Current Affairs

I've been thinking a lot lately about where I fit into the Occupy movement - what kind of role I should play. Unlike some of my housemates, who have gotten arrested, and have been presences at Oscar Grant/Frank Ogawa Plaza, I've been pretty much on the sidelines. I helped start Occupy Technology (which is sort of moribund at the moment.) I've been to a few of the marches and actions, but otherwise not really involved.

For a long time now (since 2003) protest in its traditional form hasn't felt like the right thing for me, even though I had spent all of my adult life as an activist in a number of causes, including anti-nuclear, environmental, pro-choice, health issues, anti-death penalty, and others. In 2003, when the Iraq war started, I joined a group of folks who promised to fast for one day a week until the war ended. Of course even then, we didn't think the war would go on for 8 years! My personal fast ended late in 2004, when it seemed then that the war would go on for a very long time.

In general, I feel great resonance with the Occupy movement, particularly the strains of the movement (which are not especially mainstream, but they are definitely present and known) that talk about the need for the creation of a new society based on love, compassion, equality, and meaning. And getting from point A (where we are now) to point B (that new society) seems completely unrealistic, perhaps even impossible.

I was reminded in a conversation I had this afternoon with a friend (who I must give the credit for the title of this blog post) about the importance of what I'm calling now "holding the door open to hope." Many people would use different language for it. The basic idea is that although we can't necessarily see how to get from point A to point B, we need to remember that there is available to us a vast source of possibility - the possibility to live into the best of what it means to be human. Some people might language this vast source of possibility as God. Others might language it quite differently. But in the end, it's the same.

We can see evidence everywhere of how messed up things have gotten. And it is so easy to get weighted down by the despair and hopelessness of the world. I fall into that all the time (just ask my housemates.) We can see how many people are suffering, and how the planet is suffering, and how the systems in place are failing us at every turn. We can see how divided this country is, and the world is, and not see how it would ever be possible for it to be different.

But there is, along side it, evidence of how things could look, and be different. We miss these, because the media doesn't cover this, and for many of us, our brains are more wired to dwell on the negative than on the positive. People are already creating the alternatives, right now.

So maybe that's my role. Holding the door open to hope. Reminding myself (especially) and others, of Divine possibilities.

Oh, and food. I'll cook for the revolution. :-)

The whole thing started a very long time ago, when you realized that you were going to lose one of the most important assets you had in building this country so that you could benefit from it. It actually even started before then, when you ran out of indentured servants from England and Ireland, but luckily, the African slave trade came at just the right time.

But once you realized you were going to lose the slaves to that nefarious thing called freedom, you had a lot to accomplish. The guiding force, of course, has always been that someone else should do the work, and you would benefit. There were all sorts of hurdles to jump, of course. Unionization was one of the biggest hurdles. And you almost grabbed the gold ring in the 20s, but then you got a little too ebullient, and you caused the stock market crash. Then that radical Franklin Roosevelt came into power, and almost ruined it for you. It set you back years. The 60s and 70s with its civil rights, feminist and gay rights movements were tough to get through, for sure.

You had to do a lot of careful planning. The standard ways of keeping people in line, such as, well, letting them starve, or sending them to debtor's prison, weren't going to work in the post-Roosevelt era. So you had to came up with other ideas - among them pretending that people could actually get the things you had if they worked hard enough and played by the rules. Then there was the genius called marketing. Yes, it was genius. Use human psychology to steal people's self-respect, and sell it back to them for the price of a product that they don't need. And then, you came up with the brilliant plan to entertain people - getting people to spend half of the time they weren't working for you watching things that made them want to buy more stuff - a twofer! Another genius thing was insurance. Remind people of their fears - primarily their fear of death, and tell them that they need not be afraid if they buy this or that policy. And then, there was the home mortgage. You hit a home run with that one.

You also managed quite well to co-opt the movements of the 60s - that was well done! You managed to convince African Americans that they wanted the "American Dream" too, and women just wanted the right to work just as hard as men, and you convinced queer people if they just had the rights to the institutions of the US - marriage and the freedom to serve in the military, that would be enough.

While you were keeping most people busy working and commuting so that they could buy stuff they didn't need, insuring themselves against their fears, being held hostage to their shelter, and being "entertained" so they didn't notice, there were some people you couldn't control that way. People who, for one reason or another, started out already so far down, that none of those things worked. The only thing they wanted to do was find a way out of their pain. Then, the next genius. Provide them with the means to self-medicate, and then make it illegal. That way, you could just put them in jail, which you did by the millions, making quite the tidy profits off of it in the process.

