

". . . AND GULLIVER RETURNS"

### \--In Search of Utopia--

### BOOK 8--SMASHWORDS EDITION

### POLITICS--The Science of the Possible

by

Lemuel Gulliver XVI as told to Jacqueline Slow

© 2010 ISBN 978-0-9823076-0-1

Dear friends—Obviously I wrote this series to be read from Book 1 to the end, but silly me! Readers often begin with what sounds interesting to them. This may leave them unaware of the characters, my friends and I. So let me introduce us. We were boyhood friends, as wild and as close as geese heading south for the winter. But our university educations split us philosophically like a drop of quicksilver hitting the floor. But like those balls of mercury, when brought together, they again become one. As have we.

  Ray became a Catholic priest and moved far to the right of where our teenage liberalism had bound us. Ray calls himself a neo-conservative. We think he is a reactionary.

  Lee slid to the left of our adolescent leanings, and somewhere along the line became an atheist. Lee is a lawyer.

  Concannon, Con for short, retired from his very successful business. I guess his business experience moved him a bit to the right, to conservatism—a conservative just to the right of the middle.

  Then there's me. I think I'm pretty much a middle of the roader—except for my passion to save our planet by reducing our population before global warming, massive poverty and far-reaching famines decimate our humanity. Hope this introduction makes our discussions make a bit more sense.

After enjoying a traditional Indian meal, or more precisely, an Indian gourmet meal, we walked around the university campus, hit some balls on the driving range, and swam a few laps in their outdoor 25 meter pool, we felt relaxed and ready to tackle our meeting tomorrow with Dr. Singh from the University of Bangalore. We watched the setting Indian sun imagining Sūrya, the god of the heavens, driving his seven rainbow hued steeds westward until his golden hair disappeared below the horizon. We can only imagine the speed of his chariot racing under the earth so that he will be poised to continue his eternal duty on the morrow, as he brings the dawn to the eastern sky.

So off to slumberland for us boys from LA while we anticipated tomorrow's exciting day and the expectation of more jewels from another renowned academic. We have already looked deeply at the psychological needs and drives that motivate us and the power of the various values that pervade our thinking. But now we are going to look at how these motivations are used to control us and our human brothers and sisters. We are going to study the art and science of politics.

After a night of restful anticipation we met for breakfast in the faculty dining room--Father Ray our reactionary old buddy, lawyer Lee, our liberal skeptic, and the good old conservative Con. It is bewildering how four such close friends from high school could have travelled such different intellectual paths as we meandered towards maturity.

As we waited in line for our vegetarian morning meal I saw Mr. Ghosh escorting a tall Sikh our way. His flawlessly wrapped flaming red turban and dark well trimmed beard accented his typical Sikh handsomeness. I don't think I have ever seen a group of men who almost universally fit the 'tall, dark and handsome' ideal of Western women and who typify the calm and quiet masculinity that most men envy. The Sikhs are indeed a very special group of people.

I stepped out of line and extended my hand.

 —"Thank you for inviting us here, Dr. Singh. I am really interested in your ideas on how to get things done."

  —"Thank you Commander Gulliver. I'm delighted that you could all come. I have been following your travels. I know you have met with Wanda Wang in Kino and Charlie Chan in Singaling-- he goes by Chuck now doesn't he? It's good that you now have some background in ethics and in psychological motivations because practical politics is based on the effective use of the psychological drives and the values that people believe in—or at least say they believe in.

POLITICS—THE SCIENCE OF THE POSSIBLE

"I define politics as 'the science of the possible.' It relates to the acquisition of power in any situation--from individual to international. If you use the most effective political techniques, you have a good possibility to get what you want--in an individual or a social situation. It is often said that effective politics is getting your way while others think they are getting theirs! Commander, I understand that the reason we are meeting is that you want to know the most effective ways that you can use to motivate people to understand the problems of overpopulation and the need to have all children born to parents who will love and nurture them and give them the best chance to be happy and successful as well as socially useful men and women. Is that right?"

 \--"You are right on, doctor."

 \-- "Good. Then before we start let me clarify something. We are psychological beings. A politician recognizes this and attempts to use our psychological propensities to get what he wants. For example, as you know, having power over your life is essential for your mental health, to overcome your inferiority complex, as Alfred Adler told us. Let's assume for a moment that I am your boss and I want you to be a more effective employee, I might praise you whenever you do something right. This might make you work harder to please me and to get more compliments. Or I might use fear, which threatens your power. Fear lessens your control of your world. I might tell you that if you don't do more work and do it to a higher standard I will have to fire you. This might also work to motivate you to perform at a higher standard. But what if I get so upset with your poor work that I yell at you, hit you, or even kill you in my rage? In these latter cases I was not thinking my way to my behavior, I was merely reacting irrationally, purely psychologically. So I was acting in an unthinking way. This is the exact opposite of a conscious well-thought-out political action.

"So the same or similar actions can be done from a thinking, conscious, political motivation or they can be done as a psychological outburst which vents our frustrations. What if you have killed my sister. My first psychological reaction might well be to kill you in revenge. But what if the police catch you first. You are put on trial, found guilty of planning a murder, and put into prison. What is your society's goal in imprisoning you? Is it merely to punish? If so solitary confinement might be best. But what if the society's goal is to rehabilitate you? The activities of the prison might then be to educate you, to train you for a job, to help you find a strong belief in a religion. Then eventually, if it appears that you are rehabilitated, you might be released back to society.

"Your reaction to your sister's murder was purely psychological—anger. You might however rationalize it with the 'eye for an eye' command from your religion. Your society's goals might have been to make people think twice about murdering because they would be jailed, or even killed. The society might have a goal to get prisoners back into the economic system where they could support the society's economic needs rather than being an economic drain as a prisoner. Or maybe your society's goal occurs from a pervading religious feeling your society that you are a child of God and should not be held in prison indefinitely.

"Depending on the most important goals of society relative to their prisoners-- what are the best political methods to accomplish them? Do you need to be taught to read? Would reading the Bible or Koran give you a more peaceful and forgiving outlook on life? Should the prison officials test you to find the types of jobs in which you would be most successful?

"So my point is that we must be clear in our plans and actions. We must know whether our action is the result of anger or some other tweak of our psyches, or is whether our action is a well thought-out plan to accomplish a goal. The resulting actions might be the same, the question is whether the action was planned to accomplish a certain objective. For example, a parent might spank a child because of anger and frustration, or he might spank the child because discussions had failed and the spanking was considered to have the best chance of effectively changing a negative behavior in the child. You, Commander, obviously cannot strike out in anger at those who oppose your goals. You must find the political techniques that will most effectively advance your causes.

"But your worthy causes are but two of the many economic, social, military and environmental concerns that face the world. The world has a number of weighty dilemmas. The problem is that every group uses different scales to weigh them."

  –"And most of those scales are faulty, aren't they Lee."

 \--"It's like the butcher putting his thumb on the scale and weighing it along with the hamburger."

 —"But there's more than one butcher manipulating his scales. There are the business people looking for more customers, the politicians whose only concern is to be reelected, the environmentalists who want to save the world, and the conservative religious leaders who interpret some scriptures myopically. Then there are the faulty scales, some with weakened springs, some with mislabeled counterbalances. It goes back to the types and the verifiability of values and evidence that we discussed with Wanda Wang."

 \--"True. And for every desire that an individual or nation has there is a best technique that can be used to make it a reality. Politics is actually an applied science. It may be part individual psychology, part social psychology, sometimes involving economics—both micro and macro--, ethics, religion or theology, history and it often involves some kind of apparatus. The apparatus may involve anything from plastic surgery or jewelry to guns and bombs—depending on objective the person or group, that is to say the 'politician.'

"And remember the politician can be an individual looking for a selfish goal or it might be the statesman trying to accomplish an important goal for the world. So as an individual it might be winning the hand of the local Prince Charming or Cinderella. As an elected representative it might be looking for ways for keeping your electorate happy, it might even be finding ways of controlling the world. Hitler, Mao, Napoleon, Alexander the Great and others have attempted to control as much of the world as they could. In fact political techniques can be used in any area of life. They are often used in our personal lives, just as they are used in business and in governing groups—from our families to our nations.

"What techniques are most likely to accomplish your goals? An effective politician will keep his major goal in mind. When George W. Bush went to China in November of 2005 he first called upon the Chinese government to increase civil rights and the right to practice religion freely. How many governments, or people, want to be told publicly what they should be doing. The fact that Bush's country had a net trade deficit of $200 billion annually did not put him in a strong bargaining position, especially when it owed about a trillion dollars to his hosts. While Bush was insulting his hosts, he was asking for favors—that the Chinese would work to reduce the trade deficit by buying more American goods and that they would re-value their money upward so that their goods would not be so cheap. Of course Bush did represent the world's only military superpower and he did control 'The Bomb.' But it was rather like a suitor telling his girlfriend that he doesn't like her hair or her clothes and that she has a questionable personality—just before he asks for her hand in marriage.

"As a politician you should be aware of the probable results of your actions. When the young French demonstrated against the proposed law that would have allowed more people to be employed but it also allowed an employer to release a worker without reason during the first two years of employment, was the demonstration effective? The demonstrators saw that this provision would allow employers to bring in new employees every two years, never giving the current employees the chance to gain full employment rights. This ran counter to the long standing French tradition of a high level of employee rights, in opposition to employer rights. Assuming this was a well thought out political move and not just a knee jerk reaction, what were the possible outcomes? The whole proposed law could be junked—reducing the chances of more entry level positions becoming available. The government might keep the increased number of entry level jobs and eliminate the easy firing provision—as the demonstrators wanted. But then the businesses might move to other countries which were more employer friendly. The result of the demonstrations was that the government rescinded the proposed law. But the question is still-- were more jobs created or lost by the violent actions? In 2006 the French unemployment rate was 9.9%. In Germany it was 11.7%. By 2010 the French rate was 10.2%, the German rate was 8.2. So in that four year period the French unemployment increased by 0.2%. The Germans dropped 3.5%. We wonder what the French unemployment rate might have been had the government been able to pass the law that the students had effectively protested. At any rate, France was better off than Zimbabwe with it's 90% unemployment rate.

"Had the law been passed the way the students wanted, we might have expected that some businesses would move to other countries which were more employer friendly. So if the student demonstrations were well thought out political techniques, did they get the results that they wanted?

"Naturally seeking power in government is one of the oldest forms of politics, so the word 'politician' is generally applied to people working in government. But as you know, Aristotle applied the power principle to man and woman, to master and slave, to king and subjects. I can agree with some of his observations, but I want to concentrate on power acquisition, and to how power can be acquired in many areas and relationships. After all, Aristotle thought that men were superior to women and that slavery was the natural state of some people. We don't agree with those ideas today.

"Commander Gulliver, I know that you are concerned with how we can convince people to limit population, then as a secondary goal, how they might acquiesce to licensing parents to have children so that the children who are born will have better opportunities for education, happiness and civic worth. Is that correct?"

 —"Right. I know that people want to do as they please. Our habits of living and believing are so deeply ingrained that they hold us in a prison or inertia. And their beliefs are often strongly held in the area of parenthood. Certainly some people want children and should be discouraged from having them, but others don't want children and possibly should be persuaded to at least look into the option. We certainly see men and women in the exciting fields of business and science not wanting to deter their careers with the responsibilities of children. But reducing the total number of children born is essential to the survival of the planet. Yet having children who are loved and cared for is essential to having a more peaceful and productive society. Certainly both are desirable. So what do you suggest Dr. Singh?"

 —"Before getting specific I want to be quite general. I have found in my teaching and consulting that it is better to go from the general to the specific, from the forest to the tree, from the team to the player. To solve your specific problem you must define your goal, understand the people you are trying to convince, then you can look at the behavior changing techniques that people or societies might use to achieve that goal. For example, if my goal is to have Susan marry me, or even date me, what techniques might I use to make it happen? I might threaten her. 'Marry me or I'll kill you.' Or maybe I could use another type of fear--'marry me or I will burn your house down.' Or maybe I could shower her with gifts. Maybe I could make her feel sorry for me. There are many methods available, but which will work on Susan? I need to know more about her. Is she such a loving person that she will marry me out of pity? Has she always been poor and physically needy, very low on Maslow's scale, so a roof over her head might be her primary concern. You know about Maslow's hierarchy of needs don't you?"

 —"Yes, Chuck Chan went into some detail on Maslow when we visited him in Singaling.."(1)

 —"If you could find out where Susan is on Maslow's scale you might be better able to determine how you could meet her needs. Remember many years ago when Supreme Court Justice Douglas, well over 60, married a very young law school student. Was her fascination with him that he was in the meta-need level and she aspired for that same level? Was his attractiveness to her based on the fact that he was in a powerful position?

"So what physical or psychological spurs will elicit the action you want? And the correct spur might vary from person to person. Looking at your idea of reducing the number of children born, how might people react to that idea? One might shun parenthood because children would interfere with her academic, economic or recreational pursuits. Another might do it only if the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury said to. Another might prefer a bigger house to a bigger family.

"Let us go back to goal setting. First, of course, you have to have a goal. What is it that you want? Do you want a state of Israel in Palestine? Do you want a certain person to marry you? Do you want to punish non-Muslim states? Do you want a specific job? Do you want a position in the legislature? This last area is the one we most commonly associate with the term 'politics' but it is not the only area of 'people manipulation.' Machiavelli wrote the most quoted treatise on politics. People who don't understand the political processes he suggested for his 'prince' deride some actions as 'Machiavellian' as if they were evil, but Nicolo merely observed and hypothesized on how leaders can most effectively get what they want. He was a practical psychologist hundreds of years before the discipline was invented.

"Ronald Reagan, when elected governor of California, blamed the previous governor for the financial mess he was forced to straighten out. He therefore enacted very heavy taxes as being necessary. The people understood that their new leader was not at fault for the financial problems he inherited and he had just been elected the state's leader so he enjoyed the sanctity of one newly canonized. Then over the years he reduced taxes, little by little and each time to great fanfare. He become holier and holier, or I should say, more and more popular. He had done just as Machiavelli had proposed that his Prince should do.(1a)

"So you must have a goal. Once you have a goal you must look at whom you must win over, then you will have a better idea of what methods to use. Determine whether the person or people are motivated by a value or a psychological drive, then you can have a better idea of the best way to attempt to convert that person, or those people, and accomplish your goal. The goal may be impossible to achieve, but most goals are achievable. The goal of a national leader may be to get free elections in another country. He might try negotiation, economic incentives, international consensus, assassination of the other country's leaders, or even war.

"A man or woman may want to date or marry someone. He or she might give in to all of the other's wishes. He or she might change his or her appearance by losing weight, buying new clothes, or having plastic surgery. Threats might work. Promising or giving money might work.

"Let's assume they marry but then have a problem. What political techniques might they use to get the marriage back on track. They might discuss the problem to find a consensus solution. One might leave the relationship or might hit or kill the other. If the solution is well considered it would be a political technique. If it is a non-considered action, such as an angry punch in the face, it is a psychological reaction, not the use of a political technique."

 \--"Dr. Singh, you know that my interest is in trying to get people to reduce our global population, but people being who they are--propelled by their drives for power but bound by their religious and social traditions, sometimes moved by their values, but often cloaked in their rationalizations that ethical protestations provide. Few people can be moved by rational arguments, so how can we get the world to save itself through self-control?"

 — "I'm sure you're more interested in looking at the techniques you might use to manipulate people. Techniques like violence, fear, appealing to their honor and other such things. I will get to these soon. Later we will look at the _gestalt_ in which these techniques will be used. You will need to understand who your allies might be, who your enemies might be, and several other factors that lay the groundwork for determining which political techniques might work on a given population and at a certain time. I'm sure you will get impatient with me during our first hour or two of discussion. But bear with me. If you are going to be a politician, as you must be to get your ideas across to the people you are trying to influence, you must understand the whole picture. So please don't be impatient with me. I will start soon discussing the specifics of motivating people. I will then lay out the landscape of political landscape in which you must wage your battles.

"The quickest way for you to require population control would be to conquer the world and impose your will—if conquering the world were possible. And of course you don't have an all-powerful state to do this for you. So you must try reason or fear, or an appeal to honor or duty or some other motivation. When modern nations have goals they try to negotiate. If that doesn't work, then war is the ultimate extension of national politics. Mao Zedong said 'Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.'. Ancient nations usually just went to war. But modern nations often try negotiations first. For example, Hitler told the Netherlands to join him. They said 'no,' so he took about four days out of his life to conquer the Dutch.

"You know that I share your concerns about overpopulation. In my beloved India we have tried to reduce our population since the 1960s. We have made some progress, but we can't hold a candle to the job the Chinese have done. But since we live in a democracy and have a number of freedoms, we can't be as direct and immediate as they have been in oligarchical China, with their one party authoritarian regime. Our freedoms give us a strong self-centered liberty to do what we wish as individuals. The Chinese, with their society-based ethics, have been able to change their society's policies and laws relative to reducing their birthrate. Now we see that their curtailment of individual freedoms since 1980 has resulted in a much higher standard of living for many of the Chinese citizens. So the self-centered desires of their people for safety and material pleasures have blossomed as the society developed. As you know, the Chinese have put the needs of a functioning society first, assuming that their citizens' individual needs would eventually be served. In the West just the opposite has happened. The individual self-centered needs and the freedom to develop laissez-faire capitalism and free enterprise was assumed to make a stronger and more productive society. You be the judge. Has the 'society first' idea of the Chinese, since 1980, produced an increased or decreased economic level for its citizens? Or have the 'self first' ideas of our countries increased or lowered the relative economic standards of us citizens?"

 —"I get your point. In our country the value of the dollar has sunk significantly. Factory workers have often been displaced by outsourcing their jobs. Auto workers have lost jobs and their pay has been cut. Low level workers have been replaced by robots and computers. Children today are not expected to surpass their parents in the economic realm. It is so very different from when I grew up."

 —"And as you know, much of the progress of the Chinese was because of their population reduction efforts. The Chinese government was able to slow population by decree and by strong enforcement of that decree. But your problem, Commander, is trying to make the same thing happen in republics that have self-centered citizens voting for their representatives and self-centered parliaments and congresses that usually want more consumers for their businesses and more soldiers for their wars. Then you have the monotheistic religious ideas based on highly questionable scriptures, ostensibly given by the same creator to many different people and often contradicting Himself, but promising rewards after death to the faithful, with each religious leader seeking more power and larger flocks to fleece.

"So you have your work cut out for you to get people to change their knowledge about the importance of your message, to change their attitudes and values, and most important--to change their behaviors. It won't be easy to change their knowledge, so changing attitudes and behavior is far more difficult. As you know, you won't be able to change behavior if you don't change people's attitudes, and you won't change their attitudes if you don't give them effective knowledge about the world's problems and their solutions.

"Just look at your country where so many believe in creationism, in spite of all the scientific data that refutes it—paleontology, biology, geology, genetics, archeology and so many other disciplines. Then you have a few people in your country in high places in government and in the media who don't believe that the planet is warming. I don't know if they have studied the enormous evidence for it from geology, chemistry, and the sciences that deal with the environment. It is one thing if you have the scientific evidence to refute their opinions, but changing opinions is extremely difficult in those who are ignorant or uneducated, or both. And as long as people think that they are entitled to their opinions, no matter how absurd, you will have an uphill fight. I remember when a congressman from Georgia called man-made global warming a hoax. Naturally he didn't cite any evidence for his opinion. Yes Lee."

 —"The worst thing is that he was applauded by his fellow Republican congressmen during their legislative session. And these are the people we elect to pass intelligent laws. Did you know he was a medical doctor, so you would think he had some appreciation for science. But his conservative Biblical Baptist assumptions weighed heavier on his thinking than physical science. If fact he probably has little knowledge of the physical sciences since medical school deals with the biological sciences."

 —"Lee, that's the problem you are going to have when supposedly knowledgeable people hold out their faulty opinions as truth. Then, the more powerful they are and the more they have strongly advocated their opinions, the more difficult it is to get them to admit what is obvious. Can you imagine that any philosopher or scientist would be able to get the Pope to admit changing his mind on abortion, on keeping a celibate priesthood, or on ordaining women as priests? All will probably happen eventually, but not in the next few years. The lack of priests will probably change papal thinking on ordination faster than it will on abortion. And mechanical or chemical contraception will undoubtedly come before abortion is accepted.

WHAT IS POLITICS?

"So let's get into the idea of politics. As I said, I like the old definition that 'politics is the science of the possible.' If you have a goal, what is the best way to make it happen? Whether you want a certain job, or want to negotiate a pay raise, or just want to date your secretary, there is usually a best way to accomplish your goal.

"What if you wanted to become president of the United States? You should probably become a Democrat, a Protestant Democrat. You should go to Harvard, or at least to the Harvard Law School. You would be wise to be successful in local politics, city council, then mayor, then governor. You would need to get to know the big money people, the 'movers and shakers.' You should certainly marry well--a Kennedy would be nice. It might help to be a famous athlete, as long as you are not labeled a dumb jock. You need name recognition. And you certainly don't want any scandals, especially sex scandals. You must be a good speaker who can think on his feet. If you did all this you might have a 10% chance.

"So politics is about manipulating people. I know that you talked to Wanda Wang in Kino. You should have definitely have a good idea of people's values. Appealing to people's values can be a good political move. And I know you talked with Chuck Chan in Singaling about psychological motivations. They are even better mental movers than values. Probably most people's main interest is in being alive, or possibly being safe. George Bush capitalized on these motivations when he made people afraid of al Queda and Saddam Hussein. Threatening or using violence, or being told that you can be protected from violence, are age-old political techniques. But there are many more.

"The right technique can usually get your desire accomplished. The right slingshot can kill the giant if it is effectively used. Of course the most effective use of politics is getting what you want while having the people you manipulated liking it. First you must have a plan of what needs to be done or what you want done, then there needs to be a plan on how to carry it out—that's 'politics.' That's why I say that politics is the science of the possible.

"For some, the end justifies the means-- Lenin, Mao, the Inquisitors, al Queda and thousands more. For others, the Kantian dictum that people are 'ends in themselves' and should not be used as 'means' is the major concern. I assume that you are in this second group."

 —"Definitely. I would hope to be able to reason with people. You mentioned that politics is the 'science of the possible.' I heard that same definition in a political science class at UCLA, in Dr. Titus's class."

 —"I know of him but never met him. I am quite sure that he would agree that reasoning is one of the least effective political methods because, as you well know, people are nearly always not logical but psychological. To be able to reason with people they would have to have a similar goal as you, to save the planet, and they would have to have the knowledge to understand the problems facing the world. Many might have these two requirements but would still have the self-centered desire to have more than one child, and as you know it is very difficult to get over the 'self-centered values' hurdle. It is a basic psychological motivation to have the power to do whatever you want, and a basic value assumption to be self-centered. So you see what you are up against. Yes, Con. I'm sure that as an old businessman you can add much to our knowledge of the area of politics."

 —"In business we use advertising and marketing all the time. If you are going to sell something you usually have to create a demand for it. Advertising is perhaps the most common and obvious attempt to use the 'science of the possible' to change people's behavior. Probably nobody does a better job of dealing in the 'science of the possible' than the people in the advertising business. Their guiding value is to make money for their clients, thereby making money for themselves. They must motivate people to buy products by appealing to their drives, needs and values. Sex drives and power drives, especially in combination, are found to be highly successful. The 'Marlboro Man', the cowboy sitting on his horse, is a macho power symbol—and power is often sexy. His image sold billions of Marlboro cigarettes. Virginia Slims, another Philip Morris product, did the same for women—picturing an elegant woman--often in a power position. It sponsored many athletic events for women. Power, for both men and women, is a great motivating force. Remember that former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who was noted to date women who were better looking and younger than himself, said that 'power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.'

"A magazine ad with two sexually attractive people drinking Scotch whisky in a candle-lit room. each obviously intending to seduce each other, relies on the sex drive and the power drive to entice you to drink that brand of Scotch. Seeing power people from sport or business wearing an expensive Rolex watch preys on our power drive, but also on our needs for esteem, as Maslow talked about, and on our self-centered desires, as Dr. Wang talked about. Every ad works to elicit one of our basic motivations, such as for sex, power or love, or else a value motivation for self-centeredness. God and society based values also come into play when the message goes beyond the self—to government or religion.

"One of the more sinister advertising ploys is subliminal, It attacks our desires below the conscious level. Some such advertising has been banned—such as for cigarettes on TV. Sweden and Belgium have banned advertising to children. The evidence shows that they are not capable of making informed decisions. But other ads are not banned for children so parents are likely to buy the products advertised to children--the cereals, video games or CDs that have been marketed. Overweight children are often the result of buying the wrong foods and buying sit down video games. We want to make our children happy but indulging their advertising-induced whims is often counterproductive. Did you know that the worst breakfast cereals for children are the most heavily advertised?"(2)

 —"Trying to get people to do what you want them to do voluntarily is naturally the most effective way of manipulating people. Reminds me of the farmer who had a pond on his property where the locals would sometimes come to swim and cool off from the warm summer heat. One evening he headed for the pond to take a dip. As he approached the pond he heard the voices of happy young women frolicking. As he got nearer he saw that they were skinny dipping. Soon they saw him and dipped their nipples below the water's surface and one of them shouted 'We're not coming out until you leave.' He shouted back that 'I didn't come down here to see you ladies naked, I came to feed the alligator.' Obviously they leapt from the pond immediately. I guess the moral of the story is that a good politician can get people to do what he wants while thinking it is their own idea. Reminds me of what Lao Tze said about leaders 'Of a good leader who talks little when his work is done and his aim fulfilled, they will say, 'we did it ourselves.'"

 —"He also said 'A leader is best when people barely know he exists.' But Wreck, I can't imagine that your leadership will be of the sort of which he spoke."

 —"Can't imagine it, Ray. In democracies I think I will have to try to lead from the front, try to convince them that for their children and their children's children, something must be done now. For autocratic regimes I think I will have to show how it will benefit the rulers."

 —"Let's go back to ends and means. In most of the developed countries representative democracies are the rule. They are the means, but they are often ineffective in accomplishing the ends that the people want. And we have to realize that what the people want and what is best for them may be quite different. For example global warming is a fact. It is bad for people today and worse for the people of tomorrow, but you have pro-business people in the legislature who are concerned only about today's bottom line, they have been very negative to enacting climate change legislation. We saw that for years in your country. People denying that climate change existed or that neither people nor technology were responsible for it. It made your country out to be made up of selfish money-hungry ignorant people not concerned with their own welfare or the welfare of others. Of course you were the world's major polluter per capita so legislation would have hurt your businesses more than others.

"If you were the emperor of the world you could have it the way you want right now. That's the advantage of total authority. The Communist Party has it in China, the Ayatollah had it in Iran, and the rulers of North Korea and Myanmar had it. But at least theoretically, people in democracies who vote for representatives should be more content with the choices of the majority. But as we know, losers often riot-- calling the elections unfair, whether they were or not. And obviously the democratically elected representatives often thwart what is best for the electorate while they protect the interests of those with the money or power who backed their candidacies.

"Does China's one party system, run by engineers, with an 8% growth rate in yearly GNP, and trillions of dollars on their balance sheets, have more or less legitimacy than the United States' two party system of antagonistic lobby-influenced lawyers with an annual growth rate of 3% or less and double digit trillions of dollars owed to its lenders? Is it the process or the results that we should seek?

"The master politician Vladimir Lenin told us that 'There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel.' He also said that 'To rely upon conviction, devotion, and other excellent spiritual qualities; is not to be taken seriously in politics.'"

 —"But the society he built lasted less than 70 years and the majority of the people were really unhappy."

 —"True Con, but the Chinese who have been lifted out of poverty and into the modern world, are quite pleased with the way their Communist leaders have led them. Two Communist parties, both powered by brutal revolutions, but each different in the economic philosophies of their leaders. It seems that the Soviets were more concerned with power while the Chinese were more concerned with progress. They seem to have been following Confucius's rule when he said, 'Do not worry about not holding a high position; worry rather about playing your proper role.'

"Obviously Commander you have a goal that you want to achieve. Once you have a goal, whether motivated by a value or a psychological drive, there is a best way to attempt to accomplish that goal. The goal may be impossible to achieve, but most goals are achievable . The goal of a national leader may be to get free democratic elections in another country. He might try negotiation, economic incentives, international consensus, assassination of the other country's leaders or war."

 —"I would think that it is also important to portray a good picture of yourself. Maybe I need to portray intelligence or courage, maybe portraying hope or faith is in order. How you portray yourself depends on the audience you are trying to influence I would assume. I am reminded of a middle school principle in Los Angeles whose vice principal made some mistakes on a report. He had not seen the report, but being a man of courage he took the blame, believing with President Truman that the person at the top has the final responsibility. You remember that Truman had a sign on his desk that 'the buck stops here.' Dr. Singh I don't know if you know the phrase 'passing the buck' but it means passing the blame to someone else. The principal had made a glaring political error because he was acting like an ideal leader, but his audience, the teacher-administrators in the Los Angeles Unified School District, wanted to stop the blame with the principal. After all, using the principal's, or Truman's, logic those higher level administrators would have been responsible—and of course, eventually, the superintendent of the district would have been the end point of the blame train. But teachers are not generally known for their courage, especially those who go into the district's administration. Anyway as a result the man, who was often acknowledged as the best principle in the district, was shut out of ever being a high school principle—his dream."

 —"That seems to mean that in politics make the best picture of yourself –forget the truth. Honesty is seldom the best policy. Also one should see only the immediate situation, don't look at the whole picture. Make yourself out to be right. I am reminded of that the German military theorist Carl von Clausewitz said that 'war is diplomacy carried out by other means.' My question is where does modern politics draw the line?"

 —"Good question, Con. But looking at the world today, and at the history of the world--there is no line. Political despots kill or imprison whole populations. Criminals kill or kidnap people's children as their political techniques for financial or political gain because endangering a person's children often hurts worse than being killed or kidnapped yourself. But not all political actions are violent. In a while I will give you some examples of several types of political techniques, from violence to logical reasoning. To find your own examples just look around. We are all continually manipulating and being manipulated in our personal, educational, business and political lives. The psychological motivations that you discussed with Dr. Chan and the value motivations you discussed with Dr. Wang are used by us, and on us, continually. So effective politics relies on the right mix of psychological and ethical pushes and pulls. We use the psychological and ethical or 'value' buttons to move people emotionally—and if they can't be moved emotionally then perhaps we need to move them with physical force.

"We must remember that a political technique must be well thought out and evaluated. You must look at the desired ends you want, then look at the probabilities of the positive and the negative outcomes. Violence can be a political technique, but it can also be a psychological reaction, with no thinking involved. An example of violent anger by a group was seen a few years ago in France. Youths attacked the mayor's house because he had instituted anti-delinquency measures. Youth gangs reacted. They threw rocks and firebombs and set fire to four cars. If they had been concerned with changing his anti-gang policies they might have met with him, or perhaps contacted the newspapers to run their side of the story. What they did was to reinforce the need for the mayor's new policies. Their anger had its outlet, but it was not a political technique.

"We also have to differentiate between psychological motivations and social motivations. For example a person may kill because he is severely psychologically frustrated and reacts in murder. Another may plan a murder as the best way to achieve his goal, like the Melendez brothers in California who killed their parents to get their money. Or Scott Roeder, who killed Dr. George Tiller because he performed abortions. He was psychotically angry at those who aided abortions and thought that killing them was justified homicide. I wonder if he would have committed the murder if he had known he would be caught and that the murder mobilized more supporters for the pro-choice advocates."

 —"I'm not sure if his actions were totally psychological. It seems that he had in mind to do something to stop or slow abortions. Then when he was put in jail he began a mail program in which he was trying to get others to continue his work. He held out as a hero another murderer who was executed for killing another doctor 13 years earlier. He stayed in contact with the Protestant group the 'Army of God' that lauds those who kill physicians who perform legal abortions. Sounds to me like he was using political techniques to get his point across.

"But on another avenue, political methods frequently masquerade as law. Presidents choose Supreme Court justices based on their politics and their expected decisions. If American common law were clear, as is the more common Napoleonic law which is based on the statutes rather than the 'common law' principles of English and American law—we wouldn't have so many 5 to 4 decisions. Most would be 9-0. Our common law allows all sorts of legal interpretations that the legislators didn't intend."

 —"That's true, Lee. Appointing judges gives your president a powerful impact on your system of justice. And their decisions continually make new law. So it is a powerful political technique in your country.

"But you have to be a very powerful figure to either make your own law, as Hitler did, or appoint judges who will probably carry out your wishes, as your American presidents do. Most people don't have that luxury.

"Astute politicians must deal with the world the way it is, not like the Bush administration, thinking it was the way they wanted it to be. Bush fabricated evidence to go to war, probably for the oil rights. Then the administration overruled the generals by using far fewer troops than the generals said was necessary. It was a surprise to Bush when a democratic vote was held in Iraq, the directions of the electorate were toward theocracy, not toward a sectarian modern American model like Bush w0-anted. And Bush was surprised! An astute politician will see the world, or the people he wants to influence, realistically.

"So having the power, as the Americans did, doesn't guarantee that you will have power forever. But as Frederick Douglass warned us 'power concedes nothing without a struggle.'

Revolutionaries from Washington to Walesa used effective political techniques to get their programs accomplished.

"Look at how many people in the world, or for that matter in America, who are trying to get their programs popularized. Based on the facts of recent history it doesn't take much of an orator to entice people to give him their allegiance, along with their property and their lives. A few quotes from the Bible or the Koran can elicit the sympathy to give alms to the poor, or they can bring forth the violent passion for revenge and murder. The Bible says 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' The Code of Hammurabi was even more specific. The more ethically pleasing Christian code of 'turn the other cheek' is seldom used, and when it is, it is unlikely to be effective. So it makes good Mid-Eastern sense to follow the rules laid down a millennium or two ago. If you kill one of mine, I'll kill four of yours. You, of course must then kill 16 of mine, so I will kill 64 of yours. While this is an effective method of population control it tends to go against the modern myth that human life is precious.

"When I think of non-violent politics your Mormon religion has done a great job. Their early use of Biblically-based polygamy gave women husbands and allowed them to fulfill God's command to have children. This increased the church membership quickly. The strong family life the church advocated and their common values bred loyalty. The requirement for young men to travel the world, at their own expense, as missionaries, spread 'the word' worldwide. The 10% tithe from a member's gross income gave real riches to the church. The emphasis on large families increased the flock. Every move was a wise political decision. The government's law against polygamy stopped the practice for the main church in 1890, but some sects broke from the church and continued it. As a missionary religion I don't think the church has a peer.

POWER

"So, Lee, the true politician must evaluate all of the options and all of the possibilities for appealing to the basic motivations of most people. There isn't a great deal of doubt about that. Getting power over a situation or a person, or people, is a major way to motivate people. Whether it was Hitler's rallying rants for evil or Gandhi's passionate pleas for good—you must motivate the people, you can't do it alone.

"In any planned action we must remember that it is all about power—power to control others or gaining power over ourselves. I'm sure that Charlie Chan talked to you about power. That is his pet theory! So find out where the power is—this is the essence of leadership."

 —"Interesting! Most of us want to control others or situations. That can often have negative effects when a despot is in charge. Whether it is a Robert Mugabe in modern Africa or a Count Vlad in 15th Century Transylvania we have often seen power used for evil. But power can also be used for good. Modern Norwegian leaders certainly try to use their financial power and their international ethical position to reduce wars and poverty. My own mission, I think qualifies here, I'm trying to get all of us to be concerned with our planet's human future. My problem is that I don't have sufficient power to influence my brothers throughout the world."

IF YOU HAVE THE POWER

 \--"True. You don't have the power yet. Hopefully you will eventually have such power. Let me interject here how people with power may use it and how they may be limited in the amount of power they can use. For many, if they have power—the end justifies the means. If one has absolute power, like a Mao, a Hitler, or the Pope, you can do what you want within your sphere of influence—Chinese Communists, Germans or Catholics. In modern republics the president or the prime minister is limited by the congress or parliament. So he may be very influential, but no democratic leader has the unlimited power that he or she might desire.

"The use of political means is not immoral—it is just moral from a self centered, God-based or societal perspective—and that might clash with your own self-centered, societal or God based perspective of what morality is. The self-centered conquests of Alexander or Hitler, the God-based Inquisition of the Catholics or the jihads of bin Laden, or the society based movements of the welfare states of Scandinavia have all been seen as moral in the eyes of the leaders. However their visions may not always lead them to where they want to go.

"American politicians have a great need to be re-elected and stay in power, not necessarily to look after the common good. The interests of their large financial contributors are essential—as is the survival of the nation that elects them. So national defense and big business share in the blessings of your legislature. The fact that lobbyists bought the programs that their employers desired should not dim our views of the democratic process. After all, what's good for Wall Street and the Pentagon must be good for your country! But what happened to the education funding that was promised when your legislators were seeking election? When the legislative sessions' end we always find that funding for education is very far behind. But as as astute politician you can understand why--after all how many 10 year olds cast ballots or give hundreds of thousands dollars to congressional campaigns?

"You might wonder why in the US there are big tax breaks for companies that brought back profits from overseas businesses when the tax breaks were supposed to create jobs in your country. The tax breaks for job creation worked, but companies laid off thousands. Many companies got big tax breaks while increasing the unemployment in your country—the opposite effect of what the politicians said would happen. By the same token, global warming doesn't exist—because it's bad for American business. Big money elects politicians and big money gets its rewards.

"If you are going to be an effective politician you had better understand a few rules of the game. A basic rule is that 'The king can do no wrong.' It is a saying that every politician knows. There is an old Persian story that says if it's noon and the king says that it is night, the wise man says 'behold the stars.'

"But who is the king? If you are married, it might well be your spouse. If you're employed it is your employer. If you are in Congress, the king can be the leader of your party and also the lobbyists who contribute to your campaigns. In your case commander, your kings might be the people you are trying to win over or possibly the people with money or the politicians who might help you to reduce population.

"In today's world the king might change from day to day or year to year. It is not always the good guys against the bad guys. Our allies on free trade may be on the our side of the table on some economic issues but on the other side of the table when energy concerns are the issue. International politics is much more complicated today than ever before. And, Commander, I think you will find this to be true in your quest.

"Those in power, our kings, give us the rights they want us to have. Might makes rights so to speak! The Christian girl raped by a Christian soldier may have no rights. The Muslim girl raped by a Muslim marauder has no rights. The powerful tend to give rights that will keep them in power. When Benazir Bhutto was prime minister of Pakistan did she give women rights? No. Have the Orthodox Jews in Israel gladly given equal rights to all other Jews? No. To the Muslim citizens of Israel? No. Has the Pope given equal rights to women or homosexuals? No.

"Sunni Baathists with 20% of the population, under Hussein, controlled the 60% Shiites and 20% Kurds. In Syria the 12% minority Alawites, under the Assads, controlled the 74% Sunni population. It's about methods of control, not majorities. The point is if you use the right political techniques you should be able to control many, possibly the majority of the people. So you have to evaluate the whole situation, consider the pluses and minuses, then attack where you can win.

"Powerful people can influence others. This, of course, is what you want to do. Your president Bush at one time had the personal power to bring you into war. Osama bin Laden had the personal power to recruit jihadists. Religious leaders and people with limited interests can lead some to do outlandish things, like the GreenPeace people dying baby seals green so that their fur can't be sold for coats. And some PETA members can be stimulated to commit violent acts against people in pursuit of their goal to have animals treated more humanely.

THE SOURCES OF POWER

"As you know, throughout history power has been borne in the cloaks of kings and the chants of shamans and clerics. The more primitive the tribe, the more it relies on potentates for its social direction, its laws and its wars, and the more it relies on its priests and caliphs for its reasons for being and for their promise of a hereafter. With education and vision, democracy replaces demagogues and doges while the anointed holy men fall under the examination of religious inconsistencies and the shattering of their fundamental beliefs by the study of biological and geological science, the rigorous study of history and archeology, the modern understandings of psychology and anthropology, and a thorough analysis of the holy books and scriptures."

 —"I guess that power can come from many sources. Being important in a powerful country or being a sports champion or a film celebrity are examples. Of course being appointed by God gives one great power. Robert Mugabe said that since God gave him the job of being president of Zimbabwe, only God could take it away. It's kinda like the pope, isn't it Ray?"

 —"Ya, but the Pope's authority comes from the Bible. I don't know where Protestants like Pat Robertson and Billy Graham got theirs."

 —"Nationally each leader's political power rises or falls with the way he or she handles crises and the other important national issues. Remember when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, our country's president was vacationing, as was the vice president. This was in spite of an ongoing war. Bush's tardy and ineffective handling of that crisis followed him through his presidency and beyond. While he was viewed as a nice guy, being a nice guy may not be enough to help a person lead a country through bad times. Perhaps it works during the good times as it did with Eisenhower. But Wreck, you're a nice guy and you do have the power that comes with being a world renowned explorer."

 —"I hate to be negative, but look at the world champion and movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger. His personal popularity made him California's governor, but he was nearly powerless against the entrenched Democratic legislators who held the real power in the state. Or look at Indira Gandhi. She was a popular leader until she tried to accomplish what her country needed most—population reduction. Then she was out."

 —"When I think of total power I think of the International Olympic Committee. It is its own entity. It chooses representatives in most countries. It is not the countries that choose their representatives to the IOC. The IOC is a centralized power. Rights are given to those whom it decides can have rights. Under apartheid the IOC did not let South African teams compete. So it was 'international' only when it wanted to be.

"Then let's look at the military. Looking at countries today we see that the United States spends the most on keeping its military power strong. It spends over $600 billion a year. Compare that with China's $85 billion or Japan's $46 billion. Then look at the world's nuclear warheads. The U.S. has at least 9,500, Russia 9000, France at least 300, China a minimum of 250, UK 200, India and Pakistan possibly 100 each, and Israel at least 100. That's enough bomb power to blow up the Earth, the moon and Mars! So the U.S. as a nation has power—at least military power. Thank God there is only one US or the human race would have been wiped out years ago."

 —"Getting back to our country, America had the power to eliminate Saddam. But was it actually good to invade Iraq to rid the Iraqis of Saddam, to find weapons of mass destruction, to secure the oil production for the West and to bring democracy to the country? The cost to Americans was over four thousand lives and an estimated eventual total cost of over two trillion dollars, if we include the total eventual costs of veterans' pensions, health care and so forth. Then the Iraqis lost well over a hundred thousand lives, possibly two hundred thousand. Then there was the losing of the 'political face' of the U.S. Another negative was that the terrorists got a foothold and a learning experience to bring back to their own countries to increase global terrorism. From a political point of view, was the intention good? Possibly. Were the results bad? Yes! So as a political technique the Iraq war was a negative for America."

 \--"Right Commander. The war was definitely a negative for your country's political standing in so many ways. It was so poorly thought out that I hate to call it a political technique—but of course it was. Possibly the worst political activity in your country's history. So you see that having power doesn't necessarily mean that you will get what you want. Your president lied and rationalized and got deeper and deeper into trouble.

"Just look at how that misuse of power has impacted your economy? You have a pretty high national debt! Your dollar is weakening. With all your fighting power you lost most of your international friends during the Bush administration due to very poor political decisions. Many came back when Barack Obama's soft and open approach emerged. But you know what Charles de Gaulle said when he pulled France out of NATO—'A nation has no friends, only interests.'

"Commander, or should I call you 'Wreck', you will be up against many negative forces as you work for your goals. You won't have the raw military power that tyrants can often use to accomplish their goals. Tyrants can literally get away with murder. You have certainly heard of the great Chinese famine from 1959 to 1962 and how it was, in effect, planned by Mao. He used the food grown in China to trade with Russia for arms—in spite of the fact that his people were dying from starvation—but did he need those people in an overpopulated country? No! Estimates as high as thirty million Chinese deaths have been attributed to Mao.

"Commander, you will have to confront the existing power of businesses and the politicians they control. One of your challenges will be to reduce the number and intensity of the climate change deniers. You know that global warming doesn't exist—because it's bad for American business. You must recognize both the corporate and personal power of your adversaries."

 —"Some people have a lot of personal power, like educated professors, media pundits, and television psychics."

 —"If those psychics on television have any powers, why do they always have to ask you your name?"

 —"Is that any worse than you asking your parishioners to tell you their sins? But speaking of sins, I would guess that as a politician I would have to hide my sins."

PROTECTING YOUR PERSONAL POWER

 —"Right. You have to protect yourself to keep your power. Do you remember hearing about that student in Afghanistan who downloaded an article from the Internet on the rights of women under Muslim teachings?"

 —"I remember. The conservative Islamic judges in Kabul gave him the death penalty. But it was reduced to only twenty years by the appeal court. But you can understand that talking about women's rights is blasphemy under a conservative developing country where education is generally lacking and their religious beliefs are strong. But it's not just in developing nations that these traditions flaunt freedom. I remember former Secretary of State Condoleza Rice saying 'I've lived in a place where difference was not tolerated and difference was a license to kill.' So just bring in the majority can give you power—for good or evil."

MISTAKEN POWER ASSUMPTIONS

 —"Your American leaders assumed that if they beat the conservative Taliban that the Afghans would immediately develop a Jeffersonian democracy. It's just another example of wishful thinking clouding the realities of human traditions. But back to the Afghan student. The media reports that I read said that his confession was elicited by torture. And media sources said that they had been threatened if they were sympathetic to the student's case. Obviously free speech and an independent judiciary were not to be expected under the Afghan's newly formed democracy. Certainly it was not a democracy, but just another theocracy. So 'out with the Taliban' and 'in with the Taliban's reactionary ideas'. They just changed riders, but it was the same horse. The moral is that you my not have as much power as you think you have.

PROTECT YOUR POWER

"You shouldn't ever appear to be wrong. As an example, terrorists will always find a rationalization that acts as a reason for them to attack. Attack the Christians because of the Crusades or because they are allied with the Jews or the Saudis. Attack anyone in Iraq because of the American occupation. Attack Spain because Ferdinand and Isabella took the country back from the Moslems. Kill office workers in London because the government has troops in Iraq. Attack the Shia because they are worse infidels than the Christians. Blow up a club in Bali to drive the infidel tourists out. You get my point. The real reason is that those out of power want as much power as they can get. Muslims must be dominant over non-Moslems, men over women, Sunnis over Shia, us over them!

"But once you have sufficient power, you must attack where you can win. The higher the level of the spokesman the greater his believability. The Pope or the President of the U.S. have more believability than Osama bin Laden or the leader of Mali. The fact that many will believe them does not affect the truthfulness of their pronouncements. We can only hope that it will be the good people who will grasp the power and lead their nations."

 —"But look back through pages of history and you will find more tyrants than saints wielding the scepters. As I remember from my old political science class, a tyrant is one who has more opportunity than ability, while a slave has more ability than opportunity. How can we get the power into the hands of the ethical and the able?"

IF YOU WANT POWER

 \--"So Commander, your concern is in getting power to save the world. If you want power, you must remember that political maxim that 'The king can do no wrong.' If you are the king you look at it differently than if you want to be the king. In your case you are looking for power, so you don't want to upset the king--the person or people who really have the power. Sometimes the real 'king' is the power behind the throne, like Richelieu or Marie de Medici with Louie XII, or Tallyrand with a number of French rulers, or Dick Cheney with George W. Bush.

"For the democratically elected leader the 'king' could be the electorate, the special interest lobbyist, or the financial or political backers. In the classroom it has commonly been the teacher, but in your country I hear horror tales of the demanding parents controlling the whole school system.

"Once you know who the king is that you are trying to influence you can evaluate the motivations you can use to influence her or him. So the politician must judge how strong his own values are, how strong are those of the person or people he is trying to influence, evaluate the potential outcomes of various strategies, then decide to act or not to act."

 -"Let's assume that you want a job. Do you have the necessary academic qualifications and the required experience for it? If so, who is the king that makes the decision? How can you meet and favorably impress that person? Do you have mutual friends? Are there any ties— like being in the same political party, having gone to the same school, having the same hobbies, attending the same church, having a same interests? What will impress this person? Once you know these things you can start to look for the methods of meeting and impressing this person. In job hiring more than 90% of the people hired are hired because of their personality, not because of what they know. And over 90% of those fired are released because of personality factors, not because of what they don't know."

"So many illustrations of appeasing the 'king' come to mind. In LA there are gangs that require an initiate to kill someone before being allowed in the gang. It is senseless, but since our psychological motives are usually primary, being accepted in a gang may be the most important goal of a young life. I suppose that Maslow might rate it up with the need for esteem.

"I look at the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court and see the pro-business and anti-environment decisions of the Court. When I see that seven of the judges were appointed by the pro-business Republican presidents I can understand how power is generated and maintained by a party in power. With a 7 to 2 majority appointed you should have a pretty good chance to get at least a 5 to 4 majority on important business issues.

"Often we see a general in an ostensibly democratic country taking over the presidential power of the leader. Myanmar, Honduras, and Pakistan have all been seized this way."

 —"Very true, Con. Of course these generals were already very high in the power hierarchy. There's another area I'd like to discuss now—the 'rights' of minorities in a democracy. Any rights should come from the ballot box, but modern governments usually have constitutions that spell out the rights of the citizens, often the majority of the citizens.

"In India we saw Gandhi use his non-violent demonstrations to bring freedom to the huge majority of native Indians from the rule of the British. Then he worked to give equal rights to the 'Untouchables' whose sub-human status was millennia old and assigned by religious dictates and the cosmic reality of karma. Martin Luther King, in your country, had a similar mission, but his job was to bring the Constitutional rights already in the laws to a reality. It is the rule, rather than the exception, that the flowering of social rights is delayed for generations even after the seeds of legal rights are germinated in the halls of government.

"In the late 20th Century and early in this century we have seen the homosexuals demanding the same treatment that heterosexuals have had. Safety on the streets was essential as 'gay bashing' became common in schools and communities. Then came the struggle to recognize that not all are 'in the closet' and that they were willing to stand up and be counted as citizens. Gay rights parades, gay sporting events, and numerous lectures on the legitimacy of their leanings and the necessity to eliminate homophobia. Then came the push for legally recognized homosexual partnerships or marriages that gave homosexuals many or all the rights enjoyed by heterosexuals who were married. While this was championed in the West, eventually even India sanctioned the rights of consenting adults. The movement penetrated the Orient and was making its way into most societies.

"Naturally homosexuals had to fight the traditions of religions and societies that always see differences as evil. The propensity of AIDS to infiltrate the male homosexual community scared many people. Some saw it as an undesired expense to the government for all the medical care needed. Some looked at the silver lining and realized that homosexuals can't have children so they aid in reducing population. And those homosexuals who adopt children are lessening the financial strains of the society that had to care for the little waifs. Along with that, they are giving a better life to the children. At any rate, their 'gay rights' politics helped them make great social strides in a few years. So democracy may mean the rule of the people, but it is not necessarily one man-one vote. Utopian ideas have been adopted that give minorities special protections."

 —"We atheists have the same kind of problems. I guess that any time you are different from the surrounding people you have a problem of prejudice. Whether it's a Democrat in a Republican area, a communist in a capitalist society, a homosexual in a heterosexual group, or an atheist among the believers--few people seem to be able to accept any skin color, ethnicity, or economic or intellectual differences from what they are use to. After all they have unlimited intelligence. Just ask 'em."

 \--"Lee, it goes well beyond that. Minorities have more problems than just being accepted for their beliefs. The desires of minorities are not universally progressing. Just look at young girls forced into marriage in some countries. When Yemen passed a law against it, the reactionary Islamists fought it with violence.

"Nations naturally want to increase their power. They can do it by increasing their economies and by increasing their armaments. Nuclear weapons are a real plus for nations who want to be feared and be in control. More nuclear powers give more crazies a chance to use them. Would Hitler have used them if he had had them in time? He was working to develop them. Obviously if a country has teeth, it can bite. And people and countries prefer being the biter rather than being the 'bitee'. You may remember that Machiavelli opined that the feared prince will last longer than the loved prince. You certainly don't want to be feared, Commander, but your message should certainly elicit a real fear among the intelligent and powerful people.

