In the same way, on the other side of the interest pay window, once you have sufficient wealth it is easy for that money to earn more wealth faster than you can spend it, causing a continuous rise in personal wealth. Once you reach a certain plateau, then the inertia is all behind you to become more and more wealthy. It is a mirror image of The Descent Into Hell whereby your increasing debt level forces you inexorably past the line into realms where the laws of mathematics will force you ever deeper into the hole until you reach a point where it is impossible to recover (legally ~ of course there will always remain the options of murder, mayhem, fraud, and theft, not to mention prostitution, drugs, and gambling).
This is inherently and progressively unfair, and it leads to social stratification with a self-perpetuating wealthy class over an endlessly
struggling class of peons who can never get out of debt (as Alice learned through the looking glass, “you have to run very fast just to stay in the same place”), unless they are fortunate enough to hit upon some winning strategy, or join a successful revolution (not a bad option to consider, these days). It is unfair to blame the bankers who offer loans at high interest rates: the high rates are required to cover the significant default rate on the shakier loans, so that the worse your financial status, the more interest you have to pay to service your debt. Banks are not really responsible for debt: they simply take advantage of it to make money. One solution would be to outlaw the loaning of money at interest, so that no one would be able to get into debt. This has been tried, with usury laws forbidding the charging of more than 10% interest, for example. This makes sense: if your credit is so bad that no one will risk lending money to you at less than 10% interest, it probably means that you are fundamentally bankrupt, and the circulations of debt simply postpone the inevitable collapse and give much of the profits from your collapse to the bankers instead of your final creditors. You might as well simply bail out and go to the free farm as hang on another few years with escalating debt levels until the inevitable col apse.
Borrowing money at interest is a very scary business, whether for a person, corporation, or sovereign state. The risks and dangers of falling behind and reaching a level where it is mathematically impossible to recover are very real. The consequences can be far-reaching, whether it be the bankruptcy of personal family finances, the bankruptcy of General Motors, or the bankruptcy of Iceland, Ireland, Greece, or Spain, followed, like dominoes, by all the other countries until China is left alone on the Monopoly board as the winner ~ and then there will be another revolution and someone else will rise to the top. I don’t think this transition has been
adequately appreciated by the modern world: military might is no longer the real measure of power; it has given way to economic might.
The aivities of the American government might seem to promote a growing economy with a growing GDP, but that is just the visible bubble on top: the underlying real financial strength is not measured in economic aivity, but by more fundamental measures of wealth: aual resources, including natural resources, money (both held and owed), and infrastruure: schools, roads, hospitals, water, and power ~ eitgeift got that much right. The world is currently played like a game of Monopoly, and the United States is not necessarily winning the game; in fa, this should be a wake-up call, since there are still substantial resources remaining in that country, yet they are melting away very quickly under some very surprising economic theories. (ill the real . . arnum pleaſe ftand up?) Aually, the “United States” is not really one of the players on the Monopoly board. There are numerous Players, both individual and corporate, but “The United States” is just a fiional abstraion (in financial terms, a scam). It is an imaginary sink into which debt is loaded, and this is one of the principle mechanisms of generating more wealth for the Players, as the “U.S. Government” sinks woefully beyond that line of total bankruptcy to a mathematical certainty, barring the fortunes of war, and/or as of God. The country has been played like a Ponzi scheme for the last hundred years, and Uncle Sam is wearing The Emperor’s New Clothes.
On the other hand, it might start raining manna from Heaven any day now; I hope you have a bag ready.
Seven Ways to Retire the U.S.
National Debt
March, 2011
Just recently I updated an article I wrote about four years ago: he all of the ollar (reprinted in he aughter of od). The original article, written in 2007, contained a graph of the U.S. National Debt from 1940 until 2005, which showed a rather sobering exponential curve, suggesting that there was no way it could go but up, up, up, at an ever accelerating pace, as is the usual case with exponential curves. The graph ended at 2005 showing a debt of about $7 trillion. I just updated the article to include an updated graph which carried the graph up to 2010, with the debt standing at about $14
trillion, neatly doubled over the last five years. [2018: about $22 tril ion, and counting fast.]
The point of that earlier article was that the only alternative to the collapsing value of the dollar was for the United States to embark upon a series of wars of conquest, rape, and pillage.
However, upon further consideration, I have come up with a total of seven strategies for retiring the U.S. National Debt: 1. Divine Intervention. This is the most optimistic scenario. Let us all pray for divine intervention to solve the economic problems of the American government. As I speculate upon this possibility, it occurs to me that such divine intervention would most probably come as part of a larger
package in which more than just American problems were addressed, but, as there are an unlimited number of ways in which such divine intervention might take place, further speculation along these lines would be fruitless. Rather than instruing God as to how we want Him to manage the rescue of the financial affairs of the U.S. government, it is perhaps more becoming of us humbly to ask Him to use His best judgment in these matters.
2. Inheritance. When an individual finds himself laboring under ever escalating levels of debt, far beyond any ability he might have of repaying those debts, he can always hope for the death of some wealthy relative who might leave a fortune to him, enough for him to pay off those debts. In the same way, perhaps the United States government might inherit that $14
trillion dollars from somewhere. Admittedly, this isn’t very likely, and perhaps we are still best advised to pin our hopes (and our wagers) upon the first possibility: divine intervention. However, perhaps Saudi Arabia might decide to dissolve itself as a state, or at least to gift all of its oil fields to the United States government. It would not do, of course, for them to donate the oil fields to privately owned American corporations; no, in order for this possibility to offer any relief to the American government, it must be the U.S. government itself that would be the recipient of such a gift.
I do not have all of the numbers in hand, but perhaps such a gift might manage to float the United States over its current doldrums. On the other hand, such a gift might simply open the floodgates for massive new spending, which, if they are no more sensible than what we have seen over the last twenty or thirty years, might not even solve any problems at all. In fa, much like the stories of someone who inherits $20 million and then,
through a series of bad decisions, rapidly runs through all of the money, ending up with massive debts far in excess of whatever debts he may have started with, this hypothetical gift of the Saudi oil fields might just make the American problems even worse. But, at least potentially, we must allow that such a windfall could be the means of rescuing the rapidly deteriorating financial prospes of the United States.
3. A third possibility is that the American government discover some new source of wealth ~ perhaps gold mines located on federal lands. Once again, it would be useless for any of this to be discovered or owned by private individuals or corporations; in order for it to do the U.S. government any good, it must be a discovery on lands owned direly by the federal government. However, gold mines probably wouldn’t work. If enough gold were discovered (in the Grand Canyon National Park, for example) to pay off the National Debt, the value of gold would collapse. If twice as much gold were to be found, to offset the collapsing value of the gold, that value would simply fall even faster ~ there may not be any quantity of gold that might make much difference, due to the inexorable law of diminishing returns.
However, there are other possibilities: perhaps some amazing new element were to be found that restores hair on bald heads, rejuvenates the sexual potency of aging men, restores beauty to aging women, and restores all funioning of the body to perfe radiant health indefinitely, allowing for theoretical y infinite longevity (in the absence of any fatal accident). Some such discovery, as long as it were the sole monopoly of the U.S. government, might go very far towards reversing the slide to financial ruin.
4. Wars of Conquest. To say that there is substantial historical precedent for this method of restoring financial health to a failing state were to massively understate the case. However, let us hope, for the sake of future generations yet unborn, that the United States will not decide to go down this road. Let us all fervently hope that one of the other choices will prevail.
5. Revolution/Repudiation of the Debt. Now this is a more promising possibility! Perhaps the American people, waking up to the fa
that the wealth of the nation has been systematically looted by a handful of wealthy families over the past 235 years, finally decide not to take it anymore, and rise up and overthrow the corrupt regime, putting some new government in its place (after all, Thomas Jefferson suggested that a new revolution were required every twenty-seven years: every generation must arrange political affairs according to current realities). Then the new government might blandly assert that the debts of the previous government were not theirs, and they disown any obligation to repay same. Of course, the present government might simply declare bankruptcy and likewise simply renounce all existing debt, hoping simply to carry on with business as usual, but, in praical terms, it is unlikely for such a declaration to go down very smoothly without a radical change of government from the ground up (i.e., from the People). This option, while perhaps able to accomplish its primary objeive, is fraught with additional difficulties; however, the post-repudiation problems are beyond the scope of the present article.
6. Inflation/Collapse of the Value of the Dollar. This was the projeed outcome of my previous article on the fall of the dollar: that the only really likely alternative to bankruptcy, financial chaos, and/or war is for
the value of the currency to be gradual y eroded so that fixed dol ar amounts are repaid with dollars which are worth substantially less.
7. A Tax on Wealth. Finally, among this catalog of unlikely alternatives, some of which might even appear to be frivolous suggestions, here is one more realistic (though highly improbable) option which could, theoretically, offer a real way out of the financial problems of the United States: put a tax where the money is! After all, it is largely due to the unconscionable looting of the financial resources of the country by the very wealthy that have caused the present desperate state of affairs, so it only makes sense that those American citizens and Corporations registered in the United States with huge piles of wealth stuffed in their mattresses should be the ones to pay up the bills of the country they have so sorely treated while the rest of the country’s citizens have either been sleeping or been paid off.
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, this option is the one that inspires me to revisit the financial problems of the dollar. The option may not be politically very popular among those with the wealth and the power in the country, but the other 98% of the population do stil retain a theoretical legal right to ena such a tax. It may be possible, for example, to mount a popular campaign to achieve this goal of taxing the rich. Politicians might be eleed on a platform of promising to vote for such an idea, and Congress might pass the necessary legislation to accomplish it. However, to avoid the rapid sheltering of funds, this would have to happen very quickly. Perhaps it might even be necessary to assess the tax rate retroaively to 2010. Large teams of special auditors would have to be employed to determine appropriate assessments. Criminal penalties ( i.e. indefinite incarceration
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until and unless the tax were paid) would probably have to be imposed. We might even want to re-introduce the guillotine.
Yes; the sharp ones among you will have noticed that these are not al uniquely different proposals. In fa, the present suggestion (of taxing the rich) is quite decidedly revolutionary. The fal of the Bastil e in 1789 might meet its parallel in the fall of The House of J. P. Morgan Chase, for example. Additionally, the formidable political obstacles to such a course of aion might require divine intervention after all. Thus, when making any wagers as to the probable outcome of the current financial ancien regime, be sure to draft the terms of your wagers very carefully to avoid disputes.
The Hierarchy of Importance
June, 2011
The Hierarchy of Importance suggests an idea which comes very close to an il umination of the concept of God. It is of universal application: it is always invoked, in addition to anything else going on. When one searches philosophy for an answer to the questions of life, the funion of the reply is to indicate that it is real y the answer to the question, “What should I do, now?” That is really the answer behind every question; so what should I do, now?
Like everything else, the answer will unfold along the lines of that hierarchy of importance. What is of the most fundamental importance? I start with an understanding of our world as a single integrated field of life energy existing within the edges of chaos. What is important to understand is that it is a single organism, and that it is alive, and conscious. Perhaps it is linked with other patches of life energy in the universe, but, in any case, it is most useful to focus our attention upon the life we know of, here: aia, a personification of the living aspe of all of life on our planet Earth (God, to us).
Our hierarchy of importance starts with the survival and growth of this organism, which is us, after all. The major observation is that this field of life energy is under enormous, seemingly insurmountable, levels of stress; the planet has been visibly dying for several hundred years, and the pace of
disintegration of the life force has picked up lately as the earth falls further and further behind, biologically.
Next in importance comes the consciousness that the biological condition of the earth needs to be turned around immediately, “at war-time speed,” as Lester Brown says in his important book, orld on the dge. In fa, that book is an excellent place to begin learning about all of the problems facing the survival of life on earth, and some of the suggested ways of addressing those issues.
That book doesn’t really consider the political issues, but there are very definitely political obstacles to the rapid and efficient management of the earth’s resources back to a sustainable, and regenerative, level. So this next idea is the One orld overnment, as the political evolution most immediately essential for the regeneration of the earth to be undertaken.
This is always the most politically charged proposal, but the only alternative to some form of One orld overnment, is a ungle of overeign tates, which is the political format which we are currently enjoying. At least, I suppose we are enjoying it. In the interests of a tight edit, I here omit a whole tirade upon the abuses borne by our Mother Earth by some of her Sovereign Masters, lately.
Moving right along, once we have a One World Government and a Single Currency, we will also want a standard and universal land tax, colleed and administered by the state, but no other taxation, other than some sort of “resource depletion tax” which will be used to modify inappropriate aivity for the earth.
Next in importance is to establish free farms for the indigent, worldwide. Everywhere in the world there should be places where anyone can go to live for free, with food to eat. This is by far the easiest way to deal with the problem of hungry people: just feed them!
At this point in the argument, it is time to address major issues in land use management in order to evolve ways of living on the earth which will tend to increase the life energy, order, and efficiency of life, rather than continuing the parade of its decline and death. It will come as a surprise to no one that I put the restoration of the Trees as first in importance under this heading!
But, not only do we need to plant more trees, we need to manage all of the biological cycles in the most efficient way, following the course recommended by nature. We will want to create healthy soil for restoring the earth to fertility, and an important example of what needs to be done is for all of the colleion of residential organic waste (the toilet, plus kitchen scraps and yard waste) to be processed and returned to the soil in as short a loop as possible (whenever possible, all recycling should be done on the spot, in ſitu). All organic waste, from all sources, must be returned to the soil, or otherwise recycled into use. I have never believed that the entire whirlwind of waste processing is simply to throw it away. s bove, o elow: as it is in my garden, so it may be on the Earth: if I constantly recycle all organic waste back to my compost piles, aive with worms, then I very quickly accumulate an abundance of rich soil which may be used to increase the coverage of my cultivation. But if the soil be depleted and dry, with flooding and soil erosion in other seasons, then the land will rapidly decline back to the desert.
The next in importance would be to establish a eat of uthority behind the One World Government. My own idea is a Seminary of Candidates, a School of International Studies, which would colleively hold the eat of uthority ( hrone, or athedra), and which would endow one of their number as their Spokesperson, who would personally sign their decisions as their agent and advocate.
From here I see a great many lesser matters of process which seem to be flawed, and in need of correion of error. One of the most important ideas is the understanding of personal health in the same light as the health of Mother Earth, or aia. In order to ensure the survival of life on earth, we want to encourage all of the natural life processes to continue, and minimize interference from the forces of chaos. In the case of the soil of our earth, it is essential to cultivate Her as an organic, living being, rich with life, and not clouded with chemical interference whose long term consequences are generally the opposite of the early experience (just exaly the same pattern as any other drug).
And we should treat our own body with the same reverence and respe, trying to understand how to maximize the integration of our life forces in accordance with the natural process, avoiding the use of synthetic chemicals. As our lands will become fertile again, our bodies will likewise become healthy and fertile again, and life can go on.
A New Currency, A New Bank,
and a New World
September, 2011
Money is funny stuff. I think of it as one of the universal abstraions like “time” and “energy” or “power.” They all mean the same thing; they are just different ways of looking at it.
Now that the world’s financial struure has fallen apart, no one quite knows what to do. What do you do when a sovereign state goes broke, like Greece or the United States? And what is the role of Banks and Bankers? Who owns the money, anyway?
I have been under the opinion that the entire world needs a makeover in every sense. Like a great many others, I have realized that there can be no growth or movement forward in any significant way until the political unity of the entire world be settled.
That, in a nutshell, is the defining problem of our time. Whether or not human life, or any life at all, manages to survive the next hundred years will depend upon the way the people of the earth come to deal with this present crisis.
But that it is all One Ball of Wax is the first lesson; there is no point trying to patch up one hole here and stop another leak over there ~ the political problems facing the union of the planet are inextricably related to
the economic problem, or the way in which the universal abstraion of Money will be applied to facilitate trade and prosperity.
This is such a huge problem and the objeions against all of the solutions are legion, but I simply present it as self-evident that the planet we live on must evolve towards a political unity, or there is no hope for the survival of life. I spend no time debating the point; I just wish to lay out a vision of a way in which a new arrangement could work.
The entire jungle of currencies in the world and the complex web of financial entanglements linking them represent, in the most primary fashion, a description of the moving power of a living system. It is much like a schematic diagram of an elerically powered system. “Follow the Money.”
I have considered the problem of the Source of Authority, and I have come to my own, perhaps surprising, idea of vesting that authority in a School, whose members would finally sele the one to exercise the final authority. I have written about these ideas quite a bit for many years, but the funion of this position has always confused and frightened people. It always seems to make them think that I want to endow some new Emperor with infinite power to lord it over the rest of us; when, in fa, of course, it is entirely the reverse: the whole necessity of a final Judge is to relieve us of the constant efforts, at every turn, of every man to get the most for himself (and the same goes for quite a few women, too). All the final judge would do would be to try to regulate the system as judiciously as possible to avoid all such excess and abuse.
But there is another very important aspe of this new world government: Money. One of the main roles of the Government would be to
regulate the economy so that it funions with maximum efficiency, completely avoiding all such problems as are now overwhelming our current crop of world bankers, with their sovereign defaults upsetting a whole house of cards.
So, we start by issuing a new currency, which would replace all others currently in use. We call it the mammon, and we establish its value somewhere in the familiar range of the dollar, pound, franc, or euro. The Seat of Government would have the privilege and responsibility of printing and distributing this currency in such supply as would most effeively encourage efficiency in the market-place. That same Seat of Government would also levy a tax, based upon the ownership of land, and this tax would be paid in mammon. So this Seat of Government would aually be a World Bank, which would regulate the system of financial transaions worldwide.
