A strange thing has happened on the way to civil right for gay people. Liberal politics and the secular community sided with the gay community under the banner of equal rights and love. Conservative politics and a big part of the religious community ended up as a coalition of bigotry and hate. The real fun thing is the traditional Christian god has been dragged to the hate side of the argument and is losing ground. The Catholic church gets most of the credit for presenting the Christian god as an unsavory character, something they have been perfecting since the Inquisition. They can't claim all the glory though, the Protestant arm of the political religious right has done their part as well. There, down in the mud of human bigotry and glorified violence, the Christian god joins that of the Muslim's. They merge actually, looking to be the same "God of Abraham" after all.
It never seemed to me that the Muslims ever made the claim that theirs was a god of love. For me Islam first made the headlines in 1972 with the murder of the Israeli Olympic team in Munich - I was 17. (I vaguely remember the Six Day War of 1967 but that was Nation against Nation.) Munich was Muslim terrorists in an - until then- unimaginable act of depravity acted out deliberately to stun the world with hate. From 1972 until 9/11/2001 and on until this week's headline bombing, Islam has portrayed itself as a religion of murder and hate, making the news every with every act of terrorism more perverted than the last. Indeed, if tomorrow a band of Islamic terrorists, acting in the name of their god, set of a dirty bomb in NYC that resulted in the eventual deaths of tens of millions of people, no one in the world would be the least bit surprised. Which, seems to me, is pretty much the last word on Islam and love. Any Islamic claim of worshiping a loving god should rightly be met with a hoot of laughter. And really, any Islamic claim of worshiping any kind of god beside one of unrelenting evil should be met with the same hoot of laughter.
For a long time Christians have claimed to have a kind of exclusive understanding of love. To them the redemption story is the greatest love story of all time, demonstrating a love far superior to anything human kind could fathom. It is their mythology so of course they are free to make any claim they like. Should it come to pass that their religious institutions actually reflect such a claim they might actually become part of the good guys in the human family. But they have had 2000 years or so to try, and haven't managed it yet.
In fact the Christians are well on the way to matching the Muslims when it comes to stripping any vestige of love from their god. Claiming god is love while supporting the oppression of women and gay people strikes a discord that many are starting to notice. Protecting child molesters does the same thing. Let us not forget, President Bush II wrapped the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the Christian flag and started his own Crusade. When he did I don't remember hearing may Christians disagree with him. The born again President Obama continued those wars. The Protestant sect of Christianity is solidly behind robber baron capitalism, is outspoken in its attack on science, and dismisses any education that doesn't bow a knee to Bible Study. (More like Islam than they know). The Catholic sect does a better job of talking about economic justice for the poor and protecting the earth, but ... the Koch brothers are Catholics, as is Newt Gingrich, Bill O'Riely, and Justice Roberts. American Catholic Bishops can be counted on to campaign directly for Republicans come election time. What ever else they might be, say the word "love" and no one in this group comes to mind.
Some might suggest that religion has lost its way, that it let love slip its grasp by reaching for influence and power. I don't think it worked that way but it doesn't matter. Had it and lost it, never had it but claimed it and got found lying, thought they had it but discovered all they had was myth ... all ends up in the same place. Religion is in one camp.
Love is in another camp.
I am pretty pleased to find that love, compassion, and tolerance are words no longer associated with the religious / conservative crowd and now reside firmly in the secular / progressive camp. People working together to make life as good as possible for as many as they can is what democracy is supposed to be. It is what people who care about each other do.
Where are those caring people now? They are supporting civil rights for gay people, voting rights for all people, protecting the environment for the generations to come, and fighting a rear guard against those who want to put women back under the thumb of men. They are progressive, liberal, and mostly secular, on the right side of history.
