Natural Writers

My Personal Program on Civil Disobedience (3)

Eva Wissenz — 2009-12-02T17:29:03Z

"My personal program of civil disobedience" is chapter 6 of Experiments in Moral Sovereignty, The Diamond Printing Press, Jaipur, 2006 by Jeff Knaebel.

I slowly progressed in self purification and spiritual growth through meditation practice as taught by the Buddha. Unbearable became the inner moral conflict and despair arising from the knowledge that my labor - through the income tax - was supporting murder of innocent women and children at many places around the world. In order to save myself from internal disintegration, it became imperative to act.

At first I reacted out of anger and despair at the desecration which was being financed by my labor. As my meditation practice deepened, it became clear that anger was only hurting me. Anger was doing nothing to cure human ignorance, which is the root cause of evil. Gradually I desisted from putting more fuel on the fire of anger. Anger attenuated and was replaced with first forgiveness, and then compassion for those people caught in the great MNC killing machine. The call to action metamorphosed into anguished love with malice towards none.

Now, my actions are designed with such mindfulness as I can muster to rotate anger at a system gone mad with the violence of its greed into compassion for evil doers, while dissociating myself from them and from the system. I am doing my best to walk the path pointed by Buddha and Gandhi: self purification through meditation, renunciation of worldly pleasures and comforts, combined with a constructive program of humanitarian service.

Guided by Gandhi, I undertook a moral inventory of my deeds in relation to my government. I had served my country across a span of thirty years in a range of voluntary humanitarian and public service. As an officer of the US Navy, I had served in Vietnam during that horrible war. My work had received awards and recognition from all levels of citizenship, including local community organizations, a State governor, a Secretary of the US Cabinet, and the President. As an entrepreneur, I had founded companies that created hundreds of jobs and financed a lot of kids through school, paid a lot of taxes. I founded nonprofit charitable organizations, co-created a new Montessori School, an adult learning center and indigenous social programs. I did significant work in the largest Native American land settlement in history. I had obeyed the laws of my country. To this extent I had earned the moral authority to make my decision.

I examined the possibilities of actual, practical, timely administrative recourse in terms of an individual obtaining permission to cease filing and paying income taxes on the basis of conscience. It is my natural right to act as an individual and not be required to be a member of an "authorized" religious organization. No organization has moral sovereignty over my conscience.

I have had long personal experience with government at all levels including the judiciary. They are not bona fide repositories of high moral wisdom. The closer the approach to inner circles of power, the more pervasive are corruption and the lie. I and my companies had been through tax audits with 100% clean marks. Some of my acquaintances were not so lucky. I am well informed of the abuse of citizens through tax audits. The invasive procedures of auditors into personal affairs of citizens are an unwarranted violation of The Bill of Rights. The power to tax is the power to destroy. The lives of many citizens have been destroyed by IRS abuses. These methods keep the public intimidated. Those who request to keep back the "war tax" portion of their payment on the basis of religion are flagged for special treatment and subjected to harassment. It is vicious.

I studied these matters for long. Based upon my observations and common sense, it is clear that a citizen acting as an individual has no chance against the government in matters of conscientious objection to the income tax. The destructive activities of the military-industrial-political complexes are so systemically embedded that withholding the "war portion" of a tax is ineffective. It would be like trying to distinguish blood corpuscles which serve the liver from those that serve the lung.

The State has framed the rules. I cannot prevail in a petition brought within the bounds of the self same rules which my conscience requires me to disobey. I can only act as guided by my conscience in response to my perception of events and my understanding of a civil human society. My choice as a moral being was to take the path of civil disobedience.

It is incomprehensible that any government has a moral right to force a person to kill, or through taxation to finance murder and even mass extermination of innocent human beings. How can I support war crimes, human rights violations, crimes against humanity? During the past fifty years the US government has built an inhuman machinery of escalating violence that threatens all life with extinction. The government, having no moral right to require my participation, must rely on brute force to coerce my payment of taxes. Certainly this meets the test of "a great and unendurable tyranny." If I submit to this, I become a slave. I cannot obey the law without violating my conscience and my loyalty to the human race. My choice was to participate as an automaton in the organized, systematic destruction of life or to withdraw from participation in the corporate controlled society. The only safe and honorable course for me to keep my self respect was to disobey and willingly face the penalties.

These words are not by way of defense, but simply a description so that rational people may have a basis for understanding my actions. I am a simple human being trying to live my ideals. If I run afoul of the State, let it do with me as it wishes.

Having tried hard to understand the Law of Ahimsa, to meet its prerequisites in my personal life, to prepare myself for self purification and a life of sacrifice and to embark upon a program of constructive humanitarian service, I committed myself to a personal solo program of civil disobedience.

I hereby declare that I have deliberately disobeyed the tax regulations of my country (but not the underlying Constitution). I make distinction between regulation, law, and Constitution because I believe them to be inconsistent and because law and regulation are so complex and permeated with obfuscation as to be incomprehensible to me. The regulations as promulgated in IRS publications seem clear on one point: if a person fails to file and pay taxes due, he is subject to civil and criminal penalties. I hereby serve notice upon authorities of the US government that I have deliberately failed to file tax returns as an act of conscious civil disobedience. I also declare that no taxes are due, as will be set forth in the following.

