Floor 45: American Politics and Economics: Hegel's Hotel

Asking Hard Questions To Leading Authorities on Muslim Americans, Religious Liberty, and Interfaith Relations

2012-01-18T12:30:00.000-08:00

Hi David

Many Americans remain confused about Islam and Muslims in America in the wake of anti-mosque protests, anti-Shariah legislation and related controversies. Starting at 7:30 pm EST tonight, we¹re hosting a town-hall style program where a live audience and online viewers will have an opportunity to ask hard questions to leading authorities on Muslim Americans, religious liberty, and interfaith relations.

I believe you and the readers of Hegel's Hotel: American Politics...DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics... will be interested in sharing, watching, and discussing:

http://myfellowamerican.us/newseum

I would love it if you could share the webcast and post or tweet about it. If you do, please let me know. And please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you so much.

Daniel Tutt

Project Director,

My Fellow American

Twitter: @usmuslimstories

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MyFellowAmericanProject

Web: http://myfellowamerican.us

Opinions on The American Republican (GOP) Race, 2011...

2011-10-30T08:03:00.000-07:00

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. -- Thomas Jefferson (How appropriate and up-to-date! -- dgb)

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour? -- Thomas Jefferson (Gotta like that one...dgb)

It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.
-- Thomas Jefferson

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.
-- Thomas Jefferson (As long as my neighbor doesn't attack me for saying something different -- dgb).

It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.
-- Thomas Jefferson

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
-- Thomas Jefferson

It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.
-- Thomas Jefferson (Especially when what you know is good for you in the long run is going to hurt you a lot in the short term. -- dgb)

Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.
-- Thomas Jefferson (That would leave about 95% of business owners and CEOs out of a job, as well as bankers, investors, advertisers, and a lot of politicians -- and I have probably just scratched the surface...dgb)

Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.
-- Thomas Jefferson (Global Capitalism in a nutshell. -- dgb.)

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
-- Thomas Jefferson

Never spend your money before you have earned it.
-- Thomas Jefferson

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.
-- Thomas Jefferson

No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.
-- Thomas Jefferson

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
-- Thomas Jefferson

One man with courage is a majority.
-- Thomas Jefferson

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.
-- Thomas Jefferson

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.
-- Thomas Jefferson

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
-- Thomas Jefferson

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.
-- Thomas Jefferson

The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.
-- Thomas Jefferson

The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.
-- Thomas Jefferson

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
-- Thomas Jefferson

The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.
-- Thomas Jefferson

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.
-- Thomas Jefferson

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
-- Thomas Jefferson

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
-- Thomas Jefferson

We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.
-- Thomas Jefferson

Google Brainy Quotes, Thomas Jefferson for these and other Jefferson quotes...dgb

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And now, from the more general...to the more specific...as pertains to the present Republican candidate race in 2011...

In my opinion, the two best Conservative/Republican thinkers inside or outside this election race are Donald Trump and Ron Paul. Mitt Romney continues to try to patrol a very 'wide centrefield' that makes you ask whether he is dedicated more to his own political and economic ideology or to his 'electability status'.

Trump and Paul remain consistent to their Capitalist and Conservative ideals which is probably what America needs more than anything else right now -- as long as these 'ideals' include all of America, and not just the upper 5 percent...

Paul seems radical at first take, but he's not really. He's just 'a good, old fashioned, Conservative, Republican, Capitalist. No bullcrap. He tells you the way he believes it...Some of the Republican 'flip-floppers' and 'avoiders' and 'abstractionists' are falling by the wayside of public opinion...which is a good thing...

Paul calls it the way he sees it...America can't or won't get out of debt by printing more and more money, nor by going deeper and deeper into debt...
The spending has to stop...there is no other way that you are going to get yourself out of debt unless unless you tax the American people until they have no money left...or unless private and public income starts to soar again which will only happen when American manufacturing jobs that are now located in all the cheapest jobs markets in the world -- which unfortunuately, does not include America -- come back home. And for them to come back home again, all 'free -- and unfair -- trade agreements' -- have to be dismantled. All these free trade agreements have put America at a gross disadvantage in terms of 'labor issues'. Either labor prices have to crash to meet global competition in countries like China, Mexico, South Korea, India, South American countries...where labor practises are often oppressive, dehumanizing, and would set back American labor practices 100 years...Or, again, these 'allegedly free trade agreements' -- which are only 'free' to the global capitalists who can take advantage of them -- need to be dismantled, and 'protectionist tariffs' would have to be re-instated in their place.

As Trump boldly stated, you don't see Japan buying American Chevrolets...Why is the rest of the world allowed to maintain their 'nationalstic protectionist policies' while America and Canada are not? It would be easy to blame Reagan and Mulroney for the beginning of the The Free Trade Agreement, but no President or Prime Minister since has tried to rescind it...Why? Because it benefits the Global Capitalists who have helped to finance and keep these Presidents and Prime Ministers in power...

Obama made waves about The Free Trade Agreement when he first came into power....but those waves were quickly squashed...and there has been no mention of The Free Trade Agreement since by most political and/or economic men in power...except a very vocal Trump in a CNN interview a few days ago...

Obama came into power at the worst possible time...a time when the American debt was skyrocketing...and he wanted or still wants to bring in his new medical policies....Socialized medicine -- i.e., medicine for the poor as well as the rich, and medicine that doesn't not bankrupt a certain proportion of Americans -- is a good thing, just not necessarily the right thing to bring in at the right time, when the country as a whole is 'drowning in debt'...

And the American people, I do not believe, will ever forgive Obama for doing what he said -- or at least implied -- he wouldn't do: bail out the robbers on Wall Street which is why Wall Street is being 'occupied' right now...

The American people were led to believe by Obama's strong and charismatic campaign speeches that Obama had the strength and courage to stand up against 'American political and economic corruption' -- the lobbyists in Washington, the collusions and crooked back room deals both in Washington and on Wall Street...And that hasn't happened... In fact, there was not only one but two Wall Street Bail Outs under Obama's watch...Payments to the robbers on Wall Street with 'public chastisements not to do it again'...No one went to jail...Some very guilty CEOs and top executives could have been held accountable for what happened, either arrested on fraudulent charges, and/or left to try to 'swim in their own self-created bankruptcy'....But instead, they were given 'billions of taxpayers dollars' to make their banks and mortgage companies 'solvent' again, while the rest of America that got 'ripped off' had to 'eat their own financial losses'

Where is the 'free market' -- and 'invisible hand' -- justice in that Wall Street fiasco? Adam Smith is turning over and 'vomitting' in his grave...He...and I think Jefferson...never did trust 'bankers', told us to 'watch them closely', not to let them have a 'free, unadulterated, narcissistic licence to do whatever they wanted to do'...and if anything, it was perhaps the American government, under an earlier President, who initiated these 'manipulative, back-end loaded, exploding mortgages'..

'Let's get more people into their own homes -- even if they have to evacuate them, or we have to evict them, when they can't meet their rising interest levels deeper in the contract.'

Wow -- that was certainly a brilliant idea, but certainly not for these new homeowners. American Capitalism at its narcissistic -- best or worst -- depending on your perspective. Great for the bankers and mortgage companies at first -- until they had a financial disaster bigger than Hurricane Katrina on their hands...

I like Trump, and I like Paul, because those two tell us what they believe, do not mince words, and do not squirm in their respective seats under pressure, and hard questions...

Question to Trump: How do you get Americans working again?

Answer by Trump as I can recall it, with my own extension: Well, the first thing you have to do is to stop American manufacturing companies from leaving America...Bring back American manufacturing companies to America by re-introducing tariffs (25%) on on imported goods (and services). Stop getting financially ripped off by countries all around the world. America used to be the most powerful financial company in the world. Now, it is practically the laughing-stock of the world. Why? Because other countries 'rip us off in business and economic negotiations' and we continue to let them do it to us, without so much as a wimper... 'International political correctness and niceness' has led to 'national business and economic disaster within America'. And America is being internationally manipulated all the way to national bankruptcy...

That is what practically every American politican is afraid to say...

And Trump wasn't afraid to say it...

I believe that Paul would probably echo much the same opinion...

Those are the only two opinions that I hear these days...

That I believe have the capability of actually pulling America out of debt...

Another four years of the same or worse type of 'internationally politically nice ideology'...and it will probably be too late to fix anything...at least in America...

I like Obama's 'Enlightenment Ideals'... I think that Obama 'turned soft' on a few things that he shouldn't have -- like 'The Free Trade Agreement' -- and overall, I just do not believe that Obama has the 'right type of stuff' to turn America's financial situation around and put it back on track again....You can't just keep spending and printing money...

............................................

If I have been a little 'loose' on my generalizations, understand that I believe that there are still some very ethical businessmen out there conducting business who I have the greatest respect for -- especially when they are good to both their customers and their employees...The sad -- even tragic -- part is that I believe that such businessmen are becoming fewer and fewer between...It's like 'do what the greedy, the colluding, and manipulative are doing lest I be left behind...Which reminds me that I left out a couple of quotes that I need to go back and look for...' -- dgb

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And back from the more specific to the more general in terms of two more anecdotal quotes from another one of our most famous political-economic predecessors...

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. -- Adam Smith

To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature. -- Adam Smith

.......................................

-- dgb, October 30th, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Dialectic-Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still in Process...

Money Changes Everything...

2011-08-16T08:51:00.000-07:00

Great speeches are not all that make up a great president. You can have all the 'ethical idealism' in the world -- and the most charismatic way of communicating this ethical idealism -- but in the end, it is 'the trench work' -- the courage and substance a president shows in backing up all his or her ethical idealism, that will make or break the legacy of a president.

More than this, a president needs to show a certain amount of 'flexibility' in terms of changing -- or at least -- modifying his or her gameplan in the light of changing, particularly emergency, national priorities.

President Obama's medical plan is still an ethical ideal that is worth striving for. I think that an integrative 'public-private' insurance and/or non-insurance system might be the way to go.

The rich can pursue the 'best medical specialists' that they are looking for whatever their medical emergency or urgency may be -- assuming they are willing to pay the 'going rate' for these 'best medical specialists'.

All other Americans ideally should be covered under some sort of affordable 'medical insurance plan' -- either public and/or private -- in such a way, that no person or family is 'left medically unattended' and/or 'bankrupted' by a serious medical emergency.

This, in my opinion, should be the 'ethical ideal', albeit significantly compromised and modified by the speed -- or lack of it -- at which the American Economy can take it there -- and still be 'stable and balanced'. That could take a long time.

A country that is plummeting towards bankruptcy -- if it isn't essentially there already -- is not in a position to totally focus on 'medical insurance ideals' above all else.

For good, bad, or worse,

Economics rules.

I think that when Obama was elected President, the American people were expecting -- or at least hoping -- against all skeptical, cynical 'naysayers' for a President who had the courage and substance to stand up against all 'Narcissistic Corporate-Government Collusions' that were taking significant amounts of money out of the pockets and bank accounts of ordinary middle and lower class Americans. I don't think that this has happened.

From the first two corporate bailouts under President Obama's sole watch, that seemed to follow ominously in the shadow and footprints of what President Bush had done before him, 'red flags' started to go up in the collective American psyche.

The American debt continued to rocket upwards like a solar launch, with no end in sight. Where was the money going to come from to pay for all these bailouts, changes in the medical system, and ongoing wars? Cost cuts? Taxes? No....or at least not immediately.

The money was simply being 'borrowed' and/or 'printed' -- like Monopoly money -- with no 'substance' behind the newly printed money, resulting in the downward spiral of the American dollar...and a downward spiraling global trust factor in the credibility of the American economic system and its international credit rating.

A chance for The Republican Party -- and the newly formed Republican 'Tea Party' -- to regain relevance and voting significance in the minds of the Collective American Psyche.

Obama's ongoing failure to 'plug holes' and make 'shipworthy' the American Economic Titanic were the Republican's Party's opportunity to 're-seize a majority' in The House of Representatives with a revitalized eye on The Presidency again...

How soon the American people are willing to forget past government travesties if there is another more recent President and Government who/which is not sufficiently fulfiling his/its proclaimed ideals...

Every President has a leash and President Obama is at the end of his 'leash' in terms of 'exuberant Government overspending'...

And the Republican majority in The House of Representatives won't let him 'tax' the American people -- rightly so for the most part -- when many American families are fighting for their very economic survival...

Why should the American people be constantly paying for the irresponsible financial overspending of their own government?

How many wars does it take to be involved in to bankrupt a country? I don't know but America may soon find out...

How many billion dollar corporate bailouts does it take to bankrupt a country? What was it -- one under Bush and two under Obama? Or was the second of three consumated by Bush and Obama in 'union' together?

Any way you look at it, it was a bad economic start to President Obama's allegedly 'counter-Establishment' ideals...'Oops there goes another hoped for Shining White Knight...'

In the end, economics rules.

And if President Obama can't get the economics right -- which he hasn't so far -- this will be the last term of his Presidency.

There are only two things that will turn around his Presidential legacy:

1. The American National Debt going down; and,

2. American jobs going up.

Obama had it right at one point...

He needed to take a very long and detailed look...

At the consequences that Global Capitalism and The various 'Free Trade' Agreements have had -- and are continuing to have -- on the American people.

Why keep a large 'American' Manufacturing Compnay in America if the same 'American' Manufacturing Company can moves its whole manufacturing operation to any of various parts of the world and pay a 'pittance' of the labour costs -- to 'non-Americans'?

Perhaps there was a reason why 'tariffs' on particular imported products existed for all but the last 20 years years or so.

Wasn't that Reagan and Mulroney operating in tandem in the 1980s -- who essentially started the destruction of The Manufacturing Industry in North America through the beginning of The Free Trade Agreement?

Most North American civilians back in the 1980s didn't have a clue what the future ramifications of 'The Free Trade Agreement' were (all they knew was that it included the word 'free' and that sounded 'good', not 'bad'). Little did they know where the next 20 years plus would take them. If they had known, The Free Trade Agreement would have never passed into law as it was the beginning of the loss of thousands and thousands of jobs in North America...

If President Obama had been a 'non-conformist, non-Establishment' President, he would have kept hammering away at the 'Deconstruction of The Various Free Trade Agreements' -- which are clearly not in the interest of The American Worker....But when America owes billions (or is it trillions) of dollars to China -- how do you have any economic clout left to veto any 'Free' Trade Agreement with China that is clearly in China's national interest when China could simply call in America's loan -- and America would be bankrupt?

One way or the other, someone, someones, or something, 'silenced' President Obama on confronting The Various Free Trade Agreements. Just like his rousing 'anti-lobbyist' rhetoric during his various campaign speeches disappeared after he was elected.

You can't have a President of The United States of America sounding like a combination of Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King in his campaign speeches -- and then sounding 'just like another elected politician, talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time' once he gets elected. Otherwise, 'character substance' is seen for what it really is -- 'politically manipulated social perception' that doesn't have much more 'substance' than smoke and mirrors.

What else can I say other than...

Money changes everything...including in The White House and in Congress...

-- dgb, August 16th, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain

Six Common Sense Reasons For The Current American Economic Crisis

2011-08-11T15:30:00.000-07:00

Without being an economist, here are six seemingly common sense reasons why America is spiralling towards bankruptcy (if it is not already there):

1. Printing money that has no 'substance' behind it which only lessens the value of the American dollar and will eventually raise interest rates and taxes;

2. Fighting too many wars in too many different coutnries that obviously America cannot afford. The only ones making money are those in 'The Military-Industrial Complex'. We don't seem to have heeded Dwight Eisenhower's famous farewell address;

3. Global Capitalism and The Various Free Trade Agreements...This has spelled the disasterous demise of North American Manufacturing Industries as large manufacturing companies everywhere in North America have vacated North America for cheaper labour markets in cheaper countries. This may be great for other countries, it may be great -- or simply necessary in order to compete -- for the large North American Corporations that have left, but it is terrible for The North American work force who have been abandoned by the companies that they used to work for;

4. 'Fish-hook' mortgage deals with 'low front end interest rates' and 'high back end interest rates' (same with credit card bank lenders);

5. Successive American governments that don't know how to -- or are unwilling to -- balance a budget. How can you ask the American people to balance their budgets when the American Government is the worst possible role model in this regard;

6. Dare I say Government and Large Corporation Collusion...Worded otherwise, successive governments that pander to America's largest corporations and corporation owners at the expense of the rest of the American people. Even billionare, Warren Buffet, has said as much.

-- -- dgb, Aug. 11th, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain
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Billionaire Buffett's call to pay more tax
By Ephraim Hardcastle

Last updated at 8:13 AM on 16th August 2011

Why don’t billionaires offer to pay more tax when those on modest incomes are struggling? America’s most famous investor, Warren E. Buffett, 80, says the wealthy in his country are ‘coddled’ by government – as they are here – and ‘billionaires like me should pay more taxes’. Last year, he paid £4.2million in taxes but reveals: ‘What I paid was only 17.4 per cent of my taxable income.’ He adds: ‘If you earn money from a job, your percentage will surely exceed mine – most likely by a lot.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2026456/Warren-Buffets-New-York-Times-article-calls-US-super-rich-pay-tax.html#ixzz1VCGkDgdt

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My Fellow American...

2011-08-11T14:31:00.000-07:00

Hi David

America was built on the principles of equality and basic human rights for all. Recent mosque protests and congressional hearings on American Muslims are all unfortunate examples of a rising tide of fear that lead to intolerance and inequality. This climate of suspicion towards our fellow Americans compromises the great values that our country was founded upon. We've put together a 2 minute film in response that I believe you and the readers of Hegel's Hotel: American Politics...DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics... will be interested in sharing, watching, and discussing:

http://myfellowamerican.us

It would be great if you could post or tweet about this video. The site also has many other cool features including the ability to share your own stories and you can even take the "My Fellow American" pledge. If you are able to help, please let me know - I'd love to share your post or tweet with my team. I am here if you have any questions. Thank you so much.

Elizabeth

If There is One Thing Good To Be Said About Global Capitalism...

2011-04-25T09:18:00.001-07:00

If there is one thing good to say about Global Capitalism...it is perhaps this:

I am suffering such that millions of people in some of the poorest countries in the world --- who are much more impovertized and desparate than me -- can work -- and at least take something home to feed their families...

Having said this, China seems to be doing very well lately, much better than us, in fact, they probably 'own' us...

So with or without 'ruffling any international feathers', it might be time -- indeed, it is way past time -- to think of a new 're-balancing' act....something in the order of a new 'North American Workers' Protectionist Act' (NAWPA as opposed to NAFTA)...

Basic Principles For a North American Workers' Protectionist Act (NAWPA)...

Aimed at:

1. Creating a political-economic-business environment encouraging internationally based North American industries to come back to North America;

2. Thus, creating thousands and thousands of 'new-old' jobs and careers in North America;

3. Creating a rate of pay that is neither dominated by one-sided Big Union and/or Big Corporation power but rather by a 'resurrected and resurging' North American economy;

4. Creating a rate of pay that is partly protected by international tariffs on goods coming in from countries with much, much lower wages than in North America;

5. Re-creating a standard of living and rate of pay in North America that does not necessitate North American consumers -- because of their unemployment status and/or drop in corporate wages -- searching for the lowest priced internationally imported goods possible to find;

6. Encouraging and supporting healthy, stabilizing profits for North American companies that allow them to survive and flourish without gouging the public and/or exploiting workers -- creating what I call a 'Hegelian(Humanistic)-Existential-Ethical-Dialectic'(HEED) style and culture of 'capitalism' rather than a 'Narcissistic-Manipulative-My Way Or The Highway' style and culture of capitalism that essentially breeds pervasive civil distrust, disrespect, skepticism, pessimism, cynicism -- and paranoia against most corporations and governments -- regardless of what 'party name and/or ideology' they call themselves by;

A 'Protectionist Act' for North American Workers with some or all of the main principles outlined above...

Might do much to...

Get North American Goods and Services Industries...

'Rockin' and a rollin'...again...

Sitting around thinking about it...

Is going to keep our jobs overseas...

And let foreign economies rise...

While ours continues to fall...

-- dgb, April 25th, 2011

-- David Gordon Bain

The Greatest Cure in The World for 'Capitalism'...

2011-04-23T10:55:00.000-07:00

Dialectic-(Democratic)-Homeostatic Balance (DHB) will always be disturbed, disrupted, bent out of shape and balance, by individual and group narcissistic bias, manipulation, money and power.

Restoring the DHB group (i.e., self, relationship, family, community, corporate, government, institutional) balance will always demand that 'fair-minded, ethical, DHB thinking and feeling' people will in the end defeat 'narcissistically blinded and/or bent out of shape' people in a rhetorical war of words -- or something unfortunately worse -- a political, economic and/or physical war of 'will to power'. Obviously, sometimes the 'good guys' don't always win -- or win in the first attempt. Some narcissistic dictators and/or manipulators may take years to finally 'defeat'. But in the end, generally, 'what goes around comes around'... The second oldest known philosopher in Greek history -- Anaximander gave us that last 'priceless and timeless gem' of ancient wisdom.

In this regard, we can all choose to be a part of the 'narcissistic individual and/or group problem' or we can step above this -- see other people beyond what we see in the closest mirror -- and be a part of an 'ethical, humanistic-existential conflict-negotiating and resolving team'.

Where do you draw the line between being an ethical, humanistic-existential negotiator vs. being a 'one-sided, narcissitic negotiator' who doesn't care a flying flip about the person you are negotiating with?

Ideally, you are supposed to be able to stand up for your own self, your own rights and wishes, while the other person looks after his or her own self, rights and wishes...And the 'finalized deal' is where each person in the deal meets somewhere in the 'middle' and agrees on this 'middle'.

But what do you do about fraudulent sellers and negotiators, people on the other side of the bargaining negotiation table who have told you something that isn't true, or know something about what he or she is selling that you don't -- and ethically should. Perhaps the salesman/woman knows that the car he/she is about to sell you has an engine that is about to blow up, and by rights, this is where you need to due your 'due dilligence' and have your own mechanic check the car, and/or get a warrenty, take it out for a good test drive, and/or work with a sales person who you feel comfortable that you can trust that he or she actually cares about you as well as, or on top of, or instead of, how much he or she wants to get rid of a 'bad car for the maximum possible price'.

The difference between 'narcissistic capitalism' and 'ethical-dialectic-democratic-humanistic-existential capitalism' basically comes down to the following two questions:

1, Should I, or should I not be -- ethical?

2. How can I make this deal a 'win-win' deal where both of us walk out of the deal happier than when we walked into it, and, thus, both of us wanting to do business with each other again?

Ethics and integrity are never perfect, and narcissistic impulses are often strong -- indeed, a legitimate part of our everyday self-wants, self-needs, and self-expression as long as they don't cross social-ethical boundaries...into the realm of the unethical, the corrupt, the greedy, and/or the criminal...

Greed is almost an inherent vice -- or at least a potential inherent vice -- in human nature. Certainly, it has been around since as far back as recorded human history goes -- back to 'pillaging-plundering' tribes..

The simplest definition of both 'narcissitic capitalism' and 'pathological narcissism' is not caring a 'rat's ....' about the person and/or people around you who you are affecting...

Unfortunately, narcissistic capitalism breeds more and more narcissitic capitalists...in government, on Wall Street and Bay Street, in private corporations, in sellers and buyers, in lawyers who encourage their clients to be fraudulent in order to get a bigger insurance claim of which they get a percentage of, in family lawyers who are paid to get as much as they possibly can for their clients, at the expense of lives that are destroyed on the opposite side of the bargaining table...'Sorry, I had the better lawyer...you should have spent more on a better lawyer...I get the four bedroom house with the children, and you, if you are lucky, can maybe afford to rent a room in a house...and hopefully still have enough money left for at least food'...Or in other case scenarios, both sides are destroyed in a fight where only the lawyers go home with the 'spoils'...

Who doesn't want to be rich? Not too many of us...Being with money is, all else being equal, a much better life than being without money...I've experienced life on 'both sides of the track' -- or at least what I call 'middle class poverty' where you may live in a nice or at least decent place...but you can't afford to do anything else, and even keeping up with your bills becomes a struggle that sometimes -- or every day -- you fear losing... The war of diminishing 'take home income'...and increasing expenses...a combination of inflation and a floundering economy where the people at the top still manage to find a way to pull strings and get a bigger and bigger piece of the pie...Call it a mixture of global capitalism and corporate collusion, even government-corporate collusion...

Beware the biggest political party donators...and lobbyists...they are not 'donating out of the goodness of their hearts'...they are thinking about colluding and cashing in on another deal...

Narcissistic capitalists and narcissistic people in general worship the same Greek God -- 'Narcissus'... even if they don't know it...because the signature characteristic of the narcissistic personality is not to be able to see beyond the closest mirror....and we are all narcissistic to some extent...

I'm sure even Mother Teresa looked in the mirror...but that brings us back to The Spirit of Jesus Christ...and in this case, the woman who so completely lived in the Spirit of Jesus Christ -- Mother Teresa...

We idealize -- and idolize -- Gods, either because we are like them...or we want to be more like them...Often, they respresent our 'missing half'...We live too much of a 'narcissistic life'...and then we go to Church to 'learn' how to be more 'all loving' like Jesus Christ...or Mother Teresa...

I am going to write an essay one day on Mother Teresa... I read some of her quotes a few minutes ago that started to make me cry... Being Easter, I think it is entirely fitting that I share these with you...

.............................................

Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies. Mother Teresa

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
Mother Teresa

Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.
Mother Teresa

Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.
Mother Teresa

I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. No, I wouldn't touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God.
Mother Teresa

I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor? Mother Teresa

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. Mother Teresa

If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one. Mother Teresa

If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it. Mother Teresa

Intense love does not measure, it just gives. Mother Teresa

Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. Mother Teresa

Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love. Mother Teresa

Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God - the rest will be given. Mother Teresa

Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go. Mother Teresa

Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work. Mother Teresa

Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty. Mother Teresa

Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do... but how much love we put in that action. Mother Teresa

Love begins by taking care of the closest ones - the ones at home. Mother Teresa

Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand. Mother Teresa

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mother_teresa.html

........................................................

The next time you go into a business deal -- or any other encounter and/or relationship at all, for that matter...

Imagine that you have Narcissus looking over your one shoulder...

And both Jesus Christ and Mother Teresa looking over your other shoulder...

Then go ahead and make your 'deal'...

I fathom a guess...

That that would be the greatest cure in the world...

For 'Capitalism'...

Or for any other ideology in the world...

For that matter...

In Hegel's Hotel...

'God' symbolizes 'self-strength' and 'self-assertion'...

Whereas 'Jesus Christ' more fully symbolizes 'empathy, social sensitivity, and loving/caring about others...'

In Hegel's Hotel, both God and Jesus Christ -- like Narcissus (The Greeek God of Self-Interest) and 'Altruissus' (The DGB God of Social Interest)-- flow together and dialectically unite into a 'Holy Trinity' -- 'The Holy Spirit' being the 'creative, dialectic union between self-and-social interest and love' in a way that helps to build a better world for both ourselves and the people we share this world with...because we all need each other in good times -- and especially in bad times...

Idealistic? Of course...

Realistic?

As Mother Teresa would say,

........................................

Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies. Mother Teresa

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
Mother Teresa

Each one of them/us is Jesus in disguise.
Mother Teresa

.............................

-- dgb, April 23rd-24th, 2011.

-- Where Dialectic-Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- And Amazing, Creative Integrations...

-- Can happen...

The Deal That Got Away....

2011-04-19T20:42:00.001-07:00

Don't assume a deal is done until the deal is finalized both verbally and on paper; otherwise, there are a myriad of reasons why one side or the other can back out at the last minute -- most notably perhaps, someone says the wrong thing at the wrong or the last moment, and capufff...the deal is gone...

Don't be presumptive and don't say something stupid in the heat of the negotiation, especially when it's coming down to the final lap. Otherwise, you'll be swinging at air, and going home with no signed cheque, nothing to celebrate, and the deal that got away...

-- dgb, April 19th, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Dialectic Gap Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still in Process...

On 'Sound Bites', 'Writing Bites', and 'Action Bites'....

2011-04-19T14:28:00.000-07:00

The things that we say, and the things that we do, are 'sound bites' and 'action bites' of who we are... I think that we should all strive to be assertive but sensitive, and sensitive but assertive, liberally conservative, and conservatively liberal, open-minded and flexible but strong on our most important self-boundaries, not too impulsive, not too restrained, capable of evolving in new directions, but strong in our central 'essence' of who we are...

Nobody is ever going to do any or all of this perfectly...nor will we all even try....I can berate -- and have berated -- myself furiously and often lately when I think that I've been either 'too weak' or 'too strong'...

When you are not happy with the way that you have come across -- either with your words and/or with your actions -- shake your head a few time, shake it off, and move on...

-- dgb, April 19th, 2011,

-- David Bain,

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations,

-- Are Still In Process...

The Psychiatrist, The Patient -- and The Used Car Sales Manager...

2011-04-19T08:14:00.000-07:00

Some people use words primarily to hide their thoughts -- and their 'real beliefs' about what is going on in themselves and in the world. -- a slight modification and extension of Voltaire as I heard the quote first on 'Criminal Minds'. The actual quote by Voltaire, as taken off the internet, can be found later in the little 'psycho-drama' below) -- dgb

My Psyciatrist: I spoke to my psychiatrist yesterday (my psychiatrist is one of my many 'bi-polar or multiple personalities') -- and he said that I had a 'bordeline pscyhotic-paranoia disorder' as well as elements of BPD (bi-polar disorder) and OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder). He said that I was having a problem lately sorting out 'my truth reality' -- or worded otherwise -- sorting out fact from fiction, and truth-reality from phantasy.

The Patient (Me) : I said, 'Doc, but that's because I've been dealing with the same used car sales manager for over a week now. He's trying to bend my perception of reality.' He says that 'misperceptions' happen all the time between people and he is 'sorry' if I 'misperceived' what he meant when he said 'Sing to yourself' after I came back from a test ride on the vehicle I was planning to buy and I told him that the radio wasn't working...

My Psychiatrist: 'How do you feel about that'?

The Patient(me): I said, 'Doc, I feel seriously offended by what he said to me...that he was being hugely 'arrogant' and 'condescending' to me in saying what he said to me...And more than that, I feel seriously shaken. I wake up now in the middle of the night -- you might have to give me a sleeping pill or an 'anti-anxiety' pill -- with a case of the cold sweats. I don't know whether I am losing contact with reality or whether someone -- specifically, in this case, the used car sales manager -- is trying to push me over the brink, push me into losing contact with reality... What do you think about that?

My psychiatrist: 'Well, I've been getting a lot of these types of cases lately. I call it 'corporate-political illusionism'. It's where the truth tends to be 'bent' by certain 'narcissistic personalities' in the direction of the almighty dollar and/or in the direction of the corporate person's 'narcissistic self-protection'. The truth is hidden or disquised -- and illusion becomes the truth'. The great French philosopher -- Voltaire -- once wrote that 'One great use of words is to hide our thoughts'.

The Patient(me): Well thanks, Doc. That makes me feel much better. So it's not just me. Other people have been having this type of 'borderline psychotic-paranoia disorder' as well. I was beginning to think it was just me.

My psychiatrist: No, it's not just you, Dave, there is a lot of corporate illusion syndrome out there...

The Patient (Me): Yeah, the sales manager wanted to bill me $270 for a GPS that he said some contractor had put into the van that I hadn't even bought yet -- in other words, his van. Before I cancelled the deal because of his rather 'snotty' comment, I asked him where in the van the GPS was, and he said he didn't know -- that it was a 'trade secrt'. He said that a GPS can cost anywhere between $300 and $600 -- which was mainly labour -- but he was giving me a break: he was only charging me the $270 that he had been billed (he was still waiting for the bill) to put in the van. The 'chip' itself, he said, costs peanuts, hardly anything, but the labour is where the price is.

I said, 'Wow, does that contractor charge $600 to put his magic GPS into a cadillac? Or does he charge that much when you need a little more 'profit padding' to build up the profit margin on a deal that doesn't have enough 'meat' on it yet?

He said that he could bring the contractor back, and I could invite all my friends and family over to see the contractor take the 'magic GPS chip' out from under the hood...But he would have to charge me for that too...He'd give me a discount...only charge me half as much...

I said, 'Wow, do you do this often, and does the contractor give you a discount in these types of cases where he has to pull the chip back out from its secret hiding spot in the van to satisfy the skepticism of an unbelieving customer? And is the customer actually willing to pay another $150 to see the contractor do this? If so, that's quite a vaudeville act you and your contractor have going on there... It must be worth quite a bit of money...

Well, needless to say, I cancelled the deal that wasn't a deal yet, hadn't been signed yet -- was dead in the water because I didn't like to be told 'to sing to myself' when I was about to commit myself to paying $4700 for a van that was not even offically e-tested and certified -- and was still in his name, not mine. Everything was starting to feel very 'shady'...and 'quasi-metaphysical'...'reality and perceptions and misperceptions were starting to seriously playing with my mind'...

That was when he started to delve more seriously into his 'theory of misperceptions' and how people can 'misperceive' what they think they heard and didn't really hear...Then the 'guilt trip'... 'Wasn't I a man of my word', he asked me, even though no deal had ever been completely consumated, never signed, and here he was giving me a lecture on 'integrity' and 'being a man of my word' when the meaning, definition, description, monetary value, of his words -- 'administration fees', 'GPS fees', 'perceptions' and 'misperceptions' -- kept changing every minute I listened to him...

How could he say that there was a 'deal' when the 'deal' kept changing every day I walked into see him -- which is why I believe the deal was never written up in the first place. He was always looking for new 'sliders' -- things that he could either 'slide into' the deal (like 'administration fees' and 'GPS fees') and/or things that he could 'slide out' of the deal (like an e-test and safety-certification slip, and the ownership of the vehicle staying in his name...)...

My Psychiatrist: Sounds like this used car manager doesn't really do much of anything by the book and, as you say, that he is operating a rather 'shady' deal or no deal here...

The Patient (me): That's what I think......but that's where he starts going back into his 'theory of misperceptions'...and I start wondering whether I should be questioning my perception of reality or not..

The Psychiatrist: No, Dave, I take back my original preliminary, presumptive diagnosis...I think you have a pretty good grasp of 'perceptual reality'....We are all partly caught up in a world where Corporate and/or Political Capitalist Illusionism tries on a pretty regular basis to 'bend our perception of reality'...

The Patient: Well, Thanks Doc. This session was well worth the money. I never knew that a seemingly simple endeavor to try to buy a new van could lead me into such a murky world of perception and misperception, epistemology and metaphysics -- like, When is an 'almost sale' -- a sale, and when is an almost sale a 'not a sale'?, and 'when is a 'not a sale, a 'sale'...you get the idea....these perceptions and/or alleged 'misperceptions' were starting to really mess up my mind...

This session was very important to me because I have to see this guy again today and I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't 'losing it'...

My Psychiatrist: Well, Dave, be assertive, be strong, be firm...don't let him walk over you....Regarding one of your 'bi-polarities', be your Doberman, not your chihuahua...

Aftermath...I was probably more chihuahua than Doberman...actually at a loss for words when he gave me most of my deposit money back...case resolved...unfortunate words and probably some misperceptions...I wish that I could take some of my words back in the last session...I am a terrible negotiator...I shake my head and move on...

-- dgb, April 19th, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Dialectic Gap-Negotiations...

-- Are Still in Process...

-- David Gordon Bain

On The Relationship Between High North American Unemployment Levels and Global Capitalism...

2011-04-14T14:41:00.000-07:00

This is a quick oversimplification of a whole myriad of very complicated business, economic and political problems...

However, like everything else, if you want to understand and/or do something better and better, you have to start at the beginning -- and/or the bottom -- and work your way up 'The Abstraction Knowledge, Skill and Performance Ladder', until you are -- metaphorically speaking -- 'swimming with the sharks'.

Although my 'knowledge expertise' is not geared specifically to business, economics, and politics, still the narcissistic, epistemological, and ethical principles that I have learned from studying philosophy and psychology in significantly more detail, are just as applicable to the study of business, economics, and politics -- indeed, any and every aspect of human culture and human living -- as where these principles came from in the study of philosophy, science, medicine, and psychology.

