The WMail Newsletter
Volume III   [Year 2002]   Part 3

Issue #25: "Injustice For All"
[July 2002]

>+<    G.E. Nordell, editor    >+<

SLOGAN OF THE MONTH: "The Working Mind: Takes one to know one."

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"Man is born free but is everywhere in chains."
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau [1712-78]

"The man who knows what freedom means will find a way to be free."
— F.A. Harper

"The greatest of our evils and the worst of our crimes is poverty."
— George Bernard Shaw [1856- 1950]

"Funny thing, civilization. It promises so much and what it delivers
is mass production of shoddy merchandise and shoddy people."
— Raymond Chandler [1888-1959]

"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts."
— John Wooden [1910-2010]

"If we must perish in the fight, Oh! Let us die like men."
— George Washington [1732-99]

"Over himself, over his own mind and body, the individual is sovereign."
— John Stuart Mill [1806-73] (in 'On Liberty' 1859, "Introductory")

"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body
and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."
— Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]

"An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory."
— Friedrich Engels [1820-95]

The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours. But to win it requires total dedication and a total break with the world of your past, with the doctrine that man is a sacrificial animal who exists for the pleasure of others. Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence, which is man, for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the morality of life and yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth.
— John Galt quote ending Ayn Rand's last public speech (New Orleans Nov 1981)

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" I N J U S T I C E    f o r    A L L "
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        My twenty-pound Webster's definition of 'justice' gives "unprejudiced adjudication of conflicting interests on the basis of legal or moral principles", and also refers to 'equitableness', which means "dealing fairly and equally with all concerned". Such is the ideal, but the extant circumstances around the world are not that. [The Online Merriam-Webster defines 'injustice' as "violation of right or of the rights of another".]

        Since time immemorial, the Overlords of every society, every era, have done their best to rape and pillage the economy, to extort blind obedience and unearned wealth, giving nothing of value in return. From Kremlin politicians to feudal warlords to Mafia dons and pinstriped bankers, the game of the Culture-Structure is to leave the average citizen with less and to take more and more. I may sound like a broken record, but the Oligarchy has increased their ownership of everything in America by 40 percent in the last 15 years – and the loss has been borne by the citizenry, from top to bottom.

        The forty-hour workweek, the hard-won prize of organized labor in the last century, is a distant memory. Saving for retirement is impossible. One-third of Americans live below the Poverty Line: if you make less than $27,000 per annum in gross wages in America, you are living in poverty. (To make that easier to compare, the figure is $520 a week gross, or $13.00 per hour – the Federal minimum wage is 40 percent of the Poverty Line hourly wage, folks!)
        There is no way out from under the present system, the Culture-Structure that runs the world for the Oligarchy. If you work a forty-hour week, you suffer a life of physical and moral poverty – no extras, no promotions, last to get a raise, first to get 'down-sized'. If you work your ass off and strive to get ahead, by working more hours for the same pay, then you are destined for a life of stress and self-loathing and an early grave.

        There is nothing equitable in the absence of the right of every Individual to "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" in America today. In other countries, there is not even the pretense that this Ideal is available.

*          *          *          *
        Very few of you who read this were taught in school about 'The Four Freedoms' voiced by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt in his State of The Union Address of 6 January 1941. Raise your hand if you heard of them. No? Stand very tall if you can name all four.
        The Culture-Structure seems to have omitted teaching you about the most basic of Freedoms, which F.D.R. said are deserved by all of Mankind. Omitted, just like that. Are you shocked and surprised? Not if you've been paying attention to prior issues of WMail.

        F.D.R.'s definition of the Four Freedoms preceded the Attack on Pearl Harbor by almost a year, but his Stand caught the attention of the Press and of a nation expecting to be embroiled in the war that had already begun in Europe and in Asia. The citizens of America were concerned enough to listen to the speech in its entirety, and to F.D.R.'s many radio broadcasts. [How many of you listen to the weekly Presidential speech every Saturday morning?]
        Posters of the Four Freedoms were painted by illustrator Norman Rockwell [1894-1978] and distributed all around, and World War II was fought – in part – in behalf of F.D.R.'s promise that all the peoples of the world deserved to live under governments committed to:
   ** Freedom of speech and expression;
   ** Freedom of every person to worship in his own way;
   ** Freedom from want;
   ** and Freedom from fear.

