A New Decade

Every decade, every year, and every day this should be the light that guides us as we strive to craft our more perfect union.

Mazur-e-Sharif, Afghanistan Salem-News.com photo by Tim King

(EUGENE, Ore.) - If you have read any of the many op-ed reflections on the first decade of the new millennium, the reviews are less than positive. The arm chair commentators are not necessarily wrong.

These past ten years have witnessed many grotesque spectacles: the War on Terror, extraordinary degradations of the democratic process and the rule of law, new lows for industry, and new highs for corruption and fraud in business and government.

Orwell wrote: “who controls the past, controls the future.”

The political masters in 1984 understood that institutional perpetuation relies on shaping historical events into a narrative that justifies or even necessitates the ongoing maintenance of that institution. This is true for all institutions, whether they be governmental, religious, or corporate.

In our world of free speech and mass communications institutions of all kinds seek to shape the publicly accepted historical narrative to their own ends.

After a decade where many of the grandest institutions were publicly exposed as being fundamentally corrupt, and dysfunctional, and as being led by people who are incompetent at best and psychotic at worst, the institutional propagandists have their work cut out for them in justifying their continued existence to the world.

As an individual you also shape your own historical narrative. If you do not control your own past, you will not control your own future.

With this in mind, all historical narratives proffered by self-interested parties should be viewed with extreme skepticism.

I share my own historical perspective here with the intent of stimulating the skepticism that is appropriate in dealing with some of the common institutional narratives concerning the recently past decade.

The War on Terror

The events of September 11 are the cornerstone of many narratives concerning the last decade. They are used as a justification for aggressive war, torture, illegal violations of civil liberties, government corruption, and just about any other nefarious activity to which they can be associated by the most tenuous of means.

This centralization of September 11 as the definitive event of the past decade is a mistake.

Objectively, September 11 was a minor event in comparison to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is only by claiming that these much larger events were a necessary outcome of what happened on September 11 that it is possible to overcome the vast disparity in scale between what happened that day and what followed.

I believe that it is more reasonable to assume that the War on Terror would have happened regardless of September 11. September 11 provided a convenient pretext, but any other event could have provided the same pretext.

Even a minor terrorist attack can be blown out of all proportion by the media. If the propagandists all say in unison that the security of the people requires war, then war it is. The pretext is irrelevant.

This view is confirmed by history many times over, where false pretexts and the most minor of incidents have been used as the justifications for aggressive wars without any general complaint from the public.

The only association between September 11 and the wars and criminality that followed is the association created by the very criminals who perpetrated those acts.

Perhaps the strangest development of the War on Terror was the resurrection of a Christian Crusade against Islam.

This certainly demonstrates the complete lack of creativity possessed by the supposed leaders in this country. The crusader script is at least a thousand years old now. The fact that it worked as well in modern America as it did with medieval peasants is a shocking demonstration of just how ignorant the mass of the population in this country is.

To put this in context, it is necessary to understand that the concept of an “Islamic Terrorist” is just as much an absurdity as the concept of a “Christian Terrorist.” You cannot be both a terrorist and a Christian. You cannot be both a terrorist and a Muslim. If you are a terrorist, you cannot be either Christian or Muslim.

In point of fact, the “Islamic Terrorists” did not learn guerilla warfare, bomb making, and terrorist tactics from the Quran. They probably learned these skills mostly from training provided by western intelligence agencies, with the U.S., Israel, and Pakistan being the leading propagators of this doctrine of warfare.

The terrorists that the U.S. government declared war on were to a large extent their own creation. Their methods mirror each other because they have a common source.

The U.S. government, like the terrorists it fights, seeks to control its own population, and the population of the world through terror.

Amongst the crimes against humanity perpetrated by U.S. government officials are:

-Murder

-Kidnapping

-Torture

-War against civilian populations

Their “lesser” crimes include treason, violations of dozens of treaties and laws, a wide variety of illegal police activity, and a massive collection of corruption, theft, and fraud related offenses.