Let us start with the concept of a 'free market'.

Now this is an extremely complicated -- and 'ideal' (among 'free market capitalist' advocates) -- concept that has another complicated myriad of intertwining co-factors and forces attached to it that are impossible to explain or understand in one sitting.

However, I think that most of my readers will agree that there is a significant difference between an 'ethical free market' and an 'unethical free market', and also that in today's North American and International economy, there are a whole host of overt and covert, regulated and unregulated, controlled and uncontrolled, manipulated and unmanipulated, forces at work that make this market far from 'free' -- and far from 'fair', the latter concept of which is an 'adjective' that is often contrasted against 'free', implying that 'free' -- whatever your definition of 'free' is -- is not neccessarily anywhere in the same ballpark as the concept of 'fair'.

President Obama was right when he first was campaigning and put his 'accusing finger' on 'NAFTA' as one very important 'cause' of the 'very high unemployment levels' in both America and Canada -- and connected with this -- the 'abandonment' of North American 'manufacturing plants' and other 'goods and services' businesses from North America.

In a nutshell, why make goods in Canada or America if you can make them 10 times cheaper in Mexico -- or any other 'underdevloped, poor country' in the world -- that has no 'exporting tariffs' to deal with when businesses in these countries sell their goods and/or services to Canada or America? That line of thinking is not rocket science.

Then you go back to see who put their signatures on NAFTA and you find out that from America it was Bush and from Canada it was Mulroney -- Big Business and Corporation men -- and you start to understand why when you realize that 'more and more powerful Unions in North America' were making labour costs more and more expensive here -- and gave large (and medium size) Corporations an 'escape route' away from high labour costs and unions in North America by allowing them to 'freely set up shop' iin some of the 'poorest countries in the world' with the cheapest labour forces.

However, what was good for the largest Corporations in North America -- the ones who gave the largest 'support donations' to 'Conservative' and 'Republican' Political Parties (indeed, to ANY Political Party that is likely to be in power including the Liberals here in Canada and the Democrats in America) -- was obviously not good for North American workers, the middle class, and the lower class. Thus, 'Global Capitalism and Free International Trade Agreements' have set up the current 'Class Warfare' between the 'Richest Business Owners and Polticians in North America' -- and the middle and lower classes in North America who are finding less and less businesses to work in, because of the 'evacuation' of these businesses to 'third world countries' since the signing of NAFTA.

In effect, as what used to be the 'poorest and/or third world countries' in the world are becoming wealthier and more powerful -- to the point where both Canada and America are becoming 'financially enslaved' to these countries because they now own most of North America and/or are becoming larger and larger 'loan creditors' to Canadian and/or American governments and/or businesses -- essentially buying up North America because we can't -- or won't -- properly take care of our own businesses dometic business practices.

In essence, both America and Canada have given North America businesses more than enough sufficient motivation to simply abandon North America and take their good and/or services businesses to the 'cheapest labour -- and most pro-favorable corporate countries' -- in the world.

Welcome to the 21st Century and Global Capitalism. While the largest North American Corporations and Businesses are still finding ways of getting richer and richer from goods and services businesses that have been re-established elsewhere in the world, many, many North American workers -- and worded otherwise, the North American Middle and Lower Classes which have been under siege since the signing of NAFTA -- become poorer and poorer. Add into this equation, the amount of government money going to international wars, and massive immigration policies that simply exasperate the 'work problem' here in North America -- and you have a bad problem for a very significant portion of The North American workforce and middle and lower classes.

Get rid of these 'international free trade agreements' with the 'poorest countries and workforces in the world', start putting 'export-import tariffs' back on goods and services coming from these same countries, and let's see how long it takes for our internationally based North American businesses and corporations to 'come back home' again.

Now, let me make one more clear statement before I leave this little presentation.

I do not like to see, or want to see, any good business, with good business ethics, destroyed by overly high workers' wages, as may be arrived at in some cases by an overly 'narcissistic, aggressive, powerful Union'.

The same goes for any one-sided 'Collective Bargaining Agreement' that may be destroying a sports industry and/or franchise -- based again, on overly high player wages.

I was brought up by an 'Adam Smith/Ayn Rand idealistic business owner' for a dad, so I know all about the 'anti-union' argument'. Unions -- and Labour Boards -- are there for a reason: to make sure that 'powerful owners don't exploit powerless individual workers'. However, I know that Big, Bad Unions can be just as bad as Big Bad Corporate Owners -- and Big, Bad Bankers, and Big Bad Wall Street Investors, and Big, Bad Politicians... The Automobile Industry in North America seems to be in much better shape since the Automobile Unions were battled down to a seemingly much, more reasonable power size... Now that editorial comment is being made from a spectator's distance without any deep internal insight into the history and evolution of the industry, and each company, as a whole...

Any economic agreement has to work both ways -- for the individual worker and for the Corporation as a whole that should be entitled to a 'reasonable floating and self-sustaining profit margin' -- however, we 'reasonably' arrive at 'what a reasonable profit' it. That of course, is likely to be a continual source of theoretical and practical disagreement...and dialectic debate...How do you ever arrive at what imight be deemed 'reasonable' when the subject matter is -- money? The 'free market' capitalists, of course, would forever advocate that 'the market determine what is deemed reasonable' based on the principle of 'econonomic equillibrium' but again, the problem here, is that both the idea of the 'free market' and the idea of a 'fair market' are forever 'ideal concepts' that will never happen in reality.

Markets can be -- and are - 'manipulated', left, right, and centre. Coming from CCNN, unethical Wall Street investors sell 'bad stocks' to 'naive, unknowing investment customers' -- then, the same unethical Wall Street investors 'bet against' the 'bad stock' they have just sold. How can that type of behavior ever move us toward a 'free -- and/or a fair -- market'?

If I were grasping at economic straws, I would pick 15% to 35% net profit margin off the top of my head for most products and/or services...but again, that is a 'shot in the dark', a largely to totally 'generic and unresearched, uninformed range of percentage numbers'...But it came from somewhere deep in my mmemory banks, maybe from working for my dad's company. More research needed...I am writing above my head right now...

The high-rolling Wall Street investors would probably be laughing at this range of percentage figures...but then again...some of them should probably be in jail right now...I shake my head that American politicians 'bailed them out' -- and more than once -- through two different administrations and political parties...So much for protecting the middle and lower classes...

A working 'economic equillibrium' (EE) -- or in my philosophy-psychology words, a working 'Homeostatic-Dialectic-Democratic Balance' (HDDB) -- needs to be successfully arrived at between employer/owner and worker/employee/player. If either side is being 'financially exploited', and perhaps, in the case of an owner or group of owners -- financially destroyed -- then it is time to either close down the business and/or the franchise, or work out a new EE/HDDB labour agreement.

-- dgb, April 14th-16th, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain

The Death of Common Sense

2011-01-13T05:36:00.001-08:00

An Obituary printed in the LondonTimes - Interesting and sadly, rather true.

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend,Common Sense, who has been with us for many years.

No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
- Knowing when to come in out of the rain;
- Why the early bird gets the worm;
- Life isn't always fair;
- and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn), and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, are a few examples which only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.

It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents; Truth and Trust, by his wife; Discretion, by his daughter; Responsibility, and by his son; Reason.

He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers:
I Know My Rights
I Want It Now
Someone Else Is To Blame
I'm A Victim

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.

Falling Into The Nietzschean Abyss

2010-11-12T10:05:00.001-08:00

I'm falling...

Falling...

Into the Nietzschean Abyss...

Quick...

Anybody have a trampoline...

A really, really long ladder...

A fire department...

A parachute...

Even a set of mountain gear...

Some shoes and gloves with spikes...

To grab onto the walls...

Perhaps a ledge...not that I've seen a ledge...

I can't see anything..

It just keeps getting darker, and darker, and darker...

I can barely see the light above me...

Does this abyss...

End in water?

Or hard rock ground...that is going to break all my bones...

And kill me...

Anybody got a super big, thick mattress...

That they can throw beneath me...

Perhaps this abyss...

Goes right through the earth...

To China...or Australia...or New Zealand...

Or more likely it ends in fire and rock...

Perhaps I will meet the Devil himself...

Did I do something wrong...

Go down a bad path...

Or make a wrong choice...

Make a whole bunch of bad choices...

To get me here....

Is this my 'Un-Divine Punishment'...

Or might I learn something down here...

Can I learn something about myself...

And turn myself into a better person...

My own personal Phoenix re-born...

Whatever doesn't kill you,

Makes you stronger....

How much deeper must I plunge?

And who or what am I going to meet down here?

Or is this going to end on a deathbed of cold rock...

Or burning lava...

Deep water maybe I can survive...

Although with my momentum,

I'll probably run out of air long before I resurface...

Assuming I resurface at all...

Is this a dream?

A myth?

A nightmare?

Please, be a nightmare!

And let me wake up!!

Now!! Before I have a heart attack!!

If I must be down here,

Let me at least walk around...

Not keep falling...

Man, did I ever miss The Nietzschean Bridge...

Even the Nietzschean Rope...

Anybody...give me a Nietschean Rope...

That I can once again feel some Nietzschean Hope...

Climbing is far better than falling...

Give me some mountain gear...

And I'll take on Mt. Everest...

Or let me land safely below...

And I will take on...

Narcissus...Dionysus...Even Satan himself...

The 'Unholy Trinity'...

No deals with The Devil...

Well, maybe some detoxified compromises...

(My bargaining power isn't very good right now...)

But I'm not going to sell my Soul...

Maybe I did already sell my Soul...

Maybe that is why I am down here...

I sold out on My Self...

I sold myself to The Devil...

Where did I go wrong?

What bad choice did I make?

Or was it a whole slew of them?

How did I sell myself to The Devil?

By failing my parents when they need me most?

By looking powerless and weak in front of my kids...

And in front of my long-time girlfriend?

Maybe I have become powerless and weak?

How did that happen?

By turning my back on corporate owners...

Who had already sold themselves to The Devil?

Who every day were choosing Profit over People?

But in walking a way...

I was making things worse for myself...

Throwing myself into this economic abyss?

Is a 'Personal Economic Abyss'

The same as a 'Nietzschean Abyss'?

Or are the two abysses just connected together?

Different holes down to the same landing pit?

Not enough money and you can't pay your bills properly...

Take your kids and/or your girlfriend out for dinner...

Help your parents out of their own Economic Abyss...

You/I feel weak inside...

You can't chase your own dream...

Because you are too busy just trying to get out of...

Your Own Economic Abyss...

'Recession' is too weak a word to describe...

The Personal Economic Hell that you feel going on inside you...

And all around you...

As you battle your personal demons...

And meet some of the people you need to meet...

To work your way out of your Economic Abyss...

And not the ones who want to keep you down there...

The psychology, economics, and politics

Of Insufficieny...and Deficiency...

Keep you deficient...

And they can keep the 'puppet controls' on your destiny...

A bloated, unemployed work force...

Willing to work for less and less..

Makes unethical Corporate Owners....smile in smug self-satisfaction...

'Keep the immigration coming...'

Chirp the corporate owners to the politicians....

'More tax dollars and votes for you....

And a cheaper and cheaper labour force for us...

Pretty soon, we won't have to build our plants...

And offices...

Overseas...

Cause we'll have what we need here!

The minimum wage is $10 an hour...

We can get around that...

Here in Toronto, just get Ford to dump the 'fair wage policy'...

I like much of Ford's mandate....but not that one...
You can't justify a two or three tiered workforce...

Where contracted, privatized workers become essentially discriminated against...

And treated like 'Third World Workers'...

Turn a blind eye while they get paid half -- or a third of -- the wages of the workers still left over in City Hall...

This is what I call 'Downloaded' and 'Downsized' Worker Contracts'...

Where hundred thousand dollar earning civil politicians...

Allow private contractors to treat their workers like 'Third World Slaves'...

The Importation of 'Third World Wages' into Canada to become competitive with..

China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, The Philipines, Mexico, South America...

While politicians keep the borders open, the immigration tap on full blast...

Like the bathtub tap running full at full throttle while water spills over the top of the bath...

More immigration, cheaper labour, unethical corporate owners, and/or even corporate owners simply trying to remain competitive with outside countries' cheaper labour forces...

What we need in as international monetary system...and an international minimum wage system that puts all countries, and all corporations on the same equal footing...

Otherwise, the countries with the cheapest work forces win the battle of Globalization...

Canada, and particularly Ontario...seems to be trying hard to get there...

What used to be Canada's wealthiest province....

Is being trashed by Free Trade, Globalization, Uncapped Immigration, Paying more attention and giving more favoritism to new immigrants than to the senior citizens and the workers who have lived in Canada all their lives...

I am all for cultural diversity, cultural integration, AND EGALITARIANISM

BUT EGALITARIAN TAKES A VICIOUS NOSE DIVE WHEN CANADA IS TRYING TO RE-CREATE ITS OWN 'INTERNAL GHETTO WORK FORCE' TO COMPETE WITH FOREIGN COUNTRIES...

I ADVOCATE FAIR WAGES TO EVERYONE WHO LIVES AND WORKS IN CANADA, NOT JUST TO THOSE WHO WORK FOR THE GOVERNMENT, AND/OR THE HIGHEST ECHELONS OF PRIVATE CORPORATIONS...

For anyone who has done well in Canada, I tip my hat to you...as long as you have maintained your ethics and integrity getting to where you are...

But beneath you, and amongst the 'front line blue collar and white collar workers' there is a movement going on...and it is not a good one...

I call it creating a 'ghetto work force' -- even to the point of ignoring and/or finding ways around provincial 'minimum wage' laws....

One very efficient way around Ontario's minimum wage laws...

Is simply to create a 'worker's contract'...

No benefits, no minimum wage...

Maybe they are paid 'ghetto commissions'....

Or maybe they are given an hourly wage...and then told...

It includes your gas expenses....

That is a very popular trend these days...

Dowload rising gas prices onto the 'worker with a contract'...

Turn most of Ontario taxi drivers, or limo drivers, or courier drivers...

The ones who can't figure it out, or have nothing better to turn to...

Into a provincial 'Ghetto Work Force on Wheels'...

Let's see if we can get them down to $5 an hour....or less...

While our politicians turn a blind eye to what is happening...
'Oh Canada, We Stand On Guard For Thee!'

Keep those borders open, all you Republican and Democratic politicians...

And keep all those New Mexico farmers and corporations happy...

How can you know how much a worker is making?

If you don't even know that he or she is in the country?

If you want cheap 'home-grown' products and services, North America...

Then, you have to accept The New and Already Here, 'Third World Working Wages'...

Otherwise, stay at home, stay unemployed...

And we will simply produce our products, create our services...

Elsewhere, in other parts of the world...

It's called 'Free Trade'....

And 'Globalization'....
Don't you just love it?

It is bringing more and more workers...thousands...millions...

To a much clearer understanding of what at least one part of...

The Nietzschean Abyss is...

Fewer and fewer Big Unions...or for that matter, any type of unions...large or small...

As the whipped cream and the cherry on top...of the Banks and Mortgages 'Almost Financially Collapsing'....But somehow, with The Presidents' and The Senate's help....managing to escape with millions and millions of dollar of 'separation contracts'...and then 'Stimulus Packages' to coax them back....We need you...kind sirs...to steal more and more of our hard earned money...

We can't live with you, but we can't live without you either...

So we will give you millions of more money...'Stimulus Money'...to not go out the back door and leave an empty bank or mortgage company behind you...They must have learned from the Fitness Clubs...they used to do that...Go bankrupt under one name after stealing 'years of contract membership money'...and then open another Fitness Club...under a different name...
Only in America...

Well....correction...it seems to be a 'Global Financial Game' these day...

Here's to Globalization...

China is doing well...

I better not write too loudly...

China is in the process of owning North America...

If it hasn't essentially gotten there already...

Anyway, hats off to China and India in one respect at least....

They know how to balance budgets...and pay by cash, not credit...

I have no problems with these countries, or any other country, wanting to do better...

I just ask how North Americans are making their own lives better?

Canada used to be scared of being 'swallowed up' by America...

Now both Canada and America deserve to feel rightfully afraid...

Of being swallowed up by China...

America...home of the brave and free....

America...fighting on foreign shores to preserve its freedom and integrity...

While Foreign Corporate Forces Are Taking that same freedom and integrity away...

Coming in through a different door...

'Free trade' is not the same as 'fair trade'...

The generations of politicians and capitalists before us knew that...

That is why they had 'tariffs'....for purposes of 'national protectionism' and/or a 'more equal international trading foundation'....

If foreign corporations are paying a pittance of the labour costs that North American corporations are paying....

How is that 'fair' in a very competitive global market?

It is like one gigantic 'teeter totter game'...

China, India, Pakistan, The Phillipines, Taiwan, Mexico, South America...

Are all going up...

As America and Canada go down...

The Economic Abyss....bringing with it economic despair...

Soon funnels into the Niezschean Abyss....

Until our whole existence is essentially poisoned by economics...

We still have freedom...some freedom...less freedom...

I take my hat off to those who are doing well...when many are not...as long as you have kept your ethics and integrity reasonably intact...

Meanwhile, I still write about the politically...

And economically...

Incorrect...

My problems pales compared with those who are fighting...

In foreign wars...

Or are fighting devastating health problems...

Or are living on the street or in temporary shelters...

At least when I step away from this computer in a few minutes...

I still have a solid home base from which to leave and come back to, and enough time, money, and energy to fight another economic day...

In between my forays into writing about philosophy, psychology, economics, politics, mythology, religion...

Lose your body, lose your mind...and you lose everything you have to fight your economic, creative, professional, and/or personal battles with...

At least in between bad jobs, I can still write in Hegel's Hotel...

Write about Nietzsche and The 'Anti-Christ'...

Write about Jung and Mythology...

Write about Freud and Transference...

And still find a way to help my parents...

And take my kids and girlfriend out to dinner...

Together or separately,

As long as we are living, breathing, and still have hope, energy, and willpower...

We can still climb our way out of Nietzsche's Abyss...

No Faustian deals with The Devil...

Are needed...

Just faith in ourselves, and what we can do...

Both individually...

And collectively...

In dialectic...

And pluralistic...

Union...

-- dgb, Nov. 12th, 2010,

-- David Gordon Bain
Posted by david gordon bain at 6:27 AM Links to this post

Top 6 most indebted countries (and why)

2010-08-19T15:48:00.001-07:00

Top 6 most indebted countries (and why)
by Michael Sanibel, Investopedia.com
Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Provided by:

The recent financial crisis and recession have been a worldwide occurrence. The events in the United States since 2008 have garnered most of the headlines because the U. S. has the world's largest economy and national debt, but the reality is that many countries in Europe are in worse financial shape and continue to deteriorate.

More from Investopedia:

• 7 Currency Blunders You Could Cash In On
• 6 Things You Didn't Know About The U.S. Budget Deficit
• 7 Smart Steps Every New Homeowner Should Take

There are various ways to rank indebtedness, such as debt per capita and deficit or debt as a function of gross domestic product (GDP). This ranking is based on cumulative debt as a percentage of GDP and is limited to an analysis of the 25 largest economies. It is further limited to "external" debt, which is the portion of the national debt that is owed only to foreign creditors. The source for the debt and GDP amounts is the Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook most recent numbers from mid to late 2009.

1. Ireland - Debt/GDP: 997%
The days of Ireland enjoying one of the fastest growing economies in Europe are over, at least for now. The story is all too familiar, as easy credit fueled a housing bubble that burst and damaged consumer confidence.

After recording budget surpluses in the prior two years, the economy reversed course in 2009 and contracted 7%. This eroded tax revenues and sent the annual deficit to a record 14.3% of GDP. The European Union set a target for Ireland to reduce that figure to 3% by 2014, but the International Monetary Fund has indicated that the deadline will be missed. Moody's has subsequently lowered its bond rating.

2. Netherlands - Debt/GDP: 467%
The national debt in the Netherlands has reached record levels as a result of the world financial crisis and recession. Much of the added burden was caused by significant government support for the country's banking sector. The increase in debt per capita is second only to that experienced in Ireland.

The Netherlands joined the eurozone with a hard guilder a decade ago, but its current debt would likely disqualify it for membership.

3. United Kingdom - Debt/GDP: 409%
Investment bank Morgan Stanley fears that Great Britain could face a severe debt crisis in the near future if it continues down its current path. According to the bank's report, this is a case of not putting aside sufficient reserves when the economy was sound. During the peak of the boom, it still ran a budget deficit of 3% of GDP when other European countries were running surpluses exceeding 2%.

Like many other countries, Britain bought time during the financial crisis by implementing massive fiscal stimulus and forcing the public to fund losses in the private sector. Without the restoration of fiscal credibility, there is a significant danger of a government bond sell-off, pound weakness and a flight of capital.

4. Switzerland - Debt/GDP: 273%
Generally regarded as having one of the world's most stable economies, Switzerland has taken its budget crisis seriously. When the national debt began to escalate in the last decade, the Swiss voted to approve a constitutional amendment forcing the government to balance expenses and revenue during each economic cycle. While annual deficits may still occur, this has instilled discipline in the process and lowered the country's borrowing costs as investors rushed to safety.

This so-called "debt brake" was implemented in response to increasing debt stemming from a slowdown in economic growth. Deficits climbed as spending rose for unemployment benefits and tax revenues declined. While government expenditures were cut across the board, rising revenues have not been sufficient to pay down the incurred debt.

5. Portugal - Debt/GDP: 228%
With last year's deficit coming in at 9.4% of GDP, the Portuguese government has instituted a growth and austerity program with the objective of reducing that number to 2.8% by 2013. These measures have sparked strikes in the public sector including postal and transportation services. Those events have been further propelled by unemployment above 10%, the worst in 40 years.

The root problem has been low productivity and virtually no economic growth in the past few years. Portugal ranks last in GDP growth among countries that adopted the euro as a common currency. Demand for goods and services has stalled, along with innovation and business momentum. In addition, Portugal's exports have been undercut by cheap labor in countries such as China. (For related reading, see The Economics Of Labor Mobility.)

6. Austria - Debt/GDP: 214%
The recession and government assistance to banks have contributed to the budget crisis in Austria. The finance minister has rejected the notion of higher taxes in favor of administrative reforms to cut spending. He has predicted that the annual deficit would grow from 3.5% to 4.7% of GDP between 2010 and 2012 before starting to decline. That peak would be the third-highest since 1976 when such data were first recorded.

Rising unemployment has resulted in increased expenditures for unemployment compensation and other government benefits. In addition to the reduced payrolls, tax reforms have driven down overall tax revenues.

The Bottom Line
While the U.S. and Canada have large economies, their respective debt-to-GDP ratios are 93% and 62%. The U.S. gets most of the attention because of the size of the numbers that comprise the ratio - $13.5 trillion debt (June 2009) and $14.4 trillion GDP (2009 estimate).

By comparison, China and India have ratios of 7% and 20% respectively. Their economic growth rates have also exceeded the western nations over the past few years, thereby keeping their debt ratios relatively low. If the western nations don't implement policies to reduce their debts, they run the risk of jeopardizing future economic growth and prosperity.

Email this Page IM this StoryBookmark this StoryAdd to your Del.icio.us accountTuesday, August 17, 2010

Provided by:

The recent financial crisis and recession have been a worldwide occurrence. The events in the United States since 2008 have garnered most of the headlines because the U. S. has the world's largest economy and national debt, but the reality is that many countries in Europe are in worse financial shape and continue to deteriorate.

More from Investopedia:

• 7 Currency Blunders You Could Cash In On
• 6 Things You Didn't Know About The U.S. Budget Deficit
• 7 Smart Steps Every New Homeowner Should Take

There are various ways to rank indebtedness, such as debt per capita and deficit or debt as a function of gross domestic product (GDP). This ranking is based on cumulative debt as a percentage of GDP and is limited to an analysis of the 25 largest economies. It is further limited to "external" debt, which is the portion of the national debt that is owed only to foreign creditors. The source for the debt and GDP amounts is the Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook most recent numbers from mid to late 2009.

1. Ireland - Debt/GDP: 997%
The days of Ireland enjoying one of the fastest growing economies in Europe are over, at least for now. The story is all too familiar, as easy credit fueled a housing bubble that burst and damaged consumer confidence.

After recording budget surpluses in the prior two years, the economy reversed course in 2009 and contracted 7%. This eroded tax revenues and sent the annual deficit to a record 14.3% of GDP. The European Union set a target for Ireland to reduce that figure to 3% by 2014, but the International Monetary Fund has indicated that the deadline will be missed. Moody's has subsequently lowered its bond rating.

2. Netherlands - Debt/GDP: 467%
The national debt in the Netherlands has reached record levels as a result of the world financial crisis and recession. Much of the added burden was caused by significant government support for the country's banking sector. The increase in debt per capita is second only to that experienced in Ireland.

The Netherlands joined the eurozone with a hard guilder a decade ago, but its current debt would likely disqualify it for membership.

3. United Kingdom - Debt/GDP: 409%
Investment bank Morgan Stanley fears that Great Britain could face a severe debt crisis in the near future if it continues down its current path. According to the bank's report, this is a case of not putting aside sufficient reserves when the economy was sound. During the peak of the boom, it still ran a budget deficit of 3% of GDP when other European countries were running surpluses exceeding 2%.

Like many other countries, Britain bought time during the financial crisis by implementing massive fiscal stimulus and forcing the public to fund losses in the private sector. Without the restoration of fiscal credibility, there is a significant danger of a government bond sell-off, pound weakness and a flight of capital.

4. Switzerland - Debt/GDP: 273%
Generally regarded as having one of the world's most stable economies, Switzerland has taken its budget crisis seriously. When the national debt began to escalate in the last decade, the Swiss voted to approve a constitutional amendment forcing the government to balance expenses and revenue during each economic cycle. While annual deficits may still occur, this has instilled discipline in the process and lowered the country's borrowing costs as investors rushed to safety.

This so-called "debt brake" was implemented in response to increasing debt stemming from a slowdown in economic growth. Deficits climbed as spending rose for unemployment benefits and tax revenues declined. While government expenditures were cut across the board, rising revenues have not been sufficient to pay down the incurred debt.

5. Portugal - Debt/GDP: 228%
With last year's deficit coming in at 9.4% of GDP, the Portuguese government has instituted a growth and austerity program with the objective of reducing that number to 2.8% by 2013. These measures have sparked strikes in the public sector including postal and transportation services. Those events have been further propelled by unemployment above 10%, the worst in 40 years.

The root problem has been low productivity and virtually no economic growth in the past few years. Portugal ranks last in GDP growth among countries that adopted the euro as a common currency. Demand for goods and services has stalled, along with innovation and business momentum. In addition, Portugal's exports have been undercut by cheap labor in countries such as China. (For related reading, see The Economics Of Labor Mobility.)

6. Austria - Debt/GDP: 214%
The recession and government assistance to banks have contributed to the budget crisis in Austria. The finance minister has rejected the notion of higher taxes in favor of administrative reforms to cut spending. He has predicted that the annual deficit would grow from 3.5% to 4.7% of GDP between 2010 and 2012 before starting to decline. That peak would be the third-highest since 1976 when such data were first recorded.

Rising unemployment has resulted in increased expenditures for unemployment compensation and other government benefits. In addition to the reduced payrolls, tax reforms have driven down overall tax revenues.

The Bottom Line
While the U.S. and Canada have large economies, their respective debt-to-GDP ratios are 93% and 62%. The U.S. gets most of the attention because of the size of the numbers that comprise the ratio - $13.5 trillion debt (June 2009) and $14.4 trillion GDP (2009 estimate).

By comparison, China and India have ratios of 7% and 20% respectively. Their economic growth rates have also exceeded the western nations over the past few years, thereby keeping their debt ratios relatively low. If the western nations don't implement policies to reduce their debts, they run the risk of jeopardizing future economic growth and prosperity.

Email this Page IM this StoryBookmark this StoryAdd to your Del.icio.us account

Good and Bad Bargains: Modern Day Narcissistic Capitalism, The Free Trade Agreement, Globalization, and Schisms Both in The Individual Personality and In The Socio-Economic-Political National and International Order

2010-05-08T08:46:00.001-07:00

Freshly modified...and just finished...May 9th, 2010...

'The difference between a 'good Capitalist' and a 'bad Capitalist' is the difference between a person who cares about people and one who doesn't. The same goes for the difference between a 'good' and 'bad' Socialist. In this regard, the good Capitalist and the good Socialist have more in common than the good and bad Capitalist or the good and bad Socialist. I will trumpet the work, efforts, and ideals of good Capitalists AND good Socialists, while I will rhetorically seek to destroy the work and efforts of both 'narcissistic Capitalists' and 'narcissistic Socialists' alike. The worst narcissistic Capitalists in the world have more in common with Lenin, Stalin, and Mao Tse Tung -- and visa versa, than they do with anything Adam Smith or Ayn Rand wrote...' -- dgb, May 8th, 2010.

Introduction

This essay is probably my most definitive work so far on what I mean by 'good' and 'bad' Capitalism or between 'ethical' ('good will') Capitalism and 'narcissistic' ('bad will') Capitalism.
I look at this essay as hopefully being the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is coming down the chute in this realm of politics, business and economics. My passion -- largely from recent personal business traumacies -- reigns supreme here.

I both live and die for both the 'good owner' and the 'good employee'....I hate 'bad deals' between sellers and buyers and/or between employers and employees, producers and consumers...

I am always looking for that magic, highly elusive point of 'win-win, humanistic-existential, homeostatic balance'...

To the extent that I can promote 'good harmonious relations' between governments at all levels and corporations, employers and employees, sellers and buyers -- without anyone getting 'ripped off', exploiting and/or being exploited, and/or 'colluding' in the process -- that is the extent to which I may one day be able to rest in greater peace that my mission here in Hegel's Hotel is largely coming to an end...

Until then, and at this point in time, I am both crying and raging about what I see inside the mainly 'pathological' corporations I come into contact with in my working day...It is a pleasure when I hear about owners who run good, fair corporations and who treat their employees like humans, even like family, as opposed to 'things' that are there to be 'exploited'....

In Hegel's Hotel, Adam Smith and Karl Marx shake hands...as do Erich Fromm and Ayn Rand...

With yours truly continuing to play the Central Mediator...

Marx was the first protector of human rights in the work place, especially in his early work -- Marx was the first 'union steward'; whereas Adam Smith always had concerns about keeping the 'ethics' in businessmen and business transactions...

Have a seat...mediation is now in process...

Until we can find that ideal -- and always changing -- point of 'dialectic-democratic, humanistic-existential, narcissistic-altruistic, homeostatic balance...'

We haven't gotten there yet...indeed we have a very long road still to travel...a lot of floors still to build...

But the economy is starting to get better...

And the workers are back and building Hegel's Hotel again...

Pounding their hammers and nails again...

Ah, the sweetest of sounds...

Coming out of a bad economy, there is no sweeter sound and sight,

Than the sound and sight of workers building...

Hegel's Hotel carries the spirit of Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead'...

Just as much as it carries Hegel's 'Phenomenology of Spirit'...

And Fromm's spirit of 'Man For Himself' and 'The Sane Society'...

They all come together in the lobby and the negotiating rooms and the cocktail lounges of Hegel's Hotel...

-- dgb, May 8th, 2010.

..............................................................................................

As I have discussed in previous essays, the personality can be viewed from a host of different perspectives -- both wholistically and/or reductionistically using a variety of different theories and/or models of the personality.

Personally, I like to view the personality as being run like a partly authoritarian, partly democratic, government or corporation, with a distinction that can be made between the main Central Ego in the personality, which can be viewed as being like the CEO or President of a company or a country, surrounded by a host of partly competing, partly co-operating, auxiliary, 'lobbyist' and/or 'partisan' ego-states, that are like the partisan political parties and/or members of a government working in parliament, and/or like the 'special interest lobbyist groups' that solicit the government out in the hallways, in the front rooms, the back rooms, over the phone, in back alleys, with brief cases, in whatever style or manner seems to work most effectively in terms of getting what they want...legitimately or illegitimately...

Personally, in government, I think we should pull all the different lobbyists into Parliament -- call it a 'lobbyist session' -- and let each and everyone of them have their say with mikes and cameras on, give each of them 20 or 30 minutes in front of a mike to make their presentation and argue their case -- and wow, what do we have -- 'democratic transparency' -- the quality that every campaigning politician talks about on the campaign trail -- along with ethics, integrity, and accountability -- that is, until they get into office and grow increasingly quiet on these matters...when push comes to shove, deciding that they would prefer to have their 'expense accounts' and 'agenda books' remain 'private' -- and holding hands in one big circle with their fellow politicians in establishing a 'secret, unwritten collusion' on this matter. Very much like Freud's inner circle in this type of matter.

The unwritten code seems to run something like this:

'We shalt not give away our secret, narcissistic expense benefits that come with minding the country's cash register and bank account. The public doesn't need to know where I had lunch the other day and how much I spent. As long as it makes its way through the government expense account department -- which of course is made up of people who are enjoying the same expense benefits that I enjoy. We, in the government, call this a 'win-win situation' The public doesn't need to know everything'.

I am partly getting side-tracked here but partly not because the similarities between how we run our internal personality and how we run our external government are similar, and indeed, connected -- our external relationships projecting and reflecting our internal relationships between our different ego-states and our general personality dynamics.

In this regard, The Central Ego can also be viewed as being like a Supreme Court Judge and/or Mediator in the personality, ideally in charge of the rest of the courtroom/personality, but in less than ideal circumstances, being over run by politicians from above and/or by 'special interest lobbyist groups' running amok in the courtroom/personality and 'having their way' with a 'weak' Central Ego. When the Central Ego is not fully in control of the personality, and running a 'balanced courtroom', then either 'over-restraint' and/or 'over-impulse' (bi-polar disorder, manic-depression...) is likely to create pathology and disorder in the personality.

In an ideal political-socio-economic and legal world as well as in an ideal intra-psychic personality, each lobbyist and politician, like each auxillary ego-state would simply assert democratically and rhetorically what it wants... and leave the final decision in the workings and executive action of the Central Ego, The President, and/or The CEO..(as well as there being full public disclosure, transparency, integrity, and accountability in the case of politicians holding a public office.

But alas, as most of us are well aware, we live in a far from 'ideal' world.

In our 'real world', one-sided righteousness, narcissism and greed as well as conflict of interest situations evolving between public office holders' public responsibilities and private, personal interests become almost inevitable over time...and the temptation of the devil...indeed, with all of us, not just politicians...The corporate world is overflowing with 'conflict of interest' situations that impair socio-economic as well as ethical, legal, and political judgment...

Let's face it...Everyone wants what they want...and in all aspects of our world righteousness and narcissism intermingle...Oftentimes, righteousness is the cloak that hides inner narcissism and/or the pseudo-justification for inner narcissism....

Power and narcissism has the potential to corrupt all levels of inner and outer government...

We see this -- or at least I do -- over and over and over again in our entire interconnected socio-economic-political-legal-corporate-personal world...

Schopenhauer stirs in his grave...with an arrogant 'I told you so'...

The type of Capitalism I see all around me is not the same type of Capitalism that I remember reading about in Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead'.

Without being a 'Marxist', a 'Socialist' and/or a 'Communist', I can still tell you that Hegel's classic analysis of 'labour' in connection with his discussion of the 'the master/slave relationship', jumped on by Marx in his searing indictment of narcissistic Capitalism, comes much closer in awareness and insight as far as getting to the heart of what is the matter with modern day Capitalism.

Modern day Capitalism lacks integrity, ethics, character, transparency, accountability, and a sense of good will towards the person one is bargaining with...all of the things politicians keep saying they are going to fix...and rarely ever do...

Adam Smith would most certainly frown on modern day Capitalism if he could see the full extent of the type of corporate-political greed and narcissism that I see around me each and every day. He would say something like 'This is not the type of Capitalism I envisioned when I wrote 'The Wealth of Nations'...

................................................................................................................

From the internet...'Brainy Quote'...University of Liverpool...

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.
Adam Smith

No complaint... is more common than that of a scarcity of money.
Adam Smith

Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.
Adam Smith

Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this - no dog exchanges bones with another.
Adam Smith

..................................................................................................................