"So from individuals to nations, gaining power over situations and others seems to be a primary need. They may use any number of political techniques that motivate through any of the psychological or ethical means that can move people mentally or physically. These may vary from fear and violence to sympathy and reason.

"Commander, you must realize that leadership requires a knowledge of political techniques and an accurate assessment of how any technique might work in a given situation. One bad decision or miscalculation can spell disaster. GW Bush's Iraq war and tax cuts reduced the value of the dollar by 50%, brought on a recession, due in part to the effect of the dollar's drop and its effect on oil prices, which then affected food prices. His 'abstinence' approach to sex had no effect in the US or Africa.

COMMON POLITICAL TECHNIQUES

"As I have said, the motivations people use to gain their goals are both the psychological motivations, such as you discussed with Chuck, and the values people hold, as you discussed with Wanda. But then the political techniques we use to advance our motivations can be either physical or psychological.

"Our most basic drive is for power, the most basic power outlet is violence, and the most likely target—anybody who is different and near. So violence, such as most wars, are political techniques. Gang violence, such as shooting a rival gang member when he ventures onto your street or into your 'turf' is a political move, just as mafia killings are used to enforce their demands or to eliminate rivals. The use of capital punishment in China and the US is another example, but while in the US it is used primarily to punish murderers, in China it is also used to discourage corruption and other major criminal threats to the society--such as organized crime.

"But as I have said, not all violence is a political technique. A person who attacks his or her spouse out of frustration is using a psychological adjustment mechanism not a well thought out political technique. In a marriage a political technique would be more likely to be a reasoned discussion of the problem, a visit to a family therapist, or even walking away for a 'cooling off' period. I remember when I was first married, an American friend gave me some advice. He said that he and his wife had a rule that if they were upset with anything they would just say 'I'm bitchy' and the other would leave them alone. Beating a child is another abnormal adjustment approach to venting one's frustration. A more effective political technique might be talking with the child, a visit to a child psychologist, or withdrawing privileges such as watching TV or playing video games.

"But political techniques can be based on other psychological motivations like love, meaning and pleasure. For example in the ancient Greek play of Aristophanes, Lysistrata tells the story of women who devise a plan to stop a war by withholding sex from their husbands until they agreed to lay down their arms. So here we have Freud's pleasure drive being the basis for a political technique.

"The basic motivation for most people lies in the self-centered impulse, the self-centered basic assumption area. If we look at what Chuck Chan has written (3) we can see that the same basic psychological drives give rise to political techniques. Of course the technique must actually motivate the people you are trying to get to do your wishes. The need for sex or pleasure manipulates many people into the marriage bed. The need to feel meaning in our lives can be met from observing the classic movements of dancers or athletes, like the Argentine tango, the Don Quixote pas de deux or the Olympian discus thrower. The search for meaning can be excited by reading the Great Books or attending a college that emphasizes their study. Soliciting people to give time or money to foster intellectual or artistic interests uses the meaning value as a political motivation. But unless you have a drive for meaning, an appreciation of intellectual pursuits, an appreciation of art or music of movement, or a deep concern for the environment—you won't be motivated by a meaning based political technique. In fact, being the least common of the psychological drives it is only an important political technique in limited circumstances and to limited numbers of people. So Commander, your idea of reasoning with people to change their behavior faces an uphill fight in terms of being an effective political tool.

"The motivation to love is often the foundation for successful political manipulation. A love motivation can be used to solicit funds for disabled people, to get funding to feed starving Africans, for aid to disaster victims like in Pakistan or Haiti, and for appeals for education for the disadvantaged. An appeal to people's motivation to love may also be made to seek funding for missionary work. It is used by the anti-abortion groups who indicate that you are saving a human life by supporting their cause. But on the pro-choice side of the issue fund raisers may ask people who are motivated by 'love' to contribute to the cause to reduce unwanted parenthood--questioning whether bringing an unwanted child into the world is actually a 'loving' thing to do. Advertisers use the love motivation to prompt parents to buy the best diapers and the healthiest food for their babies. So generally appealing to the heart is more effective that appealing to the mind. Emotions generally trump intellect.

"Commander, what techniques would you use to popularize the use of male or female condoms as aids to family planning and as HIV/AIDS preventatives?"

 \--"I think that first we have to educate the world's population about the overpopulation problem, about the real cost of children and about the transference of HIV. I have always thought that education is the key to making positive life changes. Possibly showing scare photos of syphilis or AIDS would make some people afraid of contracting these sexually transmitted diseases."

 \--"Did you ever hear about the problems related to alcohol? And did you ever drink or get drunk?"

 \--"I get your point. Yes, I heard about the negatives related to drinking from my parents, my coaches and my teachers. But I did get drunk once and I have certainly enjoyed a glass of wine with dinner. But your point is, I believe, that we are more psychological than logical. Right?"

 \--" Exactly. I cannot emphasize that enough. What if you could stop every man just before he starts to have sexual intercourse without a condom and give him these options. You can have unprotected sex and enjoy your orgasm. But you might contract genital herpes, gonorrhea or even AIDS. And you have a 1 in 20 chance of impregnating your partner. If you impregnate her and she has an abortion it will cost you $500. If she doesn't have an abortion your child support payments will probably be from $20,000 to over $100,000 to raise the child to the age of 18. Of course that situation is impossible, but if it happened you would be able to contrast the immediately anticipated psychological pleasure with some rational outcomes.

"But without your guardian angel, or a conscience like Pinocchio's friend Jiminy Cricket, to tell you your options—you will undoubtedly choose the immediate gratification because as you have heard, a--"I would think that the possibility of $20,000 in child support might scare a few people! And if the fear of sexually transmitted diseases is done thoroughly, the scare pictures of syphilis or AIDS should make people think a little bit. Of course we all think that it won't happen to us. I won't get pregnant. I won't get AIDS.

"Probably the best way to attack it is by getting to the women. They are not only a whole lot smarter than we are, but they are the ones who have to endure the pregnancy for nine months, maybe experience the morning sickness and the post-partum depressions, then do most of the care-taking of the child. On the other hand for many, becoming a mother is the most important prestige generator in her young life. And it doesn't take any education or any experience to get the hoped for psychological rewards.

"So for the primitively uneducated, the risk of an STD may be offset by the possibility of pregnancy and the crown of full womanhood. Her thirst for what she conceives as womanly power has been satiated.

"I wonder if the availability of free condoms for women would influence a significant number of women to protect themselves from disease and pregnancy. With female condoms now costing only 25 cents and with a number of charity groups distributing them maybe there will be a dent in the number of births. But I wonder how many drug dependent women will be able to consider the unwanted ramifications of the lust of themselves or their partners."

 \--"When you say something it should be important enough to make an impression. You know the sayings like 'Talk is cheap.' Or you have to 'walk the walk, not just talk the talk.'"

  "You mean 'walk softly but carry a big stick' as Teddy Roosevelt said?"

  "I think he means to have an impact with your words or actions that go beyond your merely speaking. It's like when Bizet's 'Carmen' tossed a rose to Corporal Don Jose and he sang that it was like being hit with a bullet. To be effective you have to make an impact."

 —"Right. And greater impact is usually effective in other ways than reasoning. Fear, sympathy, honor, duty and other psychological motivators are more often effective in moving people mentally and physically. You must accurately determine whether a person you are trying to influence is a sled that must be pushed, a wagon that must be pulled or a kayak that must be paddled? I want to come back to these political techniques later and in much more detail, but now I want to focus on other factors that will impact just who we want to influence and how we can most effectively do it.

WHO DO YOU WANT TO INFLUENCE

"As an individual, a corporation, a religion or a country you may be able to influence and manipulate other such entities through the uses of power, such as economic or moral persuasion, physical or emotional actions or threats of such action, or through negotiation.

"It should be rather simple to determine who you want to influence. In a social situation it may be a man or woman you would like to become better acquainted with. In a business situation it might be a potential customer for your product. In a municipal or national election, or even in a club, it may be the electorate that has the power to vote you into office. In a religious situation it might be a person you would like to convert to your religion. We are continually trying to influence people--someone who has invaded your country or your home, a banker who has the power to give you a loan, your son who isn't studying at school, are just a few illustrations.

INFLUENCING

 -"Trying to influence someone reminds me of a famous story from the isle of Madeira. It seems that in the 16th Century a band of a thousand pirates attacked this island, killing hundreds and plundering the city. Many people escaped to the high hills where a convent housed the holiest of women. The pirates decided to rape and pillage in the hills. After sixteen days of climbing they came to the valley of the nuns. One pirate took a nun and obviously wanted to have his way with this bride of God. Before he could bed her she decided to bargain with him. 'If you will take down your pants, I will raise my skirt' she said. The prurient pirate could not believe the invitation. He took off his belt. He pulled down his knickers. He took off one shoe to slide his pants over his feet. Then the nun saw her opportunity for another bargain. 'Let's see' she challenged 'who can win a race to the church.' By the time the buccaneer had pulled up his pants, laced his boots, and secured his belt—there was none of the nun to be seen. She had used the right political technique in this threatening situation."

 \--"Funny Con. I think that people use various political techniques more than they may realize. But remember a political technique is an action, or inaction, that is well thought out. Let's take a look at the Pope's visit to Africa. He was obviously trying to reinforce the Catholicity of his African flock. He made some good points, but as a politician he made some errors. He referred to the 'clouds of evil' over Africa that have spawned war, tribalism and ethnic rivalry that he said condemned poor people to virtual slavery. 'How true it is' he said, 'that war can destroy everything of value.' Naturally he didn't mention the Church's role in colonizing the continent and allowing the slave trade to exist. He scored negative points when he said that condoms are not the way to slow the AIDS epidemic. This upset both Catholics and non-Catholics. His message took more of a negative slide when he chastised the 45 African countries that had allowed for abortion in the cases of incest, rape or dangers to the mother. But he picked up some positive points when he condemned the generalized negatives of social injustice and governmental corruption.

"The Papacy has traditionally ruled Europe through empowering kings and keeping the rabble fearful, but hopeful. But with religion rapidly dwindling in Europe and the hope of hordes of converts in the southern hemisphere filling the churches and the coffers of the Vatican the question is whether the Medieval magician can keep pulling religious rabbits out of the beggar's hat. To keep them happy he may need to use the methods of Machiavelli rather than the arguments of Augustine. The faithful may opt to buy condoms with their money and prevent the ills of today rather than to buy indulgences and a hope for a hereafter. For the huge majority of Africans celibacy is not an option, The Pope's point of view is OK if all Africans will take a vow of celibacy. So his answer was not a realistic answer based on Africans' present and past sexual behavior. It was an answer for those who are celibate and who share his God-based views of a universal morality."

 —"You certainly can't expect the Pope to sacrifice his principles just to appease some people or to get more converts. The Pope is the representative of God on Earth. Certainly you don't compromise on God's will to please mere mortals. Remember our religion is based on a combination of faith and reason. Answer these—what is more important, today or eternity? Orgasm or everlasting life? Oneself or one's Creator? The easy path or the sure path?"

 —I know your answers, Ray, but we both know that not everyone shares them. But those assumptions are the starting points for determining who you are trying to influence and how you are trying to influence them.

"Commander if you plan to influence people, find a rallying cry. It doesn't have to be rational, just enough to give a reason or a rationalization for your purpose. An effective politician can channel people's power drive into whatever actions he wants. The motivational cries usually have to do with values—not necessarily well thought out values. In your case Commander, you could use 'survival' or 'survival for your children' or maybe a 'duty to the human race' as values you could exploit.

"Look at how Pope Benedict decried the 'clouds of evil' over Africa, I would guess that the corruption and the wars were what he meant. And who could fault him on that. Remember that today he is trying to influence poor Africans. It's not like the Middle Ages when kings bent over backwards to do his bidding for a ticket to heaven.

"Your recent President Bush rallied your country to fight the 'axis of evil' that was threatening democracy and freedom. These are strong value slogans because most people are against evil, just like they are for peace and motherhood."

 —"Since we're talking about influencing, remember a few years ago when the Chinese, who were strong in South Africa forbad the Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, from attending a peace conference. The conference was organized in part by the Norwegian Nobel Committee and by Nobel laureates Desmond Tutu and former South African president de Klerk. But they then refused to attend. Power, not peace, was the obvious Chinese concern. So did the Chinese influence the peace movement effectively?"

 —"Or let's look at the Middle East. What a political and social mess clouds that area. Most Western leaders would have preferred that all Middle East countries adopt a Western style democracy, at least as secular as Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey. And none of them approved of Saddam Hussein, except that he kept America's adversary Iran in check. Then comes the attack of al-Qaeda on September 11, 2001 and American values were changed and charged. The people wanted vengeance. It was demanded to do something. So if Saddam was a threat, get him. If bin Laden was a threat get him—at any cost. But people's values changed when the war wasn't won overnight, when bin Laden wasn't caught, when the financial costs of the war were made known, when many Americans were killed and when terrorism increased. Now the war had become a bad thing. So the astute American politician either had to do nothing, just hunt bin Laden, or use an adequate fighting force to win completely and quickly. But this wasn't done. The U.S. administration ignored the expertise of its generals, so the war failed. A smart politician will use the best brains available to plot his course. The American leaders influenced their people in the short term but not in the long term, so the Republicans lost the next election big time."

 \--"Let's look again at Israel, surrounded by hostile lands with varying degrees of animosity, what was the best tack when a soldier was kidnapped by the Sunni Hamas and two more were kidnapped by Shi'ite Hezbollah? Who should the Israelis have tried to influence? The Hamas? The Hezbollah? The US? The UN? Her Arab neighbors? And how should any of them be influenced?

"Should Israel have moved back to the 1947 boundaries? Ask the UN to protect it? Attack Lebanon and any Lebanese area that might harbor the Hezbollah? Extend the war so that the Lebanese would rid themselves of any vestige of Hezbollah in its legislature and on its territory. Would any of these have given Israel another ten years of peace? But what about the world opinion engendered by Israel's policy to take 1000 eyes for one eye and 1000 teeth for one tooth. Then by Israel's underestimating the organization and firepower of the Hezbollah it attracted more Arab support and somewhat unified the Sunni and Shia countries. The pro-Israeli feelings expressed by some Islamic nations at the kidnappings, turned into anti-Israeli feelings after what was seen as the unnecessary destruction and the killing of so many civilians. Were the Hezbollah or the Israelis trying to influence any broad category of people or nations, or were they only resorting to flaunting their own power without considering the long range consequences?

"Let's look at some illustrations of influencing individuals, governments and religions.

INFLUENCING AN INDIVIDUAL

"When you look at politics affecting an individual you can analyze it as either how to advance yourself or how to influence another person. You may want to move yourself ahead in business. You may want to be liked in certain social circles. Or perhaps you just want to be the best you can be."

 —"Confucius had some thoughts here that might be appropriate. He said 'When strict with oneself, one rarely fails.' And relative to gaining friends he wrote 'Excellence does not remain alone; it is sure to attract neighbors.' And relative to one's education he opined 'He was diligent and fond of learning, and he did not blush to learn from his inferiors. That is why he was called Cultured.'"(4)

 —"That's why we must support bacteria. They're the only culture most people have! But Ray, my favorite Confucius saying is 'Do not worry about not holding high position; worry rather about playing your proper role.' I think we learned a lot about that playing football. Remember Coach Sargeant emphasizing the 'There is no I in TEAM?"

 —"I remember that well. We have to be a part of a group greater than ourselves. But then, we have to be the best we can be in order to contribute to the greater good. Along that line my favorite Confusianism is 'Worry not that no one knows you, seek to be worth knowing.' It seems to me that often self-interest is self-defeating. If we each become the best we can be and we guide our actions with enlightened self-interest, our world would be a better place. But our loving altruism is continually frustrated by the self-centered power drives of the masses."

 –"I never tire of reading and thinking about the thoughts and the impact of Confucius. Certainly he was one of the world's greatest and most insightful sages. But let us move on to how you might influence another person.

"Often we want to influence just one person—a friend, a potential employer, a traffic cop who is ready to give you a speeding ticket. If you wanted a certain girl to go out with you or to marry you what techniques would you use? If she were a movie star, a U.S. senator or some other highly popular person obviously the cards would be stacked against you. If she was merely average and had no other suitors it might be relatively simple. Would you send flowers, write her poems, take her to the opera? As a politician you would have to understand what motivates her, then do the things that will make her feel more positive towards you.

"On a personal level, let's say you think you want to get married. You are going with Sue. Should you marry her? Why? Because she is nice to you, makes lots of cookies, is good in bed-- and you don't have any other prospects. But what do you know about Sue? Her parents beat her, her mother is very sloppy, her parents have no drive to succeed. They live on welfare checks, and have little education. But what about Sue? Will she be one of the 90% who follows her parents' example or will she be one of the 10% that reacts against that heritage? What is Sue doing today? She's a waitress who dropped out of high school. She has no vocational or educational aspirations. But she does make great chocolate chip cookies and she tells you that you are the greatest.

"The first question for you, since you want to get an MBA and move up in the business world, is—is this a wife who would be supportive as you climb the ladder of business success? Will she need you more at home to keep filling up the holes in her psyche?

"So the first question for you as a politician is 'what do I want.'

"Now let's assume that another woman comes into your life. Jill is also going for an MBA. She is interesting, has had effective parenting, but she doesn't make cookies! She is also very popular. I want her! But how do I get her? This is where politics comes into play. What techniques can you use to get Jill interested in you—and marriage? Flowers? Fancy restaurants? Study together? Visit art museums? Discuss businesses and the stock market? If you use the right techniques you may have a chance."

 —"I guess the reason I'm not married is that I have never let a kiss fool me."

 —"And tell me that you've never kissed a fool!"

 —"I wouldn't say that. I'm sure I've kissed at least a couple of fools! But I'm not influenced when women say 'I love you.' I hope they mean 'love' in the way that Chuck Chan defined it. (5) On second thought he was just repeating Ashley Montagu's definition of love. So I relate positively to someone saying they love me but 'love' is only the middle word in the sentence, 'I love you.' The remaining words are arranged in the order of their importance to the speaker. And I don't think I want to be second place in the relationship! I have been infatuated with several women but I realize that infatuation is about 'what do you do for me 'not what can I do for you.'

"But talking about love makes me uneasy. So here's a different illustration. If you are stopped by a policeman in Tijuana for running a stop sign, offering a $20 bill might be the only political technique that you would need to avoid jail or a fine. Remember in Titus's class when we had to read Gracian's Manual as a textbook for the politics class? The old monk wrote 'Find each man's thumbscrew.' That is probably the basic rule for individual politics. What motivates me most—my religious beliefs, my family, my desire for success, for money, to live?"

 -"Right! I had a friend who wanted a college teaching job. I happened to know the department chairman for the position he wanted. I introduced them. There was no opening. But my friend was an ultimate politician. He wined and dined the potential boss for over a year. When an opening did come up the chair wrote a job description that only my friend and God could have fulfilled. Naturally he got the job."

 —"You certainly have a handle on influencing another person. But sometimes you want something for yourself and need to influence another entity, like a bureaucrat or even a municipality. People who are tying to influence a government are likely to call what they want the government to do their 'rights.'"

 —"You are right about people wanting what they call their 'rights'. Sometimes they are based on some interpretation of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. But as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said 'We should have equal time for our Bill of Obligations.'"

 —"As much as I hate to admit it, Karl Marx was 'right on' when he saw the importance of economics in human motivation. Selfishness is key for most people. Whatever I want is my right!"

 —"Remember what Confucius said 'He who engages solely in self –interested actions will make himself many enemies.' Maybe we would get what we want if we were only better people and better citizens."

 -"Right! But the fact is that most of us can't really think. We mistake our feelings for thinking. And since we are generally self-centered and power driven we don't want an idea rammed down our throat. We need to be enticed by it and hopefully think it was our idea to start with. When an experienced trout fisherman wants to catch a fish, he casts the lure near the trout, makes the fly wiggle and dart. Soon the trout decides that 'I must have that fly' and he grabs it, hook and all.

"Taking this a step farther, you can present your ideas to a group but appear to be unconvinced of their worth. Then let your prey argue your case for you. Ben Franklin advocated this technique."

 —"When Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer he summed up both sides of a case quite thoroughly, but always making his side look a bit stronger for the judge or jury. Socrates used his dialectical method to bring his adversary along the path he knew would lead to a better understanding of the issue by continually bringing in the 'what if' antithesis to the adversary's thesis.

"Another thing, Wreck, it is nearly always preferable to ask, not tell, your audience. Our fragile inferiority complexes have enough trouble coping. We don't want our power drives subdued by your superior knowledge and wisdom. Your adversary will feel better and more willing to support you if he thinks it is his idea. You must always be tactful. And as you have probably heard, tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy."

 —"It has also been said that tact is the art of making your friends feel at home—when you wish they were. Well we kind of went around the mulberry bush in that discussion. But let me summarize. Most people are self-centered and power driven. Sometimes we know exactly what we want, but often it isn't clear in our own minds. So if we know what we want there is probably a best way to get it. We must then use the best techniques available to make it a reality. But as I said it will be another hour or so before we get into discussing some of the political techniques and how they might be used. Let us leave the individual for a while and look at how a group might use political techniques."

INFLUENCING A GROUP

"After World War II when America was helping Europe to get on its economic and political feet, General George Marshall knew that 'democratic principles do not flourish on empty stomachs.'"

 —"That brings us back again to what Chuck Chan mentioned in regard to Maslow's priority of needs. If you are hungry or thirsty that's all you can think about. Getting to the heights of Maslow's hierarchy and having people ready to pursue philosophy, justice and truth is not psychologically possible. So if you are going to influence a group, or I should say, if I am going to influence any groups toward reducing population, I have to use the right techniques. And I had better keep Maslow in mind when I make my plans."

 —"To accomplish what you hope is possible you must keep up with the times. If you are a farmer, using horses to pull your plows won't cut it anymore. Giant machines that do multiple jobs like plow and process agricultural products have often replaced the peasant guiding the plow behind an ox or a mule. So Wreck, you will need to look at the traditional truths that guide people, but you must adopt to the modern political realities too. Remember when Barack Obama was elected president he was continually bombarded by the billionaire controlled media. Not a lot of billionaires want to pay more taxes so they backed the conservative, or should I say reactionary, arm of their party. Their media made up stories that they reported as factual, or at least highly likely—even though they were denied by the Obama administration. Health insurance companies, trial lawyers, the coal industry and other groups representing special interests used the media and money to manipulate the lawmakers and the general public. If Obama said 'green', the opposition media would yell 'yellow' without even looking. If he said 'big' they yelled 'little.' If he said 'good' they screamed 'bad.' It is hard to believe that a man recently voted in by a landslide could always be wrong in the program he was elected to pass. But Wreck, I'm sure you wouldn't use such unethical methods to get your voice heard."

 —"You know me. I will use the truth, as scientists know it, to try to convince people to do what is necessary to save the planet and our societies."

 —"Being nice to the people you want to influence often works. Hamas gained more friends by being nice to Palestinians while attacking Israel. Hizballah gained prestige in its fight against Israel, then made many friends as it gave thousands of dollars to those who lost their houses so they could rebuild."

 —"Here's an example of a group influencing another group, a government group. In South Africa a large group of women have attempted to influence law enforcement agencies and the justice system to enforce the prosecution of rapists. 28% of South African men admit to having raped a woman. Most rapes are not reported but 150 per day are reported. In half of these the rapist is arrested, but only 7% of them are convicted. In Lusikisiki a number of women banded together to put the rapists behind bars. Due to their efforts one was recently sentenced to 13 years in prison. It is no longer enough to give two cows to the mother of the raped girl-- for a large group of women now, prison is the price.

"The group is called 'Treatment Action Campaign.' It is working to prevent HIV, rape and other health problems along with reducing police corruption. Bribes to the police often result in the disappearance of the written complaint and the evidence. The group has put rape kits in every police station and hospital so that the forensic evidence needed can be collected and analyzed. They have brought their case to the streets, the homes, the schools, the courtrooms, the hospitals and the police stations. It took them two years before they finally got a conviction, but the ball is now rolling. The previously overlooked 'right of manhood' in that highly patriarchal society is yielding to the democratic freedom of women to be safe in their society."

THE SUPERCLASS

 —"Ya Ray, people can often make a difference in a local community but I want to make a difference in the world community. I need the help of the superclass. (6) The people who can make the difference in population control are the people who are financially well off and in positions of power. They haven't seen their parents die of AIDS. They haven't been forced to work 14 hour days seven days a week. They haven't had their hands cut off by marauding genocidal militias. They haven't seen their mothers and sisters raped or their villages burned. They sit it the board rooms of General Motors and Sony—where their attitude is often that 'more people means cheaper labor and an increased base of customers.' They sit in Vatican City or Teheran amid the opulence that so commonly accompanies holiness—and they seek more souls to be saved or more purses to be tapped.

"Do they realize that if population were controlled, in the long run they would actually sell more cars and TVs and would have more souls to save if the population were limited and continued for more millennia. At the populating pace of the world in the last century we are running out of irreplaceable resources. We can't put oil and coal back into the ground. We can't manufacture more farmland, even though we do make the existing farmland yield more food. We are not replacing the forests that give us our oxygen. We are not replacing the water in the dropping water tables. It was once calculated that by 2855 there would be 20 people per square foot of land and sea on this planet. I don't know if the calculations are correct, but even if it were only 25% right and we only had five people per square foot of land and sea, where would you go on vacation? Where would you keep your pets? Where would we find enough land to raise the crops to feed the population? Dr. Singh, how can I reach that group of movers and shakers?"

 —"Commander you are getting ahead of our parade of political options.

"Suppose that, as a government, you wanted to influence the American health care system with its high doctor and hospital costs and with health insurance companies making large profits. Then with the huge contributions of the medical lobbying groups to your lawmakers, you have a self-perpetuating system where profit, not health needs or efficiency, is the dominant force. I have seen figures from your press that show that health care lobbies spent $4 to $17 million a year in donations to your national legislators. (7)

"You might appeal to their better natures to reduce costs. You might use foreign doctors and hospitals, like those in India, Jordan and Singapore, for your major medical procedures that are paid for by Medicare or Medical. When the foreign health care providers charge about 30% of what the American providers charge it can save the government a great deal of money and it might force the American providers to lower their fees."

  –"I wonder where people who die on their operating tables go. If they die in Jordan do the go to Paradise to spend eternity with Allah? Or if they die in Mumbai they are immediately reincarnated?

"But seriously, if we send people to other countries for treatment and our insurance companies and the government keep negotiating doctor and hospital fees down, we could lose a great many doctors and nurses who might opt for more money in other pursuits, like Wall Street banking. But remember the lobbies of the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association and other interested groups carry a great deal of weight with elected legislators. It takes money to win elections and the health industry invests a lot of money in electing interest-friendly lawmakers then keeping them in the legislatures.

"A few elected officials may be interested in their people but most are concerned with staying in power."

 —"The reason congressmen try so hard to get re-elected is that they would hate to have to make a living under the laws they've passed.

"So they poll the electorate to find out what they want, then they paint their banner and run to the front of the pack shouting 'follow me.' And that's in a democracy! In dictatorships the people aren't polled—they are poled like so many cattle into their peasant pens. Back in 2008 we saw the governments of Myanmar and Zimbabwe withholding food supplies for their starving people. Myanmar is non-democratic, being ruled by the military. Zimbabwe is supposedly a democracy, but the Mugabe government did everything it could, even the severely illegal, to stay in power. It detained the opposition leader, who had gained more votes in the election, while waiting for the run off election. Power, not pity, imprisons the compassion that we are led to expect from social and religious morality and it flies in the face of the equalitarian values which underlie democracy. So how do we influence these types of 'superclass' groups?"

 —"That is the kind of obstacle I will face, but my problem will be much greater than changing the American health care system. In my case, in trying to change the universal tradition of having babies I need to convince real leaders, who are similar to Nelson Mandela. Remember he said 'Lead from the front—but don't leave your base behind.' I need to find leaders who are capable of influencing others--then turn them loose and let them influence! I need to find leaders who can understand the immediate problems we face in the world and can act pragmatically to lessen them, then reverse them. I know we will be faced with reactionary leaders who won't admit that our planetary needs have changed. There are plenty, maybe the majority, who will say that God will provide. I need the people who can see clearly the path humanity has taken and that in the last hundred or so years things have become intolerable. If we don't find a new road quickly our only option will be a lemming-like leap into oblivion. "Certainly a few will survive, probably a few hundred million if we are lucky. But I think that more can survive and live happy and productive lives. But our present billions of brothers can't possibly survive and prosper. You may remember some years ago when the famous physicist and cosmologist Steven Hawking warned that if we didn't leave the planet we would all die. But until we develop time traveling, my voyage has shown that space travel won't cut it.

"How can I get intelligent people to change their minds? How can powerful people be recruited for the cause? Maybe I can use another of Mandela's rules 'Lead from the rear and let others believe they are in front.' But I better get some people in front with me who are believers!"

INFLUENCING RELIGIOUS THEORY

 —"Let's talk about religions for a while--and how politics might help to advance them. The Philippines is struggling to maintain young people's interest in the Church. While it still wields influence over the country, our Catholic dogma on contraception and divorce is causing a less conservative younger generation to shun the Church. Young Filipinos want more than their parents' generation. They have more ambitions and are more assertive on social issues such as contraception and divorce. Many think that their problems are a result of their parents having too many children. Some of the priests are even backing these opinions.

"A survey a couple of years ago showed that about half of young Catholics

seldom attend church. (8) This is a huge political problem for the Church. The permissive society shown in our media are crumbling a good part of our base of the faithful."

 —"You illustrate the point that every problem, religious or secular, needs a solution and that solution must be accepted by those in power. But those in power can be any group from a democratic electorate to a church, government or military hierarchy. I would guess, Ray, that if your church wants to hold its members in the developed countries your pope will have to make some major changes in its traditions, possibly allowing for married priests, female priests and contraception and abortion. The problem, of course, is that when you have popes getting their ideas directly from God for centuries it gives your believers a constant and relatively consistent tradition. This gives a certain stability. On the other hand many who would like such stability but see it as being counter to sound thinking won't follow the papal dictates.

"Look at the number of priests and bishops who want to have the pope change his mind on the use of condoms to prevent AIDS. Here we have a huge issue of Christ-like charity versus a religious tradition that few people in other traditions now follow. Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Belgium argued that if an HIV positive person had sex without using a condom, he would be violating the Fifth Commandment by knowingly causing death. The Pope has cracked down hard on dissenting prelates. Jacques Gaillot, a bishop in France and a campaigner for AIDS patients, was removed from office after advocating condom use in anti-AIDS campaigns.(9)

"I'm sure you know, father, that during the reign of Pope John Paul 15% of Brazil's Catholics left. And Brazil is the world's largest Catholic country. You have to admit that it's not the Middle Ages and that your Roman Catholicism isn't the only game in town. So large numbers of Catholics who are for abortion, contraception, married priests, ordained women or for remarriage after a civil divorce have left your church or are leaving.

"Of course holding on to church members may not be a concern for a spiritual leader. Getting people to follow the commands of God is a leader's only responsibility. Following God's word on contraception, abortion and animal rights is primary. The question is what did God tell us to do in these areas? Should we read the scriptures ourselves or follow the dictates of those who have direct communication with God?"

 —"Saying good things, like the Pope calling for aid to Haiti, but not backing it up with some of his own cash, is only 'talking the talk'. It's like when in 2008 the Pope spoke to the UN about human rights, but didn't offer any money to feed the hungry or didn't offer to change his position on the rights he didn't agree with, like Articles 18 and 19, which call for freedom of religious beliefs and practices and the freedom of opinion and expression. He wasn't doing anything to increase the standard of living for his African or South American flocks, as called for in Article 23, when he disapproved of condoms to prevent AIDS and unwanted births that kept his people in poverty.

"It makes me think of Abraham Lincoln's belief that 'we should pray to be on the side of God not that God should be on our side.'

"When a national leader has the Supreme Being on his side he can go well beyond a country's constitution because God and one man is a majority. He can then do what God would do if He only had the facts! Wreck, I'm afraid you will have too many religious beliefs to confront. A political weapon for some religions and some societies is to have more children. I'm sure you know that in Islam having four wives can make a man more prolific. Osama bin Laden's father had at least 11 wives, some say 22, and he had 54 children. I don't see how you can convince the Catholics who follow the Pope, the Mormons who follow the Prophet, the Iranians who follow the ayatollahs and all of the other problems we confront when we worship the God of the Mideast. I heard it said one time that 'superstition is the religion of weak minds and religion is the superstition of traditional minds.'

"Maybe if other societies followed Russia's example of giving students and parents the option of studying either religion or secular ethics in schools, at least some would see that we don't need religion to be ethical people. I think President Medveyev advocated this to counter the moves of the Orthodox Church to reconvert Russia. I hear that 100 million Russians say they are Orthodox but only about 5% are devout believers.

"It makes me think of the idea I once heard that philosophy offers us questions that can never be answered, while religions give us answers that can never be questioned. Because the religious are generally trying to get us to accept their answers without questioning, they have to be very creative in projecting their message.

HUMAN RIGHTS

"Maybe the Pope and the rest of us should understand the UN's Declaration of Human Rights. Article 21, Section 3, allows people to make their own laws. And Americans have made laws to allow for contraception and abortion, and often have required insurance companies to pay for these.

"UN's declaration gives rights only after a person is born. Many talk about human rights beginning at conception. If this is true the fertility clinics that destroy unwanted fertilized embryos are guilty of murder. And when fertilized ova don't implant, I assume that God is guilty of murder when they exit the uterus?

"Another question. If Article 3 gives us the right to be safe, is it more important than our right to privacy granted by Article 12? Do surveillance cameras, luggage searches and phone taps protect us or foster Big Brother's power and reduce our civil rights?

POLITICS IN RELIGIONS

"Religions certainly use political methods to get their ideas across. But on the other side of the issue how can you influence religious people who continue to believe their traditional ideas even when they are proven either false or highly unlikely? The Genesis story of an immediate creation in seven days is disproven by cosmology and evolutionary biology. Biblical stories like the flood or the Passover from Egypt have no physical evidence to back them up. There is no historical evidence for Abraham, the purported father for the religions of the Mideast. There no evidence for a creating being, a moral creating being, a heaven or a hell. And one of the greatest evidences for a real lack of belief is the murdering, the adultering, the homosexuality, the bearing of false witness, the taking of the Lord's name in vain, the stealing, and the lack of charity among the masses who say they believe in the holy books of the religions of Abraham. How can you change these and other non-verifiable opinions with political techniques."

 —"Religion is a simple way for individuals to gain identity and for groups to separate so they can feel superior to others. It may well be that this need for esteem from others or the feeling of power one gets from possessing the ultimate truth is necessary for most people's psychological comfort. But let me ask you what holds the higher value—

\--Knowing how to manipulate the Internet or knowing how we arrived on Earth?

\--Winning an Olympic medal or knowing that if you don't live morally you will forever be damned in Hell?

\--Holding that values are relative or knowing what is absolutely right?

"Cosmic certainty is comforting and far superior to questioning, except for those who want to find their own way in the world of knowledge."

 —"I have a friend who is an unbeliever but his wife is a devout Christian. She teaches their children the Christian beliefs, sends them to Sunday school and is indoctrinating them into a belief that their father doesn't believe in. What should he do?"

 —"Well, there's always divorce! It seems strange to me that people with such diametrically opposed basic assumptions who are using vastly different sources of evidence would get married. Of course orgasms organize our lives more than intellects can integrate them. But you are asking what political techniques can he use to counteract or at least equalize the philosophical and religious input that his children are getting. What they are getting is in the intellectual area and is based on historical beliefs. I would think that he would have to counteract those with other intellectual and historical thinking.

"Just like there are children's Bibles, there are children's books on philosophy. Let me suggest a few. Nobel literature prize winner Pablo Neruda wrote his 'Book of Questions' which is a combination of poetry and philosophy and is designed to make children think. He posits over 300 unanswerable questions. They can lead the child into the realms of intuition and imagination. Here are a couple of verses I remember: 'Tell me, is the rose naked--or is that her only dress?' And 'Why do trees conceal the splendor of their roots? And another one is 'Is there anything in the world sadder than a train standing in the rain?' Now I'm on a roll. I remember a few more that I talked to my children about. I liked this one. 'And what did the rubies say standing before the juice of pomegranates?' And another one about color. 'Who shouted with glee when the color blue was born?' And one I thought was cute. 'Why doesn't Thursday talk itself into coming after Friday?'

"Then there are books like David A. White's 'Philosophy for Kids', and 'The Examined Life: Advanced Philosophy for Kids.' These contrast with the unanswerable questions of Neruda and would give your friend a chance to discuss issues with his children."

 —"Some believe so much in their religion that they will use whatever power is at hand to advance it. Whether it is popes, potentates or parents some want power so much that they will use religion or whatever other means are at hand to extend that power. I keep hearing about the Board of Education of Texas. They keep working to put literal fundamental Christianity into the curriculum, whether it is true or not. They pushed creationism and the argument for a cosmic designer of the universe. When those didn't work they pushed for including the historically false idea that the Christian God was responsible for the creation of America."

 —"Well it was partially true. The majority of religions settlers were so prejudiced against and persecuted in Europe by the majority religions there that America became a refuge from other Christians. Catholics persecuted Anabaptists in Holland and the British and Scots persecuted the Catholics. Lutherans forced out of Catholic Austria headed for Georgia. French Catholics persecuted French Protestants and French Protestants returned the favor. The Puritans desired to purify the Church of England so they came west, the Pilgrims rebelled against Anglicism so they left their mother country, and in Maryland fleeing Catholics were given a sanctuary.

"If America was founded on Christianity it came about because of the fear inspired in Europe by Christians disemboweling Catholic priests in England and France and the burning or drowning of Protestants in western Europe. So Christians were responsible for the immigration to American soil because of their un-Christian treatment in the old country."

 \--"Ray, I know that you know that religion has been used to convince the masses to revolt against the secular order, like the Americans did in 1776. And it can be used to control the secular order, as the Catholic Church did during the Middle Ages, proclaiming that there was a divine right of the Catholic kings to rule. Only the Pope, as the representative of God on Earth, could abrogate that divine right.

"Political techniques are used constantly by advocates of religions, as they are by all people who want to convince others. Fear is a big motivator for change. If you read the Koran you are continually hit over the head with the threat of damnation. Christians use the same fear techniques to goad the masses to goodness. Then there are the accoutrements of power like vestments, robes, candles, statues, mosques and cathedrals, these separate the holy clergy from the masses and convince the peasants with 'shock and awe.'

"Of course many use violence in their effort to recruit for the cause or to defend the theological or physical territory they have won. The Muslims advanced across North Africa and into Europe, and across the Mideast to India. The Catholic Inquisition worked to solidify the beliefs of those who had wandered intellectually and the Crusades sought to recapture the environs of the Christian Savior. Most wars are fought because of obedience to a religious or secular ruler, not because of rebellion against them.

"Religions also use the political motivation of 'hope.' Believe and give money and you will enjoy the company of your Creator and will eventually rejoin your saintly friends and family.

"I don't know your views on religion, except for Father Ray's, but I read an interesting approach in the London Times. (10) The author, as an atheist, doesn't like the 'salvation' aspect of the missionaries' programs, but he saw it as minor when compared with the good that they do in Africa, like medical care and education. And most important, religion could be the gadfly pushing people out of their very passive mind sets. Protestant Christianity, with its teaching of a personal God, often gives hope and purpose to people who are bound by the tradition of fate, a fate without hope, a fate with no light at the end of the tunnel."

 —"Only a fool would say that we are not increasing our population or that we need more people on the planet. Still many Christian and Muslim sects are having many babies because it is God's will. Most people seem to think they know the truth and are willing to go to any lengths to convert the world to their thinking. Savonarola burned non-Catholic books in Renaissance Florence. Not too many years ago a North Carolina pastor and his church burned Christian texts, such as those by Billy Graham and Rick Warren, and Bibles, except for the one they followed--the King James version. All other versions were perversions and satanic, the pastor said. The mainly Hindu Tamil Tigers wanted their own piece of Sri Lanka. The Taliban and al Queda want reactionary Islam with Sharia'h law. Each group has used violence in their quest for truth and peace."

 "The religions of the Mideast believe themselves to be based on the true revelations from God. Since they are true, it would be best if the whole world were to follow the true religion. So the Taliban, the 'born again' Evangelicals, and al Queda all have strong grounds for wanting the world to follow their beliefs. Meanwhile, the Jews sit in their synagogues and snicker—knowing that they are really God's 'chosen people.' And we in the East generally advocate tolerance."

 -"I don't know that much about Islam, but according to the gospels Jesus said 'render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's' (10a) So our Christian hope for a world with our chosen religion should not sanctify secular wars and rampages."

 \--"Would that such hopes would become a religious reality. But we keep seeing in America a chorus of voices that want the American political system to be guided by a fundamental or reactionary Christianity. They are a powerful, but I think, misguided voice. Whether it is abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, pre-marital sex, gun ownership, capital punishment or evolution, there seems to be a religiously right reason for doing what their ministers tell them is God's will. And it seems to me that all they know is religion, I haven't seen any evidence that any of them have a high level of science knowledge in astro-physics, evolutionary biology, or even Biblical archeology or the philosophy of religions. Their loud, but misguided, voices offer a powerful political technique to advance a nebulous cause.

"As we have talked about, the major Founding Fathers, like Washington. Jefferson, Franklin, and possibly Madison, were generally deists who did not accept the divinity of Jesus or of a God concerned with the world or its inhabitants. Adams was a Unitarian who also rejected the idea of a Trinity. But they generally seemed to believe in a creating God and in the ethics that the gospels ascribed to Jesus's ethical principles such as: 'do unto others as you would be done to'; the divided realms of Caesar and the Creator; a brotherly love; and 'a little wine for thy stomach's sake!' Some like Adams rejected the Christian belief in the trinity but seemed to accept the beliefs of the Unitarians. As products of the Enlightenment, our Founding Fathers were more likely to question their own beliefs and the beliefs of others by reasoning, rather than accepting philosophical or religious beliefs that had been handed down by authorities such as philosophers and preachers. They definitely were not trying to advance any religious dogmas in their founding of their new nation

"While the Founders were well versed in the theology and the history of Judaism and Christianity, they were not well aware of the tenets of Islam and the religions of the East, so Christianity was the only game in town. It's no wonder that whatever religious experiences they had were at least somewhat Christian. Whether it was the Unitarianism of Adams (11)), that denied the Trinity, or the total atheistic disbelief of Payne—the major Founders of our country were not the 'born again' Evangelicals or the Pentecostals who raise the religious roof with their wails of absolute certainty.

"While we don't have the records of the religious beliefs of all of those signers of the fundamental documents of our country, we might assume that many, or most, had the typical Protestant and Catholic beliefs of the day. Some might have even been evangelicals, since that movement had begun some fifty years earlier in England. But it is clear that the major movers of the American founding were for the separation of church and state and were vehemently opposed to the power of the clergy, particularly the Catholic clergy, in subjugating the masses, pauperizing them, and using the fear of Mephistopheles to control their thinking and their freedom.

"On the other hand, to raise the masses to revolution, as an effective politician and as a scientist of the possible, Jefferson hid his deism and wrote sometimes like a philosopher of the Enlightenment, which he was, and sometimes as a theist, which he wasn't. When he wrote 'We hold these truths to be self-evident' he was espousing the idea that people's reasoning could discover the 'natural law.' But then he wrote like a theist when he continued. 'that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,' then he jumped back to natural law when he added 'that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.' Then he jumps to the 'right of revolution' which is really not deistic or theistic, but rather a concept developed by natural law pioneers from the Middle Ages, like Aquinas and the writers of the Magna Carta. Of course the Magna Carta only gave the barons, not the peasants, the right to revolt against the king. And Aquinas noted three essentials for a war to be moral. Only one of these was that the cause had to be just.

"Obviously Jefferson did not go back to the Middle Ages for his reasoning of the right to revolution. He looked to the writings of Thomas Hobbes from a century earlier and the work of an older contemporary, Jean Jacques Rousseau, for his ideas of the essential nature of government—a social contract. And King George had violated it. Jefferson was not dealing with 13th Century English nobles at Runnymede, he was dealing with a bunch of colonists several thousand miles from the throne that they believed ruled them ruthlessly."

 \--"Ray, let me ask you a convoluted question. Don't you think that if the Catholic Church leadership wants to do the politically astute things necessary to keep their richer Western base while recruiting new members in Africa, South America and Asia they probably should go with the flow of thinking that approves of contraception, and abortion when necessary, to prevent unwanted children, and make the obvious efforts needed to reduce poverty. But it continues to render itself more and more irrelevant with out-of-date but loudly proclaimed stances on abortion, reproductive rights, gay rights, AIDS policies, stem cell research, married priests, female ordinations — the list can go on and on. Papal announcements that poverty must be eliminated, that business must be more ethical, and that sex should be confined to marriage do nothing to change behaviors. They seem to seek behaviors that have seldom worked. I saw a recent  Gallup poll that revealed that most American Catholics appear comfortable existing in the new millennium. The poll shows that the views of practicing Catholics on a range of social issues are more or less in line with American non-Catholics. In fact, Catholics today are actually more liberal than the non-Catholic population on a number of moral issues like abortion, homosexuality, and stem cell research, according to Gallup's data. 40% of Catholics find abortion morally acceptable, compared to 41% of the general population. Meanwhile, 67% of Catholics approve of pre-marital sex, while only 57% of non-Catholics find it morally acceptable. Catholics are also more liberal on homosexual relations" than non-Catholics — 54% to 45%.

"Obviously, chances are that evangelicals and other conservative Christian groups are dragging down the results for non-Catholics in the poll. So this certainly doesn't mean that religious people in general hold opinions on these issues that match those of the rest of population. Fights over the truth of evolution or creationism and the fact that some Americans continue to be scandalized by the sex lives of others prove that point. But it also points to the fact that often the most vocal spokespeople for a religion are not the most representative of that denomination's adherents as a whole, but rather a crazy fringe given a platform by our sensationalist media. This is another pretty obvious point to bring up, but it is an important one, since often the liberal reaction to the crazies is to trash all religious people — when many of them, as revealed by the Gallup poll, don't give a damn about how other people choose to live their lives."

 \--"The Pope's message is not the problem. The Pope is really not ultra-conservative. Maybe the Vatican should overhaul its PR machine. It all looks so simple: condoms are good, the Pope is behind the times. It is not that simple. Societies usually set up some rules for sexual conduct. Certainly since Pope John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council, Catholics have felt freer to join the modern world. But there are political realities that the Pope should probably consider. Bringing back the Latin mass was a positive for many conservative Catholics. But excommunicating people may have negative effects, as when the Pope excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I. That had repercussions for 400 years in Britain. But definitely the Vatican's public relations efforts need modernizing. They seem to be making some headway. 'Wikicath' and 'Pope2You' deliver information from the Vatican to your computer or cell phone."

 —"Sounds like the Pope is easing his way into the 21st Century. That would be a needed political technique. What other political techniques have religions generally used doctor?"

 —"Fear, hope, honor, duty. When God is on your side the people will follow you into battle, or they will go into battle while you sit home and pray for them—but we are getting ahead of ourselves. I want to lay out problems and goals before we discuss the political methods in detail.

"Commander, with your goal of licensing parents you will undoubtedly face religious opposition in the parts of your country where there is high religiosity and high teenage birth rates. Teen birth rates are highest in most religious states. It seems that the more religious communities preach abstinence and frown on contraception. Mississippi is rated as the state that has the most conservative religious beliefs it also has the highest rate of teen pregnancy. It seems that the religious communities are more likely to be against contraception. But being against contraception is not effective in stopping in stopping teen sex.(12) It has also been found that the teenagers in the less religious states were more likely to avail themselves of abortion. Another factor is that in some cases the younger people who are religious are likely to marry. So they have the first baby as teenaged married people.

"This early marriage custom does not seem to lead to marital stability. The highest number of divorces is in the Bible belt.(13)

OVERNMENTAL INFLUENCING

"Now let's look at governments and some of their problems. Every government relies on political techniques to stay in power. In a democracy people are elected, but money is often the fuel that gets the Xs marked on the ballots. In a more fascistic state violence and threats are more often the motivators. In a theocracy it may be the threat of damnation. But to stay in power the rulers must effectively use the available political techniques.

INFLUENCING DEMOCRATIC PROCESSES

"In a democracy the politicians often follow the polls or are pushed by the pesos of special interests. It was so evident in the health care debates in the U.S. where the people's representatives changed their votes once the representatives of the health insurance companies, the doctors and the hospitals stuffed the legislators' wallets with enough wampum. They say that 'money talks' and it talked loudly against the public option that President Obama was trying to get passed. A public option would have forced the 'for profit' insurers into competing with the government's non-profit programs. So what business would want to commit to competition with a large non-profit enterprise. CEO's of health insurance companies were not born yesterday. It would be insane to want to compete with the government. It would be like a chipmunk taking on a tiger in a winner take all fight. So the lobbyists had to feed the tiger's keepers. That's with dollars not donuts! The other key part of the bill, which would have reduced medical malpractice insurance, which is a major expense of doctors, was to limit malpractice awards. Naturally, with lawyers getting 40% of whatever they can get the juries to award, lawyers were not happy with any limitation on their greed. And trial lawyers are huge contributors to congressional elections. So these two factors kept the American public paying twice what their European cousins were paying for their health care. So money in the pockets of the legislators is a great way to control which laws are passed."

 "Well a few minutes ago we looked at how an appeal to religion was a key element in nurturing and nudging our revolution, but governments certainly rise and fall from the appropriate or inappropriate use of the tools of the politician. The autocratic leader generally tries to keep a devoted council and a loyal army. The democratic politician has to keep the polls positive. He or she must be positively portrayed in the media. Ronald Reagan was a master. George W. Bush was a dunce at media savvy but he was a master at making people fear what might happen."

 —"The problem with our country is that the only people who know how to solve all the problems are out of office. Let's hope they use the right political techniques to be elected soon!

PRACTICAL POLITICS

 —"You fellas are zero-ing in on some of the techniques we will soon be discussing—violence, greed, hope and a couple of others. Those can move people. But often lawmakers are shackled by tradition and they become legislatively constipated. This is what you will be up against in your quest, Commander. When legislators make laws in democracies, or rather republics, they usually can't separate church and state. The religious people often want their way because it is best. Their ideas come from God so they trump all other concerns, like the will of the people or the good of the planet. Sometimes the self centered desires of some of the electorate are allowed because to change them would create more problems keeping them, like prostitution and drug use in some countries or gun carrying or incendiary free speech in your country. There are so many statistics that indicate that Democratic politicians are often not concerned for their electorate."

 \--"I've heard that 42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot."

 —"It's statistics like that that make me believe that 99 percent of lawyers give the rest of you a bad name."

\INFLUENCING AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC LAW MAKING

 \--" Let's look at your country for a while. In your country your democratic republic is hampered in making the whole nation more effective because of the necessity of your representatives to be re-elected. That takes a combination of money, for paying political organizations that work for the representative, and votes that come from the constituents. If your district has a lot of workers in the airplane manufacturing sector, you will undoubtedly vote to build a plane that is not needed by the government. If your voters are coal miners you will probably vote down any bills that would weaken their unions or allow for the import of cheaper coal.

