Satyagraha – Cultural Psychology

When 9/11 occurred, when those terrible images of the Twin Towers crashing down appeared across the country, my first reaction was basically that it seemed like a wake-up call to America.  Maybe if I had been on the East Coast, closer to the tragedies, or if I knew someone who was killed or injured, I would have reacted differently; I would have likely been more immediately affected by the grief and sense of loss.  But I was in California, 2000 miles away.  To some extent, the events were an abstraction — just as if a typhoon or other natural disaster struck half-way around the world.

At the time I was very much involved in an attempt to rescue a large tract of land from the hands of real estate developers.  I was carefully reviewing an Environmental Impact Report, and preparing a scathing critique to send to a local government office.  This is what was on my mind:  how people in California could be so preoccupied with wealth and real estate speculation that they were willing to literally sell their souls, paving every field and meadow, destroying every other life form, poisoning their air and water, stressing themselves to the point of physical and mental illness, and severing their life-sustaining connection with nature.

I didn’t use these words exactly, and in any case it didn’t imply lack of concern for the people directly harmed by the attacks, but my immediate private response was something like “America had it coming”.  To the extent that I shared this reaction, however diplomatically, people were shocked.  They asked, “how can you criticize America at a time like this!”  I was accused of being unpatriotic. Unfortunately, things have played out in the intervening years consistent my reaction then.  The societal problems I was noticing in 2001 were strongly linked to a lopsided and unsustainable economy, not just on the part of corporations, but with regard to individual people.  The ethos of the times was to buy a house, let it appreciate in value, and sell for a profit; and at the same time to make any ethical compromises necessary in terms of work and job to insure enough income to make mortgage payments. That was considered the ticket to financial security.  This led, in a way that might have been predictable had people thought things through, to the collapse of the mortgage industry and the financial meltdown.

After 9/11, some people called it punishment from God.  That’s not what I was suggesting then or suggest now.  ‘Punishment’ is the wrong word.  It seems to me, rather, that, when people are messing up big-time and headed for ruin, that God gives them a message.  It doesn’t come from wrath or anger, but from compassion and concern.  Literally, then, we bring these things on ourselves.  Hopefully we get the message, correct what needs correcting.  Then hopefully go on to reap the joys and blessings that life truly promises, and can look back on the wake-up call with understanding and even gratitude.

For me, what’s happened with healthcare reform in the last year seems like a second wake-up call to America.  The kind of reform proposed by the president and voted for by Congress amounts to the worst kind of socialism. It is antithetical to the principles of American society.  It is not just the content of the reform — which puts government at the center of a malignant and malicious medical-industrial complex — but also the process:  this was truly done without the consent and participation of the American people.  The whole thing was an exercise in totalitarianism.  The House and Senate bills were, for the most part, drafted in secret, allowing little opportunity for public scrutiny, debate, and comment.   Meanwhile the president embarked on a shameless propaganda campaign, even to the point of bombarding constituents with absurd emails misrepresenting the plan and demonizing opponents.  In the end, the House of Representatives relied on incredibly shabby tactics to bypass a Senate filibuster, effectively announcing the suspension of even the appearance of democracy in the country.

However as far as I’m concerned the biggest and most decisive issue concerning healthcare reform — one about which there should be complete agreement by any observant person — is that the whole thing is a farce, because the medical system in America is totally dysfunctional anyway.  If you don’t know this, then either (1) you are as rich as Warren Buffet, and are insulated from what most people experience seeking healthcare, or (2) you haven’t been to a doctor in 10 years.

Doctors and other healthcare providers have traditionally been among the finest people in society.  They are smart, unselfish, compassionate, highly skilled, and, more often than not, extremely spiritual.  To be a physician used to be considered a calling from God.  Personally I believe that is still the case.  However the institutions in which care providers must operate today are aversive to the point of choking the life out of  these genuinely good intentions, and bringing the noblest among them to the point of despair.  I, for one, do not like to see this.  When I visit a hospital now, I’m not sure who I feel more sorry for — the patients, or the staff.  But in any event, I see that something is terribly wrong.  (And in case you’re wondering, I enter hospitals these days to visit others.  I’d rather die than be admitted myself.)

So now we’re faced with our second wake-up call.  American society fell years ago off the cliff into materialism and affluence.  But we still congratulated ourselves as being the bastion of democracy. But, with the events of the last few months, that illusion too has come crashing down.  The United States is not a democracy.  We are an occupied nation, each of us isolated, cut-off from others, and paralyzed with fear.  What makes it especially difficult is that we do not even know who the enemy is.  It isn’t Obama, and it isn’t Nancy Pelosi.  It would be nice if it were that simple.  Ultimately, it is just like those prophetic words of Walt Kelley, the famous creator of the ‘Pogo’ comic strip:  “We have met the enemy and he is us”.

