The Rights of Humankind

Twelve score and one year ago Thomas Jefferson submitted an innovative set of political principles to a congress of delegates from thirteen American colonies. The gathered assembly, known as Continental Congress, debated the contents and the merits of Jefferson's proposal. The document began with these words:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness--that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. . .

The world has changed a lot since those words were adopted as the philosophical basis of a new experiment in civil government. Here are just a few of the ways our world has changed since those revolutionary days:

~ Our fledgling national legislature, known at that time as the "Continental" Congress, is now called the Congress of the United States.

~ We Americans now associate the world "Continental" with Europe.

~ On the "Continent" of Europe, citizen-groups are now struggling to form a workable political basis for a European Union.

~~ Whereas, In the year 1776, when our American Continental Congress adopted a plan for a United States of America, we had a nominal consensus for the basis of our Union; and That consensus was based, rhetorically, upon "certain unalienable Rights, . . . Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness; which Rights that had been "endowed" by a "Creator,"

~~ In the year 2000, the European Parliament adopted a Charter of Fundamental Rights of European Union, by which the peoples of Europe are resolved to share a peaceful future based on common values. . . indivisible, universal values of human dignity, freedom, equality and solidarity. . . based on the principles of democracy and the rule of law.

We see, therefore, that the American Union was initiated during an historical period in which faith in a Creator God was still, at least rhetorically, allowed to be a basis for political consensus.

The European Union, however, is coalescing in a post-modern, humanistic age in which their unity can only be expressed in terms of human agreements and motivations, stated above as common values.

As we Americans ultimately divided ourselves into two primary political identities, Democrats and Republicans, with one side being generally associated with progressivism programs while the other is based in conservatism,

We notice that in Europe, in what is now a churning crucible of 21st-century economic constraints, the divisions seem to be congealing toward two uniquely Euro polarities. On the Right side, we find the Austerians, whose values are based on fiscal responsibility and the austerity that is thought to be necessary for maintaining economic and political stability. On the Left side, we find the Socialists, whose values are based on equality that is assured and managed by the State, which should produce solidarity among the people.

As Thomas Jefferson had proposed a declaration based ostensibly on the zeitgeist of the so-called Age of Enlightenment, so has a spokesman stepped forth, in our age, to propose for the Europeans a document that aspires to manifest the zeitgeist of this (perhaps) Age of Equality.

Toward that end, Mr. Yanis Varoufakis, former Finance Minister of the Greek Syriza party, has proposed a five-point plan by which the Europeans would collectively assure the rights of persons as they are understood in this, the 21st-century.

https://www.socialeurope.eu/2017/01/new-deal-save-europe/

Stated simplistically, those rights are:

~ a collective investment in green/sustainable technology

~ an employment guarantee for every citizen

~ an anti-poverty fund

~ a universal basic dividend (income)

~ an immediate anti-eviction protection.


So we see, now, that in the 200+ years since the inception of American Democratic-Republicanism, the zeitgeist that was then seen as inevitable has changed. In the so-called Age of Enlightenment (c.1776) we were demanding a Government that would Protect our Unalienable Rights, defined broadly as Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness.

The modern zeitgeist, however, as it appears to be evolving in the Europe of Our Age, is demanding: a Government to Protect our Basic Life Necessities.

Instead of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, citizens of the World now appear to be demanding Life, Security, and the Pursuit of Equality.

And that's the way it is, 2017. We shall see how this develops as the 21st-century unfolds.

Smoke

It's the Contest

The destroyer is a spirit, a corrupted zeitgeist.

But in spite of his apparent worldwide heist,

he is no christ.

He's eloquent in spreading fear

while whispering in your ear.

She slides in on a sled of doubt

chewing up our courage, then spitting it out.

He serves up fodder for defeat;

she slices delectable discouragement for meat.

The destroyer fastens our attention

on cultivating nervous tension.

He's obsessive with dismay;

she casts hope and care away.

They display

excrutiatingly excellent excuses

to focus on all those world-driven abuses

for which we have no productive uses

so that accomplishments can be decimated,

achievements aggravated

and defeat elevated

to a sordid art form

so as to blot out our war-torn

mission

as if by atomic fission.

Hey, they say,

it's all going to blow someday,

maybe the big one even comes today.

The destroyer will habitually say

conspiracy is the order of the day,

and rational order has been put down

as we're all just fooling' around.

She says decency went out with the tide,

been cast aside,

and integrity is dead

and that we should just party down instead

because the whole damn system is fixed

for sure, bewitched

and our course cannot be switched

cuz life's a bitch,

not a beach.

So don't bother to reach

out.

Just glory in the art of pout.

We'll make of complaint an art form

and criticism a craft, to adorn

our death-wish thanatos

with exquisite, tragic loss.



On the other hand

as far as the east is from the west,

in spite of all that, we could be supremely blessed.

The comforter says you can do this;

your arrow is not destined to always miss.

If the system is rigged what does it matter;

your hopes and dreams aren't doomed to splatter

on the mean streets of this world

because the true kingdom is not of this world;

it displays a flag unfurled,

that flutters in our heart

urging us to start

a work, an art

apart

to begin anew

a place for me and you

a place in the son

no matter what the gun

has done

to make us turn and run

from the challenges of this screwed-up life.

We can overcome and defeat this strife

by faith, by hope, by true love,

bestowed to us from above

if we can allow the destroyer in us to be crucified.

On a cross of sacrifice, that enemy has died,

and to its own defeat is tied.

But I'm not tied to it;

they can't make you do it.

Death doesn't have to overcome me, nor defeat you;

I tell you true.