"But it is more than that. If you are a veteran in Congress you should get committee assignments that give you more clout for your district. Clout in Congress is based on how long you have been there and what committees you serve on, especially if you are the chairman. Then how you use your clout can be for the special interests who support you financially, the people who elect you, the politically important people in your district, your political party or any congressmen whom you may be dealing with. It is certainly common to promise to vote for a another legislator's project if he will vote for yours. Congressmen are not all equal. A position on the Appropriations Committee is much more powerful than a seat on the Indian Affairs Committee. So the political realities don't mirror the ideals that your students learn in their civics and political science classes."

 -"When we say 'politician' it of is probably never more appropriate than when speaking of U.S. congressmen. Wheeling and dealing to get yourself re-elected, or in some cases to enact legislation that God or Goldman-Sachs wants. Today's leaders are politicians, not statesmen. They don't speak from their hearts, they read from the polls. They are packaged puppets. A statesman, on the other hand, would be primarily concerned with the nation or the world. We haven't had one of those very often. Washington and Jefferson qualified. I think Roosevelt did to. Lincoln certainly did. Obama could have been, had his hands not been so severely tied by people in both parties.

"The American government has long been influenced by lobbyists for businesses and for other causes. The Supreme Court decision in 2010, that allowed corporations to be seen as persons and therefore to contribute to the political campaigns of those who they want to see in office, was a 5 to 4 decision with the conservative majority holding the day. (14) No other democracy has allowed such intrusion into the governance of its country by business. The court's reasoning was that corporations are people and people have the right to free speech. The decision overturned a law that had disallowed such action. The corporations had always been allowed to pay lobbyists to influence already elected legislators, but this decision allowed their influence to be felt earlier, in the nomination and election processes of legislators.

"For those who didn't like the decision, several political techniques were suggested. One was to amend the U.S. Constitution, which is a very difficult process. A second technique could be to pass laws that required that shareholders approve of any political spending. Among the other ideas proposed were: to have all elections totally financed by the federal government; to give free broadcast time to all candidates equally; to ban any political advertising by corporations that received government money, earn their revenue abroad, or hire lobbyists; impose a high tax on corporate contributions; require that the CEO of the company sponsoring advertising to appear on the ad, and so forth. Whenever a politician is confronted with an unsavory action, he or she has to develop political techniques that will effectively counter the problems that they now face.

"Just think of the 1998 tobacco companies settlement for $246 million. It was assumed that the money would go into antismoking campaigns and health facilities but the states found different uses for the money. In North Carolina 75% of the settlement went to tobacco farmers. In other states is was used on golf courses to attract industry. In some cases it was used for defined projects of the governor or the legislators. Only 5% of the total settlement went to tobacco education projects.

"Another typically American political technique is called gerrymandering. The gerrymandering of political districts keep the majority party in control by bunching a large part of the opposing party's voters into one district then apportioning the other districts where a likely majority of the ruling party's voters are. In California recently one district stretched from Oxnard to Monterrey, a distance of about 300 miles, but was anywhere from a few yards to a few miles wide. It protected a Democratic incumbent. Is such boundary changing for politicians really 'democracy?' Political machinations seem to make certain that the politicians will rule and the peasants in the voting booths will have little 'say' in their government."

 —"It's non-democratic actions like that that make me think that sometimes the world sucks."

 —"But remember -- if the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off.

"But seriously, I'd like to talk about governments and states. Richard the Lion Heart led his troops for God, Napoleon led his for France. But Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Hitler, Bush, Saddam, bin Laden and the rest of the modern war lords sat home and watched. It's not Alexander, Leonidas or Caesar leading their troops today but puppeteers pulling the strings or video game players hitting their buttons as drones bomb the enemies. But the objectives are the same. Either rule your state, expand your state or defend your state—violence is a major political tool."

 \--"You are getting ahead of me again. We will soon start to talk about political techniques, and violence is one of the major methods of political madness.

LOBBYISTS

"We have mentioned your lobbyists earlier, but let's look a little bit deeper into the cancer that controls your Congress. In your country persuasion using the media is a major key to controlling the government. The spending to be elected to make laws for your country average over $500,000 for a seat in the House of Representative's and for a Senate seat it is over $4,000,000. Unless the candidate can afford it himself we must assume that 'he who pays the piper calls the tune.' When the cotton growers or farmers contribute a few hundred thousand to your campaign you are expected to vote for farm subsidies. When the American Medical Association or the health insurance groups contribute, you will probably vote against a government run insurance option that would be in competition with the private insurance companies. When the trial lawyers contribute to your campaign you will think twice before you vote to toughen the requirements to win a medical malpractice suit. When the National Rifle Association is a major contributor you probably won't vote for any sort of gun control, no matter how many innocent civilians or police officers are murdered.

"I remember a few years ago when your president, your Secretary of Defense, the leaders of the military and even the opposition party leader, the former military man who lost the presidential race, John McCain, were against the funding of a fighter plane that was considered to be not needed. But in a financial climate where the U.S. owed over eleven trillion dollars and was amassing more than another trillion to pull itself out of a severe recession, 40 of the 98 senators voted to continue funding the plane at a cost of $1.75 billion. Many of the jobs lost were in California, Washington, Texas and Connecticut. All of the senators from those states, whether Democrats or Republicans, voted to fund the planes. This was a prime example of how in a democracy some selfish interests can challenge what is good for the country. I can't imagine the Chinese leadership engaging in a decision that was so clearly against its national interests."

 \--"How often have we seen special interests rewarded. Whether it be a dam in the state, money for Israel, the Alaskan 'bridge to nowhere', or special treatment for oil interests or labor unions—those paying the orchestra keep calling the tunes, and our country keeps suffering and borrowing to pay for it."

 \--"Some of those doing the influencing ate foreign governments, even the very corrupt ones like Congo and Angola spend up to $3 million a year on lobbyists. And it's not a recent practice. There were Nazi lobbyists in Washington before World War II. (14a)

POLITICAL TECHNIQUES

 \-- "Well now we have laid the groundwork for how politicians work. They must have goals. They must determine what techniques to use. They must understand what positive and negative effects may come from their actions. Now let's talk about what actions they might choose. We call these 'political techniques.' Political techniques can be physical or psychological. As one who is trying to manipulate people, you must choose what will work best to accomplish the goals you have in mind. Here you can go back to the values you discussed with Wanda Wang or to the psychological motivations you talked about with Chuck Chan.

"Survival is a basic motivation, so if you either guarantee it or threaten it you may have some leverage over the people you are trying to influence. Safety is another. In fact you can look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs and see that all of the needs he lists are potential motivators.(14b) Of course the higher you go on his list, the fewer people there are to be influenced. So at the meta-level you will find fewer people to be influenced by a reasoned argument than you will find at the survival level where food and water, or a lack of them, might influence just about everybody.

"At the 'value' level I don't think that you would find as many potential martyrs for the Catholic faith that you might have found a millennium ago. But we seem to have many young Muslims ready to do and die! So God-based values certainly can move some people. Self centered values will have a huge appeal, probably much more appeal than the God-based or society-based values. Society values must generally appeal to what it will do for the majority of the individual 'selfs'. Honor and duty may be potent motivators because they appeal to the power drive and make people think they are better because they are fulfilling their duties or that they are doing honorable things."

 —"I see that in our country a lot. Rednecks driving their pick-ups with an American flag on the radio antenna and an 'I love America' bumper decal. But I wonder how many have ever read the Constitution or the Supreme Court decisions that clarify and amplify it."

 —"You would know more about that than I do. Now let us get on with some political techniques. I want to start with physical techniques then move into some psychological approaches to motivating people.

PHYSICAL TECHNIQUES

"We are talking about politics, so which political techniques have been used in conflicts and how effective have they been? An effective politician has to accurately determine the real value of the various ideas that he is thinking about advocating-- then the cost of achieving those values, and finally the methods that will almost certainly bring about the desired outcome. Sometimes the cost of the outcome is so great that the astute politician will do nothing. Through the years American presidents had wanted a breakup of the USSR. Some went to war in Korea and Vietnam to stop the domino effect of countries falling under communist influence. In Korea, the emergence of South Korea as a democratic and economically efficient state may have been worth it. The Vietnam War was a negative since not much was really accomplished and there was a great cost of lives and money. What really dismantled the Soviet Union was a combination of President Reagan's 'Starwars' project and an intelligent Soviet leader in Mikhail Gorbachev.

VIOLENCE AS A MAJOR POLITICAL TECHNIQUE

"We have seen a lot of violence in the Palestinian situation, but violence as a political technique is certainly not limited to the Mideast. There was recently an evaluation of the peacefulness of the various countries of the world. Your country was ranked 97th, Russia was ranked 131, Israel at 136, and Somalia and Iraq were at the bottom. In case you're interested Iceland was the most peaceful followed by Denmark and Norway. So I guess if there's a problem in Somalia or Iraq or maybe Israel, you shoot first and ask questions afterwards. If your problem is with Norway or Denmark you sit down at a table and discuss it. So we have two quite different political techniques. Both can work, depending on the situation presented.

"You often get violence as a protest because it is the simplest and most primitive way of reacting. Protesters of the Olympics in Vancouver threw boxes through windows. French students throw rocks at police. About the same time students and other protesters attacked the home of the Chancellor of the University of California. They were protesting cuts in education funding from the state which was due to the huge California budget crisis. Eight people were arrested and bail was set at $132,000. The students were also told not to return to campus. So as a political technique it was an absolute and utter failure both in terms of what they said they wanted to accomplish and the negative consequences to themselves.

"We all know that terrorists use car bombs. And of course revolutionaries use every manner of bullets and bombs to achieve their goals. Americans used torture, like waterboarding, to attempt to get information on terrorist activities.

"We must, however, be aware that not all violence is a political technique. Probably most of the time it is an unthought-out reaction to a frustrating situation. When you spank your child is it out of anger or is it to illustrate that the child's behavior has negative consequences? When French youth riot in the street because of a real or imagined injustice, it is not a political technique. When gang members fight each other it is usually just an illustration of their power drives being satisfied through violence. But when a Hitler or Napoleon attempt to conquer Europe and use war as a major weapon, violence there is a political technique.

"You may remember some years ago when a front-running candidate for governor in a Mexican border state, Rodolfo Torre, was assassinated just prior to the election. Drug cartels were suspected. The killing was considered to be a warning to candidates and voters to not interfere with the cartels' business."

REVENGE AS A MOTIVATOR

 —"Revenge is certainly a powerful political motivator. We've seen it recently in the Taliban and al Qaeda recruits. Many have had their families or friends killed by Israelis, Americans, Russians, Sunnis, Shia, or by the police. It seems to be a basic human reaction that we want justice—and 'an eye for an eye' has prodded our sense of fairness since the days of, Hammurabi. Whether in war, in sports, in political situations or in family squabbles, revenge can challenge our courage for retribution.

REVOLUTION

"When people are really upset with their rulers revolution is often their way of solving the problem. Revolutions have typically been violent. Sometimes they work, like the American and French revolutions against the kings. Sometimes they don't work out, like the Tamil Tigers effort in Sri Lanka. And sometimes the revolution is a success but the people don't get freedom. Look at Castro's revolution in Cuba or Lenin's in Russia.

"Castro's and Lenin's revolutions, as well as the French and American revolutions may have been reasonable political goals but the only possibility for their fruition was a violent attack. So violence may have been the last resort in obtaining what some thought was freedom. Hitler's violence was more likely a psychological attempt at handling his power drive and his lack of parental love. Is the mafiosi's interest primarily a hate of humanity or a political method for getting money and instilling fear—which soothes their power drive needs?

"If we had a pure democracy, and I can't think of many that exist, the people would revolt through the ballot box. But since most countries that we call democracies are really republics, and their legislators have so much power, ballot box revolutions are slow in coming and often meager in their results.

"Violence can also be used as a tool to motivate young men. In the last few years evangelical ministers have used ultimate fighting, or mixed martial arts, as a way of recruiting young men to their ministries. They might say that Jesus was a fighter, forgetting his 'turn the other cheek' advice. They say that they want to inject some machismo into their ministries in the hope of converting more young men. Part of the message is that men should be the major leaders in the household, and obviously toughness is an ingredient for a happy marriage.

"Many of our great stories deal with violence. The Iliad tells us of the Trojan wars and Achilles' conquests. The epic of Gilgamesh tells of his raping. The Bible has many violent stories, possibly none so poignant as that of David and his slingshot."

 —"If we look at the drive for power that Adler suggested, what can be a more obvious use of power than brute force. Fury, whatever its cause, seems to be best unleashed by physical force."

 —"While many today abhor violence, it is an essential part of our existence. Would France be the same today if it were still a kingdom? Would there be a United States? There would not be a modern China. There would not be an Israel. Much of the world would not be Islamic. As much as many of us abhor war, we cannot deny that our social and political destinies are often the result of national violence.

"And violence has not been an enemy of religion, but more commonly its ally. From Achilles' armor fashioned by the god Hephaestus, to his immortal chariot team of steeds, a gift of Zeus, through the battles sanctioned by the Hebrew God, to the Christian inspired Crusades, and to the early Islamic warriors and now to its modern day terrorists—the gods have often been the celestial commanders.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

"We would also have to note that capital punishment is an effective political technique--if it deters unwanted behavior. But is capital punishment actually violence? If it is 'just' under a state's laws, can the loss of a murderer's life be justifiably criticized by people not living in the country that allows it? In 2008, the year of the Beijing Olympics, Amnesty International criticized China for executing more people the past year than any other country. It executed 470 people. Iran was next with 317 executions, then Saudi Arabia with 143, Pakistan with 135 and the U.S. with 42.

"Since China had the world's largest population, what was the per capita number of executions? In China it was one in 2.8 million. By contrast Iran's rate was one in 250,000, Saudi's was one in 200,000, Pakistan's was one in 1.2 million and the U.S. rate was one in 7 million. The people at Amnesty International are smart people and they certainly knew what they were doing. But what were they doing? Did they merely pick China because there was a good political opportunity to push what they thought were human rights using the public relations potentials of the Olympics? Was it because they were afraid to confront the Muslim countries of Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan where the death penalty has been prescribed by God, while China's capital offenses were for crimes against the state. Did they only prioritize killings prescribed by law rather than focus on the illegal killings in Iraq and Darfur, because they were powerless to prevent those murders?"

 —"We come back to the discussions we had with Wanda. An individual's desires for life, even if he has murdered ten people, must be contrasted with the running of an efficient society where murder is not tolerated. Or in the case of China, where one who has stolen tax receipts may be executed. Certainly society runs more efficiently if it gets its taxes. Since the lifetime of a society may be longer than any of its citizens, should society be held primary?

"Is the Chinese approach wise? The poet Horace wrote that 'Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.' Is the Chinese emphasis on an orderly society wise? We don't know if corruption, treason and murder are reduced because of the severe penalties. We do know that the countries with the highest murder rates, South Africa and Colombia, do not have the death penalty. So capital punishment may be an effective political technique to run a smoothly functioning society."

COMMITTING GENOCIDE WHILE ADVANCING AN ABSOLUTE TRUTH

 \--"There is only one absolute truth and that's what you believe in—it's worth killing for, even if it was originated by a God-based anti-war prophet like Jesus or Muhammad, in his early days. Many followers of peaceful preachers find that violence is a useful political method to get the truth heard and believed.

"War has often been the official duty of kings. And in spite of a supposed advancement in ethical standards, wars of every society today are at least as brutal as in the earliest days of recorded history—rapes, killing and maiming children and other innocents, skinning them alive, torturing them, and every other horror you can imagine. With the possible exceptions of burning prisoners at the stake or eating them, modern wars are more horrific for the citizens if not the soldiers.

"Wars nearly always have to do with power. It might be expanding a nation's territory as Alexander or Napoleon did or it might be to acquire or hold riches as the Mexican and Colombian drug lords do. Just look at the billionaire Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman, one of the world's richest people. He didn't achieve his wealth and power by selling marijuana door to door. His power and wealth come from his illegal activities which are supported by his penchant for killing. About 6,000 people a year die in the Mexican drug wars.

"It may just be a localized power struggle in a nation or a neighborhood--whether it is Tutsis and Hutus in Africa or black and Hispanic gangs practicing genocide against their own ethnic neighbors. 70% of Tutsis were killed, and a total of over a half million died in the conflicts. In the U.S. about 12,000 gang related deaths occur annually at a cost to society of over $100 billion every year. Too many people are living by the sword instead of by the mind."

 —"Power and violence are natural. Animals survive by killing other animals. We are no different. To get what we want—food, oil, land, even a homogenous society, we often kill. Violence as a technique may be being reduced at some levels of human confrontation, but if your goal is extremely important, violence is a possible technique, either as an initial, albeit immature technique, or as a last resort. I remember what Mao Zedong said 'War can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun.'"

 —"Conservationists in Africa are killed when they attempt to stop overfishing. Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu in 1948 after India had split off Pakistan so that the Moslems could have their own country in 1947. The assassin had thought that Gandhi was appeasing the Muslims. And Hinduism is probably the most tolerant of all religions because everything is God. But in spite of the partition of the countries in 1947, by 1948 Pakistan and India went to war over Kashmir which had been divided between the two—and the war still continues. It's not enough to give someone what they want because they always want more. There is never enough land, money or power to make some people content! So are there any political techniques that can bring us peace?"

 —"There are always values, usually self-centered values, that may lead us to violence. But on second thought there are societal and religious reasons that often lead us to the biggest wars. So many people think that war is immoral but it has continued throughout history. I guess that it is true what Vladimir Lenin said that 'There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel.' But I think his definition of 'morals' was a bit different from that of Dr. Wang."

 —"Lenin also said 'To rely upon conviction, devotion, and other excellent spiritual qualities; that is not to be taken seriously in politics.' He was a master politician and somewhat of a philosopher! But then philosophy does not often play a part in the execution of violence. Look at the morality of this situation. Back in 2008 a 13-year-old girl was stoned to death in Somalia by dozens of men in front of 1000 spectators in the stadium. Her crime was that she had reported that she had been raped by three men. The Islamic militia in charge of the area decided that it was actually adultery. This was merely an extension of the violence of the Al Qaeda led militants who had killed thousands of civilians in taking over the area. It may have been immoral in some people's eyes, but as a political method it certainly kept men in their dominant position in that society."

 —"I can't imagine that as a political technique, stoning a young girl would actually reduce rape. In fact it would probably encourage it because the rapists would not be punished. But if the government's motivation was to strike fear into the hearts of the civilians it may have worked. But as you said, it is really only a violent way to affirm the superiority of men.

"Another observation. As a political technique did the Taliban's 20 suicide bombers that hit Kabul in one day change the government's positions? Or did it increase the resolve of the government and its allies to eliminate the Taliban? It seems that so much of this violence is merely an exercise in power. And while the rationalizations may be religious, the real reasons are self-centered."

 —"Right Ray. Much violence is merely a reaction, a reaction of frustration—not a planned offensive to get what you want. Spousal violence is usually this kind of reaction, as is violence towards your child. Some of the gang violence mentioned is of this sort too. So we need to separate the motivations for violence between what is merely anger and what is a planned political technique as a means of getting what the politician wants."

 —"Remember 15 years ago in Alabama when a biology professor killed three of her colleagues because she was not granted tenure at the university. I guess that was a psychological reaction of anger and frustration, not a political technique."

 —"Right. If she had threatened to shoot them if they didn't give her tenure, that would have been a political technique. But her outburst was psychological, not planned and well thought out.

"But back to violence. The Bible follows the Code of Hammurabi with its 'eye for an eye and a tooth for as tooth' standard of justice, but the inhabitants of the 'promised land' now practice 'a face for an eye and a jaw for a tooth' approach. Certainly your Bible is a history of violence directed by God against individuals and nations who were not in accord with the unspoken thoughts of your Lord.

"So we see a history of violence in the exhortations and actions of so many who follow the god of the Mideast. And the hallowed source of your genocidal battles is no more moral than the kings and other dictators who have stabbed and shot their way through our violent social evolution."

 —"But you know that those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't. The bigger the weapon, the more people are intimidated.

"I remember when one instance of French violence happened after two men on motorcycles hit a police car. A riot broke out, the cars were burned and windows smashed. A spokesman for the rioters rationalized that 'whenever you touch one of us you touch us all—and we have had enough.' Criminal activity is always rationalized. The criminal may blame his drunk or unloving parents, the people who 'don't understand' him, a society or government that treats him poorly, or any of a number of excuses. We may want to rationalize our actions as a political protest or just a way of getting what we deserve. But it is merely a psychological reaction. We might consider this a self-centered action, but it is not conscious, and it cannot be considered a political action if it has not been thought through.

"But not all young people are merely lashing out in frustration. In some countries, like Pakistan, there are schools for young males where they teach both the Koran and methods of violence such as martial arts and archery. Some of these schools are directly linked to al Queda, others are merely preparing the youth for whatever jihad becomes the most attractive.

"Robert Mugabe and his henchmen used violence to keep their regime in power, then when a power sharing agreement was reached, violence was used to try to force the political opposition into granting them amnesty for their past crimes. The death squads of the various Mexican drug cartels use beheadings and other methods of murder to enlarge their influence or to eliminate any opposition, like the government forces.

"Then you have the Taliban gassing girls in school because girls should not be educated. Their wanting to keep women in a sub-human submissiveness was a major reason for Western forces to continue their war on them. But it is not just the reactionary Muslims who aim to keep women in a subservient place. Men around the world use women to attempt to reduce their inferiority feelings. Gangs in South Africa are raping lesbians to 'cure' them. This is in spite of the fact that gay marriage is recognized by their constitution. When you have an objective, whether revolution or riches, the most primitive political technique is often the most effective. So violence thrives."

 —"Senseless protests are not restricted to French youth, African dictators, Muslim reactionaries and South African homophobes. In Jerusalem recently there were violent protests by Ultra Conservatives because a parking lot in the city was open on Saturdays, the day the Lord rested. Police had requested that the lot be opened to alleviate parking problems on the weekend. Apparently somewhere in the Tanach, the Jewish books that the Christians call the Old Testament, neither God nor men were not allowed to drive their cars on the Sabbath."

 —"Orthodox Jews take a much stricter view of working or driving on the Sabbath than do the Conservatives or the Reformed. So while some Jews may not even flick on a light switch on the Sabbath, others are quite willing to bounce on the marital bed, drive into the countryside or even pursue their business.

"But its like the conservative or reactionary Muslims, Catholics and anti-abortion evangelicals who will use any method to get the majority to heel to their beliefs. The more reactionary and unprovable the ideas, the stronger they are held because their unproven faith gives them a feeling of unassailable power."

 —"We have it in America too. Look at the doctors who performed abortions being murdered or Dr. Kevorkian being imprisoned because he helped people who wanted to die to finalize their wishes.

"Still violence, if it works, is never a universal solution. Nothing is a universal solution."

WITHHOLDING SERVICE (STRIKES AND SANCTIONS)

 \--"Withholding services is another common political technique in the business and service world. Strikes by auto workers or garbage collectors are common. Teachers' strikes are not unheard of, in the UK recently professors refused to grade final exams unless their pay was increased. Police and firefighters use 'sick ins' using accumulated paid sick leave to slow down the normal process of performing their paid civic responsibilities.

"A real strike should allow employers to hire workers who will work for the lower wage. But that seldom happens today. You can imagine the public outcry when garbage collectors go on strike and the sights and smells of accumulating garbage mobilize the neighborhoods and bring the city fathers to their financial knees. Auto workers, on the other hand found a better way to get all the manufacturers to deliver more bucks. They struck only one company. This saved the unions money that they would have had to pay for living benefits for the strikers. But more important, the company being struck could see its sales drop while their competitors reaped more profits.

"Whenever people's basic needs are threatened they want the strike settled now. It's like when the beer is not delivered to the pub, you have some alienated alcoholics. A penny or two a pint is a small price for the guzzler to pay to keep the booze flowing. And, naturally, it is the consumers and taxpayers who absorb the increased costs."

"Then there were strikes in Spain and France for various reasons. Obviously striking doesn't cure the national woes. It only increases them. Had the people only paid attention to what was going on during the previous years they could have possibly prevented the national economic catastrophe. But whether in California, Europe, or the United States, the people really don't seem to know or care what their representatives are doing. Only when it's too late do they react in anger. Another case of being more psychological than logical, and being concerned only with the present rather than with the future."

 —"Don't forget the personal level of withholding goodies. Nearly 2500 years ago Aristophanes, in his play Lysistrata, portrayed the women of Greece as withholding sex until their men would negotiate a peace treaty. Not too long ago the women of Kenya were asked to do the same thing for a week to protest problems in the coalition government. Even the prostitutes were recruited for the cause. And on a more personal level you have heard of, if not experienced, a husband or wife shying away from the conjugal joys when they are unhappy with their partner for some reason."

LAYOFFS AND LOCKOUTS

"Sometimes businesses and governments must close their doors either to prevent an unwanted employee action or because their funds are low. This, of course, threatens the employees' abilities to provide for their physiological needs of food and the safety need of shelter.

"I've seen that in some marriages where one spouse locks the other out of the bedroom. I guess that sometimes it is a political technique to get something you want, but other times it just an outburst of anger."

 —"I think that is just anger. But on a larger scale, when the money dries up, because of a lack of consumers in business or a lack of taxes in government, people have to be laid off from their jobs. You remember when California had its big financial problems that the governor had to cut salaries and put people on furloughs to try to reduce the budget deficit."

SANCTIONS

 —"Isn't it's amazing how many ways we humans can devise to get what we want? Another nonviolent type of withholding services or goods is the sanction. The U.S. has attempted economic sanctions against both Iran and North Korea, but other countries often ignore them and pick up the extra profits.. While the U.S. had threatened to impose penalties on any government that did business with these countries it was impossible to stop doing business with France, Germany, Russia and others who stepped in to fill the financial gaps left open when the American retreated. We all act on our interests. So as a nation, if you are going to sanction another nation, you had better have a number of other nations with you—or you will lose more than you gain. Countries are quite willing to put aside their democratic ideals when their economic needs or political concerns come into play.

NON-VIOLENT DEMONSTRATIONS, RALLIES AND MARCHES

"When we look at political techniques they are all aimed at what motivates us psychologically or what values we hold. Whether at the physiological level of food, drink and sex or at the safety or meta levels. Non-violent demonstrations can appeal to the love level or to the meta-level area of justice of Maslow's hierarchy."

 —"It was certainly a good idea that we visited with Wanda and Chuck before we talked with you. It gives us a much better understanding of your approach to motivating people—in a practical sense."

 —"I guess we would have to look at Gandhi and Martin Luther King as the masters of nonviolent demonstrations. Both appealed to the national and international consciences to make their cases."

 \--"You are right Con. Mohandas Gandhi was the most prominent of the advocates for non-violence in the 20th Century. Martin Luther King adopted his approach. Gandhi freed India from the British and King freed the American blacks from the whites. And both of these moral and peaceful men were assassinated by men who disagreed with them. And if their ideals and deeds did not qualify them for immortality, their deaths certainly did."

 —"Back in the 60s. in the movement to obtain equality for blacks in the U.S. you had, on the one hand, Stokely Carmichael calling for 'Black Power' and on the other hand you had the non-violent Martin Luther King. The radical blacks helped to unite the race but the non-violence of King was the key to getting the power needed from the majority white population that held the political power.

"In the 1960s there were the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, but some of them had some violent outcomes. Then there were student protests for curriculum changes throughout the country. Some of them worked. Then in about 2010 there were the right wing Teabaggers' demonstrations against Obama's policies. About the same time you had the strikes and some riots in Greece when the government was forced to cut back on services and salaries in order to reduce its budget deficit. There were strikes in shipping, air traffic, trains, schools, and numerous private industries. They were obviously reactions of anger against what needed to be done for the country. Those reactions should have come years before when their elected representatives were fouling up the Greek economy."

 —"Then you have the demonstrations for illegal immigrant 'rights' to stay in the country they invaded, even to be granted citizenship. Remember the demonstrations some years ago when a mother had come to the U.S., had her baby, then wanted to stay because her son was a citizen. She got the Catholic Church and lots of immigrant's rights groups behind her and got nationwide publicity? There would have been no problem in taking her son to Mexico and staying with him there. They were both Mexican citizens.

"About the same time, the head of the Florida Immigrant Coalition said 'We are here for all the families who deserve a better life' then, because immigrant workers were threats to the native workers, especially those who were unionized, she said 'Immigrants will not be pitted against union workers — our fates are intertwined.' But she didn't say how the lower wage workers would not be a threat to the union workers. But that is so common with political activists--complain about the _status quo_ or the laws, make some nebulous claims of affinity with a popular cause, but don't give any details about how it will be done or how it will affect other groups.""

 —"But those people deserve a better life. They can get a better education and better health care in the U.S, than in Mexico."

 —"Come on, Ray, we might just as well say that every living person in the world deserves to live in California and should be able to study for as many years as he or she wants from elementary school to the PhD. But why stop there. Why not guarantee an interesting job that pays a million dollars a year. Many Californians have such jobs. My gosh Ray, the reality is that no country is responsible for citizens of other counties. In fact the home country is not even totally responsible for its own citizens. Look at the millions of American kids who don't have enough food."

 —"But don't you think national boundaries are arbitrary? Remember that California, Arizona. New Mexico and Texas used to be part of Mexico."

 —"How far back do we go? You probably want the whole world to go back to Cain and his descendants! But where could we find them? You know it's all about who lives there now. Since the Mexicans vote for their leaders, aren't they ultimately responsible for the leadership that didn't limit their population, that didn't give them enough schools and colleges, that didn't provide jobs? Heck, if California was still Mexican don't you think the Californians would be trying to sneak over the border to Nevada for jobs? It's one thing if you are under the absolute power of a king or of a non-responsive one party system like Communist Russia had, it's another thing if you have the vote. Although I would have to admit that Mexico's democratic government has not been particularly responsive to its citizens."

 —"Is there a way to make everyone non-violent, non-warlike, non-terrorist? Will a loving childhood do it? Will a deeply held non-violent religious view do it? Will education do it? Where do we start? I guess that's an age-old question that may never be answered."
  "Commander, if you can get enough people behind you, especially students and environmentalists, you could draw massive attention to your issues--climate change, overpopulation and licensing parents. It would probably be best to separate the issues, maybe starting with a march on Washington or New Delhi emphasizing the overpopulation problem. If it is big enough it will get major media attention. There are certainly enough important people that you can get to headline your events."

PHYSICAL REWARDS, MONEY, BRIBES, SEX

"Money is usually an effective way to motivate people. You probably remember back in 2010 when the Koch brothers of Texas gave $1 million to fight California's efforts to stop global warming. This was added to the 7 million that other oil interests had contributed to the anti-environmental cause. Naturally being the owners of the second-largest private company in the US and a major owner of oil refineries and oil pipelines, they have a lot to lose with California's law which would have required greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced to the 1990 levels. The state proposition that the Koch brothers were supporting would suspend the law. Their spokesperson said that the law would increase energy costs and reduce employment in California.(14c) The of course the Koch brothers have long fought government interference in private industry with their funding of 'think tanks' and other libertarian propaganda tools.

INDIVIDUALS

"Let's move on to another physical type of political technique. Money and sex are commonly used political techniques. Spies use them. Lobbyists use them. Business people use them. And engaged and married couples use them—especially sex. Money can certainly affect one's feelings of power or can enhance Maslow's basic physiological, safety or esteem needs. Or it can appeal to people's self-centered values which often includes greed."

 —"Bribery has been around for as long as we has what we call 'civilization.' Criminals certainly choose their vocations as a way of finding easy money, It is not unknown that some criminals may kidnap rich people's children for money. But it's not limited to criminals, employees have been known to 'boss-nap' an employer to get more pay and better working concessions. Lobbyists and other special interest people give money to politicians for campaigns or votes. Parents may give money to children to do chores around the house. The power of the purse does move the human psyche.

"We hear a lot about bribery in China, but it probably isn't more prevalent there than most other places. The are just more open in their prosecutions. I don't hear many Chinese human rights activists complaining about the Chinese government's harsh treatment of the corruptors they find. I guess the negative attitude to corruption is not only communistic, but Confucian. The great philosopher said 'Great man cherishes Excellence; Petty Man, his own comfort. Great Man cherishes rules and regulations; Petty Man, special favors.' (15)

"We find the race for riches as the soul of business. Look at the techniques that advertisers use to get people to use their products. If women only use the right shampoo they can get any man they want because of their sexual attractiveness. If a man will only use the right aftershave lotion every woman will be his. Advertisers know how to use the appropriate political techniques to get people to buy the products advertised, then those who buy them expect to use their newfound enhancements to politically motivate their prey.

"Wreck, if it didn't cost too much I would guess that paying people to abstain from parenting would be an ideal way to keep the population down. Everyone has his price! Come to think of it, there are lots of different prices. For example the government might lop a year off of a prison sentence if a prisoner would opt for sterilization. Maybe two years off for juvenile offenders since they would be more likely to have more kids than a 40 year old man. Perhaps a government could give preference to legalizing immigrants who are sterilized and childless. Just a thought!"

 —"I guess you are suggesting bribes, legal bribes. Countries can bribe their citizens to have more babies. Singapore offers cash payments of about $10,000 for third or fourth children, and more vacation days for working parents. Welfare states in Europe give parents up to a year off, with pay, when the baby is born. They also give monthly parent payments. Then they may have free or inexpensive pre-schools and a number of other fecundity freebies. So if bribes are used to increase population, I guess they could be used to decrease it.

"We certainly bribe people to entice them to work for us or to continue to work for us. We have been told that the reason for giving the huge bonuses to bankers on Wall Street during the recession was to keep them employed, even if their companies were losing money."

 —"Then there are the free or inexpensive or free contraceptives that many insurers offer. If the country wants fewer babies it is a wise voluntary option. And if a business doesn't want its female workers missing months or years of work, it makes financial sense to pay the insurers to offer free contraceptives. If the business is also providing subsidized day care it can save there too since there will be fewer children born to its employees. And even more, with smaller families the company's health insurance premiums will be lower. While these may not really be seen as bribes, they are certainly incentives to not have more babies. So money can be used as either a prize or a penalty."

 —" Of course there are also fines for disobeying the law, such as traffic fines and parking fines. But it seems like rewards are more effective than punishments.

PHYSICAL--ACCOUTREMENTS, CLOTHES, FOOD, STATUS SYMBOLS

 —" Now let us look at a political technique that appeals to the esteem level of the needs that Maslow talked about and fits into the self centered values that Wanda Wang explained. Status symbols from designer clothes to hair styling, from body waxing to make up, are all designed to make us appear desirable to others. You may remember that Shakespeare observed that fashion wears out more clothes than do people." (16)

 —"That reminds me. Rich men in Elizabethan England wore black because it used much more dye to color clothes black, so it was a sign of wealth. So even color can be used as a political technique. Some of us today object to men wearing earrings, but Shakespeare, and Sir Walter Raleigh both wore earrings."

 —"I have clothes that have been in style and out of style several times since I bought them. Narrow ties and wide ties, pleated pants and unpleated pants, Bermuda shorts and short shorts, wide lapels and narrow lapels—I think there's only so much you can do with men's clothes so they have to keep coming back to what they did several years before.

"I would guess that plastic surgery like breast implants and Botox injections or liposuction would also fit in here as accoutrements."

 —"What about symbols that indicate that a person is in a special group. Like wearing the hijab, Christian crosses or Jewish Stars of David?"

 —"Right, they identify people as members of a special group but separate them from others in the larger society so they are bad for assimilation and integration. That is why France often outlaws such signs of separation.

"Then I would guess that we have to include jewelry along with clothes. For men wearing an earring in the right ear usually signals one's homosexuality. In contrast, wearing one in the left ear signifies being straight. But then I see men wearing earrings in both ears, I wonder what that means?

"Fur coats would be positive accoutrements in some areas and negatives in others. Miniskirts may be sexually desirable in one country but outlawed in another. Thin or shapely female bodies would be 'in' in most northern hemispheres but obese women may be sought in some African areas. So one man's preference may be another man's peeve."

 —"In the business and political worlds better looking people have more opportunities. In business they earn more for the same jobs.(17) Taller people also earn more and have a better chance of promotion. I guess this makes the case for elevator shoes and high heels. But you would think that an intelligent person would not be prejudiced by such things as height, weight, poor clothes or bad food."

 —"But as Confucius said long ago 'I have yet to meet a man as fond of Excellence as he is of outward appearances.'" (18)

 —"And as a casually dressed Einstein remarked when confronted by a woman at a fashionable dinner party, 'It would be a pity if the wrappings were better than the contents.'"

 —"Obviously lipstick, tattoos, plastic surgery, tanning salons and the like are designed to make us look younger or healthier so we can get the jobs we want or attract the people who want to attract in social situations."

 —"Then people may take off clothes to be noticed—or to feel freer. I remember my dad telling me of topless French girls on the Cote d'Azur in the 50s. And I remember vacationing in Greece many years ago and seeing a number of European ladies topless in the 90s, but then early in this century bras began to be restored as rebellion waned and the advisability of semi-nudity as an effective political technique for _fems fatal_ was found to be an ineffective enticement of the more eligible lads on the strand."

 —"My dad was the lifeguard at the first topless beach in LA, just north of the Venice breakwater. He told me that most of those he saw topless seemed to have few physical attributes. He also said that he never saw a topless bather go home alone. So the probability seemed to be that if you wanted sex, going topless in LA in the 60s was an effective political technique!"

TECHNOLOGICAL METHODS

 —"Police use a number of technological advances to do their work. We can also see these as political techniques because the police have a goal, to catch and successfully prosecute the criminal, and advances of science offer exceptional techniques to make this happen. Whether it is DNA testing, tracing mobile phone calls, checking fingerprints, or using ballistics to check the gun that fired the bullets--the criminal is less and less likely to win."

 —"Let's not forget food and shelter to keep the peace. In our country we have subsidized housing and food stamps for the poor. Half of our white children, and 90% of our black children, have been fed on food stamps."

 —"I would assume that the tunnels that the Palestinians built from Gaza to the Egyptian territory could also qualify as 'things' that aid in a political situation. Through these tunnels the people of Gaza are able to bring in arms and food. Naturally the Israelis tried to destroy them because they threatened Israel with weapons and they made the Israeli land and sea blockades less effective.

"Then there is the female condom that some states are giving away as a way to block AIDS transference and I would think to reduce the number of babies born. I don't know why they don't do a better job of abstinence training."

 —"Ray, when George Bush tried abstinence training it didn't work. You celibate guys don't seem to realize how much we godless people like sex. Many of us think it's even better than TV or video games.

"Did you know that HIV/AIDS infection is the leading cause of death for black women from 25 to 34 in America. A 2008 report showed that the District of Columbia HIV/AIDS rate was at 3 percent, or about 15,100 adults. That's a major epidemic. And the study showed that in spite of the high HIV rate 60% of the people hadn't been tested for HIV and 70% of the people didn't use condoms. So condoms are certainly a technological political method for reducing sexually transmitted diseases and for reducing the birth of unwanted offspring.

"But Ray, hasn't the Pope made some political headway recently in using technology to put out his message?"

 —"As a matter of fact, yes. The Vatican made some _faux pas_ in Pope Benedict's early years, but now they are using internet social networking sites to publicize and follow the pope. You can follow his exploits on your mobile phone or your computer. I mentioned that a while ago. But I didn't mention that the Pope even has his own YouTube channel."

SURVEILLANCE AND SPYING

 — "In parts of Britain millions of cameras relay the faces of their subjects to the law enforcement's computers. So when there is a crime the faces are computer matched with known criminals. Big Brother is indeed watching. Special face matching software can process a million faces per second. And crime has dropped 70% in some areas. The populace is delighted, all except for the civil libertarians who side with the rights of the criminals. But Britain has no laws protecting privacy of this sort. When terrorism hit the London subways in July of 2005 pictures of four of the subway suicide bombers were available within hours.

"Countries like China, Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran use computer technology to keep unwanted speech and ideas off of the Internet.

"I think it is clear that nearly everybody uses whatever political techniques are available, and technology is such a great asset. Look at the social networking and the way people are hooking up for deeply committed relationships. It is certainly easier to sort out similarities from the wide range of people on the Internet than it would be to hope to find that perfect person in the local bar.

"But let's go back to spying as a political technique. On an individual level, when a husband or wife thinks that the other may be being unfaithful, a 'private eye' may be employed to confirm the suspicions. Although I understand that today people are checking up by using Facebook! That's the cheapest way, but there are ways to follow your spouse using GPS tracking. There are also kits available by which you can test for semen in your husband's or wife's undies.

"Naturally at the international level countries do a great deal of spying on each other. Not only do they have agents, like 007, they have double agents. The spy business can be very complicated, but it is necessary in today's political world.

. "George W Bush allowed spying on Americans without first obtaining warrants from judges. That was illegal. Silvio Berlesconi was having some Internet sites censored in Italy because they might be used for spying. That might have been somewhat unethical, at least from a civil rights angle. On the other hand the Chinese Constitution is designed to protect its society from dissidents. So surveillance is quite lawful. In contrast, the American Constitution protects individual liberties. If I may say so, your protection of civil liberties seems to protect many who are not law-abiding. But back to spying.

"Spying uses both money and sex as well as threats and violence. Kidnappings and threats to the potential spy's friends and family might be used to entice a potential spy into your underground network. All the major countries spy on each other to uncover possible threats and to unlock the secrets of their important sciences. Businesses are not above industrial espionage. And criminal enterprises have been known to spy on their competition and to place spies in the government, particularly the police and the military branches. For example, one of the major The Bertran-Leyva Mexican drug cartel, paid nearly a half million dollars a month to spies within the American and Mexican governments so they would know when and where attacks against them would come. In just one state, Michoacan, in one anti-corruption sweep, federal forces detained 10 mayors and 17 state, police and municipal officials over drug ties.

DIVIDE AND CONQUER

"Another technique that politicians often use is to divide, then conquer. We mentioned of John Kennedy had worked to help Barry Goldwater get the Republican nomination for president. Kennedy thought that Goldwater was the furthest to the right so that it would be the easiest to beat. Kennedy could create a wide divide between the two and hopefully conquer the people in the middle.

"American representatives are in a permanent campaign for re-election. Leadership is seldom an issue. When Governor Schwartzenegger tried to lead in California he alienated the major unions—public employees, teachers, nurses. As a politician, Commander, it would be nice if you could get everyone on your side but that's unrealistic. So you may have to separate the people who may be for you from those who are definitely against you. As a politician you would want to get the person who is the farthest from you in beliefs to be your opponent. That way you can move closer to him in terms of the policies and plans, then pick up more votes from people in the middle. If you can separate the evangelical fundamentalists from the mainstream Christians and Muslims you may be able reason effectively with the majority on God's expectation that we should look after the planet.

NEGOTIATION AND TRADE-OFFS

"Negotiation is the last of the physical techniques I want to discuss. It bridges the gap between the physical and the mental, which I shall discuss next. Your American Congress is awash with negotiation and trade-offs. Lobbyists promise campaign funds if legislators will vote for their interests. Legislators and the President can trade off 'pork barrel' deals if a legislator will change his vote. Including in a defense bill a subsidy for cotton growers will bring with it the vote of the cotton growers' representative. President Obama, in seeking a key vote for his health care bill made a deal with an anti-abortion legislator that he would issue an executive order to not fund abortions with Federal money if the health care bill passed. This went against Obama's personal wishes, but his wishes for the comprehensive bill were more important in his mind.

"Most people have heard of the Nazi experimenter Josef Mengele who used human guinea pigs for torturous experiments during World War II. Many have not heard of Shiro Ishii, the Japanese experimenter who performed other hideous experiments on Chinese, Korean and Russian captives. He killed them by exposing them to freezing temperatures, immense pressure, deadly diseases and other such tortures to see what the human body could withstand. The Americans proposed hunting him and bringing him to justice but a deal was struck. In exchange for not hunting Ishii the Americans settled for getting the results of his experiments. This is an example of the political method of negotiation. You give up something and you get something.

"So the physical techniques can range from physical violence, to physical apparatus, to physically separating people who may be your friends or your enemies. It can even involve the friendly physical confrontation which we call the negotiation. While physical techniques are used quite often, there are a number of psychological techniques and may be even more effective in motivating their target audiences.

POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL TECHNIQUES

"There are psychological political techniques that attempt to get a voluntary positive response from a person or group and there are negative psychological techniques that attempt to force a desired response to the politician's goals. I think back to when your President Obama was in his first year in office. He met the Queen of England and didn't bow to her. However he did bow to the emperor of Japan and the King of Saudi Arabia. His right wing opponents took him to task on all counts. Whatever he did was to be criticized in their eyes. Should he have bowed to all three or to none of them? If bowing is a common courtesy, as it is in Japan, it is probably a wise political move. If he had not bowed he would have alienated a large number of Japanese, and as a friendly politician it is not wise to alienate the citizens of your host country.

"As I've said political techniques are used whenever somebody is to be manipulated. This happens to us all the time when we're shopping. At the supermarket where a cereal or candy display is put can influence us to buy that product over a less conspicuously placed product. Salespeople are effective when they use the right political techniques to get people to buy. For example, if you are shopping for a coat I might ask you which of these coats do you like best. Then once you've told me which you like best I can get into selling you that coat. My technique should be to make what you like it even better so that you will buy it.

APPEALING TO ONE'S PRIDE

"Appealing to one's pride, whether it be to one's country, one's religion, one's ethnicity or one's school can be effective. Certainly the jihadists have used this tack. America's soldiers may be reminded that they are protecting democracy. Football coaches may ask their players to 'do or die for dear old Harvard.' And family pride, as exhibited in the famous Hatfield and McCoy feuds of the 19th Century, or the pride of a political heritage as exhibited by the Kennedy family, can be forces for good or evil."

  —"I would guess that appealing to one's pride would fit into Maslow's 'esteem' level of his hierarchy."

 —"It might also fit into Adler's 'power over' area because an appeal to one's pride could make him think he is better than others. It makes me think of the time during World War II when Norway's King Haakum was in England. On his 70th birthday all the Norwegians in Norway wore flowers to commemorate it. The Germans knew what they were doing, but couldn't arrest people for wearing flowers.

"Al Queda used the 'pride' technique to recruit many its followers. When they recruited Somali Muslims from Minnesota in 2009 it was about pride in their native country and their religion."

 —" I remember the model Kate Ross saying that 'Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.' There is a strong motivation for pride if you want to be a model or a desirable creature in a world that prizes thinness."

 —"Speaking of pride, a friend of mine whose wife was soon to have a baby, took his four-year-old son to the hospital to look at the babies in cribs in the maternity ward. The father told the son to choose which baby he wanted. This gave him a great feeling of pride in his little sister so she became very special to him. As you know jealousy between siblings can be devastating to a family. But this father used an effective political technique to reduce the possibility of jealousy.

"But seriously, I read a book (19) by a South Korean professor who had the theory that the way the North Koreans were kept in line, despite their terrible poverty, was that there was a great propaganda move to tell them that they were a pure race and their racial purity set them apart from other countries. They also were protected by an outstanding military force. The propaganda was based on developing pride in them and giving them a feeling that they were highly honored to be North Koreans. This relates to the esteem level of Maslow, it also touches on the meta-level needs."

 —"Good point, Con. Thinking of national pride makes me recall seeing Vladimir Lenin's waxed and embalmed body which had laid in state in his tomb in Moscow's Red Square. Millions lined up to see the architect of Russian communism. No one was allowed to talk in the mausoleum. Saint Vladimir was the icon. For many it gave a feeling of pride—and even awe. But times change. Putin considered burying him and saving the $1½ million a year it cost to keep the mummy in shape.

"Religious symbols that prove that your religion is superior, such as the Shroud of Turin, relics of the true cross, the bones of saints, gold icons, the Kaaba in Mecca, Solomon's Temple, or the Dome of the Rock all elicit pride in the hearts of the faithful. Countries often use the same type of political technique, displaying their flag or as American fans often do at the Olympics--shouting 'USA, USA.' Businesses sometimes do it. Working for IBM or Google should bring an employee pride., But it is very common in American schools and colleges where fans wear the schools colors. Fraternal organizations and righteous causes—like PETA, Amnesty International and the Boy and Girl Scouts also have their pride of membership. Few groups have more pride in belonging than the U.S. Marines and their 'Semper fi' motto."

 \--"Commander, you might be able to use the pride of knowing the truth in those who believe in your message and want to save the world for posterity. If people can realize that they must act now to save humanity, it can give them a enormous pride. And that pride can be increased if you get a great deal of positive publicity.

SYMPATHY

"Sympathy is a major way that countries and charities can increase their intake of money or labor. Appealing to the memory of the Holocaust was a major reason that the West backed giving the Jews a homeland. Appealing to human rights violations is a major reason to contribute to Amnesty International. Showing starving Indian or African children stimulates many to give to Save the Children."

 —"Seems to be in one of the higher levels of Maslow's hierarchy, possibly love, esteem or even the meta-level needs."

 —"Seems to me that it might easily be God based values."

 —"Could just as easily be societal values, Ray. Probably either. I don't see how self-centered values would fit here except for those who want something and are using sympathy to get it. It is certainly not self-centered for the givers. Reminds me of a case I saw where six men stole almost ten million dollars from an armored car company. They beat the guard who was left bloody and bound. They spent the money on clothes and strippers, then when they got caught they asked for mercy.

"You may remember 25 or 30 years ago when a Mexican woman illegally entered the United States to have child in the US who was then considered a citizen. She thought it was her right to join her eight year old son in his native country. So she bought a forged Social Security card and took him to Chicago where she got a job. The immigration people came after this woman who had committed two crimes against the country. But churches gave her asylum. The US immigration service was finally able to deport her to Mexico. But she, along with the pro-illegal immigration groups tried to elicit sympathy for her plight by saying she was being separated from her son. Of course he could have joined her in Mexico since he was also a Mexican citizen. Why didn't she take her son with her to Mexico. He can always come back when he's older."

 —"African famine, the Jewish Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, aid needed for natural disaster relief like in Haiti, Pakistan or Thailand—all try to elicit sympathy to get us to open our wallets or our hearts."

 —"There have been a number of Hispanic marches to protest proposed federal regulations to crack down on illegal immigration. A major theme of the march leaders was sympathy. 'Love your neighbor' was the charge. But they didn't mention that in Mexico they had been doing too much 'lovin' so they had more babies than there were jobs for."

 —"And they didn't mention that those coming into the country illegally were not showing love for their northern neighbors because their net economic contributions were a huge negative to the United States society. If you ask for love, shouldn't you show some too?

"There is no question that Martin Luther King and Gandhi used an appeal for sympathy as a major political technique to gain fairness, or what they saw as fairness."

APPEAL TO HONOR

 —"An appeal to honor usually is based on God based or society based values. They can be self-centered also. In the case of Socrates, he chose to die with his beliefs intact rather than to escape and to live having gone against his core beliefs. He felt that his beliefs were more valuable and honorable than his living body. Jesus died with honor believing that he was doing God's will.

"On the other hand, George Bush's appeal to abstinence being the honorable thing to do was based on his religious ideas that sex was to be honored only for procreation. His abstinence ideal was not an effective political technique because it was expensive and ineffective."

 —"It seems that we often use an appeal to honor in our political campaigns. It might be idea that abortion is bad because it is killing a life. It might be calling something un-American. It might be appealing to the ideal of equality or liberty. So if you are honorable you will do the honorable thing.

"In the American presidential election of 2008 John McCain continually alluded to his war record but he never mentioned his destroying several planes in his training days, so you might have seen him as honorable because of his prison experience or irresponsible because of his training record. In fact several authorities wondered if he was fit to fly planes because of his recklessness. So he emphasized his honor as being worthy of being a president but he never considered his recklessness as being a disadvantage for being a president."

 —'Many Catholic prelates have appealed to the honor of the young people who have been leaving their church in droves. They don't like the rules about contraception, abortion and divorce. The morality of Catholicism makes life difficult for them and it interferes with their hedonistic lifestyles.

"On the other hand, large gatherings of youth around the world gather to discuss social issues and to pray. We are calling them to the more honorable and noble path of righteousness and morality. It certainly works with many of them."

