Amos's River of Justice

Our Season of Creation

  • I’ve been wondering if the determination to control the message might explain the White House guest list for the Pope’s reception. ((Vatican pushes back over White House invite to Catholic Dissidents, Catholic New Agency, September 18, 2015. Available: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/vatican-pushes-back-over-white-house-invite-to-catholic-dissidents-51001/))

    I say this because I’m getting tired of the same-sex marriage issue taking over the conversation.  In fact, I’m tired of the LGBT issue, period.  I ended up writing this blog because of Wikipedia’s misogyny–women’s rights were my focus and with good reason–but instead of making headway on this problem women have been blindsided with legislation limiting reproductive rights, while in the same period the same-sex marriage initiative has been a great success.

    It’s not hard to make the case that fighting misogyny is more important to our society than same-sex marriage.  Half the U.S. population of 319 million is female while Americans identifying as gay or lesbian make up only 1.6 percent of the population, and those who consider themselves bisexual represent only .7 percent. Yet the LGBT issue vaults ahead, both in the media and in the courts.

    Many thought it was surprising that the Supreme Court approved this measure, but considering the character of these justices this should have made us suspicious about the potential uses of this issue.  What has happened here, besides the drowning out of women’s issues in the media, is that women have finally been made irrelevant.  Now men can marry and adopt children, while single women continue to lose their babies to adoption.  

  • You may be aware that when the Syrian conflict was just getting started Assad offered to team up with the U.S. to fight ISIS.  The U.S. said no thank you.  Now Putin has offered to help end it with pretty much the same result.  You might think the situation is too complex to make a judgement call here, but once you’ve made it a priority to protect populations in each country, it becomes clear that it’s a mistake to reject such an offer.  Here Stephen F. Cohen and and John Bachelor talk about Putin’s recent offer to help end the Syrian civil war: ((http://www.thenation.com/article/the-obama-administration-rejects-russias-offer-to-form-a-new-military-coalition-vs-isis-in-syria/))

    Also in the last post I called for an end to the World Bank.  Well, it looks like the bank is up to its old tricks in Greece.  Greece’s creditors have raised taxes on Greek Farmers.  They’ve also removed food import restrictions. See: List of prior actions – version of 26 June 20 00-2

    Here’s an article that illustrates just how upside-down the World Bank’s current agricultural policies really are: ((http://www.rightingfinance.org/?p=1055))

    And you might like to read about an ongoing campaign to dismantle both the World Bank and the IMF. ((http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/ecology/dismant.htm))

  • Masses of humanity overrunning neighboring borders is not the kind of thing I had in mind when I said we should focus on supporting a growing population. My context was the justification of automation in agriculture with the need to feed a growing population. I was referring to an article in which automation had already been justified by the profit motive.  I argued that corporate profitability and prosperity don’t mix. Putting the population first in this case would mean employing more people. If this makes the agriculture industry unprofitable, it’s the industry that should be considered expendable—not the workers.

    The profit motive is more expensive in the long run. The refugee crisis in Syria began at least fifty years ago with bad agricultural policy. Desertification of the Syrian Steppe began in 1958 when the former Bedouin commons were opened up to unrestricted grazing and the eastern part of the steppe was put under intensive agriculture using underground irrigation. The nomads and farmers that were displaced by these practices were then forced to eek out a living in the cities, which explains why the protests began in provincial towns rather than in Damascus or Aleppo. ((Serra, Gianluca, Overgrazing and Desertification in the Syrian Steppe Are the Root Causes of War. Ecologist, June 5, 2015. Available: http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2871076/overgrazing_and_desertification_in_the_syrian_steppe_are_the_root_causes_of_war.html))

    Regardless of the cause, at this point the U.S. is obliged to do its part for Syrian refugees. But going forward we need policies that are designed to help people where they live. It’s true that we have no control over the agricultural policies of countries like Syria which were influenced by the Soviet Union. However in the West the World Bank’s policies have been just as damaging.

