The Uberwelt War Machine

America is at war, it appears, and against its own citizens in some cases; at least the unimportant ones.

Wars between nations are generally over territory and resources. Driven from the top, war focuses on some power or wealth at the expense of others. Individuals become progressively less valuable, more expendable and insignificant as you move down the chain of command. They matter less. 

Interestingly, we find that same wealth and power are the focus on Wall Street and in the international markets.  Lacking the freedom of former despots to invade a region and kill the residents, financiers create new ways to extract wealth and resources from others.  Others who matter less.

Wall Street and the EU spent two decades leading to the crash of '07/08.  Too big to fail, they were rewarded by governments at the expense of citizenry.  At the periphery, millions died.

“Globalization is the result of powerful governments, especially that of the United States, pushing trade deals and other accords down the throats of the world’s people to make it easier for corporations and the wealthy to dominate the economies of nations around the world without having obligations to the peoples of those nations.” — Noam Chomsky 

Thomas Jefferson said in 1802:
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency ..."

Wall Street and the international financial community, whom government serves unfailingly, have created an uberwelt, an over-world of imaginary wealth and imaginary plays.  It has virtually nothing in common with the real world, the source from which it extracts wealth.  For the moment, the financiers and their political playmates have the upper hand.  The gap between the wealthy and everyone else is widening as it has for decades, now at an impressively accelerating pace.  The inherent instability in such a structure is becoming clear as is the greed and arrogance of those who would facilitate their dream of luxury by burdening the poor to do so.

In 1988, then-Fed chairman Alan Greenspan stated, "What many critics of equity derivatives fail to realize is that the markets for these instruments have become so large not because of slick sales campaigns, but because they are providing economic value to their users."  But not everyone had a good feeling about this financial instrument. In his 2002 Berkshire Hathaway letter to shareholders, company chairman and CEO Warren Buffett expressed his concern with derivatives, referring to them as "weapons of mass destruction."  He wasn't worried enough.  The 'Great Recession' followed.

Didn't the banks pay back the bailout funds with interest?!  Spokespersons for government and industry point to the payback as justification, somehow, for their irresponsible behavior that caused the death of so many. 

• The middle-class lost a percentage of what they had; it will be another decade before they've reached the break-even point; did the payback cover that?  It's only the middle-class; they matter less.
• The poor lost ground and the safety net is strained beyond capacity; did the payback cover that?  It's just those poor; they matter less.
  
• Elsewhere in the world, the price of corn doubled as a result of government mandates for ethanol and Wall Street's misbehavior; five years later, it has yet to recover.  Did the payback cover that?  Oh, never mind; they died; by the hundreds of thousands up and down the east coast of Africa, they starved.  But it's OK, they matter less.  At least to Wall Street and their government playmates, they don't matter at all. (do not follow the link without parental permission)

What goes around comes around, sadly.  If you plant, you harvest.  We needn't concern ourselves with providing the punishment that the greedy deserve; absent a radical change of heart, they've already bought it.

  

Of great concern though is the suffering caused among the less fortunate in our own country and around the world.
  

Feel free to shift sails and join in.  It's a different world than it was just a few years ago.

Some things matter more

( this is NC-17 material )  

Dr. Paul Farmer said it best, perhaps. "The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world."



He's devoted himself to those in need; it's folks in Haiti recently.  Called 'the man who would cure the world' in literature, he's an impressive fellow.  He points to a root; specifically, the idea that some lives matter less.

Things have gotten a bit disjointed in my lifetime.  Murder isn't murder if the child you're killing is still in the womb.  D&C, D&E, chemical poisoning; with D&X, the baby can be completely outside the womb except for the head which you can then crush.  It's not murder if you do it that way.

"Because the cranium represents the largest and least compressible structure, it often requires decompression…  Decompression can be accomplished with forceps or by making an incision at he base of the skull through which the intracranial contents are suctioned. If the fetus is in cephalic presentation (head first) with the calvarium well-applied to the cervix, the surgeon can pierce the calvarium with a sharp instrument and collapse it externally."  It's restricted by law now, but if you do it, you get fined, not charged with murder.  To circumvent the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban, the NAF advises abortionists to kill the baby by injection prior to performing a D&X procedure.   Their lives matter less, of course.

