Free Agents, One and All !

Corporations—those bastions of hierarchy, planned economy, command-and-control, short-term rationalizing, meritorious disparity, creative accounting, externalized costs/internalized profits, and enforced consensus—ARE emphatically (you will be pleased to know) none of the above. They have changed. Transformed completely. They now believe in transparency, in democracy, and in YOU, the free consumer. YOU dictate what they produce (via China, et al.). YOU (and YOUR capital) choose what and how they market; how much mark-up is tolerable; how green is their logo.

They listen to YOU—the freely choosing, fully informed, free agents of expanding markets. YOU are the amazing, active rebels against the previous status quo, against the domineering elitism of old-style corporatism, now discredited in epiphanies of power in the people. But as they say (though who they “is” is often difficult to trace beyond the initial “sayer,” but nonetheless, THEY say) that the vacuum created by their mass exodus into democracy (from domination) is now crammed with a menagerie of “bad progressives,” and other like-minded domineering elitists, as in (liberal) journalists, academics, professionals, and critics/skeptics of any stripe who question the new, improved economy and enhanced democracy.

But YOU, the real people, are not deceived. Astutes (even juristic, fictional ones) can see the light (at the end of the train tunnel) and change (directions). Corporations have. They now believe in diversity, not conformity. Every culture, every life choice and voice, fashion and flutter, idea and incentive has equal validity¹ (and market potential!). All because of you.

That’s why supermalls are each unique; or, in the alternative—not so much—but only because YOU (WE, the people) want access to sameness.

That’s why McDonald’s, Starbucks, Yum! Brands, Nike, Tom Cruise, Haliburton, Exxon, GE, Xe,² et al. are found in nigh every nation (for your convenience, pleasure, comfort, and safety).

That’s why MS Windows^™OS is the preferred (though frequently the ONLY) choice of savvy (or not), satisfied (or not) new and old customers.

That’s why the New Corporations rush to acquire fresh (and competing) technologies, innovations, and broadcast/media licenses—to ensure YOU have the best of their choices.

That’s why they study and research YOU (your babies, tweens, and teens) (covertly of course, so as not to infringe upon your freedoms, agency, and privacy) in order to brand and deliver what YOU (and your loved ones) want—synchronized precisely with your awareness of want.

That’s why your favorite ______ (you name it) has suddenly vanished into the marketplace ether because THEY have sensed coming trends and efficiently synchronized their future with yours.

That’s why there are infinite versions of “new and improved” and why tech-support for the past becomes so rapidly passé.

That’s why escalating fees for service, support, early cancellation, late payment, refinancing, and risk are so ubiquitous and justified, because YOU have chosen to be held accountable for the costs you exacerbate for beneficent market collectives.

That’s why radio stations give local news and weather at the bottom of every hour, bi-monthly (unless pre-empted by commercial), and why it is so easy to be well-informed about local issues, elections, and politicians.

That’s why Hollywood, at the far edge of a nation of believers, keeps the name of God alive in its stimulating, cathartic movies and upon the lips of its stars and CEOs, for truly, the star-crossed maxim is, “Even profane press is better than no press!”

That’s why YOU wisely despise government—that defunct people’s collective—because it has repeatedly violated the checks-and-balances of its sacred Constitution and taxed YOU beyond endurance in changing its mission from “sheriff of the contract” to “sheriff of the common good” which is the sacred prerogative of the market’s invisible hand that was born to be free of external: checks and balances, criticism, oversight, accountability, and profit-taxing taxation.

That’s why labor has conceded the social and democratic injustices of collective bargaining, employee benefits, health insurance, job security, etc. because WE THE PEOPLE understand and support what is most advantageous to our well-being.

That’s why CEOs switch jobs (and presumably salaries and bank accounts) for trial periods with common-folk receptionists, clerks, chauffeurs, janitors, etc. to foster democratic empathy in the new democracy.

