Best Government: Problem Solution Makes Government Big

I am having trouble identifying the source of information our legislators  are using to make political decisions.Where do they get their ideas? One said, “I read two Shakespeares.”  What a pitiful admission of stupidity and straining for credibility! I say again, they have to call upon the scholars who have studied the problems in depth. A coalition of scholars at their hearings would impress me that they are getting the best advice, beyond that of their colleagues in the Senate or House, or their executive cabinet.

If I were President, Governor, Committee chair, etc.,  I would act as a moderator, Charlie Rose style, of the authors of books on (big breath): homelessness; nationalistic militarism; human rights; natural resource conservation, depletion,  and exploration; healthcare; genicide; homeland security; drought; totalitarianism and democracy; aids and world health; United Nations membership; poverty; corruption; pandemics; vagrant asteroids; housing; crime; pollution; infrastructure; hunger; energy; malnutrition; racism and xenophobia; food supply; global warming; immigration,terrorism; taxes; education and schools; political campaigning; budget deficits; foreign aid; and so on…

That is the prime duty of a chief executive in a political entity: moderator, facilitator, policy maker. In the last election, I actually heard a candidate for governor state that very goal. I was flabbergasted. And he said he would find all those resource people from around the state. When you think of it, that is one full plate of worms. He or she would become one sweaty blur attending to all the issues to be juggled. Did I see therein minding the ranch and the golf game?

Write a goal, aim, or best fix and solution for each. Then propose it to the people and let them have their input. Do we need big government. You betcha!!!

The Wild Hair #2: Megaphone in Orbit

Fix an Earth satellite in stationary orbit over the Middle East. Load it with a mega-powered amplifier system and a timer system.Aim the blast of sound at the radical Muslim places on Earth. In their native language and a native sounding voice send some words as a voice from “up there”.

“Hear and obey the One you look up to. Say my name! (PAUSE) Hear and obey: KILL NO OTHER MAN, WOMAN, or CHILD. THAT IS THE LAW FOR ALL HUMAN BEINGS. If you kill, you are a beast, and you will be slaughtered and fed to the worms.”

Or some such words that will effect an end to the killing in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Repeat at some interval, say once in the morning and once in the evening for several days. Then start another cycle after an interval of a week. Then wait to assess any progress. Have a second message that reports the pleasure or displeasure with the result. Some may cringe in fear, but some may start laughing themselves silly. Laughter is good, yes?

Perhaps you have some words you would have such a device cast down. I have no doubt that the audio technology exists to beam down to Earth a voice of doom from outer space.

(I remember that they had a hard time figuring out the symbolic communication they would put on an interstellar vehicle, in case it should be intercepted by life on other worlds. This might be as difficult.)

An Iraq Solution

Following Sen. Joe Biden’s proposal to divide Iraq as a solution to our problem-war in Iraq, I suggest a slightly different division, following Al Franken’s idea. Franken says make it Shiastan, Sunnistan and Kurdistan. Not so crazy. Then I would say divide the Baghdad zone into four sectors just as was done after WWII in Berlin, where there were four sectors, English, French, Russian, and American. Shia, Sunni, Kurd and one common sector in the middle called Parliament. The three could be drawn to point to the center. It’s not like that country has never been partitioned before. (I do not view this as a wild-hair idea.)

A Wild Hair #1: Unknown Effects

[A Wild Hair: like a weed, anything that grows outside of its proper, expected, or desired place. For me, it is an idea that pops up with no context for its being.]

The Earth belongs to a system and behavior of its own which we do not own and cannot in most senses control. But we can disrupt that system in certain ways. The minerals and other substances underground we can dig up and bring to the surface. Our cities are built from those materials that have been brought to the surface and piled high, in various architectural and amorphous forms. What is the weight of one city like New York City? Of all the cities large and small everywhere? How much do the oceans weigh when the ice is high in an ice age, or when the ice has melted with global warming? To take substances to the surface, away from their ancient, natural placement probably has some effect on the turning of the Earth on its axis, and consequently its seasons, and perhaps other dimensions of time and space. The moon is very slowly, but nevertheless, slipping away from its earth orbit, and its gravitational relationship with Earth. We may be gradually digging  the grave for future civilizations. Is there an underground alternative? Using what is there in situ?

