On becoming a nonagenarian

As of my 90^th birthday, a few observations on the intervening 90 years:

Population

World population in 1923 - 1,936,077,000!

World population 2011 = 7,021,836,029

U.S. population 1923 =111,947,000

U.S. population 2011 =311,600,000

This astounding rate of population increase is at the root of many of the most complex problems humanity faces. And this despite World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam and the current “war” on terror  that has killed millions.

How many of humanity’s problems can be traced to this fact alone. When will we hold religions that promote population growth to account?

In the face of this imminent threat we have the Pope expressing his deep concern for the poor, who are the major product of overpopulation, yet fighting the only effective means of reducing population--birth control and abortion. And this church is supposed to be a moral arbiter.  Put this together with Muslim and conservative protestant religions and you have identified a major threat to human survival.

Technology

My stepfather was born in a covered wagon going from Iowa to Alberta Canada. He lived to see humans on the moon. That is, of course, an immense change, probably greater than any since the discovery of the new world. Yet, Alvin Toffler in his book Future Shock, argued that the rate of change humans experience is itself accelerating. I have asked myself what in my lifetime could possibly exceed what my stepfather witnessed. While the full impact has yet to be realized, molecular biologists have begun reconstructing life forms by manipulating DNA. As this expands, humanity will be taking its evolution into its own hands. For good and bad, assuming our species survives all that it faces, this capacity portends an immense change both in humans and in their society.

Cultural change

The comparatively simple American culture of my youth became a paragon of excess and waste as the world’s resources flowed to the United States following World War II. New clothing was deliberately shredded to produce blue jeans with holes in them as the witless fashions of excess took hold. The average house expanded from two bedrooms to as high as ten or eleven. William Whyte portrayed the sterility of corporate life in his 1950 book The Organization Man and Sloan Williams’ The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit dramatized this sterility.

In this period of exceptional affluence we found that affluence was, in the end, a kind of sickness and vacuity, which for want of purpose, has led to empire and continuous war.

Science

The one massive upbeat during the last 80 years has been science, as it has kept humanity in creative touch with the real world we inhabit. In it we have seen distant planets up close. It has unraveled our very being in the double helix. It is making clear how much a part of the natural world we humans are. We have yet to learn how to use the tools and methods of science to understand ourselves sufficiently to curtail the barbarities we unleash upon ourselves.

Our largest remaining enterprise is to understand deeply that we are our own worst enemy and that we have to correct that before we perish at our own hands. This is the extremely difficult task we have left to those who follow us and for which we can give them little guidance.

With this column I will begin writing on a less regular schedule than the biweekly pattern I have observed for the last seven-plus years. Some of the vicissitudes of old age, notably macular degeneration, have made reading and writing an increasingly difficult task. I hope to continue posting about as often as I have been, just not as regularly. Should this Center for Public Deliberation web site close, I will continue to publish my thoughts and observations on my Blogspot blog titled Temecula Valley Reflective Liberal.

Finally, I wish to thank Jerry and Maxine Ewig and Mark Brosius, who created this website years ago as part of Howard Dean’s Democracy for America effort in the Temecula Valley in California. Most especially I want to express my gratitude for the editorial work of my wife Eleanor, which has greatly increased as my eyesight has weakened. May humanity yet find a way to survive the conflicts that evolution has built into it and realize its enormous capacity to understand the near infinity of its universe and the complexity of itself.

Bob Newhard

Once More into the Future

I have frequently urged the creation of progressive perspective to provide progressivism  with a developmental coherency, which in my judgment, it currently lacks and that should also function as a motivational rallying point for progressives as does the concept of “freedom,” misused as it is, for conservatives.

The closest effort in this direction that I have seen so far is a multi-topic article in the American Prospect magazine titled A Strategic Plan for Liberals.”

This document was published in the Nov./Dec. issue of the American Prospect magazine and is intended to be a “the road map for a progressive future.” It is meant to do for progressives what the Lewis Memo, written in August 1971, did for American business. Corporate attorney Lewis Powell wrote this memo to the U. S. Chamber of Commerce a few months before his appointment to the Supreme Court by Richard Nixon. In the memo Powell lamented the loss of influence American business had suffered under the New Deal and argued that to regain its influence (by which it is clear he meant dominance) it must become far more political. He laid out a number of things that business had to do, among them use the media much more effectively to influence public policy. To this end he suggested the creation of think tanks to create reports promoting business interests, hence, the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute. The Chamber adopted Powell’s suggestions enthusiastically and has been putting large amounts of money into the effort ever since. The project has been a huge success, eventuating in making government an enemy of the people, to be curtailed as severely as possible by transferring its functions to the for-profit private sector. It has also used and subverted government to capture resources and create markets to further its insatiable lust for profit.  It has, by the resultant propaganda and corporate control of the media, convinced many Americans that business is more efficient than government, despite a Social Security department that puts the private sector to shame. It even portrays government as the enemy of freedom. For those, like me, who are unfamiliar with this episode in American history, I strongly recommend reading the above cited article in the American Prospect.

The Strategic Plan For Liberals is intended to do for progressivism what the Lewis Memo has done for conservatives. It consists of a collection of articles written by various authors addressing various issues often by way of specific proposals such as creating a million federal jobs to deal with unemployment.

Despite many important suggestions, the              strategic Plan is, in my judgment, mainly a hodgepodge of suggestions that have merit on their own, but offer little as a progressive perspective on the major dilemmas people face in this age of monumental economic, cultural, ethnic, and other conflicts. We need a view on how to maximize human potential and create a  world in which the human beings and their  society are the fundamental concern.

A few points in what I would call a Progressive Perspective follow.

·      Do not let wealth accumulate to any individual or organization beyond identified need. Wealth is power and great wealth is great power and, as such, is a major threat to democracy. Speculative wealth is the worst because it is tied to no need and is, hence, a major source of mischief running from depression to war. Controlling wealth by taxation will divert it to societal improvement for all. The argument that great wealth is needed to stimulate creativity and innovation is falsified daily by the creativity of scientists in the employ of universities and government. The single most influential innovation of the late part of the 20^th century is the Internet, a product of government.

·      Identify and make viable a defined and motivating criterion for the progressive movement. I suggest survival of our species. This will entail making clear the degree that said survival is now at risk and how the threat to our survival is likely to develop. We must make repeated demonstrations about the consequences of resource depletion, pointing out how the latest war or famine is an expression of this depletion. Resource depletion is at the root of much of current conflict, especially oil. Many of the issues in the world today, from drone attacks to bloated military budgets to ecological disasters, are products of oil depletion alone. Let us put it all together as a consummate threat to human survival.

