Happy Naw Ruz, 165

Something for Worrying Wanda to Stew Over

By John Taylor; 2008 March 20, 01 Baha, 165 BE

Yesterday, while doing my usual quotidian research, this time about purity, I came across a little discovery that was so distressing and sad and depressing that I simply shunted the more theoretical and less agonizing findings into my daily essay for that day, the last for fast, and attended our Naw Ruz in Simcoe in a cataleptic state. It was as if I had been shot up with ketamine, a drug that induces a dissociative state where you can "still experience pain, but cannot react to it, or really react to much of anything at all; it is as if the mind and body are separate. Ketamine is commonly used ... in veterinary surgery and as a date rape drug," according to the doctor who keeps a blog commenting on every episode of House, M.D., a television show that I watched way too much of this fast. In fact, on those endless fast afternoons I worked through the entire first three seasons, and have only the unfinished season four yet to watch.

Silvie came home from school yesterday and commented that her Grade Eight teacher had told them that this Easter takes place so early that another year like this will not come around for at least another two centuries. So in that sense, this is surely an almost unique Naw Ruz, for, as an Iranian Baha'i told me that evening, the non-Baha'i Persians celebrated their Naw Ruz yesterday, not today, because the actual solstice had taken place the night before. So, enjoy this very unusual Naw Ruz that takes place on the same day as Good Friday, but a different day from the Persian Naw Ruz. We will probably have to wait around for many centuries before there is another.

Actually, do not worry about living centuries, because as I say, we are probably not going to live that long; and not just because normal senescence will kick in first.

Our Simcoe Naw Ruz was a success, there were several kids there of similar age, and Silvie and Thomas amused themselves playing games with them like Truth or Dare and one I had not heard of, Toilet Tag. It was a long, thin room, and two long tables were set up with the many dishes of our pot luck feast lined along the middle -- this arrangement assured that my every thought that evening would be about food, and that I would eat too much and suffer indigestion. My contribution was my bean salad spiced up with a special spice concoction that smells like it has anise in it, supplied by my sister-in-law, who works in a spice factory. It got good reviews, I am pleased to say; certainly I like it, I make up a big batch and eating a bowl of it has become the highlight of my day, especially during the fast. A Persian woman from Brazil sang a duet with Ron Speer, the song of the Master, "Look at Me," which Ron had sung in the home of Abdu'l-Baha on his pilgrimage in January. A grand finale.

I had run out of House episodes for the last day of the fast, and instead read more from Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine," which I cannot put down. Really, I would love to put it down, but I cannot. It is gripping non-fiction, and the closer to the present it gets the more suspenseful it is. I keep expecting to read in the next chapter events that I know have not happened yet, like when some crisis like, I don't know, a financial meltdown, happens and the American president decides that maybe they should put off the next election indefinitely, and that maybe he should replace the secret service with his own force of private sector mercenaries clad in characteristic wraparound sunglasses. As the blurb on the cover reads, this is scary stuff.

But not as scary as my little discovery yesterday about purity. Here is how it came about.

In our children's class we are going through the virtue of excellence in the Virtues Project workbook, then we read a story about the early years of Abdu'l-Baha from Hitjo Garst's excellent new biography of the Master designed for kids (I tried some adult material about Baha'u'llah for a while but the difference was so marked that I dropped it as soon as Garst's book arrived), and finally we have been working through the Book of Matthew.

In Matthew, we just read the parable of the soils, you know, the one about the seeds that a farmer throws on rock and various other kinds of soil. This prompted me to do an Ocean search of the Writings using the keywords "pure soil" and "pure earth." Aside from the Master's direct commentary on this parable, Baha'u'llah mentions the metaphor over a dozen times. Clearly, in the eyes of God, the human heart is soil in which the seed of His Word either thrives or dies out, according to how pure we keep it. So the cry goes out and rings from the rafters:

"Keep your soil pure."

Okay, this is the scary part. An article in Discover Magazine called "Superbugged" came to my attention. It is not yet available online, but here is a précis to be found on the net:

"(Jessica) Sachs discusses the science behind recent headlines about DNA pollution and antibiotic resistant genetic material that can transform ordinary bacteria into rogue "superbugs" that are immune to antibodies. Over the last 60 years virtually every known strand of disease-causing bacteria has developed an antibody-resistant strain, largely due to the increased usage of antibiotics in both in humans and (more importantly) in livestock, where unregulated usage of antibiotics is most worrisome. Sachs clearly lays out the real effects of the phenomenon, touring farms and meatpacking plants." <http://www.brijit.com/abstract/14501/Super-Bugged>

The précis hardly does the article justice. Our failure to recycle at source has effectively invented a new and deadly type of pollution, DNA pollution, rogue genetic material that poses a "potentially colossal new health threat."

"In part, modern medicine is paying the price for its own success. `Antibiotics may be the most powerful evolutionary force seen on this planet in billions of years,' ... By their nature, antibiotics support the rise of any bug that can shrug off their effects, by conveniently eliminating the susceptible competition. But the rapid rise of bacterial genes for drug resistance stems from more than lucky mutation... The vast majority of these genes show a complexity that could have been achieved only over millions of years. Rather than rising anew in each species, the genes spread via the microbial equivalent of sexual promiscuity. Bacteria swap genes, not only among their own kind but also between widely divergent species, Levy explains. Bacteria can even scavenge the naked DNA that spills from their dead compatriots out into the environment." ("How DNA pollution may spawn deadly antibiotic resistance: the story behind the headlines." by Jessica Snyder Sachs, Discover Magazine, March 2008, p. 58)

The threat is not way off in the future, either. "The newly resistant strains have been implicated in some 90,000 potentially fatal infections a year in the United States, higher than the number of automobile and homicide deaths combined." Hmm. Strangely, the intrepid, eagle-eyed investigative reporters of our press, ever vigilant for public safety, are not picking up on this story. If only these lives carried the same weight as the three thousand or so who died from terrorist attacks in the past decade, Then you would really see the press stand up and take notice.

 But, oh yes, I forgot, I am getting things out of proportion. The drug industry stands to make a fortune by keeping up with a flood of resistant strains, requiring ever newer and more powerful antibiotics to fight them. Here is what is happening with just one strain of resistant bacteria, known as MRSA.

"...Researchers estimate that invasive MRSA kills more than 18,000 Americans a year, more than AIDS, and the problem is growing rapidly. MRSA caused just 2 percent of staph infections in 1974; in the last few years, that figure has reached nearly 65 percent. Most reported staph infections stem from MRSA born and bred in our antibiotic-drenched hospitals and nursing homes. But about 15 percent now involve strains that arose in the general community."

