Money, Money, Money …
(NOTE: Thanks for the comments and nice words on my last posting about money, "Money Is A Tool …" … now I have a bit more to say about it.)
Here in the good ole US of A we are in a "CRISIS!!!" according to the pundits and media re: the government shutdown.
Now that may or may not be true (there are always at least two sides to any story) … and I'm not enough of an economics expert to offer an opinion that has any validity about what the outcome of a shutdown will actually be if it should happen.
What I want to offer are my insights about what I've heard and read about the shutdown …
Problems in Oz
Ozbama … the wizard in the White House has orchestraed the most polerized government I've seen in my lifetime here in the U.S. … literally acting out on U.S. the prophetic words of his predecessor, George W.Bush:
"Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."
The difference is that our current president thinks anyone who opposes his ideas in Washington is a terrorist and should be monitored by the NSA, so he authorized wiretaps and email scans, and when the individual in the NSA (Edward Snowden) made that illegal action public his adminsitration labeled him a terrorist and traitor.
Now President Ozbama and his cronies are labeling the entire Republican party who opposes him terrorists as well, simply because they refuse to go along with his unilateral ideas on U.S. economic policy.
This is a really bad precedent in a democracy, even one that is just a republic like ours (i.e.: a representative government where the officials we elect to represent us make the best decisions they can based on their own ideas of what's best for the people they represent and the country on the whole … NOT, a government where the elected officials act out the will of the people who are ignorant of the information they may have access to, or the staff that parses that information so they can make the decisions we task them with making when we elect them to represent us.)
Anyway … the issue as I see it is this …
The debate revolves around the debt ceiling of the U.S. Federal government, i.e.: how much debt the U.S. Federal goverment can take on and assume. This is really a question about how much we want to and are willing to burden future generations with the debt we want to incur now to maintain the lifestyle we've become accustomed to and believe we are entitled to regardless of the cost … to be borne mostly by others, including those who are as of today yet unborn.
Okay … let's look at this idea differently, huh?
The U.S. Congress made a decision to limit the debt ceiling and force the Federal government to operate within a set budget by doing so. They have in the past repeatedly raised the debt ceiling so they could spend more money then they had available, or had the authority to borrow against the future earnings of the American people, which they would then tax to pay off the debt they had incurred "on behalf of the American people" (yeah, right!).
Now remember this is within a Congress that also gives itself pay raises regardless of whether or not the economy is growing or shrinking, and the same Congress (and Administration) that insists that they retain access to health insurance the average American cannot get, while imposing what the Supreme Court has ruled is a tax for not being insured, that the American people will have to pay for (both the insurance plan that the Federales get and they cannot themselves have access to, and the tax that will be levied on them if they fail be insured privately themselves).
What they are negotiating is the ramming down the throats of the American people what has become a largely unpopular insurance plan, run by private industry at a profit, lauded as a "National Health Care Plan when it's no such thing … that is the centerpoint of the Republican resistance.
This National Health Care Plan, ofttimes referred to Ozbama Care, will cost an enormous amount to implement and oversee, and the recent attempt at earlier implementation of the state and federal insurance sign-ups has been a dismal failure (up to 98% failure when people attempted to use the websites and register).
This does not bode well for the "American People" IMO.
Specifically, there are two things I want to point out …
1. We've become a nation of polerized communication … i.e.: you are either with us or you are the enemy … and this polarization is spreading globally (like the Cold War taken to the extreme).
2. We are sacrificing the future for our present comforts and in the process creating a world in which there are only two kinds of people … a) the Have-To-Much folks, and b) the Have-Little-or-Nothing folks.
The joke is that most folks are going along for the ride as though the side they are routing for has the answers and is "for them" … like they believe that the team they route for at a sporting event is "their" team.
Hahahahaha … it doesn't get more absurd or ludicrous.
(Think George Steinbrenner and how much the "Yankees" were the team of the downtrodden New Yorkers who supported them, eh?)
"Don't talk to me about aesthetics or tradition. Talk to me about what sells and what's good right now. Don't talk to me about aesthetics or tradition. Talk to me about what sells and what's good right now. And what the American people like is to think the underdog still has a chance."
– George Steinbrenner
(Note the last phrase well, "And what the American people like is to think the underdog still has a chance." – emphasis mine.)
The challenge of course that most Americans, like most people, don't think … they don't know how to think.
In fairness, it's not really their fault, they've never been taught to think, they therefore never learned to think, and as a result they don't know how to think for themselves … they only mostly know how to regurgitate what they have been taught, or what they've read or heard most often … regardless of it's validity, value or if it makes any sense at all.