This is the legacy of the U.S. government in the past decade. As it stands, the U.S. government lacks all legitimacy and authority, and can never restore itself to credibility without prosecuting the individuals responsible for these crimes.

The U.S. government and its officials are so fundamentally corrupt that they probably will never prosecute these crimes. If they do not, then they consign themselves to a downward spiral into irrelevance.

Many governments have come and gone in the course of history. The U.S. government and its members will not escape the consequences of their actions.

What these people have done is not new. These same games have been played many times before. Graveyards are full of people who ran the same schemes and believed they would never face their comeuppance.

Democratic Process and the Rule of Law

The decade began with the election of a President who did not win the popular vote. What followed is no surprise.

The Attorney General of the United States testified under oath that he did not remember anything he had done in the previous two years.

The U.S. population in prison and under “correctional supervision” continued to grow. Many of these people are incarcerated for offenses that are not even criminal, such as drug offenses.

We have gone from being a nation with millions of black men in slavery “for their own good and the good of society,” to being a nation with millions of black men in prison “for their own good and the good of society.” The difference between these two situations is purely ideological. Objectively they are identical.

The greatest criminals of all occupy their traditional positions of power.

When banks perpetrated a string of frauds that collectively gained for them trillions of dollars, their debts were wiped clean and their crimes were not even investigated, let alone prosecuted.

Dozens of war criminals remain free, enjoying positions of privilege, and living off the profits of corruption.

Numerous corporations that assisted the government in illegally spying on its own people have been given immunity and shielded from lawsuits.

The legion of petty hustlers and con artists who infest the corporate world continue to destroy the productive capacity of our country for their own gain. Their unchecked greed continues to contribute to death, disease, and environmental destruction throughout our country.

The number of deaths from prescription drugs skyrocketed during the last decade. Many more people die from the products of the pharmaceutical industry every year than died on September 11.

Tobacco, alcohol, poor quality food, motor vehicles, pollution, and other corporate products remain the primary causes of death and disease in our society.

The corporations that profit from death and disease remain immune from criminal prosecution and financial liability through the guise of the “regulatory system” that they have created for themselves under the U.S. government.

Traditional law is that if you kill someone you are a murderer. In a country with no rule of law what substitutes for justice is a regulatory system where as long as a corporation follows the regulations they wrote they are immune from liability.

The FDA, EPA, and other regulatory agencies give corporations immunity from the law in exchange for limiting the number of people they injure and kill to some “reasonable” but still profitable level.

The farce of a rule of law goes hand-in-hand with the farce of democracy in this country.

Elections have become nothing more than elaborate theatrical exercises. A huge percentage of the population continues to reject the election process entirely, and for good reason. Boycotting rigged elections is a perfectly reasonable expression of one’s democratic rights.

The average politician in this country enjoys the popular support of 25-30% of their constituency at best. Most have no mandate, no legitimacy, and no right to claim that they act in the name of the public whatsoever.

The political elite have come to view their own people as their enemies. Even minor officials won’t go into public without escorts of military police.

If a “democratic” politician cannot walk in their own land without a massive armed force to protect them then their credibility is zero.

Perhaps the most comical thing about these politicians is that nobody is even interested in assassinating them. What they really fear is having to stand face to face with the people who they treat as inferior and being mocked and exposed as the charlatans they are.

Industry and Fraud

The United States is an interesting society in that bribery and corruption are part of the legally acceptable way of doing business here. You can rename the same act as “campaign contributions” or “lobbying” but the essential conduct is the same.

The United States is also interesting in its embrace of usury as not only legitimate, but essential to the economic structure.

Usury is lending money and charging interest. Every single great philosopher and every major religion condemns this practice as fraudulent and socially destructive.

In the United States it is actually illegal to lend money without charging interest. If you do, the debt is not legally valid.