·      Finally, for this short list, our value systems must move substantially from the individual to the societal. As E. O. Wilson, the famed social biologist has pointed out in his book The Social Conquest of Earth, the most successful and enduring species in the history of evolution have been socially based. Put another way, we sink or survive as a species. Let us use our natural assets   of reason and empathy to create our path to survival.

Bob Newhard

narbonne42

Nader's Hope for 2016: An "Enlightened" Billionaire with Progressive Vision Article  headline from Common Dreams for June 23, 2013

It is doubtful that our country has seen any more dedicated, effective, intelligent, and knowledgeable  progressive than Ralph Nader. Nader has bucked corporate America, been threatened by them, and has seen federal laws written as a result of his efforts over the last nearly 50 years. Long ago Nader began pointing out that there was no substantial difference between the two major political parties. They both got money, which some have called the life blood of politics, from the same corporations. Nader now rests his hope for Progressivism in an enlightened billionaire. This kind of change in some one as thoughtful and knowledgeable as Nader must provoke the most serious self-reflection among progressives that they have yet had to face.

Nader, in effect, is saying that the people can no longer successfully challenge money. He is saying, in effect, democracy is dead. If he is right, what then?

I surmise that Nader sees the power of global wealth and the system of global capitalism and sees no way that ordinary people can prevail against the monster that our country is largely responsible for creating. Around the world from Europe to the Middle East to Southeast Asia  and South America we see massive resistance by millions of ordinary citizens against the economic  and social environment that global capitalism has produced. We also see the masters of that system ignore or seek to destroy that resistance.

Progressives must now ask themselves whether global capitalism has in fact defeated democracy. If we say no, we must say, with the same candor as Nader, why not. If we say yes, we must begin to articulate how, if at all, Progressive values can be restored and maintained in the political, economic, social and  cultural milieu that now define the world we live in.

For my part, I still have some confidence that mass resistance can still overcome centralized power, even in this technologically advanced global environment.

Global corporations have a significant advantage over other forms of human organization including political institutions such as nations. Large multinational corporations have faster means for decision making. They have the ability to deploy resources very quickly and to subordinate individuals, nations and organizations to their objectives. Political decision making is frequently slow, especially in a democracy, which, I suspect, is one reason the Obama administration has become increasingly authoritarian and secretive.

To successfully oppose such a controlling entity people must use their numbers to, in effect, render themselves useless to this human-based corporate monster whose only source of income is, ultimately, other humans. Without a market, capitalism goes nowhere. Historically masses of humanity have overcome wealthier, better organized and technologically advanced opponents. For example, the Soviet Union, barely out of feudalism, was able to defeat the Nazi military by throwing huge numbers of human beings against them and suffering huge losses in the process, but the human mass prevailed. Organized labor was able by its sheer numbers to shut down General Motors by sit-ins, now called occupying, in the 1930s. John L. Lewis and his coal miners defeated the power of the coal companies in the 1930s. Nader, obviously, believes this can no longer be done. I suspect the power of global capitalism is, in his mind, too great to defeat by mass resistance.  (He may also think that such a solution, given the military technology of the corporate state, would lead to massive, perhaps societal-destroying, violence.) I think, however, that the fact that people are toppling powerful regimes in the Middle East and South America, regimes which have frequently deployed advanced military technology against them, evidences that a determined people in their large mass can bring organized, advanced power to its knees. The people of Greece, Spain, Portugal, etc. are forcing European states to reconsider their cozy relationship to big banks and wealthy investors. The European Union is considering a transaction tax on the trillion-dollar-a-day trading in currency and other financial instruments. This has been the fiscal home of the very rich. Similarly, the tax havens of the wealthy are undergoing tighter controls to insure that the wealthy pay their taxes on this sequestered wealth. Much of this is happening because people in their numbers are in the streets energetically demonstrating that they know why they are suffering economic deprivation. People may yet prevail over the instruments of their oppression.

What I have written above is premised on non-violent protesting. If this, in the context of a winner-take-all global economy, is not possible then the horrors of carnage to exhaustion will descend upon us. This is the consequence that, in my opinion, prompted Nader to opt for salvation through well-motivated wealth.

 There is a natural progression in human consumption-based economies from need to want to greed. This progression is not only out of control in capitalism, it is enshrined. In a time of decreasing resources and increasing population we must obviously find a better economic system.

Protests are highly emotional things in which reason gives way to categorical thinking and ideological irrelevance. The massive protests in Brazil are already confronting the all too pervasive divide between middle-class and working/poor class groups. An account of the efforts to bridge this gap, titled Brazil’s Left Is Eager to Lead the “Swarm”, may be found at http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/07/06-0

All I value has been created by human beings.  That their marvelous capabilities should be crushed in a multi-dimensional excess that they are incapable of controlling, challenges the depths of sorrow and despair we humans can feel. But, as Pete Seeger says in his song My Rainbow Race, I will give it one more try.

Bob Newhard

Prisoners of PRISM

A majority of Americans – 56% -- say the National Security Agency’s (NSA) program tracking the telephone records of millions of Americans is an acceptable way for the government to investigate terrorism.  (Source: Pew Research Center poll dated June 17, 2013.)

To my mind, the above finding reveals a level of ignorance, amnesia, and naiveté that a democracy cannot long withstand.  The Pentagon has told the Congress that they anticipate 15 to 20 years of continuous warfare. That alone is more than a viable democracy can maintain. Now we discover that all Americans may expect to see their personal behavior monitored by the National Security Agency (NSA).

This immense and growing database will be housed in an equally immense facility being built in Utah. The data mining activities to be applied to it can be expected to be very sophisticated. If, as it is said, they can identify individuals from it as well as the relationships with other individuals, one can expect every branch of government and every corporation with its Congressional henchpersons to be mining for its own purposes. It may be said that access to the database will be strictly controlled, but over the life time of such a data resource, justifications and pressures may be expected to prevail.

Consider, as an example, the Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI) under J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover used the resources of the FBI as he chose without any real Congressional oversight.  In fact, some legislators were fearful of him for what he might reveal about them. He persecuted Martin Luther King Jr., bugging his home, his office and the various hotels he stayed in. The latter activity turned up the fact that MLK was having affairs with women not his wife. The FBI employee even suggested that King might prefer to commit suicide rather than have these liaisons revealed. This 56% majority should ask themselves what might happen if another Hoover got hold of this database.

