Decades of lies, and history repeats itself

E.g.; Tobacco companies lied for decades about health issues. 

• In 2006 a U.S. district judge ruled that U.S. cigarette makers had knowingly lied about the dangers of smoking for decades.
• The tobacco companies were forced to publish statements saying that they had deceived the American public about the dangers of smoking and disclosing that smoking “kills more people than murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes, and alcohol combined, and that ‘secondhand smoke kills over 38,000 Americans a year.’”
• By the time they were forced to come forward with the truth, we all knew they were liars anyway, and it was too late for the millions killed, sickened, or deformed by tobacco smoke.
• Their policy of lies is indescribably wicked, forfeiting lives in favor of profits.

E.g.; Similarly, Wall Street's 'too big to fail' behemoths lied and manipulated governments for regulatory change which they exploited for trillions at the expense of everyone else in the world, literally.

• They have provided no benefit and brought both risk and harm to the world, as was pointed out by the UK finance minister.  More than a million died as a result of the Great Recession alone.  Compensation for players was magnificent, billions extracted from the marketplace where trillions were lost by everyone else.  
• Their policy of lies is indescribably wicked, deliberately extracting wealth from individuals and nations for the financial benefit of a few.  

E.g.; In similar fashion, the fossil fuel industry has been concealing information about their products since the 1970s.

• Exxon has recently acknowledged that climate change has begun, due in large part to the burning of fossil fuels.  They attempted to hide that truth for decades, a deliberate misrepresentation detailed in a Harvard study of internal corporate correspondence.  Inside Climate News explains further how Exxon’s own research confirmed the role of fossil fuel in climate change decades ago (1977). 

They saw clearly and chose unethically.

• Exxon (and others) conducted cutting-edge climate research and then, without revealing what it had learned, worked at the forefront of climate denial, manufacturing doubt about the scientific consensus that its own scientists had confirmed more than thirty years earlier.  Documents from company archives and interviews with research participants have unveiled the corporate decision to misrepresent the facts.   (All the companies knew.  Members of an American Petroleum Institute task force on CO2 included scientists from nearly every major oil company, including Exxon, Texaco and Shell.)
• By the time we discovered their scheme, we all knew they had been obscuring the truth anyway, and much damage was done. It is too late to fully stem the environmental and ecological damage.  The result, it will detrimentally affect every future generation.
• For the companies, their policy of lies is indescribably wicked, forfeiting future quality of life in favor of current profits.

It's interesting to note that the supreme court has given such corporations the right to campaign, to influence policy, and to change the course of the nation.  The most unethical entities among us wield the most power.  Is that troublesome?

What if R.J. Reynolds had told the truth?
What if Wall Street and the Federal Reserve had told the truth?

What if Exxon and Texaco and Shell had told the truth?

As a nation and a people, we will indeed fight our way through.  It's perhaps worth identifying our proven adversaries along the way (the murderous ones like these).   

A government of, by, and actually for the people will be a bit of a change. 
(Understatement of the year!)

Civilization's Reasonable Rise

Today's Masai of Kenya and Tanzania were

preceded by the Khoikhoi, peaceful
pastoralists in southern Africa
for thousands of years.

We rise up.  But is it a competition?

• from simple existence ... with food and water, and maybe shelter 
• we rise up to living as families and extended families 
• and raising children.

We learn.  The good of one is the good of all.

• then up to living as community groups ... working, sharing the load
• and to complex relationships ... labor and service for mutual benefit, for good life.

From perhaps a few nomadic families, we grow into a community, into many communities spreading across the plains, along the rivers, and down to the sea.

Food and shelter, and skills for survival; unlike some in the animal realm, none of us survive without the help of others.  The years reveal our common values; there are just a few - a good and just life, healthy relationships, and a place.  These values are still cherished today.  We may not actually need emperors though.

Many nomadic groups today have no

collective name for themselves

beyond just family.  They
live the simplest of
lives in peace.

