Among the leaves so green-o

Nice to see a post on actual Christmas day.

We have "white Christmas" but it's slushy snow like you'd expect in March. We also have more flooding than usual, irrespective of El Nino. The snow melts and flows down the mountain, causing avalanches and full rivers, and with rain on top of that, it all heads downstream to the ocean.

FEMA was here meeting with people about flood damage. Some college kid changed the sign to "Homo Inspections On Campus." (from Home)

Everyone pretty much agrees it's global warming and hoping CA, WA, OR are successful in suing the feds to establish that we can set our own emissions standards if the feds aren't going to do an acceptable job.

Merry Christmas to all my friends at DCP.

Richard's excellent essay nicely illustrates systems theory and steady state as they occur in nature and society as well. Not only that, the essay serves as an example of how badly things can go when the system is dysfunctional. For the most part, people have an implicit understanding of this concept, but when they are hit right between the eyes with the evidence demonstrating its validity, their prejudices prevent them from accepting those facts.

Not sure you'll look back here OnCall but I'm wondering if the same is true for the body's physical system and the ecological system of the earth, systems in general. Sure seems that way. (Tipping point)

December 25, 2007 8:48 PM
not my president said:

Hi,

Yes, the body does try to maintain a dynamic equilibrium and when one system starts to fail, then it can have a cascading effect whereupon other systems will eventually begin to falter and possibly fail as well. Whenever my patient's ask me, "How can the _____ start having problems? He never had _____ problems before." The only way I can explain is by describing a system of tightly regulated functions - each dependent on the other. For example if the oil starts to leak, then the engine will break down. The original problem is an oil leak and not an engine issue, but one is dependent upon the other. I also try to explain it in more physiologic terms. For example, some people who develop liver failure may develop renal failure as well. Sometimes that helps, and sometimes it doesn't.

But back to the point, in "science" system theory is central to thermodynamics and the concept of biological balance. In society, various anthropologists have demonstrated the role for functioning systems and how cultures are maintained. Other systems are easily recognizable as well: Economic systems ( capitalism, socialism) Governing systems: (Communism, Federalism)....... You get the point. As one can see we are not as independent as we may think we are, as we are all essentially "cogs in the wheel" of the various systems of which we are members. Any thoughts?

As regards to systems, cultures, etc, here is something that a friend sent me about this very subject:

In Will Durant's chronological masterpieces of human history, "The Story of Civilization" he defines Civilization as such:

"Civilization is social order promoting cultural creation. Four elements constitute it: economic provision, political organization, moral traditions, and the pursuit of knowledge and the arts. It begins where chaos and insecurity end. For when fear is overcome, curiosity and constructiveness are free and humans pass by natural impulse towards the understanding and embellishment of life."

"Civilizations are the generations of the soul. As family-rearing, and then writing, bound the generations together, handing down the lore of the dying to the young, so print and commerce and a thousand ways of communication may bind civilizations together and preserve for future cultures all that is of value for them in our own. Let us, before we die, gather up our Heritage and offer it to our children."

Granted, the economic provision has gotten way out of hand with the multinational corporations holding the key (much portrayed in sci-fi for a century...1984, Fifth Element, Brazil, Blade Runner, etc.) and we who have been paying attention have recognized many with ties to our own government in not only encouraging Economic Fascism but promoting it as if it were Democracy.

Economic Fascism

by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

When most people hear the word "fascism" they naturally think of its ugly racism and anti-Semitism as practiced by the totalitarian regimes of Mussolini and Hitler. But there was also an economic policy component of fascism, known in Europe during the 1920s and '30s as "corporatism," that was an essential ingredient of economic totalitarianism as practiced by Mussolini and Hitler. So- called corporatism was adopted in Italy and Germany during the 1930s and was held up as a "model" by quite a few intellectuals and policy makers in the United States and Europe. A version of economic fascism was in fact adopted in the United States in the 1930s and survives to this day. In the United States these policies were not called "fascism" but "planned capitalism." The word fascism may no longer be politically acceptable, but its synonym "industrial policy" is as popular as ever.

