INDEPENDENCE FROM THE TRIBAL INSTINCT WOULD BE A GOOD THING!
***
July 4th, anniversary of the Declaration Of Independence of the USA from the UK in 1776. Much change then, a slow sinking now. Deep thinking would be the way out, but that would require some effort.
Some deplore that the trust in the political system is gone. But that the trust is gone is actually a good thing. We cannot trust a system where a few lead hundreds of millions, if not billions. It was bound to lead to disaster. It did. And what we have seen so far is small potatoes. The best is yet to come. I am watching Actic ice everyday. Still tracking lower than the previous lowest.
Even if and when the few leaders come from the People, and especially if they come from the People, one should not trust. Because the less power where they come from, the greedier they are, and thus, the more eager to be bought. Watch Clinton, Bill: obviously in need of wider recognition always, as those who started so small, they feel small always, and so need to pile up the hundreds of millions, just to feel OK about themselves.
Within two weeks of the lifting of his presidential immunity, an armada of police, bailiffs and no less than three judges, descended on three places of residence and work of Nicholas Sarkozy. A good thing. Whereas Obama begs the hyper wealthy for money in full sight of the uncomprehending American people, it would be impossible anywhere else.
In France financing by the hyper wealthy under the table is frowned upon by the law. Judges suspect that Sarkozy got, under the table, what Obama gets in two hours every time he shows up in the mansions of Silicon Valley, to sit at the tables for all to see, and sleep in all beds… As long as the owner of the mansion forks the money, and brings all her, or his friends, and all these fork the money, too.
Two thousand years ago, any grouping of a few thousands Germans got enraged when someone would proclaim himself a king. Now people venerate a handfull who talk as if they could do all the thinking by themselves, and better, than billions.
Hence we are facing in the American (or French) revolution the reality of a vastly incomplete revolution: Athens, at her apex, had direct democracy (OK, no women, no slaves…). We don’t. Even the Roman republic, in spite of its mixed system, was more directly democratic than we presently are (this is not a poetic opinion: it can be quantified, according to how many people were represented by whom, how, and how long…)
Still, after 5 centuries, the Roman republic fell, to be replaced by the Roman plutocracy (aka ‘the empire”, or “Principate” as Augustus preferred to say…)
We have democratic institutions to help, true (such as a humanized, republicanized, and constitutionalized army). And these democratic institutions, missing in Athens, do, indeed, help. But they are not enough. Actually, it’s good to remember that these institutions started in Rome, with a very efficient administration, but that, once again, they were not enough.
The incapacity to stop the devastation of the biosphere, or the devastation caused by the rampaging financial sector, are proof enough that Pluto is taking over.
How bad is it? Very bad. We are experiencing a Greater Depression. Only appearances are doing better than in the 1930s, but some of the most important statistics are worse. See: Greater Depression.
The Greater Depression in Europe is so severe that the birth rate is severely collapsing. As a French thinker put it in the 19C: ‘demography is destiny’.
Therein the American Declaration Of Independence: “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.” Well, as it turned out, the frontier was soon extended to the ocean, and the “merciless Indian Savages” are now probably destroying the sea, with all its ages, genders, conditions…
This snippet of the declaration of independence is deeply disturbing, because it exhibits colossal insensitivity to Peoples who were just trying to survive to the destruction of their own world, while outrageously turning the tables on them, by claiming that they were undistinguished destroyers (while presumably the authors of the declaration were the distinguished destroyers). After all, it is cities such as Boston which paid money for scalps. A pattern was set in stone: accuse them of what you do, and call them savages. That mood has been much amplified today.
The Declaration of Independence of 1776 was just a rebellion, not a Revolution. The Revolution, that is the new Constitution of the republic, was established in 1789, within months of its French equivalent (that was to establish a constitutional monarchy headed by that great revolutionary, Louis XVI). The French constitution gave the right of vote to all (men), and outlawed slavery. it went further than anything Antiquity had known. Not so clearly in the American one (which refused the right of vote to individuals without enough property, contrarily to Rome).
