You'd have to wonder why banking CEOs are paid so much when you reflect on their 'narrow' thought process. We have in the US a situation where homes in foreclosure are being destroyed in order to 'clear markets of excess housing stock'. When this happens of course, housing prices will rise, economic demand will stimulate spending. The problem is: 'Housing is an asset' - a potentially productive asset. Why would you destroy it? You have millions of highly skilled Mexicans, Koreans, Chinese, Filipinos who would love to have such housing. If a rebalancing is required in the local economy, why not raise immigration so that these houses can be filled by 'paying customers'.
I don't for a moment think that this housing stock is the best quality stock in the USA. I imagine these properties are 'the pits' for some, but for others they are not so bad. Let's look at their failings:
1. They incur local and state taxes - I'm not an American and I know it depends on your state, and I know taxes are high. Let's say $3000 per year. Am I close?
2. There is every reason to think that rural depopulating towns will struggle to fill these homes with people. This means a lot of vacant stock
3. The house prices in these towns have fallen, jobs have been lost. There is no longer any reason to stay in these towns - right? - because there are no jobs or services.
4. Property values have been driven down to land value I suspect; and the banks are paying taxes on them. In fairness, if not for government support, its probable the banks would never have lent to these people. Bank executives did not care because 'they were paying it forward', i.e. Their execution options would be cashed in before the crisis would occur.
The question is then - should these towns be salvaged? Should poor people be living in these towns? As opposed to being homeless. What about the defaulters? It was not their fault; and they were managing to etch out a life in the property before, so why are they not capable of staying there? The reason is probably that they have lost their job in the recession. The house cannot be sold.
If you are not going to give or sell these homes to immigrants; why not just give them to the poor debtors; i.e. Why not forgive their loans. After all, the crisis was caused by the government-sanctioned regulatory framework, not by these defaulter. The debtors were acting in good faith in many cases. There is just no justification for destroying property. That is what happens in war, and we only do that to cripple enemies. But here, we are trying to wipe out assets to save money, which cripples the ability of the country to recover.
These banks are functioning in an intellectual vacuum. This is mindless 'bureaucracy' and its coming from larger-than-life, way to detached and comfortable banks. Government has created an unhealthy savings culture. We used to get paid interest from banks. In the modern world, with all the fees, we actually have given banks the power to extort wealth. i.e. Banks have the power to expropriate fees; a concession that no other enterprise has. You have to wonder why?
If you are interested in foreclosed houses in Japan or the Philippines - check out our blog. I particularly recommend the Japanese foreclosed property market.
We might wonder what are the chances of a civil war or unrest in the West world. I believe there are strong prospects for it. The problem grasping the risk is that people repress what makes them anxious. Of course we can look at the escalation in medication for anxiety, depression and other mental conditions; we can look at the number of injustices, murders (actually on the decrease) and civil disturbances and take these as a better indicator.
There does however have to be a trigger. There is hard to imagine any trigger in Australia and New Zealand. Rising unemployment in the USA might be a possible trigger. More probably violence will escalate in Europe. We might expect issues in Tunisia to spread to other parts of Africa, and this will probably result in a growing influx of refugees into Europe, and this could be expected to result in a reactionary backlash by nationalists in Europe. Expect an escalation of violence, and a broadening of the crisis.
Still these events are somewhat remote from the concerns of Australians and New Zealanders. I am more inclined to think that Australia and NZ will be more impacted by events in the USA. The USA is the country which has the strongest sense of individualism, and perhaps the worst 'disconnect' in terms of national pride vs social reality. The Tea Party campaign is just the start...political dissension will escalate there. Political concessions will need to be made. Sadly this is not how it usually plays out. Usually governments adopt 'emergency privisions' and plays hard-ball, and this leads to a loss of legitimacy for the government
When I read the following excerpt from a NY Times editorial I thought I was going to get some insightful commentary...
“Of the many truths in President Obama’s powerful Tucson speech, none was more indisputable than his statement that no one can know what is in a killer’s mind. So why have we spent so much time debating exactly that?
The answer is classic American denial. It was easier to endlessly parse Jared Lee Loughner’s lunatic library — did he favor “The Communist Manifesto” or Ayn Rand? — than confront the larger and harsher snapshot of our current landscape that emerged after his massacre. A week on, that denial is becoming even more entrenched. As soon as the president left the podium Wednesday night, we started shifting into our familiar spin-dry post-tragedy cycle of the modern era — speedy “closure,” followed by a return to business as usual, followed by national amnesia”.
But instead I got a pile of drivel to suggest that he had no insights either. This is despite making the following statement:
"If we learn nothing from this tragedy, we are back where we started".
We might ask why do we have to get to a place where people are being killed before we start questioning social discourse. It's gratifying that its just 9 people killed. Well done society! Well done. This is actually an improvement because in the last decade it took the takeover of Poland by the Nazis before people started thinking. The problem then, as now, is that the social discourse is destined to be uncritical and a 'democratic takeover' of legitimacy, so its destined not to be different. So what did we learn from WWI? Absolutely nothing. Far from repudiating fascism....we went into overdrive and greatly expanded the powers of the state. We had a post-war reconstruction like Hitler's emergency provisions. The state rolled out a series of 'national imperatives. Roosevelt abolished the Gold Standard, commencing an era of 'ultra-easy' monetary policy and evaporating accountability, and this of course financed 'The New Deal', a free lunch...at least we thought.
Here is more evidence. The graves in the local cemetery in my town have words to sum up the values which those World War II veterans were fighting for....it says:
"Service before self"
Let me place that in the context of Hitler's propaganda:
"You are nothing, your nation is everything"
Before you tell me that they are different; that there is at least 'self' in the 'collective good', I impel you to identify it and differentiate your good from his. If you do, you will realise that you will be left in a place of conflict. This is why you repress because you don't want to acknowledge that the cake is actually shrinking because some people are not making cake, but rather tanning on the beach; whilst others seem to have lost their enthusiasm for work because their rights meant more than your 'collective good', but they could not find the intellectual ammunition to debate you. And given that the democratic political system scarcely recognises their thoughts, and gives them only a small and meaningless vote in political charade called an 'election', they have effectively and cynically resigned themselves to psychological repression.