[The full text of the speech can of course be found online:

[The full text of the speech can of course be found online: Four Freedoms speech entry at Wikipedia]

*          *          *          *
FREEDOM of SPEECH and EXPRESSION
        Do you participate in reasoned discourse? Do you even vote in elections? Access to political decision-making is so removed from the U.S. population – the "free-est" country in the world, we are told – that two-thirds to three-quarters do NOT vote at all, having given up. To do this is to give the Oligarchy and the Culture-Structure free rein [or is it 'free reign'?] which is exactly their intention.
        The unconscious knowledge of this denial of access takes the low-grade form of grumbling, though some idiots get righteous and attempt violence against the Big, Bad Guvvermint, but that too is an act that furthers the intention of the Oligarchy, the Overlords: a few terrorists will never bring down the Official Government, and since the fools who advocate violence have no idea of the existence of the real source of the loss of Freedom, the Oligarchy is entirely safe.
        Terrorism just makes more fear, which the Oligarchy observes with glee.

        Where exactly are any of you expressed? On the internet? Well, they are working to stop that. Not by your Tommy Hilfiger t-shirt – that is an expression of him! Not by your selection of entertainment, that is the activity of a consumer, not the expression of an Individual. Not even by the occasional Letter to Ye Editor – though that does feel like an accomplishment when you see your gem in print. How many of you have actually mailed one off in the last year, and how many got printed? How many such Letters were sent but NOT printed compared to the few that see publication? Do you even read the Letters Page? Do you even read a newspaper or newsmagazine?

*          *          *          *
FREEDOM of WORSHIP
        (It is best to redefine this from an Objectivist standpoint as "Freedom of every person to worship [a deity] in his own way [or not]".)
     I will speak more about this in next month's issue. But the Freedom part of it is non-existent in America, where the Constitutional guarantee of the separation of church and state is under attack once again, and worse in so many countries where the church and the state are one and the same.
        Go ahead: Quote Ayn Rand on the subject of religion. Afraid to? Then you have no Freedom.
        The Unwritten Law holds that you dare not discuss politics or religion or economics or sexuality, whether at work or at home, whether with family or neighbors or strangers. Objective Reason requires discussion of these matters, Ayn Rand said philosophy is necessary, so the practice of Objectivism is in direct opposition to the Unwritten Law of Status Quo.
        Try this at work one day: Ask the folks you usually go out to lunch with, or sit in the lunchroom with, to expound on their religious beliefs. If this is done right, the sparks will fly; even the heated argument about your right to initiate such a discussion will be a wonderful result, for the Status Quo will have revealed itself. If you actually get the discussion started, then irrationality must lead to force, the only defense is more irrationality – "cuz the Bible / Quran / Veda-Sutra says so, dammit!" – but that is okay. This ugliness was always there, is there anyway, it is just revealed for all to see, as the inevitable result of anti-Reason belief systems.

*          *          *          *
FREEDOM from WANT
        One third of the population in the U.S.A. – grandest nation ever brought forth on this Earth – live on income BELOW the Poverty Line. If you make less than $13.00 per hour gross wages, then wanting to have a family will still not get you there, it is economically forbidden. Want to succeed? Go into debt to the Oligarchy: college tuition is $15,000 to $20,000 a year at state institutions, more among the hallowed 'meal-ticket' Ivy League schools. Got two kids? One third of the population can't even afford to let the kids graduate from high school, they are turned out to make it on their own, to feed themselves, cuz Papa and-or Mama work two jobs to pay off the never-ending consumer debt, and they're getting old and tired and they let the life insurance lapse to pay off the medical bills, cuz there's never enough money for even the basics like an education.
        And even if the kids do graduate from high school, half of them are illiterate anyway and can at best hope for minimum-wage drudgery, with no benefits because the Oligarchy busted the unions back in the 1980's, and they can expect to spend their entire lives wanting what is kept from them: honest, ethical employment at a rate of pay above the Poverty Line, so they can choose a mate and provide for a family and get them educated and see them live a better future than we have now, maybe even be able to take the weekend off and relax a little in the back yard and experience even a temporary Freedom From Want.