It is only from the astounding agitation, encouragement, and giant financial and military support of Louis XVI that the American rebellion succeeded. Otherwise, the USA would have been the southern extension of Canada… That would have had advantages: France and Britain would have stayed masters of the planet (together, as it was, they defeated both China and Russia in the 19C).
Fascism, Prussian style, with its racist component would not have had a chance to rise in a world dominated by France and Britain (be it only because the Rothschilds had a firm grip on both sides, let alone Germany, ha ha ha). There would have been no “French revolutionary” and “Napoleonic” wars. No WWI, no Auschwitz (as the enormous resources of UK + Canadized USA +France + Louisiana would have crushed fascism outright. A non racist Austro-Hungary would have been an example of multi-national state, etc…
The British Parliament narrowly approved the expulsion of France out of Canada, although at the time many in the Parliament screamed to high heavens that was a terrible mistake, that would lead to the creation of the USA. Indeed France quickly returned the favor with the creation of the USA. So now what? Everybody should urgently recap the foundations of civilization…
Civilization is not founded on the market as some of the deranged economists whose thoughts presently reign have tried to make us believe. Watch Obama setting up free market exchanges to solve the health care problem, as if it were the job of markets to care about care! But Obama learned by rote that markets solve all, so he has now profit for solving care. What’s next? Selling babies to those who pay more, because that’s got to mean that, since they profit more, they care more?
Civilization is not just founded on the free market profit motive. Look at the Higgs particle, the discovery of which was announced today in Geneva, at CERN.
CERN was founded, and persists, as one of these typically French gigantic state institutions to foster human understanding with lots of taxes. CERN the Centre Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire has been a gigantic success, discovering a lot of new science, while establishing new technology.
The free market does not do it all! Brains are deeper!
The idea of such democratic institutions, as I said, directly spring from a mood inherited from Rome. But a difference is that Rome did not do research. Rome knew one had to have a society motivated by more than the profit motive. The republican and democratic motives were viewed as more important, and that is why Rome set a powerful army and administration.
But Rome had forgotten curiosity and to institutionalize the Will to Knowledge. Europe did not. There is only so much tribalism can do.
***
Patrice Ayme
Patrice Ayme's Thoughts 
July 5, 2012 at 1:49 am |
“Happy Dependence* Day!”
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July 5, 2012 at 2:00 am |
It may be, indeed, the best thing to say. Tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of Algerian Independance. It was, as it turned out, a worsening of the situation, a denial of the dependence principle, a massacre of many of the most important principles. And all this in the name of… The tribal principle.
Just an example: 800 French passports holders were killed, in just one event, in Oran, after independence. And nobody ever did anything about it (no help, no inquiry, either from French or Algerian government). In truth, it was all very racist, De Gaulle trying to fabricate an idea of France on Christianity (as he himself said!)
It’s all illusory. Racism itself is an illusion: there cannot be tribes anymore, only the right ideas. We have just one -small- planet. And if don’t prevent its deterioration, there will be war… Quite a bit as in Algeria, the war of all against all, wrapped, by all, against all, in righteous propaganda, sparing not even one’s comrades, and certainly no ideal.
PA
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July 5, 2012 at 3:46 am |
Yes, lets all worship the almighty state, because it directs great sums it doesn’t have to answer conspicuous esoterica, while the unfree market (there are no free markets and certainly not in Europe) economically answer relevant, but inconspicuous scientific questions that improves life every day.
By all means, lets have state-directed science programs, just like Hitler did.
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July 5, 2012 at 3:48 am |
@ Gasper: Hitler had no state directed science programs. Quite the opposite: he gutted the German (state) universities, although he was begged, for example by Planck (head of the Academy of science), not to do so.
The state creates money (or let mongrels do so in its… stead). If the state decided to spend 25% of economic activity on science, and put a bullet in the head of those who disagree, it sure could, given enough will.
Instead the state, having been captured by some conspirators, has decided that the state would support rather useless parasites, the banksters. I guess that’s worse than feeding worms in gutters.
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July 5, 2012 at 5:17 am |
Still it is the least of the bad. Better than any dictatorship, viz the following, (out of a drafted book).
