Less Educated People are Nicer

A move to thought in shades of gray from dualistic black and white thought may be more correct but decreases person's ability to be as nice as before



When reporters visit Tea Party protests, they often remark on just how warm, pleasant, and down to earth the individual protesters are. That is until the focus is switched to the two minutes of hate at hand (we've had plenty of good coverage concerning the sheer ugliness). Meanwhile, the college schooled urban dwellers seem incapable of showing strong emotional passion in either direction. What's the deal?

We've heard how less educated and religious states tend to be more charitable on per capita basis. This is not an article about that (for more on disentangling the dynamics of domestic humanitarian aid here). Neither is it about higher population densities creating dislike of fellow people or less emotional types perhaps being more likely to get higher education. Lets talk about averages.

Binary thinking is very clear cut and begins to be ingrained in childhood. The more one's inner mental universe is split into good and evil dynamic, the easier it is to go full throttle in one direction and against another. This is due to the simple reason of insufficient choices within the inner mental world when it comes to explanatory and descriptive constructs.

The more educated one becomes the more perceptive choices and shades of gray the mind has to work with. Instead of having intense biblical A and B, the person can now choose E or F as perceptions of reality and corresponding action (be it intellectual or emotional). A and B are not only used less but may now be increasingly seen as undesirable to be used at all (due to their intensity and exaggeration to the point of being incorrect).

This is an obvious observation but this dynamic may cause serious problems for society. If A is absolute good and B is absolute evil (as is often the case in many countries), then reluctance of an educated mind to see something in black and white can create paralysis when it comes to effective political action. In the face of a real tangible enemy, threat, or grave injustice, the highly educated populace may resort to halfhearted measures, compromises, and insufficiently intense emotional communication.

A less educated person on the other hand will be compelled to self righteous thoughts and deeds which can result in rapid positive and humanitarian breakthroughs for society. The negative flipside of this is self explanatory and we see it within certain crypto-fascist factions of the Tea Party movement. Like a childlike Lennie from Mice and Men, a rigidly dualistic person is capable of incredible niceness as well as hideous viciousness. The more educated one becomes the more neutered in demonstrating the outreaches of wholesome humanistic helpfulness.

Now if one's consciousness is expanded through education in societies that are

1) sparsely populated
2) ethnically collectivist and homogeneous (think Scandinavian countries) 
3) augmented by strong welfare supports on top of expanding economic pie

then the atrophying capacity for dualistic thought and action is neutralized.

This is not the case in large pluralistic Western societies today. Education can therefore not only stifle fullhearted activism but create contempt for those who do practice fullhearted activism.

I have written on the need for Tea Party and Progressive movements to join forces against the financial oligarchy. Educated urban dwellers need to get over their distaste and contempt of dualistic rural Tea Party expressions. They need to attempt to redirect factions within TP towards doing things they themselves don't have the heart for. Many in the TP will be loyal allies once the corporately funded blinders are taken off their faces. Black and white thinking can be a useful tool when applied properly.

Progressive Libertarian Coalition

Can cats and dogs get along in an alliance of convenience? Extreme economic national emergency calls for a unifying common platform. Here's a 9 point platform that can unite them.



The bipartisan removal of incumbent dinosaurs in congressional primaries and the sheer energy involved now provides hope for an alliance of convenience between all major nationalist factions in United States. By nationalist, I mean those producerist conservatives and progressives who believe in making America stronger by protectionist build up of domestic industry/infrastructure and by diminishing the power of the financial transnational oligarchy. In other words, to go back to the better days of FDR style attempts to preserve and enhance the physical non-paper shuffling capitalist core of American economy.

Citizens across the political spectrum are in total agreement on the need to completely clean congress of everybody presently in it. The hope is that newcomers in November are not as bought off as current congressmen and that it'll take time for corporations to buy them out (thus giving a few months where the new politicians may act relatively autonomously due to weak connections to the oligarchy). However the extreme economic national emergency calls for a unifying common platform to multiply the power of newcomers and to pressure the congressional senior citizens with easy to understand concepts.

How would a common political platform look like? The platform has to be balanced by things people are for and things people are against to give it depth and traction. Lets begin:

1) Protectionism. This means higher tariffs on imports as a source of national income and a way to reduce unemployment in the blue collar sector. Historically, protectionism not only works splendidly for every major society that engages in it but is also backed by the blue collar muscle of the rural and urban discontents. Majority of the factions within the tea party will be for this through proper use of the China card. The less numerous younger libertarian faction may object on ideological grounds but is unlikely to split over this (side with transnational corps exploiting Chinese labor over the interests of their fellow blue collar T partiers). Libertarians have a lot of severe cultural disagreements with other (formerly GOP) T party factions but still remain. After all, Ron Paul's people pretty much started T Party in the first place.