This same bizarre and irrational thinking extends throughout western culture.  My preferences, my wealth, my success are in competition with the lives of others... but they matter less.  

This kind of thinking extends through Congress to Wall Street where making money supersedes due diligence regarding the impact of actions on the world.  We watched dumbstruck in 2007/8 while Wall Street and their international partners committed theft on a global scale and conscienceless murder.  Tens of thousands died.  Some lives matter less.

“Globalization is the result of powerful governments, especially that of the United States, pushing trade deals and other accords down the throats of the world’s people to make it easier for corporations and the wealthy to dominate the economies of nations around the world without having obligations to the peoples of those nations.” - Noam Chomsky

Our nation did perhaps have a noble birth.  Prospects now are for an ignoble end as America joins the ranks of those who forgot whom they serve and why.

It's hard enough for regular folks.  The poor and disenfranchised have no voice in the matter at all, and their circumstances ensure they suffer and die quietly on the outskirts of world awareness.  Shall we leave the discussion quietly and resign ourselves to the emerging status quo?

Not a chance.  Not even a sliver of a chance.  


Issues:
Inequality
Discrimination
Oppression
Segregation
Access 
  Education
  Healthcare
  Employment
  Advancement
Fair treatment
Fair wages
Fair representation
Prejudice
  Hatred
  Injustice
  Marginalization
  Disenfranchisement
Religious extremism
Opportunity denied
Selfishness
  Greed
  Malice
          and
Willingness to do harm to another

We've got some difficult years ahead.  How might we provoke the needed change?



Update July 2016: the fact that someone finds it necessary to say, "black lives matter," suggests the roots are deep, permeating more of our culture than we'd thought.

The Path of the White Rose

Just five years before I was born, a group of university students and their professor launched a small campaign against government policy. They were non-violent, thoughtful, and concerned by the direction government had taken. Conscience required that they take a stand, and they did.

The group was named 'the White Rose'.  They published and covertly distributed around 15,000 pamphlets illuminating the government's policies of oppression and abuse.  They called for citizens to join them and resist what they saw as morally wrong in government.  They even painted anti-government graffiti on government buildings in the capital city.

They continued for just eight months. Three student leaders were captured, tried and sentenced to death by the Nazi People's Court, and executed by guillotine. They were brave to the end. Hans Scholl shouted "Es lebe die Freiheit! (long live freedom!)," as the blade fell.  Other members were captured, tried, and sent to concentration camps or executed.  It was the Spring of 1943.

The White Rose came to represent opposition to tyranny in the German culture, and after the war, members were lauded for acting without interest in personal gain.

Lilo Furst-Ramdohr at 99 years old is a White Rose survivor. She says the student group just could not understand how people had been so easily led into supporting the Nazi Party and its ideology. "They must have been able to tell how bad things were, it was ridiculous."

We're reminded how easily folks were led astray, and how easily they are led astray today.  Rolling along en masse, we line up to be containers of some political ideology, however ambiguous and impractical.

It's perhaps unthinkable to most, when given a choice between two candidates, that perhaps neither is actually acceptable, nor is either party.  And we're reminded also of those who pay the price.

Is there a better way?  Might we venture some distance down the path of the White Rose?

_______________________________________________________

The sixth and final leaflet produced by the White Rose was smuggled out of the country and scattered over Germany by Allied planes.

"The day of reckoning has come, the reckoning of German youth with the most repellent tyranny our nation has ever seen...  The German name will be dishonoured forever if German youth does not rise up, ....  Students! The German nation looks to us!"

Today, every German knows the story of The White Rose. A square at the University of Munich is named after Hans and Sophie Scholl. And there are streets, squares, and schools all over Germany named for the members of The White Rose. 

Perhaps our grown children will similarly say of us, "They must have been able to tell how bad things were, it was ridiculous."
_________________________________________________________________

The World War II death toll was 60+ million.
The child death toll is 600+ million since WWII and all from preventable causes. That's just the children under age 5, and the death of each child was a great loss.  While the overall death rate continues to decline, low income countries still have a child death rate 30x higher than those with high income.

