Reflections on democracy

There is a global war on democracy underway, and if it is not addressed, our future will be bleak. But let us start with the ground work of democracy, and follow from there.

Simple majority rule is accurately described as the tyranny of the majority; hence the need for constitutional democracy, where the rights and freedoms of the individuals are enshrined in constitutional law, and hopefully also, in custom and in practice.

And it is constitutional democracy that the vast majority of people mean when they talk about democracy. The term democracy, therefore, can be used as a short-hand for constitutional democracy, since that is what most people mean by the term, and what most people want; so long as we remember that democracy requires constitutionally-enshrined human rights and civil liberties for it to be a desirable system for human society. If we look at other, immediately possible forms of human society, I would say, constitutional democracy is far and away the best that is available, and we should defend it, and protect it, as we protect and defend our own lives. The alternative, at present, is one or another form of tyranny.

To elaborate further, unity and diversity; freedom and collective, cooperative action, are often taken to be mutual exclusive, but they are not. We can have a deeply valued sense of freedom and diversity, and at the same time, a sense of the value and underlying reality of unity within diversity; and an awareness that we, as human beings, have always been stronger, more creative and more adaptable when we work together and pool our resources and talents.

For this reason, a radically democratic, grass-roots, populist and participatory constitutional democracy which might be called libertarian socialism, to put a label on it, is the most intelligent form of human society of which I am aware, with the exception of libertarian communalism, which is probably too far of a stretch for human beings at this time, given the level of fear and mistrust that exists, and the illusions which rule our world. Again, liberty and collective action are not necessarily at odds, as simple reason would clearly indicate; nor are diversity and unity. Whether we realize these facts or not, will shape our future; and at this time of great crisis for human kind, it may be definitive, and decisive.

But again, to speak of the immediate task at hand, we must re-invigorate, and indeed, recapture and reclaim democracy, simply – constitutional democracy, of course, with human rights and freedom for all – or we will almost certainly have tyranny, and we will regret our passivity and complacency in the face of great danger, in the deepest of ways.

And what does this mean, in practice, at this particular time in history? It means, now as always, that we defend constitutional democracy and freedom from any threat, foreign or domestic, which seeks to usurp the power of the democratic process, and to gather unto itself unwarranted and tyrannical powers.

And what powers now threaten freedom and democracy, world-wide? It is no longer the church, the aristocracy or the monarchy. The threat now is from the merchant class, from the now globally hegemonic and overwhelmingly dominant business or corporate elite, who have effectively taken over the global economy, the governments, the electoral system, the political process and the media world-wide.

To defend freedom and democracy now, therefore, means to question, to challenge, to resist and to rebel against, and to overthrow, the corporate elite who have now become the ruling powers in the world. That is the task at hand, and nothing less will do.

*

As to the term socialism, there is much fear in many quarters relating to it, and it has become a dirty word, and a terrifying word for many, particularly in the United States, where the levels of political literacy are among the lowest in the world. But socialism need not be feared. Socialism has become synonymous in the United States with Karl Marx, and even with Stalin. But this is sheer idiocy, and the link is made out of ignorance. There is a profound lack of understanding there of the history of the left, and the various threads of it. The left was certainly not homogeneous then, two hundred years ago; nor has it been since; and nor is it now. Nevertheless, it is widely unknown that there was a major divide within the left, from the beginning, which was the Enlightenment thinking of the 18^th century.

From the beginning, there was a spilt in the left between Marx and his acolytes, who sought to gain control of the powers of society, and in particular, the powers of the state, in order to carry out a revolution which would, supposedly, free all humanity; and those who questioned the idea of a few self-proclaimed intellectual elites taking over all power; as Bakunin in particular challenged, and rightly questioned.

The short history is that the wing led by Marx temporarily triumphed among the left, and the libertarian socialists were marginalized – and so much so, that socialism became synonymous in many people’s minds with absolute power held in the hands of the few, a la Stalin.

To be wary of, and even hostile to Stalinism, or any form of tyranny by a self-professed vanguard, is simply sane, and intelligent; but to dismiss socialism, or to equate it with these pathologies of social theory and political action, is a grand act of blindness and ignorance, if not self-delusion, or sheer deceit.

