Problem of Groupthink

The problem of groupthink happens in all closed systems. The people prevail upon one another to think the same way, and as a result of all thinking the same way arrive at the same errors. As they persecute people for thinking in any different way, they exclude crucial perspectives that have the capacity to check those errors. And the result, in all cases, is disaster.

We see that in a glaring example with the media in 1998, when it created a groupthink that attempted a coup against a legitimately elected president who had 70% public support, and then attacked an independent magazine called the Salon for "violating unspoken rules of media" with its revelation of the affair carried out for four years by Clinton prosecutor Henry Hyde. The "unspoken rules" here of course are the groupthink itself - the groupthink that decided it had the right and the power to depose one of America's most successful president against Constitutional law and against the will of the electorate. Whenever one sees "unspoken rules," what one sees is groupthink that seeks to bludgeon everyone into compliance with itself. And it becomes one's duty before democracy and freedom to destroy such groupthink.
Another obvious example of groupthink, that has had more disastrous results, has been found in people who claim that the economical-political infrastructure is "the real world" or even "reality," and that the world in which it exists is neither of the preceding. As people associate this entity with "reality," they become oblivious to the rest of reality - such as, for example, the reality of the planet in which this infrastructure exist. The results of this groupthink are obvious, and direct function of the mentality contained within it. If thisinfrastructure is "real world" and the whole of "real world," then it must take a lunatic to think of reality as having any existence outside of it, whether it be the biosphere, the climate, or even the solar system and the universe outside of it. Unfortunately for those who believe this and now for everyone else, the planet is real world also, and one without which the infrastructure would have no existence. This oversight in the definition of what is real world, and what is reality, has been the direct flaw in thinking responsible for the present climatic catastrophe.
Further examples of groupthink can be seen in professions, communities, and religions worldwide. The history of psychiatry shows going from one trend to another, with its concepts of what is health and what is sickness changing constantly as a result of the ideological underpinnings of the psychological thought of the time. Scott Peck, who was a Protestant, had a very different definition of what's wrong with the world than did Erich Fromm, Rollo May, Wilhelm Reich or Sigmund Freud. His influence was formative to psychiatry's errors in 1980s and 1990s, as it went from the humanistic purpose of uncovering and making the most of people's potential to suffocating and oppressing the same. As purpose of psychology became to bring about "social adjustment" and refer to anything else as a disease or a personality disorder, was completely left out of consideration the quality and the character of what it is to which the adjustment is forced. The predictable and inevitable result, once again: Perpetuation of groupthink, regardless of its actual character; silencing of all voices that had any capacity for checking it or showing its errors or its effects on the world and on the people inside of it; and unchecked, all-ensnaring, all-controlling perpetuation of whatever Big Lie bears the name of "sanity" and "reality" in the place and the time. The Big Lies including, but not being limited to, the following: that "real world" and "reality" do not include the reality of the planet and its inhabitants; that responsibility means poisoning the planet and having a $10 trillion debt; that "family values" is about working to create the end of the world before one's grandchildren have reached maturity; that character and loyalty and integrity is about never questioning anything one is told especially the preceding; that caring about such things is "whining" or "blaming" and not caring about them is personal responsibility; or that it is mental health to practice such beliefs and mental illness not to.
In closed communities such as the small towns, the groupthink becomes the law, the sanity, and the reality, unto itself. With all external scrutiny as to its practices of human and civil rights, as well as Constitutional law, silenced under the name of "getting government off people's backs," the communitarian usurpation becomes not only formative but absolute. The result is neither greater freedom, as promised, nor an improvement, as promised, in people's character. The result is severe degradation of both the preceding; a destruction of all meaningful freedom and human rights; a subversion of the police and the social services to hide, silence, and destroy the minds and the lives of its victims; and the worst of abuses and corruption growing up under the banner of "family" or "community" values and under the banner of "freedom," entraining in people the mental habits of conmen, liars, bullies, rapists, and murderers, and using personal and community loyalties to maintain these habits and pass them on under the name of "values," "tradition," "community," and "what this country really is about."

In the courts, we see a very similar problem. Manifestly fraudulent concepts such as the Parental Alienation Disorder (PAS) not only find their way into the system, but become the staple of the system, with all discussion of it silenced and prosecuted. People with no professional training, under the CAFCASS system, are authorized to make fraudulent diagnoses and decide lives of children. Corrupt lawyers and corrupt judges with money signs in their eyes in UK use the fallacious "Munchausen By Proxy" syndrome to tear babies from their mothers' breasts and sell them for $5,000 a piece to adoptive couples that are corrupt enough to take part in such a despicable scheme. The children then are adjudicated to being brought up by the most corrupt of all possible people, whether they be men who would use a racket such as PAS to silence the facts of their violence and sexual abuse toward their children, couples who would take children away from their mothers and buy up government agents to help along, or government entities that take part in these and related rackets. The groupthink is allowed to grow and reach such manifestly monstrous dimensions because the courts are left to make their own decisions without scrutiny by free press and by the people at the receiving end of these decisions, who are discredited, silenced, have their children taken away from them, or go to jail for speaking.

The groupthink happens to businesses; to governments; to professions; to countries; to regions of countries; to towns, villages, cultures, subcultures, even such organizations as NASA, where everyone knew about the impending Challenger disaster but nobody dared to speak up. A classic example of where this leads at the national level is the Emperor of China telling the English monarch that his "celestial empire" had everything that it needed, and that there was nothing that the pathetic island of England could offer it. Another is the Reagan Administration being so packed with narrow-minded loyalists that it acted as if it did not realize that it was creating a climate disaster and a public debt crisis; the even more obvious example being the Bush Jr. administration that not only added hugely to these problems but created tons of others at the top. Much of the time groupthink hurts others; at times it hurts also the people who are partaking of it. China would not have gone down the ruinous road that it did following its rejection of English offers of trade if it had made more intelligent decisions, and Republicans would not have gone down in the flaming defeat that it did in 2008 if they likewise had thought and conducted themselves more intelligently. There are some who think that the root of all wrong is sin, and others who think that the root of all suffering is desire; but these examples prove that the root of most man-made wrong in the world is bad thinking. Groupthink is a very serious and pervasive example of bad thinking, and one which must be rigorously checked if similar and worse situations are to be avoided.
There are people who claim, for example, that the Roman Empire was undone by its "decadence." The truth is that it too was undone by bad thinking. In 20 AD, Hero of Alexandria invented the steam engine. The Romans thought that it was uneconomical because slave labor was cheap and abundant enough for them. Had they exercised more foresight, they would have industrialized 1800 years early, created war machines that would have made mincemeat of any invading army, and been able to end the institution of slavery in which lived three-quarters of the population and which was the rightful ongoing source of hate and resentment against the Roman Empire and against "the world." The world would be speaking Latin to this day, and Romans would not be remembered as brutes but as creators of a great civilization.

