(This post started one way, and mutated and mutated– it was supposed to be more structured than it ended up, and what it ended up being was essentially a stream-of-consciousness reflection on the state of the world. As a result, internal consistency may not be entirely ensured– I jump from place to place, and quite frankly, I didn’t get any sleep before I write this. Take it for what it is, and read it when you have a long amount of time to spend. About halfway through it, I think I have a bit of a religious experience in there, and that’s why I go on at length about the value of humanity there. I’ll probably do more like this in the future.)
Dear World,
What can I say? We’ve got a lot of problems. Not between you and me, necessarily, but I mean… the World’s problems become my problems because I have to live here. I don’t feel like blaming anyone for anything. I don’t think any individual causes any single problem, but I think we all (including myself) at least contribute in some way.
I’d like to stop, but the World is all of us, and everything we do has an effect except for those who can completely unplug from everyone else and live 100% “off the grid”– and even those people who can manage such a feat must at some point make contact with someone else to get the supplies to start such a life, and periodic contact with some other person to continue such a life (property taxes must be paid or at least paperwork must be filled out to get exemptions to avoid such taxes).
Philosophically, a complete “unplugged”/”off the grid” lifestyle is impossible for anyone living in a first world nation. At some point, you’ve got to pay the piper in some way or another– property taxes or paperwork, you still have to submit to authority in some way. It doesn’t matter where you live, even in the far deep parts of Alabama, or even Montana for all its freedom-loving, you still have to follow laws that you may or may not have some say in.
Do you drive a car? Well, you’ve got to power it some how, and that means shelling out cash to some company that might screw up the Gulf of Mexico and the lower Atlantic seaboard. Feel like riding a bike everywhere? You’ve got to buy it from someone, and most of them use Chinese slave labor, so you’re fueling that monstrosity– or maybe build your own bike using hand tools and human powered devices; still have to buy the materials from somewhere, and even your local hardware store is probably part of some major chain, even if it is peripherally, and they have to get the materials from somewhere and that means financing some mining giant. Maybe you use only recycled materials, so as to avoid the mining companies, well those materials have to be recycled in a plant using chemicals that harm the earth and power that probably comes from a coal plant. Maybe you just walk everywhere, carrying everything you need everywhere you need to go– those shoes you’re wearing probably came from a sweatshop, if not, the materials probably are harmful… you see where it goes, the deeper you think on it.
Everyone’s a part of the problems, so everyone’s got to be part of a solution, if we’re going to get anywhere. You can’t overturn everything overnight, and the revolution isn’t in the streets– it’s not something you can fight through combat or violence– it’s in your mind where real revolution happens, as cliche as it sounds. So, we have to readjust our thinking a bit from time to time. I always have to, I have to keep thinking and keep considering the choices I make. The system as it exists, has been put in place over millennia, and in all likelihood, we’ll never “do away” with the system, only reform it and change it over time. It’s depressing, but humans like systems, we like order, we like rules, and we like predictability. We’re comfortable, at least we are in the so-called “Developed World”, with the way things are… even if we gripe about things.
It’s a bit different overseas in Europe, and it’s even a bit different up in Canada. Folks there protest loudly against infringements, and sometimes these protests actually work. I don’t think I’ve actually seen protests actually work in the United States in my lifetime, except in tiny increments. I don’t know if it’s that our protests lack the “punch” or visual power of those seen in other countries– I doubt it; the Battle of Seattle and other major (and sometimes violent) confrontations with authority over the expansion of globalist corporate oligarchy have had powerful visual imagery and historical accounts are immensely engaging. The problem, I think, lies in how “The Media” operates.
I think the biggest thing is that we divorce ourselves from the concept of “The Media” as a singular entity, even though what most people consider “The Media” very much is. What most people think of when one says, “The Media”, is the constellation of corporate-owned information warfare-driven content dissemination entities. The most powerful of which are Television, Radio and Newspapers. These are the big three right now, as much as folks would like to emphasize the importance of blogs and internet reporting, it isn’t quite there yet. The most literate and most educated do indeed get more of their information through the internet and through independent sources, but the “masses” (so to speak) aren’t quite at those numbers.
