The eighteenth century is the Age of Enlightenment.
The Enlightenment popularizes the ideas developed during the Age of Reason.
The Enlightenment is basically the view or belief that modern science and our
understanding of the social world derived from modern science can help us to
improve the living conditions on this planet. War, poverty, and injustice
are not God-given punishments for our sinfulness but bad management.
Oppressive governments can be reformed or overthrown. Social inequality
can be alleviated and, maybe, overcome. Disease is not to be accepted
stoically but to be fought with new medicines. Poverty can be reduced
through the productivity of new inventions and technologies. Ignorance can
be overcome through universal public education. Human societies are
perfectible if only we have the will and use our scientific knowledge to plan
and socially engineer for a better future. There is no limit to what human
reason and ingenuity can achieve. The French Enlightenment thinkers are known as the
philosophes. They are not really philosophers but what we would today call
journalists or popularizers. One of the great achievements of the philosophes was the
publication of the Encyclopédie. All those who contributed articles are
known as the Encyclopedists. Philosophes and encyclopedists are often used
as interchangeable terms when describing the French Enlightenment.
Opponents of the French government's plans to legalize same-sex marriage
and adoption took to the streets of Paris in January. With an estimated
350,000 marchers, the demonstration was considered one of the largest in
years. The French government took note, but vowed go ahead with
its plans for the law anyway.
France now joins Britain in taking a major legislative
step in recent weeks toward allowing gay marriage and adoption — making
them the largest European countries to do so. The Netherlands, Belgium,
Norway and Spain, as well as Argentina, Canada and South Africa have
authorized gay marriage, along with nine U.S. states and the District of
Columbia.
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". . . The U.S. federal government is facing the largest debt in its history – over $15.5 trillion. (How much is that? If you had $15 trillion and spent $15 million every day since Jesus was born, you would still have $4,500,000,000 today.) The interest on that debt is crushing. The annual interest payment on the debt is now $474 billion – more than it costs for the Departments of Commerce, Education, Energy, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, State, Transportation, and Treasury, and the Environmental Protection Agency, combined. Imagine what could be done with that money were it not being wasted as interest payments on debt irresponsibly built up over the years.
Politicians proclaim to be concerned about the debt, while in the next breath they defend the creation or extension of policies that actually add to the outrageous debt burden. Much of that addition is for corporate interests which are being provided favors by the recipients of their campaign contributions or the targets of their lobbyist blitzes.
Corporate welfare is not need-based and is largely embedded in the tax code. It manifests in the form of tax expenditures, deductions, credits, bail-outs, guaranteed and low interest loans, and subsidies. Corporate welfare benefits the wealthiest corporations, which also happen to be among the biggest campaign donors to candidates of both Republicans and Democrats. Many of these benefits continue in perpetuity until Congress votes to end them, which is not likely to happen because to end the benefits would be adverse to the interest of corporations to whom members of Congress and the President often feel indebted.
Some of these corporate welfare programs actually promote degradation of the environment while privatizing profits and socializing risks. The following are examples of wasteful and, in some instances, environmentally harmful subsidies.
The 1872 Mining Act allows companies to extract billions of dollars worth of resources from public land at $5 per acre while paying no royalty fees. (See Rocky Anderson’s column on this issue, published in The Enterprise in February 1998. http://www.voterocky.org/the_mining_law_of_1872)
The Department of Agriculture’s Commodity Crop subsidies waste billions of dollars annually supporting a small number of corporate farming operations that encourage over-production and in some cases harm the environment.
The Market Access Program subsidizes overseas ad campaigns that benefit profitable multinational corporations.
The Department of Agriculture’s Crop Insurance program benefits the largest agricultural producers and guarantees a return on even marginal land, providing an incentive to plant in environmentally sensitive areas. Claims are projected to rise due to weather issues related to climate change.
Essential Air Service provides a subsidy to airlines that operate flights from non-hub airports that are 90 miles or more from the nearest large or medium hub airport. It essentially subsidizes flights for a relatively small number of passengers and contributes to air pollution.
It appears American citizens actually pay corporations to log on public lands. However, because of the reporting system implemented by the Department of Agriculture, it is impossible to evaluate the cost to taxpayers.
The Forest Service and BLM Public Land Grazing Program benefits only 2% of the nation’s livestock producers, yet cost taxpayers approximately $136 million in 2004 to operate. The program earned only $21 million. The below-cost grazing fees encourage overgrazing and result in extensive and severe environmental damage.
The Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services Program spends millions of dollars each year to kill predators at the request of ranchers, which leads to the degradation of ecosystems that rely on healthy predator populations.
The Army Corps of Engineers is often involved in projects that are not based on national priorities and are often economically unjustified and environmentally harmful.
