What …? If …? How …?

(“Private” reflections for Miltonites*)

What does one do when captured by a phrase? The phrase, “Our minds tell us, and history confirms …” comes from page 2 of Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom. He uses it to protest excessive government, and he is probably (mostly) right, BUT somehow, he seems entirely unconscious of the “private” side of what “Our minds tell us, and history confirms ….” With each of his critiques of the public sector, a private sector parallel rears its substantial, unacknowledged head. Consider:

If we must keep government “from becoming a [public] Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect,”¹ what of private Frankensteins? What of private sector employment contracts that limit speech, that require work on Holy Days, that deny freedom of association, that create master/servant relationships, that subsume “common traditions” and loyalties to employer demands, that command and control and centralize in pursuit of efficiency and profit; etc., etc.?

If “[o]ur minds tell us, and history confirms, that the great threat to freedom is the concentration of power,”¹ why should we blindly, passively trust the self-regulating free-market that inexorably concentrates both wealth and power?

If two broad Constitutional principles have preserved our freedom despite repeated “violations in practice,”² might not the same principles to preserve freedom apply to the private sector and its violations: namely, limiting the size of market players and dispersing their power (but not their responsibility)?

How can we “insure that the private sector is a check on the powers of the governmental sector”³ when private sector money pursues and buys power and influence for self-interested agendas and curtails with impunity many of the fundamental freedoms as noted above?

If “[t]he preservation of freedom is the protective reason for limiting and decentralizing governmental power,”³ what about protecting freedom by limiting and decentralizing private economic power?

If “[t]he great advances of civilization … have never come from centralized government … or … in response to governmental directives”⁴ are those advances attributable to competitive capitalism or in spite of competitive capitalism? Were any of Friedman’s named achievers⁴ motivated by competition, efficiency, and profit, or were they impassioned by gifts, inspirations, and altruism?

If “[g]overnment can never duplicate the variety and diversity of individual action,”⁴ can competitive, corporate capitalism do so? Are not uniformity, standardization, conformity, stagnation, and mediocrity⁴also characteristic of most oversized “competitive” corporations? Where does most innovation come from—born from the head of a Zeus-corp or born in some obscure garage by real individuals?

If “freedom [is] the ultimate goal and the individual [is] the ultimate entity in society,”⁵ why is competitive capitalism chiefly built on the collective model with command and control centralized in top-down dictatorships of master/servant relationships? And does the legal-fiction that calls a corporate collective, an “individual with individual rights” really convince us that competitive capitalism based on such a fiction is the defending champion of freedom and individualism?

If “[a]ny system [i.e., Federal Reserve System] which gives so much power and so much discretion to a few men that mistakes—excusable or not—can have such far-reaching effects is a bad system … because it gives a few men such power without any effective check by the body politic,” what about the private and financial sector’s deregulation passion begun in the 1980s that “disperse[d] responsibility yet [gave] a few men great power,” without effective check?⁶

If the U.S. government’s “abrogation of the gold clauses [in the 1930s] was a measure destructive of the basic principles of free enterprise” by declaring contracts “invalid for the benefit of one of the parties!” what of private sector corporate restructuring which does the same?⁷

How are we going to get beyond entrenched fallacious theories, one-eyed analyses, justifications, and myths and manias of the “free-market” until we honestly consider what “our minds tell us, and history confirms …” about BOTH the public and private (corporate dominated) sectors? If collectivism is really masquerading in capitalistic, individualist clothing, do we have a free-market or just the pretence of one?

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*All page references below refer to Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom (Fortieth Anniversary Edition) The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, © 1962, 1982, 2002
1. p. 2
2. pp. 2-3
3. p. 3
4. pp. 3-4
5. p. 5
6. p. 50
7. p. 60

“Free”-fall?