Centuries pass on the banks of the Niger river.  Cities appear, and the best archaeological evidence suggests there was not one monarch among them all.  There's a loose caste system that forms along with innovations like rice domestication and mud brick architectures.  There's work; some are fishermen, some farmers, some herders. There are artisan settlements for pottery, leather. and iron works. There's trade, buying and selling, but they share the burden of having enough among the communities; enough to eat, mostly.   Concessions are negotiated from year to year depending on varying productivity and need.  No emperors, no armies, no slave trade ...   The region was populated and well established for centuries before the Arab trans-African gold and slave trade arrived, and the culture survived beyond the fall of Axum and Meroë and the empire of Rome.

It was no pleasant Eden, perhaps, but the region was generally free from war, from serfdom, from deadly competition, for more than a thousand years.  A soft-edged capitalism of sorts.

The unique feature of the Niger Valley 'civilization' was that it had no state structure; instead of having a government, the people of these cities more or less governed themselves, almost a 'golden rule' sort of society. This led to a debate among historians as to whether or not it was a civilization at all.  You won't find the cities like Djenné-Djenno listed among the kingdoms and city-states of African history. No king, no kingdom ... at least not until traders from the north and east began contributing to their history.  

Restored buildings in Djenné-Djenno

"Remarkably similar settlement processes appear to have characterized the urbanization process at sites of similar age in China, suggesting that this alternative to the hierarchical social system and coercive centralized control strategy ... may have occurred worldwide." ~John Reader, Africa: A Biography of the Continent

Elsewhere in Africa and the near East, communities become towns and trade venues, and competition begins to stratify the population.  A few rise to positions of greater influence over others. Wealth and rule run hand in hand through vast regions, and our common values are left behind.  'We' and 'they' are separated.  We rule, they obey, or we annihilate them.  It seemed reasonable, somehow, that we should take everything from them, their land and possessions, even their lives.

Thirty-nine men,
fifteen boys,
twenty-four women,
and sixteen girls.
They were sold.        
We don't know their names
or the families from which
they came or their stories
or the suffering they
experienced from
our selfish
acts.

Competition for wealth and rule brings trouble to tribes, to states, giving rise to kings and their warriors.  And to serfdom and slaves.  Death by conflict plagues the world, and civilizations are erased by conquerors.  Empires across the centuries, each is a competitive play for wealth and rule.  It seemed reasonable, somehow, that one should indeed rise above another and take their place in the world.

In the 20th century, it seemed reasonable to the cousin-kings of Europe to compete for empire as millions die and millions more flee their homelands.  The conflict spreads into the first world war.  A quick shuffle of the players, then repeat for the second world war; now tens of millions more die, and hundreds of millions have their lives and lands unrecoverably shattered by the conflict.  The world is arbitrarily reshaped by the winners.

The root of it all, starkly visible when compared to any alternative, is the willingness to have for ourselves by taking from others.  After years of propagandized justification, such competition may seem reasonable, but in reality it is perhaps only one step removed from being a murderer and thief or slave trader.  It is neither Christian nor of any other religion.

One among hundreds of such observations.
Humorous perhaps, but not inaccurate.

This so-called reasonable stance persists today in large-scale business and international relations.  And what of those values we all recognized as necessary?  Of a good and just life, healthy relationships, and a place for all?  They're often reduced to 'when convenient' by-products and are not broadly visible in larger business or trans-national contexts.


It's difficult finding an ethical balance between business with innovation and entrepreneurship on one side and social good on the other.  Good business has been redefined; now it's just profitability that matters.  Such thinking is perhaps most visible among multinational corporations; most, at least, but perhaps not all.  The decline seems to be occasioned by values and principles now absent from the boardroom.

There's nothing wrong with work and trade and profit, of course; only with the extremes.

Accurate and not at all humorous.

The multinational corporations now openly operate
for their own benefit, their own competitive edge
in the world marketplace rather than for the
good of humanity.  It's just business,
competition to win over others,
and bottom-line only.

The cousin-king mentality is deeply embedded in modern finance and the marketplace, in NAFTA, in the TPP, and TTIP.   Today's rapacious competition isn't related to reasonable human or Christian values. It makes you wonder if there is a path of good conscience that you might walk as an individual.  Or as a family.

The good news; there is such a path, but it is perhaps somewhat narrow and difficult to find, at least at first.  And, it is unlikely to be an easy path, but rather one full of difficulties.


So, there is this narrow gate.

“Always do for other people everything you want them to do for you. That's the heart of Moses’ teachings and all that the prophets have said."