 —"I understand that large numbers of Catholics disagree with the Vatican's teaching and that many leave your Church. 15% of Brazil's Catholics left during the reign of Pope John Paul. And Brazil is the world's largest Catholic country."

 —"Of course holding on to church members at any cost may not be a major concern for a spiritual leader. Getting people to follow the commands of God is a leader's only responsibility. Following God's word on contraception, abortion and animal rights is primary. The question is what did God tell us to do in these areas? Should we read the Scriptures ourselves or follow the dictates of those who have direct communication with God? There is no question which is the more honorable approach to living?

"Certainly abstinence from sex, preferably lifelong abstinence, would be preferable for Catholics if they follow St. Paul or Pope Benedict. I believe that the Pope is right in seeking that people follow the path of honor."

 —"Maybe we should look at some society based honor. At Stanford our big game was always against Cal. You know that it is known as 'The Big Game', just like your game against USC was your biggie. But personally, for me, the 'big game' was always a game against you guys. And if I remember right, when we went south it was your homecoming game and when you came north it was ours. And you know how important it is to win the Homecoming game. All the alums were there, we never knew if one of them might give us a job when we graduated. So we were playing for more than honor! We were playing for our potential livelihood!"

 —"You talk about your American football like it's bigger than life. It's really just a sport like all the others. I think we should only be playing for fun."

 —"Well the legendary UCLA coach Red Sanders once said 'Football isn't a matter of life or death, it's more important than that!' And we've lived with that idea ever since. It really is a very special game, Dr. Singh. But I think you have to have played it to get the intensity of feeling that the games bring out."

DUTY

 —"I can accept that. We have talked about al Queda using 'pride' to recruit for their cause but they also use the call of duty—duty to defend one's religion and one's home country. You might imagine that when a native of one country immigrates to another state he may not be totally accepted. His education, language, customs and religion may wall him off from the natives.

"Making a person believe that he or she has a duty to God, self or society may stimulate a desired action. Most American youth felt a duty to country when it was attacked at the start of World War II. By the time of Korea there was less enthusiasm. The call to national duty for Americans continued to erode with Vietnam and Iraq.

"When your President Kennedy gave his inaugural address he charged 'Ask not what your country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country.' When President Obama gave the commencement address at West Point he emphasized their duty to the nation.

"Early in President Obama's term there was considerable debate about whether the society had the duty to provide health care for all citizens. Commander you may or may not want to exhort people to follow what you see as their duty to their country."

 —"Certainly the jihadists have been imbued with the idea that they have a duty to Allah to kill the infidels, whether non-Muslims or Muslims in a different sect.

"I remember that Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, said I'm doing the Prime Minister work out of a sense of duty to my country I don't really like it. I may be naïve but I didn't really believe him. But the idea of duty made him sound so noble."

 —"I wonder if in the near future we can get people to feel the sense of duty to work more years before retiring and possibly to expect fewer financial gifts from the government, which so many consider to be entitlements."

 —"Commander, an appeal to duty to save the world will certainly appeal to some people, but it won't dent the self-centered desires of most people.

HOPE

"Engendering hope is another often used political technique. Religion uses this technique continually. If we believe in an afterlife, either in Paradise or in a higher reincarnation, we may well practice the rituals and give the required tithes.

"National or local elections pit politicians against each other, both holding out some sort of hope for the future. It might be better education, lower taxes, cheaper electricity or better roads. Politicians and priests are masters at directing our individual and societal decisions through hope."

 \--"I was thinking about having 10 children, hoping that one will figure out how to solve the population problem."

 \--"Are you ever serious Lee? Commander, as a politician you might try to fill your followers with hope. When Jacob Zuma was elected president of South Africa in 2009 he told his supporters that AIDS could be avoided if one only showered after having sex. With 12% of South Africans infected with HIV such assurance from the top gave an overpowering hope—and hope trumps the evidence of science over and over again. Our hopes, no matter how unrealistic, are easier to accept than the empirical evidence that makes us climb the steeper hill of truth. Looking for the easier path, which would you choose—sliding down the hill of hope or trudging upward toward the crag of certainty? Politicians know that hope tranquilizes the masses, and the drugged majority will vote in those who promise lower taxes, better schools, more jobs, better health care, high pensions, better national security and death to its national enemies."

  "If lower taxes can result in such positive results, just think of the unbridled benefits that would accrue if there were no taxes!! Let's hope!"

 —"Homer told us that 'All men need gods.' I certainly find more solace in my hope to see God and live with Him in eternity, than Lee can possibly have in his atheistic pessimism."

 \-- "Ray, I understand your well thought out commitment, but for most people when hope is all you have—religion is strong."

 \--"Then when there s plenty of food, a fancy car and a big house, religion becomes a social tool—a church where you can socialize, find a mate, make important contacts and feel important in your holiness.

"But I have to say that people in democracies are commonly motivated by hope. The elected 'ins' in government have not produced on the hopes they hung out for the voters four years ago, so the 'outs' sell hope for the next four years. Then when they don't produce the process reverses."

 -"The Pope recently said that 'the entire world needs to rediscover hope in order to end wars, poverty and financial turmoil.' He also said 'it was urgent to find hope around the globe, despite the mounting reasons for despair.' Aren't these positive statements Lee?"

 —"They are. But what can he actually do to make it happen? On the other hand he might be able to reduce the need for priests by letting them marry, or he might allow women to be priests. Heaven forbid! Or did heaven really forbid it?"

 —"The Pope also said 'At a time of world food shortage, of financial turmoil, of old and new forms of poverty, of disturbing climate change, of violence and deprivation which force many to leave their homelands in search of a less precarious form of existence, of the ever present threat of terrorism, of growing fears over the future, it is urgent to rediscover the grounds for hope.'"

 —"I have to agree with Lee here. All the problems he mentions can be handled by action, not hope. Reducing our human population is the key. I hate to keep beating a dead horse, but the answer to the major problems of the world is obvious. And hoping won't do it. We need action."

 —"You are certainly right. But you have to sell your idea effectively. You know that salesmen rely on positive expectations continually. Did you ever hear a stockbroker telling you that the stock he is recommending is probably going to lose your money? Has a car salesman told you that you can't expect reliable transportation from your new car? Has a real estate agent ever told you that the neighborhood is going down hill? Salespeople sell positive hopes.

"Look at how many 'positive thinking' books have been published since Norman Vincent Peale wrote his best seller many years ago. Positive thinking is just an extension of hoping. But positive action is much more difficult to do. When you are diagnosed with cancer, when jihadists blow up your mosque, when your child is diagnosed with autism—thinking positive thoughts probably isn't going to change much that has happened. If you are a Christian Scientist whose Godly self cannot be less than perfect, you can pray and hope that your God-self will prevail and perfection will result. But most of us don't have such hopes.

"In spite of the stoic song of one of the Twentieth Century's most influential philosophers, Monty Python, that we should 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life'--there are times when manure doesn't smell like mountain dew. Then there was the troubadour of the same century, Glenn Miller, who wrote 'Wishing Will Make It So." And Americans believed Pollyana's platitudes because after all, God will provide."

 —"What about when God provides cancers, Tsunamis, home fires, murders, floods, earthquakes, wars and tortures. How much positive thinking do we need to overcome these?"

 —"These too are gifts from God. They are challenges to our faith, our hope and they give us the opportunities—"I don't know if I can see such things as gifts from God, Ray, but they do test us in how well we handle the stresses created and possibly see some opportunities in our ill fortune. A stock market crash gives you opportunities to buy shares at low prices."

 \--"Hope can be based on rational or irrational expectations. Bill Gates, when he developed his ideas that led to Microsoft had faith in his ideas and had to hope that someone would finance his ideas. That would have been a rational hope. But if you lived in Haiti in 2009 and hoped that another earthquake would never come, wouldn't that be an irrational hope?"

 —"It would be like someone in California building a house on the San Andreas Fault and hoping that no earthquake would ever repeat. Religious hopes that all will be good are also based on irrational hope. If you look at the Scriptures of the West, the Supreme Being has released famines and floods, quakes and wars, genocides and terror, and is quite ready to cast many of us into the Inferno after they die. I wonder how much the religious leaders really believe that their followers will go to paradise when they die, they seem to always want to extend peoples' lives no matter what earthly pain they are suffering. I would think that a true believer would want to let a faithful member of his sect leave this terrible world for an everlasting life in Paradise with his Creator."

 \--"Hope is certainly essential to religions, but diplomacy is also built on hope. Without hope there would be no reason to negotiate."

 —"I have heard it said that diplomacy is saying 'nice doggy' until you can pick up a rock. That's real hope. Are we going to discuss diplomacy as a political technique?"

NEGATIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL TECHNIQUES

 —"Soon Lee. Now let's move on. Positive psychological techniques like 'hope' and 'honor' often work. But negative techniques often work better.

FEAR

"When we look at Maslow's priorities of needs we see positives. When any of those needs are threatened we are in fear. Whether it be that we won't have food or shelter, won't be loved, that others will think evil of us, or that we won't have justice or the freedom to do as we will—fear emerges and motivates us.

`"Fear is such a common political technique that it is used in most levels of society. A parent might say to a child 'if you don't do your homework I'll spank you.' An employee might say to his boss 'If you don't give me money I will quit." A priest may say 'if you don't change your ideas on abortion you cannot receive communion.' And an imam may say 'If you don't act in accordance with the Koran you will spend eternity in the flames and tortures of Hell.'

"In Iran not too long ago the Nobel Peace Prize medal was taken from Shirin Ebadi the human rights judge. Her prize was also taxed which is against Iranian law. She was threatened with detention if she returned to Iran. In Russia Putin enacted laws to make it easier to charge people with treason. So in every level of human relationships-- individual, religious, and societal-- fear of losing your life or losing something very precious to you is continually being used to control you. Look at the Scandinavian countries where parking and traffic fines are extreme compared to what they would be in California. In California a $100 parking ticket would be considered an abuse of human rights."

 \--"I had a friend who was planning a party for Thanksgiving he bought the turkey, vegetables, scrumptious desserts and fine wines. But he had recently acquired a parrot that was very foulmouthed. He tried to calm the parrot down by speaking softly and using dignified words, but the parrot continued to be nasty. My friend in exasperation shook the bird, but the bird responded with more profanity. He finally put the bird in the freezer. For a few moments the bird yelled and screamed. Finally the parrot quieted down. My friend, feeling a bit of remorse, opened the freezer. The parrot stepped softly on his arm and walked slowly up to his shoulder and whispered softly into his ear 'I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions. I'm sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior.' My friend was stunned and asked the parrot why he had 'ap-parrotly' changed his demeanor. The parrot asked simply 'May I inquire as to what the turkey in your freezer did?'"

 —"Very much to the point Lee! Like I always say, a scared parrot is a good parrot! And that prince of politicians, Nicolo Machiavelli opined that the feared prince will last longer than the loved prince."

 —"But I've observed that people may not fear that which should be most fearful in the long run. They fear the immediate. They are more afraid that their favorite team will lose today than that their country or their world may collapse tomorrow. In a recent compilation of the concerns of citizens of various countries it was shocking to see that the major concerns of the scientists relative to the problems of the world are number one, overpopulation, and number two, climate change. But these concerns were far down the list for the citizens of most countries. The Nordic countries listed climate change the highest with Sweden and Denmark listing it third after terrorism and conflicts between Muslims and their countrymen and the outsourcing of jobs. Norway and Finland placed climate change fourth after international terrorism, the outsourcing of jobs and in the case of Norway poverty. In the US the concern for climate change was number 10 after terrorism, conflicts with Muslims. the economic crisis, atomic weapons, poverty, imperialism, outsourcing and local conflicts. Britain had climate change as seventh as did Germany. And the Arab countries listed climate change at number 10 in their concerns.(19a) So it appears that the fear of terrorism today and tomorrow is far more important than national economic debts of our nations and their effect on the future taxpayers of this and most other countries. They don't see the imperative of reducing greenhouse gases through developing, and using, alternative energy sources. And the major concern should be the reduction of population today so that we will begin to see a real effect in 50 years."

 —"It's that same problems that Wanda talked to us about in Kino. People are basically selfish and their self-centered needs today are more important that the fulfillment of greater needs in the future, both their own futures and the futures of their societies. Then there is the common reliance on 'hope' and on anyone that a person views as an authority--no matter how their opinions vary from scientific fact. It makes me remember two standards of politics. One is Tip O'Neil's slogan that 'all politics are local.' The other is Bill Clinton's advice that 'It's the economy, stupid.'

"But Con, in the study you just mentioned, the two most common concerns that ranked above climate change were international terrorism and conflicts with radical Muslims. Border wars and atomic warfare sometimes ranked above, and sometimes below, climate concerns. These bring with them the fear of death, most people's ultimate fear. Fears of losing jobs or the economic crisis that threatened the basic physiological and safety needs that Maslow pointed out."

 —"The fear of violence shadows the use of violence. The Inquisition was one of the most fearful times of history. The rich, because they could forfeit all their wealth, were fearful. All women, as possible witches, were fearful. Lawyers who defended heretics could also be found guilty. The accused might lay in prison for years before a trial. And while imprisoned they had to pay their own upkeep. That 'pay by prisoners' idea had some real merits to it.

"Of course if you confessed and gave the names of other heretics you might get off with a fine or other penances like making a pilgrimage, being lashed, or being forced to wear the robes symbolizing your status as a former heretic. Of course if you were a witch or a person who returned to his previous heretical beliefs after being 'saved for Christ' burning at the stake was even too good for you—but it was the worst that your Christian saviors could come up with. So Jews and Muslims who had been baptized but who secretly practiced their faulty faiths were regularly roasted. Burning was favored by Church authorities because it did not shed blood—and bloodshed was often frowned on by the Church hierarchy.

"I can imagine that the engendered fear of the inquisitors kept a number of people on the straight and narrow path towards righteousness.

PROTECTIONISM \--REDUCING IMMIGRATION

"Fear of immigrants has become a rising concern in the West. The fear might be that the native citizens will lose their jobs to immigrants who will work cheaper. The fear might be related to religion. There is the fear that Muslim terrorism will be increased if more Muslims are allowed into the country. There may be a fear of Jews in a Christian country or of Catholics in a Protestant country. There may be a fear of Christians and Muslims in a communist country. There may be the fear of increased criminality of sophisticated gangs from Eastern Europe or the petty crime of the poorer gypsies, Africans or Hispanics as they move northward and westward into the more affluent countries.

"Europe and the United States have been major asylums for the oppressed people of other lands. The U.S. calls itself 'a nation of immigrants' but European countries have traditionally tried to exclude those whose blood had not flowed within their borders for centuries. Recently economic and humanitarian interests have pressured governments to allow immigration. The labor needs of Germany allowed many laboring Turks into the country. Norway allowed Indian and Pakistani workers in. The memory of the British Empire and the dream of democracy gave British citizenship to those whose parents had once been under the protection of the Crown. The religious or humanistic consciences allowed the oppressed from Africa, India, the former Yugoslavia and many other areas into many European countries.

"You may have heard that back in the 1950s the pro-Soviet Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, was assassinated by the Muslim Brotherhood—or at least that's what many believed. At any rate these anti-Soviet Muslims were welcomed into anti-Soviet Europe. Western leaders looked the other way when left leaning leaders were killed by the Brotherhood and its 'cousin-hoods' like al-Queda. After all, political infidels include both atheists and theists.

"Then, since most European countries are anti-capital punishment, few will extradite murderers who would face the death penalties in the more religious countries where their crimes had been committed. Countries like Germany and England even funded radical educations for Muslim youth. Obviously they didn't realize it at the time.

"It took a while for fear to set in to the electorates and leaders of the host countries. They eventually realized that there were more Muslim jihadists than modern day Christian inquisitors so the fearful sought to restrict the immigration of even peaceful Muslims because their sons might well be lured into the jaws of jihad. The reactionary theocracy of Mecca was met with a reactionary wall of the native born citizens. Austria found a welcoming for the late neo-Nazi politician Joerg Haider. Swiss voters decided that they didn't approve of minarets on Muslim mosques.

"I have heard radical Muslims say that Islam and democracy are incompatible, but that is true of any believers in any of the three religions of the Mid-East. God can never bow to the will of the people.

SOCIAL ISSUES

"Whenever a person or group wants to oppose an issue, if they can find a bolt of fear to cast at their opposition's heart, they have their best chance of slaying the opposing dragon. When the mandatory health insurance plan in the US was being debated, and the cost of the last month or two of a dying person was seen to be extremely expensive for the insurers, an astute marketing person were the health industry came up with the slogan that the government would have the power to 'kill granny.' Such an idea had never been expressed and was not in the legislation, but it gave a fear-based slogan to resist the government's efforts for universal health care and it strengthened the position of the insurance and drug companies who were fighting against the bill's passage. It was strange to me that it was the conservatives who were the ones who were carrying the antidemocratic 'Don't killed granny' banners. But if anyone should be for saving money, even if it meant an early termination of a terminal patient, it should've been the fiscal conservatives-- and they seem to be primarily Republicans."

 -"Fear has also affected people in the financial areas. Heavy sentences for major business leaders in the US when they defrauded investors or made illegal stock trades sent a warning that just because you live in a penthouse you are not above the law. The realization that white collar crime can still put you behind bars has struck fear into the potentially larcenous hearts of many in our capitalistic culture."

"Street crime has also been reduced, possibly because of fear of prison. New York City Mayor Giuliani reduced crime by putting police on the streets. The crime went down in many areas, and many think it was because of the fear of getting caught."

 —"I think that fear is often caused by superstition and scriptures—this often leads to wars and cruelty. Conquering that superstition requires knowledge and wisdom. In fact many fears can be allayed if we only understand their causes. Just look at how heart disease has been reduced as people understood how it was caused. Many give up smoking, reduced the saturated fats in their diet, swallowed an aspirin daily, and exercised aerobically."

 \--"As you have heard a thousand times, we are primarily psychological, not logical. We are usually controlled by our traditions, our religions, and our educations, but surprisingly it seems that sometimes we humans are able to think for ourselves."

 -"I think that often the psychological conditions may influence us to act more rationally. For instance the AIDS prevalence has scared many teenagers into oral sex rather than vaginal sex. And there is certainly no danger of pregnancy!"

 \--"Why not digital sex?"

 \--"What do you mean digital? By computer?"

 \--"No dummy, I mean a hand job. No pregnancy. No mouth or throat infections. It is certainly a bit harder to get syphilis on the hands than in the mouth. I know it does happen, but it's rare. You would probably need a cut on your hand rubbing against a vaginal or penile lesion. And while it may not be quite as intimate as vaginal or oral sex, it is still orgasmic. And whoever heard of a bad orgasm?"

 \--"True. But that rational thinking was based on fear. Fear of AIDS. Fear of syphilis. Fear of pregnancy. Then that fear has to be measured against the pleasure of the sex act. So Freud rises from his grave with his pleasure principle. Your libido says 'do', you super ego says 'don't do,' or at least think before you do it, then your ego hopefully finds an intelligent way. So while our thinking is generally prompted by a psychological motivation—fear, honor, duty, pleasure, we are often faced with alternatives that force us to choose. For instance we could use cocaine instead of sex. Both are pleasurable. Both can have deadly consequences. Or we could think about robbing people instead of working at a real job. It would take less time but it would affect our honor, if we had any. Or it might start us on a path to Hell, if there is any. Or it might land us in jail—and we know those exist.

"But what about your population reduction ideas? What psychological motivations might force people to think rationally?"

 \--"Maybe fear for yourself. Look at how George Bush played on the fears of Americans when he was running against John Kerry. Look how John McCain tried to play on those same fears of Americans for their safety when he was running against Barack Obama. Then there were the McCain people calling his opponent Barak Hussein Obama, trying to link him with Saddam Hussein.

"It seems that if people would only look the realities of global warming, the reduction in fresh water, the increasing amount of disease and deaths, the reducing amount of arable land per person, the amount of employment, the increasing amount of national debts across the world because people are unwilling to be taxed for the services they demand--they would get the idea that major changes in our traditional expectations must soon ensue. Any rational person would understand that we need fewer people born, adults working much longer before retiring, and a great deal more education at the higher levels. But it seems that survival is not a concern until either we lose our jobs or a global warming induced calamity, like a flood or a forest fire, robs us of our shelter or our families."

 —"Fear is certainly a major mover of people. You may have heard the story about the old farmer in Georgia who had owned a large farm for several years. He had a big area in the back, fixed up nice; picnic tables, horseshoe courts, and a big pond. The pond was fitted out for swimming when it was built. One evening the old farmer decided to go down to the pond for a swim. As he approach the pond, he heard voices shouting and laughing. As he came closer he saw it was a bunch of young women skinny dipping in his pond. He made the women aware of his presence and they all went to the deep end of the pond. One of the women shouted to him, 'We're not coming out until you leave!' The old man yelled back 'Relax ladies, I didn't come down here to watch you swim or make you get out of the pond naked. I'm just here to feed the alligator.' Suddenly the element of fear blanketed their modesty and they leapt from the water."

THREATS

 —"Threats are another type of political technique. They are akin to fear, but may be more immediate and dangerous.

"Fear is developed when there are threats. It could be the threat of a nuclear holocaust, the threat of global warming, the threat of being told you can only have one child, the threat of a divorce, the threat of losing your job, the threat of getting a bad grade in school, the threat of terrorists, the threat of getting a traffic ticket, the threat of being arrested, or any number of other types of threats. The threats of course have to be made by someone in power, someone who has the power to carry out that threat—your spouse, your boss, your teacher, your religious leader, the leader of another country, your government, a climate scientist or any number of other people. The more immediate and possible the threat is, the more you will tend to fear it.

"In a more extreme form, President Bush's use of waterboarding of possible terrorists was designed to make them fear that they would drown. He won his second presidency by harping on the threat of terrorism and how he was protecting the country. We don't know if the torture was successful in getting essential information, but we do know that when its victims eventually got to court the fact that they had been tortured was enough to have many of their cases thrown out of court.(19b)

"The Iranian government in 2010 threatened the anti-government demonstrators with imprisonment or death, hoping to reduce the anti-government activities and the bad press that was being broadcast throughout the world.

"The killing of some doctors who performed abortions could certainly threaten others. Politicians are under the threat of having lobbyists' money minimized if they don't adhere to the demands of those who pave the golden highway to reelection. Many outspoken Christian leaders in America threaten both the electorate and the elected with damnation, disenfranchisement and the burden of being socially and sanctimoniously outcast.

"Catholic bishops have threatened Catholics high in government, even senators and the vice president, that they might not receive Communion if they supported abortion or contraception rights. They have even threatened excommunication from the church for disobeying the ideas that the Pope conveys from God. A South Carolina priest even told his parishioners that if they voted for Obama they shouldn't receive Communion until after they had done penance. The threat of hell may make some believers think twice about doing their own thinking.

"But the threat of running afoul of a conservative religious leader runs across the religious spectrum. In Afghanistan a young man circulated an article about women's rights that he picked up from the Internet. Obviously saying that 'women have rights' is blasphemy and is worthy of the death penalty. Some prominent clerics declared that he deserved to be executed for violating the teachings of Islam."

 —I wonder if they read the Koran. As I remember women have a good many rights under Islam.(19c) Although women's inheritances are only half that of men." (19d)

  —"It reminds me of stories my father told me about traveling in the former Soviet Union. He said the first time he observed the unwritten threat of the Soviet specter was in a park where he saw a drunk soldier picked up by civilians and carted away. Later that night he saw somebody who crowded into a line at a theater taken away by other apparent civilians. Every day he saw fearful Russians afraid of their shadows because, as he had heard, one in four people was involved with the secret police.

"Various countries use different fear techniques to keep their citizens in line. In the Scandinavian countries it may be huge fines for speeding or drunk driving or even for parking tickets. In Turkey it might be a fear of using or selling drugs. In some Muslim countries it might be the fear of losing your hand if you steal. There is no question that if the threat is real, and that there is a good chance that it can be realized, the people will generally obey.

"As with President Bush, threats are often greatly magnified to get the desired response from those who are being threatened. While President Obama's approach seemed to be to make the American public feel confident, his opponents continued to make them feel threatened and weakened. They said that Obama's policy had weakened America's defenses. While in reality he continued Bush's strong policies and had even strengthened them. The Republicans chastised Obama's decision to try terrorists in New York because it would endanger New Yorkers. So while they were asking for more strength from the central government, they were actually portraying that their government was weak. This of course makes the threat a bigger danger in the minds of the citizens. So what is the better political technique to gain votes, to say that we are weak and need more strength, or to say we are strong and unafraid? The one appeals to our fears, the other to our pride and honor. Which is the stronger political motivator for the electorate? And which is the stronger message to send to your enemies?"

 —"During the health care debates in America in 2009 those against the idea threw up a number of partial truths and outright lies to scare the electorate and influence the legislators. They painted grim pictures of socialized medicine and threatened that it would happen in the United States also. But studies showed that in countries like New Zealand, the patients waited fewer days to see a doctor than they did in the US. Opponents called it socialistic. They didn't criticize Medicare which is actually communistic—'from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs.' And George Bush's brother, Jeb, the governor of Florida had put a public option into the Florida health plan and it became extremely popular. And Mitt Romney, when he was governor of Massachusetts, put in a public option there too, and it was also highly successful.

"In Russia one's political or personal objectives can result in arrest and a criminal case, if you are an oil millionaire or to assassination if you are a journalist who writes negative things about the government. The threat of such actions hangs over your head like the sword of Damocles. You know it's there but you don't know when it will fall.

"When a teacher threatens to keep a student after school it is a very real threat and may change the student's behavior. When the Koran or the Bible threatens the believers with hell, the faithful will listen and swerve to avoid damnation. In a state with a 3 strikes law, the two-time loser may think three times before committing the crime that can send him to life in prison.

"When medical science tells us that smoking a pack a day can shorten our lives by seven years we may give up smoking. When society tells us that we can't smoke in restaurants or bars we may decide that smoking is a social evil and give it up. When an object of our affection says that he or she won't go out with us if we smoke, the threat may give us sufficient reason to stop smoking. Threats bring fear much closer to reality and so are often effective political techniques.

"Threats and violence are used in about every country and by their inhabitants starting about age three. Disobeying society's laws brings with it the threat of punishment. Christianity and Islam threaten with the plight of Hell. Hinduism with the threat of having to go through another life on Earth.

"A much more common threat today is the cyber-bullying. Climate scientists have been subject to such bullying because so often they are university professors and their e-mail addresses are published in the school catalogs. It is so easy for people who don't have a clue about the evidence but have huge inferiority complexes to attack via the Internet. However if the threats are sufficiently malicious, the police can be called in to investigate. It is very easy to trace anonymous threats. So the threatener may become the 'threatenee!'

"But threats may not invoke the desired response, unless they are backed up by the reality of violence. In Los Angeles, Mexican gangs demand 'rent' from street venders. If they don't pay, their wares will be destroyed and they will be beaten up or killed. Maoist terrorists in India will phone people demanding money. In many cities the Cosa Nostra or common street criminals often require 'protection money' from businesses to avoid 'unfortunate occurrences to their premises or to their owners. In some American or foreign cities children will tell the car owner that they will watch his car if he gives them money. It is understood that if he doesn't, one of them will vandalize it.

"Some bullies at school may demand that their classmates give them money to prevent their being harmed. So from early in life we encounter threats. They are obviously often highly effective as motivators, or should I say political techniques."

HARASSMENT

 —"Harassment is another action which like so many other political techniques can be either expressions of anger or inferiority feelings or a method of political motivation. As I've said before, violence can be well thought out and be a political motivating device or it can be used in anger and not thought out. Harassment is the same.

"Boys or girls in school can bully one of their classmates because of their own inferiority feelings and they should feel some power from bullying that weaker person. People in an office can do the same thing, 'putting down' one person for varying reasons, possibly obesity or incompetence or even their clothing style. These are power driven motivations. An ineffective boss or teacher, or in athletics, and ineffective coach, can 'put down' an underling or an athlete under their care through harassment. This is an ineffective leadership technique in business, in teaching or in coaching. If the objective was to make the person angry and thereby perform better it might work as a political technique. But if the effect of harassment does not work, it is a poor political technique. If a person is trying as hard as he can it would not be effective, but if a person needs a psychological prod it sometimes works. With the research on harassment in education and business, as well as in sport, it is quite possible that harassment, particularly sexual harassment, will result in a court case against the harasser. This certainly turns the tables on the culprit. While it is sometimes used as a political technique it is seldom an effective method of moving the person it was supposed to have moved."

 —"If you have ever witnessed a British House of Commons session you will experience how people, who are supposedly educated and who should know better, continually harass and 'put down' their colleagues while ostensibly leading a democratic republic."

 —"I've been there and seen it. I thought it was appalling. They treat each other as ignorant inferiors. I wonder if it goes back to their teen-age school life where they learned to bully the weak—but they never outgrew their adolescent inferiorities. I don't see how harassment can be an effective political technique."

 —"My gosh Wreck, don't you remember Coach Goodhew chewing us out during halftime of the city championship game against Fremont? He called us sissies and cowards and a lot of other harassing names and we got so angry and embarrassed that we scored four second half touchdowns and won the game.

"At Notre Dame during nearly every game we heard the trash talking by our opponents. I remember U.S.C. was really bad. But we were prepared for it. Our coach just explained that when people trash talk they are either trying to get us mad so that we'll take a swing at them or they are trying to get us to think about what they are saying and forget what we are trying to do. We even practiced it. The 'red shirts' would trash talk in practice and we learned to tune them out and concentrate on our assignments and techniques. There was no question that our disciplined approach was more effective than their mouthing off. And I'm sure that they were taking their minds off of their assignments and techniques because they had to keep thinking about how to anger us. So trash talking against us was definitely not an effective political technique."

 —"I think that most trash talking is not really a political technique. I think it is just another kind of bullying from athletes with big inferiority complexes. At U.C.L.A. we were told to 'keep our mouths shut and play football.' But what about boxers who try to stare down their opponents. They put on their serious faces and look the other guy in the eyes and see if he will look away."

 —"This may be a little off the wall, but think about those steroid filled actors in professional wrestling. They seem to taunt each other and harass, but their real political targets are the fans. As long as the fans like to see the apparent humiliation, they will buy their tickets for the next week's show."

 —"I've never thought of those types of harassments. We don't have that in cricket, and I'm a cricketeer. But you fellows have brought up some good points about the political and the psychological uses of harassment in sport. If you get to Norway you might want to look up Professor Kari Fasting at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences. She is the world's leading authority on sexual harassment in sport. I'm sure you could share some stories.

"I remember hearing her talk about how often both coaches and peers would harass female athletes. It did get many of the women and girls to leave the sport, and if more women and girls leave the soccer pitch it will be available to more boys and men. So harassment and ridicule may be an effective technique to get women to quit what they are doing, both in and out of sport.

INTIMIDATION AND RIDICULE

"Let's move on. A very common method of gaining power over someone is to intimidate them or ridicule them. Intimidation is more subtle than a threat and maybe it can be related to harassment."

 \--"In his book, former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge revealed details on politicization under President Bush. Ridge admitted that he was pressured to raise the terror alert to help Bush win re-election in 2004. He said he was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings but was 'blindsided' by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him. The Bush Administration manipulated intelligence to cause fear in the public to further its political goals." (20)

 —"Intimidation seems to pervade every social, economic and religious situation. In China those who are dispossessed of their land are being terrorized by police when they refuse to leave because the government wants to build industrial plants or dams. And you know that more than 30,000 censors monitor the Internet and emails—so don't step out of line.

"Women and children are intimidated and controlled by the men of Afghanistan, especially the Taliban. When men have no power outside of their homes they will try to control those who live with them. And when the laws support his neurosis, his whim becomes an intimidating dictate. When Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed a law that forced women to obey their husbands' sexual demands and kept them from leaving the house --even for work or school -- without a husband's permission, it shocked many in the West. The law took away any rights to child custody for women and it favored men in inheritance disputes and other legal matters. Violence against women was already rampant and the law merely legalized it. This was in spite of the Afghan Constitution which guaranteed equal rights for men and women.

"But intimidation can work for good. Some female suicide bombers in Iraq left the movement because of ostracism by other women in their villages. Disapproval by one's peers is a strong motivator."

 \--"Ridicule is something like intimidation because one person is putting down another, making him feel inferior—or at least hoping to. Political pundits use ridicule quite commonly. The political left ridiculed George Bush unmercifully. The political right did the same to Barack Obama. Such ridicule can take the form of cartoons or of general verbal putdowns. When I hear the far right people of your conservative radio stations and TV channels I am amazed at what your free speech guarantees allow. But I have to admit that it can make the listeners, who seemed to be rather ill-informed, feel superior to the people being ridiculed. If you can feel that you are smarter and better informed than the president of the United States your power drive should be enhanced.

"But ridicule is used in many walks of life. Schoolchildren make fun of another's big ears, thin or fat body, big breasts or small breasts, ethnicity or religion. It goes on into the working world where ridiculing coworkers or underlings can be useful political techniques if you are trying to get a person to quit his job.

FINANCIAL REWARDS, GREED AND CORRUPTION

"Let's move to another motivation—money. Most people wouldn't work if they weren't paid. So giving money is an effective way to motivate. Nations do it with gifts or loans. But like nations giving foreign aid, they often they give money to be used to buy things from themselves, so the donor is not without benefits. He gives money then gets it all back from sales."

 —"Why are we talking about money here? Money is physical and we are talking about mental techniques."

 —"You have a point Commander, but what I want to talk about here is the mental motivations that come from wanting money-- such as greed and corruption."

 —"Money or other gifts help to encourage your children to do their chores and help keep your spouse happy. Money can certainly buy things that satisfy Maslow's priorities. Food is one thing, but you can get even more esteem in some parts of society by buying gourmet foods and good wines. If you have the money to buy an expensive car other people may look up to you. And of course when you buy a house or a mansion people are even more in awe. But I understand that people often want more and more money and more and more things. And that can create corruption.

"Using money to motivate people probably dates as far back to when money was invented. Remember that in the 12th Century, Pope Innocent III decided that the property of heretics should go to the Church and to the heretics' accusers. So there was more than one reason to accuse and kill any thinking person, heretic or not, especially if he was rich.

"America has used cash to buy off dictators. Look at how we propped up Bautista before Castro's revolution toppled him. And look at the African dictators we supported. We probably would have been much better off in those countries if we had supported family planning and better education systems."

 —"I don't know of any group more greedy than our lawyers. And they not only control many of our legislatures and executive branches, but through their lobbying and massive contributions of money to the legislators they maintain their ability to extract money from the people and the states. They increase our medical costs considerably by their flimsy but malicious malpractice suits against doctors. This requires that the doctors pay huge amounts in insurance premiums, which they of course pass on to their patients. But it goes beyond that. Because of their fear of lawsuits, 90% of doctors over-test and over-treat their patients.(21) The patients therefore have to pay more for their treatment and more for their own health insurance. President Obama attempted to get limits on malpractice cases in his health bill, but with the lawyers' lobby controlling many of the senators and congressmen, and with so many of our representatives thinking about returning to private law practice when they retired or were voted out of office, they weren't about to bite the hand that feeds them.

"Lawyers' involvement in healthcare brings our medical costs to about double what the Europeans pay, but American health care is only rated about seventh in the world. Sorry to say it Lee, but you guys are costing us a lot of money."

 \--"What can I say? It's about free enterprise. Make as much money as you can-- hopefully legally! And naturally when we make the laws we tilt them in our favor. But Con, maybe you are the pot calling the kettle black. Look at all the tax breaks and government help that you business people get. I'm not sure where we draw the line between greed, business interests, and corruption."

 —"We may have been spending too much time on the problem of corruption as an extension of greed. But just using money as a reward is also a motivator. Commander, you have probably heard that some areas of India are tempting people's greed by paying newly married couples to refrain from having children for two or more years. A pilot project in the Satara district of Maharashtra has proved a success and other states, like Delhi, are now considering cash incentives to prevent births. With funding from the National Rural Health Mission people in the program receive about $100 if they don't have children the first two years of their marriage. That is nearly two and a half month's salary for a farm laborer. The government has long recognized that the increasing population has been putting severe strains on the country's food and water resources.

"More than 27 million children are born in India every year, and half the Indian population is below the age of 25. Satara has about 25,000 marriages a year and nearly 80% of the couples have a baby the first year. Every child increases the financial hardship of its parents and the family is more likely to be malnourished and infected with disease. There's also no money for education.

"Our health minister recently suggested that we should bring electricity to all the villages so that people could watch more television and spend less time in bed. With the country's population increasing by 18 million a year something has to be done quickly to discourage babymaking. One government official has even brought back the idea of Indira Gandhi and has suggested jailing people who have more than two children. There has long been a national policy for having only two children, but it is rarely followed by our people.

"I think, Commander, that your best way to reduce children being born is by financial rewards coupled with the message that the world can't handle more babies."

 \--"I think you're right. The problem may be where do we get the money. In India I don't think you have enough money to reach all the potential parents. Perhaps if you were doing the kinds of things that Dr. Ghosh is doing in Indus (21a) it might help to reduce births even further. But where would the money come from in places like Mali and Bangladesh? Certainly economics seems to be a core motivator for most of us, particularly for poor people. But even the wealthiest of us seem to be motivated to accumulate more and more riches."

 —"It seems that we have moved pragmatically, usually forgetting our principles. We tend to equate democracy with liberty, and liberty with wealth accumulation. And what we have left is greed, self-centered greed. I think we need some philosophers on the board of directors of our businesses. The idea that 'more is better' puts the marketing and advertising people in the driver's seat."

  —"Philosophers may not be immune to the temptations of money and what it can buy. Back in Elizabethan England Francis Bacon had held many high offices, including being a judge and the attorney general yet he took bribes from litigants in his court. King James, who succeeded Elizabeth, said 'If I were to punish those who take bribes I would soon not have a single subject left.' In fact as an old 'bribe taker' himself, he might have had to spend a few days in chains in the Tower if he were to punish all for their rather human habit of providing grease for the gears of government."

 —"What's more, businesses commonly play on the greed of their customers. Retailers use tricks to get people to buy their wares. A number of studies have looked at how shoppers purchase items. It was found that how they were placed and presented made a difference on which were purchased and how satisfied the buyers were with the item. When a retailer advertises an item as 50% off, it might well have been that he had doubled the price of the item before discounting it 50%. Few customers know the real value of the item. Stockbrokers play on the greed of their customers when they hawk 'get rich quick' schemes. The all too common Ponzi schemes, like those of Bernard Madoff, are based on the mutual greed of the buyer and the seller.

"But I guess that greed might be seen as either positive or negative. It is positive because it attracts people to riches, it is negative in its tendency to make people one dimensional and anti-social. It is, of course, rooted in our selfishness which is usually anti-social. But remember that greed is the pursuit of riches only, not the accumulation of riches that occur because one is pursuing a worthwhile goal and the sale of one's service or commodity brings money.

"Now America's Supreme Court has found parts of the anti-corruption law that the Legislature had passed to be unconstitutional.(22) This will make it a bit easier to pursue one's greed through various types of fraud and bribery.

"But let's look at China and how it's handling corruption. It seems to me to be doing a much better job than we are. You can understand why China pursues corruption so aggressively. A few years ago it was estimated by a government audit that $35 billion had been embezzled or misused by Chinese officials. For the third consecutive year, Chinese have told pollsters that corruption is the biggest blot on China's image. Last year alone, 18 minister-level officials had to step down because of alleged involvement in corruption. And China ranked 79 among 180 countries on the Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index. (23)

"But is corruption really the biggest blot on China's image? The foregoing facts say so. But there is at least one person who disagrees. Wang Liping is an associate professor at the Peking University's School of Government and has been dealing with different levels of government officials who attend her classes. She believes that most officials are honest. Her field is political psychology. She has found that the government employees are hard workers even though their pay is low. Furthermore the chances of them being bribed are very few. She says that there are only a few corrupt officials, who have taken a big bribes and live in luxury. Still when they are caught the media makes a big deal of it and the government comes down hard on them. As in other countries, it is the exceptional case that gets the publicity."

 —"I've heard a couple of reasons why the Chinese people are upset with government. One is that they feel that the local governments are not responsive to their needs. The other is that they want more equality, particularly in the economic realm. Finally the age-old Chinese tradition was that everyone had his place in society and the revolutionary battle cry of the communist revolution was equality. So while hundreds of millions had been lifted out of poverty many still remain indigent."

 —"But Ray, no country has or will ever reach true equality in wealth. You have probably heard of the Gini coefficient or the Gini ratio. It is a measure that is often used to show the economic inequality in a population. It was developed by an Italian statistician named Corrado Gini and has been in use for over 100 years. While it is usually used in the economic realm, it can be used in other fields as well. If the measure is zero it means there is absolute equality. If the measure is one there is total inequality. According to the World Bank in 1970 China's Gini coefficient was 0.18. In 2009 it reached about 0.47 which is quite close to that of the US. So in 2010 the legislature proposed laws that would reduce it to under 0.4 which they consider a 'security line' where the unequal distribution of income could arouse social unrest.(23a)

"On the other hand in Europe the numbers are lower, due largely to their more socialistic welfare states. So Denmark's level is 0.247. Often two decimal places are removed so that Denmark's number could be seen as 24.7. The greatest inequality so far measured is in Namibia where the number is 0.707 or 70.7. The more welfare oriented countries such as Canada and the European Union nations are generally between 24 and 36, and average about 30. The US and Mexico are over 40. Of course the index is not static and changes over time. In the US at the time of the Great Depression in 1929 low-level was about 45, at the end of World War II it dropped below 38 and worked its way up gradually to the high 46s and even to 47. Latin America is over 50. It is the world's most unequal economic area."

 —"Con, you might mention that there are a number of factors that can affect the Gini coefficient. Income earned from investments, low-paid immigrants, and the number of retired people or young people can all skew the calculations. Another variable can be how income is measured. For example France determines income remaining after the benefits have been paid while US counts the income before the benefits are paid. This skews the statistics of the US more towards inequality. Also benefits like food stamps are not counted as income. People who grow their own food are not credited with the value of that food as income. Similarly when people barter, the transaction does not show as income."

 —"True. But it is still a useful measure. But going back to our original point, dissatisfaction and corruption are certainly not limited to China. Remember when the British members of Parliament had many personal expenses paid by the government, unknowingly by the government I might add. When the misconduct was discovered various members of Parliament were asked to return over a million pounds to the government. And American congressmen certainly had their share of free junkets and unauthorized monetary contributions. Some are serving jail time for their dishonesty. It is no secret that lobbyists from medical associations, lawyers, and the big pharmaceutical companies pay our congressmen to keep things as they are in the medical insurance field. We all know that the U.S. tops the world in health spending, but it's results don't compare those of other countries such as France and Italy. It is obvious that some congressional corruption is evident here.

"The United States ranks near the bottom in life expectancy among wealthy nations despite spending more than twice as much person on health care than the industrialized world's average. Life expectancy at birth in the U.S. was 78.1 years in 2007, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That's a year less than the OECD average of 79.1, and puts the U.S. just ahead of the Czech Republic, Poland and Mexico, where spending on health care is many times less per person."

 —"Your country spent over $7000 per person while European countries spent under $3000. It appears to most people that you are not getting much bang for your buck. There is no question that insurance profits, your doctors' salaries, the salaries of others involved in the health field, the expenses of the doctors in submitting healthcare claims, and of course the high insurance costs for medical malpractice insurance which is, a large degree, the result of the extremely excessive number and function of your legal practitioners. All of this smacks of corruption since your consumers are being cheated quite often.

"Every issue has its advocates. During the health care debates, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies spent nearly $700,000 a day to influence your American national legislators. There were two and a half lobbyists per legislator.(24) But they weren't always on the same side. Both groups were against the 'public option' that would have brought a government insurance company in competition with the private insurers. But when it came to the issue of the length of time that new drugs could be protected by patents, the insurance companies backed the shorter period of five years but the big pharna companies wanted a twelve year limit. Since the newer biogenic drugs can cost $20,000 to $200,000 per patient per year you can understand the profit motive of the companies that develop the drugs. Groups representing unions and retired people naturally wanted lower costs. So we had the greed of self-centeredness versus the value to the people of the society. But then the question is how much does society need the old and the sick. Society needs big business more!"

 —"With all due respect Lee, you guys seem to spend far too much time chasing ambulances and suing doctors. In fact you seem to want to sue about anybody who can make you a profit. I have certainly been on the short side of legal battles because of fraudulent Worker's Compensation claims and fraudulent product liability suits. I wonder, do you lawyers take law classes in being greedy and learning how to cheat. You know as well as I do that we often settle a case just because we're afraid that the juries will decide on emotion rather than on what is right."

 —"I understand your concern Con, still some of us are honest. But you're right, law schools are turning out too many lawyers to 'people' the legal profession. That's why they have to go into Congress and run the country. And just look at how we have screwed up our democratic principles with the 'Citizens United' case. (25)"

 —"I don't know about that case Lee."

 —"Sorry Ray. It was such an important case that I thought everyone knew about it. It was one of those, all too common Supreme Court cases decided by a conservative majority of one. You probably know that when people incorporate a company it becomes its own person. The individuals that run the company can't be sued as individual citizens. Of course it can't vote like flesh and blood people can. In the 'Citizens' case, the guarantee of free speech rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution was not limited to us humans, the Supreme Court decided that free speech could include groups of people like unions and corporations. The issue that brought this case to the courts was a derogatory film about Hillary Clinton that was to be shown nationwide before the Democratic National Convention. Such an action was illegal according to a law passed by Congress. Essential parts of that law, along with parts of previously decided Supreme Court decisions, were re-evaluated. The decision, therefore, gave corporations and other groups from business and lobbies, as well as unions and other groups, permission to contribute funds to candidates and to work for or against any candidates. This naturally gives rich corporations and other business interests huge influence on who will be elected or defeated and which issues will be pushed hard in Congress. In a nationwide survey, voters of all parties opposed the decision by huge majorities—85% of Democrats and 75% of Republicans opposed the decision. But the corporations, being persons, were not polled. They would have undoubtedly approved of it!"

 —"I guess it was bound to happen. When capitalism is viewed as the preferred economic system and is indistinguishable from the American concept of democracy, it makes perfect sense that paper people are at least as important as flesh and blood people."

 —"I guess by 'paper people' you mean that incorporated companies are really just the products of the legal documents that define the corporation."

 —"Right, Ray. I can't imagine that Solon or Aristotle could ever have imagined that businesses could ever be people. Can you imagine a shipping company in ancient Athens buying up votes for the sentencing or exonerating of Socrates?"

 —"Or the sword makers hiring lobbyists to advocate for the Peloponnesian War? I guess this is why you guys call me a reactionary. I think we have let big business take our democratic republic too far in the wrong direction. I was really disappointed when a court I approved of, with six Catholic justices, instead of being strict constructionists, became activists. We Republicans fought the activism of Democratic judges, then our own appointees did the same thing!"

GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION

 —"A few years ago a Congressional ethics committee began scrutinizing the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and some of their aides. Both Democratic and Republican legislators have been caught in the ethical snare. Because most legislators are sinners, few dare to caste the first stone. The reality of expensive elections makes it nearly mandatory that legislators will get in bed with some moneyed interests. How many beds they jump into, and how long they stay and snuggle, often determines whether they will be 'outed.'

"But if enterprising journalists sniff pollution where purity should be the standard, the 'pure of heart' lawmakers may, like the Medieval knights reluctantly mount the steeds of vigilance, pick up their lances of honest fury and enter the tournament—knowing that those still unindicted will, like the pages of _olde_ , carry their weapons and cheer for their cause.

"The way our democratic republic has evolved, any student of politics can see that to be in the position to make laws you probably had to break a few on your way to the top.

"When members of the Appropriations Committee are given large campaign contributions or expensive vacations, you can assume that Santa Claus was not the donor and that large strings were attached to lobbyists' purses."

 —"You think you have it bad! Corruption is far worse in Africa or Asia. You may have to bribe someone to get a driver's license, a hospital bed, a building permit or just about any other area that a government or business controls. And those corrupt bureaucrats are seldom punished, although the chief of South Africa's police was recently given a 15 year prison sentence for accepting bribes. About the same time 10% of Mexico's national police force, about 3.000 men, were dismissed from the force for corruption."

 —"I guess it can be expected with our nearly universal selfishness and our nearly universal poverty. But I can see how it fits in with Maslow's hierarchy. The extra money helps you to buy food and shelter, and if you have those, you can buy esteem with a faster car or a bigger house. And the greed of one generation may be forgotten in the next. The Kennedy family is reputed to have gained its money by their father running whiskey to the states from Canada during prohibition.

"But Dr. Singh, how can I use this idea of greed in my quest for reducing population or licensing parents?"

 —"Well, money is used to increase or decrease the desirability of parenthood. France wants more children so they give tax breaks to parents. Singapore gives thousands of dollars for having extra children. China taxes them. If you tax things that children need like food and clothes you may reduce the desire of some people to have children. The same is true if you reduce tax breaks for them or to even tax them highly. In the poorer areas of the world paying men to have vasectomies or paying women to have their tubes tied or an IUD inserted might work. You may remember that this is being tried in Indus."

CORRUPTION IN EDUCATION

 -"We might hope that the sanctity of our education systems would preclude their being besmirched by bribery. But no! In France recently professors were paid to give grades to rich students. The same thing happened in America and probably many other countries. Grade inflation has been around for a number of years. Many years ago the standard was about 5% of the students would get As, 15% would get Bs, and 60% Cs. But in many top universities the bar has been raised to a total of 50% of As and Bs. No one wants to be average."

 \--"In academics there has been corruption in many countries when students or teachers can buy term papers, masters theses, doctoral dissertations, or even research papers to be published in academic journals--even peer reviewed journals. The commercial selling of term papers has been common in the United States and Canada for many years. More recently it has been found in China. The Chinese seem to take this corruption much more seriously than their neighbors across the Pacific.(26)

"In the Czech Republic people were buying law degrees. Two deans were fired for giving law degrees to people who had not attended school. It was not known how many had actually conducted legal cases and who may have been hurt by their incompetence. It seems that some people are always looking for the easy way, so corruption is a natural result of the dishonesty and laziness of so many self-centered people."

 —"Don't forget corruption in sports. From the famous Black Sox scandal in American baseball, to the point shaving in college basketball, to the sumo and cricket scandals back in 2010—our supposedly pure sports have been challenged by the gamblers. You would think that today with so many highly paid athletes that money wouldn't tempt them. But it seems that in athletics, as other fields of life, the more money you have the more you seem to want.

 —"True, but let's get on with some more mental techniques.

OTHER MENTAL TECHNIQUES-- VERBAL AND NON-VERBAL PLOYS

"As you know, communication can be both verbal and non-verbal. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. It has also been said that non-verbal communication by a person may indicate 90% of what that person wants to communicate. For example folding one's arms may indicate that the person is shutting you out and not hearing you. Raising your voice may give emphasis to your words.

"Imagine what message your three month old infant might understand if you yelled 'I love you baby'. Or you might coo softly into her ear that 'You are the ugliest baby I have ever seen.' Since the baby doesn't yet understand the meaning of your words, your whole message would have been understood by the non-verbal, the non-word message. So the softly cooed insult would have been positively understood but the loud compliment would have been understood negatively.

"Since verbal communication is found in speeches and writing, the wise person must be able to separate the truth from the verbal message. George Bush seemed sincere in his television debates against John Kerry and Al Gore but we know now that he was often lying about the threats to the country. His demeanor seemed to portray honesty but his words lacked truth.

"It has been said that 'Eloquence presents a danger to the democratic state.' In order to move people to action, the eloquence of a politician, from Pericles to Reagan and Obama, has been dwarfed by the manipulation by the media of the masses through highly advanced political techniques. How else could George W. Bush have won over Al Gore in the U.S. election of 2000. It wasn't his experience or his oratory, but his puppeteers, his brother and the appointed conservative Republicans on the Supreme Court.