It used to be difficult for a single company to own so much of the public discourse, but now you’ve got a small handful of major corporations that own the vast majority of “The Media”. This has been talked to death, and while the people who care about it understand it, even the most educated on the topic still will wake up in the morning to read their newspaper, owned by the same company that runs the radio station that they listen to on the way to work, where they look up the news website owned by that same company before driving home listening to that same station, where they plop on the couch to watch the evening newscast owned by that some company again. Is it so surprising that so many Americans seem divided along lines created by these news enclaves, rather than along lines of legitimate and actual political philosophies?
Take for example, the informational divide between Fox News viewers, and… well, viewers of just about every other news network out there. I’m not going to dig at Fox News viewers, first, because frankly– the fact that they even attempt to consume news information places them far above the vast majority of Americans in terms of intellectual curiosity and political/economic engagement, and I think that most folks who criticize people who regularly watch Fox News do a great disservice to those viewers. As much as can be said about the kind of journalism that Fox News does, and despite of my dislike for their style of delivery of that journalism, the folks there who actually do the NEWS part of Fox News (as opposed to their entertainment and opinion shows) do their jobs in the tradition of old style journalism– that is, journalism with a certain slant to it.
The thing, though, about Fox News viewers, as a group, is that they are an economically diverse bunch. I’ve seen people in the backwoods of Alabama living under the poverty line who love it, and folks who teach economics and finance (as well as consult in those fields for large sums) at universities swear by it as a source for their information, and all kinds in between. But, it would seem, they are not a very informationally diverse crowd. While these people come from all walks of life, they all live in a corporate bubble, and that bubble is populated primarily by media outlets mostly owned by the same company as Fox News. That is, if they read the newspaper, they probably read The Wall Street Journal (owned by Rupert Murdoch, who owns Fox News). If they listen to the radio, they probably listen to a station that (if not Fox News Radio itself) runs Fox News Radio newsclips at the top and half of every hour. If not, then the station is likely owned by Clear Channel (though most people listen to Clear Channel no matter where or if they get the news), which has similar political and economic interests as Fox News.
However, this doesn’t mean that the “left” is exempt from the same issues. MSNBC (which is regarded by media analysts as having a mostly left-leaning bias in response to FNC’s hard right-wing world view) is owned by a corporation, too, after all; heck, it was co-founded by one of the most well-known names in the corporate world today– Microsoft. The other half of the name, NBC, is owned by General Electric. What news and entertainment has to do with a company primarily concerned with the manufacture and distribution of electronics and energy-related products, I cannot entirely understand. The ownership of MSNBC by a major corporation, which also owns a number of other print and broadcast media, as well as a large internet news apparatus, creates its own bubble for many people to fall into.
I would like to say that my friends who tend to watch MSNBC have a significantly greater informational source diversity than my Fox News watching friends– I really can’t, however. They tend to fall into watching the same shows every night, though they tend to be more likely to TiVO either the news (so they can watch their prime time lineup without missing a beat), or vice versa (watching the news and TiVO’ing the mindless pap that dominates the 8-10pm timeslot, House M.D. excepted, of course). Which reminds me; I’ve noticed that the kinds of folks who favor MSNBC, surprisingly, are less economically diverse. Generally middle-to-upper-middle class and relatively financially secure– I find little deviation in this, though this is my own experience and probably not a generalizable result… I’d love to have a socio-economic field day with the vast array of ratings information at the hands of Nielsons and the like.
As for CNN and the others? Well, let’s be real here, CNN is bland crap (Anderson Cooper and a small few others excepted). I can’t find anyone who uses it as the sole source of cable TV news– most folks who do watch it are either not the kind to keep up with the latest news around the clock, or watch MSNBC regularly and just check CNN on the weekends while MSNBC is busy showing prison documentaries and true crime stories. The others, like CNBC and Fox Business, are not news as much as specialized sources– they’re the ESPN of financials, and so are for a small minority of people who watch the markets religiously (or professionally) like some people watch the sports world.