One the right side with love.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Monday, March 18, 2013
Social evolution
I tend to think of the biological evolution of our species of humans and the evolution of our social structures as a symbiotic relationship. The biological evolutionary trait of speech lead to the social evolution of cooperative groups. The success of that cooperation encouraged further development of speech and then other means of communication. Which, in turn, influenced social evolution along the lines of widening that communications net until it encircled the globe. That this is true seems painfully obvious, which is why the right-wing / conservative worship of the "rugged individual" and "individual achievement" always strikes me as off-key. No one is really a "rugged individual", particularly in today's interconnected and crowded world. And no one achieves anything independently of the society around them. As individuals we succeed and fail within rather tight parameters that are completely outside of the our control.
One aspect of evolution is the tendency of something completely new bubbling up out of the established. Biological forms fit into every niche that can support life, even ones we found unimaginable until we stumbled across them. (Black smokers were just such a discovery. Geologists and biologists discovered amazing colonies of complex life at crushing depths in frigid, dark water - a place where life wasn't expected.) Life evolves new capabilities to exploit changing environments. Eyes say, and then different eyes that see different wave lengths of light. Bats and whales echo-locate, a hippopotamus sweats its own sunscreen, and deep sea creatures make their own light.
The diversity of social evolution isn't nearly so stunning or obvious. All human societies seem to exhibit similar structures where the powerful live a lifestyle enhanced by exploiting the labor of the less powerful. The degree of comfort between top and bottom varies from structure to structure and society to society. In a poor society living at the sustenance level the gap between top and bottom is small. But, even though I am just a casual observer and not a sociologist, I'll bet a good cup of coffee even the poorest societies still have a "top" and a "bottom". There have been attempts to construct social structures that are not skewed so,communism and socialism being the most obvious attempts to protect the providers from being abused by the managers. So far both have failed spectacularly when it comes to building a just and fair society.
Democracy coupled to capitalism is often offered up as the system that has managed to reduce the disparity between top and bottom most effectively, with capitalism regularly touted as "THE" economic system, particularly those who have benefited from it the most. In America we have gone so far as to declare our capitalism as the very economic system approved by god. And though the right wing declares itself as the true followers and protectors of capitalism, I haven't heard any national or state level politician even so much as hint that capitalism isn't the answer to our problems but the reason for our problems. All of American politics is joined at the hip to capitalism.
Unfortunately capitalism has proved to be as susceptible to corruption by the powerful as was communism under Stalin or nationalism under Hitler. America's capitalist system has been utterly corrupted by the capitalists which, when one thinks about it, isn't really a surprise. It might have worked out differently had a democratic government been able to keep the capitalists reigned in, balancing the motivation of greed with the need for a stable society to be just and fair. Sadly, the government simple sold itself to, (or was bought by) the capitalists. The failure of American capitalism, and the society built on it, is as inevitable as that of the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany.
Insofar as American capitalism is simply one arm of western capitalism, most of western Europe as well as North America is equally at risk. A once prosperous middle class impoverished for the benefit of the very few will eventually react with anger and violence. The resulting fires will leave little of the original structures in place. (The failure of Islamic societies, even more top heavy than western societies, is far advanced. I can't think of a single Islamic state that doesn't fit the definition of "failed". Totalitarian, sexist, violent, impoverished, hungry and corrupted to a level that would embarrass even some American politicians, they are all tottering on the edge of collapse.)
Which is where social evolution crops up once again. Human society has never been in this place before. On the one hand corrupted, undone by endless wars and religious violence, burning through limited resources seemingly unable to stop, and unbalanced by the discovery that we are neither center to the universe's efforts or important to it in any way. On the other hand we have discovered that there is no being in the universe that will save us from ourselves, that we are responsible for our future. In addition we have developed communications systems that will soon overwhelm the ability of anyone to censure what anyone else can know or learn. (Just sitting writing this essay I have taken to the Internet to review the history of black smokers, read some of what other people think about social evolution, taken an admittedly quick tour of the state of Islamic societies, and come up with a couple of addresses.) That type of power sharing has never existed before.