….At first as the dictatorships start to rule, it can be very effective and successful. The dictators are good to annihilate the opponents and opposition, and if some right decisions has to be done, and in the past some obstacles preventing them to do it, they can act without too much hesitation. For example they can remove easily people from their key position, if they oppose needed change out of representing rather some particular interest of some people, whose interest opposes the interest of most of the islanders. By doing so at first it seems as if the dictators restored “ORDER”. But then the system runs into deadlock, because its political power is based on network of supportive people, whose loyalty is bought by corrupting them by letting them abuse their political power. The result is that political corruption, even if legally a crime, unofficially is excepted, since it is the building block of the dictatorships political system. As contrary to it, in the democracies, where corruption of political elites is also common, it is illegal not only according to the law, but quite often, with the seasonal change of elected government even persecuted.
The dictators have several common characteristics. In the modern times, they usually come to power in turbulent times, when chaotic economic-political situation prevails, that radiates into the hearts of too many individuals feeling of loss of common way and loss of common goal that could stand as pillar of fire to unite the society, caused by lost war, or deep economic un-functionality, or demographic unbalances caused by massive immigration or emigration, or non-proportional internal growth of certain segment in the society that starts to threaten the existing ruling elites. When a dictator is nominated, or when he grabs the political power, he does it for whole life, and the only way to remove him from his position is by his death or revolution. The dictator puts himself above the laws he creates, and by doing so, he commits crimes against the people whom he is supposed to serve as their leader. Then the dictator divides the nation into two sectors,; first sector of ordinary citizens, who has to be controlled,; and second sector of relatively small group of recruited army of agents, whom he puts above the law and whose only prerogative is to control the others.
These agencies (They have different names that are never real words, but some kind of very dehumanized symbols like KGB, SAVAK, SAVAMA, Stazi, Gestapo, et.c. that maybe mean something in real language, but soon enough they become frightening icons of evil, oppression and injustice). This technique of deforming the meaning of the words, is part of the system created by the dictators, to create confusion fear and submission in the heart of ordinary citizens, who are indoctrinated to feel piety and love towards the dictator himself, so even if something in the politics and economy doesn’t work as it was supposed too, according to the plans and promises made by the dictatorship, the ordinary people could not distinguish between the real meaning of the words and the meaning implanted in them intentionally.
Some dictators, even if controlling almost completely the deeds of the islanders, are not satisfied by it, and try to control their thought. They do it by manipulating with their instinct of self-preservation, that they attack continuously with every mean they have in their possession. These rulers impose their authority and respect, by arising fear in their closest associates, who transmit this fear to their subordinates down to the last citizen. Many of the islanders will feel fear and respect to the dictator, that suppresses their own self, and they identify themselves with their ”leader”. They will nurture the same mustache as their leader has, wear the similar clothing, use the same wording in conversations, they even adopt the new meaning of the words. They will say, “friendship and personal contacts are subversion”, or“expression of individuality is nihilism”. Their support for autocratic government they will call revolutionary act and hatred of the mainlanders patriotism. As the time flows and the dictator continues to rule as an indestructible mountain, when he dies, many islanders will feel as if they died themselves with him and would like to die too. So don’t be surprised to see people crying with the death of the “Supreme leader”. Only very few can resist such a dictatorship, and they have to be on hide, because if discovered, they are immediately annihilated
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July 5, 2012 at 5:47 am |
Dear Eugen: OK, I am going to need some time to read your work. Turns out I am going on a trip tomorrow early, and I am zero ready. The quip of Churchill about democracy being the worst, but for the others is denied by Switzerland. I hate Swiss pseudo neutrality, but the more direct democracy inside works better than what exists in France, UK, USA. If one says representative democracy Germans 2,000 years ago would have called dictatorship. The worst is that the present system prevents necessary debates. That’s particularly and increasingly true in the USA with Obamoney against Robama (ooppss). There are ways to re-establish democracy, once one has enough anger against the present system.