What is causing DNA pollution? Having just finished my fast marathon of House, M.D., my impression is that the only thing doctors use more than lies is antibiotics. If you took lies and antibiotics out of their quiver, there would remain only one or two arrows for them to fight with. But they are forced by various demands to moderate their applications, whereas factor farmers are under no such restraints.

 So yes, the cause is overuse of antibiotics by factory farms, yes, the three million pounds a year prescribed by doctors to sick humans, and yes, the unnecessary use of antibiotic soaps in most households, but mostly DNA pollution is accelerating because of the ubiquitous custom of spreading of sewage sludge onto crops.

What happens is that sewage collects together with the antibiotics in our soap, and one or two bacteria figure out how to deal with it. Sure, the sewage treatment plant kills the bacteria dead. But, as the investigators featured in this Discover article found out, it does not matter that they are dead, the rogue DNA material survives and when it is dumped onto food crops, the living bacteria in the soil pick up the resistant DNA material. Then resistance propagates on its own. Milton Friedman, the great proponent of free markets would be proud; the bacteria set up a massive free market where resistant DNA is put up on the auction block and sold to the highest bidder. Now thanks to the miracle of the invisible hand and free enterprise on the molecular level, most of the ground we walk on is a witch's brew of superbugs.

Our most fertile and productive soil is rapidly becoming impure, a toxic wasteland, just like in the parable.

I wondered if any of the Worrying Wandas in the environmental movement have picked up on this danger, so I Googled keywords like "sewage," "sludge," and "crops" and it automatically jumped me over to the industry-designed euphemism, "biomass." When I saw that mild, scientific-sounding name, I felt a lot better. I was even more assured when I read that farmers have to have a toxic waste handling license before they are allowed to dump biomass onto their crops -- at least in the EEC they do. What is going on in Canada, much less the Wild West soon to be renamed Uncle Miltyland south of the border where most of our food is coming from, well, that is anybody's guess. Farmers must be licensed because if they spread the sludge in the wrong way or at the wrong time, it can contain some of the heavy metals and other toxic waste that often gets dumped, intentionally or not, into the sewer system.Sure enough, Worrying Wanda is wringing her hands over the toxic waste, which has been proven to transfer toxic materials from the sludge into food crops and small animals, but as far as I could see she has not been alerted to DNA pollution yet. And, thanks to the our privately-owned free market-oriented press, it is unlikely that we will hear about this until inhabitants of gated neighborhoods start dropping from poison and sepsis in very large numbers. More about this tomorrow. Happy Naw Ruz.
Ketamine, anybody?

p25pur The Baha'i Way, Truth and Light

Purity and Toxic Waste

The Prophet Muhammad had personal tastes, which included a preference for cats over dogs, and a dislike for garlic. This is reflected throughout the Middle East; dogs are unpopular and tend to run wild on the streets rather than on the laps of fine ladies; garlic is completely excluded from the national cuisine of Islamic nations. I was interested, therefore, to read lately that Baha'u'llah shared this aversion, at least to some extent.

"One day, while travelling from Kazimayn to Baghdad, the Blessed Beauty observed, `How removed from good manners are the Shi'ihs! In spite of their acknowledgment of the Hadith, "The believers are alive in both worlds"; they enter into the holy places with stained clothing and mouths reeking of onions and garlic. The repugnancy of unpleasant odors in these places is such as We are disinclined to describe.' Shuja'u'd-Dawlih (a prince and high-ranking Persian official) used to remark, `The reverence which You feel for the Imams defies description.'" (Ali-Akbar Furutan, Stories of Baha'u'llah, p. 24)

This saying, that a believer lives in this world and the next at the same time, it is wise always to bear in mind. That is why Baha'u'llah asked that we attend the feast in our best clothes, which should be spotlessly clean. This helps both worlds, it reduces the chances of spreading communicable diseases, and conduces to joy and spirituality.

Scientific studies have confirmed that the most dangerous substance to our bodies is organic waste. Our excrement, for example, is over fifty percent bacteria, most of which are very unfriendly and contagious. Science also discovered -- not surprisingly from an evolutionary point of view -- that the organic variety of toxicity registers as the most disgusting of all, both to eyes and noses. Shown pictures of various dangerous and repulsive substances, humans pick out infections and bacteria-ridden substances almost every time. Ditto for the smells they let off.

Some atheists claim that the greatest problem with belief in a compassionate God is the fact of suffering. How can a kind Creator tolerate so much pain? Others dismiss suffering as the "toxic waste of free will." We have a choice, and when we make the wrong choices, the result is pain and agony. No error, no effluent. Certainly God creates both purity and waste, including the waste of free will, suffering. But He also creates ingrained into our being a strong aversion for even the thought of it. So strong, in fact, that many reject a God that allows suffering at all. But again, if we only followed our own inclinations and tastes, we would avoid unnecessary suffering, in the same way that we avoid disgusting smells and repulsive sights whenever possible.

Another thing that the mind draws back from instinctively is conflict. When someone is liable to get angry over something, everyone around them avoids even mentioning it. When a group shows itself willing to enter into conflict over an issue, this earns it respect and deference. Nobody wants to see and smell the toxic waste of the emotions, anger and contention. This is why "politicizing" an issue is an extremely effective strategy. It is why abuse is so common as a coping technique in school and the workplace. It is why monkeys throw excrement at all who displease them. But as the Hadith says, we live in both worlds at once, and there are spiritual costs, spiritual toxicity, for trampling the wills of others by intimidation. I think that this is why Jesus advised that we never sit down to pray unless we are reconciled with everybody we know. God by His very nature draws back from anyone who reeks of filth of any kind, be it physical, emotional or spiritual. I think it is in this spirit that Baha'u'llah in His Will and Testament held up as a universal cure for impurity the five word remedy "all things are of God." Here is the scrip:

"Say: O servants! Let not the means of order be made the cause of confusion and the instrument of union an occasion for discord. We fain would hope that the people of Baha may be guided by the blessed words: 'Say: all things are of God.' This exalted utterance is like unto water for quenching the fire of hate and enmity which smouldereth within the hearts and breasts of men. By this single utterance contending peoples and kindreds will attain the light of true unity. Verily He speaketh the truth and leadeth the way. He is the All-Powerful, the Exalted, the Gracious. (Tablets, Lawh-i-Ahd, 222)

To rephrase this slightly, this is the way, the truth and the light for Baha'is: to remember that God owns us, he owns our waste and our by-products too, and it is our sacred duty to purify ourselves and to recycle our waste as effectively as possible. In that sense I completely agree with the Vatican's recent inclusion of the crime of "failure to recycle" as one of the modern "seven deadly sins." If we really do purify effectively, we will finally be worthy to enter into His holy places, be they of body, emotions or spirit.

