WASHINGTON — The need for revenue to partly cover the extension of the payroll tax cut and long-term unemployment benefits has pushed Congress to embrace a generational shift in the country’s media landscape: the auction of public airwaves

Congress to Sell Public Airwaves to Pay Benefits

So we will auction off our public airwaves to private business in order to make this month’s mortgage payment. Next month we will auction off our public lands to big oil, big logging and mining. After that we can auction off the water we drink and the air we breath.

Now I ask you. Once we have sold all of our airwaves, our land, water and air, what will we have to left auction off to make the next month’s mortgage payment come due to our creditors who purchased our airwaves, our land, our water and air, in order to increase their profits?

Our liberty, what little remains.

Try thinking of knowledge, not as a thing or things that can be transferred from one person to another, but as a process of concurrent co-creation that takes place among people who are interacting as they move forward in a challenging world.

Can you touch knowledge? Is knowledge the inky scratches scrawled in a book? Is it our technological artifacts? Is knowledge contained in the utterances vocalized by a wise man?

These are but reflections of knowledge that have no meaning except in terms of others who interpret them as filled with meaning and no two people can interpret words in books, a set of tools, or the utterances of a sage, in exactly the same way. Can’t be done!

Knowledge cannot be captured and quantified. It cannot be arrested and frozen in time or place. There is no knowledge without knowers telling stories amongst their selves about how the world works. In the process of knowing each of us is a co-creator of meaning and knowledge is something that emerges and flows between us as we make our way forward in the world.

Knowledge is a happening thing–an improvisational jam session in which general themes are shared and everyone is a player playing. Sometimes the variations on our themes are subtle–we agree more or less. And sometimes the variations among us are more dramatic–we disagree more or less.

We are all players a-playing and so it goes. Knowledge flows.

Here’s an interesting idea: Humans are not evolving.

Evolved guy

For humans to evolve we would have to allow variation to run wild and then stand by and watch while most variations wither on the vine to see some very few selected for, for reasons that cannot be calculated in advance.

In point of fact, intentional humans struggle to suppress random variation, the engine of natural selection, preferring on the whole, to produce some approximation of predictable averageness in our progeny, lest they fall outside of the social definitions of what is “normal” and acceptable. What worse fate could befall our offspring, than to be deemed abnormal, and so excluded from the society of their fellows?

Of course we do favor and breed for some characteristics deemed desirable in some social context. In ancient Greece presumably, they bred for strength and agility — a physical ideal. Today we often breed for high IQ, a measure of prowess in reasoning out puzzles. Maybe breeding for the ability to solve puzzles produces a better human and maybe not. In our current social circumstance, puzzle solving prowess is highly valued, It is also possible that a preoccupation with puzzle solving ability, neglects and even works against some other quality of humanness of greater importance to our species’ survival.

About one week ago I wrote a blog entry suggesting that Democracy and Capitalism were inherently incompatible. Thanks to some commenters, it soon became clear to me that the post was dangerously heretical and that I could end up getting myself shunned for penning such thoughts. I actually took the post off-line in fear of possible consequences.

On second thought I have returned the post to its rightful place among ideas on the brink of chaos and offer the following thoughts on the subject of heretical thinking. After all, what’s the worst that could happen for simply expressing ideas?

It has become increasingly clear to me that in America today, the very mention of any idea that challenges the established wisdom of the model of private ownership, self-interested motivation and free-marketism — in a word, CapitialISM– has come to be regarded as unspeakably, dangerously, heretical.

The dogma of CapitalISM was codified around the turn of the 18th Century. The violent and bloody Capitalist Crusades only began in earnest at the turn of the 20th Century, when armies raised by true (and vested) believers marched off to war on non-believers — worker unions, socialist uprisings and communists. Make no mistake about it, blood ran in streets throughout Europe as true believers flush with Capitalist cash, beat down the infidels wherever they threatened to rise.