I find Adam's most intriguing quote to be the last one cited above...

It is at this point -- the point of 'bargaining' -- that Adam Smith's philosophy starts to dialectically collide with the philosophy of Hegel and Marx...

Hegel was no Marxist but it was from Hegel's work on 'labour' and the 'master/slave relationship' that Marx was inspired to write his thousands of pages critiquing the pathological evolution of Capitalism...

You see, it makes all the difference in the world as to what type of Capitalist Leaders we have in order to determine whether we have a 'good or bad Capitalist System' or not.

Just as the character of a hockey or basketball or baseball team tends to take on much of the character of its coach, so it is with 'Capitalism' as Capitalism is played out in each and every corporation and in each and every corporate transaction, both internally and externally.

It makes all the difference in the world as to the ultimate evolution of Capitalism as to whether a person -- particularly the owner of a business -- is negotiating 'narcissistically' and only narcissistically, or whether he or she is negotiating narcissistically and altruistically at the same time.

Put another way, is the bargainer looking for an 'I win; you lose' bargain, or is he or she looking for an 'I win; you win' bargain.

The last type of 'win-win bargaining encounter' tends to be much more endearing and enduring to a long term negotiating relationship whereas the first type of 'win-lose encounter' tends to tarnish if not outright annihilate all future negotiating transactions...

However, here is where Marx steps in and starts to launch his anti-Capitalist tirade...

If the power of the owner (in Marx's language, the 'bourgeoisie') is far greater than the power of the individual employee (the 'proletariat' in Marx's language), and you have a narcissistic, unscrupulous, greedy owner, then 'bad employee bargains' can become the name of the game, the rule of thumb, unless and/or until the individual employees either leave or take a 'collective confrontational stance' against the 'bargains' of the unscrupulous owner. At this point in the evolution of Capitalism, we have the beginning of 'strikes' and 'unions'...and changes in the 'corporate power balance' -- both good and bad.

Short of this, the only other power that an individual employee has is to 'leave' if he is being essentially 'forced to either take or leave a bad bargain'. In a good economy, and even in a bad one, one of the 'surest signs of a bad corporation with bad, unscrupulous leaders' is 'constant employee turnover'.

Now if you have a bad economy with high unemployment levels and/or high immigration levels intermixing with a bad economy, then what is going to happen? Advantage: unscrupulous owner...who is going to take advantage of a 'desperate work force' in order to lower wages and/or instigate other 'bad employee bargains'... If one prospective and/or current employee doesn't take the 'bad bargain' that an 'unscrupulous owner' has laid on the table, the next one coming in for the next interview -- will. Unless as an employee, you have a 'special skill', you have essentially no negotiating power in such a circumstance.

One would hazard a pretty safe guess that most unscrupulous business owners would 'welcome with open arms' a larger unemployed workforce, higher immigration levels, importing 'cheaper labor', and 'exporting jobs to countries with cheaper labor' -- all in the name of the almighty Unscrupulous, Narcissistic Capitalist Ideal -- specifically 'Profit Margin'. There is an imperative distinction that needs to be made relative to the practice of 'Good' or 'Bad' Capitalism relative to a 'fair but healthy profit margin' vs. an 'unscrupulous, gouging profit margin'....

Which is why the Government -- any Democratic Government with Integrity, Character, Ethics, and Accountability in mind -- needs to step in and regulate 'profit margins'. To prevent or at least discourage 'consumer price gouging' as well as 'employee intimidation, coercing, manipulating, extorting...etc.'

Back in the late 1980s (1988 to be exact), not too many people -- at least private citizens, including me -- knew whether 'free trade' was going to be a 'good thing' or a 'bad thing'. All many of us knew is that it 'sounded good' -- probably because it had the word 'free' in it...

Now looking back at things, 22 years later, perhaps we can come to some more definitive, experientially based conclusions: specifically, 'free trade' is not going to be a 'good thing' for countries with 'higher labor wages' -- at least in terms of the workers who are used to getting these higher labor wages.

Again, from an 'unscrupulous employer's point of view -- and even from the point of view of business owners with 'good integrity and intentions towards their workers' but who may be getting slammed by 'merciless unions' -- say goodbye to 'manufacturing plants' and 'service industries' in Canada and America as corporations move their operations to 'third world countries' in order to take advantage of 'lower (to practically non-existent) employee wages'.

In short, the 'free trade agreement' put together by Brian Mulroney in 1988 (in conjunction with Bush from the American side), would increase the economic and corporate speed of 'globalization', and the overall improvement of 'third world economic countries' at the expense of North American jobs in the manufacturing and 'goods and service' industry. Mulroney and Bush obviously did not either foresee and/or want to advertise the 'negative side effects' of the free trade agreement...

..............................................................................................................................................

From the internet...see free trade, George Bush...

George W. Bush on Free Trade

President of the United States, Former Republican Governor (TX)

Sub-sections under Free Trade:
NAFTA + WTO
Other issues under Free Trade
Linked trade agreements to participation in Iraq War

Examples of using economic diplomacy for the common good have been overshadowed in recent years by the priorities set under the influence of the Bush pre-emptive war doctrine. Entering the war in Iraq based on erroneous information, has forced us to go shopping around the world for friends, armed with carrots and with sticks. In order to pull together what was called a willing coalition, they went to the poorest developing countries and said, 'If you can't send a soldier, send a policeman." And, "If yo don't have the money, can we give you some?"

Deals were made. Once in a small country I joined the US ambassador for a meeting. The US ambassador made it clear to this president that if he withdrew the handful of soldiers he had sent to Iraq, it would be very difficult for him to get a trade agreement with the US. I was shocked and clarified that I was opposed to the war and as far as I was concerned the deal for the trade agreement had nothing to do with his willingness to send troops.

Source: A Bad Day Since, by Charles Rangel, p. 168 Aug 5, 2008

Open more markets to keep America competitive

Keeping America competitive requires us to open more markets for all that Americans make and grow. One out of every five factory jobs in America is related to global trade, and we want people everywhere to buy American. With open markets and a level playing field, no one can outproduce or outcompete the American worker.

Source: 2006 State of the Union Address Jan 31, 2006

Fact Check: Free trade tempered by steel protectionism

FACTCHECK on Trade: In speaking of benefits of international trade, the President failed to mention his own steps to protect the politically important US steel industry.

BUSH: My Administration is promoting free and fair trade, to open up new markets for America ‘s entrepreneurs, and manufacturers, and farmers, and to create jobs for America ‘s workers.
FACTCHECK: Not mentioned: Bush’s imposition of tariffs on imported steel, which pleased US labor unions and steel executives but which were found to violate World Trade Organization rules. Bush lifted the steel tariffs Dec. 4 after trading partners threatened retaliation against US exports.

Source: FactCheck.org on the 2004 State of the Union address Jan 20, 2004

Tariffs over free trade, for steel industry

On March 5, 2002, the President announced he would impose tariffs of up to 30% on imported steel in an effort to shore up the long-declining industry. Steel executives praised the President and said that the tariffs might save jobs. Free trade advocates wondered how other countries would respond and what the effect would be on the cost of a wide array of goods.

Source: The Price of Loyalty, by Ron Suskind, p.238 Jan 13, 2004

Repeals steel tariffs he imposed in 2002

The Bush administration has decided to repeal most of its 20-month-old tariffs on imported steel to head off a trade war. European countries and Japan had vowed to respond to the tariffs, which were ruled illegal by the WTO, by imposing sanctions on up to $2.2 billion in exports from the US, beginning as soon as Dec. 15.

Bush advisers said they were aware the reversal could produce a backlash against him in several steel-producing states of the Rust Belt-including PA, WV, & OH. That arc of states has been hit severely by losses in manufacturing jobs and will be among the most closely contested in his reelection race.
Bush decided in March 2002 to impose tariffs of 8% to 30% on most steel imports from abroad for three years. The decision was heavily influenced by the desire to help the Rust Belt states, but the departure from Bush’s free-trade principles drew fierce criticism from his conservative supporters. After a blast of international opposition, the administration began approving exemptions.

Source: Mike Allen, Washington Post, p. A1 Dec 1, 2003

Don’t link trade to environment and labor

Free trade is a subject on which both candidates appear to start from the same position, commitment to free trade. From that point, their positions swiftly diverge. Bush would:
supports restoration of “fast-track” negotiating authority for the president
opposes linking trade agreements to labor and environmental issues
supports the expansion of NAFTA throughout the Americas
supports the admission of China and Taiwan to the WTO
wants strict enforcement of anti-dumping and other laws against “unfair” trade
intends to revise export controls to tighten control over military technology and ease restrictions on commercial technology
wants to make international financial institutions more accountable and transparent
strongly supports free trade, saying that the case for it is “not just monetary but moral” and pledging to make the expansion of trade a consistent priority“

Source: The Economist, “Issues 2000” Sep 30, 2000

Sow free trade and farmers will reap

Q: What will you do as president to help farmers get sufficient pay for their work?
A: I would be a free trading president, a president that will work tirelessly to open up markets for agricultural products all over the world. I believe our American farmers. can compete so long as the playing field is level. That’s why I am such a strong advocate of free trade and that’s why I reject protectionism and isolation because I think it hurts our American farmers.

Source: Republican debate in West Columbia, South Carolina Jan 7, 2000

A free market promotes dreams and individuality

[After visiting China], I’ll never forget the contrast between what I learned about the free market at Harvard and what I saw in the closed isolation of China. Every bicycle looked the same. People’s clothes were all the same. a free market frees individuals to make distinct choices and independent decisions. The market gives individuals the opportunity to demand and decide, and entrepreneurs the opportunity to provide.

Source: “A Charge to Keep”, p. 61. Dec 9, 1999

Import fees are not the answer to foreign competition

In 1999, when a glut of foreign oil drove prices below $12 a barrel, many of my friends in the oil business wanted the government to rescue them through price supports. . . I understand the frustration of people. but I do not support import fees. . . I believe it makes sense to use the tax code to encourage activities that benefit America. But I do not want to put up fees or tariffs or roadblocks to trade.

Source: “A Charge to Keep”, p. 65-66. Dec 9, 1999

The fearful build walls; the confident demolish them.

I’ll work to end tariffs and break down barriers everywhere, entirely, so the whole world trades in freedom. The fearful build walls. The confident demolish them. I am confident in American workers and farmers and producers. And I am confident that America’s best is the best in the world.

Source: Candidacy Announcement speech, Cedar Rapids, Iowa Jun 12, 1999

Click here for 13 older quotations from George W. Bush on Free Trade.
Click here for definitions & background information on Free Trade.
Click here for policy papers on Free Trade.
Click here for a profile of George W. Bush.
Click here for VoteMatch responses by George W. Bush.
Agree? Disagree? Voice your opinions on Free Trade or about George W. Bush in The Forum.
....................................................................

dgb...continued...

In contrast to 'unscrupulous, narcissistic business owners' who tend to follow the 'God of The Highest Profit Margin' and will exploit workers and customers to get there, 'ethical, win-win business owners' tend to look for that magic point of 'dialectic-homeostatic balance, fairness, unity, and harmony'...that stabilizes their business...

'Good Social Will' business owners may not get the highest profit margins in the short run but, over the long haul, Good Social Will' business owners tend to create the best businesses -- as long as they protect a 'healthy profit margin' -- because they are not constantly self-destructing on the basis of employee resentment, rebellion, anarchy, and the 'bad reputation' that the 'self-indulgent business owner's corporation will quickly or slowly establish in the work community both amongst prospective workers and prospective customers. The last thing an employer -- good or bad -- wants to hear is, 'Well, who's working for your company this week?' That is generally not a 'healthy sign' for the corporation.

Health in the personality, in the body, and in the corporation are all built upon the same principle: the principle of 'good self and social will' which in turn is based on the principle of 'dialectic-homeostatic balance'.

In the body, in the personality, and in our socio-economic world, we should all be looking for 'win-win solutions' with no serious 'negative side effects'.

Narcissistic people tend to foster 'a negative social willpower against them' -- they continue to chase 'short term profit gain' without caring one iota about the extent of the 'social pain they leave behind them' in their dust...

If their employees or their customers will eat 'dog food' disguised as 'health food'....the narcissistic owner doesn't think twice....because he or she serves 'The God of Profit Margins'....

Personally, I love to see such corporations run by unscrupulous business owners eventually crumble in the dust...or fold like a house of cards...

When such a business folds like a house of cards...

It reflects the personality, character, and integrity of the person who ran the company into the ground...

Adam Smith would say that this is the 'Free Market' work of 'The Invisible Hand'...

That is, until our North American Governments -- both in America and in Canada -- let these corporate parasites...

Escape their corporate ruins...

With Golden Bailouts and Parachutes...

Then even Adam Smith is crying...

-- dgb, May 8th, 2010.

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Dialectic-Democratic, Ethical-Good Will-Capitalism, Negotiations...

-- Are Still in Process...

-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism...

GG draws attention for declaring slavery an ongoing practice in Africa

2010-04-18T06:19:00.001-07:00

GG draws attention for declaring slavery an ongoing practice in Africa
Fri Apr 16, 5:59 PM
By Alexander Panetta, The Canadian Press

GOREE ISLAND, Senegal - First she drew attention in Africa for bluntly declaring that slavery remained widespread, and then Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean visited a dungeon with a dark past to illustrate her point Friday.

Jean's statement about the plight of children in Senegal was widely reported by media in that country, where an in-depth survey has concluded that at least 50,000 boys are being exploited and frequently beaten at their religious schools.

Her sentiments are supported by a new report from Human Rights Watch, an organization that also describes as "slavery" a common Senegalese custom: Islamic schools that send children out to beg for money all day, then often beat them when they don't return with enough cash.

The country's so-called talibes, boys as young as four, can be seen wandering through traffic in tattered clothes and pleading for money. Because charity is considered a religious duty, people hand over enough donations to make the schoolmasters wealthy by local standards.

Jean's visit made the front page of several newspapers Friday.

"Exploitation of Children In Senegal: Michaelle Jean Calls It Slavery," was one headline in Le Quotidien newspaper, the day after Jean surprised some journalists at the presidential palace by making that assessment at a joint press conference with the country's president.

Human-rights groups estimate that as many as 27 million people live in modern-day slavery - and that there are more slaves in the world now than at any point in human history.

They include unpaid labourers who work for room and board, women forced into the sex trade, underage soldiers, and child workers who are paid a pittance.

The UN's High Commission on Human Rights has suggested a variety of means to fight the problem, including product boycotts and mandatory labelling of goods in industries - like carpet-weaving - where child exploitation has been a problem.

This week's report on Senegal by Human Rights Watch urged the Senegalese government to better regulate religious schools, which are popular because they offer the promise of a free education.

As she visited a former slave-trading centre Friday, Jean used the occasion to illustrate her point for the second day in a row.

She was received jubilantly by dancing and singing locals on Goree Island. Now a pastel-coloured tourist destination and UN World Heritage Site, the French used this island to imprison slaves traded for guns and alcohol.

Jean toured the former prison where slaves were once chained to walls by their necks; where children were crammed, in the words of her tour guide, "like fish in a sardine can," with 150 kids crowded into a separate dungeon half the size of a bowling alley; where men were sold for the price of a barrel of rum, while women fetched the same price if they had attractive physical attributes.

"These captives were not considered human beings," said Jean's guide, Eloi Coly.

"They were considered merchandise."

People had their names taken away, and were assigned a number. They were marched down a stone hallway through the infamous "Door of No Return," then loaded onto ships that carried them on a three-month - often fatal - journey to the new world.

A teary-eyed Jean, after the tour, said descendents of former slaves and former slave-owners can work together today on a common cause: ending modern-day slavery.

"This place is not about the history of black peoples. It's about us all," Jean told Canadian and Senegalese journalists.

"Whether we are of European descent, and probably related to those who committed that crime of slavery and slave trade, or whether we are of African descent, we all belong to that history."

She delivered a similarly contemporary message four years ago during a visit to Ghana. During a visit to a similar prison there, she knelt on the ground and broke into sobs, then waved off a question about what special meaning the place carried for someone like her, the descendant of African slaves.

Jean repeated Friday that it would be a mistake to view slavery uniquely through the prism of African history.

"It's about us all. And it's about how life can triumph over barbarism. And we must stand together today, to really fight every situation that denies rights, dignity and humanity to people in the world today. Slavery is still a fact today, in so many different ways," she said.

"Human-trafficking, injustices, are still a reality today. But we are together - and we can say no to it. It's a responsibility."

On Friday, Jean also addressed a school where Canadian aid money has helped train young Senegalese journalists over the years and, on the second full day of her 10-day trip to Africa, she met with a women's group after touring Goree's House of Slaves.

Just outside that old prison, young Amadou Guisse spends the whole day working. He started three years ago, when he was only 10. Guisse follows tourists onto a ferry and, to earn a few dollars on the ride back and forth from the capital, Dakar, he goes around the boat urging tourists to let him shine their shoes.

Guisse shook his head when asked whether he keeps any of the money he earns.

"It's for my family," he said. "Everything."

The Dynamics of 'The Will to Power' in 'The Master/Slave Relationship' -- And The Conflict Between The Will To Power and The Will To Democratically Negotiate to a 'Win-Win' Conflict Resolution...

2010-04-07T05:46:00.001-07:00

Life is full of opposites...and much positive energy and results can be derived from engaging opposites -- opposite perspectives, opposite concepts, opposite theories, opposite personalities, opposite characteristics...-- into contact with each other, playing both sides towards the middle in a way that brings creative new integrative possibilities into existence where none existed before...

As Carl Jung has stated, the energy comes from the tension of the opposites interacting with each other...sometimes in the heat of attraction, passion, and sexuality, other times, in the heat of argumentation, disagreement, and conflict...Either way, I call this the 'dialectic force of Nature/God/Evolution'...

The first 'dialectic philosopher' in the East goes back to whoever created the concepts of 'yin' and 'yang'...the 'feminine' and 'masculine' forces in Nature and Evolution...I have this philosopher pinned as Lao Tse. However, the roots of Chinese philosophy go very, very deep, and it could have been someone unknown before Lao Tse who created the yin/yang dialectic concepts...

Over in the West, back in Ancient Greece, before Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, I have Anaximander pinned as the first Western dialectic philosopher. Anaxamander's philosophy was both very mystic and primitive on the one hand, but interpreted in a particular way, it becomes very profound and wise, and just as relevant today as when he created it somewhere back about 650-700BC...

Anaxamander's idea -- and I am paraphrasing and interpreting -- was that opposites are born from Chaos (The Apeiron, The Universe, The Boundless, The Infinite, The Shadows...Jung/Gestalt Psychology)...From Chaos and The Shadows are born opposites (night vs. day, hot vs. cold, men vs. women...) which are differentiated from each other and enter the World as we know it, and experience their differences in contact with each other. From this contact of differences, boundaries become apparent, and a Battle For Power ensues...(Nietzsche's 'Will to Power'...)...

Out of this 'battle for power', 'winners' and 'losers' become apparent based on the difference of 'superiority' and 'inferiority' (Adler)...and based on this principle of superiority and inferiority becomes the beginning of what Hegel would come to call over 2000 years later, 'The Master/Slave Relationship'... Translated into Marxian Philosophy, this becomes 'The Bourgeoisie' vs. 'The Proletariat'...translated into Capitalist Philosophy, this becomes 'The Employer' vs. 'The Employee, The Union, The Workers'...translated into Feminist Philosophy, this becomes the old 'Dominant Husband vs. Submissive Wife role positions'...translated into Religious Philosophy this becomes the tension between the Catholics and the Protestants, the Christians and the Muslims, the Palestinians and the Jews...translated into Political and Economic Philosophy this becomes the tension between the Capitalists and The Socialists, The Liberals and The Conservatives, the Republicans and The Democrats...the Politicians and the Citizens...

Everywhere we look the 'fight for power between opposites' is evident....

In some cases, we at least partly strive to 'balance this power' in the idea of a 'democracy' or 'egalitarianism'... The idea of 'balancing opposite powers' goes back to Heraclitus in the West (following in Anaxamander's footsteps but taking Anaxamander's philosophy to a different level in the idea of 'balancing opposing forces'); and again to the East and the idea of 'balancing yin and yang forces for the purpose of obtaining and maintaining health'...In contrast, the idea of 'an imbalanced power force' between yin and yang forces -- either yin dominating yang, or yang dominating yin, becomes associated with the idea of 'medical pathology'...This idea can easily be transferred to psychology and to much, if not all, of life....

Thus, even in the realm of 'yin and yang (masculine/feminine; testosterone/estrogen) relationships', we can talk about Hegel's idea of the 'master/slave relationship'...which has roots in the ancient 'Power Philosophy of Anaxamander'...

Now this 'master/slave relationship' is a little more complicated than we usually assume it to be, and Hegel was the first to point this out...Indeed, the relationship of the 'master' and 'slave' is often a relationship of 'co-dependence'...and 'attraction' as well as 'repulsion'...People want freedom and yet they are afraid of freedom and in the words of Kierkegaard, Sartre and Eric Fromm often get 'terrified by freedom' and 'back up' to 'Escape From Freedom' (Fromm)...

They often 'retreat to the Master/Slave Relationship' in order to 'escape the terror of their own individual freedom'....

Regarding the issue of 'co-dependence', the Master and The Slave are often tied to each other in a co-dependent relationship in which both perceive that they need each other -- just as often, they resent and hate each other for the same reason. They both have a different type of 'power' and a different type of 'weakness'. The Master knows how to 'lead' and how to 'tell other people what to do' but at the same time, often he or she is either incapable of, and/or unwilling to, do the work the Slave knows how to, and is capable of, doing...

Thus, take away the Slave, and the Master becomes terrified -- he or she loses his or her power and doesn't know what to do because he or she doesn't know how to do the work that The Slave was doing...The Master feels a deep emotional and behavioral void and vacuum in the absence of the Slave...unless the Master knows how to, and is capable of doing, the work just vacated by The Slave...

Now the Slave may feel terrified of running away from The Master for any or all of a variety of different reasons: provocation, intimidation, prosecution, persecution, victimization, loss of food, shelter, and/or money...

Which heightens the Master's power....

Until the 'cycle of power' changes...

This was the essence of the wisdom of Anaxamander's 2700 year old philosophy...

The cycle of power always changes...

People do injustices upon each other...

The Master exploits injustices onto the Slave...

But The Slave, over time, learns how to exploit injustices back onto the Master...

And over time, the powerful (the Master) becomes weaker, while the less powerful (the Slave) becomes more powerful...

To the point, where one day the Slave becomes Master of either his or her own freedom, and/or the Slave becomes Master over The Master...(Adler, 'superiority striving', 'the mastery compulsion')...

But there are a lot of steps -- and steps backward -- to getting here....

For both the Master and the Slave...

The Master needs to learn how to 'give up control'...to 'listen' to the Slave...and to 'learn' from the Slave...to learn from the Slave how to do those things that the Master may not know how to do properly...

And the Slave needs to learn from the master how to take more 'initiative' and 'risk'...to have more 'courage to leap into the unknown'....'to take chances'....to 'jump across the Nietzschean Abyss from Being or non-Being to Becoming'...

In short, the Master needs to learn more 'social sensitivity skills', more how to 'give up self- control',

While the Slave needs to learn more 'self-assertiveness skills', more how to 'take self-control'...

The Master too often has no ears to listen...

While the Slave too often has no mouth to speak...

The Master usually has too much 'yang'...

And the Slave too much 'yin'...

They both have 'gaps', 'holes', 'voids' in their personality....

They both long for freedom and strive to achieve and/or maintain power, while avoiding self-accountability for their own respective 'weaknesses',

They both can learn from each other...

Such is the nature, essence, the ongoing dialectic, between The Will to Power and The Will to Democracy and Egalitarianism...

In the combined words of a number of historical, philosophical friends of mine...

'Thus, Anaxamander, Lao Tse, Hegel, Nietzsche, Zarathrusta

And dgb...

Spoke...'

-- dgb, March 5th, 2010,

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Dialectic Gap Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still in Process...

'The Devil Made Me Do It!!' On Self-Accountability -- And Integrating 'The Disowned' With The 'Owned'...The 'Marginalized' With The 'Dominant'...

2010-04-07T05:43:00.001-07:00

Freud was an atheist. I'm not saying this is necessarily good or bad. But basically, he believed that 'God' is an 'external projection' of our own 'internal psychological forces' -- and particularly, one force, one wish, one choice, to believe in a Creator and an 'Ultimate Force' that is either behind our own individual choices, and/or is so great, so important, that we become willing to 'submit' to what we believe 'God wants us to do'? But how do we know what God wants us to do except through our own choices of what we want to believe God wants us to do? One person might choose to believe that God wants us to go out and be 'kind to all people'...While another person may choose to believe that 'God wants us to go out and kill anybody and everybody who does not believe in the same God that we do'...

Who's right? Who's making the choice? God or us?

I say we are all 'accountable' for our own choices, our own beliefs, our own values, our own actions...

And anyone who chooses to believe anything else other than 'self-accountability for one's own actions' is 'choosing to run away from, avoid, escape from, bury his or her own head in the sand from, his or her own individual freedom to make choices...

That goes for 'choosing to give God responsibility for making us choose what we ourselves choose', and it also goes for any Freudian theory of determinism which is cloaked in self-deception as well.

Most of us are fully aware of the type of thinking that comes out of our 'id'. First, understand that 'the id' is only a concept and a label that Freud invented in order to help us understand how the personality works. Look at 'the id' as a 'teaching device'. It is a 'classification device'. Anything to do with 'sexuality, sensuality, pleasure, hedonism, aggression, violence, evil, immoralism...' we lump into our teaching device, our classification device, that we then say is 'responsible' for these types of thoughts, feelings, and/or impulses. They may start in our 'unconscious' but here again we have a 'troublesome word' that seeks to avoid self-responsibility, self-accountability...'The devil made me do it'. The 'id' made me think of it'...Same idea...different starting point, different name...people have lots of different names and different 'starting-points' for basically the same ideas...The 'id' at least recognizes that the thought, the feeling, the impulse -- of a possibly 'diabolical' nature -- is coming from us. When we use words like 'the devil' or 'Satan' or 'Hell'...we are usually taking one further step away from self-responsibility, self-accountability. Because now we no longer even acknowledge that the thought, the feeling, the impulse...is coming from 'inside us'...Rather we have to 'project' and 'eject' our thought/feeling/impulse/action out into the world and onto someone else's shoulders -- the 'Devil's shoulders' -- let us all make 'the Devil' responsible for our 'immorality', our 'sexual desires', our 'evilness'. If we say that the 'Devil made me do it'...then I don't have to take responsibility for looking at my own potential for 'sexual thoughts', or 'violent thoughts' or plain downright 'evilness'....Because the Devil -- Satan, Dionysus -- is not inside me, or if he or she is, The Devil is certainly not a part of me -- not a part of my own personality and character that I have 'ostracized', 'marginalized', 'alienated' from the rest of my personality. No sir...because once again to recognize the 'id' and/or the 'devil' (same thing, different name) as a part of 'Me' would mean that I would have to be accountable for, and responsible for, a part of me that I might not view as being very 'ethical', 'moral', 'nice', or 'good'. I might not like this part of my personality...

So, in classical Freudian and/or post-Freudian theory, I 'split this disowned part of my personality' off from the rest of myself, from the rest of my personality...and say it 'doesn't belong to me', 'I don't take responsibility' for this part of my personality...'I throw this part of my personality into the 'garbage of my psyche' -- my 'unconscious' or my 'subconscious' or my 'out of awareness'...Do we know that it is there? Yeah, usually we know that it is there...Will it always stay there -- in the 'garbage' or the 'files' of the conscious psyche -- i.e., the 'unconscious or subconscious psyche'? No, this is one of the first things that Freud and Breuer learned about the unconscious -- or in Freud's later language -- the 'repressed'...

'The repressed will always return to haunt you' until the day that you can finally look at your own repressed material square in the eye -- look at your 'id' square in the eye -- and say, 'Id, you are me, and I am you...and we have to learn to live together as harmoniously as we possibly can because we live in the same house, the same psyche, and isolated from each other, alienated from each other -- without proper mutual self-acceptance and self-integration -- we will tear each other apart, bring each other down to our knees, and destroy each other, as we both seek 'to win power over the same personality domain' when, by ourselves, separate from each other -- our 'id' alienated from our 'ego' if you wish, or alternatively our 'impulsive, sensual Dionysian Ego' alienated from our 'righteous, ethical, restrained Apollonian Ego' -- neither of us can win. We both only can lose in self destruction.

Together we win. Separate and alienated from each other, we both lose and/or we all lose.

This was Freud's most essential message to the world.

And even though Freud might have been an atheist, it is probably also the most essential message from the Bible, or the Quran, etc.

Together, we flourish. Divided, we fall.

Both inside and/or outside our own Integrated and/or Divided Selves...

This is the most important message of Freud, The Bible, the Quran...

And Hegel's Hotel...

Integration works...alienation doesn't...

-- dgb, April 7th, 2010.

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still in Process...

-- Democracy Goes Beyond (Personal and Group) Narcissism...

A Tribute To Martin Luther King....http://mlkmemorialnews.org

2010-04-06T19:09:00.000-07:00

To My Readers,

I had this request emailed to me and I am passing it on to any and/or all of you who would like to help the project of building a memorial of Martin Luther King in Washington, D.C. to its completion. Please check out the website listed above and below. It certainly seems to be for a good cause.

-- dave bain.

Memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tue, April 6, 2010 2:03:14 PM
From:
Lowell Dempsey
Add to Contacts
To: dgbainsky@yahoo.com

Hi David

The month of April marks the 42nd anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We are commemorating the life and work of Dr. King by creating a memorial in our nation's capital. The Washington, DC, Martin Luther King, Jr., National Memorial will honor his life and contributions to the world through non violent social change. I'm reaching out to ask if you and your readers would help spread the word by posting about this wonderful project on Hegel's Hotel: American Politics...DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics....

I've put together this blogger-friendly micro-site to help get the message out - there are videos, photos, banners, and even a web toolbar that, when used, donates money to the creation of the memorial:

http://mlkmemorialnews.org

After years of fund raising, the memorial is now $14 million away from its $120 million goal. This will be more than a monument to a great humanitarian, the National Memorial will be a place for visitors from around the world to share the spirit of love, freedom, and peace. If you are able to post or tweet about this please let me know so I can share it with the team. If you have any questions please pop me an email. And if you are able to help, thank you so much.

Lowell

--
Lowell Dempsey,
BuildTheDream.org
Twitter @mlkmemorial
Facebook.com/MLKNationalMemorial

"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity"

--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Thanks for the email, Lowell.

Your request is being passed along to my readers.

-- dave bain

The Proposal of a New 'Ethical Harmony Tax'....Regarding The Subject of Political and Corporate Narcissism, and Unethical Lobbyist Practices...

2010-03-29T07:31:00.003-07:00

Regarding, the subject of political and corporate 'lobbyist narcissism' and unethical lobbyist malpractices...

If there are 'corporate lobbyists' hanging around heads of pertinent government departments -- or 'power politicians' even above heads of government departments -- and 'contracts' or 'drug approvals' are at stake worth millions or even billions of dollars...and 'money' is either directly or indirectly (through 'political contributions') passing hands from 'private corporations' to 'government officials'...
then we all know that this is 'blatant conflict of interest', violating 'private competition laws'....and a form of direct or indirect bribery which obviously is illegal -- or should be.

However, like the 'back of the food package', often if not usually, we would just as soon not 'read or hear what we do not want to read or hear'....and when we read or hear these political-corporate scandals coming out in the daily news, we deem ourselves to be more or less 'helpless' on these matters, and eventually just let the whole scandal slide....which is what the accused and/or guilty politicians want us to do...

Meanwhile, the lost government money goes out the back door, or into the hands of some fired government official who walks away with a multi-hundred thousand dollar 'separation agreement', and to compensate for all the lost money, government just raises our taxes in the next budget meeting -- for example turning our 'Goods and Services Tax (GST)' into a more lucrative, all-encompassing, and hard-hitting 'Harmonized Sales Tax (HST)'....See, even the name of this new tax sounds nice and 'harmonious'...like the front of the package that says: 'No Trans Fats!'...

Every prime minister-to-be, or president-to-be has the greatest ideals for 'cleaning up government conflict of issue problems'...until they actually get into power...and then their 'ethical clean up program' seems to get swallowed up by the gigantic 'Government Establishment Whale'... Personally, I would create a whole system of new taxes geared towards reducing government and corporate corruption...

A brand new network of 'EHTs -- Ethical Harmony Taxes' such as: 1. The 'GOT' (as in 'GOT CAUGHT!') -- i.e., The 'Government Overspending Tax' -- this would be a 13 per cent 'Ethical Harmony Tax' applied to the personal income tax of any government official convicted of having a 'lavish and grossly inappropriate personal/government expense account' in any particular budget year. 2. The 'UGLYT' -- i.e., The 'Unethical Government Lobbyism Yearning Tax' -- this tax could be applied to either government officials and/or private corporate lobbyists who are convicted of any type of unethical government lobbyism malpractice -- such as:

Brian Mulroney and the 'suitcase full of money' episode with the German arms dealer.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/francis/archive/2007/11/19/brian-mulroney-stevie-cameron-and-sleaze.aspx

At the very least, the Government of Canada could have hit Mulroney with the UGLY Tax -- a 13 per cent surcharge on his personal income tax plus another 13 per cent corporate tax on any company owned by Mulroney or anyone else associated with this debacle (we would hope that, in this case, the German arms dealer would have been banned from any further business dealings with The Government of Canada... however, I doubt it......this might be partly laughable but at the very least, any 'contract chaser' inside or outside Canada convicted of UGLY (Unethical Government Lobbyism Yearning) would be hit with a 13 per cent 'EHCT'' (Ethical Harmony Contract Tax) on any further government contract dealings, as well as an additional 13 per cent corporate surcharge tax, and a personal income tax surcharge for the particular convicted lobbyist and the owners and/or shareholders of the company the lobbyist is working for. It could be applied to anyone 'reasonably assumed to knowing what shenanigans were going on'.

In Ontario here, there was the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Scandal in which the terminated CEO, Kelly McDougald walked away with a$750,000 termination settlement...

http://blog.toronto-employmentlawyer.com/toronto_employment_lawyer/2009/12/ex-olg-exec-gets-750000-wrongful-dismissal-settlement.html

And there was the EHealth Scandal which the auditor said was a '1 billion dollar waste'...

His report says the board of directors at eHealth Ontario felt it had little power over CEO Sarah Kramer because she had been hired by chair Alan Hudson "with the support of the premier." That, McCarter said, gave Kramer the impression she had approval to ignore normal procurement procedures.
It was revealed late Tuesday that Health Minister David Caplan resigned because of the report.
Just minutes after the release of the report, Premier Dalton McGuinty announced that Children and Youth Services Minister Deb Matthews would take over the health portfolio.

Too much power in too few hands

McCarter's probe, which went back to 2000, criticized unnamed consulting companies for driving up each other's fees to artificially create a higher rate for their services and putting too much power in too few hands in awarding of contracts.
In his report, the auditor general also slammed unnamed officials at the Ministry of Health for thwarting his efforts to get investigators into the ministry for a routine audit in the summer of 2008. In the end, the audit didn't happen until February 2009.
McGuinty has since announced new rules to keep a closer eye on the expenses of about 300 top executives at 22 of Ontario's 615 arm's-length agencies, boards and commissions by having them approved by the province's integrity commissioner.
EHealth was set up in 2008 to create electronic health records after Smart Systems for Health spent $650 million but failed to produce anything of lasting value.
Smart Systems for Health was quietly shut down last September.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2009/10/07/ehealth-auditor.html#ixzz0jZX5E7cj

Sarah Kramer walked away with, I believe, around a $300,000 termination settlement...Meanwhile here was what was said about her 'government performance as former CEO for The EHealth Department...