"There is always a cause or a belief that a leader, or would-be leader, can call upon to rile up the masses. 'The US is the greatest country,' 'France is the greatest country,' 'Norway is the greatest country,' et cetera. Depending on whether you are talking to the Americans, the French, or the Norwegians, somebody's going to strongly agree with you.

"Rulers traditionally put their pictures throughout their lands to show that they are wise, powerful, just, warriors, or that they are extremely popular. The Russian Communists had likenesses of Lenin or Stalin everywhere. American presidents have their photographs in every federal building.

"As an orator there is always a cause for the problem you are trying to explain or solve. The earthquake was caused by shifting tectonic plates. Or it happened because the gods were angry. Which idea would seismologists be likely to believe, which would a primitive people believe? The calamity was the will of God, Allah, the evil spirits, or the result of my not purifying myself properly after menstruation. People seldom have the ability to think rationally. They react. They follow tradition. They take the non-thinking path. It is common for Christians to 'prove' their points by quoting the Bible. This gives a circular argument. 'Who inspired the Bible? God. How do you know? Because it says so in the Bible.'

"People believe what they think they have seen—a magician drawing a coin from a child's ear or pulling a rabbit out of a hat. By words and actions we can manipulate people.

LYING OR HIDING INFORMATION

"As I mentioned, erroneous information can come from people rationalizing, when they think they are telling the truth--by giving a reason for why they've done something. But people can outright lie—knowing that what they are saying is not true. Lying or hiding information are commonly used political techniques. A child may say 'I didn't do it' when in fact she did. Some years ago when Israeli gunboats attacked six boats bringing supplies to the people of Gaza, they killed several people. The attack happened in international waters. The Israeli prime minister immediately said that the boats were carrying ammunition for the people of Gaza. He said that Israel had no problem with people bringing in food and medical supplies. Was he lying or telling the truth? Was he hiding any information?"

 —"In California we expect that people will lie in court. Swearing to tell the truth while holding a Bible doesn't guarantee that a word of the testimony is true. It's up to the other side to disprove what was said. I guess we get so use to people protecting their egos and trying to get their self-centered desires fulfilled that we seem to take it as a matter of course. I see so much untruth in the utterings of presidents, politicians and the other run-of-the-mill people. I see other attorneys chasing ambulances and trying to screw the insurance companies with ungodly high claims. They send their clients to doctors and chiropractors for months to increase the bills for the injury. While making fraudulent claims as individuals is one thing, the big money is in the lies of politicians about what they're going to do for us, but they never seem to tell us how they're going to pay for it."

 —"I know what you mean, Lee. In America we Republicans campaign for having lower taxes. The Democrats say they will tax to pay for their programs. Of course the Republicans have to find money for their pet programs--like wars and tax cuts, foreign aid and farm subsidies. The alternative is to borrow from other countries or from people who can afford to lend money. Or, the country can just print more money, but that leads to inflation so people will pay more for the goods they purchase. It's just another form of tax. So both sides seem to lie to us."

 —"The Republican borrowers don't tell you that the value of your money will drop, so you will pay more for foreign natural resources like oil or gold and for farmed or manufactured things like food, clothing and autos. They don't tell you that they are saddling your children with debt. They don't tell you that a high proportion of your taxes goes to pay the interest on the debts. So since your taxes aren't paying for the current programs, they are paying for past programs, and every year they pay more interest for the programs that had already been completed. On the plus side, if they ever do pay off the debts, they do it with dollars that are worth less than the ones they borrowed. I think that lying and concealing the truth is what politicians and lawyers do best. And come to think of it, most of our politicians are lawyers."

 —"People often say things that are untrue. Some untrue things can be honestly believed to be true because people learned it from some authority. Some people know they are lying when they say they are telling the truth. Like when Robert Mugabe blamed the USA and the UK for undermining the Zimbabwean economy. Then when a cholera epidemic killed many people, first he denied it, then he blamed the British for poisoning the water.

"In the 2006 elections in the U.S. the Republican president told the Internal Revenue Service to delay collecting taxes in the area hit by Hurricane Katrina, until after the election. It would have turned away more voters and the party was already losing many voters because of the Iraq war and the scandals of the party members in the government. "When Dr. Julie Gerberding, the director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, spoke to a Senate environment committee on global warming, ten pages of the original 14 page draft she had submitted to the administration had been redlined. The White House had had lawyers rewrite what the scientists had found to be true. So the Senators didn't get anywhere near a clear picture of the problems of global warming. So while the Center for Disease Control saw climate change as a major challenge to our health, the politically appointed administrative bosses didn't want that information available to the Congress. So one branch of government was lying to another. Serious scientists complained that the Bush administration continued to pressure them to emphasize any uncertainties in the threat of global warming. But the White House maintained that it was only trying to present a balanced view of the problem."

 —"How do you present a balanced view of the seesaw when on one end you have an NFL 300 pound lineman and on the other end there is a five-year old child. There's no way they're going to balance."

 \--"Good point Lee. But the chair of the committee, Senator Boxer, found a CDC chart that listed a number of health problems that could occur with significant rises in temperature and the oceans. She found the CDC report listed injuries and deaths from the increased risk of hurricanes, more respiratory problems from pollution, an increase in waterborne diseases, and a number of other health risks that could or would come with warming."

 —"There's no question that people commonly try to shift the blame to somebody else. Whether it's a husband blaming a wife or a wife blaming a husband, teachers blame students and students blame teachers for poor grades. Naturally legislators cannot be blamed for too many children being born or too many people driving cars. Blame somebody else."

 —"The French politician and minister, Tallyrand, said that 'Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts.'"

 —"I guess that is why in election years new candidates want us to elect them to get rid of the liars we elected in the last election."

 —"Right! The politician's promises of yesterday are the taxes of today. But back to lying in family settings. The wife of a friend of mine didn't come home one night. The next morning she told her husband that she had slept over at a friend's house. The man called his wife's 10 best friends. None of them knew anything about it. A few weeks later he didn't come home until morning. He told his wife that he had slept over at a friend's house. The woman called her husband's ten best friends. Eight confirmed that he had slept over, and two said he was still there."

 —"Let's get serious. Lying is a huge problem. It is a major problem in any society, business or family where it is present.

"I'm a conservative, but I like to think I am one of the intelligent ones. I was really embarrassed some years ago after Barack Obama was elected president. There were so many lies from the supposedly conservative media. There was the lie saying he wasn't born in the U.S. although he had a birth certificate from Hawaii and the Honolulu newspaper announced his birth at the time. Then there was the one saying that he was a Muslim. There was absolutely no evidence of it, in fact the evidence was that he was a Christian. As evidence he was a Muslim, photos showed him visiting a mosque in Istanbul on his state visit there. Of course the building was not a mosque and had been a museum for 75 years. Absolutely ridiculous claims, but some people bought into them. I wonder if they got more political mileage from their ridiculous claims or whether they drove more people away from the party. It certainly pushed me away from that 'far right' fringe.

"Before seeing Obama's speech to school children at the start of the school year commentators railed about how he was trying to make school children non-thinking zombies working to enact his socialist agenda. They worked to get parents to keep their children away from hearing the televised speech and many tried to pressure the schools to not show the speech, When the speech was published the president merely told students to study hard and stay in school. What a subversive message!

"Another big lie popularized by the far right tongues was the idea that there would be death panels that would determine when old and disabled people would be forced to die. There was nothing in any proposal that could remotely be connected with such a possibility. The anti-Obama commentators continually called him a fascist and a socialist. The two ideas are nearly opposites with socialism seeking a more equalitarian economic system, either paying people for how hard they worked, as Karl Marx suggested, or having the state own the major means of production, like: steel companies, utilities, airlines, and possibly banks, then spreading the wealth around. While fascism is a strong centralized government, often racist, that keeps power at the top. Obviously Obama was not advocating power at the bottom and power at the top."

 —"The political question is whether these lies by the opposition will make their followers stronger in their beliefs and even bring them more followers, or whether they will turn more people in the other political direction because of the lack of logic and truthfulness. This happened in the American primaries when Hillary Clinton sometimes lapsed into stupid political ploys and some of her supporters left for the Obama camp. Then it happened in the national election when John McCain or Sarah Palin stooped to untrue political innuendos and more people moved to the Obama camp as he stayed the higher course. It restored my faith in the intelligence of some Americans."

 —"It bothers me more when the government lies to us. When the Center for Disease Control announced that circumcision reduced the risk of AIDS, President Obama made no announcement about the findings, but the far right commentators cried out that he was trying to 'mess with their penises.' So a medical announcement by researchers became a negative for the government. It is lucky that Obama wasn't in office when aspirin was found to reduce heart disease and stroke. Or many aspirin taking reactionaries would be dead now?

"Remember when a stripper accused the Duke University La Crosse team of raping her The district attorney, in looking to get a conviction, kept crucial evidence from the defense attorneys. The evidence showed that there was no DNA on the garments of the stripper from the lacrosse team members. The DNA recovered was not related to any of those players."

 —"I've told you about my dad's case in California were the state's lawyers lied to the judge about the laws that applied to his case and about the amount of money the retirement system had in its coffers. Then before his case went to the appellate level retirement system had the laws changed to back up their position. Then after his case had gone to the highest level the judicial system they changed the laws back. The new laws even made the retirement system more generous than what he had asked for. So he left the country for a country that used Napoleonic law which was based on statutes not on manipulating the system through lies and subterfuge."

 —"Seems to me that often people who want power just make up ridiculous claims. Some years ago in northern Nigeria, some imams promoted a boycott of polio vaccinations, claiming they were a Western plot to make Muslims infertile or infect them with AIDS. The result was a number of newly crippled children. The next year the number doubled and there was a threat that was spread to neighboring countries.Then after another tripling of cases an anti-polio push got under way. Some Muslim clerics even joined health officials in advocating vaccinations. Some clerics continued to call for a boycott of vaccinations, but the wiser heads were making great strides in fighting the ignorance of the vociferous power driven clerics."

 —"I am reminded of what Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote, that 'People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.'"

 —"that reminds me what Mencken said 'The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.'"

STATISTICS

 \--"But let's talk about statistics a bit. Oftentimes people make up statistics based on a guess, possibly an educated guess, as a way to bolster their political goals."

 \- "I remember some years ago it was said that the cultivation of marijuana was California's largest cash crop, and by legalizing it and taxing it the state could earn a billion dollars a year. But when you are estimating the extent of an illegal activity that leaves no cash trail, your guesses are open to huge errors."

 \- "I remember, Con. The figure was picked up by several major media companies and was featured in newspapers and TV news programs. As I remember it was reported that the $14 billion of marijuana production fed into the nation's $100 billion dollar THC appetite. That $100 billion was another big guess. I think that many of the figures came from people connected with NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

"I handled the defense of a drug seller some time ago and used some of the figures bandied about, like the scare number put out by the anti-drug, anti-sex Bush administration. They said that 10,000 metric tons of the weed were produced every year in the state. But the administration's Federal Drug Administration, which was really the authority in the area, had estimated only a third of that amount. Where was the truth?

"Is truth only in the eye of the beholder? A few years later the Justice Department decided that the estimates were between 55 and 95 metric tons produced in the state. That's a pretty big gap. Are the estimating experts really just guessing based on the political goals of their superiors? If we used such 'guesstimates' of the national debt it would be somewhere between 8 and 800 trillion dollars. If we used it in astronomy we could say that the distance from the Earth to the sun is between 75 and 7500 million kilometers. Not really sufficiently exact to draw any concrete conclusions."

THE LIES OF CLIMATE CHANGE DENIERS

  "For years the Global Climate Coalition, a group of auto, coal and oil companies, had ignored the findings of their own employed scientists relative to the reality of global warming. Their lobbying efforts emphasized that 'scientists differ' on the effects of greenhouse gasses, even though few, if any, climatologists disagreed that global warming existed. They lobbied that 'the effect of greenhouse gases is not understood' but scientists who studied the phenomenon, including their own scientists, knew what had been known for years—that greenhouse gases led to global warming. The coalition's lobbying budget for the year of the Kyoto Protocol was $1.7 million. That could, and did, sway many votes, including that of our federal administration. The propaganda also influenced radio and television commentators—whose scientific knowledge was dependent on the loudest and best financed lobbyists.

"Exxon Mobil alone spent  $7.2 million on lobbying against the existence of global warming in just three months--more than the total of the entire alternative energy sector and all the environmental organizations. These efforts buy many legislative votes from those who take the lobbyists' money. One Republican senator, while admitting that the planet 'is in peril' still backed a Republican delaying tactic to further investigate the climate research.

"It didn't matter that the Arctic sea ice was melting at a faster rate than ever in the summer and re-froze slower than ever in the fall.(27) It didn't matter that U.S. record high temperatures this decade have occurred more than twice as often as record lows. (28)."

OTHER TYPES OF UNTRUTHS

 \--"Sometimes the lies are intended. Sometimes people just spout 'untruths' that reinforce what they hope to be true. The climate skeptics of the early part of this century were examples. They would find one scientist who doubted the work of the 97% who held that the climate was changing and that humans had a lot to do with it. The skeptics would cite their one or two 'experts' then use other political techniques like calling the people who disagreed with them 'dupes of the liberals' or other types of disparaging remarks.

"Shifting the blame is another way of lying. Sometimes it is done as a way of rationalizing one's failures. In this case it is less conscious. But in a political situation it is outright lying, and the liar knows it. Shifting or focusing blame on somebody else is common. Husbands blame wives and wives blame husbands for their marital problems. Teachers blame students and students blame teachers for poor grades. Naturally legislators cannot be blamed for too many children being born or too many people driving cars. Blame somebody else.

PREPARING TO FIGHT THE LIES

"Commander you will definitely be an object for negative political thrusts. You can expect a number of lies, innuendos and propaganda ploys. I would expect that you will be accused of advocating genocide and Nazi eugenics. You can certainly expect lies and other distortions of facts from conservative religions, from businesses, and from self-centered individuals who can't see the devastation to our planet that their selfish actions are causing. So you have to be ready."

 —"It reminds me of the problems that John McCain had in 2000 in South Carolina. There were e-mails and automated phone calls that criticized him for his divorce of the woman who raised his children while he was in a Vietnam prison. Other calls came from a group that ostensibly was made up of veterans who said that he had sold out other prisoners to save himself. Then there were the calls that said he had voted to use unborn babies for research. In 2000 he was not prepared to respond effectively to these charges. However in 2008 he was ready. He responded quickly to the baseless charges that his wife Cindy was a drug addict and that his daughter Bridget was a black child that he had fathered. By 2008 he had the truth squad in place with many important South Carolina citizens manning the fort. He had an early warning system in place and was ready to respond to whatever lies his Republican opponents could launch."

 —"Commander, you know that your quest is noble and that is essential for the survival of humanity. But I'm hoping that with our discussion of politics you realize that no matter how noble your cause, you must be able to be a wise politician in order to get your message across and to obtain the active support of important movers and shakers in the world who can make it happen.

PROPAGANDA—COLORING THE FACTS

"Propaganda is a common political technique, It is the systematic propagation or preaching of a doctrine or a cause with information that may or may not be true, or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause. Ray, your church once had a major division called 'Propaganda fide' didn't it?"

 —"Yes. It was called the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, but it has been renamed."

 —"I see. I assume they are like any other group trying to convince others without a total deference to facts and logic. Fear is often used as a propaganda motivator. Sometimes it is an appeal to honor. In fact most of the mental political techniques we have discussed can be woven into the propagandist's shroud.

"As I just mentioned, propaganda is a systematic attempt to get a viewpoint across. Some of the lies we just mentioned were part of a propaganda program, but not all lies are propaganda. If I tell a young lady that I'm the Prince of Denmark, it is a lie designed to get my political objective satisfied, whether that be marrying her or getting a job in her company. If the student tells the teacher that his dog ate his homework, it is a lie with a political objective. But neither could be considered to be a part of a propaganda program to systematically convince the young lady or the teacher of some major goal.

"In a real propaganda crusade one might use scientific, ethical, or spiritual ideas or methods to get one's viewpoint across.

USING SCIENCE TO MANIPULATE PEOPLE'S THOUGHTS.

"As an example, the number of enemies killed per American soldier went up from World War I to World War II to Korea to Vietnam to Iraq-- as psychologists perfected the art of propaganda. In World War II the Japanese were 'yellow bellied slant eyed devils' who would unhesitatingly crash their kamikaze planes into American ships killing many of 'our boys.' Germans were a goose stepping heartless machine. So killing one of them was not really killing a person. Our psychologists did not mention that the German and Japanese soldiers love their mothers or were drafted into the Army against the wills. They were all merely killing machines and if you don't get them first they will get you. Then in Korea there were the Mongol hordes of communists attempting to take over the world. Then in Vietnam every Vietnamese was a potential Communist bomb carrier and needed to be killed. In Iraq once soldiers got over the fact that the reasons for the war were to save the free world from the weapons of mass destruction and to free the country for democracy, the inhumane carnage of the Islamic radicals from both inside and outside of Iraq gave plenty of reasons to shoot to kill any potential or future enemy.

"Propaganda can include rewriting history or keeping important scientific discoveries silent. For years the Soviet government allowed only the teaching and publication of agricultural biology by Trofin Lysenko which was not based on science. He believed that environmentally acquired intelligence could be passed on through the genes. Stalin gave him a position in which he could discipline scientists who disagreed with him. He singlehandedly set back Soviet genetics by about 30 years. So political leaders had set back genetic science, that had been advanced prior to Lysenko's political appointment. But as Lenin said 'A lie told often enough becomes the truth.' And so it is with propaganda."

GOVERNMENT LIES AND PROPAGANDA

 —'Governments and leaders can lie or withhold information and use the information, or lack of it, to start a war. They can intimidate people who oppose their policies. In Iran in 2009 the government executed protesters which intimidated many of the others who might have demonstrated against it. When the government leads us to war it may call those in opposition traitors. When it wants to have the populace behind it it can manufacture evidence. George Bush's government became renowned for using false evidence to support its wars and its tax proposals.

"We, the people, don't have ultimate knowledge. Was Helen really abducted by Paris to start the Trojan war? Did Saddam really have weapons of mass destruction? Did Roosevelt really know about the planned Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor? Were the Taliban really responsible for hiding bin Laden and aiding the Twin Towers attack?"

 —"We know that the Bush administration lied about Saddam's supposed weapons of mass destruction. But when we go back a few thousand years and look at supposed historical facts to develop a body of thought or a religion we can have some questions. Look at the Trojan War. Did Paris or Helen or Achilles or Odysseus really exist? And how many believers in the god of the Mideast would have believed all of the involvements of Aphrodite and Zeus and the other gods in the war-- and the events that led up to it. But we can't deny that their appearance in Homer's Iliad make it one of the major classics of literature. We know that Troy existed, and Homer's epic has pointed archeologists to many realities of the culture of the time. So the tome is laced with truth—but how can we know what is truth and what is myth, or outright lies?

"When George Bush said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, was he echoing what the CIA told him, in opposition to what the international nuclear inspectors told him? Was he lying because he wanted to attack Iraq to avenge his father's mistake of not taking the country during the Gulf War? Did he want Iraq's oil? When Colin Powell went before the United Nations and told them that there was proof that the Iraqi's had weapons of mass destruction, people believed him because of his impeccable reputation. He must have believed it. Where did he get his information? In actuality the administration officials had lied to him even though he was the Secretary of State."

 —"When someone tells you that sugar causes hyperactivity in children, where did they get their information? Scientific studies don't bear it out. When talk radio hosts said that Barack Obama was a Muslim, they spoke from authority, and a political bias, but they were wrong."

 \--"We went into the idea of rationalizations with Chuck Chan. As you remember, people want to have reasons for their beliefs and behavior. If you are 100% psychologically normal you may be able to see the real reasons for your problem. 'I failed the test because I didn't study.' The person who says 'I failed the test because the teacher doesn't like me', is much more likely to be rationalizing."

 —"America's 700 billion bailout bill for financial institutions carried an additional billion and a half for other important projects, like: tax breaks for motor sport facilities, tax breaks for doing more movie filming in depressed areas, and tax breaks for importing rum from Puerto Rico. An ailing society certainly needs more alcohol while it watches auto racing or films.

"And look at how the Taliban recruit, they tell the young men that the battle is between God and Satan. Who would you side with? Whether it's lies or propaganda, people and nations want to protect themselves from being wrong. In Iraq if Americans killed 20 innocent Iraqis, or some innocents and some insurgents, it was chastised internationally. If the Sunnis killed just as many Shi'ites in cold blood—that was just the way things were. Two equally evil incidents were seen differently and criticized differently."

 —"Can you have democracy when the electorate is not informed or is misinformed? Look at how long and often we've been lied to. Lyndon Johnson did it with his misinformation about Vietnam. Nixon did it when he removed energy and food prices from the consumer price index to make it appear that there really wasn't inflation. Clinton fiddled with the unemployment statistics by redefining what constituted a job. If someone worked for only one day he was seen as being employed for the month. And if it was the job, taken only for a day, it was counted as a new job created by the economy. As people have often said, 'there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.' How do we know that we're not being fed damned lies?

"When people get their news and knowledge from loud seemingly authoritative voices without creditable scientific facts, a great many votes are cast from ignorance. And democracy has spoken! When reactionary Republicans get their opinions from a radio pundit like Speedy Limberger or young liberals get theirs from comedic television news spoofs, an informed electorate is more difficult to establish.

SILENCING THE EVIDENCE

"The George W. Bush government silenced, or watered down, essential global warming information from NASA's climate laboratories. Information released was required to be submitted and changed by the White House lawyers. So lawyers censored or rewrote the reports of the best environmental scientists in the world. As a contrast, the previous Clinton administration wanted the alarming findings to be reported in an even more alarming way."

 —"In our country the political reactionaries often use fear to try to elect the candidates who were seen as the most Christian, the most fiscally conservative and the most oppressive to minorities. The 'Moral Majority' which was not a majority and to my mind was far from being moral, and later the 'Focus on the Family Action' group spilled hate and lies from their Christian propaganda podiums.

"If 'honesty' is a desirable element in families, perhaps they might consider practicing what they preach! If positive 'hope' points in a worthwhile direction, their 'Letter from 2012 in Obama's America', written in 2008, countered any positive hope that might have been socially healthy. Their letter warned of terrorist strikes on four American cities, of Russia rolling into Eastern Europe, of Israel being hit by a nuclear bomb, of gay marriage in every state, and of the end of the Boy Scouts. All of these were promised if Obama were elected president.

"They wanted more money for religious causes, more tax breaks for churches and a platform against abortion. These were essentials. Marriage is to be between one man and one woman—King Solomon not withstanding. And Jesus's idea of 'rendering unto Caesar', is passé because the best of all possible worlds is when my God directs society from his throne—in Washington."

FEAR PROPAGANDA

 \--"It is common in some democracies to use fear in the last part of a political campaign. I have noticed in your last few elections that your evangelical Christians have been especially prone to using theologically based sorts of fear propaganda. It is always easiest to predict doom and gloom and scare as many people as possible away from your opposition."

 -"In the 2008 election Charisma magazine, a Pentecostal publication, titled one of its weekly e-mails to readers, 'Life As We Know It Will End If Obama is Elected.' Then the editor wrote that 'gay rights and abortion rights would be strengthened in an Obama administration, the taxes would rise and 'people who hate Christianity will be emboldened to attack our freedoms.'"

 \--"Although hard-edge attacks are common late in campaigns, the tenor of the strikes against Obama illustrated just how worried conservative Christian activists were about what could happen to their causes and influence if the Democrats seized control of both the Congress and the White House.

"About the same time the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission posted a series of defaming videos on its site and on YouTube called '7 Reasons Barack Obama is not a Christian.' The commission accused Obama of 'subtle diabolical deceit' in saying he is Christian, while he believes that people can be saved through other faiths. It certainly puzzles me how any Christian could possibly believe that a non-Christian could ever enter Paradise!

"Then they said that nationalized health care would mean long lines for surgery and no access to hospitals for people over 80. We might assume that it was the poor who were sneaking into those lines for surgery, making the lines longer. I would think that the poor should postpone their health needs because they were going to be the first to get into heaven, according to Jesus's Sermon on the Mount. The rich should get their preferential health treatment, probably including extensive liposuction, before they would be able to navigate through that eye of a needle that Jesus said would be so difficult to do--on their way to that great hospital in the sky."

USING THE MEDIA

 \--"With the worldwide availability of the Internet it is simple to get your message across if you have a website that is easily recognized and well known. Al Qaeda had a strong online voice in Al Jazeera. Then the Al Jazeera broadcasts were picked up by most major news services and re-broadcast.

"Commander, I think you will have a pretty good platform from which to deliver your message. You can only hope that the message is sufficiently popular that it will be aired throughout the world. But since reducing population is against the interests of most businesses, several religions, and some governments, their sponsorship of so many Internet sites, radio and TV broadcasts, and public appearances, may reduce your audience.

"You may remember that in 2005, al-Qaeda's propaganda machine was seriously ailing. Al-Jazeera, the terrorist group's channel of choice, had stopped airing al-Qaeda videos in their entirety. Many bin Laden followers complained that Al Jazeera was distorting bin Laden's speeches by editing them and taking some things out of context. This could happen to you.

"It didn't take long for al-Qaeda supporters to design a new propaganda network to distribute their messages, along with those of the Taliban and other terrorist groups, to the appropriate web pages around the world. Their web pages in Arabic were subtitled in English and a number of other languages. This is another technique you should think about using.

"In developing propaganda, truth is not the issue. The goal is to have people believe what you say, then hope they are willing to pick up their plowshares and follow you. We remember in Iraq when a land mine blew up an American vehicle and killed an American soldier. His company of Marines got very upset and invaded some Iraqi homes and killed 24 Iraqis. This became big news in the world and a major propaganda topic. The fact that at about the same time 6000 Iraqis were killed by other Iraqis was not important as a political propaganda tool."

 —"I had a friend who was a civilian journalist who was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan. His conversations with his captors were dominated by their belief that America was waging a war against Islam. Their propaganda sources had imbued them with contradictions that pervaded their beliefs and actions. While they held him, who was innocent, captive they complained about the innocent Muslims being held at Guantanamo. They complained about the US killing civilians, while their suicide bombers and their troops killed hundreds of innocent Muslims. They were upset by Christian missionaries, while they tried hard to convert him to Islam.

"I know I'll be hit with a great deal of negative propaganda. I guess that I had better be ready to confront it."

SORTING THROUGH THE PROPAGANDA

 \---"You can't do it alone. There are so many ways that propaganda can be developed and disseminated. Propaganda comes from many sources that should be trustworthy, but aren't--such as the government and the so-called 'think tanks' that attempt to validate positions that they are often paid to publicize. The libertarian Cato Institute, for example, advocates reducing cigarette taxes and is partially funded by the Philip Morris Company. It is skeptical to the human causes of global warming, and one of their prime climate researchers, Dr. Pat Michaels, is funded 40% by the oil industry(29) and by a number of pro-business and oil-industry financed foundations, like the Ford, Koch, Bradley and Castle Rock foundations. It is for the legalization of marijuana and is funded by the Marijuana Policy Project. Fighting the idea that the world has a human overpopulation problem is another one of their programs. This, of course, is in the interest of their large corporate backers.

"Even as a businessman, I was appalled by their slanting of facts. I remember reading a 1995 article by one of their senior editors.(30) There was a mixture of truths, half truths and logical fallacies backed up by references. For example it made a big point of the idea that overpopulation was fueled mainly by increased life spans. While that was certainly a factor, it was not the whole story.

"For example, if we take three years and compare them we find some different and sometimes startling conclusions. I'll take 1995, the year of the article, 2005, the year I first became very interested in the problem of overpopulation, and this year, 2025. The birth rate per 1000 people decreased from 25 to 21 to 16. That sounds positive. The deaths per 1000 people reduced from 9 to 8.6 to 8.3. This backs up what the article said. But the world's population increased from 5.7 to 6.5 to 8 billion. Why, because there were many more people, even if they were having fewer babies each.

"But that's only part of the story. The number of people per square kilometer of land increased from 48 to 52 to 59. But the key issue is not how much total land there is, but how much is arable—how much can be farmed. Some arable land is used for grazing and some is forest or jungle. The CIA estimates that only 10.5% of the Earth's land is arable. Some estimate it to be twice that amount. So in 1995 there would have been 6.4 acres of the Earth's total land per person. If 20% were arable, each person's share would be 1.3 acres, if 10% were arable, 0.65 acres. In 2005 It was 5.6 acres per person. If 20% were arable each person would have 1.16 acres, if 10% were arable each would have 0.6 acres for farming. forests and foraging areas for animals. Naturally the arable land isn't distributed equally. In 2005 the U.S. had 2 acres per person, nearly twice the world's average. Today in 2025 with 8 billion people, each person has four and a half acres of total land. If we use the 20% figure for arable land each person will have slightly less than an acre. If we use the 10% figure for arable land it is under a half-acre. This is about the same as Norway's arable land per person, because most of Norway's land is mountainous, rocky and under snow and ice much of the year. And the growing season is not a full year because of the harsh winters.

"Then remember that an acre or half acre per person is reduced as the soil erodes, as houses and factories are built on it and as roads and highways are built on land that is arable."

 —"But non-arable land can sometimes be made arable. Israel did it by desalinizing the sea water and fertilizing the desert area. In the islands off the coast of Ireland seaweed and sand have been used to make the rocky areas arable."

 —"True, but arable land is also disappearing as water sources dry up. The Sahara Desert has been advancing southward for decades, making previously arable land into desert. Winds can whip away topsoil, as can floods. In fact arable land is being lost at the rate of over 38,000 square miles per year. If we assume that every person had one acre of arable land, then every year over 25 million people would lose their land. A minute ago, when I was figuring how many acres each person could have each year, I assumed the same amount of arable land that was available in 1995. This lack of arable land, adequate fresh water, and fertilizer leads to the fact that one in six people in the world are hungry and 16,000 children die daily from hunger related diseases.

"So there seems to be more people than can be supported by the available land and technology. But probably the major criticism of those who say we have no overpopulation problem is that they never define what is an ideal planetary maximum population. And as we indicated earlier, that number is between one and two billion people—if people are to live at the standard of the US and Europe. An ideal population is probably much less, but that is far too few for the businessmen running Exxon and Philip Morris!

But back to the criticisms of the Cato propaganda article. It said that population growth is based on life expectancy. And that, he wrote, 'is progress.' The author never mentions the need for longer working lives for those who are living. He wrote that 'The growth in human population has been more than met by increases in the production of food and other resources, including energy. Famine in the 20th century is a political rather than an ecological phenomenon. We are not running out of resources, and real prices of raw materials are lower than ever before.' But that was either a lie or he was uninformed. Looking at the price of food the records indicate that the various categories of food, such as beef, chicken, fruits and vegetables, eggs, et cetera were rising at rates of 4 to 13% per year. (31)

"The Cato guy then wrote that 'countries are not poor because their populations are growing. England, United States, Hong Kong, and others became rich during unprecedented growth in population. The most densely populated nations are among the richest. What the poor nations suffer from is not too much population but too much government. If the developing world evolves into a liberal market order, it will find that it can have both reproductive freedom and prosperity. People are not problems; they're problem solvers.' Here he states some truths but doesn't look at other factors which would make his truthful statements highly suspect. For example, the most densely populated area is Macau. Monaco, Singapore, Hong Kong, Gibraltar, and Vatican City are all near the top in population density. Obviously none of these grow their own food. They are special interest communities for business or religion. Not too far down the list we find Bangladesh, Uganda and India. These are countries that try to grow their own food but are having big problems because of overpopulation. So while there are some truths in the Cato article they clearly missed the point of overall truth. As we have said 'a text taken out of its context is a pretext.' And the Cato statements are definitely pretextual.

"The criticisms of these opinions of his are obvious. But in due fairness to the author, climate change was not a major issue in 1995. However since that time the institute has been a major skeptic of the theory that the planet is warming. Sheldon mentioned the 'horrors' of the Chinese population reduction programs. But as Wreck told us, the 400 million fewer births in China was a major factor in their economic success.

"Sheldon's statement that limited government is the key to success does not seem to be true when we look at Singapore and China whose economic success has been unparalleled. They both have strong planning by the central governments.

"Sheldon then went on to say that famine is reducing, poverty is reducing, and environmental degradation and resource depletion are lessening. Then he wrote that the people who believe in overpopulation are not supported by the evidence. He was not only wrong in absolute terms but also to the number of people in poverty, he didn't cite any evidence for his own claims, but evidence to the contrary certainly exists. Just look at what happened in the decade after Sheldon's testimony.

"The World Bank stated that in the decade of 1995 to 2005 poverty increased except in China. (32) And I might note that China was reducing its population during this time.

"Each year in the world there are about 2 million more people who are chronically malnourished. Part of this is due to climatic phenomena which damaged harvests or to farmers producing biofuels rather than food. Another factor was the increased number of young people which brought a change to the minimal amount of food needed. While the percentage of malnourished people had fallen by 1% it did not enough to make up for the increase in population. So the actual number of starving and malnourished people was increasing.

"The number of countries facing food shortages had passed the 40 mark by 1998 it had been predicted that in 2005 more than 50% of the world's population would be living in cities and food insecurity would become an increasing problem.(33) In fact, by 2010 the number of malnourished people in the world hit one billion people, about a sixth of the world's population.

"But it's not just the Third World that experiences hunger. In the United States the Meals on Wheels Association of America said that hunger threatens millions of American seniors. (34) The study found that in the United States over 5 million seniors, 11.4% of all seniors, experience some form of food insecurity.

"Even before the Cato article, Dr. David Pimentel, one of the top authorities, if not the very top authority, wrote that the food supply per person was diminishing and that prospects for the future looked worse.(35) It is not only the yearly loss of arable land and the shortage of water that are factors, but the costs are rapidly increasing in fertilizers, fuel and other necessary agricultural costs.

"So you see that when looking at statements that seem to be partial to your position you want to make certain that it is not propaganda. You need to look at the source of the information. Was it Goebbels propagandizing Hitler's ideas, or Cato propagandizing for some of its contributors? Then you want to see if the information is valid. What references were used to develop their theories and how accurate are those references. So you need to look at who, what, when and how.

"Wreck, I know that you know that during the debate on the American health-care bill insurance companies used a number of arguments, many of which were totally untrue, to sway the electorate and the legislators."

 \--"You're right, Con, I had better be very well prepared with authoritative sources to stop the negative propaganda that I know I will face."

 —"Interesting comments Con, but let's now move to how people are so easily duped. People in general are easily propagandized because they are not informed, not educated or don't know how to use the tools of logic. In my travels, I am sad to say, my observations are that your American public is quite far behind most of the educated people of the world in current events and in their ability to analyze arguments logically. It seems to me that religious thinking or polarized political thinking clouds many of your people's abilities to think clearly. When your major source of news is a right wing or left wing pundit, your pastor, or your equally uninformed neighbor, your chances of being able to look at all of the options concerning a political question are very limited.

"Propaganda often comes from the highest levels, in fact it is more effective when coming from those levels. When George Bush was seeking his second term of office he painted his opponent Sen. John Kerry as a non-hero, even though Kerry had served in the Vietnam War with distinction and won three purple hearts for injuries that occurred during the war. But during the war George Bush was a National Guardsman and was reportedly not performing all of his required duties on time. So the real hero was rated as a coward, and the apparent incompetent was painted as the hero. But it came from the President of the United States."

 —"Remember those tax tea parties about 15 years ago to protest taxes?"

 \--"I remember. It was supposed to be like the Boston Tea Party in 1773 where the American colonists dumped tea into the Boston harbor to protest the British king's excessive taxes on tea. Maybe instead of the recent tea parties the tax protesters should have had a credit card burning ceremony to remind them to stay within their budgets, or a ballot burning bonfire to protest the representatives they had elected to tax and spend for them. It was funny, the 2009 tea party was initiated by Republicans, but we were the ones primarily responsible for the huge national debt.

"World War II required the Democratic president to develop a huge debt, up to 120% of the country's gross national product. Then under the succeeding Democratic and Republican presidents it dropped to 30% of the GNP. Then the Republicans Reagan and the first Bush pushed it up to about 70% of the GNP, then under the Democrat Clinton it dropped to 60%. Then George W. Bush bounced it up to about 80% and the Democrat Obama had to raise it to get the country out of the mess that the Republican deregulation had caused.

"I certainly don't like paying taxes, and I've paid more than my share, but I wonder exactly how much these tax protesters are willing to pay, in terms of total cash or as a percent of their income or wealth. The last I saw, Americans were paying less than 30% of their total income in taxes while in Europe the tax burden was as high as —" I don't think any of us really like to pay taxes but we have to look at what we get for them. We might remember too, that the Danes pay the highest percentage of taxes, almost 50% of what they earn, yet studies have shown them to be the happiest people on earth. In a poll of Norwegians, who already pay more than 40% in taxes, 75% felt they should pay more so that their health care and eldercare would be better funded, only 14% opposed higher taxes.(35a) So maybe paying taxes is not really a source of misery if we are getting what we pay for. Is it that the Danish propaganda tells the people that they are happy? Is it that the American conservatives are telling people that they aren't happy? Maybe we should do something like Kino did with health insurance and let people choose what they want, then pay for it. Of course everyone would have to pay for certain government expenses. But roads could be paid for by drivers. Schools could be paid for by parents. The military could be paid for by the people who want it. Health insurance and pensions could be paid by those who want them. But I'm sure there would be propagandists on both sides telling us that what we want is not best for us."

 —"Remember some years ago when the UN appointed a Jewish judge from South Africa to investigate the Israeli-Hamas mini-war in the first decade of this century? Both sides saw their actions as justified, but the judge found that both sides had committed war crimes. He said that the Hamas had fired rockets into civilian areas and the Israelis destroyed civilian food production in Gaza by leveling flour manufacturing plants and killing thousands of chickens by attacking where they were raised. At the UN the Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu chastised the study because he said that Israel had a right to defend itself. He compared calling Israel guilty of war crimes was like calling Churchill and Roosevelt guilty of causing World War II."

 -"Let me look at the democratic pillar of press freedom. The American ideal of freedom of the press stood up well in the early days, but today there is a great deal of propaganda in the press that disguises itself as truth. It's one thing to take truth from the point of view of one's assumptions, but it's quite another thing to manufacture propaganda which doesn't have a grain of truth in it. Sarah Palin's charge that the health program that Obama was suggesting included death panels which would determine when older people were to be killed or people like her Down Syndrome child to be executed. There was no such element in any of the bills that had been proposed and none were ever anticipated. That was a case of manufacturing supposed facts. This is at worst a major lie, and at best an illustration of total incompetence in disregarding the truth. It is one thing to take the facts and project where they might lead in terms of legislation, but it is quite another thing to manufacture or to disregard the facts. Unhappily there is too much propaganda in the American media that disguises itself as news or truth. I suppose we can expect this with free enterprise. In order to work a reporter or commentator may have to mouth the thoughts of the owner of the newspaper or the television station."

 —"True. But remember that propaganda can be used to foster a cause or to break down an opposing cause. Remember a few years ago when Republican supporters or strategists attempted to bring down the major Democratic challengers. Hillary Clinton was portrayed as a lesbian. Barack Obama was said to be a Muslim. Both were untrue.

"Conservative Republicans fought the idea of a public option in health insurance. But as we mentioned two conservative Republican governors bragged of the public options available in their states--both Romney in Massachusetts and Bush in Florida."

 —"We would like to think that our nation's leaders would tell us the truth. That would certainly be a necessary factor in a 'thinking' democracy. But unhappily that's not the case in modern American politics. It bothers me that these so-called Christians and Jews flaunt the commandment that requires that we not bare false witness."

 \--" Right father, those of us who are not of the religions of Abraham are amazed that you supposedly religious people continually go against the basic principles of your Bible and Koran.

"But back to politics. You don't need to have an absolute truth to try to make something happen through the methods of politics. You must make it appear to be true and urgent. For example, some time ago a research poll of Americans showed that of twenty national concerns, global warming was last. Such issues as reducing the influence of lobbyists and reversing the decline of morality were ahead of global warming. But global warming is about our survival. So how do you educate your publics make warming take the place that it should in the minds of Americans?

"Why might the term 'global warming' be seen as less than essential? Is it that 'global warming' sounds too liberal and smacks of tree hugging hippies from the 60s? Is it so scary that people don't want to believe it? Is it that reactionary pundits or lobbyists from the oil and coal industries are effectively casting doubts on the reality of the crisis that is validated by nearly 100% of climatologists and other knowledgeable scientists? What needs to be done to make people recognize the reality of the problem? Do we need a better education to make people understand the reality of the problem? Do we simply re-label it—calling it the need for 'energy efficiency?' Because of the widespread scientific illiteracy in America it might be best to eliminate the word 'science' from your message and use good old American ideas like 'self sufficiency' and 'energy independence.' Or do we just re-label it 'climate change' instead of 'global warming'?"

DISPARAGING REMARKS

 —"Disparaging remarks about a person or place haunt the political techniques commonly used to influence peoples' thinking. Some of us Republicans have done some nasty things to some Democrats and some Republicans. It really turned me off. There was the time when Senator Graham was working with the Democrats to get a much needed climate bill. He said that the U.S. should 'lead the world rather than follow the world on carbon pollution.' But the far right, anti-everything, party partners of mine are not trying to make good things happen. They just fight every idea, good or bad, then plan to blame the president for not accomplishing these things at the next election. In Graham's case our fellow party members said he 'was in a pact with the devil' and called him a traitor. They said he was a 'Democrat in drag' and a 'girlie-man. These were more than innuendos. They were outright lies."

 —"Con, if there is such a thing as a thinking Republican, I think you qualify. But do you remember that about that same time your Republican vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, compared Obama's community organizing experience with her job as a small town mayor, where she had 'actual responsibilities'.

"Then some called Obama an 'elitist', as if that were a negative. Jefferson, Kennedy, Roosevelt, Wilson, Washington, Adams and Madison were all of the elite class—all well educated. The major difference between Obama and the others was that he wasn't in the elite class because of his wealth. It seems to be OK in America to be an elite quarterback, striker or sprinter—but not an elite and accomplished mind.

"And you remember when Obama went to the Mideast to begin to repair the damage his predecessor had wreaked on American-Mideastern relations.

"As an invited visitor he complimented his hosts' beliefs—attempting to smooth the way for international negotiations. I had the distinct feeling that the Fox News reactionary commentators, if invited to Egypt would put their shoes on the furniture and if invited to visit a mosque would go in shorts and sleeveless shirts and refuse to remove their shoes. After all America is the most powerful country in the world and reactionary Christianity is the only true religion."

INNUENDOS AND FAULTY COMPARISONS

SEMANTICS

 "When we are talking about propaganda it is commonly verbal, so we have to be able to discern the meanings by breaking them down logically, then we may be able to counter them with facts.

"Using words in the wrong sense, or not defining them, is another major tool of dishonesty in relationships, both personal and governmental. Anti-abortion people use the term 'baby' for any stage of development from the time of conception. They may say that the fetus has a head and a heart beat by the third or fourth week. Of course if those are criteria for not ceasing its life, the same criteria, having a head and a heartbeat, have to be used to refrain from stopping the lives of other animals, too. If a person eats meat or fish but is against ceasing the life of a potential human only because it has a head and a heartbeat, his thinking is not consistent. Of course he will say that stopping a potential human life is very different. But usually their reasoning is because the human life has a soul, while the chickens and fish don't. But what is his proof that there are souls or that the soul has been put into the zygote or embryo or fetus, or even a newborn baby. It reminds me of old Chinese proverb that says 'The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.'"

 \--"With Dr. Wang, in Kino, we went into some of these issues of semantics, basic assumptions, and some different sources of evidence like empirical, historical and being given beliefs from some authority without evaluating them. So I see what you mean. Using terms like 'life' or 'human life' or 'baby' need to be defined. But they never are when you propagandize."

 "Here's another thought. If the words you are using don't get your message across, or they irritate important people, just change the words—but not the meaning. For example the term 'global warming' may have turned off some people.. So public relations firms have suggested using terms like 'the deteriorating environment.' Public relations advisors are expert in the verbal 'bait and switch' techniques.

"The climate skeptics gained political momentum when former Republican vice presidential candidate  Sarah Palin said Obama should boycott the negotiations in Denmark and 'not be a party to fraudulent scientific practices.' Here she was clearly referring to the so-called 'climate gate.' Was she saying that the great mass of scientific findings confirming global warming and the human hand in it were fraudulent? Or was she only questioning the hacked e-mails of East Anglia University—which did not compromise climate science at all!"

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

 " I have sure seen name changes to make a subject seem even more or less desirable. In 2009 an influenza hit Mexico, it quickly spread to the U.S. and several other countries. The World Health Organization quickly raised its risk to a 5 out of a possible 6 levels of severity. The 'Mexican swine flu' scared the world. People stopped buying pork so the hog growers complained about the name. Mexican tourism dropped significantly. So WHO renamed the flu to its correct virus identifying term 'H1N1..' It didn't fool the people. It was still the Mexican swine flu to them.

"Marketeers are masters of masking true meanings—or traditional meanings. How do you make a coal mine or an oil company seem 'green?' How did George Bush's forces make John Kerry, a legitimate hero, appear to be a lackey?

"Then you remember that Obama used the title 'czar' for some of his non-cabinet level administrators. The far right press jumped on his use of the Russian title for some of his appointees. We wonder where these anti-Russian reporters were when Obama's predecessor used the same term for his appointees such as his food safety czar, his Hurricane Katrina czar and his bird flu czar. So Obama was merely continuing a tradition continued by his far right wing predecessor but the use of the term 'czar' by presidents extends at least as far back as 1933 when Franklin Roosevelt used it."

"To change the subject a little bit, propagandists will often bring in an extraneous issue. For example, with the idea of licensing parents, people will probably bring up the idea of eugenics. If they do, they will commonly bring up Hitler's idea of eugenics. His idea was to have the more desirable people in his society mate with each other. Of course there was also a negative side of his program which was designed to eliminate those who he thought were undesirables such as Jews and Gypsies. Certainly if you are in a minority this could be frustrating. But when you look at the German society today you see a number of very intelligent people and based on their Olympic success, some fairly athletic ones as well. Is this a result of Hitler's ideas? Conversely if you were to look at France where the average Frenchman is quite small, probably because the larger ones were killed off by Napoleon's wars. If we were only using the objective measure of physical size, possibly Hitler's ideas we re not necessarily bad.

"There's no question that Hitler was a bad person. He caused a great deal of harm to Europe. He caused a great deal of harm to the Jews of Europe. But does that mean that everything he believed in or did was necessarily bad. In his autobiography Mein Kampf, he repeatedly mentioned God. Does that mean that all people who believe in God are bad because Hitler seemed to believe in Him? If a mass murderer says he loves his mother, does it mean that all people who say they love their mothers are potential mass murderers? The point is that we need to evaluate what is said, not accept it or reject it because of some extraneous factor.

"As bad as Hitler was, propagandists have made him look even worse. You may have heard that Hitler snubbed Jesse Owens after he had won his medals and set world records at the 1936 Olympics. The story was that Hitler had snubbed him because he was black, the truth seems to be that after the first day of the Olympics when Hitler had greeted every champion both German and non-German in his box, he was told by the Olympic president that he was not to do that. After Owens won his medals he said he looked up at the box and Hitler waved at him and he waved back. This is from Owens' autobiography. He said the real snubbing occurred in the US where President Roosevelt was seeking votes from the south and did not want to appear friendly to a black man. In his autobiography he said this was the real snub--the one in his own country.
SCARE TACTICS

"On my other issue, that of preserving our world, those fighting against conservation and environmental causes portray the movement as one that will increase taxes and lose jobs. Costs probably would go up, but jobs would probably increase, unless the polluters packed up and left for pastures that were less green.

"In an effort to alienate the white voters from Obama, some of the far right commentators said that Obama had a problem with whites. The truth, of course, is that his mother was white. He was raised by her, then by her white parents. He went to a primarily white high school and to primarily white universities.

"Most neutral commentators rebuked Palin's idea of death panels since they were never mentioned. But on the conservative propaganda machine of Fox News they generally applauded her criticism of the non-existent proposal. When former Democratic leader Howard Dean said that she had just made up the idea of death panels and there was nothing in the bills that would require euthanasia, Bill O'Reilly of Fox retorted that Palin had never mentioned euthanasia. Of course the idea of the nonexistent death panels would have been to propose to people that they should choose death--which is of course 'euthanasia.' So O'Reilly was saying that because Palin had not used the same synonym that Dean had used, her meaning must've been different. This is another example of taking a text out of its context, and hoping that his ignorant audience would not see through his semantic sleight-of-hand. Or should I say sleight-of-mouth?"

 \-- "Deflecting the blame is often an effective political move. When George H.W. Bush was asked by Dan Rather what role he might have played in the Iran Contra scandal, Bush, rather than answering, asked why Rather had stormed out of the TV studio when his program was pre-empted by a sports show. So don't talk issues—talk about the other's personal failings."

 —"When Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke to the people after the 2009 contested election he was quite clear that the 'Islamic establishment' was the only basic government that could exist. He continually mentioned the enemies of the establishment but he didn't identify them. It is effective propaganda to set up some amorphous enemy, accuse it of all sorts of evil, then call on your listeners to fight that enemy. He spoke of the political process for the presidency and how it was legitimately held and that a huge majority of the population had voted. But he was clear that any democracy obviously is subservient to his religion and to its holy supreme leader."

 \--"These innuendos and faulty comparisons are often in the area of logical fallacies and stretching semantic significations. I want to talk about logic when we finish looking at these political techniques--many of which defy logic because they are based on manipulating our psyches.

EMOTIONALLY CHARGED WORDS

"For example, skillful politicians will commonly use emotionally charged words. When Martin Luther King said 'I've been to the mountaintop' it elicited the analogies to heaven or to Moses on the mountaintop at Sinai, meeting God. When John Kennedy said 'Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country.' He tapped the volcano of flaming patriotism."

 \--"There are a lot of words that may charge our American emotions positively or negatively. God, moral, democracy, socialist, communist, terrorist, advancing democracy, freedom, human rights, welfare system—are just a few such words. Remember when former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called Supreme Court Justice Sotomayer a racist? Did he mean she was anti-Hispanic? Anti-Anglo? What? If you were living in Scandinavia 'socialism' would be a positive word, as it would be in China and many other countries. But in the US it is often a negative term even though we have many socialistic programs in the government and in business. In fact unions are generally trying to get socialistic ideas adopted by the businesses–and they often do. When they ask for more money, health and dental benefits, retirement benefits and many other practices that make the lives for the workers better it certainly smacks of welfare state benefits."

 \--"We mentioned that when Obama was called 'elitist' by some, it should probably have been considered a compliment, not a negative. Lincoln rose to the elite class, as did Einstein. You may remember when John Kennedy invited the American Nobel Prize winners to the White House for dinner you said 'there hasn't been as much intellectual ability in this room since Jefferson dined alone.' So we had an elite president, talking to some of the world's intellectually elite about one of America's most prized elite founders.

"Here is another one that stopped me. In North Carolina one congressional candidate was said by his opponent to be accepting funds from 'godless Americans' No proof of the source of the funds and no proof that any of those donors were godless. And certainly there was no proof that there is a God."

 -"Here is something a bit off the wall, Hitler believed in God, according to his references in Mein Kampf. Does that make believing in God is evil--or does it make us think that Hitler was good? And I wondered about when Sarah Palin called smart people 'pointy headed intellectuals'. I don't know which is worse, to be called an 'intellectual' or to be called 'pointy headed.'"

