Worlds Apart: The Crisis
From Chaos to Collaboration and Planetary Survival
Part One…
Life is a fragile equilibrium we must constantly and diligently aspire towards. There is no utopia. All we can aspire to is to set limits on the dystopian existences we construct for ourselves and be willing to take responsibility for them. We are living through dystopian times that have profound consequences.
A hundred years ago two men in front of a garage lived a very different existence than we do today. They lived in a closed community, their country and the larger world were much more remote.
We live in a time when the world is at our door step and consequences intended and unintended threaten our existences. As the world becomes more populous, consequences are far more reaching and of greater magnitudes many times over. It then follows that governance in all matters requires much more magnanimity, intelligence and foresight than ever.
There are crippled souls among us determined that societies can exist as static when they must at all times be dynamic. “Static” is to exploit the present without regard for the past or future when all three are symbiotic, each defines the other. Change and adaptation must be organic overseen by peoples living according to their times, where we fail to do so sociocide becomes the norm.
It’s too easy and absurd to dismiss the importance of the future as another time after our deaths. The NOW is where we are defining the future. Bad decisions made now will persist for generations to come just as we bear the burdens (and benefits) of those who have come before us.
The two men in front of the garage are no longer with us, as this picture was taken a hundred years ago. Since their time the world population has grown four times over. Like millions of others they appear idled by The Great Depression. Was this their garage, a memory from more affluent times? Are they brothers; or just passersby having a chat, short of a second chair? We can only speculate on the extent of their poverty. Was it , socially inflicted, self inflicted, or some where in between?
We might regard the Great Depression as an accident of history, just another historical cycle where millions suffered in physical poverty. It is an accepted historical norm that great masses must exist in various states of poverty. Even so I read the other day the Asian economic “miracle” has lifted a billion people out of poverty. This is verifiably true by all reports available to us. There are astounding reports of social and economic successes and the infrastructures that go with these.
This leads us to the highly pertinent questions of permissible poverty, manufactured poverty, and poverty that is born of pure greed and willful ignorance. There is physical poverty, and its loathsome causation moral poverty. Now though, we have proven that we have the ability to manage it and at least minimize it.
The historical record is now showing that physical poverty in too many instances is the end product of moral and spiritual poverty. Where we have the grand legacy and means to hold poverty in check we move in the opposite direction where we turn the blind eye, regarding it as just another commodity.
A hundred years ago we did not have the economic tools to mitigate poverty, today we do. We have world class scholars and economists who are equal to the task of establishing acceptable and just equilibriums for all. Where they should have a guiding influence on world affairs they are shunned and marginalized by pig-headed incompetent politicians.
Jeffrey Sachs is one such economist. He has spent his career traveling the world consulting with governments to help them build sustainable economies and mitigate poverty. He is one of the world’s leading experts on Sustainable Development. It is little wonder his exasperation is palpable when he speaks of the economic incompetence his own government imposes on his homeland and the world.
The tragedy of America is that its ignorant political elites operate in isolation from the country’s brain trust. It is a republic and a failed empire where barbarity and the untamed rage of infantile partisans and demagogues prevail over decency and civility.
They are stuck in the rage and denialism of an empire fallen, their vacuous pipe dreams of global empire long gone. Where they are stuck in the 20th century the rest of the world moves on.
Jeffrey Sachs and so many others are leading the way:
"We have entered a new era. Global society is interconnected as never before. [...] I suggest that we have arrived in the Age of Sustainable Development."-JS
"Our challenge, our generation's unique challenge, is learning to live peacefully and sustainably in an extraordinarily crowded world."-JS
"Measures like GDP per person give only a rough reflection of the overall level of well being of an individual or a nation. But for sustainable development, we are interested in raising human well being, not just in raising income."-JS
Mankind has long suffered from physical poverty. However, one could argue that moral poverty—along with the parasitism of economic elites—now poses an even greater threat.
