by

John Wright

I haven’t written any articles since early spring of 2009. I was waiting to see what would happen during Barack Obama’s first year in office. Here we are in the month of September and it is certainly time to evaluate where we are. Progress or not? You may recall my earlier article praising Obama for his obvious leadership abilities while noting that he is only one person and that his efforts to improve our lives could fail in the Congress and elsewhere. Well, I am not pleased now. One essential invariant truth that must be granted on Obama’s behalf before all other considerations is that the overall rotten financial situation in the USA is something that was entirely due to those who preceded Obama. Anyone who can be tricked into thinking otherwise has a serious conceptual problem in sequencing and assignment. Of course, this begs the question: What is our future course? Can Obama and a Congress with a democrat majority do anything useful to mend our economy or to rein in the cost of medical care?

I have finally absorbed and thought through enough "news" to feel it timely for me to comment, so I decided to write this article … and the title provides a good clue to my mood. What I am planning to do within this article is to strip the veneer from polarized political, business and religious arguments and define the only, and I repeat, only issues of relevance for what is necessary to get us back on track as a nation and as a global society. As it turns out, not unexpectedly, Obama is only one player in this ugly sport, albeit a major one in the public eye. The real issues are not the ones we find in the news.

Is my article goal a tall order? No. As is so typical when scientists discover why/how some natural phenomenon works, the simple elegance of the answer confounds the mass of convoluted thinking in most of the work that preceded the discovery. Have I made a discovery? No. The answers have been with us for a long time. We simply had to wait for the true contributors to human evolution to use hard physical science to bring us the necessary tools. And all I am doing is disposing of the trash that has clouded our thinking, so that we may see the elegant and recognize and accept the only future reality that matters.

To start an endeavor of this sort we need to have clearly understood and well defined goals, else the intellectual calisthenics lead all over the map with no focus on sensible and coherent actions. I am too busy to waste my time and I am too considerate to waste your time. Do note in advance that the morality basis for my expressed thoughts comes straight from my book, Destiny.

THE GOAL:

The physical evolution of humanity to a state or condition vastly superior to what we have known throughout history is the final answer to the chronic societal problems that have always plagued us. It is from the basis of fundamental intelligence that we make our decisions, aided by experience and current conditions. If we have failed after six thousand years of recorded history to manage our societies to avoid war, famine and more recently environmental destruction, then the problem is the lack of broadly based and high fundamental intelligence. We simply can’t find any other reasonable thing to blame, can we? Oh, perhaps I forgot the "devil!"

History shows us in pathetic detail our failure to evolve peacefully and with consideration for each other. Our individual and tribal behaviors that perfectly reflect our basic intelligence demonstrate that the vast majority of humans in all societies throughout history have made ill considered and ultimately destructive choices. We overpopulate with no regard to societal consequences. We consume with no regard to environmental consequences, using resource consumptive products made by people with enough intelligence to know better, and we create mountains of toxic garbage. Commoners ignore larger societal problems, because they are flat out unable to think productively beyond the trivial, while the elite create or evolve societal structures that favor themselves greatly and exclusively financially and that abuse commoners. The USA is a prime example of those assertions. We are not an informed thinking democracy. We have evolved to become an oligarchy of large corporations controlling our federal and state governments. Corporations, like religions and governments, have become entirely self-serving at the expense of society, not in support of society. In terms of economics we have experienced total class war for the past 29 years, and to a somewhat lesser extent for the previous 130 years, all amazingly tied to lack of control of individual and corporate wealth. The haves who comprise less than five percent of our population are now extremely wealthy while the other ninety five percent of the people are experiencing continuous decline in the quality of life, as measured by income opposite cost of living and ready availability of essential and affordable services like medical care, not to mention loss of leisure time. In terms of global population as well as within the USA we have a mind numbing increase in poor populations that are not and cannot be contributive to the evolution of humanity except as unskilled labor. And lest we forget, automation of all types has proven how little unskilled labor is needed, except for presumably supporting pyramid scheme entitlement programs. Think of it as the return of slavery. Instead of automation extending across our society providing a better and more leisure filled life for our citizens we instead find ourselves going backwards.

The above realities must be changed, and changed radically, to ever evolve beyond our running in circles, endlessly repeating the worst of all aspects of our history. To be succinct and blunt, every time we make too many people for the available resources, including economic resources, we kill them off via war, or let them die via starvation or disease, or herd them into slum enclosures and give them access to drugs while watching the communities diminish as means of population control.

Human life is valued realistically based on sense of need for the potential contribution of the individual to the community. When societies have more than they can manage in consumptive requirements opposite needed contribution you find societies turning ugly towards their own and external people. We have had ample opportunity throughout history to try many variations of religions, systems/forms of government, education and massive programs in social evolution and application of technology to improve our standards of living and to avoid excess populations of limited and non-contributors.