You managed to even co-opt people's desire to help their fellow human beings. All you need do was spend a few crumbs of your profits and you'd have people literally eating out of your hand, and they would be happy to listen to what you told them to do.

And you used the fact that the radical changes brought on by Roosevelt made life in this country pretty good for a while, to attract a new group of people who would come here and be happily exploited by you for often lower than minimum wage, and would put up with horrible working conditions because they were afraid of being sent away.

Of course, you got too ebullient again, and started to take stupid risks with other people's money. You almost sent the whole thing crashing down. But people started to see cracks in the facade. People started to talk about "corporate greed" and "the 99%." People did things like march in the streets, and shut down ports. You are starting to get worried. So worried that you are beginning to bring that one tool to bear that you have been resisting because of its obvious nature: force.

But you are running out of time. Why? Two reasons. First, you've taken just about all you can take from the Earth. There's not a whole lot more to take, without the effects actually damaging your way of life. Second, you've taken about all you can take from people, too. Once people start really waking up to this whole scam, there isn't much you'll be able to do to stop them. Even force won't be enough. You can't close down the urban farms, or the cooperatives, or the community exchanges, or the myriad ways people are beginning to find to come together as communities to take care of each other and make sure that every person gets the full benefit of their own efforts.

A while ago now, I wrote about reimagining the "American Dream." I've been reading a fair amount about economics lately, and I've found two interesting threads.

The more dominant thread is the one you know well. The story of the 99%, whose earnings and wealth have stayed pretty much the same over the past 30 years, while the earnings and wealth of the top 1% have grown tremendously. The solution to this story seems simple. First, decrease earnings and wealth inequities by going back to the tax policies of the 50s, 60s and 70s, where those who were wealthy paid much more in taxes than they do today. Second, spur economic growth by investing in infrastructure and creating jobs.

Occupy has made this argument mainstream. Further, Occupy has put pressure on the government to better regulate corporations and banks. All good stuff, and I'm not at all against any of this, of course, and I think as a short-term way out of the worst of our current problems, it makes a boat load of sense.

But for the long term, this is not going to even begin to solve our problems. This set of arguments makes the assumption that we will continue along as a capitalist country - with better income distribution, and better corporate regulation. The problem is that capitalism is no longer a viable option, and I'll explain in detail why. (A note, there are other, spiritual reasons why capitalism shouldn't be allowed to continue, having to do with how we see people, and people's work and lives, but this post is meant to be based simply on science and economics.)

The simple truth is this: we have reached the carrying capacity of our planet, and further economic growth will not be possible.

I'm going to detail why this is true. Most of this comes from reading the book: The End of Growth, which I would recommend to everyone. He lays it out really clearly, and I'll do a quick recap.

He starts with the origin and present state of the "science" of economics, which he says is really moral philosophy, and not really a science. I have to agree with his assessment:

"The classical theorists gradually adopted the math and some of the terminology of science. Unfortunately, however, they were unable to incorporate into economics the basic self-correcting methodology that is science’s defining characteristic. Economic theory required no falsifi-able hypotheses and demanded no repeatable controlled experiments (these would in most instances have been hard to organize in any case). Economists began to think of themselves as scientists, while in fact their discipline remained a branch of moral philosophy — as it largely does to this day."

He then talks about the underlying assumptions of capitalism regarding infinite growth. He says:

"Which brings us to the global crisis that began in 2007–2008. By this time the two remaining mainstream economics camps — the Keynesians and the neoliberals — had come to assume that perpetual growth is the rational and achievable goal of national economies. The discussion was only about how to maintain it: through government intervention or a laissez-faire approach that assumes the Market always knows best."

He discusses much of the underlying problems of the economic crisis, and then talks about why it is that perpetual growth is not a rational or achievable goal, because we are running out of all sorts of resources - fossil fuels, metals, minerals, rare earth elements, etc., and we are not going to be able to innovate ourselves out of these limitations in resources.

We do need a new economy, and it can't be capitalism. It's really clear, and, I'm sure for many, that prospect is pretty scary - so scary that no one in the mainstream media (even lefties like my favorite Rachel Maddow) is really talking about the end of capitalism.