It comes as no news to say that we are, each of us, divided souls — part angel and part devil — each struggling for dominance and control within us.  It seems that, in ways I’m not sure anyone has yet fully explained, these forces can collectivize.  Just as our inner angel may work with those of other people to found churches, charities, and institutions of learning and art, our inner devils do this also.  We probably don’t need to get too far into the psychology, and certainly not the metaphysics, of this here, because the practical implications are pretty straightforward in any case. The bottom line is that our inner angels have grown tepid and lazy, gradually being seduced, one degree at a time, by comfort and self-indulgence.

This happens. It’s part and parcel of being an angel.  But when it comes to your attention that this has happened, you’ve got a decision to make:  to let the slide continue, or to get back on track.

That’s where we are today.  I believe that most Americans still believe in our country:  that we have a special role to play in history.  But we’ve fallen slack, and haven’t been doing our job.  We’ve had two wake-up calls already, and I, frankly, don’t want to wait around to see what the third one might look like.  It’s time to gird up our loins, step up, and do what it takes.

What that means can be said in a single word:  Virtue. If that’s too vague, just refer to the time-honored division of Virtue into the four cardinal virtues of discernment (prudence), self-control (temperance), courage, and justice.  And if, like most people today, thanks to the narrowness of modern education,  you’ve never studied the cardinal virtues, then you need wisdom.

I don’t need to spell out in detail what needs to be done, because you already know where the answers come from:  conscience.  My job — both a psychologist and also as someone who’s been fortunate enough to have a traditional religious and classical education in an age where that’s rare — is just to help remind you that you have a conscience.  Consult your inner compass.  It exists.  It’s a spiritual reality.  Everything begins there.

But just as evil has now collectivized itself in unprecedented ways, creating terrible, global anti-humanistic power structures, so too must our inner angels organize and become effective in unprecedented ways.  This is the challenge of history now.

First we must individually get our acts together, shrugging off the lethargy and dross of bad habits and thought. Then we must learn to new ways to work together. We must found new institutions, and new kinds of institutions.  We must transcend the limitations of personal ego that have rendered previous institutions incapable of preventing the evils we see today.

I will close by singling out for emphasis one of the cardinal virtues:  courage. It is not that courage is, per se,  more important than the other cardinal virtues, but it does seem particularly important to these times.  The events of 9/11 achieved the aim of instilling widespread fear.  And the federal government, too, has lately used fear to drive the populus into submission.  In both cases the antidote is courage: the courage to endure and to believe in oneself, in ones ideals, in others, in ones traditions, and in ones instincts.

As I write I am reminded of the great book of the eminent theologian, Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be.  The title alone reminds us of a vital connection between courage and being.  To be who one truly is requires great courage.  And, conversely, to lose courage is to cease to be.

Let us all take courage, then, and more forward — together.

The Commission on Presidential Debates: A National Scandal

Following up on the previous post, I did a little research on the mysterious Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), which organizes the televised presidential debates.

The sordid details of this Commission supply the most tangible, unequivocal evidence imaginable that the Republican and Democratic parties are a duopoly, collaborating to control the government and to preserve the status quo. The details are also a tragic testimony to how easily the American public is duped. As this blog hopefully shows, I try to stay politically aware; but until a few days ago I, like most people, naively assumed that the debates are being responsibly run. It seems rather clear that they aren’t.

The History

For many years, the famous League of Women Voters (LWV) ran the presidential debates. They saw themselves as citizens, and the candidates as ‘guests’ — that is, citizens controlled the debates, and the candidates took their directions from citizens. By 1988, the Republican and Democratic parties began to collude in advance, drafting “memoranda of understanding” agreeing with each other on the format and content of the debates. They then tried to dictate format and groundrules to the LWV. At that point the LWV withdrew, stating indignantly, “the League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.”

So, in their place, the Committee on Presidential Debates was formed — a private and ostensibly nonpartisan nonprofit organization, but actually under the direct influence of the Republican and Democratic Parties. Since then the debates have existed for the sole purpose of consolidating the joint Republican/Democratic monopoly on American government.

You might say, “Wait, wasn’t Ross Perot in the 1992 debates?” Yes he was. That’s because both Clinton and Dole agreed to let him participate. Basically, both major parties saw it to their advantage: each expected Perot to divert more votes from the other major party.

But in 1996 this same Ross Perot was excluded from the debate, despite (1) having roughly the same level of pre-debate public support he had in 1992, and (2) having gained 19% of the popular vote in 1992. Until 2000 there were no objective criteria for inclusion — it was decided by the CPD and their advisers. They weren’t accountable to anyone except the Republican and Democratic parties.