In actual fact we did not need these murders to have a debate. We could have had a debate before guns were even sold. I am sure there was a debate; I am sure the implications of that debate would not have been fully understood. I am also sure that we do not now know the implications of our current political system. I am sure I know more than most people. This is only because I am more honest, because I recognise the mental efficacy that arises from constant debate and learning, critical thinking and a respect for facts. A preparedness to never place a pretense about the facts. It takes a mind that goes looking for problems; as opposed to a mind that shrieks and dives for cover when they find one.
There is nothing hard about finding truth. There is a very small percentage of the population who in fact know the truth of the matter. The problem is that they are encased in fear of the senseless majority who make the decisions; who have the power to extort; who have the 'power to be stupid or not', and who renounce their minds, and disregard all manner of objective standards of responsibility, and instead offers a relativist standard in the form of the justice system and our statutory law making. Today, we have shifting goal posts, and we wonder why the world is not fair. We wonder why those 'arbitrary' goal posts are not the same width. Why that team gets to play 10minutes longer than your team. Don't know what I mean? That is alright. You don't even need to know the rules; you just need to 'comply'. Hitler would have used the word 'obey', but it does not matter. Ignorance is as good as fear for all concerned. You were never supposed to know the rules....because it was never about you. There was always a bigger collectivist goal in mind. i.e. Its kind of like being forced to attend the football. You think they built that stadium for your enjoyment, but after each week of attendance, you realise it was never about your enjoyment because you are forced to go. It is simply about the money they make. You stopped being important when:
1. You became indifferent to the quality of your life experience, i.e. You stopped thinking and dropped your expectations or standards
2. You stopped being free, i.e. Life became a social obligation with consequences of some punitive action.
That is not to say that there should not be standards, or that you should not be responsible for your actions. The issue is that those standards (i.e. laws) should not be arbitrary, and they ought to be open to your reproach. i.e. Those laws should not be enacted on the basis of collective extortion, nor free of any form of objective accountability. There is a reason why Loughner killed Gabrielle Giffords in the United States. It is certain that he killed because he was not just young, but he was frustrated. Not just by the nature of society, but that by the fact that he could not identify the nature of society's problem, and he was clearly sure that no one else had the answers either; because if they did we would all seek it reverently.
So what do I mean when I say "At least murder counts for something". I mean that its better to die fighting for something than being one of the living dead. Our democratic system was designed to silence debate, to achieve stability, rather than to resolve the problem. Look at democracy....it is about backyard deals and extortion on the basis of representation that does not even mean anything. It is an utter pretense in order to achieve legitimacy rather than anything real. Until we start debating again, and ideas start to matter, we will have no freedom, and no escape from cynicism.
I am expecting global politics to descend into a terrible state of affairs in coming years, and far from adopting the right policies, we can expect the decline in morality to justify a swag of oppressive policies. I will refer to just two issues in the media - one in Britain and the other in the USA. It would be fair to say that it is not that morality has declined in the last year, but rather than people's intolerances for government will seemingly blow out of proportion. The reality is that a lot of people will be invalidated for their views, and this will make them just more alienated and violent.
The former Home Secretary was accused of trying to "stereotype a whole community" after he suggested that some Pakistani men in Britain saw white girls as "easy meat".
The reality is that this is how in fact a significant number of young Pakistanis treat western women. The flaw in Straw's condemnation was that he restricted his attack to Pakistani men. It would have been more (politically) correct to say youth members of collectivist countries like Pakistan who prejudicial views of the West. This is not a fact confined to Britain. In Australia, several groups of young Muslims have 'gang banged' Western women; usually for some ceremonious reason. I am not a fan of politicians, but it seems he is being criticised for making a legitimate, even if not strictly correct statement about 'ethnic values'. The problem is that he is attacking a conservative, self-righteous, insecure, proud people who are very sensitive about Western criticism, and who seem never to acknowledge any of their flaws. One of the problems with these issues is the tendency for people to define themselves or attach themselves to some collective identify, and then feeled compelled to defend the values they have assumed.
The second incident was the actions of a lone gunman who shot 18 people in Tucson, Arizona, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. This was clearly a politically-motivated killing. The House Speaker John Boehner stated:
"An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve. Acts and threats of violence against public officials have no place in our society".
This is a rather romantic notion 'public service' that does not always hold true. The reality is that public service can facilitate a harmonious society, or it can undermine civility if not done well. Clearly the gunman is unsatisfied with his 'elected officials'. There are of course those who argue 'Tough luck', but others believe they ought to have some control over their lives, and that their interests should not be dictated by 'public servants' who have no relationship to them, and no particular or specific interest or knowledge of them. Clearly some of these people are morally ambivalent, others feel powerless, and still others are at a loss as to how to deal with this dilemma. What we can know however is that 'lone' people get frustrated and feel compelled to act. Acts of 'shocking violence' in a democracy is the only action that a person can take to 'get attention'. Unfortunately, its not useful attention. Reasons don't matter, arguments don't matter. This gunman could have lodged a submission to the government on its gross violations of human rights and he would be ignored. His interests don't matter. Is he not entitled in this case to assume:
1. "If I don't matter, neither do you"
2. "If I have no rights, neither do you"
The rage that compels a gunman to shoot 18 people is clearly an over-reaction, and it achieves no end. But such is the senselessness of concrete action, that we should hope for better from our political discourse. But its not better. Its the same. Politicians 'react' as this gunman acted. They are in fact role models for gunmen. They do not offer long range solutions. They don't because they are short range, non-conceptual fools.
"Some politicians expressed hope that the killing spree would serve as a wake-up call at a time when the political climate has become so emotionally charged".
A wake up call for whom? For politicians? It will not make a difference. There reaction was simply to beef up their security.
"The suspect's exact motivation was not clear, but a former classmate described Laugher as a pot-smoking loner who had rambling beliefs about the world".
It is clear to me. The 22yo youth is the product of our Western education system. He did not have a conceptual framework which integrated his values, so he was probably self-loathing, but there ought to be no question that he 'loathed' government. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was targeted because she was his closest 'reasonable target'. He effectively lashed out at her because she was the closest identifiable target. He shot 19 people, killing 6 other people (including US District Judge John Roll, Congresswoman Giffords' aide and a 9yo girl). They were just collateral damage to him. He was angry and this was the only way he could conceive to express himself by which he would express that anger. We are accustomed to people wanting to 'act out' in order to elicit some reaction. When we deny them validation of how they feel, they just raise the stakes.