The United States is interesting in that private contracts are enforced with the police power of the State with no regard to their legitimacy. Not only does the State not protect its citizens from fraud, it actually uses its police powers to protect the ill gotten gains of every petty criminal who uses contracts as a means of swindling their neighbors.

The United States is interesting in that the one deviation from freedom of contract is in employment, where governments and courts have imposed on workers the “at-will” employment contract which gives the employee no rights and the employer no responsibilities.

Courtesy: UC Berkley

If government is a “social contract” then the social contract amongst the people of this country is a strange one indeed. This contract gives the greatest rewards to the most nefarious and endorses every form of corruption classically prohibited by civilized societies.

It is no wonder that in a society where fraud and corruption are legally acceptable the result is a collapse of productive industry.

The essential problem with allowing unchecked fraud and corruption is that every person who lives off of fraud is a parasite on those who engage in productive activity. The inevitable consequence of this is that those who engage in productive activity are unfairly compensated for their work, and consequently lose a part of their incentive to be as productive as possible.

As the benefits of productive work decline relative to benefits of fraud greater incentives are created for people to engage in fraudulent activity, and over time, society-wide productivity collapses.

The United States has had many boom-and-bust cycles throughout its history, but the worst effects of these have always been mitigated by expansionist activity. In the past there has been new land to conquer and untouched natural resources to exploit.

The United States faces a different situation now with declining stocks of petroleum and coal, environmental exploitation pushed to its limits, and no real potential for profitable expansion into new territories.

Without expansion as a mechanism to deal with the social costs of a corrupt political and economic system, the only options now are to either deal with the underlying causes of degraded social and economic conditions, or to face a continuous downward spiral of declining standards of living.

A New Decade

The question for anyone in any condition is whether or not to maintain their present course or to change direction. All change, of any kind, can only be instigated at the individual level.

Courtesy: MERCATO LIBERO NEWS

If you would like the future to be different from the past; if you would prefer not to continue to passively watch as your society stagnates and declines; if you would prefer peace, prosperity, and freedom to endless war, declining standards of living, and the elimination of individual liberty; then the burden is on you to take responsibility for your own situation and find the means of achieving those goals.

Some politicians are liars. Some business people are crooks. This is as true as it has ever been. However, it takes two to tango. A liar and a crook without some gullible sucker to buy their shtick is just a crazy person talking to them self.

It is every person’s individual responsibility to make sure that they are not the gullible sucker. Nobody else can save you from playing this role.

Personally, I cannot accept the system of government and law in this State and Country. I refuse to accept the legitimacy and authority of a government that is fundamentally corrupt, unjust, and irrational.

If anyone says that I am a criminal solely because I refuse to acknowledge the validity of an unjust law, so be it. I am not a murderer. I can name hundreds of murderers walking free. Who is the greater criminal?

If anyone says that I am anti-democratic because I refuse to acknowledge the supremacy of democracy over truth, so be it. If you vote that 2 + 2 = 3, should I agree with you?

If you assert that there is no truth at all, then what difference does it make? If there is no truth, then all of our untruths become equal, so I may as well select those untruths that I prefer.

In point of fact, I know that there are real truths in life, and that from those truths flow inviolable laws and moral principles. The democratic circus is totally irrelevant when it is contrary to real truth, law, and morality. I stake my life on that without any hesitation whatsoever.

If the law makes justice criminal and injustice legal, than I prefer to be a criminal. If democracy makes truth fiction and fiction truth, then I prefer to be anti-democratic.

That is my own personal position.

My personal relationship to government is defined on simple principles. I view government as a tool for social organization and for collective action. I never accept government as something that controls me. I never accept government as something that can harm me.

This view is based on a simple factual observation. Government is an idea. It has no reality. It is impossible for a government to control or harm a person.

It is true that any person may come to me and threaten me or injure me while claiming to act on the behalf of some government, but my issue is with that person, not with an imaginary idea that has no reality.