I admit that I have often been unable to act according to the highest moral law, which rules thought as well as word and deed. This does not invalidate the law. It demonstrates the practical difficulties. Geometry is not less true because I may not be able to draw a straight line. I can only take one step at a time. The point of beginning is my capability for nonviolence now, to be improved one day at a time. The point of departure for moral practice is prevailing morality, which must be changed, one action at a time towards the goal.

Upon making the decision to cease filing and paying income tax, I undertook a radical reorganization of my life. I would have to emigrate, to become a "tax exile." It would not be right to benefit from the facilities and protection of my country while not paying my share. Reorganization had to be in gradual steps bemuse of obligations to children. Only when the youngest reached majority could I make the final move. Withdrawing from my businesses, I began devoting myself to a wide range of humanitarian service without pay. I ceased generating income and lived on savings. Personal property of every description was sold to the point of a simple lifestyle. Stocks and securities were sold at substantial losses. Corporate and partnership businesses were divested at large losses. These losses generated a large “net operating loss carry forward” for tax purposes.

No income tax would be due for remainder of my life. As a tax protestor I cannot in good conscience make a claim for Social Security retirement benefits. The funds I paid to Social Security over a period of more than forty years are lost to me. It is part of the price of freedom. The needs of my simple lifestyle could be met out of savings on which taxes had already been paid.

Knowing that deposits at interest are indiscriminately loaned to government and business engaged in destruction of life, I abstained from interest-bearing instruments. I had come to see interest “earnings” as the wages of death.

When my youngest child reached majority, I moved to India. I ceased filing tax returns. Demands by mail notwithstanding, I believe that filing is not required if the taxpayer has no income. In my circumstances, the demands for information are an unwarranted violence upon my person, my privacy, my right to personal security and to be left alone to pursue my peaceful life. I will not respond. I declare myself to be a free man, no longer a slave to the great corporate government killing machine.

The path of civil disobedience marked out by Gandhi requires self-sacrifice, self-purification, and a constructive humanitarian program to run alongside the action of non- cooperation with evil. Here in an Indian village I rent two rooms of stone and mud, take two meals per day of rice, lentils and chapatti, bathe with a bucket of hand-carried cold water and use the same open field toilet as my Indian hosts. My basic cost of living is about 2000 rupees per month (less than $50). I maintain a practice of Buddhist meditation, practice eight precepts to the extent capable and fast for one day each week. I have helped build two meditation retreat centers and am working towards a third. I tutor English, do voluntary service at meditation centers, help build village schools, establish libraries, sponsor education of refugee children and a tuberculosis program, and assist in agricultural and reforestation work. I work to contribute to the pool of quietude and peace in human consciousness, to balm the brutality of Western imperialism, to save our ecosystem from destruction. I organize my life around the ultimate goal of Self -Realization, the birthright of every human being.

My decision to undertake civil disobedience through emigration and self imposed exile has entailed some hardship and risk. The life of an aging foreigner alone and homeless in India is not easy. It is painful to be separated from family, friends, and homeland. There are problems with safe water, food, health, sanitation, and personal security. The cold of snowy winter in unheated rooms is penetrating. Support arrangements are unstable and keep on dissolving. Obstacles of language and culture are daunting. It is a two day journey by jeep, bus, and train to the nearest bona fide medical doctor. Hospitals of which I have personal knowledge are filthy and septic. Disease is prevalent, civil disturbances are rampant, and war is an ever-present threat. Everywhere I witness poverty, misery, and suffering.

I mention the above only to serve as verifiable background against future actions of nonviolent civil disobedience that are beginning to present themselves to my mind. We do not have a lot of time remaining in which to save ourselves from self-destruction. The looming crises of water and failure of agriculture are powerful “weapons of mass destruction,” leave aside the threat of nuclear holocaust. Simply withdrawing from participation in the “system” may not be of sufficient moral vigor.

The text is published here with courtesy of the author.

Jeff Knaebel manages three websites :
Free of state
Trees of tomorrow
Gandhi Padyatra

See a video about Jeff here

The Decision to Resist (2)

Eva Wissenz — 2009-12-02T17:26:13Z

"The Decision to Resist" is chapter 5 of Experiments in Moral Sovereignty, The Diamond Printing Press, Jaipur, 2006 by Jeff Knaebel.

Gathering of Elders, Pasquah, Canada: Indigenous spiritual leaders had come from around the world. The Cree Elder had asked my profession. Upon my response, he said: "You are like a bank robber. First your people took our animals, then they took our fish, then they took our trees. Then they began breaking even the rocks of Earth herself and taking them. You pushed us from our homelands onto the reserves. Now you are going to flood even the little bit left to us, so that your hydro power project will keep the houses of your big city people cool in summer. You people are like termites eating their own house. What will you do when there is no home left for anyone?"

Chihuahua City, Mexico, Environmental Conference: The World Bank had proposed to finance a project of logging the last of old growth forest in Sierra Occidental, where Tarahumara Indians are struggling to survive. The timber is feed for a pulp mill. Before an audience of scientists, bureaucrats, environmentalists and trade officials assembled in University of Chihuahua auditorium stands a Tarahumara Elder. His hand holds a cheap pulp magazine, a transmission of rubbish. Gazing calmly at the industrialists and bankers, the Tarahumara speaks softly: "You are cutting the last of our trees to turn them into this. The forest is the life of my people. When you have cut the trees, we will die, and you will read this." A few miles from the auditorium, Tarahumara women and children are living in burrows dug into mounds of garbage at the city dump. At a small village in the Sierra, a Tarahumara elder had said: "I tell my young men not to fight. I tell them we must be patient, we must wait. The white man will destroy himself."