▪ Free of civility so anyone can say anything in passionate defense of one-sidedness.¹
▪ Free to demand that the American eagle fly as a one-winged bird.²
▪ Free of laws and regulations so every business and financial institution can be a profiteer and scrutineer unto itself.³
▪ Free of memory so the re-cycling of “boom and bust” can keep booming the few and busting the many.⁴
▪ Free of moral and ethical restraints when castigating moral and ethical lapses in others.⁵
▪ Free of consequence so OLC lawyers, military & CIA interrogators, and their directing/consenting superiors can violate human rights and dignity without accountability.⁶
▪ Free to go to extremes in finding and punishing (alleged⁷) extremists.
▪ Free of constitutional restraints; checks and balances; Accords, Conventions, and Treaties by re-categorizing.⁸
▪ Free of facts so strengths can be distorted into weakness and follies recast as strength.⁹
▪ Free of self-reflection so “rightists” (of both wings) can spin innocence, sincerity, the reality of things present, and the amnesia of things past.¹⁰
▪ Free to avoid taxes via off-shore shells.¹¹
▪ Free to privatize gains and socialize losses.¹²
▪ Free to say one thing and do another with impunity (yea, even with enhanced legacies).¹³
▪ Free of self-awareness so one can sling mud from one’s own flawed actions onto “enemies” in diversionary ploy.¹⁴
▪ Free of rational analysis so any challenge to one’s worldview (from right, center, or left) can be SUMMARILY DISMISSED as socialist agenda OR hypocritical propaganda.¹⁵
▪ Free of the maturity and/or courage required to reconcile differences or acknowledge other points of view.¹⁶
▪ Free of memory so “déjà vu” does not disturb trajectory and repetitious folly.¹⁷

And the list goes on.

Have we forgotten that America was established as a free nation by virtue of a constitution of laws with check and balances, with a Bill of Rights, and with accountability? Can we be free as individuals or corporate collectives without similar parallels?

Perhaps it’s time we remembered that life, society, progress, harmony, fairness, justice, equity, and an eagle’s flight come in a balance of right AND left; individualism AND collectivism; updraft AND downdraft; listening AND talking; giving AND receiving; freedom AND responsibility; transcending AND including, AND synergizing. Remember, NOBODY is so right they can’t be wrong about something?! Ask the Pharisees.

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1. Coulterites, Frankenites, et al. [i.e., fans or mimics of Ann Coulter (R) or Al Franken (D)]
2. Listen to the KRovites of all persuasions [pronounced Crow-vites, in acknowledgment of Karl Rove and his masters and mimics, whether R or L, and meaning: a) half-circle, 180°, one-wing purists; and b) spinners of assets into liabilities and vice versa]
3. Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, et al.
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boom_and_bust
5. See 1. above; also “... he [Satan] saith unto them: Deceive and lie in wait to catch, that ye may destroy; behold, this is no harm. And thus he flattereth them, and telleth them that it is no sin to lie that they may catch a man in a lie, that they may destroy him. … Verily, verily, I say unto you, wo be unto him that lieth to deceive because he supposeth that another lieth to deceive, for such are not exempt from the justice of God.” (Scriptural text from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Doctrine and Covenants Section 10:25, 28.)
6. http://judiciary.house.gov/issues/issues_OPRReport.html (OLC=Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice)
7. See 6. above and scripture at 5. above. See slso http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/19/ex-bush-official-guantanamo-bay-innocent/
8. See 6. above; and POWs become Enemy Combatants in "1984 newspeak"
9. DDB innovators for LBJ (1960s); Lee Atwater disciples; Swiftboaters; , KRovites, et al.; If facts are important to you, check out http://www.factcheck.org/
10. Pundits, politicians, etc. E.g., see the KRovite Sarah-spin (in my view) in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62zufrMneFw&feature=player_embedded [Was apparently removed by the user on or before March 6, 2010]
11. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/tax/
12. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatizing_profits_and_socializing_losses
13. Remember election promises? Classic case: small government & fiscal conservatism in the Reagan years: see HarryBrowne.org article “The Quintessenstial Politician”; and beyond.
14. Listen to Convention speeches. Watch for KRovite tactics on both the left and the right. Also, classic case: compare handling & criticisms of shoe bomber 2001 and underwear bomber 2009: http://factcheck.org/2010/02/dick-cheney-vs-joe-biden/
15. Pundits, blogs, postings, news comments, etc.
16. Present U.S. Congress; ideologues; extreme party loyalists
17. E.g., Are we not déjà vu the ’50s/’60s Republican crisis profiled in Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus by Rick Perlstein © 2001?

Technology: Servant or Master?

