge this and simply labels his foundation as “spirituality.” Lerner and NSP get into serious trouble when they try to project these insights into the civic arena as spiritual, and not as a secular Wisdom Tradition made up of the insights of very bright sensitive men and women over the centuries that continues with the insights of present day sages.
The difference is critical and calling the movement “spiritual” has alienated thousands of potential participants. Scientists, non-believers, believers in the separation of church and state, and non-Jews can use the Wisdom Tradition in the civic arena while they reject spiritualism and religion there. Moreover the word “spiritual” is very vague and embraces a wide variety of subjective beliefs and practices, some of them unacceptable. The word “spiritual” does not accurately describe what Lerner and Gabel are imparting.

The civic essence of what Lerner is proposing is caring, sharing, generosity, sustainability of creation, and active nonviolence. Many people who are neither religious nor spiritual can and do share these civic objectives. These civic values are widely accepted and much more precise of meaning than “spirituality.” These idealistic values by themselves are enough of a challenge and shock to those adhering to Conventional Wisdom and “Realism” without adding “spirituality.” These values can be wholeheartedly implemented by all, including scientists, non-believers, and those who believe in the separation of church and state. “Spirituality” is simply not necessary to the civic argument. Spirituality in the civic arena simply diverts our attention from the goal of politics of meaning. That goal is to implement caring and generous values in American politics.

Rabbi Lerner’s Insistence on Placing Spirituality in the Civic Arena Creates Three Unnecessary and Divisive Controversies

Lerner insists on making his civic movement spiritual. His is a one man movement and he invites criticism so long as one does not contest that his movement is spiritual. Bringing God into the public area is unfortunately important to Rabbi Lerner, as it is to the Christian Right. The insistence that it be spiritual aborts the Politics of Meaning at its inception.

Lerner sets up three unnecessary and divisive “cat fights” that decimate the potential ranks of those who are interested and potential participants in the politics of meaning in American politics:

1. Lerner argues in the civic area that his spirituality is better than the spirituality of the Christian Right and all others. Lerner in effect is making an argument in the civic arena that cannot be won. Religion and spirituality are private individual and subjective. The argument cannot be “won” with rational debate. Lerner’s God apparently approves of Israel’s use of military force to insure Israel’s right to exist. My own God questions that. There are as many views of God as there are human beings. History has many examples of the tragedies that resulted when one group tries to impose its religion and spirituality on to another group. The separation of church and state in our Constitution is a reflection of this human experience. If there is any place at all for spiritual debate and spiritual persuasion, it would be Synagogues and Churches, not the civic arena. One wonders if Rabbi Lerner has successfully enlisted all of those who attend his Synagogue as active civic implementers of caring sharing and generosity in the civic arena. My experience is that there is much resistance to the social gospel and The Left Hand of God even in Churches and Synagogues.

2. Lerner also insists that others with whom he participates in politics, honor and accept that spirituality is a proper subject for civic debate. He sets up an unnecessary divisive cat fight with others on this issue.

3. Lerner also sets up an unnecessary cat fight with leftists who criticize Israeli military occupation and expansion and who do not level equal “blame” on the victims of this expansion. Lerner is too ready to label such leftists as anti-Semitic. His own post traumatic stress syndrome, Zionism and love of Israel do him in on this issue, as does Lerner’s ongoing justification of military force for oppressors but not for victims. Opposing present day manifestations of Zionism is not anti-Semitism.

Gabel, Lerner and all interested in the politics of meaning could benefit from a careful reading of E.F. Schumacher’s 1977 book, A Guide for the Perplexed.
Schumacher presents a brilliant secular analysis of the Wisdom Tradition, thus making it useful in the civic world. Schumacher gives us the 4 basic questions that underlie the search for wisdom, values, and meaning of sages and prophets. These are:
1. What is going on in my own inner world?
2. What is going on in the inner world of other beings?
3. What do I look like in the eyes of other beings?
4. What do I actually observe in the world around me?
The Wisdom Tradition is a secular winnowing of the best thinking and insights of the sages over the centuries. Modern sages such as Rabbi Lerner and Walter Wink continue to augment the Tradition. Another good source is Houston Smith’s book, The World’s Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions.