While there are many difficult problems associated with poverty, it's worth remembering that poverty from generation to generation is not chosen by the victims, it is chosen by policy makers and imposed by rules of trade and finance.  Persistent poverty is imposed.

Perhaps our grown children will similarly say of us, "They must have been able to tell how bad things were, it was ridiculous."

In the U.S. today, 20%+ of our children live in poverty. We're the wealthiest country in the world, but the inequality GAP has been growing wider for decades. Our version of capitalism has become more aggressive and destructive, and the impact touches every country in the world. Our government supports big business and the wealthy at the expense of all others.

Wall Street gave us the Great Recession and went home with their multimillion dollar bonuses. In sub-Saharan Africa, the number of hungry people rose by 1 million a year in 2000-05 but by more than 6 million a year between 2007-09 and 2010-12.  

Starvation is perhaps as harsh a death as might be imagined.  For a child, it is a horrifying cruelty.

The world produces enough food to feed everyone. 

World food availability has risen from about 2220 to 2790 kcal/person/day since the '60's. 

Poverty is the principal cause of hunger and starvation, of course. 
The causes of poverty include lack of personal resources, an unequal income distribution, crisis and conflict, and predatory economics. The World Bank estimates there are 896 million poor people in developing countries who live on $1.90 a day or less.

See the UN report.
See the factors.

Update - Summer 2019:  Our government continues down the road of big business, of corporate influence, and of economic policies that have proven detrimental. Our political culture is more divided than at any time since the Civil War.  The world of common folks is progressively more difficult, and as a nation, we're sometimes making matters worse.  And children remain in poverty, ours and others.

Perhaps our grown children will similarly say of us, "They must have been able to tell how bad things were, it was ridiculous."

I protest (understatement of the century), and fortunately, I'm not likely to be arrested for doing so.  That's one small step forward.

What you see

What you see is what you are.     ??

That is NOT what we want to hear.  If it's true, it's a problem.


It means we have to decide what we're going to watch... or not watch... and what we're going to let our kids watch... and what kind of video games ...  nuts.

Can't I watch violent stuff without becoming violent?  Of course I can.

But does it shape my thinking in any way?  Of course it does.

Observational learning is the addition to thought processes by what we see portrayed.  Kids do it.  Teens do it.  Adults do it.  Old folks do it too.  It's not a new idea, but perhaps newly acknowledged in some respects.   Patterns and contexts we see are added to our thinking, to our view of things.

So now comes the problem of free speech and free press.  With our newscasts, we sensationalize the worst in human behavior.  Destructive behavior becomes a world-wide story; perhaps the mentally fractured fellow that shot up a school.  Did you know that the Sandy Hook shooter was attempting to surpass the Norwegian mass killer's body count?

News is portrayed for revenue, not for objectivity or for benefit to the citizenry.  News agencies compete for viewers, and revenue decides which stories are told and how they are portrayed.  Is there a threshold beyond which harm is likely?  Of course.

On television this season, an example
of perhaps what might be considered
beyond a reasonable threshold.
Should we put this in our own
or our children's minds?  Is
there risk in doing so?

Ratings protect children to some degree, and they imply that adults are immune or can choose wisely.  Neither is true, as we all know from personal experience.

So we sensationalize the violence in our world.  We tell the detailed stories of deviant and violent behavior; then others latch on and consider what it might be like.  To kill innocent people.  Because we popularize it with our news.  And our video games.  And our television drama.  Like 'The Following', a new series this season about a serial killer who builds a network of serial killers.  It's a popular show, but the question of what such portrayals feed into our society remains unexamined.

We've recognized that some violent behaviors are at least in part a result of mental dysfunction.  We've also recognized that they wouldn't have thought of it unless the behavioral type were in some manner illustrated for them.

It's an ancient idea; some things should not be publicly detailed.  For every reasonable crowd who listens and is informed, there's a taint left behind in each individual.  You're aware of it sometimes when at the end of a show, you feel soiled somehow.  Some will watch and perhaps be inspired, even titillated by the story.  How do you balance that one?

On a list of things that perhaps shouldn't be publicly detailed /fictionalized /sensationalized:

Xxxxxxxxxxx
Xxxx and xxx
Xxxxxx xxxxxxx

Know what I mean?

Oh, and xxxxxx on the internet, perhaps as well.

