The Productivity Recession

I have written earlier regarding other functional contradictions inherent in Capitalism, once it hits its Saturation Point, as it now seems to have done, such as there being no real source of Profit in a Global Economy, and that a chronic Commodities Scarcity even during a Global Recession would guarantee that Price Inflation would kill any twinge of a Recovery at the very first wave of new hiring and increased Demand.  Now, this small paper will discuss how Productivity contributes to the collective pain and misery that are becoming ever more associated with the ideas and institutions of Capitalism.

Firstly, I understand that people don’t ordinarily think of Productivity as a problem.  People think of Productivity as being equivalent to the idea of making stuff, doing stuff, and keeping busy in a good way.  But in economic terms it is more complicated than that, where ‘Productivity’ is a factor of things, of Goods Produced divided by Invested Labor.  So, Productivity as an Economic Factor, can go up in two ways – 1) the same number of workers can produce a lot more stuff, or, 2) a lot less workers can produce the same amount of stuff at a much reduced cost.  Well, businesses don’t really like the first means of achieving greater productivity, as simply increasing the absolute amount of product leads to Price Deflation, that is, charging less for their product.  It cheapens the Market.  So businesses like to put out the same amount of stuff at less of a labor expense, by firing workers.  So, basically, increased Productivity does not mean, in most cases, that more is being produced, but that less people are involved in and compensated for doing the producing.  

I was reading up on the News, and found a small article on the BBC Webpage, where this one lady journalist was batting back and forth the idea that the West might slip into an eternal state of Stagnation just as Japan has appeared to do, or that the West might still Recover and everybody but the Japanese can go on being happy again.   The detail that caught my eye was where she stated that while all the firings, redundancies, downsizings and unemployment were just simply horrible, that the bright side of it was the Productivity was shooting up, that it seems that the Companies were still getting product out despite the fact that everybody but the Boss and his pretty secretary were fired.  So, to this insightful BBC lady journalist, the ‘silver lining’ in all this economic news is that employees are rather unnecessary and would in fact derail any significant recovery. 

Of course, the sizeable hole in this way of thinking is that Demand will never recover as long as nobody is employed, and that the Boss buying buckets of caviar, new yachts, mansions, and Mercedes-Benzes’, and his secretary buying a new smart phone, slightly faster than her old Smart Phone, simply are not enough to carry us all to a new age of universal prosperity.

Then there is the matter of the numbers themselves.  Yes, when numbers are trending upwards, it is better than numbers trending downwards, sure, but then there is the matter that Bad Numbers following Worse Numbers are still Bad Numbers.  It is like looking at just one Team’s performance in a sports match and to say that if the one team scored nothing in the first quarter, and nothing in the second quarter, but scored one amazing goal in the third quarter, that things were looking up and becoming hopeful for the fourth quarter and last chance before total doom.  But what if the other Team had scored 75, 95 and 168 in those same first, second and third quarters respectively.  Then we would suddenly see that any tiny numerical improvement in the context of this broader picture of total annihilation would be effectively insignificant.  The Boss and his secretary buying something in this quarter is seen as an improvement only because they bought nothing at all in the last quarter, but everybody else is still starving just as badly.

Well, I suppose it is just mean spirited for the rest of us to be fixating on ourselves and our own petty problems when we should be truly happy when the 1% see an opportunity to expand upon their brilliant successes.  So we should be happy at the increased Productivity Factor, but remember, it only helps Them, but for the Rest of Us, well, it only adds to the Pain and the Problem. .  

Oh, and there is that matter that People are looking for Good News, and with every other number going badly, Productivity is the only number on the rise, even if marginally.  So the Economists, the Policy Makers and the Journalists are clinging to it like it is their Last Straw.  They don’t see it as an embedded structural contradiction, that creating Product without Employees kills any chance at not only Recovery and Growth, but any chance that Society will not collapse and the World fall into barbarism and chaos, as we see happening in the Near East and Africa where it has always been the Practice of the Very Rich to keep Employment very low.

Another News story caught my eye.  The United States had created a liberal policy of making it easy to fire workers, thinking that the same principles exercised in reverse would make it easier to hire workers (but it is never so easy to Hire as to Fire, as hiring workers takes advertising, selecting, processing and training the new Workers, even when there are no Governmental Requirements to deal with).   Most of the World followed suit, well, except for Germany.  Now, in retrospect, it seems that liberalizing policies to make it easier to fire workers only resulted in the consequence that millions of workers were fired, mostly because it was just so darn easy to fire them.  And because Consumer Demand in these countries swiftly declined, they fell deeper into Recession, and since they lost the capacity to Produce, at the opportunity of the least sight of Demand anywhere else in the World, they stayed stuck in Recession.  Germany, who didn’t fire everybody, kept a strong domestic Demand, and because they kept their Factories open they were able to answer for any blip of returning Demand.

Of course, this is not to say that every country could have benefitted by keeping their Factories up at 100% Capacity, as there simply would not have been business enough for everybody.   This reminds me of something that happened to me years ago – a young Economist spoke of the Hong Kong Miracle, that in Hong Kong they charged no Taxes to Businesses or to the Wealthy, and so Businesses and Wealthy People flocked to Hong Kong and so Hong Kong was doing rather better than every other City or Country in the entire World, paying for their local Government and necessary Social Infrastructures with Wage Taxes paid by poor people who were just happy to have a job.  He concluded that everybody should do exactly as Hong Kong so that everybody would as Well.   I reminded this Young Economist that there can be only one “Pirate Island”, so to speak, that is a place with no laws, no regulations, and no taxes, and that if “Pirate Islands” were to multiply, soon the leveling effects of competition would again return everybody to the same deadly flat playing field as before, and all would be equally poor again, only this time, with no viable tax and revenue structures in place.  Everybody would in fact be worse off after their “Miracle” played itself through.