In religions, the groupthink is at its most severe, with results of the worst sort. Religions come to believe that they are superior to "the world" - meaning of course the rational world, with such concepts in it as science, democracy, knowledge, human rights, women's rights and free speech - and then use the mechanisms of democracy that have allowed them freedom of religion to subvert this same democracy and deny everyone else not only freedom of religion and freedom from religion, but also every other right and liberty given to them by the same democratic system that they abuse for imposition of apocalyptic totalitarianism. Using fdenunciation of true scientific knowledge, family pressure, community pressure, fake psychology, spiritual fraud, and threats of eternal damnation, they then maintain this apocalyptic totalitarianism, with predictably destructive economic, political and social policies as its effect. In the same way as Hitler used the mechanisms of German democracy to impose totalitarianism, so do such groups as Islamists and Christian Coalition in the societies they inhabit. We have seen the direct results of both - the first with Taliban, the second with Bush, Blair and Howard governments - and both have been equivalently disastrous for their countries and for the world.
To an Islamist or a Christianist, anyone who is not a part of the cult is a sinner, a heretic, a savage, a false prophet or an enemy; anyone who is born into it is, to them, a horrible traitor and sinner if they ever leave it or get other thoughts into their heads than what the cult forces therein. All influences not of the cult are attacked and destroyed as far as is possible in the time and the place. The awakenings of intelligence, passion, or anything else that has the potential to lead the person away from the cult's and mind control, are seen as a threat, and the person is dealt with through demonization, brutality, brainwashing, entrapment in deliberately impossible situations, and whatever other forms of ensnarement, mind-destruction or life-destruction whose burden it is to "prove" the party line is thought up by the members of the cult and the scientists, psychologists, business people, judges, doctors, policemen and politicians whom they coopt. The cults thus become immune to checks on their groupthink, whether they be external to the cults or internal to them, and the work of deception, fraud, and ensnarement of people into apocalyptic totalitarianism can go on unchecked from either within or without - until, once again, the groupthink becomes so big as to project its anti-life ideology on the whole of the universe and work for a cataclysmic destruction of life on Earth before their grandchildren have learned how to read. At which point it becomes threat to life of people outside of it as well as to life itself, and the world has a choice either to follow the cult's line and bring about an artificial Armageddon, or to reject the cult's line and work to create a livable future for humanity - a future that extends to all of humanity, whether or not they believe in a pedophilic tyrant who bedded a nine-year-old girl at age 84 being the rightful source of theological and moral instruction for all mankind; an omnipotent entity that was not adequately omnipotent to beget more than one son and no daughters and needs mere humans to fight his wars; it being part of "celestial Empire" and "divine moral order" of Confucianism to see "a wife taken is like a pony bought: mine to ride and whip as I will" and to make the son of a robber also be a robber; ugliness being brought into existence by conceiving of beauty and not by failure to strive for it; world being brought into being by a cow and 150 million people being rightfully damned to horrific existence for the terrible sin of being born in a wrong family; woman and nature and "flesh" as being the source of all evil and the people believing such things as not; all creations of nature and works of humanity being "hubris" or "sin" and wanting everyone who is not oneself to burn in hell for eternity as being neither; brutality, degradation and abuse against wives and children being "family values" and being good to one's wife and children as being unmanly or unpatriotic or against God; AIDS being "God's way of controlling the homosexual population" and 9-11 having happened because "God took away protection from USA because of feminists and liberals"; science and democratic government as being error and sin and people claiming such things while benefiting from science and using the democratic institutions to practice their apocalyptic totalitarianism as being neither of the preceding; it being "morals" and "family values" and "spiritual truth" to wish and work for an Armageddon before one's grandchildren have reached maturity; the carbon emissions climate change crisis being result of the sins of "humanity" - meaning the liberal influence that knew and talked about it for 30 years, and not the Republican Christians who aggressively denied it for that long; or the world being 6,000 years old and ending at year 1000 - then year 1900 - then year 2000 - then year 2012 - and extending into however long people believe such things.

Right now, the groupthink of some of these entities is becoming apparent enough to call, and the groupthink of some others are threatening the survival of humanity and of life on the planet. Which means that it becomes a vital necessity to show these mentalities for what they are and for what are their effects as the logical and inevitable fruition of the belief mechanisms contained within them. With these exposed, there is greater chance at clarity and at better thinking and better decisions. Which means that there is a greater chance that the children being born now will live to see maturity and a sustainable livable world for generations to come.

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Suggestion for Japan: Log in Siberia rather than Indonesia

Of the causes of global warming, two - uncontrolled emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and deforestation of Amazonian rainforest - are well known. What is less known is another cause: Logging by Japanese companies in Indonesian rainforest. This problem is easy to fix, and is in fact much easier to fix than the other two. And the solution is simple: For Japan to stop logging in Indonesia and get their wood from Russian taiga forests.
As anyone who is familiar with this subject knows, logging or ranching in rainforest is one of the most environmentally destructive things that one can do. Clearing rainforest creates a vicious cycle leading to deforestation and desertification of the land. As trees are cut, and are no longer producing evaporations, there is less rainfall in the surrounding areas, and trees start dying. The more trees die, the less the rain, the more the trees die, the more of the land becomes desert. And while selling trees provides some intermediate income to Indonesians, they are in fact destroying a treasure that stands to give far more income if managed properly.

Whereas taiga, not being a rainforest, does not operate in this way. Cutting down trees in taiga carries no lasting adverse effects, and the land cleared is capable of supporting new forests indefinitely. Since the taiga is closer to Japan than is Indonesia, shifting the logging from Indonesian rainforest to taiga stands to realize substantial economic benefit. This economic benefit will be accompanied by being less destructive to nature and less contributing to greenhouse effect.

But, some may say, what will Indonesia do to get money? Well let me ask this: How did other Asian countries get money? The answer is that they've worked with their people and made their people's work, not their natural resources, the basis for their development. Such is the only lasting way to achieve and maintain prosperity - one seen, for example, in Japan itself, which has very few natural resources but has risen to world economic prominence by the efforts of the Japanese people. United States and the Democratic Republic of Congo are equally endowed with natural resources; but while one country is by far the largest economy in the world, the other is the poorest country of any size on the face of the planet. If Indonesia seeks to develop long-term, it will do so through the work of Indonesian people - as have Japan, Asian tigers, and China in recent years.

The Russian taiga forest is vast, and located in the eastern part of the country. That makes it expedient for the Japanese - and of course for other nearby Asian countries as well, including China. Taiga forest grows back, and it can also be replanted - as has been the practice of American logging companies in American forests. Logging in taiga therefore carries no significant negative long-term effects, which logging in the rainforest does.
I respectfully suggest that Japanese companies look into making this switch.

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Hackers, Deniers and Real Solutions to Global Warming

Recently there has been a controversy about hackers who hacked into the UN site dealing with climate change and found some data fudging and sloppy research. Some have used that to claim global warming to be a fraud. There is a problem with that. The UN body is just one out of many bodies, academic, governmental, business, and private, that have conclusive evidence of global warming. And if some fools at UN have cut some corners, says nothing about the reality of global warming, which has far more credible evidence behind it than what was provided by that body.

These people are now claiming global warming to be a fraud. Tell that to the people of Malawi and Kiribati, whose countries are sinking into the sea as a result of the melting glaciers. Tell that to the people of New Orleans. Tell that to the people who died in Europe's heat waves and Australian forest fires. Tell that to the people in cities as big as Jakarta, that are now constantly being flooded as ocean waters rise.

There are some who see these events as not being related to carbon emissions and postulate other explanations, such as natural weather cycles. There is nothing cyclical about there being the highest amount of CO2 in the atmosphere in 450,000 years. There is nothing natural about ocean water becoming acidic and killing all the fish. When one cuts down the forests and raises carbon emissions, the carbon dioxide has only two places to go to. One is the oceans, where it makes the water acidic and no longer life-supporting. The other is the atmosphere, where it reflects sun's rays from reflecting off the earth's surface and into the outer space and bounces them back to the earth's surface, causing it to become hot. On planet Venus, whose atmosphere is largely carbon dioxide, this greenhouse effect is so bad that its surface temperatures are 500 degrees. And if this is not addressed now, then that's the direction in which we are going.

As for the people who are eagerly awaiting the Armageddon, I have hard news. Burning down the planet will not get you to heaven or anywhere near heaven. These people should not be eagerly awaiting the Armageddon; they should be terrified of it. They want to do away with their children's future and their children's right to a livable world in order that they could themselves have their selfish salvation. No god would look kindly on such a thing.

