R. D. Laing

"Our behavior is a function of our experience. We act according to the way we see things. If our experience is destroyed, our behavior will be destructive. If our experience is destroyed, we have lost our own selves."

- R. D. Laing

"Hell Comes Home"

"Hell Comes Home"
Killing is the ultimate traumatic experience
By Robert C. Koehler

"There’s no armor, it turns out, for conscience.

So our men and women are coming home from the killing fields wounded in their heads, used up, greeted only by the military’s own meat grinder of inadequate health care and intolerance for 'weakness.'

'Frankly, in my more than 25 years of clinical practice, I’ve never seen such immense emotional suffering and psychological brokenness.' This is what whistleblower psychiatrist Kernan Manion wrote recently to President Obama about his experience counseling Marines at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, as reported by Salon.

In September, Manion, having been told to 'cease and desist all further correspondence with the government,' was fired by the Navy for his urgent, outspoken communiqués about the mental-health minefield the military has on its hands. Two months later, of course, the issue of PTSD was blown into the national headlines by the massacre at Fort Hood. And a day after that, according to Salon, the body of a Marine was found at Camp Lejeune and a fellow Marine was arrested for the murder.

The wars we fight keep getting worse, or seem at any rate to back up on us with an ever-intensifying fury. Our war on terror is tightening the psychological vise on our collective insecurity, beginning with the soldiers who are fighting it. Salon, citing official figures, reported that 42 Marines committed suicide in 2008 and 146 attempted to do so.

Even more disturbing in terms of national security, 121 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, in all service branches, had been charged with murder as of 2008, according to a New York Times report. This statistic was cited in a recent Mother Jones article about Republican Sen. Richard Burr’s bill, the 'Veterans 2nd Amendment Protection Act,' which would ease mental-health restrictions on vets’ ability to buy guns.

This disturbing bill does not give psychologically wounded vets the help they need, but it certainly reflects the ignorance and arrogance of militarism, which perpetually organizes itself around an “enemy” somewhere out there stalking us. Those trapped in this mindset can imagine security only in relation to their power over this enemy, which leads them, and everyone else, into a vicious spiral of armed preparation, violence and counter-violence.

What we fail to notice in our rage and fear is that violence — not the violence we endure but the violence we perpetrate — dehumanizes us. Killing is the ultimate traumatic experience.

'In the military, you’re trained to shoot at a target, but sometimes the humanity of that target intrudes, and people come to question what they’ve done,' said Dr. Shira Maguen (putting it, I would say, mildly). Maguen is a staff psychologist at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and lead author of a recent study of the factors causing PTSD, conducted in conjunction with the University of California, San Francisco. The study, published in the October 2009 issue of the Journal of Traumatic Stress, used data from 1,200 veterans of the Vietnam War. It found, much to the researchers’ surprise, that 'the negative psychological effects of killing' made all other factors pale in comparison.

Here’s how it looks before the humanity intrudes: 'One morning, a few months before leaving, I was manning a machine-gun security post. I saw a Humvee come through the gate towing a blue mini-pickup. As they approached closer, I saw that the truck was riddled with bullets and shrapnel — full of dead insurgents, decapitated corpses. I’ll never forget this. A very young PFC in the back of the truck lifted a decapitated head. ‘We really f---ed these guys up, didn’t we?’ Other soldiers were celebrating on top of the bodies. (The dead were) mostly teenage boys from the local community.'

These words of Iraq War vet Jeffrey Smith were just a small shard of the four days of horrific testimony about this war — about the racism and cultural ignorance of our occupation, about the inhumanity of military culture, about America’s official disregard for human life — given by vets at the Winter Soldier gathering a year and a half ago in Silver Spring, Md.

The authors of the PTSD study emphasized, according to a University of California news release, that their results had a harrowing relevance for the troops currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Previous research, they noted, indicates that “up to 65 percent of service members returning from the war in Iraq report killing an enemy combatant, and up to 28 percent report being responsible for the death of a noncombatant.”

I fear that the war on terror is just starting to come home, just starting to haunt us. What we’ve done to the Iraqis and Afghanis, we’ve also done to ourselves. Every vet with serious PTSD is trapped in his or her personal Abu Ghraib, and a few — getting no help from their own chain of command, except maybe redeployment — will try to shoot their way out.

Of far more worry to the militarized sector are those who decide to join Jeffrey Smith and the other Winter Solider truth-tellers. He concluded his testimony: 'I apologize to the Iraqi people for what we did.'"

http://commonwonders.com/archives/col523.htm

"Life Happens"

Life happens, I'm once again going to be away briefly. I'm very pleased and thankful that my co-host, Teddy Grahams, will carry on in my absence. "See" you all soon.