Again, Senator Joseph McCarthy wielded the power of his office to hound people and destroy careers and livelihoods by innuendo and fabrication.  McCarthy had no qualms about modifying a photo to show that two people were together at a certain time and place when they were not. Could another such powerful senator, riding the wave of popular hysteria or a congressional committee such as HUAC, do the same with PRISM? All it would take would be to show that a person or group placed phone calls to others who had placed call to yet others some of whom were known terrorists.  Guilt by association would do the rest.

We know other countries have fallen prey to the domination of secrecy. East Germany under Soviet control had its Stasi, many members of which were ordinary citizens reporting on the behavior of other ordinary citizens. Angela Merkel expressed to President Obama Germany’s concern about PRISM, especially the Boundless Information program within it that focused heavily on German citizens, by comparing PRISM to the infamous Stasi. As a result of their experience with the Stasi, Germany has one of the strictest privacy laws in the world. That we have secretly and massively violated it does not sit well with one of the United States’ most important allies. The level of fear in such a society is very high, which may have been the primary function of the Stasi.

This database is being developed and controlled under contract by a major corporation—Booz Allen Hamilton. This means that access to information from the database is in the hands of the private sector, where money rules supreme. One should not think for a moment that Booz Allen Hamilton is above all temptations.

With these few observations of the risk in which our democracy has been placed by the Obama Administration in mind, let us consider the context in which this database will exist.

The Pentagon has told the Congress that it expects our wars to continue for another 15 to 20 years. Reflect on what has happened to our democracy in the decade of war we have just gone through. At the end of another 15 to 20 years of war, we will have a garrison state under the military control of the Homeland Security Department. By then the citizen will have become a subject living in an environment of suspicion, control, and fear. Whatever it becomes, it will kill our democracy and democratic freedoms. It is up to citizens of today to stop this horrendous project before it accomplishes exactly what Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda have in mind. There is an implicit conflict in any democracy between freedom and security. To preserve a democratic state its citizens must, by the very conditions this bifurcation creates, take some degree of risk to preserve their democracy. This is a lesson the American citizenry have yet to grasp and has led them to be easily manipulated by fear, as G.W. Bush knew when he created colored levels of imminent Al-Qaeda terrorist attack. Our citizenry needs to grow up, calm down, and carefully develop a democracy-protecting strategy for our country. Obviously our military and our current administration cannot do it.

Admittedly, this is a big order for an American populace that seems to have forgotten the risks and efforts of the nation’s founders to create our democracy and the civic courage of those who undertook its preservation in precarious times. As the fights for a just economy and civil rights called upon the citizenry of those times, so the current destruction of our Constitutional liberties call upon us to marshal a vigorous opposition capable of stopping the erosion of our democracy. They did it in their time, we must in our time.

All futures lie in time and circumstance. Let us look at both and do our part in creating a viable and promising future for this nation and this world.

Bob Newhard  

On Humanity Overcoming its Technology

“For the first time in the history of the human species, we have clearly developed the capacity to destroy ourselves.” So says Noam Chomsky in an essay titled “Humanity Imperiled
The Path to Disaster.”

Finally, the human species and its survival are becoming the focus of at least some human attention. This concern should be the bedrock of all efforts to create a better world. Every effort in that direction should be able to show its significance for human species preservation and enhancement.

With this in mind it is useful to see how it plays out in the views of those who think about it as a profession. Oxford University is the home of the multidisciplinary Future of Humanity Institute. The Institute has a major commitment to the evaluation of various threats to the survival of the human species.

The BBC report on the work of the Institute explores the thinking of its members in a document  that can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22002530k. Everything from pandemics to war as a cause of human species extinction is evaluated in terms of what our species has survived up to this point in the context of an evolution that has seen far more species go extinct than survive. In the end, they come up with the human species’ greatest threat to its survival. This threat resides in our brain and increasing technological accomplishments. Currently biological engineering, artificial intelligence and machine self-replicative production rank high in their species lethality. What is of primary concern with these threats is the inability of humans to control them; their broad potential for unintended consequences. When a life form is modified or created using genetic engineering have all the potential effects, physical, mental and social been taken into account? Put another way; the gap between discovery and implementation is getting wider as the potential of the technology is increasing, some would say exponentially. For example, in today’s news we are told that Uruguayan scientists have transferred a gene that produces fluorescence in jellyfish to sheep that now glow in the dark. One researcher gave as a reason for doing this, beyond diabetes and hemophilia, that their success may attract outside corporate research and production to their small country. In other words, we have modified a long-established life form in order to attract investment. As to the need for greater control over technology and its development need one say more?

To me, one of the most threatening cases of unintended consequences was the development of the atomic bomb. Einstein proposed it because he was concerned that the Germans were developing it. It was used, it was said, to save American lives that would be lost in an invasion of Japan. The fact that Japan had indicated its willingness to concede defeat in discussions with the Russians if they could retain the Emperor in power was known. However, that was not enough to save the lives of Japanese civilians, including children, because the real objective was to demonstrate our new technology to the Russians. On the occasion of the bomb’s first test explosion Robert Oppenheimer, head of the Manhattan project that developed the bomb, made clear the terrible consequences that would flow from this technology. Today some of the smallest countries on the planet have deployed this technology. All this to impress the Russians. It simply stimulated rapid development of the technology of mass human annihilation in yet another country.

But the beat goes on. We have allowed corporations to drive the process of technology development and deployment with little concern, other than for profit. Does Monsanto know or care whether its genetically modified corn may greatly reduce corn diversity and thereby the grain’s resistance to some newly mutated corn disease? Has the importance of biodiversity been adequately brought to bear on a technology driven by relatively short term profit? We are allowing the worst institutions, as far as accountability is concerned, to decide these matters. That a halt must be called to this process is more than evident, it is imperative. Can it be made a cause célèbre, in a world of hype, where fact loses out regularly to fiction?

As I have noted previously, in the human bifurcation of body and brain, the brain, unfortunately so often driven by the appetites of the body, is taking humanity into the territory of unimaginable consequences. Clearly, we must take technological development out of the hands of profit-driven corporations. Our concern is not to find or create the next market; it is to create a viable future for the human species.

Bob Newhard

Overcoming Our Values

“Humanity today is like a walking dreamer, caught between the fantasies of sleep and the chaos of the real world.”

“We have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology.”