The President’s “Base” — Don’t Blame Mr. Bush

Time mag’s person of the year — you. The cover was a mirror; you looked at the cover and saw yourself. “You” populate the internet and blogs and become a sort of democracy, not yet a functional, but a structural internet democracy (Dershowitz’s distinction). (I forecast a pure electronically mediated democracy in the United States in 25 years in an article I wrote in 1980. “Education and Electronically Mediated Democracy.” In Education: A Time for Decisions. Ed. by K.M. Redd & A.M. Harkins. Washington: World Future Society, 1980. Pp. 122-131.) A blog is a private newspaper by a private journalist and publisher. You! Bloggers and emailers have found a structure for their views. This structure attracts deliberative minds, as well as the mindless. There is a lot of garbage, especially the effluvia of the rotting mindless who make spam and viruses, but the search engines can help bridge that offal. The deliberative mind puts itself into deliberative contexts, where a new definition of competence is required to deal with selective exposure, selective attention, and selective retention. Exposure to difficult, deliberative mass media expreiences. Selecting programs and extending the time of attention to the level at which concentration is achieved. Retaining the more signicant content in succinct notes and mnemonic devices, and separating out the bias of the source in comparison or contrast to the receiver’s slant. For example, I can listen to the Fox news shows and take the good and leave the bias. Actually, the Fox news show I watch has many good, non-political segments, which the other news shows seldom have. I am exposed to their bias and can test my thinking thereby.I elect the base of Bush voters as The Nondeliberative Mind of the Year. Our President is one who could not conceivably have been elected by the deliberative minds as described above. He is the creature of nondeliberative minds. I do not blame Mr. Bush for getting elected the first time. I taught in West Texas where he got his start. He discovered there the ease with which he could demagogue himself to political power, down-home, plain-speaking to the evangelical heart what that heart wanted to hear. What worked in West Texas also was legal tender in the nation.

I believe that the level of diction I require in a political leader is different from that which the majority has elected. Kerry lost as Bush was elected, to a great extent because the level of articulateness of Bush matched a base base. (Mind, there are two meanings of base.) Da Base!

A Working Hyopothesis

The calendar of U.S. citizens is full of sporting activity, year round, that has created a spectator nation, sitting in the stands or in front of a TV set to root for professional and interscholastic teams in baseball, football, basketball, soccer, and many other organized athletic events. Now with fitness a national pursuit to combat obesity, sporting activity has been democratized, and everyone, muscular or scrawny, can be an amateur anything, golf, ping pong, running,etc.

By contrast, many people in Middle-Eastern countries seem to make great sport of ritualized beheading, rioting, kidnapping and torturing, flag- and effigy-burning, chest-beating, marching wearing hoods to erase their identities and make themselves more mobbish (under mobbish anonymity more evil becomes possible and likely), chanting death slogans, stone throwing, self-flagellation, burning down buildings, expolding cars and mosques and churches and embassies and public buildings and towers of commerce and hotels, and their biggest heroes are the (hari-kari, kamikaze) suicide-bombers of weddings and grocery shoppers and worshipers and bus riders and diners and, well, anyone, indiscriminately, whoever. Set me straight! Do they have the sporting-athletic games that could drain off much of their energy into healthy life styles and friendly competitiveness beneficial to society in teaching the principles of sportsmanship? I know they have soccer. In one infamous episode, they mounted a murderous attack on athletes at the Olympic Games. Is it great sport to put on their anonymizing headdress and bring down populations and nations by cowardly, sneak attacks? Is that an athletic event? Is there a Guiness record for the greatest number of victims or the largest building taken down? Is there no other way? No chin-wagging possible? No speech games, debate, argumentation? Are we entering a new dark age, as we go on a war footing to counter an ideology that allows no ethic but its own?

We must treat the situation of “terrorism” as a world threat, equal to global warming, or overpopulation, or weapons of mass destruction, that will not be overcome for at least five decades. During that time, the population of Earth will slowly become aware of the international criminal, murderous conspiracy it faces and attend to what it must do to resolve the issue. It will take that length of time to bring along 5-6 billion people to a time when the world will be free of the international threats of the radical, Islamistic, or other theocratic terrorists. “Death is better than living in this world with unbelievers among us.” Perhaps one mechanism of the transformation can be the institution of competitive speech and athletics to displace death-centric, internecine war and politics.