A Successful Politics of Meaning Must Deal Much More Profoundly With Our Own Fear And With the Awesome Power of the Status Quo

First off, we must deal more adequately with our pervasive fear. When we are threatened by enemies, or when we are told that we are threatened by “enemies,” our instinctual reaction is to react with force in our self defense. In this state of fear, we are immobilized and cannot think of implementing idealistic long term solutions. Presenting frightened people with a vision or a hope of a more idealistic solution is simply not feasible. We need to confront and deal with the fear first. We need to use Quaker like wisdom in determining whether the fear has realistic causes, in examining the enemies that cause the fear, the reasons they are our enemies, what they really want. We probably should join those who question the official story about 9/11 since it is the root of our fear since that time. The training involved for active nonviolent resistance is an excellent way to learn to deal with our fear. We must be consistent in proposing and implementing active nonviolence for resisting injustice, oppressors, and “enemies.” NSP and Lerner apparently wish to maintain military force as an option. Lerner accepts Israeli propaganda that Iran and Muslims generally “want to drive Israel into the sea,” based mainly on alleged anti-Semitic speeches of the President of Iran. Lerner is thus not ready to advocate universal use of active nonviolence. Unfortunately, the fact is that 36,000 Jews live in Tehran and do not wish to emigrate to Israel. A careful reading of what the Iranian President said is that Israel’s expansion beyond its legal borders must be stopped. He did not threaten “Israel’s right to exist.” Iranians may be against present day Zionism as I am, but that does not mean that we are anti-Semitic

The politics of meaning needs a full understanding of power and the means for resisting power. Excellent sources are Walter Wink’s Engaging the Powers and The Powers that Be. Wink’s discussion of the Myth of Redemptive Violence is critical to this understanding. If we are successfully to implement the politics of meaning, sharing, caring, and generosity, we must ground ourselves in the discipline of active nonviolence. Any reliance on force as an option is counterproductive and inconsistent with the values of the politics of meaning.

Lerner and Gabel seem to have the view that the awesome aggregate of status quo power and media can be confronted with normal ballot box politics and hopeful idealistic spirituality, with continued maintenance of military might as an option. This is naive. If values of caring and sharing are to confront status quo power and injustice successfully, they must be grounded in the profound discipline and inner growth of active nonviolence following the teachings of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. It requires training, introspection, courage, and willingness to accept punishment for civil disobedience. Lerner is willing to urge the Palestinians to use active nonviolence, but he apparently is not willing to urge Israelis to do the same. Lerner apparently accepts the use of military force by Israelis in their support of Israel’s right to exist, in whatever expanded territory Israeli hawks may capture for Jews. Lerner is properly concerned with confronting the power of the Protestant Christian Right, but his books are silent about confronting the power of the right hand of God in Judaism as a part of the status quo. It is a rare Synagogue that does not enthusiastically support Israeli military aggression in the West Bank, and the extremely hawkish Israel Lobby in the United States.

Conclusion

The yearning for a meaningful existence is universal. We badly need a Politics of Meaning. Rabbi Michael Lerner is a true sage and a worthy contributor to the Wisdom Tradition. He is also human, and his present one man attempt to bring the Politics of Meaning into American politics via NSP is not working and cannot work. We can push values in the civic arena. We cannot insert spirituality, which is a private and subjective matter, although it can be a source of private inspiration and motivation. To confront our fear, and to confront and resist the awesome status quo power and media, the politics of meaning should be grounded in the discipline of active nonviolence. Our need, and the needs of all humans are at such immense risk that we cannot afford to exclude the leftists, the scientists, the nonbelievers, and those who correctly insist on a separation of church and state. We badly need a Network of Wise Progressives.

January 1, 2008

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

This is Rabbi Lerner’s response to my proposal for a Network of Wise Progressives.

Dear Doug,
Many of your points make sense and your proposal for a secular Network of Wise Progressives sounds exciting. While it's not my path, it could be a very valuable path. I hope you will organize it in Tuscon, a city of 1 million, and when you get the first thousand people in that city joining and being actively involved, I'll be happy to come down and learn from you more about how you did it. I'm not being sarcastic at all--I genuinely think that there are multiple paths to organizing around the politics of meaning, and while yours doesn't fit in the NSP, it does sound like it could have good and useful impact, so I look forward to hearing your reports on how it is growing!
Best wishes,
Rabbi Michael Lerner
On Jan 2, 2008, at 2:39 PM, Doug Page wrote:

HAVE WE EVOLVED ENOUGH TO DEAL WITH GLOBAL WARMING, PLUS...?

