A Neglected Consequence of Our National Decisions

When we initiate massive undertakings, especially wars which are so emotionally charged, we will weigh many consequences such as world opinion, effect on other counties, even regional balances of power that may result. One we seldom, if ever, consider is the mindset of the American people that may result.

A mindset is a cultural phenomenon. Societies have them as a result of unusual experiences or as a means of accounting for what they do or have done. In this context slavery was a mindset in addition to a practice. When the practice of slavery was abolished the mindset remained, even to this day. Mindsets, being held for reasons usually immune to rational criticism, can be very dangerous to a society. They are vulnerable to political and other manipulation and, more importantly, they prevent a society from productively engaging in solutions to societal problems.

By way of example, let us consider what I believe to be one of, if not the most, significant changes in the American mindset to occur in the 20^th century, the militaristic mindset of the American people. After every major war until World War II America always disarmed and returned its focus to domestic issues. After World War II it did not.

By way of personal experience let me illustrate the depth of disarmament to help in understanding what disarmament meant and hence the magnitude of the change in the American mindset over the period discussed herein. As a child in the 1930s I lived within a few blocks of Fort MacArthur whose mission was to protect the port of Los Angeles from any enemy. The fort had an upper and lower reservation. The lower reservation had the barracks and officer housing. It was open to the public and I, a civilian, got my haircuts there for 25 cents. The upper reservation had the 14 inch disappearing gun battery that could hurl a 1, 560 pound projectile 14 miles in defense of the port. I ran around the tunnels of the gun emplacements and dug bullets from the small arms firing range to melt and make lead soldiers. Additionally, San Pedro was then home port for the Pacific Fleet. When the fleet was in anyone could ride the gigs that transported naval personnel to and from the ships. As youngsters we tried to get a gig going to a battleship, but sometimes wound up disappointed by being delivered to a tender. This was the state of disarmament about 15 years after World War I. There was no effort to keep the public mindset on war.

By the end of World War II the powers that be had already decided that the Soviet Union would probably be our next enemy. Even before the end of the war Churchill had delivered his Iron Curtain speech on March 5, 1945 at Westminster College, in Fulton, Missouri. About the same time Henry Stimson, Secretary of War (it was then called the War Department, not the current euphemistic and deceptive Defense Department) under Truman wrote in his diary that it might be necessary to take on the Russians over their invasion of Manchuria. He said this in connection with the importance of dropping the atom bomb to demonstrate our power to the Russians. In brief, there was no intention to disarm after World War II.

This so-called Cold War produced two hot wars as well as many proxy wars around the globe. For our purposes the most significant of these was the Vietnam War.

The first of these hot wars, Korea, came barely five years after the end of World War II. Fearing the displeasure of an American public that had so recently been through a long war, the Korean War was officially called a police action.

The second, and most important for the purpose of this article, was the Vietnam War. The American defeat in this war was attributed by the military to U.S. civilian opposition to the war, especially to the draft. In consequence the U.S. military sought and won approval to convert itself from a citizen conscript organization to an all volunteer one. This created a military that was considerably less a concern for ordinary Americans who would no longer have to weigh going to war in terms of possibly sacrificing their sons. With this burden off their shoulders the Americans could more easily view war as a kind of video game played with other people's children. This new volunteer military is paid in advanced educational opportunities, medical care for themselves and their families plus a modest salary. We had in effect a paid standing army, which brought us, at least psychologically, one step closer to accepting a full mercenary army whose precursor we now employ for the State Department in Iraq. This has been a major enhancement of the change in the American mindset regarding engagement in war.

During the 1980s we also invaded two small nations. The navy was sent by Reagan to attack the island nation of Granada because it had a socialist government and H. W. Bush sent the army to attack Panama because its leader was said to be trafficking in drugs. These two events were so bizarre they suggest a desire to keep war and "the enemy" in public focus and to discourage any thoughts of challenging the American hegemony in South and Central America.

The next major event in hardening the American appetite for world dominion and the militarism that goes with it was the collapse of the Soviet Union. This left the United States as the oft declared "sole remaining super power." As such, the neocons Cheney et al began planning, during the presidency of H. W. Bush, with their document Project for a New American Century for an American empire to rival Rome in the scope of its dominion. For this a well-funded military would be essential, which I suggest is the real reason we never saw the peace dividend many thought would follow the end of the Cold War.

September the 11th of 2001 came as a godsend for the neocons who had, during H. W. Bush's presidency, laid out their plan for a new American empire analogous to that of Rome in its dominion. An analysis of what was done in rapid sequence after the attack of 9/11 evidences a pre-made plan. It was immediately called a war rather than a police action so the full involvement of the military could be justified. The Patriot Act curtailed civilian freedoms. The federal government was reorganized to facilitate a continuing integration of military and police, and citizens who protest what is going on are now increasingly treated as the enemy.

We are now an empire with over 700 military facilities world wide. Empires generate enemies more readily than almost any other form of political organization. As such, we are continuously on the alert for potential enemies. We are easily led to treat those who may not accept American hegemony as enemies to be dealt with by the military. The latest episode in this world-wide game of containment is our response to China's increasing power. We have moved troops to northern Australia and we are trying to induce Burma to side with us against China.

This whole process from initial reluctance to get involved in one more European war to the creation of an American empire out of the ashes of World War II has had as its backdrop the American mindset nurtured by a media that kept public attention focused on "the enemy." That media and the American people paid far less attention to the efforts of the United Nations to spread some of the global wealth to the world's neediest. We often treated the U.N. as the enemy and any adherence to its rules as anti-American.

One day the full extent of what the Americans and the mindset they developed after World War II have done to this world may be thoroughly articulated. This is now being done with respect to our unnecessary use of the atom bomb. This articulation will not be pretty. It will be filled with large­-scale avarice, pursuit of power and dominance, which became global after World War II. It will have events of unconscionable brutality. We Americans may have to face the kind of collective guilt that Germany has had to deal with. Despite the rhetoric we use to describe ourselves and our motives we have managed to betray our heritage despite many opportunities as our performance on the world stage unfurled. Franklin Roosevelt understood this. During World War II he pushed the creation of the United Nations in which the smallest of nations would finally have a voice. He rejected Churchill's efforts to reestablish the British Empire. He articulated his Four Freedoms, which included a freedom from want and in which the Marshall Plan was rooted. With his death we lost the kind of leadership a nation conceived as was ours requires. We took the first step toward world domination with the dropping of the atom bomb, which to my mind, Roosevelt, with his profound concern for humanity, would never have authorized. Perhaps one of the larger tragedies of the last 300 years is an America, which was conceived with so much promise for humanity, played out as simply one more empire.

