I think it is pretty clear right now that our current North American political climate is extremely polarized and getting more so. In the United States of America (how ironic), there is a bitter fight continuing over taxes, social program and the legal amount of debt they can take on.
The Democrats want to raise the debt ceiling so the business of government can continue. The Republicans are arguing that the continual spending of borrowed money cannot continue. On the face of it, the actors in play are playing very different roles. The Democrats are doing everything they can to get the job done. The Republicans are doing everything they can to destroy the Democrats. Rhetoric aside, the real result is the Democrats are willing to sell out everything they believe in to make a deal while the Republicans are willing to destroy the American economy in order to ensure that the government in power is unable to to govern.
Right now, either way you look at it, victory for either side will not be good for the average person the world over. The result either way, will likely be a Pyrrhic victory of epic proportions, which could take down the worlds economy along with the spoils of war.
To me, this is a great example of why I continue to to see partisan politics as a blight of the face of the common man. What I see are the hollow remains of two competing ideologies fighting a war whose purpose has long been lost. What I see is no truly no longer a fight between left versus right, but a fight between red versus blue. The key difference is that what once was a vital discussion between two sides of the human experience has become a violent drunken argument about whose going to win the next game.
Once drained of purpose, the only reality left is that no-one is really capable of truly winning except those who have already won. For the elites in power, the only game left is to consolidate power at the loss of everyone below them.
So what was the original arguments? To me, right versus left can be boiled down into two vital truths of the human reality; all of us form both a group and an individual. For the left, the emphasis is on the group. Success for them is ensuring rights for the whole, resulting in things such as democracy, equality and social programs. For the right, the emphasis is on the individual. Success for them is ensuring rights for the individual, resulting in things such as tax relief, gun rights and law and order.
One side looks after the health and welfare of the group, the other looks after the health and welfare of the individual.
Yet in the end I think the real truth today is something different. Until the emergence of the new polarization after 2001, the politics of North America reflected another reality, the emergence of center politics. To me this was the tacit realization that the human condition needs to focus on both the individual and the group. Focus on one over the other causes sickness and a lack of health in the state of our countries and our politics. This point of view is what needed today.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Friday, September 25, 2009
End of the Old, Repeat of the New
I was watching the new Star Trek movie when the though hit me. Humans still need hope and ideals to move us forward. Today is no different but i do think we are in a special time as we transition from old ideas of capitalism, socialism into something new never seen before.
Today we live in a time not signified by the creation of new ideas and thoughts but by the crumbling of our old ones. Crisis, like it always has, will push into new and undiscovered country once more. It reminded me of a story I wrote about many years ago.
It was a day or two away from Y2K I had heard some rumours that there was going to be a riot at the downtown celebrations. Having grown up some in the Okanagan I knew enough not to dismiss what i had heard. Kelowna boys seemed to riot at the drop of a hat back then. Y2K was coming and so was disaster. Tension was imminent and in the air.
Luckily so was the lack of heat. Nothing exciting happened as usual. Nothing but a really good party.
I still remember something my first producer John told me before I left to cover the event. We'd been talking about end of the world scenarios and the whole Y2K scare. I thought something bad was gonna happen. He thought i was a victim of the hype. Although he was too polite to say so.
What John told me was simple. Some people like to think the world is run by some great clock in the sky. To these people the idea of a grand schedule provides order, stability and comfort in lives of bedlam, uncertainty and pain. However a small problem remains. Chaos is as much a part of our existence as calm. It's a scheme breaking paradox that unravels any careful ideas of order, certainty and calm. Rather than face the problem they try to patch their paradigm, and the only logical conclusion is that chaos and disorder is on a firm schedule.
These people like their universes wrapped up in nice neat tidy packages. So it makes sense they would latch onto dates with a lot of zeroes in them. You only have to look back in history to similar events around 1000 and 1900 to find confirmation. Y2K was no different. Fortunately or not, disaster and change would be prove to be illusory once more. Physically things go on as they had before. Yet mentally and perhaps even spiritually, these people had moved on to something new and different.
So, while nothing happens on the appointed date, change does happen about ten to fifteen years after these people minds had adjusted to a new way of thinking.
John said we only had to look at what happened after we moved from the 1800's to the 1900's as an example. The real revolution lay many years down the road.
Which brings me back to today. I don't know about you, but I look around and see the basic assumptions that have underwritten the growth and progress of our society for the last one hundred years melting away like the icecap at the north pole. If there is any truth to what John said ten years ago, then we may find the change we prepared for so long ago coming soon.
The end
Today we live in a time not signified by the creation of new ideas and thoughts but by the crumbling of our old ones. Crisis, like it always has, will push into new and undiscovered country once more. It reminded me of a story I wrote about many years ago.
It was a day or two away from Y2K I had heard some rumours that there was going to be a riot at the downtown celebrations. Having grown up some in the Okanagan I knew enough not to dismiss what i had heard. Kelowna boys seemed to riot at the drop of a hat back then. Y2K was coming and so was disaster. Tension was imminent and in the air.
Luckily so was the lack of heat. Nothing exciting happened as usual. Nothing but a really good party.
