tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72589038292426172682024-03-13T00:47:02.665-04:00Rollie's Blog: Public MattersThese are exercises in thinking about public matters with the conviction that publics matter. Publics are where we fulfill our highest human capacity: to speak and act in association to shape our common world. The institutions that guarantee, protect, and comprise our publics matter. They deserve the ongoing critical and strategic thinking of all of us who would be citizens.Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.comBlogger495125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-53718292889738445312019-01-02T14:45:00.002-05:002019-01-02T14:45:29.973-05:00Cheney the ViceI'm going to see the movie "Vice" and read a review by a historian that says the film gets it wrong. The problem with Cheney was not his lust for power but his ideology.<br />
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Here is a series of interviews by Jay Miller of the Real News with Wilkerson, staff director for Powell. The interviews give lots of insight into Cheney. Looks to me from this that both were true.<br />
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https://therealnews.com/series/wilkerson-on-the-real-vice-cheneyRollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-74094670852033183832018-12-03T20:58:00.000-05:002018-12-03T21:14:55.638-05:00Soul Growing and the Public Faith<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; text-align: center;">All my colleagues know too well that I have been grieving with most of them in the election of Donald Trump as an instance of a worldwide turn to the populist autocratic right. I needed to grapple with what I considered a setback for the human advance beyond tribalism, an exaltation of wealth over commonweal, and a threat to our public faith. </span><br />
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I read many books by experts analyzing the subordination of democracy to the economy and in particular the global capitalistic order. These books described how the banks and large international corporations were once tamed by social democratic policies, were gradually unchained and were able to sell a system of fast-growing inequality. They also described the transition from the industrial to the information economy and from manufacturing to a service dominated economy. “It’s the economy, stupid.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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I listened to many persons who have given up on American political institutions because it left them poorer in income and the ability to consume, because it benefited many other people whom they do not consider true citizens because they are immigrants, are racially inferior or reject the religious and moral practices that they were taught to uphold. They saw themselves labeled losers and wanted to show the so-called winners in education, wealth, and preference that they counted. They once had religious, labor, ethnic, and veterans’ organizations through which they could achieve the power to deal with the elites who were running things. Now they felt they had nothing.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Psychologists demonstrated that when the fear, flight, and fight instincts prevail, boundaries are drawn, walls are built, and military might dominate. And people no longer savor life which recent statistics in America concerning life expectancy, drug addiction, and suicide seem to confirm. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But I decided that though many experts hark back to the Great Recession, when banks survived but mortgages and family savings did not, this was not primarily an economic depression. And though many persons individually felt the loneliness and disrespect that undermined their purpose to live, this was not primarily a psychological depression. I decided that what we were experiencing was a political depression. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The crisis of faith we experience may reach over to our personal, household, or private realm; but it is in the public realm we must look for a cure. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The expressions of public faith and specifically the public faith of Americans can be found developing through the history of the United States, sometimes in its adherence and sometimes in its breach. The founding documents of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the farewell and inaugural addresses of Presidents, up through the Pledge of Allegiance, and major speeches of persons deemed to articulate that faith often etched into monuments that ring the National Mall.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The key belief of a democratic Republic is the dignity and equality of all human beings. This is the foundation of a structure of human rights that contains spaces for voluntary civic associations, all ordered through a government chosen and run by representatives elected by popular vote. The main principle of unity for a democratic Republic is not a cultural identity—not background, religion, beliefs, or ethnicity. It is choice starting with the fundamental choice to be a citizen of a Republic that recognizes that all persons, no matter how different otherwise, are equal and have rights to life, liberty, and happiness. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The standard of religious liberty was one of Jefferson’s crowning achievements that flows from the founding principle of a democratic Republic. This is both the freedom to practice whatever religion one chooses and freedom from religion so that no person has to adhere to any established religion or any religion at all. The principle of universal human dignity and equality surpasses and indeed overcomes cultural sameness. A democratic Republic is inclusive of cultural, ethnic, sexual, religious identities. It is a unity in diversity, pluralism not assimilation—<i>e pluribus unum</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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However, there is a standard for membership in the Republic. In the Declaration, it is the belief that “all persons are created equal and endowed with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” In the Pledge it is “liberty and justice for all.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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We have a faith in our public domain that is influenced by but also transcends, all of our personal and private persuasions. That faith is based on democratic republican principles found in our very nature of human being. Its expressions and institutions change with the development of our language and our world. <span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;">I know you have personal private opinions that work for you in your household and private life. I respect your religious persuasions and ask you to respect mine. I ask you to work with me to transcend, without losing, our private traditions so that we may renew our democratic republic.</span><span style="background-color: #f2f3f5; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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I am not an “originalist.” I think originalism in respect to the Constitution or any other Sacred Scripture is based on a fallacious understanding of human thought and language. However, I am willing to discuss with you what I mean by human equality, liberty, justice and the principles of a democratic Republic and listen to what you mean. In our context, in our world, in our living together. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In this dialogue, which joins all of our unique stories, our consensus will be achieved. In our action together to shape our community institutions we realize our public faith. Even though we might have different ways of expressing it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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A good friend of mine with whom I worked in community building in Toronto and in Honolulu raised the following concern after one of my fervorinos to keep organizing at the local level.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>The challenge is still to get grass-roots organizing happening. Read this quote from Naomi Klein's 'No is not enough' (Halina Bortnowska, a Polish writer) - "You start witnessing these semi-psychotic reactions. You can no longer expect people to act in their own best interests when they're so disoriented, they don't know - or no longer care - what those interests are" That pretty much sums it up for me ... what do old buggers like us do now?</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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My response is far from grandiose.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>What can we old folks do? Not much alone. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>We need to foster community wherever we can--in our neighborhoods, housing complexes, churches, and other associations. We need to affirm our friends and colleagues who demonstrate the democratic republic principles of pluralism, inclusion, and participation. We need to read and discuss in our book clubs and conversations thoughtful opinions based on serious study and evidence. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>We need to critically think after listening to those whose opinions and behaviors are often opposed to their interests. We need to appreciate and join their pain with our own because it's only there that we find the basis for solidarity.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>I think we are in a state of social entropy that can only be reversed by the human connection that transcends "sides," "parties," and "tribal thinking." We are at a critical point in the process of humanity. Anything we do that connects us to our immediate neighbor, small that it might be, makes the difference. I think the civility that launches us beyond tribalism starts by saying hello to the passing stranger and recognizing him or her as yourself. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>I have lowered my expectations of being a great thinker and actor. But my ideals are still intact. And so are yours. Only a miracle from a higher power can save humanity now. But it's right here in all of us joined together. Starting one on one. Soul to soul.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-79813981541880156202018-11-20T23:01:00.000-05:002018-11-20T23:01:03.039-05:00Argument<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">Letter from V responding to Bernie who asked why he is so angry after he gratuitously sent out an article attacking Obama from 8 years ago by a clearly delusional man. See <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/empty-suit/" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/empty-suit/</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: red; font-size: 11pt;">Bernie, I am not angry. I really truly believe my side of the equation. I could still remember your mon very entrenched in the Democratic Party in Chicago too. I never said a word. I just listened. She was mainly interested in Chicago politics. -- I believe I have for the most part checked out both sides and I agree with the Fox news. They are on target. Just for off my head items: 1) I believe there should be borders. 2) Abortion ended. 3) Less Regulations. 4) Lower taxes 5) Full employment. That is happening all over the United States now. Very healthy. Yes, it has some disadvantages like slow completions of contracted jobs due to the shortage of qualified employees. It is happening to me now in NV. 5) The removing of statues of famous people because of past slaves is really stupid. That just shows how immature this society has become. -- It goes on and on. I listened to Rollie for years. Read his writings and Blogs. We are so far apart that there is really no use talking to that man. It is sad. He is a very nice man with ideas that should be trashed. No, I am not angry. I am CORRECT. 6) I also look up to Rich People. Most of them really had to work hard or take enormous chances to make it to that position. Even with a big start, It is very hard to succeed. Your buddy Soros, has to be a very smart person. At some point he took a hefty logical chance and won. He could have lost and we would never hear of him. He is your savior now. Why is Soros, Soros? I don’t have a clue. He does, I am sure. Ninety percent of my Jewish friends are on his side too. They don’t have a clue either. -- No it is not anger. I just hate stupidity. You say that is me. I say bullshit. </span></b><b><span style="color: red; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">V, Bernie just sent me your reply to her. Thank you for saying I am a nice man. And I agree that my ideas should be trashed. Like Socrates, I know that I do not know. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">While I am enjoying life very much and loving what I am doing in our local community, I am also daily in touch with mortality. People who have become good friends are always dying in this old folks’ home! I feel I have about 10 years left and want to use them well. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">On the other hand, I am not like Google’s Artificial Intelligence director (Ray Kurzweil, whom I read, admire, and disagree with) trying to achieve biological immortality. I think it is good for the future of humanity that people die. I especially believe that it is important for us old white males to let go. We tend to believe in our own bullshit. We need to trash our ideas and continue to be open for new ways to think and act. But habits do not go easily. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">I agree with your beliefs as listed—e.g., borders, abortion, regulations, taxes, employment. But if we were to talk it out, we would probably disagree on how they might be accomplished and at whose expense. But I have found that in speaking with you, we never talk it out. You just hold on to a position without thinking much about it. You pass out rumors and repeat other people’s judgments without checking up on the evidence for them. I find you do not see the complexities in the world as it is. I have never argued with you, though I’ve tried, because you see everything and especially politics as taking sides—kinda like a football game. Win/lose, I’m right/You're wrong/ my side/your side. I can’t do that. Arguing to me means considering a position or an action from many viewpoints and also being willing to search for higher viewpoints. [PS. There is a great Monty Python skit that shows the difference between argument and contradiction. Very funny.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11pt;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1gf957Qw7A" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1gf957Qw7A</span></a>]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">I also disdain name-calling that puts persons in boxes without indicating what is meant, e.g. socialist/capitalist, left/right, friend/enemy, losers/winners, right to life/right to choose, democrat/republican, progressive/conservative. That’s done all the time in cable TV and talk-radio. It adds nothing. It is never "either-or" for me—even "both-and” is too limiting. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">I know we have very different values and perspectives. I still consider myself a Companion of Jesus (the one before all the myths were written about him as I learned in my Jesuit studies). I take on his attitude (as St Paul urged) toward the “little ones,” the “ones left out,” the “poor” under thumb of the dominant. Nevertheless, I am very comfortable with and value those who have wealth. Personally, ever since I took the vow of poverty, I have never made getting rich an objective in my life. However, I also defend other people’s wish to pursue wealth. The rich and powerful don’t turn me on. Just not my goal. Not my definition of success.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">So, no, I do not look up to rich people any more than I look up to poor people. I hope I don't look up to or down on anyone. When I look at systems of hierarchy (whether in business, church, or state), I see systems of oppression. I resolve to oppose anyone or institution (governmental or private) who would pursue wealth by screwing other people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">My democratic-republican values in my own path to American citizenship has me deplore economic and political inequality and injustice and all the systems that cause it. When I say, “freedom and justice <u>for all</u>,” I really mean it and want to make it happen. I know that not everybody thinks that way. I am grateful that my own personal persuasions and religion can contribute to, but not dominate, the public arena. I realize that I must continue to transcend even my own beliefs, values, and positions. That for me is the meaning of faith. Ever transcending.