But this post would become overwhelmingly long if I tried to go into the issues surrounding the education of the American people, the elimination of the Fourth Estate in America, the heinous Citizens United ruling making corporations people, or a dozen other issues that I'd like to in supporting my assertions … so I'll get back to my main point.
If any "normal" person simply raised their "debt ceiling" anytime they got into financial trouble it would be clear to everyone surrounding them that it would only be a matter of time before they would be bankrupt, both financially and morally … yet this is exactly what what the argument in the U.S. is about right now … and some of those holding a position about it are being portrayed not just as ignorant or stupid, but literally as terrorists.
More than that there are two larger issues at hand IMO …
First – the issue of pawning off the debt to others, by people who are trying to access money they don't have and know they will never have to pay back, (their children, or more likely the children of others less fortunate, will have to pay it back … this is a form of slavery or indentured servitude passed along into the future).
Second – the unwillingness to be open to discussion and reasonable debate in favor of unilateral coercion and blackmail … from both sides at this point it seems … and these are our "elected officials" sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America, as they work diligently to dismantle it daily as far as we can tell.
Now the question is where does that leave you???
So … Who you gonna call???
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Princeton, NJ – 10 Oct 2013
PS – If you don't take on the burden of becoming educated yourself about what it takes to read the Signals in the System you will become a victim of the system … IMO the most important thing you can do is learn to decode the hidden meaning in the communications you confront daily, and become an expert communicator yourself … here's something that might interest you BTW …
Thomas says
Great read Joseph. What stuck me most about the chaos in a broken system is they remind me of little children who never matured. They don’t actually solve problems, they generate chaos by projecting their own insecurities.
Joseph says
Thomas,
Thanks.
James Hillman, the great American psychologist and mythologist, who spoke to an “archetypal psychology” often referred to Americans (whom he loved, as he loved the country he was born and raised in, and to which he returned after spending some youthful years in Europe and studying in France) … as stuck in children’s fantasies.
Specifically, he’d say that Americans wanted everything now, and that they were still living the ideal of the pioneer man striving to express themselves in the moment without regard for the tide of history.
Sadly, I agree with his insights.
Joseph
Thomas says
Joseph I’ve not studied Hillman yet but I can say I find this thing called human behavior fascinating. In alignment with your topic I would say the only time america was actually free was when we rose up against the brittish. Then the self proclaimed founders came along and “thought” or maybe they didn’t think it through, but thought we could do a better job ourselves. So a mecca of illusionary value arose from the dust and now we have the illusion of divide and conquer keeping the chaos alive and well.
Joseph says
Thomas,
I’m not quite as cynical about it.
I think we’ve seen multiple periods of so-called freedom in the U.S. … although this might not be one of those now.
IMO freedom begins in the mind, i.e.: we have to “believe” in freedom and do what it takes to achieve it, which is not the same thing as believing we are “free” … or buying into the delusion being sold to us that we are … because freedom demands continual vigilance as well as taking the actions required to gain and keep it.
You and I are among the generations of Americans and Europeans who believe we’re entitled to freedom, and that it will be given to us and maintained for us by others.
Most people are even unwilling to invest the time it takes to know something about the person they are pulling the lever for at the poll, other than the pablum fed to them via the evening news or on the front page of the corruption that used to be the Fourth Estate we could count on to do some of the leg work for us.
Stefania says
Thank you so much for bringing light!!
Joseph says
Stefania,
Thank you. It’s my pleasure to share my thoughts, and doubly so to engage with others around them.
Joseph
Marls says
we need more people teaching these things…..do you have availability in the summer to teach a workshop?
Joseph says
Marla,
These things are out there (not just here … but I’m glad you and other look here to find them on occasion).
Regarding the summer … it depends, what do you have in mind and where?
Joseph
Dagfinn says
Why am I not surprised? I’m not even American. Opportunism, hypocrisy, Orwellian newspeak, blaming “them” mostly for what “we” are doing ourselves. And even forms of systems thinking appear to be embedded in social systems that make them the opposite of what they were supposed to be. I’m thinking both NLP and environmentalism. Someone asked about which one of the higher levels of the Graves model the film Avatar belong to. And I’m thinking, “WTF? it’s about the good guys killing the bad guys, dammit”. And the absolute moral superiority of the good guys. And “in a world of moral certainty, the unthinkable becomes permissible.” (Cullen Murphy, God’s Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World.)
I hope I’m making sense even though I haven’t laid it out in a logical sequence.
Joseph says
Dagfinn,
Makes sense to me …
BUT … the challenge is the “American disease” has spread and you’ve got it there in Europe too.
One advantage/disadvantage of being American and America herself, is that this is still a center of myth-making, a mythogenic source.