CoyotePrime

Derrick Jensen, "Playing for Keeps"

"Playing for Keeps"

Would we listen to nature if our lives depended on it?
By Derrick Jensen

"PEOPLE WHO READ MY WORK often say, 'Okay, so it’s clear you don’t like this culture, but what do you want to replace it?' The answer is that I don’t want any one culture to replace this culture. I want ten thousand cultures to replace this culture, each one arising organically from its own place. That’s how humans inhabited the planet (or, more precisely, their landbases, since each group inhabited a place, and not the whole world, which is precisely the point), before this culture set about reducing all cultures to one.

I live on Tolowa (Indian) land. Prior to the arrival of the dominant culture, the Tolowa lived here for 12,500 years, if you believe the myths of science. If you believe the myths of the Tolowa, they lived here since the beginning of time. This story may sound familiar, but its significance has, thus far, been lost on the dominant culture, so it bears repeating: when the first settlers arrived here maybe 180 years ago, the place was a paradise. Salmon ran in runs so thick you couldn’t see the bottoms of rivers, so thick people were afraid to put their boats in for fear they would capsize, so thick they would keep people awake at night with the slapping of their tails against the water, so thick you could hear the runs for miles before you could see them. Whales were commonplace in the nearby ocean. Forests were thick with frogs, newts, salamanders, birds, elk, bears. And of course huge ancient redwood trees.

Now I count myself blessed when I see two salmon in what we today call Mill Creek. Another Tolowa staple, Pacific lampreys, are in bad shape. Just three years ago you could not hold a human conversation outside at night in the spring, and now I hear maybe five or six frogs at night. Salamanders, newts, songbirds, all are equivalently gone. The rivers are poisoned with pesticides and herbicides. All in less than two centuries.

Why? Or, perhaps more important, how?

Only the most arrogant and ignorant among us would say something that implies that all humans are destructive, and that the dominant (white) culture is the most destructive simply because somehow indigenous peoples around the world were too stupid to invent backhoes and chainsaws, too backward to dominate their human and nonhuman neighbors with the efficiency and viciousness of the dominant culture. They might even try to argue that the Tolowa weren’t actually living sustainably, even though they lived here for at least 12,500 years. But when 12,500 years of living in place won’t convince them, it becomes pretty clear that evidence is secondary, and that there are, rather, ideological reasons the person cannot accept that humans have ever lived sustainably. One of these ideological reasons is very clear: if you can convince yourself that humans are inherently destructive, then you allow yourself the most convenient of all excuses not to work to stop this culture from destroying the planet: it’s simply in our nature to destroy, and you can’t fight biology, so let’s not fuss about all these little extinctions, and could someone please pass the TV remote? It’s an odious position, but a lot of people take it.

If we want to stop this culture from killing the planet, we might instead try asking how so many indigenous cultures lived in place for so long without destroying their landbases.

There are many differences between indigenous and nonindigenous ways of being in the world, but I want to mention two here. The first is that the indigenous had and have serious long-term relationships with the plants and animals with whom they share their landscape. Ray Rafael, who has written extensively on the concept of wilderness, has said that Native Americans hunted, gathered, and fished 'using methods that would be sustainable over centuries and even millennia. They did not alter their environment beyond what could sustain them indefinitely. They did not farm, but they managed the environment. But it was different from the way that people try to manage it now, because they stayed in relationship with it.'

That last phrase is key. What would a society look like that was planning on being in that particular place five hundred years from now? What would an economics look like? If you knew for a fact that your descendants five hundred years from now would live on the same landbase you inhabit now, how would that affect your relationship to sources of water? How would that affect your relationship with topsoil? With forests? Would you produce waste products that are detrimental to the soil? Would you poison your water sources (or allow them to be poisoned)? Would you allow global warming to continue? If the very lives of your children and their children depended on your current actions—and of course they do—how would you act differently than you do?

The other difference I want to mention—and essentially every traditional indigenous person with whom I have ever spoken has said that it is the fundamental difference between western and indigenous peoples—is that even the most open Westerners view listening to the natural world as a metaphor, as opposed to something real. I asked American Indian writer Vine Deloria about this, and he said, 'I think the primary thing is that Indians experience and relate to a living universe, whereas Western people, especially science, reduce things to objects, whether they’re living or not. The implications of this are immense. If you see the world around you as made up of objects for you to manipulate and exploit, not only is it inevitable that you will destroy the world by attempting to control it, but perceiving the world as lifeless robs you of the richness, beauty, and wisdom of participating in the larger pattern of life.' That brings to mind a great line by a Canadian lumberman: 'When I look at trees I see dollar bills.' If when you look at trees, you see dollar bills, you’ll treat them one way. If when you look at trees, you see trees, you’ll treat them differently. If when you look at this particular tree you see this particular tree, you’ll treat it differently still. The same is true for salmon, and, of course, for women: if when I look at women I see objects, I’m going to treat them one way. If when I look at women I see women, I’ll treat them differently. And if when I look at this particular woman I see this particular woman, I’ll treat her differently still.