Again, regarding the limited “German Miracle”… I remind you of the Commodities Scarcity Recession, that with increased Employment, there would be a huge increase in Commodities Inflation and everything would soon go Crash again.   But, Germany did have a strategy whereby in a General Recession effecting every Economy in the West, that they would do the least worst.  I guess we should all congratulate them on their applied Selfishness, and remember especially that they did in fact succeed the best by caring about the ‘Productivity Factor’ the least, and that they saw the cutting of Labor Costs in the same way as cutting off their Hands and their Feet.  You can only cut off so many of your own hands and feet before it begins to become a problem, don’t you think?

Now, I did read a book a while back, which specified that productivity growth, that is, firing workers to increase profits, is not really supposed to be a problem because it is supposed to lead to increased Growth which would cause these same workers, and even more, to be hired back again.  The way the Policy Makers and Bankers saw it, Productivity increases of about 2% a year could help propel Growth to 4% a year and so Employment would grow by about 2% per annum and everybody would be happy.  But now Growth is flat and Productivity is still at 2%, which means that the Work Force is shrinking by 2% a year.  That means that Demand is shrinking.  That means that the Tax Pool is shrinking.  Remember, Rich People don’t pay taxes, Workers do, but when a Worker loses his job, the money that would have been paid in Wages reverts upward to the Rich Boss who pays too much in Political Campaign Contributions not to have Tax Exempt Status for everything everywhere and all the time.  The reason so many Municipalities are in Fiscal Crisis is because their Tax Structures were implemented back during the old Industrial Phase of Western Economic History, some half a century ago, and they have not been able to realign their Tax Systems to follow the Money upward as it Concentrates at the Top.  When the Workers had all the Money, they paid all the Taxes, and now that the Rich People have all the Money, the Workers still pay all the Taxes, but with a lot less Money – you can’t get Blood from a Stone, and so Cities, States, Provinces and entire Nations are going Bankrupt.   

I have one last point to make.  Yes, some Policy Makers do recognize that it takes more than catering to the Top 1% to make a healthy Economy, and so they have been making the Political Moves to implement Jobs Programs and fostering policies that would encourage hiring workers and increasing Employment.  Yes, yes, this would be fine, but so far it seems that all of this would be done with Borrowed Money, Bond issues, and such.

Well, the problem with Borrowed Money, is that it is very much the same as Printed Money, that is, it seems to just come out of the Blue to help one particular Society, that decided to just help itself, to buy up Commodities that other Societies have to pay Hard Cash for.  So Inflation goes up for everybody, and a Generalized Global Recession for Everybody is curtailed by those who cornerd the Markets with their worthless bonds and cheap slips of paper.   And the World allows it because these particular Economies are considered “too big to fail”. The fear is that if the Big Boat goes down, all the little boats will be sucked under with it.  The Idea of the Global Economy survives in the Notion that in a generalized Collapse, there will be no survivors.   But even with everyone clinging together, not much that is sensible is being put forward.  When it comes to generating actual matters of Policy, every little Political Entity represents only itself and speaks only for itself, and nobody and Nothing exists to speak for All and Everyone.  

But, yes, it is One Global Economy and so we do need One Global Economic Plan.  But, with Democracies in it means that Nobody is In Charge.  And with Nobody in Charge, we can certainly look at the bright side – that we can all glory in our Freedom.  We can all die of starvation and exposure or in the clashes of massive civil unrest in the grateful glow that nobody is telling us what to do.    Yes, it is better to die Free then to let some dictatorial Universal Brotherhood tell us what to do!

Religion As a Political Entity

Every Evil in the World is laid at the feet of Religion.  And it is true enough that some seriously bad things had happened with certain Zones of Religion, but is it really entirely to correct to blame what we now think of as Religion? 

Nowadays, Religions are thought to be Moral Institutions and Belief Systems.  Well, we need to look back in History and see whether these “Moral Institutions and Belief Systems” had directly done anybody any intentional harm.  And, yes, sometimes the answer is “yes”, but in many cases, other forces, outside of what we now view as “religious” were at work.  

Take Catholicism in Europe as a prime example.  When the Political Infrastructure of the Roman Empire collapsed in the First Millennium, the only Institution with Reach and Resources that was able to step into the Power Breach was the Roman Catholic Church.  A Religion, yes, but answering the call of Political Necessity, it became a Political Entity.  

Now, when has anybody every applied the same Moral Criteria to a Political Entity as they do to a Religion?  Never.  Take the current President of the United States.  He personally orders these drone airplanes to fly off and deliberately assassinate people, without any due process or fair trial, and, yes, there is a strong argument that these are very bad people and largely deserve it, and that these actions are absolutely “necessary”, given the broad Political Picture and the exigencies of Survival for the Civilized World Order, but it is also true that he can only get away with it because he is a Political Leader.  No Church Leader would be allowed to fly a Fleet of Death Planes. Well, maybe a Southern Baptist could swing it…  

Anyway, when we are tempted to blame Religion for certain terrible events in History, we need to first check the Political Infrastructure that prevailed at the time and ask the following questions, were the purely political institutions so weak at the time that the Religious Institutions had to step into the Political Realm as a matter of Necessity and take matters into their own hands, or were the Religious Institutions so weak that they had no effective Power for intervening against Political excesses? 

