J7Wise

Summer Doldrums in Politics

What could be more boring than hearing yet another pundit tell us that something is wrong?  It's summer still.  The young folks are either trying to get the last laugh out of August, or they're already in "back-to-school" clothes.  The parents are trying to squeeze in one more family vacation before Labor Day, and businesses are hoping that "back-to-school" will mean back in the black.

Ten Duties of The King

Copied from earlier writings elsewhere
Originally published 4 Apr 2005

The following is from a book by Walpola Rahula called What the Buddha Taught (New York: Grove Press, 1959, p. 84). In the actual passage, this text is cited from what is known as the Jataka text and describes the teaching of the Buddha (6th c. BC) on proper governance by rulers.

It is a hopeful sign that one ruler in history, Asoka, Buddhist emperor of India in the 3rd c. BC, applied this teaching during his reign after publicly repenting at least one of his early conquests (Kalinga) and then renouncing war itself for the remainder of his reign, which apparently continued in peace and prosperity for many years, as did neighboring kingdoms.

U.S. Health Care lags in quality, access - says Health Day News

Copied from earlier writings elsewhere
Originally published 24 Jun 2006

From Medicine.net, a report by Steven Reinberg, HealthDay Reporter, April 4 says that even though the United States spends more than twice as much per capita on health care as some other western nations, it trails them in such measures as efficiency, equity, and patient safety and access to care, according to two new reports.

Failed Leadership - The Legacy of Our Times

Copied from earlier writings elsewhere
Originally published 8 Jun 2006

I've quoted him before but Andy Andrews says it well when he talks about how our supposed "best thinking" has got us into the position we are in now.

According to Republicans, the country does indeed have problems. After all, according to them, the Democrats haven't come up with any solutions, either, now have they?

So, we have problems, but are the problems we're actually hearing about the problems we really need to be addressing? Has our "best thinking" brought us to where we are, or have we yet to invoke our best thinking, and the lack thereof has plunged us into our current problems?

Punditry, Posturing, and Pedantry

Copied from earlier writings elsewhere
Originally published 13 May 2006

The United States is on the verge of going down the tubes while our Media Commentators (MC's) act as if they're the ringmasters of the Greatest Show On Earth. The Entertainment Model of news and opinion has so terribly corrupted the public discourse that we're not just re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic, we're skewering those who are trying to re-direct the ship's course or are trying to save anybody who seriously wants to get off the ship and save themselves.

The fact of the matter is that the most vocal Right-Wing MC's have lost their bearings. They've probably become so dizzy trying to gyrate around the near-daily headlines involving corruption and scandal within the failed Congressional leadership and the White House that they simply don't know in which direction is "up."

"Public Service" Means What Exactly?

Copied from earlier writings elsewhere
Originally published 28 Apr 2006

Public service is not a mystery.  It says what it's supposed to be about - service to and for the public.

Significant understanding of that is lacking in Washington and has been for some time.

OUR elected officials are officially known as public servants, but whom do they serve? The cynical answer (and likeliest!) is that they serve whomever pays them top dollar.

Yet a significant number of people are certain that things don't have to be this way. Without singling out specific representatives who demonstrate daily just how badly things have gone wrong, this group of people are pushing us to recall the thinking that brought this country into existence in the first place.

Eternal Vigilance

Copied from earlier writings elsewhere
Originally published 27 Apr 2006

It's unsettling to think of how much of our current public discourse is dominated by people who seem uninterested in what we've learned over the centuries about human behaviors, wants, needs, tendencies, and expectations. It's as if the current public speakers are trying to assert a rewrite of reality.

Now, I'm not saying that everybody who's gotten hold of an audience is wrong or right, or that they're not entitled to voice their own opinions on things. It's just that very, very few seem interested in connecting more than just a dot or two in the "Big Picture" that all of us are part of.

The Basis of Civilization

Copied from earlier writings elsewhere
Originally published 23 Feb 2006

Discussions of politics, current affairs, etc., require perspectives that touch on many things.  Most important, they require a basic model of our civilized world.  Here begins a discussion gathered all in sequence.

The essence of Civilization is to seek benefit for individuals within the group by making the group more powerful than any individual.  I state that premise in just that way to emphasize

• group strength, and
• benefits to individuals

The winner-take-all, survival-of-the-fittest crowd would probably emphasize the opposite:

• individual strength, and
• benefits to the group

In this case, their premise would be to make Individuals more powerful than the group so that the group can stand in the Individual's protective shadow.  But is this Civilization, or the Law of the Jungle?  It's actually what led to feudalism.

The World's Civilization - Part 1

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Originally published 1 Aug 2005

How should we see it?

Perhaps to simplify the discussion, we could start from the simple premise that there are only two kinds of people in any context: those who are motivated to satisfy their own needs first, and those who are motivated to satisfy the needs of others first.

The World's Civilization - Part 2

Copied from earlier writings elsewhere
Originally published 9 Aug 2005

Building On Roles

In part 1, I differentiated between two types in society: those who are primarily oriented toward helping their own cause as individuals, and those who are primarily oriented toward helping those around them in the community's cause.

I also pointed out the necessity in the growth of civilized societies of dealing with the questions of how to support the cause of those who are incapable of doing so themselves whether they be the young, the old, the infirm, and so on, as well as noting the important survival capacity of skills requiring creativity and imagination for progress.

I'd like to consider here how these two sets of observations are intertwined.

Let's start off by asserting that Civilization itself appears to be completely un-natural at any given level. If only the strong survive, then what purpose would civilization have for the strong?