Occupying DC
In DC on Tuesday 18th October, I had a chance to observe and talk directly with protestors, learning more about what they are really about. Camps and protests have been spreading throughout the city, I came across two of them. Each were occupied by a mixed age group, mainly students, retirees, and unemployed. Some had been there a couple of days, others a couple of weeks. Some supporters I met who have jobs join the protest even if just for an afternoon, to show their support.
At the first Occupy camp I visited, the protestors had laid their signs around a statue in the center of the park. They pretty much speak for themselves: (click on one to open a slideshow)
At this camp I met “Bear”, a more revolutionary protestor, who told me an elaborate story of his teeth being knocked out in the Egypt protests, many countries having warrants on his life, and his wife being in a prison in Morocco. I must say that seeing a man like him shed tears of passion when envisaging the future of America, was a moving sight. Whether or not his story was true, it certainly was true for him.
At the second camp I was lucky to arrive at the same time as a journalist, who I joined in a short interview with retired police-officer Stephen Fryburg. Stephen had been camping at the site for two weeks, continuing his original pledge to “protect the people of America from injustice.”
Stephen had several interesting things to say:
- “we need to be looking 7 years ahead, not just acting for today”
- “we need a return to the public commons, to valuing the community”
- “we need a Department of Peace” – rather than so much money going into the Defense budget, a Peace budget would work proactively to prevent the defense being required in the first place.
- “we need more of the feminine in politics – too often by the time women get to the top they are acting like men. It would help if more women were in politics and if those women acted like women.”
- “we need to hold politicians accountable for their actions”
The protests have most commonly been criticised for not really knowing what they want. I think this is wrong. The protestors seemed to know exactly what they want, even if they don’t know the legalities and logistics that surround such outcomes.
The journalist asked Stephen “what would success look like to you?”
Stephen replied a clear answer: “above anything else success is the stopping of corporate control of our political parties.”
A year from elections, with Obama having raised 1 billion dollars for his campaign, it seems to be a cause worth fighting for. I have learned from friends here that in America “money is a form of speech” and therefore “speaking” (bribing) by paying for politicians campaigns in exchange for certain policies, is ok. This, the protestors demand, must change. People want their voices to be heard above the voice of money. Power to the people.
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“Shareholder Capitalism” VS “Socialised Capitalism”
Why did our political leaders bail out banks (who caused the GFC) rather than the public (who lost wealth and jobs as a result)? Why did governments spend trillions of dollars repairing a system that, in the well-known cycle of booms and busts, is destined to crash once again? Why are they bandaiding problems caught up in a powerbroker system that is visibly failing, rather than following the advice of economists like Joseph Stiglitz, who suggest seizing the opportunity for reform? Why do our political leaders seem to support “Shareholder Capitalism” rather than investigating the process of moving toward a “Socialised Capitalism” that might be more constructive?
As the Occupy Wall St movement spreads across the world, people are questioning a number of aspects of our system that they previously left unexamined. One of those is the assumption that Capitalism as we know it today is the only version of Capitalism that is possible. While economists recognize the varieties of Capitalism that exist throughout the world, the varieties can be less visible to the average human eye.
The thing is, the Global Capitalist model as we know it today, that emphasizes neo-liberal policy, provides little regulation to banks and financial industries, and disconnects shareholder profit and public loss, is by no means a fixed and final version of the Capitalist model. In fact, it is clear that such a form of Capitalism is destined for ongoing collapse. In short, it’s time for reform.
What does a shift from “shareholder capitalism” to “socialised capitalism” involve? The Australian School of Business article that inspired this blog entry suggests this shift would involve a move from short-term speculation to long-term investments, from huge corporations to family-owned companies. ‘The differentiating factor lies in the allocation of resources‘. [1]
“Make no mistake,” Andrew Kakabadse explains, “both ideas are market-driven… which is either in short-term deals driven by cash flow to cater to the few or in infrastructure and highly innovative family businesses that deliver long-term wealth to society as a whole. Nobody takes notice of this second model, which has by far the greatest wealth creation potential in the world, despite everything that is happening”.[1]
Hang on a second, which creates the most wealth? What’s more appealing then, shareholder capitalism or socialised capitalism??? Isn’t it in our favour to create more wealth, not less?
I don’t know the pragmatic details of how such a shift could be actualized. How could you stop short-term speculation (derivatives, hedge bets etc) deals going down? How could governments encourage a move from corporation to family-owned companies? How can resources be reallocated to promote a more people-friendly system? It is too late at night, and I’m too tired from recent adventures in Chicago, DC and car accidents (which I’ll blog about soon), for me to contemplate such answers. I will therefore conclude with my take-away message from this article, that some kind of “socialised capitalism” is an appealing direction to be heading… do you agree?
[1] “Off the Record: Spilling the Bilderberg Secrets” Published: October 11, 2011 in Knowledge@Australian School of Business. http://knowledge.asb.unsw.edu.au/article.cfm?articleId=1489
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“Occupy Sydney”
If you’re not in Sydney (like me) or can’t make it to protest, you can still spread the word about this peaceful protest to change the rules of our global capitalist game.
Stop banks and corporations:
- reducing humans to commodities
- controlling media
- funding both sides of wars
- destroying the environment
SATURDAY 15 OCTOBER 2:30pm
Occupy Sydney:
http://occupysydney.blogsp
Occupy Together:
http://www.occupytogether.
http://www.facebook.com/Oc
http://twitter.com/#!/Occu
Occupy Wall Street:
http://www.occupywallst.or
Occupy Australia:
https://www.facebook.com/p
Occupy Sydney:
http://www.facebook.com/pa
Occupy Melbourne:
https://www.facebook.com/e
http://www.occupymelbourne
Occupy Brisbane:
https://www.facebook.com/p
Occupy Perth:
http://www.facebook.com/pa
Occupy Adelaide:
http://www.facebook.com/ev
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Carbon trading: the devil is in the details
Who benefits from carbon trading? Wall street??? De ja vu…
Annie Leonard, my favourite “make it simple and tie a bow around it” chick, reveals the “devils in the details”:
Three problems:
1. Free permits to big polluters
2. Fake offsets
3. A massive distraction
It’s like going on a diet to lose weight. We all know in the long term, diet’s don’t work!
If you wanna reduce carbon there’s a very simple solution (which works for losing weight too): REDUCE YOUR CONSUMPTION.
We need to redesign our lifestyles in a way that reconnects us with the beautiful planet from which we came from and from which we cannot live without. We don’t need carbon to live the good life.
We can get over our addiction to burning carbon in a similar process as getting rid of an addiction to McDonalds. When you come to realise the grotesque nature of consuming McDonalds hamburgers and fries, and you wean yourself off the fat and sugar, you don’t miss it one little bit.
When we start using clean energies, breathing clean ear, enjoying healthier ways of being, working jobs we enjoy that are making our world a better place, we will look back at our lives today in amazement and say:
- how did we ever work so many hours doing jobs we hated?
- how did we allow industry to pump such gross amounts of pollution into our air?
- how did we allow so much destruction to our very source of life?
And (hopefully) we will look back with relief that eventually we did something, we used our creativity to find solution, and to design a better world for ourselves and our children.
I highly doubt we will look back at our politicians debating over carbon tax or carbon trading, with an ounce of honour. It is the ones who decide to tackle the real problems with real solutions, those who make a real difference, that will go down in history.
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Attempting Politics
Three years ago, before I went back to uni, I voted Liberal. Why? Three reasons: (1) Because my Dad voted Liberal. (2) I wasn’t interested in Politics. (3) I didn’t know the difference between Liberal and Labour (Australia’s Right and Left). Not a good place for any voting citizen to be. And certainly not the best intellectual place for a person who has just enrolled in a Master of Arts. But that was why I was there. I felt an abyss of lacking knowledge and a desire to try to fill it.
I thought in case some of you are in this place it might be worth sharing some of my notes.
Some definitions, and possibly a more accurate and simple model is the continuum above – showing Left to Right.
The picture blow locates key political ideas in a circular diagram, with left and right to the sides, classical liberalism on the bottom, theocracy at the top, and anarchism in the middle. I’m not sure if this is completely accurate, so please let me know if you think some elements might be put around different ways. I’m actually not sure what inspired this, or how I came to locate these where they are.
Of course, as with any definitions, words carry different meanings in different contexts, different places and at different times – as this clip of Noam Chomsky talking about Anarchism, Libertarian Socialism and the development of “renting out our labour”:
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Youtube & The Global Pyramid
I am assisting the teaching of a master’s subject called The Political Economy of Conflict and Peace, at the University of Sydney this semester. My first presentation was yesterday and in the lead up to it I drowned myself in the political economic papers and books I wrote or read over the last couple of years. And searching YouTube for parts of documentaries that I have found useful in the past. This entry has become a bit of a dumping ground for me to refer and share again at later times… maybe you’ll find some of this random collection of thoughts and clips useful too…
The global economy today:
What does today’s global stage look like? I.e. What is the shape of today’s political/economical/social pyramid: tall or flat? What do people’s lives look like at the extremes?
The Miniature Earth:
Remembering history:
Reminder that things could be worse: The Dark Ages
Cultural changes from Feudalism through to Modernity
Colonialism
- The British
- The Spanish
- In Africa
Industrial Revolution
Globalisation
Different ways to tell the story:
- Realism – analyses the world as states acting on their self-interests
- Liberalism – analyses the world as individuals acting on rational self-interests
- Marxism – analyses the world as classes acting on their rational self-interests
In The Structural Theory of Imperialism (a World Systems Theory), Johan Galtung describes a Conveyor Belt between the periphery of the Periphery (pP) pumping resources through to the periphery of the Core (pC) – this is clear to anyone who travels to places like South America, who grow the best coffee beans, sell them to the “north” for cheap and buy them back in the form of the horrible Nescafe Instant, which is all that is generally on offer to the citizens. Crazy! Same goes for all cash crops from cocoa to cotton, which prevent these people from growing food for themselves, causes slavery and human trafficking,
Recent changes to the money system:
1944 Bretton Woods – IMF, WB, Fixed exchange rates
1947 Marshall Plan – European Recovery
1971 Gold Standard replaced with USD as reserve currency
1973 Oil shocks -> stagflation
1978 China opens up
1980s Reganomics / Thatcherism
1980s Latin American debt crisis
1989 Fall of USSR & ‘socialist’ allies.
1997 Asian financial crisis
2007 GFC – sub-prime lending
Friedman, Thatcherism and Reaganomics, and the rise and effects of Neoliberalism.
Nixon ends Bretton Woods International Monetary System
Introducing the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund
How our system works:
Demystifying Economics - Jim Stanford explains how the Booms and Bust are a necessary part of the system, and why it is the people at the very top of the pyramid who are bailed out, while the people with mortgages and jobs are the ones that have to pay.
Crises of capitalism (an RSA Animate)
The Goldsmith’s tale explains the history of money:
The South financing the North – The End of Poverty?
Sweatshops
Who owns the Federal Reserve?
John Perkins - Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
Institutions and regimes and “structural adjustments” - Bill Clinton apologises
]
IMF, WB and WTO – who is helping who? a longish news clip
Dambisa Moyo – Dead Aid - Is Aid Killing Africa?
The myth of a “trickle-down” effect
Simms shows that on our current trajectory it would take 15 planets’ worth of earth’s biocapacity to reduce poverty to a state where the poorest receive $3 per day. In other words ‘we will have made Earth uninhabitable long before poverty is eradicated.’[1]
Tax havens
Did you know that half of all world trade currently passes through tax havens? Apparently they ‘allow rich people and corporations to stash trillions in assets that could provide governments with at least $250 billion a yearin tax revenues.’[2]
Wall St = the new world government - Inside Job
The roots of the problem – greed, fear and the laws that encourage it:
The profit motive, and the power of “corporation”
Laws of Incorporation – What kind of person are corporations? What guides their morals? THE BOTTOM LINE.
