Dear Secretary Clinton

An Open Letter to Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton.

The fundamentalism of conservative politics rests on false assumptions.  For example, the utopian self-regulated market economy.  A free market has never existed and cannot actually ever exist.

When you question Conservative assumptions, based on their lack of capacity to understand how markets and governments work together, then we begin to see how little they understand.

Market Fundamentalism of conservatives threatens Americans lives more than any terrorist.  New Orleans after Katrina and Flint are only two of hundreds of examples.  The Malheur Occupation here in Oregon had all the elements of market fundamentalism assumptions behind the rhetoric of those arrested.

Your staff will find excellent logic and pragmatic words to craft PR messages in this book:

Fred Block, Margaret R. Somers, The Power of Market Fundamentalism:  Karl Polanyi's Critique, Harvard University Press (2014)

The key assumption Conservatives make, that Polanyi claimed was false, is that land, labor and money are commodities.  Polanyi called them fictitious commodities.  Markets prey on land, labor and money unless government regulates their behavior.

“Driven by this free market ideology, conservative politicians have engaged in a decades-long campaign to reverse the reforms originally introduced in the 1930s by Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and extended in the 1960s by Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs.”

“…we use the label “market fundamentalism” because the term conveys the quasi-religious certainty expressed by contemporary advocates of market self-regulation.”

“Polanyi’s argument… challenged the ascendant precept that freedom and individual rights depended exclusively on an economy driven by a system of self-regulating markets and severely diminished government spending on social and economic provisioning and protection.”

1. “First, while markets are necessary, they are also fundamentally threatening to human freedom and the collective good.”
2. “Our second theme is that the free market celebrated by economists and political libertarians has never—and cannot ever—actually exist.”
3. “Our third theme is that the seductive persistence of free market ideology is rooted in its promise to reduce the role of politics in civic and social life.”

Feedback in Learning

Feedback Loops in Learning

Click on link below for very short slide show:

First, Second and Third Order Learning

Supreme Court Politics

Source: National Review, Justice Scalia’s 2014 opinion explains the rancorous battle to replace him,  by JOSH BLACKMAN, February 15, 2016

Blackman wrote, “The monastic Supreme Court is formally isolated from the political process in all respects, but one — the appointment process.”

A myth conservatives perpetuate is the removal of politics from every aspect of society.  They advocate the removal of politics from the economy by reducing government interference. They advocate the removal of politics from Supreme Court opinions.

This denial of politics in society begs the question: What do we mean by “politics”?  Conservatives want an authoritarian approach to policy and governance.  However, in a democratic society politics is the process of finding the balance between individual rights and group rights.  Instead of hidden assumptions, values and goals, democracy requires transparency and participation by society in decisions.

The politics of denial advocated by conservatives means individual rights are more important than group rights.  Based on their religious beliefs, offering a vision of individual freedom premised on absolute freedom of conscience for isolated and autonomous individuals, the Gospels ignored the reality of society.  Conservatives use religious justifications for their focus on individualism and denial of groups rights.

Denial of politics supports the conservative authoritarian agenda for dominance of society. Blackman’s narrow definition of politics applies as if society does not exist.  He writes as if the politics between the President and the Senate or Congress are all that matter without consequences to society.  As if each entity were individuals and their decisions did not have consequences for society. Conservatives would argue that no one without a constitutional law degree would understand what the Founding Fathers meant.  The logic and reasoning of conservatives justifies their conclusions.

Once we recognize the complex interdependence of our collective existence, we can no longer justify an unlimited freedom to act solely according to one’s own, too often self-serving conscience.

Market Instability by Trump

Trump’s real estate empire represents one of the worst excesses of a market economy when land becomes a commodity and landlords charge rent beyond the capacity of millions of people to pay.  Trump represents someone free of politics as promised by a fully self-regulating market society.  Trump represents the forces of laissez-faire that justify an ever expanding process of commodification (of land, labor and money) by invoking the utopian promise of a fully self-regulating market society free of politics.