Socialism, at its root, values human solidarity, human equality, and the well-being of all; and we would be unwise at the least, if not foolish or radically confused, to dismiss or reject it. Socialism, at its heart, has nothing to do with tyranny or the rule of the few over the many; and when it has devolved into this, it no longer deserves the name socialism.

Do we remember the motto of the French Revolution – which, by the way, was far more revolutionary than the American Revolution, which sought, to be honest and frank, to replace the tyranny of British elite rule, with a merely American elite rule? It was liberty, fraternity and solidarity, along with constitutional democracy. In short, the French revolution, in contrast to the much glorified, but highly faulted American revolution, sought freedom, equality, solidarity and constitutional democracy.

And if we strike out or eliminate equality and solidarity from the mix, then we are not only infinitely poorer, and also weaker for it, but we will find ourselves living, sooner or later, once more in a tyrannical state, for you cannot have freedom without equality; and you cannot have the safeguarding of any of these values – of freedom, of democracy, or of equality – without solidarity.

In short, socialism, when it is practiced intelligently and honestly, keeps us rooted in the real world, and keeps us held fast to the values of equality and solidarity which are the very underpinnings of both freedom and democracy. To disavow them is a form of slow and protracted suicide. To embrace them is the road to freedom – but again, only if these values are linked deeply and in practice to the values of freedom, and to the refusal of any form of elite rule.

*

As to the libertarian elements of this conversation, meditation or dialogue, it should be noted that libertarianism originally had a very different meaning than it has come to mean today, at least within the United States and North America. Originally, libertarianism came out of the Enlightenment thinking of the 18^th C, and from the left side of that thinking. It was an extension, from reason and experience, of the democratic and freedom-loving thrust of the enlightenment, which sought to limit any undue powers in society which might be or become oppressive or tyrannical.

Libertarianism originally meant an opposition to any form of oppressive powers over humankind, or any excessive concentration of powers in human society which could easily become oppressive. That included the aristocracy, the monarchy, the church, the military, or any other power which could come to dominate the society as a whole, including the rising powers of the business class.

Now, two hundred and some years later, the monarchy is not the dominant power in most nations, nor is the aristocracy or the church. It is the business elite who now rule over all, and left libertarianism, or libertarianism in its original sense, addressed and also rejected that form of tyranny, along with all other forms and guises.

In the US recently, libertarianism has, by contrast, devolved into a mistrust of government, with a blind eye turned towards the powers of business and corporations. It has devolved into a political philosophy of limited government, combined with a naive and uncritical laissez faire capitalism. Fortunately, that is changing, and the libertarian right, as it should be called, has begun to recognize that corporate and other business powers can be as tyrannical as any government powers ever can be.

*

For us to live in the real world, in short, we must address any form of tyranny, as Jefferson, limited in awareness as he was, so passionately urged. It would mean that we would challenge any excessive powers of government or the state; and also, any excessive powers of the business or corporate elite – as Jefferson himself urged, fully two hundred years ago, and which warning we ignored, at our great peril.

That is what we need now. We need a fierce and undeterred defence of constitutional democracy and freedom, against any attacks or any threats, foreign or domestic. And to say it again, at this time, that means deposing the corporate elite who have taken over, and who have usurped far too great of powers. If we refuse this task, then both democracy and also freedom will be no more, and we will be no more than serfs and slaves.

Stand now.

J. Todd Ring,
February 25, 2013

Americans Now Primed for WWIII

(Gallup: Staggering 99 Percent of Americans See Iran’s Nuclear Program as ‘Threat’
Americans See Civilian Program as a Bigger Threat Than North Korea’s Actual Nukes
by Jason Ditz, February 20, 2013)

            ”A grim new poll from Gallup shows an overwhelming majority of Americans, indeed 99 percent of them, believe that Iran’s civilian nuclear program is a threat “to the vital interests of the United States.”

            The poll reflects the near complete saturation of American opinion with politicians’ claims of the “threat” posed by Iran’s civilian program, in spite of repeated reports conceding that Iran isn’t presently developing nuclear weapons and that it may indeed never choose to do so.

            This disconnect from reality is underscored when compared with other questions in the same poll, with only 97 percent viewing North Korea’s actual nuclear weapons a threat, despite North Korea itself spending a large amount of time trying to convince people that it is a threat.