Meta-Democracy V

Cleaning House for Ridvan Elections
By John Taylor; 2008 March 19, 18 Ala, 164 BE

Differential, people. What do we have?

Well, there are a few candidates written here. There is ...

I am not interested in names. What goes on your ballots is none of our affair; it is confidential. You have heard of ethics, haven't you? What we can do here is list out the problems, the symptoms, the qualities we need for a differential diagnosis.

But if we do not mention personalities how will we know who to vote for?

I am not interested in who. What is what matters. If we draw a picture of what the patient needs to get well, that will be a big step to bringing out the virtues the leader will need.

That makes no sense. Names go down on the ballot and names are what you discuss. That is how you pick the right leader. Always have, always will. I do not see why we cannot talk about people if is a person we are voting for.

Okay, assume you are right. Let us say you get elected. The election is over. We talked names and rejected them all except yours. Now it is time to act. Tell me what your mandate is.

What do you mean, what is my mandate? My name turned up on more ballots than anybody else's. I won. That is my mandate.

Okay, I get it. Victory is in your hands. You are the best man, but where is the wedding? Do you feel like you are married?

What are you talking about? This is an election campaign, not a wedding.

Wrong. It is a marriage. Let me ask you this, if people know they already love one another, why do they need to get married?

To solemnize their bond?

To make it permanent?

To turn it into a sociological entity?

To make a family?

Yes, yes, yes and yes. But you are missing the point.

Okay, I think I know what you are getting at. You want us to say that a wedding mixes in the sacred, the social, the pair's ideals, hopes and dreams so that later on when they hate each other's guts they will not lightly throw away what they conjoined during that first two years when their nervous systems were swimming in endogenous opioid polypeptide compounds.

My, my, my, aren't we cynical?

It is what you always say, "Everybody lies."

I say that? Actually it is worse, we lie even when we tell the truth, and when we tell the truth it turns into a lie. But if we give a patient a scrip for a sugar pill and a real illness gets cured, then what does it matter what we thought?

Yeah. Call it the placebo-like nature of reality.

Exactly. Which is why we have election campaigns as well as weddings. The point is not whether your vote "counted" or was "wasted," or not. The main point of it all is the ceremony, the ritual, the combination of wills that make for belief, faith, something that will last beyond the endorphin high.

So the entirety of our votes is nothing more than a vote of confidence to the one who is chosen?

Well, what else will come out of that long, tedious campaign? Is a list of the names of people who happen not to be sitting in our seats going to help anybody do the work any better? Is a list of all the people they did not marry going to help a married couple get through hard times?

I agree with you, as far as it goes. The hopes, dreams, prayers and love that are expressed at the wedding. Love is what is all about, whether you feel it or not.

Yeah, well you would say that.

While you people are bickering we have a very sick body politic that is not going to get any better until we find the problem and cure it. So really, tell me what do we want the one we vote in to come away with from this election?

Hold on. Election campaigns do discuss issues. That has got to help.

It helps diddly. Everything changes.

Well, maybe a plebiscite is a good idea. It is the will of the people, after all. If names are so bad, why not just vote on issues directly? With modern information technology we could easily do it.

Oh, yeah. Show me an airline company that takes a vote among the passengers about anything.

How do they know sitting back in the back what do or which direction to take?

And who are we to say what things will be like five minutes from now? Anything we say now about the issues is obsolete before we shut our mouths. That is why we elect people, not issues.

Yes, things in the cockpit change too fast; there has to be a knowledgeable expert in the pilot's seat who can move fast as soon as unforeseen conditions change.

Absolutely. It does not matter how advanced the intercoms and autopilots are, there has to be a human sitting in the pilot's seat, and it has to be the best expert we can get. Taking a poll has its uses, but not about technical things.

You people are not here to agree with me, I want different ideas from you. If I want a mirror I will go into the bathroom. We are here to find a diagnosis, stat.

Okay, I think I know where you are taking us. You are saying that elections are not appointments, they should not work technical issues, and that an election should talk about things that last forever, like virtues and qualities and attitudes that are needed always but that are especially needed at this juncture of history.

Yeah, if we paint a lofty portrait the one we elect will feel he or she has to grow into the shoes of the ideal man of the hour, or woman of the day, or whatever.

Exactly. Now we are right where we were when we started. What is the situation and what virtues are going to be needed to address it, and not just virtues our leader is going to need, but since we are going to be doing most of the work, we need to go over our virtues too.

Yeah, it takes a village to raise a child.

Would you people stop agreeing? You are really starting to annoy me.

tenv

Platinum LEED-ership

By John Taylor; 2008 March 18, 17 Ala, 164 BE

An anonymous reader left the following comment on my latest essay, "meta-democracy IV," along with two quotes from the BIC's PH, an insightful treatise marred by turgid diction.

"Great post! The Prosperity of Humankind document further delineates the imperative of universal access to information and knowledge--not just as recipients but as co-creators of that information/knowledge."

"The tasks entailed in the development of a global society call for levels of capacity far beyond anything the human race has so far been able to muster. Reaching these levels will require an enormous expansion in access to knowledge, on the part of individuals and social organizations alike. Universal education will be an indispensable contributor to this process of capacity building, but the effort will succeed only as human affairs are so reorganized as to enable both individuals and groups in every sector of society to acquire knowledge and apply it to the shaping of human affairs.

"Justice is the one power that can translate the dawning consciousness of humanity's oneness into a collective will through which the necessary structures of global community life can be confidently erected. An age that sees the people of the world increasingly gaining access to information of every kind and to a diversity of ideas will find justice asserting itself as the ruling principle of successful social organization." <http://info.bahai.org/article-1-7-4-1.html>

 Silvie is increasingly frustrated with my life-long failure to become a published writer. Under pressure from her, in January I submitted a link to a Badi' blog essay to a Baha'i publisher. It was the first time I submitted anything to a real, print publisher in at least fifteen years. Here is the rejection letter, which I feel like posting on my wall.

"Thank you for your short essay on Baha'i non-involvement in politics. Given that the essay was written for your blog, we cannot assess it as a possible article ... We encourage you to rethink the essay as an article and to resubmit it. We are attaching a ... style guide."

