Thursday, May 18, 2017
Word Count – 853

either a species learns to control its own population or
disease, famine, war will take care of the issue
– draft –American, at this instance, is often referred to as decadent, greedy, tapped-out, self-indulgent, old, fat; and I think all those descriptors hit an element of 21^st America. But the characteristic that captures our attitude and our motivation best is meanness. We began with a Republican presidential primary that traded in meanness and continued this approach into the general election. Democrats and Liberals participated in the nastiness as much as did Republicans and the Far-Right. Democrats and Liberals are more passive about their meanness and they tend to cover it in self-righteousness. If they were not being passive nasty, then (a) they would have turned out and voted for Clinton instead of letting a man who bragged about not paying taxes take control of the government and; (b) they would be offering alternatives to what is being offered by the Republican Party.

Because meanness is our defining attitude, I want to explore the purpose/value of meanness in human society? (The following eight examples allow me to generalize this current attitude to an operating condition present in many modern societies.)

1. the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom
2. the ascendancy of the National Front in France
3. the election of Donald Trump in the United States
4. the economic collapse of Venezuela
5. the rule of Vladimir Putin and the oligarchs in Russia
6. the dictatorship of Kim Jong-un in North Korea
7. the war-crimes of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and
8. the take-over of Israel by Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud party.

I am going to consider 2 reasons that could explain why we find ourselves in this current predicament.

Over-population
Have we as a species over-extended ourselves; are there too many of us on the planet? If we look at the congested highways, the teeming cities and the massive waves of refugees, we can certainly answer yes. If we look at climate change and the devastation fossil fuel consumption has wrought, the answer to over-population and over-extension is again yes.

What is nature’s response to over-population? Can I suggest that the Bubonic Plague of the Middle Ages, the Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the AIDS crisis of the 1980s are examples of nature’s reaction of over-population? And what is the human response to over-population? I suggest that World War I, World War II and the Middle East Wars of the last 20 years are how humans control for over-population.

I believe that we are genetically programmed to destroy other humans when there are too many mouths to feed, too many children to support, too many old people still alive? Over-population triggers inhibitors that suppress empathy and compassion making us more tolerant of war, because it culls the human race of its access?

Brutal Capitalism
In 1991, when the Soviet Union was dissolved, Communism and Socialism also came crashing down. And rather than use that opportunity to examine the other post-war economic construct, western societies, specifically America, proclaimed the supremacy and rightness of Capitalism. All of capitalism’s inherent problems were put aside, because by virtue of the fact that it was still standing meant it was the right model.

However, the forced-sharing that Communism and Socialism forced onto Capitalism, in order to make it appeal to the masses, could now be dropped and a more pure form worshiped. The One-Percenters began their ascendancy; they and their hangers-on grabbed all the wealth and power they could get away with. The two most blatant examples of this pure capitalism are America and the United Kingdom.

Capitalist Britain made London the world banking center. Screw all those living in the provinces. Capitalist America transformed its society into a insatiable consumer ordering volumes of unnecessary clap-trap from the comfort of his/her over-stuffed sofa. American capitalism has changed the country from a manufacturing power-house to a fat passive consumer. The anathema of American capitalism is government supplied social security or any program that still uses a socialistic citizen support model. Capitalism is survival of the fittest.

The latest debate on health-care captures this battle between socialized support of health-care and capitalism’s demand that all services and products carry a price-tag and that all transactions result in profit for its share-holders. In a capitalistic economy, health-care is a commodity and if you can’t afford it, you can’t have it. (You’re probably not a good consumer if your main focus is your failing health.)

“Stop whining and stop buying the latest iPhone because if you put that discretionary spending towards your health-care, there would be no need for and affordable care act.”
“Let’s remember, nobody dies because they don’t have access health care.”

With the party of the rich in charge of both houses of Congress and a rich-man as president, Capitalism’s stars have aligned. The ascendancy of the Republican Party and Donald Trump into a single-party government is the apex of American Capitalism. The safety-net, an example of the forced-sharing, and a contract between the government and its people can finally be destroyed.

The human race is being culled. Only the economically fit are wanted; the rest can die off.