Set me straight! Could Islamic women compete in track and field events, or any athletic endeavor that requires suitable attire that may not be acceptable to Islamic males? Set me straight! Winter games require a lot of body covering, but the Middle-Eastern countries are not in climes to practice such games. Is Olympic ice skating out for the women? What are the games that could get them off the streets and into an arena or in front of their TVs for a respite from their usual mayhem? Set me straight!

Actually, I can forsee a great showdown coming, really great! It will be atomic. If Iran gets its nuclear weapons, as I believe that is ultimately what they seek, with that madman in control, it will be atomic warfare, internecine. It’s surely coming. Unless– Unless we have an effective world government.

A nation is a democratic society to the extent that its people are provided places and opportunities to learn and practice sportsmanship under the rules of the game, whether athletics or debate or business or–.

The Gordian Knot That Is Iraq

There is a new Gordian Knot in Iraq.

Everyone knows the ancient legend. The ox-cart of Gordias had an intricate knot tied on its shaft. An oracle prophesied that whoever untied the knot would become king of Asia. In time, the ox-cart morphed into a chariot of war, and readiness for war. Alexander the Great came to Gordium in his foray into Asia and Mesopotamia to avenge the suffering of the Greeks at the hands Xerxes. Alexander knew the legend, and ever desiring to add to his reputation as invincible, which served well his purposes, he confronted the so-called Gordian knot. Everyone knows his solution for the knot that had no beginning nor end that he could see to untie it. His sabre did the trick with one stroke, the Alexandrian solution.

Today we have the law of the hammer: put a hammer in the hands of an infant and everything wants pounding. Put a mighty army in the hands of an incompetent decider-in-chief and — well, you see the outcome. Decider-in-chief, as he calls himself, simply means he is going it alone. No need to cast wide a net for ideas. “I’ll tell you what to do. I have the sole power to set the course. I’ll tell you again and again: I am the decider, and don’t you forget it!”

So we had shock and awe. The hammer fell. But as we since have seen, there should have followed a new shock and awe of political onslaught to stop the chaos of looting and the disbanded, enemy army with their weapons still in hand. The peace that the Iraqi dictator enforced by an iron fist to hold the factions immobile was lost for good and turned over to the criminals and ignoranti. The little man Bush had his preemption without prescience.

An intractable problem meets the would-be Alexanders. Maybe that is one way to go. The counter-intuitive new shock and awe to lock down that nation with the peace of a jail, as under Saddam, but with the twist that the new jailers will be more democratically minded, and in the peace form a peaceful society, protecting an infant civilization from the tribalism and sectarian evil with the new shock and awe of an invincible presence. That way has no chance now that the U.S. has turned against any further involvement in Iraq, does it? It would mean a draft, where every eligible male and female would face service, to build an army back to its invincible status. I believe that’s what a great nation would do. If our presence were invincibly powerful (and numerous), there would be geater safety for our service men and women.

“They” say “they” want to finish the job. Trouble is, they have no definition for “job” and “finish”, words easily rolling off the tongue but with no meaning. What is the “finish” desired, the tape at the end of the race to be broken by the “winner”? And what is the “job” which the workers will do and who are the workers? I have suggested a way for which we do not have the stomach, but it would be a “successful” way.

On the other hand, just leave, and let the situation play itself out as those people see fit. Turn it over to, what one group of young Iraqis said of the miscreants causing all the trouble, the ignorant and the criminals. The situation could be no worse that it is now.

Another solution is to go all over the world and call in our chits, what’s owed us for all we have contributed in the past to world peace, Hitler, Tojo, the Berlin airlift, Marshall plan, tsunami relief, and the list goes on. The world owes it to us to come to our aid. Every nation should send 5,000 soldiers to help lock down the situation in Iraq. That would be a diplomatic shock and awe to unleash on the criminals and ignorant so that Iraq could come clean and get smart. I believe that they are a fearless people to have to go out amidst those ignorant and criminal people to get their daily bread. They truly need help.