Horizontal Governance: The Evolution of the Social Mind

So now that the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement seems to have fallen off the major media radar, most of its non-participating supporters are now left to wonder, not only where did it go, but what now? It is very important for OWS to send a clearer message, about what change it wants to implement. If this message is not soon delivered, the movement will deteriorate, and be forever discounted as a senseless complaint.

The first thing that I noticed, as the OWS movement peaked, was a lot of the organizers were talking about it having a horizontal structure. For those, who don't understand what that is, or those who believe that a leaderless horizontal political system is just another phrase describing socialism, or in right-wing perspective, a communist takeover, the horizontal hierarchy finds its strengths in being leaderless. It enables every voice to rise to the top of all decision-making procedures. Unlike any of the aforementioned labels, horizontal-ism is a facilitator of efficient information, for the purpose that leaders could make more effective decisions when drawing up policies, that directly effect society, but with a focus on the needs of the individual.

So, why a horizontal, leaderless decision-making process? When asked, what was the funniest thing that he witnessed during the OWS protests in New York City, Dr. Arthur Chen of Oakland, California, responded with an action by protestors that wasn't as funny as it was purposeful. He noted that the effect of our generation's sense of inclusiveness, while watching the protestors take part in a General Assembly. This inclusiveness he witnessed is what the information age has brought us. Put simply, we have the tools that grant us the knowledge, that we don't have to "screen" each other, when it comes to having our voices heard, and that all of the information we gather from these assemblies are their to better inform us of all of our needs, rather than a pigeon-holed perspective provided to us by the measures of antiquated D.C. politics, and corporate media. The information age demands a place for those venues that would not screen all of our points of view (7).

Well, as complex as the OWS movement's demands are, so is the political process in our modern society, especially when you consider the pace at which information retrieval and gathering is accomplished in contrast to the current method  of implementation of ideas, and policies in current governmental structure on the basis of information acquisition. Basically, there is no political structure in the world today, that is capable of keeping up with the mobility of information. So, it is incompetent in providing a highly informed society with the necessary laws and leadership that will improve lives across the economic spectrum. "The style of communication, decision-making and planning taking place in Zuccotti Park, and in Occupy protests across the country, mimics much of the way we have learned to talk to one another online." (1)

As a society, we are all psychologically geared to consume and produce information at a much faster rate today than in the past, when the only avenues to the most current information were institutionally supplied media. Now the flow of information, being less authoritative, and more unrestricted, enables the general populace to shift opinion and consensus through its own mechanism of verification and truth (i.e. mic checks, tweets, Facebook statuses, etc.). Take for instance Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton's statements back in March 2011, where she stated that the U.S. is losing when it comes to information distribution (3). She was saying this even at a time of the greatest usage of the internet as an information sharing resource. With the rampant sharing of information, and the low cost to produce it, media centers have propped up elsewhere, globally, while the U.S. makes cuts to major propaganda facilities, it is apparent that the U.S. government even recognizes its failure to effectively create or even maintain an effective infrastructure to inform on a new playing field.

The pattern of rapid information sharing, and the shift away from powerful or concentrated information centers, is beginning to find its way into politics and governance. If there is any debate contrary to this concept then, that thinking is as archaic as the political system that exists today. It is a failing system, slowly collapsing under its own weight, because it is either resistant, or incapable to changing its structure, in order to meet the needs of the people it is supposed to represent, and coordinate with those who are more aware of the concordance of the highly informed public.

What we're missing today in policy making is a leadership machine that runs efficiently, and that efficiency should stem from its ability to easily discover consensus among a representative body. Horizontal-ism was born out of the political leadership's incompetence to connect, network, or even embed itself within the ranks of a more informed and people, that exists within a nexus of economical, and political awareness. If we are to successfully regain economic and civil control of not just our own nations, but to assure that in the future there exists a global mechanism by which all informed voices can be heard at the level of the representational parts of our governing structures, then horizontal governance must become a compulsory branch of government.