Every young human on the planet, whether rich, poor, powerful or weak is now confronted with the probability that civilized life and life itself on this planet will soon be destroyed. We face a return to the Stone Age and the law of the jungle. The impending crisis, noted by many, is due to the population explosion, finite and diminishing sources of energy, soil, and water, global warming, and a fragile uncontrolled market economy. Jared Diamond in his 2005 book Collapse made us aware that civilizations have perished in the past for reasons similar to those that will cause the collapse ours. Some raise the question whether or not we have evolved enough to deal with sustaining ourselves and our civilization. That is a very good question.

An evolved rational response to our human predicament would compel us quickly to set up a political economy whose first priority is to sustain and conserve our planet and its resources. We need to rid ourselves of our planet wide political economy based solely on greed for quick profits and greedy consumption. We need prompt public planning by entities with the governmental power to preserve resources. In a word, we must do away with capitalism as we now know it. We should also be doing the following:
Stop all pro life policies and flood the world with free contraceptives.
Stop cutting trees immediately, everywhere.
Stop all pollution of our air, our rivers and lakes and halt all discharge of sewage and pollutants into the oceans.
Require all engines everywhere to have zero emissions.
Stop using water and soil to feed cattle, chickens and pigs. Humans must learn to eat corn, beans, and squash and soy bean products.
Stop all flood irrigation in agriculture and compel the use of drip irrigation. Seriously conserve topsoil everywhere.
Prohibit building or paving on tillable top soil.
Establish and enforce planet wide regulation of fishing to prevent over fishing and destruction of species.
Make a massive transition to solar cooking, solar water heating, solar power, wind power, wave power, and current power. Adopt all energy conservation strategies.
Recycle and reuse everything. Compost all human excrement and garbage.
Study and copy what Cubans have done with organic farming and worm culture to get food without oil, and oil based fertilizers.
Put a huge tax on gasoline.
Stop building subdivisions in deserts.

We in the West need change our own values, curb our own consumption, and determine what is really important to our civilized life and is possible to have. We need an all out research effort to develop new sources of energy, and to reduce our energy use. We need a means of rational debate and communication among us.

We in the US as a national community are doing absolutely nothing about any of the foregoing imperatives for our civilized survival. In fact, we as a nation are leaving no stone unturned to make things worse!


We have no public community with the power to plan for our sustainable future. We worship our uncontrolled profit seeking market economy. Privatizing, and enlarging profit making opportunities, are the dominant ideas of our age. We, as a human community are not planning, are not thinking ahead, and are not conserving. “All government is bad. Get the government off your back!” “Planning is socialism.”

We ruthlessly plunder the finite resources of the planet to make a short term profit and to gratify our greedy consumption wishes.

We buy ever more, consume ever more. Our economy and our jobs depend on our increasing consumption. We are not rethinking our priorities and we are not curbing our consumption so that we consume only what is really needed. “There is no need to sacrifice. Buy more! Create more jobs.”

We encourage the births of more humans everywhere. We reject public implementation of family planning. Some religions and some governments make “pro life” a central tenet of their belief systems.

We waste resources on wars to control resources and to enlarge profit making opportunities for those in power.

We have no means for reasonable objective communication and enlightenment among us. Our media propagandizes and encourages our existing uncontrolled market economy and encourages even more consumption and larger SUVs. Our right wing radio ridicules and belittles the very idea that a crisis exists. Those who make profits from our uncontrolled market economy control what is researched and taught in our universities.

So our children and grandchildren will almost certainly live in the Stone Age and with the law of the jungle where the strong and powerful kill and starve the weak.

We could plan and prepare now. We could now spread the consciousness of active non-violence, of truth, of justice. We must of course learn how to solar cook, compost, and grow sustainable foods. However, our thinking and planning now could make this life for our progeny much more pleasant. It could help to preserve our existing body of knowledge, know how, and wisdom. It would be nice to preserve our computers, and the vast store of knowledge on the web. It would be nice to preserve our ability to make glass, and metal objects. It would be nice to preserve our knowledge of medical care and public health.

December 1, 2007

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

MAKING FUN OF THE ISRAEL LOBBY

Much of comedy and humor consists of making fun of or exposing those things that we repress or that we do not like to talk about. So we tease each other about our hidden foibles. Stand up comics make jokes about what happens or what does not happen in our bathrooms and our bedrooms, and about our politicians.