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">While we are so different in our backgrounds and values, I believe that people with different opinions can enter into other perspectives and understand others' values in ways that advances thought. But that takes what some call critical thinking that acknowledges the complexity of the human condition. I read, go to lectures, take classes, discuss with many people who disagree with me and I learn so much from them. I am constantly adjusting especially if they are too. It is not just a matter of shouting beliefs based on authority. It is working together to understand together, finding common ground from where to start, and respecting where people are coming from. That is why I quit listening to you and all your missives wind up in my junk box. I’ve heard them all before and nothing changes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">Nevertheless, I do love you and wish you well. I won’t talk politics or religion with you. But I’ll be glad to go to gun targeting practice with you again and talk about sports and movies. I wrote a book on spirituality and another on faith. Both need a lot of critique, but that may be too close to religion and politics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">Another PS. I just read <u>American Ulysses: A life of Ulysses S. Grant</u> by Ronald White and Jill Lepore’s wonderful new book on American History <u>These Truths</u>. Both are very comforting because they show me how we got here and that we have been here many times before. Everyone talks about being polarized and I suppose many are. But I’m not feeling that way. But then I don’t make any claim that I am CORRECT.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: red; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">Conclusion NOT. V wrote a response that indicated that he had no understanding as to what I was saying here. And he made assumptions about me and my family that were totally off the mark. I must admit my own incapacity to communicate to him. I see and accept him as a very unhappy old white man. May he rest in peace.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-683841437025690082018-11-19T13:48:00.000-05:002018-11-20T11:12:08.841-05:00Assimilation and Acculturation<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The worst thing the founders did was build slavery into the American political economy and so creating a house divided. Even after civil war, suffrage, and freedom movements, there remains a norm of propertied white male Protestant Christian preeminence which raises its standard from time to time often provoked by autocratic populist leaders.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The best thing the founders did was declaring the freedom of and from religion linked with the freedom of speech and assembly and so setting the American ideal as freedom and justice for all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Immigration policy has historically wavered between these two standards which I name assimilation vs. acculturation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The acculturation standard (I realize I am redefining its meaning) welcomes people of all ethnic origins, religious persuasions, tribal languages, sexes, sexual orientations which are consigned to the private sphere of household affairs. This standard entrusts citizenship to the public sphere which sets its own visions and rules, its own policies and rules, and which is open to all as equals while protecting their privacy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is why we can distinguish a private, (household, ethnic, tribal) culture and a public (American, democratic republican) culture. Another way of putting it, we have a personal religion and a civil religion. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The assimilation standard does not recognize this division between private and public. It requires citizenship to be, or at least tending to be, in sync with Euro/Anglo, Protestant Christian, private propertied, heterosexual male values. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And to be honest, I admit that this Euro/Protestant private culture and religious persuasion did indeed shape the public culture and religion in the thirteen original states. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But the growth of the nation in size and in democratic republican ideals allowed many other cultures and religious persuasions to continue in the reshaping of that public culture and religion even to the point of amending the constitution and passing new laws. In the 1950s this was recognized in Will Herberg’s book, <u>Protestant, Catholic, and Jew</u> (which he might amend today adding Muslim, Hindu, Atheist, Feminist, LGBT, Universalist, and Secular Humanist) as ways of being American. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I think there are few people in America who want to judge persons by the color of their skin, their sex, their sexual orientation (even though biases linger and so do certain institutions). While there are too many hate crimes, very few Americans hate one another or newcomers—especially once they come to know each another. I also think that, while we can value pluralism and multiculturalism, we have a right and a responsibility to work for a unified public culture and expect persons to act in a civil way according to generally agreed-upon norms. Our law is not Sharia, Canon, Confucian, or Biblical law, even though we might learn something from these traditions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Pluralism or multiculturalism in no way opposes unity and cohesion. No more than the public sphere opposes the private sphere. Where one is strong so is the other. And vice versa.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We are all on a path to citizenship, whether we are born here or elsewhere. That means we abide in a public culture which we call American democracy with its values, language, and rules of civility. We can and should criticize and help shape that culture so that it more closely achieves its ideals of equality, freedom and justice in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in a democratic, nonviolent way. Those of us who behave, serve, and act civilly are the true citizens. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-34029235608051720332018-10-29T16:11:00.001-04:002018-11-18T12:00:46.003-05:00David Brooks is a Nationalist?<span style="font-family: inherit;">David Brooks is a Nationalist? He said so </span>in a recent article. But he also described what he meant.<br />
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He meant that his main claim of reference and where he most finds the characteristics that define himself and his interests is not in neighborhood or village or city, though all these are important. Nor in the international or global realm, but in his country--the US of America. Thus he calls himself a nationalist, not a globalist or a statist or regionalist.<br />
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I guess that's okay. If it is descriptive. But not if prescriptive.<br />
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I am not a nationalist and I don't want to be.<br />
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My problem with nationalism (e.g. America Firstism) is that it easily turns to fascism. (Merriam Webster: <span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><b><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><span style="color: #303336; letter-spacing: 0.20000000298023224px;">a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized </span><a class="mw_t_d_link" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/autocratic" style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: objects; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, rgb(151, 190, 206) 100%, transparent 0px); background-position: 0px 1.15em; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; background-size: 3px 1px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #265667; font-stretch: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.20000000298023224px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">autocratic</a><span style="color: #303336; letter-spacing: 0.20000000298023224px;"> government headed by a </span><a class="mw_t_d_link" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dictatorial" style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: objects; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, rgb(151, 190, 206) 100%, transparent 0px); background-position: 0px 1.15em; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; background-size: 3px 1px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #265667; font-stretch: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.20000000298023224px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">dictatorial</a><span style="color: #303336; letter-spacing: 0.20000000298023224px;"> leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #303336; letter-spacing: 0.20000000298023224px;">.) </span></b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #303336; letter-spacing: 0.20000000298023224px;"><br /></span></b></i></span> I am an American. But not a patriot, right or wrong, as in "patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundral" (Sam Johnson). I identify with humanity, not only in America. I especially identify with those who aspire to, but are left out of, the opportunity for human fulfillment or full actualization. As an American, I work hard to practice my citizenship, to make America a place of opportunity for human fulfillment, i.e. public and private happiness. I also oppose my country and my government when I discover it denying the human rights of people in or out of my country.<br />
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Go be a nationalist, David Brooks. Your decision. But not mine.<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #303336; letter-spacing: 0.20000000298023224px;"><br /></span></b></i></span>Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-69452270524377664302018-10-07T20:56:00.002-04:002018-10-07T20:56:42.802-04:00 The Civil Religion<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span>In the leisure of aging years, I struggle to understand the distresses of our present situation: the persistence of racism, deterioration of democratic institutions, wars without end, polarizing division in politics, growing gaps in equality, exercise of power through fear, hatred of others outside tribe or party, calls for obstruction over collaboration, protection of the instruments of violence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span>Why this concern, you ask. I love life; and life is prolonged and enriched through purpose and association. I care for my family and especially my grandchildren. I care for my friends. I care for my associates seeking social meaning and justice. I care for my community, my country, and a world whose future is in doubt.</span> </div>
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<span>Guided by old mentors<a href="applewebdata://A6D31FC7-C66D-4C17-9CFB-54AE0940B1B6#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a>and new ones,<a href="applewebdata://A6D31FC7-C66D-4C17-9CFB-54AE0940B1B6#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></a>I have reviewed the fragile connection between politics and economy, American democracy and American capitalism, and discovered their contradictions. One is bottom-up with horizontal decision-making among persons who are equals deliberating on behalf of the common good. The other is hierarchical with vertical decision-making on behalf of private profit. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span>The principle of democracy, presently in critical decay, is the subordination of economic life and institutions to public good. In politics, citizens and their representatives leave their households and businesses to form a public to oversee, limit, regulate, and protect the private sphere—including households, tribes, clans, companies, clubs, and other associations. In other words, the public good outweighs private goods; public happiness is a condition for private happiness.<span> </span>When the goal of a public and its institutions (government) is subjected to private or special interests, both the public and privacy are jeopardized. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span>And that is what many observers confirm is happening. The evidence is in the influence by lobbyists on political deliberation; oligarchs using their corporations to fund candidates and officials; the public good consisting in the sum of private goods; Gross National Product, rather than Public Happiness, as the criterion of success of the nation; bailouts for too-big-to-fail financial institutions; investment in private ventures rather than people; socialization of risks and privatization of profit; and tax breaks for the wealthy subsidized by lower classes. American politics and economy are not just out of sync; they are in contention. Some say that democracy cannot exist without free market capitalism. I discover the contrary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span>But beyond the forms, objectives, nature, and ordering of economy and politics, it is important to see both in relation to culture. When Alexis De Tocqueville studied Democracy in America, he turned to the mores of people. He investigated how they lived with one another, what they considered good behavior, the values and the beliefs that shaped their behavior, their “habits of the heart” in order to understand the foundations of their private and public behavior. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span>Culture consists in the myths, values, big ideas, worldview of a society as expressed in their religion, philosophy, arts, sciences, and education. The leaders of the Continental Congress founding the nation learned from the experience and philosophy of England from Magna Carta to John Locke.<span> </span>They also learned from their colonial history and experience--from the self-ruling Puritans who settled Massachusetts and the tolerance of Roger Williams founding Rhode Island.<span> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span>When the framers of the constitution insisted on freedom of and from religion, the disestablishment of religion, they made the key distinction for democratic governing between the private and the public. They relegated personal persuasions, traditional beliefs, ethnic customs, tribal loyalties, family practices, local mutual associations to the private realm in order to form and enhance a public realm. The public would protect and support the private.<span> </span>It would also assure that private behavior would not undermine or prevail over the public realm but support it through participation and representation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span>There are other important distinctions that cut across both the private and the public realms, for example, individual and social, sacred and secular, virtues and vices. Each has its own culture to support it. Each has its own language, myths, habits, values.<span> </span>Each has its own understanding of virtue and vice, of the individual in association, and of the sacred and secular.<span> </span>Each has its own culture including myths, religion, and philosophy<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span>While one realm supports the other, it is essential that each maintains the distinction between public and private and the division of its institutions.<span> </span>It is so important to recognize when an individual or group of individuals acts privately or as a public citizen and when private behavior has public consequences. This is the distinction that allows for and applauds multiculturalism while at the same time enjoys unity and cohesion. That unity is achieved in the public realm where people from all cultures, ethnicities, traditions, religious persuasions, ideals, and aspirations create a civil culture, civic virtue, civic morality, civil religion, and civilization itself. The foundation of that unity is in human existence as reaching out to organize a common world, reaching in to the indispensable relationship to others, reaching up to continually transcend the products of our expression of the world with others. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span>It follows then that the characteristics of a democratic republic are:<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span>Distinction from the private realm and division of their institutions. (e.g. church-state) [Big question: How do the private and public cultures and behaviors relate?] <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span>Inclusion of all persons in constituting and shaping the public. (e.g. equal participation for persons from many traditions and persuasions, non-discrimination). [What is citizenship?]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span>Priority of public good over private goods. (e.g. political (public) unity in cultural (private) diversity). [How far to regulate individual and corporate behavior for good of all? The rights of minorities and those without power?] <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span>Protection and fostering of private rights of all persons and groups of persons. (e.g. religious/cultural/racial/sexual/age liberty). [Who is a person?]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span>Equality under the law enacted by the public through its institutions. [Is criminal justice system fair? Is capital punishment acceptable?]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span>Exercise of rights to speak, serve, and act, associate and organize, inquire, criticize, and protest (e.g. life, liberty, pursuit of happiness [What are minimum conditions for nutrition, shelter, education, safety?]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span>From its foundation to this very moment, the American experience and experiment with democracy and culture, including religion, has been an exercise in lofty ideals and hypocritical practice. The compromises on which the Republic was founded included 1) the maintenance of slavery and servitude, 2) the oppression, removal, concentration of native peoples, persons of color, and refugees, 3) the servility of women, 4) the harassment of different life-styles. All these practices were and are exercised through private institutions of households, churches, businesses, clubs and associations protected and often promoted through political parties, civic law, and public neglect of suffering Americans. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span>In assisting working-class neighborhoods and communities of color organize themselves for equity and justice, Saul Alinsky would counsel leaders to make authorities live up to their own “bullshit.”<span> </span>Well the “bullshit” is the civic culture, the civil religion, the American myth, idea, ideal. He called it “bullshit” because it was not being realized. Granted that the American ideal of a democratic republic or freedom and justice for all or a more perfect union is aspirational, if citizens are not moving towards that ideal and embodying that ideal in their actions, then that ideal and its public has already ceased to be. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</style><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px;">The civil religion has a content: A language, a creed, certain rites, mores, and morality, carried forward by its traditions in history and evolving into the future as the public realizes its ideals in changing circumstances. Some of that content can be discovered in the founding documents, some in the farewell addresses of presidents and in the articulations of public historians and philosophers. Many are printed on monuments on the Public Mall in DC.<br /><br />But like the religions expressed in churches, synagogues, mosques, and other private places, the civil religion is primarily expressed in the values and acts of its adherents, its representatives, its officers. And highest office in a democratic republic is that of citizen.</span><span style="font-family: -webkit-standard; font-size: small; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px;"></span></div>