Bob Newhard

India, the Other Path

One of the salient issues facing humanity is whether democracy can survive the monumental changes that will engulf it, or will we humans find no other way to continue our existence than to rely on high levels of authoritarianism. As an example, China has slowed its population growth by fiat of authority requiring most families to have only one child. India, a democracy, has made not such demands. As a result India's population will surpass that of China in 2013.

India, in my judgment, should be a focus of interest to those concerned with the future of democracy. It is an emerging economic powerhouse, a global player. On the one hand it is fractured by an addiction to the new, fostered by a robust economy of technology and on the other hand deep attachment to the old as a country with long standing traditions that go far toward being definitive in a country not long out from under the heel of colonialism.

One policy that demonstrates the difference between China's authoritarianism and India's democracy is population control. China mandated a one child per family policy in the 1970s. Exceptions were made for farm families and some others. As a result, according to Chinese authorities, 400 million births have been prevented from 1979 to 2011. A Chinese spokesperson has said that currently about 35.9% of China's population is encompassed by the program. If a woman becomes pregnant and the family already has a child the woman is forced to have an abortion.

India tried a policy of sterilization instead of abortion in the 1970's, but abandoned it in the face of backlash it occasioned. Recently, the Indian state of Rajasthan has begun a policy of voluntary sterilization for men and women. Sterilization is rewarded with various appliances such as food processors or television sets and includes eligibility to win a new Indian-made Tata Nano automobile. In short, and with an adherence to the objectivity that the threats of overpopulation present to the future of our species, we must ask ourselves which of these two approaches is most likely to accomplish the population reduction required.

Another prominent current display of Indian democracy in action is the furor over the government's permitting foreign big box stores such as Wal-Mart and the British Tesco to open stores throughout India. Due to India's particular form of parliamentary government, a decision of this sort can be made by the government without parliamentary discussion or approval. From its independence to 2006 kirana, small mom and pop neighborhood stores, seldom larger than 500 square feet, and including even cart and sidewalk vendors, were by law the primary form of retail operation permitted in India. There are millions of these shops throughout India and, combined, they represent about 15% of India's gross domestic product (GDP). In 2006 large foreign retailers were permitted to operate, but only as suppliers to small Indian-owned stores. By fiat of government order in November 2011, these large foreign retailers were permitted to establish and operate their own supermarkets if they had no more than 51% foreign ownership. The government's action caused an uproar in the Indian Parliament with one parliamentarian declaring that he would personally set fire to the first Wal-Mart store to appear. Within days the ruckus in parliament became so great that the government had to rescind its order; with what degree of permanence is yet to be seen. I find it significant that this revolt in behalf of the little people took place immediately in Parliament without the need for massive demonstrations by those affected kirana owners. Can one imagine this response to government dictate taking place in China?

Part of the argument for permitting this form of foreign investment had been that both China and Thailand had permitted this kind of foreign investment and their economies have boomed. Regardless, the Indians chose tradition rather than modernization. In India's case the people spoke, in China's case a wealth- dominated government decreed that foreign investment would be permitted albeit under government oversight. (We have seen what happened when Google incurred the government's wrath over Google's resistance to China's demand that it censor its content.) One interesting question is which of these two major influences on the world's future, both developing at break neck speed, will, in the long run, be successful? No matter what we may think humanity ought to do, this is the real world in which democracy and authoritarianism will be tested.

I have tried to think out some of the pros and cons of this issue because I believe it reflects a fundament source of conflict in the future of our species. For example, it is said that the big box stores will eliminate many of the middle men in the kirana supply chain and thereby make goods, especially food, cheaper at a time of ever rising prices. But, I ask myself, at what energy and pollution costs as people have to travel further to a big box store rather than their corner kirana. Could, for example, the big box stores, being regional, create an additional impetus to automobile purchase? In brief, does it do less environmental damage and perhaps societal stress, to move people or products? Lest this seem trivial, it is important to keep in mind that we are talking of a society of nearly one billion people, over three times the population of the United States.

Some kirana vendors rely on local food sources more than the big box stores can be expected to. One kirana butcher said he did not fear Wal-Mart because his customers, like most Indians, preferred fresh meat to frozen meat and he slaughtered his own animals, assuring that his meat was fresh. If you have ever noticed, poor people, lacking refrigeration, buy their meat alive, hence the popularity of chicken, and slaughter it immediately prior to cooking. Ecologically, this considerably reduces the energy consumption of refrigeration and the accompanying CO2 pollution. Of additional concern, will the increased advertising and sophistication of that advertising by the big box stores accelerate overconsumption as it has in our country?

There is a significant movement in India to preserve Indian ecology, even to the point of returning to the land. Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Little Things, a prize winning novel, and activist for global social reform, comes close to taking this view in an interview in the Guardian UK newspaper, http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jun/05/arundhati-roy-keep-destabilised-danger. People like she and Bill McKibben are driven to much smaller units of human organization in their search for a viable sustainable economy.

As a final note, I would ask if one can imagine a people-centered economist like India's Nobel Laureate Armartya Sen arising and prospering in China? Sen was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work in rigorously demonstrating that economics can be most productively viewed as a device for improving human life.

China is rigorously, and sometimes callously, planning its future. Humanity is viewed in its depersonalized mass. To get a feel for the enormity of Chinese planning I suggest reading relevant passages from Mike Davis' Planet of the Slums in which he describes Chinese plans for a megalopolis extending from the delta of the Pearl River (Hong King) to the delta of the Yangtze River (Shanghai) with a population equivalent to that of the entire United States. As I say, the Chinese are planning on an enormous scale. India, in contrast, exhibits much of the people-centered decision making. I have asked myself, and continue to ask, which is the most likely scenario for humanity's future? As the watersheds on both sides of the Himalayas continue to shrivel, as their populations continue to increase, as they each pursue a rate of development not seen before, their differing ways of dealing with much the same problems will be highly instructive for those concerned about the future of mankind.

Bob Newhard

Capitalism's Inherent Inequality as a Global Economic System and a Possible Alternative

I think it is obvious that humanity will require, in some sense, a global economic system. We humans have gone too far in technological development, overpopulation and planetary destruction to assume otherwise. Further I think such a global economic system must have the welfare of human beings, in their totality, as its fundamental objective. Given these assumptions and values, can capitalism, no matter how modified, measure up?

I suggest that the European Union (EU), having as members a mixture of nations and their national economies can serve as the best example of what capitalism, as a global economic system can be expected to do. But why is Greece, for example, so wanting in productivity to elicit from Nicholas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and David Cameron the openly expressed regret that Greece was ever admitted to the eurozone? Could it be that Greece does not have the natural resources, e.g. coal, major rivers, a variety of mineral resources, that their northern neighbors do and therefore must do with less in health care, education, etc. than those northern neighbors? It would seem so. Is this not the naturally wealthy nations dictating to those of less endowed nations how they must live if they are to be loaned a portion of that natural wealth as a bailout? Again, this division of nations along the lines of natural resources would, if capitalism is the governing global economic system, condemn billions of the worlds population to, at best, second class global citizenship.