Excerpt:

"The U.S. Constitution was written by individuals who believed in the classical liberal philosophy of individual rights and sought to protect those rights from governmental encroachment. But since the fascist/collectivist philosophy has been so influential, policy reforms over the past half century have all but abolished many of these rights by simply ignoring many of the provisions in the Constitution that were designed to protect them. As legal scholar Richard Epstein has observed: "[T]he eminent domain . . . and parallel clauses in the Constitution render . . . suspect many of the heralded reforms and institutions of the twentieth century: zoning, rent control, workers' compensation laws, transfer payments, progressive taxation." It is important to note that most of these reforms were initially adopted during the '30s, when the fascist/collectivist philosophy was in its heyday."

Continued...

http://www.banned-books.com/truth-seeker/1994archive/121_3/ts213l.html

And here is another in-depth, and disturbing, look into the controversy over genetically modified foods. Please get the DVD and watch it. It is not surprising that those making the decisions about various foods are both ex employees of the corporation that patented the canola seed and are presently employed at senior levels in the FDA. Own the seed, and regardless of how it gets onto someone's farm - via wind, bird, butterfly, bee - the plant grown from that seed is owned by the corporation. Apparently both GWHB and GWB have large interests in this corporation.

Some other company has patented the breast cancer gene, so pharmaceutical companies researching breast cancer and treatment options, have to pay the company huge amounts in order to work with the gene.

I'd need to see it again to remember it all. But it is certainly worth looking at.

http://www.thefutureoffood.com/

Upcoming Screenings

There are a number of ways to see THE FUTURE OF FOOD! This groundbreaking documentary continues to play at venues around the world. Watch for community events, movie listings, and living room screenings near you. In the US, you can rent THE FUTURE OF FOOD from Netflix and at quality video rental stores. The DVD is available for sale in many health food stores, including Whole Foods Market stores throughout the US and Canada. You can also buy the DVD right here on our website—we even have versions in six different languages!

The problem with the "economic fascism" argument from my POV is that history teaches us that "liberty" is no guarantee of justice, or even goodness. There's no way that the little guy can compete in a world of unregulated giants, many of whom did nothing to earn that economic or political clout, but were, in fact, simply born into it. It’s the ultimate entitlement. This is one of those areas where political ideology strikes me as being every bit as naïve and dangerous as any religious ideology.

Now that what scholars used to describe as "the great chain of being" has been upended, a society only hangs together by virtue of its ability to knit a social contract. Here in America we accepted the Lockian vision of the social contract - based around the fiction of "natural rights". As mythology goes, "natural rights" is as good as it gets. Yet I see little evidence in history of these natural rights ever actually existing or being respected. Hence, I much prefer the Hobbesian "realist" approach to the social contract - that life, without such a contract, is brutish, nasty and short. And if you study history, you discover that human lives were exactly that for most of the recorded era, at least here in the west. For instance, the life expectancy of a Londoner during Elizabeth I's reign was around 30-32 years. Living outside of London, you had a life expectancy of maybe 38 years. The more that I read history, the more that I am forced to conclude that we here in America are living the most privileged lives that a people have ever lived, at any time in human history. We don’t know how lucky we are.

The idea that "liberty" is the remedy for everything is refuted by the lessons of history. As Krugman has been pointing out in his columns, the Sub-Prime disaster is a perfect example of the failure of the liberty ideology in economics. When left to their own devices, mortgage bankers chose to steer people who could afford conventional mortgages to these much riskier Sub-Prime mortgages. They did it because it would allow THEM to make more money - which is all that matters for some people. Greed is their god, and selfishness is their ethic.

Krugman hit on this brilliantly in a recent column on Greenspan and his guru, Ayn Rand.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/21/opinion/21krugman.html

Rand argued that no businessman who cared about his reputation would ever engage in unethical behavior - and hence it was irrational to believe that corporations would act unethically. But experience should teach us that people act unethically all the time. And even when they steer clear of “unethical” behavior, they almost always act in the name of their private interest – which is naturally to make money, even if that requires that delivering a promised service. There are exceptions that we can all probably point to – but they are just that, exceptions.

At the core of the American achievement is the notion of checks and balances. Regulation should be thought of as the check against a liberty to harm, to exploit, to deceive, or bludgeon using a club of unfair economic advantage. Enlightened corporatism – the tendency of government to become involved in attempting to steer businesses in an acceptable direction – is merely another reality-based check against the all too human tendency for selfishness and greed to run amok, and to trample on the rights and liberties of others.

The next to last paragraph should have concluded:

And even when they steer clear of “unethical” behavior, they almost always act in the name of their private interest – which is naturally to make money, even if that requires them NOT delivering on a promised service. There are exceptions that we can all probably point to – but they are just that, exceptions.