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An “American” publishes a magazine
by Wallace Shawn
In 2004, in association with Seven Stories Press, I published a magazine called Final Edition that was designed to have only one issue.
Most of the writers who appear in this magazine live in New York. We are all “Americans.” We all live in the United States. And we have to think about being Americans, because this is a very unusual moment in the history of this country or any country.
A few months ago, the American public, who in political theory and to some extent even in reality are “sovereign” in the United States, were given a group of pictures showing American soldiers tormenting desperate, naked, extremely thin people in chains – degrading them, mocking them, and physically torturing them. (more…)
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A Philosopher King, it’s time.
America is destined to Roman era decline, only at light speed! Before we can begin to solve problems we must first understand the problems.
Problem #1 – Democracy. Too many people with too many unfounded opinions, too many vested interests, too many de-facto legally created monopolies, with too many dreams, goals and aspirations all willing to step on the backs of others to achieve their goals!
Problem #2 – Economics. Poor resource distribution. Income and expenses are totally out of kilter! Economics as a science is sophisticated dogma at best, and as conjured-up in America, fails to paint a true and accurate picture of our economic world, resource base, wealth creation opportunities and wealth distribution.
Problem #3 – America has zero ability to compete globally. We are destined to become a nation of burger flippers.
Problem #4 – Mediocre legal and judicial system that enforces our totally dysfunctional system. Restrictive practices in the professions, trades etc. all intended to benefit a few at the expense of the many.
Problem #5 – Every new law is designed to carve out a niche of protected activity for some special interest sector of society!
Problem #6 – A huge population of know-nothings. Even those with top educations often know little to nothing! An educational system from kindergarten up to graduate school that deserves nothing but shame!
Problem #7 – A body politic that is second to none in terms of personal selfishness, foolishness and short sightedness!
Problem #8 – A military hegemony that has few true friends on the planet that has created the conditions for about 5 billion people, or barbarians in Roman speak, to one day crash down our gates and enslave the American population. From the vantage point of God’s accounting ledgers, one would say, and deservedly so!
So, with all of these problems there is only one real solution, only one possible way to right these wrongs, only one possible way to harness the once mighty American industrial machine. This way is NOT found in voting nor democracy nor elections, nor congress, legislators, governors, judges or county clerks…
One fears that those who so strongly urged George Washington to claim a crown, to forgo democracy, who foresaw the folly of democracies, will be proven unquestionably correct!
You want real leadership then our answers lie in benevolent dictatorships! Many will recognize this leader as a Philosopher King. Ronald Dworkin once gave us the idea of the all knowing, timeless intellectual giant that could ponder the rubrics of our time and lead us to just and fair results.
For those fearful of the yoke they will shout DICTATORSHIP or DICTATORSHIP of the proletariat! How much would our lives really change? China developed state backed capitalism? It is time for peaceful revolution. Americans are cows. They can be lead to the bolt gun with easy credit!
Philosopher King? Yes, who would make a good Philosopher King?
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SPEAK, MONEY
By Roger D. Hodge, from The Mendacity of Hope: Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism, out this month from HarperCollins. Hodge is the former editor of Harper’s Magazine. Reprinted from Harper’s Magazine, October 2010 issue
As we prepare yet another round of offerings to the demigods of America’s political religion we would do well to remind ourselves of what our electoral votives truly signify. Ideally, our ballots purport to be expressions of political will, which we hope and pray will be translated into legislative and executive action by our pretended representatives. Through hard and painful struggles, against daunting odds, our forebears and elders fought so long for voting rights—for unpropertied men, for women, for blacks—that we may perhaps be forgiven the error of thinking that casting a ballot is the perfection of civic virtue, the ultimate and sovereign duty of the citizen-ruler. Alas, the agony of citizenship is never ending; voting is the beginning of civic virtue, not its end, and as suffrage has expanded so has its value been steadily debased. The locus of real power is elsewhere. Wealth and property qualifications, poll taxes, and the like are very far from being historical curiosities; they have simply mutated. Campaign contributions and other forms of political spending have assumed that old exclusionary function, and only those who can afford to pay are able truly to manifest their political will. Voters still “matter,” of course, but only as raw material to be shaped by the actual form of political influence—money—which molds the body politic by realizing itself in the ductile mass of common voters.