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<a href="applewebdata://A6D31FC7-C66D-4C17-9CFB-54AE0940B1B6#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[i]</span></span></span></a>John Dewey, Hannah Arendt, Karl Polanyi<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="applewebdata://A6D31FC7-C66D-4C17-9CFB-54AE0940B1B6#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[ii]</span></span></span></a>Roberrt Kuttner, Wolfgang Streeck, <o:p></o:p></div>
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</style>Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-47222093754931864812018-09-10T13:14:00.000-04:002018-09-10T13:14:16.527-04:00It's About Time!<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
It’s About Time!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Is time real or an illusion? And who gives a damn?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Physicist Lee Smolin does, and he asks about it in his book:<u>Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe</u>. After reading it, I care about it too as a philosopher who believes that philosophy, informed by science, is a way of life. How I answer the question of time as real or illusion makes a difference in my approach to world. I consider that this meditation on time is an exercise in spiritual growth.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Smolin first presents the case for time as an illusion from modern physics which seeks invariable truth underlying the world we experience. Modern science from Newton to Einstein discovered the laws of matter and motion both at the macro astronomic and the micro quantum levels of nature. Now the universe of space-time can be explained by understanding initial conditions and the timeless and universal laws of everything that is. Well, not everything.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Not everything yet; for the search is still on for the Theory of Everything that would include dark matter and gravity and the initial conditions of the universe itself. String theory, many physicists conjecture, may be the provenance of this unified field theory that combines the Standard Theory with Quantum Gravity to reach, as Stephen Hawkins called it (metaphorically), the very mind of God.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Here the objective of the pure unlimited desire to know reaches towards the timeless, eternal, absolute reality—the Transcendentals, the One, then True, the Good beyond the transitory things of our ephemeral world. Time is relative and therefore a mere shadow of the timeless realities of the universe.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Or so goes the drive to know from the lovers of wisdom Plato and Aristotle to Hegel and Heidegger. Then Heidegger, who proclaimed all philosophy a footnote to Plato, began to center in on the Dasein (being-there) of human consciousness as Zeit (time) through which Sein (Reality) reveals itself.<o:p></o:p></div>
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New science, according to Smolin, and especially the new formulation of quantum mechanics, comprises a new moment that succeeds the proven Standard Theory by considering time, not only as real, but as the fundamental reality from which even space emerges. Smolin’s physics resonates with Nobel Prize winner Ilya Prigogine’s chaos or complexity theory of an open universe of diverse possibilities. Science and philosophy converge on the fundamental reality of time. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Smolin argues that “time and its passage are fundamental and real and the hopes and beliefs about timeless truths and timeless realms are mythology.” Reality, he says, “consists only of what’s real in each moment of time. This is a radical idea, for it denies any kind of timeless existence or truth—whether in the realm of science, morality, mathematics, or government. All those must be reconceptualized to frame their truths within time.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Uh, oh—postmodern relativity! There goes truth in morality, in politics, religion. No timeless laws of nature? Does that mean that the Constitution, the rights of humanity, the tenets of virtue, the divine truths of religion, the invariable laws of science; and does this mean that transcendent values and beings do not exist? “Truth is not truth,” said the President’s attorney. “Alternative facts,” said his publicist. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Not so! In earlier writings, by rejecting the delusion of the absolute and of determinism that I discovered in science and philosophy, I assumed the mantle of a postmodern thinker. However, I argued that there were two postmodernisms—one of which I reject. That is the thinking that would replace the unconditional absolute of modernity with relativity. This means that there is no firm basis for the knowledge of reality and for judgment as to what is true. (Ironically, the relativity so deplored by conservatives returns us to the fallacy of the objective and the illusion of the absolute—the what to which truth is relative.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Rather, I accept the postmodern thinking that would assert not the relativity of things, but their relationality. Every reality can be understood in terms of its internal and external relations; that is, how its components are related and how it is related to all other things. Smolin expresses that a relational universe is a corollary of the proposition that time is real and fundamental to all that there is. Another way of saying this is that all things can be explained, and can only be explained, in the moment in which they are—a moment of the ongoing flow of time which is a succession of moments.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This, however, begs the question (not raised by Smolin) as to what a moment is and how it becomes a moment in time. I suggest letting a line represent the arrow of time from past to future. And let points on the line represent its moments starting in the middle with the present moment and then positioned before and after to represent past and future moments. The universe and all things in the universe exist in the present moment and can be explained in this moment by those minds, natural and artificial, with capacity to understand. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In geometry, a point has no dimensions. There are infinite points on a line, each of which is infinitely divisible. In cosmology, a moment can be infinitesimally small, a particle in a particle. Or it can be cosmically large—like an era or epoch or age.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Past moments have passed, and the realities of those moments are gone. However, there may be evidence of them in the present moment (artifacts, DNA, recordings) so that the explanation of them might be reconstructed. Dinosaurs are no longer real though, based on what is real in the present, we can affirm that they were real in a past moment and had certain characteristics, diet, behaviors, etc. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Also, realities (things, events) of the future might be predicted based on evidence in the present. But the future is open. Seemingly invariable laws of nature are subject to unforeseen and chance fluctuations so that predictions can ultimately be falsified or verified by new evidence. Evidence of climate change abounds in the present. Based on meteorological data being collected, synthesized, and formulized, we can make predictions regarding the future effects for the earth and its inhabitants. However, because of fluctuations in the data, partially caused by the accumulation of the change and partially caused by the behaviors of the inhabitants of the earth to the change, those predictions for the future are totally indeterminate.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This is the picture of a cosmology in which time is real and there are no timeless beings, events, places, or anything outside time that is governing or determining what was, is, or will be reality and its formulations into laws of nature.<o:p></o:p></div>
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How do moments of time become? How are these points on the time line put? Points are put on the line by pointing. <o:p></o:p></div>
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We point by a gesture, e.g. the forefinger extended to something, as a sign to a teammate. Or by a verbal gesture when we name a thing and use it, explore it, dissect it, change it, or exchange it. We point by using a symbol to count it. We point by using an image as an analogy to classify it. We point by using mathematic and other symbols to conjecture and ultimately affirm its internal and external relationships. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Time and the realities of its moments became known when humanity on earth (and who knows what else on what other planet) acquired the ability to not only have, but also to use images to tell something to someone. [I recount this ability to imagine, articulate, express, and shape a world in many of my earlier writings and will not repeat that account here.] And in the exercise of this capacity to communicate arises the consciousness of self and others interacting to a world in time. The ancients called this sense of self in the world psyche or spirit. Medievalists called it divine image, inner light, or soul. Moderns called it Geist or mind. Contemporary philosophers, like Heidegger and his students, called it time. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Time is the consciousness of our human organisms as we interact with each other in creating our world, our past and our future. It is the sense of transcendence, moving on from where we are and came to an open, undetermined future. We experience our conscious existence as a drive to know or, as AN Whitehead described it, the Unity of Adventure, the urge to all possibilities. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The illusion and reality of the self has been discussed by contemporary philosophy informed by biology and neuroscience. The human body is conscious. We human beings feel ourselves in interaction with others as we communicate, use images, words, and symbols, to reach out to our world to understand it and shape it. We are self-conscious. We are conscious of ourselves in relation to other selves, to our environment, to our past and our future. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Is time real or an illusion. Is the real, the fundamental principle of all that is, outside time in some timeless being, event, place, or law. Or is the real time itself? Time as nature and time as consciousness. <o:p></o:p></div>
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What difference does it make? If time is of the essence, then nothing is outside or beyond time. Anything that exists is in and of time. Time is the universe of all that is. And the universe is time, the relationship of all things to all things, the progression of moments within which all things are related. If we accept the reality of time and our place within it, we accept our role and responsibility within time. That make a huge difference, if you think about it. It means that what we think and what we do will direct and project our world. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I suggest that time is both real and an illusion. Through our ability to imagine and express, we humans discover and make things and events in time. At the same time or in the same moment we experience ourselves so doing. We make time, we feel time, we discover ourselves and all things in time. Most important, we become and shape time. My time is your time and our time is in line with universal time, the flow of the universe whose moments we discover and create as both actual and artificial, real and illusory. The illusion of self-consciousness encounters the reality of a universe. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Evolution becomes conscious in us, said the poet scientist. The arrow of time achieves meaning and direction in us. Should we accept that responsibility and role? Should we spend our time discovering, making, and joining time with others in our world? This is our vocation. This is the fundamental option of human existence.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Make time for ourselves and for each other. Make time for the world in which we all exist. Make time for the future of our children, our communities, our earth, and our species. This is our time. Let’s use it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-70091947372959157922018-08-21T16:43:00.000-04:002018-08-21T16:43:03.964-04:00Is the Pope Catholic?That's a jocular response to a question that has an obvious answer.<br />
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But now it's a not so funny response in the light of the priest child abuse revelations that seem to have reached a crescendo. (Maybe?) So much is being written about it that I cannot resist my urge to express, and thus find, my own views.<br />
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Pope Francis, in his recent letter denouncing and apologizing for the abuse of youth by contemporary priests, tries to get to a root cause by highlighting the "clericalism" of the Church. Clericalism is that separate class of special people closer to the Holy One (which the early Jesus people rejected). But it is more. It is hierarchy in which some persons have authority and control over others which harks back to the patron system of the Roman empire (that the Jesus people fought). And then of course it is the sexism and paternalism of male domination (also rejected by the Jesus people).<br />
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The problem is not just the culture of the church as expressed in doctrines and rites. It is how the church is organized as an institution. Moreover, the abuse of clerics, like the abuse of politicians, lawyers, and bureaucrats goes beyond sexual predation. It is the abuse of power. Like rape.<br />
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If the Church is to truly root out this abuse, it will get rid of the clerical class, flatten the hierarchy, and renounce paternalism and sexism. Communities will choose their conveners based on agreed upon criteria. And these conveners will choose their overseers or administrators--or at least recommend them to the world church leader (e.g. Pope, President) selected by the overseers.<br />
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Leaders will be male and female demonstrating their ability to support their families as good dads and moms and to be leaders with civic virtue in their neighborhoods, cities, and community associations. As for any job, there may be some educational requirements as agreed to by the people in congregation. No female or married priests. Just no priests!<br />