2) Glass-Steagall separation between commercial and investment banking. The passing of Glass-Steagall will deal a mortal blow to parasites on Wall Street and its effectiveness has been verified ever since G-S was originally passed in 1933. The bipartisan McCain-Cantwell amendment already brought this issue into national discourse. Reintroduction of Glass-Steagall is also the most effective filtering tool for congressional candidates in November since those who support it stand against the speculators. Quest for and achievement of G-S would additionally satisfy the psychological craving for justice among activists across the political spectrum as its implementation destroys the Wall Street oligarchy in its current too big to fail casino manifestation. Since the importance of G-S also makes it a danger to Obama's oligarchic backers, the issue must be approached carefully yet forcefully. Swaths of T party movement who have not been co-opted by corporations should jump on the proposal. This will ultimately allow the infrastructure thrust of the rest of the platform listed bellow

3) Nuclear Energy. The job creating and environmental benefits make fission and fusion energy an obvious political rallying point. Younger progressives may need to drag their older brethren along on this one. They can point out that fission allowed for the socioeconomic optimism in 1960s, is ridiculously clean/safe, and will make advanced green transport infrastructure possible. The more intense nationalists in the T party will love the idea of switching focus from oil to nuclear (after all it still makes some older democrats uneasy), achieving energy independence, and peacefully competing with Russia in the fission reactor industry.

4) Constitutional Convention. The purpose of a ConCon is elaborated upon in depth here. The primary reasons for demanding a historic convention are: a) create unity and excitement among both T party and progressive activists b) create dialogue that leads to settlement of the culture wars through agreement to disagree until the ConCon occurs c) send a powerful message to the political class that even cleaning house is not enough and that the structural blocks on people's will are to be resolved d) rechannel the energy from potential social unrest towards pursuit of a constitutionally legal restructuring of the country's governance

5) Thorough audit and demasking of the Federal Reserve's finances, history, and functioning. This will uncover more dirt than most people can imagine and most likely either end or severely transform the fed's functioning. This will be the ultimate muckraking and like G-S, satisfy the popular sense that some justice is being done. Now that the Goldman Sachs investigation triggered similar investigations into other casino giants, people's appetite to discover who stole hundreds of billions of tax payers dollars is greater than ever. Since the Fed is the parasitic heart behind our imperial socioeconomic system, it will be the hardest nut to crack. The difficulty of the full scale audit (that Ron Paul and many progressive economists desire) demonstrates why the T Party/Progressive alliance of convenience is essential. The impudence of the federal reserve also provides an overarching point of focus for the anti-bankster activists.

6) Proportional Representation on the state level and ultimately on the federal level (either through an amendment or Constitutional Convention). PR is another politically neutral concept of agreement that goes an incredibly long way towards giving people better representation and thus reduces corporate influence. It puts the first nail in the coffin of the hated two party oligarchic duopoly. Replacing all incumbents in Congress does not resolve the fundamental and glaring structural inadequacy when it comes to electing state and national representatives. It will take a bit of education to spread the concept but its elegance and widespread use throughout the world (even Brits are discussing it) should provide an exciting new structural alternative in the process of streamlining the American democracy. Just like direct election of senators, it is a prudent evolutionary step (that can begin to be implemented on a state by state basis through decentralized activism).

7) Congressional term limits. This fits perfectly with the anti-incumbency strides of recent months and proportional representation reform. Instead of allowing society to deteriorate to the point of collapse for congressional dinosaurs to be sent packing, term limits do it automatically. There will always be gusts of fresh air with such limitation. Considering that entrenched and totally out of touch 80 year olds in power were one of the main reasons why Soviet Union began to stagnate, this is a matter of outmost importance. American gerontocracy has to be ended since people that old, secure, and corrupt are dramatically less mentally flexible and capable compared to when they first got into office decades ago. More on the problem of congress being a senior citizens home here.