 The letter was so polite and accommodating that it was almost a positive experience being rejected; now I feel perfectly good about submitting something again to a print publisher and I might well do so, as soon as another fifteen years will have rolled around. Oh, and Silvie, if you read this, it is out of the question that I resubmit, since the chances of my suffering a migraine are raised considerably when I do not put out my daily post on the blog. I would be putting my health at risk. Yesterday I tried holding back and writing something for this editor, and the sense of non-wellbeing was so overwhelming that here I am back at my daily fix this morning. If I were to continue the experiment I would certainly be sunk, especially in this weather.

 I have been neglecting environmentalism, lately, so let us talk about that now. Here is an interesting idea for cheaper and easier solar panels, just make them like the rustling leaves on a tree.

SMITs GROW: Solar and Wind Leaf Photovoltaic Shingles by Emily Pilloton

 <http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/03/01/smits-grow2-project-new-solar-and-wind-solutions/>

At a recent commonwealth meeting with the queen in attendance, <http://mail.google.com/mail/?account_id=BadiJet%40gmail.com&disablechatbrowsercheck=1&ui=1> a Baha'i representative read Shoghi Effendi's famous statement of the Baha'i understanding of environmentalism,

"We cannot segregate the human heart from the environment outside us and say that once one of these is reformed everything will be improved. Man is organic with the world. His inner life moulds the environment and is itself also deeply affected by it. The one acts upon the other and every abiding change in the life of man is the result of these mutual reactions. (letter, in Compilation of Compilations vol. I, p. 84) and, “We need a change of heart, a reframing of all our conceptions and a new orientation of our activities. The inward life of man as well as his outward environment have to be reshaped if human salvation is to be secured." (Id.)

Also from England, George Monbiot's latest blog entry features an essay warning of "privatization schemes dressed up as customer choice," called "The Patient Stalkers," on March 11, 2008. Turning over a part of the economy to profit takers is a serious move, and it is significant that those interested parties who would do it must resort to deception in order to get it on the agenda. On the other hand, the fact that their lies are so flimsy and transparent is unsettling, showing that the politicians are already in their pockets, it is just a matter of informing the public of a fait accompli. Monbiot writes:

"So why is it so keen on this reform? Because it assists a quite different agenda. To avoid the political firestorm big business rains on any government that stands in its way, Gordon Brown must make constant concessions. What business wants most is the 40% of the economy controlled by the state. He must find clever and camouflaged means of delivering it that do not prompt us to take to the streets. None of this serves either the customer or the taxpayer. The irony of Brown's reforms is that they are wholly centred on the needs of the providers rather than the patients - as long as the providers are corporations. So do not wait to take to the streets. Little by little, the privatisation of the NHS (the British National Health Service) is happening already, disguised as a crusade for patient power." <http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/03/11/the-patient-stalkers/>

Monbiot talks about taking to the streets, and I am not saying that we should not take to the streets when public property is put up for auction. But the thing that would really help would be to learn to consult effectively and implement real democracy, or to speak more accurately, meta-democracy. Although I do not like the whole idea of demonstrations -- their effect is negative, reactive and temporary -- here is an idea for the environmental activist to consider: refuse to set foot in any building that is not LEED certified as environmentally sustainable. (for more, see the Wiki article on LEED at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadership_in_Energy_and_Environmental_Design>) Go on pilgrimages to the eighty or so "Platinum" level LEED buildings in the world, starting with the soon-to-be-opened California Academy of Sciences museum slated to be opened later on this year. <http://www.calacademy.org/geninfo/newsroom/releases/2005/Holcim_award.php> This super-green museum building in Golden Gate Park (which I believe was visited by the Master) cost a cool half billion dollars, but the more platinum LEED buildings get made, the cheaper they will get. Needless to say, if the regulatory climate were made more sensible, they would already be cheaper. But activists could give a jump start to this process by paying attention to the good, the LEED platinums, and by protesting the bad, for example by picketing the building lot of every sub-LEED building that is being put up. Sure, it would mean printing an awful lot of pickets, but our survival is at stake.

We can also put pressure in our purchasing decisions. Refuse to consider a house or apartment that is less than LEED platinum. Say LEED platinum prayers, and see the LEED platinum love in the faces of all you consult with, for as the saying goes, we get the politicians we deserve, and we will never deserve LEED platinum leaders until we become LEED platinum citizens. The Master said it all,

"My hope is that in this enlightened century the Divine Light of love will shed its radiance over the whole world, seeking out the responsive heart's intelligence of every human being; that the light of the Sun of Truth will lead politicians to shake off all the claims of prejudice and superstition, and with freed minds to follow the Policy of God: for Divine Politics are mighty, man's politics are feeble! God has created all the world, and bestows His Divine Bounty upon every creature." (Paris Talks, 150)

p22 meta-democracy IV

Local Data Banks

By John Taylor; 2008 March 16, 15 Ala, 164 BE

Yesterday we discussed the meta-democratic profession of the journalist-teacher. These specialists will manage the media under a world government. Today, let us speculate on what the institutional structure of this new world media might be like.

 By some estimates we spend on average a third of our waking lives immersed in media such as films, videos, reading books and newspapers, listening to music, surfing the net, including a whopping fifteen years of just watching television. (Introducing Media Studies, Ziauddin Sardar, Icon Books, Cambridge, 2006, p. 8) This huge portion of our limited lifespan cannot be left to the whim of the moment. If we are to survive and thrive as a species, every citizen needs to plan and optimize his or her involvement with the information media. Our precious time spent there should be as participatory, interactive, efficient and constructive as possible. Our journalist-teachers would be trained to assist citizens optimize and plan this central aspect of life.

 However, qualified and concerned as journalists may be, they cannot supply all of the content of this flood of media content. Rather, they will collaborate with other guiding professions, including most notably doctors, and collectively act as a rudder to a massive supertanker of data. Media content will be nurtured locally by amateur productions. The most outstanding of whose young members will be systematically culled -- again by meta-democratic elections -- to supply the professional artists, artisans and other content providers who produce regional level media.

 In today's stunted world order, the mass media are frighteningly over-centralized and unaccountable. Too little is produced locally and too much comes out of a few giant media centers, notably New York and Hollywood. In economic terms, funds are siphoned out of neighborhoods that could go into local employment and revitalization projects. This dislocation stifles creativity in smaller communities and encourages a passive approach to data, as indicated by that fifteen years spent as couch potatoes. A vital culture has the lion's share of its media generated and consumed on the local level. What is more, local groups, the most immediate and important being the family, have the permanent advantages of proximity and instant feedback.