The EU's economic system, commonly called the eurozone, is much like any national bank. Not all member of the EU are members of the eurozone. An EU member nation must have a sufficiently viable national economy to become a eurozone member. Every EU member that has such an economy must join the eurozone. There are no protocols for withdrawal, either voluntary or otherwise, from the eurozone once admitted. The eurozone, as any nation, has its own central bank (ECB) which, among other things, issues its own currency and bonds.

Given this background what has capitalism done as this amalgam of nation states seeks to survive and prosper in the global capitalist market place as it currently exists?

As we know, the eurozone did not protect the citizens of the EU from the greed-driven shenanigans of Wall Street's securitized mortgage fragments. Some EU national economies, i.e. Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Italy are all being required to impose severe cutbacks in social services in return for eurozone bailout funds. This is causing riots in Greece and Portugal and, as noted above, a variety of disparaging remarks from the French, Germans and English to the effect that Greece for example, should never have been admitted to the eurozone. Here we see a group of nations struggling to form a more perfect union to avoid the wars that so frequently have plagued their lands and, in consequence struggling to form a common economy, being defeated in that attempt by capitalism's single focus on wealth. Indeed, Spain, in its recent election, has decided to opt out of its social programs and follow the ER/IMF imposed drastic reductions in social services. This, despite the fact that Wall Street was the ultimate cause of their social distress. Extrapolate this to a global scale, with much greater natural economic potential, and billions of human beings will not qualify for membership in a global economic system. Wealth once again trumps human need and human potential.

Well, what can we do? David Korten in his book Agenda for a New Economy, articulates 12 steps to be taken to achieve an equitable and sustainable world economy. Korten presents no utopian construct, but takes the real world seriously in his proposals. While I agree with much of what he proposes as a remedy for what we now have, I believe his call for more local units of economic organizations flies in the face of the level of technological integration and population density that humanity has developed. Humanity, if it is to survive, will require a global economy to assure a sufficient measure of equality in the distribution of the world's economic productivity.

One possibility I find heartening is to view humanity itself as our primary resource. By way of illustration let us consider Japan and South Korea. Both countries are exceptionally short of natural resources, yet both countries have thrived economically. However, initially in Japan and in South Korea the population was viewed as their only significant resource. More specifically, the brains resident in that population, as with all human brains, were known to be very powerful. All they needed was sufficient education to become a major resource for doing all the things those humans do well, such as innovate and organize. This, by the way, is an illustration of what I meant by an economy based on understanding rather than power in an earlier column.

Here, however, because this reliance on human intelligence had to function within a capitalist system, the educational process was highly competitive and resulted in significant numbers of student suicides.

Nonetheless, these countries have demonstrated that it is possible to develop viable economies when the only significant resource is human intelligence. The fact that this resource is widely distributed on our planet provides the basis for mitigating the problems created by maldistributed natural resources. In brief, human intelligence provides one of the essentials for a viable world economy--equitable resources.

The other essential requirement, in my judgment is that we must move the basis for exercising that economy from competition to cooperation. An economy in which people contribute to achieving societal goals and through that personal satisfaction will, for example, devote sufficient resources to insure that everyone can get as good an education as he/she can master instead of competing to the point of suicide to win acceptance to a university. Culturally we must pass from being focused on winning to being focused on creating a better society and the development of human potential. This may sound like it is expecting too much of humanity, but as our options continue to diminish we may be forced to focus on our better selves instead of surrendering to our lesser selves as we have done for so long.

Bob Newhard

Here We Go Again

In an interview with Al Jazeera Jin Liiqn, the supervising chairman of China Investment Corporation, China's sovereign wealth fund, was asked whether China intended to invest in the European Union's new bailout fund. He did not think so unless Europe's labor laws, which provide for shorter work weeks and longer vacations than found elsewhere, were made more demanding of the workers. He accused European workers of being given to "sloth and indolence."

This from a high official of a government that allows its corporations to work people so hard they commit suicide as in the company that produces Apple's iPad; allows deceptive recruitment of young, poor, rural women to work in immense factories working long hours cheek by jowl as they sew clothing and assemble electronic parts only to then be housed in controlled corporate dormitories when off work; that is throwing peasants off their land in Africa as they plant massive, GM laden monoculture crops to feed its population. In China we are witnessing the worst aspects of capitalism being played out once again, but with all the "efficiency" trappings of the 21dt century. We have been here many times before. The initial Industrial Revolution in England forced peasants off their land in order to graze sheep and provide wool for the new machines of textile factories. The resultant poverty, slums, and other social dysfunctions are powerfully depicted in the engravings of William Hogarth and the novels of Charles Dickens. In the United States it resulted in the 1911 New York City Triangle Shirtwaist fire in which 146, mostly teenage immigrant girls, died because of locked doors and grossly inadequate fire escapes. Many chose to leap to their death on the concrete 9 stories down rather than burn to death. Some apparently 'froze', their skeletons still bent over their sewing machines. Would that the greed-driven connections between Goldman Sachs' Commodity Index and its speculative increases in the price of grain-based food, causing death by starvation, could be so explicitly drawn. Now, after three hundred years of this repeated barbarity, we have China, with the world's largest population going hell-bent down the same road focused on becoming the world's next dominant economy, not on the welfare of its people. Reading Arundhati Roy, India is little better and it is expected to exceed China's population soon. The enormous slums of Mumbai India, substantially created by the same process of driving rural farmers off their small land holdings, abut the skyscraping condos of the rich. All of this vicious imposition on a poor and desperate humanity is, of course, called progress.

In contrast, the object of this Chinese economic disdain, Europe, is the only area on this planet where a sustained effort has been made to insure that capitalism's capacity to produce goods and services is harnessed to human welfare. After World War II, amid its massive destruction, Europe was so focused on making its society and its economy function for human benefit that the British, within three months of the end of the European phase of that war, rejected their charismatic war-time leader, Churchill, and elected Clement Attlee's Labour Party. They, as Wikipedia notes, presided "over a policy of nationalizing major industries and utilities including the Bank of England, coal mining, the steel industry, electricity, gas, telephones and inland transport including railways, road haulage and canals. It developed and implemented the "cradle to grave" Welfare State conceived by the economist William Beveridge. To this day the party considers the 1948 creation of Britain's publicly funded National Health Service under health minister Aneurin Bevan its proudest achievement.^[68] Attlee's government also began the process of dismantling the British Empire." That, I suggest, is reform, in contrast to the pusillanimous efforts made in this country.