This is all spelled out clearly in a revealing 26-page report, Deterring Democracy: How The Commission On Presidential Debates Undermines Democracy, written jointly by several citizen advocacy groups. I can’t improve on what the reports says and simply refer readers to it. I especially recommend the sections, Candidate Exclusion, and Corporate Sponsorship.

Leadership

A look at the leadership of the CPD, as shown as their website, leaves little doubt about their control by the Republican and Democratic parties:

Here are their co-chairmen:

• Frank J. Fahrenkopf, Jr. (former chair, Republican National Committee; gambling lobbyist; president, American Gaming Association; directs enormous contributions to Republican and Democratic parties)

• Paul G. Kirk, Jr. (former chairman, Democratic National Committee)

Here are the ‘Honorary Chairmen’:

• Gerald R. Ford (deceased)
• Jimmy Carter
• Ronald Reagan (deceased)
• William J. Clinton

Here is the Board of Directors:

• Howard Buffett: son of Warren Buffett (corporate investor and world’s richest man)

• John C. Danforth: former Republican senator; grandson of William Danforth, Ralston-Purina founder

• Antonia Hernandez: Democrat; “Her tenure with MALDEF [Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund] has been marked by controversy…”; narrowly escaped termination from MALDEF based on questions of leadership and administrative capabilities

• Michael D. McCurry: former press secretary/White House spokesman for Bill Clinton

• Newton N. Minow: veteran Democrat; former FCC head

• Dorothy Ridings: former president and chief executive officer of the Council on Foundations

• Alan K. Simpson: Republican; former US Senator

• H. Patrick Swygert: Former university president; Fannie Mae board of directors

Corporate Sponsorship

The CPD is funded by corporate sponsors. An interesting trick: the Republicans and Democrats collude to form a non-profit, non-partisan organization for ‘public education’. Corporations can contribute as much as they want to this entity, freed from the usual concerns of limits on political campaign contributions.

Current or former corporate sponsors include: Anheuser-Busch ($550,000 in 2000), Philip Morris ($250,000 in 1992), AT&T, Prudential, IBM, Ford, General Motors.

For more information, why not visit www.opendebates.org. Basically this is a citizen-run group that would like to give back to citizens control of the debates. If the cloud here has a silver lining, it’s that there are still honest Americans like those at Open Debates trying to get the country back on track. You aren’t alone.

Open the Presidential Debates to Third Parties!

A recent Zogby poll showed that most American voters would like to see the Libertarian party presidential candidate, Bob Barr, participate in the presidential debates.

However, the Commission on Presidential Debates refuses to allow this. They require that a candidate meet two inclusion criteria:  (1) that their name appears on enough state ballots to grant a “mathematical chance” (i.e., a non-zero probability) of winning the election, and (2) that polls show that at least 15% of voters support the candidate.

As of this writing Bob Barr is already on 38 state ballots — including California, Florida, Illinois, and Texas — and he is likely to ultimately be on 48 state ballots.  Thus the first criterion above is met.  However, he only has a 6% endorsement rate in national polls; on that basis he is excluded from the debates.

The Commission on Presidential Debates fails to appreciate the circularity of their reasoning.  By excluding third parties from the debates, nobody learns about these parties, and therefore nobody supports them.  American is force-fed a diet of ‘Republicrat’ propoganda.  We continue to be presented with a narrow choice between the two major parties, which are basically clones of each other. This is something Americans should be angry about.

American needs fundamental change.  There are solutions — but these must entail bold, courageous, and innovative ideas.  Those will not come from the Republican or Democrat parties, which both reflect the vested power interests that have produced the problems America faces.

Whom you vote for is up to you to decide.  I wouldn’t try to influence your vote even if I could.  But I will supply a link to the Libertarian party platform, and, for that matter, to Ralph Nader’s too.  Please take a minute to look at these — just to see that there are good ideas out there.  People need to see how badly the Democrat and Republican parties are shortchanging us.

The two major parties, the media, and, to a large extent the academic community are colluding to perpetuate a fantasy world of wrong ideas and stupid ways of looking at things.  There’s no reason why the problems we face can’t be solved.  Your common sense tells you that.  Trust your common sense, and extricate yourself from the tissue of lies the major parties and the media present.

• Libertarian party platform
  

• Ralpha Nader platform

And if you haven’t already seen it, here is my article:  Why Vote Third Party?

You HAVE to check out this new book by Texas Congressman Ron Paul.

Some people say America is finished. But they’re wrong.

America is still the last, best hope for establishing a government of the people, by the people, for the people.

Yes, America has fallen onto bad times and has made mistakes. That merely proves that a modern democracy is difficult to establish. If other countries were as large and as free as the United States is, they’d likely be making the same or worse mistakes.