 As always, a moderate balance needs to be struck by wise administrators. The floodgates of outside data should not be opened so wide as to drown the delicate culture of homes and neighborhoods. On the other hand, shutting off the outside information flow to a trickle would parch local culture, making growth sparse and inhabitants ignorant, inward-looking and provincial.

 Leading institutions will learn judiciously to apply factors like Jane Jacobs' two principles of subsidiarity, government as close as possible to those it serves, and fiscal accountability, budgetary transparency. Another principle is diversity; as many groups as possible can be encouraged to compete in serving the information needs of citizens nearby. Tax advantages, grants and other privileges can be held out as inducements to encourage local businesses, charities, faith and service organizations to serve the needs of the whole neighborhood for entertainment and edification.

 Accordingly, information flow in and out of the locality can be traced and charted on a three dimensional display for all to see who visit city hall. The price of outside data (prices of theater and cinema tickets, cable television rates, and so forth) is raised and lowered here in order to keep the data flow at a healthy balance, in a similar way to how a nation's central bank (in the US, the federal reserve) tweaks an economy's money supply by raising or lowering interest rates. Unlike central bankers, though, this rate would be set by an open, meta-democratic committee representing every part of the community.

Planetized Journalism

Meta-democracy III

By John Taylor; 2008 March 15, 14 Ala, 164 BE

Today I want to speculate about how a meta-democratic polity might come into being. In the two previous essays, Meta-democracy I and II, we finished off discussing how popular liberation movements around the world are strangulated at birth by so-called "transitionologists," a cadre of globe trotting economists and other experts implementing a narrow, fundamentalist conception of what they call globalization. They operate without check because the international scene is a desolate no-man's-land, largely ignored by education and even the mass media. The first goal of a democratically elected world government should be to domesticate this savage territory beyond national borders, first of all by changing the nature of the trades and professions.

Journeymanship

Although many professions are important, in the early stages of implementing a world government the most crucial by far is journalism. The press and mass media are the eyes of humanity. No advanced organism can afford to place the eyes anywhere but right next to the brain. The amount and speed of processing of visual information is just too great to allow for any distancing, delegation or privatization. And so it must be in a world polity. To use yesterday's example from the history of the 1990's, it is unlikely that the liberation movements of Russia and South Africa would have been so easily plundered if there had been effective reporting on the fate of previous "transitions." So I will use journalism as my first example of how meta-democratic journeymanship might bring a profession up to world class standards.

Media corporations are the main trust to bust. The first act of a world government will be to put an end to private ownership of media corporations. Legislation would ensure that the public always maintains a controlling interest in every medium, be it print, broadcast or internet. Daily operations on the local level would be strictly mentored and staffed by the teaching profession. As it is now, press organizations intentionally pay entry level reporters less than teenage kitchen workers at fast food outlets so as more easily to control the content and ideological slant of what is reported on. Instead, local teachers would elect entry level reporters from among their ranks, and since they have a wider influence, the reporter would be on a higher pay scale than rank and file classroom teachers. And, as with university professors, tenure would protect the freedom of speech of experienced reporters.

Local reporters would be encouraged to study for regional qualification by means of apprenticeships with regional news organizations. Since they are already experienced teachers, part of their regional qualification would include teaching classes in regional civics to members of other trades who are also working for journeymanship in their respective specialties. Editors and other managers of regional press organs would be freely elected from among journeyman regional reporters. These managers would report to a board of publishers with diverse representation from the region, including government, civil service, business, agriculture, faith groups and so forth.

A reporter would earn the right to call herself a journalist by earning a doctorate in international studies and serving a concurrent apprenticeship that would include living for a time in selected cities on other continents and reporting for the world press from the world parliament. This qualification would help assure that world issues are reported on by qualified writers, and since any reporter at any level could earn a higher pay scale by becoming a journalist, the local level would be systematically illuminated by first-hand knowledge from the global level.

The qualification of journalist would also give a regional reporter voting privileges to elect continental journalists, editors and managers. These would work in press organs at the continental level, and they in turn would vote for permanent members of the planetary press corps.

This model of professional meta-democracy would apply for every other profession. As for the trades, these would have a different career path to the journeyman level. I will discuss this later.

p22dem metaII

Meta-Democracy II

By John Taylor; 2008 March 14, 13 Ala, 164 BE

"Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul; and may the outward and inward man be at one. May I reckon the wise to be the wealthy, and may I have such a quantity of gold as a temperate man and he only can bear and carry." (Plato, Phaedrus)

On July 29, 2006, I wrote an essay called Meta-Democracy, which I closed with this prayer of Socrates for integrity. I could not resist opening this second installment, designed to flesh out the idea of meta-democracy that I broached then, with the same prayer. I notice that Socrates' supplication seems addressed not only to the lesser gods of local government but also to the god of universality, Pan. Socrates, Baha'u'llah affirms in the Lawh-i-Hikmat, believed in one God. If so, this prayer encourages us to think of God as concerned with both local and universal governance.

Socrates prays to be able to perceive wisdom -- recall that wisdom is the characteristic virtue of governance, as defined by Plato elsewhere. If so, this is also a prayer for the perception that a voter needs in choosing a leader. Socrates prays not only for wisdom but also temperance, to be protected from the desire to profit beyond a moderate amount. Both wisdom and temperance are essential to polity, rule by all on behalf of all. Polity, like God, serves the local and planetary levels at once. The leadership of a polity aims at both local and planetary good at the same time, and for that reason it promotes the trust between rulers and people that the Universal House noted recently is rapidly breaking down.

"One of the signs of the breakdown of society in all parts of the world is the erosion of trust and collaboration between the individual and the institutions of governance." (UHJ, Message to the Baha'is of the World, 25 March 2007)

This trust is openly attacked every day by promoters of unfettered capitalism; they insinuate instead a rabid form of individualism and a twisted, isolated idea of liberty. Most of all, they worship at the shrine of Mammon. If there be any doubt about how important it is to be safe from greed, Baha'u'llah affirms this in no uncertain terms in the following, where he compares it to the eye's lens cap, the eyelid. Greed similarly blocks out our inner vision.