Technologies for point producing power and using that power efficiently are blossoming all around us. Smart people are tackling the world's need for local access to clean water and making good progress. The unsustainable consumerism that is the backbone of western, and particularly American culture, is loosing its allure. A growing number of people are moving to reclaim their lives by rejecting the influence of Madison Ave, Wall Street, K street, East Capitol Street, Pennsylvania Ave, and the Apostolic Palace Vatican City. If one looks carefully one can find people who are learning to live outside of or in defiance of the power structures being used against them.
Admittedly these are small rays of hope easily overwhelmed by the storms that seem to continuously roll over the world. But evolution often acts that way. Not so long ago on this little world a small environmental niche was filled by a species of tribal ape that learned to communicate. A blink later in the time frame of the cosmos and its descendants have overwhelmed the planet, walked on the moon, and sent machines out of the solar system. A like threshold in social evolution certainly seems possible. Somewhere a small society forms that actually figures out how to govern itself well, provide for it members in a sustainable way that includes treating everyone fairly and justly, who also learn to protect themselves from the abuse of power wielded by others both inside and outside of the society. This small group would be overwhelmingly successful. Even without any imperialistic impulses of its own, surrounding groups would copy the successful formula. Given the speed of worldwide communications it isn't hard to image this new society sweeping around the world in just two or three generations.
Exactly what this new society would look like is impossible to say from this side of the threshold. But taking a bit of hope from the idea that the threshold might already be upon us doesn't feel like a bad idea. All the chaos loose in the world today could be seen as not much more than the final frenzy of a whole raft of bad ideas about to be swept away. Religion and tribal politics, war and endless violence, greed and the lust to have more than the person sitting next to you when you already have everything you need, the hypocrisy of demanding "freedom" is the right to tell other people how they should live, all ideas that simply are not working. The religious, the professional politician, the war lords, the corporate masters and tin pot dictators large and small; even some of them must realize that it isn't working, that the party is almost over.
The evolution of the universe teams with new and unexpected things bursting onto the scene.
Maybe we just need to hold on for a little longer.
One aspect of evolution is the tendency of something completely new bubbling up out of the established. Biological forms fit into every niche that can support life, even ones we found unimaginable until we stumbled across them. (Black smokers were just such a discovery. Geologists and biologists discovered amazing colonies of complex life at crushing depths in frigid, dark water - a place where life wasn't expected.) Life evolves new capabilities to exploit changing environments. Eyes say, and then different eyes that see different wave lengths of light. Bats and whales echo-locate, a hippopotamus sweats its own sunscreen, and deep sea creatures make their own light.
The diversity of social evolution isn't nearly so stunning or obvious. All human societies seem to exhibit similar structures where the powerful live a lifestyle enhanced by exploiting the labor of the less powerful. The degree of comfort between top and bottom varies from structure to structure and society to society. In a poor society living at the sustenance level the gap between top and bottom is small. But, even though I am just a casual observer and not a sociologist, I'll bet a good cup of coffee even the poorest societies still have a "top" and a "bottom". There have been attempts to construct social structures that are not skewed so,communism and socialism being the most obvious attempts to protect the providers from being abused by the managers. So far both have failed spectacularly when it comes to building a just and fair society.
Democracy coupled to capitalism is often offered up as the system that has managed to reduce the disparity between top and bottom most effectively, with capitalism regularly touted as "THE" economic system, particularly those who have benefited from it the most. In America we have gone so far as to declare our capitalism as the very economic system approved by god. And though the right wing declares itself as the true followers and protectors of capitalism, I haven't heard any national or state level politician even so much as hint that capitalism isn't the answer to our problems but the reason for our problems. All of American politics is joined at the hip to capitalism.