In 20AD, a Roman named Hero of Alexandria invented the steam engine. The Romans thought that the slave labor was cheap enough, and that there was no need for this invention. If they thought ahead, they would have been able to industrialize 1800 years early, abolish slavery, and create military machines that would have made mincemeat of any invading army, and the world would be speaking Latin to this day. Instead they kept the horrible institution of slavery that was the rightful source of resentment and hatred against Roman Empire as well as the world, and Roman Empire went down to flaming ruin. There are now technologies available to meet all of humanity's energy and water requirements in processes that are totally non-polluting. In choosing to embrace these technologies, or to keep the status quo, humanity faces similar choice but on a much larger scale.

There are real solutions to global warming. And I do not mean going to subsistence agriculture any more than I mean positive thinking or asking Jesus or aliens to save us. I mean real, technically and economically viable, technological solutions that will allow people to keep all that they have while drastically reducing the burden on the planet. What solutions are these?

Much has been written about solar power, wind power, nuclear power, and biofuels; but there is a technology that is superior to them all. It has not been in the news, but it should be. What if I were to tell you that there is a technology that will provide both the energy and the water needs of humanity, abundant, clean, round-the-clock, on-demand, and unlimited, using a process that only requires the sun and the ocean water and produces at the consumer end only clean energy and clean water to be recycled back into the environment?

What if I were to tell you that this mechanism will have twice the energy efficiency of the electric grid; will end the burden on lakes, rivers and ground water resources; will replace two systems with one system, realizing huge economic benefit; and will allow oil resources to last longer and be used for more profitable higher-end goods?

What if I were to tell you that this technology has been reviewed and found to be economically and technically feasible, and to be a vast improvement over the status quo?

There is in fact such technology. It is called the Hydrogen Transmission Network. In Hydrogen Transmission Network, solar power will drive electrolysis of ocean water, breaking it down into Hydrogen and Oxygen. Oxygen will be released into the air; hydrogen will be sent through pipes to houses, offices, farms, and places of industry and commerce, to be reacted using fuel cells with oxygen in the air to create clean energy and clean water at once. Hydrogen also will be piped to fueling stations to power hydrogen-based vehicles. All of humanity's water and energy needs can be met through a process that takes nothing that can't be replaced and creates nothing that is in any way harmful. And since transmitting hydrogen through pipes is almost loss-free, this mechanism will have energy efficiency over twice that of the electric grid.

There are other parts to solution that aren't discussed much, but should be. Sahara is a vast desert where no human or animal lives except in oases. It is not ecological anything; it is a manmade creation, put in place by Berbers who used slash-and-burn agriculture in what was then rainforest, much like the Brazilians are using slash-and-burn agriculture in the rainforest now. Right now, Sahara is the most empty, most worthless, most barren, stretch of land on the planet. What if it were converted into forests and farmland? How much CO2 would be taken out of the atmosphere, and how much food would be produced to feed the African people then?

How much CO2 would be taken out of the atmosphere, and how much human benefit would be realized, if the same is done to the deserts of Arabia, Mongolia, Rajasthan, Australian Outback, and the parts of the American Southwest that were deforested by the Anasazi?

These solutions not only realize benefit by reducing global warming. These solutions realize economic, technical, and environmental benefit in themselves. Even if there are other ways to address global warming, these solutions are beneficial both to humanity and to the environment.  It is not faith that saves humanity; it is intelligence that saves humanity. And with application of real intelligence, a viable future for humanity and the planet can be on its way.

The solution to global warming is not denying it or misrepresenting it any more than it is doing away with the economy or the civilization. The real solution to global warming is using better technologies in place of the outdated technologies that have created the disaster in the first place. One stands to fear nothing from these solutions and has much to hope for from them.

It is time to put into place real solutions for global warming.

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Rising racial tensions: Who are the true villains?

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by ishambat | November 26, 2009 at 06:42 pm

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As racial tensions are rising in America, and both black racists and white racists are profiting from them in their desire to assert totalitarian control over the respective races, it is about time to put things into perspective for both groups.

While the white racists continue to claim that the white race is the superior race, and the black racists claim that white people are oppressors against black people, history shows that neither is true. China had great cities and half the world's GDP at the time that Europe was a feudal backwater. At about the same time, Africa had a city of one million people, when Europe did not have a settlement larger than one tenth that size. As for the claim of white people being oppressors of black people: The African leaders collaborated in the slave trade. As for the present white people, the ones that live in the cities are the ones that are sympathetic to black people and have fought for civil rights, de-segregation, social inclusion, and election of Barack Obama. And while there are many white people who are in fact racist and hateful of black people, most vote Republican and live in the country. So if you are black, and serious about standing up for your people, the Democrats in the cities are not the people you want to get. Read more..

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Suggestions for Improving Inner City

Having given much thought to the situation in inner city, based on both what is known in the media and much of what I gathered from the experience of good friends who have lived there, I would like to make some suggestions. While I do not see this as panacea, I believe it has the possibility of achieving positive impact for many. And it is as follows:

Increasing interest among black people in business and technical fields;

Setting up recruitment offices to direct young men who would otherwise join gangs into military service;

Doing away with the anti-educational youth culture;

Providing better guidance for the youth.

I will go through these one by one.

Business and Technical Fields

One part of the solution that I see is getting more black people interested in business and in technical professions. American black people have done very well in politics, law, sports and entertainment; but they are underrepresented in business and technical fields. This results in black people remaining poor on the average even in spite of great successes by individual black people in America.

There was a job flight in 1980s out of the inner city as businesses moved their production centers overseas. This led to many not being able to find jobs; but ultimately the question becomes, Why rely on white man to create jobs? A white businessman will only set up shop in a black neighborhood for as long as that is convenient for him, and will go elsewhere, taking the profits with him, when there is a more commercially attractive option. The only way to make sure that the money stays is to be in charge of the money as an entrepreneur.

In a 1990s film, there is a scene in which a black man is demonstrating outside of the bank after the bankers have told him that he is "not economically viable." There is a real way to avoid this kind of scene. Black people should be learning business and finance, and they should be setting up shop and creating jobs instead of competing for them. And that requires black people to themselves learn business and banking and

practice it at a level appropriate to their share of the population.

After the fall of apartheid in South Africa, there were not enough qualified black businesspeople to take over the running of the companies that had prior to that been managed by white businesspeople. The reason was this: The anti-apartheid leaders were socialists, and they did not favorably look upon capitalist system. The people now do not need to make the same decision. The businessperson is the person who creates jobs while providing something that people want to buy. And that means that business can be a worthwhile and even noble endeavor when it provides a way for one's people to escape poverty.

As for technical skills, these are always in demand, and someone who has them is far less likely to be economically nonviable. If enough black people learn engineering, computers, and related technology skills, then they will be competitive, in highly-paid fields, and will be able to get good jobs in different economic conditions. On the collective level, this will improve the mean income of black Americans and help many to rise out of poverty and to stay out of poverty.

Setting Up Military Recruitment Offices In the Ghetto

The inner city has many young men who aspire toward strength and toughness. The military cultivates strength and toughness; it also disciplines it. The same macho character that in the ghetto turns into gang violence, the military structures into controlled, principled strength that knows how to fight well enough to know also when not to fight. The inner city youths would be influenced by the military into not only being the strong men that they want to be, but also self-controlled, disciplined,

effective strong men who can both manage their behavior and exercise positive effect on their community.

The military has college scholarships, job skills training, and in case of an honorable discharge a recommendation that can take one to many places. To people in the inner city, that spells a ticket to better life. The habits that are taught in the military help make a person more effective and more employable. The black people who've been in the American military have done well - in many cases exceptionally well, going as far as to becoming the Secretary of State.