Political leaders remain indifferent, well, at least those who support it. Those that don't support a new amendment to the governing structure, simply understand that they exist in a system that isolates them from common needs, while symbolically upholding that they are representing the people, when in fact they have latched onto a more concentrated, financially apt body of constituents: corporations. Since the decision of the Supreme court to classify corporations as persons, our representatives have shut the true people out of government, and even governing themselves. Through well financed lobbying, it is extremely easy to market popular opinion that is biased in favor of business' agenda, and marketing is not necessarily fact or even truth. The rate of information is faster, because it is smaller, concise, concentrated, and easily facilitated. Instead of having to wait for the true popular message, from veritable people, senators, congressman, and statesman, refuse to recognize the time, the patience or the capabilities to hear an ever-growing population's demands. So through corporate person-hood, the ears of representative governing have only been listening to the minority of the population. Even if it isn't a minority below the surface, it is a highly concentrated, single body, that portrays skewed data, information, and opinion to our leaders, and has basically hijacked the democratic process. If our leaders were competent enough to embrace new technologies as tools to reconnecting the bridge of representation to their people, the need to consolidate information through the pipe of false person-hood, the corporations, then OWS would have never had the need to exist.

I bring all this up not to belabor the issue of corporate person-hood, but to emphasize one aspect why our politicians turn to corporate lobbying first, instead of the mass of people they are really supposed to represent, if they are even doing so at all. It is really a matter of "voice" as information, and a conflict between that and the speed at which it flows into government from the people, and the amount with which they are inundated. Ask, any successful businessman, if a business grows beyond its capacity to produce, the business' production infrastructure needs to change, in order for it to satisfy that growth. The same thinking should be applied to governing. What OWS is attempting to offer up to its leaders is governing system by which the people can regain their voices in government, and "produce" policies that directly stem from that voice, and not from the concentrated minority of voices that are isolated from the people by financial means and sheer totalitarian information marketing committed by the corporations and wealthy elite.

The most important thing to recognize about the corporate person-hood and its new found tight relationship with political leaders is that it is authoritarian in nature. This convenient relationship is severely evident in the doctrines of right-wing politicians, who have plenty of private interests lobbying them, and also support an extreme version of capitalism that caters to the corporate person-hood status. Instead of gathering consensus from veritable persons, the information pipe is diverted, and the flow of information into government has become unchallenged, simply by changing the definition of a person.

In education, the lack of leadership's capacity to adapt to the information age is strongly evident in its complete ignorance of improving the learning environment in general education. In the U.S. classrooms still contain the educational tools of 50 years ago. How would our leaders expect students to compete on the global playing field, if the real world expects learning and skill gains through an information highway, while the primary learning environment is only stocked with only #2 pencils and dry erase boards? If the leaders in the U.S. need an answer to why students are not ranking higher in the global education standings, they should ask themselves, "why hasn't there been a massive R&D effort to understand how to use computers to develop customized reading-learning strategies for kids with different learning styles." (4) If our leaders realize the technology is more about a new way of thinking, and decision making, and less about entertainment (i.e. video games, and Tweeting), then they would discover that educating our kids along these lines would enable them to govern themselves better, teach each other more efficiently, and basically share ideas in order to effectively innovate.

There is a concerted yet unspoken effort to suppress this new mode of information sharing by only the most powerful elements of our society, and their political cohorts, that realize the benefits of not just guiding media output, but excessively controlling it. If schools are not funded adequately enough to utilize the technological tools of now, if legislation is written in order to selectively expose our privacy, take away our right to free speech, and prevent us from seeking out the right information, then it is absolutely evident that controlling the masses comes in the form of authoritarian restraint. If gaining information is a race, those capable of buying policies, and those making them, are slowing the greater majority of people down with uncertainty and unprincipled policies. If ordinary people are adapting successfully to information exchange, and that progression is being even slightly restricted or presided over, then it would suffice to say that not just media, but also the flow of free information is controlled.

In order to paint a picture of the entities that control the flow of information, it must be emphasized that the avenues by which we receive information are highly restrictive because of two factors: 1) the private industry's inability to embrace change;  and 2) the failure of policy makers to stimulate change (5). It's all about speed really. Not about the ability of businesses and politicians to keep up, really, but more about their reluctance to change, even increase, speed at all. If the flow of information is sped up, then change in any system is inevitable, and to ignore it for the sake of security, or preservation of pre-existing systems, is simply put, a failure. Here's a scenario that makes no sense, in this matter, when Google Health (a resource for users to store and analyze their health information) decides to discontinue it's service. Within the same month, Qualcomm Life plans to sell a health device hub, that connects up to servers, in order to continuously share a patient's real-time health information with medical professionals via the "cloud" (6).