Unfortunately capitalism has proved to be as susceptible to corruption by the powerful as was communism under Stalin or nationalism under Hitler. America's capitalist system has been utterly corrupted by the capitalists which, when one thinks about it, isn't really a surprise. It might have worked out differently had a democratic government been able to keep the capitalists reigned in, balancing the motivation of greed with the need for a stable society to be just and fair. Sadly, the government simple sold itself to, (or was bought by) the capitalists. The failure of American capitalism, and the society built on it, is as inevitable as that of the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany.
Insofar as American capitalism is simply one arm of western capitalism, most of western Europe as well as North America is equally at risk. A once prosperous middle class impoverished for the benefit of the very few will eventually react with anger and violence. The resulting fires will leave little of the original structures in place. (The failure of Islamic societies, even more top heavy than western societies, is far advanced. I can't think of a single Islamic state that doesn't fit the definition of "failed". Totalitarian, sexist, violent, impoverished, hungry and corrupted to a level that would embarrass even some American politicians, they are all tottering on the edge of collapse.)
Which is where social evolution crops up once again. Human society has never been in this place before. On the one hand corrupted, undone by endless wars and religious violence, burning through limited resources seemingly unable to stop, and unbalanced by the discovery that we are neither center to the universe's efforts or important to it in any way. On the other hand we have discovered that there is no being in the universe that will save us from ourselves, that we are responsible for our future. In addition we have developed communications systems that will soon overwhelm the ability of anyone to censure what anyone else can know or learn. (Just sitting writing this essay I have taken to the Internet to review the history of black smokers, read some of what other people think about social evolution, taken an admittedly quick tour of the state of Islamic societies, and come up with a couple of addresses.) That type of power sharing has never existed before.
Technologies for point producing power and using that power efficiently are blossoming all around us. Smart people are tackling the world's need for local access to clean water and making good progress. The unsustainable consumerism that is the backbone of western, and particularly American culture, is loosing its allure. A growing number of people are moving to reclaim their lives by rejecting the influence of Madison Ave, Wall Street, K street, East Capitol Street, Pennsylvania Ave, and the Apostolic Palace Vatican City. If one looks carefully one can find people who are learning to live outside of or in defiance of the power structures being used against them.
Admittedly these are small rays of hope easily overwhelmed by the storms that seem to continuously roll over the world. But evolution often acts that way. Not so long ago on this little world a small environmental niche was filled by a species of tribal ape that learned to communicate. A blink later in the time frame of the cosmos and its descendants have overwhelmed the planet, walked on the moon, and sent machines out of the solar system. A like threshold in social evolution certainly seems possible. Somewhere a small society forms that actually figures out how to govern itself well, provide for it members in a sustainable way that includes treating everyone fairly and justly, who also learn to protect themselves from the abuse of power wielded by others both inside and outside of the society. This small group would be overwhelmingly successful. Even without any imperialistic impulses of its own, surrounding groups would copy the successful formula. Given the speed of worldwide communications it isn't hard to image this new society sweeping around the world in just two or three generations.
Exactly what this new society would look like is impossible to say from this side of the threshold. But taking a bit of hope from the idea that the threshold might already be upon us doesn't feel like a bad idea. All the chaos loose in the world today could be seen as not much more than the final frenzy of a whole raft of bad ideas about to be swept away. Religion and tribal politics, war and endless violence, greed and the lust to have more than the person sitting next to you when you already have everything you need, the hypocrisy of demanding "freedom" is the right to tell other people how they should live, all ideas that simply are not working. The religious, the professional politician, the war lords, the corporate masters and tin pot dictators large and small; even some of them must realize that it isn't working, that the party is almost over.
The evolution of the universe teams with new and unexpected things bursting onto the scene.
Maybe we just need to hold on for a little longer.
Friday, March 15, 2013
Meet the new Pope ...