E O. Wilson – The Social Conquest of Earth

History has seen science destroy the mythic cosmology of the Catholic Church. Science still finds heavy resistance as its biological evidence destroys a mythic story of divine creation of humanity. Currently there is increasing evidence that the free will that we base our legal and moral systems on is also an illusion. Neuroscientists are pursuing the likelihood that all values are illusory in that they cannot be found in nor reliably represent the world of fact.

Neuroscientists investigating the “living brain” with new technology have discovered that the brain executes a decision and then informs the cerebral cortex, which is the seat of consciousness. Our consciousness labors under the illusion that it is making the decision. We literally do not know we have made a decision until after it has been made. While the time gap between the two events is miniscule, this fact raises fundamental issues for morality and law, both based on the assumption that people know what they are doing.

One of the consequences of values gradually submitting to the rule of fact is that values, which have been a major source of human mayhem (think the Middle East), can be measured against human well-being as it is defined by the real world. A major problem with values is that they can be completely arbitrary and attached to anything, including human fantasies, and for any purpose. Values are beyond any testing or evidence, yet they are capable of marshaling immense force from the people who believe them. They are controlled by nothing and applied to everything. As neuroscience and other sciences reveal more about how they function in the human brain, values will be brought to the bar of fact, hopefully before they destroy us all in some conflagration of ideologues.

But, it may be asked, how would society function without moral values? One suggestion was made by Samuel Butler in his satire of values-ridden Victorian society titled Erewhon published in 1872. Human behaviors in Erewhon  are not morally good or bad, they are healthy or sick. Thus when there was a transgression of Erewhon’s laws the malefactor was sent to the “Straightener” to be healed. It is relevant to note that the law now accepts the condition of the accused’s body and brain as relevant to determining moral responsibility. It was not that many centuries ago that  moral values were so detached from reality that courts were trying animals for transgressing the law, frequently as possessors of evil spirits.

An important thing to notice about Butler’s Erewhon is that it is concerned with reforming society, not the individual. It uses a fictional society to criticize Victorian society and describes what happens to individuals when that change is made. Conservatives generally argue that the individual has to be reformed as a condition for societal reformation. I think this is frequently a cop-out because they know full well that such a prescription will lead to continuing inaction as individuals face the daunting task before them. In a world of 8 billion people social change is the only vehicle for accomplishing the needed changes in mankind if humanity is to survive.

In this connection, E.O. Wilson in his above cited book, points out that social animals and insects have a far greater record of survivability as a species than nonsocial species. In a world where socialization, especially when expressed as a pronounced division of labor, is the best guarantee of species survival, we have a culture focused on the individual, especially, the pronounced individualism of Ayn Rand and the Libertarians.  Legislators in Oklahoma have rejected federal tornado disaster aid on the basis that Oklahoma is a go-it-alone state. We thus have major political movements rejecting, and denying others, the very basis for long-term species survival. Talk about detached values!

In any event, the real world must become the bedrock of our values. We have had enough of competing value systems detached from reality. Free floating fantasies sparking mass slaughter and indifference to the real plight of humanity compounded by the rapidly increasing lethality of our weaponry and the increasing competition for resources insure the end of civilization if not our species. 

This is not to rule out the possibility of converting values to the facts of the real world as distinct from merely basing our values on facts. The feasibility of this can be seen in Carl Sagan’s use of the  “billions and billions” of galaxies in the universe, so immense that human imagination cannot grasp it; we must have mathematical formulae to deal with its immensity. It has many of the properties attributed to god and can by its sheer immensity and complexity engender the awe many people reserve for their deity. It supplies an inexhaustible resource for the human search for meaning and, most importantly, it is rationally addressable.

Humanity’s survival presents a task of unprecedented, multidimensional complexity, fraught with murderously fanciful beliefs and traditions. Our species has much to learn about itself and its environment and very little time to do so. We progressives must be a vehicle for bringing science, its methods and its demand for convincing evidence to the arenas of societal decision making.

Bob Newhard

Quo Vadis Progressivism

Recently the Common Dreams website hosted a conversation with some of their more prominent writers titled A Conversation with Common Dreams: 'Given the Status Quo, What's Needed?' Many of the writers were adamant that what was needed to break the current impasse was a movement. Neither the existing political parties nor the current batch of politicians is up to the task. We could not rely on politicians to lead this society forward until they could be assured that it was politically safe to do so. Regarding the necessity for a movement, John Nichols, a progressive writer for whom I have great respect, pointed out that from Jefferson’s time, through the progressive movements of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries to FDR’s New Deal, we have seen progressive movements rise and make a difference for human well-being. He was of the opinion that we were on the verge of another such an event.

 

As I listened to John I asked myself why these periods of great benefit to the ordinary citizen did not last, being as (supposedly) politics in a democracy express the will of the people?

 

 

Take the end of the New Deal under Ronald Reagan. Granted there was an existing stagflation. Why would people, many of them Democrats,, support Reagan who had made it clear that it was his intention to break the unions and take the American economy back to the unregulated capitalism of the 19^th century. Was an “aw shucks” friendly persona enough to do this? Was a cheery “New morning in America” enough to do it? Was a temporary stall in the capitalist economy enough to do it? The social safety net was in place. There was no depression. Why were masses of people willing to transfer their well-supported trust in government for the self-centeredness and human disregard of a corporatist America?

 

This, I believe, is the kind of question progressives have to answer if they are to create the permanent economic equality that must prevail if this country and this world are to be able to deal effectively with the massive changes society increasingly faces as humans seek to survive the ecological conditions and the untoward social structures they have created.

 

Does this fact mean that progressivism cannot go beyond periods of power and that, like capitalism, it has cycles? Our last progressive era was that of the New Deal. It was brought to an end during a period of economic stagflation by Ronald Reagan who persuaded Americans that the stagflation could be brought to an end only by turning the economy and people’s well-being over to the private sector, aka the corporations.  To show the way he broke the airline controller’s strike by bringing in military air traffic controllers. What we and the world have gone through in the Great Recession is a direct consequence of the American citizenry’s willingness to give up all that had been achieved by the New Deal in order to solve a much more transitory problem.

 

In contrast to much of what was said during the Common Dreams “conversation,” I believe progressives must find a way to make progressivism much less transitory, especially with the need for economic sustainability so imperative. It is wise to remember that, with the rapidly increasing ubiquity and lethality of modern weaponry, economic stability is becoming an imperative for human survival.

 

Progressives need to develop, offer, and push a program for sustained progressivism.