I had piloted my personal aircraft from Alaska to Mexico to provide volunteer flight service for an environmental organization. The mission was to fly opinion makers for a direct took at logging devastation. In a kind of epiphany I realized for sure that my whole lifestyle made me part of the problem. If I sincerely wished to become part of the solution, I must change - entirely change - my way of life.

I made the decision to leave my own, my native land forever. I would become a man without a country, separated by a vast ocean from friends, family and my young adult children. No more would I smell the rain on high desert sagebrush, nor hear the wolves howl across moonlit tundra, nor watch the Northern Lights dance in Arctic sky.

I would owe allegiance to all of humanity and to no State. I would be the indentured servant of no gang of murderers sitting in any legislative body. By paying tax to no State would I finally make a farewell to arms. I would seek peace and brotherhood.

Man does not lose his freedom except through his own ignorance. The primary ignorance at play in a corporate state society is ignorance of the Law of Cause and Effect, the Law of Moral Causation, the Truth of Dependent Origination. Freedom and slavery are mental states. First say to ourselves we shall no longer accept the role of slave. Then be willing to act and suffer the consequences. There is no high destiny without self denial.

* * *

Law of Ahimsa (non-violence): Love is the law of the human race and is infinitely greater than and superior to brute force. Ahimsa requires a living faith and commitment to Truth, which is Love (or God if you prefer). It is inconsistent with modern imperialism based on force for its defense. It protects one's self respect but not his property. Nonviolence can be practiced by all who have a living faith in Truth and therefore equal love for all mankind. Moral activity on behalf of others is self realization because humanity is One.

Gandhi speaks: "In order to see face to face the universal and all penetrating Truth, we must be able to love even the least of creatures as we love ourselves. The man who attempts this cannot be indifferent to anything in life. Ahimsa overrides all other forces. It is the only true force in life. ‘Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and all else shall be added unto you.' The Kingdom of Heaven is Ahimsa.” One must renounce violence in the heart, and then consciously exercise of the power of Ahimsa generated by this renunciation.

The pre-eminence of these principles is made known to me through my personal moral conscience, life experience and reason. These Laws have been expounded by the great sages of humanity. Most notable in my personal studies are the Buddha, Christ, Lao Tzu and Mahavir. In modern times they have been exemplified by Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy, John Ruskin, Albert Schweitzer and Henry David Thoreau. I have drawn on the inspiration of these and others to organize my thoughts into a plan of action.

Principal Axioms of Theory and Practice of Nonviolent Resistance: Evil is parasitic on good, inhumanity on humanity. No man is entirely devoid of humanity. Suffering, accepted in the spirit of nonviolent witness to truth, can restore to a person his lost humanity. All exploitation is based upon cooperation, willing or forced, of the exploited. Non-cooperation and fearlessness go together. The nonviolent resister fights with his power of suffering in order to arouse his opponent's power of sympathy. This restores to the oppressor his humanity, while restoring to the oppressed his justice denied. Non-violent struggle properly conducted, even if it fails, leaves behind no trail of bitterness. Passive resistance is a method of securing rights by personal suffering. It is the reverse of resistance by arms. It involves sacrifice of the self. Sacrifice of the self is superior to sacrifice of others. Civil disobedience serves all, including the tyrant, by teaching him his error. Evil can be sustained only by violence. Therefore, withdrawal of support for evil requires complete abstention from violence. Nonviolence requires voluntary submission to the penalty of non cooperation with evil. The government itself does not expect our full cooperation. It does not say: "You must do this." It says: "If you do not do this, we will punish you." Sincerity of a moral position requires willingness to accept the costs necessary to see the principles realized. When it violates his moral conscience, no person will submit to the evil of another or group of others except under coercion. The means pre-exist in, predict and determine the end. It is impossible for violent means to achieve moral ends.

Justification for Civil Disobedience: When the injustice is great and morally repugnant. When it is of a nature that can be resolved by non-cooperation. When the offence is real to the best of one's knowledge and belief. When administrative recourse is not reasonably available, or after thorough examination is deemed to be ineffective. The goal must accord with natural right. The resister must not hate his opponent. The goal must conduce to the good of all.

Certain Gandhian Prerequisites for Civil Disobedience: The following are required in order to earn the moral authority to make a distinction between moral and immoral law. One must have obeyed consistently the law of his country. He must have served society. Must have embarked upon the work of self purification and be adhering to the five basic moral precepts. Must have met his family obligations and made arrangements for them to be covered in his absence. Must be prepared for self sacrifice and significant hardship. One cannot disobey the law while continuing to live under its protection and with its comforts which are financed by the other citizens who are obeying it. One must strive for harmony of thought-word-deed. To think one thing, say another, and do a third is a lie. One must be prepared to embark upon a program of constructive service to humanity along with self sacrifice. The resister must not hate his opponent. The goal must conduce to the good of all.

The text is published here with courtesy of the author.

Jeff Knaebel manages three websites :
Free of state
Trees of tomorrow
Gandhi Padyatra

See a video about Jeff here

Conclusions about Satyagraha (1)

Eva Wissenz — 2009-12-02T17:17:48Z

"Moral hypothses and conclusions" is chapter 4 of Experiments in Moral Sovereignty, The Diamond Printing Press, Jaipur, 2006 by Jeff Knaebel.

"Satyagraha" was used by Mahatma Gandhi. The word means the search for truth, a non-violent practice of resistance.