            This was the first time Gallup specifically asked about either nation’s nuclear program, and previously had only asked about their respective militaries. Past polls have showed Americans believing Iran to be their “greatest enemy,” though its military was not perceived as an enormous threat in and of itself.

            The poll will likely be a complicating matter for the P5+1 talks with Iran later this month, as Iran is hoping to negotiate a solution which will end international military threats against it, but the popular sentiment seems to be clearly averse to Iran keeping its civilian program.”

This is extremely dangerous. War with Iran would mean WWIII – as the world’s leading trend analyst, Gerald Celente has made clear – since China and Russia have an economic and military alliance with Iran, and both are, of course, nuclear super-powers. Russia and China have been conducting joint military defense operations with Iran for some time now. China in particular is dependent upon Iran’s oil, and is highly protective of Iran. Both Chinese and Russian top officials, including the Russian president, have said that they would not tolerate an invasion or attack on Iran: and all options are on the table – just as Obama has said – including nuclear weapons.

Following a massive build up of US naval forces in the region, Russia has now executed its largest naval deployment in decades, and has centred it in the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean, within striking distance of most US bases and US naval ships in the Middle East. All of this is extremely foreboding – and insanely reckless and Strangelovian on the part of the aggressors who are threatening war: the Washington and Wall Street elites, and their crony allies.

See Gerald Celente, Noam Chomsky, Max Keiser, Global Research and Michel Chossudovsky for more on the issue. Only global warming and Fukushima-type nuclear disasters present as great a danger as nuclear war – although nuclear war would be slightly quicker in making the earth uninhabitable for humans – and war with Iran presents the highest risk of starting a global nuclear holocaust. Preventing war with Iran is therefore the highest priority of any issue at present, along with the fight to halt global warming, and efforts to rapidly shift away from nuclear power. Nothing compares in magnitude to these three giant threats to human safety and survival.

War with Iran must be prevented at all costs. They have no nuclear weapons program, as intelligence sources confirm, but like the lies about weapons of mass destruction that led the American people to support war on Iraq, lies may work again. And the propaganda machine is gearing up – and more disturbingly, it is winning.

As Chomsky has said, if we want nuclear non-proliferation in the region, we should make it a nuclear weapons free zone, as most nations in the region want. The problem is, the nation in the region with nuclear weapons – Israel – doesn’t want a nuclear weapons-free zone, and neither does its close ally and dominant benefactor, the United States. Attempts to create a nuclear weapons-free zone in the region have been blocked repeatedly by Washington and Israel. This is the problem. Washington has no interest in nuclear non-proliferation. If it did, it would commence disarmament itself, and also stop blocking the establishment of nuclear weapons-free zones.

Washington wants global hegemony, as it has proven for a very long time, over and over again. Now, the Washington political elite, and the financial elite and military-industrial-security complex, which together control Washington, are risking global thermo-nuclear war, for the sake of dollar hegemony, further astronomical profits, and the propping up of the Western corporate empire. This is beyond mad.

The risk is as extreme as it gets. War with Iran risks the entire northern hemisphere of the globe becoming uninhabitable for the next 100,000 years. And war could erupt literally any day now. The forces are all in place, and the war drums are beating.

Speak up now, or prepare to move to somewhere a lot closer to the South Pole.

JTR,
February 21, 2013

Rising prices, falling wages, and the emerging economic trends: Currency wars, hyper-inflation, currency devaluation, and how to prepare for the coming storm

120% of the wealth created since the economic crisis began in 2007 has gone to the top 1% – meaning, the bottom 99% have fallen and have lost real income to the richest 1%. (Turn off “the news” and watch the Keiser Report for the real facts, or see Gerald Celente or Michael Hudson.)

20% of homes in Detroit now have no indoor plumbing, and 19% of Americans now rely on food stamps to eat – up from 14% in 2006. This is a recovery? No, the bottom 99% are sinking while the richest 1% get more and more wealthy.

Again, 120% of all wealth creation since 2007 has gone to the richest 1% – meaning the other 99% actually lost ground and lost wealth – to the top 1%. The figures are clear. The 1% are eating the rest of us alive. It is that simple and that stark. And the politicians are aiding and abetting the feeding frenzy of the wealthy few upon the many. How much longer are people going to put up with this?