The first step would be to calculate the value of the initial account each person (or corporation) would start out with. It would be the responsibility of this Bank and Government to determine and regulate these values.
That is the easy part. The harder part would be to liquidate the financial affairs of current governments. Essentially, each Sovereign State would be financially liquidated, and its value (or its debt) would be shared among the citizens of that state. This wil not be easy! Next, as a consequence of that last effort, some people, from indebted countries like the United States, may end up with serious levels of debt. This is simply inefficient mathematically; it makes more sense to just give everyone else more money so that the poorest people end up with nothing, which is a great deal better than being in debt. If everyone’s account were simultaneously
raised by the amount of the largest debt, nothing would be changed in terms of the relationships between the accounts; we would simply have raised the line, so that we do not have to deal with negative accounts mathematically.
Yes, this Universal Account would also amount to a Universal Number! Everyone’s worst fears would be realized: yes, there would be a New World Order, with a New Currency, a New Bank, a New Court, and a new King, and everyone will have a Number. Is this a vision of sheep lined up for slaughter, or is it a vision of the Golden Age, in which everyone lives happily ever after? Gone will be the rampaging bandits from the face of the earth, looting and pillaging as they go. In place would be a very simple system.
Anyone on earth who lacks the wherewithal to provide food, shelter, or health care could simply check into one of the Free Farms set up for this purpose, and their basic needs would be met. Everyone else would be free to work at any other occupation that they expe will provide them a better lifestyle than available at the Farm.
The Government could simply print up all the money it needs for this or any other purpose, since there will probably be a continuing need for more money going into circulation. Taxation on land would be the other alternative to printing money, depending upon the relative merits of each choice. There is no reason at all why there should be any problem with the Government simply printing up all of the money it needs to spend. Any time there ends up being too much money in circulation, the Government would simply reel it back in through taxation. In this way, a happy balance could be maintained, and life goes on.
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A careful investigation into the consequences of such a system will reveal that it would be very, very efficient. For example, in the present system of taxation, a very large percentage of the total tax received is spent in preparing and calculating taxes, producing and distributing tax forms, auditing rogue corporations, col eing the tax, and hiring tax lawyers who attempt to minimize the tax owed by their clients. Under the system I envision, all taxes would simply be levied on the ownership of land. Once this were set up, the entire colleion of taxes, world-wide, could be accomplished in a moment, in which everyone’s calculated tax would simply be dedued from their account automatically, by computer programs. Of course, setting up and updating property values world-wide would be of central importance.
In the absence of wars or natural disasters, there is no reason why there could not be a continuing and rapidly increasing level of prosperity for everyone.
A Congress of the Wealthy
and Powerful
(onclave at the rotto)
December, 2011
It is the worst fear of every conspiracy theorist: some Grand onclave at the rotto of all of the world’s Wisest, Wealthiest, and/or most Powerful people, come to an emergency Congress to assess the state of the world, and the most immediate threats to the survival of life on the earth.
The dominance of the earth and its resources by the wealthy and powerful is not the only issue at stake: the biological survival of the thin envelope of life on earth, our tender biosphere, is seriously at risk. It is an essential and immediate necessity to address these problems. If we a fast, it may yet be possible for life to continue to exist on the fragile ecosphere and biosphere of our little planet.
But the problems extant on the world stage, if ranked by importance, look pretty bleak: not only is our fragile biosphere being rapidly degraded by unbelievably foolish and short sighted aivities, but world-wide financial institutions, currencies, and balances of debt are out of control and spinning off into Chaos, with potentially dire consequences.
Underpinning all of this there is a very wild “Law of the Jungle”
pervading throughout the earth, taking very frequently some very, very
frightening direions. One loose cannon is enough to do significant damage to the Ship of State. But if the earth were covered with loose cannons ~ it is hardly necessary to mention any names! It is a much shorter list to come up with areas of the globe not under the dominance of one or more loose cannons!
The time has come to take the wraps off of what everyone has been warned is coming: ne orld overnment. It is now time for those of wealth and power to convene a major Congress to determine how to implement the plan.
No one needs to be alarmed! Those of wealth and power will realize the importance of certain issues vital to the survival of life, so an orderly arrangement of those issues is the only sensible way to manage them, avoiding excess at all times.
Issues at stake will be the origin of the Authority for the executive responsibility, an agenda for the restoration of the biological health of the planet (plant trees!), the establishment of a new central bank for a universal world currency, the provision of a world-wide network of free farms for the housing, feeding, and care of the indigent, and such other issues as may be necessary of inclusion to an important new vision for the world, such as the imposition of a universal land tax to replace all of the whirlwind and confusion of taxes everywhere else, under and with which our world is mired and burdened.
The Number One Responsibility of the One World Government will be to prote and cultivate the Earth’s biosphere as a garden, encouraging healthy survival and growth of the phenomenon of Life, world-
wide. Perhaps next in importance will be the maintenance of the World Bank underpinning the new currency, for handling the matters of trade and finance. Since the “house” of the World Bank will be the One World Government itself, it can simply issue money as needed. A simple, universal land tax world-wide will replace all other instruments of taxation. (- with the exception of resource depletion taxes, which will have to be imposed upon an otherwise free market). Next will probably be the establishment of non-profit industries covering al essential aspes of civilization: food distribution, health care, transportation, and so on. Of course, the participation of anyone else or any other private company would be fully encouraged on a free market basis.
And that’s about it: the limits of the new One World Government. Its issues are few, but important. Otherwise, it will also keep the Peace. This is a thankless job, and there will be endless disputes and protests, but any resolution of problems is better than a resort to arms, and all parties will benefit from a negotiated solution, even a “wrong” one.
Only a Congress of the Wealthy and Powerful will be able to bring about these changes. We cannot wait any longer before seriously addressing these issues. It is indeed a monumental task: it is nothing less than a complete makeover of the biological, political, financial, and social struures of the earth, but the survival of life on earth is at stake, and we have no other alternative but to take it on.
The Fal ing Dol ar, Continued
December, 2011
I am not a politician, so I claim the privilege of changing my opinions whenever I wish. For the life of me, I cannot understand why it is held as such an essential virtue for a politician to retain an absolutely fixed and rigidly consistent view of everything. If there be no possibility for any evolutionary growth or change, then God help us all. I have far more respe
for a politician who is able to follow an evolutionary path in the trend of his ideas and policies than for a politician who is stuck in the constipated cement of immutable dogma, built up brick by brick from his earliest public droppings.
I have been worried about the fate of the United States government and its people for a long time now. Of course, I have necessarily extended my concern to the entire human race, and the entire biosphere of the planet, commonly personified as aia, a conscious, living being. However, the United States is the biggest elephant in the room, and it appears to be stomping around beyond all control or reason, spinning off madly into chaos while the rest of the world watches, helplessly. Well, there is plenty of stomping around into chaos on all sides, but the American government is by far the largest and most powerful loose cannon on the deck of the world ship, and consequently is liable to do the most damage.
The heart of the problem is that the American government is so far beyond bankrupt that it is virtually a mathematical certainty for it to fail
economically. Aually, of course, it has already “failed” long ago. It is like the original Carlo Ponzi, whose “Ponzi scheme” was utterly bankrupt for many years before the U.S. government was finally able to force it down.
The problem was that Ponzi was paying his high interest rates from the new funds which were constantly being subscribed! Since he kept on faithfully paying out those rates, people continued to re-invest and his empire was going on and on. Of course, mathematically this was untenable, and the longer it continued the greater the final devastation when it finally imploded.
My first article on the subje took it as understood that the only reasonable expeation was not for the government simply to declare bankruptcy, but, once no one else would take the risk of loaning it any more money, it would be forced simply to print up more and more dollars, driving the value of the dol ar inexorably down and down.
My second article took another look at the problem and concluded that there was another option ~ that the United States tax the rich, whose looting of the treasury over the past 350 years has reduced the country to its present state of penury. This is politically untenable, of course, so it is not really much of a possibility.
But I have changed my opinion of what is to be done. In my last article on the subje, I detailed even ays to etire the U.. ational
ebt, introducing the option of taxing the rich. But I have reconsidered that approach in favor of a new option that I seem to have overlooked, probably because this new option is about as laughably impossible as taxing the rich.
What if the U.S. government should stop spending so much money? I wil go out for coffee now, while everyone subsides into uncontrollable hilarity for the next twenty minutes. (“Does a bear shit in the woods?” they used to ask.)
It is not that it is even so impossible ~ I have already detailed a program of drastically curtailing spending ~ it is just that the nature of the beast is so rooted in endless, profligate spending that it is just unimaginable that there might be any way to curb the voracious appetite of this monster.
Still, if I am going to make any recommendations, I might as well, just for the record, suggest that the government quit spending so much money.
Just to recap how to do this: no more wars, first of all. Free Farms instead of transfer payments. Simplify the tax code to consist of just a land tax plus a resource depletion tax. Eliminate about 90% of all federal jobs and bureaucracies, including the Department of “Defense” (Orwel -speak). Put an end to the War on Drugs and other viimless crimes. Scrap endless regulation and “busy work.” Oh, and pay off that debt as fast as possible.
There aren’t enough jobs to go around anymore, but that should be good news ~ anyone put out of work by these policies could just go fishing, or retire to the Free Farm, and leave the rest of the economy to those who have something worthwhile to do.
Oh, yes ~ I really should address the objeion that working people don’t like the idea of supporting the poor. Why should someone spend a portion of his hard earned money to feed hungry people who don’t have money of their own?
Wel , in the spirit of Jonathan Swift’s odeft ropoſal, I might suggest a simple and elegant alternative solution: every year, perhaps on January 1st, July 4th, or some other seleed date, the poorest 10% of the world’s population should be painlessly euthanized. This would not only go very far toward treating the problem of over-population, but what a stimulus
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to economic aivity! Suddenly, all of those loafers who thought they were simply going to be fed humanely wil be galvanized into aion, and the race will be on.
As every year’s losers are put out of their misery, the economy will start tightening up really quickly, freed up of all of that drag on the wheels of commerce.
Manipulated Markets
December, 2011
As we face the imminent collapse of the global financial system, credit markets, and currencies ~ not only the dollar and the euro; the whole concept of fiat currencies is being met with increasing skepticism ~ one thing is puzzling me: the collapse of the property markets.
Many people have been prediing economic chaos on a scale never before seen on earth, probably dwarfing the Great Depression of the 30s. As we face this possibility or probability, everyone wants to know how it wil affe them, and how they can best manage their affairs to cushion the blow when it comes.
For the suer rich, the problem is to find some safe assets to hold which will retain value after currencies become worthless. For everyone else, the problems are far more fundamental and primitive: what is the best way to ensure that you will have food to eat and a place to live?
For the rich, the solutions are precious few: gold and silver, perhaps, although these are not good long-term investments. Yes, a canny investment in precious metals (or even common metals, or other basic commodities) made at a carefully calculated moment has the potential to achieve a very satisfying return, but, long-term, the expense and hassle of holding gold or silver bogs down any realistic expeation of long-term growth.
It seems to me that the only obvious choice is land ~ the land of the earth is the ultimate source of value and wealth, and has been since the earliest times. But for ordinary people, too, ownership of land appears to be the safest investment in uncertain times. Even a very small piece of land could support a few fruit and nut trees. One English Walnut tree wil provide major sustenance for a family forever. These tree crops should be supplemented with kitchen gardens of organically grown vegetables and berries. If your land has a natural source of water (and a mountain spring is more reliable than groundwater), you would be in a fair way to becoming sustainably independent. Add a solar power set-up and a good assortment of tools, and you should be able to survive nearly any upheaval.
So in the face of the natural value of land, particularly in times of trouble, the free-fall of the property market makes no sense to me at all. All I can think of is that the property markets are being deliberately manipulated so that “the smart money” can choose their moment and buy up all that land for pennies on the dollar, and then sit back while everything else collapses in value.
Here we have everyone in debt to the banks so they desperately try to sell off their land to pay their debts. The banks are already acquiring property rapidly through foreclosures; if someone were able to pay off their loan in cash, the bankers could then purchase other distressed property through the property markets. In any case, when the crash comes, do not be surprised if it is the banks, the bankers, and other custodians of “the smart money” who end up owning all the land.
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Other than land, I real y can’t think of much else that would retain any value, with the possible exception of munitions faories, but I don’t go there.
The Problem of Europe
August, 2012
Today I read about the Problem of Europe as a question of creeping Federalism. Apparently Margret Thatcher anticipated the problem by saying that the only way the euro could work was by a form of increased Federalism, which she declared she totally rejeed as unthinkable.
The economic problems of the euro are prediable enough when you try to have a single currency but multiple nations. The poverty and bankruptcy of Greece pale into insignificance when compared with the bankruptcy of the United States of America, yet the USA has one critical advantage over Greece: it can print up more dollars any time it wants (and, oh, does it want ~ and don’t expe that thirst to be slaked any time soon), but Greece cannot print up more euros (unless no one notices as they slip some in ~ there’s an idea).
It is easy to see the inevitability of the whole process, which has been going on for hundreds and thousands of years. Gradually, however long it takes, Europe will finally coalesce into a single entity, with a single currency. However, the same process will simply continue until, however long it takes, the whole world will finally become a single political entity, with a single government, a single currency, a single bank, and even a single language (probably English).
This may take anywhere from two or three hundred years to several millennia to work itself out into some sort of stable arrangement, but the world may not last that long. The biological survival of the Earth as a living organism, is a serious and open question. As Lester Brown ( orld on the
dge) and many others have concluded, it should be possible for the human race to intervene in time to save the Earth from dying out, but it is greatly complicated by the political chaos currently being enjoyed by the planet. Or not being enjoyed, as it may happen.
So why not simply fast-forward and get it done with right away, so that we can then proceed “at wartime speed,” and with the very highest priority, to the process of reversing all of the many virulent processes killing off our world? Simple and obvious examples are the proliferation of toxic chemicals for the soil, and pharmaceutical drugs for human bodies. These must be replaced with organic processes and cycles if there is to be any hope for the survival of life on earth.
If all of Europe were united into a common land, with a single government and a single currency (but it is very hard to imagine a single language), that would probably provide significant benefits to all of Europe, including the wealthier parts which would eventually end up funding the elevation of the poorer parts. But the advantages gained would greatly outweigh these costs, which is why those wealthier nations and/or people will eventually pay the cost and unite Europe.
But all of that will only shift the argument and the problem to a larger theater: the World Stage. It is the Whole World that needs a single currency, a single bank, a single government, and a single language, not just Europe! Why do we waste our time in this way? The problem is urgent;
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why don’t we proceed immediately to a “Congress of the Wealthy and Powerful” to set up some protocol for advancing the argument? The sooner we accomplish those four Changes, the sooner we can all move on to the next and supremely important item on the Agenda: the survival of life on earth.
Money, Power, Politics, & God
April, 2013
It is clear to everyone that there is something terribly wrong with our world today, but no one seems to know just exaly what the problem is, or what to do about it. The financial markets seem to be central to it all, and, in fa, it boils down to Money as the root and center of the problem, which will come as a big surprise to everyone.
Historically, the history of civilization has mainly been a non-stop game of King of the Mountain, based on the simple principle that superior force will win the point. That game is stil going on, and it isn’t going to go away any time soon, but there is an aspe of Power that has become more and more important lately. The consequences of physical war at today’s level of capability of destruion would mean the end of life on earth, or at least the end of human life. There may be breeds of inses that will be able to adapt and survive, but the human race is finished, about the time that the planet is totally worn out, anyway. No, in today’s world, Money is the dominant expression of Power, and it is intimately conneed to all other problems; it just depends upon the point of view.
When you understand the meanings of the Colors of the Aura, you will begin to see them easily ( ide: etragrammaton and he olors of the
ura). On this scale, the Planet Earth, aia, is struggling at the limits of survival, way down at the Reds and Violets. Only Black is lower down, as the absence of all life.
I think there may have been a time, perhaps not much more than 500
years ago, when the Earth was a green and healthy planet, very much a going concern, glowing bright Yellow and Green, with some very bright flashes of White Light. And now look at it! It is barely alive at all, and struggling on a daily basis for survival. There are plenty of human beings who have been there, let alone planets.
It is true that the Modern Age has seen some incredible developments: the whole Computer and Internet Age has sprung up from nowhere, establishing a very certain line in the history of the evolution of the human race. Yet, at the same time, the biological side of the piure has been bleak to unsustainable. The Earth is dying; and this is a problem the human race will just have to solve, because if the planet no longer supports life, nothing else is worth very much.
But, even though some observers try to demonstrate praical ways in which the ravages of this decline might be abated, it almost seems to have been given up as a lost cause, and everyone simply grabs what they can as they prepare to jump ship. But it is like the sinking of the Titanic, where there really wasn’t anywhere the passengers could safely go, so they died.
This biological problem with the planet is not the only threat to the survival of the human race: at the same time there is monumental confusion about the role of money and banking, and the world is embroiled in endless political skirmishes as people struggle for survival or dominance in one place or another. All three of these problems come together, and they have to be solved all at once and together, and from the beginning, ex cathedra.
The solution to Political chaos is perfely obvious: of course there must be one world government; that goes without saying. Visionaries like Teilhard de Chardin, Bertrand Russell, H. G. Wells, and Einstein have known it all the time. It is obvious and inescapable.