During the 19th and 20th Centuries, a dogma of Capitalism was refined and pawned off as true science — as natural law — despite the fact that so many of the greatest progenitors of 20th Century’s scientific revolutions were heretically anti-Capitalist. By mid-century, with two world wars behind us and the remnants of 1930′s American anti-capitalism, once widespread, in tatters, the Crusaders worked diligently to hammer the last coffin nails home on anti-Capitalist heresies during and after the great “Cold War” between Capitalist good and Socialist/Communist evil.

There is a common sense in America today that the truth value of CapitalISM can no longer be questioned. Economic science and experience have made it clear that history is at an end. All that remain are technical problems of market competition, balancing of accounts, and beating down pathologically heretical thinking that crops up from time to time.

CapitalISM says that the affairs of Homo economicus are governed by nature, red tooth and claw, and it shall ever be so. Trying to make it otherwise is not just foolish but dangerous. We need to keep our feet firmly planted in reality. If humans had been meant to fly, nature would have given them wings.

The Right is spoiling for a fight and they like Newt because, unlike Romney, he is a mean and nasty pit bull. The meaner and nastier the better!

The Left is spoiling for a fight as well, and if Obama wants to win in November, he’s going to have to convince people he’s ready, willing and able to bite. He needs to roll up his sleeves and snarl like he means it—and then mean it!

Democracy and Capitalism are two very big ideas. Democracy is an idea about a method people can use to govern themselves. Capitalism is an idea about how some people think we should produce and distribute wealth among people.

So what do Capitalism and democracy have to do with each other? What does a theory of bigger-dogs-eat-littler-dogs inequality have to do with the idea of government by and for the people?

Democracy is an idea formulated by the Greeks during the rise of Western civilization. It was put forth a practical and moral method of governance in which every person in a society should and must participate as a citizen in making collective decisions about where and how their society should go moving forward.

Capitalism is a more recent idea, born soon after Charles Darwin laid out his theory of evolution. It is a belief about economic relations that says that society is made up of selfish individuals who compete with each other, red tooth and claw, to get a bigger piece of the pie. Capitalism says that this competition is natural, good  and true and that through a magical “invisible hand” it creates a “greater good”.

Democracy is a moral idea and Capitalism is an idea about the morality of amorality.

In a democracy we must work hard to reasonably reconcile our differences in order to build shared aims and methods for working toward a common good. The common good is all that we share —- the air we breath,  the land we cultivate, the seas in which we fish, the energy we produce to build and maintain our roads, cities, damns, airports and all the enterprises we undertake. It is also the well being of our fellows with whom we work to create and share all of these things and our common hopes and dreams for a better future for ourselves and our children.

Capitalism is an idea that makes no provision for reasoning about and working toward the common good. It claims that the “invisible hand” does all that work. Capitalism says that the common good will come as matter of course as individuals seek to plunder the common good in order to maximize their personal wealth. It is the idea that the strongest among us can and should suck off the teat of the common good—our air, land, sea, our energy resources and the labor of others—to maximize individual profit.  Capitalism is cannibalism, plain and simple.

Any fool should be able to see that Capitalism is a democracy killer. It is an idea that excuses the rich to get richer at the expense of others. Capitalism kills the common good. It kills others economically. It kills in wars of economic adventure. It kills the land and sea and air for profit. Capitalism enshrines the worst of the human spirit as a law of God and nature and conspires  by any and all means, to overthrow any moral strictures imposed upon it. It denies that humans are moral beings, capable of choosing to do good.

Democracy is all “WE” and Capitalism is all “I”. They are two big ideas about how we should act in the world that have virtually nothing in common with each other. It’s no wonder people are dazed and confused when we talk about Capitalism and democracy as if they were the same thing.

The question we are faced with today is not how to make the world safe for democracy AND Capitalism. The real question we should be asking is: What is it we want—a world of Capitalist cannibalism OR a democracy by and for the people?

In the United States we think of healthcare as a business proposition. We call it “the healthcare industry”. Is profit and loss the most useful approach to caring for people’s well being?