8) Rebuilding the nation's water infrastructure. The quality of the "drinkable" water in most regions in US is horrendous. The outdated and overstressed water systems are also a source of danger in terms of insufficient supply for the agricultural sector. Besides age and lack of funds, climate change puts new unforeseen stresses on water infrastructure in almost every state. Lets not wait for another Dust Bowl event to compliment the current depression. Although it may seem odd to have it on the list, this is a vital economic issue for rural communities and a public health issue for urban areas outside of the northeast.

9) Isolationism. Another obvious way to stop dumping resources into a hole in the ground. This has to be marketed to T partiers and progressives in different ways. Conservatives are always fine with idea of not helping the "ungrateful world solve its own problems anymore" due to refocus on domestic rebuilding. Libertarians are ideologically predisposed to isolationism while progressives are of course sick of imperial adventures. Isolationism also allows the alliance of convenience to expand to some former reform party paleoconservatives. Obviously the empire and the influence of the most powerful lobby (the military) cannot be ended rapidly (one of the key reasons being the sheer number of high tech blue collar jobs that military corporations provide inside the US). Isolationism serves as a way to refocus conversation towards domestic nation building and reemphasizing the pro-infrastructure focus of the T Party/Progressive alliance.

That is it for now. There are many more unifying points of contact but these 9 are the most important and self reinforcing. Glass-Steagall, Constitutional Convention, Term Limits, Protectionism, Nuclear Power, Proportional Representation, Federal Reserve Audit, Isolationism, and Water Infrastructure Development. If one allows the sheer transformative nature of these unifying goals to sink in, then differences such as over gay marriage seem petty and insignificant. I was tempted to add high speed rail and transport infrastructure to the list but am content with nuclear energy and water development for now. That is because nuclear energy has to come first in order to power real jumps in train technology (like transcontinental MagLev trains) and discussion over trains in a predominantly car centric society can lead to major disagreements instead of unity. Meanwhile, water development is as important to country and city alike and non-controversial. However, high speed train development can be integrated into the platform depending on the state by state basis. There are definitely many conservatives who fully support and understand the issue of building up next generation logistics with all the job creation that it'll bring.

The end result is something that looks like a Main Street Party (emphasis on real economy, job creation, anti-wall street, etc) without culture war nonsense to distract from the mission of reforming this socioeconomic system in a major way.

Ron Paul to Tea Party Protests

How a kindly ideologue had his movement partially co-opted by oligarchic corporate influences



It has been almost 3 years since Ron Paul decided to run for president of the United States. His decision led to an embryonic movement that has since mutated, been partially co-opted (by oligarchic interests), and came to be known as the Tea Party Protests. The time has come to evaluate and dissect the evolution of Ron Paul's project to sort the confusion around it. Let's begin with analysis of Ron Paul who contributed greatly to the civil wars within the GOP which in turn resulted in Ron Paul staging an alternate republican convention nearby the official one in 2008.

For a brief moment during the Republican primaries it looked as if Ron Paul might get third place in the Iowa caucuses. Third place was exciting in that it would mean some sort of brief lifting of the heavy corporate media censorship (no other way to explain disproportionate lack of attention towards a reformer who raised more money and had greater national following than Tancredo or Thompson). Alas, Fred Thompson has done his favor to McCain solidly and performed well as a fake candidate to split anti-establishment Republicans. We may see more fake diversionary candidates in the future. A 6-7 figure to pretend to campaign for a few months? Which actor with political connections wouldn't jump at the chance?

Ron Paul was different than other reformers (such as Nader and Kucinich) that were long censored by corporate interests  in that he wasn't a person. He was a mouthpiece for a libertarian ideology. One might think something like this occurs often but it is ridiculously rare and stunning to witness in politics. Such a rare breed doesn't make it far nationally (the way a real Coptic Christian wouldn't in a megachurch industry or an orthodox communist in a Chinese politburo). However people like that have a claim to incorruptibility. This and Ron Paul's track record created an instant passionate following.

Even with this ideologue background Ron Paul shared one thing seen in great reformers like Ralph Nader. He described news events, history, and dynamics of government the way he personally saw them and without spin. This bears repeating. He spoke an approximation of truth to power. A good example of this is an interview he gave to an alternate news organization in 1988. The interview is as relevant today as ever and he describes how the financial industry in essence now owns congress and is the dominant faction within the American oligarchy.