But it is the Money problem that I want to address direly here.
“Money” is a universal abstraion, like Time, and Power. You cannot say,
“We have agreed not to observe Time anymore; for us, time no longer exists.” Nor can you say, “We have all agreed not to observe Power anymore, and we have all turned in our guns.” Neither can you do away with the concept of Money. You cannot reje Money without rejeing Mathematics, which, as everyone knows these days, is the basis of the Origin of the Cosmos, or God (Pythagorean school).
It was simple enough to figure out the solution to the problem of Power: there must be a single, one world government. But the solution to the enigmas of Money are far more complex, and many attempts have been made to explain how it all works.
But, since we decide to begin at the top, ex cathedra, the present historical chaos of financial entanglements is all wrong in so many ways! Most people have begun to realize by now that the entire “banking industry” is a fraud, designed to perpetuate the wealth of the owners above everyone else. There is no reason why “money” has to imply any debt to anyone, certainly not the banks, which are the beneficiaries of the whole program. So, of course, we must start with a tabula raſa, so that we might be uncluttered with historical baggage. The first conclusion is that there must only be one Currency. That’s not an exclusive demand: no other money! The point is that there must be One final medium of Exchange,
against which anything else may be measured (the annual tax on property, for example). This Original Central Bank will be in the care of a very carefully seleed Trustee. My own idea is to entrust the responsibility of seleion to a Seminary of students drawn from all over the world at an early age to form a School of International Studies, which would self-sele one of themselves to represent them as the Trustee. But other seleion methods might be suggested.
Since Money is a universal abstraion, an examination into the workings of financial transaions will provide a very complete piure of most energy in the system. The Human Race, and all of aia, is currently enjoying the historical inheritance of Money/Power, playing itself out on the stage of the world. A jungle of private banks and corporations is like a jungle of sovereign states, or a jungle of wild animals, or a jungle of hungry men.
There must be One World, aia; One Currency of Exchange; and One Primary Bank, under the direion of a Trustee of the World who has been very carefully chosen.
The operation of money becomes very simple: the Trustee of the World would maintain a Currency for the settlement of transaions; and they would set rates of exchange at their discretion. The One Bank would create the Currency at will, and regulate its growth and supply by a tax on property and other wealth, whenever the money supply exceeded levels determined to be optimum. The Trustee would be the Direor of this Bank.
Since the World Bank would have unlimited funds, it would simply spend the money in ways that would seem to maximize the effeiveness or necessity of what it needs to do. For example, my idea of providing free
farms where anyone can go and simply eat and sleep for free, could be maintained at no cost whatsoever: to a very large extent, the state will want to put plenty of Money out into the world, and this is an excellent way to do it! Of course, spending money to feed hungry people, or building hospitals and schools and roads, will always be useful. Now, all aion decisions are based on the profit motive, which is a very big mistake. At the level of global survival, it is an entirely unacceptable process. Yes, a gradual increase of the supply of money can go on forever, but when it exceeds its optimal expansion, it is possible to reel it back in through a universal property tax.
(No other taxes would need to be applied, other than a “resource depletion tax” which would be levied specifically to regulate consumption, not to reduce the money supply.) [update: “property” might be understood to include other forms of wealth.]
I think that the important place to begin is to assemble a Seminary of Candidates, carefully seleed from all over the world, for expressions of potential excellence. I would like to find a benefaor who would cover the expenses of founding such an institution. An International School of International Studies, in which every candidate is accepted at full scholarship for life, would certainly create a very powerful ferment.
This is an Alchemical Vessel, and the ferment that would result could very well be considerable, and could produce the energies required for the accomplishment of the Great Work of Alchemy, and an Incarnation of God on Earth, Who will own the Bank, and spend the Money.
Finally, whence comes the final authority for this Trustee? Of course, it can only come from God. There seem to be very few people left on our
planet, as it is worn down to a sorry frazzle, who know how to get strength from God anymore.
I am presupposing that the final seleion of the Seminary of the World as Trustee will not only produce someone who will be extremely competent and will fulfill the expeations people will have, but who will also become the channel for a very huge jolt of energy, which will seem to be a manifestation of God, heophany. Aually, the energy behind this is God, and this is a deliberate exercise of classical magic.
The world needs a new Avatar. None of the others have really satisfied all requirements, although some of them have enjoyed an extended vogue, at times. The concept of the ivine ight of ings comes from the obvious idea that the power of a King can only come from God. There is no other way this can work.
All we have to do is set it in motion by seleing a Seminary of Candidates for Trustee of the World. The school itself will set up its own energy and momentum, and participate in the unfolding of the infinite cosmos.
When the Trustee has been seleed, it will be up to Him or Her to achieve the recognition and acceptance required to ride to a position of closure, when everything is settled to the point where the Trustee is regarded more and more widely as the central authority and final bank for the settlement of transaions worldwide. Money means Credit, and the intention is to settle that in one place, to establish a solid base upon which the foundations for the future evolutions of the human race can be established.
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The Interim of Transition may provide unimaginable obstacles. But if it succeeds, then World Peace would be achieved, and a new Golden Age will supervene.
A Modest Proposal to Achieve Peace
in the Middle East
Oober, 2014
I write this in Oober of 2014, and any prospe of peace in the Middle East appears to be way beyond unlikely. The tensions between Sunni and Shia Moslems appear to be as great as the antipathy of all Moslems to the Western world or to Israel.
As I speculate upon philosophical themes as well as the obstacles to the survival of life on earth, I have come to the conclusion, shared by a great many philosophers, scholars, and visionaries of every possible kind, that the only hope for the survival of life on earth is an immediate and unprecedented evolutionary leap in global consciousness ~ and this really has to happen virtually overnight. The most immediate and pressing problems are ecological ~ the loss of the Trees, the burning off of millions of years’ worth of fossil fuels in a few generations, the destruion and growing necrosis of our Oceans, the erosion of our slender resource of topsoil and the attendant cycles of severe drought and destruive flooding (all of which are direly caused by the loss of the Trees, which I have called the greatest mistake the human race has made in its relatively brief rampage of destruion upon our dear planet), the increasingly evident problems of global warming and climate change, the toxic devastation of the planet’s farmland as well as our own human bodies by the incredibly stupid and myopic reliance upon pharmaceutical drugs and chemical interference with the organic patterns which have sustained the growth of human life for the many thousands of years prior to the modern era ~ I could go on and on, but I am not the only
one beating this drum, and these issues have been raised repeatedly, although seemingly falling upon deaf ears (because it’s money that makes the world go round, not love ~ I hate to break the news).
It’s not that no one knows what to do about these problems ~ I have detailed a whole program of planetary restoration in a whole series of previous articles, and Lester Brown ( lan : orld on the dge) has offered many excellent ideas of how the planetary slide into destruion and death can be slowed and possibly even reversed ~ but the problems confronting us are not primarily technological, but political and economic. I have even addressed those issues, and have come up with radical solutions which may easily be found among my writings, and need not be repeated here. I certainly do not and would not suggest that my solutions might be easily or quickly implemented, but the problems are so pressing that we must make some efforts, and do so immediately. However, my proposals for new patterns and institutions for social and economic organization, which might be made to work among the peoples of relatively stable environments, run into serious problems when faced with the rampant chaos on the ground in the Middle East. It really seems to be that an essential prerequisite to any new evolutionary growth is the radical elevation of consciousness worldwide.
There is a necessary and inevitable sequence about this program of social, political, and economic institutions worldwide, and then, finally, we might be in a position to address the urgent program of ecological regeneration which we must tackle immediately if there is to be any hope for the survival of life on earth. Whew! Now what? I love the apocryphal image of Don Quixote
“jumping on his horse and riding off rapidly in all direions,” but on my last careful reading of the text, I failed to locate that passage, and I don’t remember where I heard of it.
Well, not to worry ~ I have a solution, as usual. First, let us consider the present “conventional” approach. I think the U.S. government has racked up expenses well in excess of a trillion dollars (or multiple trillions) in fighting the “war against terror” in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Syria. And yet, by all estimates, the world is rapidly plunging ever more deeply into chaos, and everyone is considerably less safe than they were in the year 2000.
So here is my proposal ~ give me just 1% of that budget, a mere $10
billion, and I will undertake to resolve all of the problems and conflis of the Middle East within, say, ten years’ time. The lions will lie down with the lambs, and everyone wil beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Everyone will return happily to their farms, making love with their wives (and/or significant others), and a new Golden Age wil supervene over that historically troubled land. Aually, I expe my costs to be well within one billion dollars, or even considerably less than that, but I will be happy to retain the remaining $9 billion as my fee.
By now I am sure it is clear to almost everyone how I propose to accomplish this miracle, especially to all those who realize that I am an original hippie from the 60s ~ of course it is obvious and very simple ~ we simply manufaure a few billion trips of LSD and distribute them for free all over the world. LSD, as everyone knows, has zero physical toxicity, zero addiive potential, and a high correlation with spiritual epiphany.
Sometimes I have heard of people having some bad times “with LSD,” but, upon further inquiry, it always turns out that the person experiencing bad effes was also using some combinations of very highly toxic drugs ~
methamphetamines, cocaine, heroin, alcohol, sugar, etc. Those who only use
LSD, with perhaps some preparation of cannabis, rarely experience any negative effes, and never are those effes physically expressed.
Of course, in order for this plan to work, it is essential that it be carried out in the West as well as the Middle East, as the need for spiritual renewal is just as pressing in the West as it is anywhere else in the world. When you take a hefty dose of LSD (usually 300-500 mcg, depending upon body weight and other faors), “you see God and you love everyone.” And these two experiences describe exaly the same thing ~ being in the presence of God means the same thing as feeling an unlimited oceanic love for all of life
~ that is the spiritual epiphany.
Aually, I should clarify that the experience does not apply to the inexperienced or casual user (or someone with a low level of spiritual consciousness), and certainly not with any user who combines other drugs with the LSD experience (with the exception of moderate cannabis use, which is harmless, and anything else in very careful moderation). With most drugs, the “high” is followed by a depression which falls well below the original baseline. Each subsequent indulgence brings the experience to a less lofty high, leading ultimately to a place where the “high” is far lower than the original baseline, and the lows are the very depths of Hell. In contrast to this familiar pattern, the high of LSD is followed by a very gentle decline, but ending with a mild euphoria somewhat above the starting baseline. The physical aspes of subsequent LSD ingestion are dose dependent (somewhat modified by “set and setting”), but the spiritual high gets higher with every use, while the end state is increasingly higher, so that an occasional user might end up with an advanced spiritual consciousness as his ordinary, baseline experience. This pattern of experience has been observed numerous
times, especially when the tripper’s consciousness has not been negatively affeed by other drugs (including excessive sugar or alcohol) or other unrelated negative experiences.
I might charaerize the LSD experience as a hyper stimulation of the sensory stimuli along with an increased consciousness of the potential for novelty. It is this last charaeristic that makes LSD so frightening to the conservative masters of repressive regimes. The last thing anyone in political power wants is for anyone to discover and explore the potential for novelty!
Oh, no! It is no surprise that the CIA would want to control the opium crop in Afghanistan so that they could refine it into heroin and bring it to the young black men of the inner cities of New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
They want the addi to bow his head, shuffle along, and think only about getting another fix. Can you imagine the chaos that might ensue if these oppressed minorities might open their eyes to the systematic oppression, leading (usually and deliberately) to incarceration, and instead began to consider ways of overturning the process? Such a conscious awareness could easily lead to a veritable revolution. Oh, no ~ keep them sedated with opiates, and then pick them off one by one and pack them off to jail.
But novelty might rear its ugly or beautiful head in a great many other ways ~ after a few sessions of LSD, a man might quit his job, leave his family (or bring them with him), and go off to an ashram in India in search of enlightenment. Or, he might simply quit his job selling life insurance so that he can play his alto saxophone in a jazz band. There are no limits to the potential of novelty to the expanded consciousness.
But it is only through Change that anything can get better! Now we are faced with a world that is coming apart at the seams in every way ~
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ecologically, politically, economically, and socially. What this world needs (and, boy did it ever need it yesterday!) is a greatly augmented consciousness of the potential for change! Whether you like my own solutions to the problems of the world, or whether you prefer to follow another agenda, one thing is clear ~ a lot of things have got to change, and change very, very quickly if there is to be any hope for the survival of life on earth. Bring on the LSD! May the sun shine forever, and may you stay forever young.
The reason this program may take about ten years is that the rise in consciousness is neither instantaneous nor permanent ~ it takes a series of trips before the aspirant gradually perceives the interconneedness and unity of all being, and begins to feel an oceanic love for al of life ~ plants and animals, rivers, oceans, trees, fragrant roses, and people ~ and, in a final epiphany, sees God in al Her Glory. Some will reach this point sooner than others (and many, of course, never reach it at all), but once a critical mass has been reached, the elevation of consciousness will become general and universal. At this point, many of the ecological changes will come about naturally as natural organic patterns of life will replace artificial and destruive ones, such as chemical fertilizers and pharmaceutical drugs.
Political and economic changes will easily and quickly follow, trees will be planted everywhere (restore Paradise: dig up a parking lot), and aia may once again grow green and fertile, providing abundant food for everyone, and life on earth may continue.
A One World Total Make-Over
being a re-statement of my plan to save the world
2016
Well, at least I’m not the only one. I wonder why this world is in such a terrible mess when so many people are crying out about all the problems.
But crying out is not enough; pointing out all the problems does not advance the argument very much at all. In order for any change to happen, someone has to do something.
I have always found myself thinking about the largest and most serious problems of the world. Whenever any problem appears, I always want to go to the root of the problem ~ the ultimate root ~ because it has always seemed to me to be so much energy wasted if you do not address the most important and fundamental issues first.
It is perfely clear that the single most important issue, from the point of view of the survival of life on earth, is the ongoing collapse of our very fragile eco-system in the biosphere of our little wandering planet. ( lant more rees!)
But before any of those issues can be adequately addressed on a planet-wide basis, it is necessary to forge a political union of the whole earth. Yes, of course ~ One orld overnment, and ew orld Order. It is not surprising that everyone is so terrified of this, because the obstacles to such a cataclysmic and potentially explosive change in the fundamental stability of
the earth are so enormous that no one can think of any way to proceed. But the problems of the world are not going to be solved with baling wire, Scotch tape, black thread, or mirrors, let alone chewing gum, and any efforts in those direions are totally useless while our planet is dying all around us.
What this planet needs is a total make-over from the top. Unless we shoulder the responsibility ourselves, the only hope for the earth is deus ex machina ~ literally. Otherwise, there is no future for this little world at all.
Our world is rapidly falling apart on all sides, driven by the biological processes of our dying planet, and exacerbated by the ensuing and compounding ecological, social, political, and economic collapse all around us.
In fa, the only possible solution to this problem must be theological.
It was not for nothing that the old kings used to claim to rule by divine right, since it is clear that the only source of authority must come from God. But that, of course, is the crux of the whole problem ~ who will convey and certify the Word of God to Man?
How could any of the diverse nations in the world agree to give up their sovereignty to any other entity? And yet, a solution to the problem has to be found ~ and I found one over forty years ago that I still think is the best and only possible solution (if you have a better idea, put it forward; don’t wait). And that is to create a Seminary of children seleed at a young age from all over the world to form a chool of International tudies that would be fully endowed to cover all the expenses of the students, the teachers, and al additional staff. It would be dedicated to an on-going in-depth study of the world’s problems, region by region. In addition to the best possible regular teachers, there would be an on-going program of
different specialists making special presentations to the students. Then, at some future time (perhaps thirty years later), the seminary would meet together and choose one of their number to represent them as the instrument to interpret and execute the Will of God on Earth. He or she would then appoint members of a new seminary to ensure a stable continuity.
This idea of the seminary is like an alchemical vessel, and the intent and purpose is literal y to conjure an Incarnation and Avatar of God. If this sounds like an exercise in Classical Magic, you are entirely corre; that is just exaly what it is. But it is not Black Magic ~ it is not the furtherance of our own will that is sought, but a vehicle through which, once again, God’s Voice may be heard on our Planet, in Her time of need.
You might think that al of that is a tal order, and quite enough for one day’s work, but that is only the one single most pressing problem of our day; there are others. For example, after the Source of Authority be established and a World Government be instituted under the direion of this new Avatar, who will speak with God’s Voice (this plan was first suggested at the establishment of the hurch of the iving ree [ quod ide:
www.tree.org], and this Avatar of God was cal ed “The Advocate for the Tree”) ~after all of this has been arranged, it is time to address the third most pressing problem (after the Source of Authority, and the Biological Restoration of our planet) ~ Economics, the basis and nature of Money.
At present, the jungle of Money is just as serious and wild a problem as the political chaos on the ground. This prevailing economic jungle is a holdover from the days of feudalism (money being simply a liquid form of property), with sources of capital concentrating in fewer and fewer hands all the time, while the rest of the world is dying of poverty, starvation, and war.
The solution here for a brand new make-over of the world financial system is comparable to the political solution, and, in fa, becomes the primary arm of implementation for its policies.
First of all, instead of money being understood from the point of view of debt, I think it should be understood as credit. The World Government, under the authority of the dvocate for the ree (or whatever he might be called) would create and issue credit as needed, denominated in a new currency. These days, most financial transaions are done by computer, but there would also be some issuance of paper currency, as needed.
