WHO: one in four people in the United States suffers from chronic anxiety, a mood disorder or depression

chris hedges in truthdig...

When the most basic elements that sustain life are reduced to a cash product, life has no intrinsic value. The extinguishing of “primitive” societies, those that were defined by animism and mysticism, those that celebrated ambiguity and mystery, those that respected the centrality of the human imagination, removed the only ideological counterweight to a self-devouring capitalist ideology. Those who held on to pre-modern beliefs, such as Native Americans, who structured themselves around a communal life and self-sacrifice rather than hoarding and wage exploitation, could not be accommodated within the ethic of capitalist exploitation, the cult of the self and the lust for imperial expansion. The prosaic was pitted against the allegorical. And as we race toward the collapse of the planet’s ecosystem we must restore this older vision of life if we are to survive.

[...]

Rebuilding this older vision of community, one based on cooperation rather than exploitation, will be as important to our survival as changing our patterns of consumption, growing food locally and ending our dependence on fossil fuels.

[...]

The demented project of endless capitalist expansion, profligate consumption, senseless exploitation and industrial growth is now imploding. Corporate hustlers are as blind to the ramifications of their self-destructive fury as were Custer, the gold speculators and the railroad magnates. They seized Indian land, killed off its inhabitants, slaughtered the buffalo herds and cut down the forests. Their heirs wage war throughout the Middle East, pollute the seas and water systems, foul the air and soil and gamble with commodities as half the globe sinks into abject poverty and misery. The Book of Revelation defines this single-minded drive for profit as handing over authority to the “beast.” 

The conflation of technological advancement with human progress leads to self-worship. Reason makes possible the calculations, science and technological advances of industrial civilization, but reason does not connect us with the forces of life. A society that loses the capacity for the sacred, that lacks the power of human imagination, that cannot practice empathy, ultimately ensures its own destruction.

what i've never been able to adequately grasp is why more of us haven't been able to see through such an empty, shallow view of life, one so completely devoid of any spiritual dimension...

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The media feeds us information about what's good for our super-rich elites but not what's good for us

more confirmation of what those of us who have been paying attention already know... and, yes, confirmation is indeed the real value of things like this which helps ease the burden of suspecting that i'm really a paranoid, closet, conspiracy-theorist nutcase...

Former Assistant Secretary of Housing under George H.W. Bush Catherine Austin Fitts blows the whistle on how the financial terrorists have deliberately imploded the US economy and transferred gargantuan amounts of wealth offshore as a means of sacrificing the American middle class. Fitts documents how trillions of dollars went missing from government coffers in the 90's and how she was personally targeted for exposing the fraud.

Fitts explains how every dollar of debt issued to service every war, building project, and government program since the American Revolution up to around 2 years ago - around $12 trillion - has been doubled again in just the last 18 months alone with the bank bailouts. "We're literally witnessing the leveraged buyout of a country and that's why I call it a financial coup d'état, and that's what the bailout is for," states Fitts.

Massive amounts of financial capital have been sucked out the United States and moved abroad, explains Fitts, ensuring that corporations have become more powerful than governments, changing the very structure of governance on the planet and ensuring we are ruled by private corporations. Pension and social security funds have also been stolen and moved offshore, leading to the end of fiscal responsibility and sovereignty as we know it.

Fitts explained how when she was in government she tried to encourage the creation of small businesses, new jobs and new skills to compete in a globalized world otherwise the American middle class was toast, only to be forced out by the feds using dirty tricks. The elite instead wanted Americans to take on more credit card, mortgage and auto debt that corporations and insurers knew they couldn't afford, while quietly moving their jobs abroad in the meantime.

i really like the community-based approach... making community the basis for personal financial transactions would quickly return us to the fundamental principle of the common good, a principle that can and should serve as the real essence and strength of the human spirit...

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Comunidades y Viviendas, Monologue 1

Following on from last night's post, what to do? Where to start? How to explain? How to proceed? Striving for clarity to all those questions can only lead me to mental paralysis, so I will simply jump in.

As absurdly obvious as it may sound, everybody lives somewhere. It is a fundamental fact of our existence and, globally, one we all have in common. Certainly, the circumstances and the definition of that “living” may vary dramatically, but, the fact remains, we all put our heads down to sleep, and that takes place most often at the place (or places) we live. From the homeless person and the nomad, to the super-rich world citizen, our perspective on life springs from where and how we live day-to-day. My theory, therefore, is simple. If we are going to change the world, we must start from where people live.