In the first instance we have an example of the Catholic Church and the Crusades.  Waves of Barbarians had been coming from the East and had made predations and inroads into the Islamic Sultanate which would eventually end with the Collapse of the Golden Age of Islam and with the Islamic World being held captive by first the Mongols and then the Turks, leading to an age of barbarism from which they had never really been able to recover.   But Catholic Europe, held together by a network of Catholic Clergy, noticed the Threat, for indeed, many Islamic Princes from various regions in the Sultanate had even applied to the Roman Pope for assistance against the invading Barbarians, who, while calling themselves Muslim, were still thieves and barbarians, resorting to bare conquest whenever their purses ran thin.  Seeing that Europe was next in line for Invasion from the East, the clergy applied to the Warrior Castes, the Lords and Knights, and gathered an Army sufficient to buffer Europe with a line drawn in the Mid-East, at Jerusalem.  While the rest of the World sank under Genghis Khan and remained backward for the rest of the Millennium, Europe survived, and only because the Church had been willing and able to take off its Religious Hood and put on a Political Hat. 

The next example is of Religion being too weak to stop Political Excess.  I have heard people blame Catholicism for the NAZIs, because Adolf Hitler had been christened a Catholic.  Well, after the defeat of Catholicism and the Rise of Anti-Christical Protestantism, and then the Rise of Secular Atheism after the French Revolution, Catholicism has been rendered utterly toothless, with no political influence and little moral influence over a World that laughs at the too-obviously morally fastidious.  Perhaps the most famous of the dark quips about Catholic Political Impotence came from Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union’s Strong Man during World War Two.  When being told that the Catholic Pope had made some demands from himself and some of the other World Leaders in regards to the Moral Considerations of the Conduct of the War, Joseph Stalin paused to think and then replied, “Yes, yes, all very well, but remind me again, how many Armored Divisions does the Pope have?”  The idea was that if the Church has no real Potical Power, then it has no real political influence, and that it should run off and play with the other children and let the Adults speak amongst each other.  

So, if the Pope was in any way responsible for the excesses committed in World War II, it was because he had failed to assemble a serious enough contingent of Armored Divisions, Bomber Squadrons and strategic Naval Vessels to back up his boast, so to speak.  But he would have been blamed for that too. 

Poor Religion.  Its ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t’.

Religion as Ethnicity – Tribalism

We often here that Religion is the cause for all that is wrong in the World.  People name anyone of two or three of the Major World Religions, or even some of the minor ones, and then cite all of the terrible social and political problems in those areas, and especially where the regions overlap, and, of course, everything that is not all goodness and light is on account of the dark and sinister influence of Religion. 

One of the failures in the logic here is that so few of these people in these Religious Zones are actually practicing Religious.  In this regards “Religion” is being made a substitute for what behaves exactly like Ethnicity.  For instance, one thinks of Jews as people who practice Judaism, but, really, it actually describes an Ethnic Classification.  You will hear some Jews say that they are not ‘practicing’ Jews, but they won’t deny that they are still Jewish.  The same goes in regards to many of the World’s Catholics.  For instance, an Irish Catholic is a Catholic whether he ever goes to Mass or not.  With Islam it is a bit different, as there is so much social duress involved in keeping up the appearances of religious practice, so in many Islamic Communities for the most part the Muslims don’t have much of a choice, and have to be seen practicing their Religion, but that doesn’t mean that their hearts are really ‘in it’.  

But, yes, I do concede that there are people who do indeed sincerely practice their Religion, but they still might act Ethnically, under the name of the Religion. 

So, anyway, we need to determine what this Ethnic Behavior is, and how it differs strictly from Religious Behavior.  

This reminds me of Woodrow Wilson, who had been President of the United States and was best known for having brought the United States into the First World War.  But before all of that he had been a Professor of History at Princeton University, one of the finest schools in America.  He had written a treatise about Democracy and had concluded that Democracy would eventually resolve into “Ethnic Self-Determination”, which at the time everyone thought was fine and dandy, that is, until the rise of German Nationalism, Italian Nationalism, and all of the Balkan Nationalisms, which would use Democratic inroads in order to subjugate the various multi-ethnic States to effective Ethnic Dictatorships.  Ethnic Self-Determinism would prove more of a Curse then a Blessing.   

You see, for all the talk that Democracy is about Popular Self Representation, Woodrow Wilson had recognized that not all of the people could possibly be represented, and that the structural dynamics of Democracy could only go so far as to guarantee that 51% of the people would be represented.  Democracy would be dictatorship of the Majority, and Minorities could be effectively disenfranchised, thrown only enough bones to keep them from violent rioting, or, in today’s terms, to keep them from recruiting themselves off to terrorist organizations. Isn’t it odd that Today we look back at violent riots, of people burning down their own Cities, with a twinge of Nostalgia, when we compare it to the Modern Craze for cold-blooded and heartless terrorist bomb attacks. 

So, in a Political Jurisdiction where the people are all roughly of the same Ethnic Background, that is, looking at the people, apart from any distinctive dress or costume, they would all look about the same, then Distinctions would resolve to their particular Religious Community.

And not just Religions can act in this way.  Take France for instance.  After the Revolution, Religion, any Religion, became anathema.  And everyone in France is, well, French.  So how could people make Quasi-Ethnic distinctions whereby some people would have Privilege and the remaining people subjugated to be the workers and servants?  France’s Answer to this basic question was Free Masonry.  After the Revolution the Bourgeoisie, to cement their victory over the Aristocracy, or, rather, to cement their inclusion into the New Aristocracy, created Orders of Free Masonry.  They would help only themselves and keep everyone else on the outside.  It was Tribalism fresh in new wrappings.  It started as a Secret Organization, but did so well and soon monopolized all of the real Power that they no longer felt the need to hide, and proudly wear their I-Am-Better-Than-You-Are Pins on their lapels.  In America they still feel the need to hide in the Dark, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t running everything.  