Here’s where people usually ask, 'Okay, so how do I listen to the natural world?' When people ask me this, I always begin by asking them if they have ever made love. If so, I ask whether the other person always had to say, 'put this here,' or 'do that now,' or did they sometimes read their lover’s body, listen to the unspoken language of the flesh? Having established that one can communicate without words, I then ask if they have ever had any nonhuman friends (a.k.a. pets). If so, how did the dog or cat let you know that her food dish was empty? I used to have a dog friend who would look at me, look at the food dish, look at me, look at the food dish, until finally the message would get across to me.

How do we hear the rest of the natural world? Unsurprisingly enough, the answer is: by listening. That’s not easy, given that we have been told for several thousand years that these others are silent. But the fact that we cannot easily hear them doesn’t mean they aren’t speaking, and does not mean they have nothing to say. I’ve had people respond to my suggestion that they listen to the natural world by going outside for five minutes and then returning to say they didn’t hear anything. But how can you expect to learn any new language (remember, most nonhumans don’t speak English) in such a short time? Learning to listen to our nonhuman neighbors takes effort, humility, and patience.

The Tolowa believed the nonhuman world had something to say, and that what the nonhuman world had to say was vital to their own survival. Given that they were living here sustainably for 12,500 years, and given that we manifestly are not, perhaps the least we could do is acknowledge that they were on to something, and maybe even explore just what that kind of relationship might look and feel like."

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/5106

G. B. Stern

“Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute.”

- G. B. Stern

"You Don't Have to Go to College"

"Dear Kids, You Don’t Have to Go to College"

Author unknown

"Dear Tess and Tucker,

For most of your young lives, you’ve heard your mom and I occasionally talk about your futures by saying that someday you’ll travel off to college and get this thing called a degree that will show everyone that you are an expert in something and that will lead you to getting a good job that will make you happy and make you able to raise a family of your own someday. At least, that’s what your mom and I have in our heads when we talk about it. But, and I haven’t told your mom this yet, I’ve changed my mind. I want you to know that you don’t have to go to college if you don’t want to, and that there are other avenues to achieving that future that may be more instructive, more meaningful, and more relevant than getting a degree.

Let me put it to you this way (and I’ll explain this more as you get older.) I promise to support you for as long as I can in your quest to learn after high school, whatever that might look like. I’ll do everything I can to help you find what your passions are and pursue them in whatever ways you decide will allow you to learn as much as you can about them. I’ll help you put together your own plan to achieve expertise in that passion, and that plan may include many different activities and environments that look nothing like (and in all likelihood will cost much less than) a traditional college experience. Some of your plan may include classrooms, some may include training or certification programs. But some may also include learning through online video games, virtual communities, and informal networks that you will build around your interests, all moving you further along toward expertise. (Remind me at some point to tell you what a guy named George Siemens says about this.)

And throughout this process, I will support you in the creation of your learning portfolio, the artifact which when the time comes, you will share to prospective employers or collaborators to begin your life’s work. (In all likelihood, in fact, you will probably find these people as a part of this process.) Instead of the piece of paper on the wall that says you are an expert, you will have an array of products and experiences, reflections and conversations that show your expertise, show what you know, make it transparent. It will be comprised of a body of work and a network of learners that you will continually turn to over time, that will evolve as you evolve, and will capture your most important learning.

I know, I know. Even now you are thinking, “but Dad, wouldn’t just going to college be easier?” It might, yes. And depending on what you end up wanting to do, college might still be the best answer. But it might not. And I want to remind you that in my own experience, all of the 'learning' I did in all of the college classrooms I’ve spent time in does not come close to the learning that I’ve done on my own for the simple reason that now I am learning with people who are just as (if not more) passionate to 'know' as I am. And that is what I want for you, to connect to people and environments where your passions connect, and the expectation is that you learn together, not learn on your own. Where you are free to create your own curriculum, find your own teachers, and create your own assessments as they are relevant. Where you make decisions (and your teachers guide you in those decisions) as to what is relevant to know and what isn’t instead of someone deciding that for you. Where at the end of the day, you’ll look back and find that the vast majority of your effort has been time well spent, not time wasted.

In many ways, I envy you. I think about all of the time I spent 'learning' about things that had absolutely no relevance to my life’s work simply because I was required to do so. Knowledge that became old almost as soon as it was uttered from my professor’s mouth. I think about how much more I could have gotten from those hundreds and hundreds of hours (and dollars) that now feel frittered away because I had no real choice. I want to make sure you know you have a choice.