A necessary prerequisite for a nonviolent society is justice in all aspects of life: food, shelter, clothing work, education, health, opportunity for self-realization. Justice requires freedom, together with open access to livelihood and trade without legal barriers operating through the State's power of monopoly.

Humanity is One and harmony must be worldwide. A proper rule of law requires that human rights of all be equally protected. When a body of law is created which tramples the rights of minorities and the weak, such as Bretton Woods agreements, IMF, GATT and WTO, such law is repugnant to the conscience and must be resisted by nonviolent means. If we do not find nonviolent methods to resist imperialism in all its different forms, including corporate imperialism, the suppressed races of the world appear to have little hope.

A prerequisite for peace is radical limitation of corporate power, a redefining of the corporation as a legal entity. We must reject lifestyles based upon creation of artificial needs, the fulfillment of which harms others. Only that economy is good which conduces to the long term good of all.

The modern science of political economy is false science because it promotes exploitation of man by man. True science is concerned with the welfare and destiny of all men. This is the science taught by the sages: Buddha, Christ, Confucious, Heraclitus, Lao Tse, Mahavir, Gandhi, Schweitzer, U Ba Khin, and the Dalai Lama. That economics is untrue which ignores or disregards moral values. An economics which enables the strong to exploit the weak is dismal as well as fake. This is the economics of the Corporate Warfare State.

In 1981, fifty three Nobel Prize winners warned of an unprecedented holocaust, encompassing the horrors of mass exterminations and extending the frontiers of barbarism and death. In 1980, while tens of millions of people were on the verge of starvation, the global war machine engaging 60 million people was squandering nearly a million dollars per minute towards our universal extermination. Today the level of violence is even higher. It is incomprehensible.

The most fundamental of human rights is the right to life. It is morally wrong to support a group of states in their quest for the power to destroy all life. A righteous person, intent upon spiritual evolution, must resist this. Immoral means employed by the State or its corporate licensees result in doing harm and failing to achieve a good end. It is the inevitable result of the Law of Cause and Effect. Any perceived success will be only temporary, while the evil will be long lasting. The lie of the State at war cannot lead to Truth, just as war cannot lead to peace.

Immoral means predict and determine the ends. Modern science and technology have bestowed upon States power beyond limits. This power is being used in a moral vacuum. Unlimited power of the soulless state machine and its corporate licensees, fostered by large scale mechanization, automation and massive concentration of wealth and power leads to disintegration of society. This is manifest in the erosion of human values we see all around. Such a milieu deprives man of his right to self actualization. If the price of “progress” is corruption, how can a person be happy?

State corporate governance has failed because it lacks a moral code based on true human values. We live in a disintegrating culture. That which is best and noblest in humanity is not nourished. The corporate culture does not cultivate generosity, compassion, charity, morality, cooperation, tolerance, wisdom, self sacrifice, service to others. It does not encourage gentleness and community, mutual support or harmony. "The capitalist technocratic state system has become a monstrous destroyer of what is loving and life affirming in the human soul." (Miller,1999).

In a traditional society, the family and community constituted the basis of morality. Stealing from one's neighbor would be morally shocking. Now, in public institutions, all manner of corruption is expected. The consequences are huge, because the corruption involves doing violence to entire cultures. Millions of people are made to suffer. This radical separation of ethics from politics, foreshadowed in the long ago writings of Machiavelli, appears to be a generic feature of the corporate state structure.

A corporation has no heart, no soul, no conscience, no morals. It is not a living being. It cannot feel pain, sorrow, remorse shame, and compassion because it is intrinsically unable to do so. It cannot laugh or cry, enjoy the world, or suffer with it. Most of all, it cannot love. This is because it is a legal fiction. Its "body" is a judicial construct. It is a process, a machine designed for one purpose: to generate maximum revenue at least cost. It is not connected to earth or its creatures, to pleasures and responsibilities that derive from being human, made of earth. When it hurts people or destroys ecology, it feels nothing. It is incapable of feeling. Yet, under law, it is deemed a "natural person" with all the legal and political rights of a person except for actual voting. This is why corporations are so dangerous: they act in human affairs without feeling and with wholly selfish motives. They have become very powerful, in some cases more powerful than the host government of which they are a parasite.

Not only does the corporation have the rights of a citizen (such as free speech, right to sue for slander, libel, injury), but it has been granted special protection over property rights. Rate of return on investment has been declared a "property" immune to interference by citizens or their elected representatives. Under U.S. law they are also granted "eminent domain," pursuant to which jury trials were eliminated for determining whether corporate practices cause harm or injury, and if so, the assessment of damages.

The fatal moral flaw which makes these corporations so dangerous to the social body upon which they feed like a cancer is an ethical design error. Their owners, the shareholders are protected by law from legal and personal liability for corporate harm to humanity or damage to ecology. This is an attempt by men to create a shield that protects them from consequences of their actions. It is an attempt to violate the Law of Cause and Effect, the law of moral causation. There is no personal accountability of the owners to society. The corporation has no social responsibility. Yet it has legal and political rights by legislative construct. It is a dangerous entity, pursuing only its "genetic'' program to generate profit without concern for long term consequences to humanity. Can you imagine the outrage that would land on the heads of individuals had they committed some of the crimes of corporations which are now so commonplace in the news as to have become routine?