Connection with fear and The Power of Nightmares
“At the heart of the story are two groups: the American neo-conservatives and the radical Islamists. Both were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world.These two groups have changed the world but not in the way either intended. Those with the darkest fears became the most powerful. Together they created today’s nightmare vision of an organised terror network. A fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. Those with the darkest fears became the most powerful. The rise of the politics of fear begins in 1949 with two men whose radical ideas would inspire the attack of 9/11 and influence the neo-conservative movement that dominates Washington. Both these men believed that modern liberal freedoms were eroding the bonds that held society together. The two movements they inspired set out, in their different ways, to rescue their societies from this decay. But in an age of growing disillusion with politics, the neo-conservatives turned to fear in order to pursue their vision.”
This three part documentary traces the rise of Neo-Conservativism in the U.S., with “disillusioned liberals” like Irving Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz looking to Leo Strauss’s political thinking to come together with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Neo-conservatives come to power under the Reagan administration, using fear to unite the citizens (and unite with the radical Islamists) in a war against the Soviet Union. It traces this alongside the radical Islamist movement back to Sayyid Qutb’s visit to the U.S. to learn about their education systems but sees the “corruption of morals and virtues in western society through individualism” and returns to Egypt to and starts the movement. Qutb is executed in 1966 and one of his followers, a–Zawahiri, later becomes the mentor to Osama bin Laden. Then of course, the two radical groups then face each other head on in the “War on Terror”.
A much shorter and funnier version of the above: Pirates and Emperors
Culture as the Ideological Battleground of the Capitalist World-System
Positive impacts of the rise of Capitalism:
- Women’s rights
- Technology and communications
- New forms of creativity, variety, learning from other cultures
- Quality of life of some
Negative impacts:
- Quality of life of others
- Depression, cancer, stress, baldness and obesity of people at the top
- Loss of our connection to ancestors and to each other
- Hunger and dehumanization of people at the bottom
How The Pyramid is changing in the 21st century
Jim Stanford – Economic Crisis:
Capitalism: A Love Story
Serge La Touche on Degrowth
Microfinance – lending money to women in the third world
Investment in Cradle to Cradle design – turning waste into food:
Investments in “Social Business” – Mohammed Yunus
The Eagle and the Condor (the meeting of the Mind and the Heart, of Masculine and Feminine, of the knowledge and wisdom of our world, from Western individualism, to Eastern collectivism, to Indigenous connection to the land)
Bill Gates: How to Fix Capitalism? “Creative Capitalism” (LOVE this!!!)
Changing the economic system with an email
10 ways to change the world:
Legally:
1. Change corporation law – redefine “corporation” so that they are NOT treated as separate entities in their own right that can be declared bankrupt in and of themselves. Corporation law must be adjusted to hold shareholders responsible for monetary and non-monetary profits and loss.
2. Change finance / stock market laws – in implementing the above, the ST money market would probably have to go, as would trading Derivatives and Options. The stock exchange would slowdown and be based on long term investments.
3. Change banking laws for money/debt creation and collection – limit their ability to print money via debt, decrease bank’s profits, and maybe all debt cancels after 50 years, I’m not sure. Something needs to be done to regulate them though.
4. Change balance of power in the WB, WTO and IMF – give more votes to the poorer nations and create fairer trade policies
5. Create international tax laws – to crack down on tax havens.
Personally:
6. Philosophically, a self-examination of our values – what makes a life “good”? Two shifts: shift from valuing capital to valuing creativity; and shift from EGO to ECO.
7. Women might reconsider what they find attractive qualities in men – see the attraction of a creative and caring man over a rich and selfish man. Then maybe men will change in suit.
8. Write letters to corporations telling them you won’t buy their product until they stop slave trade and ridiculously low paying 80-hour weeks in sweatshops, and treat their workers in a way they would like to be treated.
9. Public shame of the ridiculously rich – unite in an attempt to decrease the obesity of the rich, and as a consequence decrease the hunger of the poor.
10. See what we might be able to do to campaign to change the laws above.
Essentially I’m talking about setting a limit to the lifestyle of those at the very bottom and very top to the pyramid. There’s nothing wrong with inequity. As my friend said, “if you wanna work smart and hard and eat lobster all the time, and if I wanna work little and eat noodles, then that’s cool. But we both should have food and shelter. It’s just a matter of cutting out the extremes and increasing social mobility between the classes.”
For more on related issues check out:
Summing up our ecological context: Where we are, where we are going, and how
Overpopulation: The Elephant in the Room
When Jim Sanford visited Sydney: The Paper Economy
Trying to do something about chocolate slavery: Chocolate slavery and people with agency
On women and men’s sexual frustration: Empowering women and the role of men
Switching between sides – the paradoxes one faces - Leftist Idealist or Rightwing Conservative
1. Stop exploiting them 2. Look at ourselves Helping Developing Nations
Links to more docos - Free documentaries
References
[1] Andrew Simms, ‘Trickle-Down Myth’, New Scientist (18 Oct 2008). p. 49. Andrew Simms is the policy director of the New Economics Foundation in London. In this article Simms steps through the mathematics to show the system is designed such that for the poor to get ‘slightly less poor, the rich have to get very much richer’. This means it would take ‘around $166 worth of global growth to generate $1 extra for people living on below $1 a day’.
[2] Susan George, ‘We Must Think Big’, New Scientist (18 Oct 2008). p. 51.
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The gap between school and real-life
Does school prepare us for life in the real world? Is knowledge passed from academia to public spheres? Are we learning from the past, or do we continue to make the same mistakes? How well do we really understand ourselves and others in our geopolitical, social, and historical context?
It seems to me there are major gaps within our distribution of knowledge.
Today I want to focus on one of those gaps, the gap between life in school and life after school. Over the coming weeks I will look at other gaps, and then at ways they might bridged.
Schooling in Australia comes down to one result: the HSC. (For non-Australian readers, HSC = Higher School Certificate)
This seemingly life-determining series of exams is ridiculously stressful for students. Suicide, chronic fatigue and depression are among many of the disasterous mental and physical consequences.
After the HSC I have noticed that many students are left feeling high and dry.
The choices may seem too many, or too few, but either way many (including myself ten years ago) feel confused about what to do next. I mean, how many 17 year olds know what they want to do when they leave school? And of those who at the time thought they know, how many look back ten years later and realise that, well, they didn’t?
Whether motivated by guidance from friends, siblings or parents, by money-incentives, or some other not-very-well thought through reasoning, many of us go straight into university and waste 1-3 years doing, or starting to do, a degree in something irrelevant to our future.
Even if we are one of the new generation of Aussies who head overseas for a ‘gap year,’, most return home to face the same dilemma that they faced when they left: they still don’t ‘know what they want to do when they grow up.’
So the next stage of the majority’s life story ends up either drinking at university parties as they go to minimal classes to earn that obligatory piece of paper; or working a 9-5 job answering phones, waiting tables, or driving trucks, in order to pay off the credit card or HECS debt.
Maybe things have improved in the eight years since I finished school, or maybe the non-denominational (a la fundamentalist) Christian school I attended was an exception? If so please do point out my errs.
From my observation the gap between finishing high school and finding one’s role in society is a widely felt phenomenon in Australia, and maybe among other western-capitalist countries too.
Through trail and error of various degrees and jobs I have discovered many career options that at high school I never knew existed. Why didn’t I know about these things???
I think the problem with our schools comes down to one thing: The Pyramid. (See blog entry: Preserving-The-Pyramid-The-Reason-Things-Are-The-Way-They-Are).
Instead of encouraging a thirst for knowledge and the intrinsic rewards that comes from creativity, our schools seem to encourage a regurgitating of words and formulas in order to gain the extrinsic rewards of good marks, good university & eventually a good salary.
All of this so that you can pay back your university debts, get a mortgage and work towards the Australian Dream: owning your own house.
Translation: join the system, perpetuate The Pyramid.
Those who control the distribution of knowledge, controls the minds of the people.
Now, please don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing against The Pyramid. Unless I have some visionary solution to power paradoxes of the human condition I don’t feel I am in a place to criticise. The Pyramid might be the only way a society functions, so maybe our education system is the best it can be.
So let’s put The Pyramid in the parking lot for a moment. How could these gaps in education, should The Pyramid allow it, be bridged? These are some suggestions:
1. Empower children to think for themselves.
I think children could be more involved in the direction of their learning (as in Montessori schools). I think the focus should be on teaching them how to think rather than what to think, helping them develop the critical thinking skills that allow them to do this.
2. Encourage a desire to learn rather than presenting it as an obligatory task.
Learning shouldn’t be something forced upon you. It seems so negative that a child is told they have to do their homework or else get in trouble from the teacher.
Instead, learning should be presented as the luxury it is. It should be presented as the passing on of the cumulated knowledge of humanity, with which it is up to the students to expand and build upon during their lifetime.
Isn’t that a much more exciting proposition than punishment/reward scenarios of learning just to get good grades?
3. Value creativity over conformity
Learning opens up the gates for a child’s imagination, for them to discover their individual potential. Learning makes people more interesting, gives people a better sense of humour, and enhances one’s quality of life in ways that money can’t.
Creativity is a source of pleasure and purpose, but it requires children’s confidence in themselves – getting over the fear of peers, parents or teachers rejecting or ridiculing what they create.
4. Teach more practical & useful skills.
Decision making, goal setting, managing savings, investing in shares or property, avoiding accumulation of debts, solving conflicts, understanding politics and democracy, and the history of civilisation on the whole.
Why don’t schools teach students a general introduction to university disciplines including philosophy, theology, development studies, anthropology, peace studies, and the like?
5. Notify students that the roles that society defines are not the only roles. They can create their own role, their own box.
Students should be provided with a broad perspective of their place in the world, be able to see their perspective in the scheme of other people’s perspectives, and see the similarities and see what factors have influenced the differences. We can’t know everything, but we can develop an understanding of the general areas knowledge or skills that are available, and with an understanding that new areas of knowledge and skills are created every day.
Students should be given the opportunity to find jobs that they will enjoy, that are not a means to an ends but are a day-to-day source of personal growth and giving back to society.
Maybe I’m too idealistic. Yes, I’m sure I am.
I do understand that someone has to take out the trash…
Of course in my mind this is done by computerised machinery, all trash is biofriendly and so even this job is maintained by creative-thinking programmers.
I think if we were encouraged to have a desire to learn, an ability to critically evaluate our world, and to think creatively, we as a society would evolve in the most incredible ways.
Creativity, motivation and critical awareness have the potential to stimulate innovation to new levels, foster ongoing improvement in all areas of life, from local to global and beyond.
Check out what Ken Robinson has to say on the issue in the TED talk “schools kill creativity”:
Ah yes, if only the world could be recreated by creative minds…
Picture:
With some other idealistic visionaries including Dr Vandana Shiva, winner of the Sydney Peace Prize 2010.
PS:
If you want to follow this blog on facebook, the facebook page is: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Adventures-with-Ideas-Juliet-Bennetts-Blog/108739765813581
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Rethinking “The Pyramid” – do alternatives exist?
I want to revisit the social, economic and political pyramid I discussed in my last post: Preserving the Pyramid- the Reason Things Are the Way They Are, sharing my evolving thoughts on the question: do alternatives exist?
While it seems overall human civilisations only really know the pyramid, if we think outside the square – could any other shapes work?
When I first considered this question I drew a number of shapes:
Could we operate in a circle, a flat line, a square, a rectangle, a diamond?
“How about a a flatter pyramid?” I asked my friend.
“That’s Communism,” he replied. “It tends to make everyone poor, and just a few mega rich.”
I nodded woefully. Over time I have looked to other sources of inspiration.
In animal kingdoms…
In nature…
In space…
Inside ourselves…
From our minds…
[1]
.
.
.
I think my favourites are 1. THE SPIRAL 2. THE WEB 3. THE HUMAN BODY
Spirals might have interesting usages but probably not in this context. It makes me think of the pyramid on steroids, kinda what we have now – with the rich getting richer and the poor poorer in a manner that is spiraling with no limits.
Webs on the other hand are an interesting idea. Could a political, economic and social structure be more like a web than a pyramid?
Does the World Wide Web already provide a platform for this? Maybe.