Some sites you might be interested in to learn more:

• The Oil Drum: a blog on Peak Oil I've been reading for years
• Post Growth Institute: "Creating global prosperity without economic growth"
• Econ4:"4 people 4 the planet 4 the future"
• E3 Network:Economics for Equity and the Environment

There are lots more - if you come across them, put them in comments.

As you might have noticed, I haven't blogged much. Partially, it's because I've gotten out of the habit, and I'm going to work on changing that. Partially, though, it's because I have been trying to figure out what to say about Occupy. I've been only peripherally involved in OccupyOakland, and other Occupy efforts. I helped start OccupyTechnology, and I've been to OccupyOakland a couple of times.

I have been at times elated at what is happening all over the country (and world) with the Occupy movement. And, at times, I have been sorely dissapointed when people in the movement have done things that are violent or counter-productive, and when the discussion has gotten mired in what feels at somepoints to be arguments about non-violent tactics, who has claim to be most radical,  or speak most for "the people."

The Occupy movement has brought out the absolute best in all of us, and has also brought out the worst - and I'm not just talking about police brutality, but that is certainly a big piece of it. Eve Ensler reminds us that even in the midst of a movement like Occupy, women still get raped. And people still get shot.

Above all, I am very clear that we're not going to get where we need to go without some kind of spiritual transformation. A video I saw recently (a great one, worth watching), is called "The Revolution is Love" and there is a comment in it about how we don't just want to knock down the 1% and put a different 1% in it's place. It's about changing the whole paradigm.

The good thing is that the language about transformation is in the air in the Occupy movement. My housemate and friend Nichola Torbett's organization, Seminary of the Street, is deep in the Occupy trenches, talking a lot about spiritual transformation, particularly with Jesus as the model. 

And this spiritual transformation, from my perspective, isn't necessarily religious. It's not about religious conversion, or adoption of particular spiritual traditions or ideas. It is fully embracing our dependence on a healthy Mother Earth, the primacy of love and compassion, and realizing that each human being has great value, and that all of our lives can, and should have meaning beyond what money we can make, or what kind of house we can live in.

So as we Occupy cities and towns, abandoned buildings and vacant lots for the good of all, let's also Occupy Transformation.

As I imagine you know, right now, thousands of people all over the country (and the world, too) are taking to the streets to "Occupy" places like Wall Street and San Francisco. I myself will be showing up on Monday for OccupyOakland for a while. This blog post has been inspired and informed by this movement - this historic movement. But it's not just about this movement.

One of the things that I have been convinced of for some time (more than 20 years, I think) is that the means and the ends are the same. We cannot expect peace if we don't act peacefully. Jesus, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King all knew this. Monks fighting for freedom in Burma know this. We need to know it, and internalize it.

This is why I do Metta for the 1%. It's so easy to think of the 1% as people who are evil capitalists, or exploitative, or what have you. But the truth is, we all have some of that in us. We all are complicit in a system that is exploitative. We all need Metta (lovingkindness). 

So this post is just to remind myself, and all of us, that the means are the ends, and that one of the best things we can do is remember that no one is either completely guilty, or completely innocent.

I've been in the midst of a ton of research on the American Civil War, because my fourth novel is set there. Although I didn't spend most of my time looking deeply into the causes of the Civil War, I have by now read my fair share about it. I read one of the seminal books on the Civil War, called "Battle Cry of Freedom" by James McPherson. I'd recommend it to anyone. It has a really nice set of chapters that lays the foundations for the war.

Anyway, "living", as it were, in the time of the Civil war to write, and really living now makes things a bit more clearer to me than they might have been otherwise. I don't want to go into a long historical analysis, but basically, this country was never designed to be this big, or this diverse. And we've never really recovered or dealt with the 18th and 19th-century issues of Manifest Destiny (leading to the obliteration of the Native American way of life,) slavery, or the Civil War. 

I think we all understand that this country is broken. I acutally think this is getting to be a universal refrain, no matter what one's political stripe. This country is just not working for so many people, and not working for the world, and there are far too many philosophies about why it is broken, and what needs fixing. In most cases, those philosophies are regionally concentrated. Northeastern progressives actually have somewhat different ideas than Midwestern or Northwestern progressives do. Southern conservatives think differently than Mountain West conservatives do. And this is on top of the fact that in general, progressives and conservatives have become so polarized that any sort of compromise on most issues in ways that will really fix things for this country is impossible. 