Taxpayers subsidize lending for American corporations that export and foreign firms that import through the Export-Import Bank, leaving taxpayers at risk for potentially bad loans.
Subsidies to coal, oil, and gas companies totaled approximately $72 billion from 2002-2008, notwithstanding that the fossil fuel industry is a mature, developed industry not in need of government assistance.
General Electric, which made $14.2 billion in profits in 2010, paid no corporate income taxes in 2011 as a result of “innovative accounting” and fierce lobbying. . . "
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(from brainyquotes.com)
"Education is the investment our generation makes in the future."
"America cannot continue to lead the family of nations around the world if we suffer the collapse of the family here at home."
"And the American people are the greatest people in the world. What makes America the greatest nation in the world is the heart of the American people: hardworking, innovative, risk-taking, God- loving, family-oriented American people."
"I feel very deeply about the need to respect and tolerate people of different social - or sexual orientation. But at the same time, I believe marriage should be preserved as an institution for one man and one woman."
Now, let me be clear. The path I lay out is not one paved with ever increasing government checks and cradle to grave assurance that government will always be the solution. If this election is a bidding war for who can promise the most goodies and the most benefits, I'm not your president. You have that president today."
"I spent my whole life in the private sector, 25 years in the private sector. I understand that when government takes more money out of the hands of people, it makes it more difficult for them to buy things. If they can't buy things, the economy doesn't grow. If the economy doesn't grow, we don't put Americans to work."
If you guessed George W. Bush, guess again. Mitt Romney.
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NPR is doing a series on THE AMERICAN DREAM. Generally speaking, I like NPR. Although nothing is ever ultimately perfect, and who can say what is objectively perfect since we are all subjective human animals and one man's (or woman's) idea of perfection will always be different from anothers'.
The series began Tuesday morning with some relatively blue-collar guys in the Midwest speaking about how the AMERICAN DREAM is much harder to attain these days. I don't say 'blue-collar' condescendingly or dismissively either because, quite frankly, I know from blue-collar. Where I grew up, guys in high school (overwhelmingly, if not exclusively) strove to secure a job at either Bethlehem Steel's Sparrows Point steel mill or at General Motors Assembly plant, where (by the way) my own father was employed for thirty years before his retirement.
So as long as people bought cars and steel was in demand (by 'whomever buys steel,' as I would have said when I was in high school) things were good. If I was lucky enough to secure a position with either of these two industrial giants, I was guaranteed a healthy income, superior benefits and what was considered by me and my peers to be 'job security'.
But when your maximum level of education attained is H.S. Diploma, and you're not a particularly aggressive self-learner, you may not fully understand supply, demand, costs, revenue, taxes, economics, competition etc etc, blah blah. And when there are no longer tens of thousands of jobs in your neighborhood, you feel you've been cheated and your AMERICAN DREAM has turned into a nightmare.
I well understand how that feels BUT, (speaking of perfect) this world, this species, this country, business (etc etc, blah blah) are NOT perfect. And furthermore, things change. Things begin, things end, and always, always, always - things change.
Guess all I'm saying is, maybe a little information; maybe a little more education; maybe a better education (Santorum Shuddered!!) would help these folks have a better understanding of what's going on.
And I am in no way bad-mouthing this country because I most certainly love the life I am able to lead in America and know many non-natives who having experienced it, and would prefer it to living in the places from which they came.
But I am saying that I think people should be more aware of. . . EVERYTHING they can! So an AMERICAN DREAM without a bevy of facts, awareness, some hard work and a heap of realism, the AMERICAN DREAM is just a dream. And we all know that every dream ends and then we must wake up.
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(from the Justice Party)
The cost of a college education is rising at an average rate of around 6% annually and is expected to grow at this rate for the foreseeable future. Total college loan debt now tops the $1 trillion mark. A college education validates itself in lifetime earnings, but paying off the debt can take decades to achieve. More and more, only the affluent can afford a higher education. Deserving middle-class and poor students are increasingly unable to follow their dreams.
While the Republicans and Democrats quibble about just how much debt college students should carry and at what interest rate, we believe that higher education should be funded as part of the public education system. Educating our citizens and future leaders without mortgaging their futures should be a top national priority.
"Government has an enormous role in education--and it has not been doing a good job in recent times. Funding for education, from pre-school through higher education, is essential if we are to break the cycle of poverty for millions of people in the U.S. and prepare our students to compete with students throughout the world. Just as government moved our nation forward by committing to provide free secondary education, so too should we commit to providing a higher education for capable students."
-- Rocky Anderson, Justice Party nominee for President
Flourishing democracies--and robust economies--require educated citizens. It is unfair for the next generation of young people to mortgage their futures so our society can benefit from their knowledge while they languish in debt.
Sign the petition for College Debt Independence!
The time is right to bring higher education into the public education system just as we have done with primary and secondary education.