With military training and scholarships and references, the person from inner city will have everything that he needs to be able to pursue a better way of life.

A person from the inner city who goes to the military can then go on to pursue a middle-class or upper-class life outside the inner city; or, should he return to the inner city, stands to become a force for improvement of the inner city. With military training he would be able to stand up to the gangsters; with principles he would be able to steer them toward superior actions. A person with disciplined strength will be able to not only stand up to people with undisciplined strength, but to steer them away from

destructiveness and toward more responsible conduct - which is something that someone lacking either in strength or in discipline will find a lot harder to do.

There are of course downsides to the military. The military is tough and brutal; however the ghetto is also tough and brutal, and having lived in daily brutality the people from inner city would have an advantage of experience over other recruits. The people who serve in the military are at a risk of dying in combat; however the inner city is a war zone already, and one stands a greater risk of being killed or imprisoned for life if one remains there than if one joins the military. Most people who go into the military never see combat, whereas the people who live in the inner city are facing daily conditions of war.

For these reasons, for many residents of inner city, the military would be a major improvement over what they otherwise would be facing. And that - creating improvement over people's present condition, rather than expecting everything to be immediately equal - is the standpoint for constructive, workable social policy. Sweatshop labor would not be an improvement for most American citizens, but for hundreds of millions of Chinese people it has been a huge improvement over their previous lives.

Similarly, joining the military would not be an improvement for everyone in America; but for many inner city residents, it very much will be. So that, when Beyonce says that she needs a soldier (rather than a gangster), she is speaking a home truth. The army people are not angels, but they do develop useful skills, habits and mindsets, and are more likely to work and to stay with the family and to teach the children to be

effective individuals. And while Beyonce stands to expect the military person to be just as domineering as she would expect the gangster to be, he would be a better influence on the children and will be more likely to keep them on a more viable path.

Finally, there are enough black officers in the military that those who don't want to take orders from the white man would be able to take orders from a black one. And with a black person being the president of the United States, the claim that they would be serving "the Man" is not as credible as it once was. Volunteering for the professional army would be, for a person in inner city, a ticket to a better life for himself and a path toward improving the lot of the inner city residents. I recommend stepping up military recruitment in inner city as a path toward improvement of the inner city and of the lives of its residents.

The anti-education culture

Finally, there is a cultural problem that apparently is shared between the inner city and the population known as "white trash." This is as follows: Total lack of respect for education. While the failure of inner-city schools is frequently blamed on their lack of funding, in fact that is not the case. The DC schools, for one, have high funding levels compared to schools in many other places. The problem is that the students do not want to learn, and those who do get savagely attacked for it by other students and

frequently by their families.

It must be made clear that the students who take studies seriously are not "acting white" or "think they're better than everyone else." It is not acting white to study; it is acting intelligent to study; and Asians for one, not being white, are frequently better at it than the white. As for the "think they're better than everyone else" line, the world consists of 7 billion people, most of them nothing like the people who ridiculously believe they are "everyone else" and that the other 7 billion people aren't; and for

these people to claim that they speak for "everyone else" is a far greater arrogance than any of which they may be accusing the serious students. And from the perspective of most in the world, it is the people such as ones who believe such things - and, pursuant such beliefs, create a culture of brutality and stupidity - that are held in most contempt, and not those students in inner city who take studies seriously, have respect for knowledge, and want to have a better life than that of drugs and crime.

Money spent on inner-city schools is money wasted unless the children actually want to learn. There must be a profound cultural change among inner city youth for education there to be effective. Having seen black people do exceptionally well in highly demanding learning environments such as the Moscow State University, America's prime universities, and St. Stephen's and St. Agnes School, I can say with full certainty that there is nothing keeping black kids from doing well at school except for bad attitudes and bad beliefs.

The more black youth do well at school, the more they will be able to go into middle-income and higher-income economy. Also, the more the educational system will work for them, and the more the schools of the inner city will be a success rather than a failure that they are now. With more respect for education, the black people will be able to achieve a higher intellectual standard and be able to achieve in such fields as

science, mathematics, and medicine. This will give black people more presence in these fields - fields in which they likewise are under-represented at this time. The more black people win Nobel Prizes in science or pioneer great inventions, the more respected and

internationally powerful the black people will be.

The anti-intellectual youth culture must go. Nothing good has come from it, and it is a disgrace to every race - black, white or Latino - which it infests. Smart must be cool, and knowledge and ambition must be respected and cultivated. This is the only way that the black youth can avoid falling into the underclass and have a fighting chance at a better life.

Better Direction

Finally, there is the problem of coercion among the youth toward gang involvement, drug use, and pregnancy as minors. The males end up in the prison or shot; the females end up working exceptionally hard to raise the children alone. There are those who think that the solution to this is "traditional values"; but the traditional societies of Afghanistan, rural India, central Africa and Middle East aren't better than the ghetto, they are worse than the ghetto. The real solution to this is better direction for the

youth.

The better direction comes from taking the interests and propensities and directing them toward a positive manifestation. Thus, the desire to be strong and tough can and should be directed toward military, where the recruits become disciplined and effective strong and tough men with the skills and the habits they need to be effective and to improve their communities. The desire to have money or status or power can and should be directed toward business and technical fields, where these are constructively earned. The desire to be validated as a woman, rather than having to express itself through teenage pregnancy, can be directed to artistic pursuits and professional fields that give the woman admiration.

And the competitive interest can be directed toward achieving in school and then later in the economy in comparison to the white man, rather than into shooting the next black man and raping the next black woman.

The inner city youth does not suffer from lack of talent. It suffers from lack of direction, bad guidance, and self-defeating beliefs. It is this problem that must be addressed for the situation in inner city to improve significantly. I fully believe that this improvement is possible.

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Who actually deserves credit for America?

The Republican propaganda has had much effect in reaching people both inside America and without. Coming from Russian immigrants who settled in Northern Virginia, I saw the effects of this propaganda on both demographics. I am writing this to correct two commonly-held errors that resulted from this propaganda. One is that of comparing Democrats to the Communist Party of Soviet Union (CPSU). The other is that of equating Republican Party with America and giving it credit for America and its achievements.

On the first I ask this: What labor camps have Democrats built? How many millions have they imprisoned and murdered for their political convictions? What countries have Democrats invaded and made their satellites by force? All evidence points instead to CPSU-type activity by Bush Republicans, who have used fraud and corruption to get into the White House; murdered over a million civilians in Iraq; instituted torture, even of teenagers; lied to Americans and to the rest of the world; and have consistently used bullying and deception to push their party line against public opinion while claiming that they are America and that the rest of America is not America, when they in fact not only not America but a minority of America and not its better part either.

Another error is that of equating Republicans with America and giving Republicans the credit for all of America's accomplishments. It is largely for the sake of transparency that this claim put to rest. Here are the facts:

- The Democratic administrations of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt won, respectively, the First and the Second World War;
- The Democrats form the vast bulk of America's scientists and innovators, with over 90% of its Nobel Prize winners being Democrats and only 3% of academics being Republicans;
- Of America's 10 foremost educational institutions, 9 are in solidly Democratic states and are centers of Democratic Party's activities;
- The computer industry, which has been the main engine of prosperity of 1980s and 1990s, is largely Democratic. The personal computer was invented by a hippie. The computer industry is located in solidly Democratic San Francisco Bay Area and Washington State, as well as in the Democratic-voting Northern Virginia. The Democrats make up the bulk of both its management and its rank-and-file.
- The Clinton Administration gave America its greatest peacetime economic expansion (the greatest wartime one having been under Franklin Delano Roosevelt). Its policies created 23 million jobs, the first balanced budget in three decades, international peace and prosperity, and a revamping of the government to become efficient and user friendly (Reagan only whined about the government while being its head). It also brought about a significant reduction in violent crime - which grew under Reagan and peaked under Bush Sr. Meanwhile the Bush Jr. administration added $5 trillion to the debt, with no jobs created, amid collapsing family incomes, and at the end the worst economic crisis America has had since the Great Depression.
- Democrats form the bulk of America's teachers and journalists, whose contributions are not easily measured monetarily but are of greater significance than those of many far higher-paid professionals.
- Democrats have fought for civil rights, human rights, and women's rights, while Republicans have done all they could to sabotage all of the above.
- Democrats have fought to bring to public attention the facts about global warming. Republicans have done nothing but aggressively deny reality - on this, as much as on federal debt.