To start with, other currencies would be honored for a determined value in the new currency. Other currencies, however, would be deliberately devalued over time to expedite the economic transfer to the new world currency. The value would be easily maintained and adjusted by means of a universal tax on property, which would be taken annually and which would have to be paid in the new currency. All other taxes would be eliminated, except for those that come under the heading of “Resource Depletion Taxes.” Otherwise, there would be an entirely free market, with no business taxes or income taxes, with everyone free to pursue their own road to financial independence and security.
For those who run out of money or resources, a network of Free Farms would be set up for the housing and feeding of the indigent. Schools would be free, and hospitals and health care would be largely subsidized. Inner city transit trains and buses would run for free. Anything which needed to be done anywhere in the world would simply be paid for by the State. I can also imagine that the State would run non-profit food stores, clothing stores, and hardware stores. Anyone would be free, of course, to set up any competing
markets, probably by providing specialty items not found in the government stores.
The rate of the universal property tax would be determined by the optimum amount of the money supply. The interesting thing about this economic system is that the government would simply create whatever money it needs. Then, when taxes are colleed, they would be automatically removed from the property owners’ accounts with the World Bank. Where would the “money” go? It would simply be annihilated, roughly balancing out the funds created by the government constantly as it goes about its business, addressing problems and needs as they occur in the world. Private investment banks would be perfely legal, but the World Bank would pay no interest and charge no fees ~ and it would certainly not “bail out” any failing banks!
Some people may think that this is just a form of Communism, and it is true that it incorporates many features of that political and economic philosophy, but where it differs is in the complete freedom of everyone to participate in the free market in any way he or she wishes ~ most of the really important and innovative produs and services would always be provided by the private seor, and there would always be new opportunities unfolding as our world evolves.
Most Americans take it as an article of faith that Democracy, as enshrined in the Constitution, is the best form of government ever devised.
Many people are willing to admit that there are some flaws in the system, but the inevitable conclusion is that “In spite of its flaws, American Democracy is still better than any known alternative.”
Well, the U.S. Constitution was a produ of its times, and was admirably suited to the needs of the fledgling state. However, as Thomas Jefferson himself so insightfully recognized, the longer any government persists, the more it wil be taken over by an Establishment of wealth and power that cares more (~ a lot more; try “exclusively cares”) about the preservation and enhancement of its own wealth and power than about any other concerns of the country or its “little people.”
This has become more and more dramatically evident as the years rol by. Democracy might have been a good idea, but we don’t live in a Democracy anymore, except in name. The System that has evolved in the U.S.A. is a “Capitalist Plutocracy.” And now, as I write in January of 2017, we have a Capitalist Plutocrat as our President-ele who seems to be intending to make America great again for the 1%, while the rest of us run very fast trying to stay in the same place, and our world slips ever more deeply into necrosis. The trees are gone; the topsoil is gone; the animals and honeybees are dying off; the oceans are dying; the polar ice caps are melting.
(I understand you can pick up prime ocean-front property in Bangla Desh for a song and a dance.) The death of our planet and the survival of life on earth just don’t seem to rate as very high priorities to the ones holding the ownership of the planet in their portfolios.
So, I venture to suggest that the political chaos in the world is not limited to the Middle East, but is a systemic problem the whole world over, including our own little corner of it. Our Constitution has outlived its usefulness, and our system has become corrupted just as Thomas Jefferson predied that it would be. It is not only time for a new political institution in this country, but the citizens of the world cannot afford to wait any longer
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before a whole new Contra be worked out that encompass a vision for the entire planet, and entrust the executive authority of the planet to a carefully considered institution that will safeguard the health of the planet and the rights and welfare of its citizens, for the benefit of future generations.
Yes, there are plenty of problems yet remaining, but nothing much can be done about them until these three big ones are accomplished.
Oh ~ how are these little improvements going to be introduced to the world, you ask? I never said it was going to be easy, yet there is a way ~ the keystone of the arch is this hypothetical Seminary. Well, that can be started immediately, as soon as funding become available to endow the institution with operating funds. Then the world will have thirty years or so to get used to the idea. During those years, all existing problems will probably be getting a lot worse (declining state of the world’s eco-system as the dying planet causes continuing climate change, political chaos, economic chaos, over-population, demographic changes, etc.), so that this new Avatar of God may be recognized and welcomed for what he or she would be ~ a last chance to heal the planet, evolving into a sane, safe, and stable world, where all of our children might have one more chance to stay alive.
The Noosphere
March, 2017
I am just reading over he henomenon of an by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, one of the most significant books in the history of philosophy. His thesis is that the evolution of the universe is the evolution of Life, and that the evolution of Life leads inevitably to the evolution of Consciousness.
He sees this evolution on an inevitable trajeory towards an increasing of consciousness towards some unknowable future state which he calls the Omega oint. He leaves it there, not hazarding a speculation as to the nature of such a point, but he understands it as a transformational point by which ontogenesis, biogenesis, and noogenesis make a major breakthrough to a whole new plateau, as profound as the initial transformation into Life from the chance agglomerations of matter, or the transformation into the level of refleive thought and consciousness from the instinive level of lower animals.
Today’s meditation is a speculation as to the nature of that evolutionary advance which will lead life and consciousness into these new levels of experience.
I suggest that this transformational point which we are in the process of crossing is the transition from individual consciousness to planetary-wide bio-consciousness. Aually, Teilhard de Chardin suggested as much, but he clearly anticipates that there will be much about this new experience that is
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beyond speculation. This evolutionary leap may take a great many years to be fully accomplished, but I expe that we will see more and more people sharing a planetary-wide consciousness as the years go by. Together we wil form a whole new plateau in the expression of Life leading to monumental changes in every aspe of our existence.
I have always felt that I were “tuning in” messages from the planetary-wide “aia consciousness,” not only in terms of philosophical ideas, but also in terms of planetary evolution. Now, some of my ideas may seem way beyond radical ( ide, e.g., One orld otal akeover), but eventually the ideas may be seen as being in line with what the desperate state of our world requires.
Economic Theory
May, 2017
I am reading the very disturbing book ~ he hock orine by Naomi Klein, which is a scathing indiment of Milton Friedman’s Free Market theories. I compare the economic implications with my own economic recommendations as outlined in my writings ( ide, e.g., One orld otal
akeover, 2016).
The fundamental problem of economics (as in politics, as clearly understood by Thomas Jefferson) is that, regardleſs of the economic or political ſyftem, the longer the game goes on, the more the wealth and power become concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. This isn’t any new revelation ~ Jesus Christ put it quite succinly: o thoſe who have, more al be given; from them who have not, it all be taken away even the little that they have.
As long as this universal truth be clearly understood, there is no difficulty understanding political or economic evolutions, nor is it difficult to see what needs to be done to ameliorate the unfortunate consequences of that truth.
Milton Friedman’s religiously fundamentalist belief in the sanity of free markets is not hard to understand, as long as you are prepared to accept a ruthless and unreconstrued Darwinist approach to civilization and life itself. Free markets, without any pesky regulation or controls, will certainly stimulate surging market economies. This “surging market economy,”
however, is only enjoyed by 20%, or 10%, or 1% of the total population; the remainder of the population (the “little people”) is of no consequence or interest to the market leaders and winners.
Where this theory breaks down, of course, is with the same limits encountered by any other invasive pestilence ~ its very success is its undoing: when the host is destroyed, the growth feeding on it will also die.
My own economic suggestions seem to me to fol ow just the right line
~ allowing an unfettered free market in order to enjoy the efficiencies inherent in the free market, but tempered with extensive support for the other 80%, 90%, or 99% of the population. Thus, I have cal ed for the implementation of Free Farms providing free housing, food, education, and health care for the indigent, along with a complete program of support for everyone else ~ free inner city trains and buses, subsidized food stores and health care, etc.
Of course, the excesses of the free market would also be direly limited with my proposed Resource Depletion Tax, whose levels would be adjusted as necessary to promote market modifications. For example, facing the potentially catastrophic consequences of Climate Change, we would rapidly ratchet up a carbon tax that would make coal fired power plants totally unprofitable, and gasoline a very expensive fuel for automobiles. Air travel would likewise be so expensive that only the wealthiest persons would use it, and then only for the most essential transportation needs (importing Maine lobster, for example . . . ). The tax for cutting down a tree would be so high that forest produs would become prohibitively expensive, forcing the development of alternative produs. Wind, solar, and geothermal power would very quickly replace 20th Century reliance on fossil fuels.
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But with all of this support for the poorer members of society, the wealthy class could be free to develop whatever produs and services they could manage to sell to each other or anyone else, on a free market basis, without excessive business taxation or other interference in their aivities (beyond the resource depletion tax).
None of this will happen automatically, nor does it make any sense to hire a fox to guard the hen house (e.g., Donald Trump) ~every garden needs a Gardener to maintain the healthiest balance of life in the garden or the world, and our suggestion of setting up an independent institution ( e.g., he
eminary of he hurch of the iving ree) to produce a source of regulatory authority still sounds good to me. It seems to me that the holders of wealth and power in the world ought to welcome such an independent authority, recognizing that without it there would be no restraint to prevent the destruion of the host ~ in this case, our dear Mother Earth.
Guns or Money?
July, 2016
The Chinese figured out long ago that it isn’t about guns anymore; it’s about money. The Americans don’t seem to have figured that out yet. Even bin Laden famously understood perfely well what he was doing ~ the intent was to bankrupt Uncle Sam, and it’s been working beautifully. The Americans gleefully ratchet up their debt into astronomical trillions waging war all over the world, while the Chinese bankers have been quietly picking up the paper. Nothing is made in the United States anymore except weapons, meaning that its industries flourish in times of international tension and war; everything else is made in China.
Change happens very gradually at two points, and changes very suddenly at the other two points. The first Change is a sudden one as something New bursts into being. The second Change, however, happens very gradually ~ as the original, expansive energy begins to wane, the reversal turning back down happens very slowly. The third Change is another sudden one, in which death supervenes. The fourth Change, completing the cycle, is very gradual, as the prima materia begins to draw together the energy to form a new life again.
So, if we apply this description of the process of life and death to the economic and political life of the planet, at what stage is the United States, or the Earth as a whole, on that cycle of life and death? Well, the United States is clearly in decline. There can be no doubt about it ~ neither its political nor its economic systems are up to the challenges of the present day.
As to the question of the political process, Donald Trump is the reduio ad abſurdum to that one. But its economic system is equally inadequate. Free market capitalism is out of control, and must be restrained. There must be an independent government establishment that is not beholden to any special interests at all. This would be my idea of a seminary of students seleed from all over the country (or the world) to hold the Sovereign Authority in trust. If they are given the best possible education, they wil surely sele the best one of their number to exercise the sovereign authority.
My idea of making the sovereign authority identical with the Bank is praically a matter of definition, as the power to create money at will is a virtually unlimited power.
I see three stages in the implementation of this plan. First, there is the establishment of the Seminary. This can be done without any political importance at all ~ it is simply a matter of funding. As soon as adequate funding be available, a seminary can be constituted and launched, and its students can begin to receive the best possible education, completely liberated from any of the ordinary pressures of life. Specialists in all fields will make specially prepared presentations to the class, so they will benefit from the best available sources of information. Their curriculum will be overseen by a team of scholars in all fields who will make sure that all of the most important information be included in their studies.
The next stage of the process would begin when someplace on the earth, some sovereign state, decides to vest a new currency in the institution of the Seminary and the person of the Advocate. For example, Greece may continue its endless and long drawn out bankruptcy, continuing to pile up impossible loans and obligations to the IMF, the European Central Bank,
and others; or it might simply declare bankruptcy, repudiate all debt, and institute a new currency, created at will on demand by the Seminary’s Advocate, agreeing as well to pay all property taxes back to the State as represented by the Bank of the new currency.
If the enterprise be a failure, of course there will be nothing more heard of this funny idea, but if it survives and flourishes, other countries may want to opt in, at which point the citizens and companies wil exchange their current money into the new currency, again agreeing to pay their property taxes to the new bank.
This third stage of evolution and growth can continue for as long as necessary, leading to one or another of several possible end games ~ the new State might swell to world status relatively unchecked, or there might be one or several significant hold-outs opposing the world union. Well, in that case, it would simply become an economic contest between the sovereign nations.
How can you have an economic contest against a country that prints up money at will? But that is no problem ~ obviously, the more money there is, the less it is worth, so the economic contest would remain real. Then, either the hold-out countries gradually enter the union, or they manage to stay viable independently. If that is the case, there is no reason why independent States couldn’t continue to exist indefinitely. In fa, it is almost inevitable that an opposition will always be present, and this is probably a good thing.
Or, at least, it will be a manifestation of the Tao, so we might as well accept it.
A Run on Uncle Sam?
August, 2017
I am reading a lot of Noam Chomsky these days, after reading a lot of Bertrand Russell, and there is no way to escape the fa that the United states has become more and more of a rogue state, at least throughout my own lifetime, but if we look back at the genocide of the Native Americans, followed by the heavy reliance upon slave labor, it is hard to imagine a time when it wasn’t an embarrassment to be an American. When I traveled internationally during the post-Vietnam war years, I had to pretend I were Canadian to be socially accepted anywhere.
These days, when there are riots over the pulling down of statues of Robert E. Lee and other figures of the Civil War, it is well to remember, as some commentators have mentioned, that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were not only slave owners, but, by all accounts, stern if not cruel masters, and clearly racist. One apologist says that, yes, they were slave owners and racist, but they founded this great country. Excuse me ~ which
“great country” are we talking about? Genocide and slavery have been followed by an almost constant parade of wars in perpetuation, not of
“Democracy” (Heaven forbid) but of Free Market Capitalism. An international poll has found that the perception is nearly universal that the United States is the greatest threat to world peace ~ by far ~ followed by Pakistan, at a distant second place. A ranking of countries on the basis of social justice placed the United States in twenty-seventh place out of thirty-one, right above Greece, Chile, Mexico, and Turkey.
If anyone is interested in further histories of how the United States has deliberately subverted democratically eleed governments in order to install puppet diators “friendly to American business interests,” there are plenty of sources for that information.
Well, let us all spend a few minutes wringing our hands in grief, but then let us consider what is to be done about the elephant in the room. (I was going to say, “what is to be done about the clown in the room,” but the problem goes way beyond Donald Trump.)
Many people have already figured it out, notably Osama bin Laden, and the leadership of China. What they have figured out is that military strength is no longer an accurate measure of ultimate power. Power, these days, is measured in money. In other articles, I think I have discussed the idea of “money” as a universal abstraion which can be used to understand, explain, and treat social, political, or environmental problems. So here, for instance, we have the United States as a rogue state rampaging around the world as a gang of outlaw cowboys, led by “Donnie the Kid.” But the United States is also a financial corporation, and the key to the problem is that the United States is ultimately insolvent.
So the way to stop Uncle Sam in his tracks is to call in the loans.
Simply decline to renew the Notes when they come due, and stop accepting Uncle Sam’s funny paper. If investors refuse to extend any more credit to the United States corporation, then rates will sky-rocket until someone is willing to invest in the failing state. (Cash out your dollars too, by the way.) And those who do try to profit by investing in “the ful faith and credit of the United States government,” will most likely lose their money, unless they get out before the final crash.
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That’s right ~ ow about a un on Uncle am? The truth is that Uncle Sam is hopelessly insolvent and can’t possibly withstand such a run.
Carlo Ponzi survived for a surprisingly long time when there was a run on his bank, but since his bank was fundamentally way beyond unsound (very much like the U.S. government), his “bank” collapsed in the end.
Now what? What does the Post-Apocalyptic world look like, and where do we go from here? Well, I have spelled it all out in my article “A One-World Total Makeover.” One hint is to buy land. Don’t be caught holding money when the music stops.
The Soviet Union was able to collapse without descending into the chaos of nuclear war; let us hope that the leaders of the bankrupt USA will have the grace to do the same, allowing the people of the earth to evolve a new political and economic struure to carry the world along, as this new millennium unfolds into the future.
A Solution to the Fiasco
of North Korea
September, 2017
I suggest to Kim Jong-un that he should issue a personal challenge to President Donald Trump to a duel: chess boards at three paces, perhaps a single game of chess, the terms of which should be that if Kim Jong-un wins, then the United States takes its toys and goes home: lifts all sanions, brings its troops home from the Pacific Region, and al ows the North Koreans to arrange their own affairs; but if Donald Trump wins the game, then Kim Jong-un will step down, and allow Uncle Sam to set up any puppet government of its choosing in his place.
No matter who wins, it would be a great relief to have this settled. Al international disputes, in these days of nuclear weapons, should be submitted to the ordeal by chessboard. My first thought was that each country might designate a champion, and the date for the match set six months ahead, but that were to miss the point: the challenge from Korea is a personal confrontation between the parties, and can only be decided by the principles, not the seconds.
There are many other ways in which this international itching point between equally unstable belligerents might play out, but some of those might be less benign than the ordeal by chessboard.
Geopolitics
Oober, 2017
Of course the world is a mess, and I have been proposing my solutions for these problems for many years ~ the establishment of an international Seminary for the education of a special class of seleed students who would sele one of their number (after a lifetime of studying global issues with the best teachers it is possible to find) to make any final decisions at the apex of the pyramid of authority.
But then I have been going beyond the general argument to consider specific world problems. The centerpiece of my current thinking is to set up my map of world energy patterns at www.earthflame.org as a starting point to see the pattern of a huge region around the Middle East where the lowest level of consciousness, the Red-Violet energies, is raging most fiercely.