That’s why, as free agents, THE (astute) PEOPLE can be trusted to detect the smoke screens of insincerity, pretence, propaganda, hypocrisy, elitism, finger-pointing, power-plays/-grabs, and global agendas of the “bad progressives.” WE (with the ample aid of their "fair & balanced" research/reporting) can be vigilant critics and castigators of faux flips and real rip-offs.

SO, be comforted. The old-style, multinationals and behemoths—those unwieldy, inflexible, insensitive, obsessive, compulsive, conformist, inefficient, egoistic, domineering, distracted, and RAVENOUS creatures of the past—are gone. Replaced now by humble, amenable, serving, greener, slimmer global giants! [And since YOU asked, the golden scepter/cudgel has been retained only for amusing, museum display!]

[Giants, they say??!! Hhmmm! maybe, just maybe! there are more options than just meek belief/surrender!]

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1. Except of course for propagandized, duped dissenters, OR where “creative destruction,” of necessity, creates an improved, more just culture.
2. Formerly known as Blackwater

Who ate my cheese?!

Several years ago, my sister asked if I remembered the book, Who Ate My Cheese? Well, we had a good laugh for the book by Spencer Johnson was named, Who Moved My Cheese?¹ Now, in light of our (cyclical) economic times, my sister’s mistake seems not so mistaken—that the real (déjà vu) story in this real (déjà vu) world is, indeed, “Who ate my cheese?”²

Thomas Frank in One Market Under God is less than complimentary—judging this Cheese book “to both call for childlike innocence before the gods of the market and openly advance a scheme for gulling, silencing, and firing workers who are critical of management—”; a book “proceeding to boast of its own powers as a tool of labor pacification.”³

All of this got me to thinking that if I were a cheese BALL (Business And Lobby Lawyer), I would recommend ramping up all the positives to counter these increasing negatives against corps, big-business, and management. I would proceed plan by over-lapping plan.

Plan A: Keep touting that the people’s cheese has merely been moved to a better place because unregulated global markets know (and do) what is best; that (management-driven) change is manifestly inspired to nurture and bless in the long-run; and that the root of all our problems is government attempts to regulate cheese, especially cheese-making and cheese distribution.

Plan B: Assure the people that CEOs (Cheese Endowed Officials) deserve all the cheese in their lives; that cheese cannot be mis-distributed in any way (except downward to the masses); that any suggestion of mis-distribution upwards is tantamount to market treason; and that anyone with a modicum of effort can become a CEO.

Plan C: Proselyte that regulating cheese—its movement and/or consumption—is anathema to democracy and is a Marxist/socialist plot to control cheese and cheese-eaters; provided however, that those who work in cheese factories must not be allowed to organize or bargain for more cheese as that would be manifestly undemocratic for CEOs and potential CEOs.

Plan D: Reassure the people that possession of cheese proves the competitive market is working fairly; that God rewards laissez-faire; and that “merit is as merit does.”

Plan E: Cannot be revealed at this time (patent, trademark, and copyright pending).

Plan F: Promote the “philosophy” that thinking cheesy thoughts will, without the least doubt, manifest an abundance of cheese in people’s lives; and if not (i.e., if the cheese is all Swiss), the transparent manifestation is that thoughts are not cheesed enough (i.e., are riddled with doubts) because in the New Economy there is no limit to cheese or how much cheese can be profitably consumed. In this profit-inspired, effluent- ^[sic?]4prone universe, everyone can “Just say cheese”!

This is manifestly true, according to ahistorical derivatives.⁵

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1. Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life, by Spencer Johnson, first published in 1998; rated as the #1 book on Change. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Moved_My_Cheese%3F
2. I just discovered today at Amazon.com that there ARE books entitled Who Ate My Cheese? © 2008 by John Nichols and Who Stole My Cheese? by Ilene Hochberg © 2003. These might be worth the read.
3. One Market Under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy by Thomas Frank; Anchor Books, New York © 2000, pp. 248-250
4. Perhaps I should have said affluent! I don't know. Sometimes I get confused with all the rhetoric.
5. For thoughts on historical derivatives see http://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-long-till-we-get-it.html , especially the footnote*. Also: http://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2009/12/beyond-mark_14.html

Beware the Optimates!