The people who blame all things on "liberal government" or "big government" or compare American government to the Soviet Union know nothing of what they're talking about. Without the government Interstate, the anti-government truckers would not have the roads on which to deliver the farming goods, created by government-subsidized anti-government farmers, to the big liberal cities that are the market for their products. Without the government academia, the academic research that has been necessary for the hardware and technology that are at the core of business production would not have taken place. Without the government Internet, the computerization and Internet commerce that was the source of 1990s growth would not have been possible. Whining about taxes was a big trend under the Clinton administration. Being in the high-income bracket, I had a lot of taxes to whine about. I did not whine about my taxes, because I knew where the money was going and saw it as my civic duty to pay it. Under Bush I would have had less taxes to whine about; but there was a problem. Like many others, under Bush, I no longer was in the high-income bracket - or, for some of that time, in any bracket at all.

But beyond personal experience, let us look at the big issues. Who has given America a $10 trillion debt? Who has aggressively for three decades denied global warming? Who has done this to the country they claim to love, and to the children and grandchildren for whose sake they claim to practice "family values?" It wasn't the Democrats. It is the Republicans who have done this to America and to their children's and grandchildren's future.

So to put it shortly: Democrats are not Communists; Republicans are not America, nor do they deserve credit for America. Case closed.

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Charlie Chaplin, J. Edgar Hoover, and American Character

The character of Charlie Chaplin and the character of J. Edgar Hoover offers an insightful glimpse into the forces that were formative to American character of 20^th century. With Charlie Chaplin, one sees ingenious, innovative, creative, iconoclastic character that is not afraid to shatter convention in order to show a different perspective, reveal facts not frequently known, or give a glimpse of the truth of people's lives. With J. Edgar Hoover, we see the invasive, oppressive, paranoid character that used blackmailing and extortion in order to manipulateAmerica’s elected leaders under the stated claim of protecting America.

The same characters have been seen in the last two decades of American politics, with the characters of, respectively, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. With Bill Clinton, we have seen the greatest economic prosperity in American history, the first balanced budget in 30 years, an overhaul of the government to make it efficient and user-friendly, a drastic drop in violent crime, international collaboration on matters of common import, and a serious effort toward achieving understanding and coexistence between different sections of American society. With Bush, we have seen an extra $5 trillion debt, no new jobs, wrongful wars all around the world, an aggressive inattention to the climatic disaster facing the world, bullying of all countries resulting in international isolation, and an economic collapse. That there was much howling about the character of Bill Clinton, but not about the character of George Bush, offers valuable insight into the character of the people who were behind the said howling and valuable insight as well into what they describe as their values and which values they wrongfully claim to be the values of America and use this false claim to bludgeon America and the rest of the world.

In fact, America achieved its greatness through innovation, ingenuity, and creative thinking. It leapt to the forefront of the world in early 20^th century – a time of scientific and technological ingenuity; a time also of the rejection of the Victorian norms. It is in this time that Charlie Chaplin produced most of his work, and it is in this time that J. Edgar Hoover began his campaign against what made America great. And as the same character, refashioned in different times as psychology or religion or “traditional values” or “family values,” persisted through later history in destroying America’s genius, it is valuable to examine this character and its effects on America through its history, and examine also its validity as well as its merit to the country.

There is one thing that character voters are right about: Character is of importance. The problem is that the character that has been behind most of the problems in American history is their own. The invasive, oppressive, paranoid character that would seek to remove an exceptionally successful and benevolent president for a personal mistake, but would accept a puppet being put into office through fraud and corruption and having this puppet bring America to disaster, is the only real ongoing problem with America. And it is this character that has been behind its greatest failures, from 1930s isolationism to the McCarthyist nightmare to the abuses of FBI under J. Edgar Hoover to the politically correct hysteria of 1990s to the unmitigated disaster that was the Bush regime.

America owes its existence as the country, its technological and commercial success, and its greatest scientific inventions, to the people whom these voters would describe as evil. Thomas Jefferson, John Rockefeller, Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Steven Jobs, Bill Clinton, Walt Disney, and everyone else who has been a major contributor to America, would be described by these voters as possessing a narcissistic or a sociopathic character. So would of course the ancestors of all white, Hispanic, and Asian people living now in America – people who have rejected their homes, their countries, and their traditional way of life, to seek a better way of life in America; something that people who have such beliefs would claim to be a narcissistic or a sociopathic action. For that matter, psychology owes its existence to people like Sigmund Freud and Karl Jung who likewise would be described as possessing the same character. And it is to these people that the modern America person owes not only one's country, but everything that one knows as American way of life.

In 1960s and 1970s, the fix-all solutions was more government. By the time Ronald Reagan ran for office in 1980, a case could be made - and was made - that the government had far outstepped its proper parameters and became the problem rather than the solution. More recently, the solution for all things was more social control, until the same was being applied not only to people's actions, but also to people's minds and personhoods, aiming to control all that could be controlled and destroy what couldn't, to the point of claiming people criminal by virtue of how they think. The result of this has been unofficial entities far outstepping their proper prerogatives and, as the government of 1970s, becoming a problem in themselves. These unofficial entities, from old-boy networks to small country towns to religious organizations to practitioners of "personality psychology" to self-proclaimed spokespeople for society or for America, being unofficial, unaccountable, unchecked and unbalanced, have the capacity to commit greater violation against people's lives and liberty, and to oppress them in far greater manner, than the American government is allowed to do.

Empowering these entities resulted in a de facto totalitarianism of these entities, along with the predictable and associated abuses: runaway corruption, aggressively enforced similitude at all levels, destruction of all meaningful liberty, inquisitions against ever greater numbers of people, aggressive fear-mongering convincing people to give up their freedom and to destroy freedom in others, and subversion of psychology and law enforcement into participating in these and related crimes against Constitutional law. Until the very freedom, originality, ingenuity and innovation that made America great in the first place became a danger to the power of these entities and, being falsely portrayed as "narcissism" or "sociopathy", itself became the target of their wrath.

In 1990s America, the young people on college campuses were faced with a manufactured hysteria that brainwashed young women into being afraid of everything and everyone. This resulted in a state of affairs that was injurious especially to young women – a state described by Gwen Stefani as “I’m just a girl, living in captivity.. I’ve had it up to here.” The panic thinking extended to the economy by 2001, as the investors who were burned by the collapse of the dot-com bubble thought that real estate was a more safe investment. It was not. The computer industry boom of 1990s resulted in real prosperity. The panic-driven real-estate bubble of the Bush decade did nothing but make life more costly while no wealth was generated and incomes declined. And as it popped at the end of the decade, the result was predictable: economic collapse. So much for the wisdom, the value, and the moral authority, of the security drive. It is Benjamin Franklin who said that the people who would sacrifice liberty for security are not worthy of either. And, as history shows, neither do they get.