Kramer's $114,000 bonus was double eHealth's allowable rate
Cancer Care Ontario CEO says no one there was getting such bonuses
Last Updated: Friday, June 5, 2009 | 2:26 PM ET
CBC News
EHealth Ontario CEO Sarah Kramer's six-figure bonus was double the maximum rate allowed at the Crown-owned agency, a spokeswoman for the organization has confirmed.
EHealth Ontario first came under scrutiny last week for nearly $5 million doled out in untendered contracts, with more than half questioned over personal ties to company executives. (CBC)
In early March, four months after Kramer started her post at the newly created agency, its board of directors approved a $114,000 bonus, on top of her $380,000 salary.
Under eHealth's regulations, however, executives are permitted to receive a bonus ranging from zero to 15 per cent of their salary, spokeswoman Deanna Allen told CBC News.
Fifteen per cent would amount to $57,000 under Kramer's current salary. However, she received a bonus worth 30 per cent.
Asked by CBC News whether she had an explanation for why Kramer's bonus was double the highest allowable rate, Allen responded, "No, I don't."
The letter notifying Kramer of her approved bonus was signed by Dr. Alan Hudson, chairman of the board of directors and the former head of Cancer Care.
Hudson and Kramer have been under fire since late last week for awarding more than $5.5 million in untendered contracts, more than half of which have raised questions about personal connections to the vendors.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/06/04/ehealth-ontario-cancer-care-bonus-kramer.html#ixzz0jZXobnoq

So who is paying for all of this overspent Ontario government money? The new 'Harmony Sales Tax' start on July 1st, 2010.

I think my 'EHT' and/or 'EHCT' ideas would have been, and still would be, much more appropriately suited here...There are a lot of potential 'ethical culprits' who could have, and should have, been taxed a new 'Ethical Harmony' tax....Without the McGuinty Liberal Government having to turn in the direction he has always turned in since he took power -- by taxing the citizens of Ontario more for his government's ethical transgressions and indiscretions...

Everyone maligned in 'The Gomery Report' regarding 'The Liberal Adscam Scandal' could have been hit with the EHT (Ethical Harmony Tax) and/or the EHCT (Ethical Harmony Contract Tax). You see, in Canada, Liberals and Conservatives alike have both been found guilty of such 'Unethical Lobbyism Scandals' (ULS). One might almost be tempted to say that it is in 'the blood of many, if not most, seasoned politicians'...not to mention the corporate lobbyists that they deal with behind closed doors, in bars, in alleys, and in untaped phone conversations...As far away as they can reasonably get from the probing public eye and ear...This is called the 'narcissistic capitalist subversion of democracy'... AIG....banks, mortgage companies, insurance companies, stock trading companies...which brings me to another two proposed taxes associated with the newly proposed EHT network of taxes...

3. The 'UGCBT' -- The 'Unreasonable/Unethical Government/Corporate Bonus Tax' -- charged against any and/or all government and/or private, corporate executives charged with, and convicted of receiving 'unreasonable and/or unethical bonuses' for performances not rendered...and/or not appropriate to their job...Sarah Kramer, are you listening? AIG, are you listening?

4. The 'UCSCT' -- The 'Unreasonable/Unethical Corporate Service Charge Tax' -- applied to any corporations and/or associated executives and/or shareholders who are found guilty of charging private citizens and/or employees for 'service charges and/or administration charges where there is no service delivered or delivered sufficiently to warrant the service charge'... Banks would probably be the number one offender here...

5. The 'CGT' -- The 'Corporate-Customer Gouging Tax' -- applied to any corporations and/or associated executives and/or shareholders who are found guilty of overcharging private citizens and/or employees for goods and/or services rendered (or not rendered)...

6. The 'RCBWT' -- The 'Rollover Contract and/or Bank Withdrawal Tax' -- applied to any corporation and/or executives and/or shareholders who are found guilty of coercing/seducing/manipulating customers into signing 'rollover contract agreements' that allow the particular corporation to keep withdrawing money from the customer's bank account even after year end and/or without any overt and/or direct consent on the part of the customer to continue with the contract basically until the customer is dead...or rather, the bank account is dead...All 'rollover contracts', or 'multi-year' contracts in cases such as 'gym memberships' and 'cell phone contracts' should be illegal and/or failing that, also hit corporations and their executives and/or shareholders who indulge in such 'unethical profit gouging' practices with a 13 per cent personal and/or corporate RCBWT...

7. The 'CMMMCT' -- The 'Corporate Monopoly and/or Collusion Tax' -- should be applied to any corporation and/or its executives and/or shareholders who are found guilty of artificially raising consumer prices because it is a monopoly goods and/or service company, and/or because it has found a way to 'manipulate the market' to artificially raise prices, and/or because two or more companies have banded together and colluded, in effect, to create a 'non-competition monopoly' in order to artificially raise consumer prices...

8. The 'GSOTT' -- The Government's (President's, Prime Minister's, Premier's, Mayor's...) Special Over-Taxing Tax' -- designed particular for any and/or all of those politicians held accountable for creating and passing into law the existence of a 'new citizen tax' -- such as the HST -- which is deemed inappropriate by a court of law based on the government's (President's, Prime Minister's, Premier's, Mayor's...) own accountability in the government's waste of taxpayers money relative to government overspending and/or lobbyist and/or bonus and/or expense account overspending scandals that should put the accountability for such overspending squarely back on the government's broad shoulders -- and any and/or all particular officials within the government who are dutifully (or non-dutifully) held accountable for such scandals -- through the administration of the GSOT on any and/or all of the accountable government officials on his or her: 1. personal income tax; 2. private expense accounts; 3. salary bonuses; and/or the elimination of all such future salary bonuses and/or expense accounts all together....

9. One more thing: A 'three strikes and you are out' policy where any and/or all politicians and/or corporations and/or corporation lobbyists who are convicted three times for 'overspending transgression's -- if they have not been let go already after the first or second transgression -- will be removed from all government jobs and/or government-corporate business transactions...forever...

That is about the limit of my political-corporate ethical imagination for today...

-- dgb, March 29th, 2010

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still in Process...

-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism....

Rules That Warren Buffet Lives By

2010-03-20T11:33:00.001-07:00

Rules that Warren Buffett lives by
by Stephanie Loiacono, Investopedia.com
Thursday, February 25, 2010
provided by

http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/personal-finance/article/forbes/1440/rules-that-warren-buffett-lives-by

Warren Buffett is arguably the world's greatest stock investor. He's also a bit of a philosopher. He pares down his investment ideas into simple, memorable sound bites. Do you know what his homespun sayings really mean? Does his philosophy hold up in today's difficult environment? Find out below.

"Rule No. 1: Never Lose Money. Rule No. 2: Never Forget Rule No. 1."

Buffett personally lost about US$23 billion in the financial crisis of 2008, and his company, Berkshire Hathaway, lost its revered AAA ratings. So how can he tell us to never lose money?

He's referring to the mindset of a sensible investor. Don't be frivolous. Don't gamble. Don't go into an investment with a cavalier attitude that it's OK to lose. Be informed. Do your homework. Buffett invests only in companies he thoroughly researches and understands. He doesn't go into an investment prepared to lose, and neither should you.

Buffett believes the most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect. A successful investor doesn't focus on being with or against the crowd.

The stock market will swing up and down. But in good times and bad, Buffett stays focused on his goals. So should we.

"If The Business Does Well, The Stock Eventually Follows."

"The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham convinced Buffett that investing in a stock equates to owning a piece of the business. So when he searches for a stock to invest in, Buffett seeks out businesses that exhibit favorable long-term prospects. Does the company have a consistent operating history? Does it have a dominant business franchise? Is the business generating high and sustainable profit margins? If the company's share price is trading below expectations for its future growth, then it's a stock Buffett may want to own.

Buffett never buys anything unless he can write down his reasons why he'll pay a specific price per share for a particular company. Do you do the same?

"It's Far Better To Buy A Wonderful Company At A Fair Price Than A Fair Company At A Wonderful Price."

Buffett is a value investor who likes to buy quality stocks at rock-bottom prices. His real goal is to build more and more operating power for Berkshire Hathaway by owning stocks that will generate solid profits and capital appreciation for years to come. When the markets reeled during the recent financial crisis, Buffett was stockpiling great long-term investments by investing billions in names like General Electric and Goldman Sachs.

To pick stocks well, investors must set down criteria for uncovering good businesses, and stick to their discipline. You might, for example, seek companies that offer a durable product or service and also have solid operating earnings and the germ for future profits. You might establish a minimum market capitalization you're willing to accept, and a maximum P/E ratio or debt level. Finding the right company at the right price - with a margin for safety against unknown market risk - is the ultimate goal.

Remember, the price you pay for a stock isn't the same as the value you get. Successful investors know the difference.

"Our Favorite Holding Period Is Forever."

How long should you hold a stock? Buffett says if you don't feel comfortable owning a stock for 10 years, you shouldn't own it for 10 minutes. Even during the period he called the "Financial Pearl Harbor", Buffett loyally held on to the bulk of his portfolio.

Unless a company has suffered a sea change in prospects, such as impossible labor problems or product obsolescence, a long holding period will keep an investor from acting too human. That is, being too fearful or too greedy can cause investors to sell stocks at the bottom or buy at the peak - and destroy portfolio appreciation for the long run.

You may think the recent financial meltdown changed things, but don't be fooled: those unfussy sayings from the Oracle of Omaha still RULE!

The Buffett Philosophy

Baby Buffett Portfolio: His 6 Best Long-Term Picks

Think Like Warren Buffett

We Are ALL Tongan

2010-03-20T07:02:00.000-07:00

Please visit the link!!! Lots of pretty beaches!!!

http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://creativegreenius.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/tonga.jpg&imgrefurl=http://creativegreenius.wordpress.com/2009/08/17/we-are-all-tongan/&h=396&w=599&sz=74&tbnid=kTxH_pdxZG8k3M:&tbnh=89&tbnw=135&pr

A BRIGHTER SHADE OF GREEN
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We Are ALL Tongan
AUGUST 17, 2009
tags: Tonga, We Are ALL Tongan
by creativegreenius

The idyllic island kingdom of Tonga

My friend Elizabeth is from the South Pacific Island Kingdom of Tonga, an exotic locale long fixed in my memory with images of Polynesian paradise.

Tonga has sadly been in the news lately after an inter-island ferry sank on August 5 drowning over 70 people. It’s a huge tragedy in such a small place and it has saddened all Tongans around the world.

When I first met Elizabeth I had no idea that there were so many Tongan Americans living in large communities in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Dallas and other cities across the USA. Elizabeth is producing a documentary film on the history of Tongans immigrating to America and she knows a lot about the subject.

But surprisingly, a subject Elizabeth didn’t know a lot about is Tonga’s frontline role as a victim of the climate change crisis.

The same sea level rise that will be coming to our Southern California beaches, to the bays of San Francisco, to New York City, to Miami, to the Gulf Coast states, has already arrived in Tonga and has already forced some of Tonga’s South Pacific neighbors to abandon their homeland of the past three centuries.

Gorgeous Pangangaimotu Beach in Tonga

I’m talking about the Carteret islands, which had already been inhabited for 1,000 years before European contact began in about 1880, and which are now vacant of its people.

Today all 3000 inhabitants of the Carteret Islands have been relocated as they become the first climate change refugees. And they didn’t just pick some other wonderful place that they wanted to relocate to either. They were “placed.”

While many folks rightfully care and cry for the climate change plight of beautiful polar bears and Emperor penguins, beautiful real life men, women and children have already had their world and way of life destroyed by global warming – climate change caused by the coal, oil and gasoline burned to power your consumer world and your comfortable way of life.

Mele'ana Fakatu'ana in Ha'ap ai Tonga Courtesy of National Geographic (c) toensing-photography

Mine too of course. I’m no exception.

Elementary School in Koulo, Tonga Courtesy of National Geographic (c) toensing-photography

And I see the very same fate for the men, women and children of our world here in California and across the United States coming much sooner than you think. There’s a lot more than just sea level rise coming our way.

It’s not my friend Elizabeth’s fault that she didn’t know a lot about all of this. (I say “didn’t” because she sure does now) It’s the fault of the mainstream media, the fossil fuel industries and our own carbon collaborative government from 2000-2008 – all of whom for their own indefensible, self-serving and unethical interests made sure the greatest crisis we have ever faced wasn’t treated that way.

CLICK ON THIS GRAPHIC to witness the fate of the canary

Here’s what I learned that you need to know too…

Climate change is happening much faster and much more severely than expected just two years ago when the big UN IPCC report came out. Every single day for the past two years another convincing piece of science fact is reported that adds to the weight of proof that we are already past the tipping point for catastrophic climate change impacts.

There’s no better place to see the impact from this than in the blue lagoon paradise of the South Pacific.

While Elizabeth has had the pleasant task of teaching me about the history, culture and joys of Tonga I’ve had to play the role of harshing her mellow with today’s reality by teaching her about the future of Tonga.

But before you start feeling too much sorrow and painful empathy for these beautiful Polynesian island people who live halfway around the planet, you should save a healthy dose for the person you look at in the mirror, for your parents, and your partner, and for your own children and grandchildren –

Because the very same fate awaits all of you too.
It may be happening there first, but you will not escape no matter who you THINK you are…

Because no matter what your heritage or where your people immigrated from in the past, when it comes to climate change…

Today we are ALL Tongan.

Why We Tongans Are The Canary In The Coal Mine
Just as canaries with their sensitive respiratory systems were once used as underground warning systems for miners to run and escape when the atmosphere turned toxic and deadly, today the islands of the South Pacific with their sensitive environments are our above ground warning system for a toxic and deadly atmosphere from which we cannot run and escape.

As my friends at the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme put it:

Pacific islands are extremely vulnerable to climate change. The most substantial impacts of climate change include losses of coastal infrastructure and land, more intense cyclones and droughts, failure of subsistence crops and coastal fisheries, losses of coral reefs and mangroves, and the spread of tropical diseases.
Long before sea level rise forces people to move off their island it contaminates the fresh water drinking supplies as well as the land that crops are grown on through storm surges that reach places surges never did before. When you read about ocean acidification, the destruction of coral habitats, dead zones and ocean pollution you’re reading about the big problems right in the backyard of my fellow Tongans. 80% of all Pacific Islanders live in or near coastal areas and rely on the ocean for their livelihoods.

Climate change’s impact on Tonga and her Pacific Island neighbors also includes extreme weather events like storms, cyclones, floods, droughts and heat waves.

Naturally all of the above has serious implications for the future development of all these Pacific islands. Right now tourism is the major industry for most of these small countries that draw visitors by the millions who are in search of the Polynesian paradise. Agriculture is another important industry throughout the region and it too will suffer badly from the impacts of climate change.

For some, like the people of the Carterets, it is already too late.

For Tonga there may still be enough time.

But only if we all wake up immediately and realize that right now is our moment.

And only if we understand that this isn’t someone else’s problem that we get to opt out of.

We’re all on the same island my friends.

We are ALL Tongan.

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from → Sustainability, carbon producers, climate change, environment, fossil fuels, sea-level rise, solar power
5 Responses leave one →

AUGUST 17, 2009
localdrivinglessons PERMALINK
this is beautiful island, and very nice shot .

REPLY

AUGUST 18, 2009
David Starr PERMALINK
Joe,
Wonderful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I want to hear more. Lets go to breakfast. When?
Dave

REPLY

AUGUST 18, 2009
Melonie Magruder PERMALINK
Another reason 350 is so important. If the CO2 rises to 450, the oceans will be so acidified that all the coral will die. No more sushi.

http://oceanacidification.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/coral-reefs-in-danger-of-dying-out-in-next-20-years/

From the Greenius:
CO2 is at 390 ppm today and headed straight for 450 if people that work in the oil, gas and coal industries have their way. The people who work at Exxon in Torrance and Chevron in El Segundo have blood on their hands and their employment is not worth the death and destruction their careers are responsible for. The employees of the fossil fuel industry are immoral and want you to care more about their income and benefits than they have ever cared about you or the fate of our younger generations. These people have even shamelessly sold out their own children and families. With what we know today, those fossil fuel workers are nothing short of assassins doing wet work. They will lie and try to justify the consequences of their actions but they are guilty and deserve no one’s sympathy or empathy.

Right now these killers are working against climate change legislation and our move to clean, green energy because their selfish, greedy way of life is more important to them than anything else on earth. They are truly the sleeper cell of terrorists living among us. I suggest that the employees of the coal and petroleum industries be forced to fight all our future California wildfires instead of using prisoners. They should all spend the rest of their days cleaning up their toxic mess and praying for forgiveness.

REPLY

JANUARY 10, 2010
gary coward PERMALINK
Excellent way to get our minds back to reality,,,,,paradise lost.
And to remember that the entire planet can/could be paradise, each square yard in its own way.

REPLY
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THE CREATIVE GREENIUS
Welcome to Creative Greenius.
My name is Joe Galliani and I've been blogging as the Creative Greenius since October of 2007. I'm responsible for what you read here and I stand behind everything I write. I offer A Brighter Shade of Green that includes reporting, analysis, opinion, commentary and policy advisement.
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Greenius Says The Jigs Up Climate Criminals. You Can Lie But You Cannot Hide from Greenpeace Justice

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Beware Your Righteous, Theoretical Boundaries!!

2010-03-19T16:11:00.000-07:00

Beware your righteous, theoretical boundaries because theoretical boundaries set up an arbitrary self-contradiction from which we cannot escape as long as we cling to that boundary with no flexibility for movement...

Every perspective, every theory, has its own particular strength...

And every perspective, every theory, has its own particular liability...

Why should we limit ourselves to the inevitable weakness of every one-sided theory?

Like a good husband and wife team working in harmony with each other,

Opposing theories can be used harmoniously and integratively to supplement each other's weakness...

To provide a more balanced, wholistic perspective...

When it comes to theories,

The only boundaries that should dictate,

Are those governed by subject-matter, ethics, and integrity...

And even here there is going to be ambiguity and plenty of room for debate,

For example, the subject matter is going to be influenced by 'outside factors',

That can change the nature of the discussion,

Or the boundaries of the subject matter,

Thus, we get 'bio-chemistry', and 'bio-physics',

And an essay like Freud's 'The Neuro-Psychoses of Defence' (1894).

Some boundaries are inherent to the subject-matter under investigation,

But many are simply 'made-made' conceptual and label boundaries,

That are meant to make thinking and understanding easier,

And oftentimes, these can come back to haunt us,

And cause us endless grief,

Until we finally figure out that we have created a man-made conceptual-semantic trap.

Boundaries are meant to be broken...(especially when we make them in places that we shouldn't have made them in the first place).

Giving proper respect to ethical and legal boundaries that are there for good reason.

And organizational boundaries that give us some semblence of an idea of where to start our study and where to end it...

Usually when we start to draw near the end of our subject matter, we start to feel the encroachment of other subject matters surrounding it, each with their own sphere of respective influence...

It was in this manner, and through a famous quote by Jung, that I bumped into the philosophy of Hegel, and in passing from Jung to Hegel, I had jumped over the boundary from psychology to philosophy...

And then I had a whole new discipline to study...

A whole new world of information and knowledge to learn,

Years and years of further study...

To add more depth and historical context, as well as subject matter context, to that which I had already learned in psychology...

And the same could apply to the spheres of business and economics,

And politics and spirituality and religion,

And art and literature...

Inside the 'box' of psychology, we have different 'sub-categories' of study such as 'clinical psychology' and 'research psychology' and 'industrial psychology'...

Inside the 'box' of psychology, we also have different 'schools' of psychology, each with their different perspective, their different slant on things, like 'psychoanalysis' and 'gestalt therapy' and 'adlerian psychology' and 'jungian psycholgy', 'cognitive therapy' and 'client-centered therapy' and 'transactional analysis'...

To go with all the boxes or spheres that we mentioned outside the box of psychology...

In both cases, we need to keep thinking 'inside and outside the box'.

Ascertaining how inside and outside factors influence each other,

Co-determine each other,

Add contextual depth to each other,

Attract and repel each other...

This is what Hegel called 'dialectic thinking'.

I sometimes call it 'dialectic-democratic thinking'.

Or the 'dialectic-integrative evolution of theories'...

Which constantly looks for 'win-win solutions and conflict resolutions'...

To seemingly unsolvable and unresolvable paradoxes, dichotomies, impasses, and riddles...

When a theory becomes too self-limiting by the constriction of its own self-boundaries...

Think outside the boundary...

And then come back to integrate...

What is inside and outside the boundary...

You might be amazed at where it takes you, and what it brings back to you!

New life, new depth, new integrations!!

To that which had become hopelessly self-entangled,

By its own limitations and self-restrictions...

With theorists screaming at each other from each side of their own limited vantage point and self-perspective...

Broaden your horizons everyone...

And reap the benefits from doing this...

The world is a big, big place...

And you are only seeing part of the picture...

Two opposite halves generally make a whole...

-- dgb, Feb. 26th, 2010; updated March 19th, 2010.

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still In Process...

10 tips to get out of debt

2010-03-19T07:10:00.001-07:00

10 tips to get out of debt
by Gail Vaz-Oxlade, For CNBC
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Provided by

From the internet...

How can you get out of debt and back on the road to recovery? Renowned financial author and Til Debt Do Us part host Gail Vaz-Oxlade takes a tough-love approach to helping couples in a financial crisis to face reality. Here are Gail's top 10 tips to get out of debt..

Cut Your Credit Cards and Set A Budget

Every family that finds themselves in debt should cut up all their credit cards and live on a cash budget, keeping a log of each and every expenditure made. Use the following formula to set a budget. Keep in mind that the "life" category includes everything from groceries, to gadgets to entertainment. Housing: 35%, Debt: 15%, Life: 25%, Transportation, 15%, Savings 10%.

More from CNBC.com:
Top 10 Tips For Building Wealth

Biggest Types Of Personal Debt

Which Country Gets The Most Vacation Days?

Reduce Your Interest Rates

Reducing your interest cost is one way to fast track your way out of debt. Some people have interest rates as high as 30%. When they pay their monthly minimum, all they're doing is paying off interest rather than chipping away at the principal. By calling to negotiate with creditors, high interest rates can be brought down. If you call and a representative says they can't help you, ask to be connected to a supervisor until you get to someone with the authority to reduce your rates.

Bring In Extra Money

Do anything you can to bring in extra money to throw at your debt, even if you work a full time job. Consider overtime at work, dog walking, baby sitting, tutoring, or using any skill that's unique to you to bring home the bacon…some creative ideas we've seen on the show: web designing, party planning, teaching music lessons and much, much more!

Get Your Priorities Straight

When deciding how to tackle debt and putting a plan in place to save for the future, you have to consider all of your options. Ask yourself the tough questions and prioritize…if going to grad school is important, then maybe you can be a student but take on a part-time job. If having a child is important, do you need to take a full maternity leave? Should you consider buying a home - maybe renting is a smarter option? Make a list of things you want to do and discuss them thoroughly with your partner to help make the best decisions for you and your relationship.

Chip Away At The Debt

To reduce debt, make a list of every single debt that you have and rank them in order of the highest interest rate, not the highest balance. Pay off the highest interest rate card first. Every time you have extra money, throw it at the debt you've targeted until it's gone and then stop using that card! Reward yourself by making a checklist and crossing out the debt, you'll feel better as you start to see it disappear. When your debt is paid off, take the money you were allocating for debt repayment and put it towards savings.

Keep Things In Perspective

Getting out of debt isn't easy, but you have to remember that you cannot let debt consume you and hurt your relationship. You and your partner need to work through the debt together, making sacrifices but focusing on what's important as well - your family and your relationship. Get a babysitter and make time to do something special with your spouse so you can remember why you fell in love, set time aside to do group activities as a family to involve the kids as well. Don't let your debt get the best of you.

Getting Out of Debt Doesn't Mean You Can't Ever Spend Again

When working your way out of debt you can still spend on things that are important to you, you just need to plan and save for them. So for example, if you're planning to get married, don't rush out and cancel your wedding - re-think your wedding plans and see if there are cheaper alternative ways to spend on what you want. If you really love to travel, don't cancel your trip for the year, figure out a way to do it on a tighter budget and save a little each month for it so you don't have to put it on credit cards.

Stop Eating Out

Eating out costs way more than buying food and cooking at home, not to mention that the latter option is much healthier as well. Make cooking dinner a family activity, something that can be done to together to make the experience more enjoyable - and when you're done cooking, sit down and have dinner together, discuss the day's events and catch up. Having dinner parties at home is also a way to cut down on entertainment with friends. If you're planning a romantic dinner consider taking the kids to their grandparents' and having dinner at home rather than in a restaurant. If you're going to get together with friends, consider the same thing. Remember, it's not about the food, it's about the company.

Get Organized

When it comes to working your way out of debt it's all about organization - believe it or not getting your documents in order will help you pay down your debt because it puts you in control. Organize your paperwork so you know where every important document is and so that all documents are easily accessible. Use a collapsible file folder, label the tabs clearly and most importantly, do this with your spouse so you both understand the system.

Be Willing To Part With Toys

Sometimes to get out of debt you'll have to sell something that's really important to you or that you love. The reality is dealing with the heartbreak of losing material things will be far less than dealing with the damage that these things can do to your finances. If you have to sell a car, house, piece of jewelry, artwork or anything else, take a deep breath and realize that what you're doing will help your future and your finances - and just let it go.

Singer Billy Bragg to stop paying taxes over bank bonuses

2010-01-18T17:07:00.000-08:00

Singer Billy Bragg to stop paying taxes over bank bonuses
Mon Jan 18, 10:52 AM
LONDON (Reuters) - British singer Billy Bragg has threatened to stop paying taxes, and called on others to follow suit, unless the government acts to limit bonuses paid by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).

The 52-year-old singer, well known for his left-wing views and political activism, aims to tap public anger over "fat cat" bonuses at U.S. and British banks rescued with taxpayers' money during the financial crisis.

The huge bailouts have left the British government holding 84 percent of Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and 43 percent of Lloyds Banking Group.

"I understand that the Treasury had little choice but to use taxpayers' money to safeguard savings and stabilize and restore confidence in the financial system," Bragg wrote on his page on the Facebook social networking site.

"What I don't understand is why, now that we taxpayers are the majority shareholders of these banks, we seem totally powerless to curb their excessive bonus culture?"

He quoted reports estimating RBS will pay its investment bankers around 1.5 billion pounds ($2.5 billion) in bonuses next month.

At the same time, he added, Britain's main political parties are warning voters that national debt will mean tough cuts in public spending after the next general election.

"I believe that the government have their priorities wrong.

"I have written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister), Alistair Darling, to inform him that I am no longer prepared to fund the excessive bonuses of RBS investment bankers. Unless he acts to limit them to 25,000 pounds, I shall be withholding my tax payment on 31st January." In his Facebook campaign titled "NoBonus4RBS" he invited other British tax payers to do the same to exert pressure on the government to curb bonuses.

RBS has been forced to agree to slash payouts and hand the state a veto on its 2009 bonus pool, but the government has also said that going too far to restrict pay could dent the bank's ability to compete.

When asked about Bragg's initiative, a Treasury spokesman said: "We can reassure people there will not be a significant amount of taxpayers' cash going to bonuses at RBS."

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

AIG executives' promises to return bonuses have gone largely unfulfilled

2009-12-23T15:44:00.001-08:00

AIG executives' promises to return bonuses have gone largely unfulfilled

By Brady Dennis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
When word spread earlier this year that American International Group had paid more than $165 million in retention bonuses at the division that had precipitated the company's downfall, outrage erupted, with employees getting death threats and President Obama urging that every legal avenue be pursued to block the payments.

New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo threatened to publicize the recipients' names, prompting executives at AIG Financial Products to hastily agree to return about $45 million in bonuses by the end of the year.

But as the final days of 2009 tick away, a majority of that money remains unpaid. Only about $19 million has been given back, according to a report by the special inspector general for the government's bailout program.

Some of the employees who had offered to return their bonuses have instead left the company, taking their cash with them.

Others remain at Financial Products but are also holding on to their money until they see what Kenneth R. Feinberg, the Obama administration's "compensation czar," decides about whether they should get future bonus payments they have also been promised. Feinberg, AIG and government officials have been involved in ongoing negotiations over the status of past and future bonuses at the insurance giant.

Dozens of employees have hired lawyers, bracing for a fight if AIG or government officials try to block the payments.

Cuomo has said little publicly in recent months about the AIG bonuses. On Tuesday, his office had no comment when asked about the payments.

When the controversy erupted in March, Cuomo agreed to keep the employees' identities secret as long as a significant share of the money was returned to the company. Some of them said his demand amounted to blackmail. But AIG officials said at the time that at least 18 of firm's top 25 executives had agreed to return at least some of their bonus money. "We are deeply gratified that a vast majority of FP's senior leadership have expressed a willingness to forsake their recent retention payments," the company said.

But now, the government, AIG and the employees are on a collision course. Everyone is keenly aware that another round of retention payments at Financial Products is due soon, threatening to draw public attention to the issue once again. AIG is scheduled to pay out an additional $198 million to employees in March.

"They have a contractual right to be paid this money. They put in their time, and they have performed all their obligations successfully." said Andrew Goodstadt, a New York lawyer who represents more than a dozen Financial Products employees. "They're willing to assert their contractual rights in a court of law. They have extremely strong claims."

Goodstadt said his clients include computer systems specialists, mathematicians and other employees who did not have a hand in the risky credit derivatives that brought the firm down. Rather, he said, many employees who remain at Financial Products have worked to unwind the troubled trades on its books and protect the massive taxpayer investment in AIG, whose total rescue package peaked at more than $180 billion in capital and loans.

They stuck around, he said, in large part because of the company's promise of the retention payments. In addition, Goodstadt emphasized that the company told employees in March that their offers to return bonus payments were voluntary and nonbinding.

One former Financial Products executive said some of his colleagues had stayed with the company only because they expected to receive bonus payments this coming March. After that, he said, they will have "no reason at all" to stay. "There's no more carrot," he said.

A resolution to the bonus controversy has been bedeviled by a growing lack of trust between AIG employees and the government.

Financial Products employees say they were on the brink of an agreement earlier this year that would reduce the total amount of money due in 2010 and spread those payments out over time to avoid the scrutiny that would come with a large, lump-sum payment. But they claim Feinberg scrapped that plan after he was appointed in June and urged AIG to find a way to significantly scale back the upcoming bonus payments.

People familiar with recent discussions between Feinberg and executives at AIG, including face-to-face talks with chief executive Robert H. Benmosche, said Feinberg has insisted that Financial Products employees return the money they said they would before he signs off on any deal involving 2010 compensation.

"Feinberg is adamant those pledges be honored," said one of the people. "It's non-negotiable."

They also said he has continued to urge that the amount of money due in March 2010 be reduced.

"I don't know how they resolve it now. There's no trust there," said one Financial Products executive, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the payments. "In order to negotiate, there has to be good faith and trust, and the government has shown those two things don't exist with them."

AIG declined to provide official comment, but company officials have previously argued that it is essential to keep employees at Financial Products. While the most disastrous and risky deals have been purged from the books, AIG officials say a mass exodus of employees from the division could still wreak havoc and end up harming the government's nearly 80 percent stake in the company.

AIG said in an October statement that it was working through various compensation issues with Feinberg, "including future payments to employees of AIG Financial Products." The company noted that Financial Products employees "have until the end of the year to fulfill their commitments to return a portion of their March 2009 payment. We expect FP employees will honor their commitments."

...........................................................................

The Biggest CEO Outrages of 2009 by Helen Coster, Forbes.com

2009-12-07T14:48:00.000-08:00

The biggest CEO outrages of 2009
by Helen Coster, Forbes.com
Friday, December 4, 2009
provided by

Almost a year ago, Bernard Madoff raised the bar for corporate malfeasance to an all-time high when he was arrested on charges of orchestrating a US$50 billion Ponzi scheme. Unsurprisingly, nobody managed to top Madoff's crimes in 2009, but 10 executives showed enough greed, hubris and chutzpah to altogether give him a run for his (stolen) money. Here are the biggest CEO outrages of the year (in honor of the holiday spirit, we're choosing them now and letting off anyone caught red-handed in December 2009).

In November a federal court sentenced Robert Moran, a UBS private banking client who is also the chief executive of Moran Yacht & Ship, to a two-month prison sentence for tax fraud. Moran's case came out of a larger government investigation into wealthy Americans who have used UBS to hide their money offshore and avoid U.S. taxes. Moran had pleaded guilty in April to filing a false tax return, and had admitted to concealing more than US$3 million in a secret UBS account. He finishes at No. 10 on our list.

Go to Forbes.com to view the slideshow

(Opens new window)

While Moran was busy rigging his yachts, David Rubin (No. 9) was busy rigging auctions, according to the Department of Justice. In October, prosecutors indicted Rubin, the chief executive of CDR Financial Products, a municipal bond brokerage, on conspiracy and fraud charges. According to the indictment, Rubin's firm rigged auctions that help determine which banks get the lucrative business of assisting governments in raising money. The prosecutors contend that participating banks kicked a portion of their profits back to Rubin, who denies the allegations. Like everyone on this list who has been indicted but not yet found guilty, he of course must be presumed innocent until proven guilty. But also like all the rest, he has gotten himself into a heap of ugly trouble in any event.

R. Allen Stanford (No. 8), the cricket-loving Texan who was, according to Forbes, a billionaire until this year, scored high in chutzpah in 2009. He and his co-defendants allegedly sold $7 billion worth of certificates of deposit through his Stanford International Bank and misappropriated most of the money, diverting more than US$1.6 billion in undisclosed loans to him personally. According to his indictment, he got by with a little help from his friends—in particular the chief executive of the Financial Services Regulatory Commission of the island nation Antigua and Barbuda, Leroy King. The Securities and Exchange Commission claims that in return for $100,000 from Stanford, King kept Stanford abreast of SEC inquiries into his dealings. Stanford has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he faces up to 250 years in jail.

Pity the mostly Asian investors who let Danny Pang (No. 7), the founder and former chief executive of Private Equity Management Group, manage their money. In April the SEC accused him of running a Ponzi scheme that defrauded his investors of hundreds of millions of dollars. Pang died in September at age 42, before he could stand trial. A coroner's report expected by January is expected to say whether he committed suicide.

In October the SEC charged Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the hedge fund Galleon Group, along with executives from Intel, International Business Machines and McKinsey, with insider trading. The government relied on wiretaps to show how Rajaratnam (No. 3) allegedly used private information to help boost the returns at his US$3.7 billion hedge fund. He allegedly made more than US$33 million in illicit profits; he strenuously denies the charges and is out on bail awaiting trial.

Two businessmen displayed especially vivid imagination in their extremely dubious activities. In Minnesota, Thomas Petters (No. 5) went on trial in October for allegedly orchestrating a US$3.5 billion fraud. Federal prosecutors accused him of promising rich returns to investors who lent him money to buy flat-screen TVs and other excess goods from troubled retailers for resale to companies like Sam's Club. The only problem: Petters had allegedly cooked up fake purchase orders and invoices to hide the fact that those surplus goods never existed. Prosecutors claim that he used new investor money to pay off old debts—the old pyramid scheme technique—and used the profits to fund his extravagant lifestyle. As we go to press the case is before the jury.

Thousands of miles away, B. Ramalinga Raju (No. 4) was living in his own fantasy world. The founder of the Indian outsourcing company Satyam Computer Services, he confessed in January to overstating Satyam's profits over several years and creating a fictitious cash balance of more than US$1 billion. He invented more than 10,000 fictitious employees to help him steal money from the company, and he used his mother's name to buy land with the proceeds. He confessed, but has yet to face charges in court.

The uproar over Wall Street bonuses this year earned two prominent executives places on our list. Edward M. Liddy (No. 6), who began running America International Group last September, faced a nationwide firestorm when it emerged that executives in his firm's financial products division, who bore considerable responsibility for the insurance giant's near collapse, were being rewarded for their disastrous results with US$165 million in retention bonuses. The retention packages had been put in place before Liddy joined the firm last year and were tied to 2007 pay levels, so they weren't affected by the firm's more recent losses. Liddy insisted that though the bonuses were "distasteful," AIG was legally obligated to honor its employment contracts. Many across the nation disagreed—and took it personally, since the company had received almost US$200 billion in federal bailout funds courtesy of the American taxpayer.