Technology as servant can and does bless the world in numerous ways. Technology as master is another story. Consider:

▪ reams of paper that computer printers spew into scrap bins in endless pursuit of the perfect document;
▪ WALL•E¹ landscapes of electronic scrap trashed in pursuit of the latest, greatest;
▪ electronic-sitters that are too overwhelmingly convenient for the health and wellbeing of rising generations;
▪ escalating production of surplus goods worldwide (and far beyond global demand) "because we can";²
▪ connections to worlds that disconnect us from time, place, values, and the company of others. Witness:

▫ surreptitious texting during sermons, lectures, entertainments, conversations, work, driving, etc.;
▫ abrupt interruptions to conversations, meetings, work, life, leisure, the pursuit of happiness, etc. to answer the personalized jangle of omnipresent cell-mates and me-phones;
▫ escapism in “pleasant pictures” or “sham battles” from the realities of life and “The Habits of Highly Effective People”;³
▫ surfing into a surfeit of conflicting information/opinion;⁴
▫ hours of gaming where spouses, children, time and God take a backseat to the labyrinth;
▫ electronic love-affairs disaffecting the family affection;
▫ porno-plagues and incivility exploding within anonymity;
▫ proliferation of “precision Predators” and discounting of “collateral damage”;
▫ micro-manipulations of timing and insider information to capture macro-profits;
▫ dining, driving, deliberating, and dying (and doing it all) while distracted;
▫ and so forth.

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1. Pixar’s 2008 movie
2.One of the under-acknowledged crises of the global economy
3. Reference Stephen R. Covey’s “Seven Habits” and “Eighth Habit”
4. “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (New Testament 2 Timothy 3:7)

A Proliferation of Masters

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (New Testament Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13, “No servant …”)

These words were spoken nigh 2,000 years ago, and perhaps never before in history, till our day, have more people been attempting to do this very thing—to serve two (or more) masters. I do not speak in main of the ageless dilemmas that have burdened servants and employees,* such as:

▪ Do I say or do things on behalf of my employer that violate my personal integrity and moral values?
▪ Do I have to work on my Holy Day to keep (or get) my job, or to avoid being an inconvenience to my fellow employees or bosses?
▪ Do my employer’s business practices to which I contribute through my time and energies violate my sense of fairness and justice?
▪ Do I turn a blind eye to right and wrong because I need/want that pay-cheque?
▪ Do I tolerate personal injustices and abuses for the sake of employment?
▪ Have I taken employment that offends my spirit and purpose in life for the compensation and amenities because I fear, “What will become of me?” if I don’t or for the mere fact that the pay and benefits were better than an alternative that would have nourished by soul?
▪ Etc., etc.

Employees have always been at risk for such conflicts of interest. But, in today’s world, at least four other masters have become so pervasive, there is scarce a living soul that is not juggling at least two—not to mention comparable pressures on companies and even nations!

Consider—
Master Two as mammon through debt.

What does debt impel us to do? Have any of the Ten Commandments or other moral imperatives given way to the stresses of debt? What can debt cause us to put at risk or lose? Home, family, friends, integrity, compassion, security, peace of mind, trust in God? What would our answers be to the bulleted questions above were we to substitute “debt” for “employer”?

As well, how many companies have succumbed to debt? How many nations have compromised their sovereignty on account of it? Bartered away the wellbeing of their citizens?

Consider—
Master Three as mammon through the desire for power or fame.

What do government officials or private business leaders do, refrain from doing, consent to, deny, and so forth, for the sake of gifts, donations, assurances, alliances, perks, privileges, re-election, reappointment, etc.? What do the powerful and famous do to retain power and fame? Has the achievement of them ever been a personal temptation? Have we become so inured to the status quo of mammon in our politics, business, entertainment, sports, and even religion, that we discount the servitude and consequent devastations to our democratic, creative, spiritual, and moral values?

Consider—
Master Four as the mammon of investment pursuits.

In this day of increasingly unregulated finance capital, how many persons or fund managers buy shares, stocks, bonds, financial instruments, etc. without the slightest regard for anything but maximized returns? This Master is perhaps the most subversive of all, because as owner of the investment, we appear to be the master, when in reality, the “pursuit of profit” becomes the Master. We take the “three monkey” stance of refusing to see, hear, or speak evil of how our money is employed to build upon itself. We profess to be good Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Confucians, or other moralists, yet do we “innocently” invest our surplus or leveraged capital in plans and programs that violate our beliefs?