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The Bankruptcy of the United States
By Porter Stansberry, from the November 23, 2009, S&A Digest
It’s one of those numbers that’s so unbelievable you have to actually think about it for a while… Within the next 12 months, the U.S. Treasury will have to refinance $2 trillion in short-term debt. And that’s not counting any additional deficit spending, which is estimated to be around $1.5 trillion. Put the two numbers together. Then ask yourself, how in the world can the Treasury borrow $3.5 trillion in only one year? That’s an amount equal to nearly 30% of our entire GDP. And we’re the world’s biggest economy. Where will the money come from?
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How public education cripples our kids, and why
By John Taylor Gatto
John Taylor Gatto is a former New York State and New York City Teacher of the Year and, most recently, the author of The Underground History of American Education. He was a participant in the Harper’s Magazine forum “School on a Hill,” which appeared in the September 2003 issue.
I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan, and in some of the best, and during that time I became an expert in boredom. Boredom was everywhere in my world, and if you asked the kids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave the same answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. They said they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around. They said teachers didn’t seem to know much about their subjects and clearly weren’t interested in learning more. And the kids were right: their teachers were every bit as bored as they were.
Boredom is the common condition of schoolteachers, and anyone who has spent time in a teachers’ lounge can vouch for the low energy, the whining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there. When asked why they feel bored, the teachers tend to blame the kids, as you might expect. Who wouldn’t get bored teaching students who are rude and interested only in grades? If even that. Of course, teachers are themselves products of the same twelve-year compulsory school programs that so thoroughly bore their students, and as school personnel they are trapped inside structures even more rigid than those imposed upon the children. Who, then, is to blame?
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Jerry Lee Wilson, Write-in Candidate for Oregon Governor
Occupation: Founder/CEO, Soloflex, Inc.
Occupational background: Airmail Pilot; Airline Transport Pilot; Organic CSA Farmer.
Education: Attended New Mexico Military Institute, South Texas College, Eastern New Mexico University; Flight Safety International.
Candidate Statement
Oregon’s Constitution grants its Governor Executive Power. By Executive Order I will:
End government-for-sale. Money is the root cause of every ailment in our body politic. No contributions or gifts will be allowed to those seeking or holding public office. Candidates for office can publish their resumes and ideas in an expanded voter’s guide and participate in televised and other public debates. This is a truly revolutionary thing I will do if you elect me. Both major party candidates in this election have accepted contributions from unions and corporations, a clear violation of the law (Ballot Measure 47, passed by Oregon voters in 2006).
Establish a State Bank. This bank would make 2% loans to municipalities, private companies and individuals to repair and expand Oregon’s transportation and renewable energy infrastructure, to make our factories, offices, homes and schools more energy efficient and to rebuild our manufacturing base. We need this bank to create long-term, living-wage jobs. And we need it now!
End the drug war. It hasn’t worked, we can’t afford it and we can use that money to help create an economically viable future for the next generation.
While I have never run for elective office, I have been a Chief Petitioner on two statewide Initiatives, one to close the Trojan nuclear plant, another to decriminalize hemp. I served as a member (dissenting) on the 2004 National Democratic Party Platform Drafting Committee. I have been a long-time anti-war activist, Executive-in-Residence at the University of Oregon MBA Graduate School and twice a keynote speaker at Willamette University’s Entrepreneur Conference. I have created hundreds of jobs and brought to Oregon about $1 billion in sales.
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“Without Jerry Wilson in this race, important issues like campaign financing, the war on drugs, and state-supported, broad-scale economic development would be quietly swept under the rug by the two major candidates. Why vote for the lesser of two evils when one has the opportunity to vote for the better candidate with better ideas and the courage to state them.”
—John Platt
See more such comments and read the latest news: One Alternative to Kitzhaber and Dudley, by Hank Stern, Willamette Week, August 16, 2010
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So Vital!
Everyone knows the definition of an honest politician – one who stays bought.
I’m running for governor primarily to make a big deal about an issue no democratic or republican party candidate would dare mention – getting money COMPLETELY out of our politics.
No other issue is so vital to the health and quality of government.
What is needed in government is a commitment to work for the public good above special interests. That’s not what we have. EVERY illness in our body politic stems from this one root-cause. I intend to stop it in its tracks by Executive Order. No more bribes, no more gifts, no more favoritism for those seeking or holding office.
Candidates for public office can publish their resumes and beliefs in an expanded voter’s guide. Nothing else is needed. The best IDEAS for improving society should determine our votes, not the advertising agencies that sell us candidates like they sell us soap.
We don’t allow those who judge our laws to be conflicted by money. The same should hold true for those who make and enforce our laws.
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I’m embarrassed…
…that many of us are on the streets reduced to penury, in this, the richest country in the history of the world. I’m embarrassed that each child isn’t provided an income so they might share in the riches of our inheritance.