After nearly four centuries of Republican government, Rome began its century-long descent toward tyranny¹ beginning about 133 BC with the murder of the Gracchus brothers.² Perhaps the chief facilitator of that descent was the conservative/traditionalist group of elites in the Roman Senate—a group that came to be dubbed the optimates (“the best”).³ They claimed to be defending and preserving the “old values,” yet their tactics were chiefly to preserve their own interests and the status quo of wealth and power. Is there any equivalency in our day to these optimates and their tactics? Any déjà vu?

The optimates:

▪ supported the aristocracy of wealth and power
▪ blocked the wishes of others groups
▪ labeled their opponents “demagogues”
▪ resorted to violence on an increasing scale
▪ used the backing of the aristocracy and the senate to achieve personal goals (via rampant corruption)
▪ opposed the extension of Roman citizenship,
▪ sought (or claimed to) the preservation of the mos maiorum, the ways of their forefathers.
▪ called themselves “liberators”
▪ published lists of those they considered enemies of the state and legislated “open season” on them⁴

Their opponents, the populares, had their own hypocrisies and in the end, the struggle between the optimates and the populares was “more about power than the public good” because, despite seductive words, no one was seeking the true interests of the Republic or of the people. The ploy, by both factions, was to gain support and votes while holding onto (or gaining new) wealth and power.⁵

“What happened to the Roman Republic?” is summarized by a Great Courses scholar⁶ and set forth, in part, as follows:

▪ Power, influence, and unimaginable wealth [often from vast plunder] could be won in the empire and deployed in Rome with no checks by the traditional system.
▪ People became inured to violence and quite willing to use it against fellow citizens.
▪ Disruptions in the countryside led to countless numbers of landless, rootless people who felt no sense of commitment to any old-fashioned values.⁷

Why can we not see how little has changed in 2000 years?—how we have our own collectivized aristocracy (corporatocracy) intent on preserving their own interests with the support and rhetoric of our optimates; how corrupted our politics has become by wealth and power; how insular and prone to violence our optimates are in their speech and imagery; how suckered we are by words?

Will we ever learn?

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References:
1. Tyranny can sometimes be benevolent, and Rome experienced several benevolent emperors, but many of the gains of the Republic were lost in the descent from the “rule of law” to “rule by emperor.”
2. See “The Foundations of Western Civilization,” Lecture 20, Rome—From Republic to Empire, taught by Professor Thomas F.X. Noble, The Great Courses: The Teaching Company © 2002. See pp. 83-86 of the accompanying Course Guidebook.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimates
4. During Sulla’s reign “Any man whose name appeared on the list was ipso facto stripped of his citizenship and excluded from all protection under law; reward money was given to any informer who gave information leading to the death of a proscribed man and any person who killed a proscribed man was entitled to keep part of his estate (the remainder went to the state). No person could inherit money or property from the proscribed men, nor could any woman married to a proscribed man remarry after his death. Many victims of proscription were decapitated and their heads were displayed on spears in the Forum.” See “Proscription of 82 BC” and “Proscription of 43 BC” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proscription
5. http://www.roman-empire.net/society/society.html
6. See footnote 2 above.
7. Like “Do unto others …”, honesty, integrity, generosity, compassion, etc.

AC 180

(va: The Ann Coulter Conversion)
Sondra’s telephone call came before I was ready to face the day. My clock read 5:21 AM.

“I’m not here,” I mumbled into the receiver.

“You will not believe what just happened to me!” she exclaimed. (The enthusiasm in her voice seemed unhealthy for such an early hour.) “Oh, I know you’re only half-awake, but you know, some people say half-awake is the best time for breakthrough insights. And I think I just had one!”