How much public good have we sacrificed for private gain? How many public and private costs have our investment strategies shunted to public accounts to increase the bottom line? How informed are we about the ways and means of our investment portfolios? Do we prefer not to know?

Consider—
Master Five as the mammon of ideology.

How many of us are so fixated on some idea, person, or thing that perceived “good” ends claim to justify foul means? So convinced or zealous we won’t consider further facts or contradicting witnesses? How many of our politicians bow to the party line knowing they are harming their constituents and their country? Must others obey law, use common sense, be reasonable and conciliatory, while we can be excused through rightness or rank? Do our wills and insights supersede all other wills and insights? Do we discard moral strictures to promote or protect our ideology?

Consider—
Who and what are the masters in your life?

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*(including, maybe especially, latter-day CEOs, CFOs, CAOs, etc.)

The Looming Great Divorce

(or When are we going to open our eyes and ears that we might SEE and HEAR?!!)

“Almost thou persuadest me [NOT] to be a Christian!”¹

That was my first reaction upon reading an email forward sent by a good Christian lady. So here is my latest “whoa, woe, whoa!!!” This church sister introduced her “forward” thus:

THIS LADY NOT ONLY HAS A GRASP OF 'THE SITUATION' BUT AN INCREDIBLE COMMAND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE!
[“THIS LADY” is allegedly Cyndy Miller, writer of a letter to AARP.²]

Cyndy’s letter followed and set forth her reasons for declining to renew AARP membership because AARP’s “Divided We Fail” and other “Socialistic politics” are viewed by Cyndy as “threatening our way of life [and] offending our sensibilities.” Cyndy declares that “when the opinions and long term goals are diametrically opposed, the divorce is imminent.” And so she divorces AARP and decries “This Presidential Administration [that] scares the living daylights out of us.” [Did the prior presidential administration scare her? She does not say!]

Then Cyndy gets to the apparent “meat” of her regrettable divorce from AARP; a part that appears to “raise the blood pressure [her] medical insurance strives to contain.” She writes:

“Your [AARP] website generously offers us the opportunity to receive all communication in Spanish.. ARE YOU KIDDING??? Someone has broken into our 'house', invaded our home without our invitation or consent. The President has insisted we keep the perpetrator in comfort and learn the perp language so we can communicate our reluctant welcome to them.
I DON'T choose to welcome them.
I DON'T choose to support them.
I DON'T choose to educate them.
I DON'T choose to medicate them, pay for their food or clothing. …”
[etc., etc. Emphasis all hers.]

Now, of course, I’m not going to jettison my faith because a Christian “forwarder” thinks there is “grasp and command” in this divorce decree.³ But it set me to thinking about the coming Great Divorce—the one many of my church and/or fellow-Americans don’t seem to realize is increasingly imperative. It is the divorce looming between their professed Christian⁴ allegiance and the current STATE of their politics. How the incompatibility has endured so long is already beyond comprehension!

So, for just a moment, I ask my Christian friends—many of whom are conservative Republicans: Will you honestly look at the STATE of YOUR politics? NOT your enemy’s politics, but YOURS.

What is the state of things when radio/TV pundits become more quotable, reliable, and fundamental than the Sermon on the Mount?! When ends claim to justify means? When deception and spin are strategized? When finance capital dictates governance? When extremism in the defense of “liberty” is deemed patriotic? Where sound bites substitute for informed research? When your GOP says one thing with its mouth and does another with its power?

How long can you pretend YOUR political “spouse” is being faithful to founding principles and values? Look at your record! Your documented history! Your investigations! Your subterfuges! Hear the eye-witnesses! The whistleblowers! The sworn testimonies!⁵

Why do you castigate only the infidelities of your enemy’s “spouse”? Is THAT helping your own degraded house? Open your eyes! Open your ears!

How long can you ignore the egregious incompatibilities between GOP words and practices? Between values and actions? Why do you dismiss with alacrity and scorn all criticisms as if they were but false and hostile smears upon a pristine conscience?