Well, today I took a look at the map in my world atlas that showed the distribution of religions around the world. They were mostly contiguous regions (in many cases following the lines of language distribution as shown on another map).
I guess it shouldn’t have come as such a revelation to me that my two maps so perfely coincided. The map showing the dominant coverage of Islam just about neatly surrounded this area of maximum global trouble. It is not considered politically corre to make any general value statements about any religious belief or praice. “Of course we are not ‘at war with Islam’ ~
the extremists and terrorists and jihadists certainly do not represent Islam, which is a religion of peace and submission to Allah.” And yet the circumstantial evidence begins to pile up. Islamic scholars might persuade you that Islam were as peaceful as Buddhism, or at least as peaceful as current expressions of Christianity (distancing ourselves from regrettable crimes committed in the name of Jesus Christ in earlier days), but all of the aion on the ground appears to present a different piure.
In a much earlier article on religion, I concluded that both Islam and Judaism had fundamental problems, as expressions of relatively primitive understanding of the nature of religious belief. Hinduism and Buddhism seemed much more elevated, spiritually. Christianity, too, shows a remarkably advanced understanding of the main point of religion, although the literature of Christianity is very thin in explaining how to obtain “Christ Consciousness.”
So here is my latest solution to the wars in the Middle East ~ if al the Jews were to become Christian (embracing the gospel of love, and admitting that there is One God over all of us, and there is no “special relationship”
with the tribe of Abraham), and all the Moslems were to become Buddhist, seeking peace within, then all problems on the planet would melt away like last year’s snow, and all the warring parties could go back to their gardens, their wives (and/or significant others), and their children.
Korean Re-Unification
November, 2017
Whenever I consider a problem and search for solutions, I always want to go to the root of the problem, not wherever the problem appears to obtrude itself, like a neurotic tumor. In the case of North Korea, it seems apparent, even obvious, that the fundamental issue, which must be addressed before any other measures can have any realistic effe, is the Korean Divide.
First, Korea must be re-united as a single nation; then it may begin the slow process of re-integration into the world community.
So here is my suggested solution ~ both North and South Korea can agree to set up a Unification School somewhere along the borders of their countries. Each side would sele perhaps eight students, four boys and four girls, at about the age of ten years, but not taken from any notable families.
These sixteen students would be provided with the best education possible, at state expense. Each side would be allowed to provide half the curriculum.
These students would then be prepared for a time, perhaps when the youngest reaches the age of thirty, when these students would sele one of their number to head a government over the whole of Korea, setting up such political and economic and social arrangements as they see fit, and nominating their choices of personnel to supervise the various administrative funions. By the time this transfer of power were effeed (over the span of about twenty years), both sides would have become prepared for the change, and it should happen smoothly, as the advantages of unification would
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greatly outweigh any considerations about how the seleed Guardian of a new Korea might interpret his or her mandate.
The Old School
Six Regions of the World
on the Way to World Union
November, 2017
I think a lot about geo-politics. I have figured out how to establish a source of Authority, coming from God, by establishing a Seminary of Candidates who would, upon reaching their majority, choose one of their number to take responsibility from the top (as, for example, the “Advocate for the Tree” of the hurch of the iving ree). This is a very old idea of mine.
But suppose that happens, and we set up our new Bank and Currency, and set out to restore the earth to a flourishing organic garden of life once again, starting with the immediate planting of millions and billions of trees.
But the earth is a big place, with many languages, races, and religions. Of course, there must be one universal language world-wide, and English is the obvious choice. But the advancement and teaching of the English language should still be greatly accelerated so that the very next generation, worldwide, will be already largely fluent in English. “Something is lost, and something is gained.”
But I haven’t yet gotten to today’s idea ~ I want to extend the seminary idea to at least the next level down. I start by dividing the world up into significant regions, such as:
egion
ommon ongue
1.) East Asia to India
(Chinese/English)
2.) Islam from Pakistan to Turkey
(Arabic)
3.) Europe
(English)
4.) Africa
(English)
5.) South America up to Mexico
(Spanish)
6.) USA and Canada
(English)
Each region would have a regional Bank office that would distribute funds for that region, and a Governor, chosen by the regional seminary, who would execute direion by the authority delegated from the Advocate.
A congress of representatives from every part of each region would meet and deliberate current affairs. These might be democratically eleed from each local region, at a level where democracy can be most effeive.
The regions I have indicated above by common language show three regions where English is not dominant ~ areas of Chinese, Arabic, and Spanish speaking people. The language people speak is a critical distinion between people. As I look over my six regions, I see most of them on an easy transition to English, with the Spanish region and the French a generation later to adopt English. No one need abandon his own language
~ everyone will speak at least two languages, his own native language and English. The region of China and India will have no trouble adopting
English ~ the Chinese want to dominate the world, and they will understand that that means learning English.
Africa has always been a basket case, but with a regional Governor, things might settle down.
So that leaves Arabia and the Middle East with no interest in learning English or giving up Islam. I am struck by an idea I have been having lately with my earthflame.org idea ~ that when all the colors have been mapped out on the globe, with a few exceptions, most of the lowest scores (well into the Red and Violet) all seem to cluster around this same regional area. Even North Korea is likely to subside without violence, as long as cool heads prevail and allow a Mexican Stand-off.
So, not to be alarmist, but I see no lasting and insoluble political problems other than the endless hotbed of the Middle East, with Israel right there in the middle, and endless confli all around. I thought my earlier idea was a great one, if only tongue-in-cheek ~ that all the Jews should convert to Christianity, and all the Moslems should convert to Buddhism ~
what a neat solution!
I think there is a vortex of negative energy, like a magnetic field, with its negative pole in the Middle East. Then I figured that if it had the same physics as a magnetic field, the opposite pole would be in the vacant middle of the South Pacific Ocean.
Well, here is a big surprise ~ I am prediing that the Middle East wil continue to be the most troublesome and volatile region of the planet for the foreseeable future. What to do about it? Is it possible that a produ of the Arabian Seminary could keep the peace in his (or her, but not likely) region?
I don’t know if it will work, but I think the division of the planet into those six regions, with a Governor eleed by each Seminary, is the most progressive solution yet proposed. Just as the Spanish region and France wil be a generation or two later adopting English, it will probably take about four or five generations for Arabia to settle down and accept the English language.
Another possibility is that Arabia will always remain in opposition to the rest of the world. That seems like a real possibility. They may even never come to accept the authority of the Advocate, but remain totally in opposition. Metaphysically, this outcome may be necessary and inevitable.
The Apple of Discord
December, 2017
The Apple of Discord, from Homeric myth ( “to the faireft” ~ Helen of Troy), is the same as the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. “In the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5)
There are many ways to express the original ideas of yang and yin,
olve et oagula, expand and contra, etc., but an interesting one, from the point of view of social philosophy, is the distinion between Sharpeners and Levelers. The history of social and economic movement can be seen very clearly as the progressive interplay between sharpeners and levelers. When it comes to politics, Left and Right don’t really explain it ~ are you a Sharpener or a Leveler? For example, one problem of the Jews is that they have always been considered excessive sharpeners. Fascism, as it seems to be used lately, is just extreme sharpening. I was listening to a talk on fascism recently, and the speaker mentioned the line, “equality is a myth.” Are we al equal, or what?
But that’s the whole essence of the problem. The leveler says, “we are all equal to anyone else on the planet.” The sharpener says, “Behold, I will separate the sheep from the goats (~ knowing good and evil).”
Alternative to the view that we are all equal, is the view that, on the contrary, there is a great amount of variance which may be observed on many
levels of value among people of the world. This was widely taken for granted a century ago and earlier, but by now social, economic, and demographic changes have created a whole new world. So, the world is changing; that much is clear. But is this a good thing or not? And where is it going to go from here?
Any program for the reversal of the imminent death of most life on the planet will have to include planting trees, and limiting or reducing the number of people on the planet. The earth has exceeded its carrying capacity many years ago, and is now raging out of control due to the devastating loss of the trees, and the corresponding growth of people.
The biological health of our planet can be measured by the growth of the trees. When our forests and trees were at their fullest extent, our planet was at its greatest health, biologically, and it has been declining in health ever since. And now our planet is dying because so many of the trees are gone. ~and the topsoil is gone; and the small animals are gone; and the human race is on the way out. Not only must we restore tree cover to the earth, and do so very quickly, but the whole planet must be cultivated as a garden. Our lives must be in tune with the garden all the time, and in every way. All food sold must be organically grown; chemical fertilizers must give way to organically derived processes, etc.
It will take a long time to repair the biological health of the planet ~
perhaps a couple of centuries at least to recover, even if a huge tree-planting effort were immediately under way. It is a lot easier and faster to destroy a forest (or a planet) than it is to grow it back.
So, how can there be any process by which it may be decided, and by whom, how the next generation of people on the planet can be limited?
Who will be allowed to have children, and how many? Any attempt to apply an idea to this task will be met with overwhelming obstacles. So, finally, it can only proceed according to that universal abstraion, Money, as the vehicle of regulation. That means just what it sounds like it means ~ that if you have the financial resources to raise children, you will be able to do so.
Those who do not have such resources wil refrain from having children, if having children would be a financial burden.
This is a policy and a trend that will work its way out very gradually over the years (as it has already been going on for many years now), and there is, of course, a very obvious Darwinism about this.
But that is where the state comes in, to limit and regulate the sharpeners, and provide leveling solutions for everyone else. In December of 2017, the Trump Reality Show trundles along, hurtling the country and the world who knows where? The sharpeners are way out of control here.
And yet, it is consternating for me to follow the career of Hun Sen of Cambodia, who is on his way to becoming perpetual despot and tyrant. If I go back to my serene and idyllic beach in Cambodia, it will be under a regime as bogus as anything the Moron-in-Chief can throw at us over here.
As I look around the world, almost every regime is totally corrupt, but the problem with the Donald is that he presides over a country with enough power to destroy the world. Good luck, poor little planet.
The world needs an international leveler to take out such loose cannons as Donald Trump, Netanyahu, Erdogan, Hun Sen, Duterte, etc.
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The situation of the earth is getting more desperate with each passing day, no thanks to the climate change deniers or war mongers. We are literally living through the death throes of the planet, as it is unable to cope first with the devastating loss of the trees, and then with the onslaught of all those people and their increasingly dangerous toys. The fabric of life is breaking down in so many parts of the world, as our planet hurtles out of control. If there is to be any hope at all of reversing this slide into chaos and oblivion, the whole earth, with its trees, plants, animals, and people, must be cultivated as a single garden, and there must be one Gardener, who derives his authority from God, who will survey the whole earth and its living systems for the good of all.
Requiem for a Lost Planet
April, 2018
It is so frustrating for me to sit here in my cabin in the mountains listening to the news every day, detailing the ongoing collapse and death of the earth. All the same ideas keep going through my head, but I’ve said it all before ~ many times over. On the physical level, the greatest problem is the loss of the Trees of our poor planet earth. On the social and political level, the greatest problem is the absence of any coherent source of authority. What we need is a political union of the entire earth, followed by an immediate and massive program of tree planting. But it will take hundreds of years of planting trees to restore essential tree cover to the planet, and there are just too many people on the earth for there to be any room to plant the trees that are needed. People have replaced trees on our planet, to the great sorrow of the earth (She is alive, and feels the pain). The human race is like a parasite on the earth which is rapidly destroying the host. Some observers have estimated that the last chance to slow and reverse this slide unto death was passed about sixty years ago, and that by now the collapse of our ecosystem is irreversible. So, eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.
Perhaps it is already too late, but isn’t it better to make some effort anyway? Perhaps an intensive program of change may yet add an extra ten years onto the short time we have left before all life on earth finally crumbles into dust. But, instead of a concerted world-wide effort to slow down the
destruion of the earth, we see escalating political chaos which threatens to destroy the earth even sooner, through the aion of “fire and fury.” The world may finally end not with a whimper, but with a bang, after all.
It is too late and useless to plan for some world-wide revolution that might make a change. I figure that the only hope is for the holders of wealth and power to get together to implement a new vision for the earth. I have expressed my views about how this can be done many times, and I am not going to revisit any of that here. So then there is nothing to say, except to express my frustration and sorrow that such a beautiful earth, the only known planet manifesting such an explosively rich diversity of life, must be lost to the folly of the human race.
I remember that some fifty years ago there was a forlorn hope that perhaps some remnant of the human race might leave the earth in spaceships to establish life on some other planet. Perhaps a modern day Ark could contain seeds and at least a few animals together with a seleion of the human race, and head off into the wild black yonder in hopes of finding another hospitable host where that remnant of life could try to reestablish itself. I seem to remember that the unappreciated visionary, Timothy Leary, was one of the principle advocates of such an exodus as the last hope of that field of life energy we have come to understand as aia. ( urn on, tune in, drop out, and then do ſomething ew ~ my interpretation of Leary’s famous slogan.)
But such a desperate gamble would seem to have an extremely low probability of success. Perhaps, after all, the best remaining hope for life on earth is still to try to salvage something from the wreckage of our planet so
that some sort of life might continue to live on this earth, even if the chance that the human race might form a part of that life seems vanishingly slim.
The threat of a nuclear Winter (without any hope of a Spring any time soon) is the greatest threat to life, but there are other threats almost as severe
~ the increasing spread of toxic chemical waste that is still being distributed over the planet by the likes of such criminals as the direors of the Monsanto corporation ~ arguably more heinous criminals than Hitler ever was, to say nothing of the rapacious villainy of the banksters, whose depredations are almost harmless in comparison with those who are rendering the entire earth uninhabitable and toxic to life. The increasing spread of the sickness of cancer is the prime symptom of the declining health and vitality of the earth. This is widely understood, yet no one seems to have any idea of what is to be done about it. Of course, I’ve laid it all out, but no one ever listens to me. Donald Trump is not the problem ~ he is just a symptom of the problem ~ that the United States has followed the course exaly predied by Thomas Jefferson at the founding of that country. “The longer any system of government goes on, the more the wealth and power will be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands,” Jefferson declared, and that is exaly what has been happening, as is glaringly evident to anyone who takes off their emerald glasses long enough to see what is really happening in the land of Oz. Thomas Jefferson also just as clearly expressed the only solution ~ that a new revolution is necessary every twenty-seven years (the
“re-set button”).
But I am repeating themes I first expressed forty years ago, and I am trying not to just repeat the same old tunes. But what else is there to do?
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Lock the emerald glasses onto our heads and eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.
Weapons of War
April, 2018
I don’t even remember where, or when, or how often I have remarked on the very troubling fa that nothing is made in the USA anymore; everything is made in China ~ with one very troubling exception: weapons. Today, on the news, Donald Trump is being called the world’s preeminent weapons salesman, as he gloats over his record of promoting the sale of American made weapons all over the globe. The problem with that is that the American economy flourishes in dire proportion to the prevalence of war and rumors of war worldwide. In the event of a period of relative peace on earth, the American economy would plummet disastrously, while the rest of the world, led by China, would enjoy a period of increasing prosperity. The implications of this conderatum are inescapable. When this situation is added to the historical perspeive that the last manifestations of an aging and dying empire are typically a resort to military adventurism, it is clearly time to book seats on Timothy Leary’s rocket ship into outer space in search of new pastures for the survivors of the human race fleeing from Armageddon (see previous article, equiem for a oft lanet).
There is nowhere to go to be safe from the fallout patterns after a Nuclear Winter. Perhaps you might consider the Southern Hemisphere, far away from the major land masses of Australia, Africa, and South America, and settle upon some South Sea island as your best hope. Unfortunately, the effes of global warming will mean that those islands will all soon be under water. But, perhaps, with the advance of global warming, by the time that
the last South Sea islands are sinking into the sea, a warming Antarica may become relatively habitable. I suggest that the smart money will quickly get enough settlements established there to declare the continent to be a sovereign nation, with vast tras of land doled out to the early settlers as speculations for a future land rush. I remember a funny cartoon about a real estate agent showing “Lakeside Condominia” to prospeive buyers: “Oh, I guess the lake isn’t in yet.” I know the joke is ruined by my insistence on the Latin plural, but I just can’t help it. (Thank you, laical igh chool.) Anyway, you heard it here first ~ if there are any human survivors on this planet, the descendants of the early colonists on Antarica will be living high on the hog. Perhaps we should set up some gambling casinos and regulated brothels to jump-start tourism. However, most projeions only give such “safe havens” an extra year or two before the inexorable tide of death supervenes everywhere, in the event of a nuclear catastrophe.
Sorry if I seem to be descending into cynical pessimism these days (I used to be an optimist, expeing the human race to pull itself out of the spiraling descent into chaos at the last minute), but it’s hard to see any bright spots. I am reminded of the computer simulated war games ~ no matter what ftart-up aumptions are programmed into the computer, every single simulation always ends up with the annihilation of all life on earth. No wonder there’s an “opioid crisis” ~ whatever you do, stay away from the psychedelics ~ stick to the opioids or that standard of despair, alcohol. Ease the pain of the end of life on earth with a bottle of absinthe, and go out happy.
Endgame, USA
Oober, 2018
The United States of America is getting scarier by the minute. Donald Trump is so far beyond belief of what any American President should be that we are off into uncharted territory. The country is almost isolated in the world, left with the likes of Saudi Arabia and Israel among its dwindling circle of friends in the world. Throw in a few more, like Duterte in the Philippines and Erdogan in Turkey, and you have a gang of peers all wallowing in similar troughs of spiritual darkness, all of whom understand each other perfely well.