I’m embarrassed that our most difficult, tedious and valuable kind of labor, motherhood, goes completely unremunerated. Being a factory owner, I view things from that perspective. The real product of Factory America is the next generation. That’s the bottom line and that’s where we should all focus our attention.
I’m embarrassed that we spend more on caging people than we spend on higher education. I’m embarrassed that we have a government for sale. I’m embarrassed that we torment our children and teachers with a Prussian Military education system that teaches them to obey and believe instead of learning to question. I’m embarrassed that we’ve allowed ourselves to become subservient to a nanny state as a consequence of this education system.
I’m embarrassed that our country has been so intimidated by demagogue politicians that we devote half our industrial output to protect it, from what I can’t discern. I’m embarrassed that we fund this spending by printing paper money instead of raising taxes, shifting the debt to our kids and hyper-inflating our currency. That shows a serious lack of character.
We owe it to our children and grandchildren to do something about these embarrassments. Ralph Waldo Emerson says the state is a trick. Clearly it’s time for a new trick. Nothing should be off the table to get this factory humming again, justice demands it.
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What should kids learn in school?
It will come as no surprise to those who’ve read my previous blogs on our education system that I think it stinks, a Prussian military invention that has produced a fearful nation of non-readers and non-thinkers. Pouring more money into more of the same will only make things worse. We need to totally rethink what an education should be, and whether government should have any role at all in providing it. We need diversity in education, not all be stamped out like sub-standard parts on a Chinese assembly line.
Our schools do not teach us how to grow, preserve and safely handle food, the most important thing anyone can learn. Our schools do not teach us how to eat properly, what to eat and what to avoid. It is ruining our health. The information is out there but it isn’t being passed along.
Our schools do not teach anything about the law, an amazing fact considering we’re a country founded on law.
Our kids are not taught how to diagnose illness. Africans were taught that with a yes/no chart and could diagnose as well as 99% of American physicians after three months of practice.
Our schools do not teach us how to build or fix things electrical or mechanical, so remain ignorant of such things in an electro-mechanical world.
Our schools do not teach the practical aspect of ethics. No person can rise above the level of his own character.
What the teacher’s union IS allowed to teach is very strictly dictated by competition, so nothing one can earn a living with is allowed to be taught. Of course, the real point of our education system is to act as babysitters, while parents, both of them, are working at mostly boring and irrelevant jobs, working twice the hours necessary just to feed an overblown military/welfare/police/prison state that doesn’t even resemble what our founding fathers imagined.
It isn’t the state’s responsibility to educate your children; it’s a parent’s responsibility. The whole point of an education is to teach people the art of providing for themselves. Does that sound even remotely like what public education does? No wonder the kids and teachers hate it.
All the other candidates in this governor race say education is their top priority but all just want to spend more doing the same thing, digging us deeper into this trench. Delegating someone else the responsibility for educating your children is like having another guy take your wife on her honeymoon. Some things you must just do for yourself.
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
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The 800 pound gorilla
We all appreciate the sacrifice made by our boys in uniform. That’s not the point. The point is that military spending is bankrupting the country. How disappointing to hear President Obama declare a freeze on desperately needed investments into our capital infrastructure but won’t cut back a dime on military spending. This is not the action of a capitalist. It is the action of a fascist. If that doesn’t alarm you, you need a remedial course in history.
I wish our politicians could read a balance sheet and financial statement. A tank is not a capital item by any definition of the word. It is an expense, a night watchman’s expense. Based on the spending for military nonsense the past 50 years one could make the case that we have had a military coup in this country. In fact, we have. It seems everyone welcomes it. Well, not everyone but the military has an 80% approval rating. Compare that to the approval rating of congress.
I’m a factory owner, competing in a market economy. If I had the same night watchman’s expense as the United States I’d have to double the price of everything I sold – which explains our trade deficit. Our military consumes half our total industrial output annually. Is the reason we aren’t told this because we’d instantly see the lunacy of such a policy? This misdirection of our labor, credit and material resource must come to an end. Nothing is more detrimental to commerce than war, invented or real. Unless of course, you own stock in defense contractors.
We’ve been sold protection we didn’t need. We have no enemies with the capacity to do us real harm. We are protected by vast oceans and are individually armed to the teeth, impossible to occupy by foreign invaders. The simple fact is nobody wants our territory, so polluted it is. Our forests are ravaged. Our roads, sewer systems, bridges and cities are crumbling before our eyes. Our farms are sterile and poisoned. And all we do is make weapons. This is a mindset worthy of a true hillbilly.
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