 

For example, when I think of how the catastrophe that was Ronald Reagan’s election and deleterious regime could have been avoided, I think of the preemptive measures that should have been in place when stagflation hits a capitalist economy. As we have reserve funds and pre-developed plans for dealing with natural disasters, so we should have for economic disasters. These should be triggered by stipulated situations and conditions. If society is to retain its multiplicity of interests and energy, this kind of support for economic downturns should be broad and continuously in place.

 

This kind of solution requires planning, as does any complex situation, but we have been fed the myth that planning is anti-democratic; that it does not permit the freedom that innovation requires. The political Right puts planning down as dictatorial control ala Russia’s planned economy. The pejorative distinction used to be their command economy versus our demand economy.

 

The capitalist countries never did acknowledge the accomplishments of the Soviet Union. In less than 70 years they moved from a largely feudal society to putting the first satellite into orbit. Along the way they moved their entire manufacturing establishment east of the Ural Mountains to avoid losing it to the Nazis in World War II and then defeated the Germans. The Soviet Union’s passage from feudalism to an industrial economy can be compared with the nearly 200 years it took the capitalist countries of Europe and America. Of course, it can be said that they had the accomplishments of capitalist industrialization to point the way. While there is obvious truth to that, it should be remembered that the capitalist countries did everything they could to impede Russia’s economic development, including military invasion.

 

The lesson to be learned here is that both Russia and now China have demonstrated effectiveness at dictatorial economic development. Unless the democracies of this planet demonstrate far more responsiveness to marshaling the effort to meet the massive challenges of global warming, impending food and water shortages, and excessive population, mankind may turn to the demonstrated ability of dictatorships to secure its continued survival. Certainly planned economies will become increasingly necessary as the above-noted impending catastrophes unfold.

 

 

But planning requires a perspective; some idea of what the goal is. The political Right has a fairly simple task in this matter, as traditionalists usually do. Pick a traditional belief, make it the goal and do what you have always done. Progressives have a much more difficult task because, in aiming to improve society, we have to be sensitive to the implications of the conditions that confront humanity and figure out ways in which humanity can endure and perhaps flourish in the changed conditions and then figure out how best to bring those changes about. An example of this difference can be found in Hoover’s approach to the Great Depression, namely, let capitalism take its course and Roosevelt’s approach of creating new public programs to deal with the effects of the Depression at all its various levels. These ranged from the Civilian Conservation Corps for unskilled  young men, to reforming agricultural practices, to writer’s projects, to major infrastructure construction. This difference in the complexity of the tasks of the political Right and Left has always pervaded American politics and may account, in part, for more frequent Republican than Democratic governance.

 

As to the nature of a Progressive, some Progressives, people like Cornel West, believe it is necessary to articulate a Progressive value system analogous to the Right’s use of “values” as a political tool. While at some point this may be desirable, I think we should begin elsewhere. Any value system, if we are to avoid the horrific consequence of value systems based on human fantasy and the religious conflict they so frequently spawn, must be based on reality. I suggest this process should begin with the necessity that humans must live in harmony with the planet they inhabit. This is the only home we have ever had and long before we seek habitat elsewhere in the universe we shall have perished if we continue to devastate our home. This planet is the root of whatever commonality we have as a species, a commonality that is essential to our survival. We must keep constantly in mind that we humans are our own worst enemy, accounting for more death and destruction than nature has ever imposed on us. The solutions to the massive problems that confront us are to be found within us, if they are found at all.

 

As an example of developing a Progressive perspective, we might use the work of Lester Brown dealing with the impact of humanity’s suicidal use of the earth. We humans now know enough to undertake this project of environmental harmony. We also know enough about the demands such an adjustment would make on long-standing human beliefs regarding such matters as the right to have as many children as one wants, the right to possess whatever one can legally acquire and the right to enjoy whatever possessions we manage to garner. Our species living in harmony with earth will demand material and psychological adjustments bigger and deeper than mankind has ever experienced, and this in the context of the deadliest weaponry we have ever developed. Deep and persistent thinking will be required for such a foundational effort of Progressivism. Matters such as global warming must be made the concerns of daily living and social planning and inform the founding documents of our changed public institutions.

 

There is an old gospel song containing the line “This world is not my home, I’m just passing through.” This is the mentality that must be vigorously challenged along with the commandment to go forth and multiply. Such cultural sentiments must not be seen as innocent sentiments, but as dangerous misconceptions. That this world is our only home should be one of the major mantras of Progressivism.

 

It seems to me our task, while overwhelming, is clear and only humans can carry it out.

 

Bob Newhard

On Defending Oneself

The National Rifle Association (NRA) argues that the right to own and bear arms rests upon a more basic right than the Second Amendment and indeed is implied by the Second Amendment to the Constitution. That more basic right is the right to defend oneself. Let us examine that asserted right for its logic and consequences.

Notably the ostensive definition of the word “gun” has changed markedly since the Second Amendment was written. This is one consequence of writing any technology into a document intended to be effective or hundreds of years and it is one reason the process of amendment was made available to change the document as needed.

The word “gun”, meant a single shot muzzle loading device at the time the 2^nd Amendment was written and now can mean an assault rifle like the AR-15 which fires at a rate of 800 rounds per minute. The NRA insists that both the ancient 18^th and the 21^st century weapons are equivalent as far as the 2^nd Amendment is concerned. In an article titled All Guns are not Equal in the University of California Davis Law Journal, which can be found at http://chronicle.com/article/All-Guns-Are-Not-Created-Equal/136805/, it is pointed out that a distinction was made between the light fowling, hunting and vermin-killing guns owned by citizens including the light muskets used by state militias, and the heavy muskets issued by the federal government to counter the heavy muskets of the British army.   I found the above referenced long article exceptionally useful for understanding the context in which the 2^nd Amendment was written and ratified. 

As things now stand, an American can own and bear a machine gun. The effort to reduce the idiocy of such a gun-ridden environment was recently defeated by Republicans using an equally idiotic and non-democratic Senate rule allowing a minority of 1/3 plus 1 vote to defeat a majority nearly twice its size. This is a Senate rule and not a law. It has never been approved by the citizens whom it so frequently harms. Even when used to protect the public wellbeing it remains undemocratic.