For example one could organize giant Internet debates, with a progressive sorting out of innovative props, in a process mimicking biological evolution, and then graft that to the present system.
PA
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July 7, 2012 at 5:52 pm |
“This technique of deforming the meaning of the words, is part of the system created by the dictators, to create confusion fear and submission in the heart of ordinary citizens, who are indoctrinated to feel piety and love towards the dictator himself”
Today’s inheritors of this technique are not dictators – who have simpler, more expedient ways to create confusion, fear and submission. What you are describing is Orwell’s Novlangue (“war is peace”; far from being literary fiction, it is in wide use in purported democracies, with the goal of removing ordinary people’s basic references, which could serve as building blocks for (horresco referens) civil disobedience or even Wall Street occupation. But it is not the State, pitiful weakling that it has been reduced to, which wields this weapon. Advertising copywriters and human resource managers are at the forefront:
An example – in French, sorry – the word “social” always had a strong, exclusive working class-friendly connotation. So much so that “Vive la Sociale!” was a leftist rallying call. But now, in the last few years, we see words such as “plans sociaux” (mass layoffs) or “TVA sociale” (additional VAT targeting the poor) being used with gay abandon by the very enemies of the working class (sorry for using an antiquated terminology which happens to perfectly describe reality). The word is put on its head, stolen from its previous owners. Think this is happenstance, an innocent case of the language having a life of its own? think again! your expertise in Novlangue should enable you to spot the beast where it crops up.
And the State has nothing to do with it.
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July 7, 2012 at 8:28 pm |
Very good remarks, Dominique!
Yes, the state has to be defined. It has three branches. Democratic institutions are part of it. The state can be captured, and it is being indeed corralled by the plutocrats, for all to see, since 2008. France, and the rest of the Eurozone intends to meekly get out of the corralling, by refusing deficits… Ha ha ha…
“Dictator” comes from dictate, making a diction. So the importance of the word has been clear for more than 2,500 years. Diction = “expression of ideas in words,” from L.L. dictionem (nom. dictio) “a saying, expression, word,” from dic-, pp. stem of L. dicere “speak, tell, say,” related to dicare “proclaim, dedicate,” from PIE root *deik- “to point out” (cf. Skt. dic- “point out, show,” Gk. deiknynai “to prove,” L. digitus “finger,” O.H.G. zeigon, Ger. zeigen “to show,” O.E. teon “to accuse,” tæcan “to teach”).
Dictators have always mostly reigned on minds. Torture and executions are just there to focus attention.
The word “social” has at least a 21 centuries history I know of, and I will address it soon. It is true it got very manipulated in France in a totally Orwellian way in recent years… In USA too, but differently… Same efect, though…
PA
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July 8, 2012 at 12:23 pm |
Thank you Dominique, i agree. All the new marketing slogans belong to the category of the Novlangue. It is not only Orwells description of the political reality in the terrorist state, it suit well also the commonly used tools of the modern marketing. If advertisements aim was originally to bring information to the potential costumer, today it is all about disinformation. As a result of this is the over-consumption (dear are you depressed? lets go shopping). The new economic crisis is the result of over-consumption culture, where countries took non-repayable debts in sake to solve problems of self-image of their citizens (we suffer from obesity? lets go shopping). The result of it is clearly seen in the following charts;
http://blog.securities.com/2011/11/consumption-patterns-across-european-union/
This over-consumption created the accumulated current account deficit, that had to be solved by other Novlangue method, like subprime-related MBS, Rating agencies, etc;
But the lesson has been not learned. No new investments, but again consumption started US economy growth. Amazing what a political agony goes thru the approval process of the plan to build fast train in California.
http://www.cahsrblog.com/
But after all the dollar bill says “In God we trust”.
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July 8, 2012 at 5:43 pm |
Dear Eugen: Yes the fast train travails in California are amazing. I have been following the situation, and I am sure that the fossil fuel plutocracy and its allies (be it only Silicon Valley plutocrats who hate the idea of a 350 km/h train zooming next to Atherton, Palo Alto, etc.!) are all crazily plotting the demise of the train. If the plebs travels as fast as they in their private jets from priovate airports, where are we going? The rule of the People?