Democrats on the other side, represent multiple social movements mobilized in opposition to defend society against market domination of land, labor and money, by establishing institutional protections.  Democrats are committed to democratically-motivated procedures to manage markets.

Without a deeper paradigm shift away from degrading land, labor and money in the pursuit of profit, to support an obsolete market mentality, society is now on the precipice of disaster due to climate change.  The market economy allowed the exploitation of land for natural resources for energy without the benefit of institutional protections limiting the consequences to society that we now face in 2016 and decades into the future.

The only way to preserve democratic institutions over the long term is to expand their capacity to protect citizens from market-driven instability.

Dear Isabel and Natalia, March 14, 2016

This letter is about your future self. This letter does not pretend to predict your future.  Nor do I claim to have any psychic powers or vision of the future that comes from dreams.  Our feelings of uncertainty about the future sometimes get in the way of our thinking clearly about what we can do in the present to prepare for the future.

Science has a definition of uncertainty that is different from when we have a feeling of uncertainty.  The former is a statistical method and the latter a fleeting feeling that too often leads to anxiety.  This letter is not intended to increase anxiety but to identify hope.

Generations

We do have the certainty of demographics: how many and when people were born. Events over time influence people, and groups of people influence events.  We refer to these groups of people, born at certain times, as generations.

The study of generations provides a solid foundation of statistics, events and consequences over time that we weave into a pattern.  This description of a pattern does not result from direct causation, like when authoritarian action has specific consequences.  The pattern of generations results from systemic causality analyzed over time. (1)

For example, Baby Boomers (born 1943-1960) are well known as a generation of idealists.  There are differences between first half and second half of the Boomer generation.  The later Boomers flocked to the evangelical churches that appealed to their ideals. This large evangelical group has influenced the policies of conservative politicians.

To keep this letter short and to the point, I’ll refer you to the books by Strauss and Howe, “Generations” (2) and “The Fourth Turning” (3) for further details and study.

The Fourth Turning

The Fourth Turning is a Crisis.  A 20-year era, America’s institutional life is torn down and rebuilt from the ground up—always in response to a perceived threat to the nation’s very survival. Civic authority revives, cultural expression finds a community purpose, and people begin to locate themselves as members of a larger group. In every instance, Fourth Turnings have eventually become new “founding moments” in America’s history, refreshing and redefining the national identity.  Prior Fourth Turning Crisis Climaxes were the American Revolution and Civil War.  

America’s most recent Fourth Turning began with the stock market crash of 1929 and climaxed with World War II. The generation that came of age during this Fourth Turning was the Hero archetype G.I. Generation (born 1901 to 1924), whose collective spirit and can-do optimism epitomized the mood of the era. Today’s Hero archetype youth, the Millennial Generation (born 1982 to 2004) show many traits similar to those of the G.I. youth, including rising civic engagement, improving behavior, and collective confidence.

What is your role?

As a member of the Millennial Generation, you will have the opportunity to become part of the next Hero generation: the generation that gets credit for saving America from a Great Crisis.   What that means to you personally depends on what you volunteer to do during the Great Transformation.

When?

According to Neil Howe, co-author of “The Fourth Turning”, the present crisis era began September 2008 when the global Dow was in free fall, banks were failing, money markets froze shut, and business owners held their breath.  You probably don’t remember because Isa was 9 and Natalia was 7 years old at the time.

What’s Next?

Writing now, March 2016, we are entering the eighth year of the crisis era. Howe writes that a Turning lasts on average about 20 years.  That means the current 4th Turning will last from 9/2008 until about 2028.  Can we be more specific?  Yes.

As stated in my blog post reference (4), the 4th Turning has four stages: catalyst, regeneracy, climax and resolution.  We experienced the catalyst in September 2008.  When will the other stages happen and what does that mean for you?