"The special status of corporations has placed them in a position to control vast economic power by which they may dominate not only the economy but also the very heart of our democracy, the electoral process. The liberty of democracy is not safe if people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the state it itself. That, in essence, is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, a group, or any controlling private power." (Franklin D. Roosevelt).

President Abraham Lincoln opined: "I see a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned. An era of corruption in high places will follow and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people until wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the republic is destroyed."

The 500 largest corporations in the world now (1999) control 25% of the entire world economic output. The largest 300 corporations own 25% of the world's productive assets. The 50 largest commercial banks and diversified financial companies control nearly 60% of all global capital.

According to Paul Hellyer, Deputy Prime Minister of Canada, "Globalization is not about trade. It is about power and control. It is reshaping the world into one without borders ruled by a dictatorship of the world's most powerful central banks, commercial banks and multinational companies.”

The prime role of government has been usurped by corporations in order to provide a secure legal environment for profitable transnational investment and competition. This usurpation provides security for capital, property, and investors but not for ordinary citizens. The erroneous premise of this role for government is that corporate property rights are senior to human rights, and that the earth and its biological life can be owned and exploited by non-human entities, rather than nurtured and shared among human beings.

The issue of taxation without representation was at the core of the American Revolution. Beginning with the Bretton Woods international agreements in 1944, followed by the Trilateral Commission of David Rockefeller and other efforts organized by elite power brokers, control of representative government has been systematically transferred from the people to corporations. As shown in the preceding paragraphs, it is not possible for corporations to have an unbiased interest in the public welfare. Documented instances of corporate abuse of the public and the environment are too numerous to list. Campaign contributions and the lobbying arms of huge businesses control elections, legislation and public policy. Powerful men hold in "revolving door" rotation high public office and directorships of MNCs which are members of the military-industrial-political complex. This is an unholy and incestuous relationship of regulator and regulated. Reality on the ground is that American "democratic government'' and both of its major political parties are controlled by corporations, not citizens. It is a false moral premise that in a democracy these entities should have political rights and political voice. It is not possible for corporations to represent the will of the people. Thus we the people are de facto taxed without representation. We have no effective voice in a government controlled by corporations.

Now, through the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, General Agreement on Trade & Tariffs (GATT), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) at policy level - coordinated through the unholy marriage of governments, central banks and multinational corporations at the operational level - sovereignty of politically constituted governments has been usurped by MNCs. The WTO has created an "Economic Constitution" of the world. Economic exchange is at the core of human action and affects every aspect of life: environment, education, health, labor and political rights, war and peace. The scale of corporate activity has become so large that it affects the most fundamental right: the right to life itself. Millions of the world's poorest people are deprived of adequate livelihood and health by corporate actions which destroy their ecology and local economies. As in constitutions, trade agreements set forth rights of their constituents. But these "constitutions" have been negotiated behind closed doors with input only from corporations. Under WTO, only corporations are the beneficiaries of the rights it creates. The interests of others in society are nowhere to be found.

An international agency of corporate constituents has the power to veto parliamentary decisions made by sovereign governments wherever these decisions are ruled "trade restrictive." At risk are environmental protection, labor and health law, consumer protection law, control of foreign exchange and the massive flows of speculative capital which can completely disrupt local economies. Witness the recent Asian economic crisis which did untold damage to the lives of millions of poor people. Proceedings of the WTO are closed: trade unions, consumer, health and environmental groups are barred. Details of rulings are not published. Membership of decision-making bodies is not disclosed to the public. Everything is anonymous and there is no public accountability.

MNCs which have substantial control over legislation as well as executive branch policy are subsidized directly and indirectly with public finance. Consider global transport and communications infrastructure, scientific research and development, corporate agriculture, all of which are subsidized by public funds generated through taxation of individuals. Yet these MNC's operate clandestinely and are not accountable to the public. This is truly abusive taxation without representation. Having gained control of political parties and the electoral process, corporations have usurped the government of the people and have created a tyranny. We the people have no effective voice, yet we subsidize these entities with our taxes.

There are other issues with respect to taxation without representation. In 1776 the American tyrant was the British King. Today it is an institutionalized structural tyranny of rule by corporations masquerading as democracy. The people vote each 2 to 4 years for, usually (if you ask them), the lesser of two evils, both of whom were put in place by corporate money. It is a sham democracy. Corporations are the real power. They form a collective dictatorship. The "nominees" that we elect are not only beholden to the corporations which finance and control the electoral outcome, but they may also be shareholders of the same corporations which will come under their regulatory and policy purview. It is incestuous.

Foreign policy is made by people who own banks and corporations which profit from preparing for war, marketing the war machine, and waging war. To find the roots of war, follow the money. War may be couched in terms of freedom, democracy, justice, religion, but if you follow the money, it leads to powerful decision makers whose constituents in banking and industry profit from war or the exploitation which leads to war. Wars are fought with money borrowed from the public, the employment of which enriches bankers and owners of the military industrial complex. Only a morally flawed structure permits these owners to influence decisions of war and peace.

The recent Afghan situation is one example of many. It is widely known that Big Oil, the US government and Pakistan coordinated early support of Taliban in order to secure access for Big Oil to the fields of Central Asia. Subsequently they destroyed their creation. Now they will rebuild Afghanistan without having lost sight of the original objective: access to oil of Central Asia. It has been reported in the press that families of high US officials own shares in, among others, Halliburton, Unocal and Carlyle (oil and defense). These companies stand to profit from operations related to the war. A political structure which permits State decision makers to benefit financially from activities of the State over which they have influence is morally wrong. The set up is such that MNCs benefit from war while it is being marketed and waged and again profit from post war reconstruction. It is like a meat grinder with human beings the raw feed.