Tom Reiss has an article in The New Yorker for November 19, 2007 entitled “Laugh Riots,” about Dieudonne a Black French comic. Beginning around 2002, this already famous, rich and very popular guy started making jokes about Zionism. The Israel Lobby in France and much of the French establishment immediately began criticizing him as anti-Semitic and some of his fans abandoned him. He became the darling of the “David Duke Types” in France, but his fan base remains far broader than this. I cannot judge from the article alone whether Dieudonne is anti-Semitic by my standards or whether he is a brilliant comic innovator bringing a long needed comic challenge to the Israel Lobby. He is seen as anti-Semitic by almost all Jews and, as I will try to show below, that is part of the problem that calls for comic relief.

It is not anti-Semitic to be against Zionism, although the Israel Lobby does its best to label anti-Zionism as anti-Semitic. Not all Jews are Zionists. Conservative Jews see Zionism as a corruption and false reading of Judaism. For them worship of the State of Israel instead of God is idolatry. There are Jewish peace groups in Israel and in the United States that are either outright anti-Zionist or willing to set up and honor a viable separate state for Palestinians. It is not anti-Semitic to be critical of neocon, right wing, or hawkish acts and policies of Israel in exactly the same way that it is not anti-American to be critical of such in the U.S. Many US Jews are very critical of the Bush Administration, but will tolerate no criticism of Israel.

For those of us who yearn for equality, true democratic self-government, truth, justice and peace for ourselves and others, it is imperative that the awesome political power of the Israel Lobby be challenged. It has been politically impossible in the US to make such a challenge because of our own guilt about failing to rescue the Jews in WWII, the Holocaust, and the sly, astute and intimidating use of the charge of “anti-Semitism” in a way that is reminiscent of the charge of “communism” in the era of Joseph McCarthy.

The key to understanding Zionism is that it is and always has been a political effort to capture as much land for Jews in the Middle East as possible. The goal is territory, territory only for Jews. It is this basic truth that Israel and Israel Lobby propagandists and a large number of American Jews deny and suppress, suppress like the sexual urge of Victorian women.

There are many characteristics of Zionism that make it an enemy to be opposed and challenged and made fun of:



• Zionists promote the false idea that the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza were fairly captured by Israel in the 1967 War. The fact is that War was with Egypt and Syria. Palestine was not a participant. Israel simply seized the opportunity to expand “Israel.”

• Zionists say “Israel’s right to exist is non-negotiable!” Of course! But the Zionist catch is, Zionists set no limit to and no defined boundaries for the “Israel.” They try to lead the world to believe that any territory occupied by the Israeli army is “Israel.” Zionists aggressively seek more and more geographical territory. Some seek the return of Biblical Israel which allegedly extended from the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates River in Iraq. So when the President of Iran states, as I do, that Israel must remove the West Bank settlements, and halt the military occupation, the Israel Lobby falsifies the statement, says the Iranians want to “drive Jews into the sea” and uses that as a reason to bomb Iran and broadcasts the charge of “anti-Semitism,”

• The inappropriate or false charge of “anti-Semitism” is something like, but worse than the children’s story where Peter yells “wolf” “wolf” once too often and the claim becomes ridiculous and meaningless. Peter was just a scared and manipulative little boy, and not a powerful nation secretly seeking to capture more and more territory for Jews.

• Zionists themselves are and were terrorists and assassinated and bombed innocent civilians in their quest to establish, expand, and maintain the State of Israel.

• Zionists have never favored the establishment of a viable state for Palestinians.

• Zionists have never suspended the aggressive building of settlements in the West Bank following Camp David or the Oslo Accords and have never been willing in negotiation to make such suspension an immediate fact in peace negotiation.

• Zionists are “racist” in the sense that they establish, expand and maintain “Israel” only for persons who have a Jewish mother. No others can move to “Israel.”

• Zionists, although secular, promote the idea among Jews world wide to worship “Israel” and to defend it with religious zeal.

• Zionists have never recognized their victimization of the Palestinians who occupied the area for many centuries, have neither made nor offered reparations or compensation. They simply ignore and deny their existence. Hence 4 million Palestinians have been living in refugee camps under occupation by the Israeil Army for 40 years.

• Zionists have never sincerely sought peace in negotiations and have always followed the policy of ongoing military occupation and settlement expansion even during peace negotiations to “establish facts on the ground,” in other words to take more territory for Jews, while pretending to negotiate for peace.