The thing is, for a solution to “The Media”, I’d like to ask (or rather BEG) anyone who has bothered to read this far in, to simply resolve themselves to reading other sources from big-corporate owned media outlets. Now, this is not to say to not get any news from any outlet that is owned by a corporation (hell, I think even some of the nerdy tech blogs are now incorporated, or at least partly sponsored by a corporation)… but just to avoid the big names. Stop checking CNN.com, Foxnews.com, MSNBC.com, etc. for your regular news, and start tying yourself into sites that aggregate and gather news from all over the place. And by all over the place, I mean ALL OVER. Throw aside all preconceptions; lots of folks have been convinced that Al Jazeera, for example, is a network biased towards Islamist extremism, but don’t know that Islamists have regularly denounced it for being a Zionist propaganda outlet– at the same time that Israel denounced it as being an outlet for Palestinian propaganda. An outlet like that, which gets attacked by all sides in multiple conflicts, is probably saying stuff that some would rather you not hear. But don’t believe everything they say, either.
In reality, I’d prefer it if everyone reserved all judgement and only stuck to believing those things they confirm themselves through their lived experiences and the evidence that they can point to themselves. Which is why I feel strongly about doing an end-run against the corporate media complex. They have a narrative they want to sell you– and that is good for them, since that narrative is the world view that they have formed by their lived experiences and personal interests, but if they can’t back up their assertions with evidence, then all it can be is pure ideology divorced from truth. I only ask of people I know, to once in a while, separate their ideology and world view from the situation at hand and look at the facts and evidence without the labels, and ask themselves how they feel about it. Or try changing the names around and see if they feel the same way about it. I would’ve loved to take the Israel Blockade stories to someone who had not heard them, with the names of the parties involved swapped around and see how someone who unconditionally supports the Israeli government would respond to it.
Media surely is a major influence on how we look at things, because the things we read and the things we hear do influence the way we think on things– it changes us over time, so that the only solutions we can even consider are those that the people on TV are talking about. That’s why, I suppose, everything seems to be broken down into a debate between the merits and flaws of Capitalism versus Socialism, or some middle-way philosophy. Why we feel like we have to make a choice between security and liberty, is because that’s the dichotomy presented to us on the nightly news. But that’s not the reality of it; we can have security and liberty at the same time– that’s why the Constitution was written as it was. The solution to get more security isn’t to hand power off to the authorities, but to place more power in the hands of the people as a whole.
Allow individuals and communities to be proactive in defending their freedoms, and our rights remain secure– everything else flows from that. We have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness– not allowed to us by our government, but granted to us by the virtue of being people. Give every person the right to defend those big three, and security comes from it. We can’t completely and fully substantiate a single time police state powers have prevented a hijacking– we can point at many concrete examples of individual people, not air marshals or cops but everyday citizens, stopped hijackings or ended one in progress and saved lives. The lesson of Flight 93 from 9/11 wasn’t that we need more intrusion in our privacy to stop terrorism, but that we need to instill in the common people the courage to fight back against evil.
The courage to fight back against evil– this is something we need more than anything else in our world. All too easily we’ve allowed ourselves, as a people, become not just passive to the forward advance of evil, but indebted to and enslaved by it. In the United States, if you ask the average working man how he feels about how the Chinese government treats its people– how it enslaves the rural peasantry and oppresses the urban population under the iron heel of state control– he would tell you that it’s abhorrent, intolerable and unacceptable. And then he would get right back to buying something made in China, financing that same misbehavior.
Why? Because those goods are cheaper, and the average worker’s wages have stagnated in the US, placing said working man in the situation of either supporting tyranny with the sweat of his brow, or putting his family’s financial situation in jeopardy. Any man who cares about his family and wants to ensure their immediate financial stability and security would take the cheaper product, even if the long-term effect is that he doesn’t get a raise because his company is firing people left and right and he doesn’t want to rock the boat to get a little more. This is part of the problem with Globalism, or rather Global Capitalism– it’s not even a flaw of Capitalism itself, when you think of Capitalism on a national scale, but of the global application of Capitalist principles to a world filled with nations all too willing to violate the rules of capitalism in their own borders.
