Language matters, because it’s how we understand what’s real and what’s a scam or a lie. When statecraft language is misused people can die, as happened for decades in Afghanistan.
Excellent piece Mr Hartmann. It is good to remind Americans who is responsible for this, Bush and Chaney. They both made out like devils leaving the American, Iraq and Afghanistan people paying the tab. The Iraq and Afghanistan people paid a higher loss of life than America. But the cost was so high for the American people in the loss of what our leaders could have done with billions dollars spent. Imagine the infrastructure and the safety nets that could have been accomplished. The incredible cost of our soldiers, not only to death but to life changing injury. Bush and Chaney need to be held accountable for starting this mess.
Thom, your writing is always fantastic. Truly. But this one struck the harmonics of truth at so precise an angle, it could be felt - far surpassing the boundaries of cognition. Beautiful.
We must know a thing before we do a thing. And know it truthfully. The concept is simple, but the consequences of bypassing the knowing are conplex and typically catastrophic at some point further in time.
As Don Miguel Ruiz says "Be Impeccable with Your Word.".
Our word is our first step in sharing a knowing. It matters. Lives are lost on the absence of this truth.
The issue of treating the crimes of 9/11 as crimes vs. what our country actually did, highlights the two root causes of the seemingly insane behavior (and all of the other really bad things that go on in our country). First, the oligarchs engaged their power of corporate personhood to create new business opportunities in the Middle East by using Bush 43 and his reelection tactic of war time presidency as well as Cheney’s psychopathic need to violate most of the Seven Deadly Sins. They (and their decision-makers) conspired to commit war crimes and you can bet that the next time a military adventure can be spawned, the oligarchs will be there to make it happen all over again, because there are no more lucrative arrangements with our government than no-bid/cost-plus contracts that always gets renewed. The second root cause of illegal wars is that we have a critical mass of poorly educated citizens who have learned to be bad at learning. The learning that they needed to accomplish (especially learning how to learn good) apparently did not take place, and without that, critical thinking and good decision-making are not happening, resulting in things like Trump, prolonging human caused climate change, and needless COVID miseries. For example, I believe a Venn Diagram relationship between non-vaccinated adult Americans AND citizens who have learned to be bad learners is close to 100%. Therefore the question becomes, how can we remedy corporate personhood and the negative externalities of the poorly educated?
2 excellent points. I do not know the specific mechanics of such remedies, but a lengthy amount of time is surely involved in either. The question becomes, how do we bend time in such a way that we can accomplish a century-long endeavor within a 10-year window?
How do we compress this gargantuan file into a format that is executable in short-form?
I am a bit more sanguine about the likelihood of fixing things in a timely manner (i.e., before the 6th Mass Extinction becomes inevitable), if only because someone has already come up with a proven plan that can free us from the scourge of corporate personhood and significantly reduce the stupid decision-making of the poorly educated. We just need to take advantage of 21st Century technology and motivate 3.5% of our citizens to engage in strategic and persistent nonviolent resistance. I believe that the real challenge is to persuade a few of our progressive thought leaders to inspire 12 million citizens (~3.5% of us) to take part in the process by leveraging our First Amendment Rights. I also believe that the first step is to have our thought leaders and citizens agree to unite with a common purpose that incorporates the six goals in the Preamble. However, that common purpose needs to be more concise, because who can still remember the Preamble? I had to memorize it 60 years ago and it leaked out my brain before Nixon was elected, but I CAN remember what Hamilton said 233 years ago when he proposed that our government is supposed to "abolish factions, and unite for the general welfare,” which is a lot pithier than America’s mission statement found in the Preamble (assuming that the concept of “factions” is just an originalist descriptor for oligarchs). I would also contemporize Hamilton’s recommended purpose of "abolish(ing) factions, and unit(ing) for the general welfare,” and add “by using best practice-based solutions.” You could look at such an endeavor as building a wormhole to sanity and the purpose can fit in one TCP/IP packet.
"...a wormhole to sanity...". That is an exceptional family of words, and perhaps the future title of a much-needed addendum to our founding documents.
As for abolishing "factions" and uniting in the public interest, I see applying "best practice-based solutions" as imperative. Living documents for living things.
As to the mechanism of inspiring 12 million people, I am regrettably without answer. The mass mediums of which messaging flows appear to be either owned, corrupted, or significantly marginalized to a musty corner of social discourse. How do we produce a medium that has a high probability of reaching people while keeping the integrity of said medium intact?
In Jaron Lanier's book, "Who Owns the Future?", he expresses concern regarding this very idea. The gist is that the owner of produced content or the content itself has near-zero power - it is the networks/ carriers of content which hold power.
We need a means of mass communication that is impervious to interference from the faceless lords of billionairium and their aspiring devout serpents.
Thank you, this is a great distillation of our dilemma yet I think there's never been a better time to reach and influence a critical mass of citizens. It's just going to take a little thinking to outflank the oligarchs. and then we can get on with the business of promoting our general welfare. I believe it's possible, but it will be real hard to do.
I love your outlook, and believe it or not, I do harbor a positive sentiment as well. Like I've said, we need to know a thing before we do a thing. I'm glad you're not inconvenienced by truth. And I'm even more glad that your mind is in the space of "What we can do about it". Thank you for caring about this life...