• Zionists promote self pity among Jews world wide, and promote seeing themselves as victims of the Palestinians.

• Zionists are allied with and linked with Bush, the neocons, and the Christian Right in the US, and thus actively promote the Bush-Cheney effort to attack Iran.

• Zionists and more importantly the Israel Lobby simply deny all of the foregoing and seek to punish, ridicule, and shame those who utter any of the foregoing.

The above lies, prejudices, denials, and hubris are fertile material for comedians and stand up comics. If this is what Dieudonne is doing in France, we badly need his counterpart in the United States. Persistence and repetition are key to successful propaganda. Making fun of, satirizing, and ridiculing this propaganda is the weapon of the comic.

As Bryan Zepp Jamieson says:

“Lies have the power to alter truth.

But truth has the power to destroy lies.”

November 19, 2007

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

LET'S GET CLEAR WHAT IT MEANS TO BE LIBERAL AND THE CONSEQUENCES

We toss political and civic terms around without giving them much thought. This leads to disappointment and consternation. For example, why is it that a liberal magazine like The Nation or a leading liberal radio commentator Amy Goodman will not engage in an open exploration and discussion of 9/11? Why will The Nation never examine the working dynamics of capitalism? Why does Al Gore not discuss the effect of the legal imperative governing corporations on Global Warming that the sole legal obligation is to make as much profit for shareholders as possible in the short run? Why will Counterpunch deal with the Israel Lobby but not 9/11?

The dictionary gives as the first meaning of radical: "of or from the root or roots; going to the center, foundation or source of something; fundamental; basic."

I insist on trying to get to the root causes of our political, civic and even my personal problems. It is the only way I can feel sane. Thus I insist on examining and understanding the dynamics of capitalism, the exercise of power by the Israel Lobby, and the root causes of Global Warming. This is more than a personal quirk. I believe that one can have a full understanding of phenomena only by such an examination and analysis. Intellectual honesty and the scientific method compel us to do this.

We are well aware that there may be hidden pressures on liberals and their media outlets. For example, they may be funded by foundations that impose restrictions. They may have accepted CIA approved writers in their bosoms. However in many cases it may be personal inclinations of the authors. It is this latter inclination that I wish to examine here.

The dictionary definition of a liberal: “giving freely; generous…tolerant of views differing from one’s own; broad minded….favoring reform or progress…somewhat more conservative than “progressive.”

It is apparent that getting to the root of things is not a driving force for a liberal. A liberal is thus charitable, but does not question what causes the need for charity. A liberal may be offended by war or by torture, and will give money to protest organizations, but may be less interested in getting to the root causes. A liberal will thus be seduced by those who claim to be preserving freedom and democracy while torturing.

I have a further insight not mentioned in the dictionary. The evidence seems to show that the first imperative for a liberal is to preserve his own privileges, advantages, personal comfort and well being. To a liberal, this is only rational self interest. From that base, a liberal will be tolerant, generous, charitable and reforming, to the extent that his own well being and comfort is not imperiled. Since getting to the root of things might challenge a liberal’s own privileges, a liberal avoids such inquiry. It is not even denial. It is simple avoidance of what is seen as irrelevant. A liberal knows intuitively that his own personal well being rests on the suffering of others, and he does not wish to “go there.”

The upshot of all of this is that we are unlikely to get much help from liberals in halting Global Warming or in terminating wars abroad to secure oil.

November 12, 2007

Douglas R. Page dougpage2@earthlink.net

ZNet Commentary
Veterans' Voices November 11, 2007
By Cynthia Peters

Written testimony "means that we no longer allow ourselves to be silenced or allow others to speak for our experience. Writing to heal, then, and making our writing public, as I see it, is the most important emotional, psychological, artistic, and political project of our time."

-- Louise De Salvo, PhD author, Writing as a Way of Healing

CAPITALISM WILL KILL OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN

Humans in the past have had to deal with factors that threatened their survival. A few adapted and survived, but most did not. Our civilization is no different. It will not survive either.

UCLA Professor Jared Diamond in his 2005 book Collapse list 12 different causes of the inevitable fall of civilized life on our planet home within 30 years. They will cause our children and grandchildren to live in the Stone Age, with the law of the jungle, and to die. They are real. They are imminent. They all must be solved. If we solved 11, but left one unsolved, Diamond says our civilized life would still be over.