“Where the mind goes, the man follows.
For as he thinks in his heart, so is he”

Noel Jones, in “The Battle for the Mind” states that, "Once a man accepts the world’s thoughts and puts them into practice, it becomes the character and core of who he is.  He is giving someone else control of his mind and destiny.  Adopting the mannerisms of the crowd, he is no longer an original, but a copy.  You are not in control of your own mind, you are being controlled -- according to the definition of conformed -- by something or someone else.  That means you are living a masquerade; you have picked up and copied the world’s mannerisms, speech, expressions, and style.  Those have become embedded in your mind; you are conformed to the world’s behaviors and standards."

We begin to understand why Paul would suggest we should focus 'on things above...'.  It's practical advice which he explains at length. With the religion removed, it makes sense. You are what you see, what you focus on, what you give your attention to.

Egypt, Syria, Libya, Yemen, ... Spring

Freedom and justice, fair government and a citizen's rights, all have a continuing cost. 

Such things don't just appear in a moment; they're the result of the will and labor of the people. One by one, thugs and criminals must be dealt with, corrupt politicos among them, until righteousness begins to emerge. It's hard work. It's everybody's work. It is the daily breath of democracy.

Deliberate Divergence

Mainstream: it is the common and current thinking of 

the majority. It happens.  Some choose otherwise.

Abandoning the mainstream ... and doing so without criticism or judgement; just looking for a better way. 

So, is there an adequate reason to go along with the crowd? Any reason?

It's a troublesome question. 
If I say no, then there's a whole lot of work I have to do instead of just letting the mainstream decide for me.  

Status quo?  or change.  

"We all know something's wrong.

At first I thought it was just me. Then I stood before twenty thousand Christian college students and asked, "How many of you have read the New Testament and wondered if we in the church are missing it?" When almost every hand went up, I felt comforted. At least I'm not crazy."   ~ Francis Chan


Seven Questions:

1. The disciples asked, "who then can be saved?" What was the answer? What does it really mean? 
2. Why is Christianity so unpopular in the western world, especially with younger folks? 
3. How much of western Christianity is the real thing? What parts?
4. What are the criticisms of Christian thinking now? Why?
5. What effect does wealth have on relationships? (this is huge!)
6. If you were to pick an activity to fulfill your purpose, what would it be?
7. Who do you admire? Why?

Gut check.

Your goals are chosen.  They're well established.  Those are the targets you'll hit.

Either by convention and social norm or perhaps by deliberate choice, we focus our lives on a particular set of results.  If we're careless, our goals are the same that everyone has.  The common path is easy to find and follow.

The gateway is open and the path is wide and many find and follow it; it's the one that leads to ... well, you know.

The common path:
My life, My friends and school,
My family and house,
My education, My job,

My career and advancement
possessions and wealth
retirement and end

In it all, we hope to find happiness for ourselves, perhaps.

... but we can choose.
There are nobler goals.

If you have ...

In the background, those are our friends.     

It takes awhile to understand how many stunning truths there are in such concepts as these.  Seeing and not turning away is difficult.

Turn away, like everyone does from TV shots of hungry kids, and you're normal.  Or perhaps typical.  But if you were to decide to change the world, where would you start?

Go see for yourself.  Or ask us.

Qayin and Havel

Qayin, so the historical account tells us, killed Havel.

There's no record of the weapon used or of any interest in what it might have been.  At issue is not the weapon but the killing.  It was perhaps because of jealousy, but we don't really know.  After Qayin (Cain) killed his brother Havel (Abel), no one lamented over the weapon.

Our deeper  question, why might he have done it? What was the real reason?

Heart issues remain the more important ones, but they're hard to face and even harder to address effectively.  It's perhaps understandable that we might move on to less relevant targets and focus our efforts there.

The Arab Spring, Tahrir Square, Egypt - Christians
guarded Muslims, and Muslims guarded Christians
during the violent times.

 

 

In any endeavor, the hard questions are often the more important.

Falling back on gun control as an easier solution ignores the obvious, that murderous behavior is not brought about by the available weapon.

Not wise, but certainly understandable.  Tackling the actual cause would require of us a measure of greatness, of courage, of nobility, would it not?

Above average

Above average..?  But of course we are!