Ultimately, if America cannot succeed in this grand experiment, then nobody can. Or, stated conversely, if modern democracy is feasible at all, then America will find a way to make it work.

This new book is a case in point of how America is still fundamentally committed to the ideals of justice and liberty. The Republican/Democrat political establishment has managed to engineer an oppressive political system. But Americans are still fundamentally free — that’s something built into the principles and spirit of the nation. In a free environment it’s only a matter of time before someone speaks out — and Ron Paul has done so.

His new book is titled The Revolution: A Manifesto

The timing of the book couldn’t be better — obviously planned to coincide with the upcoming November elections.

Here are some excerpts from the editorial review at Amazon:

* The government is expanding.
* Taxes are increasing.
* More senseless wars are being planned.
* Inflation is ballooning.
* Our basic freedoms are disappearing.

The Founding Fathers didn’t want any of this. In fact, they said so quite clearly in the Constitution of the United States of America. Unfortunately, that beautiful, ingenious, and revolutionary document is being ignored more and more in Washington. If we are to enjoy peace, freedom, and prosperity once again, we absolutely must return to the principles upon which America was founded. But finally, there is hope . . .

In THE REVOLUTION, Texas congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul has exposed the core truths behind everything threatening America, from the real reasons behind the collapse of the dollar and the looming financial crisis, to terrorism and the loss of our precious civil liberties. In this book, Ron Paul provides answers to questions that few even dare to ask.

As of March 5, 2008, Ralph Nader’s campaign has now placed a preliminary platform online. You can find it here: http://www.votenader.org/issues/

Let’s review the items one by one.

1. Adopt single payer national health insurance

As I understand it, this would work by having, in essence, a single, national, government-run health insurance agency. There are two rationales for this: (a) to achieve universal health coverage (at present, 40 millions Americans have no health insurance); and (b) to reduce overhead costs associated with the ‘private insurance bureaucracy’, which, it is claimed, consumes about 31% of every health care dollar.

Clearly we need to address issue (a). However about (b) we should be cautious. First, competition generally brings costs down. I don’t understand the argument that a single government-run health insurance agency would somehow have lower administrative costs than those of privately-owned companies. The former would be performing the same tasks, only with no competition and so with less incentive to find ways to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and improve service quality.

And where would you go if you had a complaint? Think about it: would you want the IRS to be in charge of your health care reimbursement?

I worked in a private health insurance company once, and it seemed to me they were always finding ways to improve service, process, and efficiency. They recognized and took seriously a responsibility to promote patient health and welfare. With improvements in computer and communications systems, private health insurance service is getting continually better.

2. Cut the huge, bloated, wasteful military budget

Definitely. This is a good platform policy.

3. No to nuclear power, solar energy first

Probably good. I’d rather we say instead “other energy sources, especially solar energy”.

4. Aggressive crackdown on corporate crime and corporate welfare

Nader coined the term, ‘corporate welfare’, in 1966. For him it means the government’s bestowal of grants, tax breaks, or other special benefits on corporations. This platform plank is related to the need for lobby reform, which is definitely a good idea. The phrase ‘aggressive crackdown’ hints at a basic animosity Nader holds towards corporations.

Further, corporate crime and ‘corporate welfare’ are separate issues.  The former is a legal-criminal matter; here we need to enforce existing laws.  However, what Nader calls ‘corporate welfare’ is a social policy issue.

Nader, of course, has a long history as an anti-corporate crusader, and tends to overstate things in this area. Economist Eric Blair, in his blog, put it well:

When I hear Nader speak of government’s ‘corporate paymasters’, I get flush with embarrassment, because it’s the sort of gross oversimplification that makes people think liberals are all dumb. It is based on a false us-versus-them dichotomy. All of us, capitalists and laborers alike, want to have a healthy economy where we all have some kind of income and lots of the stuff we want to consume with that income readily available. Gosh, that’s going to involve corporations, especially if we want things to be efficiently done.

See Eric’s article Critique of Ralph Nader’s 2004 Platform for details. Eric’s comments above are in line with my thoughts about Redeeming Corporations and Renewing America. Use corporations for good; don’t scrap them or see them as innately bad things.

For background on Nader’s position, see this article:

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Nader/CutCorpWelfare_Nader.html

5. Open up the Presidential debates

To bring more third-party and independent ideas into public view during elections. Definitely.

6. Adopt a carbon pollution tax

To reduce greenhouse emissions. We do need to reduce greenhouse emissions, but it’s not clear that a tax like this is a way to do it. Arguably, a ‘disincentive tax’ like this should be linked to offsetting societal costs associated with the thing taxed. For example, cigarette tax revenue should be directed to treating smoking-related illness, preventing smoking, etc. It’s hard to see how that principle would apply here — but maybe we could spend it developing alternative energy sources.