Recently Al Jazeera presented a video report on China's expanding military might. It showed Chinese military jets flying in formation, not unlike the Blue Angels (What a name for a killing instrument!) of the United States. Chinese civilians, men, women, and children were ecstatic at the display of military might. More often than not, achievement of economic prominence has led to military prominence and then military dominance. The political mechanism for this process is called "national interest." As every "great power" has done, China can be expected to define its national interest in ever widening spheres of influence. America's national interest requires 737 military facilities around the world, often at the host country's reluctant acceptance. The enormous Okinawa military base, occupying a large amount of prime farm land, is a constant source of resentment by the Okinawans. This sequence of economic power being converted into military power and the constant threat of war it engenders is very well know, yet our species has yet to be the fundamental concern of humanity and we repeats this sequence again and again with an ever increasing power of destruction. Indeed, as of this writing it has just been announced that the United States will establish a new Marine base in Darwin, Australia said to be directed at containing China. As Denis Kucinich cried out during the 2008 presidential campaign, "Wake up America! Wake up!," so we need a clarion call to humanity to wake up to the deceptions it practices on itself.

Now let us consider some of the consequences for this planet and humanity as the world's two most populous countries, China and India, rush to produce and consume at the ever increasing rates that human technology can produce.

Not long ago Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute published a small book titled "Who Will Feed China?" to draw attention to the impending global food shortage. The answer is, of course, we all will, but the burden, given the price structure that will govern food distribution and availability, will be the poor of this earth. As noted above, Goldman Sachs is already playing its role in this impending disaster as well as Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), the agricultural corporate conglomerate converting corn from food to fuel. According to the United Nations, there is already famine in parts of drought stricken Somalia. Delivery of sustaining food is compromised by warring faction, a phenomenon we may expect to accompany food shortages elsewhere. This, again, is a scenario that most of humanity will not take seriously.

Additionally, as wealth and its concentration increases in these two countries, food tastes will move to meat and the vast waste accompanying the consumption of animals will make itself felt, especially in the consumption of water, already in short supply. Add to all this the increasing trend toward agricultural monoculture and the patent control of seed and you have the makings for further sources of conflict. Finally, add to this the still increasing world population and you have the basis for massive conflict, not just over national sovereignty, but over the basics of human life, i.e. food and water, and those conflicts will taking place in the context of weaponry that can destroy civilization if not our species.

In this context the United States, China, Russia, etc. are planning their military strategies in terms of winning any confrontation or, at least, reaching some level of fear-driven mutual detente, however fragile.

Much of this scenario is known with a probability verging on certainty, yet the powers that be do not for a moment consider a policy and practice of cooperation in dealing with the massive problems we humans have created. We will waste enormous portions of what the planet has left fighting for ever-diminishing resources. This is childish schoolyard behavior! Every institution that either practices or promotes practices inimical to the continued survival of our species should be called vigorously to account, whether religious groups against abortion and birth control, the over consuming wealthy of the planet, financiers and their spurious economies of investing money in money and not for human needs, advertisers aiming to induce people to consume the unnecessary, and any number of other destructive practices.

In all of this we are not talking about niceties, but about necessities.

All of this mad rush down the road of unfettered capitalism and the greed, waste and conflict it entails must be stopped. It is clear that competition is, as this list of consequences notes above, a wasteful means to get things done. It also distorts or misses its objectives because it tends to focus on the competitor, not the problem. Cooperation takes far less of human effort and planetary resources to get better things done than does competition. Cooperation to deal with what we have done globally requires that we see with clear and distraction-resistant perception our common human destiny and, if we survive, our common human ability to understand ourselves and our potential for understanding the universe we inhabit. To constantly remind ourselves of our common destiny we need to use this planet as the basic frame of reference in dealing with all that would divide us. This is our common home. This is what we should pledge allegiance to. This is the only frame of reference that can address the massive problems we have created for ourselves. In 1940 Wendell Willkie, the Republican presidential candidate running against FDR, articulated his vision of one world so effectively the after the election Roosevelt asked him to become a roving ambassador for Roosevelt's efforts to persuade the nations that would be left exhausted by that conflict, that creation of a world organization would be imperative. Without commenting on what Republicans from Ronald Reagan to G. W. Bush have done to that party since, we need to reinstall Roosevelt's and Willke's vision and articulate the necessities that then and now make it imperative that we change our human mindset from nation, religion, or any other subset of human thought and attachment, to articulating our commonality in fact and in destiny.

Bob Newhard

Power and its Alternative

To my mind, one of the great cultural cleavages in humankind is that between power and understanding. Basically, power seeks to change things, at root, by brute force. Understanding, in and of itself, seeks to perceive the way things are, and hence sees the exercise of power, per se, as a threat by the very fact that it disrupts what needs to be understood. Power, per se, takes no notice of understanding whatsoever. Both of these proclivities are essential to human survival and, as is so frequently the case with human values, can be fundamentally at odds with each other.

I suspect power is earlier in the course of human evolution than understanding. As a species, humans were as much prey as predator, if not more so. Thus, living in constant fear, they were both impressed with the power of the animals that preyed on them and, perhaps, longed for the power they witnessed. It is instructive that the animals that received so much honor in human religions were the powerful ones, especially the lion, in India the elephant, and in Mayan culture the leopard. It is not surprising that power being so long and deeply ingrained in human nature should be more suasive in human affairs than understanding. In daily discourse we often hear people say what do I have to do?; not what do I have to know when confronted with a problem.

Understanding, being of more recent evolutionary development, is less firmly ingrained in our nature. It is, however, what finally allowed humans to redress their power imbalance with their predators. Using the two together the human species became the dominant species, for good and bad.

One of the continuing imbalances in our human and social affairs is that between these two influences. We so easily take the fruits of our understanding and wantonly place them at the service of our power proclivities. Through understanding, our brains continually create new technologies, new ways of dong things, which we, almost gleefully, pursue to their, often bitter ends. We created extremely useful computers, cameras, sensors of all kinds and produced the Predator and Reaper drones used to hunt and kill human beings as if in a video game.