Consequently, if anyone threatens me or harms me claiming to act under the guise of some imaginary government, I will not take them seriously. I will blame them for their own actions and their own stupidity, and defend myself in kind.

All actions have consequences, and everyone is responsible for the consequences of their own actions. That is real law.

If someone comes to me and tries to tell me that they have been murdering, kidnapping, assaulting, falsely imprisoning, and stealing from people because it was sanctioned by some government they claim to work for, all I will do is laugh at them.

Where is this government? Show it to me.

If they point to some decaying neo-classical monuments, or some ancient pieces of paper with some words scribbled on them, then what should I say?

Is that your government? Did these relics and artifacts speak to you and instruct you to commit all of these heinous crimes without any justification?

If the answer is yes, then the person is obviously totally insane. If the answer is no, then they have nowhere else to turn, and they must admit full culpability for their own crimes.

Government is a human creation; an ideology; a mere figment of the imagination. Just as all humans are beneath the law, all governments are beneath the law.

No government can dictate law just as no human can dictate law. Both humans and their governments can only act in accordance with the law or suffer the consequences.

These are principles that have been passed down from time immemorial. These philosophies existed before there was written language. They were written down by the first philosophers of the literate era, and they have been at the foundation of modern civilization ever since.

The United States was explicitly founded on “the laws of nature and nature’s god.” There is no other basis on which rational government could possibly be placed.

As citizens in a democratic society it is every person’s duty to understand these principles. Ignorance is no excuse.

Citizenship in a democratic society is not a right. It is a privilege. It carries with it a duty to execute your responsibilities as a citizen.

The burden placed upon a citizen in a democratic society is much higher than that in other forms of social organization.

Democratic society requires that its citizens be educated, independent in thought, and willing to sacrifice for the greater good without coercion. Democratic society requires citizens that are wise in their judgments, steadfast and resolute in the face of all fears, free of greed and envy, and compassionate towards all.

The United States was founded on the audacious idea that the common man was capable of fulfilling the duties of a citizen in a democratic society.

The United States was founded on the idea that the common man did not need priests and kings to coerce their obedience and direct their lives.

What is misunderstood by some is that this freedom cannot be legislated. It cannot be given to people by any means, governmental decree or otherwise. The constitution of the United States only gives people the opportunity to become citizens in a democratic society. It will always be the choice of every person to either seize this opportunity or let it pass them by.

It is in the hands of every person of this State to either seize the opportunity to become a citizen in a democratic society or to let it pass them by. This is not a political decision. It is a personal decision.

The people who founded this country never expected perfection. Many had grave doubts about the experiment they were engaging in. They all said so explicitly, and constructed a constitution that concentrated governmental power in the hands of the elite.

Those doubts about the capacity of the mass of the population for democratic citizenship are as valid today as ever. Our State and Country are still primarily governed by a limited elite class, which reflects the unpreparedness of the general population for real democratic citizenship.

What has changed in these intervening years is that a majority of the population and almost all of the ruling class no longer believes that it is even possible to have a true democratic society. Many of these people simply have no conception of what a true democratic society looks like.

This condition of malaise is tragic and must be reversed if our society is to address any of the fundamental problems that befall it.

Even if at the founding of this country it was clear that it could not spring from the womb as a fully formed democracy, all of the great statesmen held that goal as the central aspiration of the government they founded.

The United States was not founded simply to stop paying taxes to England. If anything, the costs of independence were much higher than the costs of being a part of the British Empire.

The United States was founded to give people an opportunity that they could never have under a classical monarchy. It was founded to teach people who had been raised under that system a better way of life and how to achieve it. It was founded to limit and eventually eliminate slavery, which was not a creation of the U.S. government, but of the European powers.

The U.S. government has never been perfect. Its flaws have been many and the crimes committed in its name numerous since its very inception. However, there is no other government that can be named that is free from these same flaws and has not committed the same crimes.

All human creations are imperfect. This is inherent in their nature.