 —"Is a rhino pointy headed? Or maybe a lizard. Or maybe a Ku Klux Klansman in his pointy white hat. But she couldn't have been talking about the Ku Klux Klan because she would've lost part of her constituency."

 —"So if there were an intelligent Ku Klux Klansman, he would be a 'pointy headed intellectual'. But then they would most likely be far right Republicans who would likely vote for Sarah Palin. So maybe the 'pointy headed intellectuals' are really the people who are on her side." But do you think those pointy-headed Ku Klux Klansmen would ever vote for a woman?"

 \--"I remember that in the 2008 U.S. presidential race using 'reason' was a non-issue. The reasoning ability of the participants was never questioned. While John McCain got into the US Naval Academy on the basis of his father and grandfather both having been admirals, once in the Academy he graduated 7th from the bottom of his class. Possibly ahead of the sons of other admirals. Then when he took his flight training he crashed three trainers and there was serious consideration about his being qualified to fly because of his recklessness. But in the campaign he continually brought up his experience as a plus and criticized Obama's lack of experience.

"Obama's background as a successful student, a lawyer and a professor of constitutional law at the prestigious University of Chicago was being pictured as Obama being 'elite.' Of course being elite in a democratic country is a negative, where all people are equal. The only place for elite humans is in professional sports where they are idolized and overpaid. Too bad Obama's basketball abilities did not qualify him for the NBA where such an elite status could have been admired.

"So according to McCain, experience was the only real criterion for the office of the presidency. Intelligence was a non-issue. McCain didn't really outline any major plans for the economy and Obama's plans were too simply stated. How could the uneducated American electorate comprehend plans that the economists were unsure of and were in disagreement on.

"It is a shame that Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin were not running. They both had much more administrative experience than Obama or McCain!"

 —"You get the point, we see emotionally charged words all the time. But the objects of any negatively charged words see themselves as positive, and may have their own positively charged words to describe themselves. So the Western victims of suicide bombers may call the bombers 'terrorists,' the bombers call themselves martyrs or jihadists-- which in their minds are very high callings.

"Using 'pro life' rather than 'anti-abortion' has a nice ring. Who isn't pro life? The question is when does 'human' life begin? When does the soul enter the body? How new is that idea. Pro life people call a fertilized egg a baby. Do they call a newborn baby a man or woman? A baby is closer to an adult than an embryo is to a baby. A baby has sex organs and a brain that function somewhat. They talk about the fetus experiencing pain. How do they know? If so is the pain of an abortion worse than the pain that fetus might experience throughout life being raised by a parent or parents who didn't want it? Some people think that they have detected pain in plants when they are cut. Should we therefore not cut wheat or corn? Should we not cut flowers? And what about cows and chickens and fish? Do they not feel pain when slaughtered? If feeling pain is the criterion, should we stop eating plants and animals?"

 —"Did you read that study from England that the second trimester fetus can not feel pain because its nervous system is not sufficiently developed to feel pain." (36)

 —"I don't know about that, but I do know that you can't bring animals into the equation because God only gave a soul to humans."

 \--"That may be, Ray, but a deep discussion of soul or no soul is too complicated to take place in an American election. And remember that we are talking about emotionally charged words. I remember reading that in the Jefferson-Adams election the Adams people called Jefferson a howling atheist, saying that if he was elected rape and murder would be taught in the schools. Jefferson's people retorted that Adams was a howling hermaphrodite. So the use of emotionally charged words has been with us for a long time in America."

 \--"But emotionally charged words show up in many kinds of advertising as well as in our normal conversations, especially when we are trying to convince somebody of something. Go to the market and you can see how many things are labeled organic. Organic is supposedly good. But what does it really mean? Does that mean that organic beef doesn't use our much needed freshwater? Does it just mean that the beef ate only grass? Does it mean that the corn fed them was fertilized only with cow manure and no pesticides were used to kill the germ-laden flies that were attracted by the manure? Whatever it means, it seems to sell products and to demand a higher price–because 'organic' is good."

 —"Let's go back to the political arena. The Catholic bishops attacked President Obama when he said during the campaign he would sign a Freedom of Choice Act if it passed Congress. 'Choice' is an emotionally charged word for people who are against abortion. The bishops used several political techniques to attempt to get their way. A Chicago bishop said that it would 'nullify all conscience laws' if it disallowed doctors, nurses and others to object to abortion, and would require abortions to be performed by all hospitals — which could lead to ending obstetrics services in all Catholic hospitals, even to closing the hospitals entirely. It could even lead to selling Catholic hospitals to companies that would provide abortions. This would also be 'morally unacceptable,' he said. The bishop was using fear and possible threats to get people to vote for Obama's opponent.

"But the initial draft of the bishops' statement expressed a 'desire to work with the administration' on social issues such as immigration, economic justice and health care for the poor, highlighting that, 'the Church is intent on doing good.' Here they were wrapping themselves in honor and attempting to gain sympathy for their cause. Then the statement set out another position which showed that it was honorable, saying that the Church 'is also intent on opposing evil.' Most of the statement railed about abortion, saying 'The common good of our country is assured only when the life of every unborn child is legally protected. Aggressively pro-abortion policies and legislation will permanently alienate tens of millions of Americans and would be interpreted by many Catholics as an attack on the Church.' Here the bishops were defining 'the common good' in terms of their anti-abortion policies. Here they were using emotionally charged words to rally their troops and influence legislation. Whose 'common good' were they thinking of? The 'common good' of having full employment, reduced crime, outstanding educational opportunities and world peace might be nearly as important as aborting unwanted embryos."

 —"Look at the issue of abortion again. Rightly there have been many emotionally charged words to make people aware of the seriousness of the pro-life argument. Bishop Samuel Aquila said 'the free exercise of religion is what will be under attack.' Then Bishop Conlon of Ohio, said, 'We are dealing here with an absolute. There is nothing here that will allow a compromise.' We can't let politicians stand in the way of God's wishes. As Bishop Hermann of Missouri said 'Any one of us here would consider it a privilege to die tomorrow — die tomorrow! — to bring about the end of abortion.'"

 —"That's true Ray. The issue of abortion has certainly polarized the country. But then there's another polarizing idea, for many Americans the words 'welfare state' or 'socialism' are also negatively charged emotionally for the conservatives."

 —"The United States has a welfare state in many areas. We have unemployment insurance, we have Social Security for retirees and for people who can't work, we have Medicare and Medicaid, we have private companies' health insurance which is deductible from taxes to the federal government. Many people have dental and even legal insurance provided by employers in both the state and in the private sectors. When large companies face bankruptcy the government often bails them out. It happened with the insurance company AIG, with General Motors and Ford, and with many big banks.

"The talk of welfare, unfair taxation and other unpopular ideas brought another emotionally charged word from the mouth of the Texas governor when he suggested to a flag-waving crowd that Texas should secede from the US."

 \--"Looking back at what we have just been talking about, I assume you can see how these emotionally charged words would affect the semantic meaning in any argument.

STRATEGIC INACTION

"We could go on for hours talking about all of the emotionally charged words that we hear. But let's look at another political technique. Sometimes not doing anything is the best approach to solving a problem. If you're not sure you want to marry that person you had better not set a wedding date. If you're not certain that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction maybe you had better not invade Iraq.

"As a politician if you're not certain that your government can pay for the new proposal, it might be wise to shelve the proposal. On the other hand, by doing nothing it might put you in harm's way. If the US hadn't reacted to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, might it have been taken over by the Japanese? In politics there's an old saying that 'the surest way to conciliate a tiger is to be devoured by him.' There are times when delaying action is effective, but other times when it is not. If you appease a tyrant your head may be the last to visit the guillotine."

 \--"I think there's another political saying that 'An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping that he will be the last one eaten.' Look at how Switzerland and Sweden avoided the Nazi takeover by becoming neutral. They did avoid takeovers, but if Hitler had won the war in Europe do you think he would have allowed those two countries to mar his total conquest?

"But there may be times when doing nothing is not the best path. When Sudan's government offered the U.S. to hand over Osama bin Ladin, Bill Clinton's government, while knowing the threat Osama imposed, refused—hoping that he could be handed over to Saudi Arabia where it would have been simple justice to cut off his head. If bin Laden were in the U.S. he would have had the protection of the slower and more lenient U.S. judicial system. But had he been in a US prison the 9/11 attack might not have happened.

"Western nations generally took a hands-off policy toward Somalia, hoping that the problem would work out. It didn't! In Vietnam the US would undoubtedly have been better served had they let the Communists take over. As we see with our 20/20 hindsight, Vietnam, like China, would eventually become our economic ally. But based on what was known at the time, Communism was trying to take over the world, the war to stop it in Southeast Asia may have made sense. But the monetary and human cost was definitely not worth it.

"On the other hand, in the economic area, the American auto manufacturers made huge mistakes in continuing to make their large gas-guzzling cars. They were behind the Japanese in making fuel-efficient, low maintenance small cars. They were behind again in making hybrids. So their refusal to stop what they were doing contributed to their bankruptcies and near-deaths. As a political move they should have changed course years earlier.

"Of course hindsight is 20/20, but the effective politician will be right much more often than he will be wrong. Often doing nothing will be the more effective political method."

POSTPONING ACTION

 \- "In the late 1990s the U.S. Senate, in a unanimous vote, blocked any action on the Kyoto Accords. Certainly doing something about reducing carbon dioxide emissions would be bad for American business. And what's good for America is good for the world."

 \--"It is certainly not uncommon for people to delay decisions or actions. At the time of World War II British Prime Minister Chamberlain chose to ignore the Nazi threat in Europe. That was a mistake. Early in this century American homeowners who did not jump on the sub-prime bandwagon and refinance their houses usually kept their homes. Those who didn't invest in stocks before the Great Depression kept their money, unless they had put it into a bank that failed! So postponing the opportunity for making possibly risky investments save some people a lot of money."

 —"Americans don't want to pay taxes so legislators are afraid to boost general taxes. They postpone doing what is really fiscally essential. I guess that both the voters and the legislators are postponing the inevitable--or maybe they just want their children and grandchildren to pick up the tab. But I suppose they may vote in some hidden taxes, like luxury taxes, or they can tax the rich while they add loopholes that allow the rich to avoid some taxes."

 \--"They are not only shifting the burden to the next generation, they shift the burden away from themselves and up the income ladder. In Europe a national value added tax on goods and services, and often on food, hits everyone. They have income taxes too. But even with these taxes, all European governments, except Norway, have significant national debts.

"In our country we rely to a large extent on income taxes. The top 1% of the American population pays about 40% of all income taxes although they earn a bit less than 25% of all income. These are people are those whose adjusted gross income is about $390,000. The top 5% of incomes, those with adjusted gross incomes of about $150,000, paid 60% of the income taxes. The top 25% of incomes, those with adjusted gross incomes of about $65,000, paid 80% of income taxes and earned almost 70% of American income. Anyway, the top 1% of earners paid as much income tax as the bottom 95%. In fact, for those who actually pay income taxes, the average amount paid is only about 12½ % of their incomes. For the bottom half of tax payers it averages only 3% while the top 1% averages 23%. And nearly half of Americans don't pay any income taxes. The last I saw, and that was back in 2010, the average American paid slightly less than 10% of what he earned in total taxes. In fact the total taxes being paid were reducing as their national debt was rising!

"But I don't see legislators or presidents delaying many new social programs."

 —"Your politicians talk about the tax burden on the American family. But Medicare and Social Security taxes are too low to pay the benefits. The states tax at such low rates that many of your states are in debt.

"Fuel taxes should pay for roads and traffic police. Property taxes and sales taxes should pay for police and fire, for state and local government. Medical and education expenses, at the rate of about $7000 per student up to the 12th grade, should probably be paid by sales taxes, such as value-added taxes. This would have the parents carrying more of the burden for the education of their children. Then how should special education for the mentally or physically handicapped children, which is double amount that for those without disabilities, be paid? And public higher education is getting more expensive. Should the general taxpayers have any responsibility for that—"It's our democratic idea of equality that has seeped into our taxation system. We use taxes to equalize. It's actually rather communistic—'from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.' But Karl Marx was talking about income. But with income taxes it is more like 'from each who has more than he needs and give to each according to his lack of ability to earn.'

"Then there is the other democratic idea--liberty. You are free to buy things and the government often attaches taxes to them. Fur coats and diamonds are not needed by anyone, so they may be taxed at a higher rate. In the U.S., automobiles are almost a necessity so they generally carry only a sales tax and a yearly fee. In Norway they are not considered necessary so they carry about a 100% sales tax. And the gasoline tax per gallon in the US ranges from 26 cents in Alaska to 63 cents in California. Compare that with a $5 to $6 a gallon tax in Europe.

"If Americans don't like paying 8% of their total taxes for interest on their national debt, they should have limited their expenses to their income. $500 billion a year in interest could have bought a lot of classrooms and prison cells. If our fellow citizens don't like spending over $600 billion for defense, 21% of the federal government's tax take, perhaps they should elect some pacifists. Over $600 billion, goes to Social Security and over $680 billion for Medicaid and Medicare, still these social programs are charged to our national credit card."

 —"Is that an American Suppress or a Masochistic-Card?"

 —"Whichever card it was, many of those enacted programs should have been shelved until the electorate wanted to pay for them."

 —"Right. Germany finally got it right, beating most of its Western allies to requiring a balanced budget. They started it about ten years ago. But look at America's record. From Clinton's 1995 budget of $1.6 trillion to his 2001 budget of $1.9 trillion, then to Bush's first budget of $2 trillion in 2002 to his last budget of $3.1 trillion in 2009—expenses went up. Then Obama's first budget was $3.6 trillion which included a trillion to get the economy out of recession.

"How long can the American electorate and its is elected representatives postpone meeting their responsibilities. I wonder if they'll go until it's too late, like Greece did, and wait until the threat of bankruptcy is knocking at their doors."

 -"But where do you cut? Just look at the $42 billion required for the Federal Transportation budget, how many want to stop building or maintaining highways?"

 -"As Saint Augustine said 'Patience is the companion of wisdom.' So maybe we need more patience and consideration before the next legislation that will increase our debts and possibly our taxes."

 \--"Not all political actions deal with the legislators dragging their collective feet. You may not remember back in the 1980s when AIDS was originally found. Because it was first thought to be a gay man's disease and a disease that only affected foreigners, the US government was slow to react. Many countries were even slower and were well into the 21st century before they took action. There were imams and African leaders who denied its severity. Since then, AIDS has claimed many millions of lives and it has infected many more. The inaction of President Bush's administration to not fund condom use, relying on the ineffective message of abstinence, significantly increased the number of AIDS cases.

"On another note, science is amazing and governments may quickly jump on the bandwagon to implement its findings. Just think, in late 2008 under the Bush administration there was no global warming. Then in less than 100 days, the Obama administration learned that there was in fact global warming. Those 99% of climatologists and the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore turned out to be right."

 \--"Ya, the Environmental Protection Agency of our country bases its decisions on fact, not the political ideology of our president! Ha! All of the sudden because we got an intelligent president, the EPA found that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gasses were a danger to public health. Heck, that was known well over 30 years earlier. In fact 60 years earlier the deadly fog in Donora Pennsylvania killed 20 people and affected many others because of sulfur and nitrogen oxides from nearby coal fired plants. So much for the speediness of our supposedly scientifically astute democratically elected lawmakers. It had been abundantly clear for decades, over the objections of car manufacturers, power plant operators and manufacturers--the public good suddenly subdued the interests of Wall Street, and the governmental policy of inaction finally was stirred from its years of hibernation."

 -"And I've heard some call it socialism when the public good is held above the selfish greed of the people with money. It amazes me the arguments given as to why global warming doesn't exist or that we humans haven't had a significant part to play in it. But when so many of the public don't believe the overwhelming evidence for climate change do we chalk it up to ignorance, denial or just intellectual inertia?"

 -"Lee, I have heard of people claiming that it is the decaying animals of thousands of years ago that are the cause of the warming. Certainly the thawing of animal and vegetable remains adds to the global warming. Every living thing has carbon in it. But why the thawing now? It seems that our human production of the warming-causing gases is allowing the dead trees and mammoths to thaw. And many of the sulfur and nitrogen containing gases and the other aerosols are produced by humans, not by decaying dinosaurs."

 \--"Ray, It was way back in 2007 that our Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gases were pollutants under U.S. law. But politics being what they are, the Bush administration didn't bother to follow the ruling and stalled on finding that those gases endangered the population—as the Court had ordered.

"Another classic situation of inaction was evidenced by the Catholic Church through the 1950s and into this century, priests accused of child molestation were either moved to other parishes by their superiors or they were merely warned about their behavior. But obviously the behavior didn't change. So about 15 years ago, in the early part of this century, when the press and the public found out about the extent of the problem, the Church was in big trouble. It's always easier to deny that something is happening and to sweep the evidence under the rug. Sometimes postponing action works, but sometimes it doesn't."

 -"Look at inaction of so many Western governments regarding their budget deficits. Nearly all of the developed countries in the West have debts that are out of control. In 2010 Greece was forced to recognize its problems and to submit to severe means to get back into financial balance. Spain had big problems as did Italy and Ireland. The UK and US have problems. But the biggest problem is that in a democracy a leader must be popular to be elected and you can't get popular by raising taxes or cutting spending, especially welfare spending and the so-called 'entitlements.' The Scandinavians have done a decent job with this. Germany and Luxembourg are also politically aware. When David Cameron was elected prime minister of the United Kingdom, the first thing he did was to cut spending and eliminate programs that were overly expensive and not considered essential to British society. But few other countries are making the necessary financial adjustments. Eventually the piper will have to be paid and stringent methods will have to be introduced.

"The leader who finally has to confront the growing debts will obviously have his predecessors to blame––and rightly so. But they will undoubtedly be blamed by the electorate for all of the problems that were the fault of the previous administrations. If the leaders had the courage to submit balanced budgets and the legislators had the courage to pass them these could have been avoided. So political techniques based on pleasing the electorate are used until the calamity pounces, then the political techniques of blame will be used."

KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT

 —"Here is another political necessity that few young politicians seem to be aware of. When in doubt, keep your mouth shut. Experience may not prevent you from making the same mistake twice but it will stop you from admitting it publicly. As someone who wants to get something accomplished it is wise to be politically correct. Don't say things anti-Jewish, anti-black, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, or anti-Catholic. Light travels faster than sound. That's why some people appear bright until you hear them speak. So keep your mouth shut!"

 \--"When the gubernatorial candidate of South Carolina criticized policies for social welfare, he said 'my grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding the stray animals. You know why? Because they breed.' This is a time he should've kept his mouth shut because as true as it might be, it was not a politically expedient thing to say."

 -"That reminds me of the situation I saw in a doctors office. A woman was waiting with a child. The doctor called them in, weighed the baby and found it to be below normal weight. So the doctor asked the woman if the baby had been breast-fed or bottle-fed. The woman replied 'breast-fed.' So the doctor told her to strip down to the waist. She did and the doctor very professionally felt her breasts. He said 'no wonder the baby is underweight you have no milk.' 'I know' the woman said, 'I'm the grandma. But I'm glad I came.' "

.  \--"Can't you ever be serious Lee? But it reminds me of when the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said 'Israel must be wiped off the map' he was not being politically shrewd in the Western world but probably scored a lot of points in the Arab world. Which was more important for him and his country?

"In Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe's civic beautification program, which he called 'throw out the trash' resulted in slums being leveled and many former slum dwellers being left homeless. His choice of words 'throw out the trash' may not sound as bad coming from a black man and pointing to black citizens. It was seen as more acceptable than if a white ruler had used the same phrase concerning black citizens. So who says it may be as important as what is said, or unsaid."

 -"Keeping your mouth shut is very important when confronted by the police or by prosecutors. Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said 'I can't recall' 72 times during an FBI investigation of the 'outing' of former CIA operative Valery Plame. There was much speculation that somebody high in the Bush administration had disclosed her covert status with the CIA because her husband, a former U.S. ambassador and diplomat, had written that he saw no evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Such an honest and true expose by the ambassador certainly required a punishment. And Cheney was the major suspect in the plot. But wisely, he didn't admit a thing."

 \--"As Mark Twain said, 'It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.' So keeping your mouth shut is often a good political rule in social situations, especially when you are with people who may be better informed than you."

 —"I think this is particularly true when talking about religion and politics where people hold beliefs and convictions they generally got second hand, and without examination. In fact, as Dr. Wang warned us, you get nowhere when you try to argue basic assumptions. But it's true even for people in authority, like the Pope. Remember some years ago the Pope, during a speech in Germany, cited an obscure medieval text that characterized some of the teachings of Muhammad as 'evil and inhuman,' Pope Benedict inflamed Muslim passions and aggravated fears of a new outbreak of anti-Western protests. In fact after the Pope's remarks a nun was killed in Ethiopia, and several Catholic churches were burned."

 -"And you remember the uproar when so many Catholic priests were guilty of molesting young children. Even my old pastor at Holy Name church, Father O'Dwyer was implicated. I never heard anyone say anything about him at church but he was listed as one suspected in an article in the LA Times. The principal at St. John Vianney High School, where your father used to coach Wreck, was also named as a perpetrator. It seems that the bishops often knew that such things were happening but they kept their mouths shut hoping it would go away. The same happened in Ireland, where some bishops even resigned because they kept their mouths shut. So keeping your mouth shut seems good for some Catholics and not so good for others. Even Pope Benedict was accused of keeping his mouth shut when he was a Cardinal and a California priest was suspected of child abuse. When the letter indicating this had come across the Cardinal's desk he put off solving the problem at the time. This got him into a lot of hot water later from the press.

"At about the same time Toyota had problems with the accelerating and braking systems of some of its cars. It turned out that the company knew long before this happened that there might be problems, but they kept their corporate mouths shut. So silence was not golden in Toyota's case. The recall cost them millions."

 \--"About fifteen years ago China hid the fact that some its dairies were producing tainted milk. This was at the same time that the government was trying to stamp out private corruption. I guess one's definition of what is corrupt varies depending on which chair you are sitting in! But I would have to admit that after that _expose_ the Chinese government did begin a close monitoring system on the milk producers."

 -"If you are married it is often critical. When you are asked by your wife, if she looks fat, keep your mouth shut—or lie!"

 —"Very astute, Lee. But now Commander, in your quest to convert the planet's population, there will be many times when you will need to keep your mouth shut, or at least speak softly and say little. For effective political decisions you must understand the psychological needs and drives and the values of those you are trying to influence..

KEEP YOUR PANTS ZIPPED

"While we are talking about other 'no-no's' here is a general one that I'm sure won't apply to you Commander. It's an area that gets many people into big trouble--politicians, sports stars, and media people. If it doesn't ruin their careers it certainly causes them to tread a long bumpy road to recovery, or divorce. Orgasms are more fun than about any other activity. Add that to the feeling of power one may get in having another at one's disposal, even if it is paid for, and it makes sexual activity an often desirable activity. BUT, in puritanical America married people should keep their pants zipped. Look at the embarrassment caused to politicians Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Mark Sanford, Elliot Spitzer and John Edwards and to athletes like Kobe Bryant, Alex Rodriguez, and Tiger Woods They severely irked the Christian Puritanical ethics of your populace. While Jesus may have been able to forgive them, his followers find it very difficult."

 —"You are right about Jesus. When he protected the adulteress who was about to be stoned for her actions, He admonished the crowd saying that 'He who has not sinned could cast the first stone' (37) But adultery is certainly such a grave sin that it is listed in the Ten Commandments of God."

 —"You know, I always wondered if the wives were ever partially responsible for some of those men straying. As I understand it, both men and women stray and they seem to do it because there is poor compatibility in their relationship, they have power drives that are at least somewhat unfulfilled, or there has been a change in the sexual contract. By that I mean that the amount and quality of the sex they had before marriage, or during the early years, has dwindled or disappeared."

 —"In law we call that an implied contract. Whatever relationship the couple had before the marriage is expected to continue after the marriage. That might have included sex, sharing of ideas, or spending time together. But jobs, child-raising and other factors can detour the path that was expected in marriage. In talking to other attorneys, I have come to the conclusion that it is the wife, far more often than the husband who backs off of sex. (38)

"And it is getting easier to trap wayward spouses. Private detectives may not be needed as much as they used to be. Recently it was revealed that 20% of divorces in the UK were brought about by evidence found on Facebook. So if Facebook or reporters are watching, you had better keep your pants up."

 \--"People should know by now that in politics you want to create the best picture of yourself –forget the truth. Also see only the immediate situation, don't look at the whole picture. Make yourself out to be right. Never admit guilt. In other words keep your mouth shut and your pants zipped."

MAKING EXCUSES AND RATIONALIZING

"I know that you fellows are aware of people making excuses and rationalizing, as well as lying to protect yourself. It happens at every age level and at every social and vocational level from the time we learn to speak until we are President of the United States or the Pope of the Catholic Church."

 —"Right. Chuck Chan went into some detail on rationalizing. It means giving reasons for your behavior that are not true, but that you believe to be true. According to Chuck none of us want to admit that we have done something wrong so we find reasons that make sense to us. You may blame the boss because you are late, when in fact it was your laziness that prevented you from being on time. You may blame your wife because you don't have enough money at the end of the month because of her shopping, when you are equally at fault because of money you spent gambling or playing golf. And like we said a few minutes ago, students may blame the teacher, saying that the teacher doesn't like them which is the reason for the bad grades, when the truth is that the students didn't study.

"Sarah Palin gained a reputation of blaming others for her own failures. Terrorists commonly rationalize the killing of innocent people using religious arguments that have no basis in their religion. From a politician's point of view, blaming somebody else may make it appear that he is not responsible for the failure. I wonder if the story about George Washington is true, when he said 'I cannot tell a lie', when asked who chopped down the cherry tree.

"When the Greek economy fell to the floor about 15 years ago, because of excess spending and corruption, Prime Minister George Papandreou offered a view on the source of Europe's woes. "This is an attack on the euro zone by certain other interests, political or financial," he said, without specifying who or what those interests might be.

"When several 'Christian' legislators were accused or convicted of crimes and corruption, they excused themselves by saying, 'We are all sinners.' When the pope was accused of not acting quickly in defrocking a priest for molesting boys, the Vatican replied, 'that was the way things were done in those days.'"

USING REASON

 \--"Well let's get down to the generally ineffective method of politics--using our intelligence. Of our nearly nine billion people in the world only a few have had a decent education-- an education steeped in science, history and logic. Although 'reasoning' is generally not the most effective political technique, it may be the starting point before the other techniques are used. In your case commander I think reasoning is an essential starting point. You must first convince the people, particularly the important people in politics, media, and business. Informing the common people is certainly important too. But their beliefs in magic and religion and other chains that anchor them to their cultural traditions make it very difficult to pull them out of a deep hole of ignorance and into the light of truth.

"So it seems that you need to first make certain that people are aware of the major problems the planet faces such as climate change, the use of non-replaceable natural resources, the increasing need for fresh water, the amount of arable land per person, the increasing need for forests and jungles, the importance of finding nonpolluting energy sources, the decreasing ability of the land and water to accept our wastes, and our economies' inability to create an increasing number of jobs which leads to both legal and illegal immigration. Your other interest area, that of licensing parents, I think will be an even harder sell.

"Some talk about the liberal values of Europeans and the conservative values of Muslims. It is actually the society-centered and self-centered values of the secular Europeans versus the God based values of the Muslims. It would be one thing to separate church and state, but when you have THE true religion as the Muslims, Christians and Jews each believe they have, you definitely want a religious state ruled by your God, or at least those people who have direct communication with Him or Her. This is true not only for the strong uni-belief Muslims but also for the equally strongly believing Catholics, Mormons, and evangelicals. Just as many Iranians want to keep their theocracy, there is a large group of evangelicals that are pushing for a Christian theocracy for the US."

 \--"I doubt that all of them combined have the political intelligence of a Jefferson or a Madison."

 \--"True. But in a democracy it is still 'the will of the majority!' Just think, the Muslims of the Middle East and North Africa have quadrupled in 60 years. They have access to TV and Internet, but not to a broad education that will allow them to enter the modern world as contributors. It seems that both democracy and theocracy are holding the horses of progress in their stalls when they should be free to race the wind in the Grand National for utopian ideals."

 —"We are all ignorant about most things but we think we know everything. Let's take the abortion question. Let's say we have two people with opposite points of view. One person is absolutely certain that all abortions are evil. It doesn't matter whether the pregnancy was caused by rape, whether the fetus is non-human in its deformity or whether the birth will be to an impoverished drug addict who absolutely does not want to endure the pregnancy or motherhood. On the other side we have a person absolutely certain that all or most abortions are good. At the least the world should not have to add another human to its already overcrowded world. But termination of a pregnancy is desirable when either potential parent does not want to raise a child. These two people are equally strong in their views. One of these people must be substantially wrong. If we had an omniscient 'professor of the universe' sitting behind a heavenly lectern on some cloud or planet perhaps we could hear the ultimate truth in this matter. But without the omniscient wizard of the planet of Oz, we may always wonder. But how do we get people to be able to evaluate the facts, see the problems, and work logically towards a solution."

 \-- "I know you talked with Charlie Chan in Singaling about the unconscious mind and the conscious mind—and that theoretical area of the conscious mind that can make rational decisions based on the evidence—the intellect. Do we in fact have an intellect, this would be the part of the mind to which you would be appealing. But as I'm sure Dr. Chan told you, the greatest part of the mind is purely psychological so it's very difficult to move a mind with reason. Still reasoning with people certainly has to be one of your political weapons."

LOGICAL FALLACIES AND SEMANTIC STRETCHES

"As you may surmise, many political slogans and arguments rely on stretching the truth. It seems to me that most of the things that I hear, especially in the political arena, are highly suspect, in fact are generally fallacious. The problem is that the mouths that speak these untruths and the ears that hear them are seldom washed with the soap of logic. Inductive and deductive fallacies, as well as semantic fallacies, are commonly presented as being the truth. But there are rules for clarifying concepts and for using them in ways that are logical, that is in ways that logicians have determined that concepts are meaningful and probable and that are put together in ways that the conclusions are actually based on the premises. So the opinions, that some people mistake for thinking, can be analyzed to see whether or not they are meaningful, probable and arrived at logically.

"So Commander, you will need some command of the concepts required to make a statement meaningful, true and valid, since so many of the arguments against your ideas will not be based on sound evidence or clear thinking."

 —"I've heard a number of arguments through the years that don't seem right, but I never knew how to go about finding the flaw."

 —"My background has been primarily in deductive logic, so I guess I have much to learn in the other areas. So Dr. Singh how about giving us a brief course in logic and logical fallacies that appear when we violate the rules of logic."

DEVELOPING A BACKGROUND IN LOGIC

 —"As you know Father, we are talking about analyzing arguments. By arguments we mean important propositions that are believed to be true. We are not talking about people quarreling."

 -"So we can say that philosophers have had arguments over the arguments that they use to prove that God exists."

 \--"Right Ray, we use the word argument in two completely different ways. It's like the way that scientists use the term 'theory,' meaning very highly probable, that is to say 'true.' Usually it relates to a series of ideas such as the theory of evolution or Einstein's theory of relativity. While the common person uses the word 'theory' meaning a guess or an idea. So let's talk about the word 'argument' in the terms used by someone specializing in the philosophical area of logic.

"In developing an argument you will have three terms, that is three words or phrases. These will be used in two statements, which we call premises, and in the conclusion. The two premises and the conclusion are called a syllogism.

"When a meaning is unclear or a line of argument is questionable we call such incidents 'logical fallacies'—semantic fallacies, inductive fallacies or deductive fallacies.

"The meaning of the terms we use must be clear and cannot change. This is the job of semantics. Another factor that must be considered is whether we are talking about all, some or none of the things included in a term.

"The classic syllogism is: 'All men are mortal. Socrates was a man. Therefore Socrates was mortal.' Clarifying this we would say that: All men are some of the things that are mortal. All of Socrates was some of men. Therefore all of Socrates was some of the things that are mortal.

"So when analyzing any argument we must first look at the terms used, the words and phrases, to see that they mean something real and that their meaning doesn't change through the argument. So if I say 'the theory of evolution is only a theory, so it is not a fact.' I have changed the meaning of theory from the scientific meaning of 'theory' which is based on the huge amount of evidence to the more commonly recognized definition of 'theory' which is that it is only an opinion. Like 'I have a theory on how to win at poker.'"

 —"That's the same definition that Wanda Wang gave when we were in Kino. Here is another example in which the meaning of the terms is changed in the premises. For example if I say 'It is only right to help the poor, the poor have their rights, So give money right away'. Here the word 'right' changes meaning from 'correct' to 'entitlement' to 'now.' So it is used with three different semantic meanings. So while I would agree with the statements, the semantic shifts of meaning made the argument invalid.

"Just about any area of thinking can allow for a proposition to be stated. 'Jesus is God.' 'Democracy is based on the idea of equality.' 'Humans are the result of an evolution of animal species.' 'Women should have equal pay for equal work.' 'Our country must stop immigration.' 'The welfare state is a worthwhile mission of a democratic government.' 'The best government is the smallest government.' 'There is no global warming.' 'Human population should not be curbed.' 'Capitalism means makings money about any way you can.' 'Capitalism means making money on your money.' There are millions of such statements that might be used as terms in a syllogism. These might vary from the small individual question, such as 'should Joe be fired from his job,' to much larger propositions such as 'Should stronger sanctions be instituted against Iran?' Each will require a definition of terms, evidence on all sides of the issue, and an application of correct thinking relative to the evidence and how the evidence leads to a conclusion."

 \--"Just look at the abortion debates in your country. Confusion may start when the anti-abortion people call themselves 'pro-life'. Actually both sides of the question are pro-life. The questions are 'Is the mother's life as important as that of the impregnated ovum', 'when does a human life start?', and what are the precise definitions of 'zygote', 'embryo', 'fetus' and 'baby.'"

 —"I had a couple of outstanding logic and semantic classes at Stanford. They sure have served me well in the courtroom, and even more so in my appellate work. Appellate courts are more likely to respond to clear logic when it applies to a case. So if I can find semantic or logical loopholes in the way the other attorney tries to link statutes and case law I have a good chance to make a more effective argument."

 —"It is very important for me to try to change opinions that are not based on facts. I have to keep reminding myself that people may be entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts. So I had better pay close attention to this discussion."

 —"But when you come back to basic assumptions, how can you change them. When a person believes, with Bishop Ussher, that the world was created in 4004 BC and that people were created with all the animals, living and extinct, how do you get them to believe the massive evidence of the geological and biological sciences that the world is billions of years old and that people and plants are all products of evolution? You come back to Wanda Wang's ideas that basic assumptions cannot be disproven and that evidence from anyone who deems himself or herself an authority may be believed by a large number of people who don't have the ability or the knowledge to think critically.

"When the Pope has spoken to Catholics, Rush Limbaugh to reactionary Republicans, Joseph Smith to the Latter Day Saints, Mary Baker Eddy to Christian Scientists, or when a major prime minister speaks—many people have listened and their opinions have been formed or solidified. It would be preferable if people could understand the empirical method and the probability of the important theories, or to understand the probabilities of history that have been accurately reported. But as we have said, opinions are so easily swayed by effective political techniques—greed, fear, sympathy and such that it is difficult to deal with those whose opinions that are based on little but hope or fear."

SEMANTICS--LANGUAGE, MEANING AND MISUNDERSTANDINGS

 \--"The use and misuse of language is a common political tool. War is obscene! But obscenity, used correctly, only really applies to pornography. War may be terrible or unnecessary, but it is not obscene. The original meaning of obscene dealt with sexual immodesty. But often in our world where many don't understand the precise meaning of a term the meaning becomes less meaningful. So since something 'obscene' was bad in a sexual context it was used to indicate bad things in other areas. Consequently while some people said that war was obscene, others said that bad writing was obscene, still others saw high prices as obscene. So the precise meaning evolved into a generalized meaning and people who were precise a their language were pushed aside by those with limited vocabularies."

 —"In law I often see changes in meaning to make an action appear to be less harmful than it is. I remember hearing in an action of a pedophile's forced sex with children, being called intergenerational intimacy? By the same token, is a peeping Tom just staring, or is it visual rape? If a person wants to die and is helped to die, is it active euthanasia, assisted suicide, being aided in dying, assisting death with dignity—or is it murder?

"Are prostitutes, hookers, working girls, street walkers or sex workers? The term must apply to prostitutes of both sexes. In Japan they call it subsidized dating. Is it a brothel or a whorehouse or is it a 'sex client service terminal' or even a short term vacation stop? In America we don't have toilets, we have johns, powder rooms, bathrooms, little boy's or little girl's rooms. And when we are there we don't defecate, we take a whiz, a dump or whatever name our mother gave it."

 —"Terrorists say they are jihadists. Some prefer to call themselves martyrs. But Wreck, you might prefer them to be called 'population reduction specialists.'"

 —"Take the ax out of my back Ray, But if we want to keep playing this semantic game of political correctness, lest we hurt somebody's feelings maybe we can call shoplifters 'goods relocation specialists' or 'external tax deduction facilitators."

 —"Along that line, when your brother-in-law's out of work it is a recession when you are out of work it is a depression."

 —"You men are way ahead of me. But seriously commander, if you are going to be aware of the political techniques people will use you must be aware of the different interpretations people might give to the terms you use or they use. For example, if you're talking to a religious group or in a religious country and use the word 'secular' your listeners may take it as being a synonym for Godlessness or atheistic. Even when you use the words 'freedom' or 'liberty' they may be understood to mean licentiousness. If you are speaking to a Muslim group in a Christian country, or Christian group in Israel and use the word 'assimilation', they may take it as a call for them to give up their beliefs and identities. If you use the word 'moderate' in a political sense, meaning in the center of the political spectrum, between liberals and conservatives, a deeply religious person might take it to mean moderate in a religious sense, and understand it to be not having a deep belief. So when speaking to groups you must choose your words well so that there are not misunderstandings that can drown your message."

 —" I guess another semantic confusion is the broad meanings given to the word capitalism. I like Marx's definition that it is making money on your money—like the stock market, or maybe making money with other people's money, like the banks do. In the 1990s and early 2000s people made paper profits on their hyper-inflated home values. Those who got out on time were capitalists, those who didn't were gamblers who lost. In a Marxian sense, investor Warren Buffet is definitely a capitalist. Real estate investor Donald Trump would also be a capitalist. And Carlos Slim, the world's richest man, is also now a capitalist. The way I see it is that free enterprise should only be called capitalism if you don't work at the job. Bill Gates worked at the job until he retired so he was an entrepreneur working in a free enterprise environment. After retirement he could be considered to be a capitalist since he was making money on his investment of work and time.

"Then we keep hearing that socialism is bad in America—but most people aren't ready to get rid of Social Security and minimum wages, which are socialistic because they're based on people's contributions of work. Many are not ready to give up food stamps and Medicare which are communistic because they're based on the needs of people."

 —"Americans are too individualistic to accept a welfare state. They may accept the poor getting food stamps or 'aid for dependent children' but that is pretty minor."

 —"Come on Con, there are lots of types of welfare in our country, we just don't call it that. It comes directly from the government from our taxes or from borrowing. Some come partially from taxes, like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and our national health insurance requirements. Our national legislators get outstanding health care and other free insurance that the rest of us don't get. I guess that is neither communistic nor socialistic. Whatever it is, it's outstanding treatment for our leaders that the rest of us can't get. It's what you would expect in an aristocracy, not in a democracy. If the taxes aren't sufficient to pay for it, our government just borrows it and our taxes pay the interest.

"But some things we pay for without knowing it. For example, if you are a government employee and your job is worth $50,000 a year, but you get health, dental and vision insurance that costs $3,000, you would actually be offered $47,000 to do the job. You think you are working for $47,000 and get free health insurance—but you are really paying for it. In the private sector it works the same. Unions usually negotiate health insurance and retirement benefits into their contracts. Here again we have 'welfare state' benefits, but they are negotiated with employers."

 \--"In the European welfare states the high taxes pay most of the bills. Forty to 50% tax rates pay for most of the benefits. In the U.S. there aren't as many benefits for people who don't work for the government or for large employers. So the American welfare state, or should we say socialistic state, is not universal, but it is extensive."

 —"So Commander, you'd better choose your words wisely. 'Welfare,' 'socialism,' 'capitalism,' 'warming' and all the other terms that may have multiple meanings may be interpreted in as many ways as you have members in your audience. You may remember that when Chevrolet introduced is Nova into Mexico it didn't sell well at all. While Chevrolet saw the meaning of nova as a very bright star, the Mexicans translated it as ' _no va'_ which means 'doesn't go.'

"You may be aware that heads of state often have directors of protocol to tell them how to act, when to bow, when to shake hands and other actions that may be different in the country they are visiting. For example you wouldn't wrap a present for a Chinese in white because white is a symbol for funerals. The point is that semantic meanings from words, gestures or customs can vary not only between countries but also between people in an intimate group. So let's look a little bit more at some semantic problems you may encounter in your discussions.

"There is a semantic problem that we often call a 'slippery slope.' It means that you can't get a solid grip on it. When we try to determine when life starts or when death occurs we are confronted with many questions. Does a human life really begin when the sperm penetrates the ovum and the soul enters the single cell, as the conservative Catholics believe? Does it start when the embryo attaches to the uterus, as the U.S. government has decreed? Does it begin at birth as is the Jewish belief? In any case, it is a definition, not a fact. Does death occur when brain activity stops, when the heart stops normal functioning, or does death not occur until a heart-lung machine is removed from a patient? What if the heart stops for two minutes during an operation? Was the person actually dead then resurrected? Again it is a definition, not a fact. Once it is defined, we might say that whatever situations match the definition are now factual.

"Changing the meaning of terms is a common method of propaganda or politics."

  \--"We went into that a bit with Dr. Wang in Kino."

 \--"It is a common concern with us in academia. 'Democracy' is always good in your country. 'Socialism' is always bad. And nothing is worse for you than 'communism.' But not a lot of your senior citizens are ready to give up their Medicare—and that is pure Marxian Communism—'From each according to his ability to each according to his needs.' And your Social Security pensions are Marxian Socialism 'From each according to his ability to each according to his work.' The more you contributed, the more your government pension is.

"But look at your democratic voting that elected such incompetents as George W. Bush. With less than a majority of voters, he put you in wars that had negative consequences for your country. He nearly doubled your national debt, from 5.7 to 10.7 trillion dollars, with his wars and tax relief measures. His actions reduced the value of your dollar against many other currencies. That increased the cost of your oil. But he was reelected because his political strategists were able to manipulate your people better than the Democratic strategists were able to do. Did democracy help your country in that case? You talk about democracy but the majority of your voters are not listened to. You don't really have a democracy for your presidential elections because of your electoral college concept. It may have worked well in the early 1800s because your country did not have the modern methods of voting at their disposal. But you seem to keep this nondemocratic mechanism because it's easier for party politicians to gauge how they can win a national election. To hell with democracy, it's all about party politics--but you call it democracy anyway.

"Then you elected Obama but he was immediately derided as socialistic when he worked to bail out the industries that had lost billions of dollars due to the financial anarchy allowed by the deregulation started years before by your popular president Reagan and condoned by all those who followed him. It was great for the free enterprise bankers and Wall Street, but it financially murdered many of your common people who lost money on their investments, their pensions and often lost their homes. Where do your ideas of freedom and equality conflict with the realities of economics? And what exactly do you mean by 'freedom', 'equality' and 'democracy?'

 \--"Right. In California we have had several referenda in which a huge majority of the voters approved a measure, but when opponents sought to have the measure invalidated, one judge overruled the majority of voters. So we don't have a real democracy, we have a constitutional republic with checks by a judiciary—we just like to call it a democracy.

"On another note, when a man says 'I love you' to a woman, what does he mean? Is he using the definition that is common among academics, that he will help her to develop her personality to the fullest and that he will unselfishly aid her in that task? Or is it more likely that he means 'I want you' and if he is proposing a lifelong commitment is he really saying 'I want you just the way you are—never change.' This is actually the more common meaning. So semantic problems confront and confuse us daily in our personal lives. I can see that commonly we can't effectively react to the words used by those who are trying to manipulate us in our personal, political or financial lives."

 \--"Let's get back to some national or international issues. 'They are human beings' is heard when illegal immigrants want to be accepted by another country. Central and South Americans in the U.S, Africans and south Asians in the UK. Of course it is true. They are human beings but they are not citizens of the country they are invading. The reality is that they don't have the rights that the citizens of the country they are invading have. So the pro-illegal immigrant politicians who are trying to influence us commonly deflect our thinking from one reality to another and they hope that we won't catch on to their semantic sidestepping. By definition, illegal immigrants have broken the law of the society they are invading. Consequently if we are to use human rights as an admission ticket to a country, should we not give those rights first to all law abiding people from every country? Rather than take in a person from Ghana who has broken the law by illegally entering the country, why not take in a law-abiding person from Ghana who has applied legally for entry into the country? We keep hearing terms like 'human rights,' 'human life', ' pro-life', 'socialism', etc. without any clear definitions of the terms. Without clear definitions these terms are useless in developing a logical argument but they are quite commonly highly useful in manipulating people to the political ends of those using these undefined terms.

"Reminds me of Alice's encounter with Humpty Dumpty in Wonderland. You remember the story 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less.' 'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.' 'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master--that's all.' (39)

"In law we have precise definitions. For example 'should' is discretionary while 'shall' is mandatory. 'Murder' is different from 'manslaughter' although in both cases the victim is equally dead."

 \-- "I understand, Dr. Singh, that it is so difficult to separate the words from the intended meanings. When listening to politicians are they saying what they really mean, or merely trying to get a positive response from their audience and gain their votes.

THE CALL FOR 'RIGHTS'

"'Rights' or 'civil rights' or 'equal rights' are commonly used to mask the real meaning of our words, when we mean 'wishes' or 'wants' or 'desires'. Of course 'rights' come from the state. For example some years ago homosexuals in California did not have the right to marry but homosexuals in New Hampshire had that right. Some Californians 'demanded', another loaded word, that they get the rights of homosexuals in other states and other countries."

 \--"A good way to get your cause popularized and mainstreamed is to proclaim that you have rights or equal rights. Nobody has done this better than Gandhi, seeking rights for all Indians even the Untouchables, and Martin Luther King, seeking equal rights for Blacks. Then you had the homosexuals in your country, seeking recognition as being normal, then seeking the right to marry. In each of these cases the people seeking their 'rights' were generally non-violent."

 -"You are correct on the emotional appeal of calling for rights. If people ever thought it through they might question it. For example if we are seeking equal rights, who is equal is one question. Dogs can poop on the street or in the park, although it may be frowned on by some, especially by those who stepped in the dog poop while following in the dog's footsteps! But if people defecate on the street or in the park they can be arrested.

But look at humans in our own country. Is it right that while people in Colorado, Delaware, and Minnesota can drive with a blood alcohol level of 0.10 but in all the other states you can only drive with a blood alcohol level of 0.08. And airplane pilots can fly only if their blood alcohol level is under 0.04. I guess that the people who have a real complaint are those who are only allowed to drive if they have a blood alcohol level under 0.02, like in many European countries."

 \--"Totally unfair and unequal! Then if you look at the shabby way other drivers are treated in the world compared with our America drivers, they have a real case for equal rights. In the Czech Republic and Hungary they are at the zero tolerance level, 0.00. Brazil and Sweden are at 0.02 and Russia and Japan at 0.03. France, Germany, Australia and Argentina are at 0.05, so they are getting a bit closer to equality with our citizens."

 —"Then there's the right to vote. It used to be 21. Then Nixon lowered it to 18. But what if you have a physically and mentally mature 17 year old. Aren't his rights being violated? And look at education. Those poor children who are innately gifted often attend inferior schools, while less intelligent rich kids attend highly rated public or private schools. And look at the University of California where about 40% of the students are Asian. They had worked hard in high school and received exceptionally high grades but some politicians want to bring in more Hispanics and African-Americans because the campuses are not ethnically representative of the communities. We can find hundreds of these cases where people are not being treated equally.

"But I can't understand how a same sex couple can be seen as equal to a heterosexual couple. The homosexual couple may have a greater emotional bond than a heterosexual couple. They may have more money or more education. But they are not equal. Remember equality means exactly the same. 2 equals 2, A equals A, but two dogs are not equal. Even two Dobermans are not equal. They may be more similar than a Doberman and a German Shepherd, but they are not equal. What the homosexuals have had is a loud voice and a willingness, by those out of the closet, to organize parades, to write books, to go on TV, in short to make a lot of noise. So their political cause got recognized. But there were no rights until they got the law changed. They just made many people think that rights existed and they weren't being allowed those rights. The truth is that their political actions eventually encouraged those rights to be granted."

SEMANTIC FALLACIES

 \--"OK so we've looked at some semantic problems with the meanings of words. Obviously in the semantic area of an argument the terms used have to be clearly understood by all. They may have to be precisely defined. If not we have what are called semantic fallacies. A statement may be a semantic fallacy but may still be believed by the speaker and the audience. As we've looked at, appeals to emotion are quite common political techniques but commonly are not logical in a semantic sense because they don't have a precise meaning. Then there is the argument from authority which is believed because the listener believes that the figure speaking either gets the word straight from God or has thought the issue through thoroughly. So when the Pope speaks to Catholics many, if not most, believe the word is from God. When bin Laden speaks to his followers the same God uses his voice. Radio and TV stations often have a bias. The bias may be from the state, from a liberal voice or from the conservative or reactionary point of view. The owner of the station may set the editorial policy and hire only people who mouth his thoughts.

"Another kind of semantic fallacy occurs when a commentator uses a different meaning for a word than the speaker intended or takes an action out of context. Even the actions of someone that the speaker is trying to disparage can be used out of context. For example we mentioned that when President Obama went to Istanbul to confer with some leaders he was taken on a tour of Hagia Sophia, a building which had first been built as a Christian church. It remained a Christian for 1000 years. The name Hagia Sophia means 'Holy Wisdom.' After the Muslim conquest of Istanbul it was converted to a Moslem mosque. So it was a mosque for the next 500 years. After Ataturk secularized Turkey it was made a museum. So it has been a museum for the last 75 years. I doubt that any serious tourist to Istanbul would miss its number one tourist attraction. But the anti-Obama pundits used his visit in the former mosque to try to prove that he was indeed a Muslim. Then they took lines from his speeches out of context to prove his Islamic beliefs, criticizing whenever he commented positively on the contributions of Islam, like the development of algebra, its artistic and architectural innovations, and the beauty of some of its poems.

INDUCTIVE LOGIC

"Once we have clarified the meaning of the terms we must look at the probability of the statement, by that I mean the premise used in the argument. This is called the inductive phase of argumentation.

"Inductive logic moves from the specific to the general. It is used in developing the premises of an argument. The premise might be based on empirical observation. If I say 'I have seen three squirrels hide their nuts in a tree, so I believe that all squirrels hide their nuts in trees.' How probable is my conclusion? But if I say 'I have observed ten thousand squirrels and they all hid their nuts in trees, so I believe that all squirrels hide their nuts in trees.' This is a more probable conclusion because there were many more specific facts that pointed to a general rule. Similarly, if I observed that 'This winter was colder than average in New York, so there is no global warming.' This conclusion is not as probable as the conclusion that 'Global warming exists because I have analyzed the data from over 1000 world-wide sites over the last twenty years and every year twice as many sites registered higher than lower normal temperatures, and over the years the trend of higher temperatures has been significantly upward.' Again, the probability of the truth of this proposition is greater.

"The premises might be referring to an historical belief or fact. The classic syllogism, that is: two premises and a conclusion, you remember it is that: 'All men are mortal. Socrates was a man. Therefore Socrates was mortal.' The first premise has some semantic questions. Does the term 'men' include women, children, fetuses, embryos, zygotes? Does mortal mean only a physical death or does it include the cessation of all life or existence for the 'man'? Then there is the empirical question of whether some people will not die. If we take Methuselah into account we can say with certainty that within a thousand years of a person's birth he will have died. But we don't know if any people living today will never die, particularly those frozen with cryogenic technology. However based on our knowledge of history, it is highly probable that we will all die. The next premise, that 'Socrates was a man' is dependent on some historical records, primarily Plato's accounts. Was he an actual person or merely a fictional character. If the two premises are highly probable or true, the conclusion becomes more highly probable or true.