Of late, there has been a movement to adhere to a "precautionary principle" which would require an assessment of all technology for its potential impacts before it is released for use. Genetically modified grains are a case in point. On a much larger scale, notably weaponry, this way of thinking needs to be implemented and rooted deeply in the human response to the inventions of its brain. For example, malaria, until the 19^th century, was thought to be caused by bad air. With the discovery that it was transmitted by mosquitoes their breeding grounds were drained, netting used over beds at night, etc. People hailed the conquering of this disease that had been a primary source of childhood mortality, and made building the Panama Canal feasible. As a result many more humans survived to child bearing age and populations increased globally. This along with many other beneficial sanitary developments based on increased understanding greatly increased the human life span as well. Both contributed to increased population growth, which if not stopped, will destroy our species. We can ask, should we have required a reduction in birthrate as these consequences of disease mitigation took place? This is an old problem going back to Thomas Malthus who saw in the 19^th century that mankind could out grow the resources necessary for its survival and therefore must control its growth. Seeing no other way to control that growth, he assumed it was one of the functions of famine, disease and constant war. This is the kind of problem that has become critical for human survival, largely because of our technological capabilities. It is also, obviously, a fundamental human problem to be resolved by humans if they are to continue to survive. By obvious implication, if technology is the primary source of this kind of dilemma, then the science that is technology's birthplace must be taken into account.

Science, in and of itself, is the fundamental cultural expression of the human proclivity to understand. We often undertake scientific efforts that have no practical use and thus no potential for our power impulse: the astronomy of intergalactic space is a case in point. Along the way we may find some uses for the knowledge we thus acquire, but that is not the reason for the undertaking. The more narrow minded among us, especially those politicians seeking the vote of the uninformed, often decry the uselessness of such, often expensive, knowledge quests, e.g. NASA, as a waste of money. The word "use," so employed, is an expression of power.

An interesting feature of understanding and one that I suspect may become fundamental to human survival is that understanding is much less culturally restricted than power. If you notice, understanding can break the bonds of cultural parochialism that cause so much conflict and human destruction. Physics, chemistry and mathematics remain the same whether in America or China or Timbuktu. This bodes well for the basis of a global human society. We have the basis for a common understanding. We have a way to get beyond the cultural divisions that plague us. This implies that the current attempt to deal with the dysfunctions of cultural diversity, i.e. to celebrate diversity, is in the long run inadequate. While I understand the intentions behind this approach of cultural identity awareness, I think it is clear that mankind needs a human identity if it is to survive on a planet of increasingly known limitation.

With respect to science, a world of fact and evidence, generating a moral system, you may find the book "The Moral Landscape" by Sam Harris, a neuroscientist, significant. I am finding it so.

A Case in Point:

The history of Japan and the United States over the last 50 years offers an instructive example of these two proclivities in action. During that period the United States spent its energies on power, specifically the power to dominate the world. Japan, a small nation with few natural resources, substantially by a major emphasis on education, developed an economy that was the second largest in the world, after that of the United Sates. I am aware of some of the usual arguments made for this glaring difference, e.g. Japan did it under the military protection of the United States and hence did not have to invest so immensely in armaments. Protect them from what, the fantasies that led to General MacArthur's deliberate provocation of China and its entry into the Korean conflict? In any event, all that says is that peace, per se, can be more productive than war. In matters of such large scale as mankind's future, all the caveats usually lodged against Japan's achievement still leave this difference between it and the United States highly instructive.

The Learning Society

The Learning Society is an ongoing effort by UNESCO and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to base economic development on life-long education. Far too often, indeed I suspect in the majority of cases, nations have built their economies on conquest, i.e. power, as did the United States as it pushed indigenous people from one ocean to another. The hegemony-declaring Monroe Doctrine asserted our power over the western hemisphere. Teddy Roosevelt sent the Great White Fleet, a flotilla of warships, around the globe to emphasize our power and our willingness to use it. I submit this whole posture crushed the potential for an understanding-based society that could have sprung from the passion to understand found in some of our nation's most prominent founders, e.g. Jefferson and Franklin, had we heeded Washington's advice against entangling foreign alliances.

The point of these kinds of large-scale and admittedly very complex examples is that our species cannot continue to exist if we rely on power as the driving mechanism of our future as we so thoroughly have in our past. We have developed the capacity to destroy ourselves and yet behave like children with a new toy at each technological advance in the exercise of power. We, as a species, have demonstrated the capacity to develop through understanding. Our problem has been that we then insist on wantonly turning that understanding into power. We must learn to be satisfied with understanding, tread lightly on this earth and each other and be far more careful about turning understanding into power.

The Precautionary Principle

By way of developing a method to inhibit our largely uncontrolled practice of turning understanding into power there is an effort to define and implement deterring practices known as the Precautionary Principle. There are various definitions of this principle due to the complexity of the many issues and the vested interests of various segments of the world's population. Basically the principle would prohibit the introduction of new technology and the accompanying processes unless it was proven to be safe with respect to mankind and the environment. A Google search will turn up a plethora of information, and complexity, for those who may be interested.

As The Learning Society initiative evidences, there are people and groups concerned to deal with the problems our species faces by the use of mankind's unique capacity to understand. We need to bring this need and this approach to general public awareness accompanied by the urgency it deserves. We must think our way out of our massive dilemmas lest we destroy ourselves in the emotional responses we customarily make.

Bob Newhard

Are Humans Becoming Redundant?

There is a latent, but pervasive, sense among Americans that the rich need the rest of us as a market. As Henry Ford is said to have believed, he had to pay his workers decently if he expected them to buy his automobiles. However, this serf-like view of humanity is true only if wealth is being generated by mass production for mass consumption and that production cannot be moved from one region to another. The truth is, however, that markets are not people, they are money. If money is concentrated in relatively few hands, the market cannot be "mass:" to wit nobody markets to poor people because they have no money--except in a scam such as subprime mortgages.

The message here is that an unregulated, market-driven economy cannot meet the needs of humanity at large, which in substantial measure, is why we are seeing the global turmoil being generated by the fallout from the Great Recession.

It follows that as the market-driven economy continues to concentrate increasing amounts of wealth in fewer individuals that the demographic size of the market shrinks and increasing numbers of humans cease to be effective members of the economy.

Sam Pizzigatti, editor of the online publication Too Much, which is concerned with economic inequality, has published an article detailing one major indicator of this phenomenon-- advertising. Sam reviews a report in Ad Age, the major trade journal of the advertising industry, which tells advertisers to forget marketing to individuals who make less then $100,000 a year. Useful amounts of money are not to be made there. Additionally the report advises that long term marketing strategy should focus on 20-30 year olds who make at least $100,000 a year because the probabilities are that they will be the wealthy cohort from which future profits are to be made. Here we have one of the most wealth sensitive segments of our economy, advertising, laying out their assessment of our economic future, which envisions increasing concentration of wealth and the power that accompanies it as well as increasing numbers of economically deprived human beings. We shall address some of the social consequences of this below. Sam's article titled, Madison Ave. Declares 'Mass Affluence' Over, may be found at http://toomuchonline.org/madison-ave-declares-mass-affluence-over/.