When it comes to the organismic shape of the human body, I have to wonder: Do the my body’s organs and cells operate in more of a pyramid organisation structure, with my brain at the top and a hierarchy of body parts below it? Or does the networking of my spine through to the individual nerves throughout my body, the connections between my body and my mind, connections between my heart and veins, between lungs through alveoli and capillaries and through to feed oxygen to the cells in the tips of my fingers- is this more like a web?
Are our brains like pharaohs, monarchs, dictators and bankers, sitting at the top enjoying the work the rest of the body does? Or are our brains, spines, hearts, lungs, nerves and senses showing us a different system? Could our society be modelled on this?
If my foot and my arm squabbled about taking over from my brain, my body wouldn’t function so well. I need my feet to walk, I need my mouth and voice box to talk, just as right now I need my fingers to type. If my stomach goes on strike, my taste buds aren’t going to have much fun. If my hand decides not to feed me, I will die. Similarly if my hand feeds me endless amounts of McDonalds and chocolate – seeking short term pleasures at the cost of long term body functions – I will also die a relatively quick death. Similarly if those up the top of the human pyramid neglect those at the bottom, it won’t take long for the whole pyramid to fall.
While my entire body seems to be an integrated web, when it’s a working system some parts do seem to have more fun than others: I’d rather be a brain than a finger, just as I’d rather be a taste bud than a stomach. I’d prefer to be rich than poor in the capitalist world. But one without the other doesn’t really work. All body parts are happier the more happy/healthy the other parts.
At the end of the day, whether we have a system based on a pyramid or a body,
What I would really like to do is draw a big circle around the pyramid and label it “ecosystem”.
Look at your $1 bill and you will see this symbol is already kind of there…
A pyramid with a circle around it.
The “All-seeing eye” – “a universal symbol representing spiritual sight, inner vision, higher knowledge”, is a Masonic symbol that is a “mystical distortion of the omniscient (all-knowing) Biblical God”[1] which goes back as far as the ancient Egyptian god Horus.
Rather than representing an omniscient God, the all-seeing-eye makes me think of the growing fascist-nature of our governments, and the rich/elite/powerful who control them.
That’s not so bad, in my mind, as long as there is that circle around it which (ironically) is already there on the $1USD note!
I think it is really important to remember what our social, economical and political model is located inside – an environment with limits.
The great pyramid of human civilisation can outgrow itself and if our Pyramid bursts through this circle there will be no humans left to build another one.
Can the pyramid work within our planetary limits? Maybe. I think it is possible for everyone to live out their lives playing their individual roles that altogether work for the good of all. I think it’s possible for us to have different levels of power and economic wealth, so long as together we create an anatomically correct system – that is, one that fits proportionately within our ecological circle. In order to do this, population must be limited, hence poverty must be limited, the crazy wacky food production lines must be changed (I just watched Food Inc. ewwww!).
If human civilisation is to be a functioning body, we have to re-think the roles and functions of its constituents.
There must be rewards of all the roles and each should be designed to be desirable and fulfilling. Just as unemployment might be depressing, so is living 70-hours a week in a concrete prison in the sky.
I wonder what would the social/economic/political roles look like if we were living within our ecological limits?
Photos/credits
[1] http://www.crossroad.to/Books/symbols1.html
Most from google images – forgetting to take note of owners, although most have their websites on them.
That great photo of the snails is from WAPPY AL – http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackslad/502468776/
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Preserving “The Pyramid” – the reason things are the way they are…
“Things are the way they are because they have been designed to be this way,” a friend of mine said. “It’s all about preserving The Pyramid.”
What’s The Pyramid? Let me tell you…
“The Pyramid” (according to my friend) is a method of social, economic and political organisation that is at the core of every human civilisation from the Egyptians to Hindus to Monarchies to Capitalism.
All the big political conflicts come down to one thing: The Pyramid.
Conflicts are either initiated by people on top pulling strings to preserve or expand the present Pyramid; or conflicts are initiated by revolutionaries who disagree with the structure and seek to turn The Pyramid up-side-down.
As I thought through history, I realised my friend was right. The English and Spanish Conquest of the Americas, India, China… We seize land to expand our pyramid. We seize resources to secure our pyramid. We take down any leaders who don’t agree to it’s rules. We call anyone who challenges the Pyramid a “terrorist” and “national threat”. Why? Because they really are a threat to this hierarchy – and the people at the top do not like that.
From the Egyptians:
To the Hindu caste system:
To Capitalism today…
Globalisation has seen the pyramids of once isolated civilisations join together to create an even bigger pyramid. And as the upper and middle class grows, so does the lower class, hence as our global population rapidly expands, so does The Pyramid. The rich get richer as the poor get poorer.
In the global pyramid, the top 0.5 billion earning over $20,000 a year (of which many earn far more, and a small number earning far far more than that) while 60% of the world’s population live on less than $2 a day.
The pyramid of wealth distribution looked at in another way shows the top 1% taking 2/3rds of the US national income…
How is such inequality allowed to persist?
Through a carefully constructed system that involves a “social distribution of knowledge” [1]. We educate some (the children of the monetarily rich) to make the system work for them, and educate others (the children of the not-so-money-rich) to work for the system.
The power know the formula: give people a reason to live (eg through career path or religion or an ideology) and educate them enough for their societal roles – no more, no less.
The system teaches people to obey authority, not to question it. It encourages conformity, even to the extent (as some believe) of putting flouride in our water to us docile.
According to my friend’s theory, all the “evils” of the world are there for a reason: because they are a part of the pyramid.
- Poverty is there because a massive base is needed to support the weight of the top.
- War is there because it secures the resources required to make weapons and keep the system running as those at the top require.
- Lack-of-education is there because in the social distribution of knowledge, not everyone needs to know stuff. All you need to know is what your role requires you to know, no more, no less.
- Religion is there because it gives people a purpose. It explains the unknowns, it controls the masses, and it gives people hope for a better life next time round – be it up in heaven or in one’s reincarnation.
- Debt is there because it contracts a permanent slave of those people and countries who work to repay it.
The destructive cycle is this:
- as we seek to join the upper class or move up the middle classes (a good thing), we inadvertantly
- increase the lower class – not such a good thing if this means 12 hour work days behind a sewing machine or being sold as a sex slave
- then, as the base of the pyramid increases, so does poverty (families have less food and less land to provide)
- then, as poverty increases, education decreases and people have more babies
- the global population continues to explode
- as the earth’s resources receed it seems inevitable that, at some point in the future, billions of people’s lives are going to be lost.
What happens when someone challenges the authority of The Pyramid? They get taken down. Just look what they are doing to Julian Assange!
Should we challenge The Pyramid? Maybe. But to be honest I’m not sure that we can.
History has shown Animal Farm scenarios time and time again: revolution upon revolution. When oppressive humans are kicked off the planet and animals declare themselves equal, it’s only a matter of time before pigs (or some other animal) will rise up and become the new oppressor.
The Pyramid has been torn down and built back up by a numerous groups who then take the place of the new rich and powerful. Whoever wins the battle replicates the model’s inequalities, and rewrites history to produce a new “social distribution of knowledge.” It’s an endless cycle.
Geez this is depressing. Where’s my Christmas spirit? Don’t get me started on Christmas… the capitalistic “Christian” tradition that is based on a pagan holiday inadvertantly idolising the “god” that declared “he” never wanted to be idolised. Ah sorry, I shouldn’t write it off like this. It is a lovely family time. I’ll try to uplift my words from here on…
If we can’t fight The Pyramid, should we embrace it? Maybe. Maybe there are ways of making it work without the above evils, I’m not sure.
Is inequality ok? Maybe. It’s impossible for everyone to be equal. And unappealing – diversity makes the world a more interesting place. And whose to say that the rich people are “rich”? Are those at the top of the pyramid “better off” than the people at the bottom? Life can be pretty boring if you have everything without the challenge. The poor might be much richer in different ways…
But it can’t be denied that it’s pretty shit that two-thirds of the world have no place to shit.
Maybe it’s best to live one’s life somewhere in the middle. Probably myself and most of you think of ourselves as somewhere in the middle (although earning more than $20k pa places us in the upper).
Even in the top segment of the pyramid if you have a mortgage and particularly if you have children, then choices become even more limited - we are culturally moulded to work for the system. I wonder how many people at the very very top are consciously aware of creating or perpetuating it?
Is there anything wrong with being a cog in this wheel? No. I guess not – as long as you are happy.
What if this happiness is just an illusion? Maybe living in an illusion is the best place to be.
Should we be putting our efforts into finding ways to make the pyramid work for us? Maybe. But maybe not. Alternatives may exist, I’m not yet sure.
The key hypothesis I’d like to propose to you is this: things are the way they are because they have been designed this way: poverty, religion, education systems, health-related issues – all of our problems are (at least in part) designed to preserve The Pyramid.
When my friend first shared this theory I protested, now I’m coming around. Love to hear your thoughts…
Pictures:
I have a habit of grabbing pictures off Google Images and not recording the copyrights… if anyone would like me to acknowledge their work where I haven’t please do let me know.
References:
[1] The Social Construction of Reality, Berger and Luckmann 1966
MORE BLOG ENTRIES ON THE TOPIC:
Some great YouTube clips explaining our economic and political system
Where are we now, where are we going, and how?
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Protests and balls, another Wikileaks rally (Town Hall 530pm TODAY), and the Left-Right Paradox.
Today the Westminster Magistrates’ Court will decide the fate of Julian Assange, well at least whether or not he will get bail. And so while I haven’t even told you much about last Friday’s rally yet, I had better briefly inform any Sydney readers that there will be another rally at 530pm, again at Town Hall, today. [1]
Professor Emeritus Stuart Rees (from Sydney Peace Foundation, and my friend and mentor) will be speaking, so if you are Sydney, do come along. It’s sure to be informative, conducive to Assange’s case, as well as a good laugh (if anyone knows Prof. Rees’ humour, you will understand why).
…
Anyway, returning to the story of the 30 hour Peace vs Defense saga that I began to tell you about yesterday in my entry Protests, Balls, Left and Right.
In one day I attended both the first wikileak rally, and then my friend’s army ball, both held at Sydney’s Town Hall – allowing me to directly access the often polarised worldviews of Peace, and Security, and bringing me to what I will from here on refer to as the Left-Right Paradox.
Although separated by a few hours, I was one of the Lefties outside Town Hall by day, a “Hippy/Communist” as the army boys called us (appologising when I owned up); and lapping up the benefits of our capitalistic security-driven Conservative government (at my friend from the army’s end of year ball), by night.
The rally emphasised the cowardous and inexcusable way our politicians are handling Julian Assange: washing their hands of him and feeding him to the lions den, before proven guilty, is not something any citizen would hope from their country.
You would think they would learn from the case of David Hicks… what happened to being presumed innocent until proven guilty?
The rally also emphasised the citizen right to freedom of speech, freedom of media, and right to the truth.
You have probably gauged from other blog entries the value I place on the “truth” – so as you can imagine, my values were largely aligned with the rally’s speakers.
Later that day I gowned up and entered Town Hall, I also came to understand the other side.
“The information leaked put my friend’s lives at risk.” said my friend who served in Afghanistan earlier this year. “There are bigger questions that have to be asked.”
Gulp.
Let’s consider some of questions:
Should all political information be transparent?
Yes, I would like it to be.
What if this puts lives of Australian soldiers at risk?
Then no, it shouldn’t.
Do the public have a “right to know”?
YES, I think they do.
Do governments have a right to hold some information “confidential”?
Paradoxically YES, I think they do too.
Who should decide what truths should be told, and which should remain hidden?
I guess as a democracy this is the people’s decision, enacted through the government we elect to consider the facts and (hopefully) make decisions like this, hence controlling the information we see, for our own benefit.
While I think Wikileaks is a great resource for accessing the truth of the political, economic and social world we are a part of, in my opinion there are limits to what should be published. Namely nothing that puts the lives of fellow Australians at risk.
What if this puts lives of people from other countries at risk?
It is here we return to the Left-Right Paradox – the dicotomy that positions global peace against national security.
