Is There Any Hope Left For The US?

Is there hope left for this country is a question a friend of mine recently asked. I said that it might be that we have to go the way of Europe before there is light at the end of the tunnel.

What is the way of Europe? The way of Europe was WW I and WW II. There use to be quite a bit of intolerance, infighting, and the desire for control before that war. But the devastation that resulted from both wars at least temporarily changed Europe into becoming a more tolerant place. So when we question other regions in the world for their perpetual fighting, we need to realize what it took for Europe to become as peaceful and tolerant, at least within its borders, as it seems to be today.

But what threatens our hope is what is happening within our borders, even after the Civil Rights Movement. We have at least two strikes against us. For the first strike, we should note that Martin Luther King Jr. warned us that for as long as we value things, which are gadgets, profits, and property rights, over people, we will have racism, war/militarism, and economic exploitation/materialism. Note that in 2 cases there are 2 options given because King expressed what is invevitable in 2 different but related results.

Our second strike is what naturally proceeds out of the first strike: that is tribalism. For if things are more important than people, we should note that we will compete for those things in groups. And as loyalty to those groups increases, tribalism emerges and increases. 

What is tribalism? It is when loyalty to a group becomes so great that one loses their objectivity in judging both themselves and those outside their group. When one loses objectivity in judging themselves, they fail to see the weaknesses and faults of their own group. When one loses objectivity in judging those outside the group, they become unable to recongize the merits of those outside their group. Thus, what is right and wrong is determined by who does what to whom. This is moral relativity. Another term for this moral relativity is a 'gang mentality.'

And with tribalism also comes a group authoritarianism where failure to agree with or support one's group causes one to be angry and hostile toward others. The past and current reaction of some "patriotic" Americans to Colin Kaepernick's protests during the playing of the National Anthem is just an illustration of group authoritarianism. But that isn't the only example. The hostility that results from the sharp divisions between the police and minorities or the police and citizens who only verbally object to or question their actions provide other examples of authoritarianism. The sharp ideological divisions exist and the hostility between rival ideological groups withing our nation provide other examples of group authoritarianism. And the economic apartheid that exists between the upper economic class and the other classes or the disdain that some in the middle class have shown toward the lower economic class also serve as examples of tribalism.

As we can see, tribalism so permeates both the American society and it also does the same in the world. The current pending legislation that criminalizes support for BDS because it targets Israel in order to stop its Occupation against the Palestinians can provide multiple examples of tribalism both in terms of the loyalty some lawmakers have to Israel and also by some in the BDS community as they react to those not following BDS. And it isn't too difficult to see the tribalism that exists where there are violent clashes in the world.

Now whether or not we've struck out and are doomed depends on whether our current embrace of authoritarianism is a strike or is merely a foul ball hit out of play. For, as just described, authoritarianism is a part of tribalism as it exists within groups. One of the signs of authoritarianism is the showing of hostility to those who do not follow the traditions or recognized authority figures of one's group. Another sign of authoritarianism is that of viewing the world in black/white concepts where one is either right or wrong without having any partial merit or nuance. Signs of authoritarianism are listed at the following website but we should note that that perspective of authoritarianism was written to target conservatives. Authoritarianism exists in liberals and leftists as well (click here).

We see this authoritarianism in how willing people are to break convention or in how they react to the breaking of convention. An example of this authoritarianism exists in how we vote. When presented with the choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, very few people voted for third party candidates. In fact, those who did were told that they were throwing the election to one of the two major party candidates. Granted that none of the third party candidates were prize candidates, still that both of the two major party candidates posed more as threats to our society than as merely options for candidates for office was rather obvious.

Donald Trump's tweeting temper tantrums to any who questions him also becomes another side of authoritarianism. For there are two sides of authoritarianism: the active and passive sides. Those with power who are hostile to dissent show the active side. Those who are reluctant to or are even afraid to question the traditions or recognized authoritary figures show the passive side of authoritarianism. 

With authoritarianism comes the practice of determining truth not by examining the facts and logic involved in a statement or argument, but by the credentials of the source. Thus when Trump tweeted that Meryl Streep was an overrated actress after she spoke against his imitation of a disabled reporter, instead of challenging how she interpreted what he did, he attacked her credentials hoping that passive authoritarians would then ignore her. Authoritarians prefer to discredit their opponents rather than to engage in any kind of discussion with them.