In another article titled, Are the American People Obsolete? Michael Lind, political policy director at the New America Foundation, examines the fate of the American worker if wealth continues to concentrate. Here I would observe that the reason that the wealthy oppose public employment is, at root, because the public sector is the only place that people cashiered by the private sector have to go to get employment. It is difficult to think of a more economically vicious catch 22. But as Grover Norquist, a patron saint of the wealthy anti-taxers, said of government "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

The wealthy, in so many words, see government as the enemy standing between them and total domination of society.

Michael begins his article by asking "Have the American people outlived their usefulness to the rich minority in the United States? A number of trends suggest that the answer may be yes." He then goes on to unfold a scenario in which increasing joblessness forces Americans, like the citizens of so many poorer countries, to migrate elsewhere in search of employment. Americans have not seen this possibility before, but it is common to the rest of the world, indeed, it was migrating poor Europeans who created this country.

Perhaps a couple of quotes from Michael's article will encourage you to read the complete article, which I highly recommend.

This is a message that must be made as clear to the American people as that greed is a primary Wall Street motivator.

" The point is that, just as much of America’s elite is willing to shut down every factory in the country if it is possible to open cheaper factories in countries like China, so much of the American ruling class would prefer not to hire their fellow Americans, even for jobs done on American soil, if less expensive and more deferential foreign nationals with fewer legal rights can be imported."

You want to know how to stop incessant war?

"The American people also could put a stop to any thought of an American Foreign Legion and declare, through their representatives, that a nation of citizen-workers will be protected by citizen-soldiers, whether professionals or, in emergencies, conscripts. The American people, in other words, could insist that the United States will be a democratic republican nation-state, not a post-national rentier oligarchy." Michael's article can be found at http://news.salon.com/2010/07/27/american_people_obsolete/.

Again, the message is if the rich have no need for you, you become redundant. Obviously this cannot be a continuing process. Obviously it must be stopped either within the capitalist system or through a replacement system.

Let us now look at some of the social fallout from this attack by the wealthy on government and, hence, on us. Support for public universities and colleges has diminished to the point of canceling some courses and outrageously increasing enrollment fees, reducing or eliminating monetary aid to students from poor families and reducing teaching staff. At the same time the wealthy continue to get tax deductions for their extensive gifts to their private colleges and universities. As I say, vicious! The concentration of wealth in the few has left public schools strapped for resources. Teachers have been let go thereby increasing class sizes, when everyone knows class size is one of the most significant determinants of effective education. This also increases the numbers of unemployed. Deliberate and vicious! There could be a direct transference of money, by way of a transaction tax on pure speculative investing, to public schools both to correct this awful imbalance and demonstrate to the American people the direct connection between the speculation-ridden life of the wealthy and the working life of most Americans. Of course, however, the wealthy would then claim their enormously wasteful and economically distorting practices support public education. Similar transfers of wealth by this kind of tax should be made to the victims of mortgage fraud and to the millions homeless with parents and children frightened of the future and desperate for some sort of security. And the Republican party of wealth and privilege would have us believe they care? Liars of the thousand lights of charity! These are but a few of the known, deliberate, consequences of increased wealth concentration and those who benefit from it. As we have said before wealth, especially concentrated wealth, is an enemy of the people and of democracy. It should be an object of social scorn instead of the focus of envy and icon of achieving that it now is.

So, is the bulk of humanity headed for economic irrelevance? If you look at the major trends as Michael did the answer would be "yes." None of the forces in play naturally encourage societal development. Labor requires less and less human endeavor. This is called efficiency, but efficiency presupposes a goal which one process is more efficient than another at accomplishing. What is the goal of this kind of efficiency? Simply more money called profit. Notably not human well being. Being as neither technology nor the power of the wealthy is directed at creating a viable, rewarding society for the majority of mankind, the only mechanism for changing human destiny is the informed will of the vast majority of mankind. Our operating principal is that we still outnumber them. Many people understand this. One union speaker at the Occupy Wall Street rally on the occasion of union support showing up, said to these predominantly young protesters "Well, we finally got together." Unions have been pitting manpower against wealth for years. This is a place to begin learning. Unions, like other organized efforts, whether corporations or religions, are subject to corruption, which requires a vigilant membership, but at least they are focused on human beings not merely money. As Benjamin Franklin said "We must all hang together or, assuredly, we will all hang separately." To do this we must develop a new understanding of what it means to be human at our best and to build a value system based on this reality. This is a tall order, but we are faced with a tragic reality. I still remember Denis Kucinich crying into the microphone during a candidates forum in the 2008 election "Wake up America, wake up!" This was by far the most powerful utterance in that whole devious, manipulative charade.

Corrective action.

For starters corrective action must begin with the realization that excessive concentrated wealth is a threat to mankind and must be eliminated at its first appearance. The methods of its accumulation must be as continuously monitored as we monitor the rise of an epidemic-causing virus. Instead of encouraging our young to "go forth and make their fortune," we need to encourage them create a better world, to live modestly and help make this planet the livable place it should be. We need to create a global value system that will take precedence over any existing cultural system. Because of overpopulation, over consumption, maldistribution of wealth, and the increasing efficiency of weapons technology, we have got to the point that humanity is its own worst enemy.

Bob Newhard

The Individual and the Collective

Evolution itself first articulated this distinction. Some forms of life are loners from the moment of birth, e.g. the sea turtle. Others are largely functions of the group, e.g. schooling fish. We humans having evolved a larger brain that has led to a greater awareness of self have lived in a largely bifurcated world of self and society. Unfortunately that larger brain has been much less successful in developing the capacity to bridge this gap than it has in exacerbating it and in developing destructive technologies that make this failure ever deadlier to its continued existence.

In addition to the problems generated by our bifurcated nature we also have a pronounced tendency to over emphasize the discoveries of our brain. In current literature this is often described as "overshoot." When Darwin presented his Origin of Species and the mechanism of survival of the fittest, this notion was almost immediately converted into a societal, especially business, motif. The wealthy not only did in fact dominate the poor, it was only natural that they did so. Being wealthy, and hence powerful, they were the ones "fit" to dominate the rest of mankind. What these titans of greed did not understand was that evolution had produced a social species with a sense of justice based on a moral sense of equality. This social sense was as necessary for human survival as being "fit." To this day the notion of the survival of the fittest permeates the ethos of libertarianism and its free market economics. Their version of freedom is nothing more than Darwin's survival of the fittest. Indeed, if you listen to the utterances of today's business tycoons their use of the word "war" to describe competition is often heard. The Art of War, an ancient Chinese work authored by Sun Tzu, is a best seller in business circles. Yet in times of financial crisis many of these business bravados flee to the relative safety of public coffers in the form of government bonds to protect them from the ugly world they have created. Individualism of the form espoused by libertarians and free marketers is a child's game of "king of the mountain," although a very dangerous one, in which the collective must bail the individuals out. When will we learn that the seductive siren call of uncontrolled economic freedom is a chimera that will inevitably destroy the ship of state and its cargo of fools. Productivity should be aimed at human well being not human wealth.