*          *          *          *
FREEDOM from FEAR
        The unavoidable climate of fear that modern life entails has gotten stronger over the last several decades. The Attack of 9-11-01 is just the icing on the cake for the Oligarchy. You cannot afford to rock the boat, to push against the status quo, to Speak Up For What You Want, for the return of the lost Four Freedoms, to make whoever is running the country and the economy and your employer keep all their promises. You are afraid to be an Individual, and to demand your Rights Under The Constitution. No deeply-in-debt consumer can afford to take any kind of Stand, for anyone who speaks out could lose their job and then the Oligarchy has you by the balls.
        And aside from the political/philosophical arena, you are afraid to leave your house. Since 9-11-01 Americans are afraid to leave the country, to fly on airplanes, to congregate in crowds. No more American tourists have died around the world than happened before 9-11-01, but you are afraid. You are afraid of the clergy, afraid to invest in the stock market – all of your actions are touched by Fear, your decisions made from Fear, you teach your children your fears. There is nowhere to go to avoid this [False] Fear, so the citizen-consumers stay in hiding, in shopping malls and self-preserving avoidance and hope that The Guvermint will solve the problem so you won't live in Fear.

*          *          *          *
        There is nowhere you can go to get free of this life-destroying lack of Freedom, this stultifying absence of existential Justice. The Oligarchy has designed the Culture-Structure so that you have only one option, and it is not Freedom. You have only the option to trade in your Soul, give up your Freedom, abandon your Individuality – for a bucket of slops. Your health is nobody's concern, your life and the quality of it are nobody's concern, the integrity of the entire culture of Mankind is nobody's concern.

        Since you are NOT free, there is only one thing do, as John Galt was designed to exemplify: Stop the engine of the world. Stop the machinery of the Culture-Structure. Stand apart from the Culture-Structure, disobey the Oligarchy, the Overlords. Reconstruct yourself as an Individual, the Individual you were before contamination, and don't take any crap for being an Individual outside the Culture-Structure.

        The seldom-read Declaration of Independence was an invented existential Stand for Mankind. I especially like the part at the very end, where the Founding Fathers stated that "[We] mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor". They knew the risk and put everything that each of them had at stake, and that is once again necessary to restore the Ideals of Freedom that have been lost to the Culture-Structure.
        If you take such a Stand For Freedom, then you embody the ideals invented by the Forefathers of American Independence, back on July Fourth just 226 years ago, The Ideals we honor every July did not exist on this Earth until spoken, signed, publicized and lived by a handful of committed and determined men.

        Freedom! Or the same-ol' Status Quo. You choose.

[copyright 2002 by Gary Edward Nordell, all rights reserved]

---

==>  'Breaking news & views for the progressive community' at
        http://www.commondreams.org/ which includes a free ezine

==>  The Ayn Rand Institute has moved, effective July 1, 2002:
        2121 Alton Parkway, Irvine CA 92618; voice 949/222-6550

==>  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a report to the
        United Nations in June 2002 that concludes "greenhouse gas emissions
        produced by human activities are the primary cause of global warming".
        REPORT [various PDF files]:
        http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/publications/car/index.html
        FEDERAL GLOBAL WARMING WEBSITE:
        http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/

==>  The Norman Rockwell Museum sells prints of his Four Freedoms
        posters, but you can look for free by clicking on these links:
        http://www.normanrockwellvt.com/big.jpg/Freedom_of_speech.jpg
        http://www.normanrockwellvt.com/big.jpg/Freedom_to_Worship.jpg
        http://www.normanrockwellvt.com/big.jpg/freedomFromFear.jpg
        http://www.normanrockwellvt.com/big.jpg/Freedom_From_want.jpg

==>  DEJA VU: As I said after the wildfires back around Issue #4, a real good investment
        right now is tree farms – somebody has to propogate the seedlings for whatever
        reforestation efforts follow this Summer's 450,000 acres of fire damage.