Other various criticisms of a carbon tax can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_tax

7. Reverse U.S. policy in the Middle East

If that means to switch from making enemies and war to making friends and peace, yes.

8. Impeach Bush/Cheney

This one sticks out like a sore thumb. Why impeach Bush/Cheney? Because of the war? Then why not impeach the US Congress while we’re at it? Or how about the majority of voters who implicitly endorsed the Bush administration in the 2004 elections? Come on, this is back to hate politics. Let’s raise the level of public discourse, and focus on issues, not personalities.

9. Repeal the Taft-Hartley anti-union law

Huh? Again, Nader’s atavistic 60′s liberalism shows. Does he really thinks labor unions are going to save America? Personally, I tend to see labor unions as an example of “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” That is, labor unions are quasi-governments which (1) are run by selfish, greedy leaders; (2) exploit and coerce workers; and (3) are in the long run much less transparent and democratic than the regular government is.

10. Adopt a Wall Street securities speculation tax

At first I rejected this as being too unrealistic. Then I realized that what matters here is not Nader’s hypothetical solution, but that he’s raising the issue at all. The issue is that people, companies, and sometimes machines(!) presently engage in millions of short-term stock trades, solely for speculation. A company buys millions of dollars worth of stock and then sells it an hour later with a big profit. Sometimes this is based is on insider information; other times it involves deliberate manipulation by huge financial corporations to influence stock prices.

Further, knowledgeable traders can make huge profits even when stock prices decrease! All this creates an incentive for vastly powerful financial institutions to produce a fluctuating stock market.

This has created a bizarre, nightmarish economic machine which controls our economy, our society, and our lives, and enslaves us. It’s a huge, huge issue. I’m just not sure that a tax is a way to do handle the problem. We have enough taxes already. I believe we should simplify the tax code (e.g., a flat tax), not make it more complex.

It might be an utterly naive suggestion, but maybe it would be better to simply ban short-term stock speculation altogether, rather than to specially tax it.

11. Put an end to ballot access obstructionism

Make it easier for third-party and independent candidates to get on election ballots. Yes.

12. Work to end corporate personhood

Should corporations have the same rights as individuals? I guess it depends on what rights we’re talking about. A complex question. For background, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood_debate

Overall Appraisal

Nader/Gonzalez are doing what third-party candidates should: to diversify the issues being considered in the election. Follow their election, listen to their speeches, research their ideas. Nader has 40 years’ worth of articles you can find online explaining his views.

Nader deserves credit for working to raise the public awareness and for better focusing on important issues than the Democrat-Republican candidates.

According to Eric Garris, in a post at Antiwar.Com:

February 18, 2008.

The national Libertarian Party (LP) organization has taken their strongest position in favor of withdrawal from Iraq. At their national committee meeting yesterday in Las Vegas, the following resolution passed overwhelmingly.

WHEREAS the government of the United States should return to its historical libertarian tradition of avoiding entangling alliances, foreign quarrels, and military adventures and;

WHEREAS the armed forces of the United States have invaded Iraq, a foreign nation that neither directly attacked nor imminently threatened to attack the United States and;

WHEREAS the injustice and imprudence of this invasion cannot be undone by the continued presence of the armed forces of the United States in Iraq and;

WHEREAS the stability and security of Iraq lie outside the jurisdiction of the government of the United States;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Libertarian Party National Committee calls on the government of the United States to withdraw the armed forces of the United States without undue delay.

Congratulations to the Libertarian Party which has just taken an important step towards the restoring the international credibility of the United States, its citizens, and its ideals.

At the Watchblog Third Party Website, Joel S. Hirschhorn wrote an good article titled The Evolution of Evil. He identifies as an essential problem the current two-party system. To quote Joel:

Most corrupt and legally sanctioned forms of tyranny hide in plain sight as democracies with free elections….  Nothing conceals tyranny better than elections. Few Americans accept that their government has become a two-party plutocracy run by a rich and powerful ruling class. The steady erosion of the rule of law is masked by everyday consumer freedoms. Because people want to be happy and hopeful, we have an epidemic of denial, especially in the present presidential campaign. But to believe that any change-selling politician or shift in party control will overturn the ruling class is the epitome of self-delusion and false hope. In the end, such wishful thinking perpetuates plutocracy. Proof is that plutocracy has flourished despite repeated change agents, promises of reform and partisan shifts.

He also identifies three solutions aimed at achieving reform: (1) curbing discretionary spending as a form of civil disobedience — hit the enemy where it hurts: in the pocketbooks; (2) refusing to vote, and (3) grassroots political organization aimed at reform.