Do we imagine a professedly “chosen” people (or party, religion, nation, ideology, constitution, etc.) is immune to folly, error, deception, corruption? Perhaps a brief tour of the gifted and chosen ones of history would be instructive. Count how many were swept away in whirlpools of stiffneckedness, excess, and folly. How few died in the harness of integrity, humility, purpose, and honor.

We are not going to clean up the mess of our universal corruption and partisanship by focusing solely on the crimes and corruptions of “enemies.” We must first look to our own ways and affiliations. What did Biblical Micah caution? “… a man's enemies are the men of his own house.”⁶ And please, instead of knee-jerking to accuse and fault your perceived enemies in the national house, look first to the threats and offenses from within your own GOP house.

In this current state of politics, surely it is time to reject the blindness of partisanship and unthinking loyalties. It is time to demand more of ourselves than we do of our “enemies.” It is time to reject rampant, internal hypocrisies; to refuse the propaganda of PACs and the persuasions of mammon.⁷ It is time to seek out and support honest, wise, good, and courageous candidates free of compromising ties and dictates. It is time for self- and party-awareness. It is time to take a new moral way. It is way beyond time.

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(For those who wish to know my views on the Democrats, capitalism, socialism, free-market myths, the dire state of America's democratic values and republican form of government, etc. you may peruse other Déjà Vu posts.)

1 New Testament Acts 26:28
2 AARP: American Association of Retired Persons
3 Of course, Cyndy has every right to reject the philosophies and practices of the AARP, if they conflict with hers, but the tragic thing is, too many partisans utterly fail to comprehend the present chasm between professed values and opposing actions. Their focus remains unwaveringly on their enemy to the exclusion of self-awareness—a classic diverting strategy promoted by C.S. Lewis’ astute senior demon, Screwtape (from The Screwtape Letters, 1942).
4 Applicable to other religious faiths and ethical adherents because most acknowledge a common set of human and moral values.
5 There are hundreds of meticulously, documented studies, books, and articles that are dismissed or ignored because: 1) they do not sustain the myths of rightness, justification, and ideology; 2) they are strategized as aiding and abetting the “enemy”; and 3) it takes so much precious time to sift truth from half-truths and error when lives are already so time-and info-stressed. Perhaps one approach is to prefer confirmed and documented information over passionate denials or justifications.
6 Old Testament Micah 7:6
7 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon (New Testament Matthew 6:24).

Voices of Warning

(This is not a déjà vu aimed solely at the incumbent Democrats, though in my view there is cause for alarm, but these warning voices also indict their prower-driven opponents whose presumptions, tactics, priorities, and propaganda present, in my view, an even greater danger.)

Warning voices about ways, means, and follies are seldom welcomed by those who wield power (or advocates/supporters of that power, ideology, or point of view). Here are a few of those voices, from past to present—all with a déjà vu ring.

300s BC – Solon

Athenians are “trusting in shifty speeches rather than examining closely men’s deeds.” (The First Poets: Lives of the Ancient Greek Poets, M. Schmidt, p. 201)

AD:1400s—Pope Alexander VI

The most grievous danger of any Pope [or power figure] lies in the fact that encompassed as he is by flatterers, he never hears the truth about his own person and ends by not wishing to hear it.” (Pope Alexander VI, 1492-1503 to a consistory of cardinals during a brief period of remorse in a reign of depravity. Quoted by B.W. Tuchman, The March of Folly, p. 85)

circa 1603-07—Shakespeare

But ‘tis strange
And ofttimes to win us to our harm
The instruments of darkness tell us truths;
Win us with honest trifles, to betray us
In deepest consequence.
Macbeth (Act I: Scene III)

1798—John Adams

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other. [Letter to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts (1798-10-11) (ref: Wikiquote.org)]

1814—John Adams

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. [Letter to John Taylor (1814-04-15); Ref: Wikiquote.org]

1816—John Adams

Power always thinks it has great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak, and that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all his laws. [Letter to Thomas Jefferson (1816-02-02) : Ref: Wikiquote.org]

1816—Thomas Jefferson

I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale. [Letter to John Taylor (28 May 1816) ME 15:23 (Ref. Wikiquote.org)]

1928—Justice Louis Brandeis:

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding. ... Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that, in the administration of the criminal law, the end justifies the means -- to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal -- would bring terrible retribution. (Dissenting Opinion, Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438)

1900s - Mahatma Gandhi

Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good. (Quoted in Brussats’ Spiritual Literacy, p. 324)

1976—A Senate Select Committee

The United States must not adopt the tactics of the enemy. Means are as important as ends. [Final Report of the U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, (aka, the Church Committee)].