N E X T   M O N T H: "The No-God Universe"

I N   S E P T E M B E R: "Waste Not, Want Not"

Issue #26: "The No-God Universe"
[August 2002]

>+<    G.E. Nordell, editor    >+<

SLOGAN OF THE MONTH:
"The Working Mind: A Force With Which To Be Reckoned"

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"We do not know what to do with this short life,
yet we yearn for another that will be eternal."
— Anatole France [1844-1924]

"There would be no singularities at which the laws of science broke down and no edge of space-time at which one would have to appeal to God or some new law to set the boundary conditions for space-time ... The universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE ...
What place, then, for a creator?"
— Stephen W. Hawking [1942-2018]

"Great men can't be ruled."
— Ayn Rand [1905-82]

"Nothing is more terrifying than ignorance in action."
— Goethe

"We can have a democratic society or we can have a concentration of
great wealth in the hands of a few. We cannot have both."
— U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis [1856-1941], quoted by Ralph Nader

"If a tree falls in the forest, you won't hear it if your head is up your ass."
— G.E. Nordell

"Money's ... only importance comes from how it keeps you going after your dream...
The only thing important is your dream."
— Terry C. Johnston [1947-2001] (in "Dance On The Wind", 1995)

"You can fool half of the people all of the time and that's enough to make a good living."
— W.C. Fields [1880-1946]

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" T h e    N O - G O D    U N I V E R S E "
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        The Universe exists. Orbiting 93 million miles from a yellow star we named Sol, planet Earth exists as a blue ball, spinning on its axis once each day, which event occurs 365 times during one circuit around Sol, which we call a year.
        But beyond that, what can we all agree on? The Flat Earth Society even works to convince the rest of us that the first paragraph cannot be true. We can only examine existence from various viewpoints and hope to arrive at some useful attitude or viewpoint that allows us to lead our lives with some sort of integrity in our relationship to Reality, which is that our viewpoint is close enough to the Truth that it empowers us in our daily living.

The COSMOLOGICAL VIEWPOINT
        The Universe was created some billions of years ago – with no actual witnesses, all figures used by scientists are estimates – and that event is called the 'Big Bang'. Before the Big Bang, this entire Universe did not exist, then suddenly it did exist, and can be measured to be expanding.
        Hawking and other cosmologists predict that the expansion will eventually stop, and the Universe will begin contracting, which is rather scary. But what can we do about it anyway? And you and I won't be around, so the problem is moot.

        The Religionists are certain that an entity called God made the Universe in six days, maybe on the back of a giant turtle, all sorts of stories about how and when and why. They say that the Universe could not have created itself, thus 'proving' that a Creator existed before the Universe.
        But their logic fails, because if this Creator could exist before the Big Bang, then the Universe (in some unknown form) also could have existed before the Big Bang.

        The existence of the Universe, then or now, does not in any way prove or even support – nor even disprove – the existence of a Creator. The No-God Universe is consistent with Science, with all observable and theoretical phenomena.

*          *          *          *
The LEGAL VIEWPOINT
        If the existence of God were tested in an objective court, the case would be thrown out for lack of empirical evidence. The matter is hearsay only. If you want me to believe in unicorns, for example, then you will have to bring me one. If you want me to believe in angels or hobgoblins, you will have to capture one and show it to the world. (And those silly angel-ridden TV drama programs do not count.)
        The myth of God/Supreme Being is so much a part of the Culture-Structure, in every part of the world, that the question is never examined, for to examine it would be to run the risk of exposure, of proponents being shown as charlatans, as purveyors of fantasy.