Global Poverty should not exist– scarcity, as we knew it until the late 20th century, is not as big a threat as it once was. It once was, that nations had available to themselves only those resources within their borders, and had to trade or war amongst each other for a share of those resources, thus scarcity. But now, we live in a world where physical resources are no longer limited to national borders, and they flow freely or practically free. There is no reason why, in a world where any person on the street of America can walk a block in any major city and find themselves next to some source of (relatively) clean water to drink (usually publicly available water fountains) free of charge, that people in countries around the world cannot have a single source of clean water in an entire province. The technology to purify water is so plentiful that you can walk into a store and buy 200 gallons worth of filtration for an hour or two worth of work at minimum wage.
But this poverty exists. And it only exists not because those people around the world are incapable of doing work worth that of an American’s, or that they are somehow unable to use these resources– a simple $560 water purifier designed to turn practically sludge water into potable water and which could provide water for 150 people, is so basic to use that even a child can operate it– and some DO! This poverty exists because it is in the best interests of a few to continue it. It is, in fact, the global peasantization of the masses. The middle class is shrinking throughout the “Developed World”, and the creation of a middle class is being completely prevented in many parts of the world.
Indeed, even as we hear stories of a growing middle class in China, the reality is that their so-called “middle class” would be the lower end of the upper class in the United States. To be “middle class” in China requires advanced post-graduate work, at least an MBA/MPA or Law degree, if not Medical school or doctorate work– and even then, this “middle class” consists of AT MOST 80 million people in a country that has over 1.32 BILLION people– their middle class consists of just under 6% of the population. It’s growing, but only because of the massive US-China trade deficit, which may become less reliable as Americans have less and less disposable income, if current wage stagnation trends continue.
Indeed, in the few places in the “developing world” where a middle class appears to be growing, that growth is built on the backs of a shrinking “developed world” middle class. The few “developed” countries that have been able to stave off this crunch have been able to do so only with the help of a generous social safety net and social programs that free their working people of the burdens of debt from basic living expenses (such as living). Of course, American political discourse will not allow for such a system– after all, the media that controls the debate over political reform has already declared such options “unviable”, and thus in the minds of the majority, it is so.
The reality of Global Capitalism, is that Capitalism cannot function without a free market– and the only free market that can be truly free is a fair market, where all participants play by the same rules. This is why regulations play a key role in the stability of the market, and why market volatility is almost always preceded by the elimination of regulation. The recent banking crisis was preceded by the elimination of regulations banning certain types of activities by banking firms, and regulations governing the creation of “toxic” securities were either ignored or abolished prior to the meltdown that has endangered so much of the economic landscape worldwide. The reason the world sees America as the primary cause of this current recession/depression is that– well, quite frankly, it is. Everyone put their faith in America’s ability to govern its markets to ensure a fair game, and when that game got rigged against the majority of the people of the world, that faith was betrayed.
So it is, in the Global world– How can American workers compete with the developing world’s extremely low manufacturing costs? How can American IT workers compete with the low-wage IT workers of the developing world? Simply put: They can’t, it’s impossible without turning America into the same state as a developing country by eliminating the regulatory safeguards we do have in place. The solution up until recently was to attempt to retool the US Economy from a manufacturing centered one into a service centered one. A Russian friend of mine, who works in Finance, once observed that the people in charge of the US had a genius plan, that we could somehow be the brain center of economics by being the place that prints money– all the world, despite having different currencies and different rules for markets internally, all “set their clocks” (so to speak) to the American economy. The US Dollar was what many nations pegged their own currency values to, and so the US put itself in the position of essentially directing the world economy.
But it was all based on fantasy– the US Dollar was not based on anything real, just the perception of what was real; it today is not based on anything real, either. All currency, in reality, is based on the perceived value of that currency relative to the perceived value of other currencies, regardless of if it’s based off Gold/Silver or if it’s just printed by fiat. No panacea exists for this that continues the same monetary-based trade system.