Many of the old myths that still operate around the world, and especially in Europe and by default here in the U.S., are largely from the mid-East (what Joseph Campbell referred to as the Levant) and the Mediterranean … our shared Judeo-Chrisitan and Hellenic heritage.
Of course there are the old myths that arose in the Far East (including India for our purposes), Africa, and the Americas, not to mention or leave out Oceania or Polynesia. However, these myths have had less impact in the “West” as we so often refer to Europe and the European-ized Americas.
This doesn’t make these myths that are not so familiar to the European/American mindset less relevant, just less influential in the ethos that we are living out of in these places.
So your reference to the movie, “Avatar,” and the entire mythological form you reference in it is fitting within the overall context of the mythology of the West, but especially when considered in the context of exploration that led to conquest and imperialism over and over again.
As I said, “Who you gonna call?”
Dagfinn says
Yes, I understand that. And imperialism has its mirror myth, “the noble savage”. Avatar (as I remember it) is notable for its lack of depth, both in the portrayal of the culture of the indigenous people/creatures of the and the characters of the bad earthlings. To me it’s basically an unsophisticated action movie with a politically correct “message”.
Joseph says
Dagfinn,
Agreed (with most of it).
There is no question in my mind the power a good story holds. There is also little question in my mind about the willingness of those in power to lay claim to the story being told and the dissemination of it.
Dagfinn says
Joseph,
Maybe it’s easier to understand if I say that I’m probing at the edge of my understanding, and probably not expressing myself clearly. I’ve been wondering about the Graves model My first intuitive reaction to it is “of course”, and the second one is “bullshit”. Because I’ve seen the kind of thinking implied by the higher levels being used by people who are just smooth talkers.
Dagfinn says
Of course, I trust that you’re doing something more useful and real with it.
Freada says
Democracy, Duty of Care and The Case of the Paisley Snail…
The lovely Scotslady May Donoghue and her pal went to the little village of Paisley nearby her home. It was a beautiful sunny day and feeling a tad hot, her friend ordered a delicious and cooling ice cream float for her. Ice cream floats can be made up of different types of ice=cream and drinks. In Ireland we usually have them with 7up and raspberry ripple ice cream. However May was having her ice cream with ginger beer brewed locally by D. Stevenson, however as she poured the last of her ginger beer into her glass, there to her absolute horror…a decomposed snail floated to the top. A few days later she was admitted into hospital suffering dreadfully with gastroenteritis and shock. Thereafter the Case of the Paisley Snail went to court and Stevenson was said to have had a ‘Duty of Care’ to the dear Scotslady May Donoghue.
The judge said and I quote from the link at the end: “You must take care to avoid acts or omission’s, which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour”
Think about that, in the spirit in which it is offered and imagine if politicians, doctors, journalists in fact all human being embraced and enforced the judges’ words.
It is as humans, not labels, starting out with the little things in our own daily lives that we can foster the ‘reappearance of civility’ and allow them to ripple out to the generations.
My main duty of care in my life is as a parent, as parents we have a duty of care – to our children, which flows into future generations. When my daughter was 7 she had a very severe nosebleed, it just wouldn’t’ stop, she was taken to hospital by ambulance, the nosebleed stopped and 10 minutes later started again, this stopping and starting went on for about 40 minutes. Following medical procedure, the doctor’s advice was to transfer her straight to the children’s hospital, admit her and have the blood vessel in her nose cauterized, a painful operation by all accounts. In my gut I didn’t want her to have the operation and I didn’t want to put her in harms way either…here was a doctor who had more information than I had telling me she needed to have the operation. So here we were, now on our way back out to the ambulance, which I had to decide was taking us home or to the childrens hospital, I turned to the doctor, looked him in the eye and said “If this was your child, would you recommend this operation” He stopped, took a breath and said… “no” that if it was his child he would wait that in fact he would prefer to avoid the operation if he could. THAT in my mind is a REAL ‘Duty of Care’ or again in the words of the judge ““You must take care to avoid acts or omission’s, which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour” Interesting!
Follow the Tedx link here from The Houses of Parliament’ Lord David Puttnam speaking and it will bring you on a journey of Democracy, The Paisley Snail above, Duty of Care in society, Politics and The Media, Marcus Aurelius and more – perhaps even a reappearance to civility.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-LUYiw3q04&list=TLivem_eMSo_vTOqhLjUibsmqwK_j9LFIc
Oh and btw my daughter is 18 now and didn’t have to have the operation!
Watch and enjoy the link.
Freada.
Freada says
Oops..I posted that last mail three times…to be sure, to be sure, to be sure..it’s not as long as it seems:-)))
Joseph says
And I deleted twice, to be sure.
Joseph
PS – Lovely story.