The interminable class war has come to a culminating point where the obscenely wealthy upper classes now control the levers of power and utilize this power to create a stratospheric existence for themselves apart for the rest of the world, where they can manipulate destinies in their favor with no regard for costs or consequences— social or fiscal. They have created a “bunkered” existence for themselves apart from the real world and quite prepared to move into fortified bunkers as many already do— the fortifications of extreme wealth and reinforced concrete.
Sixty years ago political and business elites were ever so busy denouncing the social welfare system. They shamed the poor as social welfare bums and moms claiming that nobody gets a free ride and the cost of social welfare was unacceptable. Yet these same elites have manufactured a system of inverted socialism for themselves where they claim the right to unlimited and untaxed wealth. The right to do whatever they want whenever they please. They wage wars and genocide at their pleasure and slander ,objective truths and sacred social norms out of existence. Such naked effrontery is nothing less than the infantilized behaviors of imbecilic adults.
When wealth and power become the holy grail of people’s existence their humanity is in forfeiture and the world mirrors their insane appetites and delusional behaviors.
When American economist Michael Hudson published his 2015 book Killing the Host, its jacket featured the above illustration. More than just a landmark work on postmodern economics, the book serves as a definitive commentary on our times, where late capitalism has become both unapologetically predatory and parasitic. So extreme is this transformation that entire societies are being devastated by the insatiable greed of an all-consuming neoliberal ideology—one controlled by those willing to "kill the host" in their pursuit of wealth concentration at the expense of the many.
The notion of a compensatory "trickle-down" economy was never more than a fraud. In reality, what has transpired is a relentless, fire-hose gush of wealth surging to the top where the levers of power are owned controlled by the1%.
When we don’t know history things “just happen”. When we do know, it is the end result of accumulated consequences, intended and unintended. What we are seeing now is the end result of consequences intended by some and detected by too few others. The redoubtable Noam Chomsky has spent his career being the most astute observer of our times, with over a hundred books to his credit. In the following video he outlines the decades long chains of events and attitudes that have shaped America today. The “rewiring” of America has been in the making for decades and Chomsky has documented what was coming.
Nothing of what Trump does is new or original. He is merely the opportunistic stooge working on behalf of the think tanks, generously funded by corporations and oligarchs over many decades. The Koch brothers are widely known for their undermining of America, as recorded here.
If it wasn’t Trump who“rewired” America, others would. He and his backers saw the time was right and struck according.
When Canadian Philosopher John Ralston Saul wrote his book, The Unconscious Civilization it is one of the most important books of our time. Saul invites us to look at our societies through the prism of social consciousness. How informed and involved are we? Do we know our history, and have a civic spirit? Are we informed on current events, caring as to what our society stands for and where it is headed?
Our level of societal consciousness is a fundamental factor in setting the future for generations to come.
Saul, Hudson, Sachs and so many others, are the great luminaries of our time. They invite us each in our way to a consciousness raising that defies the illegitimate barbarians that have assumed power. What is their feeble and demonic retreat into totalitarianism we must insist is a time of transition to a better world. We become the transitionists, recognizing the world is always in transition and we must constantly be pursuing positive adaptations. Our worldview must emanate from the local and national to an all inclusive internationalism recognizing the crowded planet we share where life is sustainable for all.
The two men in front of the garage lived a very different existence, where the radio and daily newspaper informed them. Today we are bombarded with information, news and opinion, too much of which is lies and propaganda. The world is more complex and demanding than ever. It can and will overwhelm us such that we too easily become passively indifferent to anything outside our personal comfort zone— a zone constantly under assault by a criminal hierarchy. There are all-powerful predatory forces willing to exploit and denigrate our societies. A hundred years later we are worlds apart.
Our societies must function at a much higher level of consciousness which entails a more informed and proactive citizenry and competent enlightened leadership.
Part two to follow: Worlds Apart: The great fallacies of our times
History’s Parrot is read in 38 US states and 53 countries worldwide
Yes, - proactive citizenry. The US has been run with politics as a spectator-sport since WW-II.