“Could you not spare me till at least 7?” I groaned.

“No,” she said. “This is too bizarre.” [Dramatic pause.] “I dreamt about ANN COULTER.”

“Oh, dear,” I said coming slightly more alert for I had heard Sondra bemoaning Ann, not more than one day ago. “I mean, she just seems so caustic and parallel-challenged,” Sondra had said. “Honestly, I think I share some of her conservative values, but if she ever met me, she’d probably shred me like a liberal, because I happen to believe that “We, the people” means more than, “Me, the Right & True Republican.”

“You don’t sound as if you’re bleeding profusely,” I said.

Sondra laughed. “No, actually Ann began reading to me, quite animated, from one of her books. I started to follow along with this fantastic scrolling reader-thing—you know how dreams are. Anyway she was reading along and I was following with this scrolly thing, when suddenly there was this bizarre disconnect. You pretty much had to be there to get the full effect, but suddenly my scroller began highlighting words at the same moment Ann would read other words in place of them. She was inverting liberal and conservative references! After several “mistakes,” I decided it must be intentional, so I looked up, all shocked-like, but she just smiled sweetly and read on, making these crazy substitutions! Isn’t that bizarre?!”

“Confusing is the word,” I said staring wide-eyed into the dark, “for there is no chance to infinity that Ann Coulter is a closet liberal.”

“Oh, no,” Sondra laughed. “She didn’t always substitute—but always in those places dealing with strategy—you know, the despised liberal/Democrat attack/bias/liar methodology stuff. So it ended up like, everything she accused them of, she’d re-attribute to herself or like-minded conservatives; even changing whole paragraphs. Was still reading when I fell asleep in the dream, which is when I woke up to see the spine of her very book—the “Talking to a Liberal” one—propped against my lamp. That was startling strange, till I remembered I had stashed it there—courtesy of my pastor’s wife—wants to know what I think! Confused me though for a moment. Wasn’t sure I was waking from a dream or into one.

“So maybe you should tell me your breakthrough insight, so I can go back to sleep,” I sighed.

“Wait a minute!” Sondra said. “You’re not getting the feel for this. I can hear it in your voice. You just should have been there—here—wherever. The gist of the whole thing was like—well you know those hidden paragraph codes in word processing. Well, this was like The Ann Coulter Code. Actually even way beyond her—like The Authoritarian Conservative Code. Like whatever they condemn in liberal strategy, and you’re right—I can hear it in your breathing— there is plenty to condemn on all sides—but the dream-Ann was telling me—with a smile, to boot—that she was foreshadowing and perfectly nonchalant about making extreme use of every nasty strategy she so vehemently condemned. In fact, seemed quite exhilarated to do so.”

“Well, it’s probably historical precedent—déjà vu.” I said.

“Exactly, exactly,” Sondra said, “but shouldn’t we have learned by now too see through these finger-pointing deflections. Anyway, Ann got me so interested, I might start her book where she left off reading, and do the dream reversal. And from now on, that’s how I’m going to interpret all those hostile opinion books of both persuasions—with my little mental scroller highlighting AC conversion in the background.

“Maybe you should rewrite her book,” I suggested. “You could acknowledge her as the ghost writer.”

“Wouldn’t that be the height!” she exclaimed with a laugh. “I could label it satire or parody or something. I could republish, reversing all the liberal/Democrat stuff with conservative/Republican stuff. It would be bang on from what I have been seeing, and I could call it … AC 180.”

“Sounds like the perfect title,” I agreed.

“Oh, yeah, that reminds me!” Sondra exclaimed. “For a split second, AFTER I awoke, I saw this big “ME” plastered over part of her title. You know, so it read, How to Talk to ME (if you must).”

“Oh dear,” I said, “she’ll swear your vision-giver is a cloistered liberal.”