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. . . about the rich or the poor gets us nowhere . . .
Mitt Romney says that since our current President practices the "politics of division" (he obviously lives in a cocoon), many intelligent (maybe that's the missing element) Americans are quite conscious of the existing rift between rich and poor in this country. Pew Social & Demographic Trends found 66% of Americans see strong conflicts between the two groups, and a full 19% more than did in 2009.
Almost half of the people interviewed said they thought rich people are rich because they were born into rich families or know the right people and a comparable percentage thought the rich earned their riches through hard work, ambition or education.
Well, both groups are correct. And like any other group of two or more human beings, within each of those rich populations there are good, honest, principled people and there are lying, cheating, dishonest charlatans as well.
Much like the perception that rich (sometimes not-so-rich-yet conservative, white-collar-middle-to-upper-middle-class) people hold that poor people are poor because they are lazy and therefore do not work hard, have no ambition and are as a result (or as a cause) have no education. And they are right also. . . that is about SOME poor people. But if they are speaking of a group of two or more poor people, they are not considering the good, honest, principled people who have tried but have suffered setbacks, disadvantages, discrimination, bad luck, bad circumstances or bad timing who have not been able to attain the success that some may THINK these poor people could have attained.
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. . .DOES NOT bar religion from the public square and from government in general. Under the First Amendment, the resulting separation of Church and State puts restrictions on government but does not put restrictions on religion. . ."
(reaction to a recent blog by Howard Bess. See bottom) The good Reverend seems to hit it on the head on a regular basis. He says that the current crop of republican presidential candidates, as well as the media 'reporting' on them, all miss the boat on their interpretation of the First Amendment. He would like to know how the religion of the candidates informs their views and intentions with regard to the following issues. "As president, would the candidate pursue the teachings of his religion?"
WAR AND PEACE - religions generally favor a path toward peace
POPULATION CONTROL, BIRTH CONTROL, AND ABORTION SERVICES - how long will the earth be able to sustain the needs of this huge (and growing) population so highly encouraged by their right to life 'philosophy'?
FULL RIGHTS FOR GAY, LESBIAN, TRANSGENDERED AND BISEXUAL PERSONS - many/most organized religions do not favor these just and necessary rights
PRESERVATION OF THE INTEGRITY OF THE WORLD’S ENVIRONMENT - what will the candidate do when scientific knowledge directly confronts the teachings of his religion?
PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION - parochial schools have been known to practice discrimination
PROVISION FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE LESS FORTUNATE - entitlements and being 'thy brother's keeper'
The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer, Alaska. His email address is HYPERLINK "mailto:hdbss@mtaonline.net" hdbss@mtaonline.net
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND READING HIM!
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". . . are filling a large hole in America’s democracy. Congress, the president, the media, and even the think tanks were not reflecting the frustration, confusion and anger among Americans. They talked, they did not listen. I have witnessed these people several times now, talked to the group twice, talked to them in private—they listen. It is quite wonderful.
But what bugs me most is the widespread criticism of their ignorance of economics. What they know and what Wall Street and much of Washington do not is that the American model has been failing for decades. Look at income inequality. More important, look at average hourly earnings adjusted for inflation, now back to their 1969 level. Look at our crummy roads, our unequal education, our uniquely absurd healthcare system. Look even at relatively weak capital investment.
Then they are lectured by people like the Competitive Enterprise Institute that they do not understand how markets work. There have been no free markets by neo-classical or even Hayekian standards for decades on Wall Street. When there is no transparent pricing of derivatives, there is no free market. When five major banks control the entire market, there is oligopoly, not free markets. When enormous banks in every avenue of finance exchange information within their own companies, information asymmetries, not to mention potential for insider trading and front-running, are rife. When the conflicts of interest between ratings agencies and their clients are built into Wall Street, who can but laugh that this is real competition. And what about asymmetric financial incentives that made the bankers rich? They rewarded risk when you won, but did not penalize when you lost.
Don’t lecture the OWS movement about competitive markets. In league with Washington regulators, Wall Street learned how to rig those markets. And then they could misprice risk and lead to runway speculation that was bound to result in failure. One number always grabs me. Private financial firms wrote 18 percent of mortgages, which resulted in 42 percent of all serious defaults. There is the culprit. And then they didn’t have the capital to cover the losses. They drove the housing market sky high. Then they built debt on the bad mortgages.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that even had markets run on more competitive lines speculation and crisis would have been completely avoided. There is little in neo-classical theory that suggests mild corrections are all that is needed to set economic growth on its inevitably stable path. But people like Alan Greenspan, Larry Summers and Ben Bernanke stuffed the deep crises of 1982, 1987, 1989, 1994, 1997, 1998 and 2000 into that mild model. The great moderation was born.