By embracing authoritarianism, we lose the ability to challenge the abuse of power. And indeed, what we are seeing is a sharp rise in the abuse of power whether that power is exhibited by local police or those with supervisory positions at work or school, or it is exhibited at the national level. And with the other two strikes, we lose the motivation to challenge the abuse others as they exercise authority. We can see that loss of motivation even in those we might think of as rebels. For how many millennials do we see who are so glued to their gadgets that they become less and less aware of the world around them and start to lose ability to interact with people personally?

So we have at least two strikes. And whether we are denial of having struck out or we have merely hit a foul ball out of play remains to be seen. In any event, hope for substantial change without having to go through devastation and tremendous losses as has been suffered in the past is dwindling. What better time there is to take a blog break.

How We Have Failed Our Democracy

In 2014, an academic study clearly said what many had been thinking before, that America is no longer functions as a democracy (click here and there).  Before that study was released, we had Noam Chomsky's book Failed States that told us the same thing (click here). Or we could simply look at the current list of Presidential candidates to learn the same lesson. While the Democrats have been telling us that the Rich are in control, the Republicans are acting as if that isn't a problem.

We've lost our democracy in the sense that people are no longer in control of the government. The last time they were was during the '60s when people took to the streets. The government was forced to respond to that activism on a number of issues from Civil Rights to women's rights to war. But when people take to the streets today, the government seems to pay little attention. After all, our government worked quickly to breakup the Occupy encampments while the big banks that helped cause the 2008 collapse are still as big as ever. And while many an Occupy protester went to jail, only one member of Wall Street did the same and that was only because he confessed. In addition, though we have had some changes in our laws, we are constantly told that we again facing the same kind of collapse we experienced in 2008 and for many of the same reasons. In the meantime, as with the Pentagon and Defense Industry, there exists a revolving door between appointed government positions and high paying positions either in the financial sector or with big corporations. For example, one of the key people who constructed Obamacare was a former employee of the largest health insurance company, WellPoint. And now that person has left her government position to work for a pharmaceutical company that supported Obamacare (click here).

And for all of the shenanigans we see in this revolving door between the private and public sectors, we the people are to blame. That is because our apathy-enabled ignorance and passivity has given those who are selling out our democracy a free rein to do what they want.  So what has led to we the people allowing the sellingout of our democracy?

This blog will note that there are three values on which a true democracy rests. And a failure to hold to these values results in the death of a democracy. That's right, we have failed our democracy instead of our democracy having failed us. This assertion that we have failed our democracy points to the fact that democratic processes alone do not a democracy make. The people in that democracy must hold to certain values in order to create a true democracy when using democratic processes. Otherwise, these processes will be used to serve a limited number of elites, which is what we have today.

What are those three values? The first value is to count people, regardless of who they are, as being more important than things. Martin Luther King Jr. said it this way (click here for the source of the quote):

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

What is great about King's quote is that he was very specific regarding the identity of the things that are so highly valued in a thing-oriented society. We could summarize what he said to this, when gadgets, profits, and property rights are more important than people... And currently, we are inundated with gadgets, especially social and entertainment media gadgets. And each time a new gadget comes out, we are told that we must have it to be further connected or anesthetized, I mean entertained. For where would we be without our entertainment?

 MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle has offered some sane criticisms of our all too easy passionate embrace of every new social media and other technology in her books Alone Together and Reclaiming Conversation (click here and there). What she has written is very important since we are in a consumer society and thus we place more value on collecting things than on collecting and improving human connections. For many of us, we are content with the world so long as we have enough desired things. And thus, any change we would commit ourselves to working for is for the purpose collecting more things. If we read this month's quote of the month for this blog, we get an idea of what a thing-oriented society leads us to personally (click here for the source):

He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income. This too is vanity.

When we are thing-oriented, more of us become like how the 1% are characterized: we are always looking for our new thing fix because we are never satisfied with what we have. And as we become more thing-oriented, the more people become mere objects to us as their only value rests in their willingness and ability to help us accumulate more things. And whereas King saw the growing war effort as competition for national resources that could have been used to  help the poor, the more thing-oriented society becomes the more that gadgets, profits, and property rights compete for people's commitments and concerns over their desires to help the vulnerable and do what is right.

The next value we need to look into is that of looking out for other people's interests as well as our own. One of the mistakes that both Marx and the Occupy Movement made was that, in the end, both saw the fix to the main problem in life is to being playing the same game but with different players. For Marx, he wanted the Proletariat to replace the Bourgeoisie as the ruling class. So while he wanted the position of the Proletariat improved, he still wanted to play a class-rule game. As for my Occupy Movement, again, scapegoating the 1% meant that others would take their place so that the 99% would flourish. But what would happen to the 1%? And how would we convince the people who so heavily rely on the 1% for their living to let the 99% rule?