If I prioritise the lives of people from other countries, I can jeopardise the lives of people in my own country. In the political games we presently play, sending our troops to Iraq and Afghanistan and beyond, information is a weapon crucial to our winning or losing the game. So long as we are playing a global game of chess, can we really afford to tell our opponents our next moves?
There are two sides (or more) to every story, and this complicated debate is not going to end any time soon.
There are no easy answers, and there are an endless number of questions:
Are Australia, America, Britain actually democracies, or does the power of the intimate connections between media, politicians, and corporate elites nullify the ideal?
Can the Australian public TRUST their government?
Will the government one day point their finger at someone like me and yell “witch”, just for asking questions?
I hope Australia is a democracy with a government that can be trusted, who respect our questioning and always put the interests and freedoms of their citizens first.
In my opinion, government information should be as transparent as possible and it is nothing but bureaucratic bullshit if the public is held in the dark while institutions we don’t even know about pull the strings.
If I were to discuss this topic with a particularly wealthy and wise friend of mine, his response would be: “It’s all about maintaining The Pyramid.“
THE PYRAMID is a very illuminating idea – that all civilisations are based on a pyramid structure, with powerful rich at the top, and the poor workers at the bottom. Connected to the idea of maintaining The Pyramid, is the game of chess that those in power are playing with many other’s lives. So the question we must ask is:
Are we happy being pawns in a giant game of chess, or do we want to change the game, for example, from from chess to sex.
I don’t have the answers but I do have hope – hope that with collective creative ingenuity we humans can write some new rules, and start playing a game where both parties win.
In conclusion I wish to quote one of the army boys from the ball:
“Everyone just has to chill – chill out! Have a beer, talk about their issues, and then the solutions will appear.”
Cheers to that!
Thanks for listening to my rant… I’m sure everyone has an opinion and I’d love to hear your thoughts if you care to leave a comment below.
References
[1] http://antonyloewenstein.com/2010/12/13/sydney-rally-for-wikileaks-on-14-december/
Some links
This entry is continued from – http://www.julietbennett.com/2010/12/13/protests-and-balls-left-and-right/
My older entries on this topic that might be of interest:
Human Rights or a Collective Future – the Problem with Definitions
Am I a Leftist Idealist or Right Conservative, or BOTH?
A balanced article I quite liked – http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/42140.html
A little video I shot on the day of Lee Rhiannon of the Greens (NSW Senator Elect).
Wikileaks video and site – http://213.251.145.96/video.html
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Protests and balls, left and right…
There are two sides to every story. We all know this, even if we choose to only see our side. Seeing the side of others takes empathy, a virtue that (unlike patience and many other virtues) I think I’m not half-bad at. Lucky so, given the nature of my recent social life.
On Friday night I updated my facebook status: Pro wikileaks rally outside town hall by day, dining inside town hall with army boys by night. Oh the irony!
The irony, in my mind, stemmed from the stark contrast in world-views between Peace and Security, between Left and Right. It’s a contrast that I find strange given both are ultimately (in my opinion) trying to achieve the same thing (improving the lives of themselves and the ones they love) – the difference being the way they believe this might be achieved.
The contrast was emphasised my a few of my friend’s friend’s friend (also an army boy) at a party the night before. In the span of 30-hours I went from left to right, back to left, back to right, finally returning to where I am now: relatively left with an appreciation for the right. Confused? That’s ok, so am I.
As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I have a few friends from the Australian army which with my Peace Studies tends to make for interesting conversations. But my friend’s friend’s friend was a little different.
So this story begins on Thursday night at what was supposed to be some quiet farewell drinks.
“Have you ever killed someone?” my friend’s friend’s friend asked, the look of horror from his killings still in his eyes. “Then you don’t know anything.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“You peace people, you f’ing hippies, you protest against us, you spit on us during Anzac day parades,” He continued. “You live in Paddington with your straight white teeth… you don’t have a clue.”
Do I turn and leave? Cry? Or try to see what’s beneath his resentment? I chose the latter option, although after too many drinks I may later done a little of the second, and eventually a friend enforced the first option. But that’s beside the point.
“Ok, I agree – I don’t have a clue. I would never spit on you, I assure you of that.” I began diplomatically. “I might be a bit left but as you said, I live in Paddington and I do very much appreciate my way of life – and I know the connection between this and what you do. I may not agree with violence but I enjoy the economic and physical benefits of it – from oil to our relationships with the US.”
I think he was at least a little suprised by my honesty. I asked what motivates him to fight, and why he joined.
“My family. Protecting the people I love. Protecting my country.” he replied. “And I have to admit, I was pretty stoked when I bought my first Beemer.”
The conversation continued to deeper territories.
“We generally try not to kill women and children but if it’s a choice between them or me, I have done it. And once you do it, you can’t take it back.” It was plain to me the saddness and resentment that was attached. “I’ve fought in East Timor, in Afghanistan, in many other places. After a while you enjoy it. Do you hear me? I have enjoyed killing people.”
I knew he was trying to intimidate me.
“I hear you. And I also know that if I were born in your body and your situation, I’d be doing the exact same thing.” I shrugged.
I don’t take killing lightly, and I definitely don’t condone it, but my empathy does allow me to understand. I can hardly begin to imagine the psychological processes within one’s mind in order to deal with taking another’s life.
In the psychological drama of killing people and then operating in a society where no one knows what that’s like and people ignorantly criticise the war you fight, of course you would need to find stories that justify it; attaching confident feelings to the actions; and transform oneself into the hero of the story.
Are today’s soldiers heroes?
In the minds of many of the people of their country, yes they are.
Are they murderers?
In the minds of the victim’s family, yes they are.
Are they necessary?
In the global game of chess our politicians are currently playing, yes they are.
Ultimately our politicians play the game that supports the way the majority want them to play it. And at the moment our objective is security: economic security and physical security.
Peace activists might protest against soldiers, showing their dismay for the victims of war and displaying their disapproval for the way our politicians are playing the game, but until the game changes, our politicians choices are limited.
“We pay you to protect us, and that’s what you do. That’s also why people like me are of more value than you think. When we’re not spitting at you during parades… ” I laughed, “And when we’re finished making our daisy chains, we are analyzing the causes of the war in the first place. We are looking for non-violent ways to secure the same things you are trying to secure.”
If I had been referring to the chess game I might have said: we are questioning the game and trying to see if there’s another way we can play it.
At the end of that evening, when my friend told me to go home to bed, the army boy turned to me, looked me in the eyes and said, “Thank you…” he shook his head, “this has been a really good conversation, thank you.”
It was a pretty hard core conversation but it had been worthwhile. It had opened windows for understanding, on both sides.
While the above rant is just the beginning of my 30-hour Left vs Right epic, this entry is getting long so I’ll tell the rest of the story tomorrow.
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Support Wikileaks Protest – Sydney Town Hall Tomorrow
I’ve never been much of a hands-on activist. While I support many causes, I tend to action my support in different ways. But tomorrow’s protest is different. Tomorrow is about making a stand for our fundamental freedoms, for democracy, free media and free speech. The more people who turn up the more this voice will be heard. So if you are in Sydney then come with me to the Support WikiLeaks Rally at 1pm at TOWN HALL tomorrow (Friday the 10th December). Otherwise sign the petition here – http://www.avaaz.org/en/wikileaks_petition/?vl
I haven’t got time to put the WikiLeaks situation into my own words so below are words taken from a Ricken Patel – Avaaz.org email and Antony Loewenstein’s Press Release.
“Ever wonder why the media so rarely gives the full story of what happens behind the scenes? This is why – because when they do, governments can be vicious in their response. And when that happens, it’s up to the public to stand up for our democratic rights to a free press and freedom of expression. Never has there been a more vital time for us to do so.
Legal experts say WikiLeaks has likely broken no laws. Yet top US politicians have called it a terrorist group and commentators have urged assassination of its staff. The organization has come under massive government and corporate attack, but WikiLeaks is only publishing information provided by a whistleblower. And it has partnered with the world’s leading newspapers (NYT, Guardian, Spiegel etc) to carefully vet the information it publishes.
The US government is currently pursuing all legal avenues to stop WikiLeaks from publishing more cables, but the laws of democracies protect freedom of the press. The US and other governments may not like the laws that protect our freedom of expression, but that’s exactly why it’s so important that we have them, and why only a democratic process can change them.
Reasonable people can disagree on whether WikiLeaks and the leading newspapers it’s partnered with are releasing more information than the public should see. Whether the releases undermine diplomatic confidentiality and whether that’s a good thing. Whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has the personal character of a hero or a villain. BUT none of this justifies a vicious campaign of intimidation to silence a legal media outlet by governments and corporations.
The massive extra-judicial intimidation of WikiLeaks is an attack on democracy. We urgently need a public outcry for freedom of the press and expression.” [1]
Sign the petition to stop the crackdown:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/wikileaks_petition/?vl
Forward this message to everyone — let’s get to 1 million voices!”
If you are in Sydney then show your support at the “Support WikiLeaks Rally” – TOMORROW (Friday the 10th December) at 1pm at TOWN HALL:
“MEDIA RELEASE — MEDIA RELEASE — MEDIA RELEASE — Support Wikileaks rally called
Supporters of the website Wikileaks will mobilise on Friday (10/12/10) to protest against the backlash it has faced for its release of more than 250,000 US government cables.
The protest will hear from independent journalist Antony Loewenstein, award-winning author of My Israel Question. Pirate Party spokesperson Simon Frew will also speak. Other speakers will be announced soon.
The rally date coincides with International Human Rights Day. Rally organisers say the Australian government has failed to uphold the human rights of Wikileaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange.
“The Australian government should be ashamed for its attacks on Wikileaks, which has been charged with no crime”, spokesperson Simon Butler said.
“Australia should not join the campaign to censor Wikileaks. Wikileaks has released evidence of government lies and duplicity — information that, as citizens, we have a right to know.
“We want the Gillard government to make sure Julian Assange has the same basic rights as every other Australian citizen. Threats have been made against Assange’s life, the Australian government has a duty to protect him, not threaten him.”
Butler said community support for Wikileaks was very high. “We expect a good turnout to the rally. There is a great deal of anger at what’s happening. The bid to silence Wikileaks threatens the rights of everyone.” [2]
The email from Ricken Patel – Avaaz.org includes these SOURCES:
Law experts say WikiLeaks in the clear (ABC)
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2010/s3086781.htm
WikiLeaks are a bunch of terrorists, says leading U.S. congressman (Mail Online)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1333879/WikiLeaks-terrorists-says-leading-US-congressman-Peter-King.html
Cyber guerrillas can help US (Financial Times)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d3dd7c40-ff15-11df-956b-00144feab49a.html#axzz17QvQ4Ht5
Amazon drops WikiLeaks under political pressure (Yahoo)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101201/tc_afp/usdiplomacyinternetwikileakscongressamazon
“WikiLeaks avenged by hacktivists” (PC World):
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/212701/operation_payback_wikileaks_avenged_by_hacktivists.html
US Gov shows true control over Internet with WikiLeaks containment (Tippett.org)
http://www.tippett.org/2010/12/us-gov-shows-true-control-over-internet-with-wikileaks-containment/
US embassy cables culprit should be executed, says Mike Huckabee (The Guardian)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/01/us-embassy-cables-executed-mike-huckabee
WikiLeaks ditched by MasterCard, Visa. Who’s next? (The Christian Science Monitor)
http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2010/1207/WikiLeaks-ditched-by-MasterCard-Visa.-Who-s-next
Assange’s Interpol Warrant Is for Having Sex Without a Condom (The Slatest)
http://slatest.slate.com/id/2276690/
My sources:
[1]
Avaaz.org is a 6.4-million-person global campaign network that works to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people shape global decision-making. (“Avaaz” means “voice” or “song” in many languages.) Avaaz members live in every nation of the world; our team is spread across 13 countries on 4 continents and operates in 14 languages. To contact Avaaz, go to www.avaaz.org/en/contact.
