Far between sundown's finish an' midnight's broken toll
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
An' for each an' ev'ry underdog soldier in the night
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
Bob Dylan - 1964
I don't see how Judge Roberts could possibly be the person he appears to be. The pundits opine as long as anyone will pay them. With concerned expressions and serious tones they blather on about Roe v. Wade as if it was the most significant issue.
The issues that should be discussed include these:
How much power should the federal govenment be allowed to have;
Of that how much should the executive branch have;
And what can be done to prevent the government from infringing on our rights?
Now ask yourself this: Would the bush administration, which has lied when convenient and grabbed power whenever it could, ever appoint a moderate reasonable judge to be chief justice of the supreme court? No. Never.
It appears to be Bush's personal mission to abuse the office from which he should be serving everyone by inserting his god into every damned speech he makes. Faith-based "charities" and other cash handouts are also used to further his religious views. Are we really expected to believe that Judge Roberts will be a fair and impartial supreme court justice who respects the right of the people to be free from government-imposed values? Apparently. There's nothing about it on the nightly news.
The most powerful gift we have received from nature is the ability to examine the present and imagine what possible futures could be like. Then, guided by our values and principles, we choose one and in the following nows where choices may be made we choose to move towards the future we see.
The future I imagine is one where conflict is no longer ruling our lives.
It is true that conflict is a part of human nature and that conflict has often resulted in progress. And it is also true that nature has given us a great deal of plasticity in the ways we interact with each other and changing circumstances. We can, for example, learn to not let emotions control our reactions. Emotions such as anger certainly had a place in our past, and sometimes in our present they can be used to communicate to people who won't listen to anything else, but a deep breath and a bit of reflection almost always reveal a more appropriate response than turning control over to such forces.
Our legal and political systems are based on the idea that conflict is the way that God's will is expressed. The winner has God on his side. If knights, or armies, or teams of lawyers, is what it takes to keep God on your side, then you get the resources however you can. If that means taking them from some population you can control then that's what you do. With God on your side.
The idea that a contest expresses God's will is the origin of our legal system. Someones guilt or innocence in a criminal trial is not determined by a search for the truth. It's a battle between champions. And if a powerful opponent drags a less powerful, but innocent, person on to the battlefield, God's will must be that the innocent suffer.
That can't be right. Not from a religious point of view. And from my point of view truth and beauty are the most valued expressions of the human spirit.
Our political system, and many others, can be viewed as an ecological system. From that vantage point we can see that survivors in that environment must be ruthless in their desire to obtain and use power. Successful politicians gain control of the government and, because it is their character, they use it to acquire as much power as they can get. And so the powerful remain in power, decade after decade, doing whatever they can to ensure their survival in that environment.
In a dangerous world where conflict is unavoidable such warriors can play an important role. They should, however, be restrained from lording over those they should protect, a wall the founding fathers failed to make strong enough. And, naturally, there are other power-based systems all over the globe. The rulers in those systems need conflict because it lets them express their genetic, and cultural, heritage. Looking at the world from that perspective explains much of what's gone wrong and caused so much suffering to so many people.
It doesn't have to be that way. We are human beings. We are not robots controlled by the pasts genetic instructions. The past has been given us the gifts of thought and choice. Emotions too are a gift, they let us know in a very deep and immediate way that something significant is happening, but they are not all we are.
I imagine a future where trials are a pursuit of the truth. Without straying too far from today's practice jury's could ask questions, probe, call for witnesses, expert and not. The judge would be a facilitator, someone to make sure the process was fair, orderly, and adhered to the law. When the jury reached a verdict it would be much more likely to represent the truth than the horribly out of balance contests we see when the government sends powerful champions to crush defenseless victims.
In this future, when some small number of people make decisions which affect the rest, those representatives are chosen no because they are driven by a thirst for power but because they choose to use what talents they have in pursuit of a better future for all. And if outside aggression threatens the nation then the entire population will rally to its defense. No one wants to give up what is good for them.
That, I believe, is the future the authors of the Declaration Of Independence saw off in the distance; An America that sets an example others will want to follow.
"Out of Chaos, Brilliant Stars Are Born"
I-Ching Hexagram #3
I just don't get it. Over the past several years we have had it pounded into our heads, over and over again, that we were in danger of a serious terrorist attack on one of our cities. That being the case it seems reasonable to expect that the federal government would be prepared to deal with such large-scale urban catastrophes. But when the moment came, and until several days has passed, they didn't do anything.