    Aside from rampant corruption, (I moved the discussion of Richard Behar’s Forbes article to the end this post) one of the main characteristics of the World Bank’s Green Revolution, from 1970 to 1990, was the removal of poor farmers from their land. As in Syria, these farmers either migrated to the cities or moved to areas with poorer soils. It is estimated that with the added pressure of the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, up to a third of the world’s population has been dragged into a cycle of poverty and hunger. Unbelievably, according to its 2008 World Development Report, the World Bank plans to resume its focus on agriculture while ignoring the lessons of history. The basis of its agenda remains the transfer of resources away from peasants and toward large capitalist firms. ((Kersson, Tanya, Land and Resource Grabs: the World Bank’s Long War on Peasants. Global Research, April 24, 2015. Available: http://www.globalresearch.ca/land-and-resource-grabs-the-world-banks-long-war-on-peasants/5444917))

    If the well-being of the global population is a priority, it makes no sense to uproot people and destroy working ecosystems. Instead, our policies should have the goal of allowing people to thrive where they are. This would benefit the environment and also decrease the flow of refugees. But if we want to accomplish altruistic goals, they have to actually be our focus.

    Today a handful of people believe that wealth and power entitle them to rule the world. Their decisions are profit driven, but in order to sell them to the public they then tack on altruistic goals, like feeding the world, spreading democracy, or enforcing peace. This is not policy—this is sleight of hand. It’s no wonder nothing gets done.

    Dismantle the World Bank. Rein in the corporations.  If you’re still not convinced please read Richach Behar’s article in Forbes.  A summary follows:

    According to a 2012 Forbes article ((Behar, Richard, World Bank Spins Out of Control: Corruption, Dysfunction Await New President. Forbes, June 27, 2012. Available: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2012/0716/feature-world-bank-robert-zoellick-too-big-to-fail.html)) things were pretty bad when Dr. Jim Yong Kim took over as president. Richard Behar’s assessment at that time was that the system needs a complete overhaul. Since that article was written things have gone from bad to worse. ((Lakhani, Nina, World Bank’s Ethics Under Scrutiny after Honduras Loan Investigation. Available: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2014/jan/13/world-bank-ethics-scrutiny-honduras-loan-investigation))

    Behar argued that the World Bank’s problems are philosophical, structural, and cultural. Examples of the philosophical problem include a failure to articulate a vision for the World Bank’s role in the 21st century, and the handling of countries like China which no one wants to offend, with the result that China’s abuses are tolerated.

    The cultural problem refers to a culture of fear—fear of loss of reputation for the Bank, fear of being the target of a witch hunt for whistle-blowers.

    The most obvious structural fault would be the huge annual budget combined with a lack of oversight by the governments that provide the funds, leading to corruption at all levels.

    In my opinion, you would also have to include a corporate way of thinking that convinced reasonable people this setup would work in the first place. Frankly it’s difficult to believe that the World Bank’s negative outcomes could be caused by a bunch of hapless people. The bank’s destructive tendencies are too consistent. 

     

  • I’m afraid I’m still focused on the presidential campaign.  I didn’t intend to spend so much time on this subject, but it seems the activities of Black Lives Matter and the support they have received from the ‘liberal’ media need some kind of explanation.  The media pretends it’s a question of whether BLM members have a right to be angry about structural racism.  They do, but that’s not the point.  The point is whether it makes sense for progressives to shut down Bernie Sanders.  What can explain this mystery?  A word of warning: we can’t blame all Black Lives Matter activists for this. Apparently some Seattle members of Black Lives Matter were shocked when they learned that Bernie’s speech had been shut down.

    Strangely, the ACLU seems as untroubled by this spectacle as the media.  This organization has been sending emails asking for signatures and donations to fight government surveillance of Black Lives Matter.  They seem unaware that many of us don’t agree with what they are doing.  It turns out that the ACLU does not necessarily represent progressives.  In fact, since the 1970s the ACLU has been a leading advocate for the expansion of constitutional rights for corporations.  Its advocacy of corporate rights has actually served to diminish its human rights gains.((Nace, Ted, Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy.  Berret-Koehler Publishers Inc. San Francisco. 2003.))