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Time for a Vatican III, Pope Francis?Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-38705920545614653912018-08-08T17:10:00.003-04:002018-08-09T10:38:52.438-04:00New Great Awakening<div align="center" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">My previous reflection (8-4-18) was on culture, especially religion, private and public. The genius of the founders was building a public while distinguishing it from the private. Persons and groups in the private realm could have their own opinions, worship their own divinities, and make their own livelihoods. And we as a people of many households and traditions can enjoy unity from the many, as our coins of the realm say, by sharing common ideas and spaces.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Frank Rich, columnist for the New York Magazine, just wrote another of his great articles entitled <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/08/frank-rich-2008-financial-crisis-end-of-american-dream.html?utm_source=nym_press&wpisrc=nl_daily202&wpmm=1" target="_blank">In 2008 Americans </a></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/08/frank-rich-2008-financial-crisis-end-of-american-dream.html?utm_source=nym_press&wpisrc=nl_daily202&wpmm=1" target="_blank">Stopped Believing in the American Dream</a>. He describes the depression we endure, the disruption of the political order, the mistrust of democratic institutions as I have done earlier in these reflections. He agrees that this depression, disruption, and mistrust was building long before Trump who is merely a symptom, not a cause, of our discontent. He believes that the crash of 2008 was the turning point for the old white men, Trump's base, who bought into the American Dream.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">My favorite sentence in Rich's piece is: "Perhaps the sole upside of the 2008 crash was that it discredited the Establishment of both parties by exposing its decades-long collusion with a kleptocratic economic order." Yes, the American Dream, like all the dreams we have while sleeping, was not real. Like "10 acres and a mule" promised to liberated black slaves, like continuing increase in equality promised to a working class playing by the rules of the free market economy--just pipe dreams sold by the wealthiest of con-men.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Rich is agreeing with the analysis of Streek, Kuttner, Polanyi, Arendt, Harrington and the others I have been citing in my attempt to understand what is happening to our nation. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">The capitalist economy and its institutions have supplanted the reign of democratic politics and its institutions. Private pleasure of consumption overcomes public happiness through participation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Economic growth, i.e. product and wealth, has become the American measure of success, the line between "winners" and "losers" in the game of life, and the divine attribute of the American religion. Ayn Rand and Milton Freeman are contributors to the American Dream Bible. Ronald Reagan and Paul Ryan are the ordained ministers preaching the Word of the Dream. Increasing consumption of the resources of the earth is not only our human right; it is our religious rite. Be happy. Make money. Go shopping.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">And that is why we,</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"> </span><a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2018/07/are-we-alone-in-the-universe--maybe--the-better-question-is--can/" style="color: #954f72; font-family: arial, sans-serif;" target="_blank">perhaps like many life supporting planets in the universe</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">, are reducing our chances for survival. There is substantial evidence that we are destroying both the material, social, and, I would add, religious or spiritual habitat that sustains our life. The recent </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html?emc=edit_ma_20180801&nl=magazine&nlid=5780356720180801&te=1#part-two" style="color: #954f72; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">piece in the NYT</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"> by Frank Rich’s son, Nathaniel, make that case quite well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">But again, my invincible hope kicks in. Yes, Frank, 2008 was the beginning of the end of the American Dream and Trump is the clearest harbinger of our loss. But this calls not for a restoration of that Dream, but a revival of the American public religion that can be discovered throughout human existence, enhanced by the great liberators in our own American history whose virtues conflict with the habits of those who depress and oppress the spirit of transcendence within us. Those habits are immediate satisfaction of material needs, choosing sides mine against yours, fear and distrust of strange people and strange ideas, and, above all, disenchantment of the earth and of public space. The Trumpian turn we now experience suppresses the spirit of unity and collaboration.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">But it can also recall that spirit of commonality which we have forgotten and neglected. I won’t go so far as to say that Trump is God’s gift to us. Nor do I blame God for famine, blight, and destruction and other evils. I think we generally know what our civil religion is. Most of us welcome immigrants and refugees. Most of us value free speech and press along with honesty. Most of us know that abusing children and women, torture, and other forms of cruelty is wrong. I think we know the meaning of civic virtue because we have so many who have practiced it in our history. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">To restore our democratic republic, we need a revival of our democratic religion--a reaffirmation of the beliefs, attitudes, values, but most of all, the practices and virtues of that republic. I do not think it will be achieved by the printing of a new catechism or by the construction of a new temple. It will not be achieved by governmental, ecclesiastical, or corporate institutions, nor by force of law--though all these could help. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">It will be achieved by people practicing civility, engaging in civil service, and acting for social justice. I see it happening all around us, those “thousand points of light,” the elder Bush called it. Young students organizing to stop gun killing. Athletes taking a knee against racial violence. Women refusing to be groped by men in power. Organizers and leaders now forming community organizations in cities and towns throughout the nation to hold local corporations and governments accountable. Firmly but without violence or rancor. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">This may be an opportunity for a religious revival in America. Not just a Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Islamic, Jewish, Unitarian revival, not just a revival of democratic republican parties, not just a revival of families and neighborhoods—but of all of them working together to revive an American spirit that feeds and is fed by them. The rebirth of the new nation called for by Abraham Lincoln at another time of crisis. The restoration of radical democratic politics in America is concomitant with the renewal of the democratic republican or public religion in America.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">On the Bicentennial of the American nation, 1976, the Catholic Bishops called for a movement of renewal called “Liberty and Justice for All.” It was a good idea and some wonderful things came out of it including a strong <a href="http://www.usccb.org/upload/economic_justice_for_all.pdf" style="color: #954f72;">critique of the fundamentalist free-market economy</a>and major support for <a href="http://www.usccb.org/about/catholic-campaign-for-human-development/" style="color: #954f72;">organizing publics at the local level</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">But perhaps on the 250<sup>th</sup>anniversary, i.e. 2026, all the churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, labor unions, civic associations, and community organizations will proclaim a new Great Awakening of the enduring values of freedom and justice, life, liberty, and the pursuit of public happiness over egotistic pleasure. It can’t be a Christian thing or a Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist thing. It can’t be a Democratic or Republican thing. It can’t be a Conservative or Liberal thing. It can’t be a Coast or Heartland thing, a rural or urban thing. It’s got to be all those things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">We don’t have much time so we better start working on this. I want to be around to see it. In the meantime, keep the faith, keep up the struggle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-30572008085532950522018-08-04T22:23:00.000-04:002018-08-05T18:02:58.461-04:00A Tale of Two Cultures<br />
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<span style="font-family: , serif;">The distinction of public and private, household and polis, gives us some ancient tools to think about the relation between economy and politics. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: , serif;">But what about culture--the realm of words, values, mores, myth, religion, education, art, philosophy, and science? If symbolic behavior is a defining capacity of being human, the products of symbolic expression, i.e. culture, are what organize our human world. Both in private and in public realms.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: , serif;">Take art and religion. There are the household arts, e.g. my meager home carpentry skills, and civic art, e.g. the statues and painting adorning state capitols and art galleries. In both Rome and other civilizations, there are the household gods which, representing ethnic and tribal traditions, inspired and protected families. And there are the public gods like Jupiter, Hera, Minerva, Neptune in the founding myths of the Republic, invoked in the public realm. The household religions are the sites of family devotions and mores. The civic religion, its doctrines, temples, and rituals, comprise the self-understanding, values, and virtues of the community.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: , serif;">The thirteen states which ratified the Constitution of the United States of America recognized a pluralism of cultures in the private realm while working towards a more perfect union in the public realm through universal rights, public education, and democratic republican politics. The Constitution has had to be amended many times in order to achieve the aspirations of a democratic Republic dedicated to <i>ex pluribus unum</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: , serif;">There is no State religion. All natives and newcomers are free to have their own religious opinions or to have no religion at all. For the household or private realm, all religions, moralities, lifestyles, ethnicities, languages, traditions are permitted. But in the public realm, there is a civil religion, language, art, morality (civility), custom, and law that all citizens should learn to employ. This is an evolving culture that incorporates new values and modifies old ones through the process of interaction among peoples. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: , serif;">For example, in Hawaii, men can wear aloha shirts almost everywhere, whether in corporate board rooms or governmental agencies. But in the legislature and the courts a suit and tie are expected. In California, nakedness on public beaches and parks (except in certain designated spaces) is forbidden. Almost everywhere, having sexual intercourse, whether heterosexual or homosexual, as long as it is not abusive, is okay in private, but not in public. New citizens, though unrestricted in private, should do well to adopt the prevailing mores, customs, languages, doctrines, attires, and rituals of the public when in public. All residents are under the law unless they judge a law to be unjust, which they break through civil disobedience by accepting the consequences of its enforcement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: , serif;">Americans accept a secular state that favors no one religion or religion at all. But sacred places, moments, experiences, and expressions are not confined to the private realm. The civic religion in the public realm the state often supports. This expression of common values is discovered in the founding documents, on historic monuments, and in the speeches of presidents that embrace the equality, liberty, and unity of all citizens though different in tradition, ethnicity, race, and opinion. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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There is a long tradition in political thought from Plato to MLK that extols the role of virtue, e.g. morality and even spirituality, in public life. I like Cicero's expression best: "There is nothing in which human virtue approaches the divine more closely than in the founding of new publics or the preservation of existing ones." This to me is an expression of the vocation of organizing, leading, and participating in "civic and political associations" (de Tocqueville).<br />
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Cicero teaches that virtue is more important than pleasure and that it can only be achieved in the exercise of it. Moreover, civic virtue is the highest of all. It is the “source of piety and religion, of justice, good faith, and equity, of modesty, moderation, and courage.”<br />
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The highest of goals is public happiness--enjoyment in the creation and participation of community. This exceeds private happiness or pleasure in attaining wealth and satisfying material needs. Politics is the extension of ethics, the responsibility of and for us all. </div>
Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-63149008728740835292018-07-27T16:28:00.000-04:002018-07-27T16:28:24.362-04:00Back to Basics<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Spence and I are taking a summer institute at Montgomery College entitled <u>Political Philosophy and Democracy</u>. A good refresher in these <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/ei56twu38cyh59s/In%20Dark%20Times.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank">Dark Times</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The readings for the first day are from Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Thomas Aquinas, and Giles of Rome. My mentor Hannah Arendt in her political thinking referred often to these works to comment on the problems of our own American democracy. The main problem is the collapsing and disordering of private and public realms, i.e. the economy and politics. Other problems that follow this one are truth in politics, politics and violence, politics and culture (including art and religion), politics and labor, and politics and democracy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The ancients were using observation, thinking, and dialogue or reason in their own historical situation or context, but still have important lessons for us moderns. They certainly influenced the European Renaissance, the resulting Enlightenment, into modern life, culture, and the political economy. Here are some excerpts from the Politics of Aristotle that are most relevant in our Dark Times.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Constantia; font-size: 9pt;">The city belongs among the things that exist by nature, and man is by nature a political animal.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Constantia; font-size: 9pt;">The household is the community constituted by nature for the needs of daily life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Constantia; font-size: 9pt;">The first community arising from several households and for the sake of non-</span><span style="font-family: Constantia; font-size: 9pt;">daily needs is the village. By nature the village seems to be above all an extension of the household.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Constantia; font-size: 9pt;">The complete community arising from several villages, is the city. It reaches a level of full self-sufficiency, so to speak; and while coming into being for the sake of living, it exists for the sake of living well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Constantia; font-size: 9pt;">The city is thus prior by nature to the household and to each of us. For the whole must of necessity be prior to the part.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Constantia; font-size: 9pt;">All communities aim at some good, and that the community that is most authoritative </span><span style="font-family: Constantia; font-size: 9pt;">of all and embraces all the others does so particularly, and aims at the most authoritative good of all. This is what is called the city or the political community.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Polis</i> is the Greek name for city, state, political community. It is the place where a human person can achieve and exercise the highest of values: power or, as Arendt defines it, "the ability to act in concert." It is also where a person can pursue and realize the greatest of happiness: public happiness. That is the top rung of Aristotle's and Arendt's hierarchy of needs (<i>pace</i> Mazlow). Mine too.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Economia </i>or economy is the Greek name for household. It is the place where humans secure their basic needs to live. It is the place of private ownership, i.e. property for shelter, security, health, and the production of goods to consume and to market. It is the place for the management and exchange of goods for life. It is also the place for having and raising children for the continuation of the family and the species. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Two realms: private and public, each required by the other. Reduce one and reduce the other. The purpose of economy is living and so fulfilling the needs of the organism. It is the realm of <i>necessity</i>. The purpose of politics is living well and so fulfilling the highest desires of the soul, wisdom, respect, meaning. It is the realm of <i>freedom</i>. In my parlance, "liberty" is the freeing from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course, in ancient Greece and Rome and carried down into modern times, barbarians, slaves, women, and children belonged to the household concerned only with the needs of living. Only the freemen, their needs taken care of, could enjoy the public space where the decisions about the city were made, its boundaries, its protection, its monuments, its academies, and its markets. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">According to Aristotle, this distinction of household and city is based on nature in the human capacity to speak, or in modern scientific terms, in the evolution of the organism for symbolic communication and collaboration. This is what defines the human species, unlike all other known species, as a political animal. This distinction and maintaining the priority of polis over household, politics over economy is fundamental. It underlies the problem of our dark times where political freedom is subordinate to economic desires, public welfare to the wealth of the few. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Next: How this disorder can be rectified.</span></div>