Martin Luther King Jr. took a different approach. He wanted to persuade his opponents to join his side. And those who wouldn't be persuaded he wanted them to be controlled by the rule of law. This is one of the reasons why he so opposed both inner and outer violence. It was because the more violence one uses to force change, the less chance there is for reconciliation afterwards.

But we could also take a different approach to understand the need for looking out for others as well as ourselves. That approach is to draw an analogy between what Adam Smith said about the effects that the specialization of labor had on workers to the effects that the reduction of interest to self-interest has on any group. That just as labor becomes more specialized, the laborer becomes more stupid, so does working for the interests of one's own group only tends to limit the vision of those working for change. In both instances, a person's world is reduced to what they, and not others, experience. Thus, the more we focus solely on what happens to us and neglect what happens to others, the more likely we will oversimplify both our problems and solutions. That is because the more we think solely about ourselves, the fewer factors we have to include in our thinking. This principle is at work both within a nation and outside of it.

Now in most cases, our need to care about other groups comes in response to the suffering and marginalization of other groups. But our concern for other groups should also be extended for those we see as our opponents. For what we should be telling the 1%, which consists of those who are rich enough to have the government's ear, is that we all need to care for each other. That instead of scapegoating them for public scorn and punishment, we need to persuade them to end their economic apartheid. And for those who will not be persuaded, we can use our democracy to control the harm they would inflict on others. But here, we should realize that when the privileged cause others to suffer, it is usually because those privileged are thing-oriented rather than person-oriented.

Finally, we need to look at how we want to share society with others. The battle over same-sex marriage serves as a perfect example here. For when many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians fought to prevent same-sex marriage from being legally allowed in society, what we were saying to those from the LGBT community was that we believed that we should share society with them in a hierarchical fashion. And we identified that fashion as being one where we held a degree of privilege over them in determining what they could and could not experience and enjoy. The negative way of saying that was that we were refusing to share society with those from the LGBT community as equals. And that was our sin.

Unless we are willing to share society with others as equals, what will occur is that the values of competition and conquest that come from our economic system will become the values of our democracy. And thus, we will look at our democratic processes as tools to be used to compete and gain a superior place in society over others. Thus, instead of enjoying joint rule where we work together and protect each others' rights, we use our democratic processes as tools to gain supremacy for ourselves. And as long as the majority agree with us, we claim to have a democracy. But  in essence, it is a tyranny.

The drivers that work against the values that produce a working democracy are easy to spot. Materialism drives us to be thing-oriented rather than person-oriented. Christians should never surrender to materialism seeing how the Scriptures clearly speak against valuing wealth and things over people. Meanwhile, tribalism blinds us to the concerns of others as well as tells us that we are entitled to rule over other groups.

Now while many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians have tried to tell me that our nation and society can only properly operate when the majority of people are Christians and hold to Christian values, experience begs to differ. For we see many Christians who suffer from affluenza as well as those who are intent on ruling over others. As a result, many religiuosly conservative Christans fail to look out for the welfare of those who hold to different views. The same-sex marriage debate showed this to be true. And such is a tragedy for Christianity because the desire for power over others is antithetical to what the New Testament taught.

So while 3 values have been identified as being essential to democracy, democracy has 2 enemies. The more materialistic we are, and the more tribal we become, the more we sabotage our own democracy and give way to the rule of some elite group who promises to take care of us by giving us what we want. 

Top Ten Articles For 2015

Yes, I am still on a blog break. But while on the blog, I thought I would list the ten most often accessed blog articles written this year on this blog for 2015.


1.    The Myopia Of American Sniper

2.    Materialism Makes Socialism And Capitalism 2 Sides Of The Same Coin

3.    Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For May 27, 2015

4.    Can We Solve Racism Without Changing The Status Quo

5.    Everyone Must See The Movie Selma Because

7.    Post Presidents Day Depression

8.    Is Personal Peace Standing In The Way Of Love

9.    Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For February 18, 2015

10.   Today’s American Christian Crisis Has Been America’s Problem All Along

What Would Martin Luther King Jr. Say To Today's Racism

In Martin Luther King Jr.'s Nobel lecture (click here), which is not to be confused with his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, he said the following:

This problem of spiritual and moral lag, which constitutes modern man's chief dilemma, expresses itself in three larger problems which grow out of man's ethical infantilism. Each of these problems, while appearing to be separate and isolated, is inextricably bound to the other. I refer to racial injustice, poverty, and war.