Folks in the job market today find themselves being examined and ranked for intelligence, education, experience, talent, ...
... competitive criteria for comparing one against another, perhaps.  It's as though there's a scale upon which you might find yourself, and it's tempting to believe there's something significant about your position on that scale, too.

In a given business circumstance, talent could make the difference.  Or intelligence might do it.  Or education, perhaps, will make the critical difference in the marketplace.  Is that what we want or need?

When was the last time employers thoughtfully considered wisdom, courage, or integrity as criteria for hiring.  Three decades, perhaps?  These traits are present or absent; it's not a competition, not a scale.

Meaningless innuendo unless you're a geek.  :)

But do we need these traits any more in our western world?

• Would a wise man press ahead here?  
• Would a courageous woman back down from that roadblock?  
• Would a person of integrity accept tasking along those lines?  

We struggle with these questions, hoping to go beyond the requirements of law to those of conscience and virtue.  It's the difference between deal makers and world changers.

Short version; when it falls to you, you're on your own; do the next right thing!

The above is a condensed extract from a few years of struggle.  Do I do what I'm told?  Yes, but only if ....  Do I follow the well-worn path others have created?  No, unless research supports ....  Am I being pig-headed or restrained by conscience?  To both, yes, but the guiding principle ....  Unfortunately, there are few simple answers.  
Did we expect it to be this difficult?  :)  OK, ok, ... wait a minute; this is really hard!  Nuts.

blessed/cursed ... blessed?

How do you like the 21st century so far?  

Everything on an even keel?

Which is it????

Sometimes we're told that those blessed with house and car and food and happiness are the ones favored by God.

And by extension, those without such blessings are perhaps without the same favor.  Or maybe they have  been robbed by the devil.

Can we make sense of that?

Wealth equals blessing and favor from God, the best of life ...

And ...
Poverty equals the worst ... it's where none of the blessings show up.

The favored of God have all these blessings; they don't need to pray 'daily bread' prayers.  They have no occasion of begging for help or crying out for justice.  They won't need to take a stand against the world.

Their children, those of these 'favored folks'; they have everything they need and more.  They're blessed with free schools and lots of television shows and places to go with their friends.  They have no worries about whether they'll go to high school and maybe college too.  They have little need to participate in feeding themselves or the rest of the family.  They don't need to tend a garden or understand why a crop might succeed.  They're the favored of God, they are.  For sure.

How's our world doing?
Right-side up?  Or not.

Dad grew up on an Oklahoma farm during the
Depression.  His perspective on pigs was from
first-hand experience.  'Happiness is for pigs',
he'd say and smile.  'Joy, however,

is divine!'

Realistically, quality of life as viewed from inside a western perspective seems to be a blessing in direct relationship to the level of wealth and luxury involved.  Is freedom from hardship truly a blessing?  Does a biblical worldview offer more information?

Can I give myself to a western lifestyle and be a true believer at the same time?  Where are the conflicts?  Can I invest most of my days for most of my life in accumulating possessions and net worth?  Is there a conflict between that and some other purpose or calling?

We wonder why faith might be ridiculed.  Perhaps it's because what's visible is, like much of western thinking, just a bit upside-down.

Is there a right-side up perspective?  What might the foundation pieces be?

Curious where the money went?

The great recession, or so the period has been called, has had a price tag.  It equates to the loss of about ten years economic progress for the working classes.  They've lost ground, and it will take about a decade to break even, more or less, for those who have the time and income available.  The poor lost more.

Not everybody lost out, though.  The rich actually continued to increase in annual income, further widening the gap between the wealthy and everyone else.

Prince Bandar Bin Sultan sells his luxurious 

Aspen, Colorado estate to Hedge Fund billionaire

Then there are the heavy hitters in hedge-fund and private equity businesses. Along with the investment bankers, these are the very people who have been blamed for the current financial woe’s of the world.  Of the world!  These very few people have become super rich, and while the global economy is in turmoil around us, they get to sail off into the sunset with bulging pockets, to lay back and wait for the next set of opportunities that will come along.

There are men and women in the finance industry who have made millions or hundreds of millions while delivering a deadly blow to the world. They did so knowingly without conscience or remorse, as best we've been able to determine. None have even begun to acknowledge the losses for which they are responsible.  Or the deaths.