John Thain, then the chief executive of Merrill Lynch, pushed through US$3.62 billion in bonuses for his executives last December, rather than waiting until January as usual, just as the company was being taken over by Bank of America. Then in January, Bank of America revealed that Merrill had lost US$15.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008. That bonus push just made Thain's ill-starred captaincy of Merrill, which had begun with his million-dollar renovation of his office a year before, look even worse than before. Less than a week later Kenneth Lewis, the CEO of Bank of America, forced Thain out of his job.

And last but not least: the divine Lloyd Blankfein (No. 1), chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs. Despite bearing scant resemblance to, say, Mother Theresa, the Pope or the Dalai Lama, Blankfein told the Sunday Times of London in November that he was just a banker doing "God's work." He later said he meant it as a joke, but he certainly pays himself as if he were accomplishing something greater than human: In 2007 he made US$73 million, according to Forbes, and only $25 million in 2008, as the economy tanked, but look for a recovery in his compensation this year as Goldman Sachs has recovered far ahead of the economy as a whole. In honor of the modesty of his pronouncement, we lift him to the celestial height of No. 1 on our list of CEO outrages of 2009.

In Pictures: The Most Outrageous CEOs Of 2009

On The Prospect Of Any 'Ultimate, Final, Absolute Synthesis'

2009-11-17T08:51:00.001-08:00

There will never, ever be any 'Ultimate, Final, Absolute Synthesis'. Hegel was dead wrong on this account.

The only 'Ultimate Synthesis' -- is death.

-- dgb, Nov. 17th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

On The Dangers of 'Pigeon-Holing' Life Processes Into 'Neat' Verbal Concepts, Categories, and Theories: Aristotelean Either/Or Logic vs. Hegelian Dialectic Logic

2009-11-17T04:39:00.001-08:00

At the risk of redundancy, I want to once again emphasize the dangers of attempting to pigeon-hole life into neat, verbal concepts, categories, classification systems, and theories...

This includes the danger of over-using -- to the point of abusing -- Aristotelean Logic. Now what exactly 'Aristotelean Logic' means is in need of some discussion. We will get back to this point very shortly.

Hegel was the first philosopher to strongly emphasize the dangers of Aristotelean Logic. From a slightly different standpoint, Alfred Korzybski would do the same thing about 125 years later in the latter's classic book, Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelean Systems, 1933. You can read this book in its entirety now on line for free although it is not entirely an easy read...http://esgs.free.fr/uk/art/sands.htm).

In Hegel's Hotel, I wish -- because of the extreme importance of this message -- to repeat, emphasize, modify, update, and extrapolate on the same messages that were passed on to me, and those others who have read either Hegel and/or Korzybski, and/or interpretations of their work -- in particular here, relative to the dangers of Aristotelean logic.

What is Aristotelean Logic?

Well, there are two aspects of Aristotelean logic that we need to look at: 1. the syllogism; and 2. the law of identity and non-identy. I do not profess to be an expert in formal logic but, from what I can see, the syllogism is not reallya problem as long as it is used properly. However, the law of identity and non-identity is a problem. Let's take a look at both these aspects of Aristolean logic and how they inter-relate.

A/ The Syllogism

Major Premise: All men are mortal.

Minor Premise: Socrates is a man.

Conclusion: Socrates is mortal.

There is nothing wrong with this logic. If both the major and minor premise are right, and connected in such a way that the major premise represents an assertion or proposition about a certain class of things having a particular characteristic that is universal to that class of things; and the minor premise represents an assertion or proposition about a particular member of the class of things asserted in the major premise as having the particular universal characteristic asserted in the major premise -- then the conclusion should be 'logically right'.

Here is another example:

Major Premise: All snakes have no legs and slither when they move.

Minor Premise: This animal I am looking at has legs and is not slithering

Conclusion: Therefore this animal I am looking at is not a snake.

This type of Aristotelean logic can be otherwise stated like this:

If all members of a particular class of things have a particular universal characteristic.

Then a particular member of that same class of things is also going to have that universal characteristic.

B/ The Law of Identity and Non-Identity (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic)

So far so good. But here is where we get into trouble in a couple of different ways -- one emphasized by Hegel; the other emphasized by Korzybski.

A is A and B is B. A cannot be B. And B cannot be A.

This can be referred to as 'Aristotelean Either/Or Logic'.

Quite simply, this 'Law of Either/Or Logic' may be good for mathematics but it is not good for biology, physics, chemistry, medicine, psychology, politics, philosophy, religion, art, engineering, architecture, fashion, or any of a hundred other things that make up either 'evolution' or 'human culture'.

Worded otherwise, evolution does not work according to the principle of 'either/or'.

What Aristotle did here was he left out an excluded 'middle zone', an excluded 'gray zone', where 'gray' is both 'black' and 'white' as well as neither 'black' nor 'white'. 'Gray' borrows the partial characteristics of both black and white. Aristotle's 'either/or' logic does not reflect the 'gray zones' in life, in nature, in evolution, in human culture...

Most if not all of evolution is 'dialectic evolution'. 'A' breeds with 'B' and the offspring become members of a new set which is partly both 'A' and 'B' but at the same time neither completely 'A' nor 'B'. Rather, the offspring represent a new class of 'AB'. This is dialectic evolution which depends on the principle of 'biodiversity' and the 'intermixing' of genetics.

A coyote is a coyote and cannot be a wolf.

A wolf is a wolf and cannot be a coyote.

Wrong! A wolf breeds with a coyote and now we have a 'new species of animal' -- we have a 'colf'.

A colf is both a wolf and a coyote but not entirely either a wolf or a coyote. It reflects particular characteristics of both a wolf and a coyote which takes life into a middle gray zone of dialectic evolution.

Aristotelean logic did not reflect this aspect of life.

Hegelian dialectic logic moved into to compensate for that 'gray area of life' that Aristotle did not account for.

Thesis intermingled with anti-thesis becomes a 'dialectic synthesis'. Hegel compensated for what Aristotle ignored or missed.

The problem is that many, many people today still use Aristotelean 'either/or' logic in context situatons where they should be using Hegelian Dialectic Logic instead. Not all the time. But in many, many cases which in turn causes many, many problems.

People try to 'pigeon-hole' life into two Aristotelean opposing categories -- A and B -- where they should not be leaving out the very viable and often superior Hegelian 'middle dialectic zone' of AB. That is why DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...uses a ton of 'hyphenated words' such as:

1. 'Liberal-Conservative' or 'Conservative-Liberal';

2. 'Republican-Democrat' or 'Democrat-Republican';

3. 'Apollonian-Dionysian' or 'Dionysian-Apollonian';

4. GAP Psychology (a mixture of Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, and Psychoanalysis);

5. DGB Philosophy (Dialectic-Gap-Bridging Philosophy-Psychology-Politics-Science...)

A/ Is 'Bi-Polar Disorder' an 'illness' or an 'excuse'? (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic0

B/ Can 'Bi-Polar Disorder' be both or either an 'illness' and/or an 'excuse'? (Hegelian Dialectic Logic)

A/ Is 'sczhizophrenia' a 'biochemical disorder ' or a 'transference neurosis'? (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic)

B/ Can 'sczhizophrenia' be both a 'biochemical disorder' and a 'transference neurosis'? (Hegelian Dialectic Logic)

A/ Is orthodox prescription medicine superior to natural health medicine or visa versa? (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic)

B/ Can both orthodox prescription medicine and natural health medicine learn from each other and become 'Integrative Wholistic Medicine'?

We will talk about Korzybski on another day. That is enough for today.

-- dgb, Nov. 17th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still In Process...

More Thoughts On The Self-Destructive Direction of Uncontrolled Individual and Cultural Narcissism...

2009-11-16T05:30:00.001-08:00

Practicing good ethics is like exercising each day and/ or like eating a good, calory restricted, healthy, nutritional diet...Tough work...but if you keep practising it more and more, day by day, you become much better, much more proficient at living an ethical, well-balanced lifestyle over time -- just like what it takes to get into a good, steady habit of healthy eating and exercising.

In contrast, practising narcissism is like eating a piece of cake, even worse, gorging on the whole cake, or like eating any and every type of junk food we can get our hands on and put into our mouth...It tastes great, it's easy, it satisfies at least a part of our hedonistic-narcissistic (pleasure-seeking) impulses...but there are not too many good vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, fiber and enzymes in what we are eating...most of what we are eating has no nutritional value at all and the older we get, the worse this can become as a health problem, especially as our metabolism slows down, usually exasperated by less and less exercise...

This is not to say that all hedonism and/or narcissism is bad -- because it's not -- our survival depends very much on our narcissistic genetics, biochemistry, and psychology. When our body tells us to eat, we need to eat. And similarly, with the other life-preserving impulses in our mind and body that help to keep us alive, both as individuals and as an ongoing species.

Indeed, like many things in life, narcissism becomes a paradox in our lives -- too much narcissism is not a good thing in our lives but so too is not enough narcissism in our lives.

Healthy aspects of narcissism include: self-assertion, self-confidence, self-awareness, self-propelled action...

Indeed, as humans we are probably largely programmed to be narcissistic unless or until we are taught differently -- or better -- to bring this, and keep this, in proper balance and perspective. Even teaching 'altruism' and 'ethics' and 'morals' does not completely, or even closely, eliminate or minimize our underlying narcissistic impulses. But for a 'civilized person and society' these counter-balancing beliefs and values of such things as altruism, social sensitivity, empathy, caring, love, ethics, morals... are essential in order to make our own lives and the lives of the people around us work properly.

Greed, selfishness, manipulation, corruption, fraud, collusion, abuse of power -- these are some of the different things that happen in our personal, social, business, and political lives when self and social narcissism start to slip and slide downhill and out of control....It becomes harder and harder to restore proper ethical, moral, and legal balance, the greater we let self and social narcissism slide down hill and out of control.

Nature injects us with narcissism. It doesn't really 'inject us' with much 'altruism' or 'ethics' or 'morals' -- these are all mainly culturally, religiously, educationally taught beliefs, values, and skills that take great time, energy, effort, and practice to develop. Like running uphill, in contrast to narcissistic self-absorption that requires little effort, energy, self-discipline...like running down hill with gravity as opposed to against gravity.

Living in a culture, an economy, an environment of 'unbridled narcissism' where narcissism -- like a fast, growing weed -- has 'propelled' itself beyond 'healthy civilian, egalitarian, fair and democratic boundaries', and into the area of 'crime, immorality, and corruption' where everyone develops a mindset of 'He's doing it so why can't I?' Or 'The company I work for or my government is being blatantly narcissistic -- using and abusing money unfairly, even corruptly, so therefore I am going to take certain narcissistic counter-measures as a way of compensating for the way that I am being unfairly treated -- these are the types of things that provide greater and greater 'fertilizer' for a larger and larger 'culture of unbridled narcissism'.

Most notably power corrupts -- unless or until there is some faction of society that says 'Enough is enough. This unbridled narcissism has to stop and brought back to more normal, healthy boundaries. If I don't say or do anything about what is happening here, who is? Everyone is passing the buck, remaining ethically passive, and letting their own ethics slip-slide away in the process...'

In Ontario here, we have a Liberal Government that is bringing in a new 'Harmonization Tax'. What a juxtaposition of words -- 'harmonization' and 'tax'. This is from a Liberal Government that has been audited as basically 'mispending millions if not billions of taxpayers money' in the just recently passed 'EHealth Scandal'. There is no Government Accountability here. If the government 'mis-spends' money -- with a lot of Liberal politicians and lobbyists getting 'quietly rich' in the process -- the government just shrugs its shoulders, perhaps offers one politician as a 'sacrifical lamb' (even though I am sure she has already made enough money off of Ehealth to retire for the rest of her life) -- and waits for the scandal to pass. Then they introduce the 'Harmonization Tax'.

As citizens of Ontario, we are far too passive not to mention probably mainly ignorant of the full extent of what this new tax is fully going to mean. We just shrug our shoulders and basically let the politicians get away with 'narcissistic mayhem'. Similarily to what happened on Wall Street. Unbridled and unethical narcissism permeates our culture like the dandelions in my front and back yard a few years ago. It took a lot of digging, over and over and over again, to get rid of most of these weeds. It still didn't get rid of them all.

I can't say that I am any type of 'ethical saint'. How many of us can? But there comes a point where narcissism eventually will destroy all semblence of what it means to be a 'civilized nation'.

Cultural narcissm propogates individual narcissism, and individual narcissism in turn propogates cultural narcissism. The two are 'dialectically entwined'. Without cultural and individual ethics counter-balancing the combined force of cultural and individual narcissism taking us all on a fast or slow roller coaster ride to self-destruction, bad things start to happen like we are seeing in the current recession. As a whole, we are all suffering from the malaise of personal and cultural narcissism destroying the ethical and economic balance in our society. We need more 'win-win' solutions -- not 'me-me', 'I win, you lose' solutions...In the end, we all lose...

One only has to go back and read some of Thomas Jefferson's quotes about how 'power corrupts'...and all of the other Enlightenment Philosophers -- John Locke, Diderot, Voltaire, Tom Paine, Montesquieu...to read how much work and effort has to be continually exercised in order to keep unethical power and narcissism out of government agencies and processes not to mention businesses... to fully understand that we cannot let this type of thing slide without drastic consequences eventually hitting us all...like the collapse of the major financial institutions on Wall Street and their essentially being 'rewarded' afterwards for their ethical and/or legal transgressions at the individual and collective expense of the rest of us, many of us who are fighting for our very economical survival...

Let me close with a few of the quotes that I mean...

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A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.
Thomas Jefferson

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.
Thomas Jefferson

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Thomas Jefferson

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Thomas Jefferson

An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.
Thomas Jefferson

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
Thomas Jefferson

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.
Thomas Jefferson

Delay is preferable to error.
Thomas Jefferson

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
Thomas Jefferson

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.
Thomas Jefferson

Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
Thomas Jefferson

Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.
Thomas Jefferson

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
Thomas Jefferson

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
Thomas Jefferson

Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
Thomas Jefferson

Every generation needs a new revolution.
Thomas Jefferson

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
Thomas Jefferson

Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Thomas Jefferson

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
Thomas Jefferson

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
Thomas Jefferson

Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.
Thomas Jefferson

Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.
Thomas Jefferson

He who knows best knows how little he knows.
Thomas Jefferson

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
Thomas Jefferson

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-- dgb, Nov. 14th-16th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcisism

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still in Process....

On Properly Functioning Democracies vs. Pseudo-Democracies, Pathological Ideology -- and 'Snake Oil'

2009-11-03T05:10:00.001-08:00

When the people at the top of the Corporate, Business World cannot control and police themselves -- which, obviously, many of them can't, or won't -- then the Government has to do it for them, creating and policing laws that discourage and minimize 'white collar crime' -- particularly, 'corporate plundering' of 'corporate business coffers' at the top.

When the people in different Government Sectors who have control over their own spending and paycheques and who specifically they give government contracts to without a democratic bidding, cannot control and police themselves -- which, obviously, many of them can't or won't -- then, people above them in more powerful Government Positions have to do it for them, creating and policing laws that discourage and minimize this type of Government exploitation of taxpayers' money -- and 'white collar plundering of public coffers'.

When the people at even the highest levels of Government Positions and Trust cannot or will not police the people in charge of significant amounts of government funds below them -- and exploitation results -- then it is the duty of journalists and philosopher-writers and film makers (Michael Moore) to hammer certain 'unpleasant, unethical government and corporate truths (or even 'half-truths') home until the proper government people are 'impeached', 'resign', are 'fired', and/or arefinally voted out of office.

Failing this, we as individual citizens in a properly functioning democracy, need to continue to apply pressure on the particular guilty parties, or at the very least, vote them out of office when their time for potential re-election comes due.

Anything less than this is a 'pseudo-democracy' -- a 'fascade' of a democracy. It is 'Ideology' in the Marxian pathological sense of the word where 'Ideology' means 'hiding what is really happening underneath the superficial rhetoric and campaign promises and white-washing and pretenses of what transgressing politicians and/or corporate bigwigs and/or marketing people are trying to sell you.

'Ideology' in this pathological sense of the word is nothing more than -- as Senator Barney Frank has aptly put it -- 'snake oil'.

-- dgb, Nov. 4th, 2009.

-- david gordon bain

-- democracy goes beyond narcissism

-- dialectic gap-bridging negotiations...

-- are still in process...

On The Positive and Negative Side of Narcissism (Hedonism, Egotism, Individualism)

2009-11-03T04:19:00.000-08:00

I heard a commercial this morning on tv that sparked this brief DGB commentary.

The ad said something like this:

'When a man does something special -- something one of a kind -- he is proud to put his name to it.'

This beckons back to my dad's Ideal Capitalism influence and his introducing me to 'The Fountainhead' by Ayn Rand when I was in my late teens.

Succinctly put, narcissism - and egotism -- and pleasure-seeking -- and searching for the self-fulfillment or self-actualization of one's own Self, one's own Soul -- is not all bad. It is only bad when it gets twisted out of control, and you start moving down a path of one-sidedness, self-absorption to the point of everyone else's needs becoming inferior to your own, down a path of self-destructiveness and/or towards the destructiveness and/or tearing down of others around you. It is only narcissism out of control, narcissism gone wild, narcissism that excludes all others, that eliminates any and/or all feeling of compassion and sensitivity and humanism towards those around you, either close to you or far away -- that is the point where narcissism, hedonism, and egotism all become 'pathological' -- 'psycho-pathological' and 'socio-pathological'.

As for the healthy type of narcissism that I am talking about here, it is well described in this internet (Wikipedia) summary of Ayn Rand's famous book, The Fountainhead (1943).

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The Fountainhead is a bestselling 1943 novel by Ayn Rand. It was Rand's first major literary success and its royalties and movie rights brought her fame and financial security. More than 5 million copies of the book have been sold worldwide and the work has been translated in several languages. [1]
The Fountainhead's protagonist, Howard Roark, is an individualistic young architect who chooses to struggle in obscurity rather than compromise his artistic and personal vision. The book follows his battle to practice modern architecture, which he believes to be superior, despite an establishment centered on tradition-worship. How others in the novel relate to Roark demonstrates Rand's various archetypes of human character, all of which are variants between Roark, the author's ideal man of independent-mindedness and integrity, and what she described as the "second-handers." The complex relationships between Roark and the various kinds of individuals who assist or hinder his progress, or both, allows the novel to be at once a romantic drama and a philosophical work. By Rand's own admission, Roark is the embodiment of the human spirit and his struggle represents the triumph of individualism over collectivism.

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Howard Roark -- and my dad's own real-life vision and self-enactment of him -- became one of my own earliest idealistic role models.

However, without character, integrity, fairness, compassion, accountability, humanism, and the ideal of a 'fair deal' -- a 'win-win business deal for both and/or all sides' -- Ethical, Humanistic-Existential Capitalism becomes Unbridled, Narcissistic Corrupt Capitalism where collusion and exploitation and kickbacks and bribery and 'Golden Parachute Contracts and Bonuses' rule the day. Employers exploit employees. And/or unions exploit businesses. Lobbyists exploit Governments. Governments exploit Lobbyists. Sellers exploit buyers. Governments and businesses exploit taxpayers.

And we wonder why we have a recession.

Capitalism has stopped playing by ethical rules. Businesses have stopped looking for 'win-win solutions'.

Everybody who has significant monetary power at the top is looking for their own narcissistic Golden Parachute, their Golden Retirement Package. Plunder the corporation. Plunder the taxpayer.

And we wonder why we have a recession.

-- dgb, Nov. 4th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still in Process...

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More Comments On The Similarities and Differences Between Classic Hegelian Philosophy and DGB (Post-Hegelian) Philosophy

2009-10-25T11:16:00.001-07:00

Just finished, Oct. 25th, 2009.

A friend of mine asked me to put together an essay aimed at capturing the main energy, focus, and driving force of Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy.

This, I have aimed to do in other introductory essays in the past, coming at the 'wholistic' issue from different angles, but given the fact that it has been a while now, I do believe, since I have written an 'all-encompassing' essay of this sort that aims to link everything I have written, and want to write, about together in one clear, readable package, and due to the fact that my writing has been more sporadic and without much seeming direction and/or overall vision lately -- I would agree that such an essay is once again in order. Even my Table of Contents is outdated and again needs a 'renewal' that reflects the clarity of vision of Hegel's Hotel.

So let me start by stating as clearly as possible what Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy has aimed to do in the essays that I have written, and is still aiming to do, in the remaining essays I would like to write:

1. Firstly, Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics... is an 'open philosophical system or treatise or forum' that continues to change and evolve from day to day, as its author changes and evolves -- that's me -- and it will continue to change and evolve until the day I die. Nothing is written in stone here. As life changes, and particularly as life changes for the main author who is writing Hegel's Hotel (again, that's me), I will continue to have something to write about as I continue to process other books and authors who I have read, and/or will continue to read, and as I continue to process my own life experiences in the context of those who I will continue to come into contact with, both good and bad, and as I continue to play 'the fitting game' as Fritz Perls used to call it, which can be both good in bad as we try to 'classify' and 'label' the life structures and processes we see around us, and in my case here, aim to compare and contrast the good with the bad, the right from the wrong, and the real with the ideal...

2. Secondly, Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...looks upon its main mentor, G.W. Hegel, and his main philosophical work, 'The Phenomenology of Mind/Spirit', 1807, as the centrepiece -- as the philosophical 'Bible' if you will -- upon which everything I write gravitates from like the planets around the sun, or like ripples or waves of water that spread outward from a rock or stone that has just landed at some point and time in the middle of a large body of water -- call this, if you will, the main centrepoint, mind-body and 'multiple-bipolarity' of 'life', 'death', 'structure', 'process', 'evolution', 'non-evolution', and everything that runs in between....

3. Just because I call Hegel's classic philosophical work my 'philosophical Bible', does not mean that I treat it as a 'perfect philosophical work' nor do I view it as being like the closest thing to 'God' that any philosopher has ever written, and/or will ever write. I do not even view the Bible this way. I view the Bible in the same manner that Spinoza did, as something that was written by humans, as a philosophical/mythological treatise that has some messages that are important to read about life, man, and how we should behave, but not something that should be treated as a 'perfect treatise from God'. Both The Bible -- and Hegel's classic philosophical work, 'The Phenomenology of Mind/Spirit' -- are worthy of great respect in certain areas of endeavor, but this does not mean that either of them is beyond human criticism in those areas that these human works could/can be better...Even the Bible is nnot always 'humanistic'. Just read the story of God, Abraham, and Isaac meeting on the mountain in an intended or 'pseudo-intended' human sacrifice. Just because God 'called off Abraham at the last minute' doesn't make the story any less 'barbaric'. Nor does Abraham sacrificing a ggoat instead of his son Isaac alleviate the story in any less sadistic manner. If I was Isaac, I would be wanting to 'sacrifice' both Abraham (i.e., his father) -- and God who played the ultimate 'sadist' in this twisted series of events. Perhaps, if anything, the ultimate 'humanistic-existential' message here was for Abraham and for all of us to know when and where to separate from authoritarian orders regardless of when and where they come from -- in the name of 'humanism' when humanism separates itself from God, or God's purported 'message of authority'. This is the humanistic-existential message that DGB Philosophy takes from the story of God, Abraham, and Isaac...

4. One of the most important words in the title of Hegel's most famous philosophical work is the word 'Geist' which in German can be -- and has been -- translated into English as either 'Mind' or 'Spirit'. I usually translate the German word 'Geist' (not that I know any German) as meaning both -- i.e., like this -- 'Mind/Spirit'. To leave out the word 'Spirit' -- and its intended meaning -- in my opinion, is a grave mistake. Hegel's own high degree of both 'Abstractionism' and 'Rationalism' partly contradicts the intent of his own philosophy which I believe is to blend 'Humanistic Enlightenment' Philosophy and 'Humanistic Romantic' Philosophy in the same philosophical work -- in his classic 'dialectic triadic style': 1. thesis: Enlightenment Philosophy in the context of German Idealism'; 2. anti-thesis: Romantic Philosophy in the context of German Idealism; 3. synthesis: Classic Hegelian Philosophy in the context of German Idealism.

Now, personally, I think that Schelling did a better job of handling 'the romantic-idealistic side' of 'dialectic idealism' than Hegel did. Hegel, as a whole, functioned more from 'the neck up' in his 'rational' dialectic philosophy whereas Schelling came closer to the 'romantic idealism and wholism' of Spinoza in the direction that Schelling took 'dialectic idealism'. The primary difference between Spinoza and Schelling is Schelling's 'dialectic romanticism and pantheism' vs. Spinoza's 'monistic' version of romanticism and pantheism. I prefer Schelling's dialectic-romantic-pantheistic philosophy over Spinoza's monistic version. I have not read much of Schelling's work -- from what I have read, it lacks the comprehensive, organizational structure of Hegel's more 'rational' dialectic philosophy. But it seems that Schelling was much clearer on the full extent of his dialectic-romantic-pantheistic-spiritual vision. On this level, I give Schelling full credit and perhaps even influencing Hegel more than Hegel influenced Schelling.

In this same respect, I am critically hardest on Hegel because Hegel's dialectic romanticism and pantheism, for the most part, gets buried beneath his high degree of abstractionism and rationalism -- even to the point where his so-called 'rationalism' is not rational -- or even humanistic -- in any sense that I believe in the word 'rational' or 'humanistic' should mean. Something like God on the mountain with Abraham and Isaac. From Hegel's 'deterministic-historical-rational' point of view, the so-called rational can be 'barbaric' and visa versa (following a very controversial and much contested Hegelian quote: 'The rational is real and the real is rational.') -- the idea here being that even when the 'rational' is seemingly 'irrational', the dialectic always leads to a 'rational self-correction' that could not and/or would not have happened without the historical context of the preceding 'irrational event' that made the following 'rational-dialectic-self-correction' possible based on historical 'hindsight'.

This is the alleged 'underlying rationality' of the dialectic engagement between human irrationality and rationality eventually correcting itself in human rationality. I can partly see Hegel's 'brand of dialectic logic' at work here but still, this point of view, I strongly take issue with as I aim to see such 'impending irrationalities 'ahead of time' -- or as they are happening -- in Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy.

Likewise, with Hegel's concept of 'The Absolute'. Absolute barbarism -- in any historical context of the dialectic in evolutionary process -- still does not constitute any form of either 'rationalism' or 'humanism' in Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy. Nor does DGB Philosophy, in any way, support -- as Hegel did -- the barbaric 'will to power' of Napoleon (especially against his own Prussian-pre-German State').

Actually, I should modify that last statement. None of us is either totally good or totally bad. And likewise with Napoleon. Napoleon stabilized France from/after 'The Reign of Terror'. Napoleon also abolished serfdom and emancipated the Jews when he conquered Prussia. (Introducing Hegel, Lloyd Spencer, 1996, 2006, p. 10. Napoleon then, can fit under one of those: 'Does the end justify the means?' questions. And Napoleon might be one of those examples that Hegel was referring to where 'Napoleon's brutal behavior actually led to some 'rationality' after he was finished 'conquering' different countries. I don't support Hegel's support of Napoleon's barbaric war actions anymore than I support the overcompensatory measures taken afterwards by Prussia, pre-Germany, and Germany towards 'German Nationalism, Arrogance, Superiority -- and its own evolutionary 'National Will to Power' over 'non-German States and ethnic groups. Germany, in essence, became worse than its main pre-German national victimizer (i.e., Napoleon) who seems to have been used as a 'Subconscious, National Idealistic Role Model'. This is an example of what I call 'National Transference and Identification With The Aggressor'...

...........................................................................From the internet...

Monism is any philosophical view which holds that there is unity in a given field of inquiry, where this is not to be expected. Thus, some philosophers may hold that the Universe is really just one thing, despite its many appearances and diversities; or theology may support the view that there is one God, with many manifestations in different religions.

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Let me use the rest of this essay -- as I have also done in other essays but new material keeps coming into the forefront of my consciousness faster than I can process it all -- to compare and contrast some of the main similarities and differences between DGB (Post-Hegelian) Philosophy with Classic Hegelian Philosophy.

Put most simply, DGB Philosophy does not share Hegel's (or Fichte's, or Schelling's) enthrallment with the idea of 'The Absolute'. As much as I don't like Schopenhauer -- neither the person nor the one-sidedness of his overall 'cosmic, pessimistic, narcissistic' philosophy -- still, Schopenhauer's narcissisticly based philosophy cannot be overlooked, because everywhere we look around, we can see it exemplified in the many injustices, corruption, and wars that we see in the world today, and indeed, throughout most, if not all, of human history.

Man's perpetual greed, selfishness, and one-sided righteousness cannot be overlooked, no matter how much we indulge in the idea of 'The Absolute' or 'Absolute Knowledge' or 'Absolute Being'. Maybe these ideas are useful human ideals, maybe the dialectic -- and 'dialectic logic' -- can at different points, move us closer to these absolute ideals, but still, the dialectic just as often moves us away from these ideals as it moves us closer because the human dialectic process is fraught with individual and group 'power pushes' or 'wills to power' that are just as often, if not more often, aimed at one-sided outcomes of selfishness, greed, money, property, power, revenge, sex, and righteousness -- all of which I capture under the term 'human narcissism' than it is aimed at anything we might call 'human balance, harmony, unity, justice, democracy, equality, freedom, integrity, character, fairness, wholeness...

In short, there will always be a perpetual ongoing conflict between man's striving for balance, justice, equality, and democracy on the one hand vs. his more one-sided striving for all of the things that I have labelled above as human narcissism on the other side. This perpetual ongoing conflict -- and the dialectic process that continues to negotiate these two different sides of human nature and behavior -- will never take us to anything that we can remotely call 'The Absolute' -- unless, along Schopenhauer's line of thinking -- we call this 'Absolute Narcissism, Chaos, Corruption, and Self-Destruction'.

I am sorry to say this but 50 plus years of living on this earth have dulled my 'Enlightenment and Classic Hegelian Idealism' to the point where it is at least equally countered -- probably greater countered - by my perception of the realism of Schopenhaurian pessimism, whether we call that 'cosmic' or 'the darker side of being human'. (I remember reading Freud when he said very much the same thing.)

Thus, probably the main difference between Classic Hegelian Philosophy and Classic Hegelian Idealism is my basic, overall rejection of his concept of 'The Absolute'.

Now, this does not mean that we need to start jumping out of windows or take on an attitude of 'perpetual despair' -- a type of Schopenhaurian philosophical bleakness, and/or 'Lord of The Flies' mentality.

I read in a quote the other day -- and I am paraphrasing -- that no monument has every been erected of a 'pessimist'. I wonder if this is true. Are there no statues of 'The Sceptics', 'The Cynics', Thomas Hobbes, and/or Arthur Schopenhauer out there? Most certainly, there are monuments or statues or paintings of Sigmund Freud -- and by the end of his career at least -- Sigmund Freud was very much a 'pessimist' in terms of his not having much faith in the future of mankind. Freud had seen and experienced two World Wars.

I am looking around me in the world today at Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan...I think of AIG and a collapsing Wall Street. I think of CEO's abandoning their bankrupt companies -- or managing government-funded bankrupt companies -- and either running away with Golden Parachute Contracts, or continuing to manage a government funded bankrupt company like they should be paid like the wealthiest man on earth, I think of government and corporate lobbyism, and the human narcissism and corruption behind all levels of corporate and government politics -- and it is hard not to be pessimistic, even cynical.

Hegel's Hotel is still being built to foster and worship a particular type of human 'spirit' -- call this Hegel's 'Phenomenology of The Human Spirit' if you wish -- a particular type of Enlightenment integrity and idealism built around the ideals of reason, rationality, justice, fairness, equality, democracy, truth...in combination with a particular type of Romantic Human Idealism that can be captured in art, mythology, music, and even a Religious-Spiritual-Pantheist Idealism that embraces Humanism -- not the type of institutionalized and/or extremist-righteous religion that seeks to eliminate and destroy all of those people who are 'non-believers'...

Hegel's Hotel trumpets Hegel's main driving spirit of 'Enlightenment-Romanticism' and/or 'Humanistic-Existentialism' as developed before Hegel by such noted Enlightenment philosophers as John Locke, Adam Smith, Diderot, Montesquieu, Tom Paine, Jefferson, Rousseau, and after Hegel by the likes of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre and complemented by 'Constructive Deconstructionists' like Socrates, Sir Francis Bacon, David Hume, Voltaire, Nietzsche at his best when he wasn't going off the deep end, Foucault, and significant elements of Derrida....

Hegel's Hotel trumpets the 'Dialectic Pantheism' of philosophers and/or philosophies like Heraclitus, Lao Tse, Daoism, Schelling, even the 'Mono-Wholistic-Pantheism' of Spinoza....

And Hegel's Hotel trumpets the 'pessimistic' evolutionary wisdom and understanding of the significance of 'human narcissism', 'freedom', 'alienation', and 'the will to power' as passed through the many years to us by such noted ancient and more recent philosophers as Anaxamander, Diogenes, Hobbes, Machiavelli, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida...

And throughout all of this Hegel's Hotel strives for its own 'idealistic-realistic', 'Enlightenment-Romantic', 'Humanistic-Existential balance....

DGB Philosophy, in the spirit of Hegel and his masterpiece, 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' views the dialectic as the ultimate, central, driving, both uniting and separating, force of nature and evolution.

The dialectic is a self-correcting mechanism. But it is also a self-destructing mechanism. It is both a life and a death force at the same time. It is like the contradiction of oxygen -- which acts as both the breath of life on the one hand, and the ultimate destruction of life on the other hand (through the side-effect of oxidation.)

Indeed, at least in part, the dialectic might be viewed as the ultimate contradiction, the ultimate paradox of life. Hegel has stated that any theory, any perspective, any characteristic, taken to the limit -- will ultimately self-destruct in its own self-contradiction. We use the term 'bipolarity disorder' to describe a certain biochemical and psychological illness that we used to call 'manic-depression'. And yet everything we do in life is connected to the idea of 'bipolarity'. Indeed, 'health' and 'illness' is a bipolarity. And every bipolarity is connected by a dialectic process and/or alienated by the absence of a dialectic process.

Indeed, the dialectic might be viewed as being even more fundamental to life and evolution than oxygen (air) as well as water, earth, and fire. This argument goes back to some of the earliest arguments of the Pre-Socratic, Greek philosophers (and hundreds or thousands of miles away -- I don't know my geographical distance here too well -- to philosophers like Lao Tsu and Confucius in ancient China. They were working on the same types of philosophical problems -- i.e., the origin and dynamics of the world -- and coming up with similar answers.)

While monistic philosophers like Thales, Anaxamenes, and Heralclitus each trumpeted what they believed to be the original essence of life -- i.e., water, air, or fire respectively, Anaxamander -- in a much more metaphysical but more philosophically important manner -- trumpeted the beginning of 'dialectic philosophy' -- talking about 'The Apeiron' which might be translated as either 'Chaos' or 'The Wholistic, Preorganized Universe', before 'life is split into polar opposites which compete with each other for their very existence, or at least their primary, dominant existence (for the winner) and a return to 'The Shadows' of The Apeiron (for the loser to re-group, re-energize, and re-fight another war for supremacy with its more dominant polar opposite. In such a fashion, in Anaxamander's ancient Greek thinking, day dominates while night recedes back into the Apeiron. Then night overtakes and dominates day, and day retreats back into the Shadows of the Apeiron.

As primitive as Anaxamander's argument may seem, given the example cited above, this line of thinking became the essence of Hegelian thinking which still has a dominant place in philosophy, psychology, politics, biology and evolution theory today, and indeed can be incorporated into every aspect of human thinking, behavior, and culture. This continuation of Anaxamander's thinking -- through Heraclitus, through Lao Tse (in the start of Daoism), through Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, through Schopenhauer, Marx, and Kierkegaard, through, Nietzsche, Sartre, Foucault, and Derrida, through Freud, Adler, Jung, and Fritz Perls -- is the direction of philosophical movement -- the evolution of the dialectic phenomenon and concept in both Western and Eastern Philosophy -- that Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy is both striving to historically trace and to continue to advance along its more idealistic 'Enlightenment-Romantic', 'Humanistic-Existential' path

In this last context, I will return to the German word 'Geist' which I will translate here as 'Spirit'.