But the times, they are a-changing. It may be for the better, or it may be for the worse, but changing it is, and it will probably get worse before it gets better. I hear people talk all the time about the inevitable financial collapse that everyone seems to be expeing, but the collapse has aually been here for a while, and is noticeably accelerating.
All of the “smart money” has realized for some time that the entire
“United States Government” is a Ponzi Scheme gone out of control. The U.S. Government is a corporation without any assets, with a debt in excess of $20 trillion, and with an annual operating loss of over a trillion dol ars. I wouldn’t loan it any money, no matter how much interest they offer to pay, even if they denominate the loan in Chinese Yuan. As for speculating in Dol ars, that is a cat on a hot stove.
The widening of the gap between the rich and the poor, along with the impending bankruptcy of the USA, suggest that the United States is playing out its endgame. The wealthy 1% (or fewer, depending on how you count) own all of the property, all of the money, and all of the corporations. The poor have nothing; they have no income; and the country that promised them Social Security no longer has the money to pay; so sorry.
Do you think that the wealthy corporations and individuals who own all of the assets in this country are going to chip in and assume responsibility for the nation’s debts? If you believe they will, you are one of those born every minute. ( ow is the time for every good man to come to the aid of his country. Anyone? Even a good woman? Transgender? How about a thieving and conniving rascal? Anyone? You, Henry Kissinger, are you going to leave your wealth to the government?) Oh, no ~ if the government falls, that is simply a great opportunity to repudiate the debt. Everyone is still going to need to buy your produ, even if your “produ” is simply an import agency from China.
Besides, there will always be opportunities all over the world for the savvy investor to make his fortune. China will build faories in this country to take advantage of the cheap labor over here, and then they will sell all their produs back to the workers, who will always be in debt to the Company Store, barely able to keep up their rent payments to their ’lords.
But, in the meantime, the dollar will collapse as the United States government continues desperately trying to print and spend its way out of debt. This will all happen very quickly. It will be all over before anyone notices. Loss of confidence happens very suddenly, and once it occurs, it is all over. It will happen in the night, while you sleep.
All of this so far has been the optimistic scenario. But, if some troubling trends continue, it could get very much worse than this. There should be an immediate embargo on all sales of American made weapons beyond its borders. Of course, that would be the last nail in the coffin for the American economy, since weapons sales are about all this country has left for foreign trade. But the United States is complicit in the atrocities of Yemen and Palestine as long as they continue to supply Saudi Arabia and Israel with arms.
The last argument of kings is their cannon (ultima ratio regis), and wars of conquest, rape, and pillage are famous pathways to the end of the road for aging empires. I fervently hope that the United States will stand down gracefully, and allow itself to be liquidated in bankruptcy proceedings rather than spiraling down into the continuing fire, confusion, and chaos of endless war.
One reason I want to set up my map of world consciousness (earthflame.org) is to highlight the problem that there is a great variation in the average or prevailing consciousness worldwide. I consider the depressing effe of endless war raging across much of the Middle East and surrounding areas ~ Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen. The prevailing low level of spiritual consciousness makes it very hard for anyone living there to experience a level of consciousness much above the prevailing level. And now that that whole region is a smoking war zone with refugees by the millions trying to get out of there to some sweeter land where life is good, we see the problem that immigrants and refugees are less and less welcome in some of these literally greener pastures. The fa is that all of these refugees and immigrants are inexorably lowering the level of spiritual consciousness as
they flood over into neighboring lands. They may not all be “rapists and murderers,” but they carry the scars and the lasting spiritual damage from their long experience in a spiritual wasteland.
So what is the solution, here? Perhaps it makes more sense for everyone to make a stand where they are ~ to try to forge a political reality more conducive to leading the human spirit upwards. The problem is how to bring down a corrupt regime from within, when it is held in the grip of war lords and profiteers. But this is why there can be so little hope for life on earth until there be some relief from the top, allowing the people beneath them gradually to lift their lives out of the chaos, darkness, and disease of endless war.
As to what happens next, we need to get there quickly.
I know I’ve said all this before, but I can’t get rid of a problem until it is resolved. I sure wish the human race would figure it out quickly, so I could go back to cultivating my fragrant roses in peace.
Go ahead and plant some Trees.
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Advocate for the Tree
February, 2019
The biological life of planet Earth is primarily represented by the Trees, not people. From the point of view of the Trees, people are just a kind of noxious vermin running around, destroying the earth, even direly cutting down most of the trees still remaining after centuries of destruion.
People have a lot of energy, but they don’t contribute in any positive way to the living plant layer of terrestrial life, which is primarily composed of Trees.
It is a fundamental idea that the vermin must not destroy the host. All of the Climate Change that people are just finally beginning to notice is being caused by the ongoing destruion of the arboreal foundation of life on earth. It has been building up for centuries, but finally it has reached a tipping point, and the Earth is dying off and crumbling apart by drought and floods, polluted by chemicals, and eroded of topsoil.
Has this been going on for too long for there to be any hope of turning it around? How quickly can the human race plant three hundred trillion trees? (That’s 300,000,000,000,000 trees.) Instead of people fighting wars trying to kill each other off, everyone should be out desperately planting trees, hoping that the planet can make a comeback in time to survive.
The End of the World
As We Know It
April, 2019
Unless you have not been paying attention at all, you are probably noticing that the science seems to be getting more and more conclusive that our planet is in the throes of a major shift in its climate, which will affe all of its flora and fauna (that would include us over here, among the fauna).
Whenever some symptom of the warming planet is mentioned, it seems to be happening six times faster and be six times worse than was previously imagined. It is easy enough to see what will happen ~ this world and its people, having thoroughly despoiled and ruined the planet, will just watch helplessly as life gets harder and harder for the dwindling number of survivors, as the planet dries out and life dies off.
But what if somehow the world were to get it together on some program under which they could make a coordinated effort to restore fertility to the surviving biosphere? What would such a world look like? It would have to include a massive planting of trees, of course, but many other aspes of life would never be the same. The huge burn-off of fossil fuels of the last century, all the while denuding the planet of Her essential tree cover, has left the planet depleted and helpless in the face of this relentless assault.
The transition to all eleric vehicles can’t happen soon enough, and bicycles will make a big come-back as the most efficient means of transportation ever devised. As to air travel, both human passengers as well
as cargo will have to make other arrangements. (If you want some Maine lobster, you will have to get on your bicycle and pedal to Maine for it.) One of the other arrangements might be super-efficient sailboats that would incorporate huge arrays of solar panels to provide eleric power for all of the boat’s systems and also power screw propellers for additional propulsion. The solar propellers might be more powerful during the heat of the day when the wind may be calm, but then the sails might power the ships during the night. In addition to sails, wind turbines might also be installed. Some turbines might generate eleric power, and some of them might drive screw propellers by dire mechanical transmission of energy.
Obviously, all shipping will become very expensive, adding greatly to the cost of anything imported from any distance. This will have a big impa
on food produion and distribution, eating habits, and lifestyle changes.
There would probably be far more family farms everywhere, producing food in tu, avoiding all of the costs of transport. Local farmers’ markets would probably provide the limits of most people’s access to food, and imported food and other goods would always be very expensive. Most people’s ordinary locomotion would probably be confined to the limit of what they could comfortably do on their bicycle. People like Marco Polo would be rare, or they would do it on bicycle.
The problem with eleric cars and eleric trucks and eleric busses and trains is that it starts adding up to a lot of energy. “A few billion gigawatts of energy here, a few billion there, and pretty soon we’re talking about real money.” And this increased demand for elerical energy, of course, is all happening at the same time that nuclear power plants and coal-fired power plants are all being shut down, and the remaining “fossil fuels”
will become much too expensive to burn up as fuel. Two of the most obvious consequences of all of this will be a large hike in the cost of eleric power, and a surge of interest in the development of both solar and wind resources, along with any other technology that offers.
One idea I had was to mitigate the effes of a warming planet on tropical storms by mining the energy of the storms. I envisage enormous armadas of monstrous wind machines, perhaps permanently mounted in the paths of the prevailing winds. If these turbines were automatically geared to maximize the produion of eleric power during a storm, they could literally undermine most of the energy out of those storms, turning them from lions into kittens as they hit our climate defenses in the Gulf of Mexico or east of Vietnam and the Philippines, all of which, incidentally, would contribute an enormous amount of power to the energy grid.
Yes, it’s the end of the world as we know it, but perhaps life can go on, in one way or another. In many ways the new energy realities will make improvements to life. The essential restoration of the family farm, where food is grown on every property, will be a great improvement in the quality of life over those endless tras of land and houses where there is little or no edible vegetation for mile after endless mile. It’s not a joke to say that the whole planet has to be cultivated as a garden ~ the problems of soil erosion, the topsoil, the diffusion of toxic waste ~ all of these issues must be addressed immediately if there is to be any hope of rescuing this thin and fragile biosphere from the rapidly declining vitality caused by the folly and negligence of the human race.
It is also obvious that there will have to be fewer people on the planet.
I don’t know what the limit of population might be before the stress on the
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planet be too great to endure, but I am sure we are way over that limit. The financial costs of bringing another life onto the planet will have to be addressed, perhaps with a simple “baby tax.” The amount of the tax could be adjusted until the birth rate stabilize.
But the whole political and economic struure of the world is in chaos, and all of that will have to be sorted out before much meaningful progress can be made to restore what’s left of the biosphere to fertility.
The Sky is Falling
July, 2019
Will there be any survivors to write the history of the Earth and its flora, fauna, and people? People have been shouting that the sky is falling for a great many years now, and yet life seems to be going on. The Second World War was over before I was born, so it was always just History to me; I had no sense of its reality or relevance. Vietnam was a wake-up call for me, but then my studies of History taught me that war is just the normal and natural state of the human race, as the planet goes on being ravaged with the turmoil of endless war, including unimaginable human rights abuses (not that any of that is new; a book detailing the most horrific as of cruelty in the history of the world would run to a great many volumes ~ I hope no one wants to read such a book; the elebrated rimes series by Alexander Dumas is bad enough). But the accelerating collapse of our ecosystem and our biosphere has finally begun to cause a few people, here and there, to sit up and take notice.
Many people have concluded that this cruelty and propensity for war just represents the natural state of human nature. For most of the world’s history, war has been the defining occupation for a man. It has always seemed ironical to me that the only occupation suitable for a “gentleman”
was warfare. War was always noble and glorious, but to engage in Trade or some Profession were to abandon your position in society.
No, warfare is not the natural state of a human being; it is just one of eight possible states of spiritual consciousness; there are states both higher and lower, better and worse. Below War (Orange aura) there are the as of violence, fraud, deceit, and aggression (Red aura), which are never done by a gentleman, who engages only in “honest war.” The counterpart to this, of course, is the oppression, rape, and pillage suffered by the viims of such attack (Purple aura). Below that is death (Black).
So in a world where the soldiers of war are the good guys, killing each other in fair fight, while the less principled are raping, killing, and pil aging whenever they hope to get away with it, it is clear that the message of Buddha offered a very great advance in spiritual consciousness, describing a wonderful vision of peace and serenity that few people in this life ever get to experience. It is useless to discuss any levels of consciousness above this, as people can have no conception of what is above and beyond their own experience.
One of the themes of my understanding of philosophy is that center of perfeion where all good things converge. As you go up higher and higher in spiritual consciousness, and you get closer to that point, everything in your life gets better and better ~ your health will improve, your personal affairs will prosper, and you will find more and more peace and love and joy in your life. But when it goes the other way, all bad things seem to happen at once, too. Increasing sickness pervades the land, which no longer supports life the way it used to. Both land and people are assaulted with toxic drugs and chemicals of every description. The ecological collapse of our biosphere is related to all of the current social, economic, and political woes of the planet.
In fa, it is clear to me that it is preciſely this collapſe of our bioſphere that is the
underlying cauſe of all the other problems plaguing the human race at the preſent time. The living aura of our planet has been in the range of the Red and Purple for a long time now, and it is sinking rapidly toward Black (otherwise known as the “flat-line”).
As the fertility of our planet plunges down under tons of micro-plastic waste, and reels under the constant plundering and exploitation which have been going on for millennia, the planet has been falling colleively into ever increasing poverty. During times of poverty, of course, everyone closes ranks, and life gets harder and harder for everyone. The more that the total wealth and value of the planet declines, the more that the remaining wealth (and the accompanying power) becomes concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. This is an inevitable natural law.
This is it. We are experiencing the decline and death of our planet, and we can expe increasing climate change catastrophes, accelerating widening of the gap between rich and poor, increasing war and threats of war and rumors of war all over the globe, increasing migrations of displaced persons, poor and hungry, increasing social, health, and criminal problems ~
and, on the other hand, increasing resistance (“circling the wagons”) from the conservative core of those holding what remains of the wealth of the planet. The irony, of course, is that the more extremely the wealth and power is finally concentrated into fewer and fewer hands, the less any of it is worth, because they can’t take it with them, and we’re all going to die, because the vitality of the earth is exhausted.
That is why it is the holders of wealth and power who should be at the forefront of the Revolution (and not the other way around, like the French Revolution, which is the prevailing paradigm for revolution), because they
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are the only ones who have any chance of saving the earth. If they want to
“prote their investment” they must institute radical change immediately in order to make a last stand trying to reverse our planet’s very obvious slide unto death.
So, how do we accomplish all of this? I thought you’d never ask.
When You Gonna Wake Up?
August, 2019
The news continues to get worse and worse world-wide. All problems are getting worse, and the planet Earth is rapidly spinning out of control in a downward spiral towards chaos. There are too many people on the planet, and not enough trees. World-wide, almost every country in the world is fundamentally a for-profit corporation, and there is no one, in any position of power, who has any interest in the biological survival of the planet, or
aia.
The world is evolving much too slowly to accommodate the escalating crises. It is easy enough to look into the future ~ slowly and ponderously, the planet moves closer to the finally inevitable consolidation of authority into a single political entity, whether fairly or wisely constituted, or whether it be yet another gang of thieves exploiting the planet for their personal benefit. But this, along with a single language and a single bank and currency are pre-conditions (necessary but not sufficient) for making any meaningful effort to ameliorate the rapidly escalating world problems.
Some people seem to be surprised that I look to the holders of wealth and power to intervene. But what are the choices? An old-time Revolution from the ground up, on a world-wide scale? Impossible and useless. The problem with just sitting back to wait for the world to evolve at its own pace is that it might easily take another thousand years or more for the people of the planet to reach the point of a single government, and we don’t have that
kind of time. All the evidence seems to suggest (daily more resoundingly) that unimaginable changes will have to take place virtually immediately, or life on the planet will spiral down to levels from which it will be impossible to recover. Some people are already using the present tense.
When a train is plunging downhill towards perdition, the train first has to come to a complete stop, and its descending inertia overcome, before the engines can be thrown into reverse for that long uphill climb back up to level ground. An image of Daffy Duck standing in front of the descending train, holding up his hands in a “Stop” command comes to mind (representing current efforts). We have all seen how that cartoon ends!
I can’t believe that no one is even trying to do anything. Is mine the only proposal for a way forward from here? Let’s get it together! We don’t have much time. It may be that the deadline for a radical change of direion on so many fronts was passed about forty years ago (deforestation, ocean necrosis, topsoil erosion, toxic dispersal, etc.) but we have to think positively with determination to make the effort, or die.
So is this the end? Is the destrution of the Host the inevitable consequence of life on earth? Are the obstacles to be overcome just too great for the human race to deal with in time? Sometimes I feel, to match the Daffy Duck image, that I am hollering my messages down into a very deep well. And then there are the images of the band playing on as the Titanic sinks slowly into the sea, or the frogs in the warm water falling asleep as the water slowly heats up to boiling. Dylan sings, “When you gonna wake up, and strengthen the things that remain?”
The Garden of Eden
September, 2019
Here I am, thinking about the ultimate nature of reality, as usual, and I review my metaphysics to see if it adequately covers the essential mystery of why there is any universe here at all instead of just nothing, and how did it
“create itself” ex nihilo? My candidate is the Tao ~ as Lao Tzu says in his Tao Te Ching: rom ao there comes One; from One there come wo; from wo there comes hree; and from hree there come al things.
So what is this Tao, whence it all appeared? The concept of Tao is based on the principle of enantiodromia, reversal in extremis ~ whenever anything reaches any extreme or limit, it turns around and goes the other way. They call the going out yang, and the going in yin. Thus yang and yin follow each other in turn. The Hermetic alchemists call this process Solve et Coagula. Heraclitus expressed a similar idea: in order for anything to exist, its opposite also has to exist.
But whence comes this Tao? It has to be considered the ultimate nature of reality, which is inevitable, a priori, like mathematics. Perhaps that doesn’t sound altogether satisfaory; perhaps we want something more definitive, like deus fecit. Wel , those are the alternatives. But if the Tao be accepted as fundamental, then we can deduce the entirety of the unfolding cosmos ~ almost. There are two other things we need for our cosmos to pop into being spontaneously. One of them is random error, which can occur anywhere, anytime, giving rise to the limitless potential of the cosmos to go
in any direion at any time. Most of the time, events follow the expeed inertia inherent in the situation, but not always; at any link in the chain of causality there can be any point of error or discontinuity, and events can be merrily careening off on any new course. This is one of the laws of physics that I just discovered. Murphy only had the Special Theory; I give you the General Theory. (Murphy: anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Me: anything can go wrong.)