1987— Christopher L. Blakesley*

Today, there appear to be few more pressing problems than terrorism. Because combating terrorism is so important, there is a tendency for the executive branch to eschew the Constitution and constitutional procedures when they get in the way of policy objectives. … But we must ask whether, in the name of antiterrorism, we have become terrorists; whether, in the name of anticommunism and antitotalitarianism, we have allowed erosion of antitotalitarian protections in our Constitution and constitutional order. (p. 198.) ... But a dangerous world is not rendered less dangerous if we adopt totalitarian practices in order to fight totalitarianism, or when we use terrorist means to fight terrorism. Indeed, the constitutional checks and balances provide the wherewithal to ensure that we do not violate international law or destroy our constitutional republic through precipitous executive action (p. 211). The greatest danger posed by terrorism to our democracy and constitutional republic may be our executive branch's overreaction to it and use of terrorism as an excuse to erode the constitutionally mandated sharing of powers in the realm of foreign affairs, war powers, and combating international crime. If we are to avoid manifest hypocrisy, the destruction of the rule of law, and erosion of our primary democratic and constitutional values, we must be vigilant and avoid participating in criminal conduct, either directly or as aiders and abettors. We must not allow hysteria to cause us to accept an arrogation of power by the executive branch at the expense of the other two branches. Although Congress is sometimes cumbersome and the judiciary may make mistakes, these institutions are set in the Constitution as checks and balances for our domestic protection against autocracy. Whether combating terrorism is accomplished by means of extradition and prosecution of alleged perpetrators or by a decision to initiate acts of war, the constitutional order must be preserved. (p. 212) [* Professor of law at the Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University. This article (Terrorism and the Constitution by Christopher L. Blakesley, BYU Studies, vol. 27 (1987), Number 3 - Summer 1987 212) is adapted from and expanded beyond three other articles by the author: "Jurisdiction as Protection against Terrorism," University of Connecticut Law Review 19 (Summer 1987): 895-943; "The Evisceration of the Political Offense Exception to Extradition," Denver Journal of International Law and Policy 15 (Summer 1986): 109-24; and "A Study of the Executive Branch's Attempt to Eviscerate the Separation of Powers--Thoughts Prompted by Francis D. Wormuth and Edwin B. Firmage, To Chain the Dog of War: The War Power of Congress in History and Law," Utah Law Review, no. 2 (1987): 451-66].

But again, as in ages past, warning voices are anathema to the intrigues of wealth and power that have plagued humanity since the days of Cain. We hear it in the cries against the prophet Jeremiah circa 626-586 B.C. “Therefore the princes said unto the king, We beseech thee, let this man [Jeremiah] be put to death: for thus he weakeneth the hands of the men of war that remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, in speaking such words unto them: for this man seeketh not the welfare of this people, but the hurt” (Jeremiah 38:4). In modern parlance, his voice was declared to be not just unpatriotic, but TREASONOUS.

As I see and hear it—whether we are staunch conservatives or die-hard liberals—we seem too often, blind and deaf—where seeing, we see not and hearing, we hear not.* Or like the proverbial monkeys, we see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil* about our own follies, but spend our faculties seeing, hearing, and speaking evil of our opponents—and thus presiding, each in our own fashion, over the hemorrhage of democratic and republican values.

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* A recurring theme in what I write about and witness; and in my view, perhaps first amongst the most tragic, endless déjà vus of history.

va: Beware the Spokesman!

“Talk about déjà vu!!!!!” my friend Sondra headlined in her email reporting her belated research on the state of healthcare debates.* She continued: “It was the tobacco boys all over again. Painful! Painful! Our best ’n brightest industry spokesmen—lined up like errant school chums—all prepped by their corporate-ness to the identical party-line. The new chant?—Recission. Recission. Recission. (Unanimous!) And you know what? I actually felt sorry for them—these free-market devotees touting policy and ‘apple-pie’ American business—for I never saw a sadder display of conformism and lackey-loo in all my life (except, of course, for those tobacco boys**). And it set me to thinking. Right there in that hearing-room was the raison d’étre (’scuse the French) of stratospheric compensation pacts. They buy soul.