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Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-70865943484018407402018-07-25T16:40:00.002-04:002018-07-25T16:40:29.605-04:00Democratic Socialism<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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Lately we hear candidates within the Democratic Party claiming to be “democratic socialists.” Because of the failure of Communism and the national and international Communist Party which claimed to be socialist, fear is being spread by some Republicans, Democrats, and their pundits that the defeat of oligarchic and plutocratic capitalism by democratic socialism (or “progressives”) would plunge America and the World into Stalinism or Fascism (remember that Nazis were “national socialists”). <o:p></o:p></div>
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I have always been an admirer of Michael Harrington and read almost all his books. He founded the <a href="https://www.dsausa.org/what_is_democratic_socialism" style="color: #954f72;">Democratic Socialists of America</a> as a non-profit, non-governmental, non-party association of people striving for a more social justice-oriented America. You can check the DSA website to understand what they mean by democratic socialism. But I consider myself a democratic socialist (at least in the economic realm) and will say what I mean as I am growing in my understanding. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Primarily, I believe that a democratic socialist is a person who advocates and practices the politics of a democratic republic, a politics which promotes its principles and goals for society including the economy and its institutions. These goals our American democratic republic has named “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” or “liberty and justice for all.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Democratic socialism is not anti-business, anti-trade, or anti-corporation. Businesses and corporations are great inventions of humankind to grow the economy of the nations of the world, to create what is needed for the increase in the quantity and quality of life for all people. But for that they must be subservient to the principles, values, and rules of the democratic republic. Democratic socialism does NOT mean that government should administer, rule, manage, or own the means of production--except when necessary to ensure that the means of production, including finance, is working for the good of all persons and society as a whole. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Politics is not to be identified with government. Just as businesses and corporations are the primary institutions of the private sector, government and its agencies are the primary institutions of the public sector. Government in a democratic republic ensures that democratic mechanisms are in place to safeguard not only profits for workers and investors, but also responsibility to society and ecological sustainability. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Democratic government supports and protects privacy, including personal bodies, property, health and private rights of individuals to pursue personal happiness. Democratic government protects and supports the public realm, the commons, the open, inclusive spaces where citizens gather, debate, and act in order to pursue public happiness. The public establishes the rules of democratic government to set the limits and boundaries of private, corporate, and governmental institutions so they do not infringe on others and on the rights and happiness of the public.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Democratic politics needs to ensure that all institutions, public and private, are run equitably and fairly for all and promote the public good. There are many strategies, programs, mechanisms, platforms to achieve the correct relationships of public and private, of government and corporation, and of politics with the economy and culture. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In democratic socialism there is no overarching socialist program, no revelation of the perfect society, no system of ideas (ideology) that is absolute, inevitable, or even correct for all times and places. The overall strategy of the democratic socialist movement is through popular politics (voluntary organizations of residents and workers) to remove structural economic, cultural, and political obstacles to, and guarantee the possibilities for, a social order in which every person has the ability to achieve personal and public happiness. Democratic socialism is not compatible with plutocracy, oligarchy, and authoritarianism. Nor is it compatible with violence, cruelty, and oppression which turns persons into commodities.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Democratic socialists are progressives in that they recognize that, while no human society has rid itself of all the obstacles and created the means for a totally just society, it is a work in progress. Progress is not guaranteed by History, Science, or God. It is only furthered by the speech and actions of human beings in history, through critical thinking, with values and beliefs that give meaning to their personal and public existence.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And so, we start where and when we are here and now. We engage others, neighbors and strangers. We feel when and where they are suffering. We work with them to remove the causes of our suffering (especially cruelty, violence, oppression) and create the means for personal and public happiness. No grand plan, no conclusive theory, no enduring ideology—even those are works in progress.<o:p></o:p><br />
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Democratic socialism is a commitment to the future of human beings individually and socially.</div>
Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-84799581596881441642018-07-22T22:49:00.000-04:002018-07-23T12:00:33.772-04:00Organizing is disorganizing<br />
"All organizing is disorganizing," Alinsky told his young organizers and their community leaders.<br />
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If you are in a neighborhood or a city or a country where the order of relationships among residents or citizens is such that some can have life, liberty, and can pursue personal and public happiness and some can not, then the way that community, city, country is ordered needs to be changed. The "cannots" have to organize themselves and change the order of things so that they can be "cans." In organizing themselves, the "cannots" welcome assistance from some of the "cans" who identify with them and their suffering, but the "cannots" themselves need to do it and lead it.<br />
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I remember in Chicago living and working in black ghettos becoming slums (first in public housing and then in private housing). And I only began to understand why after many months of talking with residents and with others who helped me understand how the social order of Chicago worked for a few but not for many--both black and white. That order of things ("<i>res" </i>in Latin) had to be changed <i>radically</i>, i.e. at its institutional roots. How? By building a public, a <i>res publica,</i> an open place where all could see the hidden patterns of behavior and what they were doing to people. <br />
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Only through speech and action in public did the stories of the people and the policies and practices of the social order come to light. By organizing the "cannots"into action the hidden, private behaviors of institutions and the people who headed them became public along with the laws that legitimized them and the religions that blessed them. The studies and experts helped--but it was the people going public that changed the game and its rules.<br />
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In following up the footnote to my last post, I want to thank Mr. Trump and his loyal acolytes. In trying to understand how this "wreck of a man," as staunch conservative George Will called him, became President, we have been forced to uncover the habitual patterns of thinking and behavior, supported by Republican and Democratic Parties, that made him possible.<br />
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I thank Mr Trump for calling attention to the <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/trump-foreign-policy-elites-insiders-experts-international-relations-214846" target="_blank">BLOB</a> (look it up!) who have committed us to neoconservative foreign policy from Yale and neoliberal economic policy from U of Chicago. Even though he is not changing but reenforcing those policies.<br />
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I am grateful to realize that I myself am among the "cannots" who feel so powerless in this national and world order today.<br />
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But now that we can see the hidden patterns of our rulers and their results, perhaps we "cannots" will organize ourselves as "yes, we cans" and reorganize ourselves to Lincoln's new birth of freedom. It will take a lot of organizing and a lot of action, much tension and conflict probably extending way beyond my death. The oligarchs running the new world order won't go softly into the night. But I take solace in seeing some light.<br />
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<br />Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-34063065363671770832018-07-21T22:01:00.000-04:002018-07-21T22:01:00.042-04:00What! Is Trump right about Putin?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've been reading a series of interviews of Paul Jay with Professor <a href="https://therealnews.com/stories/putin-is-anointed-king-but-big-capital-has-the-real-power-rai-with-a-buzgalin-7-12" target="_blank">Alexandr Buzgalin</a> who teaches political economy and is Director of the Center for Modern Marxist Studies at Moscow State University. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What I have been learning is the role that the US under the influence of American and European capitalists and the new world order intelligentsia won the Cold War with the Soviet Union as its brand of bureaucratic anti-democratic one-party controlling state-socialism collapsed under its own internal contradictions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These contradictions came to a head under Gorbachov's reforms and led to mass dissent and disorder. Yeltsin, the chair of the Russian republic, took the reins of power with the support by the leaders of the industries and resources previously owned by the state. They bought and privatized the previous state-owned industries for a dime to a dollar (financed by Western banks) and became billionaires overnight. They are the famed Russian oligarchs who took over before the American oligarchs got there to act fire the spoils. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Professor Buzgalin said that the oligarchs smartly developed agreements among themselves like barons of a feudal system and chose a king to enforce their rules. Putin, hired by Yeltsin, is not so much a Czar, but a feudal king who administers a plutocracy with the trappings of a democratic socialist state. This system has led to an increased standard of living for the general populace as measured by the enhanced ability to consume. More consumer products are available in supermarkets, car and TV stores, and vodka shops. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is not to say that Putin has no power. He has tremendous power. But it is based on the oligarchs and his ability to manage them and for them. Like a good executive director, he is also the avenue to the oligarchs, who, like the American oligarchs, want stability and profit in the new order. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Trump, who is a wannabe oligarch and who has been trying to get into the world system of oligarchs, is right to make nice to Putin. He now finds himself in a great position to do so. And to whose profit?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Both the people of the US and of Russia, of course!! We will do so much better, when the oligarchs of both countries and their international financial institutions do better. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A postscript in line with my previous posts: Is this moment of focus on Putin and Trump and the "new world order," facilitated by both Republic and Democratic Party foreign and domestic policy to save capitalism, an opportunity for us grunts in the work force and welfare system to understand what is really going on and make some different choices? </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-73894517713241389642018-07-20T11:44:00.000-04:002018-07-20T12:57:42.542-04:00Israel is no longer a democracyThe Knesset just passed a bill with constitutional weight that revokes Israel's status as a democratic republic.<br />
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Many nations, including our own American, affirm the basic principles of a democratic republic, yet life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are aspirational at most. But yet they are aspirational at least. One of those principles, according to Jefferson and the other founders, is freedom of and from religion. All men are created equal despite their belief systems and should be afforded the full rights of humanity. The republic is not founded on culture, religion, ethnicity, race, but on the free right to assemble, speak, and act to govern themselves in a way that affords all persons that right. A citizen is a resident who affirms and exercises that right.<br />
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The US negated itself as a democratic republic by the Naturalization Act that restricted the vote to white men and then most dramatically by the Dred Scott decision. These acts denied not only the reality, but also the aspiration for being a democratic republic. The aspiration of government of, by, and for the people was restored by Lincoln's Republican government and then slowly began to be realized by the Abolition, the Women's, the Labor, and the Civil Rights Movements.<br />
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The Knesset just passed the Nationality Act making Israel a Jewish State--defined by ethnicity, culture, and religion. This is similar to Ferdinand and Isabella declaring Spain a Roman Catholic State and enforcing it through the Inquisition. Muslims and Jews, no matter their contribution to the nation, must either leave or become Catholic Christians. All in contrast to the Protestant enlightened Nordic nations which were taking then first steps to becoming democratic republics and to which fled the Jewish people who could.<br />
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I know so many Jews and Jewish organizations who oppose this horrible Israeli Act. I commiserate with them. Like the Dred Scott decision in the US, it violates the very principles on which the State of Israel was created by their idealistic socialist founders. The Nationality Act, besides adopting the menorah as the state symbol, Hebrew as the official language, and the right of Jews from the Diaspora to settle there, proclaims that Israel will govern itself as a democracy. However, it negates itself as a democracy in the very act.<br />