I still remember something my first producer John told me before I left to cover the event. We'd been talking about end of the world scenarios and the whole Y2K scare. I thought something bad was gonna happen. He thought i was a victim of the hype. Although he was too polite to say so.
What John told me was simple. Some people like to think the world is run by some great clock in the sky. To these people the idea of a grand schedule provides order, stability and comfort in lives of bedlam, uncertainty and pain. However a small problem remains. Chaos is as much a part of our existence as calm. It's a scheme breaking paradox that unravels any careful ideas of order, certainty and calm. Rather than face the problem they try to patch their paradigm, and the only logical conclusion is that chaos and disorder is on a firm schedule.
These people like their universes wrapped up in nice neat tidy packages. So it makes sense they would latch onto dates with a lot of zeroes in them. You only have to look back in history to similar events around 1000 and 1900 to find confirmation. Y2K was no different. Fortunately or not, disaster and change would be prove to be illusory once more. Physically things go on as they had before. Yet mentally and perhaps even spiritually, these people had moved on to something new and different.
So, while nothing happens on the appointed date, change does happen about ten to fifteen years after these people minds had adjusted to a new way of thinking.
John said we only had to look at what happened after we moved from the 1800's to the 1900's as an example. The real revolution lay many years down the road.
Which brings me back to today. I don't know about you, but I look around and see the basic assumptions that have underwritten the growth and progress of our society for the last one hundred years melting away like the icecap at the north pole. If there is any truth to what John said ten years ago, then we may find the change we prepared for so long ago coming soon.
The end
Monday, September 14, 2009
Neo-Liberal, Neo-Conservative or Neo-Dead?
The neo-liberal/conservative idea that private business and capital can solve all of societies problems through economics needs to be left for dead. While it is an attractive, simple and beautiful idea, illustrating a clean and efficient way to organize the world. It is also hopelessly flawed. Market economies try to provide wealth and drive innovation through a merciless pursuit of efficiency with the least amount of regulation and intervention possible. Yet there is one small problem. Humans.
Apparently they just never act the way they are supposed to. I guess we get caught in the gears gumming up the beautiful machine.
Bummer.
Yet we seem intent on following the same dead ideology that was crucified and put out to pasture by Keynes after the great depression. Yet the myth has been reinvented and brought presented again and again.
You know the story. "It was a dark and stormy night and Jack and Jill were intent on deregulating and privatizing everything they possessed because private capital and greed makes everything run efficiently." Little did Jack know that privatized education would put him into debt for the rest of his life and Jill would lose her life's saving in a series of unchecked boom and bust cycles. Neither did they realize their health and childrens education would also suffer as neo-conservative governments axe public funding so provinces like British Columbia could compete for the affections of mega-corporations intent on getting the most for the least by any means possible.
Unchecked market forces seem great until they are balanced by the inevitable human need for equality and fairness. As Margaret Atwood points out in her book "Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth" when debt collects too far in favor of anyone person or class, the result is often collapse and meltdown as people seek to reestablish equilibrium. It has happened to the greeks, the french and countless others. It seems to in our DNA.
While equality and fairness seems like a simple realization, it is one our institutions seem unwilling to unable or unwilling to acknowledge. Today, a year after the collapse of Lehman brothers you have to wonder what the hell is going to happen in the wake of the global economic meltdown. Pillars of private finance have crumbled to dust. Tens of millions of people around the world have lost their jobs (predicted to hit 51 million by the end of 2009). Lives have been destroyed by the greedy and privileged in their pursuit of the beautiful machine.
The political response, both at home and abroad, seems both tepid and intent on re-inflating the bubble that started the disaster in the first place. Not only that but the vast majority of help has only flowed in one direction, to the same greedy and privileged people and institutions that caused the problem. To me the burst of the housing bubble and fallout that came after signaled the end of conservative capitalist ideology in much the same way the fall of the Berlin Wall signaled the end of communism. Similarly, in the same way the communist old-guard sought to hold onto power as long as they possibly could, It seems apparent that the same players are doing their best to guard and protect the vast wealth and power the accumulated under the old system. I can't help but think that the end result, likely ten to fifteen years from now, will result in the utter and complete collapse of the financial house of cards we have built over the last thirty years.
Unless our financial system is reformed and regulated we will face a collapse that will likely put the events of the last year to shame. If it is not fair and equal to everyone it will not work.
Lets face it. Neo-liberalism is dead. it is time to clear the wreckage of the old idea and start building the new. Something new that doesn't break when humans get caught up in the gears.
Apparently they just never act the way they are supposed to. I guess we get caught in the gears gumming up the beautiful machine.
Bummer.
Yet we seem intent on following the same dead ideology that was crucified and put out to pasture by Keynes after the great depression. Yet the myth has been reinvented and brought presented again and again.
You know the story. "It was a dark and stormy night and Jack and Jill were intent on deregulating and privatizing everything they possessed because private capital and greed makes everything run efficiently." Little did Jack know that privatized education would put him into debt for the rest of his life and Jill would lose her life's saving in a series of unchecked boom and bust cycles. Neither did they realize their health and childrens education would also suffer as neo-conservative governments axe public funding so provinces like British Columbia could compete for the affections of mega-corporations intent on getting the most for the least by any means possible.