So, when the time comes, we’ll start talking about what roads you might want to pursue and how you might want to pursue them. Your mom and I have high expectations, and we’ll do everything we can to support the decisions you make. But ultimately, my hope is that you will learn this on your own, that you will seize the opportunities that this new world of learning and knowledge offers you, and that you will find it as exciting and provocative a place as I have.

Love always, Dad"

http://weblogg-ed.com/2006/dear-kids-you-dont-have-to-go-to-college/

"How It Really Is"

"U.S. Debt, Where’s the Money Going to Come From?"

"U.S. Debt, Where’s the Money Going to Come From?"
by Graham Summers

"A lot of what passes for analysis of the US economy is far too complicated. The reality is that you only need to do basic arithmetic to see that the US is STILL in a recession if not depression. Let’s break it down.

The US consumer accounts for 70% of the US GDP. The US GDP (after the recession’s impact) is in the ballpark of $11 trillion. So the US consumer accounts for $7.7 trillion in dollar terms. This is THE driver of our economy. So let’s focus on the consumer’s balance sheet.

According to the Fed, total US household wealth currently stands around $53 trillion. Personally I think the Fed’s number is bogus since it lumps non-profits and households together. It also claims $20 trillion of this wealth comes from real estate including “All types of owner-occupied housing including farm houses and mobile homes, as well as second homes that are not rented, vacant homes for sale, and vacant land.”

I’m sorry, but a house is not “wealth.” It is a MASSIVE debt you owe until you own it outright. And given the housing prices are falling (the assets are depreciating) and home sales anemic, I DO NOT agree that you can identify your home as a status of wealth in this market. So let’s create our own measure of household wealth by focusing on liquid assets and deposits that can be sold relatively easily or transferred in a pinch.

So total liquid assets equals roughly $41 trillion. Total liabilities equals $14 trillion. This brings household net-worth to $27 trillion.

On the surface, the debt seems somewhat serviceable, except it isn’t without some kind of systemic implosion. Let’s say consumers wanted to pay off the $14 trillion in debt by cashing out deposits. Well, total deposits in the US only equals $7 trillion. Setting aside what would happen if there was a $7 trillion “run on the bank” (hint: KABOOM), even if consumers cashed out every last cent of savings they’d still owe $7 trillion in debt ($14 trillion -$7 trillion= $7 trillion).

Ok, so savings don’t take care of the mess… what about stocks? All told, consumers own (through pension funds, mutual funds, and private holdings) $30 trillion in equities. The pension funds are not easily accessible so we’ll take them out, leaving roughly $20 trillion in equities available to be sold. That’s definitely enough to cover the $14 trillion in debt consumers owe.

So let’s put that scenario into perspective. The total market capitalization of EVERY stock in the world COMBINED is $36 trillion. So IF consumers sold their equity holdings to pay off their debt, we’re talking about worldwide markets trading 40% lower than they are now.

Obviously, neither of the above scenarios will happen. After all, debt can be paid off gradually and doesn’t require immediate full payout. But given that consumers cannot print money out of thin air, and that incomes are falling off a cliff (as evinced by the 17% year over year drop in tax receipts and the fact that Uncle Sam currently accounts for 17% of all US incomes) the money needed to pay off the $14 trillion consumers currently owe will HAVE to come from somewhere at some point in the future.

This means that at some point stocks or deposits or some other asset will have to be sold to pay off debt or the debt will be defaulted on. Given that both US corporations AND the US government get most of their money from the consumer, this has DIRE implications for the US economy and corporate earnings going forward (not to mention how on earth we’ll roll over our trillions in Federal debt since foreign governments are increasingly loathe to lend us money).

At best we shall see anemic growth in the real economy and corporate income statements (the year over year 20-30% drop in sales is just the beginning). At worst this means a full-scale depression marked by continued deflation in most major asset classes as consumers sell what they OWN (stocks, homes, etc.) to pay back what they OWE.

This also indicates that bank stocks are in for a very rough decade going forward. The banks that do not engage in investment banking or trading (the non-Goldman Sachs) will suffer from a lack of consumer borrowing, continued defaults on consumer debt, and more. Our new era of frugality is the product of consumers owing too much money. And whether they try to pay it off quickly or bit by bit is irrelevant. Either way the economy, corporate profits, and banks will suffer going forward.

This is the medicine we all must take. The government is trying to fight it by shifting private debts onto the public balance sheet. But the consumer cannot fund those debts as well (none of my above math includes the federal debt). In a sense, the government is throwing in a spoonful of sugar in the form of continued spending on social programs to make the medicine more palatable. The only problem is that this is a bursting credit bubble… not Mary Poppins."

- http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15156.html

Karl Denninger, "Where Are The INDICTMENTS?"