So what they do is that they commission biased and crafty polls, and then use their results to manipulate the process. That’s on top of the usual methods of paying lobbyists, fake interest groups and politicians…
Trains could hope the Bay Area a lot, but first thing to do would be to protect the crossings (!!!!!!!!!) Even with the present 100 km/h max trains, they are hyper dangerous (forcing the trains to slow down, and honk!)
California, as it is, is increasingly a stealth plutocracy, and therein all its socio-economic problems.
PA
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July 5, 2012 at 5:19 am |
And watch this;
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July 5, 2012 at 6:21 am |
Dear Eugen: OK, well, so Iraq was a “republic of fear”. But (at keast that part of) the documentary does not show Iraq doing the dirty work of the war against Iraq, at the request/encouragement of the West. And the outright help of the West. germany, UK, and especially France and USA pitched in.Rumor has it that French pilots flew dome of the most dangerous missions. (Reminiscent of Russians flying in Vietnam or East Germans for Qaddafi).
Then after telling us Iraq was a frightening fascist place, the camera switches to a much more frightening place, the Reichstag in Washington, and the documentary says that it is the deliberate invasion of Iraq by the the USA which brought Saddam down. As everybody knows. So the USA invaded, and the USA has become much more militarized (with about 6% of GDP in “defense”). But that’s not the worst dammage. People really have come to believe that the USA can pretty much do whatever it wants militarily, and that military solutions will be always available.
Spending a trillion dollars in Iraq, coming and going like a tide of destruction, achieving nothing else: fine. It’s that feeling that is the dangerous slope, the slope of militarism. This happened in Germany, in the second Reich. Bismarck actually engineered a number of successful wars, and was very happy with himself. However, it dawned onto him that he had woken up a fascist military tiger (Nietzsche went through the same reasoning just a few years earlier. Maybe Bismarck read Nietzsche, they were both lovers of France!) Then Bismarck applied the brakes, and was fired by the grand son of Queen Victoria…
Fascization, militarization and plutocratization: ce sont des mots qui vont tres bien ensembles, as the Beatles should have said, and John Lennon would probably say, were he still around…
PA
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July 5, 2012 at 6:41 am |
Yes i agree the second Iraqi war was out of the stupidity of a president and some of his subordinates. Mr. previous president, knew very little about Geography and even less about History, so he did what he did. Yes he was a default of the Democratic system, still after 8 years he disappeared. For how long was Dear President Saddam and his intellectual patron Bronz Gigashvilly Stalin in power?
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July 5, 2012 at 3:06 pm |
Dear Eugen: It’s a very bad, but very American, habit for the People at the top of civilization (sorry guys!), namely the West, to look down to glorify in our superiority. The west should set ever higher standards, because the increasing might of technology forces us to be ever more excruciatingly moral. For example 99.9% of the Germans were not involved in the extermination camps directly. However, tolerance for the power of the .1% is how extermination of more than 12 million people as if they were large bugs.
Stalin and his ways were a product of the situation the USSR found itself in, to a large extent. We know this from what Stalin said to his comrades (who were themselves happy to hide behind Stalin, except for Trodsky… who had started above, as head of the Red Army!) Stalin was persuaded that an extermination war was coming, “within 20 years”. If the USA military was persuaded that, within 20 years, enemies would come to the USA, with the aim of exterminating ALL American citizens, USA politics would have a different flavor. (This is however a bit the situation France found itself in, and certainly Russia.)
The American DOJ should go out and arrest G.W. Bush by itself. It’s a sad fact of the waning USA democracy that judges overseas have to do the job.
Oh, well, at least French Justice exists, and is doing a good job with Sarkozy (it’s pretty good at harassing DSK about what I would call sex corruption too…)
BTW, G.W. Bush was obviously following his own impulse and suggestion from the military-industrial complex, and other theoreticians of empire, for were all looking towards war, for war’s sake.
PA
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July 5, 2012 at 2:36 pm |
AH! Ah!