    But the ACLU is an advocate for minorities, right?  Not necessarily.  Here is an example of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois response to a problem that Chicago’s black youth was trying to address:  The ACLU bypassed black activists and made a back-room deal with  Mayor Rahm Emanuel that has the potential to shut down dialogue on the issue of stop and frisk.  The ACLU was negotiating their own deal secretly while claiming to support the STOP Act that the activists were trying to pass.  The ACLU’s deal will not require the police department to release information about stops, as the STOP Act would have done.  In other words, the ACLU’s deal won’t solve the problem, it will only make things easier for the city.  ((Hayes, Kelly, ACLU of Illinois Sells Out Chicago’s Black Youth. Truthout, 14 Aug. 2015. Available: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/32361-aclu-of-illinois-sells-out-chicago-s-black-youth))

    The influence of the ACLU might also explain the curious fact that Black Lives Matter hasn’t shut down any of Hillary Clinton’s speeches.  Maya L. Harris, one of three senior policy advisers to lead the development of an agenda for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, was formerly a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.  From 2008 until she took her current position, she was Vice President for Democracy Rights and Justice at the Ford Foundation.  Prior to joining the ford Foundation, she served as the Executive Director of the ACLU of Northern California.  ((Wikipedia: Maya Harris. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Harris))

  • It looks like Bernie Sanders’ campaign has already moved on in responding to Black Lives Matter.  I probably should make it clear that the following is just my opinion.

    On Saturday a group of people belonging to an organization called Black Lives Matter stormed into a Netroots Nation town meeting with the apparent aim of giving Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley heck.  Then on Sunday and Monday, there were ‘thoughtful’ articles asking whether Bernie Sanders can win over the black vote.  Black lives do matter, but in my opinion this story doesn’t add up.  Why the hostility?

    There were black people at the rally.  They weren’t storming around.  They were listening, like everyone else.  On the way out I asked a young black woman what she thought of the rally.  She said she liked his ideas.  She had thought she might vote for Hilary but she was reconsidering.

    When Senator Sanders appeared on stage on Saturday night he was obviously amazed at the size of the crowd.

    “Somebody told me Arizona is a conservative state. Somebody told me the people here have given up on the political process. That’s not what I see here tonight. There’s nothing we can’t accomplish in transforming America!”

    The thing is, the people who told him that Arizona is a conservative state were right.  In certain circles Arizona is conservative.  However, the conservatives were not there on Saturday night. Either that or they couldn’t make themselves heard over the cheering, because more than eleven thousand people liked what they heard.  Here’s the rally from my point of view.

    The Bernie Sanders rally from my point of view
    The rally from my point of view

     

     

     

     

    IMG_0020
    After the rally

  • I recently said that the words of those who criticize Laudato Si’ have no substance. Now I’ll try to be more specific.  Laudato Si’ is a rebuke of current practices, including agribusiness, but it is not the only dissenting voice.  In this post, agribusiness meets reality.

    My concerns about the environment are based on an undeniable fact. Regardless of whether we manage to slow the birthrate, the human population will reach 9 billion people by 2050. The world has never had this many people before. Since we can’t see the future we have to plan according to the facts we do have. If our goal is to support the projected number of people, our first priority should be food and water.  However, current policy-makers are oblivious to this goal.

    (more…)

  • Some time ago it occurred to me that my earnest attempts to correct misogynistic notions are based on a misunderstanding. I thought misogynists were not aware of the facts. But when it comes to the battle of the sexes, the facts are not all that important. They are not even the point. Misogyny is an article of faith. A case in point is the imaginary misogyny suburb discussed by Rebecca Solnit in Harpers Magazine. It may be futile, but I will always have sympathy for those who insist on stating the facts.  That’s what Solnit did in her article, Shooting Down Man the Hunter.

    “Sooner or later in conversations about who we are, who we have been, and who we can be, someone will tell a story about Man the Hunter. It’s a story not just about Man but about Woman and Child too. There are countless variants, but all of them go something like this: In primordial times men went out and hunted and brought home meat to feed women and children, who sat around being dependent on them. In most versions, the story is set in nuclear units, such that men provide only for their own family, and women have no community to help with the kids. In every version, women are baggage that breeds.

