COASTAL POST
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August,2000
Boom and Doom
We live in an era in which the financial market and the earth itself
are both over-heated at the same time . Corporate capital’s science
tells us that there is no connection between these two facts. They are
supposed to be understandable acts of nature. Especially our economics
, which are the outcome of divine planning. You know, “the invisible
hand” and the triumph of capitalism.
If we accept this divine science, we must also accept that our divinity
seems to operate on a cycle of economic boom that depends on ecological
doom. The reports of poisoned air and water, toxic pollution, acid
rain , holes in the ozone and especially climate warming have lead many
to the belief that we are condemned to death as a race. Of course,
corporate capital says it will all be good for some, even if others
lose. Warmer weather in one part of the globe will lower heating bills,
say, while increasing sales of summer clothing. Not to worry, just sell
utilities and buy lightweight fabrics.
But seemingly more reliable science, not yet pimping for corporate
funds, calls for an alert on the part of humanity. The danger is real,
serious and demanding of our attention. Unfortunately, many still
attribute it to individual evil, personal greed, private psychosis, or
group performance under the control of one of those things.
The workings of political economic systems are usually beyond the
concerns of everyday life, and kept that way by our mind managers. That
is why people can allow their government to tear up its credit card
and cut public debt, while they get more credit cards and sink into the
deepest debt any public has ever carried, privately. That is why the top
1 percent of wealthy Americans have as many after-tax dollars to spend
as the bottom 100 million, and there is relative silence from a people
manipulated by TV brain candy, like the multi-million dollar Gush-Bore
“survival” show .
We move through life burdened by personal cares, governed by
consciousness controllers and often oblivious to nature , a force over
which we have little personal power . We are almost equally oblivious
to social organization, a force over which we should have complete
control, in an allegedly democratic society. That is hardly the case.
Our society’s organization has been labeled industrial , then
technological , and presently we are supposed to be in a phase called
globalization. But the controlling structure of everyday reality is not
one dependent on machines, tools or finance; it is based on the
political economic system of capitalism, and its general acceptance as
a fact of life, very much like a religious dogma.
People may believe metaphysical legends explaining why we act the way
we do , but the system under which we perform is governed by physical
rules of profit accumulation. This is accomplished through private
control of nature, whether that nature is human, animal or seemingly
inanimate resources .
We are told that this privately oriented economic-religious system is
the highest form of human development, partly because it has created a
wonderful material standard of living for some people, and a state in
which we pride ourselves on having free elections with representative
governments. This , though hundreds of millions live in desperate
poverty, and most people do not vote, with few really believing the
founding myths of democracy except as immaterial faith, having seen
little proof of their material truth.
For most citizens, supposed democracy operates exactly as nature ;
mostly beyond our control. We live the contradiction of a bad system
under the control of good people, or at least innocent people, who
rarely understand that system. And that is because we are educated not
to understand, but to accept.
Most of what we learn, read, see, hear and ultimately think, is a
program produced by the private owners of nature, in order to get their
subjects’ agreement to what is done with that nature. In short, what
they do to and with us , and our environment.
Growing numbers of global citizens are criticizing this system, and
not merely one aspect of its performance, or one villain. We still
seem to need individual actors to love and hate, like Clinton, Bush ,
Gates, Mother Theresa, and other demons and saints. But we are beginning
to understand that these actors perform under the direction of
something other than mysterious forces, like god or nature.
Once we realize that democracy means people must collectively run
their society and not depend or rely on invisible authorities beyond
their control, we may be on the way to bringing about a better world
for just about everyone. The one we have now lavishes immense wealth on
some, a fairly decent life on others, and poverty, debt, depression,
misery and suffering on most. That enormous gap cannot be excused
simply by blaming it on personal greed or an angry god.
The cycle of boom and doom is the cycle of humans under the command of
capital. The doom can only be avoided by a democratic movement to
control the cycles for the good of all, not just a few. Such a
democratic system would mean the end of exclusive private control of
political economics , the capitalism which is creating disaster as we
allow it to maintain its domination over humanity and the earth.
That disaster will become more deadly the longer it continues. The
way to spread economic boom to greater numbers, and avert ecological
doom , is to understand that real democracy means the end of the
political economics of capitalism. Anything less will continue the
present accumulation of happiness and short term riches for some , but
sadness and long term deprivation for all .
Copyright (c) 2000 by Frank Scott. All rights reserved.
This text may be used and shared in accordance with the
fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law, and it may be
archived and redistributed in electronic form, provided that
the author is notified and no fee is charged for access.
Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on
other terms, in any medium, requires the consent of the author
.
frank scott
http://www.marin.cc.ca.us/~frank
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225 laurel place, san rafael ca. 94901
(415)457 2415 fax(415)457 4791
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