Prices have fallen over the past decades, leading to a flood of cheap food and consumer goods, which has masked the fact that wages and incomes for most people have stayed flat or fallen; but that trend is now reversing, and prices are now rising – and unless there is a revolution, don’t expect wages to rise in North America or Europe to compensate for the price increases: they have been falling and will continue to fall as the top 1% pushes the 99% further down.

Given the trends, it would be wise to stock up on tools, seeds (non-hybridized, non-GMO heritage seeds), solar panels and used clothes now, before hyper-inflation and currency devaluation kick into overdrive – as they are about to do – and purchasing power plummets while prices soar.

Oh, and buy gold and silver, of course, as well as land for a garden if you can, and some form of shelter that you own outright, and do not rent or have a mortgage on.

The “fix the debt” and “balance the budget” propaganda is just that – propaganda. There is a real debt crisis, to be sure, but it’s not caused by spending on social programs, such as old age security, help for the poor, or education: it’s caused by massive spending on the war machine, the military-industrial-security complex, along with banker bailouts totalling trillions, corporate tax cuts and massive subsidies to the already super-rich and the corporate giants. Nevertheless, while the debt issue is being used to foist austerity measures on the people, while the richest 0.01% continue to feed voraciously off the government purse and the other 99.99%, the bursting of the debt bubble is definitely going to happen. It will simply happen for the opposite reasons of what the people are being told.

Personal debt and government debt have been inflated to unsupportable and extreme levels. Worse yet, printing trillions of dollars in paper money to “stimulate the economy” (by giving it to the banking elite) guarantees the devaluation of the currency and its eventual collapse– and Europe, Britain, the US, China and Japan are all doing it, with unrelenting zeal.

Printing great mountains of paper money is, in essence, creating a credit and debt bubble – or further inflating it – because all paper money is, is a promissory note: a note of a promise to pay in the future; and you can only inflate a credit and debt bubble for so long, before it bursts. You can only print so much money, or print so many promissory notes, before your promises and your money become worthless. Printing money to pay your debts is what the Weimar Republic did – and that worked well. The currency collapsed, and it took a wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread, as the German mark lost 99.9% of its value. The wheelbarrow was worth more than the money in it, which had become essentially worthless.

There will be a time of reckoning, and a time of radical devaluation of currency is fast approaching, as the market can only be manipulated for so long, before it finally corrects itself – and in this case, in a massive, tectonic shift, otherwise known as a depression; or as Gerald Celente calls it, The Greater Depression, since it will in all likelihood dwarf that last Great Depression.

The entire credit and debt bubble is about to burst, and when it does, the bond market and the fiat currencies will collapse – and when that happens, the poorest 99% will be hit severely hard, as a global economic depression hits, and paper money becomes radically devalued and virtually worthless.

The Shoot-Out at the OK Currency War Corral is on, by the way, as Stacey Herbert, Max Keiser and others have said – and now everybody wants to devalue their currency! Smart! A race to the bottom! How so very intelligent! Print it, glut it, quantitatively ease it, flood it! Churn and burn until it collapses! And the global currency war is heating up. Blam, blam! Who ends up gunned down? Everyone holding mere paper money (such as the G7, and also, the vast majority of the people) – not the ones holding gold and other real, hard assets (Russia and China, and a handful of people who are paying attention to what is going on).

Just some thoughts to pass along to the general world… Hopefully they will be heard by some. Tools, solar panels, a garden, a root cellar, a woodstove and a woodlot will be infinitely more valuable than a new X Box, cell phone or wardrobe very shortly – and many people will be blind-sided and completely unprepared. Kind of like walking out in front of a bus, lost in absorption on your phone, playing a video game or reading facebook posts or surfing the virtual world while the real world races toward you and is about to splatter you across the street – to put it in a perhaps compelling visual metaphor. Perhaps.

But the majority of people are clinging to their illusions still, and that bubble is about to burst – and painfully so for those who have insisted on maintaining their cozy state of denial; and I fear for them.