        The Daubert Rule is used in law to decide the validity of evidence presented in court. The two first Daubert factors are whether the evidence is generally accepted and whether the evidence has been tested by peer review. The fourth is error rate.
        The third factor, which we will visit here, is 'testability', wherein a claim or theory is testable if it can be falsified; that is, if it can be measured and thus proven false, in which case the theory is probably true.
        But no such 'falsification' opposite can be constructed for the existence of God. Lots of people say that God, by whichever name, does exist, but there is no measure for or against. Quasars and gamma rays can be measured, God cannot. So there is no way to make a legalistic decision for the existence of God.
        The reverse premise, the No-God Universe, is however, falsifiable a la Daubert: if evidence for a God/Supreme being were presented, then the No-God Universe theory would be deemed false – which is NOT the case, therefore the No-God Universe theory is probably true.

        The 1947 movie "Miracle on 34th Street" was cute, and I have always thought Edmund Gwenn to be a superior character actor. But the silly courtroom scenes 'proving' the existence of Santa Claus are exactly parallel to the specious reasoning of the Religionists. In the movie, some postal workers cleverly realized they could get rid of the annual tonnage of letters to Santa at the North Pole by delivering them to the Kris Kringle guy on trial. The lawyers for Santa then concluded that if the esteemed U.S. Post Office considered the old guy to be Santa Claus, then it must be so – giving everyone on the prosecution side and the judge an honorable escape from the political dilemma of attempting to prove that Santa Claus could not exist, and Kris Kringle was therefore crazy.

        The U.S. of A. added the phrase 'under God' to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, and the phrase 'In God We Trust' to money beginning in the 1970's. This does not prove a thing.
        The U.S. government says many things that are soon proven to be lies. How is the matter of the existence of God 'proven' because the U.S. and other governments, and-or the vested interests of religion support the superstition?

*          *          *          *
The EXISTENTIAL VIEWPOINT
        Bring me a unicorn or an angel, and I will re-examine my position. Bring me some evidence of God, and I will do likewise. Hearsay does not count, so don't even write the angry pro-God email to me. I still expect that a few zealous readers – now or upon finding this issue of WMail posted on the WM website – will waste their time and mine, and a few will demonstrate their erudition by calling me an idiot. These zealots cannot respond with Reason, and their False Mind is terrified of Reality, they can only react.

        Mankind inhabits one blue and watery globe. The purpose of the God-myth is to enslave the populace, to bind them to Anti-Reason, so that they are ineffective in all that they do. Ayn Rand said repeatedly that Reason is Mankind's only tool for survival, and that in order to survive, Mankind must use Reason – something that the species has not yet begun to learn. Rand described the Priests of Religion – the 'witch doctors' – as groups within all cultures who have one thing in common: they propose a terrible fate will occur – eternal damnation in a fiery hell, or reincarnation as a cockroach – which can only be prevented by subservience, by complete obedience to their God and no other.
        Hasn't worked, though. Same as Chicago Cubs or [substitute the team of your choice here] fans that believe that their allegiance will somehow support their team into a World Series win.
        Belief in none of the Gods promoted by the Religionists has produced any empirical evidence – none! Mankind is here. God does not exist.
        [And don't offer to send any purported evidence to me. If you have what you consider to be empirical 'evidence', contact the CSICOP Center For Inquiry West, who will give any proposal the rigorous scientific attention that it deserves. The web page is http://www.CFIwest.org/million.htm – prove it if you can, and be awarded a million dollars.]

*          *          *          *
WELL, THEN WHAT?
        Well, if God does not exist, then Mankind is all alone in the Universe, or at any rate, our teeny corner of the Universe. This does not bother me, for there are certain assertions that naturally follow, using Reason.

****   We are all in this together. Religion, since false, cannot be used as justification to separate factions of the species Homo sapiens, nor can race, nor ethnicity, nor imaginary geographical boundary lines.

****   Mankind is responsible. We are probably the only sentient species on planet Earth, so there is no other entity that we can absolve responsibility to. Not thru prayer, not thru political or other allegiance, not thru any form of 'passing the buck'. There is no 'higher power' who will rescue Mankind from our determined cultural madness, from the mounting consequences of collective and individual ir-responsibility.