“Make your way through that narrow gate because the road that leads to destruction is wide, and many go that way. But remember, the narrow gate and the road that leads to life is full of trouble. Only a few people find that narrow gate."

“Watch out for wicked leaders. They come to you disguised as pleasant and harmless, but in their hearts they are vicious wolves. You will know them by what they do and by the product of their work."

“You can't pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles, can you?  Good trees produce good fruit, but a rotten tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can't produce bad fruit, and a rotten tree can't produce good fruit. Trees that fail to produce good fruit are cut down and thrown into a fire. So you will see the difference in what they produce."

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord!’ will enter the kingdom, just the ones who do what my Father in heaven wants. Many will say, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we lead in your name? Didn’t we force out demons and do many miracles by the power and authority of your name?’ I will tell them publicly, ‘I’ve never known you. Get away from me.’"

“So, everyone who hears what I say and does it will be like a wise person who built a house on rock. Rain poured, and floods came. Winds blew and beat against that house, but it didn't fall, because its foundation was on rock."

“Everyone who hears what I say but doesn’t do it will be like a foolish person who built a house on sand. Rain poured, and floods came. Winds blew and struck that house. It fell, and the result was disaster.”

What we do matters.  What we do as a nation matters.  What we and our family do does not need to conform to the wider norm, and in fact, it probably shouldn't.

Adrenaline

... proposed a mandatory registration for
all Muslims in the U.S.; not just
refugees, but all Muslims.

For anyone who's ever served in the military, the media hype and panicky rhetoric are embarrassing.

In a crisis, fear and confusion can rise above reason. We count on cooler heads to command our national response. Whether a disaster is natural or manmade, we must respond with decisions and plans, logistics, materiel, and mobilization of appropriate force. None of those emerge from adrenaline or the fog of fear.

The conflict in Syria has been underway for years. The refugee crisis isn't new, nor is an attack like the one in Paris unexpected.  All are lamentable, brought about by criminal actions. The EU is struggling with border and processing issues. The terrorists identified so far are not themselves refugees nor did they enter the EU as refugees. The plot's mastermind came and went in the EU without difficulty.

ISIS is the root of this current panic. Most of us are perhaps not aware, the refugee exodus is a problem for ISIS. It undermines the organization's message that their self-styled caliphate is a refuge. America's fear-mongering headlines are in fact helping Isis.  They provide support for Isis’ argument that the west is no place for Syrian Muslims, and that their only salvation lies in the caliphate.

... suggested Christian refugees only ...

Congressional Republicans voted on Thursday to make it even more difficult for refugees from Syria and Iraq to come to the US, perhaps more a response to public fear than to practical need.

More than half of the US’s governors have said they oppose receiving Syrian refugees, many insisting that they pose a threat to national security.

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal has said he has directed state police to “track” the Syrian refugees in his state. 

The speaker said the legislative response should
 not be entirely focused on refugees, and it
should include a comprehensive plan
to defeat ISIS.  Well intended but
 ignored by most of the players
on both sides of the aisle.

Donald Trump says: “We have a president that wants to take hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of people and move them into our country.”  Actually the administration has proposed just ten thousand Syrian refugees be admitted, less than half of one percent of the refugee total, and all are cases recommended by the UNHCR.  Trump has proposed a mandatory registration for all Muslims in the U.S.; not just refugees, but all Muslims.

GOP presidential hopefuls Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush have suggested the government prioritize Christian refugees over Muslims.

President Obama has pledged to veto the legislation, and has condemned the anti-refugee comments as “un-American”.

The U.S. process for receiving refugees is detailed and thorough; it takes 18-24 months for a refugee to pass through.  The process will, of course, be reviewed based on current concerns.

“Sowing fear of refugees is exactly the kind of response groups like Isis are seeking,” said Iain Levine, deputy executive director for program at Human Rights Watch, on Thursday. “Yes, governments need to bring order to refugee processing and weed out militant extremists, but now more than ever they also need to stand with people uprooted from their homes by ideologies of hatred and help them find real protection.”

Again, for anyone who's ever served in the military, the media hype and panicky rhetoric are embarrassing.  

A moment's clear thinking on the subject and our goals as a nation might be helpful. 