Remember, if this scenario sounds unlikely, that I predicted the crash of 2007 while virtually everyone was saying things are just rosy. A much bigger economic tsunami is coming folks. We have only felt the first tremors. And as Gerald Celente has said, those who are prepared will do well; while most of those who do not prepared will be wiped out.

Just sayin’. This is a head’s up for all those who would rather live in the real world, and not in a bubble of fantasy. I’m sure there are at least a few out there. Good luck and God bless.

For those who are brave enough to deal with reality, please note also: many people are going to need help. If the more alert among us make the effort to cut their costs and prepare well for the coming difficulties, they will not only be better able to help themselves, but others as well.

Preparation, compassion and mutual aid always make sense – and now more than ever.

J. Todd Ring,
February 21, 2013

Credit card size sheets of gold for uncertain times

A Swiss-based company has introduced credit card size sheets of gold that can be broken like a chocolate bar into 1 gram pieces, and they are rapidly growing in popularity across Europe – especially in Germany, where the people still remember the massive devaluation of the currency and the pain of hyperinflation.

The current market value of 1 gram of gold is $53 CDN. A credit card size 50 gram sheet of gold costs a little over $2,000 and can be carried in a wallet. 1 gram pieces can be broken off and used as an alternative method of payment.

Gold prices have soared since 2001, up 500% – vastly out-performing mutual funds and other investments. Gold makes sense, especially when currencies are being systemcatically devalued and may crash, as the German mark did in the Weimar republic, when a wheelbarrow full of money was needed to buy a loaf of bread. Get gold now.

New gold for a scary new world – Yahoo! Finance

http://t.co/D6ulPZFk

The New Blackberry 10 – Time to ditch Apple and Google both

The Blackberry 10 has just been unveiled, and the question returns: Blackberry, iPhone or Google-based Android smart phone? Here are some thoughts, techno-weenie talk aside. We’re talking pure functionality and ethics here, not who has the best gizmo-gadgetry whiz-bang for the buck.

Google is a partner in evil, willingly collaborating with the super-creepy NSA’s deeply Orwellian global surveillance state, so Android phones are out for me because of that link. Google is also a parnter in creepiness and crime in its willing support of Chinese censorship.

Apple has apparently evil production and labour practices, so Apple is not a company I want to support at all. And as good as their technology is, ethics still matter. Blackberry is equally as good for phones in any case – if you don’t need the children’s toys of an iPhone – and Linux is superior to Macs as well.

Besides, I just want a phone – I don’t want my phone to bake bread, polish my shoes, walk my dog, or have a million largely useless apps that I’ll never use. And I’m not interested in wasting time playing games on my phone either. I just want a phone for calls, texts, email and web browsing, and maybe a note pad, alarm and calendar. The rest of the bells and whistles are of no interest to me. I’m not twelve years old, and they don’t impress me in the slightest. I want a straight-up, no-nonsense business-minded phone, not a toy.

And I’d rather support a Canadian company in any event, and definitely not support one of the global corporate giants, such as Apple or Google.

Blackberry wins for all these reasons, in my mind. Google and Apple can go stuff themselves.

“Do no evil?” That was Google’s mantra and motto, but that went out the door when it partnered with the NSA and the Chinese commissars. (Maybe Google should look up “Tiananmen Square.”) Apple is not much better. I’d rather boycott them both, along with notoriously sleezy Microsoft, and go with Blackberry and Linux instead.

The Blackberry I’m already on, and have used it for a few years now. I’ve had zero problems with it, and love it. I hate touch pads as well, by the way, now that I think of it, and I love that I can use a keypad or touch pad with a Blackberry.

Linux I’m planning on switching to, as Apple has serious ethics problems across the board, and Microsoft is, well, garbage.

But Blackberry? Definitely. Hands down.

The Mayans, the ecological crisis and the end of the world: a little sanity please

It seems like a lot of people are going to extremes with regards to the Mayan predictions – and I mean the skeptics as well as the fanatics. Some are dismissive of the Mayans altogether, while others are taking a very literal and grossly overly simplistic view, and thinking the world will end on a specific day in the near future: December 21, 2012. The Mayans never said anything of the sort – and at the same time, they were also far too intelligent, thoughtful and sophisticated in their understanding of the cycles of time for us to dismiss them altogether.