“Honestly,” Sondra moaned, “one gets so tired of this uncivil discourse and strategy blame-game. I mean both sides seem to be in full spin-cycle most of the time—like it's an equality contest of grenade lobbing, which isn't what I signed on for. And worse than that, so many "rightists" are so busy cursing liberal craters, we don't seem to notice the bottomless pit we’re digging ourselves into by our own follies and self-deceptions.”

“I doubt Ann will be—” I began, but Sondra was not finished.

“So you see what my breakthrough is? What this dream-Ann has awakened me to?—to the decision that I’m totally tired of all this beam-in-the-eye stuff we’re pretending isn’t there. I just seems we're doing as much—if not more—damage to America as any so-called liberal, so if I have to poke the eye of my grand-old-party just to get them to look into their own contorted, parallel reflection, then so be it.”

“Well from what I see, some of them don’t just poke back, they try to decapitate,” I cautioned.

“Oh, I know,” she said, “but too many of us seem to be asleep or else so enraged by the other guy’s sins we lose our own focus. So maybe it’s time more of us started flinging facts into our own fan.”

“So, does this mean you have an answer for your pastor’s wife?” I asked.

“I guess so,” she laughed. “This vision/dream thing should be the clincher. I’ll tell her too, it’s like crossing the street. If you don’t look both ways, with eyes wide open, you ain’t as safe (or as smart) as you think. Anyway, gotta go, but I’ll send you a little sample of the dreamy rendition.”

And that was that (except for the email).

▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ [Sondra’s Email] ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

As I promised, here’s a little sample of Ann’s very own dream-revisions—truly an “AC 180,” don’t you think? She was a tad erratic, skipping about, but this gives you a taste. (I've italicized her changes from the book.)

p. 1: We, conservatives, traffic in shouting and demagogy. In a public setting, we will work ourselves into a dervish-like trance and start incanting inanities: “Obama lies.” “Baby killer.” “Racist!” “Fascist!” “Socialist!” “Conspiracy!” “No, No, No, Hell No.” ... We, conservatives, as opposed to sentient creatures, have a finite number of memorized talking points, which we periodically try to shoehorn into unrelated events, such as 9/11 and Iraq; but our favorite is to deny parallels like enhanced interrogations in Guantánamo and “bad apples” in Abu Ghraib, or like shoe and underwear bombers, or like OUR use of House reconciliation, OUR numerous flip-flops, OUR earmarks, OUR moral lapses, … [She had quite a list.]
p. 2: Our idea of a battle of wits is to say, “Socialism” in front of adoring conventioneers and be wildly applauded for our brilliance and courage. …, we have a number of stratagems to prevent liberals from talking. We shout liberals down, cut the microphones of interviewees, threaten liberal politicians, and heckle liberal speakers. We target them.

Sorry, this will take too long to scribe all AC’s inversions and changes. In the dream, it all seemed to just roll off her lips. And she was SOOO well-versed in conservative/liberal parallels—even things I hadn’t heard yet. (Could there be astonishing things YET to break in the news!?!)

Wonder if we could get someone to do a “fair and balanced” AC 180 of her book. Then maybe, between her book and the inverted one, we’d really have AC 360 (Astute Citizens!?! even). Anyway here are two other inversions, she seemed quite pleased about.

p. 7: “Our other new hobby is to call people “liars.”
p. 15: “Even if you’ve led a blameless life, we invent absurd stories about you.

(PS: You get the gist! I wonder if a daily reading from Matthew 7 in Congress and before every pundit-cast would be of any help! I’ll save you the trouble of looking it up.)

Matthew 7:3-5: And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. (Also see Luke 6:41-2)

Is there any hope to save us from ourselves?! Till next time, Sondra

The Speed of Emotion

“In The Making of the President, 1960,^[1] Teddy White lamented that TV might spell the death of serious politics: to give a thoughtful response to serious questions, a politician needed a good thirty seconds to ponder, but television allowed only five seconds of silence at best. DDB [the ad agency of Doyle Dane Bernbach^[2]] found nothing to lament in the fact. They were convinced you could learn everything you needed to know about a product, which in this case happened to be a human being, in half a minute—the speed not of thought but of emotion” (Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus by Rick Perlstein, © 2001).