There are some obvious things we humans could and should do right now to adapt and survive.

1. Stop all pro life policies and flood the world with free contraceptives.
2. Stop cutting trees immediately, everywhere.
3. Stop all pollution of our rivers and lakes and halt all discharge of sewage and pollutants into the oceans.
4. Require all engines everywhere to have zero emissions within 1 year.
5. Stop using water and soil to feed cattle, chickens and pigs. Humans must learn to eat corn, beans, and squash and soy bean products.
6. Stop all flood irrigation in agriculture and compel the use of drip irrigation. Seriously conserve topsoil everywhere, and prohibit building or paving on tillable top soil.
7. Establish and enforce planet wide regulation of fishing to prevent over fishing and destruction of species.
8. Make a massive transition to solar cooking, solar water heating, solar power, wind power, wave power, and current power. Adopt all energy conservation strategies.
9. Recycle and reuse everything. Compost all human excrement and garbage.
10. Study and copy what Cubans have done with organic farming and worm culture to get food without oil, and oil based fertilizers.
11. Put a huge tax on gasoline.

In our denial and our addiction to comfort, we are maintaining a political economy that will aggressively cause the death of our children and grandchildren! We do not have a political economy based on wise planning and community action. We have capitalism, a political economy whose sole obligation is to earn as much short term profit as possible. The capitalist system brings vast wealth to the top 1% of us, but it does no planning, has no responsibility to the planet or to humans, and actively opposes all that we should be doing to solve the problem.
Our struggle with capitalism and the money it produces for the very rich is about a lot more than justice, equality, freedom and self-governing democracy. It is about our civilized survival. Marxists like to say that capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction. It is much more than that. Capitalism aggressively fuels the destruction of civilized life on this planet and death for millions.

Unfortunately, we need to do a lot more than look at Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth. We must reduce capitalism’s awesome power by refusing to buy its products, refusing to work within it, and by denying its legitimacy.

November 11, 2007

Douglas R. Page dougpage2@earthlink.net

IT TAKES MORE THAN VOTING; LET'S ORGANIZE FOR EFFECTIVE RESISTANCE NOW

Paul Krugman in his new book The Conscience of a Liberal makes the point that the money of the very rich now controls our political system. Republican Kevin Phillips gave us the evidence for this back in 2002 in Wealth and Democracy. The very rich are determined to use their money to eradicate the idea that government can and should protect people from the ravages of the Law of the Jungle, and the greed of the powerful. Thus when Hillary proposed her complicated health plan in 1993, Republicans neither offered nor would they accept any compromises. Instead, Republicans were determined to kill the whole idea of health insurance for all because they knew that if it succeeded, it would be a graphic demonstration that government could and should work for the benefit of all. There is much evidence that the ruling class and the Republicans are even more determined to kill the idea of good government today. So when Majority Leader Nancy Pelousi says that she wants to have a bipartisan debate about what to do about health coverage, I think she is choosing a mistaken strategy. She knows jolly well what Krugman knows that Republicans are determined to kill the whole idea of health care forever. What is her possible compromise? Health care that nobody can afford with a tremendous amount of profit for the insurance companies?
Despite all of this, Krugman, Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and almost all persons who oppose Bush are urging us to work within the Democratic Party, to talk to people and to organize for ballot box voting because, they say, there is a significant difference between the stated objectives of the Democratic and Republican Parties. The evidence shows that whatever the Democrats may say they will do for us voters, they actually do what their rich campaign donors demand. Democrats have been doing this ever since 1965 when Medicare was passed. Since then money has trumped our votes every time.
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The truth is that ballot box democracy, or ballot box avenues of change are now blocked in this country, if indeed they have ever really existed. There is no way we voters can overwhelm the power of money. Campaign reform simply has not done it and will never do it. We must engage in other forms of political activity beyond mere voting.

Think not of Bush, but of "King Bush" who may be replaced with "Queen Hillary" being the mythical personification of the 5000 white Christian males (the wealthiest 1%) who have the money and power to make the decisions affecting us all.
Then think of the “princes, dukes, marquis, earls, viscounts, and barons” who are in one way or another on the payroll of this "King" or "Queen." These “royalists” are spread throughout the government, the armed forces, business, the media and academia. They will not cross their monetary master, the “King” no matter what voters or anybody else may say.
Then there are us voting serfs who are lied to by the "King's" media, deprived of any other source of information, diverted with TV, football, NASCAR racing, and images of sexy young women. We serfs are made to feel rich with a proliferation of toys, I pods, Walk men, DVD players, digital cameras, junk food and cars. We serfs see no reason to give up what we have by doing anything to cross the "King." Who needs democracy when everything is good enough? A little irritating, but good enough.