"O children of understanding! If the eyelid, however delicate, can deprive man's outer eye from beholding the world and all that is therein, consider then what would be wrought if the veil of covetousness were to descend upon his inner eye. Say: O people! The darkness of greed and envy becloudeth the radiance of the soul even as the clouds obstruct the light of the sun. Should anyone hearken unto this utterance with a discerning ear, he will unfurl the wings of detachment and soar effortlessly in the atmosphere of true understanding." (Tabernacle, 4)

We have been looking lately at Naomi Klein's, "The Shock Doctrine: the rise of disaster capitalism," which documents the triumph of bald greed on the international stage. The economists of the Chicago school (every time I read about their activities I think of the Nakazin whose betrayal so saddened the Master during his visits to that city at America's heart of darkness) promote a culture of open and unabashed acquisitiveness. Worse, every advertisement we are exposed to is a more or less subliminal appeal to some selfish motive. If you want to find new things to be horny for, should you want the reverse of Socrates prayer, just sit back and watch some commercial television or read the ads in a magazine, and tares will be planted deep in the soil of your heart. The same cleverness that designs this flood of corporatist propaganda also plots to subvert democratic movements around the world. The following passage from Klein's book comes after her history of how a cadre of globe hopping experts strangled the babe of South African liberation at its birth. It is, in my opinion, the most important passage in the entire book so far.

"If Moscow had given in, how could a raggedy band of freedom fighters in South Africa resist such a forceful global tide? That, at least was the message being peddled by the lawyers, economists and social workers who made up the rapidly expanding `transition' industry -- the teams of experts who hop from war-torn country to crisis-racked city, regaling overwhelmed new politicians with the latest best practice from Buenos Aires, the most inspiring success story from Warsaw, the most fearsome roar from the Asian Tigers. `Transitionologist' (as the NYU political scientist Stephan Cohen has called them) have a built-in advantage over the politicians they advise: they are a hyper-mobile class, while the leaders of liberation movements are inherently inward-looking. By their very nature, people spearheading intense national transformations are unable to pay close attention to the world beyond their borders. That is unfortunate, because if the ANC leadership had been able to cut through the transitionology spin and find out for itself what was really going on in Moscow, Warsaw, Buenos Aires and Seoul, it would have seen a very different picture." (Shock Doctrine, 260-261)

The reason I think this is so important is that it suggests how a polity can counteract this locust attack by well-heeled, well-traveled liars and thieves. First of all, a world government must establish meta-democracy, not only political but first of all professional. The afternoon of the fast is fast upon me, so I will go into what I mean by that next time. In the meantime, here is the relevant part of the first installment of Meta-democracy.

 Metademocracy, Part I

"So also, when the head of the army is unrivaled in the art of war, in what he says and commands he does what he wishes. When the captain of a ship is proficient in the art of navigation, in whatever he says and commands he does what he wishes. And as the real educator is the Perfect Man, in whatever He says and commands He does what He wishes. "In short, the meaning of `He doeth whatsoever He willeth' is that if the Manifestation says something, or gives a command, or performs an action, and believers do not understand its wisdom, they still ought not to oppose it by a single thought, seeking to know why He spoke so, or why He did such a thing." (Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, 174)

In this passage too there is more than meets the eye. Here I see the next step in the evolution of democracy. The Master is more or less commenting on certain passages in Plato that deal with the captain of the ship, that is, the expert in command. Like an army, a ship's captain makes life and death decisions for everybody on board, and it is suicidal to question his authority, especially during a storm, the crisis period when lives are most in danger. Very few philosophers understand what Plato was after by his ship's captain comparisons, they say he was a philosopher and naturally he was all for the leadership of a philosopher king. They make that mistake because they have not factored in the above commentary by the Master.

In any case, the next step in democratic evolution is what I am going to call multi-tiered meritocratic elections. This is modeled by the administration of the Baha'i Faith. Basic to this is the understanding that no longer can power safely rest in the hands of just one expert. Many heads are better and -- most to the point -- more incorruptible than one. Notwithstanding, day to day operations of the National Spiritual Assembly are still put in the hands of a general secretary, whom the UHJ compares to a CEO in relation to a corporation's board of directors.

Thus a philosopher king in this age works on, through, and is responsible to a committee. In the Baha'i order, only a Divine Manifestation can take absolute power into the hands of one individual; and then look at how much He suffers!

Other derivative principles of Baha'i administration come out of this. You know the drill. Instead of nominations, we have multi-level elections. On a national level, we vote in delegates and they vote in the National Spiritual Assembly; they in turn elect the UHJ. Elections are silent, free of campaigning or electioneering, and open to any member of the Faith in the jurisdiction. Electing electors is a startlingly original innovation! Call it "meta-democracy."

As a sort of scientific addendum to this faith model, compare the discoveries reported in Surowiecki's "Wisdom of Crowds" of how under the right conditions large numbers of people, voting freely and openly, always make the best possible guess about partial unknowns. Enough people have read that book now, since journalists routinely report popular guesses about who will win elections and sports events.

Although I do not follow sports normally, early this spring I read that the popular choice to win the World Cup of Soccer this summer was Italy. Following events sporadically and being around soccer fans now that my kids are playing it, I could have easily won some bets as to who would win the tournament based upon that astonishingly dependable popular prediction.

Surowiecki's is surely a revolutionary finding about how human intelligence is amplified by a combination of mathematical averaging and free, unbiased elections.

Combined with the above Baha'i-Platonic model, a meta-democracy that takes advantage of crowd wisdom will surely make decisive changes to future governance. I see the day coming when highly technical decisions will be decided "multi-tier democratically," completely independently of bureaucratic setups, simply by taking guess votes, by setting opinion "stock exchanges" where those concerned bet on certain outcomes, and at a certain stage by having all the experts in the area vote in committees of experts who in turn would appoint executives and trustees to carry out the daily operations of the project.

Let us say that our town wants to know whether to build a wind tower or a solar collector in a given location. That is a perfect job for local decision making. The usual questions that come up are: who is to decide? Who is to pay? What is lost? What long term effects will this have on the environment? Who benefits? How much should we allocate for this task? If you want to know the answer to these confusing and mutually contradictory questions, read Jane Jacobs' chapter in Dark Age Ahead on "Dumbed Down Taxes."

Here is a work of genius if ever I saw one.

Jacobs' thesis is simple but powerful. Europe recovered from the Dark Ages that set in after the fall of the Roman Empire by instituting local fiscal principles of subsidiarity and fiscal accountability.

"Subsidiarity is the principle that government works best -- most responsibly and responsively -- when it is closest to the people it serves and the needs it addresses. Fiscal accountability is the principle that institutions collecting and disbursing taxes work most responsibly when they are transparent to those providing the money." (Jane Jacobs, Dark Age, 103)

She carries this forward in the chapter to a climactic interview with then Prime Minister Paul Martin, himself a known financial (though not necessarily political or moral) genius. The way she demolishes his arguments and sees behind his motives is a tour de force to behold, her finest hour. A while back I spent a great deal of time studying the Canadian constitution, but I never noticed what she points out is *not* in there, the above two basic fiscal principles of responsible, responsive government. Amazing. These twin principles should and must be put into every constitution; after all, they got the world out of the Dark Ages...