Le titre dit qu’en effet tu penses et tu commences bien. Indépendant de qui et de quoi? les révolutions n’ont jamais fait un travail complet en effet car le pouvoir monte a la tête ……. pour la perdre (même celle de Robespierre ahahahahaahah) ) mais ça fini mal avec Rome. l’indépendance n’était pas l’apanage de Rome.
Je dis que la révolution est nécessaire mais pas suffisante. Le problème c’est l’homme lui même – Quel con cet Adam! de toute façon si lui n’avait pas croqué la pomme un autre l’aurait fait. Je pense que la plutocracie a commencé par la, l’image est excellente. Il y en aura toujours un pour se faire enc…. par le diable. Et en ce moment il semble qu’il est sur le “bon” chemin pour nous asservir. tu le dis clairement.
Si la révolution n’est pas suffisante, La solution n’est pas dans la religion non plus car elle aussi etabli un pouvoir. Il y a un ” iznogood” ( celui qui veut être calife a la place du calife, j’espère que tu as ces références serieuses dans ton éducation) dans trop de monde. D’ou la pensée ” si l’homme foire il doit bien y avoir un brin de vérité dans le péché originel: qu’est-ce qui fait que l’homme ( comme beaucoup d’animaux) veuille asservir l’homme? la est la question. et on en reviens a Independence de de qui? de quoi?
Je pense donc que la solution est dans l’indépendance de “Pluto”, et ça c’est pas facile, car il faut régurgiter la pomme.
j’ai lu ça sur une affiche qui se voulait humoristique: ” there is one thing I cannot resist: it is temptation” ça c’est le problème.
Je suis aussi d’accord avec toi, les économistes sont tous des cons asservi a des idées complètement farfelues. Ils n’y comprennent pas plus que les autres , ce sont seulement de bons illusionnistes (la main basse sur le fric est plus rapide que l’oeil)
En résumé la lutte plutonique n’est pas facile. ma grand mère avait une étrange expression lorsque nous étions indisciplinés et faisions milles sottises . elle disait ” ils ont le diable au corps” . quelle juste expression !
Finalement, je crois que les quakers ( God fearers) étaient les plus con de tous après les anarchistes (ni dieu ni maître). Ils se trompaient de cible. c’est du Diable qu’il faut avoir peur. Merci de le crier fort.
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July 5, 2012 at 4:51 pm |
“The free market does not do it all! Brains are deeper!”
Well, it doesn’t do it ALL, right! But it does most. And actors in markets ( networks) are brainers ( bad and good ones – the problem)… until computers don’t take over completely, neither bad nor good as such, right? So brainers ( the good ones over the bads) have to set ever higher standards, as said above – and enforced which btw is the hardest part , as we see in this crisis.
Quite written in the Bible, an excellent economic textbook, as one put it in a forum at the Collège des Bernardins in Paris about a year or two ago.
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July 5, 2012 at 5:03 pm |
Hello Pierre and welcome to the Anglo-Normand European/world site. I am rushing here (on a trip), so I may/will answer later in more details, including the huge comment I got all in French earlier… True there is a lot of wisdom in the Bible, the Qur’an, Vedas (“knowledges”)… I want to put a speed limit on trading, to reintroduce causality (otherwise a trillion a nanosecond of pseudo GDP will blast us to smitherens…)
PA
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July 5, 2012 at 4:58 pm |
“The Dark Side is necessary (I much argued). Yet, it’s not because gravity is necessary that we succumb to it. Necessity is not morality!”
Amna Shiekh says: do not confuse necessity with amusement.
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July 5, 2012 at 5:05 pm |
Dear Amna:Those who don’t know the Dark Side Indeed confuse necessity with amusement. They meet the Dark Side, and get fascinated by it.
Obama, the naive in chief, declared that he did not know that part of his job description was to kill people. So now he is killing people, as he has to. But the important point is this: he does not know that killing people is actually amusing. So he is now confusing duty, necessity, and, unbeknownst to him, amusement! That’;s why he is sending drones all over, and ordering the extermination of innocent families. He says:”I have to, it’s an easy one!” In truth he is all too amused….. Travelling here, at this very moment, and I don’t have a smart phone, yet, not that bears carry them either, so answers will be spare, and in due time… But not from lack of interest!