It's not likely that welcoming the few proposed refugees will overrun our population or pollute our culture and destroy the nation.

This might perhaps be a good time for America to say clearly and collectively, we stand against ISIS and all like them. We commit to the pursuit and destruction of such criminal organizations, and we offer our hand to assist those who have been unjustly treated.   ... and then do what we've said.

Liberal Arts.

I often hear how 'liberal' our universities are, and it's a concern.  Here's a thought on the subject.

(Latin: liberal, "worthy of a free person")

(Not to be confused with being a political liberal) 

Liberal Arts: those subjects or skills that in classical thinking are considered essential.  

(Not to be confused with a 'liberal arts degree')

With subjects that might include literature, languages, philosophy, and the humanities and sciences, we're offered elements of history and perspective, logic and reason, and fact, all of which are perhaps essential for a mature intellect.  Exposure to that broad arena opens opportunity for:

• knowing what you think is true and why.
• understanding what others have thought and what has changed since you first settled on your opinion.
• dealing honestly with doubts and conflicts that arise as they do in everyone.
• a grasp of sciences, cultures, history, and the news, all interrelated, and perhaps more importantly, in conflict as ideas and values change.

There is little clarity of thought or objectivity available without understanding more than just part of an issue.  The tension among positions may or may not deserve to be argued, but there is no progress in the absence of understanding. 

We could just follow the ideas we like, the history that can be summarize in a few heroic tales, and the science that fits our opinions.  It is easier to close our ears to conflicting ideas, and it's perhaps a quieter life, but is it honest?

• Should you sometimes agree with a Democrat (or Republican)?
• Can you see the conflict between politics and ethics?
• Do you understand those who are poor (or rich)?
• Could you joyfully share a meal with an atheist (or a Baptist, or a Catholic)?  Or pray with a Muslim? 

Or are all those doors closed.  

(The 'liberal arts' subjects perhaps offer knowledge and understanding that a person needs in order to be active in civic life, which for Ancient Greece included participation in public debate, defending oneself in court, serving on juries, and most importantly, military service.  It's an ancient but possibly worthwhile goal for our learning.)

That said, not everyone agrees.  Here's an opposing view.

Scholars are of no great help these days. They used to be.  They were supposed to be, as a group, carriers and teachers of the eternal truths and the higher life. 

The goal of humanistic studies was defined as the perception and knowledge of that which is good, beautiful, and true. Such studies were expected to refine our discrimination between what is excellent and what is not (excellence generally being understood to be the true, the good, and the beautiful). They were supposed to inspire the student to the better life, to the higher life, to goodness and virtue. What was truly valuable, Matthew Arnold said, was "the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world."  And no one disagreed with him.  Nor did it need to be spelled out that he meant knowledge of the classics; these were the universally accepted models. 

But in recent years, most humanist scholars and most artists have shared in the general collapse of all traditional values.  When these values collapsed, there were no others readily available as replacements. So today, a large proportion of our artists, novelists, dramatists, critics, literary and historical scholars are disheartened or pessimistic or despairing, and a fair proportion are cynics (nihilists, believing that no "good life" is possible and that the so-called higher values are all a fake).

We can no longer rely on tradition, on cultural habit, on common belief to give us our values. These agreed-upon traditions are all gone. Of course, we never should have rested on tradition - as its failures must have proven to everyone by now - it never was a firm foundation. It was destroyed too easily by truth, by honesty, by the facts, by science, by simple, pragmatic, historical failure. Only truth itself can be our foundation, our base for building. Only empirical, naturalistic knowledge, in its broadest sense, can serve us now.  (Maslow et al., 1968, cheerfully paraphrased for a 12th grade reading level)

Genetically Happy?

Worth or wealth.

Loving or having.

Giving or getting.

Genetic clues...

People who have high levels of eudaimonic well-being - happiness from a deep sense of purpose and meaning (like Mother Teresa, perhaps) - show consistently favorable gene-expression profiles in their immune cells. They have low levels of inflammatory gene expression and strong expression of antiviral and antibody genes.

However, people who have high levels of hedonic well-being - happiness from luxury and self-gratification (like maybe rich people) - actually show just the opposite. They have an adverse expression profile involving high inflammation and low antiviral and antibody gene expression.