My Advice: Stay in school as long as possible.  Even when the crisis hits hard…and the surprise makes people do stupid things….you should pause, breath, take deep breaths. One possibility is that you decide to leave university before finishing.  Know that you will return after the crisis resolves.  There is hope for returning to school after the crisis resolves.

My Dad was a member of the previous Hero Generation. He stayed in school (1938-1942) but left before the graduation ceremony.  He could have left early, because WWII started in Europe in 1939 and Pearl Harbor was in December 1941. My Dad was in college in Colorado until spring of 1942 in order to complete his classes to finish his degree and graduate.  Then he volunteered for the Army Air Corp.  Many others returned to finish college later.

The Great Transformation

The success of humanity, your generation, and you personally, will feel uncertain. But there is the certainty of a successful conclusion. There are great events yet to be known that will be extremely difficult to overcome.  The timeline is approximate, and the climax and resolution of the crisis era could happen quicker than average, and we might get through by 2025.

The key to your generation’s success and your future will come from your foresight.  Here, I am laying out for you a pattern for the future. You will need to fill in the events as they happen that align with this general timeline.

The Regeneracy

The Regeneracy (2016-2020) will patch over differences, band people together (unity) and build something new.  This stage will begin a growth in centralized authority and decisive leadership at a time of great peril and urgency.  The Regeneracy cannot always be identified with a single news event.

Howe suggests the Regeneracy will begin in 2016.  We can see this playing out now in 2016 Presidential politics.  Trump represents the past traditions of an authoritarian white male dominating every part of society and making decisions based on direct causation.  Hillary Clinton represents the future of women in leadership roles, when we need unity, mass mobilization, progressive policies, and a clear understanding of systemic causality (1).

Climax and Resolution

The Climax (2020-2024) is a crucial moment that confirms the death of the old order and triumph of the new.  The peak alignment in 2020 of the generations happens like this: Boomers as the moral leaders (weird right?) with GenX (like your mother and father) as the managers and supervisors. Your generation, the Millennials, are the “soldiers”, the ones on the front lines of the crisis.  My hope is that you pause and finish university, then pick your leadership role sometime after the initial surprise crisis event.

The Resolution (2025-2028) is both a triumphant and tragic conclusion that separates winners from losers, resolves the big public questions, and establishes the new order. You will be part of the Hero Generation, celebrated for the rest of your lives by future generations for saving humanity from certain extinction.

Conclusion

If you follow my advice above, by spring 2020 the Regeneracy stage will be complete, and you will have been partially engaged in the crisis, but you each will remain in school to graduate from university in 2022 and 2023. You’ll then fully engage in action to respond to the Climax and Resolution along with hundreds of millions of other Millennials from every country on Earth.

Everything that I grew up expecting to remain the same in my lifetime will be changing.  For example, people’s behavior will change so that consumerism, buying unsustainable material objects, becomes like a sin and illegal (weird right?). You will have no trouble with the Great Transformation because you will have millions of Millennials like you supporting each other.

Key Advice: look for opportunities to be a leader.  Shortly after joining the Army Air Corp, my Dad got out of being a gunner on airplanes and went to officer candidate school in Australia.  He became a 1st Lieutenant, the leader for a team of African-American soldiers loading and unloading airplanes that followed the island hopping Army towards Japan that ended the war.

You will be offered opportunities to lead.  You’ll be successful at the end of the crisis. Think about your choices, then make a decision and move into a leadership role.

Take Care

Richard Turnock

References:

(1)  The difference between direct causation and systemic causality are discussed in my blog post: http://turnock.blogspot.com/2016/03/why-trump.html

(2)  Strauss, William, and Neil Howe. Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069. New York: Morrow, 1991.

(3)  Strauss, William, and Neil Howe. The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy. New York: Broadway, 1997

(4)  http://turnock.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-fourth-turning-explained.html

A Moral Vision for America 2016

Americans create local cultures, rituals, stories, and religious institutions that bind groups together with a strong tribal consciousness.  This supports loyalty, authority, and sanctity of moral foundations.  Americans are tolerant and open to ethnic diversity.  This supports caring about others and fairness for everyone.