But the logic of the right to self-defense and, per its supporters, therefore the Second Amendment, has gone substantially unanalyzed. As it now stands, a person can buy and use for self-defense a machine gun. What if a neighbor acquires, to defend his home against an outbreak of gang violence, a shoulder fired anti-tank weapon, as is used in the suburbs of Damascus? Does that mean I also have the right to acquire such a weapon? If so, what would society look like then? Clearly, leaving the definition of “gun” open ended, as it now is and as the NRA insists it must remain, leads to absurdity, i.e. individual self-defense leads to social chaos. “Gun” must be defined in a way with much less disastrous consequences for humanity. Recently, in China, a man undertook a mass attack on a school including its children. Because he did so with a knife, because gun ownership by citizens is not permitted, there were no fatalities. The logic here is you have a right to defend yourself, but only with stipulated weapons.

The upshot of this type of analysis acknowledges society’s right to impose the rules for human activity if such activity is deleterious to its members’ welfare, but leaves the individual free to defend her/himself.

This kind of analysis, and I am sure the above example can be improved upon, is what is necessary to get beyond the state of affairs that is literally killing us.

There is a correlate to the above observation. We often hear the statement that “The end does not justify the means.” To the contrary, the “end” is the only thing that can justify the “means.” Without the “end” the act or thing that is the “means” is merely an act or thing. As with so much of human discourse, we cover up our inadequacies with verbiage. What is generally the case when the above locution is used is that people were unclear about the “end” that has been asserted. In the above case the “end” is self-defense and the “gun” the “means.” However, we have seen that the means has produced unacceptable consequences. The “end” of self-defense requires a social context; otherwise society becomes an unlimited shooting gallery or a jungle, neither of which is acceptable for the security of human beings. Had we been clear on the “end” we would have specified the means as conditional upon whatever other consequences those means do or may entail. The failure of the founders to do so, despite being aware of the massive changes the Industrial Revolution could produce, does not mean that we should not do so now. This kind of effort should be part of a process of bringing the Constitution into the modern age and also increasing awareness of the need to exercise the precautionary principle.

Bob Newhard

Bigger Than We Thought?

A number of years ago Ralph Nader began telling us that there was no essential difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Indeed, he ran as a third party candidate because of this in 2004. I, I suspect like many other progressives, saw the truth of Nader’s statement as money going from the corporations and wealthy individuals to buy support from either party no matter who won. I now think the issue may go much deeper than that.

What led me to this suspicion is the bizarre behavior of Barack Obama, a supposedly Democratic president. The last straw has been his putting Social Security on the bargaining table for the 2014 budget, not to mention that he did so even before anybody had sat down to that table. He has already cut the rate of Social Security contributions by calling such contributions a payroll tax. In addition to this we now find out that the sequestering of funds, which is the immediate source of this problem, was, according to Bob Woodward, Obama’s suggestion in the first place.

In any event, these actions and many more such as the Wall Street bailout, corporation accommodation in his health bill, and the furtherance of an imperial presidency by his continuing attempt to take over the legislative process, have raised the following possibility.

Suppose the Big Banks, much bigger and more powerful than we mere mortals have been led to believe,(e.g. Goldman Sachs was critical to the failure of the Greek economy) wanted to control, and thereby tailor our democracy to their liking. The major roadblock would be a population desirous to continue long-standing publicly-supported programs such as Social Security and Medicare, both of which represent enormous profits if privatized.  This would be additionally desirable because future corporate growth is looking increasingly flatter as global competition increases.

In view of this scenario, I suggest they have funded two political parties, each with a different mission. The Republican Party would become the party of the obdurate insisting on a return to 19^th century capitalism. It prided itself on sticking to the American way, ranging from the nuclear family to the subordinate role of women to capitalism uber alles. The Democrats from Clinton to Obama would be the good guys willing to compromise with  the uncompromising Republican ideologues no matter how far out their demands might be. This political mechanism has allowed the gradual destruction of social services by government and their transference to the profit driven private sector, as the Democrats “reached out” to an intransigent Republican Party. This process is destroying all the civilizing benefits that saw much of the working class become the middle class, which the Democrats following FDR had fought so hard and bitterly for. The welfare of the majority is being sacrificed to the greed of the wealthy and the process has been essentially a “good cop, bad cop” scenario conducted as politics as usual.

In brief, the American public has, and is, being treated to a kabuki dance  aimed at destroying the welfare of ordinary citizens by transferring increasing amounts of money and power to the wealthy and powerful by the posturing Democrats led by Obama (and now joined by Pelosi) “reaching out” to an adamant, increasingly absurd,  Republican Party. All of this is occurring in the context of the greatest economic inequality since the Gilded Age at the end of the 19^th century.

So, assuming this diagnosis is substantially correct, what is to be done?

First let me deliver myself of my utter disdain for Barack Obama. Here is a person who gave well-disposed Americans every reason to believe they had finally found a president who would put people first. What we got is a gifted orator who put money and the power it generates first and the people last, if at all. We got a high-level, Wall Street shill for whom very wealthy crooks are too big to jail. Obama has purveyed deceptions and legal casuistry to a populace victimized by Wall Street, suffering over ten years of war with no end in sight and the loss of their jobs and homes. He has done more to destroy our Constitutionally guaranteed rights than any president in recent history. He has endorsed continued torture and the violation of the Geneva Treaty. He has taken on the role of an assassin with his drone attacks. He has made a mockery of American decency on the world stage and in doing so promoted the spread of uncivilized behavior among the nations of the world.  In short, he has made the world a more dangerous place for humanity and exacerbated its struggle with the complexities of over population and its consequences. It is clear that neither he, nor the Democratic Party, are disposed to put people first.

In effect, the American people have been politically abandoned and, as Jefferson noted, they have to take matters into their own hands, because their governing institutions have failed them. Let us find an effective, 21^st century, non-violent, way to do so.

Bob Newhard

Déjà vu all over again

Let’s get one thing clear. The Tea Party has nothing to offer. It wants power only.

Ample evidence of this can be found in a current Tea Party video that can be found on Alternet at http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/slick-paranoid-tea-party-video-aims-violent-insurrection. There you will find a none too subtle solicitation to overthrow the United States government.

Some of you may recall Senator Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunt of the 1950’s in which he accused the government of harboring communists. One consequence of this Right Wing movement was the loyalty oath that every government worker, federal, state and local, was required to sign as a condition of employment. Thus in the 1950’s, Republican Right Wingers demanded that government employees swear that they did not advocate the overthrow of the government, which this Tea Party now advocates. The video argues  that the government has stolen the citizen’s freedom by making them dependent upon government through social services such as Social Security and Medicare and that violent revolution is needed to recover it. The video implies that the “stealing” began with the acceptance of government benefits.