Should this fact dissuade anyone from choosing something better over something worse? If you are given the choice between a common rock and a beautiful diamond with a minor imperfection, should you say, “give me the rock, I do not want an imperfect diamond!”

A democratic society governed according to democratic principles is superior to all other forms of government, not because it is perfect, but because it has a different objective than all other forms of government.

In many ways, a government with a democratic organizational structure may be inferior to other forms of government.

Fascism is an extremely efficient way of organizing industrial societies. Absolute monarchies and dictatorships are a particularly good form of government for creating social unity, giving society a common purpose, and driving people toward a common goal. The feudal system of The Church and monarchs was particularly good at creating social stability over a long period of time.

Under particular circumstances and for achieving particular goals, a democratically organized government may be inferior to fascism, dictatorships, and monarchies.

The crucial difference between democracy and all other forms of government is that of objective.

Fascism has the objective of government as maximizing industrial production. Absolute monarchies and dictatorships have the objective of glorification and empowerment of their leader. The feudal system had the objective of creating a stable tax base for The Church.

Only democracy has the objective of government as improving the lives of its people, not only in terms of material comfort and security, but in terms of education, personal development, and individual freedom.

Democracy is superior because it has the profound goal of creating a society where humans can reach their full potential.

Any other form of government, which only exists to serve some transient desire for wealth or power, will never be on the same level as a truly democratic government.

The true purpose and potential of a democratically governed society are lessons that some have never learned, some have never been taught, and some have ignored or disregarded.

That our State and Country remain as strong as they are in the face of extremely difficult circumstances is unquestionably due to the many people who toil to maintain this legacy of a democratic society. Even as it is attacked on all sides by those who would prefer to see this dream destroyed forever.

The light of democracy can never be extinguished. It is forever lit by the fire burning in the hearts of all those who yearn to be free.

This light does not emanate from decaying monuments and buildings. It does not emanate from ancient parchments, no matter how lofty the words written on them may be.

The light of democracy shines forth from every free person who walks this earth. Its illumination guiding them along their path as they seek the truth.

The United States government was founded solely on this principle: that it should be in accordance with what is true, imperfectly understood though these truths may be.

Though never extinguished, the flame that lights our way may wax and wane over time. If we find that its light has grown dim, then it is our duty to rekindle its fire.

We must remember that it is the light of freedom that drew our ancestors to this country. We must remember that this fire once burned so brightly that it shone throughout the entire world, bringing people from every corner of the globe to bask in its glow.

No one who came to this country ever expected their journey to be easy. Everyone accepted that they would face toil and hardship along the way; but the promise that our country offered to them made it worth every sacrifice.

If we are to honor the generations of sacrifice that have been made to keep this flame alive, then no hardship and no toil is too great to once again see the light of our democracy shining throughout the world; providing for every person who it touches the hope, promise and aspiration for a life lived in freedom from fear, injustice, and tyranny.

This is the hope and the promise that the people of this country have inherited. It is our greatest treasure. It is our duty to keep this hope alive. It is our duty to pass this promise along to future generations, and to all those who seek it. Every decade, every year, and every day this should be the light that guides us as we strive to craft our more perfect union.

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Salem-News.com Business/Economy Reporter Ersun Warncke is a native Oregonian. He has a degree in Economics from Portland State University and studied Law at University of Oregon. At a young age, his career spans a wide variety of fields, from fast food, to union labor, to computer programming. He has published works concerning economics, business, government, and media on blogs for several years. He currently works as an independent software designer specializing in web based applications, open source software, and peer-to-peer (P2P) applications. Ersun describes his writing as being "in the language of the boardroom from the perspective of the shop floor." He adds that "he has no education in journalism other than reading Hunter S. Thompson." But along with life comes the real experience that indeed creates quality writers. Right now, every detail that can help the general public get ahead in life financially, is of paramount importance. You can write to Ersun at: warncke@comcast.net