Read about the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Questions about genetic determinism have been around for a while. Are we behaviorally shaped by our genes? Are genes the 'cause' and we the 'effect' in the equation, or is there a measure of choice we might have? 

As science continues the inquiry, we find that sometimes, the expected cause and effect are reversed.  Behavior and environment choices often 'cause' genetic expression. Studies have repeatedly shown that extended periods of stress produce a systemic baseline change in genetic activity. It's actually got a name, the conserved transcriptional response to adversity, or CTRA.  The shift is characterized by an increased expression of genes involved in inflammation and a decreased expression of genes involved in antiviral responses. I.e., your health is at increased risk. 

And now it appears that our values affect our genetic activity as well.  From the studies, at least some of our genetic equipment waits for us to decide how and if it will become active within us.  Who knew?

It's worth noting that the environment in which we raise our children is a parental opportunity to make a difference that can last a lifetime. The values we pass on to our children  ... less conflict, more grace, less materialism, more generosity, and voilà!  We shoulda seen that one coming.  :)

There's more on the horizon, of course.  Much more.  As scientific progress continues, what fascinating and useful things will emerge?

Fleeing for their lives

Nasra tells the story of her escape.

We were living in Syria, we were happy.  My husband was working hard to provide for our needs.  But when the war started, there was less work.  One morning, my husband went out to find food for us  He went out, but he never came back.  For days, we searched for him.  My children kept asking me, where is father?  There was no food, no water, no electricity; we were desperate, and then the bombs were falling near us.  There was no safety, no other place we could go.  This is why we fled.  

Nasra and her children live in a hut made of scrounged material in Lebanon.  Nasra was later told her husband had been captured and killed along with a group of prisoners.  She hopes it's not true, that someday she will return to Syria and perhaps find her husband alive.  For now, she and her children survive, and nothing more.  She's been in the camp for five months.  Others have been there for more than two years.  Nasra reminds us that she and her family are just one of many in such distress.

So far, four million have fled the country with just the clothes on their backs and what they could carry.  More than half of those are children.  The world now struggles to provide help.  There are difficulties associated with receiving and assisting refugees.

MEDIA NONSENSE

Here in America, it's difficult to get an objective view from mainstream media.  Exaggeration and deliberate polarization is the rule, perhaps.  During an interview, NJ Governor Christie was pressed by the interviewer to make policy on camera.  The governor, semi-politely, explained that one might  choose a host of little examples, but what he was calling for was appropriate safeguards in the process of receiving refugees into the country.  The snipped that made it to the public was taken out of context.  As usual.

The typical response from the list of governors who've been headlined as opposing the refugees is actually just a call for due diligence in the process.  From MD Gov Hogan, "... until the U.S. government can provide appropriate assurances that refugees from Syria pose no threat to public safety."  Reasonable, and in line with DHS recommendations as well as public concerns.  That's not the media's portrayal, however.

From CNN under their headline:

More than half the nation's governors say Syrian refugees not welcome

Actually that's not what they said.  Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said the state would "put on hold our efforts to accept new refugees." "Michigan is a welcoming state and we are proud of our rich history of immigration. But our first priority is protecting the safety of our residents," he said in a statement.

According to CNN, Governor Snyder demanded that the Department of Homeland Security review its security procedures ....  No he didn't demand anything,  That's the media spin.  From his actual statement,  "My primary responsibility is to keep the people of Michigan safe.  That’s why I’ve asked to pause our efforts to bring more refugees to Michigan and requested the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to take a full review of the security clearances and procedures for all refugees who have the potential to be placed in Michigan."

"It's also important to remember that these attacks are the efforts of extremists and do not reflect the peaceful ways of people of Middle Eastern descent here and around the world," Snyder said.

It's discouraging that this too would be portrayed as a left-right contest, a Christian-Muslim conflict, a Rep-Dem issue, as though we all weren't of similar mind and heart.  We all agree that security is threatened.  We all agree that innocents are being killed.  We all agree that those fleeing for their lives need our help.  We all agree, when we have those moments of clarity, that as a nation, we can and will do our best in this complex world circumstance, to do what's right and just and necessary.  If we're wise, we'll do so with courage and principle, we'll rise above fear and selfishness to do our part, thoughtfully and with a good conscience.