Book Review, Part II

Liberty, Debt and Capitalism Gone Wild

By John Taylor; 2008 March 13, 12 Ala, 164 BE

Naomi Klein, "The Shock Doctrine: the rise of disaster capitalism," Knopf Canada, 2007

I continue to wade through Naomi Klein's history of market materialism, as propounded by Uncle Milty. Yesterday I denounced how he and other globalist, capitalist economists twisted greedy superstition into scientific language, thereby furnishing an ideology and excuse to rape assets in nations rich and poor around the world, all for the short-term profit of a few. I am not the first Baha'i to look at this issue. The Guardian described the insidious march of what he called "crass materialism" in detail.

"Parallel with this, and pervading all departments of life -- an evil which the nation, and indeed all those within the capitalist system, though to a lesser degree, share with that state (i.e. the USSR) and its satellites regarded as the sworn enemies of that system -- is the crass materialism, which lays excessive and ever-increasing emphasis on material well-being, forgetful of those things of the spirit on which alone a sure and stable foundation can be laid for human society. It is this same cancerous materialism, born originally in Europe, carried to excess in the North American continent, contaminating the Asiatic peoples and nations, spreading its ominous tentacles to the borders of Africa, and now invading its very heart, which Baha'u'llah in unequivocal and emphatic language denounced in His Writings, comparing it to a devouring flame and regarding it as the chief factor in precipitating the dire ordeals and world-shaking crises that must necessarily involve the burning of cities and the spread of terror and consternation in the hearts of men. Indeed a foretaste of the devastation which this consuming fire will wreak upon the world, and with which it will lay waste the cities of the nations participating in this tragic world-engulfing contest, has been afforded by the last World War, marking the second stage in the global havoc which humanity, forgetful of its God and heedless of the clear warnings uttered by His appointed Messenger for this day, must, alas, inevitably experience. It is this same all-pervasive, pernicious materialism against which the voice of the Center of Baha'u'llah's Covenant was raised, with pathetic persistence, from platform and pulpit, in His addresses to the heedless multitudes, which, on the morrow of His fateful visit to both Europe and America, found themselves suddenly swept into the vortex of a tempest which in its range and severity was unsurpassed in the world's history." (Shoghi Effendi, Citadel of Faith, 124-125)

The Guardian may have been influenced by Edward Gibbon's famous verdict on the dark ages in Europe that came hard upon the decline of Rome: "I have described the triumph of barbarism and religion." That is, the erstwhile socially-concerned religion of Christianity was corrupted when its leaders entered into alliance with Roman Imperialism. None of this is new, for this happens wherever the interests of a few take over from the interests of all -- the form of government that Aristotle called polity, rule on behalf of the entire body politic. Really, there are only two kinds of leadership, real and corrupt, and governance is either robbery or polity.

I am reading a very recent history of the late Roman and early Islamic period that compares the ubiquitous, formulaic mutterings about the monophysite or dual nature of Christ that were on the lips of Roman Christians just before the coming of Muhammad to what is happening right now. These sterile debates about angels on heads of pins were very like the stock market quotes that are the subject of conversation and endless debate among the new capitalists around the world. Klein makes a similar comparison to fundamentalist believers in her history of market capitalism gone wild.

"Like the religious fundamentalist who has a grudging respect for fundamentalists of other faiths and for avowed atheists but disdains the casual believer, the Chicagoans declared war on these mix-and-match (Keynesian) economists. What they wanted was not a revolution exactly but a capitalist Reformation: a return to uncontaminated capitalism." (Shock Doctrine, 61)

 This seemingly bloodless academic discussion had a sinister shadow. A few stood to gain from quick and massive profits, and they were not likely to gain consent from the majority who owned these assets. The only way Uncle Milty's ideas were ever going to be implemented was by cowing the majority into submission, and by suppressing democracy and rule of law. Ideas have consequences,

 "The Chicago Boys' first adventure in the seventies should have served as a warning to humanity: theirs are dangerous ideas. By failing to hold the ideology accountable for the crimes committed in the first laboratory, this subculture of unrepentant ideologues was given immunity, freed to scour the world for its next conquest. These days, we are once again living in an era of corporatist massacres, with countries suffering tremendous military violence alongside organized attempts to remake them into model `free market' economies: disappearances and torture are back with a vengeance. And once again the goals of building free markets, and the need for such brutality, are treated as entirely unrelated." (Shock Doctrine, 152)

 The fact that academia did not boot these little men with their absurd perversion of freedom out of their midst, and the fact that there is no publicly-owned world press to publicize the process, obscured and legitimized the use of unsubtle instruments of torture, intimidation and violence. The road from Pinochet to Guantanamo Bay is a short and direct one.

 "Though always cloaked in the language of math and science, Friedman's vision coincided precisely with the interests of large multi-nationals, which by nature hunger for vast new unregulated markets. In the first stage of capitalist expansion that kind of ravenous growth was provided by colonialism -- by `discovering' new territories and grabbing land without paying for it, then extracting riches from the earth without compensating local populations. Friedman's war on the `welfare state' and `big government' held out the promise of a new font of rapid riches -- only this time, rather than conquering new territory, the state itself would be the new frontier, its public services and assets auctioned off for far less than they were worth." (Shock Doctrine, 66)

 Klein stated in an interview that her object in writing this book was to offer an alternative to the conspiracy theories that futilely try to explain the seemingly inexorable triumph of shock capitalism. No, she says, none of this is planned, and mistakes are made. For example, the fall of the USSR allowed local elites, especially Boris Yeltsin and his family, to steal from the robbers, to get in first in the crisis and take most of the huge profits for themselves, using the already well developed ideas and techniques of shock capitalism. The poor big corporations were largely shut out, which is why they have been so aggressive and determined in the wake of the Iraq invasion, and why they are positively drooling over Iran.

 "In much of the Southern Hemisphere, neo-liberalism is frequently spoken of as `the second colonial pillage': in the first pillage riches were seized from the land, and in the second they were stripped from the state. After every one of these profit frenzies come the promises: next time, there will be firm laws in place before a country's assets are sold off, and the entire process will be watched over by eagle-eyed regulators and investigators with unimpeachable ethics. Next time there will be `institution building' before privatizations (to use the post-Russia parlance). But calling for law and order after the profits have all been moved offshore is really not a way of legalizing the theft ex post facto, much as the European colonizers locked in their land grabs with treaties. Lawlessness on the frontier, as Adam Smith understood, is not the problem but the point, as much a part of the game as the contrite hand-wringings, the pledges to do better next time." (The Shock Doctrine, 294)

 The actual assets stolen are not the least of the crime. The Pinochet experiment proved that by taking over a government, you can perpetrate an even more egregious theft. Every robber knows that the easiest mark is a baby, being completely without defenses; as the saying goes, like stealing candy from a baby. Shock capitalism regresses an entire population into crying, fearful confused babies. But the robber in power learns that you can steal from an even more defenseless mark: babies yet to be born. If a nation that has been robbed by a despot is held responsible for the despot's theft, then the spoils are almost unlimited. That is what the debt crisis is all about.