Without the best of the human spirit implicit its every evolutionary development, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit -- becomes Spiritless. Lifeless. Dead. It becomes just another form of the type of 'alienation' that Hegel introduced to the many profound philosophers who he most influenced -- even as many rebelled against him, and more specifically, his 'over-abstractionism' and 'over-rationalism'.

And similarly too this is probably the most important area where I do indeed follow -- and elaborate on -- Hegel's intended German 'Dialectical-Enlightenment-Romantic-Humanistic-Existential' Idealism.

Because the same thing can be said for Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...

Without the best of the intended human spirit implicit in its every driving force, its every driving essay, Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy becomes just another philosophical treatise. Indeed, worse than just another philosophical treatise. It becomes spiritless, lifeless, alienated, humanistically and existentially -- dead.

In most of my philosophical essays I write about the need for 'homeostatic' or 'dialectic-democratic' balance between opposite, bi-polar forces and perspectives. I write about the potential and real scourge of unbridled human narcissism -- gone mad and out of control.

But in this essay, I am writing about the need to choose one human bi-polarity over another.

I am writing about the need for the soaring of the human essence and spirit -- in dialectic contact and embracement with our and each and every day existence -- over the alternative: a lifeless, spiritless, humanistic-existential death.

As I just heard coming fresh out of the mouth of another limousine driver who I work with each and every day, we chase the supposed idealism of Capitalism as we are taught it in Western Society: more individualism, more freedom, more money, more time, more commodities, more human spirit...

And paradoxically, again coming out of the mouth of the fellow driver I was talking to just yesterday, we see all around us people chasing a dream that doesn't seem to have either a happy process and/or a happy ending -- we see an American-Canadian dream that, for many or most of us, is definitely heading down the wrong life path.

We see people working more hours, some putting in 50, 60, and 70 hour work weeks, spending less time with their families, spending less time with their loved ones, we see less human spirit, we see more and more human alienation, less freedom, less time, less energy, less money, less commodities, less individualism -- except in the most alienated and negative respect of individuals being more and more lonely even in the throngs of more and more people that they connect -- but don't really connect with -- in their day to day existence.

And this is where our so-called American-Canadian Dream seems to stand right now.

Hegel's Hotel wants to take this dream down a different path.

Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy wants to help re-create 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' -- with an elaborated Enlightenment-Romantic-Humanistic-Existential component -- in man.

That is where Hegel's Hotel stands today as it moves forward in its both its construction and its evolution...

-- dgb, Oct. 25th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism,

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still In Process...

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Harper's Canadian Minority Conservative Government Fails on Unemployment Insurance Policy

2009-10-09T09:53:00.001-07:00

Freshly reconstructed, Oct. 9th, 2009.

They call it 'unemployment insurance'. But perhaps it should be better called 'unemployment non-insurance'.

While other political parties -- specifically the Liberals and the NDPs -- have been harp(er)ing on adding more unemployment insurance to the tail of the benefits program, or allowing self-employed citizens to collect unemployment insurance during a parental leave of absence, I for one, am particularly disturbed about the 'front end' of the program and how many ex-workers are actually screened out of the program before they even get on it.

.................................................................................

Employment Insurance program

Employment Insurance (EI) provides regular benefits to individuals who lose their jobs through no fault of their own.

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You pay into it for your whole adult life while you are working. Then you find out that you are ineligible for it you resign from your job -- or you are 'dismissed for violating a corporate policy'.

What's with this?

What if the 'corporate policy' is blatantly unethical -- if not illegal? What if someone working on Wall Street before the American mortgage and banking collapse, had told his or her boss:

'I am resigning. I don't like 'hedge funds'. I think they are unethical. And/or 'I don't like duping people into accepting sub-prime mortgages only to fleece them a few years later with unbearable interest rates.'

In Canada, such a person would not be eligible for Unemployment Insurance. Nor would anyone who was dismissed in this type of toxic work environment for 'violating corporate policies'.

I have a better idea.

How about a 'no fault-finding' Canadian Unemployment Insurance Department?

We have 'no fault' insurance.

We have 'no fault' divorce.

It is time -- long past the time -- that the government of Canada, and particularly the Unemployment Insurance Department, should get out of the 'fault-finding' business. They have no business being in it -- especially when an agent of the UI department says that you are ineligible for UI because you 'violated a corporate policy'. What this statement blatantly asserts is the prejudice that the government is showing in favor of corporations (as socio-pathological as they may be with possibly 'corrupt corporate policies') and, at the same time, the prejudice that the government is showing against the individual working who may be rebelling against a pathological work environment.

The government of Canada obviously does not care.

Because it continues to be in the 'fault-finding' business while at the same time wording their government policies such that they assume corporate normalcy when everything over the last number of years -- from last year's collapse of the Wall Street mortgage and banking businesses
to the collapse of the car industries, and the exporting of North American jobs to cheaper foreign labour markets, to Michael Moore's latest film production, 'Capitalism: A Love Story', tells us that many if not most corporations today -- and their particular 'corporate policies' -- are far from 'healthy' or 'normal'.

What, in effect, the government of Canada is supporting then, or at least turning a 'blind eye' to -- and this shouldn't really surprise us, especially when it is Harper's Conservative Party -- is Corporate Pathology which includes: corporate narcissism, corporate greed, corporate gouging, corporate filtering of money out the top of the corporation into private bank accounts (even in the government as witnessed by the late eHealth scandal) while the people who put the money there for supposedly legitimate purposes, are in essence being scammed, corporations in this manner can in effect be either bled dry and/or bled alive while the corporation continues to survive while still scamming either customers and/or the people at the bottom of the organization who naively or not so naively continue to help to put the money at the top of the organization where it continues to be filtered out....

Need I go on in this regard?

Now the fact that our Harper-led minority Conservative Government continues to ideologically support and/or turn a blind eye to Pathological Corporations and Pathological, Corporate Narcissistic Capitalism through the government policies it continues to implement, and the wording in these policies -- such as UI -- tells us only one thing: specifically, that the Conservative Harper-led Government suffers from the same general malaise as the rest of Corporate Canada and North America does -- as far better depicted by Michael Moore in his new movie, than I could depict in any one of my individual essays on this subject matter.

Specifically,

'Corporate and Government Unbridled Narcissistic Capitalism -- Completely Gone Wild and Out of Control'

In essence, Marx's prophecy about 'Capitalism, in effect, destroying itself and all the people in its way through the pathology of its own process -- specifically, uncontrolled human power and greed' (my words, not his).

Forget about the 'market correcting itself'.

How can the market correct itself when all these top corporate executives are draining public and private coffers alike, and leading the rest of us to suffer from all this 'unpunished corporate thievery'? Oftentimes, there is nothing left to 'correct' unless it is a 'bonus stimulation or separation package' to these same corporate thieves -- which in effect calls upon the 'victim' (non-transgressing Canadian citizens) to further 'stimulate the victimizer' (the person at the top of the public and/or private corporate ladder who has just drained the corporate coffers).

These are the same people -- more and more often these days -- who we 'trust' (or at least our Harper-led Canadian government 'trusts') to tell us what is 'right' and 'wrong' as far as 'corporate policy'.

Meanwhile, the individual worker who 'resigns' or is 'dismissed' from this type of corporate environment, is told that he or she was 'wrong' for 'violating corporate policy'.

And we call this 'capitalist and corporate normalcy'?

We call this 'fairness to the worker'?

We call this 'no prejudice'?

We call this 'equal rights' between the corporation and the corporate worker?

Think long and hard about this one, Prime Minister Harper...

Because I call it -- and I don't use this common metaphorical expression either stereotypically or lightly -- 'giving more and more food to the pigs who can't or won't show any self-control as to how much food they gorge themselves with at the corporate and/or public feeding trough'...

Why should they when they keep getting away with it with light or no punishment?

Now to be clear, this type of harsh statement is not directed at every corporation and every corporate executive in Canada.

There are some corporate owners and corporate executives who treat their employees extremely well. The Globe and Mail just came out with a list of the top 100 employers in Canada. These companies should be idealized and learned from -- they should serve as role models for other employers to follow.

Unfortunately, there are many, many other employers who like the the type of corporation they are already running -- one with a corporate bank account that they confuse with their own personal private bank account with the first one simply functioning as a funnel to the second one.

These types of employers need to be strongly deterred from what they are doing -- which is essentially either bleeding their corporations dry, and/or using and abusing both their employees and their customers while it is still alive.

In this latter regard, it is time -- long past time -- that the government started legislating 'corporate executive diets'...for those who do not know how to, or more likely are simply unwilling to, stop over-eating at the corporate trough.

And this should apply to both public and private corporations.

What was it the auditor wrote the other day -- that a billion dollars of taxpayers money was 'wasted' in the Ontario eHealth scandal.

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A scathing report on the eHealth Ontario spending scandal charges that successive governments wasted $1 billion in taxpayer money.

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And yet our Government of Canada has the nerve to say that those workers who 'violate corporate policies' are ineligible for Unemployment Insurance.

Sounds like a re-visitation of 'One Flew Over The Cukoo's Nest' from my perspective.

In this regard, it is time -- long past time -- that the government of Canada addressed the blatant coporporate bias and prejudice inherent in its Unemployment Insurance Program.

As long as an employee has a good track record of paying into the UI system, his or her 'resignation' or 'dismissal' should not be discriminated against by the Government of Canada.

The Government of Canada has no right to put a 'great big black X on your forehead' -- eliminating you from the UI program -- just because you have resigning from, or been dismissed from, a job. UI should be in the 'no fault' business just like the divorce courts are.

I would even support a 'personalized user system' where you can use what you have available to you in your own account, and anything you don't use when your retire gets transferred to your 'personal Canadian Pension Plan'.

Let me be clear on this point: I have a strong 'Protestant -- and 'Conservative' -- work ethic. I don't think I missed a day of work in the last year of my last job.

But I do not support blatant Government prejudice in favor of often pathologically narcissistic Corporations, and against individual workers who to be sure may be partly or totally in the wrong, just as the Corporation may be.

Which is exactly why the government of Canada shouldn't have any 20 year old agent -- let alone anybody regardless of their age or experience level -- saying to a Canadian worker that 'you do not qualify for UI because you violated the corporate policy of the company you worked for'.

I support a more 'Dialectically-Democratic Unemployment Insurance' that gives equal rights and respect to both the corporation and the individual worker. And if the individual worker has been paying into the UI system for a long enough time to qualify, then he or she should be granted UI without any 'fault-finding' mission.

The key reason for UI should be to help a recently unemployed Canadian worker through that economically tough period of transition time while he or she is looking for a new job that will reasonably support him or her.

No prejudice.

No bias.

Just a 'safety net' to help the unemployed worker who has been paying into the insurance program for a sufficient amount of time to help him or her through this heavy period of economic stress.

Everything else is government -- 'snake oil' (to use Senator Barney Frank's famous words aimed at AIG).

The Government of Canada needs to get out of the 'snake oil' business.

Either it is protecting the Canadian worker with Unemployment Insurance,

Or it is not.

And if it is not,

Even though it is collecting UI premiums from these same denied workers...

Then this is the 'snake oil' business.

Indeed, it is very close to government fraud.

And when the government of Canada says that its 'numbers for unemployment insurance',

Have gone down since the previous month,

We should be very wary of this type of statement,

Because nobody in the Government is saying,

How many people are being 'denied' Unemployment Insurance each month...

Numbers -- taken out of their proper full context -- can be made to appear to say anything.

Prime Minister Harper may call it 'Capitalism: A Love Story' -- and mean it.

Michael Moore might call it 'Capitalism: A Love Story' -- and not mean it, the sarcasm dripping out of the side of his mouth as he says it.

Right now it is no Capitalist love story.

There are people out there drowning in economic debt.

And there are many, many unemployed Canadian workers,

Who are being denied the 'supposed safety net' of Unemployment Insurance',

Because of the stringent -- almost fraudulent -- parameters that have been put on it.

And I say that the answers to all of these government and corporate parameters,

Lie at the top, not the bottom.

But only if and when the many people in the middle and bottom portions of the economic and corporate pyramid and hierarchy hold the people at the top of this pyramid and hierarchy -- accountable for their actions.

Now politicians love to use words like 'integrity' and 'accountable' and 'transparent' when they are campaigning for election.

It is just that these words often tend to disappear from their vocabulary as soon as they are elected.

What did you say you were going to do with the Senate again, Prime Minister Harper?

Well, forget about the Senate -- you obviously have, anyhow -- Prime Minister Harper.

Let's start with overhauling the Unemployment Insurance Department,

To show that -- dare I say this -- you might indeed have some compassion for the unemployed worker, regardless of how their work came to an end.

Otherwise, refund them their Unemployment Insurance money,

That they may have been paying to the Canadian Government for 20 or 30 years,

And call this their 'Unemployment Insurance Benefit' --

The money that you may have 'forgotten' that you collected.

-- dgb, Sept. 22nd, reconstructed October 9th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are still in process.

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Stuffing the Senate

Aug 28, 2009 04:30 AM

There he goes again. After stuffing the Senate with Conservative bagmen, backroomers and election losers barely eight months ago, Prime Minister Stephen Harper was dishing out the $132,000 cash-for-life prizes again yesterday, vaulting yet more cronies into cushy places instead of naming people who are respected leaders in their fields.

Carolyn Stewart Olsen, Harper's communications director, got her seat in the Red Chamber. So did Doug Finley, the Tory election campaign director. Don Plett, party president. Failed candidate Claude Carignan. And Judith Seidman, from the party national council.

Toronto writer Linda Frum Sokolowski also made the list.

And while Harper says they're expected to retire in eight years, the law lets them stay to 75. A nation is not holding its collective breath.

This glut of cronyism overshadowed the few credible appointments: Canadiens head coach Jacques Demers, Northwest Territories premier Dennis Patterson, and scientist/academic Kelvin Ogilvie.

In short, it was business as usual for a PM who once derided the Senate as a "dumping ground" for cronies, and vowed to reform it. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff's office duly howled "Harpocrisy," but without much conviction. Both parties have sinned.

Still, Harper well deserves the title "Senate patronage king," bestowed upon him by the opposition for naming a record 27 senators in a single year. For all his past preaching against patronage, the Prime Minister has now proven himself a master of dispensing it.

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A DGB Multi-Dialectic, 16 Part Model Of The Personality

2009-09-27T08:32:00.000-07:00

Newly Updated Sept. 27th, 29th, 2009.

A/ Introduction

Man's mind, brain, and body -- taken together, and/or taken apart for teaching and learning purposes -- consists of a myriad of different types of opposite desires and restraints that can be differentiated, classified, grouped into what can be called 'multiple bi-polarities' where choices need to be made -- choices of extremism or choices of greater or lesser moderate balance.

Pathology for the most part tends to be associated with extremism. Extreme righteousness. Extreme narcissism. Extreme self-denial and/or self-control.

In this regard, pathology on the psychological level shouldn't be viewed too much different than pathology on the biochemical level where pathology tends to be associated with such things as: high blood-sugar levels (diabetes0, low blood-sugar levels (hypoglycemia), too acidic, too alkaline, hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism, too much fat, not enough fat, too much protein, not enough protein, too many carbohydrates, not enough carbohydrates, too much potassium, not enough potassium, too much iron, not enough iron...and on and on we could go...

For the most part, 'health tends to follow the moderate, middle path', 'The Golden Mean'.

Not always. There is a 'Nietzschean existential factor' that we need to take fully into account. Call this 'the will to self-empowerment' or the 'will to excellence'.

If I want to be a great writer or a great philosopher or a great psychologist, there is a certain 'obsessional' factor here that requires my studying and practicing what I preach and teach for literally countless thousands and thousands of hours. This includes studying great writers and philosophers and psychologists. This goes for any field I or you choose to enter in which we wish to 'strive to be the best we possibly can be' in our particular field(s) of choice.

Thus, a certain element of 'healthy extremism' is involved in 'the will to excel'. However, even here one needs to watch that one's wish and will to excel does not so consume our life that we end up losing our spouse, our family, our friends in the process. Again, even in the will to excel, at some point we need to reconsider the issue of 'balance' and ask ourselves, for example, what is the cost I am paying for my 'workaholism' which may be connected to my 'will to excel'.

Thus, we 'swim' -- and sometimes we 'drown' -- in this swimming pool full of dichotomies, paradoxes, bipolarities and oftentimes, underlying hypocrisies or 'dissociated, disconnected, alienated ego-states' in the personality that may not be properly integrated into the rest of the personality, into the 'whole of the personality', if you will.

The goal of most dialectic bi-polar psychotherapies -- Psychoanalysis, Jungian Psychology, Gestalt Therapy, Transactional Analysis -- including this DGB approach here, is to help bring about more 'wholistic multi-dialectic, multi-bi-polar, integration' both inside and outside of the personality.

-- dgb, Sept. 27th, 29th, 2009.

Evolution -- is 'multiple-bi-polar-dialectic-evolution'. Everything comes about either from 'power over' or from 'integrative union'. Where destruction or anhiliation is not the goal, the second type of evolution among men -- integrative union -- usually works much better with far less human tragedy, traumacy, 'insurgency', and casualties. Not all of the time but most of the time -- dgb, Sept. 27th, 2009.

Physical and psycho-pathology are differentiated -- but similar -- in that they both need to be located on a continuum of a multitude of swinging pendulums of health, balance ('The Golden Mean', 'The Middle Path' -- Aristotle) vs. extremism, extreme swings of the pendulum -- and the resulting physical and/or psycho-pathology that comes with extremism over the edge and, at its worst, into the darkest abyss of humanity, non-humanity, and/or ultimately self-destruction and death.

-- dgb, Sept. 27th, 29th, 2009.

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B/ Other Psychological Models of The Personality and Their Influence

Let us try this again for the upteenth time -- as I once again battle the dichotomoy of simplicity vs. complexity -- and aim to get the DGB model of the personality down to something of reasonable size, clarity, and understandability. Okham's Razor. (All else being equal, the simplest theory is usually the best one.) KISS: KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID.

Having said this, I am trying to integrate a lot of different psychological models here that all have significant value -- to integrate 'the best of the best' if you will.

Synonyms for 'Personality' or 'Personality Structure' in this Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology domain will be: 'Ego', 'Psyche', 'Self', and 'Character Structure'.

View the personality as being like a 'government' or a 'corporation' (preferably egalitarian, democratic, multi-dialectic, and balanced) with numerous different 'departments' (or 'compartments') that have separate functions that are all designed to come together to fulfill the overall function of the government/corporation/personality. In this respect, the personality -- with its different 'ego-states' that I will name and describe, can also be metaphorically compared to the different 'organs' of the body, each having its own separate functions, but each 'working towards the combined good and health of the whole personality/body'.

Some of the other personality models that are out there and which I will simply skim over quickly without giving full justice to, are:

1. The Gestalt Model (Fritz Perls): a '2 Compartment Model': a) 'Topdog'; b) 'Underdog';

2. The Adlerian Model (Alfred Adler): arguably a '3 Compartment Model': a) 'Inferiority Feeling' ('Self-Esteem Deficiency', 'One Down Position', 'Minus Position', 'Insecurity Feeling', 'Unstability Feeling'); b) 'Superiority Feeling' ('Leadership Position', 'One Up Position', 'Superiority Position', 'Fictional Final Goal', 'Lifestyle Goal'); c) 'Means of Moving From a Minus Position to a Plus Position, from a) to b)' ('Compensation', 'Lifestyle Complex', 'Superiority Striving')

3. The Classic Freudian Model: a '3 compartment model': a) 'The Id': biological drives: such as: hunger-food, thirst-water, sexual tension-release, aggression-release, shelter, heat, some might argue stability, rootedness (Erich Fromm), creativity-destructiveness (Erich Fromm), love-hate (Erich Fromm), transcendence (Erich Fromm)...DGB extrapolations: power, money, greed, narcissism, selfishness, revenge, dance, celebration, oral-obsessive-compulsions, addictions...; b) 'The Superego': social conscience, ethical conscience, justice, fairness, reason, righteousness, rejection, 'anal-retentiveness', 'punctuality', 'cleanliness', 'neatness', sadism, dominance, arrogance, 'righteous-narcissism', abandonment, betrayal, discipline, punishment, 'guilt-giver', 'approval-demanding', 'co-operation-demanding', 'acceptance-demanding', 'The Internal Object'; c) 'The Ego': 'The Subjective Sense of Self', 'Me', co-operation-seeking, approval-seeking, pleasing, rebellious, mediating between the Id and the Superego, conflict-resolving, problem-solving, reality-based, reality-interpreting, analyzing, postponing Id gratification, compromising, bending, choosing, caught in the middle between a rock and a hard place (between the Id and the Superego -- two dialectically opposed system of 'wants and needs and gratifications' vs. 'shoulds, and should nots, responsibilities, obligations, social promises, ethics, social values, morals, laws, customs, demands...

4. The Jungian Model (Carl Jung): arguably a '6 compartment model': includes a) 'The Persona' ('The Social Ego' -- 'The Face We Show Society'), b) 'The Shadow' ('The Dark Side of the Personality, , 'Darth Vader' 'The Alter-Ego', 'Mr. or Ms. Hyde), c) 'The Personal Unconscious', d)'The Collective Unconscious', e) 'The (Potential) Self...and a more or less 'assumed' f) 'Central, Integrative, Potentially Healthy Ego'...

5. The Object Relations Model(s) (Freud, Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott, Guntrip...)

Melanie Klein was the biggest neo-Psychoanalytic force here
adding such concepts to Psychoanalysis as: 'External Objects', 'Internal Objects', 'The Depressive Position', 'The Paranoid-Schizoid Position...

Ronald Fairbairn also had a model that was quite interesting which included: a) 'the exciting object'; b) 'the rejecting object'; c) 'the morally idealized and anti-libidinal parent'; d) 'the infantile, libidinal ego'; e) 'the infantile, anti-libidinal ego'; and f) 'the central ego' identifying with the morally idealized parents. Fairbairn's model is a '6 department or compartment model' of the personality. (Harry Guntrip, Psychoanalytic Theory, Therapy, and The Self, 1971,73, p. 98)

6. The Transactional Analysis Model (Eric Berne): Built mainly from an 'Object Relations' perspective of the personality -- and simplified for the 'lay public' -- Berne created a model that looks something like this: a) 'The Nurturing (Encouraging-positive, spoiling-negative) Parent(-Ego); b) 'The Critical, Controlling (Structuring-positive, oppressive-negative) Parent(-Ego)'; c) 'The Adult-(Ego); d) 'The Adapted (Co-operative, Compliant) Child; e) 'The Free (Spontaneous-positive, Immature-negative) Child. That would make this a '5 department or compartment model'.

From these 6 'classic personality theories and models', I have derived and created the following DGB '16 Ego-States model' (which keeps changing, evolving...).

Beyond the 6 classic personality models listed above, this model below also shows the influence of Western Philosophy and Greek Mythology -- as opened up to me by my study of Perls and Gestalt Therapy, Carl Jung and Jungian Psychology (the 'archetypes' and 'mythological gods') and Nietzsche's 'The Birth of Tragedy' (1872).

This can also be viewed as a psychological -- and abbreviated -- version of Hegel's Hotel -- internalized.

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C/ A DGB Multiple-Bi-Polar Model of The Personality (Psyche)

This model can be viewed as having '3 vertical floors' -- similar to the Transactional Analysis idea of 'Parent' (thesis), 'Child (anti-thesis), and 'Adult' (synthesis). Or an extended, extrapolated version of Gestalt Therapy: 'Topdog' (thesis), 'Underdog' (anti-thesis), and 'Middledog (synthesis). Or an extended, extrapolated version of Classic Psychoanalysis: 'Superego' (thesis), 'Id' (anti-thesis), and 'Ego' (synthesis). Or a Jungian version of 'Persona' (thesis), 'Shadow' (anti-thesis), and 'Integrative Persona-Shadow-Self' (synthesis). Or an extended, extrapolated version of the Chinese philosophical model: 'yang' (masculinism, testosterone, aggressive-assertiveness-narcissism, thesis); 'yin' (feminism, estrogen, humanistic-sensitivity-empathy-altruism, anti-thesis), 'yin-yang' (integrative health and balance, 'physical, psychological, mental, creative, and conceptual copulation, cross-fertilization, bio and psychological diversity...' synthesis).

A/ The Topdog (Parent-Authority) Level

1. The Nurturing-Supportive Topdog Ego (Short Form: The NSTE)

Mythologically, the projected Greek Gods that are most relevant are 'Gaia' (Goddess of the Earth) and 'Hera' (Goddess of Hearth and Family). Within the family, this part of the personality tends to be most influenced ideally by the 'unconditional love' of the mother which provides a life-long stability factor to the personality. Pathologically speaking, the extreme here is 'pampering', 'spoiling', 'overprotecting'...

2. The Narcissistic-Hedonistic Topdog Ego (Short Form: The NHTE)

Concerned with power, egotism, control, dominance, and the underlying biochemical factor of pleasure, sensuality, sex, and sexuality. Pathology enters the picture, the more that 'domination' and/or 'sadism' become overly obsessive factors...

3. The Righteous-Disapproving (Rejecting) Topdog Ego (The RDTE)

Stereotypically and mythologically viewed as a 'paternalistic/father' influence on the personality. Concerned with 'doing things right', 'not making a mistake', 'not being wrong', 'not messing up', 'discipline and self-discipline', and ideally speaking, 'being the best we can be at what we do'. Pathological elements enter the picture in the form of 'over-control' and 'over-self-control', and even more so in the form of 'anal-sadistic-rejecting' elements of the personality.

B/ The 'Chief Executive Officer' of the Personality, and 'Closest Advisors To The Throne' Level

4. The Central Mediating and Executive Ego (Other Names: The Dialectic-(Democratic and/or Autocratic) Ego, Zeus' Ego, Heraclitus' Ego, Lao Tse's Ego, Aristole's Ego, Hegel's Ego) (Short Form: The CMEE)

Makes the final decision on all mediating and executive decisions in the personality. Pathology enters the picture when The Central Ego is not fully aware and/or in control and is dominated by one or more underlying and overpowering, extreme ego-states in the personality, and/or is not 'properly balanced by offsetting ego-states in the personality, and/or is not properly trained in 'healthy, balanced perspectives and approaches' to the study and practice of epistemology, ethics, and a balance between narcissism and altruism, humanism and existentialism, liberalism and conservatism...

5. The Narcissistic-Hedonistic-Survival Ego (Other Names: The Dionysian Ego, The Hobbesian Ego, The Machiavellian Ego, The Schopenhauerian Ego) (Short Form: The NHSE)

The specialized and focused, survival-seeking and narcissistic-pleasure-seeking, pain-avoiding, ego-state in the personality.

6. The Rational-Enlightenment (Truth-and-Justice) Ego (Other Names: Apollo's Ego, Bacon's Ego, Diderot's Ego, The Reasonable Ego) (Short Form: The REE)

7. The Romantic-Sensual-Spiritual Ego (Other Names: Aphrodite's Ego, Cupid's Ego, Spinoza's Ego, Goethe's Ego, Rousseau's Ego) (Short Form: The RSSE)

8. The Humanistic-Compassionate Ego (Other Names: The Compassionate Ego, The Altruistic Ego, The Oral-Receptive Ego, Mother Teresa's Ego, The Liberal Ego) (Short Form: The HCE)

9. The Existential-(Self-Accountable) Ego (Other Names: Kierkegaard's Ego, Nietzsche's Ego, Sartre's Ego, The Will to Excel Ego, The Will To Be and Become Ego, The Contactful Ego, The Essence-and-Existence Ego...) (Short Form: The ESAE)

C/ The Underdog (Child-Employee) Level

10. The Approval-Seeking Underdog Ego (Short Form: The ASUE)

Wanting to be co-operative, wanting to please, wanting approval, wanting to be right, wanting to avoid conflict...a combination of 'healthy co-operation' and/or 'unhealthy disapproval-avoiding'...

11. The Narcissistic-Hedonistic Underdog Ego (Short Form: The NHUE)

Pleasure-seeking, egotism-seeking, power-seeking -- from a 'one-down, underdog' position...

12. The Rebellious-Deconstructive Underdog Ego (Short Form: The RDUE)

The 'deconstructive-rebellious' ego-state in the personality -- most easily associated with 'the rebellious child'...anarchy, destruction, and self-destruction are its more pathological elements..

D/ Subconscious Ego-States

13. The Dream (Fantasy, and Nightmare) Making Ego (Short Form: The DME)

The 'Dream and Fantasy Making Ego' in the Personality woven into dreams, nightmares, symbolism, art, literature, creativity, and destruction in its more pathological elements...

14. The Personal Subconscious and Transference Template (Short Form: The PSTT)

Home to all of our most significant memories, encounters, relationships, traumacies, tragedies, narcissistic fixations, peak moments, worst moments -- and the 'transferences' that we weave into these experiences that in turn 'guide us into the future'...

15. The Mythological Subconscious and Archetype Template (The MSAT)

The mythological and creative symbolism that we carry with us from birth to death that comes from our most ancient evolutionary roots...

16. The Potential Self Blueprint-Template (for The Evolution of The Personality) (Short Form: The PSBT)

Those talents and skills that we bring with us from birth that seem to lead us in a particular direction, ideally in a direction that seems to 'fulfill our destiny and the blueprint of our unique, individual personality.

........................................................................

Obviously, I am biased, and everything is subject to change, to the continuing evolution of my own thoughts and ideas, affected by those who influence me, and which I express through Hegel's Hotel.

However, right now, I like the model. Indeed, I can't see it changing too much. I think that I have cut it down to a manageable and understandable model. I think it has many different pragmatic, theoretical, reality-based, and pragmatic-therapeutic applications.

We will discuss some of the more concrete details and applications of this model as we continue to move along.

-- dgb, Aug. 5th, 2009, updated Sept. 27th, 29th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism

-- Dialectic, Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still In Process...

..................................................................................

U.S. commander says Afghan war needs more troops

2009-09-22T04:31:00.000-07:00

U.S. commander says Afghan war needs more troops
Mon Sep 21, 7:14 PM
By Peter Graff and Matt Spetalnick

KABUL/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Afghan war will be lost unless more troops are sent to pursue a radically revised strategy, the top U.S. and NATO commander said in a confidential assessment that offers stark choices for President Barack Obama.

In the assessment, sent to Washington last month and leaked on Monday, Army General Stanley McChrystal said failure to reverse "insurgent momentum" in the near term risked an outcome where "defeating the insurgency is no longer possible."

Obama continued to hold off on troop decisions, saying he would be asking tough questions of his national security team.

"We're not going to make any decisions on further troop deployments until we know what exactly is our strategy," he said in an interview on the "Late Show with David Letterman" television show, which was taped in New York on Monday.

Opinion polls show Americans and their European NATO allies turning against the nearly 8-year-old war.

A request for more troops faces resistance from within Obama's Democratic Party, which controls Congress, but refusing to give McChrystal what he wants would open Obama to criticism from Republicans who say he should act quickly.

Democratic Senator Jim Webb said of the assessment, "We have reached a turning point in Afghanistan as to whether we are going to formally adopt nation-building as a policy."

House of Representatives Republican leader John Boehner said he was troubled by reports Obama was delaying action on a troop decision.

"It's time for the president to clarify where he stands on the strategy he has articulated, because the longer we wait the more we put our troops at risk," said Boehner.

REDACTED BY PENTAGON

A copy of the 66-page assessment was obtained by The Washington Post and published on its website with some parts removed at the request of the government for security reasons.

"Resources will not win this war, but under-resourcing could lose it," McChrystal wrote.

"Failure to provide adequate resources also risks a longer conflict, greater casualties, higher overall costs and ultimately, a critical loss of political support. Any of these risks, in turn, are likely to result in mission failure."

McChrystal, who commands more than 100,000 Western troops, two-thirds of them American, has drafted a separate request spelling out how many more he needs but has not sent it to the Pentagon, which says it is considering how he should submit it.

McChrystal's spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Tadd Sholtis, said while McChrystal did not believe he could defeat Afghanistan's insurgency without more troops, he could carry out a mission with different goals if Obama ordered it.

"The assessment is based on his understanding of the mission as it was presented to him. If there's a change in strategy, then the resources piece changes," he said. He said McChrystal had no intention of resigning if Obama denies his request.

GRIM PICTURE

In his assessment, McChrystal painted a grim picture of the war so far, saying "the overall situation is deteriorating" and calling for a "revolutionary" shift putting more emphasis on protecting Afghans than on killing insurgents.

"Our objective must be the population," he wrote. "The objective is the will of the people, our conventional warfare culture is part of the problem. The Afghans must ultimately defeat the insurgency."

In a methodical critique of the war's conduct over the past eight years, he said NATO's International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, troops often lacked basic understanding of Afghan society. He also strongly criticized the Afghan government as having lost the faith of the country's people.

"The weakness of state institutions, malign actions of power-brokers, widespread corruption and abuse of power by various officials, and ISAF's own errors, have given Afghans little reason to support their government," McChrystal said.

Among the failures: Afghan prisons had been allowed to become sanctuaries where al Qaeda and Taliban fighters recruit more followers and plan attacks.

Even the West's multibillion-dollar development aid programs came in for blunt criticism: "Too often these projects enrich power brokers, corrupt officials."

In the weeks since the assessment was written, Afghanistan has held a disputed election, which makes it more difficult to persuade Western countries to send additional troops.

European allies, whose governments support the war often over public opposition at home, have begun openly wavering.

Britain has suffered its worst combat casualties in a generation, German troops called in an air strike that killed scores of people, and six Italian soldiers were killed last week by a bomb, all events that sapped European support.

Thousands of Italians packed the streets of Rome on Monday for a state funeral for the soldiers, amid mounting calls for Italy to pull its troops out.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the military alliance would stay "as long as it takes to finish our job" and it was premature to present any timetable for withdrawal.

"I think that a fair presentation of his (McChrystal's) assessment is that failure is a possibility but that success is achievable," he told Al Jazeera International. "I fully agree with him, we have to do more but not just more of the same." (Additional reporting by JoAnne Allen, Andrew Gray in Washington and Deepa Babington in Rome; Editing by Simon Denyer and Peter Cooney)

President Obama: A DGB Evaluation of Obama's Strengths, Difficulties, and Challenges in His First Year of Office

2009-09-16T03:32:00.000-07:00

Just finished...Sept. 16th-17th, 2009.

Just finished...Sept. 16th-17th, 2009.

President Obama kind of reminds me of Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau. Trudeau was very charismatic, very idealistic, had 'socialist leanings' -- probably more so than Obama -- and Trudeau, at least at the beginning, inspired so much hope and optimism that his following actually reached 'fanatical' proportions to the point where it became labelled as 'Trudeaumania'. Similarly, to what we saw in Obama's pre-election campaign which could have easily -- if it wasn't already -- been labelled as 'Obamamania'.

The issue with Trudeau -- as it is currently with Obama -- is the money. The people of the United States of America are worried about the money. They are rightly asking the question: Where is all the money going to come from to pay for all these 'noble deeds'?

And so far we have seen where it is coming from. It is coming from a huge escalation on the already stupendous or horrendous American national debt which, in effect, means somewhere down the line -- on the collective backs of the American taxpayers.

Like a person in debt, and with an unbalanced budget, who keeps piling more and more debt onto his or her personal credit cards, with more and more accumulative interest -- one day that personal (and public) debt has to be addressed and answered for. Or someone else is going to put the 'hammer' down and call you on all that debt.

Acting as if the debt doesn't exist, seemingly pretending it doesn't exist, and trying to make it look like you are 'running a healthy budget in the black' -- when you are most certainly not, indeed, blatantly the opposite -- can be viewed as a form of 'economic denial'. An 'ostrich with its head in the sand' approach to skyrocketing public, national debt.

It seems obviously apparent to me that the American people -- perhaps exasperated by the anti-Democrat-rhetoric of The Republican Party -- are becoming increasing anxious and indeed angry about this skyrocketing national debt. Rightly so -- it is a big problem, that will keep getting bigger until it is finally concretely addressed, which doesn't mean piling more and more money on the National Credit Card. This may make someone rich but it won't be the individual tax-paying American people. Coupled with this, there has to be a growing concern for 'foreign loan sponsors' -- like China -- who it would seem is loaning the American Government more and more money.