The new Pope, and the rare event of the old one retiring rather than dying, has sparked countless articles, reports, and discussions. All of which have forced me to admit that I really, really, don't care. I try to care. The Pope leads the guesstimated 1.18 billion Catholics (out of about 2 billion Christians). That seems like something anyone and everyone should care about. The Pope sets the agenda, at least in some degree, for Catholic politicians the world over. They, in turn, often foster the Catholic view on even unbelievers by setting government policies, guiding spending on things like medical and scientific research, and enacting laws. (Think of the current SCOTUS, its six(!) Catholics, and the tilt of their politics.) And then there are the legions of Catholics who simply let the Pope and the church do their thinking for them. The Pope claims it, they accept it as the word of a god, and that puts them beyond any rational debate or discussion even when the claim is demonstrably false for hundreds of years. (Think Bruno, Galileo and Darwin.) I should care about the Pope.
But I don't.
It isn't likely that this Pope is going to be that much different than the one before him, and the one before that, and the one before that. All old men, all seeped in the bubble of religious dogma, and all suffering the illusion that they are privileged to a special revelation from a god. On a planet rapidly running out of resources and options, this Pope will be as opposed to real sex education and birth control as those before him. Since his first action wasn't to move Cardinal Law and the Ex-Pope out of the Vatican and within the reach of being held accountable for decades of protecting and facilitating child rapists, there isn't much doubt this Pope still holds the Church as being more important than the welfare of actual people. The absurd policy of celibacy will go on, as will the outright evil of the Church's discrimination against women and gay people. He will talk about caring for the poor while living in a palace - just like those before him. He will rail against the evil of riches while courting the rich for favors. He will tacitly support the oppressors so long as doing so curries favor for the church. He will, in short, carry on the politics of wielding power over others.
He draws his power and his position from perhaps the oldest example of regressive, backward-looking, institutionalised evil in all of human history. Meet the new Pope, same as the old Pope. And, to stick with the theme of the song, we will certainly be fooled again.
And again.
It isn't that I think this Pope is somehow worse than other Popes, or even worse than other political leaders. He may well be better than some. (Which, when you think about it, isn't actually saying much.) But at this point in human evolution nearly all political institutions are on the wrong side of history. Protecting the power structures that are strangling progress and threatening the planet is interpreted as leading us into the future. The Pope wants to do away with birth control and responsible population growth. But he is not the only political leader wedded to past policies that are toxic. All of America's political leaders are wedded to crony capitalism and exponential growth, which is as unsustainable as unrestrained breeding. They are also completely ensnared in the politics of war, as are the political leaders of multiple nations. Power corrupts, so it is no surprise that all power structures are corrupted.
What comes next is any one's guess. But there is no hope that the new Pope will be leading his flock that direction. Meaning there is no reason to care about this new one.
But I don't.
It isn't likely that this Pope is going to be that much different than the one before him, and the one before that, and the one before that. All old men, all seeped in the bubble of religious dogma, and all suffering the illusion that they are privileged to a special revelation from a god. On a planet rapidly running out of resources and options, this Pope will be as opposed to real sex education and birth control as those before him. Since his first action wasn't to move Cardinal Law and the Ex-Pope out of the Vatican and within the reach of being held accountable for decades of protecting and facilitating child rapists, there isn't much doubt this Pope still holds the Church as being more important than the welfare of actual people. The absurd policy of celibacy will go on, as will the outright evil of the Church's discrimination against women and gay people. He will talk about caring for the poor while living in a palace - just like those before him. He will rail against the evil of riches while courting the rich for favors. He will tacitly support the oppressors so long as doing so curries favor for the church. He will, in short, carry on the politics of wielding power over others.
He draws his power and his position from perhaps the oldest example of regressive, backward-looking, institutionalised evil in all of human history. Meet the new Pope, same as the old Pope. And, to stick with the theme of the song, we will certainly be fooled again.
And again.