But there is also the third essential precondition to postulate a universe
~ teleology ~ purpose or design. The evidence seems to be that things do not happen entirely by chance. There seems to be some intelligent design seleing from the innumerable possibilities of the unfolding of the infinite cosmos to form the sequence of what aually happens. In the case of our own planet, that would be aia, trying to stay alive over here.
But, as a Goddess, aia is far from omnipotent. In fa, all of her marvelous design features, all the cycles of organic process that work together to sustain the living organism, have been thwarted and nullified by the exploding, out of control errors of humanity, especially over the last couple of centuries. Now most of the tree cover on the planet is long gone or severely compromised, and the remaining scattered remnants of organic life are seriously hampered in their efforts at survival due to the increasing toxicity of our land environment and the necrosis of our oceans.
We need a whole new regime, with new priorities, to work with aia instead of againft her. aia has been plundered for her riches, and now she is worn out and dying. The whole earth needs to be cultivated as a garden!
If we want to live happily ever after in the Garden of Eden, we have to clean her up, restore her, replant her, and take care of her. Once the planet is
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covered with trees and gardens again, our climate will stabilize, the topsoil will come back, and the cycle of floods and drought can be replaced with a permaculture garden. It is possible to reverse ecological collapse; I have heard that live fish have been spotted in the Thames again!
Whenever I think about philosophy or metaphysics or theology, I always end up thinking about planting more trees, and quickly.
A Plan to Save the Earth
September, 2019
The Climate Change crisis begins a rising crescendo as a kind of panic sets in. The problem is that people of the earth are finally waking up to the reality of the geological time frame. It is finally becoming clear that fundamental changes are going to have to come very quickly, and the world just isn’t ready. Fortunately, I have the whole plan mapped out, but the problem is that even if massive changes happen, way beyond any Green New Deal, and all of the fossil fuels are left strily in the ground, all oil wells capped, mines closed, all air travel and fuel burning cars banned, etc., it will still probably take two or three hundred years slowly to turn this climate change around.
There must be two primary pillars of any climate policy ~ the first is to curtail totally all carbon emissions, methane, and other greenhouse gasses.
That is certainly a major task, and one that has caught the attention of most climate aivists. But we not only have to end all burning of fossil fuels everywhere to reduce our future carbon emissions towards zero, but we also have to remove much of the carbon that is already in the atmosphere.
That means we have to plant Trees by the millions, by the billions, by the trillions. If we plant 300 trillion trees in the next thirty years, perhaps 3
trillion of them will survive, and that could be enough to save the earth. In the USA, as in most of the rest of the world, all of the Money is behind a full-scale plundering of the earth’s resources, and the less there is left, the
faster they scramble to get it before it’s gone. Big Money is pulling all of that coal, gas, oil, and fracked tar out of the ground for liquidation as fast as they can turn it over, along with pulling down the last of the Trees that are still left standing, chipping them up for paper pulp. (An image I have used before is melting down medieval stained glass windows to make jelly jars ~
hey, if you can get the windows for free, why not? Free money.) Since the entire power struure of the country is based on corporate hegemony, there is no political opening for change anywhere in the system.
Capitalism is on a head-on collision course with the fragile ecology of our planet and biosphere. It has to go; it is that simple. There must be a higher authority than the power of Money which will oversee the biological regeneration of our planet. Anyone unfamiliar with my solutions along these lines will easily be able to find them among my writings.
I understand that implementing my plans for a New World Order (I deliberately use that term, provocatively, because it is necessary, scary though it be) would entail the most sweeping global changes ever seen on this planet, but that is aually the scale of what has to happen in order to avert the worst of the impending catastrophes that are being predied daily (and currently occurring; just ask anyone from the Marshall Islands or the Bahamas or Puerto Rico). The world is literally on fire; it is burning up while we watch, from Brazil to Indonesia.
No, it is not going to be easy, and it’s going to require a long term commitment. If we can deploy massive armies of tree planters (beat your ſwords into ovels) trying to restore the earth to fertility and health, it may still take, perhaps, two or three hundred years or more for all of our changes
to have any effe. A good rule of thumb is that it takes a lot longer to restore a forest than it does to cut it down.
Now I want to get down to specific cases. I have recently been reading
reen evolution, an article reprinted from the Beijing Review (No. 32, August 8, 2019), detailing the ecological restoration of a town in China, Yan’an, that had suffered substantial tree loss with resulting soil erosion, frequent sand storms, increasing aridity of the land, and a substantial loss of food produivity. Severe drought thus alternated with flood rains, causing soil erosion, with the run-off carrying such high levels of nutrients through the rivers to the sea as to create growing dead zones at the mouths of the rivers.
But after twenty years of dedicated work replanting the vulnerable slopes with tree cover, the land is coming back to fertility and health. The sandstorms are now rare, and the soil washed into the Yellow River has decreased to 31 million tons from 258 mil ion tons. All of this has been direed and implemented by the Chinese government, which pays subsidies to the farmers for planting trees. Over the past twenty years, the villagers dug 20 billion pits to plant trees.
So that’s an example of what has to be done everywhere, world-wide, but what do I see as I look over so much of the world which is being increasingly devastated by climate change? Well, for example, I have heard that one of the major ultimate causes of the migrant crisis in Central America is the steady decline in ecological health of the land caused by the loss of the trees, with all of the resulting changes to the climate and landscape that so often accompanies deforestation. Caught between droughts and floods, with the land overall turning more and more into arid
desert, the people there can no longer survive by farming the land, hence migrations of people looking for another way to stay alive.
So what is Donald Trump’s famous solution to that problem? We’l just build a $5 billion dollar wall to keep those migrants from swamping our lifeboat.
But what if the United States were to try another approach ~ suppose the USA were to pay the local people to plant trees? Not haphazardly (“good enough for the government,” as they say, derisively), but carefully direed by forest scientists who would know just where and how the trees should be planted most urgently, and how to tend them until they become established.
This wouldn’t be any instant fix, either ~ even if a full-scale tree planting enterprise were carried out throughout all of Central America and Mexico, it could still take 50 to 80 years or more for the fertility of the land to reach a level where human beings could again live, thrive, and prosper, obviating the need for the mass exodus of migrants. Every part of this earth should be studied by forest and climate scientists with recommendations for ecological regeneration, ordered in sequence levels of urgent priority.
But, as I have said before, it is hard to address the urgent task of saving the world while the Capitalist economy is fighting tooth and nail to continue the plundering of the earth for as long as possible. Someone has to stop the rape of the Amazon rainforest immediately. The fundamental political struure of the entire earth will have to be re-organized according to a new plan, either mine or something else.
A Solution for Brexit
Oober, 2019
The divorce of the United Kingdom from the European Union has come down, once again, to the problem of Ireland ~ what to do about the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland?
Well, this is an excellent opportunity to solve that whole problem in its entirety, once and for all. The obvious solution is for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to restore the sovereignty of Northern Ireland back to the Irish. The United Kingdom could re-invent itself as Great Britain, once again ~ England, Scotland, and Wales ~ a much better title for the country, anyway. If they offered to do that, I am sure the government of Ireland would be happy to make profuse promises to honor the rights of everyone, including any English residents living in the North of Ireland.
Now is a good time for that obvious restoration of political harmony, and Brexit is a face-saving way of getting it done now. With no more problems about a border inside Ireland, Brexit negotiations could proceed apace. If the English could walk away from India, surely they can finally walk away from Ireland.
roblem rom el ~ Samantha Power
February, 2020
roblem rom el by Samantha Power is a stunning and very impressive achievement, detailing the rise of genocide in the Twentieth Century, from the slaughter of the Armenians by the Turks in 1915, to the Holocaust of the Jews (and others) in Germany, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the gassing of the Kurds in Iraq, the Serbian genocides in Bosnia and Kosovo, and the Hutu slaughter of the Tutsi in Rwanda. However, as I read the book, I kept wondering, Is e ewi? ow is it that e has nothing to ſay about the “inal olution” of the “aleftinian roblem” by the tate of Iſrael? To be sure, the horrific slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis in 100 days is immediately arresting, but the patient and relentless grinding down of the Palestinian people over the last 75 years has utterly demoralized and ruined the viability of the Palestinians as a people ~ it is absolutely a clear case of genocide, albeit done so slowly and relentlessly that “no one notices.” They are hemmed in on all sides; blockaded by sea; starved and crushed economically; their houses and infrastruure are routinely destroyed; they are divided and conquered; and their land is steadily and relentlessly diminished by ever increasing settlements encroaching upon their occupied land. Whenever they try to fight back, 300 Palestinians are killed for every Israeli killed, and all of this is justified as a defense against “Palestinian terrorists.” The only solution offered to the Palestinians is to lay down and die, so who can blame them when they try to bring down as many Israelis
with them as they die, as they are remorselessly crushed under the heel of the occupying Israelis?
The Israelis claim Biblical history as their justification for seizing the land which they have not occupied for 2700 years. They claim that, according to the Bible, the land was given to them by God over 3000 years ago as a permanent homeland for the descendants of Abraham. But History repeats itself. The problem with God’s gift to the Hebrews was the smal matter that the land was already occupied by other tribes. Remember when the walls of Jericho came tumbling down? The Hebrew people assaulted the land and drove out the prior residents, confident in their righteousness since the Promised Land was given to them by God.
I am reminded of the hilarious scenes described by Benvenuto Cellini in his utobiography when the King of France gave him a magnificent palace in consideration of his great works of art. However, the “gift” was in the form of a fancy scroll signed by the King in which Title to the estate was conferred upon Cellini; it was up to Cellini to take possession, as there were other residents living there, who were not about to vacate without more compelling arguments. Cellini had to scheme for weeks, secretly installing confederates in the house as servants so that, one fine day, when most of the residents of the place were absent, they were able to rise up and seize control.
As Samantha Power details so exhaustively, there has never been much enthusiasm for opposing genocide, neither in the United States nor anywhere else, as all of the above mentioned cases of genocide were accomplished while the rest of the world blithely went about their more pressing affairs.
Well, I have never had much faith in Democracy. In one of my earliest books, okes (The Evanescent Press, 1975) I wrote, “The Majority is always wrong.” Perhaps that’s not always true; that’s what makes it a joke.
But in the case of the genocide of the State of Israel against the Palestinian people, a clear problem is the very influential Jewish lobby in the United States. Every politician falls over backward to defend Israel from any criticism because of the very large number of Jewish voters. Any criticism of Israel is political suicide in this country. However, I am not running for office, so I just speak my mind.
Finally, I want to disassociate my views on the State of Israel from the charge of anti-Semitism. As a child, I remember my mother saying, “I am prejudiced about the Jews ~ I like them.” The Jews have historically been outstanding in many fields of aivity, from art and science to music and literature. I am encouraged that Bernie Sanders, himself a Jew, is able to stand up and criticize the State of Israel. It must be the Jewish people themselves who must come around to a rejeion of the unconscionable policies of the State of Israel with regard to the people of the land they have unlawfully occupied since 1947.
The Root of the Problem
March, 2020
It is clear that the world is falling apart on all sides, and from every point of view. Whenever I have looked at this problem in the past, I have always come down to exhortations to plant more trees by the millions, by the billions, and by the trillions. So much of the decline in overall biological health of the planet can be attributed to the loss of the trees. But that only represents half of the problem. The other half of the problem is that there are too many people. Since time immemorial, trees have been cut down to make way for more people. But now it is time for the population of the earth to reduce to make way for more trees.
There are too many people on the planet. All of the symptoms of endless warfare, global warming, climate change, migrations of people, fear, and panic, are all exacerbated by the rising numbers of people, overwhelming the capacity of the earth to cope. I have mentioned this before as one problem among many, but lately it has been looking to me like the root of the problem, the other side of the coin of the loss of the trees. The constant press of people all over the globe create ongoing tensions and confli
everywhere. So, what is the optimum number of people to live on the planet? That is an easy question ~ the answer is clearly zero. We have to rephrase the question, and ask, “What is the largest number of people the planet could accommodate without crashing its biological limits?” I have heard estimates ranging from half a billion to about three billion, depending, of course, on variations of ecological arrangement.
So that would mean that, at the same time we want to plant 300
trillion trees, we want to drop the birth rate to about a third of present levels, in order to restore a sustainable balance of trees to people. This is a politically charged issue, which must be direly addressed ~ how can this reduion of population be voluntarily achieved? It seems to me that no other mechanism can be devised other than financial incentives and disincentives by which people will voluntarily reduce their fecundity. To say that we need more children in order to support and grow the economy were to reveal the present system to be exaly a Ponzi scheme. It is necessary to establish a stable and sustainable ecology in order to ensure a stable financial economy for the reduced levels of population.
Most people probably believe that any woman, and any man, for that matter, has a “natural right” to produce children, as of the very essence of life itself. But if the planet has exceeded, and by an untenable margin, the levels of human population it can tolerate biological y, then this basic understanding has to be reconsidered. There is a cost associated with every additional human being on the planet, and this cost must be paid by the new person’s parents or sponsors.
It may be observed that if the reduion in the population were to be controlled by the expense of having children (with or without a “baby tax”), it will mostly be the poor who will refrain from having children. But that would amount to a reversal of the current trend, in which the largest growth in population is coming from the poorest people.
But what else is money for, and in what other way can it have any meaning, but to ensure our survival and that of our children?
Catastrophe Fatigue
April, 2020
Do we need any more canaries in the coal mine to tell us that life on this planet is breaking down? What astonishes me the most is that no one seems to have any plan at all. All of the changes that anyone is calling for are just ineffeive band-aids while the patient is massively hemorrhaging in extremis.
We need systemic change because the problems are systemic. Why is it that countries like China and South Korea are able to manage the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak, while the United States is caught totally flat-footed and helpless? The reason is that in the Land of the Free it is every man for himself ( aa “every person for her/him/other-self”). The United States is a country of Free Enterprise, in which everyone seeks to increase one’s personal wealth through some enterprise. So everything that happens in this country happens in pursuance of a profit motive, and it never occurs to anyone to consider the common good or anything else.
The evidence is in ~ the profit motive of Capitalism does not work effeively to promote the biological health of the planet, including the trees, other plants, animals, and people. This is not a new idea. One reason why so many people are drawn to the extremities of war, rebellion, revolution, or the promises of communism is that there is widespread understanding that the present Establishment of Money and Power is only concerned with
preserving and increasing its wealth and its power, and is not concerned at all about anything else.
That has got to go.
That sounds like a call to revolution. Thomas Jefferson figured out that we need a revolution every twenty-seven years to clear out the accumulated deadwood. But seizing the wealth of the Few and dividing it up among the Many has never worked out well. After a reshuffle, it may only be that the Few consist of a different four hundred families than formerly, in the ancien régime. You throw out the rascals, and a new set of rascals come in.
But my solution (of entrusting the sovereign authority to a special school who will themselves choose their spokesperson to hold the Chair at the apex of the pyramid of authority) is not only a political one ~ it is also, and fundamentally, an economic one.
I am proposing a whole new understanding of the meaning and purpose of “money,” where it comes from, and where it goes. In my view, the principle funion of the Advocate for the Tree (or whomever is seleed by the special seminary) will be to dire the flow of money as needed to advance the health and prosperity of the planet, its trees, and its animals, including people. Money would thus constantly be created as it flows out from the Advocate through the Bank to fund everything of value and importance ~ schools, hospitals, education, health, research ~ and offering employment to anyone who wants to work planting trees. The Bank wouldn’t be the institution to which (and to whom) you owe money ~ the Bank would be the place where money comes from.
Free Farms would be funded immediately, everywhere in the world.
So much of the world’s problems comes down to poverty and basic hunger.
Nearly half the population of the earth live within sight of the edge of starvation. For over forty years I have been saying that the cheapest way to deal with the problem of hungry people is to feed them. So, all over the earth, wherever there are hungry people, we should set up free farms, where anyone can go and live for free. Money would go out from the Bank to pay farmers for their food, and any other expenses of the free farm. Trains and buses should all be maintained, fully funded, as a free public service.
And where does it go? Just as Thomas Jefferson understood so long ago, with the paage of time, there is an inevitable tendency for the wealth and the power to be accumulated in ever fewer hands. So, for any economist in the house, all you have to do to keep the currency viable and to retain a stable value is to draw off from the top as much as you need in taxation of the rich (property tax plus resource depletion tax) to maintain the money supply within an optimum range. Taxes will be something only rich people pay.
So, you might call this a Trickle-Up economic proposal and theory. The government provides massive services to the general public, from the Free Farms, where all meals and housing are free for anyone, to non-profit food stores, free public transit, free education, free health care ~ and then the Market is out there to hoover up all of that money and trickle it up to their bosses at the top.
So, the central Bank, which is the source of money for everything, authorized by the Advocate or other trustee, simply scoops it off the top in taxation as fast as it spreads new money out to the level of the general public, thus providing a constant leveling influence upon the Jefferson Effe.
So, getting down to cases, let us compare health care in the United States, where it is not only a for-profit industry, but one which is so successful that Americans pay more for health care than anywhere else in the world (with only medium to poor health result). Here and now, dealing with a public health emergency, the System, just breaks down, because the problems don’t fit their paradigm.