In his speech in which King expressed opposition to the Vietnam War (click here), he said the following:

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

And the difference between how both many Whites and Conservative Christians approach the problem of racism today and King's approach can be discovered in the two statements above. For with many Whites and Conservative Christians, racism is a separate problem to itself which has been amputated from the other problems that co-exist. Thus, many Whites and Conservative Christians think that racism can be solved without addressing the other problems especially those that are a part of the status quo, such as our materialism, that are maintained by our Capitalist economic system. And here, we must single out our materialism because it is often used by many Whites and Conservative Christians to either prove that what we have been doing is either approved by God or proof that we are special. But King doesn't agree because he sees all of these problems being linked together. Where does he see the connection?

King sees the connection between racism, poverty and materialism, war and militarism in their causes. In the Nobel lecture, King notes that our moral, internal development has fallen far behind our external, technological capabilities. And what measures our moral capabilities is the degree of connection we have with and the concern we have for all others around the world, not just those who live with us and in our communities. That we need to see that we are all brothers and sisters and thus we are connected so that we cannot afford to neglect the suffering of any. Thus, when we, because of our technology, can enrich ourselves with more and more wealth, things, and physical capabilities, but show that we are not able to live as family, we show that our internal lags behind our external.

In his speech against the Vietnam war, we should note what precedes his tying together of racism, materialism, and militarism; it is our choosing to be a thing-oriented society over being a person-oriented society. And King is specific in naming the values of what makes us a thing oriented society: when the things we have and can accumulate are more important than people. And we should note that by including property rights, King is not just referring to tangible things. For King, people are more important than what we are usually most concerned about.

So King has much to say to those who have wealth and power about how to eliminate racism. They, or we, must replace our affinity for things, including profits, with growing connections with and love for all people. And in changing our main concerns and loves, we will not only eliminate racism, we will begin to do away with poverty, which always seems to accompany materialism, and the violence of war. But we should note that if we only target racism as something to eliminate, we will never eliminate it because improving the morality of our decisions targets more than just racism.

King speaks strongly to those with wealth and power and to those who benefit from the status quo. But he also has something to say for those who are struggling against marginalization and oppression and this message is very important in the wake of the past protests conducted by the those in the Occupy Movement and the present protests against racism and police brutality. That one's ends never exceeds one's means. That unless we are not only nonviolent, but also work to persuade and win over our opponents rather than conquer them, we will only be repeating the sins of those who oppress us. This why, in other places, King not only warns us against the use of physical, external violence, but against using internal violence, which can be found in the attitudes of our hearts and spirits and in the words of our mouths. That just because someone is oppressing us, we cannot afford to cut that human connection with them. Certainly if we cannot win them over, then the actions of our opponents must eventually be controlled. But we cannot afford to give into hate and bitterness against those who harm us have because we are all connected. Just as the rich cannot use the poverty of others or the obstacles to the personal accumulation of greater wealth posed by other to deny their familial connections with others, so the oppressive actions of others must never be used by us to deny that they too are our brothers and sisters.

In the end, for as long as poverty, materialism, militarism, and war exist, then we should only expect racism to exist. Why? Because the human values that allow for or produce those states, characteristics, and events will also produce racism. And until we attack the root cause for poverty, materialism, militarism, and war, we will never adequately address our problems with racism. In addition, as this world continues to be plagued by the love of money and tribalism, not only will we fail to control or eliminate racism, we will also fail to survive.

Reviewing The Cultural Case For Capitalism Part 7 Of 12

In this week's episode of Jonathan Witt's A Cultural Case For Capitalism, Witt wants to answer the question of what Capitalism has done for us. And though he doesn't fully accomplish that task, he uses a sour grapes story to introduce the subject and makes at least one disturbing revelation about why he so favors Capitalism.

The sour grapes story Witt uses comes from Wendell Berry who is a neo-agrarian supporter. Berry is down on capitalism because of how his grandfather with his tobacco farm faired in a time when the American Tobacco Company dominated the scene by eliminating all competitors. Berry blames Capitalism via American Tobacco Company's monopoly for his grandfather's financial hardships because once establishing a monopoly, this company set the prices so low that Berry's grandfather could not make decent money from his tobacco crops. 