There will be more killings like this. Sadly it will not lead to a better quality of political discourse. It will make no difference at all. People will say its a 'senseless crime', but was it really. There is logic to the most heinous crimes.
Here is a case which highlights the inherent corruption and inefficiency of Western democracy. I am reminded of the Filipinos fighting for a parliamentary style democracy. A little research will show that parliamentary democracy is just as bad.
This case, reported in the San Diego Tribune, draws attention to a law suit by the San Diego Police Association against the City government. The problem with this case is that the attorney who advised the police association had a reasonable case, but it was always going to be a difficult case to win. It highlights the problem with justice in Western countries, that it is no better than the justice system in Communist countries. The difference is that we think we are free, and we preserve a pretense of justice.
The City of San Diego pay $58 million in legal fees in 2010. Most of the legal cases were considered 'frivolous'. Many people will take these comments at face value, but its a lot of political posturing. I don't think they were frivolous cases. I think they were important cases, handled by an abysmal legal-judicial system.
The case highlights a lot of problems:
1.The conflict of interest - government as law maker and executor, running the police. The police ought to be privatised and regulated by private regulators. Government ought to have no executive authority.
2.Monopoly extortion - You have two monopolies extorting wealth from each other, the problem for police is that a union is weaker than a government who makes the rules, and who merely passes its legal costs onto long-suffering taxpayers. There are no consequences for the government who merely needs to pass on costs to taxpayers. There is no effective competition against a bad system.
3.Arbitrarily law - which means prosecutors and judges have no way of knowing the outcome. Our justice system is a lottery. Will the judge go by the spirit of the law, or the word of the law? Such dilemmas highlight the contradictions in the system. We need to see an end to statutory law, and a return to simply common law, until that system can be refined. Common law is law based on principles, held in context. Statutory law is out of context, potentially unprincipled, and vulnerable to loopholes and corruption by bad decisions. It inherently leads to subjective law making. Once corruption enters, you will not root it out.
I think the attorney Petersen has a case because there is extortion involved. His problem is arguing that point when the whole system is based on extortion, and judges have rubber-stamped it. Arbitrary rule is the basis of our legislature. The reason why there are kickbacks of all sorts and dubious decision making is because decisions are not required to be reasonable. The reason they are not required to be reasonable is because they are not 'argued' or 'defended', they are imposed by extortion, using money, 'political numbers', not reasons. It does not help that our politicians have amalgamated into parties, they were once independent. The problem is that their interests are divided on arbitrary 'jurisdictional' grounds, as opposed to reasons or issues. Unless and until people are fighting for issues, where reason is the standard of value, you can rest assured that you will continue to see arbitrary, senseless decision-making and an endless expansion of waste. Taxes will continue to rise, and political middlemen will keep on passing on costs to the 'long suffering', psychologically repressed taxpayer.
The only solution is political reform. The most simplest reform would be a refinement to the Constitution of the USA, Australia, Britain requiring politicians to be reasonable, i.e. For reason to be the standard of value, and disclosure of arguments to be the basis of political discourse. It sounds simply enough, and it is. It would make a huge difference. It would not however be enough. The system needs an overhaul. I wish I could say philosophers are better today, but they are probably worse. The issue is not quality, so much as 'quantity of good' anything. Even science has turned into a popularity contest.
Unsurprisingly the US government has emerged as a 'threat to lives'. The reasons are very clear. The US government has shown itself to be a brash and arrogant critic of some important values:
1. Accountability
2. Personal expression
3. Citizen's interests
The notion of government protecting whistleblowers has been dealt a serious blow when a government hunts down and even threatens to assassinate you, as some officials like the Arkansas and Alaskan governors have done.
If the US government was serious about these values, it would have negotiated with WikiLeaks to ensure that the organisation acted in good faith. i.e. It only released information which the public had a right to know. I am inclined to think that WikiLeaks did release information it had no business releasing. You can't argue that this is simply public information, and everyone has a right to know. The US government has however set itself up for failure by:
1. Not keeping the public trust - the people are rightly cynical about the US government
2. Shooting the messenger - If there was really a threat to US and other lives, the US government should have sat down with WikiLeaks and negotiated principles upon which 'certain information' would be released.
The government however, by being a creature of coercion, has no respect for people's rights. That is just the rhetoric it spins, in order to keep the public confidence. I think the public are split. Personally I tend to think the public just don't think one individual is important. This is sad because it highlights a lack of empathy for others, and a greater loss of regard for freedom. People are only supportive if they have some bad experience with the government. Unfortunately, too many people just have too low expectations, and they just don't see the tragic waste resulting from government. The problem of course is they cannot conceive of another world, where decision-making is not centralised, where government holds 'common law' principles which apply in context, as opposed to arbitrary statutes which offenders side-step by 'loopholing'. And what about the waste? How many white elephant projects, botched privatisations, poorly run government services do we have to witness. People just say 'but they provide a lot of good', but the reality is that they extort 30-50% of the nation's income to provide their services inwefficiently. The return on public funding is probably in the order of 'negative 30%'. They are a drain on the private sector, much as a cancer can be considered to be. I will go so far as say crime is worse, more marriages fail, people are poorer thinkers because of government. People do not realise the extent of the impact.
This might go down as one of the shortest wars in history, or acts of terrorism if you like. The problem of course is that some internet cowboys are going to fail to capture the hearts and minds of the public. The problem is that they possess uncompelling values or principles.
The WikiLeaks website is now hosted by the Swiss Pirate Party. Its vice president Pascal Gloor said:
"There is a whole new generation, digital natives, born with the internet, that understands the freedom of communication....It's not a left-right thing anymore. It's a generational thing between the politicians who don't understand that it's too late for them to regulate the internet and the young who use technology every day".
The problem of course is that it was never a 'left-right thing' because that was never a valid political dichotomy.
Their second problem is that its not about control over the internet either. It is about control of money. Why is that important? It drives decision-making. People don't want to love money, and the governments control the banks and business. Soon the government will be reaching into everyone's homes. No data connected to the internet will be private. In fact, there is every reason to think that any device with a wireless or bluetooth connection will be accessible by the government. Big Brother is close at hand. The ability of government to monitor keywords makes it all too easy to trace and monitor conversations and text.