Anyway, how is Religion any different?  Well, given today’s conditions, with the Collapse of Civilization, and the competition between all the various Barbaric Influences, Religion is largely prevented from attaining to its true moral potential.   You see, Religion’s primary purpose is to give Society enough of a Moral Base to make Civilization possible.  No Civilization can thrive with Barbarians stealing everything, or taking everything and calling it Free Competition.  People need to Cooperate, and this Cooperation is made possible by Religion and the Moral Institutions that Religion creates, teaches and supports.  We would see that Religious People would voluntarily cooperate and work as one big team.  And, there can only be One Religion, perfectly speaking, or, of course, we would have Quasi-Ethnic Identification and In-Fighting going on, and the Civilization would split up.  Then, ironically, the Religion that is geared the best for Exploitation and being Predatory, that is, the Religion that is least as Religion should be, would win in the End – collapsing Civilization for the sake of short term profits.  For instance, Protestantism and, before it in the same model, Judaism, which, unlike with the more morally fastidious Religions, are not ashamed of Usury and are proud to charge Interest and to make Greed something of an avant-garde Virtue, not for Everybody of course, but for the Elect of God, or the Chosen People, as the case might be. 

And where one Religion uses sneaky and shameless Doctrines to wrest power and influence away from the more restrained and morally benevolent Religions, well, unfortunately, we have seen historically that sometimes these ‘benevolent’ Religions do not automatically “turn the other cheek” but will lash out in in some apparently insane anger and even with violence.  It is not the best view of a Religion.  But what did Jesus say, “sometimes the Spirit is willing but the Flesh is weak”.  I suppose that Jesus understood that sometimes the Mind is the thing that is weak.

So, anyway, to see how a Religion really is, one needs to see it within its Own Society, its own Civilization, without mixing up the variables.  And what Yardstick do we use to measure?  Well, what I have always said of Civilization, is that Civilized Institutions allow for the greatest Density of Population, that is, the better people can get along, the more people you can confine within a given area.  So the Measure of Religion can perhaps be taken in the same way, with the provision that a Good Religion should implement strategies to keep some eventual Lid on the Growth of Population.   We can see this distinction with Chinese Civilization.  The Chinese are traditionally so Civilized that they have achieved, time and time again, the greatest Population Densities in Human History.  But time and time again they have pushed through the Saturation Breaking Point and their Society had collapsed and there were major De-Population Events – Collapses of Civilization.  Of course, they would bounce back after 100 or 150 or 300 years, but that hardly negates the suffering in between.  It was kind of like the Success of Capitalism, where so much is made of the Wealthy Boom Periods, but when the Busts and the Depressions and the Numerous Recessions are mentioned, we are told that that is all “necessary corrections and adjustments”.  So, in the same way, we can have a ‘very successful’ Civilization, maximizing Resources and packing the world shoulder to shoulder with Population, until it comes to the point of needing to Adjust and Correct, and it all collapses in Disease, Hunger and Famine for 50 or so years.  So, Civilized Institutions are really not enough.  Within the Dynamics of Civilization, Religion can both foster the Cooperation between People to make High Population Densities possible and at the same time inculcate Principles and Values aimed at moderating Population Growth and to aim at some kind of sustainable Population Equilibrium.

How Religion Deals with Sin

No Civilization can long flourish without Religion.  Without Religion fortifying Morality, while people would still insist they knew the difference between right and wrong, as so many atheists today claim, they would simply find it convenient, time and time again, to violate Rightness, by cheating, or lying, or even stealing.  That is, when they knew they would not get caught.   This is a bigger problem for Atheists then they would choose to admit, for, after all, 5 minutes after they decide that there is no rational reason to believe in God, they would decide the same about Morality.   We can see the best example of this in the Moral Behaviors coming from Societies that had been longest steeped in Atheist and Materialist Doctrines, the Countries of the Former Soviet Union, now the homes and sources of the most ruthless Criminal Enterprises and Capitalist Corporations in the World.  You know, it is not impossible that they could take over the World, as it is difficult to imagine how they could possibly be stopped, given the West’s sad lack of commitment and effectiveness when it comes to fighting crime and business corruption.  

So it would take a strong and convincing Religious Indoctrination in order to raise up a People who not only believe in Morality, but would consistently act Morally, ignoring every convenient moment when they could benefit by some sly and secret sin.  

You would think such things would be obvious to those who deal with moral theology, the people who “think up” Religions, but apparently it isn’t.  Some Religions deal with Sin almost as badly as do the Atheists.  For instance, Protestant Christianity, based almost entirely on the Doctrines of Paul, whom I really consider to be the Anti-Christ.  From Paul, and paul’s apologists, we have the doctrine of Original Sin, that is, that people are by nature sinful and can do nothing with their own free will to change that and behave Morally.  Furthermore, Paul assigns the purpose of Christianity to be all wrapped up in forgiving Sins and distributing a Free Salvation.  Behavior is addressed only to dismiss its importance.  For instance, Paul describes the Sins of Jacob and goes on to conclude that God loved Jacob just fine despite all that unpleasantness.   This brings us to the Doctrine of Election and Predestination, where God simply loves some Souls while holding others as reprobate, for reasons only apparent to God Himself and having nothing to do with Moral Behavior or Righteousness.  What kind of Civilization could possibly run on such a set of dark and cynical doctrines?  Well, ours, for the last 400 years, but we can see what we are coming to with all of that.  

Yes, Catholicism started from this core of Paulist Error, but as the centuries progressed, certain Saints and Apparitions appeared and worked to introduce Corrections into Catholic Doctrine and Practice.  The Catholicism that was alive at the time of the Golden Age of Catholicism in Europe had largely forgotten Paul, except in certain pockets of Church Corruption where the Anti-Christ, that is, Paul, was still remembered and cherished.  We can see this in the complaints of Martin Luther, that famous first Protestant who nailed his challenges to the Church Door, the biggest one of which was that the Church no longer taught the doctrines of Paul.  It just shows what an idiot Martin Luther was in particular, and the Protestant Churches in general, that they considered that A ‘problem’.  