Killing is never justified, but certainly its lowest threshold is self defense. There can be no justification for killing in the name of some "national interest," invariably an economic interest determined by power brokers and not ordinary citizens. No villager is justified in murdering members of another village for their grain. How can US government be justified in murdering for oil?

The sheer size and worldwide pervasive presence of the U.S. military establishment - emplaced to protect corporate interests - is attestation to an incomprehensible level of violence. This worldwide projection of power is used to facilitate and expedite economic and ecological exploitation of weaker and poorer people. On the basis of what wisdom has the US government determined that its wasteful, destructive, death-dealing culture is superior to others?

True rationality must involve both freedom and foresight. The rationale of unbridled corporate economics is unable to foresee and calculate future costs in terms of human displacement and disenfranchisement. Class hatred and violence inevitably arise from the agony of lost culture and livelihood. What gives the US government the moral authority to impose its way of life upon others? Together with imperial arrogance to defend it at any cost - including nuclear holocaust - against the feeble efforts of hapless millions struggling for mere survival? Through economic power and leverage the US exploits wherever possible. When economic power is insufficient to the purpose, it uses armed force.

What was the moral basis for US government destruction of millions of lives in Vietnam? Under whose code of ethics did USG rain napalm bombs on noncombatant Cambodia, incinerating thatched hut villages along with women and children? This led to the destabilization that subsequently spawned the "killing fields." Whose killing fields are they, really? The list of incomprehensible atrocities could fill a book. It turns the stomach.

The human mind has become brutalized by all pervasive violence, often gratuitous as "entertainment" viewed by small children. We seem to have become de-sensitized to the point of having lost all sense of moral outrage. We are morally passive in the face of atrocity. The moral scale of society has shrunk to the point that destructiveness and wanton waste of life are "normal."

Tax dollars directly finance not only the military machine. Through direct and indirect subsidy the ecologically destructive operations of MNCs are financed by taxation of individuals. The huge infrastructures of transportation, electric power, communications, media, global trade, research and development for chemicals, pesticides, agriculture and biotech enjoy massive public finance. Taxes are subsidizing corporations which stand accused in the judicial system of criminal activities, child abuse, and crimes against humanity (Tobacco and Big Oil). Taxes subsidize alliances between Big Oil and brutal military regimes in Africa anti Burma.

In the 1960s, the USG organized a military overthrow of Brazilian President Jose Goulart. He had instituted capital and land reforms to take back control from MNCs of Brazil's natural resources. He had defied the IMF. An alliance of the CIA with US investors and Brazil's landowning elite organized a coup and installed a military junta which overturned Goulart's reforms. This is but one example of a list that could fill a library.

A military infrastructure is needed to keep the structure of globalization in place and to guarantee access to natural resources on which the model depends. The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnel Douglas to build the Stealth Bomber. The hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is the US Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps. Keeping the world "safe" for global corporations does not come cheap. Just ensuring the steady supply of oil is costing US taxpayers $57 billion annually (circa 1998). Including the infrastructure of military power worldwide, the costs of globalization are much higher.

Taxes subsidize increasing international trade which means ever-increasing pollution and destruction. Corporations control the political system which grants these subsidies: they are the driving force behind both the nation state and globalization. Tax dollars finance crimes against humanity. The same entities which commit the crimes have control of the political system. It is tyranny.

In summary, our planetary ecosystem is being shredded by the violence of greed to fulfill artificial needs, its species genetically engineered, poisoned and displaced, a majority of the world's peoples (the gentlest ones) impoverished, disenfranchised, displaced. Society is devolving into violence and debauchery. Life is being destroyed by corporations on all fronts: commercial, military, political, and social. Nowhere is there silence. The air is fouled, the waters poisoned. This vast interconnected killing machine is being financed with tax dollars paid by people who have no effective voice. We have become slaves to an inhuman machine of heartless corporate components. We the people created this monster. We the people must peacefully, nonviolently reprogram it.

The text is published here with courtesy of the author.

Jeff Knaebel manages three websites :
Free of state
Trees of tomorrow
Gandhi Padyatra