We have failed. The failure is due entirely as the expected result of seeing ourselves as powerless children of some type of god or the opposite of some of us seeing ourselves as the highest form of life and thus superior and licensed to do anything we want on our planet, to it or to any of it's less capable inhabitants. We are not superior. Our history is ample proof of that obvious and complete truth. The primary difference between people is their native intelligence, and it shows up definitively and entirely and unarguably in their contributive accomplishments or the lack thereof throughout history. Place your finger anywhere on the globe and ask yourself one simple question … What discoveries and/or inventions have come from this area? Repeat that process enough while moving your finger to different and more distant places and you will get the picture. As to morality, we have seen that some of our more intelligent people have been power mad, greedy and completely willing to use the rest of humanity for personal ends, with no regard for considerations of the impact of their decisions on other people or the environment. That is beastly behavior, not decent application of that of which we are capable. It is not an example of superiority, but it is cruelty. It denies any value in the golden rule. It promotes treating humanity as a collection of subspecies to be exploited by the powerful.

In short, the lack of high intelligence across most of our people must be changed. That is the initial goal and most fundamental absolute requirement. It will happen if we develop genetic engineering to modify all humans to develop vastly superior intellectual abilities across a level playing field. From that will come rapid destruction of any selfish efforts to take unfair advantage of others, and rational use of our environment. From that will come our evolution without war, famine and destruction of our environment. From that will come considerate, sensible behaviors regarding reproduction.

I need not continue with further explanation. I simply leave you with the converse, which is the world as we have known it diminished by our destructive use of it and endless populations of warring and apparently permanently ignorant people. Consider the endless fighting in the Middle East. It has been going on for thousands of years, not just following the idiotic creation of the Israeli State. Are you okay with that present situation for yourself, perhaps on a global scale, and that future for your progeny? If so, then you are unable to learn from experience, and you are sentenced to repeat idiotic behaviors ad infinitum until we kill off our entire populations or until the sun ceases to provide useful light and heat to our planet. If not, then what are you willing to do to change humanity at the most fundamental and important level, that of intelligence? Can you think of any counter argument to my assertions that you can prove, absolutely, at this very moment in time, as easily as I can prove my points?

THE PRESENT:

The news media is generally worthless due to inadequate useful content, dissembling and frequently outright lying based on the prejudices of the owners and their group of elite wealthy compatriots. This means what we have read or heard about the economy is continuously distorted and so the common person has literally no consistently reliable way to know truth in useful detail. The fact that we talk between ourselves and across our country/world via friends, relatives and business partners helps to keep us partially informed with dependable information, but that help is limited to the direct experiences of our social group, not to useful information gleaned from the media. The Internet is sometimes useful and sometimes seeded intentionally with bullshit or inundated with asinine comments by idiots with IQ’s of about three. We have no shortage of those individuals.

Now let’s compound the above problems with the entertainment provided re. "Warring" political parties. For example, the mountains of drivel produced about Obama’s Health Care Plan (which one?) by both sides are ridiculous. The true problem is absurdly high medical costs combined with a poor job market. All the other drivel is simply that. The issue is not and never has been health insurance. It is greed combined with laws that permit the drug industry, hospitals, etc. to rape the public, and other corporations to cut incomes. No government sponsored health plan or any other entitlement program, like Social Security, will ever provide in value even a tiny fraction of the cost to the common taxpayer. Thus, the posturing by Republicans is seen as utterly dishonest, for while they rightly condemn another government entitlement program, they are the worst of the criminals in helping corporate USA in making medical care costs high and decent paying job opportunities low by permitting offshoring. The Democrats, meanwhile, are seen once again as the party that is socialist and the creator of higher taxes. Well, what the hell! One side wants to make you poor by decreasing your wages and salaries while increasing prices, and the other side wants to tax you to cover ridiculously high medical costs at just the time your income is seriously deficient already.

Are you beginning to get the picture? Obama would be better off as a religious leader, for I believe the man is genuine in his concern for humanity. Alas, in the political arena he has far too little clout, as the real rulers of the USA are those corporations that elect and control our members of the Congress. Is that clear? Can you see this as the real reason why our well-educated members of the Congress can’t seem to do anything to better the lives of anyone except the wealthy? Who got bailed out? Yes, the very people who created the disaster, not the countless little ignorant victims who never should have been given any mortgage in the first place. And who will pay the tab? Yes, other little victims like you and me.

Let me suggest a political agenda Obama might have used to get our economy back on track. How about "made in the USA?" The recent tariff on tires from China is producing exactly the kind of protection USA manufacture needs, but look how weak we are now, economically, since we (the Congress) allowed the corporations to develop China’s technological and industrial infrastructure. Your Congress and your corporations sold the USA out. Free trade agreements and foreign investment and offshoring have destroyed the quality of life here for most of our citizens. Thus, Obama has a really interesting problem, for China is now so powerful and so able to affect our policies due to our financial and product dependencies that we sort of don’t own our future anymore. Hmmm … So, you know how we got into this position. How do we get out of it? Certainly not through any domestic agenda that continues to feed ever more money to corporations (like health insurance … didn’t we learn anything from the Medicare debacle re. skyrocketing medical costs?) while permitting them to allow "ANY" essential work to be done outside the USA by anyone other than USA citizens. Bring it home and employ USA citizens, at the price of losing access to the USA market if a company fails to do so. Now, that is a real domestic agenda of high value. It is also exactly what I wrote about in Destiny, which was published almost eleven years ago.