It isn't that I think this Pope is somehow worse than other Popes, or even worse than other political leaders. He may well be better than some. (Which, when you think about it, isn't actually saying much.) But at this point in human evolution nearly all political institutions are on the wrong side of history. Protecting the power structures that are strangling progress and threatening the planet is interpreted as leading us into the future. The Pope wants to do away with birth control and responsible population growth. But he is not the only political leader wedded to past policies that are toxic. All of America's political leaders are wedded to crony capitalism and exponential growth, which is as unsustainable as unrestrained breeding. They are also completely ensnared in the politics of war, as are the political leaders of multiple nations. Power corrupts, so it is no surprise that all power structures are corrupted.
What comes next is any one's guess. But there is no hope that the new Pope will be leading his flock that direction. Meaning there is no reason to care about this new one.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Getting out of a rut
Someone once described a rut as a grave with both ends kicked out. The US is in a serious rut, confined there by a corrupt political system sold to the highest bidder by the Supreme Court and hijacked by the lunacy of the T-party by gerrymandering. Getting out of a rut this deep will likely require some sort of social revolution involving mass demonstrations, and the resulting resignation of several justices of the Court, political leaders of both parties, and anyone with even a hint of T-party stench clinging to them. There seems little chance of such a thing happening soon, Americans are simply too locked in by the relentless propaganda and miss-information programs of the mass media.
Honestly, the system is clearly failing. I know this sounds a bit extreme, but our current leadership is walking us straight down a path that eventually leads to a complete breakdown of society. We have a heavily armed population where the majority are sinking ever deeper into economic dispare and poverty. All social programs are in jeopardy as the nation's wealth migrates to an ever shrinking percentage of the very elite. Rioting and violence seem inevitable. The military and police forces will certainly be called in to try and protect the system that has betrayed most of the population. At that point all bets are off and the resulting chaos could last several generations. (Think Lebanon, the Balkans, or parts of Africa.)
But the nice thing about being off the reservation is one can imagine what might be possible with a President who had a spine and a congress not completely subservient to capitalism. We don't have to stay in the rut. Anything even half intelligent we try which, almost by definition, will be significantly different that what we are doing now, will be an improvement over what we have. (Watching the Obama / Democrat / Republican / T-party show going on in DC is to witness evil parading as lunacy at work.) So, short of burning the place down and trying to start over ...
Eliminating gerrymandering would go a long way to fixing the government. Surly an algorithm can be written that would take each state's population density, divide it up into the proper number of districts, and then make each of those districts roughly a square (admittedly with wiggly boarder lines). No consideration for political leaning within those boarders, no consideration of race, just population and geography. The algorithm draws it up and there you have it. Most likely running for office in the new districts would mean appealing to the broadest possible constituency, certainly in the general election and probably in the primary as well. Lunatics will not be silenced but their chances of hijacking a party would be considerably reduced. (I know eliminating race while making up districts will cause a lot of heart burn. But consider this; within a generation white will no longer be the majority. Districting while trying to accommodate race will likely be impossible anyway.)
Fixing the Supreme Court is necessary as well, so how about we try this? The President nominates. On the second Tuesday after the nomination the entire Senate gives an up-or-down vote, (no committee bullshit games). Then - on the fourth Tuesday following the Senate vote - a special National election is held on a straight vote. To get appointed to this lifetime post the Nominee needs a 60% "yea" vote of those voting, no campaigning (as such). The national media gets to fulfill their responsibilities in a free society by investigating, interviewing, and sharing their findings with the public. No competition, no alternative candidate to be voted on, just an approval of this one person, yea or nay.
These changes might get the government out of the grave with no ends, but our capitalist economic system, which has been bought by robber Barrons and serves mostly the military, is buried just as deep. So how about we cut military spending by 20%? Even at that the US still fields a military dwarfing that of the next 5 or 6 largest military forces on the planet, combined. Drone and stealth technology, along with even just half of the current nuclear force, would still threaten anyone, anywhere, in the world. (Isn't a 800 pound gorilla in the room full of chimpanzees just as big a threat as a 1000 pounder?)
Then we take that money and pay off every student loan in the country.