See a video about Jeff here

Warning to the Wise

Eerik Wissenz — 2009-11-18T20:12:53Z

Society today is composed of a series of systems. From political systems, and legal systems to systems of social class. It is obvious the influence these traditional systems have in shaping our understandings and outlook for the future. Yet of all the systems we are born into and conditioned upon there seems to be no system as taken for granted and misunderstood as the monetary system. The monetary system exists as one of the most unquestioned forms of faith there is. In a world were 1% of the population owns 40% of the planets wealth, were 34,000 children die every day from poverty and preventable diseases and where 50% of the population lives on less than 2 dollars a day. One thing is clear something is very wrong. Whether you are aware of it or not the life blood of all our established systems and society itself is money. A monetary system's motivating principle is profit, or the acquisition of money through the exploitation of others. Everyone must, in order to survive, seek out and obtain an income. An income earner seeks out the best possible pay he can earn for his service, while the employer seeks to constantly reduce cost in order to maximize profit. This is the dominant mentality in a monetary system and those in positions of great wealth are often the most ruthless. While many people who favor the profit system will talk endlessly about their ethical standards in regard to their products, history had shown that the priority of profit is a sickness which is not only poisoning our social well being and standers of living, but also the environment in which we rely on for everything we need as a species. In 2006 Bayer found out a vaccine they were selling in the United States accidentally was contaminated with HIV. They stopped selling in the US and to recover their profits they started to sell it in Japan, France, Spain and other countries, where hemophiliacs were then infected with HIV. This is a perfect example of the priority of profit over concern for social well being. There is an assumption that the need for profit provides a person with motivation to work on new ideas that would sell in the market place. In other words if people were not motivated by their need to survive through profit, little social progress would be achieved. This seems odd considering the most powerful contributions to society did not come from people seeking profit. Nikola Tesla did not establish the alternating current because he was out to make a buck. Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, and Isaac Newton did not make their contributions to society because of material self interest. While it is true that useful inventions do come from motivation for personal gain, the intent behind those creations has nothing to do with social concerns. The most important issue for us as humans is survival, and in a monetary system this inherent self interest turns into the constant pursuit of profit. This mentality has caused far more problems than it has given as benefits for society, for social concern is second to monetary gain. If the industry cared about society, putting the welfare of the people first the entire system would fail. There is no place for equality in a system where the basis of survival is competition. Meaningful contributions to society in this system are just a chance byproduct. The cure for the diseased monetary system is a Resource Based System. A resource based system utilizes existing resources rather than commerce. All goods and services are available without the use of currency. The aim of this new social design is to free humanity from the archaic and out dated monetary system. As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said “None are more helplessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” This new incentive system that is focused on self fulfillment, education, social awareness and creativity will bring humanity to a new level of enlightenment. There are many out there who would say the development of a resource based system would never happen. They cite human nature, the rich elite or other irrational opinions in their defense. This cynicism has no support in view of humanity's social development through history. We have come from a world of extreme superstition, slavery, racism and social prejudice, to a slowly emerging world of race equality, scientific ingenuity and emerging values that desire to see humanity benefit as a whole. We have gone from smoke signals to telephone to e-mail sent in an instant. Everything that has once been considered impossible has gradually become possible. To assume otherwise in this world is a failure of creativity. There is no reason why we cannot come together and use human ingenuity to accomplish incredible social achievements for the betterment of humanity. As Jacque Fresco say's in his book, “The Best That Money Can't Buy” ” It is time we unleash our Weapons of Mass Creation unto the world.” We must take responsibility for each other and ourselves. We have the knowledge, means and initiative to devise an entirely new social structure that can create a world we all can flourish in.

By Figmint

The Myth of the Innocent Civilian

Eva Wissenz — 2009-10-11T09:08:35Z

"Tragically, the American people may deserve to be hated - not for their freedom, but for breeding, feeding and turning loose the biggest, meanest dog on the block. Americans originally acquired this big dog (the Federal government and its military) in order to protect themselves and their property from potential intruders. However, over the last 200 years this dog has grown into a monster that has laid claim to virtually the entire yard and half the neighborhood. Americans appear to simultaneously love and fear their "pet protector". Average Americans spend more time working to support it than working to support themselves. They seem to have no will to chain up this dog, even when neighbors complain bitterly about the dog's trespassing, damaging their property and upsetting their personal affairs.

What are the neighbors to do? They can see that this big mean dog has turned its masters into its slaves and is eating its owner out of house and home. They have watched this big mean dog stage phony fights with other neighborhood dogs, just to drum up support for better food, higher fences at home and more permission to prowl in the dark. The neighbors ask each other, "How can the owners of this big mean dog be so rude as to let it roam around our neighborhood, making a mess of our property? After all, most of them claim to believe in a God that teaches 'Love thy neighbor as thyself'."

Peace-loving neighbors want to feel sorry for the poor owners of this big mean dog; but after all, the owners brought the dog into neighborhood. They feed it and then turn it loose to roam the neighborhood. They even make deals with some of the landlords, making it "legal" for this big mean dog to stay in certain neighbors' yards even when the people do not want it there - even when its behavior is offensive and destructive of their customs. Some of the neighbors have strong religious objections to dog crap in their yards. Is it so difficult to understand? What is left for these people to do but launch some kind of attack to get the attenton of those who are housing and feeding this big mean dog?

When thinking of the dog's owners and handlers, words that come to mind are "irresponsible", "selfish", and "bullies". Thinking of the neighbors, the only word that comes to mind is "justified".

If you are feeding the dog, please don't fall for the myth that you are innocent. Speaking of feeding the dog, when was the last time you stopped to figure out how much of your paycheck winds up in the dog's food bowl each week? Let's see: income tax, Social Security tax, property tax, sales tax, excise taxes, state and local taxes, licenses, fees. Are you walking the dog, or is dog walking you? Is this dog protecting you? Or does he own you?

How many Americans have any ideas what their big mean dog has been up to in the neighborhood while they have been asleep? How many Americans understand or event care about the anger felt by many of their neighbors?

Certainly the "upper classes" of many Third World nations have eagerly embraced "Western values". But at what price?

Apparently there are still quite a few people in this world who would rather die than become corporate serfs policed by the Western military and forced to watch their cultural heritage sink into the cesspool of Western "values". Contrary to the ignorant, arrogant beliefs of many Americans, there are plenty of "have-nots" in this world who have no interest in what Americans "have". Until Western governmets, banks and corporations stop trying to cram it down their throats, those who "have not" the capabilities to wage war o our terms, will wage it on their own terms - which probably includes blowing up "innocent civilians".