“And the sweet hush-hush is that for many of our chiefs and semi-chiefs, it’s only half the story. They spend their days eating, drinking, flying, and perking at company expense. So, I ask you: Like who would give up that kind of privilege—that kind of “security” to speak one’s mind; to question the status quo; to question the ethics?

“So what do you think? Can anyone EVER agree to be a spokesman for pay without risking a fracture of soul? And considering the trade-off, how cheap it seems to go—whatever the perks! Sad, sad, SAD!”

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* July 27, 2009 hearing at Indiana University Southeast, United States House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations New Albany, IN Field Hearing led by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the said Subcommittee. Spokesmen: Don Hamm President and CEO of Assurant Health, Indianapolis, Indiana; Richard A. Collins, CEO of Golden Rule Insurance Company, a UnitedHealth Group business, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Brian A. Sassi, President and C.E.O., Consumer Business, WellPoint, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana.
http://energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1718:terminations-of-health-policies-by-insurance-companies-state-perspectives-and-legislative-solutions&catid=133:subcommittee-on-oversight-and-investigations&Itemid=73&layout=default&date=2009-07-01

**Tobacco boys: http://www.jeffreywigand.com/7ceos.php

Beyond the Mark

In the culture of affluence to which we have become accustomed, we hear great indignation expressed against the idle poor and the bleeding-hearts who would take hard-earned, deserved wealth from the industrious rich and redistribute it to those who, with even a modicum of effort, could achieve the American dream if they would just get off their duffs!

BUT in the déjà vu of rich and poor throughout history, we seem strangely blind to the fact that redistribution has ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS been MORE upward than downward—a redistribution toward concentrated wealth that has far more to do with creating the gulf between rich and poor than idleness or industrious effort ever did.

Take the example of Ahab & Jezebel acquiring the vineyard of Naboth (Old Testament, 1 Kings 21); the “one, little ewe lamb” parable that condemned a king (Old Testament, 2 Samuel 12); the historical and current plunderings of great and small Empires; the monopolies of British mercantilism, et al.; the feudal estates of feudal lords; the cotton, sugar, tobacco, etc. plantations; the industrial factories and sweatshops; the government favors and subsidies to big-business; the secret insider tradings; the simultaneous stock puffing-and-dumping schemes; the credit-card fee-and-interest stings; the financial-adviser frauds; the Enron/Worldcom types; etc., etc., etc. The list is endless.

Whose collective labor, reduced to its lowest possible compensation through enshrined market-forces, has helped enrich the powerful? Free-marketeers are passionate that “industrious,” rich individuals should not be deprived of the fruits of their labor, yet turn a blind eye to that very deprivation by power-lords of the fair fruits of other’s labors. They deny their blindness by alleging that fair is whatever the market will bear while taking great pains on a global basis to ensure that it will bear the minimum or maximum possible—whatever favors the concentration of wealth.

Power is an aphrodisiac for many and even scant investigation uncovers an endless déjà vu of wealth accretion through avarice and exploitation of the less powerful. Redistribution UPWARDS; ever, ever upwards!

The abuse of power was a great concern of the founding fathers who strove to bind the powerful by the chains of the Constitution. But commerce continually claims that it has no need of constraint. Natural market-forces have natural constraints, they intone. But money loves power and power money, so we have come to our present state of affairs, where collectives of money and power have taken up a form of “civilized” plundering through lobbyists and other contrived means, all the while crying to high heaven that “socialism” is the monster of frightful mien. It reminds one of those masterful diversions where a cry of fire to the west of town covers for a bank heist to the east.

If the pundits and commentators on American values would study more history and less “enriched” rhetoric, they might begin to focus on the mark. As it is, the poor^[1] take the heat, while the powerful take the money and run—under cover of diversion; or if questioned, under claim of meritocracy and/or entitlement.

Christ, Himself, marked the poor for our compassion and the rich for chastisement and warning. Somehow, in our sophistication, we seem to have it reversed. And then we wonder why revolutions happen! They happen when justice can no longer stand as idle witness to the hubris, egotism, and injustice of oppressive power-lords. But, alas, in the déjà vu of power swings, nothing much seems to change except the names of the new elites as they take turn justifying the gulf between rich and poor. Even in communistic/socialistic schemes, the gulf prevails, in the midst of privilege and passionate denial.