"Looking at some historical premises such as: Moses lived. Jesus lived. Abraham lived. Shiva lived. Tutankhamen lived, Alexander lived. Napoleon lived. Some of these are confirmed by historians of the time. Some are confirmed by bones and relics. Some are written about only some years after they supposedly lived. So the evidence of their lives and what they may have accomplished is not as probable as a more recent historical event such as 'The Americans dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima' or 'John Kennedy was elected president of the United States.'

FALLACIES OF INDUCTIVE LOGIC

"When an inductive statement is questionable in terms of its probability it is called an inductive fallacy. The most common fallacies of the inductive type fall into three groups--those that are not relevant to the conclusion, those that are ambiguous so that we don't know exactly what they mean, and those that presume facts that are not in evidence. Some fallacies overlap these categories.

"Many fallacies are due to people being lazy in their thinking. It is so common to want to defend an opinion or a hope that oftentimes people's thinking is lazy, incomplete, ill considered or as they say in philosophy 'slothful'. They ignore the evidence and stay with their hopeful opinions. For example, if the evidence shows that there are more famines and less fresh water due to hotter weather, but the listener wants to believe that there is always plenty of fresh water and that the famines are not a danger, this is evidence of lazy thinking. Actually it's not thinking at all. It is merely hoping, or worse, a fear of accepting the facts that a thinking person would accept. So we might say that all inductive fallacies, whether by accident or on purpose, don't use the most probable evidence available.

"The premise may look at small specifics to make generalizations from a wee bit of evidence. Or it may use any other bits of evidence no matter how questionable. The important thing is that people be able to see the error in their thinking. Some people can, some people can't. It's those who can't or won't that are the problem because they refuse to let facts or logic influence what they want to call 'thinking.'

"Fallacies of relevance use conclusions that are derived from premises that aren't relevant to the conclusion. A common fallacy is called that of _ad hominem_ and occurs when one declares that an idea is good or bad because of the person who said it. 'Hitler advocated a type of eugenics so eugenics should never be allowed.' Or, 'Thomas Jefferson was a deist so Americans should give up their theistic beliefs.' A true or a valid argument does not depend on a person for its truthfulness. Or one might say 'That fat slob says that genetics are a cause of obesity. We all know he must eat too much.' Or, 'That liberal politician will have us believe that Social Security is not socialism.' Some years ago I remember seeing an announcement from Iran, after President Obama worked to increase international sanctions against it, saying 'That cowboy Obama can't do a damn thing.'

"But in contrast to criticizing a person to make your point, instead of criticizing their argument, people can also congratulate you on your idea-- even if it is fallacious. Flattering a person rather than evaluating their arguments can often make them believe even more strongly in their positions even if they are not thought out. So when you believe a radio or TV pundit because they believe the same as you, it is not a logical way of reasoning. To attempt to approach truth, ideas must be based on evidence and put together by tight rules of logic so that they will be true, or at least highly probable. Logical fallacies relating to relevance also occur in many political rallying cries. Appealing to sympathy, fear and honor or loyalty are just three of the political techniques we have already mentioned but you can imagine that many of the psychological techniques can be used as premises to some sort of conclusion, illogical as it may be.

"Then there is the appeal to authority as a fallacy. Just because the president or the Pope or an athlete or a minister has said something, it doesn't make it necessarily true."

 -"Doctor Wang talked about that when we are in Kino. Certainly when the Pope speaks it is from authority, it is often from God, so it should be a pretty strong political appeal. But I can understand that when some of these political or religious puppets tell us to do something without any firm authority for their arguments we should be skeptical. When jihadists say that they should kill innocent people from the West because the Koran requires it, they are certainly setting themselves up as THE authority because the Koran actually forbids it.

"I remember another fallacy that probably fits in here, as I remember it's called _non sequitur_ meaning that the argument doesn't follow. If someone says that America will always be the best country because God loves us, the argument assumes that one thing will cause another when there is no evidence to that effect. It's one thing if we say that two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen will make water, that comes closer to the truth. But if we say that this nation will survive because of God, or because of democracy, or even because it has the greatest arsenal, none of these can guarantee a nation's survival."

 \--"Another type of inductive fallacy that is quite a common occurrence when someone believes that because something happened earlier it caused what happened later. For example if a child is diagnosed with autism after having had inoculations, a parent may assume that the vaccine caused the autism. Of course it has been disproven that childhood vaccinations cause autism. Or an athlete may wear the same socks game after game because they were the socks he wore when he first won a game."

 —"I remember that about fifteen years ago Barack Obama was elected president. The economy had been falling but it fell to its worst level the month he was inaugurated. Ray's reactionary media pundits blamed Obama for the problem, then when he increased the national debt to help right the economic ship, he was blamed for increasing the national debt. They needed to go back one president to affix the blame, but they were not going to criticize one of their own."

 —"That's true. This type of argument is like saying because I get up at 4 AM I cause the sun to rise an hour or so later."

"Oh, I remember another one. I remember it was called the 'strawman'. That's when you take an element of your opponents argument, misrepresent it, then attack the misrepresentation that you've made. Remember about 15 years ago when a hacker got into some e-mails from East Anglia University in England. It appeared that these high-level climate scientists occasionally found something that might counter the preponderance of the evidence for climate change. When these small cover-ups were discovered, those who were fighting the idea that the globe was warming jumped onto the idea that it was all a cover-up--a strawman. In spite of the thousands of climatologists studying the subject, and the hundreds of thousands of attempts to cover up a few minor glitches in the otherwise strong evidence. The reactionary pro-business talk radio pundits carried on for weeks charging that all of climate science was flawed. It took some time for the British Parliament's scientific committee, Penn State University and two other committees to analyze and evaluate the evidence. It found that the cover-up was in fact non-existent or insignificant."

 -"What about the circular arguments. Ray, you people in the religious game use circular arguments all the time. 'I believe in God because the Bible tells me there is a God, and how do I know, because it says so in the Bible, and who wrote the Bible-- God.'"

 -"While that may be true Lee, remember about the basic assumptions that Wanda Wang talked about. You can't prove basic assumptions. And then she said that even science has basic assumptions."

 -" But she also said that the basic assumptions of science are much more easily believed that the basic assumptions of religions."

 \--"So inductive arguments may be ambiguous, such as the strawman fallacy, or they may presume things that cannot or have not been proven, such as circular arguments.

"Another kind of untenable premise is a generalization that is suspect. There might not be enough items in the sample, such as seeing three squirrels hide their nuts in a tree. Many studies are done with university students by their professors. If it is found that 25% of the sample of sophomore college students were afraid of spiders, can we assume that 25% of all people in that university, or in the nation, or in the world are afraid of spiders?"

 -"This brings up the point that bothers me and many of my fellow priests. Certainly some priests have molested children. But what is the percentage? Bringing this farther, some might think that sexual abuse by some Catholic priests makes Catholic teaching meaningless. 'Family value' Republican legislators and governors have had extramarital or homosexual affairs –does it render the family values message invalid? Some people make that 'hasty generalization' and assume that the few specifics result in a valid generalization. That of course is untrue."

 \--"Exactly Ray. The last two illustrations of the students and the questionable morality of some believers can be seen not only as 'hasty generalizations' but also as unrepresentative samples. If we are going to talk about Catholics or Southern Baptists or Mormons we had better take a large number of samples. If we sample 'temple going' Mormons in Utah can we extrapolate their opinions to cover Maori Mormons in New Zealand?

"If we question the superrich in Martha's Vineyard about the desirability of a flat income tax, we can't extrapolate their opinions to be those of ghetto dwellers in Compton?"

 \--"Another example of a generalization would be if a person says that the world has always been able to support its population it will continue to be able to support its population. Or we've never had licenses for parents so we certainly don't need them now."

 \--"Then there is the faulty generalization that tries to get us to move to a general rule from one or a few individual cases. What if I say that 'I know a very poor family whose six kids have all graduated from college with honors. So poverty is not a factor in reducing one's chance of going to college.' This would certainly not be an average poor family that I am using for my sample."

 —"I remember one fallacy called the 'red herring', named after the British fox hunting practice in which purists would drag a smelly old dead herring across the trail to fool the hounds' nostrils so that the real trail of the fox was hidden. When politicians, and I mean here the loud mouthed media people and anyone else trying to obscure any valid arguments, tear down a person's arguments by referring to their plastic surgery, their past drug use, their rich parents, their pot belly, their unpopular stand on a previous issue or anything else that might make fun of them, and pointing to that rather than addressing the argument being made by that person right now."

 —"Right Ray. It is a very common, but illogical, way of arguing. But as I keep repeating, we are mainly psychological, not logical, so when you want to influence the masses, use psychological political techniques, not logic. Anyway Commander, when you encounter the naysayers, you must be prepared to point out when the premises are not relevant to the conclusion.

"Another way to develop premises inductively is through analogy. But some analogies are false or improbable. Here is an example of the false analogy. 'All the people I know try to be good parents so I know that every place in the world parents try to do the right thing for their children.' Of course we could take the opposite point of view and say that I have seen a lot of parents, such as drug addicted to or uneducated people, who don't have a clue as to how to raise a child. I would assume from this that most people really don't know how to raise children.

"Then there is the 'causal inference.' The overwhelming number of prisoners who have committed violent acts have come from impoverished families, so obviously poverty is the cause of violent behavior.' Or, we may counter this by saying 'have all children from impoverished families become violent criminals?' The answer is of course, No!

"Another type of logical fallacy comes in the form of a prediction that is not based on a highly probable premise. 'If we allow socialized medicine, the rich people who would be paying for it will all leave the country.' or, ' if we allow our legislators to make a law licensing parenting only for people who are over 21, we will have rioting in the streets.' Naturally such predictions cannot be made with any accuracy. Even if you dare to predict what you will do in a given situation, it may not be true. The Republican pundit, Rush Limbaugh, told his listeners that if the healthcare bill passed he would leave the country. It passed, he didn't leave.

"There are so many types of fallacies that I won't go into all of them, but here are a few more examples. Criticizing an opponent's motives would be one; another would be trying to convince someone by using pity, appealing to honor, to loyalty, arguing that 'everyone' or 'lot's of people' believe in it, or that some popular people believe it. So if a media celebrity backs an idea or a candidate it is merely an opinion. But if that same celebrity clarified the arguments and showed a logical deductive conclusion, using highly probable premises, it would be a different matter."

 —"So some of the political techniques you have been discussing may be untrue or don't follow a path of logic."

 —"Right. Political techniques are generally based on our psychological reactions. Logic and truth may sway some people but most of us are swayed by our psychological make-ups. Still, Commander, since you will be facing many of these non-logical arguments against your highly probable and logical appeals, you had better be aware of how to combat them. I would guess that your appeal to reduce population will encounter antagonistic arguments based on tradition 'we've never done it your way', and on individual freedom 'Don't tell us what to do!' as well as non-provable basic assumptions of some religions, and of course appeals to authority, such as the Pope and other religious leaders. I don't know if you can get enough people who might be capable of thinking to actually think. You may have to teach the world's population a course or two of basic philosophy."

 -"Well those reactionary commentators in the media use another form of fallacy. They just talk loud and long. If they say the same thing enough many of their listeners will believe them. Remember what Lenin said 'a lie told often enough becomes the truth.'"

 \--"Oh ya, I remember another one. When people say that 'everyone knows that,' or 'the majority of the people believe this,' unless we have some valid scientific proof of this statement, you better not believe it. As I remember it was called the 'bandwagon' effect, if everybody's on the wagon you should be too. But as I've said before, 'God and one man is a majority.' Truth is not dependent on a majority vote."

 -"Your idea of licensing parents is only eugenic when it deals with genes. Many people are for eugenics in their own lives. For example, if a couple finds that the fetus that the mother carries has Down's Syndrome, about 90% of American mothers have the fetus aborted. But I think, Wreck, that your approach is primarily about having parents psychologically and financially equipped to handle the parenting the child. Since this doesn't deal with the genes of the child, it is not really eugenics. It might be called 'eu-parenting' or 'eu-environmenting' because it deals with the child after it is born. There is a big difference between eliminating the potential for having a very low IQ'ed child or a child which would carry genes that would make it ill, such as Tay-Sachs or sickle cell anemia. There is also a difference in the eugenic ideal of producing more athletic or more intelligent children. As I understand you, eugenics might be a part of some licensing programs, the most important part of any licensing program is how well parents are prepared to raise the child effectively-- providing for its education, its effective nurturing and providing it with the tools to be a happy person and an effective and concerned citizen."

 \--"Excellent point, Lee. Let me now continue with another lack of logic that is very common in your country. Your citizens commonly merely deny the facts. Whether it is global warming, the need for population control, the devastating effects of your national debt, the reality of your enormous prison population, or any number of other problems. So many of your people just stick their heads in the sands of television or video games and refuse to see the truth of the problems. It reminds me of the 'stages of grief' that Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (40) proposed so many years ago. While she was talking about our reactions to death, we have found that the same stages occur in most occasions of sadness. When people realize they're going to die, when they accused of being alcoholics, when they are confronted by an unwanted divorce, or any other factor that can cause grief, the first stage is 'denial.' We don't believe this is happening to us. The second stage is anger. We could see that in Greece when it was recognized that huge cuts in spending had to be put into force. The third stage is bargaining. If you do this I promise I'll do that. The fourth stage is depression, when we realize that it is really happening. The fifth stage is acceptance.

"The problem today is that we don't have the luxury of a great deal of time to deny the realities. Climate change is already a problem. Overpopulation is already a problem. The lack of fresh water is already a problem. Illegal immigration is already a problem in much of the world. The large numbers of unloved and undisciplined children bulging our prison systems and juvenile detention facilities is already a problem. Your people just seem to want to protest their taxes--as low as they are by international standards, but they're not ready to confront the problems that are causing the real threats to the world--or even those that are raising their taxes. There is no question that not only America, but most of the Western world, is going to face these gigantic problems. They will probably then react with denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally they will have to accept it. You will undoubtedly be confronting people in every one of these stages of grief caused by overpopulation. Whether it be famine, illegal immigration, climate caused hurricanes and heat waves, unemployment or any of the other results of overpopulation. And they will not see the need to license parents. At this point in time you will still be reaching those in the denial stage. As the years roll on you'll encounter them in the other stages of grief. Meanwhile one of your major approaches will undoubtedly be using reason. And since you will use reason you will have to counter the fallacious reasoning of those you are trying to convert.

"So if we are intelligent we can easily see the holes in the arguments of our friends, our enemies, the media moguls, and the politicians. We just have to try to break down what they're saying in terms of how probable it is. If we take a media pundit, like Rush Limbaugh, who went to college for one semester and failed of all of his classes, we might wonder about his basic intelligence. We might also wonder about his ability to analyze the evidence. Then we might look at how he makes his money, which is by appealing to a reactionary base of the political parties, and we might wonder about his actual motives. Is it to find the truth, is it to make money, or is it to be sensationalist?

DEDUCTION AND DEDUCTIVE FALLACIES

"While most of the problems that interfere with our thinking logically seem to stem from the semantic area of meaning or the inductive areas of probability, the final stage of intelligent reasoning is often in the area that we called deduction. Deduction is the process of correct thinking. It can get a little confusing because you can have two true premises and a true conclusion, yet the process by which you arrived at the conclusion can be faulty, that is, invalid. So once you have a clear understanding of the meaning of the terms of a premise and those premises are highly probable from an empirical or historical perspective, the way these premises relate to each other--so that if both premises are true, the conclusion is definitely true, is called deduction. There are well thought-out rules to determine whether a conclusion follows from the premises.

"It is possible to have two true premises and a conclusion that is true, but if the rules of deductive thinking were not followed it would be considered to be a fallacy of deduction. If I say 'The world has a human overpopulation problem. Most people today live in cities. So millions of people are dying of starvation.' While the premises and conclusion are true, there was not the necessary connection between them to make the conclusion follow logically from the premises. In this case, there are more than three terms, The premises have these terms: '(all) of the world', 'human population problem', most people, '(some who) live in cities', millions of people and (people) dying of starvation. One rule of deductive logic is that you can have only three terms. The argument I just mentioned has six terms.

"Along with the fallacy I just mentioned, that of having more than three terms, there are three other fallacies possible in deductive reasoning. The others are: not having an undistributed term as the middle term in the argument; the fallacy of negative premises, and the fallacy of illicit process.

"Remember a few minutes ago we talked about the terms of a premise including all, none or some of the elements in that term. If all but one of the elements in a term is included, the term means 'some' of that element. So if I say "99.9% of the people want Joe to be the president of the country.' Since it is not 100% of the people, in terms of deductive logic we are really saying 'some people.'

"The rule of deductive logic, that I mentioned earlier, is that the middle term must be distributed at least once. The middle term is the term that appears in both premises. So in our classic syllogism "All men are mortal. Socrates was a man' So Socrates was mortal.' 'Man' or 'men' is the middle term. When we say that the middle term must be distributed at least once in the premises it means that it must either mean 'all' or 'none' of that term. If the term in both premises both include only 'some' of that entity, even if it includes 99.9999% of the total, it will make the conclusion invalid—even though it might be true.

"Then the premise must be made into a sentence with a copulative verb, such as 'is.' or 'are'. So this premise would be stated as: "(Some) people are (some) of those who want Joe to be president.

"If we say that: President Obama wanted a universal health care bill, so we must have it. It is a logical fallacy. But we might arrive at the same conclusion or the opposite conclusion based on the probabilities of the inductive elements of the theses. So we might put it this way:

\--The desires of the majority are what rule in American democracy

\--Universal health care is desired by the majority.

\--So America should have universal health care.

"Or to put it in a more syllogistic form:

\--(Some) desires of the majority (are) some of the things that rule in American democracy

\--(Some) universal health care is desired by (all) of the majority

\--So, universal healthcare should be practiced in America.

"Let's take another one:

\--Jihads against the West are essential because the West threatens Islam.

"In a more syllogistic form we might put it this way:

\--All jihads are necessary to stop (some) threats to Islam

\--(Some of)The West is (some of the) threat to Islam

\--So there must be a jihad against the West.'

"While this may sound good as a battle cry, it is not logically valid because the middle term 'threat(s) to Islam' is not distributed, that means neither one in the premises includes all of the possible threats to Islam.

"Another rule is that no affirmative conclusion can come from two negative premises. So if I say I don't want Joe to be president. Joe would not be a good president. So we should vote for Sam. It may be true that Joe would be a bad president, and maybe we should vote for Sam, but the two negative premises don't allow us to yield a valid conclusion, even though it may be true that we should all vote for Sam.

"The other major type of deductive fallacy is called illicit process. This is disguised in a syllogism in which the middle term is the subject of both premises. Let's go back to our original classic syllogism that 'All men are mortal. Socrates was a man. Therefore Socrates was mortal.' The distributed term 'man or men' was the subject of the first term and the object or predicate of the second term. To be a valid argument the middle term must be the subject of one term and the object of the other. Otherwise there is no logical connection. If I say that 'Lee is a smart lawyer. He has black hair. So people who have black hair are smart lawyers.' It is both an invalid argument and obviously untrue.

"Let me take a religious argument. 'The Bible is the inspired word of God. The Bible tells us to repent for our sins. So God wants us to repent for our sins.' While it may be true that God wants us to repent for our sins, the argument given is not a valid argument because there is no link between the two terms since 'the Bible' is the subject of both premises.

"This is not a course in logic, although such a course might be very valuable to you Commander. I merely point out that clear thinking may be a little more difficult than many people may believe. When we put forth arguments we need clear meanings for the words that we use. We need highly probable premises, then an airtight linking of those premises in order to have the resulting conclusion both true and valid. Having listened to many of your American radio and TV pundits, to your pro-life activists, to your jihadists, and to many of your politicians, I find that their pronouncements are true and valid less than 5% of the time."

HELPING PEOPLE ACCEPT THE TRUTH

 —"I would guess that if you can make people believe you have THE truth, no matter how false, you can pick up some followers. A few years ago Christian protesters from Kansas protested at the funerals of U.S. soldiers and 'rejoiced' at their deaths, because they said that the U.S. was allowing homosexuality—which is against the Bible. Did their protests turn people against homosexuality, against the U.S., against the protesters brand of Christianity, against Christianity generally, or even against all religion? For that brainwashed band of imbeciles –they knew the truth. But their leader could only get a few disciples--even in Kansas."

 —"People who say they are doing God's will obviously believe that God is not smart enough or powerful enough to do what He wants to. It may be God's will to create tsunamis and earthquakes and He certainly has enough power to do these. But is God is not powerful enough to blow up a Sunni or Shia marketplace or mosque, to save Israel from its neighbors, to prevent abortions or to allow contraceptives to fail?"

 -"If we are rational animals, why do we reject the truths of science? Why do the majority of people put so much trust in something that can't be seen or analyzed and is not predictable? We may have the reasoning ability to vote out our democratic politicians if they don't do what we wish. We may have the will to revolt against kings and princes if they overstep their authority. But we don't doubt our God in spite of the floods, forest fires or wars inflicted on our societies or the accidents, illnesses, or troubles suffered by ourselves. Is it really better to trust that which we cannot know instead of that which we can know? If we are going to reason, we have to use what we can see, hear, touch, and study. We need to steer through troubled waters with our hands firmly on the tiller, but we will get no place if we don't pull up the anchor of our traditional fantasies."

 \-- "Truth is only sometimes glimpsed through opinion. In using our reasoning ability we must overcome many of our opinions, opinions that have no basis in fact or truth. For example when non-Muslim Europeans are polled on the morality of extra-marital sex, 87% see it as acceptable. But the European Muslims are less accepting and their opinions vary from country to country. For example, in sexually free France 48% of French Muslims see adultery as OK. German Muslims are only about half as accepting as their French cousins, with 27% accepting it. But in puritanical Britain only 3% see it as acceptable. (41)

HELPING PEOPLE TO REASON

"How many times have we said that we are mainly psychological not logical? Our power drives and self-centeredness keep getting in the way of clear thinking. Our power drives can be satisfied by believing strongly in our religious or political ideas—no matter how unprovable. Our power drives may also be related to making money. In any case if our paths and pursuits are blocked, our first reaction is to rationalize. You remember what Dr. Chan said about rationalizing.

"People want their self centered desires, like having a job that they enjoy, and then perhaps only working 35 hour weeks. Then if they don't get what they want or when the country is bankrupt-- they can blame the government. If they want to drive to work alone and run their air conditioning all day, then the ocean rises because of global warming and sinks their beach house. The government is the culprit. We, as individuals, are seldom wrong. We seem to spend a lot more time rationalizing and problem solving.

"I don't know if you have heard about what we call the Dunning–Kruger effect, based on research of two Cornell University professors.(41a) Their research over the years shows that people who are unskilled in their ability to think or are uninformed of the best evidence available perceive themselves to be highly skilled in thinking. But at the other end of the thinking scale, those who are actually superior thinkers and better informed downplay their own superiority. It seems that superior thinkers assume that, generally speaking, everyone thinks as effectively and logically as they do. This seems to weaken their self-confidence and their perception of truthfulness and validity of their own ideas. As Dunning and Kruger understand it, the incompetent thinkers wrongly attribute superiority to themselves while the actually superior thinkers wrongly assume that their ideas are merely common because they overrate the thinking abilities of others in the population.

"The uninformed and illogical conclusions of the unskilled thinkers, when combined with their superiority feelings about knowing so much, make it difficult if not impossible to help them to see the truth. I'm afraid, Commander, that you will be facing huge numbers of such non-thinkers."

 \--" I hate to quote an atheist, but I remember that Bertrand Russell said 'One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.' (41b) That backs up what you are saying Doc."

 \--"He was certainly one of the great minds of the last few centuries. Heck, he was one of the top mathematicians, philosophers and logicians of history. And to echo what you just said, Ray, his writing that 'In the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt' has always made me much less sure of my own opinions and beliefs.

 \--"Modern society can't survive on the rationalizing today's inept solutions to our problems or relying the traditions and myths of the past to give us comfort. We need forward thinkers. Thinkers who will confront the problems that our planet faces today. We pat ourselves on the backs saying we can learn from the past, or learn from others today. We seldom do. If we don't, however, huge portions of our peoples will probably vanish as did the Mayans a thousand years ago.

"But some people can change and adapt to negative situations. Look what happened in the severe recession back in 2010. People defaulted on their mortgages and let their houses go back to the banks. Some moved into small apartments, some rented houses, some lived in tent cities. Each adjusted.

"But wouldn't it have been better to have planned ahead? For those who had been more conservative, lived in houses they could afford, and lived frugally, their living was not disturbed unless possibly they lost their jobs. But what if they had put away a good amount of money in savings? They could have continued to live without major inconveniences. For those who lost their low-paying or construction jobs, if they had prepared with higher education they would have been much less likely to be unemployed.

"Those who planned for their futures did much better than those who hoped for their futures by mortgaging their houses and investing unwisely. It seems that we humans are generally more concerned with the present and what we hope the future might be than we are of what the future probably will be. We tend to be content that if we are comfortable today it will always be that way. And that comfort will continue after we die when we will get to play our harps with the angels on Cloud Nine. Conforming to traditions makes us comfortable in the present but it may make life hell in the future. As rapidly as things are changing today we need to stay on our rational tiptoes."

 \-- "Looking at attempting to use reason as a political technique you can develop your own publications or speeches but you must also criticize the countering voices. Let's look at one of the loud voices and see how you might criticize it. When you criticize, you must look at the basic assumptions and biases of an author or the institution. Then you must look at the date of publication of a book, if you are using a book as a source of your evidence. If you are using somebody's statement you must know when it was said and under what circumstances it was said. The time and place of the source of your evidence is important because many things can change over a few years. Then you have to look at the items presented as factual and see if they are verifiable according to the accepted theory of the time. In the area of population, you have to decide whether the population should stay the same or be reduced. Let us look at the commonly used number for population replacement as being 2.1 or 2.2 babies per mother.

"Certainly when the first humans evolved they needed more than 2.1 children to make the species grow. If we are going to have a perpetual stage of war we may need more than 2.1 children, or if our soldiers are to be primarily male, we need more than one male per mother. But Commander, you believe that we need fewer people. Maybe our 8 or 9 billion should be reduced to one or 2 billion--that would certainly require a number of less than 2.1 children per woman."

 \--"The US has the fertility rate now of about 2.1, so that could be a replacement rate. But you remember that if a couple had two children at age 20 and if each child produced a child by age 20, and their children did the same, by the time that the original parents were 80 they would have their children, their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren and if they died at 80 their great great grandchildren would soon be born. So the original two would now be eight and would be eight for 20 years. If this were true across the world our population would go from 8, to16, to 32 to 64 billion people.

"Let's be more conservative. If each person reproduced himself or herself by age 35, by age 70 there would be three people instead of the original one and the population would be 32 billion. And our life expectancy is now over 80.

"But I see another problem in the US. The population has been moving southward and westward with California and Texas being our largest states. But the Southwest has one of the larger water problems. How wise is it for people to move to areas where there is a shortage of water? Then there is another problem in the US. US population will soon be growing faster than the world population. From 2010 to 2050 US population will increase by 100 million, a 32% increase. The rest of the world will have increased 38%. After that the US population should increase at a faster rate than the world's."

 \--"Commander, these facts are important but they alone will not change the views of many people. As we have talked about, you need to keep in your mind the psychological needs and drives as well as the values and the basic assumptions of those you are trying to influence. And, as we just said, the less intelligent people will be much harder to convert because they are so sure of their ideas."

EDUCATING THE WORLD ABOUT OUR PLANETARY PROBLEMS

 \--"How well I know. I would like to start right off telling people the truth and hoping they will see how important it is to start reducing our population. Naturally at the same time I would like to get them to be more serious about parenting and the responsibilities of parenthood. So I guess I'm going to be in the education game. People who have effective educations, particularly in the liberal arts, should be able to see the problems and solutions more clearly. One problem is probably that so much of higher education is now geared to the job market rather than to making people human and humane thinkers."

 \--"Modern democracy should be based on an educated electorate. If the electorate's education is limited to only the Bible or only the Koran-- the democracy will suffer. In fact democracy would certainly be replaced by theocracy. If the education is limited by not including the Bible or the Koran it is similarly flawed. If Thomas Jefferson were to visit a tribe of wandering herders in Mongolia he certainly wouldn't try to make them democrats or deists. They wouldn't be intellectually ready for either. Their traditions of autocracy and animism would be too deeply ingrained.

"Education and experience are critical to being successful. If you are a high school dropout and you were to try to get a rising young movie star to marry you, your chances would be about zero. If your first ten businesses have failed and you want to borrow ten million dollars from a bank to start a new business, you will have about the same chances for success.

"So if you want to be successful in democratizing a group, you must first get them a broad education. Give them each a computer and Internet access while you teach them to type and to read English and you have a start. Maybe in fifty years they will be ready for democracy.

"Seventy two million children are denied a basic education. Summit after summit and proclamation after proclamation haven't put a drop in the empty bucket of promises by legislators. The UN had called for universal primary education in 2015, but I wonder if we will ever have it. Universal education is not only a moral imperative but an economic necessity, to pave the way toward making many more nations self-sufficient and self-sustaining. Building modern economies and installing functioning democracies require not only a basic education but higher-level learning also.

"Politicians all talk about the necessity for more education, but when they get into office education is close to the bottom of their list of programs. Probably the kindergartners are not contributing enough money to their election funds.

"Few Americans know anything about world history, geography, macroeconomics et cetera so they don't understand the problems of the world.(42)

 \--"Maybe politicians are afraid that if children get a decent education they will vote them out of office! In fact with a decent high school education legislators could expect more competent people to be elected which would push you lawyers out of government and make you find honest work!"

 -"It is my observation that many political and religious groups are not interested in educating everyone, particularly the women. And I can understand that some businesses may prefer uneducated slaves to operate their sweatshops.

"Democracy may speed our human extinction. People voting their selfish interests and without a strong commitment to the rights of minorities and religious beliefs and practices keep selfishness, not intelligence, in the forefront. Maybe it is time to work towards an educated, humanistic group of oligarchs—as Plato suggested to manage his utopian Republic.

 —"The internet is the hope of education for the future. In the near term it will be a source of problems. It will prey on the uneducated and tell them which power driven anti-somebody groups they should join. Then it will tell them how to make bombs and how to overthrow governments or church groups that don't see things their way. But it will eventually be the major tool for widely and deeply educating people. It will stimulate questions about truth and developing intelligent values. Educational video games will play a big part, too.

"Governments will find that they must control the violence of the media because they will recognize that freedom of speech cannot be understood to allow violent sexual acts with children and infants. They will eventually recognize that pornography degrades the performer and the class of people that the performer represents, such as women and children. And it degrades the viewer. How can watching be as pleasurable as doing? As leaders become more aware that the media is a major force for both good and evil, they will opt for more Disney and eliminate chainsaw murderers, more comedy and fewer car crashes, more romance and less raunch."

 -"The Internet will be controlled enough to break the tangle of terror networks, but will still be free enough to prevent Big Brother from climbing to the top of the hill. I think that democracy will be aided by direct voting on the Internet or television as they do in Kino.(43) I believe, with Rousseau, that people are basically good. But I disagree with him in believing that we are born that way. But education can more easily turn us into saints than sinners. The recognition of a common humanity is more common in children than is hatred. It just needs to be fostered from the earliest ages."

ANTICIPATING NEGATIVES

 \--"We can certainly hope that there will be more positives than negatives coming from the more extensive use of the internet.

"You remember a while ago that we talked about anticipating the negatives of an action. As an illustration, when unions procured their overly generous health benefits for their members, they aided and abetted the decline of the American auto industry. The "Big Three" collectively spent over a billion dollars a year on health insurance. $1,500 of the cost of each American car pays for health insurance. For each car, more money is spent for health insurance than on steel for its construction. Toyota, on the other hand, has far lower health care costs in comparison to the UAW. While healthcare costs contributed to a recent combined loss of $15 billion for the "Big Three," Toyota posted a profit of $14 billion.

"So Wreck, you don't negotiate or educate in a vacuum. There are so many variables to be considered in determining which political techniques to use. You have to think of the negatives that might occur as well as the positives that you hope will occur. And I'm sure you know that nothing ever goes as smoothly as we hope. Changing people's opinions in regard to population is going to be nearly impossible as long as people think self-centeredly and do not see themselves as part of a larger society."

CHANGING PEOPLE'S OPINIONS

 \--" But it is possible to change opinions if you can make your position appear to be vital. It reminds me of my elderly neighbors who went to a restaurant and were told by the _maître d_ ' that they would have to wait 45 minutes for a table because they had no reservations. My elderly neighbor confronted the _maître d'_ and warned 'Young man, we're both 90 years old, we may not have 45 minutes.' They were seated immediately. Wreck, you will need to impress upon people the immediacy of the problem.

"We all have opinions, some are informed, some are not. Some are right, some are wrong. In the 1960s some called for the more effective use of energy or more respect for our ecology. They were right. They had science and sentience on their side, but most of us were content to go our merry ways oblivious to the future. But the future folded into the present and more of us hold the opinion that too much oil use has led to climate change. Countries recorded record breaking heat waves. Forest fires increased around the world. Glaciers melted before our eyes. Flooding ravaged the lowlands. And more of us changed our opinions as the avalanche of evidence pummeled our contentment.

"So Wreck, you obviously have to change people's opinions. But which road will you take? Economics can scare some Westerners into smaller families. It already has, and has for years. When both partners in a relationship are happy working and delighted to use their increased income for financial frivolities like fancy cars, more lavish homes and interesting vacations—you have an effective economic incentive but in societies where a man's wealth and power is measured by the size of his family, not by the size of his house, you will have a lot of educating to do.

"In 2001 George W. Bush criticized the Clinton administration's lack of an oil policy that had raised oil prices to $30 a barrel and a gallon of gasoline was about a dollar. In 2009 when the price had passed $110 a barrel and gasoline was approaching $4 a barrel he didn't criticize his own policies. He had appealed to fear to start his war in Iraq. He had appealed to greed to promise his tax breaks. But he hadn't tried 'reason' in any of his policies. Unless his reasoning considered the fact that he and his vice president were both oil men, and high oil prices were good for both of them."

 —"Sounds pretty reasonable to me as a businessman!"

 \--"But Con, you weren't in the oil business. And if you were I can't imagine you not fighting pollution.

"Remember back in 2010 a major goal of some governments was to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20% by 2050. But by 2050 the world's population will have increased by 35% over the 2010 level of 6.8 billion—to 9.2 billion. And the technology to reduce the gas emission is still not here. Some people think that it is and we just aren't using it. But that's not true. So the point is that 'the hurrier we go, the behinder we get.' Too bad that the rest of the world didn't follow China's one child policy in 1980. If it had, the population would have begun reducing by 2050.

"If we decided to use nuclear power to supply CO2-free energy to our population and we built a nuclear plant every day until 2050 we could produce the energy we need in 2050. And if we could capture every breeze, wind and hurricane that blows over the earth we could get about half the energy we would need in 2050. But think about the enormous amount of energy needed to produce the million high-tech windmills and turbines needed for the job.

"Countries and people often act counter to their best interests. Many cocaine users have died of heart failure because of the increased blood pressure that the drug causes. Many heroin users find themselves in jail, which they often find unpleasant. When the people of Troy allowed the Greeks to give them that huge wooden horse, it ended with the destruction of their city. When Americans went to war in Vietnam and Iraq it cost them international prestige, hundreds of thousands of casualties and huge economic costs. When the Pope didn't listen to Martin Luther, Protestantism split Christianity and weakened the Pope's international influence. When King George didn't acquiesce to the demands of the colonists, England lost America. Is Israel's tough stance a positive or negative to the survival of the country?

"If we plan to act intelligently we must curb global warming, reduce our population and have more effective parents for our children. Without intelligent action now, we will lose us.

"Some time ago I talked to Jack Steinberger, the Nobel prize-winning director of the CERN particle physics laboratory in Geneva. He told me that solar was the only way to go, that wind power is really a waste of resources. Europe, could invest a half trillion dollars in solar energy from the Sahara. It would take 30 years to do it but it would provide 80% of its energy needs.

"But the population increase is killing us! Thirty years ago we had five and a half billion people, now in 2025 we have eight billion. Thirty years ago our US life expectancy was 73. Today it is 85. The only way to stop our planetary predicament is for every woman to have no more than one child, but there's no way that could happen immediately.

THE LAW

"Reason has to work to dispel the fears and reticence to societal changes. We have to make people deeply aware that we must save the planet and that any effective change will probably impact every one of us. Hopefully laws will eventually be passed that required us to do what is necessary to save ourselves. Laws are among the most effective political techniques to get the whole population to follow the will of the majority of legislators. I certainly hope that I can get a number of countries to enact laws that will speed up the process of saving humanity.

"If pro-life legislators, and I mean here law makers who really want to preserve human life in the long term, decide to make laws that will make a difference in our survival, they will come up against some real opposition. Meat eaters may have to reduce or eliminate meat from their diets if we are to feed the grain to people rather than to cows. Drivers who are used to driving their cars alone may have to change to public transportation. Thermostats may have to be set lower in winter and higher in the summer and even be on a timer. But wouldn't it be terrible if we had to wear sweaters indoors during the winter?"

 \--"Certainly we need some new laws to reduce warming and population—and maybe parent licensing. There are so many ridiculous laws on the books that maybe we should write a law that would require that people who write laws have a minimal education. Maybe we should even say a liberal arts education. I'd like to think that we can separate religion from the state in our laws, but the realities are that there are so many religious people who want their beliefs sanctified by the law as well as by the Lord, that we get some ridiculous laws. Look at the law that Utah passed some time ago that could require that women who had miscarriages could go to jail. It was prompted by a 17-year-old girl who had somebody beat her up so that her seven month pregnancy would be terminated. I would say there should be a law preventing that. But the way the law read, it was designed to stop all abortions.

"Muslim countries often have similarly Allah-based laws. On the other hand China's laws come from a society basis. You may not like the direction that those laws are taking China, but they are society based. If they want to reduce corruption they educate against it, but if you do corrupt things there are very strict penalties--even death. Russia, which allows some freedom of religion, stopped some of the Jehovah's Witnesses activities in the Witnesses' attempt to popularize their religion. I don't know if the impetus came from the government or from the most populous church, the Russian Orthodox."

 \--" You probably know why they can't post the Ten Commandments in our court rooms anymore. It is because they state that you can't steal, lie, or commit adultery--so it creates a hostile environment for you lawyers.

 \--"Let me tell the lawyer jokes, Wreck. But seriously you may think that justice is blind. She's actually peeking out under her blindfold. The courts are part of the state and federal government, so state interests are generally protected against the legitimate claims of individual citizens. Those judges who must be elected have to side with the voters if they want to keep their jobs. Years ago the chief justice of California was voted out because the voters didn't like her lenient position on capital punishment. The power to appoint or remove judges is a potent political ability in free countries.

"Since Federal judges are appointed, those who aspire to the federal bench must make decisions that a president or future president will approve. Conservative presidents appoint conservative judges, liberal presidents appoint liberal justices."

"US presidents generally nominate Supreme Court judges who have political philosophies near their own. Justices Roberts and Alito were conservatives who had philosophies in line with President George W Bush. They were approved by the dominant conservative Senate. As you might expect their decisions were conservative or even farther to the right.

"The question is always whether the judge will rule on the legislative intent of the lawmakers and those who wrote the Constitution or whether they will search for the nearly infinite number of loopholes in the laws—including searching ancient and international law-- to back up their philosophical positions."

 —"You remember when I mentioned my father's case against California's State Teachers Retirement System in which the state attorney used three major points that were not in the law. Then the retirement system had the laws changed to reflect the arguments they had used in the original hearing. A couple of years later, when the case got to the appellate level the judges used those new laws to make the decision for the state. Within weeks after the appeals were finished, the legislature rescinded the laws. The decisions saved the state about $40,000 a year in retirement pay to my father.(44) And the U.S. Supreme Court case that eliminated the Constitutional protection against _ex post facto_ laws in civil cases was a state versus citizen case. The state is often all-powerful in its ability to enact laws and to appoint the judges that will uphold them. The politics of the situation is that common thread that binds most political causes—power. It is very difficult to fight the power of the state or of the church."

 \--"With the fact that Catholics and Mormons are pushing their beliefs into laws in the U.S. and the Muslims are calling for sharia law to rule their activities in the UK, civil laws based on state interests and control are losing ground. Religion seems to be reigniting its flame in the courts of the Western world. Should a Muslim woman be worth only half as much as a Muslim man in the UK? Theoretically a Christian woman is worth as much as a man, except in the workplace where women still don't earn equal pay for equal work. But remember it wasn't that long ago that Christian women didn't have equal rights or the vote that Christian men had. So how much will a state, or God, allow different laws when the religion wants one law and the greater society needs another?

"On another note, did you hear about the two British men who attacked a burglar who had kidnapped, tied up and threatened their family? The men beat up the burglar pretty good, inflicting brain damage on him. They were arrested and sentenced to a couple of years in prison in England. On appeal both had their sentences reduced. One had to serve only two years. The criminal had only 50 prior arrests and the family men were upstanding citizens.(45) But every one of us must know exactly how far we can go in protecting our families and homes. Punishment is the job for the state. But of course so is protecting our families.

"A similar case was handled differently in the U.S. A robber was chased by the store employees and beaten. He sued for $125,000. The judge ruled that he could sue but he had to come up with a $10,000 bond to cover the employees' legal costs if he lost. The indigent burglar was in jail serving eight years for robbery and had about a zero chance of coming up with the money. So sometimes we Americans are even smarter than the Brits!

"It sure would be comforting to have legislators and judges on my side. Without them the quickest and surest political technique, the law, will have to be bypassed."

CONTRACTS

 \--"Contracts might be part of your plan, Wreck. They are commonly used as techniques to get people to understand their duties and their expected rewards. They are like small laws that affect only a few people or groups. They can be written, spoken or implied. Some, like real estate, must be written. Some, like the promises of a presidential candidate to the electorate, are spoken. In a wedding ceremony the minister or judge might say 'until death do you part.' You generally assume that to mean a physical death. But for many divorcees it meant merely the death of the relationship. Whatever the understanding at the time the vows were taken—it was an oral contract.

"It is the implied contract that usually waylays the relationship. The husband didn't mention that he expected his wife to work full time and to do all the shopping, cooking and cleaning. She didn't mention that she expected him to do half of the shopping, cooking and cleaning. Their assumptions were based on hopes or dreams. It may be that a man expects his wife to do all of the homemaking chores that his mother, a full time homemaker, did. But his wife is working full time in the business world. This expectation that a modern day wife will work both full time jobs is generally _passé_. She may expect him to come home every day at 5, like her factory working father did. But he is a medical doctor who works long hours and is 'on call' every third weekend.

"In marriage commonly men want the person they married to stay unchanged. Women often want to change the men they marry because they see more potential than he is realizing. If the couple had daily sex before marriage then it reduces in frequency, the unwritten and understood contract has been violated. Very noble pursuits may interrupt it, such as business requirements or parenting duties. Either may take time and energy from the sexual activity. Even a diminished interest in sex can change it. Of course if there wasn't a real interest in sex before the marriage, but it was performed to get the other person into a marriage, then it was dishonesty—and the contract was not entered into sincerely.

"Weight gain or loss changes the contract. Getting fat or losing one's figure or physique also changes the contract. Of course intellectually we know that people will age and change, but our psychological beings usually look for dreams and ideals.

"Whoa! I wandered a bit afield! The point I wanted to make is that you can try to make contracts with various groups and people. I would think that Planned Parenthood, the Sierra Club and the many groups that are fighting global warming or overpopulation would be immediate allies in your quest. You might even go to prisons to determine whether the inmates think that more effective parenting might have kept them on the other side of the prison walls. High school and college groups might sign petitions or contracts for either delaying parenthood or making sure they are financially and emotionally prepared for the big step into family enhancing. With your international profile, you might call on people around the world to join you in an official capacity as counselors, educators, politicians, clerics or other needed callings to spread the word on population reduction and the necessity of parenting competence.

"I wonder, too, if you couldn't get some financial backing from those billionaires who are rushing into the philanthropic fray."

POWER POLITICS OR THE LAW

 \--"While your population reduction and parent licensing proposals have many friends, they also have enemies. You may have to consider going more public, probably global, with your ideas. You will have powerful enemies in the Pope, the Mormon Prophet, the Ayatollahs, the owners of Shell, Philip Morris, Toyota and the like. But maybe your best approach is to take your battles into the dens of the demons. As much as I hate to admit it, power politics is more important than the law. And if you get powerful enough you may get the laws changed the way you want them. Look at how the homosexuals brought their cases to the public and got changes in a number of laws from the military to marriage. Look at how the atheists are battling for their causes by challenging Christianity.

"Atheists are getting more brazen. Atheist-in-Chief Richard Dawkins threatened to arrest the Pope when he came to England because the Pope had allowed a child abuser to continue his wicked ways. But on the other side of the issue, in Ireland a blasphemy law has been passed that stated that up to $35,000 could be assessed against someone if 'he or she publishes or utters matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion.' And of course you know about the number of anti-abortion laws that were passed because of the evangelical movements.

"The ideal way to get your program across would be to have the legislators and executives accept your premises and get the laws passed and enforced. Unfortunately in most countries the religious and business interests will fight you. So how do you get the lawmakers, the law enforcers, and the judges to see the importance of your proposals? These are the power elites that you have to convince. They may be convinced if you can convince the electorate. Or they may be convinced already, as they are in India."

DEVELOPING YOUR POLITICAL PROGRAM

 \--"Lee, you mentioned 'program,' I think it is time now to talk about developing the whole program. We might say developing your game plan or your battle plan. You have the weapons now, physical and mental political techniques that can be used to manipulate or convince people to see your way. Now you must look at the positives and negatives that you may confront and develop your overall plan. So let's start back beginning with your goals, then look at the ways you may enhance or inhibit your progress toward reducing world population.

WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS

"As a politician you must have an idea of what you want to accomplish before you decide on which political techniques will accomplish your goals. If your goal is to have your 10-year-old learn more about mathematics and do well in school tests, what political techniques will best make that happen? If your goal is to win a spot on the city council what techniques will best make that happen? If your goal is to advance your religion, what techniques are most likely to make that happen? If your goal is to reduce serious corruption in your government what would be the best techniques to use? Capital punishment? A short or long-term jail sentence? Psychological counseling? Or have the perpetrator write 100 times 'I should not take bribes.'

"In determining your goals you may well want expert opinions. Woodrow Wilson said 'I not only use all the brains that I have but all that I can borrow.' Barack Obama seems to have done even more than Wilson in his search for the best goals for his country. The more common way for leaders to act is to have their own opinions then have a council of like-minded people saying 'yes' to his every idea.

"The goals of the leader may be quite different from what that person says. A friend who had been in the Washington government said that legislators would say privately that they supported a proposition but publicly had to vigorously oppose it. The absurdity of party politics and lobbyists interests being above the common good is very poor government--but it lines a lot of politicians' pockets!"

 \--"What goals did Ralph Nader have in mind when he ran for the presidency in 2000? Did he really think he could win and that he would be the best president? He certainly had had an early reputation as an environmentalist.

"The polls indicated that he had no chance to be elected. He did get 2.7% of the vote. That was 2.8 million votes. It was a far cry from Gore's 51 million or Bush's 50.5 million. Exit polls indicated that if Nader had not run nearly 50% of his votes would have gone to Gore and about 20% would have gone to Bush. In Florida, Bush's 500 vote plurality would certainly have evaporated if even a small majority of Nader's votes had gone to Gore. New Hampshire, too, would probably have moved into the Gore column. If either state had gone for Gore he would have won the election. As it was, he was only 5 electoral votes behind Bush. Had Gore been elected he would have been the greenest president. But Nader's run elected the brownest of all presidents. Was it a good political move? Was Nader's real goal self-aggrandizement or was it having the best and most environmentally tuned leader for his country? A true politician weighs the evidence for getting what he wants. That may mean backing off! It may mean getting concessions for not running.

"As a politician, as with most people, you give reasons or rationalizations that sound good. If you are running for president you say you are doing it because 'the people need a choice in a democracy.' But should you actually say that the people need a 'realistic choice'? There is a huge difference between the two.

"When Nader said in 2000 that with Bush and Gore the people were being given a choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, hindsight showed him absolutely wrong. The philosophical substances of Gore and Bush were 180 degrees apart. But the political strategists of the two evened them out with Bush's propagandists doing a relatively better job than Gore's propagandists.

"Leaders of governments may be interested in serving their people or in staying in power. In 2008 we saw the governments of Myanmar and Zimbabwe withholding food supplies from their starving people. Myanmar is non-democratic, being ruled by the military. Zimbabwe is supposedly a democracy, but the Mugabe government did everything it could, even the severely illegal, to stay in power. It detained the opposition leader, who had gained more votes in the election, while waiting for the run off election. Power, not pity, imprisons the compassion that we expect from social and religious morality and it flies in the face of the equalitarian values which underlie democracy.

 \--"Look at the goals of governments. China would not re-value its yuan because it would make its goods more expensive to others and might slow its economic expansion. The US, in spite of its advocacy for globalization, stopped Dubai from operating its ports. France stopped Mittel Steel of India from buying its biggest steel plants. It seems that globalization as a goal is only good when 'my' country benefits.

"Free trade is usually held out as a goal—but Europe, the US, Japan and other major countries subsidize farmers which cuts 3rd world farmers out of the possibility of competing. Real free trade benefits the poor in terms of food prices. The rich can always buy the food they want, even if the price includes duties and taxes. When duties are dropped the food price drops."

 —"True Con. I'm not aware of another developed country that seems so hampered by the negative forces of an economic democracy. I don't know if it is your two party system that is to blame or just the dominance of business in your country and the idea that you can buy anything!"

 —"You know what they say about politicians' goals in America, 'Set your goals after the polls.'"

 —"Very pragmatic, and it seems to work for your leaders. As we mentioned earlier your goal may be to get someone to marry you, to get converts for your religious beliefs, or to reduce global warming—whatever it is you must have it clear in your own mind before you can begin your political program to make it happen. Once you have your goal, you must understand the people you are trying to manipulate. Are they poor, uneducated, hungry? Are they major players in the business world? Are they religious or non-religious?

"Then since their goals may not be the same as yours, how can you meet their goals on the way to accomplishing yours. For example, if your goal is to limit population and some person is very hungry, you might arrange to give him food or money if he will promise to use contraceptives or have a vasectomy. So meeting his primary goal aids in meeting yours."

 —"I keep telling Wreck to think small because big ideas upset nearly everyone. And as you know, I don't like his ideas at all."

 —"Let's listen to the professor. If I can learn the right political techniques maybe I can get you to change back to where you were when we were in school and we can start partying again!"

 —"Let's get back on topic. We came here to hear Professor Singh's views on politics, the science of the possible. Some years ago U.S. President Obama had goals of improving education from kindergarten to the university, or making realistic strides in slowing climate change and increasing alternative energy sources, and implementing universal health care while modernizing the health care delivery and monitoring systems. Republicans and conservative democrats had the goal of keeping taxes low. So we had two different and distinct sets of goals."

 \--"Most people want better education. But most politicians are ready to cut education expenses first. It seems that Obama really wanted more educated Americans because that was the key to the kinds of jobs that were necessary in our modern technological world. I wonder if he thought of an additional advantage for his party. Because the far right Republicans seem to have been appealing to the less educated among us. Just look at Sarah Palin and her lack of knowledge about the world. She didn't realize there were two Koreas. She didn't understand the problems of global population and global warming. And she couldn't communicate effectively, she used words that didn't exist.