Now, you read that last paragraph, and say, "so what, it's the nature of the market, and it's competition for these companies to make changes". But, if looked at from a non-business perspective, and more so from the information architect, it would make sense to have multiple arenas of data, that could be used in conjunction, in order to create a larger data pool, which in turn would enable medical doctors and patients as well as healthcare insurers a more efficient tool to analyze medical risks and factors. Basically, business, because of profit loss, has taken away one source of health data aggregation, and isolate it via a paid for service, that limits the flow of information. The argument here is, why not have it in multiple ways? Why not just have a horizontal information structure, like the format that the OWS's movement has instituted for the purpose of sharing information among working groups?

It is second nature for us to produce information. In fact we produce information as fast as we interact with one another, yet most of it goes undocumented, or is placed in a data-accessible format. Discovering the point at which human interaction on the social level transitions into information provision to those who need to analyze it, or use it as a way to make sound policy decisions, is most likely the intention of the horizontal political structure, that OWS intends to implement. Most people may think, that polls or surveys may be the tool by which all of this is done, but often surveys can be too specific to a certain research need, and cannot be easily digested by the average person, and polls are either too biased or skewed to provide a non-partisan assessment of any policy stance. This, in no way, is a justification for the gathering of information of individuals, but rather, having our political structure take a more determined approach to gathering a sense of what the public needs are.

1. Occupy Wall Street’s ‘horizontal hierarchy’ seen through prism of the Internet
2. The Authoritarian Personality
3. Hillary Clinton: US Losing Information War to Alternative Media
4. Miller, Matthew. The Tyranny of Dead Ideas: Letting Go of the Old Ways of Thinking to Unleash a New Prosperity. New York: Times, 2009. Print.
5. Arndt, Rachel Z. "Google Health to the Guillotine." Fast Company Dec. 2011: 32. Print.
6. Box Sends Health Data Right to the Cloud
7. Why I Protest: Dr. Arthur Chen of Oakland, California

Not the Only Shop In Town

With globalization such a trend of late, and the U.S. riding on its coat tails with the vehicle of free trade, it's seems apparent that the U.S. government wants to be the only shop in town (the town being the global market). Today, news agencies have reported, that South Korea's parliament is voting to approve a free trade deal with the United States, of which the South Korean people outright do not support. So what happens when a global power decides that it does no want to consider the needs of foreign people, and will at any cost force trade deals with unwilling nations? It blockades the voting chamber doors with office furniture, as the opposition is left to fight its way in, in order to stop the agreement.

This is a very disappointing light that will be cast upon U.S. representatives of South Korea. Not only is the U.S. government turning a blind eye to these events, but it fails to publicly declare that it is attempting soft imperial practices around the globe. This is what America calls a democratic process? South Korean lawmakers who oppose the free trade deal have stated that this agreement would destroy agriculture in South Korea, and in conjunction to this the U.S. Congress has fought this deal, because it would economically topple an already faulty auto making industry in America. If free trade is not the will of the people, and it is a system that has not effectively supported current economic infrastructure, then why is it constantly being rammed through?

President Bush, who wholeheartedly sponsors free trade, has committed himself to several free trade agreements, and has pushed to implement even more throughout the international scene. In order to effectively analyze Bush's economic agenda, one needs to consider his brute force tactics in initiating two conflicts in the Middle East, and along parallel lines, his all out commitment to promoting free trade one global region at a time. Note, that most of these regions fall within the global South (below the equator), made up of nations that are in fact poorer, less developed the nations unlike the U.S. and those in Europe, and do not hold any substantial leverage with institutions like the World Bank, IMF, or World Trade Organization. But, the U.S. government does. In fact it is has the most influential leverage of all, and in most cases will be the deciding factor in financial decisions of these organizations.

So, free trade therefore, really only benefits the U.S., because of its connection to global institutions committed to controlling the global monetary system, which in effect agrees to loan money to the U.S. for foreign investments in trade, which the U.S. in turn uses as leverage to politically and socially manipulate the nation with which it trades. President Bush has protected American interests via amending U.S. agriculture policy to the agreements, and subsidizing U.S. farmers simutaneously. The foreign nations only have the capability to supply whatever it is they can produce, and everyone is aware that most developing nations do not have this capacity, and at most they do have ample agriculture to get a economic head start. But, America does not want that part of their business.