Historically, there have been those who were willing to cross the "king" because of ideals, because of their consciences, or because of what was really important to them. Our forefathers who signed our Declaration of Independence pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor, and in many cases they indeed lost their lives and fortunes.

If this is an accurate depiction of our current plight, then we should minimize stamp licking and ballot box politics. Those of us who feel impelled to act for reasons of what is really important to us have the following choices:
1. Violent revolution (which in my view is immoral, counterproductive and impossible) Che Guevara was such a person and is still worshipped throughout Latin America 40 years after his execution by the CIA)
2. Active non-violence: stop paying all taxes.....stop buying anything produced by a corporation...stop working for any corporation.... (This is an effective exercise of power that would add muscle to our voting power if millions join in the activity.)
The final active non-violence is to do what the two Catholic priests did recently....in an effort to halt the teaching of torture and to cause the close of the School for Americas, they blocked the entrance to Fort Huachuca. They willingly submitted to arrest, and willingly accepted the punishment...7 months in the Florence, Arizona prison. While I very much appreciate their actions, I question how much influence their suffering has. Besides, I do not want to go to prison.

My wife C. Jay’s meditation this morning centered on this:

“November 5: Financial Security

An affluent society often functions as a giant tranquilizer. In the pursuit of the rewards of affluence, we have to tune out our awareness so completely that we become destructive to our bodies and our psyches. We have to develop our addictions to shut off our awareness of what is really important to us. We operate out of denial and are threatened by anyone wanting to challenge our denial.” (emphasis added)

I think that most of us are so addicted, and we have indeed shut off our awareness of what is really important to us. We are indeed threatened by anyone who wants to challenge our denial. So even though 64% of us oppose Bush and his policies, we do nothing about it.

What is really important to me? To you? What is more important to us than material goods?

Caring for others. Having others care for me. A government that cares. A good government that protects me from the Law of the Jungle and the greed of the powerful. A government that guarantees and protects my freedom. A government that protects me from the risks of the loss of civilized existence and global warming. A government of, by and for the people where we the voters are sovereign and not the money of the rich.

These foundational needs, while more subtle and further back in the recesses of our minds than the immediate gratification of a Coke & Big Mac, or a new car, are indeed more important when we stop to think about them.

Because of the overwhelming power of money, voting for Hillary or Barack is simply not enough, and is a waste of time without more. Here are some things we can do without giving up our life style:

• We can certainly, even with our affluence addiction, spread the truth. When the true facts of 9/11 are finally exposed to a majority of the American people, there will be an immense awakening. We can spread the truth about Zionists in Israel and in the US and their unrecognized controlling impact on us that may or may not be in our own best interest.

• We can organize among ourselves and participate in buyer’s boycotts and work stoppages. The Democrats and Republicans will both vote further to fund the War. We should then participate in a 3 day “sick out” work stoppage and we should not buy anything for 3 days. When another appointment like that of Attorney General Mukasey reaches the Senate we can have a 3 day sick out and purchasing strike. This is a powerful way we can match the political power of money. The powers that be can be made to change their positions if their profits are threatened.

• We can get our priorities in order: Truth, Justice, and then Peace. The current wars are based on lies. Truth can erode the underpinning of our wars. Wars are started to preserve privileges and cause inevitable injustices. If we end the war, we can then promote justice. There can be no enduring peace without justice. So when we have ended the wars, and promoted justice, we can then work effectively for peace. So we should work for Truth, Justice and Peace, in that order.

E mail me if you want to join an active nonviolent Truth Justice Peace movement. It must be organized from the bottom up. It is up to us.

November 5, 2007

Douglas R. Page dougpage2@earthlink.net

OUR CIVILIZATION WILL FALL BY 2030 UNLESS...