This will be a short lived war because they idealists have no idea. The reality is that people have no power to determine their own destinies. It is improbable that anyone will be able to make a difference unless they can communicate ideas. How can you do that if the government can seize, trace and destroy any source of offending material. Just as the printing press enabled the Industrial Revolution, the ability of the governments to monitor 'sensitive' information, will allow it to destroy any information or person who sponsors the distribution of information. The new war will be fought through old technology. Political activities might need to write certain things online and other things offline.
The collectivists are going to win this short-lived war. It remains to be seen whether the flow of ideas will avert a 2nd Dark Ages. My expectation is that it will. There are already signs of improvement, however it is too early to say.
Welcome to the Fascist States of America, Australia, Britain, Canada and now New Zealand. Australia, NZ and Canada have yet to experience a terrorist threat, so one might wonder why we need laws which allow the government to 'snoop' into people's emails and hard disks. On this note, we have to appreciate that the terrorists have one. Why? We have become one of them. They might well be envious because they have only guns to control their citizens, but the 'British subject' has his thoughts controlled. Yes, everything I think goes onto my hard disk, and those who don't think live in freedom. Its the perfect fascist state. It will turn us all to sheep, for those of you who have not been turned to sheep already.
Why is this a problem? Well, there are several reasons:
1. The law can be poorly executed
2. The law can result in mis-use or treatment of property
3. The law can result in property seizures and confiscations
4. People who are merely opposed to government can have their property seized and destroyed.
5. People who are political opponents of government can have 'incriminating' files placed on such 'seized' property, and probably be incarcerated indefinitely.
6. It allows the government to identify the 'political threats' to its existence and to 'terminate' them.
The problem of course is that these fears do not register in the minds of the general populous, who would never give a thought to political implications. They live at the level of a sheep, never questioning anything. So, what can we expect? Well, non-registered journalists like myself who have a few blogs under a pseudonym the government does not know about, who talk about a broad array of public policy issues like rape, domestic violence, terrorism, taxation, pedophilia, rights, political persecution, are likely to come up on some database as a threat. Because I am not a registered journalist, therefore for some unthinking bureaucrat a 'plausible threat' I can expect a squad of anti-terrorists to break into my property and seize property. If the contents of the computer do not agree with the government, I might well expect to lose them. There is no reason why they could not plant material on the computer. Why? Because they don't like my political opinions. Because I am not tolerable. Because I am an activist showing contempt for what they believe in.
We might wonder why is terrorism getting so much attention. We have many more babies being killed by domestic violence, but we do search and seizures for parenting classes. We do not take a register of people not attending parenting classes; and yet there is an equally good correlation. The difference is that many more children are killed of domestic violence in NZ than by terrorism; for which the number is zero. That is right, we are considering anti-terrorism laws despite NZ never having had a terrorist attack. Over-reaction? I think so.
It gets worse. Governments are the worst offenders of the law, whether you are talking about 'the rule of law', or simply moral law because 'popularity' or 'emergency provisions' or the 'common good' was considered an adequate (but arbitrary) protection of people's interests.
It gets worse. How can we expect foreign governments to adopt rights if we give token consideration to them. If we look like hypocrites to the developing world, or even our own people, what expectation can be have that those people will respect rights. The reason why government is such a threat is because they are not governed by the 'commonsense' common law. They are only accountable to the statutory law prepared by themselves. That's right, we are protected by them for us, but we are not protected from them. They are subjected to no accountability. The token vote you have at the end of the will mean little because there will only be two parties. How can there be a 'charismatic' alternative leader. He would have had his computers seized and evidence planted on him. You, as an unthinking sheep, will not join the dots. No one will risk joining the dots. We already live in a terrorist state. Some 200 journalists go missing or are assassinated in the Philippines each year, more in Russia, the Western governments say nothing....they do nothing. Why? They join us fighting for rights in foreign countries whilst our own rights are whittled away at home. They are not withdrawn, they are just undermined by statutory law. It defines rights in such arbitrary ways, that they are readily loopholed. They are 'arbitrary' laws that have no correspondence to reality. They are specific and concrete, and allow the government to loophole the law in the same way as companies are efficacious at loopholing tax. Which requires ever-more draconian measures to prevent tax evasion. The reality is that business is always going to be further ahead, but now business simply collects tax for the government. This is fascism at its worst, because now we have business organisations sanctioning taxation.
There are no reasonable grounds to suggest that NZ is under threat. People might argue that this intrusion into our privacy is intended to protect us. It might, but the problem is that it will not protect you from government, and they are a 'sovereign' threat to you. Even America will not invade NZ, because it likes these policies as well. So we will have to look to Iran and North Korea for rights, and they don't have any either.
If you want a sense of just how useless the United Station Declaration of Human Rights is, or the NZ Bill of Rights is, simply look at this law. I have long known that we were trending towards fascism. If you want a comparison consider this. In the lead up to World War II, the biggest exponent of animal rights was Hitler....and the national car plan - the Volkswagen. John Key has not found his 'national plan' yet, except perhaps his national day of mourning (Pike River), but we have today more concern for the rights of farm animals (i.e. the prohibition on pig enclosures - sow grates) than we do with human rights. We might wonder whether Hitler ever intended to elevate human rights, or to diminish the rights or value of the human populous.
There is no reason to think that the World Rugby Cup will pose any greater threat than any other event. After all, why would you attempt to blow up a stadium. You will have far more collateral damage if you blog us a shopping mall. Less security, more contained, less immediate threat. The malls are open every day, thousands of people to search, multiple entries, emergency exits. Few if any police. Why would you target a stadium. Better to blow something up when foreign journalists are in town; but does it really matter, as all media is syndicated these days. By todays standards, its the number of deaths which matter. A shopping centre would actually have a greater fear factor....as we all go shopping at least once a week, compared to attending the football.
The reality is that the intent to enact these laws is not about justice, its about political control. We never really left fascism. The 'New Deal' of Roosevelt after WWII was not the end of political tyranny, it was the start of a new form of it.
I really think people have to start fighting for their rights, because there is no place left on the planet to hide. I am giving serious consideration to becoming a mindless 'hobo'. Having a mind these days is inclined to give you a bad case of anxiety. Its too late. People carry to much, where its through evasion, psychological repression or simply rationalisation. They will do this to the grave because they do not think long term. They are not interested in the intellectual or political legacy they are leaving their children...they are thinking about the next year tops.