Then wise guys who cannot help but champion Wall Street with little sense of history tell us that all the OWC criticism is unwarranted. Capitalism must be allowed to make mistakes. This is true.
But on balance, OWS is not against capitalism, it is against wild capitalism. And it is against injustice. Is Wall Street?" (by: Jeff Madrick, TripleCrisis Op-Ed http://www.Truth-Out.org)
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Even wineries/vineyards engage in the practice of competition. Oh, I understand why. But still I find competition to be a process that only promotes dirty politics, ill will, the desire to circumvent the customary and the accepted. In short; much ado about nothing. Well, almost nothing. I do see the marketing value in the venture but I still am uncomfortable with it.
from the Los Angeles International Wine and Spirits Competition website. . . "Seven decades of tradition began shortly after the end of prohibition, when the annual L.A. County Fair began awarding medals to the finest wines in California. The competition achieved world-class status, attracting wines from North and South America and finally in 2002, opening the doors to wine entries from around the world. Today, the event includes spirits and extra virgin olive oils. The judging panel has grown to nearly 100 judges from all parts of the globe."
The competition also is the foundation for an extensive wine education program that’s available to 1.4 million visitors to the L.A. County Fair. Public wine tasting began in 1968; in 1998 a wine education center opened, complete with consumer-driven classes, tastings and a display of the award-winning wines. The Los Angeles International Wine & Spirits Competition is committed to educating the public about wine, featuring industry experts with extensive knowledge about wine growing and selection, wine tasting and wine and food pairings. . . "
In an earlier post I bellyached about competition and how I was never good at anything nor would I ever be and that even in my musical endeavors I find the entire concept of competing simply nauseating. Well, maybe it's the politician in me (he's very, very tiny mind you) or just the fact that these 'kudos' must occasionally be pursued in order to flaunt them in the marketing of one's 'wares' as it were, but I did submit an entry in a songwriting contest recently AND, also threw my artistic 'hat' into the ring in an awards competition held in the Washington DC area annually. I never get my hopes too unrealistically high about winning these things as I did when I first began to market my music, but one always harbors that secret wish that, who knows, maybe this time I really will win.
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. . . when I felt that I had ALWAYS taken accordion lessons. Then there were times when I felt that I would never be allowed to STOP taking them. But through the twenty-twenty vision of hindsight, they were ten years well spent on lessons which exposed me to a wealth of musical variety with an initiation to and education in music theory.
Somewhere around my last year of lessons, an unusual development regarding the operation of the Maryland Accordion Institute occurred. My friend, and fellow accordion student of Greek descent, possessing an appropriately lengthy Greek name and who we knew affectionately as Jimmy, purchased the operation. As I was about seventeen years of age at the time, I was understandably astounded at #1, the fact that Jimmy had the financial resources to purchase an entire business AND #2, the fact that Jimmy had the intellectual capability, the drive, motivation and just plain chutzpah to take on such a gargantuan challenge at this tender age. Jimmy was probably several years my senior, but just the same, truly quite an intelligent, thoughtful, practical and generally resourceful young man. And while he may have had the financial assistance of some older adults, he was, by all means, up to such a challenge. By that time in the life-span of the Institute and the current tastes and trends in popular culture, the Institute and accordion lessons in general, were already on their way OUT. But this was by no means a reflection on the talents and abilities of my friend Jimmy when it came to running the Maryland Accordion Institute. His great display of maturity in the whole affair made me proud of him and of myself as well, if only by association with my mature and sophisticated friend.
And the association was briefly more that simply friendship. Jimmy asked me to handle some musical affairs at the Institute during his vacation. This would mean unlocking the building, performing the duties of an instructor and handling the subsequent cash transactions. I was flattered to be asked, eager to prove the wisdom of his choice and filled with new and exorbitant amounts of self esteem at my new, responsible and lofty position even though it was only a temporary, vacation fill-in position.
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. . . how we can ever stop such ridiculousness as the Terry Jones/Koran-burning/Afghanistan riot/killing or whatever you want to call it.
The situation provides a vivid illustration of what can be achieved when ignorance and reactionary violence are combined. . . death. Of course some parties involved not only have no objection to the resulting death, they actually welcome it.
Since I clearly see which side of THIS argument is the correct one - NEITHER side - I won't belabor any point here at all. I only want to use it as another opportunity to repeat what I believe to be a lesson learned, or more importantly, a preventative measure to such nonsense-induced tragedy - EDUCATION.
Take the time to LEARN. I mean real objective LEARNING. This would and should entail the consultation of MULTIPLE sources (and not merely or exclusively one or another 'holy' book), discussion (objective, non-emotional discussion) followed by some REAL thinking. . .
although I wonder now if the number of human beings truly capable of such educational endeavor is, of late, dwindling. . .
