The
Wonder Springs Chronicle
The
Social Darwinism Conundrum
28
April 2010
Volume
12, Issue 17
Access
now the ÒThe Wonder Springs ChronicleÓ
Front Page. Be sure to check out the grizzly times wisdom and fresh insights
of BruteÕ Griz every Friday here at The Wonder Springs Chronicle and every
Wednesday at Deep Woods Moola.
To
make a donation to the Wonder Springs community please do so at the address
below, or follow the donation links on the website.
How
many times in these United States have you gone to visit someone and were
admonished at the front door, ÒWe donÕt allow the discussion of politics or
religion in this house!Ó
Even
if it is an unspoken rule, the lack of discourse of both politics and religion and
how they are related, dare I a say as a civil discussion, is what has gotten
America into our current position.
Just
mention Sarah Palin and a volcano of anger or praise erupts almost
instantaneously and soon volcanic ash threatens to block out the sun. If
someone doesnÕt change the subject pretty soon, air traffic will have to be
diverted around the area.
Underlying
all this joy and mirth is the clashing of worldviews.
One
view believes that there is a God, who created everything not all that long
ago, and mankind was created in the image of God.
The
scientific worldview does not believe in god, maybe aliens, but nothing exists
but the natural material reality that evolved by quantum leaps of intellectual
complexity over millions and billions of years.
A
third worldview states that they believe in God but are agnostic on how it all
came to be and where we are going, because they just have enough trouble
dealing with daily life.
The
forth group believes essentially that they are the zenith of evolution, and
because of their superior intellect, the rest of us should acquiesce to their
understanding of how it all works, and likewise thank and serve them for being
so very magnanimous. These are the Social Darwinists, who now are the dominant
religion in America, but as we will see as we continue, are facing a conundrum
of epic proportions, that will very soon lead to a battle to the finish among
the members. The survival of progressive evolution is at stake and to victor
belong not only the spoils, but the vanquished will be eliminated from the gene
pool.
So
if you happen to be in one of the first three religious groups, for the time
being, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, sit back, relax, turn on your
television, open a cool one of your choice, and watch the battle unfold.
Well
just between you and me, the battle has been rigged, because both of the
participants have already been found to have fatal weaknesses, but that does
not mean that this sport will not be worth watching.
So
let the battle begin!
Last
Friday perusing the daily Wall Street JournalÕs morning email I couldnÕt help
but notice the following headline:
Obama
surveys the financial kingdom that may soon be his.
As
a non-subscriber to the WSJ, I was only able to get a brief summary of the
article, but doing a search gave the direct link. The article generally states
that ObamaÕs Wall Street reform legislation could at best be described as a
mixed blessing, and in the worst case, is but a complex hodgepodge of
regulations that will increase governmental and special interest influence over
the way big investment firms and banks do their business, yet still gives
special favors 2 Big 2 Fail firms.
As
last weekÕs ÒTrekking
to GomorrahÓ article closed out our ÒWhy Me?Ó series, you know I am not a
big fan of Wall Street generally, and this bill does nothing to push
regulations in the right direction. However I find it more than amusing that
even the Wall Street Journal, the worldÕs most prestigious business reporting
enterprise, says that Wall Street is going to give Barack Obama and future
presidents control over how they make their money and the majority of their
profits.
So
I am supposed to believe that Wall Street Investment Bankers, the worldÕs most
powerful and richest Social Darwinists, are going to let, no welcome, Barack
Obama, the most prominent redistribution of wealth personality in American
history, regulate their enterprises, not only in America, but eventually around
the world? That makes buying the Brooklyn Bridge sound like a wonderful
investment. Better yet Wall Street is going to give the government a ten
percent stake in a perpetual money machine for nothing. That sounds much closer
to the spin some people would like you to believe.