In Africa, the number of chronically hungry people rose by 1 million a year in 2000-05 and by more than 6 million a year beginning in 2007-12.  That doesn't mean they're hungry because they missed a meal; it means they are starving.  With most of family income spent on corn meal, when prices doubled in 07, 400,000 deaths are attributable to Wall Street for the first recession year in eastern Africa alone.

Karma is only a killer if you are, someone said, intending to be humorous.  You wonder though, what it will be like for the greed-players after living a life of wealth and luxury, to realize that they are among the most loathsome of all of mankind, that they were selfish and brutal beyond measure, that their arrogance and hubris were visible through it all, and that they were the deceivers and murderers of innocent children and families. 

We hope for better.

It isn't news!

It isn't news.  It isn't even factual.  It is, however, a humorous illustration of media editorial practices.

The CNN Health article suggests that husbands who share household chores have sex less frequently than husbands who stick with the traditional role. 

In fact, they say that there are three categories regarding husbands, chores, and sex.

• Husbands who don't do chores.  Most sex.
• Husbands who don't do girly chores.  Middle.
• Husbands who share doing chores.  Least sex.

And they say they're going to tell you why!  They don't.  If you'd like, you can read the article and draw your own conclusions, but you'll want to note a couple of things.

(1) the article is written to attract and perhaps hold an audience, not inform, and (2) the report behind their article doesn't actually support the headline.  There are conflicting studies, conflicting interpretations of the data, and a variety of unaddressed influences.

Much of what we're offered in these venues isn't news.  Often, it seems headlines and soundbites are not journalism, and they (the legitimate journalists themselves) may be disappearing.


Simplistic presentations of semi-sensational information (it's about SEX!) are perhaps revealing about news media in general.  The major players appear more concerned with ratings than with relevance or accuracy.  Entertainment rules.  Attempts at objectivity and balance are short-lived.

The media (and the administration, interestingly)  responded to the recent school mass shooting by joining the popular focus on gun control.  They do know better.  After Columbine, the father of two victims addressed a congressional subcommittee on the cause and solution.

Darrell Scott, father of 2 Columbine victims, speaks to Congress
May 27. 1999
Mr. Scott lost his daughter, his son is recovering.

"Since the dawn of creation, there has been both good and evil in the hearts of men and women, and we all contain those seeds: We contain the seeds of kindness and we contain the seeds of violence. And the death of my wonderful daughter, Rachel Joyce Scott, and the deaths of that heroic teacher, and the other 11 children who died, must not be in vain. Their blood cries out for answers. 

The first recorded act of violence was when Cain slew his brother Abel out in the field. The villain was not the club he used ... the true killer was Cain, and the reason for the murder could only be found in his heart. In the days that followed the Columbine tragedy, I was amazed at how quickly fingers began to be pointed at groups such as the NRA. I am not a member of the NRA, I am not a hunter, I do not even own a gun, I'm not here to represent or to defend the NRA, because I don't believe they are responsible for my daughter's death, therefore I don't believe they need to be defended by me. If I believed that they had anything to do with Rachel's murder, I would be their strongest opponent. I am here today to declare that Columbine was not just a  tragedy; it was a spiritual event which should be forcing us to look at where the real blame lies. Much of that blame lies here in this room - much of that blame lies behind the pointing fingers of the accusers themselves."

Mr. Scott goes on to say with clarity that guns are not the problem and gun control is not the solution.  The problem is a heart problem, not a law problem.   Neither the media nor the administration have yet risen to the larger issues or to acknowledged their shortsightedness.  Joe Biden admitted yesterday, "Nothing we're going to do is going to fundamentally alter or eliminate the possibility of another mass shooting ...," Biden told reporters.   We all knew that.  It's strangely quiet on the real issues.

Addressing the root causes remains 'out of bounds' for both the administration and the media.  There are no headlines about our cultural departure from character and grace, from fairness and honesty, from love and compassion.  From godliness, perhaps.  So who's left?  You, me, and perhaps the church, I suppose.  Meanwhile in the media ...  the debate over 'not the problem' gun control.

When they tell you it's 'THE NEWS', it probably isn't.  Just diversions.