Here’s a puzzle. See if you can put the pieces together.

Mental Health epidemic in the United States

A World Health Organization study released Tuesday shows that rates of most mental illness are far higher in the U.S. than in any other country in the world.

Overall, the survey of more than 60,000 adults in 14 countries showed a 27% rate of mental disorders in the U.S. population for a list of diseases. That list includes: depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and substance abuse. The U.S. rate was substantially higher than that of any other country measured, including other industrialized nations such as Belgium, which showed a 12% illness rate.

What is “mental health”?

[T]here [is] no one “official” definition of mental health. Cultural differences, subjective assessments, and competing professional theories all affect how “mental health” is defined. There are different types of mental health problems, some of which are common, such as depression and anxiety disorders, and some not so common, such as schizophrenia and Bipolar disorder.

In other words, “mental illness” is not a single disease with clearly definable causes, but rather a subjective diagnosis that depends on many cultural factors. For example, anxiety and depression in one culture may be considered an appropriate reactions to some difficulties in life and a mental “illness” in another.

This brings up some important questions.

Where do we draw the lines between who is mentally healthy and who is mentally sick?

When we prescribe powerful psychoactive drugs, do we risk suppressing healthy responses to life’s trials?

How does the profit motive of drug manufacturers and their prescribers affect the diagnosis of mental “illness”?

A recent study reported in Scientific American magazine found that, at any given time:

….11 percent of women and 5 percent of men…are taking antidepressants. …such as Prozac or Zoloft or Paxil or Celexa or Lexapro or Luvox or Buspar or Nardil or Elavil or Sinequan or Pamelor or Serzone or Desyrel or Norpramin or Tofranil or Adapin or Vivactil or Ludiomil or Endep or Parnate or Remeron.

The mental health “industry” is a rapidly growing profit center for many business but none so much as “big pharma”. Says one health blogger:

When it comes to medicating our moods, the U.S. eclipses every other country in the world – we are the clear “gold medal” winners, with over $22 billion in annual sales of medications prescribed for depression, anxiety, panic attacks, social phobias or other mood swings.

This brings us to the idea of Medicalization.

Medicalization is the process by which human conditions and problems come to be defined and treated as medical conditions and problems, and thus come under the authority of doctors and other health professionals to study, diagnose, prevent or treat. The process of medicalization can be driven by new evidence or theories about conditions, or by developments in social attitudes or economic considerations, or by the development of new purported treatments.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, as of 2008, the total per capita cost of healthcare in the U.S. was $2814. Of that overall per capita cost, about $1600, or one half, is attributable mental health treatment, according to the National Institute of Mental Health!

Here’s the puzzle:

Are we really sicker than we used to be? Do our increasing healthcare expenditures really reflect better but more expensive ways for treating diseases that have long plagued us? Or are business interests simply creating more diseases in order to make money treating them? Is mental health diagnosis and treatment simply an example of businesses creating needs and then filling them for fun and profit?

So long as we treat healthcare as a business proposition, we are bound to be dazed and confused. To what extent does the profit motive applied to healthcare create perverse profit incentives that reward the creation of more sickness in order to obtain ever greater returns for the “industry”.

We need to figure this out.

If you haven’t seen this interview, it is well worth watching. After watching it, give some thought to follow up questions below.

Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson on Winner Take All Politics from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

Follow-up Questions:
If inequality is engineered by vested interests with inordinate financial clout, is our problem that we need to curb the power of those “engineers” to return the system to normal, or do we need to organize our economic activity to purposefully engineer more equality?

In other words, is it enough to more forcefully regulate greed or must we change the system that rewards greed to the exclusion of almost everything else?

Is it enough to keep doing what we have been doing, only better, or must we change what we have been doing?

I must be hallucinating!

Help me! I can no longer bear to turn on the TV or listen to the radio. The nonsense has overwhelmed me. It’s like I’m on a bad LSD trip. I am thinking to myself, “I must be hallucinating”. I am hoping I am hallucinating!