"Where Are The INDICTMENTS?"

by Karl Denninger

"Jerry Brown is crowing about the most-recent "Auction Rate" security settlement: "Wells Fargo convinced thousands of investors to purchase auction-rate securities with promises of robust returns and liquidity, but when the market collapsed, investors were left out in the cold," Brown said. "Based on misleading advice, investors bought these risky securities. Now, retail investors and small businesses are finally getting their money back."

Uh huh. That's the good part. Now here's the bad part:

The lawsuit contended that Wells Fargo ignored clear industry and internal warnings about risk and previous auction failure. In March 2005, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the "Big 4" accounting firms, and the Financial Accounting Standards Board all determined that auction-rate securities should not be considered "cash equivalents."

Despite these warnings, Wells Fargo continued to aggressively sell and falsely market auction-rate securities as safe, liquid, cash-like investments until the nationwide auction markets froze in early 2008. In marketing and selling these investments, Wells Fargo failed to inform investors about how auction-rate securities or the auction process worked, as well as the risks and consequences of auction failure.

Fraud defined: "A false representation of a matter of fact—whether by words or by conduct, by false or misleading allegations, or by concealment of what should have been disclosed—that deceives and is intended to deceive another so that the individual will act upon it to her or his legal injury."

Racketeering defined: "(n) Racketeering is defined as the process of forming or running an organization to operate or commit or otherwise execute ongoing criminal activities."

Perhaps the question we should be asking is why we keep seeing "settlements" instead of prosecutions."

- http://market-ticker.denninger.net/

"Biotech Crops Cause Big Jump in Pesticide Use: Report"

"Biotech Crops Cause Big Jump in Pesticide Use: Report"
By Carey Gillam

"KANSAS CITY (Reuters) - The rapid adoption by U.S. farmers of genetically engineered corn, soybeans and cotton has promoted increased use of pesticides, an epidemic of herbicide-resistant weeds and more chemical residues in foods, according to a report issued Tuesday by health and environmental protection groups.

The groups said research showed that herbicide use grew by 383 million pounds from 1996 to 2008, with 46 percent of the total increase occurring in 2007 and 2008.

The report was released by nonprofits The Organic Center (TOC), the Union for Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the Center for Food Safety (CFS).

The groups said that while herbicide use has climbed, insecticide use has dropped because of biotech crops. They said adoption of genetically engineered corn and cotton that carry traits resistant to insects has led to a reduction in insecticide use by 64 million pounds since 1996.

Still, that leaves a net overall increase on U.S. farm fields of 318 million pounds of pesticides, which includes insecticides and herbicides, over the first 13 years of commercial use.

The rise in herbicide use comes as U.S. farmers increasingly adopt corn, soy and cotton that have been engineered with traits that allow them to tolerate dousings of weed killer. The most popular of these are known as 'Roundup Ready' for their ability to sustain treatments with Roundup herbicide and are developed and marketed by world seed industry leader Monsanto Co.

Monsanto rolled out the first biotech crop, Roundup Ready soybeans, in 1996.

Monsanto officials declined to comment on the report. But the Biotechnology Industry Organization, of which Monsanto is a member, said the popularity of herbicide-resistant crops showed their value outweighs any associated detriments.

'Herbicide resistance crops are incredibly popular with farmers. They help them manage their weed problems in ways traditional crops don't,' said Mike Wach, BIO managing director of science and regulatory affairs.

'If a farmer feels a crop is causing them more trouble than it is worth they will stop using it,' Wach said. 'Farmers are continuing to adopt these crops because they provide benefits, not liabilities and problems.'

BIO officials pointed to a report issued earlier this year by PG Economics Ltd that said the volume of herbicides used in biotech soybean crops globally decreased by 161 million pounds, or 4.6 percent, from 1996 to 2007.

The report by the environmental groups states that a key problem resulting from the increase in herbicide use is the emergence of 'super weeds,' which are difficult to kill because they have become resistant to the herbicides.

'With glyphosate-resistant weeds now infesting millions of acres, farmers face rising costs coupled with sometimes major yield losses, and the environmental impact of weed management systems will surely rise,' said Charles Benbrook, chief scientist of The Organic Center.

The groups additionally criticized the agricultural biotechnology industry for claiming that higher costs for genetically engineered seeds are justified by multiple benefits to farmers, including decreased spending on pesticides.

The group said biotech corn seed prices in 2010 could be almost three times the cost of conventional seed, while new enhanced biotech soybean seed for 2010 could be 42 percent more than the original biotech version.

'This report confirms what we've been saying for years,' said Bill Freese, science policy analyst for the Center for Food Safety. 'The most common type of genetically engineered crops promotes increased use of pesticides, an epidemic of resistant weeds, and more chemical residues in our foods. This may be profitable for the biotech/pesticide companies, but it's bad news for farmers, human health and the environment.'"