It seems Theodore H. White was right—about both left and right. Much of our political news, views, tweets, trailers, and posts proceed at the speed of emotion. No need for thought, memory, fact checking, sourcing, courtesy, caution, truth, or déjà vu. Ads, images, sound bites, talking points, “spontaneous” stagings, and so forth—often market-tested for trigger-efficiency and -effect—all set on “speed” and ad nauseam recycle. “Truth” verified by repetition. Enhanced by selective, romantic myth-making!

And though both left and right get caught up in the speed of emotion, there seems no crowd more addicted to “speed”³ than the fractured far-right—particularly Tea Partiers and libertarians. These far-rightists, despite their professed devotion to “individualism,” freedom, and “free markets” have a remarkable predisposition to flock to authoritarian, charismatic leaders; to conform to group-speak without personal examination of issues; to repeat emotive phrases as end-all answers; to denigrate the individualism and freedom of everyone to the left of them; to disregard ideological contradictions⁴; and to advocate violence when “democracy” does not favor their worldview.

Since many to the right claim an affinity to the Christian faith and to an “end-of-times” scenario, perhaps a look backward to the “beginning” and forward to the “end” might prove enlightening.

What powerful groups in the “beginning” of Christianity was so convinced they were right, so devoted to preserving their faith/ideology, and so alarmed at the “devilish” doctrines of a popular itinerant preacher that they devoted themselves to his destruction? Could there be any parallels in our day? Are we so convinced we are saving freedom and the American Constitution that we kill the very (“devilish”) reforms that might preserve a MORE perfect union? Remember Peter and the dream that opened him to the inclusion of Gentiles in his gospel—a complete reversal of prior belief?⁵

And what about the “end-of-times”? What does John the Revelator identify as the great opposition?⁶ Have we been caught in a masterful diversion and deception exacerbated by the speed of emotion? So obsessed with socialism, we miss the Trojan horse cavorting in our midst. The Trojan horse we unfetter and feed to excess as if it were a living thing!

Perhaps we should ask ourselves if we can be enlightened by higher truths IF we are not open to new perspectives.

Perhaps it is time we took the time to temper emotion with thought, memory, research, and honesty about ourselves, our ideologies, our hypocrisies, and the possibility of “being partly right and partly wrong.”

There are options to the speed of emotion. Yes, TV and the internet may overwhelm us with emotive pitches, BUT the internet also gives us the speed of access to fact checking, verifiable history, reputable research, sworn testimony, rational observation, diverse opinion, and communities of thoughtful discourse. Surely, the present speed of emotion, untempered and unbalanced, as we have seen in recent months, cannot continue, if we are to survive as a nation. Emotions are ONLY A PART of who we are. Reason, research, and balanced thought must also precede action. In paraphrase of Mark Twain: “The person who does not think⁷ has no advantage over the one who cannot think⁷.”

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1. Published 1961; best-seller and 1962 Pulitzer Prize winner for general nonfiction
2. The ad agency of Democrats JFK and later LBJ. Republicans became quick imitators.
3. Speed can manifest both as reactionary, knee-jerk explosions or frantic running in place at the speed of “NO,” “NO,” “NO.”
4. One of their main ones is the redistribution of wealth mantra. See http://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2009/12/beyond-mark_14.html
5. See New Testament Acts 10 for Peter’s enlightenment. Also, could Paul’s words have any parallels? “… they have a zeal of God [or freedom or free markets], but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness [or point of view], and going about to establish their own righteousness [or point of view], have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness [point of view] of God. (New Testament Romans 10:2-3). How does God view the rich and the poor? Are free-markets free or just facades to justify power and elitism? See also http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/search/label/EconomicsOfJesus
6. New Testament Revelation 17 & 18
7. and study, research, ponder, fact check, remember

Judgment at …

(All indented paragraphs are partial quotes from, or are based on portions of, the Judgment at Nuremberg film script, screen play by Abby Mann.)