[2]
Antony Loewenstein is a Sydney-based independent freelance journalist, author, documentarian, photographer and blogger.
http://antonyloewenstein.com/2010/12/07/wikileaks-support-protest-in-sydney-on-friday
The rally will take place at Sydney Town Hall @ 1pm, Friday December 10.
Rally information: Kylie Gilbert 0451 827 693
Media contact: Simon Butler 0421 231 011
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The “PAPER ECONOMY” and the GFC
Why did the Global Financial Crisis actually happen? The best explanation I have come across was when about this time last year Canadian professor Jim Stanford came to speak at my uni – he tries to demystify the economy by explaining the concepts and jargon in a simple, easily understandable way.
What is the economy? It is WORK. ‘The total sum of work we do to meet our needs and wants.’ The economy is about meeting human needs.
Jim separates the economy into:
1. the “real economy” - that is, jobs that create physical value.
2. the “paper economy” -that is, jobs that trade paper. These jobs are based on speculating on the real economy, and make money from others’ debt.
In our present system, the paper traders are getting richer as the physical traders get poorer. For every $1 of real economy, $100 of paper economy is traded. That means $100 is circulated by people speculating on that $1, and essentially getting paid to do nothing of real value – just buying and selling financial assets.
It makes sense when you think about it. What jobs pay the most in our society? Stock traders. Finance. Bankers. Business. That’s why Dads like mine want me to study Business and work my way up the ladder of a big corporation – it equals money and security. But what else does it mean? What value am I adding to society if I do this?
Where do our foods, clothes, housing materials come from? Who gets paid the least down the chain of production? The people picking the raw ingredients that make these things, and the people that put the goods together. People getting paid almost nothing (if not completely nothing) for their work.
When you get a big profit from trading on the stock market – where is that money coming from? I’m not pointing fingers at those who trade or own shares, saying, “ooooo you’re such a bad person.” I have shares too. Actually any of us who have bank accounts or superannuation funds, have shares on the stock market. Our shares contribute to the problem but I am part of the 85% of the population of developed capitalist countries who is paid for my employment, more or less economic slaves to the system as I need to earn money to pay my rent, my credit card bill, and pay for my next holiday. It is logical that when we invest in shares, or play with shares on the stock market, we hope that we will gain the greatest possible profit from our investment of time and/or money. These are the rules of the game we presently play.
These rules also define the responsibilities of CEOs to make the most profit they can, without regard for people and our planet, and pay these big boys very big bucks to do so. The main problem with this system lies with the 2% of the population of developed capitalist countries who own large majorities of the paper wealth in the world, with banks at the top given their license to print money and lend it out in debt. (Side noting that the other 13% work as farmers or in their own small businesses).
Jim says it isn’t fair that the workers suffer every time the system collapses as we didn’t cause the problem. It was the rules of the system that caused it, and unless we change the rules, it will continue to happen again and again. Jim says we need to ‘hold the banking system accountable to meeting society’s need for steady credit, or step in and do it ourselves’ (we can print money too).
Solutions include:
1. Demystify economics - explain where the crisis came from and understand why something needs to change.
2. Redeem the value and legitimacy of real work and production – based on a new model of growth / stability.
3. Don’t let the bank make us pay for their mistakes:
- re-regulate finance
- socialise credit creation (ie learn to do it ourselves through public banks and credit unions)
- look for comprehensible credible alternatives that also address global problems of poverty and pollution
- get rid of useless industries
- stop making shit
Jim explains it far better than these rough notes I took from his lecture.
There are more of his lectures on youtube – well worth a watch. Or his book:
Also, although this wasn’t from my notes from Jim’s lecture, I think surely we need to do something about the tax havens. Did you know that half of all world trade currently passes through tax havens? Apparently they ‘allow rich people and corporations to stash trillions in assets that could provide governments with at least $250 billion a year in tax revenues.’[1]
Look, I don’t like paying tax, I believe I still own a few shares (while they’re probably not worth much any more) and I can’t complain that my job is based on processing information (I’m not really sure if universities count as paper economy or real economy…) but I do not like the fact that the richest pay the least tax and the poorest pay the most…
According to the book called Conspiracy of the Rich I’m listening to at the moment by Robert Kiyosaki (author of Rich Dad Poor Dad) if you can’t change the system, you can still opt out of playing their game.
“Is the love of money the root of all evil? Or, is it the ignorance of money? What did you learn about money in school? Have you ever wondered why our school systems do not teach us much—if anything—about money? Is the lack of financial education in our schools simply an oversight by our educational leaders? Or is it part of a larger conspiracy? Regardless, whether we are rich or poor, educated or uneducated, child or adult, retired or working, we all use money. Like it or not, money has a tremendous impact on our lives in today’s world.” [2]
ALSO SEE BLOG ENTRIES:
Preserving The Pyramid: why things are the way they are
Some great YouTube clips explaining our economic and political system
Where are we now, where are we going, and how?
[1] Susan George, ‘We Must Think Big’, New Scientist (18 Oct 2008). p. 51.
[2] Robert Kiyosaki, www.conspiracyoftherich.com/ReadTheBook.aspx
Photo: Graffiti in the back streets of Sydney.
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Chocolate slavery and the tragic flaw of humanity in the 21st century
Didn’t they abolish slavery a couple of hundred years ago? Well no – it continues… and it continues such to provide the “haves” with what (in my opinion) is the most delicious tasting delightful experience of all my being: chocolate.
In my opinion there is NOTHING worse than physical slavery and nothing better than chocolate, and so I face the greatest polarity in my world: the best and worse wrapped into a block of bitter sweetness.
Can you believe that in today’s day and age some humans are deceiving other humans into leaving their homes, friends and family, imposing work on them by force (including whips), and without payment? I guess sexual slavery is worse than chocolate slavery, but in my opinion neither forms of slavery should be happening in the 21st century.
Why is slavery allowed to exist? It’s quite simple. It’s all because of the stock market.
The stock market? Yes. Because through the stock exchange responsibility for the consequences of a company’s actions are diffused.
This brings me to what I see to be the tragic flaw of human society in the 21st century: the rules of this game we call business. The first thing I learned at UTS when doing my Bachelor of Business was:
1. Investors invest in shares to make profit on their investment. Many investors live off these rewards, and don’t have to work. Many other people have jobs as intermediaries, buying and selling paper, to make profit from paper. People are making money without adding any physical value to the world.
2. CEOs have one most-important responsibility: to make profits for shareholders. For this he or she receives generous financial rewards, even if it involves decreasing the quality of the product for customers, decreasing the pay or conditions for employees, or destroying the planet.
While shareholders most likely value the needs of fellow and future humans and life on earth, the rules of the game dictate that money invested into shares is done to receive that profit.
There is clearly a disconnection between shareholders and the non-monetary outcomes of their investment. Is this a connection we really want to own up to?
I have some shares, (although I think they aren’t worth anything anymore after the stock market collapsed)… I also have a little money in the bank and a little superannuation, so let’s take the scenario that all of this is actually a great investment of my time, and is something I am relying on for my future – would I really want these shares to earn less money? No, of course not. With the rules as they stand, I would want my shares to earn as much as they can or else I would invest my money somewhere else.
I have friends (mainly from my business degree) who work in finance. Would I really want to put my friends out of a job? No. No I wouldn’t. What if the consequence of their jobs, earning lots of money from trading paper, are part of the cause of the poverty of people producing the physical goods we enjoy? I still choose my friends over these people I don’t know.
What if the result of my shares and their finance jobs is human slavery? That is where I draw a thick black line.
That’s where I say to my friend that the unhappiness they are causing is not worth the happiness they gain. That’s where I remind my friend that there’s more to life than the long hours they work in front of a computer playing with numbers. Money isn’t everything. That’s where I advise my friend to get rid of their mortgage, quit their job, and live off their savings for the rest of their life in South America. If only it was that easy… it could be, although my friend may not agree.
The present state of affairs is not a pretty one. Changing the system might be messy, it might be hard for some to deal with. The truth may hurt, but it hurts more if laid untold.
This connection between Shareholders, CEOs, Employees and Customers already exists of course, however, it is hidden behind the guise of “The Corporation”. Whoever was the man (I’m pretty sure it would have been a male) who created and legalised corporations to be treated as their own separate entities, with their own identities, privileges and liabilities separate from their members – should be held accountable for the destruction this single rule has caused for the world’s present and future. Whoever has power to change this law… well, I plead that you do – for the sake of your children.
People are working on solutions. I guess part of the solution is to report to shareholders on the “3 P’s” : Profit, People and Planet - of course, this is easier said than done given the problematic nature of measuring one’s impact on the lives of people or the conditions of the planet. At the very least, even without this reporting structure, surely the rules of the game should reflect the wider values of society?
I guess this would involve:
1. Holding shareholders responsible for the non-monetary consequences of their investment. Eg if you invest in a company that buys their chocolate beans on the stock exchange, a third which come from the Ivory Coast of which 90% involve slave labour, you should feel responsible for this. Also, if the company you have money invested in spills oil in the ocean, you should feel responsible for all the fish, dolphins and animals that die as a result of your investment. Maybe it should go further than “feeling responsible” – if warned and company procedures are not changed, investors should feel obligated to withdraw their investment, or else suffer the legal consequences of the inhuman violence their money is causing.
2. Holding CEOs responsible for the non-monetary aspects of the company they are in charge of. At the very least, the company’s impact on people and the planet needs to be recognised as just as important, if not more important, than profit for shareholders.
The thing is, would this work? Would it make a difference?
It could end up just like the greenwashing that so many companies are into today (making out they are good for the environment when they are still the same product in the same plastic packaging, or donating a dollar and saying they are helping fix the problem). Still, even if it’s only in words I guess you have to start somewhere.
Anyway today I got off my ass and did something tangible about these thoughts. I sent the following letter to a few more of the places where I have indulged in chocolate without knowing whether or not this chocolate comes from the slave farms:
1. Max Brenner (who make incredible waffles)
2. San Churro (who make the best hot chocolates I’ve ever tasted – with chilli!)
3. Nestle (just because I haven’t sent them a letter in a while)
Also I looked at Cadbury: http://www.cadburyfairtrade.com.au/FAQs/FairtradeFAQs.aspx At least they seem to be trying.
If you feel like sending whoever your favourite chocolate companies are a letter, feel free to use my wording:
Dear Max Brenner,
I am a very big fan of your hot chocolates, and your extremely delicious chocolate covered waffles.
Unfortunately I recently saw a chocolate documentary exposing the slavery practices behind the cocoa bean industry on the Ivory Coast. And so I now I simply cannot justify buying chocolate from companies who buy their cocoa beans from the stock exchange (as these are most likely connected to the horrific slavery, which I believe should NOT be allowed in today’s day and age).
I am reviewing my favourite chocolate companies for my blog, so can you please tell me where you get your beans?
Are you moving toward some kind of a fair trade supply chain?
Thank you in advance for your time in replying to this email.
Sincerely,
Juliet.
Anyway, I’ll let you know if I hear back from any of them. If you have any thoughts on how the roles of The Corporation, The Shareholder and The CEO might be better defined, write a comment for me – or if you don’t agree with what I say at all… either way I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Photo:
My gorgeous sisters and cousins indulging in chocolate fondue Bennett-style. I think it was fairtrade chocolate, I hope…
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Leftist idealist or right-wing conservative?
Have you noticed the reoccurring pattern of almost hypocritical contradictions contained in my most recent entries? There seems to be a battle going on inside my mind:a battle between my leftist idealistic side (a perspective largely shared at the peace conference) that seems to abruptly clash with my more right-wing conservative side (a result of my experiences in India).
I care about people. I care about those who live in unsanitary conditions, those who suffer from war, from hunger, from all forms of slavery – be it economic slavery sitting in front of a sewing machine 12 hours a day, physical slavery forced and whipped to pick cocoa beans without a drop of pay, sexual slavery, or mental slavery.
I care about animals. I don’t like they are our slaves, pumping out our eggs, milk, and that they are bred and killed for my meat. Yet I am not a vegetarian.