Yesterday
representatives of Goldman Sachs came to Washington to tell Congress that they
did nothing wrong in the civil suit filed by the SEC, that alleges that some
awful people were selling sound bundled mortgage securities short, reaping huge
profits, and Goldman Sachs was complicit in the whole scheme. This is so very
important because these Washington DC enlightened representatives of the people
think they can fix the broken, with just of few thousand pages of government
gobbledygook.
Now
the general impression of Barak Obama around the world is that he is a decent
talker, believes that those words do make a difference, and really has a poor
follow-through. From watching his basketball prowess on TV, I would say his
3-point attempts lack follow-through also, which really may be the problem with
the totality of his administration.
So
Goldman Sachs gave Barak Obama a little less than a million bucks for his run
for the presidency. Were those donations given to incorporate Barak onto their
team, to help them in the game of regulatory hoops, or were they just given so
that they knew that he would lack the follow-through that might happen if John
McCain were elected? Wall Street Bankers generally and Goldman Sachs in
particular are the ultimate elitist Social Darwinists. They have the power and
the money to get their way in the world, as we now know it.
Something
unexpected has happened in the last year that absolutely no one anticipated and
that is the Tea Party Movement. Contrary to, as perceived in the lame stream
media, they are not radical conservatives. Lame stream media personalities
think they are objective journalists; hence everyone who does not agree with
their journalistic abilities has to be far to the right of Rush Limbaugh. In
reality Tea Party people hate the Republicans almost as much as the Democrats,
they just think that the Republicans should know better. Furthermore these Tea
Party people are not Libertarians either, Tea Party people donÕt hate
government, they just hate what their government has become, and therefore defy
all previous stereotypes, except for what they are beginning to understand
about their countryÕs founders.
For
some reason Bill Clinton has entered into Tea Party bashing in the last couple
of weeks. Now whether you liked or disliked President Clinton in office,
everyone pretty much agrees that the man is not stupid. However, his Tea Party
remarks seem more inline with his, ÒI didnÕt have sex with that woman,Ó and Òit
all depends what your definition of is, isÓ rather than the statesman he seems
to have tried to become after leaving office. In short someone pointed out to
Clinton that something is happening and Bill should be properly positioned when
things shake out.
Now
Barack Obama is really not a financial-elite Social Darwinist. In fact his
training is all on the side of the redistribution of wealth, or
intellectual-elite Social Darwinism. We see the ascendancy of this type of
Social Darwinism in the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, in which the Russian
Social Democratic Party, morphed into the Communist Party, as Russia became the
Soviet Union. This was also the
basis of the National Socialists in Germany, which became the Nazis.
Those
organizations failed and now Russia is trying to promote some type of market
driven economy within a social structure that has no basis of that market understanding,
the same is true of the Communists in China. Really only because of the lasting
prosperity of the United States, in halls of our urban universities did
remnants of this form of elite-intellectual Social Darwinism, maintain the hope
that one day they would get the chance to prove that social justice and
redistribution of wealth were and are the highest form of human evolution. Now
they think they have their chance with Barack Obama, truly one of them, and
with the economic turmoil it gave them a chance to not let a good crisis go to
waste.
The
problem is that this window of opportunity may have already shut, due to the
natural law vigor of the American republic, codified in the Constitution and
expressed by the birth of the Tea Party Movement and truly independent American
constitutional awareness. What
Barack Obama may just be beginning to understand and his redistribution of
wealth people have yet to realize, is that their fight should not be with the
Tea Party people but the other side of the Social Darwinist spectrum, the Wall
Street financial-elite.
ÒSo
you want to take our money and give it to the union bosses, and your ivory
tower intellectuals, all in the lame excuse of helping the poor, the lazy, and
the other evolutionary misfits. What part of no, donÕt you understand?Ó
Again
we have to thank Russia and their Revolution for the change of saving ours.