 Reading Klein's history of how corporatist elites learned to take over governments, run up huge debts, then pass power back to the people and stick them with the bill in the form of huge national debts, I often am reminded of a book I read back in the 1980's, Naylor's "Hot Money and the Politics of Debt," I think it was called. This went to the real root of the problem, the existence of so-called "off-shore banking." If it were not possible to hide money in these banks, it would not have been possible for these new billionaires, formerly and more accurately called robber barons, to hide their loot. That is, a world currency whose transactions are traced through a world banking authority would end the criminality and the resultant debt crisis in a stroke.

 The roots of this debt crisis run even deeper than offshore banks, though. Baha'is know that the root is a pernicious materialism that is in the Guardian's unforgettable phrase "eating into the vitals of society." Debt is the direct result of materialism, which makes a god of greed. Over an entire generation a philosophy that made selfishness into a virtue brought on irresponsible lending, rampant speculation and open promotion of raw greed. Right now the king of them all, the American economy, is staggering and threatening to set the whole world's economy into free fall. Recession, maybe even another great depression, threatens. The causes are not hard to find. Both governments and individuals spend freely and avoid saving or investing in infrastructure. In other words, they deny God, the life to come, and even this life.

 Here are some more of my favorite passages from Naomi Klein's fascinating book:

 "The movement that Milton Friedman launched in the 1950s is best  understood as an attempt by multinational capital to recapture the highly profitable, lawless frontier that Adam Smith, the intellectual forefather of today's neo-liberals, so admired -- but with a twist. Rather than journeying through Smith's "savage and barbarous nations" where there was no Western Law, this movement set out to systematically dismantle existing regulations to recreate the earlier lawlessness. And where Smith's colonists earned their record profits by seizing what he described as `waste lands' for `but a trifle,' today's multinationals see government programs, public assets and everything that is not for sale as terrain to be conquered and seized -- the post office, national parks, schools, social security, disaster relief and anything else that is publicly administered.
 "Under Chicago School economics, the state acts as the colonial frontier, which corporate conquistadors pillage with the same ruthless determination and energy as their predecessors showed when they hauled home the gold and silver of the Andes. Where Smith saw fertile green fields turned into profitable farmlands on the pampas and the prairies, Wall Street saw `green field opportunities' in Chile's phone system, Argentina's airline, Russia's oil fields, Bolivia's water system, the United States' public airwaves, Poland's factories -- all built with public wealth, then sold for a trifle.
 "Then there are the treasures created by enlisting the state to put a patent and a price tag on life forms and natural resources never dreamed of as commodities -- seeds, genes, carbon in the earth's atmosphere. By relentlessly searching for new profit frontiers in the public domain, Chicago School economists are like the mapmakers of the colonial era, identifying new waterways through the Amazon, marking off the location of a hidden cache of gold inside an Inca temple.
 "Corruption has been as much a fixture on these contemporary frontiers as it was during the colonial gold rushes. Since the most significant privatization deals are always signed amid the tumult of an economic or political crisis, clear laws and effective regulators are never in place -- the atmosphere is chaotic, the prices are flexible and so are the politicians. What we have been living for three decades is frontier capitalism, with the frontier constantly shifting location from crisis to crisis, moving on as soon as the law catches up." (The Shock Doctrine, 290-291)

 "The debate about whether "human rights" can ever truly be separated from politics and economics is not unique to Latin America; these are questions that surface whenever states use torture as a weapon of policy. Despite the mystique that surrounds it, and the understandable impulse to treat it as aberrant behaviour beyond politics, torture is not particularly complicated or mysterious.
 "A tool of the crudest kind of coercion, it crops up with great predictability whenever a local despot or a foreign occupier lacks the consent needed to rule: Marcos in the Philippines, the shah in Iran, Saddam in Iraq, the French in Algeria, the Israelis in the occupied territories, the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan. The list could stretch on and on.
 "The widespread abuse of prisoners is a virtually foolproof indication that politicians are trying to impose a system -- whether political, religious or economic -- that is rejected by large numbers of the people they are ruling. Just as ecologists define ecosystems by the presence of certain `indicator species' of plants and birds, torture is an indicator species of a regime that is engaged in a deeply anti-democratic project, even if that regime happens to have come to power through elections." (The Shock Doctrine, 149)

 "One of the most moving testimonies on this question comes from Sergio Tomasella, a tobacco farmer and secretary general of Argentina's Agrarian Leagues, who was tortured and imprisoned for five years, as were his wife and many friends and family members. In May, 1990, Tomasella took the overnight bus to Buenos Aires from the rural province of Corrientes in order to add his voice to the Argentine Tribunal against Impunity, which was hearing testimony on human rights abuses during the dictatorship. Tomasella's testimony was different from the others. He stood before the urban audience in his farming clothes and workboots and explained that he was the casualty of a long war, one between poor peasants who wanted pieces of land to form co-operatives and the all-powerful ranchers who owned half the land in his province. "The line is continuous -- those who took the land from the Indians continue to oppress us with their feudal structures."
 "He insisted that the abuse he and his fellow members of the Agrarian Leagues suffered could not be isolated from the huge economic interests served by the breaking of their bodies and destruction of their activist networks. So instead of naming the soldiers who abused him, he chose to name the corporations, both foreign and national, that profit from Argentina's continued economic dependence. `Foreign monopolies impose crops on us, they impose chemicals that pollute our earth, impose technology and ideology. All this through the oligarchy which owns the land and controls the politics. But we must remember -- the oligarchy is also controlled, by the very same monopolies, the very same Ford Motors, Monsanto, Philip Morris. It is the structure we have to change. This is what I have come to denounce. That's all.'"
 "The auditorium erupted in applause. Tomasella concluded his testimony with these words: `I believe that truth and justice will eventually triumph. It will take generations. If I am to die in the fight, then so be it. But one day we will triumph. In the meantime, I know who the enemy is, and the enemy knows who I am, too.'"  (The Shock Doctrine, 151-152)