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5AG0QY20091117?sp=true

Orison Swett Marden

"Just make up your mind at the very outset that your work is going to stand for quality… that you are going to stamp a superior quality upon everything that goes out of your hands, that whatever you do shall bear the hall-mark of excellence."

~ Orison Swett Marden

"Can We Save America?"

"Can We Save America?"
by George Washington

"How come the Wall Street robber barons who brought on the financial crisis are still calling the shots and pillaging the economy? Congress is bought and paid for, and the fox is guarding the chicken coop in the Executive Branch, with Summers and Geithner calling the shots. The American people are furious at the giant banksters who have picked their pockets so they can make huge bonuses. But - so far - the American people have for the most part kept their volcanic anger to themselves.

As MSNBC news correspondent Jonathan Capehart tells Dylan Ratigan, the main problem is that people aren't making enough noise. Capehart says that the people not only have to "burn up the phone lines to Congress", but also to hit the streets and protest in D.C. Even though most politicians are totally corrupt, if many millions of Americans poured into the streets of D.C., a critical mass would be reached, and the politicians would start changing things in a hurry.

As PhD ecnonomist Dean Baker points out: 'The elites hate to acknowledge it, but when large numbers of ordinary people are moved to action, it changes the narrow political world where the elites call the shots. Inside accounts reveal the extent to which Johnson and Nixon’s conduct of the Vietnam War was constrained by the huge anti-war movement. It was the civil rights movement, not compelling arguments, that convinced members of Congress to end legal racial discrimination. More recently, the townhall meetings, dominated by people opposed to health care reform, have been a serious roadblock for those pushing reform….' A big turnout ... can make a real difference.

Baker is right about Vietnam. Specifically - according to Daniel Ellsberg and many others - Richard Nixon actually planned on dropping a nuclear bomb on Vietnam. Nixon also said he didn't care what the American people thought. He said that - no matter what the public did or said - he was going to escalate the war in Vietnam. However, a well-known biographer says that Nixon backed off when hundreds of thousands of people turned out in Washington, D.C. to protest an escalation of the war.

Similarly, no matter how completely sold-out to the Wall Street giants D.C. politicians are, they would start paying attention to their real employers - the American people - if we make enough noise.

If 3 million Americans all peacefully surrounded the White House and Capitol Hill, holding signs saying "We're Not Leaving Until the Too Big to Fails which Caused the Economic Crisis are Reined In", things would change pretty fast. 3 million might sound like a lot of people. But many millions of people read popular alternative financial and economic news sites. You are probably one of millions of people who will read this essay (by the time it is published by some of the larger sites).

In other words, it's not even a question of convincing other people to go. We - those who read alternative financial websites - could do it ourselves. If millions of us don't go protest in D.C., it's because we are choosing not to sacrifice a tiny bit in order to change things. The bad guys are only winning because we - the American people - aren't making enough noise.

It is human nature to try to put things off until tomorrow. Tomorrow, when things are easier, we'll do it... It is easy to despair that it is already too late. Should we whine and give up hope? Well, about a month before the American Revolutionary War, Patrick Henry said: 'They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year?'

If not now, when? Like Patrick Henry asked, when will we be stronger? When will the robber barons be weaker? If we're going to save America through non-violent protests, now is the time."

- http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2009/11/why-are-bad-guys-winning.html

Doug Page, "What Will It Take to Break Our Trance?"

"What Will It Take to Break Our Trance?"

by Doug Page

"We are rapidly returning to the uncivilized Law of the Jungle. We will soon live in a world where brute force rules. It is not only the disabled, widows, children and orphans who are vulnerable to the cruelties of this jungle. We all are. We have been brainwashed with incessant slogans like "Get the government off your back," and "Keep more of your own money... oppose all tax increases." Our dominant, false ideology tells us that every function of government must be privatized, so that governmental functions can be performed with business-like efficiency. (We are not told that the real reason for privatizing is to give capitalists yet another opportunity for making short term profit.) The very concept that we humans might work and cooperate together to protect ourselves from Jungle dangers and to meet our common needs is shunned as "socialism," as if that were something evil. The capitalists have brainwashed themselves, and they have brainwashed us. They along with the rest of us hope and assume that the common good will somehow automatically take care of itself, if they think about the common good at all. Each capitalist must be concerned only with his own private profit and cannot be concerned with the common good lest some competitor captures his profit making opportunity. We are a nation of millions of brainwashed individualists, living, working, and acting under false perceptions of reality as if we were all "Manchurian Candidates." We have forgotten that government is the only effective institution that we have to protect us from the brute force of the Law of the Jungle. If we do not very quickly awaken from our trance, and act together in a cooperative human community, millions of us will perish.

Ironically, most wealthy capitalists will themselves be destroyed in this looming Jungle.