****   You are responsible. That saying from the Sixties has never been truer: You are either part of the solution, or you are part of the problem. The antidote to every problem of Mankind – at the level of individual or society or species – is the exercise of Reason, which very few practice. [How do I know? Look at the results!]

****   If Mankind used Reason to solve and correct any problem, that problem would be solved.

        But some of you are already asking 'What about spirituality?'. That is easily answered: The entire planet is holy. The Holy Biosphere is your home, the only one you can expect, so Reason cannot abide destruction and waste and unconsciousness and violence based on an expectation of Eternal Life somewhere else. Mankind must get its collective act together here and now, or the Holy Biosphere will die, and all of Mankind with it. Present circumstances are so ominous that it is likely Mankind will be extinct in two generations unless serious and drastic remedies are put into practice around the globe.

*          *          *          *
The CONSEQUENCES
        Ayn Rand wrote "Atlas Shrugged" to illustrate the predictable scenario of a society committed to Anti-Reason. That fictional prediction is very close to coming true in the United States and elsewhere. The looters – how are the stock markets doing lately? – continue to take from producers as a matter of assumed right and the Culture-Structure has now taken so much from Mother Earth that the survival of the planet's biosphere is in doubt.

        On 25 June 2002, the Los Angeles Times printed an article with the title "Humans Consume More Than Earth Can Replace", about a report being published in the 'Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'. The article contained the following lines:
**    "Economic expansion has boosted demand for resources and overshot the planet's ability
        to regenerate them by 20%."
**    "Human demand has been outstripping nature's ability to resupply since the early 1980s."
**    "Since 1961, human demand on resources has nearly doubled."

{{ Full text of the short article is at http://www.working-minds.com/energy.htm#overshot. Full text of the report is at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/99/14/9266 – membership required. Press release from Redefining Progress is at http://www.rprogress.org/media/releases/020625_pnas.html. }

        The topic will be further addressed in the October issue of WMail under the title "Waste Not, Want Not". Issue #28: click here

        "The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction [that] you give it."
               — Ayn Rand (in the 'John Galt Speech')

[copyright 2002 by Gary Edward Nordell, all rights reserved]

---

==>  Gore Vidal [1925-2012] said that "The Gas & Oil Junta (and) the Pentagon govern the United States."
        His new book is "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace" $8.00 in paperback
        L.A. Weekly interview at http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/33/features-cooper.php

==>  Found an organization fighting Dubya's tax cuts for the rich
        http://www.ctj.org/html/gwb0602.htm

==>  These folks actually use the word 'progressive' to define themselves, and look to the
        Chautauqua movement as their role-model: Rolling Thunder DownHome Democracy,
        website at http://www.rollingthundertour.org
 

N E X T   M O N T H: "The Distinction Evil" (WM Chapter 4)

I N   O C T O B E R: "Waste Not, Want Not"

Issue #27: "The Distinction Evil" (from WM Chapter 4)
[September 2002]

>+<    G.E. Nordell, editor    >+<

SLOGAN OF THE MONTH: "Think globally, act locally."

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"There are enough fools in Washington to destroy the country
without any help from Muslim terrorists."
— Paul Craig Roberts

"The best religion is tolerance."
— Victor Hugo [1802-85]

"There's too much tendency to attribute to God
the evils that man does of his own free will."
— Agatha Christie [1890-1976] (in 'The Moving Finger')

"2002 will not enter history's ledger as a good year for civil liberties."
— Michael Phillips (Chicago Tribune)

"Great souls have wills; feeble souls have wishes."
— Chinese proverb

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."
— Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)

"There is merely bad luck in not being loved; there is misfortune in not loving."
— Albert Camus [1913-60] (in 'Return To Tipasa', 1952)

"I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind
and real freedom of discussion as in America."
— Alexis de Tocqueville [1805-59]

"ALL our dreams can come true – if we have the courage to pursue them."
— Walt Disney [1901-66]

"America's support for human rights and democracy is our noblest export to the world."
— William J. Bennett

"The skyline of New York is a monument of a splendour
that no pyramids or palaces will ever equal or approach."
— Ayn Rand [1905-82]

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This month's essay is from Chapter 4 of the book
'Working Minds: A Philosophy of Empowerment', written in January 1998.
Keep it in mind as you absorb the avalanche of media coverage
of the first anniversary of 9-11-01.