I agree in general with (3), completely disagree with (2), and largely disagree with (1).

My arguments for promoting change by voting for third-party and independent candidates are explained elsewhere, so there’s no need to repeat them here. Concerning consumer protest, I would rather see more intelligent discretionary spending than no spending at all. Spending is good for the economy. More importantly spending means you’re paying somebody else to work, which is an intrinsically good thing. People like to work. People need to work. Working gives people a sense of accomplishment and meaning. We’re designed to work. But it has to be the right kind of work. So spend money, but let it be on services and products that are good — for example, organic food and solar energy.

More basically, I suggest that we need to pay more attention to spiritual solutions. On the one hand, most people seem to accept that the human race is battling some kind of metaphysical evil; but on the other hand, we seem very reluctant to admit this publicly, or to try to use spiritual strategies to counter it. To avoid narrow sectarian religious views in public social discourse is understandable; but to avoid spirituality altogether seems near suicidal! Hence my comment to Joel’s article, which I also ‘reprint’ below

John Uebersax

—

Hi Joel, this is an excellent article. You truly see how the current two-party system is a tyranny masquerading as democracy! I’m going to post a link to it in my third-parties blog.

Please let me suggest three other strategies for restoring power, in addition to the three you mention. First though, let me explain that I approach politics from a perspective that is both spiritually-oriented and logically hard-headed. I always feel I must apologize for this, fearing that people will associate my ideas with those of ignorant religious fundamentalist or ‘new-agers’. Be assured that such is not the case. My religious views are more like those of the Renaissance or in classical Greece and Rome — in times before the radical dissociation of Science and Religion occurred. The ‘System’ has discredited religion, thereby removing our most potent tools for restoring control. It has marginalized religious thought, drawing most attention to the more ignorant representatives of this viewpoint. Regardless of what the dominant positivist-materialist worldview teaches, evils does exist, and it quite plainly operates in ways that go beyond our current scientific models. It stands to reason that if we want to counter evil, then we have to be willing to consider spiritual paradigms. The fact that this seems to many so implausible is itself evidence of our conditioning.

Enough by way of preface then. Now the three additional strategies for restoring power:

4. Personal education. We have let our nation become dumbed down. This must be reversed. People, need to read more, and to read better quality material. Throw out Harry Potter and Tom Clancy. Pick up Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare, and Gibbons. If that seems too hard and gives you a headache, so much the better; it proves the point: that people’s brains have become ‘flabby’ through non-use. The better people educate themselves, the more apparent the lies and oppression of the two-party monopoly will be. This is a cheap solution, and, importantly, one that, like all true solutions, begins with a person asking, “How can I promote change by reforming and improving myself?”

5. Acquiring virtue. Yes, the System is evil and exploits us. But, as Walt Kelly, social critic and creator of the “Pogo” comic strip, wrote so long ago, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Unfortunately, we are not just oppressed by the System, we are, to an alarming degree, part of the System. Anyone with a bank account or a pension plan is, intentionally or not, invested in the stock market — that immensely powerful, blind, and amoral force which *owns* the corporations that own the political parties.

We need to become more virtuous — more just and charitable. We need to re-examine areas of our own life that contribute to the system. The more each of us acquires virtue, the more we enable others to do so by our example.

6. Spiritual weapons. Most Americans apparently believe in God and an afterlife. They believe they are immortal beings. They also believe in prayer, or say they do. Yet somehow we dissociate these beliefs entirely when it comes to politics. That makes no sense at all. Either people should give up their religion or use it! And if religion is true, then people should pray for change. Indeed, that should be their first and most primary tool.

Related to prayer is the class of tactics that Gandhi called “satyagraha”, which means “truth force.” Examples include things like demonstrations, constructive civil disobedience, and the willing acceptance of forms of suffering to promote change. When was the last time you heard anyone suggesting that people should go on penitential fasts for the sake of effecting social change? But the efficacy of such fasts is an established tenet of Judeao-Christian religious beliefs. We are ignoring all the most effective means human culture has ever known to promote social change.

As this is just a comment, I shouldn’t make it too long. Let it suffice to suggest that people should think more about re-introducing religious and spiritual themes into discussions of socio-political reform. This should not be narrow-minded, fundamentalist, or sectarian. (Gandhi, for example, was famous for holding interdenominational religious services, combining Hindu, Muslim, and Christian prayers and scriptures.) But if we’re fighting evil, then we would be foolish indeed to fail to make use of our most potent weapons for combating it.

Here we refer again to a recurring theme of this site: how American politics is, under the present regime, basically a one party system, with two colluding “wings” — Democrats and Republicans.