Neoliberalism, little more than a play on words

Neoliberalism is a current example of conservative radical individualism. It is also a very irksome term for anybody who takes liberalism seriously. Let us look at how the libertarians and free market economists converted liberalism into conservatism.

Liberalism arose in the 17th century from thinkers such as John Locke for whom property was almost a synonym for freedom because the Crown, aristocracy and Church owned almost all of it, John Stuart Mill whose essay "The Subjection of Women" early demonstrated liberalisms concern for improving social conditions and Jeremy Bentham whose "greatest good for the greatest number" utilitarianism was intended to replace religion as the foundation of morality. This was a time when freedom was increasingly in the air, at least among philosophers. The predominant enemies

of freedom were the king for whom other humans were subjects, not citizens and the landed aristocracy and the Church. It was against this background that people such as Jefferson believed the less government the better. Keep in mind that the British Crown controlled everything. The colonies were created to serve the crown either directly or indirectly through its grantees. The American Revolution was largely a merchant's revolution aimed at freeing merchants to trade with whomsoever they pleased and freeing them from increasingly onerous taxes by an absentee monarch.

Now let us step forward to 1933. The major oppressors were the Wall Street financiers and industrial tycoons. They were the ones oppressing workers in the coal mines, think the Ludlow massacre; in the meat packing houses, think Upton Sinclair's, the Jungle; in the auto plants, think Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times; in rapacious railroad freight charges, think the farmer's Grange movement. Freedom of the individual at this time meant freedom from economic domination. The government under FDR became the instrument for restoring freedom. Why? Because this country had become a democracy not a monarchy and the people were able to use government for their own purposes. It, obviously, was not easy, but equally obviously, it did not require a French Revolution.

In both 18^th and 2o^th centuries liberals sought the freedom of the individual within the context of society. Neoliberalism is an effort by conservatives to recreate the economic oppression of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries by leading people to think the economic world of the 18^th century, before corporations dominated the economy, is germane to the world of the 21^st century. That it has resulted in little more than economic colonialism should be evident to all. In a world of increasing overpopulation and decreasing resources it is clear that an ethos that sacrifices the group to the individual is a breeding ground for escalating conflict and violence, and this in the context of an expanding capacity to kill and maim.

The following is an excerpt from Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s essay titled Liberalism in America: A Note to Europeans in which he makes clear the consistency of liberalism and by implication the stealing of the word liberal by conservatives to engender confusion in America's political process.

"Enough should have been said by now to indicate that liberalism in the American usage has little in common with the word as used in the politics of any European country, save possibly Britain. Liberalism in America has been a party of social progress rather than of intellectual doctrine, committed to ends rather than to methods. When a laissez-faire policy seemed best calculated to achieve the liberal objective of equality of opportunity for all -- as it did in the time of Jefferson -- liberals believed, in the Jeffersonian phrase, that that government is best which governs least. But, when the growing complexity of industrial conditions required increasing government intervention in order to assure more equal opportunities, the liberal tradition, faithful to the goal rather than to the dogma, altered its view of the state."

Corporate power and the poverty it has spread are today's fundamental enemies of freedom.

Franklin Roosevelt clearly understood the meaning of "liberal" in the context of a corporation, rather than a monarch, dominated society when he included a freedom from want in his four freedoms speech. We must realize and articulate the fact that poverty is as much the enemy of freedom as dictatorship and that we have a Republican Party prepared to impose poverty on millions of Americans, indeed to move as many middle class citizens into poverty as possible. To some this claim may seem a drastic overstatement, but I think the extensive and vicious attacks on government services and economic support of the citizen combined with a radical decrease in taxes on the wealthy leave no other explanation. This is the fundamental purpose and result of their attacks on government. Ordinary people have no other defender than government and they need to take it back.

We must ask ourselves whether, in the face of overpopulaton, human-replacing technology and extremely high concentration of wealth, whether humanity is becoming redundant and is this situation being manipulated by the multibillionaires of this planet for their own purposes. In a democracy they need us as long as we have the vote, hence the Koch brothers and the Tea Party. However, it is more than possible that they can subvert this democracy into an authoritarian state, perhaps via the Religious Right's stated desire for a theocracy and the political machinations behind the "unitary presidency" floated by G. W. Bush, especially in the chaotic times this country will experience.

Democracy has no defense other than the will and energy of its citizens. The real question is whether the American citizenry is up to it.

Bob Newhard

Let Us Remember

As we remember the horror of the falling Twin Towers, the caved in Pentagon and the self sacrifice of those who crashed their plane headed for the White House as well as the self sacrifice of public employees who died trying to rescue others and are still severely affected by the debris of the crashing buildings, let us also remember and ponder some things that led up to and followed from this event.

Let us remember a Middle East carved up to their desires by the winning allies of World War One regardless of racial, ethnic or cultural differences.

Let us remember a democratic Iran whose government was overthrown by the United States and the dictatorial Shah installed in place of their socialist government to insure that their oil would go to us and our corporations. The invasion of Iraq was, in many respects, a replay of this consummate arrogance.

Let us remember our bargain with the autocratic Saud family to protect them against all enemies in return for access to their oil.

In all these and other precursors to 9/11 let us remember the term blowback and seek cooperation rather than domination when dealing with other countries. Let us cease letting corporations drive our foreign policy. Let us remember, contrary to Donald Rumsfeld, that it does matter that they hate us even if they also fear us.

Let us remember the thousands of Iraqi children who died as a result of the embargo we were instrumental in imposing and enforcing following the Gulf War.

As for 9\11 and all that flowed from it:

Let us remember the monumental extent to which we were lied to. Let us remember that "war" was immediately declared against a then unknown, but perhaps suspected, enemy which had no country, no army and no geographic borders.

Let us remember that no alternative, such as a cooperative global Interpol effort, was sought by the Bush administration despite widespread support for the United States. Obviously a large, concerted and cooperative police action by the many countries sympathetic to the United States was called for. The term "war" tapped into the military might we had been accumulating for over 50 years and into an American mind set of almost continuous war or preparation for war that characterized the 20^th century.

Let us remember the deer-in-the-headlights look on G.W. Bush's face when he was informed of the attack while reading stories to children. Let us ask did he know the scenario?

Let us remember the Project for the New American Century plan hatched by Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, et al to insure American dominance of the world and that 9/11 was used to put it into play. Let us remember the massive death and suffering, not to mention wasted resources this arrogant ego trip cost. Let us pursue their accountability.