When Ronald Reagan became President, he forced underground, deep into the ivory
covered walls, the hopes of continuing RooseveltÕs New Deal into remaking the
United States into a European social democracy. Strangely while the change
began in Great Britain under Margaret Thatcher this country became invigorated
as F. A. Hayek brought is concept of ÒThe Road to SerfdomÓ to the USA. So
thirty years later, at least some parts of Europe seem to be more market
driven, and the United States government wants to become more like Spain,
Italy, Portugal, and Greece.
But
what saved us all, at least in that time span, was when Reagan made Alan
Greenspan Chairman of the Federal Reserve. During his 18 years at the FED,
Greenspan led the financial reforms that followed the Objectivist economic
philosophy of Ayn Rand. RandÕs Objectivism grew out of her life experiences as
the antithesis of communism that she experienced in her youth in Russia during
the Revolution. GreenspanÕs actions allowed for the development of
laissez-faire Wall Street business growth, and really blossomed in the early
years of George W. Bush, until it grew 2 Big 2 Fail. Then and now, politiciansÕ
fear and desire to mess with things they know nothing about; brought us to
where we are today.
There
is no way we can find any linkage, other than the vitriol, between the words of
President Clinton regarding the Tea Parties and the myopic words of former
ACORN head Bertha Lewis when she was speaking to a group of Young Democratic
Socialists (much of that speech is available as video at various sources). What
seems to be angst in the voice of Clinton however boils out through Lewis as
genuine fear of the future of socialism. In her talk Lewis sees the worst of
all American social vices coming to get her and other socialists and putting
them away permanently.
What
Lewis doesnÕt seem to understand is that the Tea Parties and the new found
constitutional awareness, really doesnÕt give a hoot about her utopian
ideology, or even the social margin plays she may affect. What she really needs
to be afraid of is the financial-elite Social Darwinists that really were the
power behind the Reagan Revolution and more importantly the American defense
buildup that brought about the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the
Soviet Union. But she is right in one aspect, in a world ruled by
financial-elite Social Darwinists, her group of intellectual-elite Social
Darwinists, will be the first group eliminated from the human gene pool.
So
where does that put the rest of us, who are really not all that concerned about
atheistic life philosophies? Well like the Tea Party Movement and our gaining
constitutional awareness, we all are going to need to do some lifting. As
Winston Churchill said:
The
era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients
is coming to a close. We are entering an era of consequences.
He
of course was speaking about a war of guns and bullets; with God as our
strength this will not be a war as humanly understood, but rather a struggle
between spiritual life, or temporal death. What makes Sarah Palin such a
lightening rod to all people, is that she understands that tension, and even
though should she die, yet she shall live still in a better place than even
Alaska.
Over
the weekend I heard a song that I had not heard for years. It was written
during the Civil Rights Movement, a time not much different than the struggles
we face today. Music is truly the art the calms the savage in America and in
the world. What we really need is not political speeches, or social programs,
or even protest marches or meetings. What we need is the revival of music, that
takes people beyond the limits of temporal material life, and helps us to
understand that with God in our life, this life is not all there is, but just a
beginning. The song I canÕt get out of my mind is ÒPeople Get
Ready,Ó by the late Curtis Mayfield. The link takes you to an NPR
discussion of the song; it is also available on iTunes. While still living in
this world the song puts you on that train to where we will spend eternity and
where we will continually, ÒJust thank the Lord.Ó
People
get ready, there's a train a comin'
You
don't need no baggage, you just get on board
All
you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin'
Don't
need no ticket, you just thank the Lord
People
get ready for the train to Jordan
It's
picking up passengers from coast to coast
Faith
is the key, open the doors and board 'em
There's
hope for all among those loved the most.
There
ain't no room for the hopeless sinner
Who
would hurt all mankind just to save his own
Have
pity on those whose chances grow thinner
For
there's no hiding place against the Kingdom's throne
So
people get ready, there's a train a comin'
You
don't need no baggage, you just get on board
All
you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin'
Don't
need no ticket, you just thank the Lord
©
Creative Commons License 3.0, see website for details.