It is time that America remember what made it great in the first place. It was very much the innovative Charlie Chaplin character that has resulted in its greatest accomplishments, not the invasive, oppressive J. Edgar Hoover character that has resulted in greatest violations against American people. The character voters are right about one thing: Character matters. But the problem is their own character, not that of the innovative, ingenious people whom they want to demonize and to destroy.

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Scientogists and Anonymous

After a group of hackers who called themselves the Anonymous posted a video critical of the Church of Scientology, the Church of Scientology responded with a video claiming that the Anonymous had been sending them threats of violence and threats of arson.

As someone who is neither a hacker nor a Scientologist, but bears some familiarity with both communities, I say with full confidence that these threats are made up.

I know this for two reasons. First, hackers - and especially the kind of hackers who get involved in causes such as the Anonymous - would never threaten or commit arson. Such things are totally in contradiction to the ethic of the hackers such as ones involved in that organization. Such hackers are, for the most part, young idealistic people whose goal is to expose fraud and corruption, reduce organizational bullying, and protect people's freedoms. Nonviolence is very much a part of their beliefs. To claim that these people would threaten the Church of Scientology with violence and arson is ridiculous. One might as well be accusing Tibetan Zen Buddhists of threatening a nuclear war against the United States.

The second reason is that fabricating such threats on the part of its critics is a tried and tested practice of the Church of Scientology. In 1995, a gentleman who called himself "henri ennui" was posting material critical of the Church of Scientology on Internet forums. A representative of the Church of Scientology then forged a post under the name of "henri ennui" threatening arson against the Church of Scientology. A representative of the Church of Scientology then went to the employer of "henri ennui," showed him the post, and got him fired. If they would do this to an isolated critic, they would most certainly do that and more to a collective - especially a collective of hackers which, in the mind of the uninformed, is synonymous almost with terrorism - but whom anyone at all familiar with the subject knows to be anything but.

The video released by the Church of Scientology starts by claiming that "organizations grow and evolve." It is not encouraging to see that the Church of Scientology has failed to grow and evolve out of such corrupt, criminal and tyrannical practices after all these years. And while I, unlike the Anonymous collective, do not see the Church of Scientology as altogether evil and have respect for some of their efforts - one of them being the establishment of the Citizens' Commission on Human Rights that has been effective in fighting abuses in the mental health system - it is these kinds of tactics that get Scientologists branded as villains, conmen and criminals, and that undermine the credibility and viability of their more benevolent efforts. So if the Church of Scientology is serious about its claims of growing and evolving as an organization, it must put to rest such fraudulent practices. Such tactics do not increase the organization's strength or viability or moral authority; they undermine all of the preceding and reduce scientologists in public estimation to a completely despicable status.

The purpose of the Anonymous effort is that of exposing and fighting corruption. And that is a very important purpose, especially at this time. As a result of public apathy, injunctions to not see injustice and evil or to blame the victim, and a communitarian ideology that gives unchecked, unbalanced and unaccountable organs unlimited power over people's lives, corruption has sprouted up everywhere. There is vast corruption in medicine; in legal system, especially as it relates to family matters; in mental health and aged care system; in small towns; in entities such as Jehovah's Witnesses. All these deserve to be scrutinized and redressed to the same and greater extent as is being done by Anonymous regarding the Church of Scientology. Indeed, fighting corruption - along with providing clean energy and protecting the world from terror - is one of the most important challenges of our time.

To Anonymous: You are right to be fighting corruption, and I hope more people get similar idea respecting other forms of corruption than the one you have targeted, including ones listed above. To Scientology: It is time to put an end to the fraudulent and criminal practices such as falsely accusing people of threatening violence and arson. Ultimately even the more credulous will catch on to the deception. The sooner your organization ceases using such tactics, the better off it will be.

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Health Care: Problems and Solutions

As the Obama Administration is considering health care reform, the question becomes not only "if health care reform" but "what kind" and "why." The following is an analysis of the problems with American medical system as gained from multiple standpoints, and some proposed solutions to the same.

- The lack of basic general government care is a problem especially for the working poor, but now increasingly for the middle class and even wealthy Americans. People continue to lose all that they've worked for in order to care for a sick relative or themselves. There must be an option for basic general government-funded medical care that is available to all Americans.

- The single-payer option will not be acceptable to people who want to choose their own doctors. People who want to choose their doctors and are willing to pay for it should be able to do so as they presently are.

- I recommend the Australian model, in which public health care and private health care are available side by side. Everyone is taken care of at a basic level; those who want choice or extra quality can pay for it. This will fulfil the demands both of the need to provide basic health care to all, and of the demand for consumer choice by those who are willing to pay for it.

- While this is not often discussed in policy circles, the main reason for the exhorbitant prices of health care in America is that the number of doctors is far too low to meet the demand for health care at a reasonable price even now, not even to consider the demands it will have when the baby boomers come to old age. This practice is a result of AMA not graduating enough doctors and not licensing enough foreign doctors to practice in America. As the demand for medical care continues to grow, the supply remains at an exceptionally low level. This leads to demand meeting supply at an exhorbitant price - the price that will remain exhorbitant, whether the government or the consumer pays for it, for as long as this problem persists.

- The artificial shortage of doctors also means that doctors are overworked and overstressed. This leads them to make more errors than they would otherwise. These errors result in malpractice lawsuits, which then result in extremely high malpractice insurance premiums. This cost is then passed on to the consumer, adding more to the already outrageous prices.

- This structural problem can only be resolved by there being more doctors in America. The growing demand for health care must be met with growing supply of medical professionals. This will result in more available health care; lower prices of health care; and a better lifestyle for doctors than their current overworked, overstressed, error-prone lifestyle which is just as bad for their patients as it is for themselves. America should graduate more doctors; it should also allow more foreign doctors to practice in America. This will redress the major structural problem with American medical system that is responsible for the overly high prices of medicine in America. The result will be in more available treatment; more affordable health care; and better life for doctors themselves.

- American medical system has an added problem of being incentivized for expensive and wrongful practices. These involve: Lack of preventative medicine (as treatment of the disease is more profitable); needless expensive machines which need to be replaced with newer models each year; overuse of machines and machine-based testing; overprescription of antibiotics; forcing people against their will on life-support machines; and overdiagnosis and overmedication of mental disorders with expensive and dangerous multi-drug combinations (the latter, at taxpayer expense).

- Preventative medicine funded by government should be available to all Americans. This will result in less need for catastrophic medical treatment, lower costs, and greater health of the population.

- The prohibitive price and length of medical education makes it accessible for only a few people, excluding many others who would make qualified professionals. Students graduate with $500,000 in debt after putting in up to ten years of 18-hour-day education, not including living expenses. Very few can actually carry this burden, and it excludes many who would make good doctors. Those who do take on this burden need to pay it off; they must charge prohibitive costs to their patients; and the price spiral continues to rise.

- There should be more medical schools in America, leading to greater competition among the medical schools and resulting in both more admissions and lower price of tuition. The lower price of medical education will make possible for doctors to pay off their loans by charging less exhorbitant prices for their services.

- The practice of overdiagnosing and overmedicating mental disorders with dangerous and expensive multi-drug combinations at taxpayer expense is the case of pharmaceutical industry scamming the taxpayer. ADHD is overdiagnosed and over-treated in American children with drugs that are addictive and often carry severe, even lifelong, effects. People who get depressed for real-world reasons or who have a temporary life crisis are diagnosed with lifelong disorders and put on medication for life at taxpayer expense - frequently expensive and dangerous multi-drug combinations that do them more harm than they do good, including severe harm such as health destruction and early death. These practices must be put to scrutiny and, if not ended, then at least curtailed to a level that is significantly less expensive for the taxpayer, less harmful for children and less dangerous for adults.