    “Though it makes claims about human societies as they existed 200,000 or 5 million years ago, the story itself isn’t so old. Whatever its origins, it seems to have reached a peak of popularity only in the middle of last century…”

    This version of human history traces the dominant socioeconomic arrangements of the late Fifties and early Sixties back to the origins of our species. Therefore, Solnit calls it the story of the 5-million-year-old suburb. 1

    Patriarchy is an Article of Faith.

    In the past I thought the facts mattered. So, I walked into Wikipedia’s Patriarchy article and wasted years of my life. My arguments against the nonsensical claims and unfair tactics of unidentified editors changed nothing.

    Now I know better. I have learned for example that while human evolution may not have progressed the way the sociobiologists say it did, everything they say is ‘true’. What’s more, it has always been ‘true’. And last but not least, it always will be ‘true’. Sociobiology is a scientific remake of the Adam and Eve story.

    Misogyny in the Art World

    The Nation Magazine recently published an article about Sonia Terk. 2 I knew her from Albert Gleizes’s 3 biography as Sonia Delaunay. I hadn’t realized she was Jewish, but according to David Cottington (cited below), just being female would have been enough of a handicap among the French avant-garde.

    One of the changes that took place in the French art business was the appearance in the mid-1890s of sufficient numbers of buyers to make speculation in, and collection of, contemporary art feasible. At first, interest was limited to established artists but the entrance of American collectors like Morgan, Rockefeller and Whitney led to a rise in the cost of impressionist paintings and eventually to increased interest in post-impressionist work. This gave legitimacy to neoimpressionists and nabis. Prices for these works were too high for many collectors, but they encouraged a speculative interest at the lower end of the contemporary market, in the work of young, unorthodox or unknown – but invariably male – artists.

    A Separate Critical Category for Women Artists: Femmes Peintres

    In response to the growing number of women studying and practicing art around 1900, (Terk studied at the Palette) a new critical category was added: femmes peintres. Their work was perceived to carry ‘feminine’ aesthetic sensibilities and interests. As one critic helpfully put into words, the works of females threatened to become a plague, a fearful confusion, and a terrifying stream of mediocrity’. This attitude was a direct result of the construction of artistic identity in terms of masculinity. The idea of individualism, the belief in the autonomy of genius, mastery over the city and its urban spaces, were all seen as male prerogatives. The fantasy was the earthy but poetic male whose life is organized around his instinctual needs. 6

    It’s a sociobiological-feminist apology for fossil fuels!

  • A recent article on stratfor.com focused on the trend toward automation in agriculture, which this writer presents as a positive development.((How Future Farmers Will Use Technology to Improve Agriculture, stratfor.com analysis. May 13, 2015. Available: https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/us-how-future-farmers-will-use-technology-improve-agriculture)) By contrast, John Lanchester’s review of The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies ((Lanchester, John, The Robots Are Coming. London Review of Books, March 5, 2015))discusses some of the not-so-positive effects of global technological advancement. The conclusion I draw after reading both articles is this: planners haven’t begun to seriously consider what might happen when the world’s population passes the 9 billion mark, which it is set do by 2050. This situation leaves us vulnerable to disaster and it has to change.

    It can’t be denied that feeding 9 to 10 billion people will be a challenge in itself, especially when you consider that the planet’s arable land is already in use. Stratfor predicts yields must increase by as much as 25 percent during the next 35 years and this at a time when resources are limited. However, this article makes it clear that the industry is not motivated by the need to feed additional people. It’s motivated by the desire to remain profitable in the face of rising labor costs.

    It’s already obvious at this point that the planning discussion that we really need to have, the one based on the problems of accommodating a growing population, has been diverted by the false necessity of corporate profitability.