Capitalists need government almost as badly as we do, but they will not admit it. As Adam Smith taught long ago, capitalism and capitalists can survive only with a rule of law controlling private property rights and business promises, a government to enforce those laws, and a certain level of morality. He cannot be concerned with the common good lest some competitor captures his profit. Capitalist ideology thus prohibits capitalists from protecting their own common good. As we see from the daily news, no capitalist will speak out in support of regulation of Wall Street. Capitalists say that they will discipline themselves, but they have not, can not and do not.

We ordinary citizens and voters cling to an illusory idealistic assumption that we retain the right to govern ourselves, and that if we only work hard enough in the political process, we can change things through the ballot box. We cling to this false deadly assumption despite the vast accumulation of evidence that our political process is totally dominated and controlled by approximately 5000 very wealthy individuals acting through their ownership of their corporations and their mainstream advertising agencies, TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines. Thus in these desperate times, our government has given Trillions of our tax dollars to the big banks of the wealthy without any conditions, while our government has given little or nothing to create jobs for us. This money controlled government can afford to give Trillions to the wealthy, but this government cannot afford to provide VA hospitals and medical care for everybody. We citizens and voters are kept quiet and non-rebellious because of our own brainwashed state, fueled by our addiction to consumer goods, electronic gadgets, computers and TV.

Part of the trance and delusion is maintained by liberals. My definition of a "liberal" is one who vaguely wants a civilizing government and to make things right, but only if it does not deprive him of his standard of living. Thus a liberal will protest wealth inequality, the corruption of our elected leaders by money, imperialism, wars abroad, torture, rendition, and civilian collateral damage, but a liberal will not rebel, stop work, strike, picket, vigil or boycott. A liberal knows at some level that his material well being depends ultimately on these very evils that he protests against, specifically including torture. A liberal, like a conservative capitalist, cannot face the fact that he himself is in a dangerous suicidal trance. So he does not challenge the trance either.

Even under the best of circumstances, we have limited time and interest in governing ourselves. Our civic impulse is in very short supply. We see this in the low voter turnout and in the superficial slogans that lead many voters make up their minds. We see it also in political parties, local governments, charities, clubs and unions where aggressive individuals rise to power, and the ordinary person does not bother to attend meetings or to vote.

The blunt truth is that we are now ruthlessly governed by these few wealthy individuals who have accumulated their vast fortunes. One might almost say that we are "ungoverned," but of course we are taxed to benefit these rulers, and to pay for their losses on their risky financial investments. The government is operated and controlled by and for these few wealthy individuals. For all practical purposes, it is if we are ruled by a selfish greedy king who rules us and taxes us for his own pleasure and his own benefit. This "king" has his royalist earls, dukes, nobles and toadies in the form of Presidents, Senators, elected officials, journalists, college professors and economists who fawn around him. These toadies tell the "king" what he wants to hear (however insane and stupid) hoping for his favor and crumbs from his table. President Obama himself is such a toady to the "king." Obama's economic advisors, former Harvard President Larry Summers and University of California Professor Christina Romer are perfect examples of such fawning advisors to the "king." They study and report only what the "king" wants to hear.

The truth is that our capitalism and our self governing democracy are beyond repair or reform. Both are terminal, and dysfunctional. Our material well being is rapidly falling, and it will fall much further. Our trance prevents us from dealing with the death throes of capitalism, with the few wealthy individuals who control democracy with their wealth, with diminishing reserves of oil and gas, and with deadly global warming. This is not to say that we will find it easy to make changes even if we become aware of our trance. We will have to attend meetings and vote. We will have to accept a lower standard of living because of the depletion of oil and live like Cubans. Other civilizations in the past have fallen into dark ages because those in power did not recognize the falsity of their political-economic-cultural ideas, and did not take corrective action in time. Millions of us are destined to starve and those who do survive will be serfs allowed to grow a little food on the estates of the very rich. This is inevitable, unless we awaken and face the truth very soon."

Doug Page is a retired lawyer for unions, a former Democratic politician, and a life long observer of government, unions and business. He can be reached at: dougpage2@earthlink.net

- http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/what-will-it-take-to-break-our-trance/

Dean Baker, "Making Wall Street Pay"

"Making Wall Street Pay"

by Dean Baker

"Wall Street's irresponsible bankers caused this economic crisis. It's only fair that they pay to clean up their mess. The deficit hawk crew, famous for missing the $8tn housing bubble that wrecked the economy, is now on the warpath, pressing the case for a big, new, national sales tax. They claim that the United States badly needs additional revenue to address projected budget shortfalls.

While we may need additional revenue at some point, it makes far more sense to impose a financial transactions tax, which would primarily hit the Wall Street banks that gave us this disaster, than to tax the consumption of ordinary working families. We can raise large amounts of money by taxing the speculation of the Wall Street high-flyers while barely affecting the sort of financial dealings that most of us do in our daily lives.