One assumption could be made that U.S. companies foresaw a lack of demand domestically, and would began to scour the planet for more ways to produce more demand overseas. From a market standpoint that might work, but culturally it fails, because these businesses cannot possibly put countries like Guatemala, India even Iraq into the same mold that fits countries like Japan, China, or Saudi Arabia. Economy must be stable and have some form of structure that meets cultural and popular needs. It also must retain a mutual flow of trade. Without this the U.S. economy will fail itself, among other nations, and that is so evident in what is happening today with the markets. Too much is placed on foreign entities, too fast, and often times the concept of trade seems to represent an asymmetric business venture.

The U.S. government needs to stop its progression of free trade, and get back to the drawing board, and rethink its trade policies. They are simply destroying the global economy, in some sense creating more enemies for the global superpowers, and driving a divide between rich and poor individuals as well as nations.

If It's Broke, Don't Fix It

So the news today, has shed some new light on the A.I.G. situation, in that now the U.S. government wants to provide more aid to the failing insurance company, in the wake of the already agreed upon $700 billion bail out. The government's reasoning: because "initial bailout was putting too much strain on the company" (U.S. Provides More Aid to Big Insurer).

In an economy that is so overburdened with debt at the average consumer's level, and with confidence in the economy at an all time low, why is it that the Fed keeps pouring billions of dollars of taxpayers' money into a business that failed to do its job? Did the executives at A.I.G. not understand what they were getting themselves into? They busted their loan from the government, yet the government still keeps pouring funds back into the black hole of A.I.G.'s purse. If there is any reason to say to stop this erratic economic behavior it would be because of one of two things: a) the business model doesn't work, and our government cannot comprehend that point; or b) the government in fact is aware of the never-ending money pit, and there are several government interests at work here. In short why won't the Federal government let A.I.G. collapse under it's own lack of responsible financing. If the government continues to financially support a failed system on the taxpayers' backs, would that mean that the government also is failing its investors, the American people?

Basically, the Fed is giving a handout to a company that even its investors cannot trust, as Janet Tavakoli has stated that, "When investors don’t have full and honest information, they tend to sell everything, both the good and bad assets...things do not heal until you take care of that" (A Question for A.I.G.: Where Did the Cash Go?). The inability of A.I.G. to supply all of its records, means that the true nature of its financial stability is hidden, and the fact that government can still supply money based on an unknown, show very poor management on both the Fed and A.I.G. executives. In addition to this premise, the Fed would have no basis on which to know how much bail out is needed, or if the bail out is indeed a lost cause. It's blatant unknown risk to the American taxpayer, and could eventually effect the global economy.

Back in 2005, Governor Spitzer of New York State filed a lawsuit against AIG concerning "deception and fraud". Spitzer alleged that AIG was misleading regulators by "hiding underwriting losses from an auto warranty unit, National Union, by transferring the losses to an offshore entity AIG secretly controlled; covering up losses in a Brazilian subsidiary, Unibanco Seguros, by linking the losses to a Taiwanese subsidiary, Nan Shan Life Insurance Co. Ltd.", and "deceiving regulators about AIG's ties to offshore entities" (Bernstein, J. (2005, May 27). Spitzer charges AIG officials with 'deception and fraud'. Newsday, (Melville, NY), Retrieved November 10, 2008, from Newspaper Source database.). Ironic, that a politician with the proper ethics to bring down Wall Street companies who participated in fraudulent schemes, was later, in March 2008, persecuted for being tied to a prostitution ring in Washington D.C., and was pressured by members of the New York Republican party to step down from office for his actions. What is most outrageous about this attack on a political figure who was attempting to rescue Americans from corporate fraud, is that in a Newsday article from November 6, 2008, drawing from statements of U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia, said that "we have determined that there is insufficient evidence to bring charges against Mr. Spitzer for any offense relating to the withdrawal of funds for, and his payments to..." a prostitution ring. NO EVIDENCE!!!! Yet he was accused of spending tens of thousands of dollars to pay for world class hookers, and stepped down because of these false accusations. A successful destruction of politician who was fighting against companies that today persist in stealing from the American purse.