It may seem weird that an ideologue is able to describe the real nature of power within a society but if you think about it, Ron's libertarian orthodoxy aids in the process. Most politicians subscribe to a movable, fake, and incoherent ideology (some meaningless notions of center-left and center-right which are always in flux) to get elected and that requires them to apply a very simple yet muddy ideological filter to everything they do. If they don't do that, they of course will be accused of flip flopping and weakness by the opponents. It is an unfortunate state of affairs that is the worst possible hybrid between ideological orthodoxy and absolute pragmatism. Freedom of meaningful thought and action is restrained in often absurd and situationally dependent arbitrary ways.

Ron Paul does not have that problem as he is firmly anchored in Austrian economics and constitutional legalism. His actions and empirical appraisal of reality is still horrendously restrained but we all know where he stands at all times. It is no coincidence that immovable die hards like Paul and Mike Gravel are children of the depression. Paul responded to the crisis of the depression and stagnation of liberal structures in the 1960s with idealistic reactionism (his homeland of Texas was on periphery of FDR social revolt) while Gravel wanted to further evolve and put additional energies into structures and promises started by FDR.

Having said that, people like Ron Paul are more than capable of siding with certain factions (that are either ideologically muddy or rather moderate) IF it moves society in the direction of that rigid utopian construct they have in mind. "Ends justify the means" and "enemy of my enemy is my friend" sort of dynamic has long been a staple of genuine ideologues. This is different than most politicians because of its teleological nature. Two extreme examples stemming from the same hypothetical person can illustrate this:

1) a communist in Soviet Union who wanted United States to win the cold war because SU was a state capitalist abomination in his view
2) this same person now supports free trade because he thinks it'll make the world's workers sufficiently miserable and build international solidarity which in turn ends capitalism quicker (Famous Marxist theorist Georges Sorel for instance wanted unhindered globalization so capitalism could burn itself out quicker)

We see how ideologues can support something which seems complete opposite of what they want (temporarily) to achieve an ultimate goal. It's a very old game that some casual observers seem to forget about. There is no telling to how far the mental rabbit hole goes. Considering many "neo-conservatives" were Marxist in their youth, it is worth noting the ultimate result of their actions and to consider what goes on inside their minds under many layers.

Ron Paul's actions of course do not deviate this psychopathically far "for the cause". The key reason why he was able to make an otherwise hideous pro-oligarchy ideology of stifling development for majority of the population so palatable was due to him being a kind and gentle soul at heart. It is readily evident in videos of Dr Paul's interviews and speeches. One cannot be mad at him or suspect nasty behind the scenes motives since he lived his entire life as a role model libertarian and an exemplary helpful human being. Ideological pragmatism did make Ron associate and collaborate with certain ideological "free market" think tanks and foundations whose only purpose was to increase the net worth of the oligarchs who started these think tanks in the first place. [here's more on how easy it is for billionaires like David Koch, Steve Forbes, or Richard Scaife to use a bit of their pocket change to create fake grass roots movements and to put educated people on a payroll so they could ideologically serve rich people). Since GOP in itself is just a vehicle for rich people's ideas and power, Ron's association with it in his presidential run allowed oligarchic interests to make inroads into the energized pool of new people that Ron brought to the party.

Considering the fractured nature of GOP during the presidential primary battles, the shrinking and now regional status of the party, Ron Paul's lack of support for McCain, and McCain's support of bailouts and electoral failure, the re-energized libertarian faction provided GOP with a powerful and independently minded influx of pure activists. Many of these people had their own links to various think tanks and oligarchic "research" data. This rich man's infiltration of a movement that prided itself with small donation support may have remained relatively limited considering the above average education and anti-corporate perspective of many libertarian activists (one needs education to engage in understanding and application of a sufficiently complex economic theory, regardless of theory's merits). However, Sarah Palin emerged on the scene and sufficiently re-energized the uneducated rural theocratic factions of the GOP. McCain of course picked her to co-opt not just Hilary voters but power bases of his primary rivals (which included uneducated anti-government people as well as Paul's libertarian ideologues).