- Corruption in American medical system is a growing problem. Doctors cover up their medical mistakes and involve police, coroners, and lawyers and judges, in their coverups. There must be direct, insightful and uncompromising scrutiny of corrupt practices, leading to their exposure, punishments for those who partake in these practices, and the end of these practices that continue to result in death and disability of countless Americans.

- Severe abuses continue to take place in the in-patient mental health system. The definition of patients as mentally ill and the resulting lack of credibility given to them in court of law, along with the unchecked credibility given the mental health professionals, creates an environment in which corruption, abuses of power, and injurious and destructive practices have the inherent capacity to reach extreme levels. There must be constant and diligent scrutiny of in-patient centers to balance and check this capacity for corruption and abuse that is a logical effect of this reality.

- Severe abuses also take place in the nursing home system, including physical violence and even murder. These practices are rarely investigated and, if found out, are covered up. This system must likewise be scrutinized against these and other abuses. America's senior citizens deserve better treatment from their country than that.

I am respectfully putting this to the attention of the voter and the officials involved in hope that this be taken into consideration.

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Generations, "Niceguys," Darwin, Sheep and Wolves

Boomers and Xers: Respective Errors

One frequent criticism of the baby boom generation is that they thought that they were God. Having known many people of all ages, I knew only one person who actually thought that he was God. He was close to my age, and he stopped thinking that he was God when he got the right medication.

The good ones among baby boomers, originally, believed that the universe itself is divine, and that beautiful state of affairs can be had here. For this reason they fought for civil rights, human rights, social freedoms, peaceful instead of military solutions, and better treatment of the environment. There were others later who did bring in wrong ideas. These came to believe such things as that "there are no innocent victims" and "everyone creates their reality" (so abuse and victimize as many as you can, as it is them doing it and not you); "positive thinking good, negative thinking bad" (so ignore all criticism of your actions, however wrong they may be); and that self-esteem is a prerequisite for and a determinant of good behavior (it is neither).

Others, who were not hippies or New Agers and many of whom were not baby boomers, took these beliefs and used them to
silence the scientists and the environmentalists who knew of the coming climatic catastrophe, claiming that they were negative; to put America $10 trillion in debt, claiming that anyone protesting this was lacking in optimism; to destroy public service, claiming that unless one has everything he cannot be of help to anyone; and to make abuse the norm of man-woman relationships, claiming that those at its receiving end were causing it or were negative or were losers or were lacking in self-esteem. The wrongful beliefs were used to perpetrate a monstrous world-threatening evil, with most of this evil coming not from the Left but from the Right.

The evil that did come from the Left was political correctness. A prudish hysterical love-hating beauty-hating sex-hating ideology took over America's centers of education and much of its media. This ideology not only militated against love and beauty; it militated against democracy itself. With standard of public discourse being "nobody can say anything that can offend anyone," was banished meaning as well as sincerity from public discourse. Anything that means anything will be controversial; and anything controversial will offend someone. With political correctness, insincerity, prissiness and hypocrisy became not only the aggressively imposed norm of public discourse, but also of people's behavior, people's thinking and people's lives.

None of this of course is causally linked to the stated claim that baby boomers thought that they were God. This was a result of exploitation of wrongful beliefs by the American Right that would use anything to advance its rapacity, as well as of short-sighted thinking on the part of frumpy brainy women who wanted to lord it over other women without realizing the damage their actions did to women, to men, and to man-woman relationships. But there is an attitude common to baby boomers that is very wrongful, and it is as follows. They identify with their generational interest more than they do with anything else. And that is a problem for anyone who has to share a planet with them.

I would describe it as bad-neighbor policy: bad neighbor to those before them and those after them. When they were young, it was "trust nobody over 30." When they had children themselves, they saw them less as their future and more as their competition. This led them to be ugly bullies, beating up on their children and later beating down on people one third their age and claiming them not to be as enlightened as themselves when their supposed enlightenment led them to act in such a despicable manner. First they were socialist, and everyone had to be socialist with them. Then they were capitalist, and everyone had to be capitalist with them. Then they were religious, and everyone had to be religious with them as well. No thought in either case was taken to any other generation.

At any given time, the world contains people of all ages, who all have different needs. One must be mindful of all these if one is to create any kind of a livable world. With some great exceptions, the baby boomers failed to see this and acted accordingly. But people who are now living, including the baby boomers who are now living, have a chance to avoid and atone for this terrible mistake.

Generation X had a different problem. They bought into the World War II generation's claim that their children - the baby boomers - were spoiled evil brats who destroyed the supposedly great culture. This is another major error. Yes, the World War II generation won the Second World War; they also fought the Second World War for the other side. And the dogmatic heavy-handed authoritarianism of that generation is just as responsible for starting wars as it is for winning wars.

The fact is, if the Gen-X'ers were brought up in the 50s climate they idolize, they would have wanted something different as well. Many of them would simply not have survived such an upbringing; and if they did, would have more to say about it than they do about the baby boomers. So that while they worship their grandparents and see their parents with contempt, they know nothing of the reality that their grandparents created and in which their parents lived. It is a common practice for grandparents to be wonderful to their grandchildren when they had been horrible to their own children. And while the Gen-Xers are seeing the good face of the World War II generation, they have not seen its terrible face that their parents had - and still have - to endure.

A lot of these people are pining for "traditional values." They have seen Leave It To Beaver and Ricky Loves Lucy, but they know nothing of the reality behind these decoys. The 1950s were not "happy times," and 1980s were not "happy times here again." There were huge problems with both decades, and baby boomers had every right to seek a different way of life - as much as the people now have every right to reject the short-sighted 1980s ethic that brought about the current catastrophe.

For all these things there are real solutions. But they are no more about "positive thinking" or "self-esteem" than they are about blaming "the sixties generation" or damning the world "of flesh" and thinking that burning it will get one into heaven. The real solutions are not a matter of attitude or faith or psychology; they are a matter of applied intelligence. And it is this, and not any of the preceding, that has the chance of actually saving the world.


The Corruption of "Niceguys"

The Internet can be a useful place to watch social trends. For a long time, on discussion forums dedicated to relationships, there was a group of young men who called themselves "nice guys." These young men claimed that women only went out with "jerks" and used the "nice guys" for comfort and friendship, but never for a sexual relationship. I watched this group become more and more aggressively misogynistic, as they went from "women only go with jerks" to "women make irresponsible choices in partners" to "women are stupid and evil" to "women must be played, abused and controlled." This stance was then used by men's organizations worldwide to press their agenda of brutality and oppression. Which of course is precisely what the actual jerks wanted in the first place.

A wife-beater thrives on perception of women as stupid and evil. Such a perception allows him to indulge in unchecked unapologetic brutality against his wife and children; and if the woman attempts to leave, to claim her departure as further evidence of women being evil, and of the rightness of his behavior. Which behavior he then, in many situations, makes every effort to force on everyone around him, claiming that it represents true manhood or ethics or family values or righteousness. With males who had been originally sympathetic toward women having turned into haters of women, the agenda of the jerk was advanced by the "nice guys" without the jerk having had to lift a finger toward that end. The more people saw women as stupid and evil, the more the jerk gained in his ability to abuse women. So now, the jerks have been wanting to go all the way and take away from women all their rights, including even the right to vote.

The sympathies of the "nice guys" having gone form women toward wife-beaters, the backlash against women's rights gathered steam and steamrolled over protections against brutality and child sexual abuse. All this, of course, benefiting the jerks. The "nice guys" became the lapdog of the brutes whom they had rightly despised in the first place and an accessory to their evil ends. They were losers at first, ad they became losers again - though now, not losers for feminism, but losers for barbarism. Meawhile the abusers became even more of abusers as they were empowered by these people as abusers.