So, yes, the Protestants would teach Paul.  They did have a bit of a problem at first, since Paul was not Christ, and certain references in the Bible itself go toward minimizing Paul and holding him in suspicion.  So the Doctrine of holding the entire Bible as all equally being the Inspired “Word of God” was propounded.  In this way the Words of Paul could be allowed the same weight as the Words of Jesus Christ Himself.  But in practice the words of Jesus slipped into oblivion, and only the Words of Paul were ever quoted.   

All this has given us what we have today, which is Predatory Protestantism and Greed-as-a-Virtue Capitalism.  Many people would argue that it was all in fact a good thing.  Well, yes, the Protestants did need to abandon all Moral Concerns in order to murder all the Priests, Monks and Nuns that stood in their way from confiscating all Church Property in Captured Protestant Europe.  This “Free” Property, combined with the freeing up of so many resources, from having murdered so many Catholics, did bring about a kind of economic ‘boom’, for the survivors.  The opening up of America, an accident of History, did not hurt either.  But, in any case, it is really not an argument for Thievery that in many cases the Thieves do economically better than the people they victimize.  The problem goes toward Sustainability.  First the Thieves steal from innocent Victims, and then from each other, until they all turn on each other and it all collapses in a fiery and dismal End of Civilization, as we see swiftly approaching us today.    

I wish I could better defend Modern Catholicism, and while some of the Religious Orders are Moral Exemplars, the corrupt old Bishops are still as thoroughly paulist as their Protestant Colleagues, for instance, forgiving themselves over and over again for the worst instances of sexual misconduct and materialistic self-aggrandizing, and, from looking at their photos, of gluttony.  And even when the Church does speak on Morality, it is almost exclusively in terms of sexuality.  So caught up in the nasty and prurient that they forget there are such a things as a Social Morality.  And even then their Sexual Morality is utterly confused.  For instance, while it is disgusting and immoral for people who are not married “in the church”, as they say, to have sex, if they are married in the church, then all that grunting and humping becomes a virtual Religion Sacrament, oh, and just so long as nobody uses a condom or takes a pill.  Yes, it is okay to use thermometers and calendars to avoid pregnancy, because these methods are flawed enough to be ignored by Religious Moral Philosophy.  So the Church has decided that Carnality and the Pleasures of the Flesh are a good thing, as long as all that Stooping and Grunting is done in the Church, so to speak.  It reminds me of the Sacred Prostitutes in the Temples of Babylon – religion getting in the Sex Business is probably never a good idea.  

In reality, the role of Religion in regards to Sexuality should be to discourage too much excessive carnality, and to emphasize that people are generally happier the less they are obsessed with sex.  Then there are the considerations of Over Population, where we can see the benefits of encouraging Monastic Institutions that encourage life-long celibacy, and not looking too closely at how these ‘celibates’ pretend to accomplish such a physical impossibility.   Religion’s stance on Sexuality should always aim at the utmost discretion, ignoring it whenever at all possible.  

Islam has the same tunnel-vision focus on Sexual Morality.  They’ll kill a teenage girl for having had sex, while she was being forcefully raped you understand, and somehow it never puzzles them that they make sex a bigger sin then murder.  I am not sure as to Islamic Doctrine, but it would seem that they believe that Men have no control over their Sexual Conduct but assign all moral responsibility to those who Tempt and Seduce these poor helpless men, and so it is always the girls that get the blame.  So there really is not the same idea of Rape in Islam as in the West.  They can say the girl showed too much ankle and that whatever followed was largely inevitable.  Yes, in an isolated Society one could see that such a notion could be advanced and held as the truth, as long as all the men consistently acted in conformance to such low moral expectations, but with all the Western Influences crashing in upon them, they must be aware, from all the Movies and TV, that Western men are quite often confronted by women who are almost completely nude, and while it might capture their momentary interest, in most cases the men stay controlled and even polite.  Yes, not all, but certainly most.  We still have plenty of raping celebrity athletes to worry about, but thankfully they are in the minority, so to speak.   Now, if Western Men, that is most of them, can forebear acting like sexually depraved mad dogs, then why can’t Islamic Men see that they should expect the same of themselves and dismiss their ancient and tired belief in their own sexual helplessness.    

Oh, moving on, perhaps the biggest obstacle to a Religion dealing well with Morality is that Religions can hardly rise up in the Real World, overcoming enemies and dealing with practically impossible problems, without committing acts that would be huge moral embarrassments, and used in the Future as examples of why it would be Right to do Wrong.  For instance, Jesus got angry at a tree and blasted it, and then went to town and started flipping over shop stalls and flogging the merchants.  These are real problems for anybody who claims that Jesus was the Perfect Son of God, the Messiah.  Actually, this is why I think Jesus resigned from being the Messiah.  You know when Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane asked God to take the Cup from Him, well, most people think this means that Jesus was asking to be spared the Crucifixion, but what actually happed was Jesus was upset with Himself for his moral failures and asked God to let him resign, to give up being the Messiah.  And God consented, immediately withdrawing all of the Angelic Protections that had guarded him and kept him safe up until then.  He was dead within the day… well, almost dead.   The Romans took bribes to cut Jesus down early (it really takes days to kill people by Crucifixion… death is be dehydration and starvation) and history records Jesus moving onto Damascus and then points East.  He was identified by the scars on his palms.  

