a couple of thoughts regarding our current mess.

In which I first consider the problem of cyclic 'catastrophic success'
in representitive governments. Then I discuss the practical and spiritual effects of living in an Orwellian paradigm. Lastly, a suggestion.


I start out with, and frequently return to the point that democracy requires a level of both critical thinking and information that is hard to sustain.
Social, economic, scientific, and cultural axes potentiate each other in either ascending or descending levels of order. One or two factors experiencing a catastrophy will effect the others.

FDR was a president of great candor and his legacy, coupled with the change in the workforce from primarily agrictural to industrial/managerial in the WW2 and post war periods, renewed American society in ways that certainly challenged the old order of things.

The War years promised a new era of democratic societies world wide which would shed off the abuses of the ancien regieme. But the failure of civil rights at home, as well as such perfidity as the French return to Indo-China, and the CIA overthrow of the Iranian Mossedeq government soon created a deep well of anger at the American Dollar Empire. This is the period of 'The Ugly American.'

During this time, Whyte writes 'The Organisation Man,' and paints a portrait of an economic/labor world that is hidebound, locked in group-think and acutally *punishing* genius like Thomas Edison, who Whyte argues would not succeed in the Eisenhower corporate world.

I mention this work, because it is important to remember that most of the current movers and shakers were entering the work force when this book was written, and that corporate model is their original paradigm.

It is also worth considering that the NeoCon adult is parent to the McCarthy/Kohn/JohnBirch adolescent. Their ideology never considered that it might actually aquire power, so they had no realistic plans to implement.
That mental map is all about what is going on now in Iraq, Afghanistan, Gitmo, and New Orleans.

In the Brave New World of John Galt, you don't have to plan, because the market will plan for you. Just award the contract and watch the plan unfold, just like General Motors planned the interstate system for Ike.
But of course, it does not work that way for public goods, that is why they are public goods.

What I am saying, is that while the progressive branch of American societyhad done staggeringly good work in the 30's and 40's, it lost energy and control in the 50's only regaining it because of an evil, stupid war which was fought to show the Commies we were better than them, by doing everything the Commies accused us of before, on a yet grander scale.
This was the second growth bloom of the military industrial complex.

The progressive/humanist branch of the American system regained control in the 60's and 70's, only to have the October Surprize and the drooling idiot presidential puppet(mark I) steal the election. Note that the senior members of the current power elite were the playas in this little drama vis a vis Iran (whose radicalization inspired the term 'blow-back').

This adversarial winner take all approach to politics between the guns and the butter groups has lead to an approach to foreign affairs that has lead us to Dubya, and Cheney/Bolton, not to mention Valerie Plame.

Education was made widely available in the 50's through the GI bill, and the first wave of graduates increased the economic output of the US staggeringly quickly through out the decade and into the 60's where the space race, arms race, and the creation of mass media also provided a massive resevoir for the newly educated workforce. So by the early 60's, ecucation had become a positive virtue, as opposed to an affectation of the upper class.

This attitude survived first the radical changes of the 50s and 60s where Frost was replaced by Plath and Adam Smith by Emile Durkheim. It also survived the Civil Rights activism by white college students, but in the south and midwest, but this weakened universal public support for just the level of education both our economy, and our political sanity in the complex modern world requires.

Finally, there was the anti war movement, which I as a teen ager witnessed first hand. Jane Fonda is *STILL* an archetype, or 'vice' in the sense of Tudor drama, to the 'anti-communist' wiung of the Republican party.

Lastly, science went from Alexander Fleming and Alfred Nobel to Robert Oppenhiemer and Stanley Milgram. This percieved (and well marketed) degeneration in the moral character of science lead, and still leads, to a deep luddite pool in the common psyche.

Coming back to 'The Organisation Man,' I note that compartmentalisation, instrumentality (the tendency to always ask, 'how do I do this' and rarely 'should I do this'), and management by culture, rather than by goal are hallmarks of our current mess. Np bid cronyism, reliance on 'free-market planning' which is another way of saying institutional piracy, and plutocratic governance are the telos of the economic engines as portraied in the chapter 'Love that Organisation.'

Had anyone thought to read the small red pencil handwrighting on the wall?

The answer my friend, is not blowin in the wind, but right there in the turn on, tune in, drop out mantra of Timothy Leary. And here is where I make a friend's point again... progress is non linear. Because of the multi variant nature of my above mentioned axes, our history seems more like a probablity cloud diagram with periodic escapes from nominality into unspeakable chaos, which is soon repressed due to its unspeakable nature.

My only solution-- fight entropy in all its guises.
Fight Fred Phelps and Pat Roberts. Fight Dick Cheney and Kenny Lay. Fight Karl Rove like there is no tomorrow. Especially this last, because Rove's working for a 'no-tomorrow scenario' for thinking, ethical humans. Always speak about the unspeakable.

And to be fair, fight the mullahs, the mufti's, and the terrahists too.
They are opposite sides of the same base metal coin.