------------------------------------------------------------------
T h e    D I S T I N C T I O N    'E V I L'
------------------------------------------------------------------

        Evil is simply the dis-empowerment of oneself or another being.

•       Warfare, between gangs or tribes or nations.
•       Homicide or suicide.
•       Genocide.
•       Terrorism.

        All the above are obvious and terrible dis-empowerments, the taking of somebody's life.
        But there is also:

•       Theft, of so many kinds, from plagiarism to safe-cracking to 'white-collar' crime to
        shoplifting, to the theft of reputation by slander or libel.
•       Assault.
•       Kidnapping.
•       Piracy.
•       The illegal drug business.
•       Pimping and prostitution.

        All such crimes are dis-empowerment.

        The two groups of examples above are indefensible and obvious evils; the examples that follow will be defended.

•       Bigotry, whether based on race or creed or origin.
•       The entrenched class system, within a society.
•       Carnal knowledge of children.
•       Cheating on taxes or on tests or on spouses.
•       Family violence, but also subtler forms of child or spouse abuse; the violence of fraternity
        or sorority hazing; abusive treatment of animals; practical jokes.
•       Slavery, including economic slavery.
•       The subjugation of women by a society; other forms of sexism and ageism; pornography.
•       Religious intolerance and discrimination.

        Yes, you can bet that these latter examples will be defended. In fact, for many readers, your False Mind is defending them right now!
        The only argument against the list immediately above is that these actions dis-empower – and that is the only argument necessary.

        But then, there are also the really subtle dis-empowerments:

•       Telling a child that he/she is 'not good enough', once or over a period of years.
•       Passing over excellence in favor of the common or mediocre.
•       Social strata, from the schoolyard to the United Nations.
•       Scoff-law practices, such as: parking in handicapped zones; tossing empty beer cans, or
        any trash, out of moving vehicles; running red or yellow traffic lights; smoking tobacco
        where prohibited; jaywalking.
•       Rudeness, from cutting lines to talking during artistic performances to high-pressure sales
        tactics to modern 'road rage'.
•       Stiffing the wait-person and-or putting less than your fair share on the table for the check.
•       All gossip – even if it is objectively true.
•       Spurious lawsuits. Heck: most lawsuits.

        Every instance where someone 'gets away with something', some other person or persons have been dis-empowered. We are all very well trained in dis-empowerment. And we dis-empower ourselves by allowing others to perpetrate such acts.