The logic of a financial transactions tax is simple. It would impose a modest fee on trades of stocks, futures, credit default swaps and other financial instruments. For example, the UK puts a 0.25% tax on the sale or purchase of shares of stock. This has very little impact on people who buy stock with the intent of holding it for a long period of time.

For example, if someone buys $10,000 of stock, they will pay $25 in tax at the time of purchase. If they sell the stock 10 years later for $20,000, they will have to pay $50 in tax. The total tax would be equivalent to an increase of 0.8 percentage points in the capital gains tax.

By contrast, if someone is interested in buying stock at 1.00pm to sell at 2.00pm, this tax is likely to take a bit [of a] hit out of their expected profits. The same applies people who are speculating in futures, credit default swaps and other financial instruments.

We can raise more than $140bn a year taxing financial transactions, an amount equal to 1% of GDP. Before we look to impose a national sales tax, or value-added tax, as the deficit hawk crew would like, we should insist that we first put in place a set of financial transactions taxes.

A national sales tax will primarily hit the consumption of ordinary workers. People will pay for it in all of their everyday purchases. Food, clothing, medicine - everything will cost a bit more as a result of a sales tax. Poor and middle-class people will end up paying a larger share of their income in this tax. This is both because they spend a larger share of their income than the wealthy and also because they spend a larger share in the United States. While the wealthy may have the opportunity to travel extensively in Europe or in countries not affected by the national sales tax, few low- or middle-income people will have this option.

Since the financial sector is the source of the country's current economic and budget problems it also makes sense to have this sector bear the brunt of any new taxes that may be needed. The economic collapse caused by Wall Street's irrational exuberance has led to a huge increase in the country debt burden. It seems only fair that Wall Street bear the brunt of the clean-up costs. A financial transactions tax is the way to make sure that this happens.

In short, we have to tell the deficit hawk crew, many of whom earned their fortune on Wall Street, to slow down. The country does face serious budget problems, even if they may not be as bad as this crew claims. However, if we need taxes to address a budget shortfall, then Wall Street is the place to start. After we have put in place a tax on Wall Street speculation, if we still need additional money, we can talk about a tax that will primarily affect the middle class."

- http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196993-Making-Wall-Street-pay

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Spiral galaxies NGC 5426 and NGC 5427 are passing dangerously close to each other, but each is likely to survive as the galaxies advance over the next tens of millions of years. Their component stars are not likely to collide, although new stars will form in the bunching of gas caused by gravitational tides.

Close inspection of the above image taken by the 8-meter Gemini-South Telescope in Chile shows a bridge of material momentarily connecting the two giants. Known collectively as Arp 271, the interacting pair spans about 130,000 light years and lies about 90 million light-years away toward the constellation of Virgo. The Milky Way Galaxy will undergo a similar collision with the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy in about five billion years."

- http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/11/image-of-the-day-the-gemini-twins.html

Ralph Nichols

"Talking to Ourselves"

"Talking to Ourselves:

How Consumers Navigate Choices and Inner Conflict"

by Mary-Ann Twist

"From simple decisions like "Should I eat this brownie?" to bigger questions such as "Should my next car be a hybrid?" consumers are involved in an inner dialogue that reflects thoughts and perspectives of their different selves, according to the authors of a new study in the "Journal of Consumer Research."

Shalini Bahl (iAM Business Consulting) and George R. Milne (University of Massachusetts) studied the multiple perspectives that exist within consumers and explored the ways they navigate inconsistent preferences to make consumption decisions.

The authors conducted a study combining in-depth interviews, multi-dimensional scaling, and metaphors to identify some of the voices that engage consumers' minds. They used "dialogic self theory," which differentiates between the "Meta-self" and multiple selves. According to the authors, multiple selves have unique perspectives and speak from different positions with relatively independent voices, while the Meta-self reflects a distanced neutral perspective.

"In our analysis of relationships between two selves with different worldviews and consumption preferences, we discovered a unique relationship in which one self offers a non-judgmental acceptance of another self's opposing views and behavior, and in doing so brings peace and equanimity in a situation involving opposing preferences," the authors write.

At other times, one self will take over and dominate, which can lead to inner conflict. One finding exposed a "desirable self," which can promote positive consumption behaviors like exercise and hard work. However, when allowed free reign, this self can push consumers to overstretch their limits and end up with physical injuries or burnout.

The authors believe this study can help marketers and other agencies that are trying to promote more mindful consumption choices. "By understanding the different voices in consumers they can promote communications that model consumers' inner conflicts and present different dialogical strategies like negotiation, coalition, compassion, and compartmentalization that will help them navigate conflicts to make better choices."

- http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-11/uocp-tto111709.php

The Daily "Near You?"

Sumter, South Carolina, USA. Thanks for stopping by.