Just think of the explosion of economic activity that would result when that generation, in the prime of their lives, full of energy, imagination, and resolve, is freed from the clutches of compounding interest. They could buy houses, start families, invent things, start companies, higher employees. As a group they are pro-environment so new energy sources and uses are almost a guarantee. They are far less raciest and sexist than is my generation and the "leaders" we have put in power. They are much more committed to universal civil rights, far less likely to be religious fundamentalists or anti-intellectuals. Many of them realize that consumerism is not sustainable nor is it the path for a fulfilling and joy filled life. Someone has to invent a new way of modern living that doesn't include gang raping the planet to death. My generation failed, why not give the next one a chance? They are, after all, the best educated generation the world has ever seen. Turn them loose and the rest of us can ride the wave.
Sure Wall Street would howl, but who cares? Most of the howlers belong in jail anyway. Besides, it isn't like they will not get their money, (principal only, they can shove the interest rates up their collective asses). All this new economic activity would need financing ... Wall Street will do fine. (The ones that didn't end up behind bars that is. I'm assuming a President and congress who would take such a bold move would actually enforce the laws Wall Street now ignores with impunity.) There would be some major realignments in the stock market. That is a serious concern since most of us have been forced to participate in that charade and are exposed to the manipulations of that den of thieves. We might try this; banks are borrowing money from the government (i.e. us taxpayers) at near zero interest rates. Then they loan it back to us at rates far above zero. Lets reduce every mortgage loan in the country to a rate of 1%, make it a law. Or maybe we should just nationalize the mortgage industry? The government (i.e. your taxpaying neighbors) loans you the money to buy a house (one house, buy a second one and you get to talk to a bank). You pay them back at a rate of 1%.
To keep this new economic engine running lets nationalize the oil companies as well and use that money to make a Bachelor's or Master's degree available to anyone. Why should massive profits for exploiting a natural resource go to the very few? Brazilian, Venezuelan, and Mexican citizens share the wealth of the oil in their respective nations, as do the citizens of the state of Alaska. Why not all Americans? Sure big oil will howl, but you just know that a bunch of them should be sharing a cell with their Wall Street buddies. In exchange we get tens of thousands of talented and well educated people working on making a new world.
The rut we are in is deep, climbing out will take imagination and fundamental changes in the way the political and economic system is managed. But it beats burning the place to the ground and starting over. Most importantly, an America working like this is an America still free, committed to civil rights, working at the leading edge of discovery and learning, and a democracy that responds the the needs of its people rather than those of its political, economic, and military leaders.
Honestly, the system is clearly failing. I know this sounds a bit extreme, but our current leadership is walking us straight down a path that eventually leads to a complete breakdown of society. We have a heavily armed population where the majority are sinking ever deeper into economic dispare and poverty. All social programs are in jeopardy as the nation's wealth migrates to an ever shrinking percentage of the very elite. Rioting and violence seem inevitable. The military and police forces will certainly be called in to try and protect the system that has betrayed most of the population. At that point all bets are off and the resulting chaos could last several generations. (Think Lebanon, the Balkans, or parts of Africa.)
But the nice thing about being off the reservation is one can imagine what might be possible with a President who had a spine and a congress not completely subservient to capitalism. We don't have to stay in the rut. Anything even half intelligent we try which, almost by definition, will be significantly different that what we are doing now, will be an improvement over what we have. (Watching the Obama / Democrat / Republican / T-party show going on in DC is to witness evil parading as lunacy at work.) So, short of burning the place down and trying to start over ...
Eliminating gerrymandering would go a long way to fixing the government. Surly an algorithm can be written that would take each state's population density, divide it up into the proper number of districts, and then make each of those districts roughly a square (admittedly with wiggly boarder lines). No consideration for political leaning within those boarders, no consideration of race, just population and geography. The algorithm draws it up and there you have it. Most likely running for office in the new districts would mean appealing to the broadest possible constituency, certainly in the general election and probably in the primary as well. Lunatics will not be silenced but their chances of hijacking a party would be considerably reduced. (I know eliminating race while making up districts will cause a lot of heart burn. But consider this; within a generation white will no longer be the majority. Districting while trying to accommodate race will likely be impossible anyway.)