Jared Diamond, Professor of Geography at UCLA in his 2005 book, Collapse, studies civilizations in the past that seemed viable for hundreds of years and suddenly collapsed, and also some societies that adjusted to changed circumstances and survived. His main collapse examples are the Norse settlements in Greenland, the Southwest Mesa Verde Anasazi Indians, the Mayans, and Easter Islanders.
He looks at 5 causes: people causes (like cutting down all of the trees), climate changes, hostile neighbors, decreased support by friendly neighbors, and society’s response to the problems.

He finds that we at present have 12 problems to worry about, any one of which could bring us down. That means that even if we solve 11 of the 12, civilization is still doomed.

1. At an accelerating rate, we are destroying natural habitats such as forests, wet lands, coral reefs, and the ocean bottom.

2. Over-fishing. 2 Billion people on the planet, most of them poor, depend on fish
for their protein.

3. Loss of plant and animal species (which may be insignificant by themselves, like
earthworms, but which are vital for the survival of our soil and food supply)

4. Soil is eroding at between 10 and 40 times the rate at which soil is forming.

5. Peak oil, the exhaustion oil, gas and coal, or the fact that these sources may become prohibitively expensive to extract.

6. The increasing shortage of fresh water, and the depletion of major aquifers.

7. Limits on the planet’s photosynthetic capacity…meaning that photosynthesis works effectively using the sun’s energy in plant cells depends on local temperature and rainfall. We approach the limit by 2050, due to population pressure.

8. The pollution resulting from civilization and the industries civilization requires, from insecticides, toxic chemicals, mercury, and herbicides. (He does not even mention the apparent affect on our bee population)

9. The introduction of alien species that devastate the populations of native species…Australia’s rabbits, agricultural weeds, blights, water hyacinths that choke waterways, zebra mussels that choke power plants, and the lampreys that devastated the fisheries of the Great Lakes etc

10. Human activities that produce gases such as CO2, that create global warming, climate changes, and thus affect our food supply, our need for fuel to heat and cool ourselves.

11. The planet’s unchecked population growth.

12. The impact population growth has on the environment (depending on whether fuel is used for cooking and heating, whether people eat meat or are vegetarians, and whether or not the third world people are to be allowed to have our standard of living or whether we are going to cut ours.

Each of these 12 is a time bomb, with fuses of less that 50 years says Diamond. He devotes a whole chapter to what is like to live in LA and how the changes will soon clog that city.

Jared then refutes each of the things people say to convince themselves that things will turn out ok.

1. The environment must be balanced against keeping the economy going.

2. Technology (or science) will solve all of our problems.

3. If we exhaust one resource, we can always switch to some other resource meeting the same need.

4. There really is not a shortage of food in the world. The problem is distribution.
(The problem is we are getting most of it and we do not want to give it up)


5. Conditions have really been getting better the last few decades. (Not for the third world)

6. Gloom and doom predictions of the past have turned out to be wrong. (Not all of them.)

7. The planet’s population increase is leveling off. (Yes but not enough)

8. The population can grow infinitely because more people means more inventors and ultimately more wealth. (not to be taken seriously. By this projection, we would have 10 persons on every square yard of dry land in 774 years.)

9. We have no business telling poor people what they should be doing. (We are interconnected. What happens to them will soon happen to us.)

10. All these problems will occur after I die. (Maybe but what about your children?)

11. We can think and communicate, while the earlier failed peoples could not. (But we have our dominant capitalist ideology and serious denial, augmented by the bull horn of the corporatacracy.)

12. There is nothing I can do. It is all dominated and controlled by the corporatacracy.


Diamond on page 522 lists the two choices that those societies which adjusted and survived made while those that failed did not:

1. Long term planning
2. Willingness to reconsider and change core values

Diamond thinks that we can change.

Doug’s note to himself: Capitalists abhor long term planning. We voters can plan for the long term only if we really control the wealth and power of the capitalists. So, for us, our survival is as likely as the day a majority of us choose and demand socialism, or the day the cow jumps over the moon.
What about our willingness to reconsider and change core values? Do you think Wall Street, capitalists, and large corporations will give up their zeal for short term profit and their determination to “leave everything to the market”? Since the corporatocracy owns and controls the media, do you think they will persuade the rest of us voters to change? Given that media control, it does not make much difference what we voters think. Unfortunately, we are addicted to material goods, and to a large extent, gambling. Our delusion is that every man jack of us thinks that he has a chance of being rich some day. That delusion impels a majority of voters to oppose steeply progressive tax rates on the rich. They say: “I may be rich some day myself.”