June 9, 2003
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Last edition, I timed out. Needed to stand aside to look at what is going
on, get back to ground. Here's some of what I stand on.
We exist in simultaneity within which there is congruence yet have conditioned ourselves to perceive sequentially in dissonance. In a non-linear actuality, we persist as though linear. In a multi-faceted, multi-dimensional universe acting in all directions at once, we creep along a time line in which backwards is named forwards. We pretend to inhabit three dimensional process while behaving one-dimensionally. We ignore that paradox is actuality choosing instead to believe and to act as though there is a common reality. In operational perspective, reducing actuality to linear progressions is absurd. And, yet, here is where we may meet. Similarly, attempting to solve problems using the tools, techniques and thoughts which create them is silly. We persist in acting out roles scripted in a theater of the absurd. Tragedy is billed as comedy. Death is greeted as though laugh lines. "Political haves who are not also economic haves cannot exercise their duties as citizens." A political "have" is enfranchised, if registered, and acts responsibly by informed voting in elections. An economic "have" is endowed with adequate material resources to live safely and comfortably. In Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, an economic "have" is above the safety level, what might be called "secure." In systems of governance incorporating forms responsive to political and economic "haves" exercising their franchise through adequately informed voting there may be hope for society featuring peaceful resolution of differences, non-violent process, acceptance and welcoming of diversity, honoring. Such a system may be named "republican" or "representative" without being in any way democratic. We are presently told that war has been undertaken to instill democratic process and to institute free market economics in a foreign country by force. Those ordering force, violence, practice neither democracy nor free market economics. They call themselves "Republican" and "Christian." Having spun sharply down ladders of abstraction from lofty perspective to blatant hypocrisy we, quite impotent ones, are left to wallow. Another place of wallowing, is among co-opted and pre-empted words such as "sustainable." As with political and economic "haves," there is a simple, explicit definition available to resolve conflicts. A sustainable system involves genuinely renewable local resources converted by local people primarily for local use in ways which generate economic surpluses for local reinvestment. Anything else, no matter how lauded and named may, at very best, be less unsustainable. That statement tells us we are consuming at rates beyond carrying capacities of the planet, not to mention either the neighborhood or a recently invaded foreign nation. It also tells us that globalizing, however defined or stated, accelerates rather than modulates or mitigates exceeding carrying capacities. In short, there won't be much left for the coming seven generations. Each succeeding generation will have less rather then more. Get it while you can. International Monetary Fund and World Bank, spawn of the post WW II Bretton Woods Conference which created the economic world-to-come under US hegemony (now coupled with World Trade Organization diktat), work inexorably to globalize at the expense of localize. Again, by definition, unsustainable as well as what is going on. Corporate form, given definition as a "person," has grown far beyond utility. As Leopold Kohr tried to teach, size is the problem. After a certain point, further growth results in implosion. Welcome to implosion time. What is going on is absurd, silly, unsustainable. What is going on is violence. Violence is misdirected, misplaced power. Those orchestrating violence are high with ecstasy, ecstasy of catastrophe. Ask who benefits? Who is getting high? · · · · · ·
Resources America the 'beautiful' on Swans Milo Clark on Swans (with bio). Do you wish to share your opinion? We invite your comments. E-mail the Editor. Please include your full name, address and phone number. If we publish your opinion we will only include your name, city, state, and country. Please, feel free to insert a link to this article on your Web site or to disseminate its URL on your favorite lists, quoting the first paragraph or providing a summary. However, please DO NOT steal, scavenge or repost this work without the expressed written authorization of Swans. This material is copyrighted, © Milo G. Clark 2003. All rights reserved. |
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