What happened next was rather simple. Since there are more elderly rural uneducated anti-gov people in GOP than younger college educated anti-gov libertarians, the Sarah Palin block swamped Ron Paul's people after the presidential election. People with education low enough to think Sarah Palin was an actual capable person were always traditionally manipulated by corporate/theocratic interests (although under Reagan's era of think tanks it became an art form). This story repeated itself as corporate front groups such as freedomworks began to utilize the successful tea party themes of Ron Paul's movement to direct anti-government people against the Obama administration rather than against the federal reserve and the current fiat money monetarist system. Since many of the energetic libertarians remained as a minority to "remake" the GOP, they were now surrounded and overshadowed by whichever dwindling GOP base still remained ( theocratic, crypto-fascist, semi-literate, imperialist, and goofy people of all stripes). Palin faction for its part now found itself under 3 influences:

1) Traditional corporatist money that funds the GOP (now reduced due to status of GOP as regional party and many of America's oligarchs now throwing their funds on the democratic party organs)
2) Traditional Reagan era pro free trade think tanks and newer libertarian think tanks (whether corporate or genuine is irrelevant) that rode into GOP on the backs of Ron Paul supporters
3) Ron Paul supporters themselves who utilized their youthful charisma and grasp of capitalist theory to sway and inspire the older GOP activists

The third in effect helped facilitate migration of republican regulars away from GOP into the broader non-institutionalized tea party movement where individual personalities have a lot more sway. So far we can just guess at the ratio of those that stayed to vote GOP and "purify" it, those that left to influence the GOP from outside so as not to be taken for granted by party leaders they call RINOs, and those that left for good to try to create their own third party. It can be guessed at that libertarian leaning propaganda organizations (indirect corporate influence to a large degree) are now displacing direct corporate influence (elite fundraisers and the like).

The thrust of the tea party protests are still guided by rich people in that the protests focus on a president and democrats rather than socioeconomic structural fundamentals of United States. Rich people of course don't want their proxies to focus on dismantling the banks and auditing the federal reserve. The tragedy is that the bulk of the tea party participants are anti-corporatist in nature and have been badly swindled by the financial sector oligarchy for decades. The economic situation was so bad for years and has deteriorated throughout 2009 to such a degree that the bulk of the tea party protesters are first timers. They might have been outwardly directed with fear by past presidents, but a black democratic president pushed desperate angry people to start paying attention domestically like never before. Rural elderly republicans began large scale dirt digging on the political system that preoccupied younger progressives since 2000. A quote from Chomsky illustrates why Palin was a blessing and a curse to find herself with such a riled up audience:

"I mean, we're very lucky that we have never had an honest demagogue. I mean, the demagogues we've had are so corrupt that they never got anywhere--you know, Nixon, McCarthy, you know, Jimmy Swaggart and others. So they were kind of destroyed by their own corruption.

But suppose we had an honest demagogue, you know, a Hitler type, who was not corrupt. There's probably--it could be unpleasant. There's a background of concern and fear, tremendous fear, and searching for some answer, which they're not getting from the establishment. "Who's responsible for my plight?" You know, and that can be exploited. And unless there's active, effective organizing and education, it's dangerous."

Hopefully the libertarian faction will act to educate the Palin faction on the necessity of anti-imperialism, anti-prohibition (on all consensual acts), and deep radical structural reform of the socioeconomic system. The presence of anti-corporate (still serving the rich in theory but at least articulating elimination of subsidies to the current rich practically) young libertarians should moderate the bible thumping authoritarian views at Tea Party events in general. So far it seems that the elderly white "crazies" have done more to unnerve and stifle the federal government than young pacifist progressives did throughout all 8 years of the Bush administration. The libertarians undoubtedly enjoy the newfound muscle at their disposal but also hold the Palin faction in contempt. To them these are the same nasty authoritarians that voted for Rudy, McCain, etc. The alliance of anti-corporatist people and people who were controlled and led by corporate interests for so long seems counterintuitive and will probably lead nowhere long term. The recent loss of the Massachusetts senate seat is less an indicator to the contrary but an indicator of democrats total disgust at lack of anti-oligarchy moves on Obama's part and thus a protest vote. Ron's people just spend too much time and energy arguing/convincing the Palin people on things that are ridiculously simple like war and the prohibition. Remember, an incredibly capable technocrat and high level managerial intellect (Mitt Romney) was rejected by these people because he was of a different faith and "too RINO".

Young libertarians and young progressives have more in common culturally than young libertarians and elderly anti-government religious people. There is also the anti-banking anti-corporatist bond that unites them due to less influence exerted on them by mainstream media and blatantly obvious think tanks like the Heritage Foundation. Total disenfranchisement of progressives by Obama's cabinet picks should lead to efforts at a common libertarian/progressive/populist front that results in the dismantling and then reorganization of our socioeconomic system in the years to come. We've seen such popular fronts of convenience in many countries before. They serve to remove the established dinosaurs but always collapse into infighting after the key objective is achieved.