Fixing the Supreme Court is necessary as well, so how about we try this? The President nominates. On the second Tuesday after the nomination the entire Senate gives an up-or-down vote, (no committee bullshit games). Then - on the fourth Tuesday following the Senate vote - a special National election is held on a straight vote. To get appointed to this lifetime post the Nominee needs a 60% "yea" vote of those voting, no campaigning (as such). The national media gets to fulfill their responsibilities in a free society by investigating, interviewing, and sharing their findings with the public. No competition, no alternative candidate to be voted on, just an approval of this one person, yea or nay.
These changes might get the government out of the grave with no ends, but our capitalist economic system, which has been bought by robber Barrons and serves mostly the military, is buried just as deep. So how about we cut military spending by 20%? Even at that the US still fields a military dwarfing that of the next 5 or 6 largest military forces on the planet, combined. Drone and stealth technology, along with even just half of the current nuclear force, would still threaten anyone, anywhere, in the world. (Isn't a 800 pound gorilla in the room full of chimpanzees just as big a threat as a 1000 pounder?)
Then we take that money and pay off every student loan in the country.
Just think of the explosion of economic activity that would result when that generation, in the prime of their lives, full of energy, imagination, and resolve, is freed from the clutches of compounding interest. They could buy houses, start families, invent things, start companies, higher employees. As a group they are pro-environment so new energy sources and uses are almost a guarantee. They are far less raciest and sexist than is my generation and the "leaders" we have put in power. They are much more committed to universal civil rights, far less likely to be religious fundamentalists or anti-intellectuals. Many of them realize that consumerism is not sustainable nor is it the path for a fulfilling and joy filled life. Someone has to invent a new way of modern living that doesn't include gang raping the planet to death. My generation failed, why not give the next one a chance? They are, after all, the best educated generation the world has ever seen. Turn them loose and the rest of us can ride the wave.
Sure Wall Street would howl, but who cares? Most of the howlers belong in jail anyway. Besides, it isn't like they will not get their money, (principal only, they can shove the interest rates up their collective asses). All this new economic activity would need financing ... Wall Street will do fine. (The ones that didn't end up behind bars that is. I'm assuming a President and congress who would take such a bold move would actually enforce the laws Wall Street now ignores with impunity.) There would be some major realignments in the stock market. That is a serious concern since most of us have been forced to participate in that charade and are exposed to the manipulations of that den of thieves. We might try this; banks are borrowing money from the government (i.e. us taxpayers) at near zero interest rates. Then they loan it back to us at rates far above zero. Lets reduce every mortgage loan in the country to a rate of 1%, make it a law. Or maybe we should just nationalize the mortgage industry? The government (i.e. your taxpaying neighbors) loans you the money to buy a house (one house, buy a second one and you get to talk to a bank). You pay them back at a rate of 1%.
To keep this new economic engine running lets nationalize the oil companies as well and use that money to make a Bachelor's or Master's degree available to anyone. Why should massive profits for exploiting a natural resource go to the very few? Brazilian, Venezuelan, and Mexican citizens share the wealth of the oil in their respective nations, as do the citizens of the state of Alaska. Why not all Americans? Sure big oil will howl, but you just know that a bunch of them should be sharing a cell with their Wall Street buddies. In exchange we get tens of thousands of talented and well educated people working on making a new world.
The rut we are in is deep, climbing out will take imagination and fundamental changes in the way the political and economic system is managed. But it beats burning the place to the ground and starting over. Most importantly, an America working like this is an America still free, committed to civil rights, working at the leading edge of discovery and learning, and a democracy that responds the the needs of its people rather than those of its political, economic, and military leaders.
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