The real story, of course, is that we began to lose the Constitutional guarantees of freedom in consequence of the wars launched in the Middle East by a G. W. Bush Far Right Republican administration. Why Democrats have tolerated the Obama administration’s continuance of and enhancements to this democracy-destroying process is a matter of deep concern to those who actually do care about freedom.

This form of deception demonstrates that the Republicans, as now constituted, have nothing to offer the American people but lies and deceptions. This pernicious vacuity of public purpose and benefit and the lust for power it betrays, should find a large and continuous response from those who care about humanity’s future, especially progressives who demand the addressing of real human problems.

The emptiness of the Tea Party’s agenda is not only destructive by the distraction it engenders, but is a genuine threat to democracy and human freedom. Where there is power, especially in a country the size of the United States, this kind of functional vacuity can easily breed a raw lust for power, all too frequently playing out as necessary to protect the country from those who protest the power grab. As I have previously mentioned, such a coup d'etat was in the works against FDR until it was revealed.

In the midst of the Great Recession in which large numbers of people are losing their jobs and their homes, the Tea Party makes a major issue of a loss of freedom. This is analogous to the Nazis in Germany who in the midst of the Great Depression, far worse in Germany than in the United States, tapped into German bigotry by blaming the Jews for that depression. When people are desperate, a scapegoat for their suffering can usually be found and used for political purposes by the unscrupulous. In Germany it was the Jews, in today’s America it is the government.

Why the government? It’s because government is the only institution that can prevent corporate takeover of this country. Ever since Ronald Reagan, government has been portrayed as the enemy of the people by the Republican Party. They have now gone so far as to advocate its overthrow, which the Republican Joe McCarthy accused the communists of plotting.

Lest anyone take the Republicans seriously in their concern for freedom, notice how quickly and thoroughly they began to destroy freedom with the advent of the Near East invasions. In short order we had the Republican-appointed majority of the Supreme Court nullifying our vote by appointing the President, the Patriot Act, and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in order to funnel military equipment and training into local police departments. The fact that the Democratic Party under Obama has continued and enhanced many of these anti-democratic acts draws attention to the fact that it is in much the same employ of the rich as the Republicans have traditionally been.

Underneath all of the turmoil this country has gone through in last decade is a massive exercise in fear, which has seen everything from color-coded threats from terrorists to the loss of homes and jobs. Pervasive fear is the playground of tyrants and tyranny is what we will get unless we, as a nation, get a grip and face up to the gross deceptions, ranging from unjustified wars to the connivance of the  wealthy and the denial of ecological destruction. There are few greater political contrasts than the fear mongering of G. W. Bush and the fear challenging of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. May we find an FDR for our time.

Bob Newhard 

An Explanation for Passivity

Why, when we had such a massive outpouring for Barack Obama in 2008, have we been unable to eliminate the G. W. Bush practices and policies that were, in large measure, responsible for that outpouring. Why, in short, has the left, except for some sporadic Occupy protests been so passive?

Both Rachel Maddow and Glenn Greenwald place a good deal of the blame on the authoritarian government created by over ten years of the War on Terror. Both point out that war, by its nature, transfers an enormous increase in power to the President as Commander in Chief. To G. W. Bush this meant an uncontested preemptive war on Afghanistan and Iraq. Under Barack Obama it has meant the loss of civil liberties under the Patriot Act and the 2012 Defense Authorization Act, which effectively extinguished the right to due process for any American the President chose to imprison on his order alone and for an unspecified period of time. This is not to mention the continuance of torture and rendition for torture in flat contravention of the Geneva Convention to which the United States is a signatory. In this regard, the Constitution specifies that treaties have the force of law in this country.

While I agree with Maddow and Greenwald that a prolonged period of war has produced a very authoritarian government, I suspect there is more to the passivity of the left in these circumstances than a substantial increase in authoritarianism.

Suppose one wanted to destroy the effectiveness of the left, thereby leaving the country in the hands of corporate America and their legislative henchmen to convert government functions into for-profit free enterprise substitutes. One way to do that would be to trap the left between two of its core values, thereby neutralizing any significant resistance. The Republicans may have done just that by trapping Progressives between their core values of anti-racism and government social programs, notably Social Security and Medicare. The first African American President, fulfilling the dreams of long-oppressed blacks and the aspirations of the political left, sets about destroying Social Security and Medicare, destroying our civil liberties, refusing to prosecute those financiers who caused the Great Recession because it would be bad for the economy, assassination including an American citizen, and torturing people in flat contravention of the Geneva Convention to which this country is a signatory. All of these and more would have generated massive and continuous protests, including calls for impeachment had any other President tried it. However, the left, as a whole has remained placid lest they contribute to the attacks on Obama in addition to those launched by Republicans. Where the left should have forced Obama to fight or lose its support, it has done next to nothing. Only in the last few weeks has a band of Progressive legislators publicly called out Obama on civil liberties issues.

Barack Obama exploded onto the national political scene. A little-known Illinois State Senator was given the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. His oratorical abilities made him an instant political comer. A few years later he ran against the powerful and well-funded Hillary Clinton campaign.  Her vast name recognition and familiarity to the public as a President’s wife and a well-regarded New York senator made her formidable. Yet Obama managed to find the resources to effectively compete and eventually defeat Clinton. I suggest that sort of thing does not happen in the hard-bitten higher reaches of American national politics without the involvement of major political players extracting the services of a president in return for their support. In short, the sharp turn to the Right after his election reflects an inordinate attachment to money. Not only that of major donors like J. P. Morgan, but his early political rise was founded on his ability as a political fund raiser. It was disconcerting to see Obama’s campaign, like  that of billionaire Mitt Romney, focus on the plight of the middle class, not on that of the poor, who would suffer most from his attacks on Social Security and Medicare. My suspicion is that he does not want to be identified with the poor. Why the disdain for the poor? They were a primary focus for the FDR administration. In my judgment Barack Obama sees himself, after his presidency, among the corporate elite, much as Bill Clinton has done.

I find all of this very disappointing in terms of what could have been.