The fraud is rampant throughout AIG's recent history, or maybe it's evident now that Spitzer had gotten the ball rolling. Previous to our current financial fall out, four of AIG's executives "were convicted of fraud and conspiracy to defraud by a court in Connecticut". Even after multiple attempts by the executive's legal team to dodge evidence, and the executives denying any wrongdoing, AIG itself, acknowledged its "accounting improprieties". So in a sense, these executives allowed financial practices of wrongdoing, but they themselves committed no wrongdoing. That's outrageously wrong, and they were guilty for intentionally mismanaging their business. There are two ways to make money, selling a valuable commodity, or robbing people through deceit (York, S. (n.d.). Five guilty of fraud that led to AIG chief's fall. Times, The (United Kingdom), Retrieved November 10, 2008, from Newspaper Source database).

Even as far back as February 2006, a year after Spitzer's allegations, AIG "agreed to pay $1.6 billion to settle charges of securities fraud" (NORRIS, M. (n.d.). SEC, New York to Share AIG Fraud Payout. All Things Considered (NPR), Retrieved November 10, 2008, from Newspaper Source database). In May 2005, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, filed suit against AIG, accusing the company of "inflating earnings reports to boost stock prices, which have dropped nearly 30 percent since the company's May 1 report. The suit also accuses Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s General Re Corp. of helping AIG create a sham insurance transaction" (Egelko, B. (n.d.). S.F. city attorney sues AIG over losses / Pension system lost $4.2 million after stock collapsed. San Francisco Chronicle (CA), Retrieved November 10, 2008, from Newspaper Source database). In October 2007, AIG was indirectly involved in yet another case of fraud, when executives of San Benito, TX-based Sweezy Construction Inc. were federally indicted on charges to commit "bank fraud, wire fraud and bankruptcy fraud". One item of interest in the indictments was that the executives were accused of "presenting false financial information to AIG insurance company in a scheme to get the insurance giant to issue a $30 million performance bond to Sweezy Construction". Whether or not AIG was aware of the fraudulent intentions, a company of its size should have had the managerial sense to implement claims investigations of the construction firm's assets, before insuring them (Perez-Trevino, E. (2007, October 3). Valley construction company indicted for fraud. Brownsville Herald, The (TX), Retrieved November 10, 2008, from Newspaper Source database).

Oil: The Weapon Generator

With news of the falling price of a barrel of oil, Russia, Venezuela, and Iran are experiencing spending hardships (3 Oil-Rich Countries Face a Reckoning). The United States seems to reap the benefit of a lower price at the pump, and the world seems to be a safer place, because oil is so cheap. Well, you would assume that is true, but it is not.

In the past the United States has gone to Saudi Arabia cutting a deal that if the Saudis could offer up its oil resources, we would promise plenty of military aid, and support, just in case, a country like Saudi Arabia, with a very weak military infrastructure, would not have to fret over foreign threats in their region of the world. What a nice deal that is! This is sort of an unspoken agreement that the United States has with Saudi Arabia, but is evident all together, when you consider that such a nationally insecure country like Saudi Arabia has never really faced any real threat of invasion or attack from another nation since World War Two. As long as the oil flows from the sandy desert nation to the always thirsty United States, the latter will always have the former's back.

In more recent history, the U.S. has held an eight year occupation of Iraq, and that has led to relentless fighting from insurgencies from all over the Middle East. America's response is "bring it on!" Now, keep in mind that the U.S. is fighting a war on terror, against a non-national entity, that most likely has a miniscule financial base, and no central organization, yet it has spent double the amount of years in Iraq and Afghanistan at war, than it had in in fighting the Axis powers of World War Two. These were enemies with huge governments, tremendous military powers, and geographical reaches that make Iraq's geographical threat seem as contained a threat as a box of matches in a rain storm. Both Iraq and Afghanistan surround Iran, and the occupations of these to nations could be interpreted as a containment strategy by the U.S., and not a war for freedom and democracy fro Iraqis. So, fighting the war on terror serves a dual purpose, but in all reality the occupations seem to fit policies of protecting America's prized energy resources.