The argument presented in this post is that this is exactly what you’d expect to find if a single special interest coalition wished to control a country. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that in some hypothetical country there was a group of people who wished to control the government and to benefit themselves by manipulating government decisions in ways that were potentially harmful to the population at large.

Suppose, further, that these ruling interests first founded or bankrolled a single party only, which tried to gain control of  the government. That might work in a dictatorship, but in a democracy like the United States, where people can in theory vote an aversive regime, it is difficult. After a few years, people would get tired of the oppression, identify the government as the cause, and elect a new government. Therefore it would not be in the interests of such vested interests to form a single party only, and to try to control the government by that means.

Suppose instead, then, that this group formed two nominal parties, and that these two parties shared control of the government, alternating, so that only one was in power at any given time. By this means the special interests could then exploit a population indefinitely. When the public got tired of the oppression of party A, then party B could come to the fore, denouncing party A. People could then vote party B into office, believing that in this way they had acted to end oppression. However, under the conditions of the example, party B would also be “owned” by the special interests. Nothing really would change. In this way, the special interests would become effectively immune to the corrective actions of public indignation.

Crucial to this scheme would to to convince people that they must vote only for one of these two main parties, and to dissuade them from voting for third-party candidates.  One effective means for this is to dominate news media with coverage of two main parties.  A second strategy would rely on the ultimate tried-and-true principle for mass manipulation: fear.  That is, make both main party candidates  so extreme that people will be forced to vote against one of them; this is facilitated by selecting platforms that divide the electorate as close as possible to a 50/50 split — that way nobody will be willing to vote for a third-party candidate, because each person believes that his or her own vote is crucial in preventing the less desirable mainstream candidate from winning.

This would be the perfect racket, scheme, or con-game. It would let vested interests remain in power indefinitely, continuing to exploit the population. Now, (1) since this would indeed be a very effective strategy for powerful vested interests, and would benefit them greatly, (2) since existing American special interests (big finance, defense contractors, etc.) are quite capable of manipulating two different parties, and (3) since, as outlined above, it gains them very little to manipulate only a single party, then we must seriously consider that this dual-party manipulation is actually occurring.

We might also note some specific evidence of this. First, it is well known that many corporations make campaign contributions to both the Democrats and the Republicans. There is absolutely nothing to prevent this. (Anyone who still thinks that big business only contributes to the Republicans is very naive!) Second, the news media (which is part of big business) tells us very little about third-party and independent political candidates and viewpoints. Rather, they devote inordinate amounts of space to petty squabbles between the Republicans and the Democrats, which fits with our model here.

Okay, that’s the argument. Some readers probably already accept that this is going on. Others are welcome to think about it. If you do agree that this is what’s happening, the answer is obvious: one should vote for some party other than the Republicans/Democrats. Even if this doesn’t change the government in 2012, it serves as a protest vote.  It will gradually (or perhaps not so gradually) force the Republicans and Democrats to develop more rational and productive platforms. Further, it signifies that you yourself have extricated yourself from the game.

Most of all, I wish to encourage people reconsider entrenched ways of thinking about Republicans versus Democrats. If the model proposed here is correct, then if one is a staunch Democrat who hates Republicans, or vice versa, then I propose that one is succumbing to the false rhetoric of these parties; one is buying into the specious controversies which the parties and their special interest owners engineer to give the mere appearance of their having two different points of views..

Look at the evidence. Yes, we’ve had a Democrat in the White House for 4 years, and things are bad. But before that we had Republican president for 8 years, and things were bad then.  Previous to that, we had a Democrat president along with a deeply troubled economy and imperialistic foreign policy. (True, on paper, the economy then was booming in the 90′s. But how much of that was the result of a hyperinflated stock market? Everyone was delighted when their pension plans, heavily invested in the stock market, doubled in value. But who was asking if this was sustainable? Or moral?) At the same time people were still working like dogs in high-stress jobs, commuting 1 hour to and from work, and breathing polluted air. The country then, as now, suffered from massive epidemics of stress-related psychosomatic diseases. In short, the quality of life was bad under Clinton, a Democrat, under George W. Bush, a Republican, and now under Obama, a Democrat. During none of these administrations was there anything even remotely close to a realistic long-term vision or plan for the country.

We can keep going back and forth like this, changing the name and the superficial appearance of the ruling party, telling ourselves that it matters; or we can wake up and smell the coffee, and throw both sets of bums out of office. What’ll it be?

Related post:  Why Vote Third-Party?

So the presidential race may come down to a contest between McCain and Obama. Since each candidate is scary in his own way, many people would then vote based on the principle of choosing the lesser evils. Let’s examine that principle here, and also tie some concepts of decision theory.