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Some white supremacists linked to Christian evangelicals are now urging that the US declare itself a Christian country. The Trump administration besides restricting new immigrants are deporting naturalized immigrants. Americans, Jews and Gentiles, should condemn these acts in the US and in Israel.Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-62566271365404150462018-07-13T14:32:00.001-04:002018-07-13T23:02:14.922-04:00Liberal or progressive?<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
What’s in a Name?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Words are ambiguous and ambivalent. That’s their nature as symbols and as figures of speech for thoughts which are essentially analogies. The same word often has many different meanings that become clearer when we consider the word in context and from the point of view of the speaker or many of them. This is why we often disparage semantic discussions as “splitting hairs.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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A recent article in the WP by Greg Weiner, a professor of political science who distinguishes “liberals” from “progressives,” seems to be splitting hairs. Yet I find that the discussion may be illustrative to clarify one’s position in or towards politics. It may even get us to avoid using names for people as though that the name says it all when we really don’t know what we are talking about. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The professor wants to support liberals over progressives. I am just the contrary. But if we were to discuss it, we might find that we have different usages for those words based on different life experiences and conversations. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The same I suggest is true for many of the names we call each other that often abstract us from a conversation about who we are, what we want, and how we might work together. To me, for instance, “radical” is a good word, better than progressive, except when it means extreme, e.g. “going too far” or sacrificing persons for principles. “Conservative” to me is a good word meaning learning from the past, conservation of nature, and defending institutions of personal and social growth (like democracy). But not when it means refusal to listen, to question, or to change. Not when it means using status or class, culture and economics, to judge and segregate persons. And not when it means reactionary intolerance.<o:p></o:p></div>
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That points to another strange thing about names. They reveal and conceal at the same time. When we call persons or things names we put them into categories that make them similar without attending to difference and uniqueness. That’s why we need to keep speaking without pretending that we know or have the truth, with faith that we can converge upon knowing and truth in our speaking, listening, and acting together. And that's what I call real politics.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Professor Weiner teaches that progressives are liberals who have gone too far. He accuses them of adhering to the ideology of progressivism that states that everything, persons, the world, the universe, history itself is and will inevitably advance. I am reminded of the slogan of the Detroit Edison Company when I was a boy after World War II: “Every day in every way we get better and better.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Liberal” in a social context in America today means someone who wants to help others and especially those who have been left out of the development of the potentials of their full humanity. They are called enablers or “do-gooders” by self-labeled conservatives. I remember my mentor Saul Alinsky disdaining liberals as good talkers for social justice without doing anything substantive about it. They saved people from drowning in the river without going upstream to stop who or what was throwing them in. And they left people powerless to take responsibility for themselves.<br />
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“Liberal” in an economic context means a completely free market. A market where goods are made, priced, sold, and consumed without any interference—especially by government dominated by “liberals.” They argue for free and open competition through which the invisible hand will do its magic neglecting that the wealthiest through wit, luck, or inheritance dominate the market and its rules. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Social and economic liberalism came together in the two major American parties where there was a firm commitment to representative democracy and moderately regulated capitalism under FDR and carried forward through Nixon. But that alliance has been breaking down since Reagan who opted for unrestricting corporations and restricting welfare. In general, especially after Nixon’s Southern strategy, Democrats became the party of social liberals focusing on inclusion of those being “left out” because of their identity (racial, cultural, sexual, immigrant) and wealth. Republicans have been the party of economic liberals claiming that all persons will prosper when wealth multiplies wealth even if there is greater divergence in wealth. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I rather call myself progressive, than liberal, because of my work with Alinskyites and also because conservatives, which I am when it comes to democratic institutions and civil society, have so tainted the word—remember GHW Bush’s sarcasm towards the “L-word.” And there is the Tea Party and their demonization of liberals.<br />
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To be a progressive is to cut across the conservative-liberal, left-right split. While progressives espouse liberal education which embraces science, free-thinking, art, and the questioning of all belief systems, they also believe that through an examined life and concerted action they can make the world and humanity better. And they take on the responsibility to do just that.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span class="MsoPageNumber">Progressives today (unlike some ideological progressives earlier) do not believe in inevitability. </span>I cringe when I hear people say "being on the right side of history.” Only old predestination Calvinists, Marx-misunderstanding communists, deterministic faux scientists, apocalyptic evangelicals, free market ideologues, and maybe some depressed Taoists keep the remnants of that disempowering rhetoric. Not today's progressives. </div>
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<span class="MsoPageNumber">Naming, shaming, and blaming in Twitter sized blasts is the opposite of civility, makes public service a scam, and impedes citizen action. That is the antitheses of citizenship and civil society. It induces the fear and hate of the other through which violence springs. Whatever you call yourself or label me, may I, by listening to your story, discover your visions, dreams, and ideals and with you find and expand the hidden power in us? </span><o:p></o:p><br />
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<span class="MsoPageNumber">We have a future together. Not alone. Not in enmity. That's the belief of a progressive person or nation. Yes, we must rid ourselves of the obstacles that hold us back--that's the meaning of liberty.</span><br />
<span class="MsoPageNumber">But we must also engage with each other to create a space for all of us--that's the meaning of freedom. </span></div>
Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-47382664832413144772018-07-05T13:00:00.000-04:002022-10-25T09:27:46.742-04:00DeNaturalizing Trump<h2>
<span style="font-size: small;">Trump Administration Is Forming a Denaturalization Task Force With the Power to Repeal Citizenship</span></h2>
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The <strong style="max-width: 100%;"><a href="https://www.uscis.gov/" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;">United States Citizenship and Immigration Services</a></strong> is creating a new task force. Its goal: to examine what they say are bad naturalization cases, according to Director L. Francis Cissna’s June announcement.<br />
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As a result, the organization expects to hire dozens of lawyers and immigration officers in the coming weeks to find U.S. citizens they say should not have been naturalized, to revoke their citizenship, and then eventually deport them.</div>
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I have argued before that the marks of the citizen (L. <i>civis</i>) are 1) civil language and behavior in public 2) civil service, e.g. helping out your neighbors in need, and 3) civil i.e. speech and action in concert for a better society.<br />
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By all these measures, many so-called illegals are citizens. By all these measures, Trump should lose his citizenship.</div>
Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-5145513827161434722018-07-01T10:57:00.000-04:002018-07-01T15:37:54.499-04:00Spirituality and Politics (once more)<div style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">In our search to understand what has been happening in America in the Trumpian dark age and how to combat it personally and collectively, our book club decided to read Bob Kuttner's Book,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><u>Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism</u>. I went to hear him discuss his book a few days ago. Of all I've read and heard, his is the clearest explanation of how we got here and the challenge we have to mend the torn social fabric that Trumpism represents and rouses but has not caused. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"><br />Here are some of my takeaways which I reported to my book club:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">1) The answer to the question of Kuttner's book is “no.” The economy must be subject to the rules of democracy. No to the globalization of capitalism. Yes, to world community and trade treaties of nation states. But trade treaties that support democratic goals of equality. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">2) The social contract created after WW2 (New Deal, Bretton Woods) gradually broken starting in the 70s can be restored in the 20s. Kuttner is generally optimistic that the circumstances are becoming right for a new taking of power by people to restore the rules that puts democratic governance over economic development. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">3) Trump and far-right parties are using the results of the breakdown of social contract (freedom of banks and corporations) to foster in workers, who are losing in an economy rigged for capital controllers, resentment against immigrants, welfare, the poor, and themselves. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">4) Labor is reorganizing and key to making change. Obviously we need a new progressive president (Bernie, Warren, Sherrod) with a strongly progressive party which means new progressives must take over the Democratic Party locally and he sees this happening. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">5) Civil society organizing (e.g. community organizing) is limited because although they talk power, they don’t aggregate power. He thinks CO’s fragment because they go after the same funders and institutions and have to prove that they are better than each other. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">6) Kuttner believes that we have our priorities wrong when lifting up cultural identity issues (e.g. abortion, homosexuality, race, religion) before economic bread and butter issues. "If people feel they are getting a fair shake and have some hope in the rules of the economic system, they will cut you some slack on the cultural issues."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">7) Kuttner articulates the problem and solution primarily in terms of political power. Those left out needf Through solidarity and organizing. I totally agree. The how (strategy) depends on time, place, circumstances, the accidents of history<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">Democratic governance (e.g. liberty and justice for all) should direct the economy and culture. The public realm over the private realm, as Arendt said. Distinct yet entangled--because you can't have one without the other. The public good is the greater good. Politics is both an extension and a higher realm than ethics<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">I am also considering another level of analysis—e.g. spiritual, i.e. soul, shared humanity in process, recognition of human dignity in all. Shared suffering, as Rorty and John of the Cross say, is the basis of solidarity. Especially among the working poor and disrespected (whether by economic class or cultural status). Empathy/compassion with others, feeling their pain, is at the same time a recognition of union and incites the ability to speak and act together. Whatever you call it: soul, humanity, spark of divine, dignity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">I do believe we are entering a dark night of the American soul and perhaps of the soul of humanity. The economic path we now take is leading to ecological ruin, the inundation of many populated lands and the destruction of millions of people. It is restricting the greatest capacity of humanity for self-government, collaborative survival, and social justice. Most of us know better but are blinded by the fear of others and appeals to self-aggrandizement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">We humans, once we attained the ability to think, have been between the demons and the angels within us. And we have experienced both the fall and the rise of human progress. But now in the Trumpian Age we are slipping into the dark age where might is right, wealth rules, and the many have become irrelevant--used by the mighty and the wealthy for their purposes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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The dark night for John of the Cross is an opportunity to pass to a new level of insight and action. It humbles and humanizes by casting us to the ground, the <i>humus</i>, where we realize that we cannot thrive, much less survive, alone. Like Alcoholics Anonymous counsels the addicted who have reached the bottom, we are directed to reach up to a higher power. As a humanist and community organizer, I call this higher power the public, we the people, those who gather to speak and act to generate a space of freedom. In religious language that space of freedom is the “people of God,” people who gather and act in hope for the future of all humankind.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The spiritual dimension of politics is the hope that transcends us from the fear and hatred of neighbors and strangers. It radicalizes our politics by uprooting the structures, values, and habits of American global capitalism that put us in darkness. As my radical friends always sign off: “keep the faith” and “keep up the struggle.”<o:p></o:p></div>
Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-81845696423353258902018-06-16T17:23:00.000-04:002018-06-16T17:23:39.437-04:00Disruption/Opportunity Part 3<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;">Since the presidential campaign and election, I have felt a deep depression, not only in me, but emanating from my soulmate, my associates, my friends and family, and my faith community. I have studied psychological depression. Though many of the symptoms are similar, this depression is different. I believe it to be a <i>political</i> depression, a crisis of hope in the speech and action of citizens; a loss of faith in, and a growth in fear for, the future of our world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;">I have been using my blog meditations to wrestle with our situation. Why did we get here? What does it mean? How do we respond? I studied and discussed the resentment of the working poor, the end of capitalism, the decline of democracy, the rise of authoritarian authoritarianism, seeking to understand the malaise we experience. But these meditations provide a few indicators. They help me go on—but to where?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;">I used the notion of “disruption” now popularized in entrepreneurial business, technological advance, and management consulting. Trump and company are disrupting the American world order. This threat could also be an opportunity for progressives because it is the habit of thinking and action in the American world order that got us here. It needs to be disrupted. But instead of using the tools of fear and resentment, the progressive might use hope and concerted action, to advance a new social order: An economy that replaces the predatory capitalism which commodifies workers, people, money, and thought. A culture that is inclusive and tolerant. A politics that reaches for the ideals of democratic republicanism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;">But I believe that this depression is at root spiritual. I just read a piece on John of the Cross and the Dark Night of the Soul. The article reminds me that this new dark age beyond the modernism of the American century is a dark night of the soul of America and the American world. As a dark night of the soul, it is also a possible transition to a new enlightenment. We can accept our impasse and embrace the dark night of our American soul in order to dismiss our gods and open ourselves to a new emerging future.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">Perhaps this will enable us collectively, as John </span><span style="font-size: 12px;">of</span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> the Cross says, to move from meditation to contemplation, from words to the silent experience from which comes the speaking of our world, from self-consciousness to universal consciousness, from our formulas in and about space and time to the point where space and time originate “before” our formulas, i.e. from the things in our world to the nothing from which they come. This make no sense in philosophical meditation. We only sense it in contemplation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;">How do we apply John’s Dark Night to our Dark Age—combining the spiritual with the political. My soul is intertwined with all souls I feel. My soul can only be “saved” if all souls are. Not by me contemplating in private. Nor can souls be saved with doctrines and words, i.e. proselytizing, converting others to my language and world perception. And I cannot save our souls myself. In fact, we can only have soul when there is no more self. No more “I."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;">How can we collectively open ourselves to the radically new God who does not yet exist—not just in monasteries, churches, mosques, workshops—but in the public space beyond the separations of religion and ideology? How do we as a nation and world community climb the holy mountain, cross the Red Sea, discover the Holy Grail—all event-symbols for passing through the darkness to transcend all the icons that block us—all products of our own making.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">I thought of, and eliminated, events where that universal consciousness and solidarity might be present: National celebration of VE and VJ day, DC </span><span style="font-size: 12px;">gathering</span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> to celebrate the Capitols winning the Stanley Cup, Political campaigns and rallies: victories in war, politics, sports. Victories over others.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;">I also thought of national grief celebrations, e.g. when Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy died. That is closer I think. Universal suffering is an occasion for deep universal silence. Shared suffering is a prerequisite for solidarity, according to Richard Rorty. But I refuse to say that the biblical apocalypse that brings universal suffering and death is an event to await. Or maybe I should just recognize that this apocalypse is here and now in this dark age of disruption.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;">I do experience, although darkly, an enlightening, universalizing moment in community-based political events—not in the words, slogans, or even outcomes of the events, but in the very act of getting together and collectively speaking out. I feel strongly that political acts of solidarity, resistance, and appeal for the future is where I most discover and nourish soul even in the darkness. I cannot divorce politics from spirituality nor spirituality from politics. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-66380261803957900092018-06-15T12:16:00.000-04:002018-06-15T12:16:14.342-04:00Disruption, Opportunity Part 2In Part 1, I raised the question as to whether the Disruption of the American national and international social order occasioned by Trump, the Reactionary Right, and the Christian righteous be an opportunity for Progressives? Can this new dark age in reaction to cultural permissiveness, economic neoliberal globalism, and populist strong-man democracy actually be a prelude to a new enlightenment?<br />
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Such an enlightenment would be a new economy that overcomes the gross inequalities caused by the commodification of nature, money, workers, and thought. Such an enlightenment would be a renewed democracy that is inclusive and pluralist and guided by scientific thinking which is evidence based, peer reviewed, and open to new thinking and formulation.<br />
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You might say I am being <b>too optimistic</b> even asking the question. And even if I were right in advocating this new enlightenment overcoming the darkness of this Trumpian age, it would be <b>too late</b>. The earth's climate is already fundamentally changed. Refugees have been turned back with children separated. The "free"market is already owned by the wealthy class that makes all things of nature, including humans, products for sale. Democratic governance is already being replaced by a mass populism choosing authoritative leaders supported by the wealthy class. On the wane are free love, free work, free press, free speech and assembly, and free enjoyment of life by satisfying all basic needs.<br />
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Many would say that I have fallen into the progressive fallacy thinking that things will get better and better. I counter that they do not understand what it means to be a progressive. There is no progressive ideology or doctrine. I know of no progressive who believes that progress is inevitable. Progressives believe, and it is less a belief than a chosen attitude, that we can do better. <i>We</i>, like in "W<i>e</i> the people," persons speaking and acting together.<br />
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I must admit I hear persons I know to be progressive sometimes using unfortunate language like "being on the side of history" or "following God's plan." That language comes from a time of classical science with inexorable laws and of deism when many imaged a Creator who started the universe off and allowed it to take its course. Philosophers sometime deify "History" with a path that we better get on. But history has no sides; it is constituted by human choices. Theologians and their sacred writings sometimes deify "God" as a superman in the heavens who has a set plan or will that we had better follow. But progressive theologians teach there is no such god, no such absolute plan. Transcendence and spirituality is a matter of faith as an openness to innovation and a commitment to the future of humankind that can be achieved if humans decide together to make it so.<br />
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We can do better but it is not in history's or god's hands. Its in ours. Together. That's the progressive attitude.<br />
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To be a progressive is not a matter of being a liberal or a conservative, on the Right or on the Left, a Judeo-Christian or a Muslim, a Republican or a Democrat. My own fallible judgment based on my education, reading, inquiry, activity in the world, at this point in my time and place, is to be 1) socially and culturally liberal, or even permissive libertarian, 2) economically socialist believing that capitalism must be well regulated, and 3) politically conservative, wanting to conserve our earth and protect our democratic republican institutions in government, civil society, and international relations.<br />
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Right now I think the Democratic Party is the better vehicle representing my viewpoint and those of the people I most admire. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, I identify more with the Republican Party. More important to me, however, is the support and encouragement of civil society, non partisan civic service and action through our mediating institutions. And cutting across all our tribes, institutions, and parties is the choice of using the politics of hope over the politics of fear.<br />
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Fear divides "us" from "them" and produces resentment. Hope expresses faith in the future and our responsibility to change things for the better for our progeny. No matter your tribe, community, identity, or party, I consider you progressive if you practice the politics of hope.Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-47648475794404854952018-06-11T20:19:00.000-04:002018-06-11T20:23:46.973-04:00Trump's Disruption, Progressive Opportunity?<div style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;">Do we dare to consider that "THEY" may be right? After all, sometimes the right things happen for the wrong reason.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;">I once heard management guru Tom Peters say, "if it ain't broke, break it," promoting disruption for any organization that is just cruising along--usually to oblivion. A management book came out with that title; and today "disruption" is a key word in organizational theory.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;">No one has been more disruptive to the accepted way of national and world governance than US President Donald Trump. As I write this, most of America's traditional allies feel "dissed" by his behavior in the G7, withdrawal from the Iran deal, the NAFTA deal, the Asian deal, and the climate change deal. He is reneging on decades of US assurances in Europe perhaps even NATO and the United Nations. He has abandoned environmental policy molded together through hundreds of years of community-based action fighting companies that trashed the land, the water, the air. He has turned his back on two hundred years of work to achieve pluralism and diversity. He has climaxed the death of civility in political conversation. He has promoted a tax system that will not only maintain, but also increase social economic inequality. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;">Trump has assembled and put in charge a base of people who, like him, resent intellectuals, academic elites, the press, non-English speaking immigrants, non-Christians, social liberals, RINOs, and you name all the others. Resentment is their commonality. And this resentment leads to disruption on a grand scale in which all, including the people in his base, will suffer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;">But as Tom Peters and leadership trainers have noted, disruption can also lead to positive growth. Peter's full quote was: "if it ain't broke, break it (or someone else will)." And most of the disruption that management masters counsel is guided and planned disruption by doing what you want to do better and achieve better results by doing it differently. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;">Disruption is an opportunity as well as a threat. If we make it so. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;">I'm reading,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><u>Leading from the Emerging Future</u><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>from the Presencing Institute at MIT. The authors, both economists, take much of what we know and organize it in an engaging way. They start with noticing and admitting the disruptions that are occurring in our political economy and ecology. Then they plumb to the invisible collective mindsets of the visible negative results. These mental models or habits of thinking must be disrupted to preserve and progress our personal and social order. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;">That makes me think about the belief systems I take for granted, especially those of moral behavior, political action, and economic life. What are those hidden ideologies that I am not questioning? Civil speech and collective action is the principle of politics of a democratic republic. Not resentment. Resentment is the demise of the commons, of collective action, of politics as a space of freedom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;">If I am resenting Trump, and especially if I make my resentment a principle of my action or lack of action, am I not becoming what I resent? How do I change what I judge as harmful to my nation, my community, and the people I love without being resentful? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;">And who can I work with on this, those who take responsibility and who engage not blame the resentful? How do we use the disruption to our present politics, communities, and world order that Trump occasions with all its resentment so that we disrupt the thinking and behavior behind it? And maybe, just maybe, push the human experiment onward. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;">All our great leaders from Buddha and Isaiah, Socrates and Jesus, to Mandela and King challenged the conventional wisdom, the habits of thinking, the icons of resentment of their times without succumbing to resentment. It is that truth that will make us free.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-47058783073662305802018-05-01T15:04:00.002-04:002018-07-22T21:27:04.822-04:00America's Golgotha<div style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">I've been meditating the opening in Montgomery, Alabama of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice otherwise known as the Lynch Museum. Bernie and I are resolved to make a pilgrimage to what I feel is America's Golgotha Shrine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Here are 4,308 stories of black men, women, and children tortured and hung. Stories that affect thousands more of their friends, neighbors, relatives, and descendants. And hundreds of thousands of white people and their descendants up to this very day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">The myth is that the white people who perpetrated these acts were ignorant, red necked, white trash. But the truth is that whole towns would participate in the burnings, torture, and hangings including the mayors, the bankers, businessmen, the educated elite with their wives and children. Most were church-going, born-again Christians as were the black victims of their sadism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">I meditate on the cruelty in my race that makes this possible. I do not mean the white, Aryan, or Nordic race for those are just fictions of a pre-historic, pre-scientific white-supremacist imagination. I mean the human race. I mean us, me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">There are lots of theories. Some are rooted in religious doctrines of evil--original sin, fallen angels, Satan, Pandora's Box, hubris against the gods, the absence of the sacred. Some explanations are from science: genetic struggle for life, the formation of tribes with fear of strangers, competition for mates and territory, dread of the unknown. Black people and their liberation were considered a threat to a very insecure white population who desired to keep their dominance by keeping black people "in their place." But does this explain the hatred and the cruelty? Of slavery, torture, and genocide.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Many of our contemporaries want to avoid the questions that the memorial experience raises. Let "sleeping dogs lie." they say. Bringing all this up will just cause more resentment by revealing the resentment that is already there. Let's just learn to get along.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">The role of Christianity and religion in general is on trial in the memorial. Religion in its summit is in the golden rule of compassion, the teaching of the universality of humankind, the understanding that all humanity has a common source that bestows dignity on every person. The prophets and luminaries of all the great religions taught this, including Jesus of Nazareth. But those who proclaimed him the Christ and Son of God, e.g. the Christians, were perpetrators of Jim Crow and lynching.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Christianity has been a rationalization for horrendous acts against humanity both by its celebration of victimhood and by its doctrine of forgiveness and reconciliation. It makes Jesus, its priest, prophet, and king, the exemplar of acceptance of the passive role of Victim in order to provide forgiveness to the perpetrators of gross injustice. "Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do!" The drama is between an angry Father Yahweh and an equal-in-power Son who can be sacrificed to appease God. This interpretation, based in metaphysics, came later as Christianity was becoming Christendom replacing Roman domination to sustain the new order.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Relying on documents of the times, historians conjecture that Jesus was killed at the delicate time of the Jewish Passover that celebrated the liberation of slaves from Egypt. Roman soldiers crucified hundreds of dissidents who broke the rules of Rome and littered the road with hung bodies in order to confirm the rule of the Romans and their patronized priests. Jesus hung with the multitudes of criminals who were left to be stripped and eaten by animals as a warning to others. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Early followers of Jesus using the symbols of their culture considered him a messenger from the God who had led the ancient Israelites from the hands of Pharaoh and made him a god in competition to the god, Caesar. The early gatherings would make him present by reciting memories that were as they broke bread together. In their story, they placed his death with others on the hill of Golgotha, a shrine to his death and resurrection.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Only later would the doctrine of the Triune God make Jesus into a supernatural entity in a supernatural place. A myth embracing numerous superstitions that would vindicate Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire with its hierarchical patronage system. This marked the passage of Christianity into Christendom from which it would never recover except in small renewal moments.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">My account is considered heresy today. In medieval times, I would be anathematized or rejected from the official Church and turned over to the Inquisition for correction, punishment, or death. I reject the Christianity that has become Christendom, that protects and even rationalizes the practice of torture and murder of those who critique and thus threaten the established way of life, thinking, and behavior. As were those black men and women, tortured and murdered, because they were seen as thinking and acting in ways, that threated dominant white morality.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">I reject Christianity as thought and practiced by triumphalist Catholics, Protestant fundamentalists, and Christian evangelicals who have embraced white supremacy, American exceptionalism, and narrow nationalism. I reject any religion that puts itself above criticism, as ultimate word, and promoting peace and stability without equity and power. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Although I reject Christianity, I remain a companion of Jesus before they anointed him as a god. I stand with him who is elevated with all who were lynched. Our pilgrimage to the American Golgotha in Montgomery will be our way to remember the thousands of victims, perpetrators, and descendants who sanctify this land in the hopes for a resurrection of equity, justice, and power for our human race<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-4961104764968465132018-04-08T10:36:00.001-04:002018-05-01T15:07:17.256-04:00Liberalism and LonelinessTwo articles: one from the <i>Times,</i> another from the <i>Post</i> give me some insight into our situation.<br />