Jewish Tradition is loaded with any number of embarrassing moral faux pas.  For instance, Jacob was obviously Pre-Moral, a barbarian in the Age of Barbarism, not much better and not much worse than anybody else of his Time, but not fit to be a Moral Example in any Era much since the Rise of Zoroastrianism, the World’s first Moral Religion, about 3000 years ago. 

Islam suffers the worst from accidental bad examples.  Yes, if people would simply have given Mohamed his way with everything from the very start, then there would not have been such an extensive history of violence and moral relativity in the accidental history of Islam.  Then there is the History of Violence that follows throughout the Centuries for  Islam.  Everything Past is an example for Even More Violence.  Islamic Scholars have tried to deal with this, but for every single good Moral Scholar there are at least a thousand Ruthless Thugs who can use the Example of Violence to further their own self-interests.  Islamic Societies will always be inherently unstable as long as it remains so easy to call people to arms and violence for just about any reason at all.  And so it is for any Nation that has risen out of Violence and created a kind of cherished Justifiable Homicide from out of its History.  Every Modern wannabee Murderer wants to see himself as a Hero Revolutionary, like George Washington, and to think in terms where Mass Murder is called victory.  

It is difficult to imagine how a new major World Religion could form up without leaving some trail of unfortunate moral accidents that could be seen as bad examples for future generations.  Perhaps the best antidote for this is to insist that Nobody, not even the finest Saints or Religious Leaders can be seen as entirely Perfect, that is as Totally Inspired at every moment in their lives by the Hand and Voice of God, but that it will always be the case that Mistakes will Happen, and just because Jesus cursed a tree and slapped around a few store owners, does not mean we should go about and also do the same such things.  The unpleasantness of such behaviors should be obvious to anybody with a calm mind and a peaceful disposition.   These Religious ‘Bad’ Examples should be used to point out that almost anybody, when pushed too hard and too long can begin to unravel and be distraught, and that there are moments in History that nobody ever wished for and everybody would rather have avoided, but which must be dealt with anyway, and while these things aren’t good, and should never be seen as good, the best that can be hoped for is that these repugnant moral violations prevent the occurrence of events that would have been far more worse.  For example, guaranteeing sick people against their will so that entire Societies aren’t wiped out by a Plague.  But, still, it is a philosophically bothersome to ever open up the door the least crack for Moral Relativism.  Using immoral deeds at first for the most desperate last resorts starts the way to using immoral deeds for mere matters of convenience.  In many ways the Best Thing would be to hold all Moral Infractions as Unforgiveable, and simply do away with any hint of “the ends should ever justify the means”. 

But how could such a Strict Philosophy of Religion thrive in the same World where people do sometimes reluctantly make moral mistakes, and are pushed by overwhelming circumstances into crossing certain moral boundaries?  Well, like the Catholic Church and their institution of the Confessional, we could insist, that while no Sin can ever be Forgiven, they can be dealt with and eventually left behind. 

It was part of Paulist Doctrine that Sin would somehow permanently stain the spirit and soul.  He needed this perspective in order to make such a big deal of Forgiveness and Salvation.  But, really, psychologically, we do not see truly permanent stains and eternal scars.  What do they say?  “Time heals all”.  With regret and remorse, and with the appropriate moral guidance, people can redirect their lives and begin to live new lives and someday look back upon their misdeeds in a kind of wonder that they were ever able to do such sad or horrible deeds.  

This is the idea of Purgatory, that sinners given enough time and the right circumstances can be ‘purged’ of their sinfulness. 

This reminds me of my Dream in which two heavenly scholars taught me of the two kinds of Sin:  Red Sin and Black Sin.   Red Sin is conditional upon the needs and urges of Bodily Existence.  Souls may develop the bad habits of Red Sin – lust and gluttony, or stealing for food, etc, but with death and the dropping off of the body, the soul has little trouble getting beyond the Red Sins and achieving a real Spiritual Purity.  But the Black Sins are worse and more corrupting – hating and victimizing other souls, and having overbearing pride.  Such sins don’t just belong to the body but would follow the Soul even into the afterlife and persist until they are dealt with.   

In this Life or the Next can a Mean and Nasty Person ever change for the better and become a candidate for Spiritual Purity?   Well, it puts me in mind of Charles Dickins “A Christmas Carol”, the story of the redemption of mean and selfish old Ebenezer Scrooge.  Apparently Dickens felt that people could undergo moral transformations.  And nowadays we have Anger Management Programs and Positive Psychology Workshops, all premised on the idea that people can be transformed in both their behaviors and their more basic modes and outlooks. 

This is what Religion really needs to focus on – making people better people.

The Institutional Money Hole and Special Interests

When it comes to institutional spending, there is something of a Paradox in action. The ordinary thinking that is that if we have a huge societal problem, then we can spend money and invest in resources to fix the problem. But what actually happens is the problem becomes institutionalized. We pay because we have a problem, and the money is used to address the problem in any number of ways, but somehow the problem never gets fixed. The money is being spent to effectively perpetuate the problem. You see, if the problem were ever to be fixed, then the money would go away and everyone involved would lose their jobs.

Apparently nice people can do crazy things to protect their incomes. There was an AIDS Conference some years ago and a young researcher stood up to address the Conference, and when it became apparent that he was about to address the issue of a higher AIDS rate among those practicing anal intercourse, he was booed off the stage, and his paper was not allowed to be read into the minutes. You see, at the time the AIDS Scientific Community wanted more funding, and it was thought they could get more funding if they stressed the “fact” that AIDS was a heterosexual mainstream disease too, and they were will to hide any inconvenient evidence to the contrary, all while believing they were doing the right thing. Oh, and this is what concerns me of the chronic and widespread atheism in the Scientific Community, that once they have figured out that there is no rational basic to believe in God, then the very next step is to determine that there is likewise no rational basis for morality, virtue, truth or honor, and that they might rationalize any course of action for whatever reasons appeal to them, money not being the least of such things.