Now I don't profess to have any kind of specialized knowledge in economics but here is what I remember by father teaching me about American Economics 101. There used to be a time when all American money was backed by American gold (held in Fort Knox).

However, there came a time, somewhere in American History (someone knowledgeable in the details of this aspect of American history might be able to fill me in more here) where some American President and Government decided to start printing American money without the 'solid backing of corresponding gold bars from Fort Knox'. The result here would seemingly be the 'deflation' of the value of the American dollar as there would be nothing of 'physical gold value' to back the printing of this money. It would be like giving a credit card to a person who didn't have the income capability of paying for, and balancing, the credit limit of the credit card.

Perhaps things work differently today. Perhaps American money that is printed and distributed -- and added to the National Debt -- is borrowed from countries like China. Obviously, there would seem to be an inherent danger here as well -- the danger of potentially more and more foreign ownership of America -- and American companies -- in lieu of money owed a country like China. There are different ways of 'taking over a country' -- and taking over a country's economy, dollar by dollar, would certainly seem to be one very good -- or bad, depending on your perspective -- way of doing it. Canada used to be petrified about America taking over Canada's economy, dollar by dollar. Well perhaps, today America has good reason to fear for the possibility of a country like China taking over its economy, dollar by dollar, loan by loan.

No President of recent history -- meaning at least President Bush Jr. and President Obama -- seem to want to tackle the problem of the skyrocketing American National Debt. With understandable -- if not sufficient -- political reason. When the American Government pulls the plug on government spending and/or raises government taxes, neither of these solutions to the rising national debt problem is likely going to go over too well with the American public, many of whom, in the middle of a bad recession, are already fighting tooth and nail for their very economic survival.

Everyone would love to own a credit card that keeps giving you more and more money to spend -- and no 'due date' by which you ever have to pay this money back.

No recent President of America (meaning again, Bush and Obama) seems to want to give any 'due date' at which point all this rising American debt load is finally going to be addressed and expenses are going to be cut, and/or taxes raised.

Perhaps if this recession ever ends, and unemployed American workers actually do start going back to work, then the resulting 'expanding workforce tax base' will have sufficiently increased such that 'no extra load' will have to be added to the American people as a whole. Or more likely, this is probably at least partly 'wishful thinking' and somewhere, sometime, down the line here, there is going to be the need for an 'American National Crunchdown' where either government expenses are either going to have to be radically reduced and/or taxes significantly raised.

In the 1980s, after both Trudeau and Mulroney had both lavishly spent government-taxpayers' money (Mulroney learned very well from Trudeau on how a 'Liberal-Socialist-Minded Politician' can spend government money lavishly, and/or idealistically, to appease and please the lower classes, and also to help them out, while at the same time appeasing and pleasing Capitalist Corporations with lavish spending in their direction as well including Mulroney's own personal lavish spending and ensuring his own post-political-economic 'pension plan'...), then to 'compensate' for all this lavish Government spending, Mulroney introduced the infamous 'Goods and Services Tax (GST)' which dramatically increased government coffers much to the chagrin of the people bearing the brunt of this new tax system -- the Canadian people.

Soon to be Prime Minister Jean Chretien ran a Liberal election campaign -- and won -- promising the Canadian people that he would get rid of the much hated 'GST' but by the time he got into office for a short period of time he began to fully realize what a government 'cash-cow' the GST was -- and he never, in his 10 years in office, got rid of it. Neither has any Prime Minister after Chretien (meaning Martin and Harper). It would seem that no Canadian Prime Minister wants to get rid of the GST tax-cash cow that the Canadian people have come to passively and fatalistically accept on the heels of the combined over-spending of both Trudeau and, even worse, Mulroney.

At least Trudeau's overspending was based on idealistic-altruistic political ideology. Mulroney's ideology was -- in this author's editorial opinion -- almost completely narcissistically motivated. He learned from Trudeau that 'liberal generosity' had its 'narcissistic benefit' in terms of keeping the support of 'Liberal, Socialist-Minded voters' while at the same time his lavish Corporate spending also maintained the support of more 'Conservative-Capitalist' power-people and like-minded voters.

In a couple of different ways, Obama -- in the way he has acted as President, as opposed to the 'over-idealized' politician on the pre-election campaign trail -- reminds me of both Trudeau and Mulroney. Trudeau mainly -- particularly, in terms of character and political ideology.

But in some ways -- and he would hate to hear this, I am sure -- Obama has reminded me of both Mulroney and Bush in his political actions as well. There does seem to have been an element of 'Narcissistic Capitalist-Corporate Collusion' as well. And this is probably the last thing the American people -- especially his hardcore 'Democrat voters' -- wanted to see from Obama. A 'Bush-re-run'.

So let me see if I can focus in on my criticisms of President Obama's political actions to date:

1. There has been too much of 'a rush for political action' particularly when the actions executed (and/or in the process of being executed) involve(d) a colossal increase in the American debt load;

2. There have been -- to my knowledge -- two questionable 'stimulus packages' that have been very 'Bush-like'. Almost 'clone-repetitions' of what Bush did -- and with similar consequences.

a) Putting literally billions of dollars back in the hands of the people, the CEOs, who created the banking-mortgage scandal and financial collapse in the first place. In effect, this was like putting even more money back in the hands of the robbers who robbed the bank in the first place. How smart was that? You put billions of dollars back in the hands of unethical people and you naively actually expect them to this time 'behave ethically' and/or on the basis of 'guilt and moderation'. Not likely going to happen. And it didn't happen. The bankers-and-mortgage-loan people did exactly the same thing again as they did the first time -- went on 'lavish spa trips' and took lavish, multi-million dollar bonuses. The American people had to collectively shake their heads on this one.

Where were the legislative counter-control measures? No spas. No bonuses. Either behavior would spawn either a criminal prosecution of a 'new law to this same effect' and/or spawn a 'demand for the recall of all the money given to the company'.

Indeed, I think many people are asking the question: why was the money even given back to these people in the first place? Reward the banks and the bank owners who didn't participate in this type of corporate behavior the first and second time around; not the banks and bankers who not once but twice, maybe even three times, invaded and essentially robbed public coffers.

Obama -- essentially falling into this same trap again, either by accident, or on purpose -- struck a very 'Bush-like Corporate-Schmoozing-Chord' in the already very sensitive and traumatically damaged collective American psyche. And multi-billions of dollars of taxpayers' money seemingly went flying out of the public coffers and into the private hands of a collective few 'power-people' who had no interest in the general welfare of the American people -- whatsoever. Why?

b) Add to the economic, business, and unemployment woes and anxieties of the American people, the current controversy around President Obamas wish to implement his universal health care plan -- and potentially more billions of dollars leaving public coffers and further increasing the American National debt load -- and you have the potential for significant national emotional volatility -- perhaps even a Boston Tea Party-like national emotional volatility. It is hardly the type of underlying national emotional feeling that you want to try to pass your American Universal Health Care Plan-Dream over top of. National chaos and, in effect, rhetorically at least, civil war could be released from its underlying emotional volcano of intense anxious, even panic-stricken -- and compensatory angry -- feeling.

I would not want to pass such a bill under such an underlying feeling of national unrest and division.

Slow down President Obama. Dont try to force a bill through the Senate that maybe the bulk of the American people collectively do not want right now.

Timing is everything in politics and history -- and maybe trying to pass what could amount to a very expensive health bill in the midst of a very deep recession is not a good time to try to pass such a bill.

Maybe the American people want you to address their economic problems first; their health problems second or third. (There is still the more than little matter of two rather pricey and traumatic wars still going on in Iraq and Afghanistan-Pakistan right now too.)

c) Regarding the two wars in the Middle East: Has there really been any significant change in war policy since President Obama took office. Yes, there has been a transfer of troops from Iraq to Afghanistan (and seemingly more violence in Iraq since many of the troops left). But what is the progress in Afghanistan? Or has there been any? Will there ever be any? Can Americans expect to be locked up in the Afghanistan-Pakistan-Taliban War for 3, 5, or 10 more years?

And can the Americans really expect their economy to significantly improve while they continue to be locked up in either or both of these two wars?

Does the famous Dwight Eisenhower speech about the military-industrial complex still have any relevance today?

Is the American Government in any way tied up to the idea of wars being narcissistically manufactured just to appease the American Military-Industrial Complex while at the same time offering up righteous explanations and justifications for wars that may be created or manufactured for narcissistic political-economic and or corporate-economic reasons -- not legitimate reasons of self-defense?

Finally, is there any credibility behind the so-called facts in this fantasy interview that is circulating on the internet between Charlie Sheen and The President? Or is just a page-full of conspiracy-hogwash? What theory do you believe? The standard, orthodox Government(s) explanation? Or the theory of a government conspiracy and cover-up?

These are the questions that I will leave you with today as I move on with my day to do other things -- like find a job that will support me again after i just lost my last cushy, middle class $50-60,000 job. It is hard to fully and emotionally understand the full depth of what a recession really means until you are on the outside looking in rather than on the inside looking out. Jobs and money that used to be easy to come by 10 years ago is not so easy to come by today. Or at least that has been my experience so far. Obviously, I need to both focus and broaden my search.

Right now I am on the outside of what used to be economic stability.

And that is a very anxiety-provoking -- indeed, panicky -- place to be.

It necessitates door-to-door action; not writing essays that dont pay my bills.

So on that note, I will leave you for the day, put on my suit, and see if i can muster up a new job.

Essays can wait; bills can't.

Economics precedes and supersedes self-actualization.

Perhaps that is a corollary of Sartres famous statement: Existence precedes essence.

It certainly has a Marxian ring to it.

Paraphrasing Marx: Narcissistic political and economic ideology precedes -- and, operating from the Shadows of Human Selfishness and Greed, both underlies and, probably more often than not, supersedes and blocks out of the sunlight completely -- ethical idealism.

Say it aint so, Dave!

I wish I could but I cant.

Because I think it generally is so.

Robbing the ethical idealism out of both,

Capitalism and Socialism alternatively and together,

Likewise with Liberalism and Conservatism,

Religion and Atheism,

Wherever men and women travel,

And accumulate power,

The greater the power,

The greater the group -- and individual -- narcissism.

Follow the trail of the money,

Huge money,

And traveling not far behind,

Is human greed and narcissism.

I dont think this is totally what Adam Smith or Ayn Rand had in mind by Capitalism although even Adam Smith, I believe said, that he didnt trust businessmen. I will have to dig for the exact quote. Thomas Jefferson -- rightly so -- said that he didnt trust bankers.

Can it be any different?

The only way I can see it being any different is if there was complete monetary transparency around the intake and outgoing of all government and or corporate monetary funds. Corrupt, greedy, narcissistic business people like to work in the dark, move their money around in the dark, so no one can see what they are doing. Throw the light on the situation -- throw the corrupt politician or businessman into a lighted room, a transparent room -- and he cant function the way he wants to function. Which is basically to steal under the cover of darkness.

Light up the dark rooms that they operate in. Throw the floodlights on them. And then we will know who is transferring money where.

Visions of Mulroney receiving a suitcase of cash money, doing business -- after he had left office -- with an international lobbyist who was still looking for a lucrative Canadian government contract, and still looking at Mulroney as a government influence-peddler.

Mulroney didnt like it too much when the Canadian floodlights froze on this particular economic transaction between him and the European businessman.

Quite frankly, I enjoyed watching him squirm.

Similarly, with Conrad Black who didn't look too good being caught leaving one of his offices in the middle of the night with a box of papers/files in his arms.

That might have been the deciding piece of evidence in his case. If he wasn't guilty, then why was he doing that? I like Black more than I like Mulroney but corporate narcissism needs to show some boundaries, some restraint -- some ethics and integrity. Nobody is above the law -- or at least, nobody should be above the law.

Not even ex-prime-ministers, Senators, Governors, Corporate Power-Leaders, bankers, lobbyists...

There are a few businessmen on Wall Street -- and perhaps even in the American Government -- who I would have wished for the same -- or more than -- what Black got.

Some power-people -- maybe many power-people both inside and outside of the government may have gotten off of the Sub-Prime Mortgage Scandal, The Hedge Fund Phenomenon, and the Wall Street Financial collapse -- far too easily, some even with gold-plated goodbye packages.

Too bad.

I still believe in the humanistic spirit and good intentions of President Obama.

But there are some areas of operation that he has slipped up in -- and perhaps lost some of the trust and respect of the American people -- that he may need to go back and re-analyze what went wrong as well as perhaps modify and/or slow down the speed of his forward master game plan.

1. The ideal of 'universal health care' is a good, humanistic social ideal. People without medical insurance, or who can't afford medical insurance, and with serious health problems, should not be faced with the choice between personal and/or family bankruptcy and not getting proper or sufficient medical treatment. It is unrealistic to expect a person -- or even a husband and wife team -- who is/are making $10 to $20 an hour to pay for a 'necessary service' for very long that may cost $200 per hour and/or a serious medical operation that may cost upwards of 3 or 400,000 dollars. Either the operation is not going to happen or many lower to middle class families are going to financially collapse under this type of economic weight load.

Up here in Canada, my son was born premature by about 2 and a half months. He weighed less than 2 pounds. But Woman's College Hospital in Toronto took care of him in an incubator with his mother and I checking in on him every day for the one or two months that he stayed in the hospital. With all due respect, if Canada didn't have universal health care, I hate to think what would have happened to my life and his. The consequences could have been medically and/or economically horrific. Today, my son is a happy, healthy, smart young man -- almost 25 years old and strong as a horse, in a dangerous profession, a graduated and working Arborist, scaling to the tops of the tallest Elm and Maple trees that would make me quake in my boots just looking at the height of them. He has a healthy 6 year old daughter, and a fine future ahead of him.

Still, Obama has to watch the money. I don't think Americans in general think that President Obama is paying sufficient attention to the public til and the skyrocketing public debt load. I heard on CNN last night that 7 preceding Presidents have all tried to put through Universal Health Care -- and failed. Not to mention Senator Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton.

America is locked up in two very expensive wars, has gone through a financial collapse on Wall Street, a collapsing car industry, and the worst recession that they have experienced probably since The Great Depression.

All of this makes it horrible timing for President Obama to try to push through this very costly Universal Health Bill -- regardless of the way it looks in its various potential renditions.

If there had been no war in Iraq, then it probably could have been paid for by now. But things today are the way they are, and nothing can be changed about that.

On top of that, President Obama is trying to push this health bill through on the heels of two multi-billion dollar 'economic stimuli packages' (which came on the heels of one multi-billion dollar stimulus-package by Bush -- with Obama partly involved in that too.)

All of this is to say what I have already said: that the timing on trying to push through this universal health bill -- or some modification of it -- is really, really bad.

I think the people of America want President Obama to address the economy first and foremost -- and that doesn't mean adding billions and billions of dollars of more debt load onto the American taxpayer. Somebody is going to have to pay for it eventually -- and if not this generation of Americans -- it is a terrible legacy to leave the next series of generations of American kids and grandkids.

How many billions and billions of dollars can you keep adding to the public debt and still keep trying to hide the fact that America isn't already essentially bankrupt?

President Obama is a very smart man -- too smart to act as a politician with unlimited public funds at his disposal (Trudeau, Mulroney and many, many other politicians have tried it before him: 'We will just put it on the tab!')

Perhaps the first three steps in this whole medical problem is to:

1. Analyze and address the problem of 'pharmaceutical gouging'.

2. Make sure that hospitals and doctors are not gouging patients either.

3. Analyze and address the possible -- or more likely very real -- problem of 'insurance colluding and gouging'. (I have seen it in the taxi industry with commercial car insurance monopolies and/or collusion which is also affected by mechanics and/or body shops that can -- and do -- also gouge both drivers and insurance companies.)

In politics, timing is everything. And speed of action is not always a good 'political' thing as it can make citizens who are already reeling in economic stress very emotionally volatile as they flip between 'almost panic-stricken fear' and 'compensating anger to rage'.

'President Obama, one more time, I think you have picked a very, very bad time to try to push through your health bill as fast as you are trying to push it through. This is not -- as some have made it out to be about racism (except on the extremist Republican fringes).'

More aptly and more simply,

It is about economics.

-- dgb, Sept. 16th-17th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism

-- Dialectical Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still In Process...

....................................................................

United States Bullion Depository
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Coordinates: 37.882983°N 85.965099°W

The United States Bullion Depository.
The United States Bullion Depository, commonly called Fort Knox, is a fortified vault building located near Fort Knox, Kentucky, which is used to store a large portion of United States official gold reserves and, occasionally, other precious items belonging or entrusted to the federal government.
The United States Bullion Depository holds about 4,603 tons (4 176 metric tonnes) of gold bullion (147.4 million troy ounces[1]). It is second in the United States only to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's underground vault in Manhattan, which holds about 5,000 metric tonnes of gold in trust for many foreign nations, central banks and official international organizations.
Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Construction and security
3 Gold and coin holdings
4 In popular culture
4.1 Cinema
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
[edit]History

Before the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1932, gold coins had circulated freely in the United States as legal money, and gold bullion was owned by banks and other private entities. In early 1933, as part of the New Deal, the U.S. Congress enacted a package of laws which removed gold from circulation as money, and which made private ownership of gold in the U.S. (except for coins in collections or jewelry such as wedding rings) illegal. All gold in circulation was seized by the government in exchange for dollars at the fixed rate of $20.67 per ounce. Owners of gold bullion in the U.S. were also required to trade it for other forms of money. All of this left the government of the United States with a large amount of gold metal, and no place to store it.

Seal of the U.S. Mint
In 1936, the U.S. Treasury Department began construction of the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky, on land transferred from the military. The Gold Vault was completed in December 1936 at a cost of $560,000, or about $7.5 million in 2007 dollars. The site is located on what is now Bullion Boulevard at the intersection of Gold Vault Road.
The first gold shipments were made from January to July 1937. The majority of the United States' gold reserves were gradually shipped to the site, including old bullion and more newly made bars made from melted gold coins. Some intact coins were stored, as well. The transfer needed 500 rail cars and was sent by registered mail, protected by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
During World War II, the repository held the original U.S. Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. It also held the reserves of several European countries and several key documents from Western history; for example, it held the Crown of St. Stephen, part of the Hungarian crown jewels, given to American soldiers to prevent them from falling into Soviet hands. The repository also held one of four known copies (exemplifications) of Magna Carta, which had been sent for display at the 1939 New York World Fair, and when war broke out, was kept in America for the duration.
[edit]Construction and security

Below the fortress-like structure lies the gold vault, which is lined with granite walls and is protected by a blast-proof door that weighs 22 tons. No single person is entrusted with the entire combination to the vault. Various members of the Depository staff must dial separate combinations known only to them. Beyond the main vault door, smaller internal cells provide further protection.[2]
The facility is ringed with several fences and is under armed guard by officers of the United States Mint Police. The Depository premises are within the site of Fort Knox, a United States Army post, allowing the Army to provide additional protection. The Depository is protected by numerous layers of physical security, alarms, video cameras, armed guards, and the Army units based at Fort Knox, including Apache helicopter gunships of 4/229 Aviation based at Godman Army Airfield, the 16th Cavalry Regiment, training battalions of the United States Army Armor School, and the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Infantry Division, totaling over 30,000 soldiers, with associated tanks, armored personnel carriers, attack helicopters, and artillery.
[edit]Gold and coin holdings

Gold holdings peaked during World War II at 649.6 million troy ounces (20,205 metric tons). Current holdings are around 147.3 million ounces[1] (4,570 t) in around 368,000 standard 400 troy ounce (12.4 kg or 27.4 lb avoirdupois) gold bars. At April 2008 rates of $913 an ounce it is worth roughly $134 billion, while the World War II total of 649.6 million troy ounces would be worth approximately $593 billion.[3]
The depository also holds monetary gold coins. It also holds several specimens of Sacagawea Dollar coins made out of 22kt (91.6% pure) gold from blanks that are used to strike the $25 half-ounce American Gold Eagle bullion pieces made for an unknown project. The 1933 Double Eagle was also a temporary resident after transfer from 7 World Trade Center in July 2001, until its sale in July 2002 for $7.59 million. Sometime in 2004, 10 additional allegedly stolen 1933 Double Eagles were transported to Fort Knox for safekeeping.
Not all the gold bars held in the depository are of exactly the same composition. The mint gold bars are nearly pure gold. Bars made from melted gold coins, however, called "coin bars," are the same composition as the original coins. Unlike many .999 fine gold bullion coins minted in modern times for holding-purposes today, the coin alloy for pre-1932 U.S. coins, which were intended for circulation, was a much tougher and wear-resistant .900 fine alloy (balance copper) derived historically from 22-carat crown gold (a similar alloy consisting of .917 gold and the balance copper, used to mint gold sovereigns).
All of the gold in the depository, if pure, could form a cube 19.7 feet (6 m) on a side—a volume of 216 m³. In comparison, all the gold ever mined in the world would form a cube 64.3 feet (19.6 m) on a side, with a volume of approximately 7500 m³.[4]
The United States holds more gold bullion than any other country, with about 2.37 times that of the next leading country, Germany.
[edit]In popular culture

The bullion depository has become a symbol of an impregnable vault, leading to phrases such as "locked up tighter than Fort Knox" or "safer than Fort Knox".
[edit]Cinema
The 1937 RKO Lee Tracy film Behind the Headlines climaxes in a plan to steal gold bars en route from Washington D.C. to Fort Knox.
The 1951 Bud Abbott & Lou Costello film Comin' Round the Mountain has the two using a treasure map to find a stash of gold. When they finally reach the gold at the end of the film, they find themselves in the middle of Fort Knox and are immediately arrested.
The 1951 Warner Bros. short 14 Carrot Rabbit featuring Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam follows a similar routine, with Sam being led away by guards at the end. Bugs is also under suspicion, but slips away on a large boat.
The popular 1959 Ian Fleming-written James Bond novel Goldfinger, and the 1964 movie of the same name, are about a criminal plot called "Operation Grand Slam" to break in to the U.S. Bullion Depository. In the book, Auric Goldfinger's plan is to steal the gold. In the movie, it is to render the gold contained in the Depository radioactive and useless with a nuclear device, crippling the economy and driving up the price of the gold Goldfinger already has. The movie was set before the U.S. dollar ceased to be backed by gold in 1971.[5]
[edit]See also

Federal Reserve System
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
List of attractions and events in Louisville, Kentucky
Official gold reserves
Nixon Shock - U.S. President Richard Nixon took the United States off the Gold Standard, stopping the direct convertibility of United States dollars to gold.
[edit]References

^ a b "About the Mint". Retrieved 2008-10-06.
^ U.S. Treasury - Fact Sheet on the Fort Knox Bullion Depository
^ Schoen, John W. (April 30, 2007). "How come the dollar keeps falling?". MSNBC. Retrieved 2008-10-06.
^ World Gold Council -FAQs
^ Goldfinger (1964)
[edit]External links

Factsheet from United States Mint

To My Readers...

2009-09-16T02:21:00.001-07:00

I haven't had a lot of time lately to keep up with this blog site as I have been building others in the area of psychology, psychoanalysis, and 'central ego functioning' (epistemology, narcissism, ethics, choice of action) instead.

However, one of my readers asked if I might be interested in passing this information on regarding online courses in American History.

I am happy to do this...and perhaps, under the 'fresh stimulation' of this request, will even write an article on American Politics this morning.

Let's title it this: President Obama: A DGB Evaluation of His Strengths, Difficulties, and Challenges in The White House in His First Year in Office

.............................................................................

Hi,

I'm writing to let you know that we posted an article, "100+ Excellent Open Courses on American History, Politics, and Culture".

(http://www.onlinedegreeshub.com/blog/2009/100-excellent-open-courses-on-american-history-politics-and-culture/).

I just thought I'd share it with you in case you thought it would appeal to your readers.

Thanks for time!

Amber Johnson

....................................................................................

Investors mark anniversary of Lehman Brothers collapse and start of downturn

2009-09-14T04:53:00.000-07:00

Investors mark anniversary of Lehman Brothers collapse and start of downturn
By David Friend, THE CANADIAN PRESS
2009-09-13 12:29:00

Crude oil turns lower after strong week, moves below US$70 a barrel
World stocks advance amid hopes for China economy
Canadian dollar opens at 92.94 cents US, up 0.24 of a cent

Are you affected by the global market meltdown?

TORONTO - Investors will be looking backwards to go forward this week on the stock markets, as they mark the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which signalled the start of the rapid economic downturn.

And while many might still be nursing their wounds, a reflection on the past could inspire further optimism.

"It could've turned out much worse, especially when you look at where we were in December and January," suggested Doug Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Nesbitt Burns.

"Investors are just becoming more convinced that the global economy is recovering faster than anyone could have believed possible."

It has been a volatile trek for the markets since Lehman's filing on Sept. 15, 2008, but Porter suggested that investors have been pushing forward and becoming "increasingly emboldened," so much so that he thinks they might buck the usual fall trend of market pessimism.

"That seasonal factor is really not going to come into play this year," he said.

"Typically one of the reasons why the market faces pressure in September... (is because) investors and portfolio managers take a serious look at next year's prospects and often those prospects are downgraded."

Porter said this year economic and earnings forecasts will more likely be upgraded for 2010 instead of scaled back.

CIBC World Markets economist Meny Grauman said the week will provide investors with further confirmation that the end of the summer also marked an end to the recession.

This week, inflation numbers on both sides of the border are expected to be a key motivator for economic reassurance.

"We are lighter than consensus on our call for August retail sales, but it is clear that the success of the 'cash-for-clunkers' program still gave spending a nice temporary lift," Grauman wrote in a note about the expectation for U.S. results.

"Year-over-year CPI should remain negative, but is starting to head higher again as we pass the anniversary of high oil, while core inflation remains stable."

Last week, Toronto's S&P/TSX composite index ended Friday ahead 236 points for the week at 11,253.23.

Wall Street launched its own climb with the Dow Jones pulling off its best week in a month to close Friday at 9,605.41.

Friday also brought the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks and reflection on Wall Street also served a reminder of how little progress the stock market has made since then because of the steep slide that began two years ago.

On Sept. 10, 2001, the Dow ended at 9,605.51.

Jenny Sanford: Affair was like ‘punches to gut’

2009-08-18T09:50:00.000-07:00

Foreward: DGB Editorial Remarks...From A Masculine Perspective...To The Internet Article Below...

I read the article below and had to give a 'DGB masculine (masculine-feminine egalitarian) editorial perspective' on the article.

I could feel my blood pressure start to rise on this one.

I have no problem with Jenny Sanford standing up for what she believes is right. And for not letting her husband 'off the hook' in similar cases to where other wives have tried to put on a (probably false) persona of 'nurturing support' for their husbands -- if only to protect their potentially crashing political careers.

I applaud Jenny Sanford for voicing her own opinions, feelings -- and wants.

Self-assertiveness as well as social sensitivity and empathy is imperative for any healthy, successful relationship.

I am reminded of another article I just read on Otto Rank (See my Otto Rank essay) in which it was stated:

Rank explored how human beings can learn to assert their will within relationship, and advocated a maximum degree of individuation within a maximum degree of connectedness.

The problem -- sometimes the major, divisive problem -- in a relationship becomes: What happens when 'maximum individuation' conflicts mightily with 'maximum connectedness'. In effect, we have a 'major personal and relationship conflict of interest'.

This question -- and this oftentimes major problem and/or conflict -- within a relationship, we will come back to shortly.

What I do have a problem with is any kind of 'negative stereotyping of men' and/or 'positive stereotyping of women' -- by women (either women writing an article and/or women being interviewed for an article).

And another problem that I have -- although I cannot claim to be 100 percent innocent myself -- is with both masculine and feminine hypocrisy.

Relative to the 'negative, sexist stereotyping problem', if the shoe was on the other foot, a hundred or a thousand feminist groups -- and even politically unconnected egalitarian women -- would be going ballistic over stereotyped, sexist comments made by any male writer or man being interviewed.

In this respect, I am reminded of my favorite political comment of the question this year by Lindsay Graham when he was interviewing Sotomayor for her prospective Supreme Court Judicial position. (Personally, I don't think she should have been hired because of her various reverse-disciminatory remarks in more than one speech.

Here's his quote from Graham to Sotomayor on this issue of her speeches:

"When it comes to your speeches, that is the most troubling thing to me, because that gives us an indication, when you're able to get outside the courtroom without the robe, an insight into how you think life works, and this wise Latino comment has been talked about a lot. But I can just tell you one thing: If I had said anything remotely like that, my career would have been over."

Back to Jenny Sanford.

Regarding the following article, I will make my editorial comments short and sweet.

The issue of 'out of relationship affairs' is not only a 'masculine problem'. Nor is it only a 'mid-life problem'.

Rather it is perhaps the biggest -- or at least one of the biggest -- threats to any ongoing marital, common-law, and/or long-term relationship romantic-sexual relationship.

Jenny Sanford is right on one thing and I will paraphrase.

'Love', 'romance', 'seduction', 'lust' and 'sex' can easily become 'obsessive-compulsive' and 'addictive' -- in or out of wedlock, for both sexes, at any time of teenage and/or adult life.

To repeat, what I am talking about here -- and I think each and everyone of you out there who have lived a substantial part of your life know exactly what I am talking about -- is that 'affairs of the heart and/or the loins' are neither a solely 'masculine problem' nor a solely 'mid-life crisis problem'.

Rather, the risk -- and the temptation -- acted upon or not -- comes with being alive. It is a lifelong problem.

So let no person who has been where I am talking about 'throw the first stone'.

It is easy to preach 'righteous, Holier Than Thou moral values, -- which often, oh, so often, turn out to be blatant hypocrisy' -- than it is to own up the whole 'monogamy vs. infidelity' dialectic as being one of the most difficult issues for any ongoing couple to deal with.

For most of us, it remains a relatively 'suppressed dialectic' -- shoved into the closet until one day the stench of dirty laundry comes tumbling out the door if either party has not exactly lived up to the other's expectations.

And then we all raise and shake our pointed fingers...

'Sex rears its ugly head again.'

And another politician bites the dust.

It is worse when there is hypocrisy involved.

Like Mark Sanford...

Mark Sanford, a conservative Republican who called President Bill Clinton’s philandering “reprehensible,” seemed an unlikely candidate for sexual scandal.

The affair came to light when Sanford, 49, could not be contacted over Father’s Day weekend. Aides initially said he had gone hiking in the Appalachians, but it soon came to light that the governor was in Argentina, visiting the woman he called his “soul mate.”

What we need here is a full 'Oxford Style Debate' on the 'potential -- and real -- humanistic-existential dichotomies in any long term relationship' between 'stable loyalty' on the one hand, and the wish for 'newness and new encounters and/or relationships' on the other hand, which romanticized and sexualized, in essence, becomes the dialectic between 'monogamy and infidelity/cheating'.

Anyone want to start this debate?

I will pass on this one...

Too hot to handle...

Easier to sit back and wave a righteous finger...

At situations and dilemmas that bring down many politicians and celebrities -- including politicians careers -- for the type of impulsive, 'non-rational', potentially self-destructive decisions that we probably all have experienced at one time or another.

'To be or not to be...that is the question...'

A wise play writer once wrote that through one of his most famous characters. (Shakespeare, Hamlet, of course)

'To be reckless or not be reckless...', I said that.

That's why our brain functions have 'safety, restraint functions'...

Dionysus vs. Apollo again...Nietzsche vs. Kant...Id vs. Superego...Persona vs. Shadow..

Out of our Shadow can come personal growth...

Out of our Shadow can come self-destruction...

Different contexts offer and/or require different choices.

Mark Sanford made his...

Ouch!

It is always the family that gets hurt...

And/or the marginalized spouse...

But eventually,

What goes around, comes around...

Who first said that?

Anaxamander, in different words, basically said that...

Some 2550 years ago...

Call it 'cosmic justice'...

What goes around, comes around...

From the limelight, we get kicked to the Shadows...

To lick our wounds, re-think things, compensate, mutate, re-energize...

And hopefully, one day rise again...

Or forever get lost in The Shadows...

The weak get lost, the strong metamorphisize...

Rise again, like The Phoenix...

Shake off their stupid mistakes...

And/or their impulsive ventures...

Into the Dark Side...

Dionysus' Den...

Who amongst us hasn't been there...

Or hasn't fantasized going there...

Worst case scenario...

You go to be a lovestruck and/or luststruck politician...

You wake up minus your family...

Ouch!

So much for 'soul mates'...

-- dgb, Aug. 19th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations,

-- Are still in process...

.............................................................................

--

Jenny Sanford: Affair was like ‘punches to gut’
South Carolina governor’s wife pulls no punches of her own in Vogue article

Video
Gov. Sanford’s wife speaks out
Aug. 18: Jenny Sanford, the wife of the South Carolina governor who admitted an affair with a woman in Argentina, is breaking her silence. NBC’s Norah O’Donnell reports.

Today show

From the internet, Aug.18th, 2009.

Jenny Sanford moves out
Aug. 8: The wife of South Carolina governor Mark Sanford has moved out of the governor's mansion.

By Jonann Brady
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 9:20 a.m. ET, Tues., Aug 18, 2009

Jenny Sanford, the wife of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, told Vogue magazine that finding out about her husband’s affair with an Argentine woman felt like “punches to the gut.”

Sanford, 47, has remained relatively quiet since her husband’s infidelity became public in June, but in an in-depth interview in the magazine’s latest issue, she pulls no punches of her own about her feelings.

Sanford and her four sons, ranging in age from 10 to 17, have moved out of the governor’s mansion and into the family’s home in Sullivan’s Island. She has been praised for her reaction to the affair, in contrast to other political spouses in similar situations who put on a brave front in public to stand by their men.
Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here

Roots of obsession
Sanford told Vogue that male politicians become blinded to how infidelity can poison their personal lives and political careers.

“Politicians become disconnected from the way everyone else lives in the world. I saw that from the very beginning,” said Sanford, who helped run her husband’s Senate and gubernatorial campaigns. “They’ll say they need something, and 10 people want to give it to them. It’s an ego boost, and it’s easy to drink your own Kool-Aid. As a wife, you do your best to keep them grounded, but it’s a real challenge.”

Sanford, who found out about the affair in January, said her husband was “obsessed” with visiting the Argentine divorcee Maria Belen Chapur.

“I have learned that these affairs are almost like an addiction to alcohol or pornography. They just can’t break away from them,” Sanford told Vogue.

Mark Sanford, a conservative Republican who called President Bill Clinton’s philandering “reprehensible,” seemed an unlikely candidate for sexual scandal.

The affair came to light when Sanford, 49, could not be contacted over Father’s Day weekend. Aides initially said he had gone hiking in the Appalachians, but it soon came to light that the governor was in Argentina, visiting the woman he called his “soul mate.”

More humiliating still were the e-mails between Sanford and the woman then known only as “Maria,” in which the governor waxed poetic about his lover’s body and her “magnificently gentle kisses.”

Men and midlife
Despite those embarrassing e-mails, Jenny Sanford remained stoic in public and philosophical in her interview with Vogue.

Image: Friend helps Jenny Sanford moves out of home
Mary Ann Chastain / AP
Jenny Sanford (right) and a friend move clothing and boxes from the South Carolina governor’s mansion in Columbia, S.C. Sanford and her sons have moved to the family home on Sullivan's Island.

“I think my husband has got some issues that he needs to work on, about happiness and what happiness means,” she says. “I think when a lot of men get to this midpoint in life, they start asking questions that they probably should have asked a long time ago.”

Sanford said that men going through a midlife crisis react differently than women do. Especially with his political future unclear, Sanford said her husband is questioning his legacy and what comes next in his life.

“I know my legacy is my children, so I don’t worry about that,” Sanford said.

Jenny Sanford has not ruled out the possibility of reconciliation with her husband, but she makes it clear her husband has to decide what he wants.

“If you don’t forgive, you become angry and bitter. I don't want to become that,” she said. “Now I think it’s up to my husband to do the soul-searching to see if he wants to stay married. The ball is in his court.”

More about Jenny and Mark Sanford

* S.C. first lady, sons move out of state residence
* Spiritual adviser: ‘Darkness’ gripped Sanford
* Does ‘love’ make governor more sympathetic?

...................................................................................