Let us remember the rapid restructuring of our government to let military concerns override all else. Remember the hyped fear of colored warnings of likely terrorist activity. Remember the Patriot Act that threatens any domestic dissent.

Let us remember that by attacking Afghanistan we were able to supply the geographic boundaries and other prerequisites for war, albeit against one of the world's poorest nations. We were also able to expand the enemy from a few al Qaeda members to the ruling Taliban. In all this let us remember how we were manipulated into war.

Let us remember that in responding as we did we supplied all the manpower Osama bin Laden could wish for and converted his attack into a broad contest between religions and cultures.

Let us remember the lies by the Bush administration that led to our murderous attack on an absolutely innocent Iraq and the hundreds of thousands of innocent people we have killed or maimed. Let us reflect on the trashing of the cultural artifacts, the barbarism of Abu Ghraib, the laying waste of Fallujah and the vast destruction of Iraq's infrastructure, which despite our promises to repair, remains to this date 10 years later.

Let us remember the flag waving patriotic jingoism that preceded our "piece of cake" invasion of Iraq. Let us remember the coordinated media hype, the Pentagon-appointed experts, as one more Madison Avenue advertising campaign and that we Americans were so vulnerable to it.

Let us remember the perfidy of being told our soldiers would leave Iraq only to see them transferred to Afghanistan and greatly added to as well.

Finally, and most importantly, let us remember that the mindset of the American people has been radically and thoroughly shifted from the euphemisms of economic dominance to the stark awareness of the brutality of imperialism and the fear and folly it engenders. Unlike our erstwhile naiveté, we can no longer ask why they hate us. The fear and shame that our actions have induced have prompted us to blindly provide billions of dollars to the military presumably to keep the terrorists busy in foreign lands, as we are mentally whipsawed by the media, body scanned at airports, detained without court order, put on "no fly" lists because we peacefully demonstrate against government policies. We must now protest behind chain link fences far removed from the elected offices we protest against. We have, like despots, rendered people for torture, imprisoned them indefinitely without formal charges and deprived them of trial by a jury of their peers. Such are the consequences of fear. We are a substantially different people than we were prior to 9/11. We should acknowledge that and work to remedy it. The courage that the Norwegian people and their leaders demonstrated when faced with terrorist slaughter of their children, the courage to reemphasize democratic values and their open society, warrants considerable thought and emulation by the American people.

As Paul Krugman so simply and eloquently says in the New York Times of 9-11-11 under the title of The Years of Shame

The Years of Shame

Paul Krugman blogs today:

"Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued? Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd. What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?

The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.

Let us remember how easily we have been led by lies into the massive killings of Vietnam and Iraq. Let us heed the pleas of the recently deceased Chalmers Johnson in his last book Dismantling the Empire: American's Last Best Hope that we demolish the American Empire before it demolishes us. Let us value our common humanity higher than our historical and cultural differences.

Bob Newhard

Needed, a Global Moral System

On the one hand we have unprecedented global pressures on the human species, e.g. over population, global warming, food and water shortages, ecological destruction. On the other hand we have developing global social chaos that some, e.g. Samuel Huntington, believe will lead to a massive conflict of civilizations in a world of nuclear armaments. I suggest there is a dire need for a global moral system, which can be used to ameliorate the human condition before we destroy ourselves in the all too familiar manner our history evidences.

Being as moral systems are cultural artifacts, it would seem the best way to begin such an effort is to consider how human cultures have accommodated themselves to each other in the past. The last two centuries have produced two major models of cultural accommodation in the United States. One is the "melting pot" in which people of many cultures agree to substantially surrender their native culture in order to participate in a new culture. The mass migrations to the United States in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries were certainly not without conflict, e.g. attacks on Chinese, the denigration of the "shanty Irish," but they willingly kept coming anyway. Many avidly sought to integrate into the melting pot, changing or anglicizing their name in order to better fit in. The melting pot converted all cultures to an American culture, which by historical dictate was substantially English.

In the 1960s dissatisfaction with loss of cultural identity prompted a rebellion against the melting pot and a substitution of multiculturalism, sometimes metaphorically called the salad bowl. It has become the dominant form of cultural acculturalization. I believe I am correct in asserting that multiculturalism is now believed to be the best way to accommodate the cultural fragmentation of our species. While I can understand the push to multiculturalism, I think in the long run for the purpose of a global culture and a moral system derived from it, that the melting pot metaphor will be found more serviceable. The melting pot had the advantage of establishing a common identity, which is what humanity will need if it is to create a global moral system. In lieu of subordinating all existing cultures to one existing culture, as happened in the United States, it will be necessary to fashion a new culture. I suggest that system will have to recognize the de facto imperatives increasingly imposed on mankind by the limitations of the natural world, not, as currently, the fictions of religion as has been the case so often up to this point. In this regard it will not do to create one more myth, e.g. Gaia. Our understanding of our world and its processes and of ourselves must be the focus of any value system that would sustain us and the planet we inhabit. Thus creating a sustainable environment as quickly and thoroughly as possible must become a moral imperative of a global moral system.

Therefore, at bottom, nature will dictate the terms of any system of human behavior that aspires to preserve humanity and the planet. This places a premium on science, the one institution with the background, integrity and self-correcting processes necessary for this endeavor.

One sign that the need for such a global moral system is being increasingly recognized is the increasing need of nations to seek United Nations sanctions before engaging in conflict. This is far from perfect and is unduly subject to the will of the more powerful nations, but it is a process fairly new in international relations.

A global moral system will have to be rooted in our species, not race, culture, language, religion or any other traditional nexus of cultural grouping. To create this, it will be necessary to repeatedly demonstrate in a wide variety of dimensions that we will survive, if we do, only as a species.

If the primary objective of a global moral system is to assure the continued existence of the human species, then the first order of business should be identification of the basic needs of sustainable human survival. We then need a path for human development. I suggest something analogous to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Within the context of assuring species survival, optimum opportunity for human development must be perused if humans are to remain human and realize their full potential. Humans have to see the value of a limited sustainable population. There is a need to clearly elucidate the interdependence of all life and, perhaps, extend our moral system to what microphysicist Sam Harris calls sentient beings in order to assure that our excessively powerful species will not unwittingly destroy that with which we share so much of our DNA and millions of years of co-evolution.

In sum, we humans have the capacity to do this. It is imperative that we do it if we are not to perish. There is evidence that we can change our value system. China has taken a hard step toward population reduction. The United Nations is playing an ever larger role in international relations. And today Al Jazeera reports that the Libyan rebel government is pushing an end to tribalism in that country. Once again a progressive perspective on the human future needs to be developed and deployed.

Bob Newhard