If you think that it's not about that, then consider why the U.S.'s occupation contains a ratio of one to one, of military soldiers to private contractors (U.S.-Iraq Deal Could Mean Jail Time for Contractors). These contractors are not only there for security details but also to supply energy infrastructure construction for Iraq. Washington Group International, an Idaho based construction company was awarded a $500,000,000 government contract in May of 2004 for "electrical power distribution and transmission" in the northern region of Iraq. Teco Ocean Shipping, a part of Teco Energy, was granted a $7.2 million contract for what the government termed "emergency ocean freight." Now this may not have much to do with energy contracting, but when perusing the other contractors, it is worth mentioning that Stevedoring Services of America, based out of Seattle, was given a $14.3 million contract to not only operate and manage the Iraqi Port Authority, but would include such services such as handling cargo, and shipment tracking. Considering the accusations that Stevedoring was participating in "gross profiteering" drawn from humanitarian aid, there is an argument that arises, addressing the issue of why a company contracted to provide humanitarian aid to Iraq, would need to monitor both incoming and outgoing goods, if its main purpose is to provide incoming welfare goods. At the same time require $90 million in upgrades for the southern port of Umm Qasr, in order to effectively provide humanitarian aid. This sounds very much like energy infrastructure building for profit, and also enabling U.S. based energy relationships to put a energy exporting infrastructure in place. Next, in line, is Stanley Consultants. They say they provide multi-disciplinal engineering, management, but their main focus is on energy development, land/resource development, and infrastructure projects. They were in fact responsible for rebuilding Kuwait after the first Iraq war in 1991. Stanley won a $7 million contract from the U.S. Army for unknown services in Iraq.

The list is quite lengthy, and some companies aren't worth mentioning, like Kellogg, Brown & Root (Halliburton), simply because so much has been said about its shady ties to the government, and shifty behavior with U.S. Army bids, that it is quite obvious that oil, energy, and war all go hand in hand when it comes to this company. As it is evident, on the surface a lot of the contracts served in Iraq or the Middle East are not telling, but the underlying structure wields much in the way of not nation rebuilding but major profits for private energy sector gained from war. If this war was about freeing Iraqis, and supplying humanitarian aid, why did it last four and a half years more, and why was Jay Garner, a humanitarian expert, replaced by Paul Bremmer, an incompetent puppet of the Bush administration? And, where did all the money go for humanitarian efforts? Where's the aid in ignoring "repeated appeals" from the emergency room in Baghdad's Yarmouk hospital, that was "still short of basic medicines and equipment. There were only twelve beds in the emergency room...the hospital pharmacy" was constantly "out of ointments, eyedrops, and medicine for children...and in the medical lab, there was antiquated equipment and just one microscope." (from Against Us by Jim Sciutto. Harmony Books. New York, pp. 112)

Oil can lead to many other devices. Several arguments can be made for why America wants a war in Iraq, but one very strong argument is that it wasn’t just for the oil. Jim Sciutto, a journalist with ABC News, asked a medical doctor about this. “More seriously, I asked Dr. Jamal what we could possibly achieve by bogging down the U.S. military for years and spending trillions of dollars in a losing battle.” Jamal responded without hesitating, “It’s not just for oil, but for selling weapons. Selling everything, soldiers need new tanks, new equipment, it’s about money, not just oil.” (from Against Us by Jim Sciutto. Harmony Books. New York, pp. 124)

On the same hand, Iran, a very oil rich nation, is now contained. The West at the current stage of the game can restrict Iran's international position as an energy supplier to any nation who does not play into the policies of the United States. It's not to say they despise America, but would rather have a more independent role in the international scene. Countries like Venezuela, for instance, praise Iran for its international sovereignty, and now even seek weapons trade or even military practices with Russia, another energy resource player, in exchange for Venezuelan petro-generated dollars.

Everyone across the globe is playing for money based on oil. It is a heavy price to pay, when innocent men and women are sent into war, strictly for the purpose of controlling the flow of that oil, but big business will have its way with government's politically elite, without regard for the benefit of mankind, but only the drive to get more cash.