The Mayan prophecies do not speak of the end of the world in a literal sense. The Mayans said that the world has ended four times before, so clearly, they are not talking about the end of the physical world, or even the end of the human species. They are talking about the end of a civilization – a social collapse, and the end of an era. And that is something we cannot so easily dismiss, because we have seen civilizations collapse in the past – Sumer, Easter Island, and the Mayan civilization itself, for example (the Mayan urban civilization, that is). (See Jared Diamond, Collapse, Ronald Wright, A Brief History of Progress, or Mathew Stein’s When Technology Fails.) We are also seeing our infrastructure beginning to crumble, while the environmental crisis is accelerating. Clearly, the collapse of our current civilization is not something far-fetched, but a clear and undeniable possibility – and we seem hell-bent on ensuring that it happens.

The Mayans were, furthermore, too subtle and sophisticated in their thinking with regards to the cycles or patterns of time to believe that things will come to an end in a single day, I would think. They mark the passage of time in great cycles of 500 years, and larger cycles of roughly 26,000 years. To think that the Mayans believed everything would end on a single day would seem to me like a gross over-simplification, and a serious misunderstanding. It would be akin to Christian fundamentalists taking an extremely literal reading of the Bible, and believing that the world was literally created in seven days.

I would say it would be unwise to be categorically dismissive of the BIble, just as it would be equally foolish and confused to take it on an overly simplistic or literalist reading or interpretation. The same is true for the predictions of the Maya and their rich and unparalleled calendrical knowledge and understanding of the cycles of time. We do have the intellectual capacity, one would hope, for something a little more refined and a little more subtle than a knee-jerk reaction to either reject and dismiss them out of hand, or to embrace them in a literalist and overly simplistic way.

What is likely is that the Mayans meant that December 21, 2012 would mark the beginning of the end for a certain civilization or world order – ours – and the beginning of its collapse and replacement by a new civilization. The changes that they predicted may come swiftly, but they are not likely to come all at once, in the span of a mere 24 hours. It is possible, but it is unlikely. But that doesn’t mean that the Mayans were wrong – it means we shouldn’t be so crude and sloppy in our thinking, or so presumptuous or arrogant.

Consider this. The Maya had predicted for centuries that on a given year, month and day, one cycle of 500 years would end, and another cycle of 500 years would begin. They said that on that day, the balance would shift from light being predominant, to darkness being predominant. This was a prediction that had been passed on for generations. Well, as it turned out, the prediction coincided to the day with the first conquistador stepping foot on the mainland – Cortez.

If we were to look at the last, say two thousand years of the history of the Americas, we would most certainly mark the arrival of the first conquistador on the mainland as the beginning of an entirely new and radically different era for all of the Americas. How did the Mayans foresee this great shift, and predict it for hundreds of years in advance? Surely we cannot look at this fact and then dismiss the Mayans. Somehow, they have made stunningly accurate predictions, and although we cannot understand how that was possible, it is proven beyond any doubt. To dismiss the Maya considering this, would simply be irrational in the face of the evidence.

Take acupuncture as another example: we don’t know how acupuncture works, and Western medicine is baffled by Traditional Chinese Medicine, which gave rise to acupuncture, but one thing we do know for certain: acupuncture works. It is the same with the Mayan predictions: we cannot understand how they could make such startling accurate predictions, but we know for certain that they have. Therefore, although we may not understand it, we cannot dismiss the predictions of the Maya when they have demonstrated such stunning accuracy in the past.

What is the scientific approach? The truly scientific approach would not be to say, well, nobody can predict the future, so the Mayan prophecies must be rubbish. No, the scientific approach would be to look at the actual evidence, and not make foregone conclusions. And what does the evidence say? The evidence says that somehow the Mayans were able to predict major shifts or bifurcation points, major junctures in time, with stunning accuracy. Just because this does not fit into our current theory or ideology does not mean it is wrong. The facts are the facts, and the scientific approach is not to dismiss the facts when they discomfortingly fail to conform to our theories, but to change our theory and our view to conform with the facts. Anything else is pseudo-intellectual and pseudo-scientific, and is pure bigotry and blind dogmatism and ideological fixation. The facts say that the Mayans were able to predict certain major changes in history, centuries before they happened. Our theories and our views obviously need modification. But more immediately, the facts require that we take an attitude towards the Mayan predictions which is one of curiosity and respect, and not derisive dismissiveness.