At the top of the administration are some very intelligent people. So it's natural to assume that they will appoint intelligent, competent, and qualified people to look after those functions of the federal government which serve the people when they most need it. Unfortunately for thousands of people who have died or been scattered across the country it appears that Brown was selected for the position at FEMA because of his connections instead of his qualifications. We should wonder how Michael Chertoff got his job too.
Why?
Given the concerns the administration has expressed regarding the likelihood of a major terrorist attack in one of our cities one would expect that they would be prepared to respond in an effective and timely manner. It has been known for at least a decade that the levees needed improvement. And it should have been obvious to those familiar with the situation that the levees were a potential target for an attack. So why weren't they prepared?
I think we deserve an investigation. A real investigation overseen by a group of respected scholars of relevant discplines. Not some phony political show-trial overseen by Bush or anyone else in the government. The government is accountable to us and we should demand to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Days have passed since I wrote the following. The hypothesis is somewhat obscured by tangential rants but I think it' still has merit as just that, an hypothesis.
Interesting times. I'm sure there are historians out there keeping the people's history up to date. Someone, please, point me in the direction of the nearest library, I have some reading to do.
But even without keeping notes there are some interesting possible conclusions.
The idiot in charge of FEMA is clearly the product of too much inbreeding. How else would he get such a position; he's family.
GW Bush really does have the malfunctioning brain that his speaking suggests. Whether that was a genetic mishap or the result of too much in the way of cocaine and alcohol isn't know by us. Recall that GWB was converted by Billy Graham in some sort of tough-love scenario. He got faith and since then he has been protected from almost any hint of a difference between the way the people out here feel about things and the good he thinks he is doing. That's why GWB rallies are always in military bases and other tightly-controlled venues. Yeap George, just look, the people love you!
But would Big Daddy Bush use his own son that way? You betcha. He has been at the center of some really nasty business. Big Daddy will do anything to increase the wealth and power of his family. If it requires that one of the children be made a fool, or a fall guy, then that's what must be done. Big Daddy controls his family the same way a pimp controls his victims, with intimidation and fear. A dictator.
Having fall-guys, like Lee Harvey Oswald, in charge of the government might seem like a very strange, unlikely, thing to do. But I think there is a simple explanation:
Cheney? Smart, ruthless, and arogant. It seems that he is leading the corporate raiders who really run the government and will soon run it into the ground. As I recall the serious infiltration began with Reagan, the Alzheimers Poster Boy. That's when the corporate types got control of the government's machinery. And they've been slowly siphoning off cash, and them more, which is why the country has such a huge debt. And now that they've taken our labor and our resources the corporations are packing up their money and moving to china for the next big heist?
Well it looks to me as if the Chinese are ready to give them the greeting they deserve. And in China they _will_ go to prison for some very long and difficult years. So I think they're stuck between a rock and a hard place. But they have money and could be dangerous if they use it. For instance, they could bankroll "terrorists", and pile more bodies on the pile of the uncounted thousands already dead.
If word got around that they were responsible maybe they'd slink away quitely and we wouldn't make them admit that we got most of our money back. Sent into exhile somewhere in central america where they must spend the rest of their days struggling to survive as poor people do.
To back us up we have the military. If I was a betting man I'd bet everything I own that there are a whole lot of Generals there who would like to kick Rumsfeld's ass. Wouldn't it feel great to see the military as the positive force it should be? Then I'd be proud to see my son join the Special Forces and become the best fighting man he can.
So once they know we know they will have to negotiate. Corporations are a creation of the state and what giveth the state may take away; except those rights we reserve for ourselves.
Never let someone provoke you to take some ill-considered action. Emotions cannot be allowed to participate in your decision-making process or control your actions without the approval of reason. And then only for very specific, narrow purposes.
This evening the article about Barbara Bush's comments today made me wonder whether the oligarchy is trying to provoke a reaction which would be met with force. I think that there is some non-zero probability of that being the case. Not beyond a reasonable shadow of a doubt, of course, but the preponderance of evidence?
I hope someone will gather up all the reasonable sounding hypotheses and evaluate them with regard to how well they fit the facts. Those hypotheses which fit the facts and predict new significant facts about events and information discovered, and if it's reasonable to suppose those predictions might be testable in the future, then those hypotheses are elevated to the status of theories, and we wait to see what we see.