PA
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July 6, 2012 at 12:39 am |
Bon sang mais c’est bien sur!
Le “i” de iphone et ipad c’est pour “Infernal”
et “democracie” c’est bien la cratie du demon
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July 6, 2012 at 12:41 am |
Dear Bernard: Wait for IHEALTH! (As brought to you by Romneycare!)
or Heil Health, as the other one used to say…
OK, ihitler!
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July 6, 2012 at 5:31 am |
Rep Alan Grayson of Florida put it very succinctly: “The Republicans want you to die quickly.”.
He said this in Sept 2009.
He did not retain his seat in the 2010 election.
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July 6, 2012 at 10:19 am |
Dear OGP: Too much honesty does not insure a politician’s future. Changing to an Internet driven democracy should enable, and force common people to face truths, instead of preferring to live with lies…
Some will say:”You are asking common people to live with higher morals standards, it will never happen!”
But higher moral standards did happen, and keep on happening: that’s called civilization. Look at the Arab Spring. And it will have to happen some more, to adjust to higher tech, itself rendered unavoidable, be it only by the gathering demographic and ecological energy crisis…
PA
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July 6, 2012 at 3:47 pm |
Earlier blog on “Greater Depression” Answer to Jo regarding “: Could you, first of all, please elaborate on what you mean when referring to this “strong hand of careful wisdom should now steer it”. Where do we find such a hand? Does the search involve a mythical journey around the Aegean ? Do we need to find us a philosopher king (I hear Mr. Khomeini was the greatest fan of Plato perhaps we should channel him)?
My suggestion is this. The civil servant can be a “strong hand of careful wisdom”. The framework is where the wisdom resides. I give this using the example of India with a better constitution.
India has a better government with “socialism” and “fraternity” added and “pursuit of happiness” deleted. I copy the preamble from the wiki:
WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens:
JUSTICE, social, economic and political;
LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;
EQUALITY of status and of opportunity;
and to promote among them all
FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation;
IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this twenty-sixth day of November, 1949, do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Preamble_to_Constitution_of_India.pdf&page=1
India supports the commons well, low taxes to the agriculture sector, free university education, rural employment for infrastructure development, funding for science and technology development etc. Its banking is mostly government owned and operated by well qualified civil servants (from the Indian Administrative Service) and the plutocracy is kept away. The treasury and fed are combined into a central bank and money creation is not restricted by “debt limits”. It offers T bills for sale but is not required to do so. It is left to the banking department.
There are more parties. In general, coalitions govern better than a two party bought-and- paid- for government as in USA. The idea “government is your enemy” will never fly in India.
The wealth inequality in India is similar to that of Canada and Australia. Of course India is much poorer than western democracies but is doing the right things for the future of the country.
I wonder what Patrice thinks about this.
Patrice Ayme Says:
July 6, 2012 at 5:36 am | Reply
Dear Pshakkottai: Patrice thinks that Patrice loves India. That’s a beautiful, thorough Constitution. “The pursuit of happiness” is a funny expression lifted from Aristutle. Patrice believes it’s better to capture happiness, than to pursue it, especially if one has been captured by banks. Patrice also thinks that it will be hard to have peace on the subcontinent as long as Pakistan is a fundamentally superstitious theocracy. Patrice could keep on doing like that, and speak of himself as a third party, the way Caesar did it. And the way the billionaire philosopher BHL does it.
But let’s revert to the first person for now.
Jo used to have very interesting comments, but he has not send any for a very long time. I hope he is OK, and Merkel did not swallow him (he is German I think). Keith apparently misunderstood what I was saying about the crazy fascist racist mass murderer in Norway, and dropped off during that thread. I was myself bombed by a bunch of (mostly French?) guys like that. I don’t mean like Keith, but like the racist guy in Norway, so it’s rather ironical… that I would be accused of a strong affinity with him.