THE FUTURE:

Wow! This is the part we all want to know. Given our past performance and our present terrible economic state there is actually a larger though limited public interest in helping our federal government make some decisions useful to our present and our future. But don’t hold your breath waiting for you will surely perish. And do not believe what you hear or read in the news about "recovery." Think instead about the sorry statistics about rising unemployment and foreclosures that were part of the meltdown, and how they have magically disappeared from the news. The truth is the facts get ever uglier and will not be reported so as to give the illusion of success. Ditto the stock market. The phony supports that presume to present a picture of recovery are a complete lie.

To begin looking towards the future, the only relevant way of assessing progress on any front is through critical examination of results, both intended and unintended. No hard, measurable, quantifiable, relevant (not to mention understandable and useable) results equals no progress, period. What it does equal is deception. Failure to evaluate results objectively and to make timely changes defines a process that is inherently petrified and/or unresponsive. Religions don’t evolve, and that is a clue overlooked by almost everyone. Governments change in corrective directions only when forced to do so. For example, you might consider why all the apparently socialist legislation that has eaten tax revenues and undermined socialist programs like Social Security has never been reversed, i.e., repeal of laws. If democrat presidents and democrat controlled Congresses could pass socialist legislation then why couldn’t subsequent republican presidents with republican controlled Congresses undo the damage? Answer: Because they didn’t want to undo the legislation. Hmmm … now that is an apparent anomaly, isn’t it? Similarly, if the republicans when in power permit and support dangerous and monopolistic mergers and acquisitions, then why don’t democrats in subsequent power years break up the monopolies?

Unfortunately you will grasp the points above and realize that pointing fingers at any political party is a stupid exercise. If you have done so then you are not thinking clearly. Bad legislation doesn’t get reversed … all legislation is geared towards complete control over the general population. For example, that marvelous sounding program called Social Security was truly the basis for control over the income/taxation of the general population, not a kind hearted effort to support USA retirees. Similarly, all Medicare did was create very high medical costs and take control away from individuals. Homeland Security and the associated Patriot Act are simply the realization of the uncontrolled police state, not an essential component in our nation’s security.

Well, this sounds more like the past and the present, not the future. Why? The answer is that we are going to repeat what we have done within government and as individuals. We have and will continue to evolve towards a global environment in which any infantile notions of democracy, the Constitution and especially the Bill of Rights become laughable. They already are, and we just don’t want to admit that the USA is not and will not be going forward the country that it was formed to be. There will be no changing that reality within the framework of our elections and populating of the Congress and the presidency. All branches of the federal government are permanently out of your control because the elective process, including media control, is out of your control and in the hands of only the wealthy. The wealthy simply shape and frame the reality they want to broadcast and then use deceptive psychological techniques to make the ignorant believe they know what matters and how to vote. Here are your real choices … If you are up to your neck in shit and someone throws a bucket of puke at you, will you duck?

My goals for the future by necessity involve significant research and experimentation in genetic engineering. Unlike my earlier optimistic stance in Destiny I now see the long slow and difficult path ahead, in which progress has to happen despite governments, most businesses and religions, not because of them. It is more likely to be the advent of the superior human that forces change, not the gradual evolution to improve life leading to the superior human. Thus, I am talking about results from private venture forcing cataclysmic change, not stepwise progress supported by government. If anything, the interim period of time, however long that may be, points to a rigidly controlled global environment with little to no individual rights for the common man.

One might ask if there is any rational way to change that forecasted reality? My reading of history indicates otherwise. I do see war ahead, preceded by calamitous financial destruction and sword rattling. This need not happen but I believe the odds favor the now strong deciding to take over the weak, globally. We are not the strong. I do see nationalization of corporate owned resources and facilities happening globally and this will be the necessary destruction of the corporate oligarchy, which will use it’s power at that time to provoke war. That error of judgment will be more than costly. As to timing I will guess that structural collapse followed by war is likely to happen within five to ten years.

Visualize religions, governments and large corporations as "wanna be" black holes that each attempt to capture all wealth and power. Now you can understand why we do not and will not have a stable world for what appears to be a very long time, with chaos in the interim. And we have no "New World" to escape to in search of peace, freedom and democracy.

Can this forecast be made wrong? Okay, tell me how, in sufficient detail and with practical approaches that don’t rely on magic. Maybe we can just hit the reset button. One thing is for certain … our problems are far beyond the capability and power of Barack Obama to solve … and the same thing can be said accurately about literally any other known person or persons in the political arena today.