How about we begin to explore the source and tributary waters for all that concentrated wealth? And discover the blessings of irrigation upon parched lands?
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[1] whether laboring or incapacitated or idle by choice or circumstance

“Lucky” You? Lucky Them?

Recently, a Thanksgiving-dinner conversation turned to the multiple sins of multinational corporations. Our well-to-do host sprang forcefully to the defense of corporations, discounting their sins, because they create jobs—MILLIONS of jobs, filled by lucky employees! The discussion aborted and we turned to more banal matters.

But the image of “Lucky,” from Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot,^[1] began to percolate. Pozzo, Lucky’s master, sought to explain Lucky’s servility:

Pozzo: … Why he doesn’t make himself comfortable? Let’s try and get this clear. Has he not the right to? Certainly he has. It follows that he doesn’t want to. There’s reasoning for you. And why doesn’t he want to? … He wants to impress me, —so I’ll keep him. … Perhaps I haven’t got it quite right. He wants to mollify me, so that I’ll give up the idea of parting with him. No, that’s not exactly it either. … He wants to cod me, but he won’t. … He imagines that when I see how well he carries I’ll be tempted to keep him on in that capacity. … He imagines that when I see him indefatigable I’ll regret my decision [to get rid of him]. Such is his miserable scheme. As though I were short of slaves!

Vladimer—one of those waiting for Godot—eventually observes:

After having sucked all the good out of him you chuck him away like a … like a banana skin. Really …

Now, this Déjà Vu post is not meant to present the other extreme—that all corporations are evil. Or that all employees are “Luckys.” It is rather to wonder whether the aggregation of power and wealth in a profit-driven, competitive culture binds employers, whether corporations or not, into Pozzo-prone perspectives vis-à-vis their “lucky” employees.

But just how lucky are many of these employees? From a Pozzo-perspective, they are lucky to have paychecks. Lucky to have necessities and amenities sustained by those paychecks. Lucky to be able to devote their gifts, talents, energies, and time to the employers' great causes, agendas, ideas, and dreams. Lucky to have daily purpose and place to go. Plain lucky to have a job.

Maybe so. But on the other hand, how much do those Luckys surrender by becoming employees, specialized to the needs of their Pozzo?

Pozzo: … He even used to think very prettily once. … He even used to dance the farandole, the fling, the brawl, the jig, the fandango, and even the hornpipe. He capered. For joy. Now that’s the best he can do. Do you know what he calls it? … The Net. He thinks he’s entangled in a net.

Or from Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations:

In the progress of the division of labour [specialization], the employment of the far greater part of those who live by labour, ^[2] that is, of the great body of the people, comes to be confined to a few very simple operations, frequently to one or two. But the understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, … The uniformity of his stationary life naturally corrupts the courage of his mind, …. It corrupts even the activity of his body, and renders him incapable of exerting his strength with vigour and perseverance in any other employment than that to which he has been bred.^[3] His dexterity at his own particular trade seems, in this manner, to be acquired at the expense of his intellectual, social, and martial virtues. But in every improved and civilised society this is the state into which the labouring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent it [through mandatory educational requirements] (Bk.5, Ch. 1, Pt III, pp. 839-840).

Perhaps it is time for a revolution of thought and practice vis-à-vis employers and employees; between competition and cooperation. Maybe it is time to review what lucky really means. How necessity and fear can tie a “Lucky” to abuse, injustice, stagnation, and exhaustion. How competitive and profit-driven obsessions can bind a Pozzo to perpetuation of the same. Maybe it is time to rethink what the pursuit of happiness really means. And perhaps to consider whether Pozzo is also “the burden of Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see” (Isaiah 13).
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[1] Waiting for Godot was written in 1948/49 and first performed in 1953.
[2] Includes the oft-scripted service industry of our day, where employees, even high-level ones, are given scripts to handle situations as if every situation can be indexed into a tidy number of satisfactory solutions to which no additional creative thought need be given.
[3] And s/he goes home too exhausted for much of anything but beer and the blather of too much TV (the Roman equivalent of “bread and circuses”?).