Face it: there is no getting there from here. Between the concentration of power by wealth in this country, the corruption of the political system by corporate powers, and the polarization of the people, this country is going nowhere, fast, without much hope of recovery.

What are the benefits of splitting up?

1) Smaller, more homogeneous (by social and political persuasion, mostly) entities would be more governable, and people would be more likely to be able to live in the kind of society that works for them.

2) Smaller entities have a better chance of controlling corporate influence (or if they want, letting them run amok.)

3) Smaller entities have a better chance of controlling import/export issues, allowing them to, if they wish, privilege locally-produced goods over those produced elsewhere

4) There would be no United States to defend. Smaller entities could choose what kind of defense spending made sense to them.

I've been thinking, and thinking, and I frankly can't really think of any advantages to staying together except entropy. And the entropy we've got is sending us downhill faster than a rushing river.

I know this sounds far-fetched, but honestly think about it - it sounds easier to me to figure out how to split this country up into governable regions than it does to figure out how we are going to fix it all together. I almost feel like we need a new movement along side the localization movement - a movement for fully localized government.

Van Jones, who I have always admired, has an organization that I think is unfortunately named "Rebuild the Dream." And the language of this movement as it were, is around "saving," "rebuilding," and "protecting" the American Dream. 

So what is this "Dream" that should be saved, rebuilt, protected? I think for different people it means different things. For some it means the ability to reinvent oneself, and find a way to success or wealth. For others, and I imagine Van is in this category, it means that people get jobs with living wages, everyone can afford a nice house, and a nice car, and some sort of financial security. That is admirable, but it's not enough.

The truth of the American Dream, I think, has always been much darker than it's proponents admit, or perhaps even imagined. 

The American Dream started, of course with Manifest Destiny. The idea that this continent was the American continent. That we were destined to stretch from the East to the Pacific Ocean. And we all know who suffered in that. Between the Native Americans whose land was stolen, and the African slaves, indentured servants and exploited workers from around the world, without whose labor would have made this impossible, many people suffered in service to this first part of the American Dream.

After World War II, long after the Destiny had been fulfilled, the next phase of this American Dream was built on the decomposed remains of plants that lived millions of years ago. There were fossil fuels, and plenty of them, and we built our ideal of the future based upon the assumptions that not only would this resource be with us always, but it also would have no deleterious effect on our environment. We now know that neither of these assumptions is true. 

And there never really was a moment when the  American Dream actually was possible for most Americans. From 1945 through around 1968, this American Dream was available primarily to white men. Women were expected to stay home and take care of the house and kids. It was much more difficult for people of color, because of law or custom, to access this dream:  from owning homes in many areas, getting well-paying jobs, or getting a good education. 

Then, just as both women and people of color started to get fuller access, the American Dream started to fade, starting with Ronald Reagon, in 1980. Union membership, and the collective bargaining power that went with that, began to drop. Real wages stagnated, and it took two earners to retain the same standard of living that had been possible for one, previously. 

And now, the American Dream is being a rat on a treadmill. Most people work more than full time, most in jobs they don't find especially meaningful, spending hours of time every day in a steel box on the road just so they can live somewhere that's quieter, and "safer." When we are depressed (as if this kind of life wouldn't make anyone depressed) or anxious (as if the state of the world wouldn't make anyone anxious) we are given some pills to make us feel better. People are trapped in jobs becuase they can't get health insurance otherwise. They can't follow their dreams because their house payment is too large.

And this, too, is falling apart. Are any of these this American Dream are we supposed to really be trying to rebuild? 

It's time to reimagine the American Dream, not rebuild it. Reimagine our country as a place that truly accepts, celebrates and gives equal access to all of its residents, no matter the race, orgin, ability, faith tradition, sexuality, gender, family type or relationship status. Reimagine sustainable communities, and sustainable food production and distribution. Reimagine transportation that doesn't depend on fossil fuels. Reimagine work, where people can do what is truly meaningful to them instead of creating wealth for others, and work less because we really don't need half of the stuff we produce. Reminagine education, where people have a truly broad education, and aren't just being eductated so they can be a cog in some wheel. Reimagine how we live - living more collectively, more interdependently.  

Saving, protecting or rebuilding the old American Dream in a world without cheap fossil fuels, and without continuing to wreak havoc on our environment is impossible. Sadly, our choice is between reimagining, or giving it all up entirely.

I think often free enterprise is confused or conflated with capitalism. I thought it was worth a follow-up post to my "Inherent Violence of Wealth" post to talk a bit about it, since I don't think I was especially clear in my discussion that I was talking only about wealth gained from capitalism.