An Introduction to 'The American Poltics and Economics' Blog Site: Words From The Author -- DGB

2009-08-12T07:19:00.000-07:00

Words From The Author

Good day!

My name is David Gordon Bain. I publish a network of different but interconnected blogs and blog sites that address different areas of knowledge, different areas of living, and different current and past issues.

All together, these blogs and blog sites can be referred to as my 'philosophical treatise' or 'philosophical journal'. It is all published online in this collection and network of blogs and blog sites. The work or treatise as a whole is called: Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology For the Layperson, the Academic, and the Professional.

I also sometimes refer to my work as 'DGBN Philosophy-Psychology' and/or 'GAP-DGB Philosophy-Psychology'.

The premise here is that life -- and all aspects of human living -- consists of countless 'dialectic splits' between 'polar opposites'. This idea goes back to the very beginning of Western Philosophy. Anaxamander (611BC-547BC), the second oldest Western (Greek) philosopher described a type of philosophy that I translate some 2550 years later as 'power-dialectics' (or in politics, 'power-politics'). This is a type of human relationship (interaction, encounter) where one person or one side of the dialectic split or disagreement tries successfully or unsuccessfully to basically 'dominate' or 'overpower' the other person or side, leaving the other side at least temporarily 'marginalized' unless or until this latter side can in turn dominate or overpower the first side.

Much later than Anaxamander, Thomas Hobbes described this same basic idea as did other philosophers in similar and/or different ways. This type of philosophy and/or politics can best be summarized as either: 1. the 'Master/Slave' relationship; and/or 2. 'Might is right.' One of the other ideas that Anaxamander expressed (in my words) is that 'power is never permanent: the 'opposite polarities' will always take turns 'dominating' and 'being suppressed, oppressed, and marginalized' by the other. In other words, power is never permanent but always 'subject to time and change'.

In contrast, Heraclitus (540BC?-480BC?), said something significantly different about 'polar opposites and splits' than Anaxamander. Specifically, he argued (and I am translating again) that the polar opposites -- black and white, men and women, up and down, high and low, Spartans and Athenians -- are attracted to, and need each other in order to function in 'ideal, harmonious, wholistic dialectic balance'.

Thus, for Heraclitus, the aim of the 'dialectic split' is 'dialectic negotiation and union' -- compromising, 'splitting differences', and out of this negotiation, essentially finding a way to come to a 'dialectic, wholistic, harmonious homeostatic balance' that basically works for both opposing parties...

To this, DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...gives the name 'democratic-dialectics' or 'dialectic-democratics' in contrast to Anaxamander's idea of power-dialectics. The Eastern (Chinese) equivalent to democratic-dialectic comes probably from Lao Tse, the Han Philosophers, and the beginning of Daoism. This evolving Eastern philosophy is best captured in the dialectic-democratic harmony of 'yin' (feminine energy, estrogen, soothing, compassionate, settling, rootedness, groundedness, security, family, caring, loving, empathic...) and 'yang' (masculine energy, testosterone, self-assertion, boldness, risk-taking, flying high, courage, confronting...)

This language is not designed to be 'sexist' and 'stereotyping' but rather to highlight the opposite characteristics and qualities that we all need in our lives to different degrees in order to live a 'balanced, dialectic-democratic' life.

Let us say that an integration of stereotyped masculine and feminine qualities and energy ideally creates the potential of living dialectically and democratically with a combined and entwined 'more balanced masculine-feminine energy'.

This goes back to an old Platonic myth that asserts that (some Greek) 'God' basically took a 'man-woman' (a 'hermaphrodite' consisting of both sexes encaptured together in one body), 'split them in two' (the dialectic split), and then basically said: 'There you go, ladies and gentlemen (Adam and Eve, if you are biblically minded). You both need each other to complete your other opposite, missing half -- I have separated you; now it is up to you two to go out and find each other again, integrate your opposing polarities, and find a way to be happy again. If you can, you can; if you can't, you can't. It is your problem, not mine.'

In the perspective of DGB Philosophy, Anaxamander and Heraclitus -- taken together -- are just as important, if not more important, to a basic understanding of human evolution and history -- i.e. 'the dialectic history of man' -- as their much more famous later Greek philosophers -- Plato and Aristotle -- were/are.

My (Post-Hegelian) thesis is that the evolution of life as captured in either: 1. the Hegelian formula of a) 'thesis'; b) 'anti-thesis'; and c) 'synthesis'; and/or the Darwinian (or the 'Adam and Eve biblical) genetic formula of a) 'thesis-genetics' (male sperm); b) 'anti-thesis-genetics' (female egg); and c) 'male-female-synthesis-integration' (united sperm-egg) is captured in the fomula of 'dialectic evolution'. Dialectic evolution involves a multitude of similar and different 'individuating or splitting' and 'synthesizing, integrating or unionizing' forces that both come together and split apart with the regularity of day and night, and of high and low tides. In one of my essays, I have called this 'The Dialectic Force of God'.

Man is caught between a 'will to dialectically have power over' (DGB's version of Anaxamander's 'power-dialectics and power-politics') and a 'will to negotiate, compromise, integrate, synthesize, unionize...(DGB's version of Heraclitus' 'democratic-dialectics').

The evolution and the history of man can very appropriately be described as a struggle between man's 'will to power over' vs. man's 'will to negotiate, compromise, integrate, synthesize, unionize' -- i.e. a struggle between power-politics and democratic politics.

In 'The American Politics and Economics' blog site, I simply aim to trace and develop -- both realistically and idealistically -- the essence of this struggle in the ongoing history and evolution of the American people.

-- dgb, Aug. 12th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism,

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations,

-- Are still in process...

Lindsey Graham: Best question, best answer

2009-07-14T17:39:00.000-07:00

Lindsey Graham: Best question, best answer
4:29 PM Tue, Jul 14, 2009 | Permalink
Michael Landauer/Editor Bio | E-mail | Suggest a blog topic

Lindsey Graham stole the show today. Not only did he ask the best question in the most plain-spoken way, he answered the hottest question on the right: Who carries the banner for the GOP?

Here's his quote on the issue of Sotomayor's speech:

"When it comes to your speeches, that is the most troubling thing to me, because that gives us an indication, when you're able to get outside the courtroom without the robe, an insight into how you think life works, and this wise Latino comment has been talked about a lot. But I can just tell you one thing: If I had said anything remotely like that, my career would have been over."

And here is what the NYT live blog thought of the moment, which CNN is buzzing about, at least ...

Don't Lose Your Day Job | 4:29 p.m.
Or so suggests Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who once again has whipped off several one-liners. He's appalled by her speeches and finds them very troubling. Don't become a speechwriter, he warns.

Sotomayor’s Focus on Race Issues May Be Hurdle

2009-05-30T04:24:00.000-07:00

Conservatives say Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s race-based approach to the law is grounds for her to not be a Supreme Court justice.

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: May 29, 2009

WASHINGTON — The selection of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court has opened a new battle in the fight over affirmative action and other race-conscious remedies for patterns of inequality, with each side invoking the election of the first black president in support of its cause.

The 1993 nomination of Lani Guinier, center, to a top Justice post was withdrawn over her writings on minority voting.

Judge Sotomayor, whose parents moved to New York from Puerto Rico, has championed the importance of considering race and ethnicity in admissions, hiring and even judicial selection at almost every stage of her career — as a student activist at Princeton and at Yale Law School, as a board member of left-leaning Hispanic advocacy groups and as a federal judge arguing for diversity on the bench.

Now conservatives say her strong identification with such race-based approaches to the law is perhaps the strongest argument against her confirmation, contending that her views put her outside an evolving consensus that such race-conscious public policy is growing obsolete.

“The American ideal is that justice should be colorblind,” said Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican on the Judiciary Committee. “As we see people like Barack Obama achieve the highest office in the land and Judge Sotomayor’s own nomination to the highest court, I think it is harder and harder to see the justifications for race-conscious decisions across the board.”

Mr. Cornyn added, “This is a hot-button issue and one that needs to be confronted head on.”

Gary Marx, executive director of the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network, said he saw a playbook for the campaign against Judge Sotomayor in the successful attacks on Lani Guinier, whose 1993 nomination to a top Justice Department post was withdrawn after an outcry over her writings arguing for alternative voting systems intended to better represent minorities.

“We will see ‘racial quotas’ become a much bigger issue than they might have been had another nominee been brought forward,” Mr. Marx said.

But civil rights advocates, including Ms. Guinier, say times have changed in their favor, also citing Mr. Obama’s election. In an interview, Ms. Guinier said she saw the debate over Judge Sotomayor’s nomination in part as an opportunity for civil rights advocates to push back against the kind of criticism that had thwarted her own nomination.

“It is easy to understand the idea of viewing an individual on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin,” Ms. Guinier said, but race also is a social phenomenon of politics, history and economics that demand deliberate policy responses.

Americans often see the issue in an either-or way — “ you are race-conscious or race-neutral,” she said. “But the election of Barack Obama has served as an emancipatory moment, and people are ready to discuss and listen to more nuanced arguments.”

Having Mr. Obama as a spokesman is different as well, said Hilary O. Shelton, director of the Washington bureau of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “The American people chose change — symbolically, but in policy as well,” Mr. Shelton said. “The American people see things differently now.”

What is more, many civil rights groups say, Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation could provide an anchor against the current direction of the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who has led the more conservative bench toward a sweeping re-examination of government reliance on racial classifications, whether in school desegregation plans or landmark voting rights laws.

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote in 2007, summing up his approach in one of the most memorable lines of his opinions.

Samuel Issacharoff, a professor at New York University Law School, said, “There is a tendency to say ‘The time has run, things are different, change has happened,’ ” adding, “It is an emerging theme of the Roberts court.”

Judge Sotomayor is not known to have identified herself as a beneficiary of affirmative action, but she has described her academic struggles as a new student at Princeton from a Roman Catholic school in the Bronx — one of about 20 Hispanics on a campus with more than 2,000 students.

She spent summers reading children’s classics she had missed in a Spanish-speaking home and “re-teaching” herself to write “proper English” by reading elementary grammar books. Only with the outside help of a professor who served as her mentor did she catch up academically, ultimately graduating at the top of her class.

She become the outspoken leader of a Puerto Rican students group, Acción Puertoricaño, leading other Hispanics to file a complaint against Princeton with the federal government to force the hiring of Hispanic faculty members and administrators. “She was very passionate about affirmative action for women and minorities,” said Charles Hey, another Puerto Rican student.

At Yale Law School, she was co-chairman of a group for Latin, Asian and Native American students — a catchall group for nonblack minorities. There she led fellow students in meetings with the dean to push for the hiring of more Hispanic faculty members at the law school. And, friends say, she shared the alarm of others in the group when the Supreme Court prohibited the use of quotas in university admissions in its 1978 decision Regents of the University of California v. Bakke.

As a lawyer, she joined the National Council of La Raza and the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund, two Hispanic civil rights groups that advocate for vigorous affirmative action. As a judge, she has repeatedly argued for diversity on the bench by alluding to the insights she gleaned from her Latina background.

In one of the few cases dealing with the subject that she helped decide on the federal appeals court, Ricci v. New Haven, she ruled in favor of the city’s ’s decision to discard the results of an exam to select firefighters for promotion because too few minority firefighters scored high enough to advance. White firefighters who had scored well on the discarded test sued, and the Supreme Court heard arguments on the case in April.

“Her nomination and the Ricci case have brought racial quotas back as a national issue," said Mr. Marx of the Judicial Confirmation Network.

The public response, however, is hard to foresee. Few groups conducted public polls on the issue as it faded in recent years, and the results from those that did reveal a consistent ambivalence, said Michael Dimock, a pollster with the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.

When asked a question about “affirmative action or preferential treatment for minorities,” the public has consistently opposed the idea by a margin of two to one. But when asked about “affirmative action programs designed to help women and minorities,” an even bigger majority has supported them.

And, Mr. Dimock said, the election of Mr. Obama does not appear to have changed either result.

'Pakistan's Pants are on Fire'...

2009-05-06T11:08:00.000-07:00

I love the 'metaphors, and no-nonsense, straight-to-the-point dialogue' that comes out of this one Republican Senator's mouth. Forgotten his name...just found it. Correction Democrat Senator's Gary Ackerman's mouth although he talks like a Republican Senator...Gotta love his latest metaphor as heard on CNN...

...'Pakistan's pants are on fire'...

-- dgb, May 6th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain
............................................................................

'Pakistan's pants on fire'
06/05/2009 10:26 - (SA)

Panicked residents flee Swat

US officer: Pakistan nukes safe

Pressure mounts in Pakistan

Pakistan retakes key road

Peshawar, Pakistan - More than 40 000 civilians have fled deadly clashes in Pakistan's Swat valley, officials said on Wednesday, amid fears that fighting between Taliban and security forces will torpedo a peace deal.

The chaos forced President Asif Ali Zardari onto the defensive - he brushed aside US concern that Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters are threatening Pakistan's very existence just hours before a summit with US counterpart Barack Obama.

Deadly clashes flared again overnight in Mingora, the main town in Swat, the one-time ski resort where local officials said armed Taliban have defied curfews and occupied government buildings, making a mockery of the peace deal.

The provincial government said it was scrambling to shelter up to 500 000 people they expect to flee Swat and local officials confirmed on Wednesday that tens of thousands had streamed out of the district in less than 24 hours.

"More than 40 000 have migrated from Mingora since Tuesday afternoon," said Khushhal Khan, the chief administration officer in Swat.

"An exodus of more than 40 000 people is the minimum number - it should actually be more than 50 000," said an intelligence official.

Bedraggled men, women in burkas and children piled onto pick-up trucks and led animals through streets in their haste to flee Swat, devastated by a nearly two-year Taliban insurgency to impose a repressive brand of Sharia law.

Panic and confusion

"I don't want my unborn baby to have even the slightest idea what suicide attacks and bomb blasts are. That's why I'm leaving Mingora with my husband," said a sobbing and heavily pregnant Bakht Zehra.

"For God's sake tell me where I can bring up my child where there are no suicide attacks," she cried.

Pakistan's military has been pressing a fierce offensive in neighbouring districts of Swat, where armed militants advanced despite the February deal, raising expectations of a renewed operation in Swat itself.

The operations were launched under US pressure to crush militants in the northwest, where Washington says al-Qaeda, Taliban and other Islamists pose the biggest terror threat to the West.

Panic and confusion spread through Mingora on Tuesday after the military issued - but then swiftly withdrew - an evacuation order, and clashes between security forces and the armed rebels broke out.

Khan said Taliban militants overnight seized control of several buildings and that four civilians were killed in the town - three in a mortar attack and one shot dead by security forces.

"They are patrolling in the streets in Mingora and occupying many official buildings, including a police station and a commissioner's office, which houses offices of top police and administration officials in Saidu Sharif," he said.

Government heavily criticised

Local police said on Wednesday that the militants had vacated the buildings and dispersed into the mountains, similar to rugged terrain in neighbouring districts where they are fighting guerrilla-style against the military.

The government was heavily criticised for the February deal to put three million people in the northwest under sharia law in a bid to end the uprising, which instead saw the Taliban push further south towards the capital Islamabad.

The violence and displacement forced Zardari to insist in Washington overnight that his government was safe ahead of a crunch summit on the Taliban insurgency at the White House with Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

"My government is not going to fall when one mountain is taken by one group or the other," Zardari told CNN.

But US lawmakers, who are being asked to approve a seven billion dollar aid package for Pakistan, have voiced increasing fears that the nuclear-armed country is losing the fight against Islamist extremists.

"Let me be blunt - Pakistan's pants are on fire," Democratic Representative Gary Ackerman said.

Obama has put Pakistan at the heart of the fight against al-Qaeda as he prepares to roll out an extra 21 000 troops to Afghanistan.

- AFP

Evaluation and Health: From The DGB-GAP Archives (originally written in 1979; significantly edited, modified, and updated, May 1st-5th, 2009)

2009-05-06T10:59:00.000-07:00

National and international politics, philosophy, law, economics, and religion mimics individual psychology and visa versa. Here is an essay -- just finished -- that begins to show how...

-- dgb, May 6th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

.........................................................................

Part 1: Introduction: A Model of 'The Central, Mediating, Executive Ego' in the Context of 'The Personality-As-A-Whole'

Imagine that the personality is like a business where important, differentiated functions are divided into distinguishable 'departments', each managed by a different 'department manager', and each department having its own particular set of specialized functions, assets, needs, and demands required to run the department properly.

We can even analogize the 'running of the individual personality' to being like running a huge political state -- like The United States of America. ; or alternatively like running Canada with its individual 'province-departments'.

There is the potential for 'dialectical splits' between 'Federal' and 'State' (or 'Provincial') departments.

Or alternatively, there is the potential for 'dialectical unions' between Federal and State (or Provincial) Departments (and Functions).

All together, a country like America or Canada is a huge, pluralistic, and multi-dialectical State. And so too is the Individual Personality.

When the American People elect a man like Barrack Obama to be President of The United States of America, they want a number of different things -- such as:

1. A person with a 'top of the line intellect' who is capable of handling the job of President and Commander-in-Chief of The United States of America. (I think of people of America have gotten this -- you don't graduate from Harvard with top marks and a degree in law without having a brilliant intellect);

2. A person who is very good at the 'business, art, and science of living'. The American people are looking for a President who can 'balance' all the mult-fold intricasies of running a country as big and as complex as The United States of America. In particular, in this regard, they are looking for a President who can balance 'accountability' and 'compassionate' values. Here is arguably the biggest split between The Republican Party and The Democrat Party -- Conservative and Liberal Philosophical, Political, Legal, and Economic Factions and Functions: The Republican Party historically tends to emphasize 'accountability' values whereas The Democrat Party tends to emphasize 'compassionate' values. This will probably be the biggest challenge to Obama's Presidency as Obama tends to lean fairly heavily towards 'compassionate' values and it may become a question of whether or not this emphasis on 'social and human compassion' sinks him as a President either foreignly where 'less compassionate' States take advantage of him, and/or internally where the American economy collapes even further under all of his political, corporate, and economic 'give-aways';

3. A well-balanced, solidly unionized 'First Couple and First Family'. This is one of the places where Sarah Palin collapsed politically on the last federal election. She couldn't pull that one off -- even with all 'her family pictures'. JFK may have been able to pull his many 'infidelities' off without it destroying his political career. Same too with Bill Clinton. But not too many others can. John Edwards certainly didn't. This points out one of the toughest 'dialectic splits' to deal with in the human personality -- a conflict that we often project outwards onto our political leaders and our 'mythological gods', expecting them to 'harmoniously' deal with an issue that we often can't -- i.e., the issue of 'faithfulness' vs. 'infidelity'. In the human psyche, this conflict can be variously labelled such as the 'good boy/bad boy syndrome' or conversely the 'good girl/bad girl syndrome'. Among our mythological gods, the Greek God Zeus was infamous for His many affairs amongst both Gods and humans. Zeus was the symbolization, and idealization of the 'Alpa-Male' -- the 'testosterone-laden' God who could more or less have any female He wanted. Zeus was a 'Spartan God', a 'Republican God'. In contrast, Jesus Christ was the opposite -- more or less an 'effeminate God'. God of Compassion. God of Caring. God of Altruism. God of Love. All men walk a 'tight-rope plank' and each man walks it differently. Each man deals with this 'sexual dialectic split' differently -- the split between trying to live up to the Masculine Ideal of 'Zeus' vs. trying to live up to the Masculine-Feminine Ideal of 'Jesus Christ'.
Barrack Obama has to live up to the tightrope walk of balancing the psychology, philosophy, spirituality-religion, economics, and politics of Zeus with Jesus Christ. Bush failed miserably. There was not enough 'Jesus Christ Compassion' in Bush's psyche -- just testosterone-laden (in the area of aggression if not sexuality), hard-line, Spartan, Republican Psychological-Philosophical Dynamics -- and after 8 years, the American People had had enough of 'Republican-Spartan Philosophy, Economics, War, and Politics'. Enter Obama to offer something different -- a political projection of the more 'Jesus Christ Oriented Mythological Archetype Figure'. (Or perhaps Mohammad for that matter who shares some similarities in the Muslim religion with the Ideal of Jesus Christ in the Christian religion.)

The trouble that many men have with this Sexual Dialectic Split in the Personality -- as I have described it here between the Archetype-Figure of Zeus vs. the Archetype Figure of Jesus Christ -- was differently but similarily described by Alfred Adler under his concept of 'The Masculine Protest'. Unfortunately, Adler ran away from this concept when it became 'politically misinterpreted and incorrect'. This is too bad because it was a great concept. One that I intend to bring back to life again.

In the 'femininine sexual dialectic split', this split has sometimes been called 'The Madonna/Whore Syndrome' -- women more or less being expected to, or expecting themselves to, live up to some combination of -- let us say -- 'Mother Teresa' and the pop star 'Madonna' (where Madonna in this latter sense is used in the opposite sense of the first).

Now stepping out of the political world and back into the business world, any business can be divided into whatever departments the owner of the business feels he or she needs in order to run the business properly.

In personality theory, the business being run is the business of living -- the art and the science of living (See Erich Fromm, 'Man For Himself', 1947, and 'The Art of Loving', 1956).

In Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology, the business, art, and science of living -- or worded otherwise, personality theory -- is divided into 20 -- yes, count them! -- 20 departments in the personality.

Twenty departments in the human mind-psyche-personality, you gasp. Freud only had three (Ego, Id, Superego). Perls only had two (topdog/underdog). Jung's final divisions of the personality I am not sure of. Let us say he had five ('Persona', 'Shadow', 'Personal Unconcious', 'Collective Unconscious', and 'The Self'. He had other concepts like 'archetype-figures' and the 'anima' and the 'animus' but these, I believe, were parts of the 'Collective (Mythological) Unconscious'. So let us say, for working purposes here, he had five. I stand to be corrected by anyone more knowledgeable of Jungian Theory than me. But I am sure that I have the central 'essence' of his theory here).

Ronald Fairbain had some interesting concepts such as 'Rejecting Object' and 'Exciting Object' that I intend to incorporate into DGB Transference Theory.

Eric Berne had three main 'ego-states' -- 'Child/Lower'; 'Adult/Middle'; 'Parent/Top' of which 'The Parent' was divided into 'The Nurturing Parent' vs. 'The Controlling Parent'; and 'The Child' was divided into the 'Free Child' and 'The Adapted Child'. That makes '3 ego-states -- two of them which have 'auxiliary sub-ego-states'. My DGB Model is closest to Berne's Transactional Analysis Model while incorporating elements of all of the others as well. We will come back to the TA model shortly but first let us look at some of Erich Fromm's ideas -- another important influence on Hegel's Hotel.

Erich Fromm postulated 5 different 'basic needs' in 'human nature':

.....................................................................

From the internet..Wikipedia..

The word biophilia was frequently used by Fromm as a description of a productive psychological orientation and "state of being". For example, in an addendum to his book The Heart of Man: Its Genius For Good and Evil, Fromm wrote as part of his famous Humanist Credo:

"I believe that the man choosing progress can find a new unity through the development of all his human forces, which are produced in three orientations. These can be presented separately or together: biophilia, love for humanity and nature, and independence and freedom." (c. 1965)

Erich Fromm postulated five basic needs:

1. Relatedness - relationships with others, care, respect, knowledge;
2. Transcendence - creativity, develop a loving and interesting life;
3. Rootedness - feeling of belonging;
4. Sense of Identity - see ourselves as a unique person and part of a social group.
5. A frame of orientation - the need to understand the world and our place in it.

Fromm's thesis of the "escape from freedom" is epitomized in the following passage. The "individualized man" referenced by Fromm is man bereft of "primary ties" of belonging (nature, family, etc.), also expressed as "freedom from":

"There is only one possible, productive solution for the relationship of individualized man with the world: his active solidarity with all men and his spontaneous activity, love and work, which unite him again with the world, not by primary ties but as a free and independent individual.... However, if the economic, social and political conditions... do not offer a basis for the realization of individuality in the sense just mentioned, while at the same time people have lost those ties which gave them security, this lag makes freedom an unbearable burden. It then becomes identical with doubt, with a kind of life which lacks meaning and direction. Powerful tendencies arise to escape from this kind of freedom into submission or some kind of relationship to man and the world which promises relief from uncertainty, even if it deprives the individual of his freedom." (Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom [N.Y.: Rinehart, 1941], pp. 36-7. The point is repeated on pp. 31, 256-7.)

Five orientations

Fromm also spoke of "orientation of character" in his book "Man For Himself", which describes the ways an individual relates to the world and constitutes his general character, and develops from two specific kinds of relatedness to the world: acquiring and assimilating things ("assimilation"), and reacting to people ("socialization"). Fromm considers these character systems the human substitute for instincts in animals. These orientations describe how a man has developed in regard to how he responds to conflicts in his or her life; he also said that people were never pure in any such orientation.

These two factors form four types of malignant character, which he calls Receptive, Exploitative, Hoarding and Marketing. He also described a positive character, which he called Productive.

..................................................................................

The Modern Transactional Analysis Model of The Personality...

From the internet...businessballs.com

Significantly, the original three Parent Adult Child components were sub-divided to form a new seven element model, principally during the 1980's by Wagner, Joines and Mountain. This established Controlling and Nurturing aspects of the Parent mode, each with positive and negative aspects, and the Adapted and Free aspects of the Child mode, again each with positive an negative aspects, which essentially gives us the model to which most TA practitioners refer today:

1. Parent (Upper Ego States...dgb addition)

Parent is now commonly represented as a circle with four quadrants:

Nurturing - Nurturing (positive) and Spoiling (negative).

Controlling - Structuring (positive) and Critical (negative).

2. Adult (Middle Ego States...dgb addition)

Adult remains as a single entity, representing an 'accounting' function or mode, which can draw on the resources of both Parent and Child.

3. Child (Lower Ego States...dgb addition)

Child is now commonly represented as circle with four quadrants:

Adapted - Co-operative (positive) and Compliant/Resistant (negative).

Free - Spontaneous (positive) and Immature (negative).

Where previously Transactional Analysis suggested that effective communications were complementary (response echoing the path of the stimulus), and better still complementary adult to adult, the modern interpretation suggests that effective communications and relationships are based on complementary transactions to and from positive quadrants, and also, still, adult to adult. Stimulii and responses can come from any (or some) of these seven ego states, to any or some of the respondent's seven ego states.

......................................................................

The Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Personality Theory Model is built mainly from The Transactional Analysis with numerous 'auxilliary ego-state additions' and 'four unconscious/basement floor additions' that combine a mixture of Freudian and Jungian Psychology. There are also some 'Nietzschean Birth of Tragedy' elements in the model.

The DGB Model has:

A/ 3 Upper Zone/Parent Ego States: 1. The Nurturing (Hera/Gaia) Topdog; 2. The Dionysian-Narcissistic-Controlling Topdog; and 3. The Apollonian-Righteous-Rejecting-Controlling Topdog;

B/ 10 Middle Zone/Adult Ego States: 4. The Central-Mediating-Executive Ego surrounded by 9 'Auxilliary-Advisory Ego States: 5. The Darwinian-Survival Ego; 6. The Epistemological (Rational-Empirical-Metaphysical) Ego; 7. The Ethical Ego; 8. The Smith-Marx-Conservative-Liberal-Capitalist-Socialist Economic Ego; 9. The Security-Risk-Taking Ego; 10. The Enlightenment-Romantic Ego; 11. The Humanistic (Compassionate)-Existential (Accountable) Ego; 12. The Physical Health Ego; and 13. The Creative-Destructive (Constructive-Deconstructive) Ego.

C/ 3 Lower Zone/Child Ego States: 14. The Rebellious-Apollonian Underdog; 15. The Rebellious-Dionysian Underdog; and 16. The Adapted (Co-operative-Approval-Seeking) Underdog.

D/ 4 Unconscious Genetic, Bio-Chemical, Mythological, Symbolic, Dream, Fantasy, and Memory-Transference Templates/Complexes/Drives/Impulses

17. The Dynamic-Creative-Destructive-Symbolic-Integrating Unconscious

18. The Personal-Social Memory-Learning-Transference Template

19. The Genetic Mythological-Symbolic Memory-Learning-Archetype Template

20. The Genetic, Talented, Potential, Unactualized Self

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This is the entire DGB model of the human psyche and personality of which 'The Central Ego State' constitutes only one of 20 'departments' in the personality, albeit, one of the most important -- i.e. 'the Chief Executive and Mediating Officer', The 'Commander in Chief', The 'President of The Personality' seeking to integrating all other 18 departments in the personality.

To be sure there are some significant overlaps.

But this is the model we will work with for the forseeeable future.

We will return to a longer discussion of this model in Part 3 of this essay.

For now, let us continue on with Part 1 of this essay. Let us describe and explore a model and functioning of 'The Central Mediating and Executive Ego' in the context of the larger DGB model of the 'personality-as-a-whole'.

-- dgb, May 6th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

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A Tale of Two Lobbyists

2009-04-20T14:35:00.000-07:00

Off the internet...MSN...Slate....

A Tale of Two Lobbyists
What's wrong with Obama's order barring lobbyists from his administration?

By Jacob Weisberg
Updated Saturday, April 18, 2009, at 7:24 AM ET

On his first full day in office, Barack Obama issued an executive order designed to restrain lobbyists. The new rules say that if you were a registered lobbyist in the past two years, you can't work for the administration on any issue you touched or even for an agency that handles such an issue. After you leave government, you can't lobby the administration at all. The only way around this ban is with a waiver from the White House budget director that says you're essential to economic policy or national security.

The instinct behind this decree is a sound one. The mercenary culture of Washington flourished under Republican rule, with the Jack Abramoff scandal and Tom DeLay's K Street Project, which treated lobbying rents as spoils to be doled out by the party in power. Obama knows it's going to take some strong garlic to ward off the vampires on his side of the aisle and restore a sense of integrity in government. Unfortunately, his intended reform is driving stakes through the hearts of innocent bystanders only. The problem isn't that his rules are too strict. It's that they miss the crucial distinction between the kind of lobbying that's good for democracy and the kind that perverts it.

An example of the kind of lobbying Obama ought to decry came to light last week when the New York Times revealed that Tony Podesta and Jamie Gorelick, two Democratic fixers, had signed on to help save Sallie Mae from extinction. Sallie Mae is a government-sponsored enterprise that insures college loans made by private banks. Like Fannie and Freddie, her inbred cousins in the housing business, Sallie embodies the principle of privatizing gains and socializing losses. Obama has sensibly proposed eliminating it. According to the Congressional Budget Office, having the feds make these loans directly would save $94 billion over the next decade, providing funds for millions more students to go to college.

For Sallie Mae, a useless and wasteful middleman fighting to preserve its vig, Tony Podesta has an understandable appeal. He is one of Washington's top Democratic fundraisers. His wife, Heather Podesta, is a former aide to Bill Bradley and a well-connected lobbyist in her own right. They like to entertain politicians at their home, filled with ghastly contemporary art, and recently made news by donating the original of Shepard Fairey's iconic Obama poster to the National Portrait Gallery. But Tony Podesta's biggest advantage is being the brother and former partner of John Podesta, who was Bill Clinton's final chief of staff and who headed Obama's presidential transition. It is hard not to see their respective silhouettes as expressions of their career choices. John, who has focused on advancing liberal causes by founding a think tank called the Center for American Progress, is kinetic and wiry. Tony, who partnered with disgraced Republican Robert Livingston to represent tobacco interests, defense contractors, and oil companies (as well as Slate's parent company, the Washington Post), looks like, well, a fat lobbyist.

As an illustration of the good kind of lobbying, consider Tom Malinowski, who worked as a speechwriter at the State Department and National Security Council during the Clinton administration. Since leaving government, Malinowski—who declined to comment for this story—has been Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, where he has spoken up for political prisoners abroad and against the Bush administration's policies on torture and detention. As reported on Foreign Policy's blog "The Cable," Malinowski was a top candidate to head the State Department's Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Bureau and remains a possible candidate for various other foreign policy posts. But because he was registered as a lobbyist, he can't be hired without a waiver. After drawing fire for granting one to Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn, who worked for the defense contractor Raytheon, officials have been reluctant to grant any more of these.

There is every imaginable ethical difference between Podesta's work and Malinowski's. Podesta represents nasty clients, like the human-rights-abusing government of Egypt; Malinowski advocates only for causes he views as virtuous, like the victims of Egyptian oppression. Podesta greases the skids for his clients with maximum legal campaign contributions; Malinowski tries to convince legislators of the merits of his case without donating money. Podesta's firm grossed $19 million last year and has been signing up new clients at a ferocious clip since the Democratic victory in November; Malinowski earns a nonprofit sector salary. Podesta undermines democratic principle by selling his influence on the market. Malinowski enhances democracy through legitimate advocacy.

As a matter of law, however, it is probably impossible to distinguish between what these two men do. Both are exercising the same First Amendment right to petition the government. Both have a legal obligation to register under disclosure laws. The rule that bars the one Obama doesn't want to hire prevents him from hiring the one he does. In addition to denying the president the service of any number of desirable nominees, the rules are undermining disclosure laws, because if registration is a bar to government employment, both kinds of lobbyists will avoid registering. Allowing a few arbitrary exceptions to this kind of bad policy only makes the unfairness worse.

The president could deal with the problem much more effectively through explanation and symbolism. Instead of tying his own hand with counterproductive rules, he could instruct his staff to avoid dealing with hired-gun lobbyists, which would discourage interest groups from hiring them. He could explain in public the difference between influence-peddlers and committed advocates, reminding the country that he was one of the latter, when he lobbied for public-housing residents in Chicago. Best of all, he could say people like Tom Malinowski are welcome in his White House and that people like Tony Podesta aren't.

By Jacob Weisberg

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Canadian warship thwarts suspected pirates, helps boatload of Somali refugees

2009-04-05T15:25:00.001-07:00

DGB Editorial: It is about time someone started to do something about these Somalian pirates. They are not going to stop pirating these vessels unless or until there are significant negative consequences to those who do it? Who is standing up to the plate? Who is going to do anything about these Somalian pirates? At least this article indicates a start. Much more is needed.

Is there a NATO jail anywhere in the world? What happens to violators of international law? Obviously the Somalian pirates and North Korea are two entirely different cases. However, the dynamics are the same. Some bands of people/countries (The Somalian Pirates, The Taliban, North Korea...) are going to keep pushing The United Nations and/or NATO, transgressing international law at their leisure and whim, unless or until they are faced with, and confronted by, a more powerful international police force and/or army that is capable of destroying and/or at least imprisioning them.

It seems obvious to me that there is a growing need for a stronger, more powerful, more intimidating international governing body of politics, law, and soldiers/police force that is better than anything we have in existence right now. This concept goes right back to Thomas Hobbes philosophy. Diplomcacy and democracy must be essential features of this international governing body. But when push comes to shove, there has to be a very real powerful international army to 'outmuscle' the capabilities of any one democratically transgressing nation, or band of pirates, or international group of extremist-terrorists -- religious and/or political.

-- dgb, April 5th, 2009.

........................................................................

From the internet, Yahoo News...

Canadian warship thwarts suspected pirates, helps boatload of Somali refugees

2 hours, 27 minutes ago, April 5th, 2009.

By The Canadian Press

TORONTO - Warding off suspected pirates and coming to the aid of a boatload of fleeing Somali refugees is all in a day's work for the crew of HMCS Winnipeg in the Gulf of Aden.

In the past 24 hours the Canadian warship has sent its Sea King helicopter after several skiffs that were shadowing a commercial vessel, using a large red "Stop" sign to tell the speedboat crews to get lost.

Commander Craig Baines says the suspected pirates did just that when they saw the sign, written in Somali, hanging out to chopper's door - along with the aircraft's machine-gun.

The Pacific Opal vessel had earlier radioed for help.

Baines adds that today the Winnipeg saw more action when it spotted a boatload of Somalis, trying to get from Somalia to Yemen.

He says they had been at sea for two days and were hungry and thirsty, so crew from the Winnipeg were able to get supplies to them.

The Winnipeg is currently participating in a NATO-led counter-piracy mission known as Operation Allied Protector.

With a crew of approximately 240 officers and non-commissioned members, the warship has been at sea since early February, and won't return to Victoria until August.