I care about our planet. I don’t like that my car pollutes it. I don’t like that the plastic packaging of my products is toxic to it. I don’t like that humanity is chopping down its trees for my paper and digging up its insides for my electricity. Yet I still drive a car, buy too many products, use too much paper, and too much electricity.
I want every life-form to reach it’s full potential and yet I kill ants without a second thought and I am okay with abortion (believing the woman should have a choice over and above the not-yet-conscious entity forming inside her).
I believe in human rights yet I support population control – something has to be done.
I don’t think of different races as “better” or smarter than others, yet I don’t particularly want to see the whole world dominated by one or two of them.
I want to let all the asylum seekers into Australia, but I also don’t like feeling I’m a minority in my own city (the other day I swear I was the only caucasian-Australian walking down George Street in Sydney.)
I want Australia to pull troops out of the war, actually I want all the wars to end, but I don’t complain about the cheap oil and security that comes from their actions.
I am generous but I am greedy. I want everyone to have somewhere like Australia to live, but I don’t want everyone to live in Australia.
In short, I want my cake, and I want to eat it too. And I don’t quite know what to do about it.
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Good, bad and the thinking that makes it so
Looks can be deceiving. So can words. Reality itself can be deceiving. Distinguishing deception from truth begins with accepting it is there.
Let’s begin with a funny story behind this photo, one that provides a nice little introduction to more reflections that came from my little Indian adventures.
This photo is the after-effects of a cockroach in my bathroom, a roach I tried to kill. As karma would have it I lost a bottle of my favourite red nail polish in the process, and I still didn’t get the roach.
Then an image flashed before my eyes: I remembered seeing a lady was making my bed in Nepal come across a massive spider in the sheets (that must have been sitting in a store room for far too long, but that’s beside the point). Instead of screaming and squashing it with a boot, like I usually do, she scooped up the eight-legged freak with both her hands and took it out to the garden and let it go…
I looked back at the roach – maybe he didn’t have to die.
“You are an insect, and I, a human,” I told him, “I don’t need to be scared of you. Here boy, come on, come with me…” I willed it calmly, picking up the tube of moisturiser it was hiding behind in my cupboard. He clung to it, like a child being saved from drowning by a life-saver ring. When I got him to the window he flew away.
Only this blood-like stain on my wall remained, as if to signify what could have happened and what was avoided. Things aren’t always as they seem, and when a situation is viewed from a different set of eyes, that sees through the constructs of a different set of language, education and experience, a picture can tell a completely different story. Its the thinking which makes it so.
…
The greatest irony of all my reflections on global poverty has been the realisation that many of the “poor” Indian women perceive ME as the poor one.
“No husband? No children? It’s okay, one day,” they said with sympathetic eyes. Little do they know that my parents have divorced – that’s the biggest no no in the book, something that (if I were an Indian woman) would prevent any Indian man from ever wanting to marry me. All the things they value I lack. When you look at the world through their eyes, and evaluate the haves and have-nots according to their values, you have to ask: who’s the one living in “poverty” now?
As you could probably tell in my last few posts, in my current state of mind, my care for the “poor” people is presently being replaced with a new appreciation for Western culture, individualism, freedom, and even a new appreciation for what I previously perceived to be the “big bad global capitalist system”. The world situation is far more complex than I realised and, in comparison to the caste system, life in the capitalist system simply ain’t that bad. At least not for me. As capitalists we admittedly are currently using the global situation to our advantage, but I’m no longer convinced we are creating it.
Inequality is so widespread, can anything actually be done to make it more equal? Whenever people set out to do good, it ends up turning into new ideologies and creating new cycles of violence… I’m starting to wonder, is there’s any point in trying? And, more importantly, I wonder if I even have a right to try to make what I perceive to be “positive” changes? What if the changes aren’t seen as positive in the mind of the receiver of my goodwill?
One thing that for sure India has taught me is how little I know, and, how conditioned my own mind is to my worldview and my way of life. Everything I think, say, write, and do, is limited by my language, shaped by my education, and inseparable from my life experiences. And then, make things even more complicated, my worldview is constantly changing.
Every person’s worldview is constantly changing. It makes sense consider the world is constantly in a state of change. Our centric view of life sometimes makes us think that our personal worldview is the only worldview, but it’s not. I have to remind myself that my constantly changing worldview is but one in 7-billion constantly changing views. I have agency over nothing more than my own values and perspectives, and the changes that take place inside me. I can share what I learn but outside that it is each to their own.
Back on Planet Paradise – where horns don’t beep, where teeth are brushed with tap water, and where you walk down the street without a thousand pairs of gawking eyes staring you down – it has been almost surreal to sit in my quiet little apartment and read my diary entries from the last five weeks.
It’s hard to imagine such a polar-opposite culture is in full swing just a 14-hour flight away.Just imagine what my life would be like had I been born in India! For a start, at almost 28-years old, I would probably have been married for half my life and seemingly content with whatever husband my family chose for me. I would probably have a few children by now, and be working in whatever job had been delegated to me, most likely following in my mother’s footsteps. Instead I am happily unmarried, childless, free – free to explore my passions, free to travel, free to spend time with who I want, when I want, to learn, grow, discover – and excited to contemplate the endless possibilities the future may hold.
It is hard for a person who believes making and managing a big family is the most important thing in the world to comprehend why a 27- year-old would choose not to. Why would someone want to travel and study and do the things they are passionate about rather than dedicating their life to populating this planet with more people? Everything is relative to one’s own definition of identity and values. As Shakespeare said, “There’s nothing either good nor bad – but thinking makes it so.”
We have no way to conceive what is outside our worldview. We are entirely limited by the constructs we program into our human minds. The perceived value of one’s life is embedded in our understanding of what is worthy and what isn’t, and of our own status relative to others. We cannot know what we do not know we don’t know. No one who has not tasted the smooth orgasmic goodness of Lindts dark chilli chocolate, will never crave it.
Does this bring us to post-modern nihilism? Is everything relative and nothing absolute? Is it impossible to define good and bad? I still like the Shantaram definition: good is what supports the increasing complexity of the universe, while bad/evil is anything that stands in the way of it. Or, how it translates more simply in my own mind: good is that which creates, and bad is that which destroys. The most interesting thing about this dynamic is that: one CANNOT exist without the other. In order to create, we must be able to destroy.
The universe is expanding, and one day, if something always existed, it seems logical to assume that one day it will contract.
I think it was Neil Diamond Walsh in Conversations with God who equated this process to “God” breathing out in the expansion stage, and then breathing in again in the contraction. Who are we to stand back and judge one a breath out as better than the breath in? Maybe we should just observe it, enjoy it for what it is and be happy we are a part of it.
Back to the worldviews of these Indian women and me: I think they’re poor, and they think I’m poor, so what can one do? Should I try to help them, and should they try to help me? What good would that do when we speak such different languages (I’m not referring to the Hindi/English barriers)??? Worldview conflicts are tough, but there’s no real violence that is resulting from this particular one – it’s just different groups of people valuing different things and living in different ways.
Who is one to think they are right and that they have a responsibility to make the other see the world in their way? I guess there are ways we in which can learn from each others drastically different cultures, but ultimately it seems to me that this the best solution comes back to the simple affirmation that Deepak Choprah comforted me with through my headset as I traveled up the dangerous mountainside toward my Ayurveda Retreat in Coonoor: ACCEPT THE WORLD, JUST AS IT IS.
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Coming to grips with the elephant in the room
I knew I would leave India with a new perspective of life – but the upturning of my worldview has happened in a far different way than I expected. I thought I would arrive home more passionate about social justice, more inspired to make a difference to the lives of “poor” people. Instead I am leaving India with a hardened heart, more humility, and an increased concern for the future of humanity as a whole. Why? Because the population problem, the elephant in the room, is far too big a problem to ignore. And I simply cannot see a solution to this problem.
Before I went to India, as those of you who have read older blog entries would know, I quite idealistically analysed the global inequalities and blamed war and poverty on western greed.
I looked at these graphs of population growth by economy and region, and blamed the population growth on western development.
Why does the population of poor and developing countries suddenly increase in 1940s, and high income countries only increase a little?
What is going on in Asia???
In my mind, the population had increased so much since WW2 simply because of the design of the global capitalist system. Post-development scholars criticise the global system for being imperialistically geared to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor, with the raw materials bought for nothing and sold for billions and so making the rich richer and the poor poorer. I went a step further. It made sense to me that a larger population in developing countries equates to cheap labour, which means cheaper computers, phones, TVs, clothes, cars, chocolate etc. For a government subject at uni I analysed the power-distribution of the system, observing that it is the rich and powerful capitalists who pull the strings behind governments, the World Trade Organisation, the IMF, and other peak bodies. The rich and powerful capitalists I equated to anyone whose lives are not run by debt – those who have shares in companies, money in the bank, superannuation funds, own property without mortgages, own their own business etc. In particular it was the wealthiest of the wealthy – the people who own the banks themselves.
I thought education was the solution. Not education of the poor people, but education of the rich. I thought that if each of us understood the connection between our shopping habits and the mass workers, the connection between our consumption and our future environment, and that the roots of these to problems lay in the capitalist dream: to accumulate more money, then we would begin to move toward a more socially just and environmentally sustainable system.
I thought that the motivation to change our systems would come from a “new dream” that started with rediscovering the connection with our planet, so that we each come to prioritise the whole ecosystem that we are a part of, over and above our individual selfish desires. I thought that this would come from an understanding of Big History, coming to identify ourselves as part of the process of our Universe expanding and increasing in complexity (or what many, including myself, personify as “God”) .
Now, well, now I realize that the answers to the world’s problems are not that simple. There are far deeper roots to this systematic problem than western greed. It seems to me, in this moment in time, that the global system is NOT a simple cause and effect situation with western greed causing global poverty.
For one, inequality is not just a problem in today’s global system, it has always been a problem. Secondly, inequality’s root problem – greed – is not a western problem but is a human problem, a life problem. Thirdly, poverty has cultural, religious and historical roots that have nothing to do with the global system. The caste system existed in India before the British arrived. The caste system is thousands of years old and while Gandhi may have officially abolished it, culture is stronger than law. In India this caste system keeps poor poor and the rich rich, and this has nothing whatsoever to do with global capitalism.
Capitalists may benefit from the fact that China and India are over-populated, and hence human labour is cheap, but capitalists are not standing over these people telling them to have more babies.
Sure there’s the tiny motivational factor of more children equals more money, but talking to Indians at different income levels it seemed to be the cultural aspects (tradition, the values placed on family, lack of entertainment etc) that are behind the population explosion over and above their desire to make money from them. If women get married at 10 and have babies the rest of their life, for cultural reasons over and above any monetary motivation, how can poverty ever be addressed? It is their own actions which perpetuate their poverty and cause the inequalities of the global system to continue.
Should capitalists stop benefiting from cheap labour? That would only mean these people have less job opportunities… that’s not going to help. What if they pay them a little extra, that is, change to a “fair trade” system? This may help a few lives but when people are willing to work for less, because working for less is better than working for nothing, how can such a “fair” system be sustained? How is it “fair” if some people have jobs paying fair wages, while the rest of the billions have no job at all?
Fair trade or free trade, escaping poverty is a choice that people in the situation will collectively have to make for themselves. And unfortunately eradicating poverty requires doing something about that frickin big elephant staring everyone in the face. What? I have NO IDEA. Could this be why so many yogis and religious leaders advise to withdraw from the world and look for peace inside?
And so my worldview crisis…
As a result of the fear that comes from this lack of solutions, the altruistic side that used to dominate my mind is becoming more self-centered: what future do I want for the future generations that spring from the people I love? My previous almost disdain for wealth, thinking all money was intrinsically connected to a corrupt system, is turning into an appreciation of it. Work hard, work smart, then share and enjoy your earnings with your family and friends… what’s so bad about that?
Let’s face it, animal, plant, or human; black, white or in between; this is ultimately life’s instinctive purpose: to live as long as we can, and create offspring to continue our work when we die. That’s why we choose the partners we choose to mate with. That’s why we fight the wars we fight. That’s why we work so hard to buy a house and establish systems of governance, education and business. SELF-PRESERVATION and PROCREATION.