I strongly support what India has been trying to do: material progress, within democracy. The only thing that worries me, besides the crazies in the general direction of Pakistan, if not Beijing, is the Marxist or Maoist rebellion. OK, I am a rebel myself, and admitedly more extreme, at least on banks, than Marx himself, so this may sound a bit strange. However that rebellion is the indication of a malaise. This said, though, in a country such as France there are pseudo left wing fanatics, too, for example many pseudo ecologists… So a rebellion may just mean less than it appears. Also supposedly Rare Earths are been grabbed…
I do think that China will not be able to keep a serious pace of modernization without Internet freedom, a problem that the USSR already met. because the Internet is going to swallow in its bosom, all knowledge, and all research, and results, hopefully as an open access. India is doing it very right there. The Indian Thorium program is great, and so on. Since not too many people will read a thread more than a year old, I may repeat this in a recent post…
PA
Patrice Ayme Says:
July 6, 2012 at 10:24 am | Reply
Pshakkottai: we should move (copy and paste) your comment on the Indian conxtitution and the civil service from “Greater Depression” to the present comment thread on “Independence from what?”. It’s totally pertinent, and this way others will see it better!
PA
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July 7, 2012 at 8:44 pm |
Dear Pshakkottai: Patrice thinks that Patrice loves India. That’s a beautiful, thorough Constitution. “The pursuit of happiness” is a funny expression lifted from Aristutle. Patrice believes strongly that happiness should be captured, not jus chased.
I also believe that great unhappiness results from having been captured by banksters and money changers (more the case In the West than in, say, China!).
Patrice also thinks that it will be hard to have peace on the subcontinent as long as Pakistan is a fundamentally superstitious theocracy. Patrice could keep on doing like that, and speak of himself as a third party, the way Caesar used to do. And the way the billionaire philosopher BH Levy (“BHL”) does it.
Let’s revert to the first person for now.
I strongly support what India has been trying to do: material progress, within democracy. The only thing that worries me, besides the crazies in the general direction of Pakistan, if not Beijing, is the Marxist or Maoist rebellion in a lot of the country. OK, I am a rebel myself, and admitedly more extreme, at least on banks, than Marx himself, so this my worry may sound a bit strange.
However that rebellion is the indication of a deep anti-plutocratic malaise, even in India. This said, though, in a country such as France there are pseudo left wing fanatics, too, for example many pseudo ecologists… So a rebellions can mean less than they appear to. Also supposedly Rare Earths are been grabbed, and that’s what feeds the rebellion… The anti-corruption drive is excellent, but how come we don’t have something equivalent in the West? Our corruptocracy has much higher GDP than the Indian one!
I do think that China will not be able to keep a serious pace of modernization without Internet freedom, a problem that the USSR already met. Because the Internet is going to swallow in its bosom, all knowledge, and all research, and results, hopefully as an open access.
India is doing things very well there. The Indian Thorium program is great, and so on.
PA
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July 8, 2012 at 6:01 pm |
Don’t ask what your country can do for you, don’t ask what you can do for your country. Ask, instead, what your country does for its plutocrats.
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July 8, 2012 at 6:03 pm |
Pe Romaneste: Starts a war on terror
Amna Shiekh: Patrice – you know, at the end of the day, despite our little debates, I think we actually agree on a lot.
Dean Hillel Weiss: [your country does for its plutocrats] almost anything they want.
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July 8, 2012 at 6:39 pm |
Not in spite of our debates, but because of them!
Debate (verb, noun)
Late 14c., “to quarrel, dispute,” also “discuss, deliberate upon the pros and cons,” from O.Fr. debatre (13c., Mod.Fr. débattre), originally “to fight,” from de- “down, completely” (see de-) + batre “to beat” (see battery). Related: Debated; debating.
Best friends, best patners, comrades in arms used to fight with each other all the time, just to train.
The mind being more important, requires even more debating… Lack of debate is not just boring, it’s debilitating…
PA
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July 31, 2012 at 5:25 am |
I love your writing style and genuinely love this website. “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.” [Richard Feynman.]
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