So back to the idea of Money being used to perpetuate the problems it is supposed to be fixing. Examples are easy to come up with. The United States funding Israel. It has turned the Israeli Economy into a permanent war economy. Their Society would collapse if they ever made peace with their neighbors, and so we will never have peace in the middle east, because we pay so much to have a perpetual war. Now the U.S. is about to do the same with Afghanistan, proposing to give the Kabal Regime 2 billion dollars every year that they don’t come to peace with the Talaban. Oh, and U.S. is also giving Columbia billions of dollars a year to close down the Drug Cartels. Guess how likely that is to ever happen. Now the U.S. is probably thinking of giving Mexico money to stop all the drug cartel related killings in their country. That ought to make everything better, but effectively it will be paying them to continue on with the slaughters, as long as the Yankee Dollars keep flowing in.

Funding the Cure for diseases is the saddest of all examples. Research Laboratories and Pharmaceutical Companies make too much money off of disease to ever cure anything. I suppose many of the worst diseases have already been cured a dozen times over, but the research is proprietary and it is hid out of sight, or outright burned to keep it from publication. No Million Dollar Nobel Prize can compete with diseases that bring in hundreds of millions of dollars a year in pharmaceutical and treatment profits. They will release results about drugs and treatments that only ameliorating symptoms, that is about keeping patients alive longer so they can buy more drugs. This is why everything in the Medical sphere needs to be made non-profit. We shouldn’t be setting prices on these matters of Life and Death.

What about energy. We can pour all sorts of money into alternative forms of energy, but the Trillion Dollar Oil Economy will find ways of sabotaging it all. I remember back in the late eighties or early nineties, that a TV news show, Prime Time Live, had advertised a story for the next Thursday night about a new invention. An amateur researcher, a president of a semi-large manufacturing company, had found that when he added a small electrical current to jars of water of a certain size filled with water and metal plated glass beads of a certain size and composition, then the water would break into a rolling boil. The steam energy from the boiling water could be sent through a dynamo and create hundreds of times more energy than the small current it had taken to precipitate the reaction. It was free energy, the heart of a perpetual motion machine. The Researcher had packaged his Experiment and sent five full sets to the best Universities in America in order to verify his findings. The advertisements for the show ran for a day, and then they were pulled, and it was like nothing had ever happened. You can say this for America, no one even knew there had been a scandal. Maybe America’s concern for Truth and Freedom in the rest of the World is only a concern for appearances, and that when Regimes clamp down, they should do it discretely so that nobody ever finds out, like they do in America.

Well, we can understand why America might have taken extreme measures to destroy the Perpetual Motion Free Energy Machine. The U. S. Dollar effectively rests on the value of Oil. It is not based on gold, and not on silver. Basically the dollar has a strong value because the OPEC Countries prefer that Oil be paid for with dollars, so any country buying Oil on the International Market needs to go into the Currency Exchange business first, and trade up the price of the Dollar. If Oil were to lose its value, so would the dollar and the American Economy would collapse. It also bares consideration that the same thing would happen if Saudi Arabia ever decided to open their trades to any international currency and not just the Dollar. We can only guess how much leverage this gives to Saudi Arabia regarding American foreign policies.

Anyway, so there was an invention that could have been used to stop the onset of Global Climate Change 20 years ago, and it was shelved because it would have eliminated Oil, the primary villain of Climate Change, all to protect the shaky moorings of our capitalistic based economy, which will collapse anyway, if not for one reason, then for another. The consequences of Climate Change and growing levels of Commodities Scarcity as Growth Capitalism goes further into saturation simply will not permit business as usual, and new Super-Computers can easily model and predict the End of Civilization, give or take five or ten years one way or the other.

Well, to tie this essay up, we will eventually have to address our problems, and address them with money expenditures, but we need to be careful how we do this. Money creates Special Interests which take on Political Lives of their own. Once created they refuse to die. We need to guarantee that All projects are explicitly temporary, and goal driven. We need to pay to fix our problems, and not pay to have them institutionalized.

So Arabs Want Democracy

We are being told that all the Arab Protestors want democracy. Really? The fact is that the Arab World enjoyed something like a ‘baby boom’ that has now grown up, kicking up the adult unemployment rate at exactly the same time as the World Commodities Price Crisis is shooting up the prices of Food and Fuel, throwing Economies into a New Recession before they had even begun to recover from the Old Recession. And the People, grasping for any straw, grasp for Democracy.

But would Democracy help? Well, they should read a few newspapers and see whether Democracy has been much help in America, in Europe, in Asia. These Economies are in just as much trouble, and if they are better positioned than the Arab Economies, it is only because they started out with more, having been successful Colonial Powers, before the Anarchy and Insanity inherent in Democracy made them fumble that card with a series of self-inflicted World Wars.

Democracy won’t bring jobs. China has more jobs than anybody, and they aren’t democratic. It’s the security and stability of their Authoritarian System that has attracted the capital that established so many jobs. America, the primary Torch Bearer of Democracy, has lost jobs.

There is one tactical advantage to Democracy. People don’t protest. They simply complain about the Party presently in Power and in the next Election, they vote for the other side. Democracy is a hypnotic Shell Game. Let people complain, and let them vote for the Other Guys. The problem is, the Other Guys are never much different from Original Guys. The Same Money nominates them both.