Witt wants to set the record straight that it was not Capitalism's fault. And though Witt makes a couple of valid points to contest Berry's claims, the direction Witt takes us is still unsettling. We won't go through his whole argument here, but we should note that Witt faults Berry for not protesting the product, which were cigarettes, being made. Rather Berry focussed on Capitalism. Witt faults Berry's grandfather's choices and the government for the grandfather's economic woes. This is because his grandfather's choice of crop to farm caught up to demand and the government instituted policies that hurt the market price of cigarettes.  

But Witt goes beyond that. Witt defends the monopoly and the profit policies pursued by the tobacco company. Witt wants to answer the question asked at the beginning: What has Capitalism ever done for us. He answers the question by describing how this particular tobacco company contributed to the economy. It contributed by producing an affordable product and by expanding tobacco farming in the region. So with results like that Witt asks, how could one fault either the tobacco company or the kind of capitalism it practiced?

We should note here that Witt has his own Wendell Berry moment of faulting the wrong thing. For while Witt finds fault with how Berry blamed capitalism and not cigarettes, he celebrates the establishment of a monopoly. This wrong, or at least inconsistent, for Witt to do. Why? It is because he believes in the free market and a free market relies on competition. But competition does not exist when a monopoly is in place--even Milton Friedman would acknowledge this. Thus, though a market for making cigarettes existed during Berry's grandfather's farming days, it wasn't a free market for the farmers. 

So it seems that having a free market isn't as important to Witt as he claims (he mentions "free market" in at least parts 1, 2, and 8 of this series). What is important is that business is in control of the market. This takes us back to our opening diagram (pictured below).

American Capitalism Today

By rejecting government, provided that Witt does not believe businesses should be run democratically, his acceptance of a business dominated market means that he is in favor of a business Elite Centered rule--and that rule is not just an economic one. And it appears that Witt recognizes the founder of the American Tobacco Company as having sole ownership rights of the company, since he found it, with no ownership considerations being granted to the farmers though they supplied the raw material for his business. Rather, according to Witt, these farmers are either to be grateful for the tobacco company doing business with them and expanding the number of farms, including the farmers who did not do well, or produce another crop. This, of course, provides further confirmation that Witt's views are in quadrant #3. And we should note that the further down in quadrant #3 one goes, the more tyranny will be practiced. In addition, the further to the left one goes in quadrant #3, the more wealth disparity will be seen (click here for the original explanation). This point about wealth disparity is what Berry is protesting in the first place.

But there is a more important observation to be made here. That observation revolves around the measurements Witt uses to justify a business or even economic system. To Witt, it is all about numbers. If a business or system is lowering the price of a product and expanding the number of employees, as the tobacco company referenced in this blogpost by Witt did, then no further questions are to be asked. We don't consider Berry's concerns about inadequate compensation for his grandfather's crops because Witt has already addressed them by blaming the farmers for their choices and the government for intervening. We simply look at the lower prices the consumers pay as well as the expansion in the number of tobacco farms. And to Witt, this is how Capitalism is to be judged. Capitalism is to be judged by the "prosperity" it brings to a select group of stakeholders.

Is it any wonder then that Martin Luther King made the following assessment about Capitalism while he was comparing it to Marxism and socialism? King said the following (click here for the source):

thus capitalism can lead to a practical materialism that is as pernicious as the materialism taught by communism 

When numbers, especially those related to consumption and wealth for some, are the only measurement used to determine the value of Capitalism, then King's analysis becomes inescapable. This is especially true because negative outcomes for non-select stakeholders are so easily swept away by the favorable numbers. This is when we are told no further questions are to be asked. The "no further questions" would concern themselves with fairness and morality for all stakeholders as well as show concern for the environment. But using just numbers, and carefully selected ones at that, is the standard operating method for many who justify and promote Capitalism. It isn't that numbers themselves which is the problem; it is that they don't tell the whole story.

This is the direction we are heading for with Capitalism. It is first Elite Centered where democracy is shunned in favor of control by the wealthy from the private sector. Then collective ownership rights are also spurned regardless of the inter-dependencies involved in a business or the economic system as a whole. Such a combination promotes both a wide wealth disparity and tyranny. And we will note that tyranny can come from the private sector as well as the public one. This is all done in the name of increased prosperity but for select groups. And as increased prosperity either trumps fairness and morals or makes them moot, materialism, rather than human values, become dominant in assessing systems. With all of that being where Witt is taking us, it is ironic that Witt, and others like him, claim to have the moral high ground over others who disagree. Then again, maybe it isn't ironic, perhaps it is just part of the necessary marketing Capitalism uses to retain customers despite the sounds of suffering and discontent.