Consider another example: gravity. We know that gravity exists, and we know that it works, but scientists still don’t really understand how it works. But simply because we don’t know how gravity works doesn’t mean we say, well, gravity must not be real. Again (to belabour the point for the benefit of the chronically closed-minded and pseudo-scientific) the same is true for the Mayan predictions: we don’t know how they are possible, but we know that they were correct. Do you “believe” in gravity? No, nobody “believes” in gravity – you don’t have to: just drop an apple, or trip on the stairs, and it is proven. The broken nose and the bruised apple are proof enough. Belief has nothing to do with it. Believing or not believing in the Mayan prophecies is the same: they are proven accurate; and it is evidence, not belief, which is all that matters.

Furthermore, considering that not only the Maya, but also the Hopi, the Ojibwa, and many other native peoples have predicted essentially the same thing – that there would come a time when the people become wooden, and lose their natural feelings of empathy and compassion, caring and responsibility for one another and for the broader web of life, and that as a result, calamity would follow, and their civilization will collapse – and considering that is now obvious that we are fulfilling such predictions, it would seem very unwise to disregard their warnings. Complacency, now as always, is a much greater danger than is precaution. We don’t have to run screaming for the hills, but we do need to deal with our environmental crisis, or our civilization will surely collapse, exactly as predicted – maybe not in a single day, but over the course of the coming decades or years.

Consider the fact that other native elders are on record for having predicted, before the start of the first Persian Gulf War in Iraq, that it would be a horrible environmental disaster, as well as a humanitarian one: and they said they had had visions of a black rain falling from the sky. Well, what happened? Saddam Hussein’s troops set fire to the Kuwaiti oil wells when they retreated, and black rain fell across the region. How do we dismiss such proven predictions?

In fact, we should have listened, and prevented war with Iraq. Let those who have ears hear. Let those who have eyes see. The deaf blind will have to accept that they will continue to fall into ditches and injure themselves, for they are heedless, and cannot be guided or forewarned. Pity them for their stubbornness and ignorance.

Consider the most famous proven prediction of all, or certainly one of them. Months before the assassination of JFK, Jean Dixon repeatedly warned the White House that the president’s life was in danger. She particularly urged him not to travel to Texas during that period of time. How such things are known, we do not know – but we know that some people at least do have such fore-knowledge of events: knowledge which transcends mere perspicacity or ordinary foresight.

Consider the stories told for generations by a certain native tribe in Northern Canada about a certain lake, which they said was very evil, and which they warned the people to avoid at all costs, without exception. The native people living nearby had a prediction, a prophecy, that one day men would come and take stones from the lake, then they would use those stones, and a large bird would then fly and drop fire from the sky with material from those stones. That lake is now called Uranium Lake, and it was the site of the first uranium mined for the first nuclear weapons, and the first bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima. How is that for uncanny? If that does not send a shiver down your spine, or at least make you wonder, then as Einstein said, you are as good as dead.  How can we dismiss such fore-knowledge when it is proven beyond all doubt?

Or consider the prophecies of the Inca, which said that if the great white brother came from across the ocean carrying a cross, there would be trouble. Well, the first conquistadors came bearing crosses, and there certainly was trouble, and a lot of it.

Considering all of this and more – and this is just the briefest list of examples, and barely scratches the surface – to be dismissive of native prophecies is simply foolish, and also irrational and unscientific. We know they knew, even if we have no idea how that is possible. Our frankly racist and ethnocentric presumptions must fall in the face of the evidence. The simple fact is: prophecy works, or at least it certainly has at certain times in the past. Just as the Western medical establishment, with its severely flawed and out-dated biological-reductionist and mechanistic medical model has been forced to admit that acupuncture works, despite not being able to understand it, so too must all seriously scientific or even rational modern people admit that prophecy is real – whether that is baffling to us or not – and the Mayans in particular have proven their accuracy in these matters.