Free enterprise is the idea that you, or, me, or any group of people have the right to create an independent process whereby we make money from our own creative labor. I am absolutely a product of free enterprise (my father) and I have made a living via free enterprise for most of my working life. Free enterprises are small enterprises. Maybe it's one person running a web design shop, a collective grocery store, someone hiring some workers to print t-shirts, or an artist. Hallmarks of free enterprises are that they are business models that are local, small, and sustainable, and everyone employed gets a living wage.  Many (most?) small businesses in the US fit this category. 

Capitalism is a different animal entirely. Capitalism is the process whereby people with large amounts of money invest that money in business for the sole purpose of making more money. And capitalism, unlike free enterprise, requires one thing, and one thing only: increasing profits.

How do you increase profits continually? There are a few ways to do it. Every business has revenues and costs. On the revenue side, you increase revenues by convincing more and more people to buy what it is you have to sell. In some cases, that's easy because the product is good, and it's what people want. But that's not always the case. Often, it's done through the use of advertising (my definition of most advertising now is "stealing your self-respect and selling it back to you for the price of a product.") Some products, such as fast food, tobacco and alcohol, have their own ways of convincing people to buy more. Other products need some help from the government in the form of overly broad patents. Other products (like services) require ongoing, increasing fees. Some increase revenues by making products that are "designed for the dump," which means they need to be replaced more often.

Then there is the cost side. Ever increasing profits requires ever decreasing costs. There are two kinds of cost: labor and resources. Capitalist enterprises decrease labor costs by decreasing wages, decreasing benefits, shipping jobs to cheaper venues, and convincing the government to maintain a minimum wage that is far from a living wage. They externalize labor costs (such as health care benefits) onto the government.

Capitalist enterprises decrease resource costs by sourcing resources from countries with few regulations and by externalizing environmental costs (dumping waste, leaving open strip mines, dumping carbon into the atmosphere, the costs of landfilling all that shit we buy, etc.) They get tax breaks from governments, and the money is made up by individuals. They decrease resource costs by using the cheapest materials available. 

This quote is attributed to Ghandi, and I can't agree with it more: "The Roots of Violence: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice, Politics without principles"

In 2003 at the start of the war in Iraq, I did a news blackout for about a year. I'd gotten so addicted to reading and watching news, and addicted to the need to see what was happening, and I got so disheartened and frustrated that I needed detox.

Well, it happened again. Over the course of the last few years since Obama was elected, I've felt compelled to keep track of what's happening in the country and the world. I see that same addiction and need coming back, so it's time again for a national and international news blackout. Goodbye NPR, Al Jazeera English, NYT, Rachel Maddow, and even John Stewart. I don't know how long this will last (forever, maybe?) but I figure if anything really momentous happens, I'll hear about it anyway.

Constantly hearing about horrible things happening far away that I have no way to affect is disheartening, difficult and frustrating, and takes away energy for positive action. Time to focus on the local, and what I can affect.

This article was written for Seminary of the Street, for their January 2011 newsletter.

The conversations and conflict in the wake of the shooting in Arizona provides a good object lesson about something Buddhists call “The Three Poisons.” These are concepts familiar to all of us – greed (or craving), hatred (or aversion) and delusion (or self-deception).

We can easily see the greed, hatred and delusion that we feel fuels the actions of others, those who we might consider our enemies, or those on the other side of the political spectrum. The greed of Wall Street bankers, doing their best to reap huge benefits while allowing others to assume the risk – or the greed of the super-rich, who have just recently been handed the continuation of huge tax cuts.

We can call easily to mind the delusion of watchers of Fox News, being fed a constant stream of lies that they seem to swallow easily and whole. And we can find hatred of our President, hatred of immigrants, and hatred of the poor rampant in conservative politics.

What is much harder for us to see is our own greed, hatred and delusion, and our unwillingness to admit that we share the same characteristics of people that we so easily deride. I can recall nights in previous years watching news about Vice President Cheney, and feeling nothing but hatred for who he was and what he stood for. I know I have, at times, swallowed left-wing conspiracy theories whole, just because of the people who were delivering them. And my greed might be small “g” greed – attachment to certain kinds of food, attachment to a particular way I want things to go – but it is attachment, nonetheless, and poisonous.

Read the rest of the article at the Seminary of the Street website >>