What great advice, words of wisdom, so few words but so much meaning.
So let me see if I have the party-line straight:
The head of FEMA is and always has been an incompetent boob and no one in the Bush Administration was smart enough to notice that? How convenient. In the event of a national disaster the focus is not on the Homeland Security Slush Fund which seems to have reallocated at least a significant part of the FEMA budget to parts unknown. No. Blame it on the guy who no idea how he was being used. Of course the mainstream media is an open channel for the administrations PR experts who are, once again, trying to deceive the American people.
But I think they underestimate the people of this country. The government was given the benefit of the doubt when it came Iraq. But here's another good set of words:
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
When conflict appears to be originating from one party the other party has a choice. The second party might escalate the conflict by reacting to it. Or the second party might choose not to feed the potential conflict. Instead that party may try to understand why it has arisen and find some way to undo the conditions from which it comes.
Viewed this way an escalating confict is the result of both parties reacting to circumstances without adequate rational consideration. Both are equally culpable and both end up harmed from it in some way or another.
I hope it's pretty clear to everyone that the federal government might be in meltdown right now. And if it's not right now then eventually it will disappear. The states are much more amenable to public oversight and pressure than the federal govenment is. However, the States will need to end their tendecy to try to hide things behind secrecy laws.
Once we are freed from that centralized control system, and the state governments are reorganized without the weight of federal orders, a whole new era of experimentation, learning, and growth will follow. And that will happen in many other countries around the world as the federal government can no longer control them.
Tonight it occured to me that I would really like to live in an urban tribe. Urban tribes as I see them are composed of people who all agree to work together towards the goals they choose. Everyone has a skill and a good leader knows how to organize them best as circumstances require. A leader is someone who helps his group do what they have all decided to do. They lead him as much as he leads them.
Tribes could be organized internally any way they liked except that authoritarian leaders are not allowed. The consequences of letting such a person lead are almost inevitably catastrophic. Other than that tribes could organize themselves however they want. If someone doesn't like the way the tribe has organized then there would be some huge number of variations to try. To make that work correctly there cannot be barriers to imigration. And it would probably be a good idea to be able to expel people who just didn't fit in. There are more like that in some tribe somewhere!
Money is history. Computer networks would take care of matching tribe barters in such a way that only once every several thousand years did a barter fail to provide what each party wanted to have. Within reasonable boundaries of course.
Issues regarding infrastucture and normal city functions would need to be worked out. But there has got to be some system that got the job done and was able to adapt over time and changing circumstances.
The Bush Administration has ridden rough-shod over the Bill Of Rights and The Constitution. Is it because the long-term effects are not understood? Because people don't understand what we have to lose? Or maybe because I'm on the wrong side of the issue. Nah. Maybe it will work out fine to wait until the powers are abused and then challenge them, since it doesn't make sense to challenge all hypothetical futures now.
Personally I believe that the level of power, and the level of its abuse, has put our present in a dangerous position. The police and military elements which could be brought to bear on dissenters are numerous, well-armed, and well-trained. Undesireable elements could be rounded up quickly and quietly, for the most part. When the government has that much power and nothing to restrain it the consequences can be sudden and very dangerous.
No government in the world should have enough power to prevent people from being free. And no government in the world should have enough power to overthrow free people.
An important issue to be resolved is what kind of system of distributed power could be used in a rational way such that it only responded to evolving systems which were demonstrably harmful, such as developing the cability to expand in power without bound, and when it did intervene more than enough power is available to shut that system down. Intuitively its seems such a system is practical.
Having just moved to the heart of an interesting city for the first time in my life I have to say that it has been an interesting and enlightening experience. Police and Fire services of some kind, and utilities etc, are necessary components of our lifestyle. They should not be spending any time enforcing laws against people who aren't directly affecting others. As long as one person is not harming another person there should be no law which forbids that person from doing whatever is done.
And there are roads between cities and etc ... no doubt some distributed system could make decisions regarding those too. Parts of the system which participate in a particular decision do so because that decision may affect them directly.
I hasten to add, if it's not already obvious, that there would be no large corporations either since it is the accumulation of power which would be restricted, without regard to claims that some large accumulation of power has such a beneficial purpose that the rules should be bent. Large power structures may be utilized beneficially and often are, for a while, after which the inevitable positive-feedback loop sucks power up like a hurricane.
I hope I didn't misspell many words, it's late, I don't care. :-)