All this served dictatorial ends of those who wanted to see human nature as evil and to treat people accordingly. Bush, Taliban, Ahmabinejad, the Black Shirts, and others of similar character and agenda, blossomed through all these wrongs. And while many of those who shaped 1990s feminism were in fact misandrist and malicious, it is not them that got the wrath of the backlash, but rather the women who liked their men enough to be with them and were, by the men they chose, horribly punished for having made the error of liking them.

This tragedy of errors can only be resolved by people gaining a brain. If one sees life as a battle between men and women, with
every person made to be loyal to one or another chromosome - and not to humanity, to life, to their individual self, or to the people they love - then one has no business having heterosexual relationships at all. To abuse one's wife is to piss in one's own pond; to want one chromosome to dominate everything is to deny the contributions, wisdom, and achievements, of one half of humanity. Neither of these are actions of intellect any more than they are actions of ethics. And both ethics and intellect demand better treatment of wives and children than one advanced either by jerks who have always been jerks or by the jerks that the "nice guys" became as they developed such convictions.


Misrepresentations of Darwin

In "Darwin's Deadly Legacy," the author argues that evolution was the reason for the genocides and demicides of 20th century. Nothing can be further from the truth.

Anyone who has actual understanding of evolution knows that evolution is based on mutation, and that differences that crop up among specimen are the source of all richness of life. Anyone who has actual understanding of evolution also knows that life continues through ecosystemic balance among different species, all of which have adapted for the ecosystem and are necessary therefor. The two great lessons from evolution are therefore diversity and coexistence. Any ideology that militates against diversity, that tries to wipe out ethnic groups, that claims one race as being superior and all else as inferior, that destroys individuality and forces similitude, that wants to do away with "freaks" or "sociopaths" or "deviants," is a betrayal of evolution and its true lessons.

"Social Darwinism" that claimed that the culture that's best in war is superior and deserves to dominate, Nazism that claimed that Aryan race was superior race meant to rule the world, personality psychology that wants to do away with anyone who has a different idea than the time and the place, and similar abortions of ideologies, thoroughly misconstrue evolution. True understanding of evolution is diversity and coexistence, not malignant narcissism that seeks to wipe out everything other than itself.

Another major lesson of evolution is that there are many ways to get things done rightly. The tigers, the reindeer, the insects, the plants, and other forms of life, all are different adaptations, and all of them work. This refutes the Communist belief that Communism is the only way of getting things done rightly, as much as it refutes those in capitalism who think that capitalism is the only functional and ethical way.

Nowhere in evolution is there conceived such a thing as "the master race"or a superior culture. Nowhere in evolution do we see there being a single right way of life. What we see is different ways of getting things done, from which humans stand to learn. In nature, we see just about everything: Competition, collaboration, self-interest, altruism, lone-wolf approach, teamwork, patriarchy, matriarchy, and a huge variety of functional forms that are functional through different mechanism. True interpretation of evolution sees all that and respects it. The brutalist ideologies such as Social Darwinism, Nazism, Stalinism, and personality psychology, are not Darwin's legacy; they are legacy of ignorance and deception by those who would use anything and misconstrue everything toward that end.

As for Communism, it is not based on Darwin; it's based on Marxism. Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto in 1848; Charles Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species in 1859. And while Marxian interpretation of human nature is being that to benefit the collective, while that of capitalism is self-interest, evolution shows that both are part of nature, and both would be found in people now and at any other time.

The fact that both are part of nature, means that both will be found in one or another form, anywhere, with differences in degrees among individuals, places and times. In places that have forbidden one or the other, the forbidden aspect will manifest itself sideways - typically in twisted, destructive ways. Thus, in places that have forbidden altruism or benefit toward humanity - such as for example America of 1980s - the other-interest manifested in intellectual, spiritual and interpersonal oppression that aggressively demanded to turn people at all levels into embodiments of the Reagan ethic and forbade all other possibilities under claims of them being commie or loser or dangerous or pathological or anti-American. And in places that have forbidden self-interest, the self-interest will manifest in corruption - as it did, for example, in the case of Soviet bureaucrats and black-marketeers who served their forbidden self-interest in corrupt and murderous ways under the lie of serving the state. For there to be complete, healthy humanity - for the benefit of people at both individual and collective levels - both of these directions - each of them part of humanity's evolutionary makeup - have to be acknowledged, accepted, and tapped into. And it is only through this that not only the fullness of human nature can be served, but also be able to produce what it has to offer the world - for humanity to supply, that is, what it is capable of supplying, and for its demands at all levels to be met through this supply.

If there are any existing belief structures that are supported by evolution, it is Buddhism that believes all life to be sacred; Wiccan and Native American spirituality that value the planet and what lives on it; environmentalism that recognizes the irreplaceable quality of the natural treasures; and those who see human potential and want to see it produce for humanity. The latter is the case both for people in capitalism and in socialism, each of whom understand half the picture - the first, self-interest; the second, humanity-interest - and see each other as hostile when they are in fact complementary in what they describe. What is not supported by evolution is the belief that life is evil and that it should be destroyed, both inside people and in the environment. This is the true reason for opposition of Islam and Christianity to evolution. Given the underlying beliefs, it can very well be said that life-affirming ethic of evolution is far superior in its principles and its honesty to the ethic of necrophilic apocalyptic creeds that claim to have "family values" as they aim for a destruction of all life on Earth before the children being born now have learned how to read.


Sheeps, Wolves: Any Other Species?

A common metaphor for human interactions in Christian and Christian-influenced areas has been that of the sheep and the
wolves. The sheep are seen as good, wolves as evil. My question: What about all the other species?

Nature contains huge variety. To claim that people can only be one of two species of that variety is extreme folly. What about antelopes and gazelles? What about tigers, lions and leopards? What about dolphins, reindeer, koala bears, mongoose, elephants, lemurs, birds?

The wolf-sheep paradigm wants to do away with all these, and such has in fact been the result of implementation of sheep-wolf thinking: A plundered planet and a culturally impoverished, homogeneized, humankind. The sheep-wolf thinking wants everyone to be at every level a sheep - and claim that, if one is not at every level a sheep, then a wolf. The foolishness that is behind this thinking is responsible for huge range of evils now faced by humanity.

In personality psychology, anyone who is not at every level its product is seen as basically inhuman and irredeemably evil. This is the case regardless of how much good the person does. The Orwellian concept of crimethink has been introduced through claims that people can be made criminal by their personality - that is, by their thinking. And with that, has been introduced a very real totalitarianism - not one of government, but one of whatever unchecked, unbalanced, and unaccountable groupthink, usurps the power to run the place and the time, to shape people, and to define people in reference to itself.

From the perspective of the rest of the world, sheep and wolves work together. The shepherd sends the wolves across the world to clear the land of all other species; the sheep come in and overgraze the place. That some wolves would start going after some of the sheep, should be expected. And yet such things are met with horror, which horror did not accompany the full-scale destruction of other, beautiful, species, all around the world, to make room for the sheep.

The worst evils in the world have come from the belief that people are, or should be, the same. This belief is responsible for genocide, jihad, imperialism, Stalinism, and demicides, witch hunts, and holocausts of all kind throughout the history of the world. The demand that people must at all levels be sheep is totalitarianism that goes all the way to the core of the people. As such, it is a betrayal of life, liberty, and all that the countries subverted by this con against their original purpose are meant to be about.

The sheep and the wolves are a false duality. One should be neither a sheep nor a wolf. One should think outside false thinking to allow more clarity. There are millions of beautiful species around the world, that are being brought to the brink of extinction by the sheep, the wolves and the shepherds. One should identify with these species and give them a real chance at a life, while also doing the same for the planet and its inhabitants.

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