What they do not realise is that...the repudiation of the mind is sending us back to the Dark Ages. We are already close to this point. We are controlled by a mindless majority. Specialisation of industry has delivered vast wealth, but it has left our lives controlled by compartmentalised thinkers performing mindless 'specialised' routines without any thought for politics or morality. Why? Because they have no real vote....just the pretense of one. No one expects their vote to make a difference, so they just turn off. Unless voters turn back on and start protesting, things are going to get worse. It is far worse than they know. It is not the misery of war. It is the misery of centuries of silent defeat and stagnation. This email might well be your last beacon of light. If this legislation is past, anyone who writes such material will disappear, they will be arrested for homosexuality, child pornography. It does not matter. Anything which you can make us, stick evidence on their computers, and arbitrarily detain them in a gaol, and no one will care. We have got to the point where people don't care. There is no empathy. People will say, "He's rich, he can afford taxation", or they will say "If he didn't want to go to gaol, he should have just kept his mouth shut". These comments herald the decline of society into moral relativism. It follows moral scepticism or ambivalence. People do not need to be moral, they need to discover what morality entails. Principles....common law...not arbitrary statutory law.
This law is probably be the most important one in terms of marking our transition to a police state. After NZ, there are less regulated states one could go to, but those options like the Philippines or Thailand are probably going to see you tracked down by local assassins. Its cheaper for the government. If you think this is not happening, consider what is happening to Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. The US government is using hackers to undermine his interests, they have discredited his reputation with accusations of rape....by two women no less...because who would believe it if it was one....despite the fact that he had no previous sexual offences....suddenly he has multiple offences. In the Philippines, there are about 200 journalists who have been killed under the Aquino Administration. The West might be just about to see its first one...but it will not be the last. Any appreciated blogger could be the next target. We are also witnessing a new form of corporate complicity....the server administrator who will do anything to stop the government hacking its web site. The government of course does not need to acknowledge that it is the government...it acts stealthly....just as those traceless 'radar-proof' planes that fly into foreign territories....with much to hide and without accountability.
The implication is that censorship is outmoded. Today, you might well be identified before you can even 'think' about matters contrary to government policy. Governments will have plenty of support from nationalists. In NZ, it will be mostly the old people. The young will just be indifferent and morally ambivalent. In the US, the military, religious nutters will be foot soldiers for the government, hacking into the websites of people whose values are contrary to the interests of the government. You will still live in a democracy; the term will just simply come to mean something very different to what you thought. You probably did not associate democracy with tyranny, the right of the majority to expunge the minority, but that's what you voted for. You just didn't think. Rights were supposed to be a protection. They were 'natural laws'. They have been supplanted by 'obligations' or conditional rights. Of course gradually there are more conditions, and those rights seem to mean even less. Censorship? Its a think of the past. The media is aligned with the government because they want the press release, and bloggers who get a certain number of hits are subjected to 'warnings' or simply their website is hacked by former military personnel. That is your future.
The ascension and current persecution of Julian Assange reads like a plagiarised script of one of Ayn Rand's novels about the persecution of the individualist by the state. I am by no means a nationalist, but I am both surprised and proud to know that Julian Assange came from Australia. I would harbour this "criminal" anytime. You might ask why. There are a number of reasons:
1. The dubious arguments for persecuting him
I have just downloaded and read through all the reasons cited by people for the good and bad of Assange's WikiLeaks. These comments suggest that there are a lot of proud Americans, mostly military personnel I suggest, who love their country no matter what it does. One of the problems with these loyal foot-soldiers is they have no education, they come from broken families, and the love of their country is about all they have. They are as dangerous Neo-Nazis as the one's in the Middle East they fight....so I would not look for intellectual guidance from their 'carpet bombing' of CNN and Fox News stories. This is a US govt publicity machine easily mobilised by the US military hierarchy. The US govt is managing collateral damage – the difference is that they have the numbers – millions of military personnel, as well as other nationalists in the Christian mid-west…and that is just the Americans. This is an 'inside job' by an American...yet they paint it as the efforts of an anti-American Australian.
2. The efforts made to discredit him
The principle effort to discredit Assange was his alleged rape of two women in Sweden. When one reads the nature of the allegations and the prosecutor’s handling of the case, it very much looks like a political smear, with a Swedish public servant overruling ‘due process’. The problem of course for Assange is that he appears to be defying a judge by breach a court ruling. Fortunately, I guess he can argue ‘gone fishing…international politics is too stressful’. The problem with complying is that he can readily be assassinated by any government agency. He is proof of the fear governments have for accountability – and the efforts to which they will go to prevent its spread. This is the way government functions – by managing perceptions through intimidation. We see little in the way of regulating corporations. Instead they target and persecute high-profile people like Paul Hogan in Australia and Wesley Snipes in the USA. The Australian Taxation Office and the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are among the most pernicious authorities in the world. They do not care as long as they get their money and retain their power over unthinking or safe voters….who think they have a choice.
3. The nature of the people persecuting him
People have this misconception that politicians serve an important purpose. The argument is that government protects us from invaders, criminals and protects those who cannot protect themselves. They manage the economy and they preserve the ‘rule of law’. This is fallacy. It was never true. They were never advocates of your interests in the same way that your car salesman is not an advocate of your interests. Why? They are the legal authority, and they are less accountable than the car salesman, but they offer no guarantees or warranties. They do not pay any damages either – the taxpayer does. For CEO and bankers – it’s the shareholder who pays. Do you want to know what happens to one of the government’s own people – a public servant – who defied a government that has no real power to tax – they get persecuted. This women gave evidence in Aaron Russo’s film Freedom to Fascism. I am sure I will be registered on some CIA database for citing this movie.
4.The value of the material he is releasing
The value of the material being released by WikiLeaks is that it will show a number of things. It will highlight the nature of the actions by politicians and bureaucrats; it will give approval to the release of more content by other people. There is a strong divide between the public servant and the corporate world. The reason why politicians prevent private citizens breaking into the political world is because it has its own culture. It is the culture of a 'foot soldier' who unthinkingly performs a "service" in accordance with the rules. The rules are not questioned in this culture. You simply just act. The reason why private people are persecuted by this culture; the reason why the private sector is locked out of this culture is because with private 'infiltration', the culture and its legitimacy collapses. This is why private workers are not able to become public servants. It is why you are either born into or 'migrate' into such jobs. The other powerful consideration is that public servants struggle to get jobs in the 'commercial' arena, so government is a monopoly, so you don't want to upset your single employer, because you quickly run out of options. The same is true for political party-appointed judges. They serve the two major parties because they are the only people who can remove or discredit them....and then where would they work? So much for judicial independence...and of course they are appointed by the two major parties. After a lifetime of court rulings you would think that the political parties would have a good sense of which High Court judges are not going to engage in 'judicial activism'.