So, under the beneficial guidance of our Advocate for the Tree at the Bank, what might happen during a pandemic outbreak? First, the advice for everyone would be to quit work and go home, avoiding any personal conta, until the extent of the pandemic can be assessed and managed. Essential aivities, like food distribution, would be voluntary, and come with generous hazard pay. Immediate orders go out for all testing equipment, PPEs or whatever are needed, paying double price or more for emergency and urgent basis. Then, for the entire duration of this prophylaic lockdown, everyone would simply be given funding as needed by the Bank to cover existing needs. All of this would be automatic, going through your account at the Bank. Two or three months of lockdown should be enough to limit the outbreak, as they did in China. Then everyone slowly begins to resume life again, although it will never be like it was before, ever again.
No, from now until life finally dies out on the planet, our prospes for survival will be ever more grim. That is why it is surprising to me that no one seems to have any kind of plan. Everyone just seems to accept the end of life, as in, “Well, what can you do?”
eed the hungry people, and plant trees.
Entmoot
April, 2020
Oa: Is there any recourse? Is this plague of humanity going to destroy this fine planet of ours? For so long they were relatively harmless, living off the land, eating enough of the other animals to keep them under control, and eventually planting annual crops to augment their diet. But then they began propagating at an alarming rate, overgrowing their land, fighting one another with ever more deadly weapons, and then they began the Great Annihilation, during which they began the sustained slaughter of us trees, enlarging their own areas of occupation as our own acreage began to diminish, steadily and relentlessly, for all these years, with no end in sight.
Even as the desert encroaches, every last stand of trees is under threat. This has continued unabated since the people came out of their trees and began to live and work in towns, doing all kinds of monkey mischief. This Annihilation has accelerated recently, as people have figured out how to destroy trees by the millions of acres every year.
edar: They don’t seem to realize that they are ruining the planet.
They don’t recognize any of the signs. Life has been dying off at an accelerating rate for many years now ~ how can they be so stupid? Is there any way these people can be stopped? What are their weaknesses?
ig: Our greatest hope has been that they will kill each other off, but their weapons have become so deadly to life that if they use those weapons
the world as we know it will be biologically devastated, and none of us wil ever recover our former health, if we survive at all.
alnut: Isn’t there some other way we can eliminate the threat posed by these people? Instead of destroying them entirely, perhaps we could work out some peace agreement with them, by which they would limit the range of people on our planet. If we could keep all people on special reservations, so that the rest of the planet may be unspoiled by them, perhaps the ecology of the planet could recover.
emloc: The problem with that is that it wouldn’t work unless the reservations were very few and very small. In order for any peace to work, the race of humans would have to agree voluntarily to reduce their numbers to a much smaller population; and that is contrary to their nature, which is to survive, thrive, and increase. Indeed, all of Nature works on that plan, but these human people have taken it to a dangerous extreme.
aple: I think the only long term solution is to find a predator for the human race, to keep them under control. As long as they have no effeive predators, they will just increase themselves into chaos, destruion, and oblivion, and take all the rest of us down with them when they go!
inkgo: That has been tried. None of the big animals has had any chance against the people, but the small animals have had a better chance.
Numerous plagues over the years have tried their hand at diminishing the human race, and a few have had pretty good runs, but the people always seem to win in the end. They aually track it down and contain it, until none is left alive.
Olive: That isn’t entirely true ~ there are quite a few that are still out there. They have learned how to change and adapt to different controls so they always manage to keep alive in pockets, ready to burst out again into virulence at any opportunity.
herry: But few of them are very effeive ~ they just nibble at mankind’s heels. Our friends, the mosquitoes, the rats, and the bats, are doing their part, faithfully keeping those little beasts in circulation endlessly.
But what we need is something harder to control, something more contagious, and harder to treat.
each: I think we need to use every ally we’ve got. Harry them from all sides, to keep their numbers down. Perhaps, all together, we can wear them down.
anana: How about some way of making them infertile? That’s the main problem, after all. If there weren’t so many of them, we might be able to tolerate them. I think that none of your “little beasts” are going to have much effe on the human population unless they can find a way to impa
their fertility. Otherwise, no matter how much damage they infli, a whole new generation of people will just come right back, like cockroaches.
pruce: That’s funny, Banana! You ought to know how they wil do it.
Once people lose their fertility, they will just figure out a way to propagate people in vitro, or something.
azelnut: Perhaps there’s another way. What if, somehow, people could learn the error of their ways? Perhaps they might be made to realize their folly, and could voluntarily make some of the changes that will relieve the stress on all the rest of the biological life on the planet. I know we
usually think of people as monumentally stupid, but sometimes they seem to be pretty clever at figuring things out. Maybe they will change their ways.
equoia (wining at the olive trees): I hope you are prepared to wait!
Judging from past experience, it may take anywhere from two to six millennia before they figure it out. I don’t think the planet has that long, frankly. If we don’t do something pretty quickly, then the collapse of life here will become irreversible. It will be useless if people finally figure it out after it is too late to save the planet.
eech: And so, once again, we are reduced to our last hope ~ the deus ex machina.
ango: If only the Gardener would come back! This world has never been the same since the Gardener left. She would know how to deal with the people problem.
Response to Two Objeions to Free Farms
April, 2020
My proposals for the total makeover of the planet may seem to strike some people as pretty radical. To be sure, my solutions suggest alternative social, economic, and political arrangements that are entirely new, and this strains the limits of tolerance for Novelty. I know that I have long ago exceeded my quota of novelty, and yet novelty continues to interest me.
adical literally means going to the root of a problem to make changes.
That’s what I want to do.
My most radical idea is not the concept of a Seminary of candidates, enrolled from early youth to form a very special school which will hold the sovereignty of the earth in trust, and will sele one of their number to exercise the authority, as coming from God, or Gaia, to dire the unfolding evolution of the planet. No; while a bit rare, it is not without precedent ~
the original inspiration was the Dalai Lama of Tibet, simply expanding the single seleion into a small school to safeguard against abuse or failure of the idea. A closer analogy is a hive of bees. A small number of ordinary worker bees are seleed to form a special school, raised on an extra rich environment of “royal jelly” so that they grow into queens. Then, one of that school of queens finally takes on the role for life. That matches my idea very closely.
No; the truly radical idea is the new concept of the utility and meaning of “money.” In my contemplative moods, I have thought of “money” as a
sort of universal abstraion, like “time” ~ it is simply a way of making measurement. Any system can be best understood by the movement of money, in the same way that an elerical appliance can be understood by fol owing the trail of eleric current. One of the applications of this idea is that almost any “problem” can be addressed most effeively by a judicious application of the principles of money. A case in point is my “resource depletion tax.” Rather than come up with all kinds of complicated legislation proteing trees and other resources in one way or another, a simple tax can be employed to accomplish the environmental objeives in an efficient and targeted manner.
Another example is the criminal justice system. Instead of locking people up in jails at great public expense, offenses can be payable in cash, and judgments might be made in terms of percentages of net worth, rather than set amounts (or, for poorer people, a high set amount can be charged against their permanent account at the Bank). For major crimes, total confiscation of all property might ensue (with additional charges possibly added to the offender’s account, keeping them effeively confined to the free farms, like house arrest, since, without a credit account at the Bank, your identity card wont authorize any transaion anywhere). So there would be no need for jails. Ne’er-do-wells might often wash up on the shores of the free farms, but if they are simply allowed a place to live in peace, they may not need to develop other problems. One of the arguments in favor of the free farm is that it prevents the whole host of gremlins that are caused by the need for money. The social costs to society from the root cause of poverty ~
everything from theft and murder to fraud, prostitution, drugs, and gambling
~ are huge annual expenses. The free farms may not make all of that go away, but it will greatly reduce the need for any of it.
In fa, a lot of the problems world-wide could be solved by implementing these free farms everywhere. Suppose you go to Syria and say that you want to set up free farms immediately where everyone is welcome to come and live in peace, with free food forever. The only condition is that al warring parties give up their disputes, and forget about it (“leave your guns at the door”). Everyone just retires, and goes off to live in peace at the free farms springing up everywhere. People might literally be using their weapons as agricultural implements, as they live the good life on the farm, being housed and fed by their gracious hosts.
Suppose there were a broker at the high stakes table auioning off the cost of war. If you could buy that debt at a futures price, and then you feed all of those hungry people, you could cash in your war bonds at enormous profit. Offer that deal in Yemen, for example ~ end of story ( quod erat demonftrandum). Give me five years of a war budget in advance for Yemen, and then I would just feed everyone, and keep the money. That’s a deal I think anyone in Yemen would take on the spot. It’s cheap, I tell you ~ just feed them. It’s no different in Chicago.
But my radical spin on the power of money is to consider “money” not just to be a medium of exchange, and certainly not some manifestation of debt. (I really have to laugh at the joyous enthusiasm of bankers who are eager to explain to you how money can be understood as being all based on debt! The Bankers of the world have their thumbs on the scale, laughing all the way to the Bank.) I consider that the most useful concept of money is that it is an expression of the manifestation of God. Specifically, when the Bank issues funds for any purpose ~ buying food for the Free Farms, paying the people planting trees all over the planet, cultivating the earth as a garden
~ those are funds which may be used to pay the property tax, which will be colleed annually by the Bank from all owners of property. This annual taxation on the owners of property will maintain a demand for the currency, stabilizing its value.
This puts the State into the position of having unlimited funding for any purpose whatsoever! Funding, in other words, would no longer be an issue, since it would be created by fiat by the dvocate for the ree through the Bank. There is no “cost” at all associated with any of the projes of the State ~ the free farms, the roads and bridges, education, transport, health care ~ in every case, the Bank simply issues payment for whatever needs to be done. This money can circulate, and, through the “Thomas Jefferson Effe” (by which wealth and power always tend to accumulate upwards), it ends up in the hands of the wealthy and powerful, whose property and other wealth will be taxed as needed to balance the money supply (in balance with the funds created by fiat, the taxed amounts would be simply erased). What al of this means is that the wealthiest few at the top will be the ones who will ultimately pay for the planting of billions of trees, free education, free health care, free infrastruure and transport, and the free farms, where the poorer members of society will always be sure of a place to live in peace for free.
Let me address direly those very holders of wealth and power: I don’t want to confiscate your wealth, or put an end to free enterprise. All I want you to do is to shoulder the burden, and pay the tax! Not only will the cost of all of this be slight to you with your billions, but the extended peace and stability of society will greatly stimulate trade and all economic aivity.
A brave new world like something I am suggesting will herald in a new
Golden Age, with a burst of prosperity and creative evolution on every hand.
These times will represent great opportunities for prescient capitalists to devise new ways to hoover up all of this money the Bank is putting out. (I think somewhere I mentioned the image of the huge armored trucks leaving every day from the provinces to Manila, carrying the day’s take from the lottery, in the Philippines ~ the stark reality impressed me profoundly at the time. Why do so many people line up to pay the “stupid tax”?) And, as for you third-generation billionaires who are just trying to hold on to what you have, as long as your business ventures are not liable to the clutches of the resource depletion tax (which may be broadly interpreted to deal with new issues as they come up, and in some instances may seem to be quite confiscatory), “you will be free to carry on with your business as usual.” ahem
I can’t help being long-winded; I have long-winded ideas, after all. I am just finally coming around to the topics of the present essay, the objeions to the Free Farms. One objeion is that if anyone can just go and live for free at the Farm, no one would do any work, and everyone would just lie in the sun all day. But the objeion is a non-ſequitur. Life on the Free Farm might be a good choice for a great many people, but there will always be plenty of others who will want to rise above the herd, and live at a higher level of comfort. In fa, here comes a major digression into the social distinions between Sharpeners and Levelers ( cf. two articles from ore
aughter ~ eview of Z eitgeist , and The pple of iſcord).
In broad distinion, Sharpeners live in a world in which they try to maximize advantages for themselves. They make distinions, and they make judgments of value. Levelers, by contrast, are more into living together
in harmony as one (literally, “one love”). These categories apply to metaphysics as per Sharpeners representing the Yang direion of energy outward, away from the center, and Levelers representing the Yin direion of energy inwards, towards the center. We have seen movements in history which may be seen clearly in terms of the influence of sharpeners or levelers.
We have seen the recent swings of extreme yang energy, and some pretty extreme sharpening, brought suddenly to its knees, as everyone stops what they were doing, and goes in again to the center, to their own life and home.
For the present, the huge whirlwind of yang sharpener energy has all stopped, and the air and water is cleaner for it, and no one wants to consume any more oil (I was there, in May, 2020).
And so it may turn out that a large part of the world’s people wil simply choose to live happily at peace, tending the garden on the free farm.
If half the world’s people want to lie in the sun or make music or make love (but we will have to get to the issue of babies), that is great ~ how much more gentle on the earth that would be than the present scramble for money.
No one should have to sell chewing gum or batteries on subway cars ~ just retire, and go live on the free farm. There is enough food capacity on the planet to feed everyone.
Here is a very simple idea of free farm struure ~ there are only two classes of people ~ the Stewards, and the Volunteers. The Stewards are the responsible core who take care of the land, and the Volunteers are just that, and will work under the direion of the Stewards. Work will be entirely voluntary. There are plenty of totally helpless people in the world who just can’t cope with it enough to take any responsibility at all, and the simple solution is to just let them lie in the sun and sleep it off. There should be
enough volunteer help to maintain the physical environment of the farm as a well cultivated garden. There should aually be little additional cost that might be needed to maintain the farms. There is so much available “free merchandise” in the world, that there is no real cost associated with sending it all to the free farms ~ used clothing and donated merchandise of all kinds
~ manufaurers’ outdated merchandise, etc. Even food should be plentiful enough, if the State simply pays generously to organic farmers for their produce, and distributes it through the non-profit food stores (which could even sell some food below cost, avoiding the fluuations of market swings) and the free farms, some of which might be net-food producing. The Free Farms would pay no tax.
But, on the other side of the tracks, there will always be plenty of Sharpeners in the world. In general, the poorer the people, the more densely they are housed. At the farms, a bed will be found for everyone, but they will just be dormitories, even for the Stewards, unless the eventual prosperity of some of the farms allows them to develop more personal space. Healthy and nutritious food will be available for everyone, but if you want the Maine lobster, or the January strawberries, à la arie ntoinette, you’re on your own. Some people will not want to eat with others in general, either cafeteria style or more gracious dining, but will want to maintain their own place where they can offer greater comfort for their guests. The whole yang world of Sharpeners wil always be with us, just like the Poor (but not all Levelers are necessarily poor), and they will always be part of some of the most interesting aspes of evolutionary civilization. In contrast, from the sharpeners’ point of view, “Here are all of these stoned-out free-farmers doing nothing but playing music and making love all day,” at least when they are not working in the garden. Travelers all over the world would always
find a welcome to stay for free at any of the free farms. It sounds like fun.
I’m ready for the flowers, the tinkling bells, the guitars or violins, or that Baroque oboe.
Life will be very much different in the two different worlds ~ a world of Sharpeners, and a world of Levelers. The Sharpeners would be mostly in the cities, while the Levelers would feel more at home in the country. Of course, there will be plenty of cross-overs. Perhaps a tired, burnt-out, or bored sharpener wants to just give it all up and live a simple life in the garden. And perhaps, after some time at the Free Farm, someone will want to try his hand sharpening again, and there will always be employment offices at every farm, offering wage jobs to anyone who wants to work.
But there is a second argument too. Sometimes the Sharpeners don’t like the idea of supporting all the Levelers. They work hard, sharpening al day, while the free-farmers just loaf around, doing little or nothing (distinguished from more industrious commercial farmers, whose property would be taxed). But it shouldn’t really cost all that much to feed the hungry
~ once a farm would reach a certain maturity, it would probably be close to self-supporting. In fulfillment of the Leveling philosophy, the net profit or loss of the Farm should end up being pretty close to zero.
But it even goes beyond that. In a world which has clearly way surpassed its allowable limit of human beings (and falling desperately low in the biological health of the surviving plants, animals, and people), there is the issue of how to deal with the birth rate. Taking the idea of money as a universal abstraion, I can suggest that putting a simple “resource depletion tax” on babies could adjust the birth rate as needed, with the amount of the tax varying as needed to maintain the birth rate within the targeted range (a
gradual reduion of numbers from 7 billion down to 2 or 3 billion, or whatever seems sustainable).
One of the consequences of this baby tax is that it would be something you need money for, in order to pay the tax. So that means that most free farmers, unless they have their own resources, will not be able to pay that tax, or will not be willing to go to work to earn the cost of the tax. Meals and lodging, used clothing, and access to tools and merchandise could all be free, at negligible cost to the rest of society, but the baby ticket would have to be extra. Perhaps it will be a major incentive to sharpeners who want to have children and provide for them, so they will want to earn enough money to do that in comfort.
Using money in this way as a universal abstraion to address problems, the problems will effortlessly diminish towards zero, or balance, as the planet stabilizes at the highest level of human habitation that the planet can support. And if the whole planet be systematically cultivated as a garden, as the prime direive of the head of the Bank, the whole earth should see its biological environment gradually evolve into something more sustainable, something much more green. Think bicycles and family farms.
If enough trees be planted soon enough, the climate should eventually stabilize, and life can go on.
Literally every square and cubic meter of the planet should be mapped in a database which includes recommended land use evolution, maximizing the cultivation of the most valuable trees that any region and its water systems can support, along with secondary vegetation, animals, and people.
The biological health of the land itself, the planet Earth, aia, will always have to be of primary importance for the dvocate for the ree, as head of the
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Bank. Priorities will be given to land use improvements that will have the most important beneficial effes, or mitigate the more harmful effes of biological degradation, like soil erosion or oceanic necrosis. As always, apart from feeding hungry people, it all comes down to planting more trees as fast as we can. Our survival depends upon it.