Considering the way we are undermining the basis of life on earth, and pushing our civilization to the point of collapse as a result, it would seem unwise, if not simply foolish to dismiss the Mayan predictions entirely. At the same time, to think that the world will end on a certain day this month, is in all likelihood foolish as well. The reality is somewhere in between, in all probability, and we had best heed the warnings of the Maya, and take care of our environment, or we will see, not the end of the world, but the end of the world as we know it, and the collapse of our civilization. And that may be closer than we think.

It is time for us to get it together, environmentally speaking, and make some very real and urgently needed changes now, or bear the consequences of our apathy and denial. This world order will most definitely end. But that will not be the end, but only a new beginning. And the sooner this predatory, anti-ecological, suicidal and grotesquely unjust order ends, the better.

Of course I could be wrong, and it is conceivable that the Mayans somehow foresaw a cataclysmic event that would happen on a certain day, which would wipe out our civilization – if not instantly, then over the months that follow – and many millions or billions of people with it. That would be horrific to contemplate, but it is possible – anything is possible. It is, however, extremely unlikely.

What is not unlikely however, and what is in fact absolutely certain, is that if we do not change course, we will continue to drive ourselves into the ground, through a simple lack of common sense and ecological wisdom, until our infrastructure collapses under the weight of a crisis we have created for ourselves, and our civilization itself collapses. If that happens, then billions of people will suffer greatly: and that will happen, unless we take bold and decisive action now, and without delay. But whether we see a crushing collapse of our current civilization, and have to scramble to survive afterward, and rebuild from scratch, starting with pre-industrial, medieval levels of technology, in small communities barely hanging on; or whether we make the bold moves to transform our present civilization before such a collapse, is entirely up to us.

There is no fate in this. It is a matter of choice. The power is in our hands. It is a matter now of whether we will boldly do what is obviously necessary, and make the needed changes swiftly and without delay, or whether we continue to drift on our present course until collapse hits.

We can still make a relatively peaceful transition to a new and better world, even though we will certainly have to weather a great storm of our own making which has already been set into motion; or, we can wait until change is forced upon us, in which case, the transition will be painful in the extreme.

It is our choice. Humanity will survive in either case. What is in our power to determine is how painful and traumatic, or how peaceful the transition is. But whether we make a major change, is not an option. We will do it willingly, or the environmental crisis will force it upon us.

Better to act freely, and with foresight, and now.

And you don’t have to be a prophet to see that.

JTR,
December 17, 2012

An open letter to the Green Party

Dear people in the Green Party,

I will be blunt.

Parliamentary politics have failed. We are clearly at an impasse, and we are fighting an advancing forest fire with a garden sprinkler, and running backwards as fast as we can.

We are steadily losing ground. Do not pretend we are even holding ground, much less advancing. The entire strategy of the Green Party is a complete failure. Please pass this on. It is time for a radical reconsideration of strategy.

The goal, the objective, is not to be right, but to win a sustainable and just world. Being in the right is meaningless if your strategy is useless. Do you want to be the Neville Chamberlains of the environmental movement? Come on! Let’s get serious!

Let’s face the facts, and get on with it. Time for revolution. Time at least for another, and more serious strategy.

Please, pass this to Elizabeth [May, leader of the Green Party of Canada], and let her stop sending me “Important messages” which do not go anywhere.

Please take me off your wish list of supporters until you have something more serious to offer. I’m sorry, I know all of you have your hearts in the right place, but this is mindless, and strategically stupid. It is obviously losing. Reconsider your approach, please.

At least shift your focus, if not to the extra-parliamentary and the grassroots, where real power lies, and always has, then to the local, and to municipal action where real change is still possible.

Right now, due to a failure to get proportional representation established, and more critically, election financing reform and media democracy, federal politics is essentially a write-off, and a grand waste of time and a distraction.

I realize that having a voice in federal politics means something, but it is futile other than that, at this point, and should not be the primary focus.

At the level of the grassroots and the local municipality, it is still possible to win real victories, and to build momentum with that. At present, movement-building, which is all-critical, has stalled at the federal level, and if it is building at all, it is at a glacial speed, which we have no time left for.

Build your movement where the opportunity lies. Read Sun Tzu. Spitting into the wind is not virtuous, it is simply foolish. Redirect your energies, and let us save this earth.

JTR,
December 2012