World governments are going to persecute Assange like no one else. I am actually surprised he is still alive. I guess the reason is that he has been smart enough to establish a group of geeks who share his values. It is harder to discredit an organisation which is as dispersed as Al Queda. But that is about as far as the analogy goes. These guys use lawyers and the 'rule of (bad) law', so I know the governments will win.....but bad law takes time to make determinations.
5. The values of the people persecuting him
The hypocrisy is not an accident...and its probably organised. I don't think I have been to a country where there are not a plethora of stories of US personnel raping people...Japan, the Philippines, Korea...and yet we have military personnel smearing him....not the US military personnel who leaked the material...something very asymmetrical about that. Killing the messenger? Why this messenger...not the US personnel. The leaker is a US soldier...he is the traitor, yet the focus is an Australian. On this level, he is smeared as 'not journalism' because he just publishes. Yes, that's right. His material is completely uncensored. This makes it particularly embarrassing to the US government. They have no capacity to argue that it is not true; that its 'bias'. Its fact..it was said. No one person, even an organisation, could write all this content. This is like a Mars Rover satellite sending back gigabytes of information on the soul of the US government and its says CORRUPT! CORRUPT! CORRUPT! People have to realise that this is not one corrupt man at the top. This is corruption on a systematic scale. This is an Obama administration defending the efforts of previous administrations, knowing that his party is equally culpable.
6. The lengths they will go to stop him
We can expect that the US government will go to any lengths to stop WikiLeaks publishing his materials. I would encourage everyone to download the material and read it themselves from www.wikileaks.org. I expect that the US will attempt to use its political links, even coercion and blackmail to shut down the sites; it will use all manner of hacking tools to perpetrate the WikiLeaks site, but also the sites of anyone who supports him. I expect I will be a marked man for supporting him. Frankly I suspect that I am already on a 'blacklist' for governments around the world. One realises when one has been placed on a blacklist. It happened to me in Japan. Suddenly your material does not get published. The large media companies have lists of people for whom they will not publish. Whether its a disdain for ideology or a government list, who knows? Certainly there is a close relationship between the two party duopoly in each country, which have 'rules of engagement' to protect their 'market share', or entrenched political position. Democracy in democracy - nonsense. We are as 'two party' as Russia is a 'one party' state; and as they say, there is not a great deal that divides them.
Aside from the attacks on his website and allies, we can expect the US government and allied governments to take measures to discredit him. We have seen this already, and we have seen people avoiding the intellectual issues by simply smearing him as a 'pervert', a 'rapist'. This is military personnel posting this 'smear'.
I urge you to read the bias of the mainstream US media, and read the contents from people on the website. We might consider them spammers. They have a political agenda, whether its personal-political or organised/paid by the US government. I have seen the same done by the Aquino Administration in the Philippines when he was discredited after his election and gaff over his handling of a mass-murder of HK tourists by one of his police officers. This was a case of govt versus government. Assange will be persecuted by all governments. He represents a threat to all unaccountable, disreputable government.
I write so much about sexuality issues people might question mine. Openly straight, but you might wonder because I put out the laundry, clean the dishes, and I have some pretty gay-looking photos. Anyway, I am fascinated by a great many issues, and sexuality is one of them. I have some controversial ideas, but reading about a survey in the US military about attitudes to homosexuality, I am inclined to think that:
We are told that the US military embody 'our finest'? Might it be they are generally the 'lowest' of US values. i.e. mid-Westerners with no purpose, few career prospects, little education or opportunity. Not their fault. That is their educational context. But having being an apologist for it for 17 years because the US govt needs cheap cow fodder for its overseas excursions, might we ask, does the Us military embody US values? When I look at military forces and police around the world, I see tolerance for the worst forms of culture, closer to fascism/collectivism than the freedom/individualism that they purportedly protect? don't we require more than an opinion poll to tell us that they are ready for change?
Wondering where the free world is these days. Fortunately there is an organisation called Wikileaks which is fighting to preserve some public sector accountability. If disclosure was not forthcoming, clearly greater public confidence would be retained by the public in government. I say 'release it all'....all the information. Let's see heads role. More importantly, let's see how utterly unaccountable they are by reflecting on how few government heads role. Why are they unaccountable? Well, they don't have to worry about competition. There is a two-party duopoly in most countries, which means that there is no competition. This means that under the current system of governance, we have no real choice about the quality of our public administration.
Let's see just how bad the public statements by politicians have been. What about Sarah Palin? Future US president. She has compared the founder of Wikileaks Julian Assange as 'anti-American' and as bad as the Taliban. I guess that makes her an apologist for the Conservative Party policy over the last decade. Her nationalism is very scary on this point. So what of the Democrats.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said:
"the leak of hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic documents is an attack not only against the United States but the international community as well and erodes trust among nations".
How does one attack everyone per se? How does one erode confidence? By publishing unflattering comments, or by making the remarks in the first place. These are more damaging than off-handed statements because people have taken the time to write them and they are 'official'. The reality is that all public political debate should be so honest. It would be nice to think that this would be the start of honesty and accountability. The end of 'political correctness'. Unlikely. The reality is that the founder of Wikileaks is is going to be targeted for political persecution. He is one courageous guy. I'm a proud Aussie today. Very few Australians have done anything to make me proud. This probably tops the list. I don't have national pride...but this is pretty special.
Sadly, most voters are simply indifferent to the persecution of their fellow citizens. The US and other governments are going to attack Wikileaks, and they will make the argument that its to 'protect US lives abroad'. The reality is that this is a blatant rationalisation. The best way for the US to protect US lives is to engage in multi-lateral (not unilateral) wars and consistent foreign policy based on ideas...not self-serving, politically-expedient policies.
Living in a society where politicians first instinct is to precipitate financial crises by facilitating the mass expansion of debt or printing money; and then their 2nd instinct is to do more of the same, and then to blame the market or CEOs for reacting to the policies they adopted.
So it is refreshing when a politician does more than offer tax cuts which merely keep up with 'bracket creep', or who offers unsustainable tax cuts which will be removed after the next election, because they never made corresponding cuts to spending or reductions in debt.