*          *          *          * FEAR
        There are only two natural human fears; that is, only two fears already in humans at birth. These two natural fears are the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. All other fears in human beings are learned.
        Most fears are intentionally taught. All encouragement or teaching or training for abstract and non-natural fears is dis-empowerment. The family, the school system, religion – all are designed to teach their innocent charges the proper fears, ones that will make them – you! – properly-conditioned minions: willing soldiers in the Corporate Wars, nice and quiet Stepford Wives, obedient consumers of plastic trash, numbed voters for 'the lesser of two evils'.
        Some fears, however, may be not so much taught as they are learned by the individual in reaction to circumstances: agoraphobia, claustrophobia, xenophobia, and other such vague yet powerful fears that lodge in the subconscious and dictate an individual's behavior. This is dis-empowerment of oneself, to decide that 'I will never...' or 'I can't...' or 'we dare not...', each based on some sudden, unforeseen event in the past and its aftermath, perpetuated by a long-forgotten decision embedded deep in the psyche. Dis-empowerment from others follows in the form of agreement that the fear is valid or real or permanent.
        It is quite valid to fear 'The Tiger', my symbol for real danger. But such fear is valid and natural only when The Tiger is literally present, when the danger is real and imminent. Fear of a possible Tiger or fear based on a report of a Tiger or fear of a Tiger [event] that occurred years ago will take root in the psyche only to the extent that the person is already dis-empowered by him/herself and by others. The constant fear-inducing barrage delivered by the media is only part of the problem – You tune in, don't you? Your False Mind loves giving you more fear-mongering input.
        The antidote to these unnatural fears is always Objective Reality. When faced with a real Tiger, the real emergency causes one to invoke responses based on Objective Reality, such as the standard responses of 'fight or flight': either battle the real-world Tiger or get the hell out! When the False Mind generates a fake Tiger – based on some memory or feeling, not on a real Tiger – one is dis-empowered because neither fight nor flight has any effect on a fake Tiger.
        So the antidote to fear is Objective Reality, which can be located via the Working Mind: Am I really in danger? What is really going on here? What should I do about this [about this fake Tiger]?
        The Culture-Structure uses simple scare tactics, by which you have been taught that many fake Tigers await your least misstep, ready to pounce and destroy you and your loved ones. The priests of religion and of academia, the priests of commerce and of war have you convinced that unless you obey every anti-Reason False Value [or deity-given Law] that they offer, that then you are destined to rot in Hell {Chapter 10} for all eternity, or watch your children burn in a nuclear holocaust, or never attain some form of tenure, like a pension, and thus sentence yourself to later-life years of grinding poverty.
        The choice provided by the Culture-Structure is always between obeying False Values or ostracism: 'my way or the high-way'. The Culture-Structure will not offer the choice of Empowerment; the Culture-Structure wants you to live in fear.
        Franklin D. Roosevelt was not kidding when he said "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." The other pertinent saying is "The coward dies a thousand deaths, the hero dies but one."
        Learn to face the fake Tigers in Life, the ones that your False Mind and the Culture-Structure make up to keep you dis-empowered. The development of your Working Mind will produce this result.

*          *          *          * NATURE
        Evil is simply the dis-empowerment of oneself or another being.
        Or the dis-empowerment of Nature.

        All the stuff of our existence was not put here on Planet Earth 'for a purpose'. You can argue that matter, but you can only cite belief for your argument.
        We are indeed here, on this blue orb circling a star-sun named Sol. And the birds and beasts of the field and of the sea are here, all the flora and fauna. That is objectively obvious. We are here, and we call ourselves 'Mankind'. And that which is here with Mankind is available for use. Mankind has long-established rules of property and so on to manage things.
        But that which is here alongside Mankind is not available for wanton destruction.

•       Poisons in our rivers, streams, lakes, and oceans, and in the soil.
•       Toxins in the air, and the destruction of the ozone layer.
•       Alar on apples, or any other nasty agricultural chemicals.
•       Corporate abandonment of clear-cut forests and of strip-mined valleys and hillsides.
•       Endangerment, even extinction, of entire species for the profit of some corporation
        that is headquartered half a world away.
•       Burning of the Amazon watershed.
•       All the behaviors that contribute to global warming, down to leaving lights burning
        unnecessarily.

        Such destruction, however minor and traditional and 'necessary', weakens the Planet, our Holy Biosphere, by its steady onslaught. This Culture-Structure-sanctioned destruction of the environment, the sum of the practices of millions and billions of unthinking residents of the Holy Biosphere, steadily weakens the ability of Mankind to survive.
        This too is dis-empowerment.

        Evil is simply the dis-empowerment of oneself or another being.

[copyright 2002 by Gary Edward Nordell, all rights reserved]

---

==>  Reader Joy recommends G.E.N.I. (Global Energy Network Institute),
        an off-shoot of R. Buckminster Fuller's World Game that is focused on
        linking renewable energy resources around the world.
        http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/index2.shtml   (site is in 8 languages)

==>  George Dubya intends that the USA carry out the first overt aggression
        against another sovereign country since ... when? Mexico in 1846-48?
        (Plenty of covert activity by the CIA, etc., but that's a different story).
        Dubya forgets that it is the 'Defense' Department – or will the name soon
        be changed back to the 'War' Department?
        {my Letter to the Editor, printed in the Los Angeles Times Section B on 30 August 2002}

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N E X T   M O N T H: "Waste Not, Want Not"

---

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