Sixty-three years ago (1947), the United States conducted a trial examining the issue of individual complicity of justice officials in crimes committed while in the service of the German state. This trial was memorialized in a fictionalized film (1961), entitled, “Judgment at Nuremberg.” Considering recent statements made by former DOJ lawyer John Yoo and several others¹ justifying (redefining) torture and the reach of executive power, it is disturbingly déjà vu to revisit the film. If we were to remake it today and title it “Judgment at Guantánamo” (or Abu Ghraib, or Washington, or [redacted] Secret CIA Prison), the script would have disquieting parallels—not in the degree of the crimes, but in the authoritarian, nationalistic mentality that leads one to justify uncivilized behaviors.

How far and deep, in the coming years, will these legal and constitutional factures run? Will we, in time, have our own “Ernst Jannings” confess:

My counsel would have you believe, we were not aware of torture. Of secret prisions. Of kidnappings, renditions, assassinations. Not aware?! Where were we?

Where were we when torture advocates began justifying it in the press—even in our very own Congress? Where were we when our newscasts and magazines published damning photographs? Where were we when torture logs were published? When witnesses testified before Congress or in publications? Where were we when advocates of justice and humanity cried out in warning? Were we deaf? Dumb? Blind?

My counsel says we were not aware of the extent of torture used. Not aware of deaths. Of secret prisions. Of kidnappings, renditions, assassinations. He would give you the excuse we were only aware of one or two unfortunate cases. Does that make us any the less guilty? Maybe we didn’t know the details. But if we didn’t know, it was because we didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to admit that many of our so-called enemy combatants were entirely innocent. Or even worse, discounted—justified—our own crimes because others’ crimes were so incomparably worse! Because our “good” intentions justified every means!

And will we, in time, have another Judge Haywood say:

The charge is that of conscious participation in a government-sanctioned system of cruelty and injustice in violation of every moral and legal principle known to all civilized nations. The tribunal has carefully studied the record and found therein abundant evidence to support beyond a reasonable doubt the charges against these defendants.

Defense Counsel, in their very skillful defense, have asserted that there are others who must share the ultimate responsibility for what happened. There is truth in this. The real complaining party at the bar in this courtroom is civilization. But this tribunal finds that the accused in the dock are responsible for their actions. Men and women who took part in the enactment of laws and decrees the purpose of which was the torture of human beings. Men and women who, in executive positions, actively participated in the enforcement of these “laws,” illegal under both U.S. and international law. The principle of criminal law in every civilized society has this in common: Any person who sways another to commit torture or murder—any person who furnishes the order for the purpose of the crime—any person who is an accessory to the crime is guilty.

Defense counsel further asserts that the defendants were exceptional lawyers and officials and acted in what they thought was the best interest of their country. There is truth in this also. But this trial has shown that under a national crisis ordinary, even able and extraordinary men and women, can delude themselves into the commission of crimes so heinous that they beggar the imagination. No one who has sat through this trial can ever forget them. How easily it can happen.

There are those in our own country too, who today speak of the protection of country—of survival. A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy—to rest survival upon what is expedient—to look the other way. The answer to that is: Survival as what? A country isn’t a rock. It’s not an extension of one’s self. It’s what it stands for. It’s what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult. Before the people of the world, let it now be noted that here, in our decision, this is what we stand for: Justice, truth, and the value of a single human being.

And will we, as a people, eventually come to say:

Judge Haywood, we wanted to tell you, we never knew it would come to what it did. You must believe it.

Only to hear our Judge reply:

It came to that the first time you justified the torture of another human being.

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1. Including former VP, Dick Cheney and former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove. See also, References section at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yoo for various writings and opinions.

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)