India has given me a new appreciation for the work my ancestors – for their efforts to create a world so good for us, their children. Maybe their methods weren’t so peaceful, with inquisitions, colonialism and imperialism, but let’s face it: it’s not only our ancestors who have done this and if it wasn’t them, it would have been someone else. Before the British invaded India, it was the Moghuls, and before that it was other nations from Central Asia. The British were far from the first, and it is highly unlikely they will be the last.
My experiences in India have left me thinking that if the wealthy of the world did suddenly decide to spread their wealth, to educate the billions in poverty and create a socially-just system; the peace it would create would probably be short-lived and soon all the densely populated places like India would spread to populate the rest of the world. My favourite city would become just like my least favourite, and so would every other city in the world.
I realise my perspective is becoming incredibly selfish, but I do not want people sleeping and dying on our streets; I do not want people trying to rip me off on street corners; I do not want to be living in a dirty, polluted, noisy, over-populated place. In short, I do not want to see Sydney turn into Mumbai. I’m starting to see why Australia’s immigration policy is so strict, and why even with an over-populated planet, our government is encouraging Australians to have more babies…
I mean, just consider the already extremely skewed population distribution, one can’t but help wonder would the long-term effect of the present population trends…
China + India = HALF THE WORLD’S PEOPLE!!!
What will this pie chart look like in ten years if people in the west continue to have fewer babies while the developing world continue to go at it like rabbits? According to http://www.overpopulation.org/ if we continue at our present rates, our population will be over 11 billion by 2035!!! And what then, will Australia still be sitting there with it’s 21 million people? How long will it take for the poverty-stricken masses to turn up on our shores? Am I a horribly cruel person to not want this to happen? With Australia’s rivers drying up there just ain’t enough water for everyone. Nor infrastructure, or systems for food, housing, anything…
And so I worry, might my passionate pursuits to make a more socially just world bring the extinction of my own culture, my country’s wealth and the life style, and all the opportunities our ancestors dedicated their lives to deliver?
While our own culture is no where near perfect, with its insatiable desires and materialistic emptiness, western culture has A LOT to offer: freedom; the scientific quest for knowledge; the creativity that comes from competition; the opportunities for individualistic pursuits. It would be a big shame to lose it in place of an overpopulated communistic uncreative mess.
Think about it, if income was distributed evenly, will the 2 billion women of child-bearing age suddenly decide not to have babies? And, if the wealthy were to even out the income, my new lack-of-faith-in-humanity makes it seem realistic to assume that another group of people would rise up and the same cycles of violence would begin just with a new group of rich and powerful. And, even if this didn’t happen, how long would it take before we would run out of resources (seeing as ecological economists say 10 planets would be required for all people of the world to live an American lifestyle)? Does this mean, simply in attempt to better the lives of people with less money today, all of humanity will die out? I’m sorry, but I don’t think this would be good for anyone involved.
Okay, okay, calm down Juliet, calm down. As you can see there is a lot going through my head. Out of fear I’m becoming defensive. I’m guess I’m still culture-shocked, and struggling to comprehend the reality of our global situation. It’s one thing to see population in a graph but it’s a different kettle of fish to see it with your own eyes. When one’s mind connects such a mess to projections of possible futures for earth and humanity it’s really quite a confusing and scary topic.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t:
- If you consider population control then what about human rights?
- If you don’t control the population then what do you do about the billions living in poverty?
- If you bring people out of poverty then you destroy the planet for everyone.
Now I understand why overpopulation has been the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about.
My conclusion: “Elephant? What elephant??? I don’t see it either!”
Picture credits:
The Elephant in the Room – my own attempt at photoshopping a photo of an elephant from Taronga Zoo into my Opa’s sunroom.
Population graphs – wiki-commons
Good links found here – http://www.athropolis.com/links/pop.htm
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Overnight Change: One day you’re here, the next…
One day a prime minister, the next you’re not. A captain thrown overboard by his crew. Why? Was he really so bad? Was he leading the ship in a direction they didn’t want to go? Was a pirate about to overtake his ship? Was he working his crew too hard? Or is there some other reason they’re not telling us??? Who knows… What I really want to know is if Rudd is out, does that mean we’re saved from the China-inspired Internet censorship proposal? God I hope so.
What is going on at the moment? Why is EVERYTHING changing so fast???
Never have so many changes happened in the span of five weeks. Less changes occurred when I was in Japan for two years. My time in India and Nepal felt like much longer than five weeks. And this sense of time isn’t just in my head, the time dynamic seems to have changed for other people too.
I’ve returned back to Australia to more than just a new prime minister. We have new types of petrol on offer and the standard “unleaded” seems to have disappeared from the tank hoses. Some of my best friends have decided to leave the country or live in the middle of my country, and are in the midst of packing their apartments and bags and jumping a plane within the next couple of weeks. Other friends who have been overseas seem to be coming home within days of those leaving. And amongst this havoc my sister is getting married, I’m speaking at another conference, and I will find out if I have been granted a scholarship that will determine what I do for the next three years. Change. Change. Change.
It’s exciting. It’s scary and weird. There’s definitely a little adrenaline running through my veins… Mr Universe – what next???
While my brain struggles to comprehend the above, I’m very much struggling to process my experiences in India and Nepal, and the readjustment to life in what I now perceive to be a paradise. So… if the upcoming blog entries appear a little haphazard, reflecting a confused state of being, then you know why.
I wonder, are things changing in your world too?
Photo:
My gorgeous friend Lauren, who is heading over to Canada for an undetermined amount of time. Miss you chica!
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Small talk. How will we be remembered?
‘What do you think our generation will be remembered for?’ a friend said at dinner.
‘The generation who ruined the planet for everyone.’ I replied without a thought.
‘I was thinking more about what architecture style or something… but….’
Oops. Yep – I’m great at small talk.
Did I really believe it, those words that came out of my mouth? I thought I was optimistic about our future. I thought I believed we were really going to change things. I think for the most part I do, it’s just the small cynic inside of me that doubts. And when I see the lifestyles people around me, and the lifestyle I myself live, I do start to wonder if this actually can change.
I spent $70 on a lunch yesterday. On ONE LUNCH FOR ONE PERSON. No one else on the table blinked. Do you know how many people that could feed for a week? Well if a third of the world are living on less than a dollar a day, that could finance not one meal, but A DAY’S WORTH OF FOOD, WATER, SHELTER, MEDICINE etc FOR SEVENTY PEOPLE. It was a nice lunch, but does that justify it?
All money is connected to poverty. We buy raw materials from the developing world for pittance, and process and trade it (or trade paper that represents it) to make millions. Whether we earn our money through accounting, banking, stock markets, blah blah blah – the money is dirty because the core elements of all our products are produced through the economic slavery of people in developing countries. In order to address this issue, the system needs to change, and the system will change with the people benefiting from the system (ie people like me) want the system to change, and are happy to forgo our luxurious lifestyles and earn money that has the same buying power as the money earned by cocoa bean pickers and cotton producers.
But in a world where people spend $20,000+ on ONE PARTY (my sister is getting married), $100,000+ on ONE CAR (believe it or not, my Dad), or $70 on ONE LUNCH (me) – and where such consumption habits are the cause of poverty and the destruction of our environment – I have to wonder: CAN WE REALLY CHANGE?
Photo:
I took this in Lima – those colourful houses in the distance are a slum where thousands of people live in extreme poverty.
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Free Documentaries: The Truth Is Free
Bored? Never! Check out this website: http://freedocumentaries.org/index.php
In particular I recommend:
Manufacturing Consent – Noam Chomsky … if you haven’t seen this one you better watch it NOW!
The War on Democracy – The US manipulates politics of South America
The Power of Nightmares – The rise of the Religious Right in America, and Islamic Fundamentalists.
Jesus Camp – SCARY!
The Story of God – explores the history of humanity’s search for our creator.
Zeitgeist – as I mentioned yesterday – a must see.
The Corporation – Damn corporations.
The 11th Hour – Leonardo Dicaprio carries on from “inconvenient” message Al Gore shared with us.
And I’m sure heaps more are great. Check it out!!!
Photo credit:
I sneakily snapped this photo in a museum in Peru or Ecuador (no cameras allowed) – they are little Inca statues in erotic positions… You can actually buy packs of cards that each have a picture of a different statue in a different tantric-sex-like pose. I bought some as a gift, now wish I had them to show hehehe funny stuff. How fun is exploring different cultures! I wonder what India has in store for me next month…. okay, I gotta stop yabbering. Enjoy your weekend!
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The Spirit of the Times (Zeitgeist)
In the hidden-away tranquility beneath the branches of large shadowy trees, in the Secret Garden hostel in a mysterious little town called Vilcabamba, in Ecuador December 2008, I met a man with white hair and a white beard. It was from this man that I first learned of the Zeitgeist…
The word “Zeitgeist” comes from the German word Zeit, which means time, and Geist, which means spirit.
So basically Zeitgeist means the “spirit of the times” and according to wikipedia this means the “general cultural, intellectual, ethical, spiritual, and/or political climate within a nation or even specific groups, along with the general ambience, morals, and sociocultural direction or mood of an era (similar to the English word mainstream or trend).”
The first part of the first movie (entitled The Greatest Story Ever Told) looks at religion, describes the worship of the Sun, the anthropomorphism of astrological constellations, of an ancient and ongoing battle between Horus and Set, or Light and Darkness, with each morning Horus winning and providing us warmth and vision, and Set conquering as our nights set in. The celebration of the birth of the Sun would occur on the Winter equinox (the 25th of December), where from then on the days would get longer.
The second part (entitled All The World’s a Stage) looks at the theory that September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center were an inside job.
Part 3 (entitled Don’t Mind the Men Behind the Curtain) looks at the waging of war for the economic gain of international bankers.
The sequel to the movie is called Zeitgeist: Addendum explains “fractional reserve banking”, shows how debt makes us economic slaves that must submit to employment in order to live. How’s this for a quote:
“Physical slavery requires people to be housed and fed. Economic slavery requires people to feed and house themselves.”
A confronting lens from which to interpret reality, isn’t it.
The second part of the sequel is mainly interviews with John Perkins, the ex-CIA economic hit man and the author of “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”, a New York Times best seller that is now also a film). Perkins writes:
Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly-paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign “aid” organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet’s natural resources.
The final part of the Zeitgeist sequel leaves some points of hope, with futurist Jacque Fresco providing a vision of a “resource-based economy” based on abundance rather than the current monetary-based economy based on scarcity. The vision is known as The Venus Project, and it involves the use of magnetic and geotechnologies that have allegedly been suppressed for political and monetary gains that could help us adapt to environmentally friendly and sustainable lifestyles. These technologies sound fantastic, but they need more research and development and hence more funding, which the capitalist system prevents them getting as it gives preference to policies like carbon tax which bandaid a solution rather than looking to solve the actual cause. I don’t know if all that is said is possible, but it’s refreshing and powerful to visualise and imagine.
The last part of this movie turns to our society’s values, oppressive laws, and irrelevant superstitions, and points to a collective ignorance that leads it.
The films have been criticised for containing material that is partially true, and some that is complete bogus, used mainly to ‘maximize an emotional response at the expense of reasoned argument’ which as a result undermines ‘legitimate questions about what happened on 9/11, and about corruption in religious and financial organizations.’[1]
Still even if some details are added for emotional oomph, it seems to me that the core issues they discuss are real issues. They may not have referenced all of their sources but finding sources to support the gist of what they talk about is not hard to find. This documentary is available for free online and is absolutely worth watching, as long as all it’s details are not taken as gospel.
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
The core messages in the film are strong, I think it does a good job to capture the spirit of our times, and provide at least some direction and vision as to where we are going. It is for sure that humanity together must seek the emergent and the symbiotic. Throughout history people have desired to fit and uphold the norm, otherwise they are ostracized by their society. But the perpetuation of a closed worldview is not positive for society. It is destructive. Fundamentalist religions are psychologically distorting the idea of faith. The new is ignored in favor of outdated beliefs. We misinterpret myths as literal events. Consider the paradigm shifts of the last two millennia: heliocentric to geocentric and beyond. What we know today was unimaginable 2000 years ago. To be proven wrong should be celebrated. Fluid perpetual change must be embraced. There is no such thing as static knowledge. Nothing is ever static.