Please God, let this all be an hallucination!

And in my hallucination, the media pundits are actually “analyzing” the nonsense being bandied about by these Republican candidates, as if there were a comprehensible discussion going on!

Pundit 1: I thought Romney really nailed when he said,

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Pundit 2: Ditzy Ricky Perry, whose not even a contender anymore, couldn’t resist taking a shot though,

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

Pundit 1: I think Ron Paul countered that point when,

He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

Pundit 2: Paul likes to play the thoughtful one but that may not be enough to swing more voters his way even though he has a strong core of supporters who love his economic ideas,

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

Pundit 1: Do you think Gringrich was playing his cards too close to the vest when he said,

One, two! One, two!
And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

Pundit 2: “Galumphing”, that’s Newt alright. but it’s Santorum who is really challenging Romney with jibes like,

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

Pundit 1: Yep, he’s jabbing at the “beamish boy’s” soft underbelly but Romney is the odd’s on favorite so he just keeps repeating his talking points.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Jabberwocky
by Lewis Carroll

REALLY GOD, LET THIS ALL BE AN HALLUCINATION!

NYT, Jan. 3, 2012: Iran Warns the United States Over Aircraft Carrier

“Iran’s military sharpened its tone toward the United States on Tuesday, bluntly warning an American aircraft carrier that left the Persian Gulf through the strategic Strait of Hormuz last week not to return.”

U.s. Carrier guards oil tanker in Straits of Hormuz

We’re starting out the new year with a high stakes game of poker. If you don’t see the shades of the days leading up to the outbreaks of WWI and WWII, the Gulf War and our invasion of Iraq, you haven’t been paying attention.

Let’s be clear about the circumstance on the ground or, in this case, the water. The Strait of Hormuz, just 34 miles wide, guard the only access point to the Persian Gulf. Critical supplies of oil recovered by Arab-Islamic nations are routinely shipped through this narrow strait to support the engines of Western economies. In terms of international law, the waters constituting the traits are territorial and not international. No agreements otherwise are in effect. The principal by which safe passage through this oil supply choke-point is based in “might makes right”.

Now on to today’s game…

Iran makes an opening bet.

“We recommend to the American warship that passed through the Strait of Hormuz and went to Gulf of Oman not to return to the Persian Gulf. The Islamic Republic of Iran will not repeat its warning.”

The U. S. matches the Iranian bet.

“The deployment of U.S. military assets in the Persian Gulf region will continue as it has for decades. The U.S. Navy operates under international maritime conventions to maintain a constant state of high vigilance in order to ensure the continued, safe flow of maritime traffic in waterways critical to global commerce.”

It seems almost certain that at some point in the near future, the U.S. will call Iran’s hand by ordering one or more of its warships to transit the Straits of Hormuz. The question of course: Is Iran bluffing or will she actually do something when U.S. ships sail?

Is the U. S. ready to undertake a shooting war with Iran?

Iran knows that the prospect of such an engagement will figure greatly in today’s game, as the U. S. demobilizes its forces in a still unstable Iraq and struggles to regain its footing with its Pakistani alliance in its Afghan war.

Add to all this the uncertainty produced by broken governments in neighboring Egypt and Syria, the changing alignments of Turkey, the increasing fear of mortal attack by Israel and the vulnerabilities of Western industrial powers to disruptions in oil supplies, and you have the makings of a perfect storm.

Iran has been a keen observer of 10 years of U. S. war-making in Iraq and Afghanistan. She has surely drawn some conclusions about how she might fare in a widened war that is ongoing despite the fact the U. S. has declared at least the Iraq part of the war over—twice!

—————

Thirty-five years ago president Jimmy Carter declared the challenge of energy “the moral equivalent of war.” Carter was far from a lonely voice calling for strenuous action. After the Arab oil embargo of 1973-74, both of his predecessors, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, called energy the nation’s top priority and set an ambitious goal for “energy independence” by 1980.

So how are we doing? Not very well!