    If it seems counter-intuitive to speak of a population explosion in one breath and a labor shortage in the next, it’s because we’re not talking about a shortage of labor per se. We are talking about a shortage of cheap labor. Adding to the sense of urgency is the fact that this shortage can no longer be controlled by U.S. immigration reform. Immigration policy is in Mexico’s ballpark now and the United States will have to take this into account.

    According to Stratfor, the number of undocumented workers in the United States has been decreasing since the turn of the century. Since 2014, the U.S. has been apprehending fewer Mexican migrants and more Central American migrants. The reason: Mexico is following a long-term trend previously experienced by the United States. As the nation’s per capita income rises, the percentage of Mexican agricultural workers will decline. Therefore, it won’t be long before Mexico is competing with the United States for Central American workers.

    A reasonable person might assume that this would lead to increased wages for American farm workers. However, it seems this is precisely what the agricultural industry is trying to avoid through technological innovation. As stingy as this may be, it makes perfect sense as long as GDP is the focus.

    “Labor costs make up 17 percent of total production costs but can reach as high as 50 percent for specific labor-intensive crops such as fruits and vegetables. Similar to what happened in other developed nations, the percentage of farmworkers in the total U.S. work force decreased throughout the 20th century, as per capita income increased.”

    If you’re still not convinced, according to the accompanying chart Luxembourg has the highest GDP per capita with the lowest percentage of population employed by agriculture, while Bhutan has the highest number of population employed by agriculture and the lowest GDP per capita.

    But between the lines lie nagging concerns:

    “It was only the influx of cheap labor from Mexico that allowed the United States to avoid a labor crisis in the agricultural sector in the middle of the 20th century. Labor costs have consistently increased since the 1990s, rising 1 percent between October 2013 and October 2014.

    “With labor costs likely to remain high, the agricultural industry in the United States is looking for ways to decrease the costs.

    “Because of slim profit margins, the agricultural sector cannot afford to shoulder the whole burden of developing new robotics technologies to replace workers. However, research in the robotics sector is supported by other industries looking to offset demographic pressures and to lower manufacturing costs. The agricultural sector in the United States (and in other developed nations) will be able to exploit modified technologies to remain competitive and to meet growing demand in the coming years and decades.”

    In my opinion, the main nagging concern in this quote would be the term, ‘demand’, which implies the existence of people who can pay for the products being produced. Hopefully you’ve noticed by now that although population growth was mentioned in the beginning as a justification for automation, it has effectively been taken out of the equation.

    The economists’ view of the world provides encouragement for this sleight of hand. Economists insist that when old jobs disappear, new jobs are created. But the problem with this according to Lanchester, is that economists are very bad at predicting the future. This is due to the fact that they think the lessons of history are already incorporated in the mathematical models. As an example of an historically informed view, Lanchester cites the work of various scholars who have tried to determine whether there are parallels between the delayed effects of the second industrial revolution of 1875 to 1900 and the technological revolution of the 70s. It’s been argued that although in the initial stage computers contributed to productivity, most of the real productivity benefits of the computing revolution took place a few decades ago. In other words, perhaps the negative delayed effects are yet to come.

    But the economic view comes to the rescue again with the argument that since human wants are infinite, the process of supplying them is also infinite. As a matter of fact, this claim can be validated by changes in the U.S. agricultural industry since 1810. The percentage of Americans working in agriculture has steadily declined from 90 percent to less than 2 percent, and we’ve somehow adapted. However this particular transition was helped along by new technologies. I take this to mean that we can’t assume that we will be able to adapt in this case simply because we were able to adapt in the previous one.

    Lanchester cites Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne who have calculated the effects of computerization on 702 jobs and concluded that in the next two decades 47 percent of employment will fall in the ‘high-risk’ category. It’s not the middle class that’s most threatened this time—it’s the lowest paid workers. As for the top earners, they will do as well as ever.

    At the same time, productivity is slated to go up sharply, meaning the U.S. will become richer. How can this be? The good news is, profitability is actually a better indicator of national wealth than GDP. The bad news is that productivity has been disconnected from wages. This means that the proceeds of profitability are going to capital rather than labor. In the U.S. the typical worker’s productivity has gone up since 1979, but her pay has not. Since 1999 her pay has actually fallen.