We have to stay open to new information at all times; even if challenges our present beliefs.
When the pupil is ready, a teacher will show up. Read a Zen proverb on a gift card in a little art shop in a small Vilcamamban street. It is overwhelming to consider the problems of our worldwide system and their deep historic roots. But what matters is not how we can change the world, but how we can change ourselves. It starts with being ready to learn. I am ready.
And on that note, guess what teacher is showing up in town (my town, ie Sydney)???… JACQUE FRESCO!!! Next Friday the 23rd April 2010, for the Venus Project World Lecture Tour. He’s speaking at my uni – Sydney University - and tickets are open, just under $30, and available here … I hope to see you there!
[1] ^ Chapman, Jane (2009). Documentary in Practice: Filmmakers and Production Choices. Polity Press. p. 171–173.
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An Aristocratic Future
‘If a single phrase could encapsulate society in 2015 it would be “more difference and starker differences”.
Those differences will be between individuals and households: those with high skill levels and those without; those with property-related inherited wealth and those without; those who are fit and healthy and those who are not; those in traditional households and those who are not.
There will be differences between communities: those that are ethnically mixed and those that aren’t; those with access to employment opportunities that match the new global economy and those without; those that are casualties of environmental pressures and those successfully responding to them.’
Phil Swann in The Guardian, Wednesday 10 May 2006
Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2006/may/10/guardiansocietysupplement.localgovernment1
It’s crazy to imagine the growth and speed of life continuing at this increasingly exponential pace. If Sydney prices keep rising as they are, which they probably will if the population continues to increase as it’s supposed to, then soon young people will NEVER be able to buy into the market. That means you either inherit property, or you rent for life. And I guess the more people who want to rent, the high the rents will be. And if income separation continues it we will simply see greater and greater division between the haves and the have-nots, even within our own society. Either your born wealthy, or you’re not. I’m not so up on the political lingo but isn’t that an aristocracy?
I guess one response to this would be to freak out, try to earn as much money as possible, and buy into the market while we still have a chance – “secure” a future for ourselves and our children. But then again, what happened to the aristocracies of the past? Doesn’t aristocracy lead to revolutions of proletarians and heads being chopped off? I need to read up on my history so don’t quote me on this one!
I do know that if we continue down the path we are going the planet won’t be habitable for that much longer. So I say screw it! I really don’t feel like becoming a stress pot with a mortgage – I’d rather live my life, enjoy the moments, and putting my efforts toward bigger futures than the securing of a couple of generations of property inheritance. I could spend my life aiming at owning a house and waste my life in the process. No one what’s going to happen in the future: currencies can be worthless overnight; countries can be invaded; heck, aliens or meteors may even be headed our way. Either way with population rates I doubt our lifeways are just going to potter along without much change. Change is our only certainty.
That being said when my book becomes a best-seller I might just buy a little apartment, or an island (with mango trees, a few wood-cabins, and not much else), and if ends up being the later then you’re all invited 
Picture Credits:
Melissa Smith
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Sex or chess? Peace, the world’s trump card
So yesterday I enjoyed a little rant about the game our governments, supported by the people’s consumer-driven values, are playing with military pawns, strategically placed towers, and other oil-powered weaponry. We established the difficulty in knowing what sources we can trust, but decided that either way whatever moral and immoral tactics the governments are using with their present day “war of wants”, it is the westerners that gain the lifestyle benefits of cheap clothes and food and transport and travel. I am absolutely a beneficiary of this, and I must say I’m glad to be on my side of the fence. But we also established that our state of being is temporary. One day, if we keep playing this zero-sum game, someone else will be the winner and we will be the losers. I left you with a hint of hope: is there another way?
I believe there is a trump card. And that trump card is PEACE.
Ok, ok, don’t close down your browser just yet. I know it’s cliché. And I’m getting to the sex bit.
I think that there’s a difference lifestyle and world system out there that is more satisfying for each of us both mentally, physically and spiritually. What I am talking about is a world system not based on consumption and capital acquisition and an excessive usage of our world’s resources. It’s NOT based on competition, win-lose, on war and violence. What I’m talking about is a PARADIGM SHIFT. A change of game.
A shift from win-lose to win-win; a shift from competition to cooperation; a shift from a world based on limited supply to a world based on infinite creativity. It is crazy that people in the developing world die from hunger while people in the developed world die from obesity. One party has too much, the other has too little. Over the last couple of hundred years or so we have quite ironically and erratically set ourselves up in a lose-lose situation.
It is ridiculous that people in the developed world suffer from self-imposed stress-related illness and depression, and the developing world suffer from lack of self-determination that comes as a consequence of our material and superficial values. They work 17-hour days behind a sewing machine to provide us with more clothes we do not need. They work 17-hour days producing wheat and sugar, to create more unhealthy “foods” to make us fat. WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON HERE?
There are hundreds of ways that this absurd system can be fixed. And everyone has a part to play.
Governments: shift the billions of dollars from defence budgets, stop filling up your troops with McDonalds style BBQ foods, and invest in addressing the roots of the conflicts – invest in sustainable cradle-to-cradle designs of products, houses and transport facilities. Be transparent. Create a true democracy.
Voters: vote for governments who put their money where there mouth is, that support the long-term future of humanity. Write letters to your representatives, tell them what you want.
Consumers: spend the extra on the products and services that are sustainable and buy less of the products that are not. Buy fair trade where you can. Write letters to companies and tell them what you want.
Shareholders: you are accountable for your investments. Your money has a consequence not only on the profit you receive in your profit, but also on the social and environment and political situation of your country, of the countries involved in the trade process – which will have an affect on you and your children. Tell the CEOs and MDs of the companies you are invested in what you want them to do with that money.
Bank account holders: your money you put in the bank is then invested in shares – so find out where your money is and make sure your bank knows your values.
Business decision makers: look at the outcome of your company’s actions and your decisions – not only in terms of profit for shareholders, but in terms of people and our planet. Where are your Inputs coming from? Where, after purchase and consumptions, are the remnants of your Outputs (including packaging) being disposed of? How could your product be designed better, so that it’s materials can be not only recycled but are “up-cycled” and used infinitely in the biological and industrial metabolisms? The aim is ZERO waste.[1]
Rich people: did you know that the 225 richest people in the world could provide the $40 billion needed to create a world where everyone has access to food, shelter, education, safe water, sanitation and healthcare [2]? So get off your ass and encourage mates to do so too. Invest in “social businesses” aimed purely at achieving a social or ecological objective. Your money alone can change the world!!!
Workers: look at the company you work for – what product are they creating? Is it good for the environment? Good for people? Where do they get their inputs? What toll does this have on people and the planet? Communicate your thoughts with your bosses. Think creatively – how can things be improved?
Media: try to report more than just the violence – tell people about the peace movements, give people the biggest picture you can get. I know it’s tough given your limited sources.
Basically we must THINK GLOBAL ACT LOCAL. We each can make a difference and together we can change the world.
Imagine if we can shift from looking at the world as game of chess, to seeing it more like, hmmm, more like SEX…
Imagine if the world was a place of making love – a game where there are only winners, and there are no losers. A game where each party feels more pleasure, the more pleasure they provide to the other. A game where energy is created, and not taken away. A game where the happiness and joy and creativity is infinite. A game of utter satisfaction and never-ending joy and happiness. And with no ecological footprint. Now that’s my kind of world.
Did my peace card trump your defense card? DOES SEX TRUMP CHESS? Is it time to change the game?
References:
[1] William McDonough & Michael Braungart (2002) Cradle To Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, North Point Press.
[2] L. Schirch (2002) “Human Rights and Peacebuilding: Towards Justpeace”. Paper presented to the 43rd Annual International Studies Association Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana, 24-27 March 2002.
Picture Credits:
Dormice® (click to see more of his incredible art) Sawan Yawnghwe - A very successful Canadian artist based in Panzano – Florence, Italy. My distant friend.
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The world is a game of chess
“War is like a chess game – operated by a few key people, everyone else doing what they are told.” “In war, who is the real enemy? The real enemy is war itself.” War is “preserving democracy, not practicing it.” Crimson Tide
I was talking with some army boys at a party on the weekend. You know, a casual debate about whether or not Saddam Hussain and Osama Bin Laden were once on the CIA payroll. Academic Scholarship vs Military Intelligence. Justice vs Defence. Peace vs Violence. It got just a little bit heated.
It’s crazy when you live in a world where you don’t know which source you can trust. My source was Jeffrey Sachs, a world-renowned professor from Columbia University in New York. Sachs says the US has:
‘thrown elections though secret CIA financing, put foreign leaders on CIA payrolls, and supported violent leaders who then came back to haunt the United States in a notorious boomerang or “blowback” effect (including Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, both once on the CIA payroll).’[1]
Sach also summarises the historically ‘notorious acts of U.S. unilateralism’ including:
‘The CIA-led overthrows of several governments (Iran, Guyana, Guatemala, South Vietnam, Chile), the assassinations of countless foreign officials, and several disastrous unilateral acts of war (in Central America, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Iraq).‘[2]
But hey, I suppose even world-renowned scholars may not have access to the same kind of army intelligence… I guess there is no way to know… So much for democracy…
What I really got out of this conversation was a reminder of the widespread approach to world relations that is not unlike a massive game of chess. A couple of powerful humans move groups of humans and weapons in a zero-sum game where the winner gets the oil, power and the money, and the loser and loser’s pieces, become the winner’s slaves.
Thousands of American troops are placed on bases in all the pivotal positions around the world. Massive little American states with thousands of troops and their wives and children, complete with schools, churches and shopping malls. I visited a couple in Japan as my boyfriend at the time was playing gaijin rugby matches there. It was like a mini trip home besides the very disappointing discovery that an American BBQ is nothing like an Aussie one (think McDonald “beef” patties on white starchy buns)…
Oops I got side-tracked. Back to the chess game.
So what I realised (and somehow remembered through my hangover the next day), is that these military bases and weapons, are positioned and used to manipulate the world however those in power so desire. They can use weapons to block off a channel between two countries and prevent their trade. They can use weapons to overpower governments who do not cooperate with their requests. Weapons are power. Money is power. And at the moment the power is on our side.
When looking at the world through a defense-oriented lens it is hard to imagine a world not dominated by subjugation and violence. It’s America’s turn to win a few games, with their pieces (including people in other western countries) the beneficiaries. Does it matter if Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were on the CIA payroll (which really truly the academic world believes to be so)? Does it matter if our governments initiate wars solely to secure oil (and hence weapons and power) and other resources (including human labour)? Would we westerners want it any other way? You see, if our governments do not support these conflicts, our luxurious western lifestyles (complete with stressful jobs, debts, and the perpetual dissatisfaction that materialism and capital acquisition brings) will be under threat. Believe it or not it in a capitalist world it is the consumers and capital acquisitionists who hold the power (if you have a bank account and own a computer, this includes you) – so we must ask ourselves: WHAT DO WE WANT???
Or forget it. Never mind. It’s only the hardest question in the world to answer… maybe it’s better not to think about it.
Playing by the rules of this game, I can imagine that before long China will have improved their chess-playing skills and take over as champion, with America becoming loser and westerners the world’s new slaves. In a world based on power and violence, this is a zero-sum game with winners and losers. So enjoy either we enjoy it while we are on top and await the tables to turn, or??? … Maybe, just maybe, is it possible to change the rules of the game?
I think so, and I’m going to my thoughts on that with you tomorrow.
References:
[1] Jeffrey Sachs, Common Wealth : Economics for a Crowded Planet (London: Allen Lane, 2008). p. 12.
[2] Jeffrey Sachs, Common Wealth : Economics for a Crowded Planet (London: Allen Lane, 2008). pp. 11-12.
Picture credits:
Again one I found on my computer – if anyone knows it’s source please let me know.