One solution I’ve seen advanced that appeals to me personally, is that of a resource-based economy, where we apply the same frame of thought that we apply towards waging war towards solving the problems of humanity– that is, not caring about how much it would cost to solve a problem, but concentrating on whether the resources exist to make it happen. When a war breaks out, and a nation considers itself in a battle for its own survival, economic rules change, and the need to achieve victory in combat is set above everything else– if a country only has a handful of tanks and planes, a small amount of money, and a large amount of physical resources, they will find a way to build as many tanks and planes as they physically can, heedless of cost. They take the actual, real and physical materials necessary to solve their problems and apply it immediately. The difference with a resource-based economy is to extend that kind of thinking, that the nation is in a battle for its own survival, to the entirety of their population– that is, that a single life lost due to malnutrition or thirst is unacceptable, and that every person living in that nation is important and valued, treated as if every individual has the potential to be the person who makes the most important discovery of his generation.
And I think what would be a necessary prerequisite to that system, would be a refocusing of our perspectives on ourselves and each other. To first look into the mirror and recognize within each of ourselves the infinite potential to change the world for better or for worse. To acknowledge our own beauty and knowledge and intelligence– not necessarily intelligence in the academic or technical sense, but also in the practical sense and the real sense, that adaptability inherent in all people, and that inner strength that calls out to each of us in a time of need. And once we see it in ourselves, we can see it in each other. We can look at the most impoverished man in the world and see the wealth of potential within him, the X factor that all people have that could be the one thing needed on the team that could someday cure a disease or enhance our every day life.
We would all have to look to the people in our lives who we quarrel with, and even though we clash with them in ideas and world views, we acknowledge in them the possibility for greatness, that each one of our most bitter enemies could, if given the chance, be the one to invent that something that lifts us all up. That even the guy whose words anger and upset us, could someday write the most beautiful poetry or the most touching story humanity has yet to read. We don’t need to become his best buddy, or even spend any more time with them than is necessary or wanted– but we could acknowledge that he has a right to live just as much as anyone else we know, and that for him to die a death for want of a single meal or a drink of water is too horrible of a fate for even our most belligerent rival.
It might just seem like corny pie-in-the-sky hippie talk, but, I think it cuts right down to the heart of every major religion in the world and to every ethical and moral philosophy out there, that while we are in fact, our brother’s keeper. It speaks to our nature as human beings, as members of the same species, that we are one race– the human race– and that we should act towards each other at the bare minimum, at least as good as members of the same species throughout nature. That we look out for each other and have each other’s backs. We should care for each other as much as we care for ourselves, and we should care for ourselves more than any one THING on the planet– be it money, or toys, tools, or electronics. These are just stuff– you can replace stuff. You can’t replace another person– we can’t replace you, and you can’t replace me.
Once you’re gone, you’re gone. Once I’m gone, I’m gone. For good. And the sooner we figure that out, and internalize it, and KNOW it in the truest sense of complete and total comprehension– that basic, reactive comprehension, like how you know that when you jump that you’ll come back down– the better. That’s the real revolution, and that’s why I write– that’s also why I believe in something greater than myself. I want to believe that some how, some way, we’ll finally “get” that point that you can never regain those we’ve lost, and that we all lose when we lose the life of another person. So that, maybe when we look at the economic costs of helping our fellow citizen, or our fellow man– we put the cost of helping on one side, and the infinite loss we’ll have on the other.
I’m sure it’ll look like some socialist fantasy, to create a world where economic failure does not mean certain death or destitution. But in reality, I’d like to see such a world as the creation of the ultimate capitalism– where everyone has a chance to grab ahold of the tools they need to be a success, and to compete at the level they want to. That to me, is capitalism at its greatest– in which every man can take for granted that no matter whether he win or lose, he can always play the game. The fundamental flaw with the way things are today, is that large entities and the people who control them, are able to leverage the fear of death and debt slavery to their economic advantage as a means of forcing others to accept less than the market value of their labor. Remove the fear of death and debt slavery, and you allow every man to market his skills and labor at the best price it can go for.
Everyone deserves a part in what the world has to offer– it is the birthright of every human being to enjoy the bounty of creation, and the fruits of his forefather’s ingenuity in ensuring that bounty be enjoyed to its fullest…
With love,
-Cass