Unchecked market forces seem great until they are balanced by the inevitable human need for equality and fairness. As Margaret Atwood points out in her book "Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth" when debt collects too far in favor of anyone person or class, the result is often collapse and meltdown as people seek to reestablish equilibrium. It has happened to the greeks, the french and countless others. It seems to in our DNA.
While equality and fairness seems like a simple realization, it is one our institutions seem unwilling to unable or unwilling to acknowledge. Today, a year after the collapse of Lehman brothers you have to wonder what the hell is going to happen in the wake of the global economic meltdown. Pillars of private finance have crumbled to dust. Tens of millions of people around the world have lost their jobs (predicted to hit 51 million by the end of 2009). Lives have been destroyed by the greedy and privileged in their pursuit of the beautiful machine.
The political response, both at home and abroad, seems both tepid and intent on re-inflating the bubble that started the disaster in the first place. Not only that but the vast majority of help has only flowed in one direction, to the same greedy and privileged people and institutions that caused the problem. To me the burst of the housing bubble and fallout that came after signaled the end of conservative capitalist ideology in much the same way the fall of the Berlin Wall signaled the end of communism. Similarly, in the same way the communist old-guard sought to hold onto power as long as they possibly could, It seems apparent that the same players are doing their best to guard and protect the vast wealth and power the accumulated under the old system. I can't help but think that the end result, likely ten to fifteen years from now, will result in the utter and complete collapse of the financial house of cards we have built over the last thirty years.
Unless our financial system is reformed and regulated we will face a collapse that will likely put the events of the last year to shame. If it is not fair and equal to everyone it will not work.
Lets face it. Neo-liberalism is dead. it is time to clear the wreckage of the old idea and start building the new. Something new that doesn't break when humans get caught up in the gears.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
The True Truth about Truthiness
It seems apparent to me more and more just how dire the need is for good old fashioned truth. The only problem is that no-one seems to know what the truth is these days. Living in the age of public relations can be a beautiful, liberating (and expensive) experience for the ones in control. Yet for those outside the spin zone it's a completely different story. For those unfortunate enough to live under the influence of excessive spin the symptoms go far beyond dizziness and vertigo.
The result has been a cynical and confused society where truth has been obliterated by truthiness.
In case you've never heard the word truthiness, it's probably because the word was recently (re)coined and popularized by actor/comedian Stephen Colbert in the pilot of his show The Colbert Report. According to Colbert, truthiness is information someone wishes to be true, even if its not. Explaining further in a later interview, that "It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty. People love the president because he's certain of his choices as a leader, even if the facts that back him up don't seem to exist. It's the fact that he's certain that is very appealing to a certain section of the country."
Yet in context of truth and our economy. It seems clear to me there is more truthiness in the air than truth. We don't seem so much interested in finding out the facts as much as we see interested in forming opinions about what should have been done and what should be done.
Yet for every seemingly honest and informed voices on the internet like The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, there seem a dozen more like Mad Money's Jim Cramer who's reaction to economy seems as schizophrenic as the market. One (Krugman) seems like a man trying to describe and evaluate a large and painful problem to the best of his ability. The other (Cramer) seems intent on following the his gut in the face of the facts. Both are speaking about the same subject, and both claim to speak the truth.
Yet how is anyone supposed to get anything meaningful from such a wide divide of information? How do any of us find fact in the age of advertising?
In the end, I say run to where the ugly is. The truth is never pretty or popular. Spin, public relations and propaganda is nice to look at. It makes us feel good and probably smells better but I guarantee you its not going to make you happy.
The result has been a cynical and confused society where truth has been obliterated by truthiness.
In case you've never heard the word truthiness, it's probably because the word was recently (re)coined and popularized by actor/comedian Stephen Colbert in the pilot of his show The Colbert Report. According to Colbert, truthiness is information someone wishes to be true, even if its not. Explaining further in a later interview, that "It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty. People love the president because he's certain of his choices as a leader, even if the facts that back him up don't seem to exist. It's the fact that he's certain that is very appealing to a certain section of the country."
Yet in context of truth and our economy. It seems clear to me there is more truthiness in the air than truth. We don't seem so much interested in finding out the facts as much as we see interested in forming opinions about what should have been done and what should be done.
Yet for every seemingly honest and informed voices on the internet like The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, there seem a dozen more like Mad Money's Jim Cramer who's reaction to economy seems as schizophrenic as the market. One (Krugman) seems like a man trying to describe and evaluate a large and painful problem to the best of his ability. The other (Cramer) seems intent on following the his gut in the face of the facts. Both are speaking about the same subject, and both claim to speak the truth.
Yet how is anyone supposed to get anything meaningful from such a wide divide of information? How do any of us find fact in the age of advertising?
In the end, I say run to where the ugly is. The truth is never pretty or popular. Spin, public relations and propaganda is nice to look at. It makes us feel good and probably smells better but I guarantee you its not going to make you happy.
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