To stop our pollinators from disappearing, our lands from becoming permanently toxic, and the destruction of our world’s food sources, we must unite to stop Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow, Bayer, DuPont and BASF.
No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.
Jacob Bronowski
The Queen of Amerindia
There has been discussion that perhaps the mourning for Steve Jobs has gone on too long as headline news. We think not. We can’t think of another company leader who would provoke such heartfelt loss from so many around the world.
We think it’s pretty sad that George Washington is denied proper respect by using him as a symbol for selling cars on President’s Day, and we don’t think Benjamin Franklin is fully appreciated by picturing him as a quaint historical figure, albeit an important one. George Washington had the vision to give us a true democracy, and made a remarkable effort to define the concept of a “public servant” by living it every day. Democratic nations, and those who want to be, should dust off his image to see how it’s done.
As for Franklin, he was a capitalist and businessman. But he understood what we seemed to have forgotten – its appropriate limits. When Ben had accumulated enough wealth to live on comfortably, he went on to become the essential civil servant that was needed, and the inventor and scientist that he wanted to be. These he gifted to the society he had helped forge. What he gave back to society, for no personal gain (other than perhaps self satisfaction and a respect he relished), was far more than the monetary gains that kept him in reasonable living.
Steve Jobs had a love of the creative task first, not the profit, and not only gave us truly elegant technical designs that people loved, but some words of wisdom about life and living that we sorely need. Why not grieve a bit longer? In a world where greed, corruption, and self-indulgence seem to know no bounds, Steve was an extraordinary exception, and we do need to hold on to that. We believe that the concepts of capitalism and democracy – as we now practice them – should be cautionary tales as we think long and hard about Steve Jobs, what he stood for, and why he was so special to so many of us.
“Capitalism should go unfettered!” “It will sort everything out in the end!” Really? Come to think of it, capitalism is as old as humankind, not some grand solution recently thought up. If a Neanderthal traded some nice warm hides to a Cro-Magnon (assuming they didn’t kill each other first), for a few arrowheads, that was capitalism. The concept is that if the transaction is transparent, and the values are fairly and equally determined, then the deal is made and everyone goes home happy. Transparency and mutual agreement without deceit, coercion, force, or whatever mayhem is capitalism working for everyone’s benefit in any age. Capitalism is an economic system that hardly needs to be defended. As long as one has bargained transparently and fairly, the fundamentals of capitalism as an economic system work. But it’s not a political system, and it’s not a system that cares for the health of social structure. Political systems oversee social structure – and their economic systems – for better or for worse. Defending unbridled capitalism as a perfect social solution is a specious red herring.
But back to Jobs, and our example of Ben Franklin. Both these men were extraordinary innovators, designers of things that worked, who made outstanding contributions to the “pursuit of happiness” of so many. They made money the capitalist way, enough to live on well – and then kept right on working for the shear joy of it.
In a time that is overrun by greed, deceit, and self-indulgence that seems to have no bounds, we need our heroes, our examples of what gives “capitalism” a good name. Particularly when there are those muddling their metaphors and defending capitalism like it’s defending democracy, we need to think on those who understood what limitations are needed to make systems, political systems like democracy, and economic systems like capitalism, better by how we use and manage them – not how we declare them perfect and allow them to run amok in the hands of those who abuse the rest of society by their manipulation.
George Washington stood back from absolute power; we admire him endless for that. Franklin stood back from unbridled monetary gain and gifted wonderful systems, ideas, inventions and good counsel after he had secured just enough for himself; we admire him endlessly for that. Steve Jobs gave us intuitive technology that let us work and play efficiently and happily. He charged us, but we paid because it was worth it. And then he just kept giving us the most wonderful technical solutions for his joy and ours. We should, indeed, go on endlessly appreciating him for that.
Queen of Amerndia
This is a very short video, but it’s huge. An outstanding instrument, played by a wonderful musician with the most terrific mission. Please see this video and back this project if you can. Or just enjoy something really, really nice.
We Ain’t Got Time To Bleed. It’s Time for the Revolution.
“You control our world. You’ve poisoned the air we breathe, contaminated the water we drink, and copyrighted the food we eat. We fight in your wars, die for your causes, and sacrifice our freedoms to protect you. You’ve liquidated our savings, destroyed our middle class, and used our tax dollars to bailout your unending greed. We are slaves to your corporations, zombies to your airwaves, servants to your decadence. You’ve stolen our elections, assassinated our leaders, and abolished our basic rights as human beings. You own our property, shipped away our jobs, and shredded our unions. You’ve profited off of disaster, destabilized our currencies, and raised our cost of living. You’ve monopolized our freedom, stripped away our education, and have almost extinguished our flame. We are hit…we are bleeding…but we ain’t got time to bleed. We will bring the giants to their knees and you will witness our revolution! ”
-Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, April 12, 2011
We haven’t posted in awhile. There is so much being posted in the social networks, and it’s being pushed, fed, emailed everywhere. However, we came across this video by a young girl from Canada who sums up everything, and sends a stunningly sensible, and also alarming, message to the world by a delivering a 5 minute commentary in front of the UN.
She manages to cover it all. Everything we teach our children (that is good), seems to be what adults can’t get through their heads. For adults who propose to be working on solutions, it’s clear they aren’t doing a good job, and most likely have more self interest in it than the sense of urgency needed to leave a better world for the next generation.
She’s right, we’re “fixing, fixing” but we don’t seem to get what’s broken, if it’s broken enough, we don’t care enough, don’t get organized enough, and probably, for all our talk, our meetings, reports, and billions and trillions(?) spent, don’t know how to fix it. The will to get it right, as this young lady has, is missing in our world leadership. And it’s critically important, imperative, that we get it right – now. It’s not good enough to have report after report of vanishing species, spreading illness, continuing war, conflict, starvation, disease. There seems to be more hunger for reports and discussion than hunger to actually get the job done.
As she points out, we have to see ourselves as all one people, which we are obviously having a difficult time doing. And we don’t see the absolute necessity of sharing, of spreading the wealth that is available. We are hoarders – of time, wealth, self importance, and solutions.
Please listen take 5 minutes to listen to this message, and then pass it along.
The girl who silenced the world for 5 minutes
First in a series of articles in the Boston Globe about “El Sistema”, the energy of young people from around the world putting magic in the music at the Boston Conservatory of Music. Hopefully this new music will send sound waves of good energy to turn war into peace, injustice into humanitarianism, poverty into improvement in living for all, environmental destruction into sustainability – that it will be another path to a general harmony with the earth.
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