Care

Americans feel compassion for our family and friends who are vulnerable or suffering through no fault of their own.  Americans feel compassion for others who are vulnerable or suffering through no fault of their own.  Americans value pragmatic decisions by individuals to care for themselves and their family, and support society providing a safety net for vulnerable populations.

Fairness

Americans are aware of whether people are getting what they deserve, whether things are balanced.  Americans agree society should shun or punish cheaters, whether individuals or businesses.

Liberty

Americans resent restrictions on our choices and actions; we band together to resist bullies.  Americans value our social and political freedoms that are considered to be the entitlement of all members of society.

Loyalty

Americans keep track of who is "us" and who is not; we enjoy tribal rituals, and we hate traitors.  We welcome many cultures with loyalty to their own tribal rituals within our broad society as long as they are loyal to the United States.  However a loyalty oath is not required.  

Authority

Americans value order and hierarchy in organizations; we dislike those who undermine legitimate authority in organizations and sow chaos in society.  Americans balance authority with equality based on treating people in such a way that the outcome for each person can be the same. Americans value laws and rules that prohibit discrimination.  Americans value laws that punish subversion of order in society.

Sanctity

Americans sense that some things must be kept protected from the degradation and profanity of everyday life.  Our protections extend to family, our religions and our natural environment.

Why Trump?

Moral world-views encapsulated in two very different common forms of family life: 

• The Nurturant Parent family (progressive) and the Strict Father family (conservative).
• Responsibility for conservatives means personal responsibility not social responsibility.

First, Trump wins by wining TV insult game.  In strict conservative eyes, that makes him a formidable winning candidate who deserves to be a winning candidate.

Second, Trump represents the top hierarchy in the family.  The hierarchy is: God above Man, Man above Nature, The Disciplined (Strong) above the Undisciplined (Weak), The Rich above the Poor, Employers above Employees, Adults above Children, Western culture above other cultures, Our Country above other countries. The hierarchy extends to: Men above women, Whites above Nonwhites, Christians above nonChristians, Straights above Gays.

Third, Trump represents pragmatic conservatives.  Many small and large business people are pragmatic conservatives. Therefore support Planned Parenthood, social security and medicare, favor high tariffs for imports, eminent domain, 

Fourth, Trump speaks in simple sentences that focus on direct action and one-to-one cause and effect.  Trump’s policy proposals are framed in terms of direct causation.  Empirical research has shown that conservatives tend to reason with direct causation and that progressives have a much easier time reasoning with systemic causation.

Systemic causation has four versions: A chain of direct causes. Interacting direct causes (or chains of direct causes). Feedback loops. And probabilistic causes. Systemic causation thinking is required to explain global warming therefore conservatives are unlikely to understand why we should do anything about climate change.

Fifth, Trump expresses “Political Incorrectness” out loud with everything conservatives feel — with force, aggression, anger, and no shame. Tens of millions of conservatives in America share strict father morality and its moral hierarchy.  They are white men who see themselves as superior to immigrants, nonwhites, women, nonChristians, gays — and people who rely on public assistance.  In other words, they are what liberals would call “bigots.”

The election of President Barack Hussein Obama created outrage among those conservatives, and they refused to see him as a legitimate American (as in the birther movement), much less as a legitimate authority, especially as his liberal views contradicted almost everything else they believe as conservatives.

Sixth, unfortunately, it doesn’t matter if you are promoting Trump or attacking Trump, you are helping Trump.   The more Trump’s views are discussed in the media, the more they are activated and the stronger they get, both in the minds of hardcore conservatives and in the minds of moderate progressives.

The Democratic Party has not been taking seriously many of the reasons for Trump’s support and the range of that support. And the media has not been discussing many of the reasons for Trump’s support. That needs to change.

Source:

http://georgelakoff.com/2016/03/02/why-trump/