First, regardless of which candidate is worse, both are pretty bad. If McCain wins, America might continue an aggressive and unrealistic foreign policy. If promise-happy Obama wins, we may have economic problems. Either way, the country could be worse-off in four years.

But what we need to consider is the marginal difference in expected disutilities (harms) associated with each candidate. I’d suggest that, while the dangers associated with each one are different, the net expected disutility, that is to say, the net value of their different harms over the next four years, is just about the same in either case. You might give the edge to Obama or to McCain, but overall they’re likely to be about equally deleterious.

After four years we can remove the winner from office; from that point forward it won’t matter much which was president. Therefore, if our only concern is to choose between McCain and Obama, we don’t need to consider expected utilities after 4 or 8 years .

We might add here that it’s probably no coincidence that both candidates are so unappealing. The status quo, the System, the financial-media-military-industrial-political complex — whatever you want to call it — seeks to control the population by divide-and-conquer tactics. To that end it has produced two completely polarizing candidates, each sure to frighten half the population into voting for the other candidate. It’s a perfect way to perpetuate the System, along with it’s political manifestation, the Republican/Democrat mega-party.

Long-term costs/benefits

But now let’s include in our analysis the option of voting for a third-party candidate — someone with some really progressive ideas, like:

• serious election reform,

• lobbying reform,

• term limits, or a

• flat tax.

People tend to think, “but a third-party vote would not do enough to prevent McCain (or Obama) from winning.” But we’ve already conceded that you don’t gain much by voting against the worse candidate here.

If you vote third-party this year, while there might not be an immediate payoff, there will be payoffs when the next election comes around.

If Americans in significant numbers vote for third-parties, politicians will get the message. Further, *we* will get the message. Your third-party vote is a message of hope, optimism, and determination to your fellow Americans. It says, “I haven’t given up, and neither should you.” And “We are still in charge of this country!”

If enough people do this, then, come the next election, we might see term-limits and election reform back on the table as issues. We might see some real change. And, in theory, it could happen even sooner.  Further, this will be a signal for positive change not just in our country, but in other countries, which closely follow American politics

While it might seem unlikely, what if 50% of voters cast their ballots for third-party candidates? That would really shake people up Washington, the media, and a lot of other places.

The bottom line is that if you extend your calculations beyond the next four year and into the next 10, 20, or 100 years, then, given the choices, the logic seems compelling for a third-party vote.

Lately I’ve heard some people say, “Hey, maybe this Barack Obama guy is just what the country needs; someone really different.”

The thing is, Mr. Barack is not really different. He’s an orthodox Democrat. More importantly, he’s a Republicrat: he represents the same two-party system that’s gotten the country into its present mess.

Let’s review how this works: the Republicans and Democrats are not two ideologically distinct parties. They are two wings of a single mega-party, the Republicrats, that has monopolized the federal government for many years. They exaggerate small differences between them, but agree on much more important things — like big government.

Worse, they monopolize public attention. If someone comes along with a really good idea for political change (and there are such ideas) you never hear about it.

These two wings take turns looking bad, setting up the other wing up to assume office next. It’s quite a racket, works remarkably well, and has the public fooled. People now dutifully hate George W., unaware that they’ve been set up: they’ll now indignantly vote Democrat, thinking they’ve accomplished something, while the corporate contributors who back both parties sit in their wingback chairs smirking.

Whether you hate George W. Bush, or hated Bill Clinton 8 years ago, it amounts to the same thing. You’ve been manipulated to vote more Republicrats into office. All your anger and indignation are self-defeating. Meanwhile, attention is taken off the real issues.

In any case, Americans need to stop looking to a figurehead president to solve problems for us. That’s childish. It turns what should a civil servant into a parent figure.

No president is going to renew America. It has to come from you and me. Looking to a president for this is a false hope and an abrogation of personal responsibility.

Hence the motto: Nobody for president!

We don’t need any more big-ego media figurehead presidents. As long as we elect media presidents, all we’ll have to choose from are demagogues: people who make it their business to present empty and unrealistic promises. Let’s do a quick reality check (in alphabetical order):

• Hilary Clinton – demagogue and professional politician

• John McCain – demagogue and professional politician

• Barack Obama – demagogue and professional politician

• Mitt Romney – demagogue and professional politician

That pretty well summarizes things.

We need to wean ourselves from this whole model of thinking that a president can renew or reform American society. We need a president to say, “Basically, America, I can’t solve your problems. You have to solve them yourselves. But I promise to stay out of the way as much as possible; I’ll see to getting the garbage collected and the mail delivered.”

For what it’s worth, that’s exactly the philosophy of the Libertarian party candidate.

What’s his name?

I don’t even know.

That’s the point.