Shall we then blow up their "innocent civilians"? Blow up suspected terrorists? Terrorist "sympathizers"? "Potential" terrorists? The "self-employed"?

Lest we turn the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave into a paranoid Nazi nuthouse, what we must blow up is this myth of the innocent civilian."

In The Myth of the Innocent Civilian by Harold Thomas, 2002.

Relationship

Eva Wissenz — 2009-09-02T16:22:40Z

"It doesn't interest me what you do for a living
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dreams
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon…
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life's betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your
fingers and toes
without cautioning us to
be careful
be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand on the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes“

It doesn't interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after a night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the center of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

© 1995 by Oriah House, From “Dreams Of Desire”
Published by Mountain Dreaming, 300 Coxwell Avenue, Box 22546, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4L 2A0

Sustainable politics

Eerik Wissenz — 2009-02-28T08:34:53Z

As long as people agree that 1) we need air, water, food, shelter, and a few other things, all of a proper quality, stability and balance to live, and 2) it is more efficient to cooperate in managing these things than not, then: 3) people could disagree on most other things, yet still live together with mutual benefit and without conflict.

However, 1 and 2 is not sufficient for true sustainability. People can agree with 1 and 2 but still not consider consequences of their actions that only appear after their deaths. So, even if someone agreed with 1 and 2 they may not agree with 4) That it is worthwhile to leave the same system or better for those after us. It is necessary to understand that a decision must be made concerning this. What benefits oneself (increases one's own capabilities) does not necessarily coincide with what is sustainable for society.

A free market is not necessarily efficient.

It is true that if someone can produce something or provide a service better than what is currently on the market, society should allow that someone to enter the market. If someone can make a process more efficient it is in society´s best interest to accommodate them. This is an example of positive competition. Positive competition increases the overall efficiency of the economic system.

However, not all competition is positive. There is another way to compete, and that is, instead of making oneself more efficient, making one's competition less efficient. If I simply burn down all of my competitors buildings, my product or service will become the most value-cost competitive available. The bottom line: more revenue. However, this does not increase the efficiency of the economic system, it decreases it. So it is in society´s best interest to try to prevent this form of competition to enter the market. This is a very familiar role of government.

Though increasing positive competition and decreasing negative competition is a simple concept, it is not so easily carried out. New and creative ways to compete negatively are always being discovered, especially when the economy changes in ways difficult to understand. So, we see in the world continuously evolving legal and regulatory systems to deal with the issue, we see both successes, failures, and situations we cannot so easily evaluate.

What complicates matters further is that legal and regulatory systems themselves require resources. Not only must society evaluate what is positive and negative competition (sometimes on a case by case basis), society must evaluate whether the legal and regulatory systems it employs in the real world save more resources than they cost. A balance must be struck. We see society's attempt to meet this balance in our everyday lives: not all criminal cases can be solved, not everything that is harmful is illegal, not all actions can be scrutinized.

This is a common theme in politics and economics: a simple concept, complications, and a balance, good or bad, dictated by the effort and understanding of the members of society.

To become sustainable, society will have to reevaluate the concept of efficiency. This should come as no surprise; the economy has changed significantly in recent generations, it is entirely possible that the concepts (which were sufficient in the past) are now no longer clear enough to resolve the new problems humanity faces.

What is sustainable? What is efficient? What benefits humanity? Where do we start?

All these questions are best grouped into one: how can we improve society? Society is made up of individuals, so it stands to reason that considering what it means for an individual to improve may give us some insight into what it may mean to improve society. When you improve, be it through gaining knowledge, skill, fitness, or acquiring resources and means, it increases your capability. You can now solve problems and accomplish things you could not before.

Improvement, social benefit, efficient economic systems, sustainability can all be evaluated with respect to capability. For instance, a new invention increases society´s capabilities and so if used responsibly, benefits society. Likewise, the free flow of knowledge, a healthier population, a good transportation system, quality education, all increase the scope of problems that society can solve and the scope of what society can accomplish, among other things, provide the basic necessities to society's members. Increasing capabilities is a very simple concept: it means being able to do more.

However, as was warned, it is very complex to put in practice. The complication that arises is that doing anything - though it opens up new options - closes others. To increase capabilities in one way means not being able to increase capabilities in another. Whenever a person does something, that person cannot do some other things at that time or at future times, because their situation has developed differently. Whenever resources are used to do one thing, those resources are no longer available to do other things. We cannot do everything, nor change our situation at will. Options have to be weighed, choices have to made. What increases your capabilities in the short term may decrease your capabilities over a longer term.

An example is the fact that it is always cheaper not to eat today. At every moment the resources that would be used to eat can be used to do something else, opening up those options; but is not eating moment to moment sustainable? Not only do you soon become less effective, lowering your capability, in the end you die and your options are reduced to zero.

So this is the core of the sustainability issue: our current economic system gives society more options in the present, but less options in the future. It is necessary to make a choice.

To create a sustainable economy will require a large and complex social effort. However, there is precedent: the train and road system, the electric system, and the communications system were all projects using a significant portion of society´s resources especially in their beginnings.

Any candidate must be based on these two ideas: that there is a choice that must be made, and that becoming sustainable will not be easy. Or, in other words, the path of least resistance is not a sustainable one. Like falling into a whole, it is easy to slide further in and is harder to climb out. It is a simple idea, but can be complex to put into practice. However, if enough members of society make an effort, we shall keep our balance and not fall to the bottom.

Eerik Wissenz
August 2007