The Propagandists for Democracy emphasize the People’s Power to Vote. What they never mention is that the People are no where near being around when Candidates are picked out by the Powerful Few who pick the candidates, fund them, lay out their Media Plans, etc. The People only get to Vote for the Show Dogs that had already won the most important part of the Game – getting the Un-Official but all-important Nod of Approval. The Vested Interests run everything within Democracies. Yes, there may be sometimes crazy fringe minority parties, but they are hardly an improvement on the typical Oligarchy and Rule by the Rich, who may be selfish but are at least sane.

If the Arab Protestors and the Truly Disaffected, and not just opportunistic troublemakers in the pay of the Americans, really wanted to improve their lot,then they would want productive Governmental Reform. Not Democracy, but a Meritocracy, and a Bureaucracy that operates transparently. Do you want to be in Government? Then take the Civel Service Test. Do you want to stay in Government, then submit to the strictest Financial Audits. It would create Government that would be truly and effectively independent of Vested Interests and Foreign Influences, that is, Money.

Or you can do what the West does – vote vote vote vote vote, and nothing ever gets any better. Not only is it that the wrong people get elected, but that most Democracies had been intentionally designed to be institutionally weak and ineffective -- the euphemism they use is "checks and balances" but it simply assures that nothing important can ever get accomplished. The Rich and Powerful had stepped in from the very beginning and assured that Government would never be anything they would ever need to worry about.

So if you are willing to die for Democracy, just think of all the Rich People in the World, sitting with their feet propped up on Democracy, who are laughing at you. And they just can’t wait to kick their feet up on your Country too.

Neil Diamond “Dreams”

Timothy Yap did an excellent review of this album’s content, so I can do him the honor of not simply repeating the same message –‘less is more’ and all a very beautiful presentation.

But it needs to be said that Neil Diamond was the Producer on this project. My God! That is where he really shined!

Yes, the presentation did seem stripped down, but when one listens closely and repeatedly to this beautiful collection, well, the individual performances and the arrangements are genius. Now, that is what a producer does with a checkbook and a telephone, that is, if he is a great producer. Neil Diamond got the absolutely best people – the violin in “Blackbird”, the horn section in “Don’t Forget Me”, and the very heavy piano we hear throughout the entire repertoire. And all the studio time it must have taken. It was probably a considerable expense.

The Production Standards are some of the best I’ve ever seen. They remind me of the Rod Stewart ‘Great American Songbook’ collection, over the years finally getting up to Volume 5, which is really good, but they all have their merits, chiefly in the area of production values and standards. Great people were brought in and allowed the time to do their best work. And you can hear the fun they had making it.

I certainly hope that Neil Diamond’s “Dreams” is successful, or at least that it breaks even financially. Neil Diamond must have worked hard and found it very tiring, at his age, but at the same time, work of this quality is rewarding in the spiritual sense. So, if he is not financially ruined by this first installment of “Dreams”, then maybe, like the successful Rod Steward Series, we will see more of these superb collections from Neil Diamond. The titles will be fun – “Keep Dreaming” is one suggestion. Let the Old Man retire? Certainly not! There is plenty of time to retire when he is dead. If we buy these Dreams, he will keep making them because he is fulfilled by it.

And we do so much need collections of the Best. The Singer Songwriter era of music gave us so many wonderful songs, but they were only the tip of the iceberg of almost endless crap. To find the good songs, we had to suffer thousands of songs that the record companies foisted upon us. It’s the way Capitalism perverts things – original copyrights make more money, theoretically, than beautiful songs in the Public Domain, so the Capitalists wanted plenty of original copyrights – a new song every minute, but so few of these money grubbers had any true instincts for quality and culture and so most songs suck. So we were all submerged in this virtual landslide of garbage, yes, with a real potato here and a real carrot there, but mostly just garbage. The singer-songwriters were put under contract to produce, and produce they did, mostly bland stupid or eminently forgettable songs. That is why Greatest Hits albums sell so well, it is because people came to distrust ordinary albums, mostly stuffed with filler… songs nobody could possibly have been happy about, but simply produced to keep the Stupid Mindless Capitalists happy. Even most Greatest Hits albums are mostly filler. Honestly, most of the Singer Songwriters of this Era, had maybe one or two real ‘hits’ – songs that deserve to be remembered. One Hit Wonders. Any songwriter that has 3 or more actually good songs to their credit, should be honored with a ticker tape parade and a hero’s pension for Life… free coffee at Starbucks, etc. So, most Greatest Hits records should have only two or three selections. What purpose does it serve to roll out the filler garbage one more time in even their Greatest Hits Albums. It only tends to spoil the meal.

So it has become so hard to listen to any album from beginning to end nowadays. That is perhaps the most ascendant virtue in Neil Diamond’s “Dreams” , that every song is good, and one needs to skip over nothing.

So we do need Collections of the Good Songs. And it is good that one of the best Singer-songwriters of our Age uses his other considerable talents, the knowledge and taste he has acquired over the years, to give us not only the Best there is, but the Best that it can possibly be made to be. He takes the best and makes it better. We need to throw that man a parade… and buy his record.

Oh, a personal note on Neil Diamond. It’s odd, considering the body of his work, that he was never considered in the very top rank of the ‘Stars’. Maybe he wasn’t grungy enough, or he should have started off in a band. But he was always considered a fraction of a level down. Well, it didn’t keep me from buying his records. Indeed, there was a strange phenomenon that persuaded me to keep my mind open about the exact merits of Neil Diamond. I’m an amateur musician and my first love is the violin. Well, I NEVER break strings, that is, except when playing along with Neil Diamond’s “Holly Holy” . The song just builds and builds and builds, and one finds oneself scrubbing and sawing the violin like never before, trying to keep up with the building intensity. So, two or three times Neil Diamond has sent me to the store to get new violin strings. Nobody else. So when people criticize Neil Diamond… well, the Beatles never caused me to break a string… The man knows how to do a song.