Changing the Way We Are Viewed

With all the talk about change going on in the current election campaigns, I would like to address a key factor of change that I don't see being discussed, and that is how Muslims currently view America. Having watched a talk by ABC News correspondent Jim Sciutto, it was interesting to note, that he has surveyed not only Muslims, but also those of non-Muslim faith, who to this day have a much more negative view of America now, than we knew of before the occupation of both Afghanistan and Iraq, and even 9/11.
Now, politicians and presidential campaigners can talk all they want about change, and I am all for bringing change to our own doorsteps, but we also need to strongly consider how we are going to positively respond to Arabs, Muslims, and the public of the Middle East, because we are not living up to our promises to these people, and in fact have failed to show that we are a people of principle, and uphold solid character on a global scale. Sciutto mentions that several times dissidents of Al Qaeda, Iran, and other insurgent factions have come to the U.S. leadership asking for assistance in stabilizing their region, and bringing about a better way of life, and our leaders have turned them away multiple times. Sciutto makes note of the fact that the Arab people are already fighting one enemy on their own soil, yet when America ignores their requests, with passive policies, yet America occupies their lands, these people feel as if they are fighting two enemies, and would rather not have to deal with America altogether. Even just two years after the Iraq invasion, Muslims began tuning out the West, but were instead taking an intellectual approach to making "headway against militancy and terrorism, and for moderation in general." (Muslim reformists reject Western view of change Toronto Star (Canada), 03190781, Apr 14, 2005)
The important thing to consider here is the willingness to cooperate by the Arab people. For decades they have existed among destabilized nations and leaderships in an area of the world that offers so much potential for global prosperity, where you have many young and eager individuals ready to learn, and take part in the global economy. Which leads me to think that maybe all this destabilization in the Middle East is not centered around politics, but instead, a large population dynamic struggling to climb up onto the ladder of globalization. According to Fauzi Najjar, in article in the journal of the Middle East Policy Council, there are three differing viewpoints on globalization in the Arab world, one of which "calls for finding an appropriate form of globalization that is compatible with the national and cultural interests of the people." With 52 nations having a Muslim majority, and a majority of those countries containing a large amount of Western economy's outsourcing and offshoring, why wouldn't this part of the world, regardless of religious background not want to play a more significant role in the global economy? It's not that these people are against us, and is plain to see that they are simply looking to play along with us, but we need to change our principles, and stop isolating ourselves from these people.

Confusion is Abuse in the U.S. Economy.

One Guy Who Has Seen It All Doesn't Like What He Sees Now - WSJ.com

(PDF)

In recent past articles, I've discussed deregulation, by our U.S. government, as the primary factor in the economic mess we're in now. In the article linked above, Mr. Bernstein has stated that the major contributing factor of our economic state, and the potential for this to turn into the next best thing to the 1939 Depression, is borrowing, and the investment rabbles that went unregulated by our government. In my opinion Bernstein is getting at a point in this article, that investors and the lending industry knew that if they could race to some undetermined finish line (the precursor to a market crash) with fattened funds, then they could sell off and come off the bull with a lot of money. This seems to be a fixed market in all senses. Take the risks up front, sell off the risk, and then walk away without worry of being anchored down by worthless stock.
Basically, the government was not watching the markets. The economy to me, represents pirates pillaging and looting large cruise ships of consumers. Bernstein even goes onto note that houses cost so much, that you can't buy anything in real estate with cash anymore. It all gets filtered down through the lending market, and this is where consumers represent the looted cruise ship, because a bulk of the real estate market are homeowners or buyers, who don't borrow, they are held under the pirate saber of loans. There are no other options. There's no protection for consumers in this current market, and this holds true in other realms of the market too, not just real estate. The Fed, now, is taking a top down approach, and funneling more money into a system that has way too much of it, and seeking more and more. Instead they should, what Bernstein states, "underpin the consumer". Start from the bottom, and in conjunction to this start sheparding big business lenders into fair loan practices.

Raped by Corporate America

I'm telling you, if I had a nickel for every story I hear about corporate scams...
Yet, another New York Times article today concerning Unum Healthcare and it's inability to promise it's clients compensation for which they pay out for. The real kicker here is Unum (and let not Cigna Healthcare go unmentioned), has been deferring their clients to the Social Security Administration for compensation benefits. WTF!! Last time I checked I don't pay my healthcare provider for advice onto where to go for my compensation. I pay out of pocket for a health plan, so that you solely provide me with ample coverage, not Social Security (for which I also shell out a ton of money). I am sick and fucking tired of this corporate healthcare system. All I hear about is how they go to all legal lengths to save a buck at the cost of our health. On top of this, they swindle the American system, and its public by buffering their money pot with Social Security. Can you spell FRAUD?

• Insurers Faulted as Overloading Social Security