Excellent piece Mr Hartmann. It is good to remind Americans who is responsible for this, Bush and Chaney. They both made out like devils leaving the American, Iraq and Afghanistan people paying the tab. The Iraq and Afghanistan people paid a higher loss of life than America. But the cost was so high for the American people in the loss of what our leaders could have done with billions dollars spent. Imagine the infrastructure and the safety nets that could have been accomplished. The incredible cost of our soldiers, not only to death but to life changing injury. Bush and Chaney need to be held accountable for starting this mess.
The only thing holding up the Afghan government is is a stack of US tax payer dollars
Three hearts for this masterpiece.
Thom, your writing is always fantastic. Truly. But this one struck the harmonics of truth at so precise an angle, it could be felt - far surpassing the boundaries of cognition. Beautiful.
We must know a thing before we do a thing. And know it truthfully. The concept is simple, but the consequences of bypassing the knowing are conplex and typically catastrophic at some point further in time.
As Don Miguel Ruiz says "Be Impeccable with Your Word.".
Our word is our first step in sharing a knowing. It matters. Lives are lost on the absence of this truth.
The issue of treating the crimes of 9/11 as crimes vs. what our country actually did, highlights the two root causes of the seemingly insane behavior (and all of the other really bad things that go on in our country). First, the oligarchs engaged their power of corporate personhood to create new business opportunities in the Middle East by using Bush 43 and his reelection tactic of war time presidency as well as Cheney’s psychopathic need to violate most of the Seven Deadly Sins. They (and their decision-makers) conspired to commit war crimes and you can bet that the next time a military adventure can be spawned, the oligarchs will be there to make it happen all over again, because there are no more lucrative arrangements with our government than no-bid/cost-plus contracts that always gets renewed. The second root cause of illegal wars is that we have a critical mass of poorly educated citizens who have learned to be bad at learning. The learning that they needed to accomplish (especially learning how to learn good) apparently did not take place, and without that, critical thinking and good decision-making are not happening, resulting in things like Trump, prolonging human caused climate change, and needless COVID miseries. For example, I believe a Venn Diagram relationship between non-vaccinated adult Americans AND citizens who have learned to be bad learners is close to 100%. Therefore the question becomes, how can we remedy corporate personhood and the negative externalities of the poorly educated?
2 excellent points. I do not know the specific mechanics of such remedies, but a lengthy amount of time is surely involved in either. The question becomes, how do we bend time in such a way that we can accomplish a century-long endeavor within a 10-year window?
How do we compress this gargantuan file into a format that is executable in short-form?
I am a bit more sanguine about the likelihood of fixing things in a timely manner (i.e., before the 6th Mass Extinction becomes inevitable), if only because someone has already come up with a proven plan that can free us from the scourge of corporate personhood and significantly reduce the stupid decision-making of the poorly educated. We just need to take advantage of 21st Century technology and motivate 3.5% of our citizens to engage in strategic and persistent nonviolent resistance. I believe that the real challenge is to persuade a few of our progressive thought leaders to inspire 12 million citizens (~3.5% of us) to take part in the process by leveraging our First Amendment Rights. I also believe that the first step is to have our thought leaders and citizens agree to unite with a common purpose that incorporates the six goals in the Preamble. However, that common purpose needs to be more concise, because who can still remember the Preamble? I had to memorize it 60 years ago and it leaked out my brain before Nixon was elected, but I CAN remember what Hamilton said 233 years ago when he proposed that our government is supposed to "abolish factions, and unite for the general welfare,” which is a lot pithier than America’s mission statement found in the Preamble (assuming that the concept of “factions” is just an originalist descriptor for oligarchs). I would also contemporize Hamilton’s recommended purpose of "abolish(ing) factions, and unit(ing) for the general welfare,” and add “by using best practice-based solutions.” You could look at such an endeavor as building a wormhole to sanity and the purpose can fit in one TCP/IP packet.
"...a wormhole to sanity...". That is an exceptional family of words, and perhaps the future title of a much-needed addendum to our founding documents.
As for abolishing "factions" and uniting in the public interest, I see applying "best practice-based solutions" as imperative. Living documents for living things.
As to the mechanism of inspiring 12 million people, I am regrettably without answer. The mass mediums of which messaging flows appear to be either owned, corrupted, or significantly marginalized to a musty corner of social discourse. How do we produce a medium that has a high probability of reaching people while keeping the integrity of said medium intact?
In Jaron Lanier's book, "Who Owns the Future?", he expresses concern regarding this very idea. The gist is that the owner of produced content or the content itself has near-zero power - it is the networks/ carriers of content which hold power.
We need a means of mass communication that is impervious to interference from the faceless lords of billionairium and their aspiring devout serpents.
Thank you, this is a great distillation of our dilemma yet I think there's never been a better time to reach and influence a critical mass of citizens. It's just going to take a little thinking to outflank the oligarchs. and then we can get on with the business of promoting our general welfare. I believe it's possible, but it will be real hard to do.
I love your outlook, and believe it or not, I do harbor a positive sentiment as well. Like I've said, we need to know a thing before we do a thing. I'm glad you're not inconvenienced by truth. And I'm even more glad that your mind is in the space of "What we can do about it". Thank you for caring about this life...
Vietnam is another imperial SNAFU
6,000 bombs a year and a trillion dollars and 20 years The military contractors helped out the
Afghan people when they had to and killed them when they did not have to
I love it when people use creative solutions to pressing problems:
https://twitter.com/DevinCow/status/1427813733426884618?s=20