We shall rise above it all

if you can hear the call

of resurrected victory

for you and me:

He's signaling from the other side

if you can resist the tide

of death-wish thanatos

and the destroyer's proposed eternal loss.

You may hear otherwise,

but death itself in the end just dies.

Selah.



Traveler's Rest

The Troubled Waters

Paul Simon presents a grim solemnity as he croons his old tune, Bridge Over Troubled Waters, for the convened Democrats yesterday in Philadelphia. In sharing with them this classic, well-loved anthem that the wrote, Paul imparts a sense of profound desperation. But the weary, hopeless person whose dire circumstance is so poetically described in the song receives, in the end, a deliverance. Hope shines through when a caring friend intervenes.

Paul's tender message of friendship is well-received by the Democrats. They take the inspiration to heart by joining in, and swaying to the music's gentle rhythm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v12fPV6QmeU

While viewing this scene on YouTube yesterday, I noticed Paul's grave countenance, and I was a little surprised by the obvious aging that has reshaped his face. Many years ago, I was greatly moved--as many of my boomer generation were-- by his poetic, prophetic songs. Here is one from back in the day, for which he is perhaps most well-known:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDIjj7CQYZw

That was Paul Simon then, in 1965; but this is now, 2016. The world seems to be a very different place.

Yesterday in Philadelphia, the assembled Democrats responded empathetically to Paul's solemn presentation of Bridge over Troubled Waters.

But We Americans are a diverse collection of people. Those communitarian Democrats represent a certain segment of our population. There is, however, another strain of us Americana whose emphasis is not so much on community and everybody getting together to solve society's problem. I'm talking about the rugged individualists.

About the same time--mid 1960's--that Paul Simon was so profoundly poeticizing our youthful alienation, there was-- on the golden horizon of seasoned celebrity-- another very popular singer. He was a smooth crooner whose older, mellowing generational zeitgeist had arisen from a very different historical time and circumstance.

Here's a clip of Frank Sinatra, the original crooner a la 1940's, as he belts out the song that became a theme for many, many Americans of his generation. It is a tune that expresses the determination and perseverance of his generation--the same generation that ran the Nazis and the Fascists back into their holes over there in old Europe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnXIPV6Jh4Y

Ole Blue Eyes Frank made it big during his given time. Back in his day it was all about celebrating the good times that settled in after the War, getting all dressed up, having a few drinks, and laughing.

A couple of decades later, the sensitive poet Simon, like Dylan and others, came along, touching the troubled nerve of a booming generation that couldn't seem to find its place in that old way of viewing the world.

So, seeing yesterday, ole Paul as he lead the communitarians in wailing that tender tune--this had an meaningful impact on me. Finding myself now in a never-never land between two obese political parties, I am alienated, wandering, looking for the party, but unable to find one that celebrates what I know to be true.

Stranger in a strange country, I wonder as I wander. . . out under the darkening sky.

But every now and then I encounter something or someone that partly expresses what I dimly discern in this land of troubled waters-- a stubborn, though fragile, life that is draped in mystery, yet with occasional glimpses of our sure mortality, and a hopeful longing for immortality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuXb4She_sU

Glass half-Full

Pax Statismo, and Anarcho

In the modern industrial era that began about 200 years ago, a zeitgeist god named Kapital rose up to dethrone the god of the former age, Monarchy. Very early on during the Kapital dynasty, the Marx demigod happened along and he figured out that Kapital god had some real vulnerabilities that would ultimately lead to Kapital's downfall.

So the Marx whipped up a revolution that ultimately would dethrone Kapital and replace him with a new god for the new age, Communo. As it turned out, from about 1905 until long about 1989 the Kapital and the Communo were at each other's throats constantly everywhere you look.

But early on during the struggle between the Kapital and the Communo, the Keyneo demigod happened along and detected some serious vulnerabilities within Kapital's corpus that, if infiltrated, would ultimately enable the Communo to sucker punch Kapital into mayhem and oblivion.

Meanwhile, changes within the demographic of Communo's domain morphed him/her into a new multigodural entity. The demigod MediaMad dubbed the new chimera god Statismo. The thing about Statismo is that nothing really matters to him/her. No noblesse oblige, no limits, no antiquated outdated obsolete faith or sentimentalities and for sure no sacred damn cows.

One result of Statismo's evolving infiltrating insidious insurgent machinations was that institutions of the former Kapital and Communo realms began to topple slowly, one by one, two by two and whats-it-to-you, etc. For instance, one sacred cow of the faltering Kapital was that feral relic, the balanced budget, which had formerly enabled Kapital power throughout the the West and sometimes the East by preserving and extending and colonializing the value of Kaptial's four currencies: gold, oil, paper and electrons.

Statismo had determined that the balanced budget had to come down, along with several other sacred damn cows like marriage and family and so forth and so on etcerata etcetera etcerata . This devolution would make the way clear for the New Order. Thus the Kapital Void and also the Communo Cloud could be flooded with Statismo Stato.

Here's the The thing about Statismo revolutionaries: they don't give a damn about budgets, fiscal responsibilities, deficits, profits or prophets. When the gods of Kapital and Communo have completed phases I, II, and possibly III of their deathly video-game brouhaha, all hell can break loose and the way will be clear for Pax Statismo and ultimately his doppelgänger twin Anarcho.

Vive la revolution! But this time with no liberte, egalite, nor fraternite. That was yesterday's news, even in 1789 when this whole scenario was hatched in the minds of neo-platonist-confucianist-ex-post-facto-nihilist philosophers.

But hey, have a nice day! This will take a while. Put your seat belt on. As for me and my house, I'm waitin' on Pax Christi.

Smoke