There is a politician in San Diego County who is doing just that...mind you it has taken the financial crisis, and its probably because he is between a rock and another hard place. No, actually its not such a hard place....the long suffering taxpayer who carries all burdens. They cave like there is no tomorrow. So its refreshing that when there is a politician who does not take advantage of the apathetic passivity of taxpayers or there moral scepticism.
Jerry Sanders, the mayor of San Diego County, is proposing to end the pension for city workers in order to rein in the public financing burden of city workers. Instead these workers will be required to adopt the same 401(k) pension plan used by private pensioners. By removing public servants from public financing, the mayor is sparing city taxpayers from the prospect of an unfunded liability which could blow out in future years.
It is rare that we find such acts of accountability by politicians, which is good reason why they should not be trusted with unconditional access to public funds. The idea of politicians having unaccountable access to financing did not exist in the Dark Ages, why does it exist today? There is an expectation that infrequent elections provide adequate 'choice' and adequate accountability. The international experience suggests otherwise. The contemporary two party duopoly we see in Western democracies offers no effective choice. There is seldom any public accountability in democracies around the world. At the moment, the only govts with balanced budgets are the commodity producing nations like Australia, NZ, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Canada, which have experienced a rapid rise in commodity prices, and thus the public tax receipts have exploded. This has of course not stopped them from presiding over a blow-out in private household debts...so the same lack of prudence remains. Why did private sector debt blow out? Fed financial distortion...yes, it comes back to government.
It is always public sector enabling...even if materialistic private sector CEOs and aspirational homeowners have taken advantage of it. The system was designed by politicians. So when we have a politician who does not take the easy path of placing the public sector liabilities on the taxpayer-funded credit card, we ought to praise his consideration for the taxpayer. Where you are a local taxpayer, or a federal taxpayer, you will end up paying.
So...thanks to Jerry Sanders, the mayor of San Diego County...great guy...even if it took a financial crisis for him to execute...who knows it might lead to a spread of integrity. It is noteworthy that this greater accountability is happening on a country/local government level.
I have said as much on my blogs over the years, but this guy sums up nicely why you should not vote in this August 2010 election.
This is a well-argued presentation. The only thing I would argue is that WWII was made possible because the German people sanctioned the system by participating in it. The reason they did not object when they were forced to, was because they did not object when they had the choice to. If you 'choose' to sanction their rhetoric today, you will accept their 'guns' tomorrow. This is the way we are going. Don't think you are moving towards freedom because Western governments are liberalising markets. Government does not need to control the manufacturing of product, they need only to control your income. They would prefer China to be with them. They don't want China to end fascism, they want them to join their style of fascism. In fact, we are moving towards Chinese fascism. Last month, Australia tried to adopt a resource rent tax. The miners accepted a comprised version. The full version was adopted in China, though with a minor concession. Its not simply an issue of miners vs government spending; its one more step towards arbitrary fascist control over wealth and wealth creation. Fortescue Metals appears to have conceded the battle. Where will it end? When the concept of principles is nothing more than a faint background noise you ignore.
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is proving to be a major political mess. BP has come under a lot of criticism for its handling of the issue. I actually think they have been trying very hard to do things, though I suspect many of the measures are intended to serve 'perceptions' rather than achieve their goal of extinguishing the spill. Was that not always the fault of President Obama. Even before the facts had been established, it was Obama who really made this a political football. From the get-go, he was looking for a scalp....wanting to establish blame. Why? Of course because he realised that leaders are defined by the way they handle crises. His goal:
1. Appearances - Make sure that BP look like they are doing something, so he looks like a strong, decisive leader. I look at the engineering of these so-called solutions and think they have little chance of success.
2. Establish blame - Obama wanted to make sure that his administration was not blamed for the folly.
The implication of Obama's moves were to place BP on the political backfoot. He turned the CEO into a politician, so he had to run off to Russia to allay fears in Russia that BP was not a good partner.
What might be drawn from this experience? Might it be that governments do not make good regulators. Might it be that deep-sea oil drilling is fraught with risks which have never been dealt with before.
Under our legal system is the CEO of BP obliged to fall on his (company's) sword and declare that they are responsible? Should they not make controlling the spill a priority. I actually think they have done a very good job to disperse the oil considering the amount of it being discharged.
"Everything we can see at the moment suggests that the overall environmental impact of this will be very, very modest" " said BP CEO Tony Hayward.
BP is being criticised in this context for seeing some 'positive' in its investment in the Gulf oil industry, as well as signs that the people undertaking the clean up are doing a good job. There is of course no convincing those who only want to see problems, and who want to lay blame. I have yet to see any beached engrossed in oil. The oil is being dispersed offshore and eaten by bacteria. The problem of course is heavy metals will remain in the water for a year, so fishermen will need compensation.
BP is being criticised for presenting some positive feedback about BP. The hotel and tourist industry is benefiting in the region, as is the construction industry, which has built a new town. Some fisherman actually appreciate that the oil rigs have actually provided nutrients or breeding grounds for the fish. Coral grows on the offshore rigs. Petroleum engineers also stay in these hotels, so these businesses appreciate the oil industry. Are they solely saying it for the sake of future money? Perhaps. However let's acknowledge that this outcome would be worse if government was running the show, and would be better if our regulators were private interests with a stake in the outcome, and not politicians fuelled by perceptions and spin.
Even the far worse Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska was not as bad as this because the oil was closer to the coast, and readily washed onshore. It was a cold climate. In this case, the oil spill is offshore, BP was quickly engaged in remedial measures to disperse the oil, ensuring it did not reach the shore. Surely a positive of offshore, deep drilling. The warmer climate also allows bacteria to more quickly break down the oil droplets. This is why this 'disaster' is a beat up. Why it is a problem is that the company has yet to cap the well. So the problem is not resolved. The greatest concern is the prospect of hurricanes. Maybe that will lead to natural dispersal. I'm not sure.
I don't see us wanting oil any less in future, so let's wait until we have compelling evidence of negligence before we critique the company, lest they focus on the politics and less on the operational remedial measures.
I personally see nothing wrong with the BP CEO going sailing. Maybe he was collecting oil samples. Seriously though, if we hold people to impossible standards like 'no relaxation until you solve the problem' then facts are lost for the sake of perceptions. If he is negligent, and its more likely a company-wide issue, then we would need to reflect on what he has done to remedy it. This is the job of the board. Not the media or Obama.