    As an example, Apple recently had the most profitable quarter of any company in history: $74.6 billion in turnover, and $18 billion in profit. By contrast, in 1960 the most profitable company in the U.S. was General Motors. “In today’s money, GM made $7.6 billion that year. It also employed 600,000 people.” Apple employs 92,600. In other words, this is an improvement in profitability per worker by 76.65 times.

    And this trend seems destined to continue. Consider the driverless car being developed by Google. Lanchester points out that whatever convenience it might represent, all the money from it will be going to Google, even as an entire economy of drivers is disappearing.

    There is no shortage of people who blithely accept this bleak future. They are people who don’t deny that if this is allowed to continue we might see a new kind a deflation—the kind of deflation caused by people having less money to spend. And they admit that this is bound to have some very bad effects, such as falling prices and even another collapse of home prices. Larry Page, founder and CEO of Google, is one of these people. He admits this process will be highly unpleasant for the majority, but he thinks it will have a good effect eventually, making it easier for everyone to live a comfortable life:

    “…in a capitalist system…the elimination of inefficiency through technology has to be pursued to its logical conclusion.”

    According to Lanchester, Page’s views are not unusual in Silicon Valley and the ‘upper reaches of the overlord class.’ I guess this is one way of dispensing with that troublesome population factor.

    So what are we to do? In Lancaster’s view we must choose between this hyper-capitalist dystopia and a socialist paradise. If we choose the second alternative we would have to begin by changing the form of ownership so that capital doesn’t own and control the robots. Then:

    “We don’t have to work in factories or go down mines or clean toilets or drive long-distance lorries, but we can choreograph and weave and garden and tell stories and invent things and set about creating a new universe of wants.”

    It’s not exactly surprising that few people are talking about the second alternative. I would argue instead that we should start smaller by insisting that the conversation remain centered in reality. We might begin by listing the crucial factors in order of priority and eliminating the false factors.

    Population should be the central factor in planning for the future, not as an excuse for more technological inequality but as an unavoidable reality. And a responsibility. Next, we need to make it clear that population can’t be used on one side of the ledger book as an excuse for automation, and penciled in on the other side as demand. This is funny accounting no matter how you look at it. That is unless the plan is to sell the goods at a profit to those who can afford them and let everyone else starve.

    I do believe this approach has provided clarity already. In the face of looming mass starvation, corporate profitability is a luxury we can’t afford.

    Works reviewed by Lanchester:

    The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee

    Average is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation by Tyler Cowen

     

     

  • Thinking about the biography of Albert Gleizes has led me in a thousand directions, all of them relevant to current events. Where I get into trouble is in deciding what to talk about first. Sometimes I think the French art conversation is the place to start since it’s part of the larger political picture and since some of the factions that struggled with each other a hundred years ago are still with us. However it is not my intention to promote any one faction. My goals include gaining a better understanding of what was being said, and illustrating its relevance to the United States. That is, to people in the United States that aren’t already part of an artistic elite.  I’m not aiming for a paternalistic art conversation, but a conversation that is capable of preparing everyone to participate, even if it takes several generations.  I’ve finally decided that maybe the best way to begin is to make a list of related topics. If any of you have expertise in any part of this list, please don’t wait for me—go ahead and write about it.

    1. The politics behind the rivalry of Pablo Picasso and Albert Gleizes

    2. The crucial difference between Gleizes and Picasso as explained by the
    theories of Jacques Maritain

    3. The place of the occult in art

    4. The doctrine of Personalism as it applies to The Self, to art and to the
    occult

    5. The relationship between theology and art in the West and the Orient

    6. French influence in Germany and Russia before the world wars

    7. The occult revival in Russia after the fall of the Berlin Wall

    8. The devil and the problem of evil in Western culture

    9. Differing views of reality as represented by Albert Gleizes and the
    Catholic Church

    10. Picasso as mage

  • Middle Eastern Christians; death, exodus, betrayal and silence – Al Arabiya News.

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