As with our first Black Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshal, I had hopes that Obama would demonstrate the same depth of understanding of the full implications of what remains this country’s greatest dilemma, racism. It poisons us and, because of our power and influence, it poisons a world that so badly needs to overcome its corrupting and lethal divisions. With all he had going for him, he had a better chance than any recent predecessor to change the political demeanor of this country and perhaps the world, given his paternal tie to the victimized African continent. He provided a combination of intelligence, natural leadership ability and biological background to do much to bring this world together. Think, for a moment, what a well-disposed Black leader of the “last remaining superpower” could have meant for world peace--an improved understanding between the ex-colonizers and the aggrieved colonized. Reading Franz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth gives something of the dimension Obama could have brought to the world stage. What we got was the continued killing and economic greed that has for so long poisoned the human dimension of this planet. With every drone killing of an innocent adult or child, hatred for this country mounts. Obama could have given the United States the opportunity to relate to, rather than dominate, the rest of the world. Abused aspirations are hard to disregard.

Bob Newhard 

Here We Go Again: Technological Paradigm Shift with no Planning for Social Consequences

Humans have yet to find a way to live in harmony with their technology. Their heads create what the rest of their being often finds disruptive, dangerous and destructive. Picture the Industrial Revolution accompanied by a Hogarth-depicted London slum.

We know from bitter experience what disastrous impacts technological innovation can have on social structures and human well-being, yet despite repeated episodes we do little or nothing to prepare ourselves and our societies for what we can see coming down the road. This, in my judgment, is one of the more massive failures of so-called advanced societies.

We now have sitting at our collective doorstep yet another technology that may have the power to dramatically change our means of production and the personal and social structures that depend on that structure. This technology is referred to as 3D Printing or Additive Manufacturing and is promising enough to have been mentioned in President Obama’s State of the Union address. In essence, it is a simple production process of depositing successive layers of material on top of each other, as dictated by a computer model, to produce three dimensional objects. The layers can be of varying thickness, down to the micron level, and be made of a variety of plastics and metal.  

This process can create items from pharmaceuticals, to clothing, to fully functioning hypoid gear sets that are created in a single process with no assembly required. The following website will amaze you with objects made by this essentially simple process of layering. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xaj9jx7648.

Because the object is created from a software program production can take place anywhere, even the home. Additionally, production costs are so low that it can be profitable to produce only one item and it can be specific to that individual’s need. There is no need for mass production, warehousing, inventory, and shipping for these products. When all the advantages are added up, especially those affecting labor costs, we are looking at a technology that has the potential to eliminate a very large number of jobs.

Manufacturers call this process, whether using plastic or metal, additive manufacturing to distinguish it from conventional manufacturing, which removes material, e.g. grinding, cutting, milling, etc. to create the manufactured object. One of the great efficiencies of additive manufacturing is that what are multiple-piece assembled products in conventional manufacturing can be a single process with no assembly using additive manufacturing. Up to this point additive manufacturing has been used mainly for quick and inexpensive prototyping of products in their development process. It is beginning to find a role in production itself.

This process as used by individuals to create 3D objects, e.g. plastic jewelry, miniature statuary, etc., using printers costing as little as $139, is generally referred to as 3D printing. Some people are concerned that this could become a major source of junk as producing trinkets becomes as easy as printing paper.

This technology has the potential to deliver products to the consumer, tailored to the individual’s need or desire without the need for mass production, warehousing and distribution. Basically electrons move rather than things. There would be a decreasing need for factories, assembly lines, shipping, warehousing and other materials handling services.

The scope of the potential impacts of this technology can be glimpsed in the following list that can be found on the website of the Atlantic Council.

• Assembly lines and supply chains could be reduced or eliminated for many products. AM can produce the final product—or large pieces of a final product— in one process.
• Designs, not products, would move around the world as digital files are printed anywhere with any printer to meet design parameters.  A “STL” design file can be sent via the Internet and printed in 3D.
• Products could be printed on demand without the need for inventories.
• A given manufacturing facility would be capable of printing a huge range of products without retooling—and each printing could be customized without additional cost. 
• Production and distribution of material products could become de-globalized as production is brought closer to the consumer.
• Manufacturing could be pulled away from “manufacturing platforms” like China back to the countries where the products are consumed, reducing global economic imbalances as export countries’ surpluses are reduced and importing countries’ reliance on imports shrink. 
• The carbon footprint of manufacturing and transport as well as overall energy use in manufacturing could be reduced substantially and thus global “resource productivity” greatly enhanced and carbon emissions reduced.
• Reduced need for labor in manufacturing could be politically destabilizing in some economies while others, especially aging societies, might benefit from the ability to produce more goods with fewer people while reducing reliance on imports.

The United States, the current leader in AM technology, could experience a renaissance in innovation, design, IP exports, and manufacturing, enhancing its relative economic strength and geopolitical influence.

As you can see the potential impact on society is enormous, ranging from massive unemployment to a radical reduction in the human interaction and commonality of the workplace as well as the benefits of massive pollution and waste reduction. What I did not see after a fairly extensive investigation, was any thought or planning for the personal and social impacts of this revolutionary technology.

It appears that this technology will impact society and individuals with the same lack of planning and preparedness as our capitalist system has displayed in the recent past.

The United States used to have the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) to advise Congress on developing technologies as well as existing technological issues. This agency existed from 1972 to 1995. It found disfavor with Ronald Reagan and was terminated by defunding in Newt Gingrich’s infamous Contract With America. Everybody agrees that technology is a, if not the, major influence on societal concerns. That this country has no agency like, say, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention is a fabulous failure of governmental responsibility. In the halls of government we need the greatest cognizance of technological development and its impacts we can get. This agency should also have the mission to inform the public on what technology does and how it will condition their lives. A counterweight to the hype to which the public is so often subjected in these matters is badly needed. To get a feel for what could be done, the publications of the OTA may be found at http://www.princeton.edu/~ota/. From what I have read of them, I think they could have been somewhat more informative both in detail and in the implications for the public. But at least the effort was being made and should have been retained and improved. Gingrich declared the agency a waste when he eliminated it. I don’t know whether this was a reflection of Republican anti-intellectualism or that the business powers that be did not want the Congress and the public to have objective assessments. Its reports should clearly indicate the potential impacts, especially the social impacts, of a significant new technology and recommend the level of oversight necessary to mitigate any significant adverse impacts. We live in an era of increasing rates of change. It is irresponsible not to assess, monitor and, where necessary, influence the rate and direction of change. The Obama administration should be encouraged to reestablish the agency to keep itself, Congress and the public aware of our technological environment as we are made aware (or should be) of our economic environment.

Aside from all the above 3D printing issues, Rachel Maddow reports as I write this piece that 3D Printing is being used to produce “receivers”, which are the only part of a an assault rifle that carries the weapon’s serial number and hence destroys the identity and control of the weapon. Another lesson in understanding that technology can, and often does, cut more than one way.

Bob Newhard