Let me quickly introduce another perspective. Human society and the dynamics of the world in which it exists are made up of an infinite number of nested and interrelated systems. A family is a system. A community is a system. Biology is a system. An organization is a system. The environment is a system. Politics is a system. A government is a system. The economy is a system. The planets and their movement around the sun is a system. I will talk at another time about the emerging field of complex adaptive systems, but, for now, it is sufficient to point out that all of these systems are interconnected, interdependent, seek to learn and grow, and that the behavior of one affects, often in non-linear and unexpected ways, the behavior of the others. It is impossible to effectively alter the dynamics of one system without considering the influence of related systems and, subsequently, impacting the dynamics of those systems.

If we are to focus on and change a core element of human existence, where and how people live, we must undertake that work from a systemic point of view. All of the systems that interrelate with that core system must be taken into account. That was the framework behind the visual I posted in my introduction to this concept last night. All of those components, and probably more that I failed to mention, are systems inextricably interrelated to where and how we live, what I have chosen to call “Comunidades y Viviendas.” If where and how we live is to change for the better, ALL of those systems MUST be taken into account, and not only taken into account, THEY must very likely be changed as well. We must insure that the changes in the core element of how and where we live are not ground into dust by leaving the systems that support it unaffected. At a later time, I will relate several stories from my past experience that clearly illustrate how that can happen and the tragedies that ensue when it does. I am sure many of you have similar stories and hope that you will take the opportunity to share them when we get to that point.

Before moving one step further, I would be terribly remiss if I didn’t point out that what I am proposing has enormous and potentially quite threatening implications for established systems. If people become truly empowered to take charge of where and how they live, there is NOTHING else that can remain unaffected. Economic and power structures, for instance, will be altered in dramatic ways. The flow of both will be reversed, flowing from the bottom up, rather than as they do now, from the top down. This, to me at least, implies that there must be a readiness for this kind of change, and, as I said in the introductory post, I am predicating my proposal on what I believe to be unexpected and dramatic events that will pave the way for work on these changes to begin in earnest. That said, I see absolutely no reason why planning for it should not begin now.

That takes me to the principal challenge I see moving forward. I have connections with gifted and enlightened people in many parts of the world who, if they were able to pursue this effort and sustain themselves and their own lives in the process, would drop everything to become part of it. When I say “sustain themselves and their own lives,” I mean precisely that. Most of us require a certain level of resources flowing into our lives in order to maintain needs, responsibilities and obligations, and we also have connections and roots that are neither easily nor lightly abandoned. That’s good. It’s all about where and how we live and no one should be asked to sacrifice that. However, these people, if we are to join together in such a grand project, must come together from time to time to develop and evolve the concept, and, after all, developing and evolving the concept is the first and the biggest piece of the work. What this points to is a basic requirement for seed money, money for two things: to support the lives of the initial, core team so that we can devote all of our energy to the work, and two, money to support the travel necessary to bring us together as needed. To my mind, the money would ideally be provided by an “angel,” a sole philanthropist who would underwrite the development, evolution and pilot execution of the concept until it can become self-sustainable, with no expectation of return, payback, profit or future rights. An impossible fantasy? Perhaps. I’m putting it out there nevertheless, because I know from experience, you don’t get if you don’t ask.

I’ll expand on some of these initial thoughts in future posts. In the meantime, I look forward to your thoughts and comments.

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Moving in a new direction

i've been somewhat public in my recent angst over the direction of this blog (here and here)... some of my fellow bloggers have been most supportive (here, here, here, here and here)...

i had a brainstorm yesterday morning as i was drifting in and out of sleep prior to getting out of bed... i won't bore you with the details or the long story that led up to that neuro-meteorological event, but i will attempt to pique your curiosity just a bit...

if, as i believe, things are going to take an unexpected and dramatic turn for the better (no prediction on timeline here), we - and i'm speaking in global terms when i say "we" - are going to need a model for an entirely new way to live together... as a professional devoted to large system design and leadership, i think i have something to contribute to such a noble effort...

so what i intend to do is, in addition to the already-established direction of this blog, toss out some of my thinking related to community-building, people-powered governance and leadership, and how to go about designing systems to accommodate both... it goes without saying that i invite anyone who thinks they can add something to such thinking to do so...

for starters, let me introduce a visual of the macro concept which, in honor of my respect for latin american culture, i have christened "comunidades y viviendas," literally translated as "communities and dwellings..."



stay tuned...

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