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One describes the failure of the liberal mind stemming from Hobbes and Locke through Jefferson and Madison through which we have put individual life, liberty, and happiness over public life, liberty, and happiness. This according to the author explains why the US is highest among nations on the unhappiness, suicide, pain, and loneliness scales for which she cites many individual studies. This article had me return to Reisman's 1950s study of <u>The Lonely Crowd</u>.<br />
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The other describes the Hungary, Poland, and US turn to authoritarian leaders who champion nationalism, religious purity, single party control, true doctrine and who create enemies of the "other" and disdain the cosmopolitan tendency of a United Europe, the United Nations, and inclusive immigration policy. These leaders have seen that free market national capitalism is not necessarily linked to liberal democracy and find it more advantageous to adopt the former over the latter.<br />
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And so liberalism is under fire. Libertarians find no home in a political party that wants to achieve national unity through cultural identity. Democratic republicans find no home in a political party that wants to achieve global order and stability through economic growth.<br />
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Liberalism on the right advances the free market but often neglects the market's control by oligarchs and plutocrats. Liberalism on the left advances the dignity and rights of every person but often neglects the corresponding responsibility of every person to the good of the whole. The Liberal (GHW Bush's L-word) becomes the enemy of both right and left.<br />
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But perhaps liberalism's enemy is itself when it does not recognize it's limits. Free markets and free beliefs can only be achieved within boundaries, that is, in spaces of freedom, i.e. public space, defined by citizens. Politics, through which people engage in speech and action, set the boundaries of both the economy and culture, regulating the economic and cultural institutions so that no one is denied the means of livelihood, no one is harmed by intolerance, and everyone is part of the action.<br />
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Setting those boundaries is tricky business. While people may choose to opt in or out of the race for personal and family wealth and while people may choose whom they love, worship, believe, citizens can not opt out of the responsibility to determine and shape their public space. For that is the essence of citizenship. It is also the essence of freedom and power. It cannot be handed over to a CEO, a salesman, or a fixer.<br />
<br />
<br />Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-79176361407141540102018-04-05T12:41:00.003-04:002018-04-06T13:55:55.204-04:00Depression 2018<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="FR" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><i>Il pleure
dans mon cœur <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="FR" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><i>Comme il
pleut sur la ville ; <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="FR" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><i>Quelle est
cette langueur <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="FR" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><i>Qui pénètre
mon cœur ? </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="FR" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>--Paul
Verlaine 1844-1896<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In my translations, I find the poet connecting the rain over
the city to the gloom he feels in his soul and wondering what it is, where it
comes from, and why. He links the spirit of his body with the spirit of the polis. The personal soul and the public soul. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It rains in my heart<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As it rains o’er the town<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What is this melancholy<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That pierces my heart<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Clouds over the city<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mirror the gloom in my soul.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Whence comes this self-pity,<br />
That infects humanity whole.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7258903829242617268.post-74244113218411943272018-03-20T12:42:00.000-04:002018-04-08T09:26:04.934-04:00Why its politics, not the economy, Stupid!<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What makes the Great American Depression of 2017
political?</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I contend that our present national depression
is political, rather than economic or cultural or individual, because this
depression results from the depletion of public space. Individuals, even
groups of them, religions and other cultural phenomena, and the neoliberal
capitalist economy may persist and, for some, thrive. Many of us attain private
happiness, e.g. pleasure through the Sirens' songs or the odors of the lotus
fields, but we do not have public happiness, which includes a sense of
engagement and meaning in relation to a higher power beyond our individual
satisfaction. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">______________<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Positive psychologist Martin Seligman
claims that there are three levels of happiness: 1) Pleasure—the “feel good for
now” happiness of consumption represented by wealth, sex, health, fun, food and
drink (measured by amount of money). 2) Engagement with others,
friendship, relationships, and approval of others. 3)Meaning— experience of
having purpose which is the sense of being in touch or aligned with a higher
power. He is drawing upon Abraham Mazlow’s hierarchy of human needs which
starts from what is necessary to sustain life and is completed in
“self-actualization,” the fulfillment of the full potential of the person</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This is an insightful tool and model for
positive psychologists to employ when treating individuals struck with the
mental illness of debilitating sadness or clinical depression, an illness that
is spreading geometrically like a contagion in modern society. But this
diagnosis misses an important distinction that underlies a fundamental
dimension in human existence. That distinction is “public” and
“private.” </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Private happiness takes place in the household
(or “economy” in classical Greek). The economy is the realm of production and
consumption with <i>pleasure</i> measured by the accumulation of
wealth. The <i>engagement </i>with others occurs and is defined by
levels of authority or class. Its <i>meaning</i> is expressed in a
culture that values individual achievement of wealth through tribal religions
with household gods and through an education that fosters the rise from poorer,
more dependent classes to wealthier, more dominant classes. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Hannah Arendt maintains that the “pursuit of
happiness” in Jefferson's Declaration means <i>public</i>, over private,
happiness. Its <i>pleasure</i> comes not from consumption of material
goods, but from achievement of public good. Public happiness happens in
the <i>engagement</i> with others as equals in creating publics and
extending the public realm. It enjoys the <i>meaning</i> discovered
and constructed through the free inquiry, speech, and action of engaged
citizens. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">___________________<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We live and act in space-time. Some very learned
scientists and philosophers would argue that both space and time are
constructions of the human organism’s interaction with its environment. That
is, they are products of our existence in the universe. There is in human being
a tension that is time—the before and the-yet-to-come in the experience of
being <i>now</i>. And there is in human being a tension that is space—the
back-there and the over-there experience of being <i>here</i>.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And there is a tension between space and time in
which the human journey from past to future is both private and public. There
is no private without public. No privacy without publicity. And vice versa.
Notice how the lessening of the democratic commons is also a lessening of
privacy through autocracy. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There are two dimensions of human being. Two
sides of the proverbial coin of the realm. The private realm of living
(economy) and the public realm of action (politics). <u>Liberty</u>, the
absence of the necessity to be occupied in pursuit of life’s needs in the
private realm is one thing. <u>Freedom</u>, the capacity to participate
fully in the creation of public space is something else. Liberty is
freedom <i>from</i>. Freedom is liberty <i>for</i>. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The liberty to pursue private happiness has
temporal primacy as does biological life. It comes first in time. Freedom for
public happiness through action is first in space. Freedom has primacy
ontololgically, i.e. in order of importance for us as human beings. The private
realm is the place of power <i>over</i>. The public realm is the place of
power <i>with</i>. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There is both biography and history; and they
are interconnected. My journey from life to death is a part of the story of the
community, the nation, and the universe. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I personally cannot be totally free until all my
fellow travelers are free. My worth is deeply connected to the worth of
humankind. My personal peace requires social justice.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">All this is saying that private happiness can
never be achieved fully unless there is public happiness. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My sense of helplessness, unworthiness, ennui,
insignificance is interdependent with others. My private personal happiness
requires public interpersonal happiness. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Life and the fulfilment of its needs, liberty to
engage with others voluntarily, and the pursuit of public happiness in freedom.
These are our rights and responsibilities in being human.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">___________________<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To overcome our political depression requires a
reckoning with our social habits or institutions that pull us down. Especially
the disorder that makes private happiness measured by individual wealth the
goal of our social order and the measure of its success. This is the disorder
of subjecting politics to economy, of making our community and its governance
dependent on private prosperity which in the America today is the domination
and destruction of democracy by neoliberal economics or American capitalism.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The confusion between liberty (free from) and
freedom (free for) explains the new anti-democrats who have arisen today. For
they teach that, when decisions are made, and the social order is constructed
democratically, people will be bound by limits and regulations and so lack
liberty. But democracy is exactly that space where all persons shape the social
order to limit liberty. For it is only within limits that all can be equal and
free. Even the commons, the space of freedom, the public has boundaries without
which there is no freedom. A free state is also a rule of law. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Liberty for autocrats, usually the rich and
would-be rich, abounds in a social order dominated by a liberal economy, i.e. a
plutocracy. Freedom abounds in a social order governed by all who see each
other as equals with dignity by nature rather than by race, religion, status,
or class. That is a democratic republic.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">How can we enjoy both liberty and freedom in our
situation in America today? How can we reclaim democracy and resist
autocracy? Those are the same questions. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To cure our political depression, we accept that
democracy is threatened. Rich persons and large corporations reign and sell
their agenda to us the public who are being reduced to individual consumers. According
to the rulers, the measure of success is the quantity of production and
consumption, the worth of the dollar and of stocks, and the ability to force
this agenda on the rest of the world. We confront the plutocrats who engage in
economic and cultural wars to distract us from our political depression.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To cure our political depression, we acknowledge
our responsibility for this situation. We realize that we in concert have the
power to change this. To change our addiction to wealth, we rely on our higher
power which is the assembly of free citizens in an open and just society. We resist
the plutocratic, anti-democratic forces of the Republic for which we stand. We renew
and reassert our democratic principles and institutions. As
Jefferson advised, democratic rebellion is the responsibility of each
generation. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "-webkit-standard" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p>_________________</o:p></span></div>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footer"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="table of figures"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="envelope address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="envelope return"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footnote reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="line number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="page number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="endnote reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="endnote text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="table of authorities"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="macro"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="toa heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Finally, to answer the culturalists
(Bell, Marcuse,DuPuy) who have correctly probed the absence of the sacred and
the permanence of values in a one-dimensional consumer society shaped by
capitalism, we can reaffirm the sacred not in private devotion to some god in the sky, but in the restoration
of public space, the place of power and freedom, where persons in concert,
assuming each other’s dignity and equality, act together to progressively
transcend the limits of knowledge and freedom for all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Rollie Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12823235385877021567noreply@blogger.com1