"The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean, and the volume of oil we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total volume of water" said BP CEO Tony Hayward.
This strikes me as a reasonable point. We often see the environmentalists misrepresent or exaggerate pollution, but in fact the notion that 75,000 barrels a day of unstable petroleum is going to contaminate trillions of gallons of 'salt' water is nonsense. If they can contain it, and a hurricane risk is avoided, then I see no reason why they cannot avoid a disaster. I think he made this statement to 'balance' the exaggeration. Yet critics will argue that this is exaggeration.
My fellow Americans, I sit before you, an ardent critic of the current political paradigm. For this reason I have taken the time to correct all the contradictions in President Obama’s speech. The standard of value is the coherence and correspondence tests of truth.My corrections are in yellow, so you can read the speech corrected or as it was intended...for an audience of non-thinkers.
My fellow citizens:
I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors.
Humility is actually a weakness. No one ever achieved anything by thinking less of their capacities. We need a man full of pride, who knows their own value, as well as their flaws. But I am sure it was just rhetoric anyway to appease conflicted Christians.
Actually just because Americans elected him does not mean they trust him. Now that's not humility, it's arrogance. The guy needs to earn our trust and respect. At this point, he is just the lesser of two evils. That huge Senate payout doesn’t give anyone confidence.
I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.
Thank President Bush! You’re joking. That’s not humility, that’s plain stupidity . 43rd President Bush - The worst president in history. He was also the most stupid. He wasn’t even smart enough to match the damage done by Roosevelt.
Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace.
Aside from the boring poetry, rising tides are not still waters, they rise.
Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms.
Oh, this is the calm before the storm?
At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.
Actually under Bush, the constitution was breached without restraint on several occasions. Even the actions to correct the Guantanamo Bay issue took too long. The illegal incarceration of foreign nationals without a court appearance. Shame on you for not mentioning it. Bush was skillful? A man of vision?
Geez, is it just me, or are American leaders just full of waffle. Millions of people are listening to this. Can’t he say anything interesting. I’m falling asleep analysing it. Boring.
So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans. That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. It was understood a decade ago. The Republicans and Democrats were not listening. Likely you didn’t understand. Now you are president. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Speak for yourself, unlike yourself, I have been critical of Bush for a long time. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.
These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.True enough – first point of value.
Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They were real a decade ago, they started 100 years ago, they have their primary origins 400 years ago. Nothing changes because the problem is democracy itself. Give us reason, not consensus-based rhetoric ‘good of society’. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met.
On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. See this is where leaders are bad. Hope is empty. I have reasons for believing in a leader, not vacuous faith. No, I don’t want unity. Basically people don’t get a voice, so issues are only addressed if there is conflict. Afghanistan and Iraq (as problems) were only addressed because they blew up the Twin Towers. Nothing gets resolved without conflict. So lets invite conflict, not evade it. Let’s not pretend that we are all in agreement, we are not. People are not being respected if we pretend they don’t have issues of conflict.
On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.
This sounds so much like fluff. What pettinesses are we talking about? Katrina? Iraq? If these exist as they do, then speak to the problem. If you want our confidence, show us that you actually know what needs to be done.
We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. Well I studied scripture when I was a child, and it was just as illogical then as it is today. Why embrace a 2000 year philosophy developed in a pre-science era of fear and manipulation? The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.
Oh, was that the same enduring spirit that ran up huge debts, committed sexual crimes in Abu Graib, ignores its constitution? Revisionists are we, ignoring the bad elements of US history? Are we free? Hardly. Define freedom please!!!
In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. Really. Politics is always about the short term, range of the moment decisions to win the next election. It’s always about settling for less. When has there been a political leader whom you could respect. It’s not humanity, it's the political process that corrupts them before they become leaders.
It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom. Well it appears some of them dropped the ‘bankers ball’, or was it an own team goal, or a stolen ball? Something happened?
For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life. For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth. For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.
The problem I have with reminiscing back to US colonial history is that it seems far removed from the current context of America. It’s almost a confession that there is no current virtue in US history, so we have to search back to a time when people actually believed in freedom. It's all rhetoric far removed from the USA today. I just look at the PriceWaterhouseCoopers ranking of best taxing nations – the USA ranks 100th plus, lower than Botswana and half the world. I don’t look to Botswana for philosophical guidance – why the USA?
Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life.
This is where we see the moral greyness. The idea that life is a sacrifice. Working hard is not a sacrifice. It's an investment. You only work for the promise of gain. If the dice are against you, you want a corresponding higher return. E.g. Free land. These people were not so virtuous when you consider the persecution in England. Now, most people accept or repress the modern variety of persecution. Eg. Taxation, speeding cameras, drink drinking. Good laws? You think?
They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.
Well this is collectivism, otherwise referred to as socialism or fascism, and this is scary coming from Obama.
This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America. Fair point.
For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.
I guess he was speaking biblically here as Moses would do. Or was he thinking to part the Atlantic Ocean because you can’t use ‘soil to fuel our cars and run our factories’.
Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions - who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage. But this is not the problem – a lack of imagination. Its' the political process.
What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works - whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.
Really. Well it beggars belief because I can guarantee that Obama will do nothing to undo what was the legacy of Bush. He will not unwind the power of banks, increase the accountability of CEOs, and certainly not politicians. When did the public service earn kudos for service? When did the government, the president, get the experience to justify him holding power over a budget of $4 trillion. I don’t even think the CEO of general electric would think himself experienced enough to justify that level of confidence. That is not a position of humility, but arrogance.
Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart - not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.
This market collapse was always known. It is not new news. It was ignored for ‘political reasons’. How is this presidency any different?
As for our common defence, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.
You already have. Only the rhetoric remains. Don’t forget Guantanamo Bay, Abu Graib, breaches of the constitution (gold standard, taxation), etc.
And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more. Peace at what price? Peace means nothing if it's not free of coercion. We are not free of coercion.
Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions.
Yeh, but in those days the alliances were twofold – those intended to expand power (German-Japan) and the Allies (to keep enemies at bay). Today we have government alliances expanding their powers under an illusion of security threat. We have international alliances intended to entrench the existing political parties. They will rationalise that there is a 2-party competitive party structure, but its really a 2-party coalition or concubine.
I fell asleep at this point. You too? Not surprised. I need content to analyse otherwise my parched lips die.