"With a more effective education system more people would become less prejudiced, more scientific and logical, and more evidence-based in their decisions. We would develop more effective citizens as well as more competent workers. But, of course, what politician wants people who can think effectively? The dumber they are the easier they are to persuade."

 \--" How true! But I think that businesses also have a stake in keeping people uninformed and unthinking. Some years ago Teen Vogue magazine featured a cover girl who was pregnant and unmarried. This glamorized teen pregnancy when just about everyone believed that it was not good for society. The cover added to the furor caused by Jamie Lynn Spears, a teen aged television star who became pregnant. And then there was the unmarried pregnant daughter of the 'family values' oriented American vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. So we had several high profile teen age unwed mothers. If is in society's interest to have non-adult parents for the country's children then such publicity is good for society. But if more people are not needed in this society or if it is deemed important to have mature adults as the parents of children, such glamorizing of teen pregnancy is a social negative."

 \--" That certainly illustrates an American problem. But is there any stated goal to reduce teenage pregnancy? That is certainly in line with your goals, Commander. It is one thing to have a major goal. But generally in order to be accomplished that goal would be to be divided into sub-goals. And at each stage the goals and sub-goals need to be clearly defined.

"Look at Obama's goal of universal health care. It is one thing to say that everyone should have health care. But that is such a broad goal. Should the coverage be for everyone in the country—legal, illegal, tourists? To what extent should the coverage be allowed? Should hundreds of thousands of dollars be spent on a premature baby with an incurable disease and a life expectancy of less than five years. Should medical care be forced on people who want to die? Should it be extended to people who contributed to their own illnesses or injuries? Should a gang member shot in a gang war or a fighter severely injured in an ultimate fighting melee or mixed martial arts competition be given the same treatment as a child hit by a car while going to school or a police officer shot in the line of duty? Should cosmetic surgery be included? What about a heavy smoker with lung cancer or a 600 pound man who's eaten his way close to death? Should exercisers get preferential treatment? What about parachutists injured in a fall? Should abortions be covered? What about contraceptives?

"Then how should it be paid for? Should the rich be taxed more? Should it be covered by a national sales tax? Should it be a combination of federal funds and private insurance be used as they do in France, where the government pays 60 to 70% of the bill?

VALUES

"Commander, in attempting to convince people to follow your objectives, you must recognize how the values, that you are trying to impose, are different from the values of the person or people you are trying to influence. Just look at a few value differences. Is it a woman who doesn't like you or thinks you are unattractive, but you want to date her? Is it a radical Sunni while you are a radical Shia? Is it a Palestinian Hamas member while you are a militant Israeli? Is it a Democrat while you are a Republican?

"Are you respected for your values or are you feared for your might? People like a peaceful superpower. How is your resolve estimated? Is it 'do or die' or will you compromise or even give up? After the long battles in Afghanistan the Russians gave up, then the American coalition went in. But eventually your citizens back home grew war weary.

"If your goals are personal, once you have decided on those goals, what are the possible costs to you, if you win or if you lose? Do you lose your job? Become humiliated? Lose money?

"On an international level, the American war in Iraq deposed Saddam Hussein and brought free elections, but it also provoked huge anti-American sentiments world-wide, it pushed the U.S. close to bankruptcy, it lost many lives on both sides, it didn't get the oil the U.S. wanted, it created a civil war in Iraq, it lost domestic political power for America's ruling Republican party, and it increased the recruitment for America's major terrorist enemy al-Queda and similar jihadists. By any standard, it was a very poor political move. The goals may have been lofty, such as getting rid of Saddam, or they might have been very self centered, with your president either wanting oil, or maybe he was just seeking to act decisively after the 9/11 embarrassment, so attacking anyone in retaliation may have looked like a good move to make the president look decisive and revengeful.

EXAMPLES OF GOALS

"Let's look at some examples of goals that individuals or governments might set. I know, Commander, that your major goals would be reducing the world's overpopulation and secondarily to license parents so that more loved children will populate the world. We'll get into that soon, but let's look at a few other goals first to understand that your priorities are not the only ones that may concern your global audience.

"If you were going to set up a utopian society what are some of the goals you would develop in addition to your population control and your licensing parents? What would you say is another major societal goal Commander?"

NATIONAL DEBT

 —"The national debt definitely! It seems to be a problem in most countries. Brunei, Norway and China and maybe a few other countries are okay, but most countries have significant national debts. Look at the problems that Greece has had. The US with its double-digit trillion dollar deficit certainly has some problems."

 —"Maybe we have to look at a balanced budget! But can we balance a budget with an aging population on Social Security and Medicare and with national health insurance and the world's largest military budget? As more people retire in every country, monetary problems increase. Of course I would say that we should have more children to work and pay taxes."

 —"We are going to pay one way or another. We borrow or we print more money. The more money we print the less is its value because dollar value is formulated against the gross national product, so each new dollar represents a lesser share of our GNP. So when we import goods and services it will cost us more dollars than it would have if we had fewer dollars in circulation. And as we print more dollars and their value keeps decreasing, lenders are scared away by the fact that the money they lend will be worth much less when we repay them. So we just have to keep printing more money. Mugabe did this in Zimbabwe. His money lost so much value that a loaf of bread cost over a million Zimbabwean dollars.

"But we Americans are so ignorant of most social concerns, like economics, and we keep wanting government handouts assuming that somebody else will pay for them. Look at the tax breaks churches get, even though there is supposed to be a separation of church and state. Look at the Medicare payments to elderly who paid very little in premiums before they retired. Look at the food stamps and housing allowances given to people who didn't think it was important to finish school.

"Only in America can we find large numbers of Christians who argue that capitalism is God's plan for our economic salvation. God will provide even if we don't plan for it. They seem to think that China and Japan will lend us money forever. Americans overlook Jesus's requirement to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's."

 —"I agree with you on some points, Lee, but I wish you would back off on your criticisms of religion. You know we do a lot of good. But you didn't mention the big banks. They practically own Washington. Here is a case where real capitalism, in a Marxian sense, exercises major control on our government. I remember hearing Senator Dick Durbin on the radio saying that 'the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.'

"You call me a reactionary, but I think I am reacting back to the principles of Jesus. I do see, however, many Protestant preachers who are economic reactionaries. They fight for tax cuts that help the rich and against taxes that would help the poor. But the poor may have the last laugh since they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven, according to Jesus."

 —"It's not just the federal deficit because most states have similar financial problems. Look at California's budget deficit of well over 20 billion dollars. At least six billion is a result of the illegal immigration. But the state can't do anything about that because it is the federal government's responsibility to treat illegal aliens.

"A number of years ago a tax protester got a measure on the ballot that would hold steady the property taxes that supported many local governments. For most Americans reducing taxes is a worthwhile goal. But a reduction in taxes should be accompanied by a reduction in spending. Local schools were hard hit when the voters passed the measure. The state had to pick up the slack but its legislators did not increase the taxes enough to cover the loss of property tax revenues. The state was like a broken down house that needed fixing up, but there were no boards, no nails and no paint! Somebody had better assign responsibilities for services then give the local and state agencies the potential to tax.

"Sales taxes tax both the legal and illegal inhabitants. They also tax larger families who are using more of the services. Taxes on businesses will be passed on to those who buy the products or the services, in or out of state. But if the higher prices mean that the businesses can't sell their products they will either move to lower taxation states or to other nations so jobs will be lost. This of course will reduce the total tax base. So it is an almost unsolvable problem and it involves not only the state but the whole world."

 \--"In America possibly our major goal should be eliminating our excessive national debt. The Founding Fathers left us with a national debt of $75 million from the Revolutionary War. We eventually became debt free in 1834, from then on it has increased to over 12 trillion dollars by the time that Barak Obama was elected. Then to fight the recession he inherited and to fund health care and Social Security the debt increased about a trillion dollars every year. We keep borrowing to fund Medicare, wars, tax cuts, and a number of other expenses. It seems that we are confused about our national and state goals and not willing to use the right political techniques to make them happen effectively."

 —"You are right. I'm one of those who think we should keep our taxes low. With lower taxes it has the potential to make our products cheaper and to increase our wealth, which would then increase the total taxes collected. But our debt is a disgrace and it has certainly dropped the value of our dollar. Lee, it's you liberals who keep adding social projects for people who don't work hard enough to solve their own problems."

 —"Ya, like we were involved in the three trillion that George W. Bush added with his wars and tax cuts. However I would agree with some of the wars you conservatives got us into. And I do believe that saddling every American with $40,000 as their share of the national debt is too much. And the $1700 a year needed to pay the interest on that debt for each of us, young and old, is way too much. Just think about what that $500 billion we pay in interest on the debt could do for the country. Of course we are all paying for it. Higher prices for foreign goods and higher foreign travel costs because our dollar's value has sunk so low."

 —"It is actually much worse than just the national debt that we owe other people and other countries. We have other liabilities such as the projected costs of Medicare, Social Security, and other such 'entitlements.' These eventual liabilities amount to about four times the national debt. So every man, woman and child in the U.S.is indebted to about $200,000. It's not a pretty picture. I, for one, would like to see cutbacks in programs that are exploding our national debt. I liked the way it was handled in Kino and Singaling (46) where people paid their own way in the retirement and healthcare areas."

 —"So what political techniques might work to reduce or eliminate the debt?"

 —"I don't have a clue. We Americans want lower taxes so any politician who advocated higher taxes would never be elected. The majority just want more and better services that are paid for by those who make more money than they do! In California the richest 1% already pay 48% of the state's income taxes.

"I know that it is very difficult to eliminate a program once it is established. You might be able to tinker with it, by increasing Social Security contributions or raising the retirement ages but you can't eliminate the Social Security program and stay in office. The same is true of Medicare. We would either have to significantly increase the rates for the worker and for the retiree or we have to cut benefits. Then there is the problem of not having enough skilled workers for the jobs that are available. This would mean we would have to change our educational offerings. But this again will cost money. I would probably have many of the same goals as Lee. The difference is that I would cut the goals if we don't have enough money to make them happen. Lee and his ilk will either tax us to death, print more money or borrow more from China and Japan if they will lend to us. So Lee and I definitely disagree on the techniques to use, and even the necessity of having all the same goals. But I think that Lee and I might agree on the inefficiency of our government because of the influence of the lobbyists.

"But with the debt problems in the European Union in 2010 both higher taxes and the elimination of programs was used to bring down the debts of the various countries. In Britain 35% preferred increasing taxes and 50% wanted services cut. In the US 23% wanted increased taxes and 60% preferred cuts in services. In France 7% wanted taxes increased while 80% preferred cuts in services. (46a) So, assuming that the surveys were an accurate measure of citizens' preferences, we see a pretty good variation of opinions."

 —"Interesting, Con. So many European debts have been out of control, like your U.S. debts. In a country like China it could be done in a few years with less spending and higher taxes, but their oligarchy is much more efficient than your democratic republics. Their concern is for developing a safe efficient and livable society. Yours seems to be protecting those with money—the Wall Street brokers and bankers, the giant businesses and the investors. And I might add that your support of religions with tax breaks and other support certainly increases your need to borrow more and it definitely adds to your national debt."

 —"You sound a bit prejudiced professor."

 —"I am not prejudiced against a governing system if it works efficiently. I am prejudiced for the governments that produce more good with fewer problems. So I am a bit more prejudiced for China, for Norway, for Denmark, Singapore and Germany. I am more prejudiced against the way the US, Afghanistan, Greece, Italy and Venezuela work. As a student of politics I am not as interested in their goals as much as I am their efficiency in achieving them.

"I'm prejudiced for efficiency and progress but our democracies, yours and mine, are not very efficient and are seldom progressive. And as a professor of politics, I don't have a clue as to how to get the voters or their elected officials in either of our countries to see the big picture. Getting hundreds of millions of people out of their self-centered value systems and into a society centered value system is a huge political task and would require massive value changes for the electorate and the elected. Then even if we did, how would we know which goals to follow."

RIGHTS

"That's not to say that I am uninterested in goals. I am certainly critical of the goals of al Qaeda and the Taliban, of the Vatican and Myanmar, and of Las Vegas and Macao. I do think that there should be a goal of understanding rights and responsibilities in our societies. People often shout that their rights are being violated when they are not rights, but really just the wishes of individuals. Rights come from the society, from the constitutions and laws of each individual country. The UN often sets out pronouncements that paint ideals, and these are usually affirmed by most nations. However such wishes as: to be able to wear a burka in France, to have tall minarets in Switzerland, or to be granted asylum or residence in the U.S or Europe—are merely wishes without any legal force.

"But shouting for our rights is still often useful in rallying some of the populace behind you. Certainly Gandhi and King called for rights that were eventually given. So calling loudly for rights, is often an effective political ploy.

"When non-Muslim Belgium and France outlawed the full body veils like the Afghan burqa, with the screen in front of the eyes, or the Arab niqab, with only the eyes visible, there were many who called it an invasion of a woman's right to privacy. But strangely when Muslim Syria banned face veils at its universities no one raised their voices in protest. In fact feminist groups in Syria applauded the action.

"Those who opposed the full body veil gave varying reasons for their positions. One was that suicide bombers, male or female, could hide their bombs under the layers of cloth. In Jordan they said that robbers and muggers, disguised as women, had been hiding under the veils. But the more common reasons seem to be that in a secular country such dress passed the bounds of religious liberties served to separate rather than work toward assimilation. On the other hand the hijab, the headscarf, was generally seen as an acceptable piece of religiously oriented apparel. So governments used the law as a political technique to aid in the safety of its citizens as it reduced some obvious religious accoutrements. It is strange that these governments did not ban the obvious clothing of Orthodox Jewish men or the flowing gowns of some Catholic nuns. Of course in both cases their faces were exposed.

EMPLOYMENT

"Let's now move to a critical area of everyone's life--having a means to financially support oneself. The United Nations list of human rights gives everyone the right to employment. That is certainly a nice societal goal but it is undoubtedly impossible to do. An effective free enterprise system feeds off people's selfishness so businesses are not about to employ people who aren't needed. Of course it would be nice if everyone were willing to work and everybody had a job. Communism seemed to assume that everyone wants to work, but the system doesn't work because it stifles free enterprise and the selfishness that makes people work effectively and diligently. Marx's idea of socialism, where you get paid for what you do and the private owners are replaced by state ownership makes some sense. But it requires a government with an excessive bureaucracy. So if you were going to set up an ideal society you better take a lot of things into consideration.

 "Reminds me of a book I read in college. Edward Bellamy's 'Looking Backward' was a socialistic tome that solved the job problem by paying everybody the same amount of salary, but the hours were adjusted so that the people in the more desirable jobs worked more hours a week. So if being a brain surgeon was a popular job, they might have to work 60 hours a week. Trash collecting might not be so popular so perhaps they might only work ten hours a week. So some brain surgeons might decide to pick up trash for a day or two then play golf for the other five days. If it were possible to do, it would certainly keep everybody happy."

 —"But even if we could keep workers happy there's no guarantee that they will work hard—or even work. Just look at Norway, that paradise of socialism and free enterprise, with a maximum work week of 37 hours and a minimum of four weeks of vacation plus holidays, and with full pay when sick from the first day. Research indicates that women and younger workers take off a great deal of time. Researchers have found that the work ethic for some people has reduced considerably as the benefits have increased. In fact 10% of the workers use 80% of the sick leave time.(47) Seems to me that the strong social ethic that was supposed to be strengthened by the welfare state has not overpowered the innate self-centered interests that are seldom far below the surface.

"If we are going to have an effective economy with exports at least equaling imports, our cost per item manufactured cannot be higher than those of our competitors. Just look at the pay of our auto workers who were making $70 an hour, that's $506 a day and over $10,000 a month, over $140.000 per year. Toyota workers in the US were making 20 to 30% less than the workers on American cars. But they were producing a better car. Compare the autoworkers salaries with those of starting teachers who were making to $3000 a month after five years of college education. At the same time some highly paid college professors with PhDs were earning almost 60% of what the autoworkers with high school educations earned. Perhaps the society might evaluate what is needed for a quality society. A socialistic society, like China, could easily do this. But with free enterprise and the bargaining power of unions there is often an imbalance between pay and social usefulness.

"Compare your need for a plumber unstopping your toilet on Wednesday morning with the value of watching a professional basketball player on television on Wednesday night. What about the value of your trash collector picking up the trash on Monday morning or watching a million-dollar film star on Saturday night. What about the value of the person who stocks your grocery needs at the supermarket compared to the yearly earnings of the singer you listen to on your DVD on the drive home from the market."

 -"Well said, Con. If society adopted required wages for the more important occupations, I guess people would get used to it pretty quick. Some people didn't want to be told that they couldn't smoke in bars and restaurants. But it happened. Some people didn't think they should have to have driver's licenses. But it happened. Some people didn't want to serve in the army and fight a war. But it happened. When the leaders of a society find that something is necessary, they make it happen. They might even want to back Wreck's overpopulation initiatives."

 \--"Would that it would only be true!"

 \--"Your American government will probably be the last country to adopt your ideas, Wreck. That is, IF they ever adopt your ideas. Your U.S. Congress finally got around to developing legislation concerning global warming and the salvation of the world of the future in 2009, only twelve years after the Kyoto Protocol. Your democracy does indeed move slowly! But a major concern was jobs for each of the representatives' home districts. If you could only guarantee millions of jobs with every planetary necessity you could get all kinds of good things happening. Bit remember Commander that all politics are local. Your appeal must result in good things happening at the local level for every group you are trying to get to follow you."

  " It's like we talked about with Wanda Wang, people are not only self centered they are concerned mainly with the present.

"When the Congress was debating climate change legislation, the main concern was not saving humanity in the future, but providing jobs now. Certainly 2009 and 2010 were bad years, but I wondered if their focus shouldn't have been a bit more in the distance. You are right professor, effective politics is about the here and now."

 —"I can understand hiring researchers to find new ways to reduce climate change, and if their findings result in the manufacturing of products that can be sold around the world it's a big plus. But I don't see how putting out-of-work autoworkers in less financially rewarding jobs is going to solve the problem of global warming. What I saw in the congressional debates were legislators trying to save jobs in areas of manufacturing or if their district's major source of electricity was coal burning, then saving miners jobs was primary. This was hardly working on the solution for the planet's problems. It's kind of like watering your indoor plants while your house is burning down."

 —"I hate to say it but the Western world is going to have to come down a peg or two in their living expectations if they don't reduce the population and highly educate those who will be the future citizens. The Republicans cited estimates of the National Association of Manufacturers saying that 3 to 4 million jobs will be lost soon. It's just another indication that there are too many people in our country."

EVALUATING A GOAL AND ITS POSSIBILITY OF FRUITION

 —"As you can see every goal is not met easily. Finding jobs, controlling population, reducing warming, reducing taxes, reducing illegal immigration, are all modern-day problems. There are always unthought of problems and stumbling blocks to overcome for every goal or objective that a government sets out. Let's look at the scenario that your president saw after the 9/11 attacks. Terrorists had just flown commercial jet liners into the Twin Towers in New York. Sunni Muslim Osama bin Laden's al Queda organization took responsibility for it. He also was responsible for attacks on U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania in 1998, and the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000. He had also been a threat to your ally Saudi Arabia and to Egypt, both of which have about 90% of their populations being Sunni. Your army is already in Afghanistan where bin Laden is most probably hiding. Afghanistan is 80% Sunni. And Sunni Saddam Hussein rules Iraq. He had been a domestic problem for Iraq and a Mid-East problem with his invasions of local countries. What do you do?

"Shia controlled Iran has been a thorn in the side of your country for many years. The Sunni Saddam did fight them with weapons you supplied. He kept somewhat of a balance of power relative with Iran. Then you have your ally Israel with its problems in Palestine and with Iran backed guerrillas in Lebanon.

"Allied with you as al Queda's enemy could be the democratically operated Sunni nation of Egypt, and the monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Sunni Pakistan is your ally because bin Laden doesn't like its political direction with its less religious politics.

"You can attack Iraq, attempt to set up a Western style democracy there to show other Muslim countries that democracy means more than voting for the wishes of the all-powerful ayatollahs. But certainly a major motive, and the one you want, is to capture or kill bin Laden.

"The American people want a response. Do you put a price on bin Laden's head? Do you get the world's best intelligence working for you? Do you saturate Afghanistan with troops and search cave to cave and house to house? Do you work to get Pakistan with you, since they might also be a target and there are rumors that Osama hides in their mountains?

"There are secondary considerations. Your country needs oil. You might be able to kill two or three birds with one stone: become a savior to Iraq by toppling Saddam and bringing them democracy, and get their oil as a payoff. But to pull that off you must tell your countrymen that Iraq is a terrorist nation. What if you say that they have weapons of mass destruction—germ and chemical warfare capabilities or that they are working on a nuclear bomb. The people might buy that. Send in an army with half the strength that your generals advised might keep the takeover at a low key. The majority Shia will join you because they are so eager to get rid of Saddam.

"20/20 hindsight shows that invasion probably shouldn't have been done, and if it were to be done, the professional generals, rather than the amateur Secretary of Defense, should have called the shots. And with an eye on the national debt, which had been decreasing and was predicted to increase greatly in about ten years, should the trillion dollar war have been avoided and a less expensive anti-terror program have been initiated?

"You see how much of a problem it can be in trying to set a societal goal. You have to try to work out all the bugs in your proposal, see what positives you hope will occur and what negatives might occur along the way."

REDUCING POPULATION AND LICENSING PARENTS

 —"I understand doctor. Now let's get to why we are here! I want to know how to achieve my goals of reducing population and secondarily trying to increase the chance that all children will be wanted and that they will be raised by mature, intelligent and loving parents. Too many people are sitting on the sidelines not doing anything. Saving the world is not a spectator sport--we must all be on the field doing battle."

 —"Your altruistic goals bring to mind Bruce Springsteen' song 'Workin' on a Dream' or Don Quixote's song 'To Dream the Impossible Dream' in the musical 'Man of La Mancha'. Your dream may be well nigh impossible in your lifetime. But I understand that you must try. As with any great goal, it must be broken down into smaller objectives, and often sub-objectives. You will have to start with accomplishing your minor objectives then you begin to win the small skirmishes and battles it will bring you closer to winning the war.
"What smaller objectives would seem to you to be appropriate?"

 —"We could try to educate people about the dangers of climate change. We could try to educate and encourage politicians to see the reality of the problem of overpopulation in fueling climate change. We could try to show that there are too many people for the jobs available, that robots and computers can do the work of millions of semiskilled and even skilled workers. We could try to convince philanthropists of the need for money for contraceptives, abortions and paid sterilizations. We could try to get politicians to tax families with more than one child to help to pay for their educations and for the infrastructure they will require because the children exist. Every new person in the world needs things like roads, electricity, waste disposal, et cetera. We could ask for tax breaks for childless couples. We could attempt to idealize childless marriages or marriages with only one child, rather than idealizing and praising large families. A major objective should also be that retirement ages be progressively raised so that people will actually pay for their own retirement benefits and don't expect younger workers to make up for what the older workers didn't pay."

 —"Those are a few objectives. And I'm sure you can see a number of the obstacles you will encounter, like national interests where politicians and business people want more workers to pay for the retirement benefits of older workers or want more warriors to protect the state or to conquer real or imagined enemies. Business interests will certainly fight you if you propose that their number of customers will decrease. Western religions will fight the loss of souls to convert. Families with children will not want to pay additional taxes. These are just a few of the obstacles you will face. But let me lay out more about 'the science of the possible' then we will come back to your goal.

"A shrewd politician will look at the myriad of possible outcomes to various groups. The short sighted politician sees only the immediate goal. When some Sunnis bombed a very holy Shia mosque they were probably thinking only of punishing a religious enemy. If the majority Iraqi Shi'ites unite and destroy Sunni mosques and kill large numbers of Sunnis, possibly including friends and relatives—was it worth it? When suicide bombers kill people in Israel it is only killing the enemy. But in the long term perhaps those actions will turn non-Muslim countries against all Muslims—preventing immigration and jobs. What if the bomber's children are denied access to a better life in the developed world because of his action. Was it worth it? Could it have been predicted?

"The most effective politician will be able to predict most of the consequences of his actions. When an American president, using falsified or inadequate intelligence—whether knowingly or unknowingly, attacks a foreign country, he may have problems. What were Bush's motivations? To eliminate any weapons of mass destruction that might be used to attack the U.S.? That's what he said. But no such weapons were found. To control their oil? Maybe. To establish a military base in the region? Perhaps. To bring democracy to the country so that it wouldn't be a threat to the U.S.? Possibly. To eliminate a very bad man who headed the country? While it happened, it was probably not a major concern. The result of course was a one to two trillion dollar deficit to the country's national debt, a loss of national prestige across the world, the loss of American lives, the increase in terrorism worldwide and the setting of the stage for a civil war in Iraq, a huge reduction for his support and the support for his political party, and a possible legacy of being the worst president the country has ever had. So the political results were almost entirely negative. His problem was thinking that the guy with the biggest gun wins. In the movies John Wayne always won. Do all people from Texas think they are John Wayne?"

 —"What is the biggest gun? The most bombs, the most money, the most oil, the most people backing you?"

 -"On the other hand, Doctor, sometimes one accomplishes a goal and gets rewards that weren't anticipated. Bin Ladin's attack on September 11, 2001 in New York accomplished most of its goals. It humiliated a super power. But it missed in its attempt at bombing the White House and the Pentagon. However the punishment of the West was beyond bin Ladin's wildest dreams. The economic costs of increased airport security, and of other transportation and national security systems cost multi-billions of dollars. One would assume that even one as intelligent as bin Laden could not have dreamed that he could have done so much damage. The fact that 9/11 caused the invasion of Iraq, which solidified many fundamentalist Muslims was another unexpected spur to his cause. While al Qaeda dwindled as a terrorist group, more terrorist groups developed and suicide bombing became a daily sport.

"Who was the more effective politician? No question, it was bin Ladin. Who was the more ethical politician? Here it might be a toss up. Bin Ladin's goals were to bring a more fundamentalist brand of Islam to the world and to establish a major pan-Islamic caliphate. While moderate Muslims and most in the West would disagree with his motives, they were not self centered but rather God based. The American president also had ethical validity for his actions. Did those intentions include protecting the West from terror? Acquiring oil for the West? Ridding the world of Saddam Hussein? Reducing terrorists' access to weapons of mass destruction? Bringing democracy to Iraq? All were honorable and ethical goals, depending on the interest involved—political stability, business expansion or minimizing terrorism. But in our discussions here I assume that we are not to be so much involved in the ethics of a position or belief, but rather how to effectively make our objectives happen. Isn't that right Dr. Singh?"

 —"Spoken like a true student of politics, Ray. Now for the last of the principles. An astute politician attacks where he or she can win. Just look at Syria where the 12% minority Alawites, under the Assads, controlled the Sunnis with 74% of the population. And in Iraq the Sunni Baathists with 20% of the population, under Hussein, controlled the 60% Shia and 20% Kurdish populations. Politics is about methods of control, not majorities.

"Obviously we could look at millions of situations and see how issues were handled and how political techniques played into the solutions. From business and social situations, like employee-employer or husband-wife or parent-child, we can arrive at desired outcomes if we use the right techniques. On the international stage it has traditionally been war that settled disputes. It is still true. But negotiation is being attempted more often today. And with a globalized economy it is not the old 'us versus them,' today it is often 'us versus us.' Let's look at a situation that has created more than its share of problems for the world. The Arab-Israeli state of affairs has not only had local effects but has also aligned major world powers on opposite sides of the 'Wailing Wall.' It has given rise to al Queda which has been a real thorn in the side for your country. Look at 9/11, your wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the economic and human costs that resulted. All because of your siding with Israel.

ALIGNING FOR BATTLE

"Now let us move on a bit. Once you know what you are trying to accomplish you must determine your strengths and weaknesses—your allies and your enemies. These may be physical or mental, people or ideas.

"American politicians, who take lobbyists' money and vote against proposals that might help their constituents, have the lobbyists for allies and at least some of their constituents as possible enemies. But some of those enemies might be converted to friends by using some of that money to change their minds with effective political techniques, like farm subsidies or jobs.

"In the early part of this century the California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was trying to eliminate the 21 billion dollar budget deficit. He proposed completely eliminating the state's welfare program for families, medical insurance for low-income children and cash assistance to college and university students. Earlier he had proposed borrowing money to fund the state. But excessive borrowing was one of the reasons that the state was in financial trouble. His allies were the fiscal conservatives and the higher tax paying citizens. His enemies were the poor and many of the people of the Democratic Party, along with many of those who would be out of work if many budget cuts were made.

"Let's look at the allies and enemies of the jihadist groups like al Qaeda. They are good illustrations of finding allies through their effective recruiting. Through effective recruiting they get more troops to join their fight. They are clear about who their enemies are. The U.S., Israel and Britain are at the top of their list, but anyone who opposes global jihad has a place on that list. Saudi Arabia is one. So how can they gain allies? One way is to appeal to the power drive of young men and women.(48) They lay out a list of evil things that their enemies are said to have done. This should anger the potential recruits. If those recruits have been prejudiced against in the job market or in social situations in their own countries because of their religion, their lack of intelligence or education, or their skin color--al Qaeda has a place for them.

"We all have interiority complexes, but some people have massive inferiority feelings. They need power over their lives. The jihad movement may be a perfect vehicle to give them the feeling of power that they need. People who are uneducated, or have studied the Qur'an primarily, with only a surface knowledge of its ethics, can be perfect recruits. Once joining the movement they get the affirmation that their egos need in this world and they get the guarantee of Paradise should they die.

"These jihadist groups start their recruiting among the young. In Pakistan, for example, there are schools for young boys that include martial arts and other useful skills for terrorists."

 —"But you know they are recruiting in the U.S. and Europe. Using the internet and interesting the young people to go back to their home countries to save them for Islam. So most of their recruits are lower class kids who want to prove themselves, but their leaders often have higher educations. Also there are a number of rich people who are allies in funding the jihads and the recruiting for them, many from the Gulf. Internet sites, like YouTube, can carry messages from jihadists urging people, in English, to join the battles in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and other war zones. Young men who aren't making it in the Western countries are often tempted to return to their homeland to fight."

WHAT ARE YOUR OPTIONS

 \--"When there is a difference of opinion between people or groups you must evaluate your potential allies and your options. About 15 years ago, in about 2010, there were a number of international problems. There was the development of nuclear materials in Iran that might be used for nuclear bombs, and Israel was worried. There was the nuclear arsenal of Israel, so the Muslims were worried. There was the Arab-Israeli continuing war-like situation. There was the continuing presence of jihadists and Taliban that threatened either to attack democracies or to prevent their being established."

 \--"What options must be considered before designing the political plan? In Iran the Americans or Israelis could bomb all known and suspected nuclear facilities. That would certainly slow their nuclear program a bit. But it would have united most of the Iranians with their less than popular government. The Iranians could encourage the terrorist groups they had been funding to cause havoc in Iraq and Afghanistan and they could pressure Israel from several sides. An attack on Iran could unite many Arab countries to counter the U.S. forces and possibly to withhold their oil from the U.S. So having nuclear bombs or a superior air force might be your allies, but they might help you to lose the war--so they could be your potential enemies.

"Sanctioning Iran by withholding trade was an option. But Russia, China, India and Brazil could pick up the slack by trading with Iran. Diplomacy was another option. But what if Iran didn't want to negotiate. Having an enemy, like the U.S. or Israel, gives the Iranian government a glue that can keep the mullahs on their thrones.

"Effective political decisions require a complete understanding of yourself and your opposition. If you think about attacking, how many mothers' votes will you lose at the ballot box?

"Islam has warred against the West successfully since its birth. It conquered North Africa and Spain. It has since lost Spain but has kept North Africa. It conquered the MidEast and India. Then it lost most of India but kept Pakistan and Bangladesh. So on balance the Muslim wars have been huge territorial gainers. With the possible exception of the Crusades, Western wars have been largely secular. But the Arab wars have been both secular and religious. Die and you meet Allah in Paradise. In the West if you die you get a military funeral and a holiday honoring you and a million other fallen heroes. But the promise of heaven can add rockets to the patriot's fuel system. As bin Laden said 'These youths love death as you love life.'

"From the earliest days of Islam commanders have effectively led their charges, from Saladin in Egypt, through Muhammad Abdille Hassan in the Horn of Africa, to Osama bin Laden. Intelligence and fervor kept the jihads advancing and successful."

WHO ARE YOUR ALLIES

 —"Allies can be people, groups, media, religious sects, traditions, political groups, et cetera. So they can be people and the things that people can control. Those who control the airwaves can control the country—and maybe the world.

"The UN might be an ally because they have had programs for family planning and for population reduction. But they would not be your ally in your interest in licensing parents. The other allies in the world of cyberspace might include sites like 'overpopulation awareness', Planned Parenthood, or the Guttmacher Institute.

WHO ARE POTENTIAL ALLIES

"Next, Commander, you must determine who are your potential allies. And don't forget that old political maxim that 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend.' So during the 1980s when Afghanistan was fighting Russia it was a friend of the U.S. and when Iraq was fighting Iran, Iraq was a U.S. friend.

"Then when Barack Obama was elected president he told the Latin American countries that they were co-equals with the U.S. That makes a good start for negotiating. It also might have also walled off the two anti-American regimes in Venezuela and Bolivia. If you were a South American country, which country would you rather have as a trading partner—Bolivia or the U.S.?

"Commander you should consider looking for allies in countries that are ecologically attuned. Just to give you an idea, a survey of several countries that evaluated whether people would pay more for 'socially conscious' products was conducted. In the UK only 46% would, the U.S, was a bit better at 56%, but in Brazil three quarters of the people would and the Chinese were over 80% likely to do it. Whether it is because of selfishness or ignorance I don't know, maybe the developing countries are more concerned with being alive in the future than in acquiring money. So your potential allies may be more likely to live in China, Brazil and India than in the West. Probably also you will find more allies in the more secular countries like Japan, South Korea and China."

 \--"Good idea."

 —"Another kind of ally is a buffer of nature. I doubt that barriers of mountains or water will have an effect on your mission. But since we're talking about politics I wanted to add this factor. As you can understand, the English Channel makes a more effective barrier to immigration to England than a ten foot fence along the Mexican border does to entering the U.S. And the seas bordering the U.S. make it a bit more difficult to attack the U.S. than the twenty mile channel separating Britain from continental Europe."

 —"But illegal immigrants do make it to the UK by train, boat and truck. Even though nearly 100,000 a year are caught by border guards between a half million and 750,000 illegals remain in the UK. Of course compared to the twelve million in the U.S., England's problem may not be as great."

 —"Those are interesting points, and they illustrate political problems and political techniques, but let's get back on track. A very important potential ally is public opinion. This may be your major political avenue if you can get media help, especially major media help to turn public opinion your way it can make miracles. Remember when non-smokers pressured restaurants to divide their seating into smoking and non-smoking sections. Along the way health people and governments began requiring non-smoking buildings and airplanes. Smoking then became not only an unhealthy habit but is became both a stupid and an immoral habit. Public opinion in the U.S. severely reduced the number of smokers and it made smoking into the habit that was frowned on rather than seeing as a mature adult habit.

"The people who can make the difference in population control are the people who are financially well off. They haven't seen their parents die of AIDS, they haven't been forced to work 14 hour days seven days a week, they haven't had their hands cut off by marauding genocidal militias, they haven't seen their mothers and sisters raped or their villages burned. But they sit in the board rooms of General Motors and Sony—where an increased population means cheaper labor and an increased base of customers. They sit in Vatican City or Teheran amid the opulence that so commonly accompanies holiness—and they seek more souls to be saved or more purses to be tapped.

"Do they realize that if population were controlled they would actually sell more cars and TVs and would have more souls to save if the population were limited and continued for more millennia. Commander, I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but as you know at the populating pace of the world in the last century we are running out of irreplaceable resources. We can't put oil and coal back into the ground. We can't manufacture more farmland, even though we do make the existing farmland yield more food. We are not replacing the forests that give us our oxygen. We are not replacing the water in the dropping water tables. It was once calculated that by 2855 there would be 20 people per square foot of land and sea. I don't know if the calculations are correct, but even if it were only 25% right and we only had five people per square foot of land and sea, where would you go on vacation? Where would you keep your pets? Where would we find enough land to raise the crops to feed the population? These are the facts that you need to get to the people and the politicians.

HOW TO MOBILIZE YOUR ALLIES

"When organizing your allies you should have an idea as to how you will use them. Will they be soldiers in your revolution? Will they be educators or propagandists who seek to change the ideas of the leaders or the masses? Will they be moneyed people who can buy or control the media? Certainly you will want competent people in the leadership positions.

 \--" You know there will be debates on the issue if you can bring it to the forefront of people's minds. I would think that the first thing you might do is to ask the skeptics just how many people they think the Earth can hold. Skeptics seem to keep finding things in a proposal that might be doubtful, but they seldom come up with positive answers. So, Wreck, my guess is that you won't have a difficult time setting up television debates on the subject. I can't imagine you would lose any of them. Another thought, you might work to get debates on overpopulation or licensing parents into the high school and college debate topics. I'm sure you know that high school debating teams will do a good job setting out the pros and cons of your concerns.

"Another thought, maybe you can get filmmakers and TV producers to do more films and programs in the areas of overpopulation problems and licensing parents. Certainly the movie 'Soylent Green', back in the 1970s, made a few people think about the problems of global warming and overpopulation.

"With some of the world's billionaires ready to part with some of their money, you might try to interest some of them into doing what Mrs. Doors has been doing in Indus."(49)

 —"Remember in 2002 when Hugo Chavez brought his 21st Century socialism to Venezuela. With the typical split in the electorate of elites and poor, but with the huge majority of poor, he won the election but his policies chased many of the elites out of the country. Doctors, professors, petroleum engineers and others left for greener pastures and the country suffered. To run an efficient campaign you want to keep all of the important people. Don't make Chavez's mistake.

"In many African countries, when the whites with the know-how were displaced by blacks without the business and organizational skills, the economies tanked. Revolutions are sometimes necessary, but you don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It might take generations to educate the poor to run the country and to manage the economy."

 —"In your case commander, it may take decades or centuries to change the thinking of the people in power. What means will you use? Media, like newpapers, magazines, radio, television will be essential? Internet sources like The Huffington Post, Big Think, Alternet or Daily Beast may be easily tapped. If you had an army or a citizens' militia— how would you use them? It would be good if you could get religious spokespeople to counter the religions that want more people. You need a cadre of volunteers, official government entities, NGOs, international organizations like the UN or its sub-committees, the Red Cross and Planned Parenthood.

"In your democracy, where politicians follow the polls you might use polling."

 —"Shouldn't we call them 'poll-iticians'?"

 —"Cute! We probably should! Not many want to strike out and do what's right. They want to do what the generally uninformed citizens on the street believe. I remember a few years ago when a majority of your citizens didn't believe that global warming existed or that humans had anything to do with it if warming was, in fact, a problem. Climate scientists were nearly 100% agreed on the existence and the causes of warming, but your uninformed citizens didn't want to believe it. Consequently many of your legislators had to follow uninformed public opinion rather than the evidence of science. In fact some of your legislators didn't even believe in science.

"You need some research on where the people, the media and the politicians are in terms of reducing population and licensing parents, also what do the people in every country and every religion think about these issues. Then you might have an idea as to what types of proposals are most likely to fly. And it is quite possible that it will be 'different strokes for different folks.' A successful approach in Zimbabwe might not work in India or Vietnam. What works for Italian Catholics might not work for Irish Catholics. You will be fighting many different types of battles in different parts of the world. Then because some countries will not want to reduce their populations because it would reduce army recruits, workers or consumers you will probably have to try to keep the same relative strengths between the countries when every country wants to be superior.

"I don't know if you will get an idea of the sorts of problems that people involved in international politics face. Look at Turkey and the European Union. Turkey can be an effective buffer between the EU and Russia. Its 70 million population could provide a large number of fearless soldiers. But EU membership would open borders to mass immigration and to potentially hostile Muslims. Having a major Muslim country in the European fold could help to democratize other Muslim countries in the area, like Iraq and Iran. Then there are issues of rights for women and for freedom of the press that conservative Muslims often oppose but which are crucial elements in Western democracies and also exist in Turkey.

"Or look at the way the Italian mafia has mobilized women to take over when the godfathers are in prison. Godmothers emerge to continue the crimes. Some have become just as criminal and murderous as their husbands and fathers. I guess prison pasta or convict cannoli don't scare the machine gun mammas. It is a perfect example of the men mobilizing the women. Do you think you can get the Mafia on your side?"

 —"They could probably shoot any parents who didn't have a license! But relative to utilizing allies, or creating allies, I'm thinking of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. President Obama named former presidents Clinton and Bush to head up the Haiti relief effort. Naming Bush had a quieting effect on the critics from the far right. It was not only a more effective way of raising money, it was a way of quieting the critics who criticized every program Obama advocated, even blaming him for things he never advocated and chastising him for personal characteristics that he didn't possess—like not being born in America and either being irreligious or being a Muslim. It was a perfect example of mobilizing forces for the task at hand."

WHO ARE YOUR ENEMIES

 \--"Powerful media groups are good to have as allies, but are nasty enemies. Rupert Murdoch, with his many newspapers and television stations, is one who controls huge numbers of minds with his media. Fox News, or as many call it 'Fox Views', is an example. The opinions of his reporters and commentators are taken as gospel by the loyal, commonly ignorant, listeners. His conservative business interests are certainly better served if they fight overpopulation. It is obvious that fewer people in the country will result in fewer listeners to his television programs and fewer buyers for his newspapers.

"Then look at the enemies your country faces. Muslim terrorism, the Mexican and Columbian drug lords, the countries that own American treasury bills, like China, and countries like Iran, with its nuclear program. And you have to treat the oil producing countries as possible enemies, even if they are now friends. In fact you have to treat all friends as possible enemies. Look at America's longtime friend France, when deGaulle took France out of NATO. Look at countries who were friendly in earlier days like Cuba, Venezuela or Iraq. When new leadership emerges or when its political direction shifts, the country can go from friend to foe.

"In your own country you have potential enemies in homeless veterans, heroin addicts, the Cosa Nostra, street gangs, the reactionary conservatives and the radical liberals, the unions, the chambers of commerce, internet news emitters of various sorts, the wildly divergent religions and a whole lot more.

"Look at your drug users as enemies of your society. The array of drug using consumers is providing a vast, recession-proof, apparently unending market for the Mexican gangs who are locked in a drug war that has killed more than ten thousand people in just a couple of years. No matter how much law enforcement or financial help the U.S. government provided Mexico, the basics of supply and demand prevent it from doing much good. More than a third of your countrymen have used illegal drugs and twenty million are still using them. Twenty million consumers are an outstanding reason for gangsters to fight and kill. The drug cartels would probably not be happy with a decreasing customer base. On the other hand maybe those drug cartel people are your allies Commander! They are certainly reducing the population of their own enemies."

 —"That's not the way I want it. The utopia I want to see has no drugs, no crime and a controlled level of population. But I know I will have enemies and I had better know who they are. I should probably keep in mind what Nelson Mandela warned, to 'keep your friends close and your enemies closer' then it will be more difficult to be hurt by my enemies."

DIVIDE AND CONQUER TO SEPARATE YOUR ENEMIES

 \--"Since I am trying to give you a broad view of how politics works in many areas of our life, being specific to your concerns only occasionally, let's look at politics and government. If you are running for political office it would be best to enhance the chances of a political opponent who is farthest from the middle. When Barry Goldwater was one of the potential Republican candidates to run against John Kennedy, JFK did all he could to help Goldwater's candidacy, because Goldwater was the furthest to the right and so the easiest to beat. So if you are going to face enemies to your plan you might try to fight your battles with the most extreme enemies of your plan. This should gain you more support from the middle. It's like 2012 in your country, getting Republican candidates from the far right, such as Sarah Palin, makes it easier for the Democrats to win than if a middle of the road candidate like Mitt Romney were the candidate.

FIGHTING THE INFERIORITY COMPLEXES OF YOUR OPPONENTS

 \--" You know Wreck, you are going to have to fight the inferiority complexes of so many people whose drive for power is their primary motivation. You are going to be fighting the people who are trying to keep women down. I would guess that there will be more women on your side, than men. If you are a woman, or a person who wants the best people in the responsible positions in government and business, the reactionary position of many Muslims such as the Taliban, is an absurdly ridiculous idea. As Chuck Chan told us, the inferiority complexes of most men require the subjugation of as many people as possible—and women and children are their obvious victims. Forcing women to be merely baby-bearers and house cleaners certainly elevates the incompetent male psyches. And such inferior males are certainly enemies of both women and the state.

"State laws in many backward regimes keep men in their 'rightful' place. The Koran shows that women are worth less than men. The Bible does the same. What did the Creator have this in mind when He created woman from the rib of Adam? Does the rib somehow contain and transfer less humanness than if He had used a heart or a kidney? Did He put a lesser soul into His second human creation? Whatever His intent, Catholic, Muslim and Mormon hierarchies clearly illustrate their beliefs in the superiority of men's intellects and Godliness to run their religions.

"Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and other countries have harsh laws that penalize women for their genitals. In fact every country has a glass ceiling in its businesses set at various heights, from 8 feet in Scandinavia to 60 feet in most African, Asian and western hemisphere countries. Of course this inequality is often found in the home where the father may assume he has the right of life or death over 'his' women if they don't adhere to his desires. In fact in some Muslim countries if debts exist girls or women can be used as collateral to pay them off.

"As an Afghan woman your legal rights are nil. Legal decisions on any complaints you have are made by villagers with no background in law and no knowledge of human rights. They are often in conflict with national laws. But so it is with primitive principles!

"With half of Afghan marriages to girls 16 or under, with some as young as 6, there is no such thing as women's rights. Prisons are full of women who ran away from abusive marriages. Domestic violence is the rule. How else can emotionally weak men so easily satisfy their drives for power? How can you deal with such traditions as major enemies are your plans?"

 \--"You know Lee, I hadn't thought a lot about all of all these potential friends and enemies, particularly the enemies. As I think about it I can't believe that the task is as monumental as it is. Right now I don't even know where to start. Do I start in African villages, in the slums of India or Brazil, in the ghettos of Los Angeles or London, or in the temples, churches and mosques of Salt Lake City, Rome or Cairo?"

 —"Wherever you start it seems that you will have to overcome the power drives of the influential leaders. We seem to keep coming back to Chuck Chan's emphasis on the power drive. I really hadn't thought much about it before, but now I see it everywhere. The media pundits, politicians, and just about everybody else. So it is clear that you must understand the power motives of your enemies. It is obvious in spousal abuse and in the subjugation of women.

"Look at America's recent enemy, the Taliban in Afghanistan. At first we wondered where they got their money. But soon we realized that one of their biggest financial sources was opium—and the American heroin users were one of the Taliban's major buyers. So America's enemy included many of its own citizens. Another major source of their funds was donations from rich Muslim fundamentalists. While in the early 2000s it was fairly easy to track down al Queda bank accounts and freeze the funds, the Taliban has by-passed banks in getting their funding. So if a decentralized guerrilla outfit like the Taliban is your enemy it is very difficult to fight them on the financial field of battle. If you are going to try to convert an enemy like the Taliban you would certainly have to use different political techniques than if you are trying to convert farmers in India.

"As I think about it, I agree with our countryman Ralph Waldo Emerson who told us that 'The wise man always throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point.' So what will your enemies think are your weak points?"

WHAT ARE YOUR DESIRED OUTCOMES

 \--"But let us move on. Everyone has some outcomes they would like—more pay, a trip to Europe, a brighter child, a bigger home. And Commander, your desired outcomes are quite clear in terms of reducing the world's population and having all children being born into loving and supportive families.

"But as in all these desires there are contingencies. A person may want more pay but in order to get it he must get more education and he will have to work harder when he does work.You may want a trip to Europe but you also want a new car but you don't have enough money for both. And Commander you have already looked at many of the contingencies attached to your plans. It might be a choice between one's religious beliefs and the beliefs of what is best for the world's societies—God-based versus society-based assumptions. Or perhaps it is a conflict between the types of evidence used, such as empirical science, like predictions that demographers make regarding overpopulation, and historical evidence, perhaps the idea that people have always been encouraged to have children.

REALISTIC RETIREMENT

"Another area of desired outcomes, and also conflicting desires, is found in our unrealistic views of retirement pay. Most people have as a desired outcome, to live long and to have a fruitful retirement. Looking at some of the problems related to our increased longevity it is obvious that people will have to work longer before retiring. If a resident of Japan has worked 40 years then retires for 25 more, the government can't handle that expense unless the worker has contributed about 60% of his pay towards his retirement. Many who want to retire will fight against a later retirement age. That of course is self-centered and counter to the interests of the society. On the other hand, many want to continue working but their national laws force them into pasture at 60, 65 or 70. Will our policemen, fire fighters and soldiers with their 20 or 25 year retirements be ready to continue their callings until they are 70 or 75? In 2010 some European countries were talking about raising the retirement age to 70 by the year 2050. If our longevity keeps increasing the way it has the retirees will live at least 20 more years. Will they have paid enough in their 50 years of work to pay their retirements for 20 more years?"

 —"What chance will a 70 year old cop have trying to run down an 18 year old mugger? Oh, but maybe by that time we'll have robots to do the leg work or long range Tasers to disable the crook from 200 meters away!"

 —"I would assume both will be possible in the near future. So your 75 year old police officer will be able to direct it all from his car or his office. I can see the same happening with firefighting and wars.

"Situations change as society and technology evolve. Look at the early pension plans. When Bismarck introduced the first pension for German workers over 70 in 1889, the life expectancy of a Prussian was 45. In 1908, when Lloyd George delivered a pension of five shillings a week for poor men who had reached 70, not many Brits survived past 50. And in your country when Social Security was enacted in 1935, The pension age of 65 was three years past the average American's life span. But now nearly everyone retires. The average American is retired for 16 years, the average European for 20 or more years.

"In Europe the retirement spending is about 7% of the gross domestic product. In America it is about the same if we consider both Medicare and retirement benefits. But these expenses will triple in just a few years.

"If a country is to be run efficiently the income and outgo of money must balance. Let's take Norway as an example of taxing efficiency. Norway has usually done this and doesn't always supplement it with oil money, but there has recently been a change since politicians want to give more back to the electorate so that they don't complain about their high taxes. In Norway the sales taxes, or actually the value added taxes, amounted to about 32 billion dollars or $7,000 per person. Personal taxes of different types added about $29 billion, or about $6500 per person. Taxes on alcohol and tobacco added another $3.2 billion or a bit over $700 per inhabitant. Gasoline taxes added another $7 billion or $1600 per person. $15 billion came from businesses and $23 billion from workers as part of their health insurance and retirement contributions. So this was about $5,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. Then they took in over $40 billion from their oil income.

"Their outgo was over $50 billion for pensions and workers unemployment benefits, $25 billion for administration and police, $21 billion for hospitals schools and universities. Then almost $30 billion went back to the counties. Farm subsidies and other support totaled $16 billion, then another $12 billion was invested overseas in stocks and other investments.

"Norwegians pay almost 45% of their income in taxes. Compare that to the 28% in total taxes in your country. Because you won't pay for what you want in taxes your American annual debt runs from a half a trillion to over a trillion dollars a year. So you pay some of it in other ways. Your dollar keeps losing value so you pay more for Toyotas and for gasoline. You pay about a half a trillion dollars in interest every year. I wonder if your whole national psyche is set up to want more, then hope that God will provide. But that seems to go against Jesus's idea of rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's! God may have dropped manna to the Israelites 3,000 years ago, but with the exception of an occasional lottery win, God hasn't been dropping dollars to pay off your credit card debts or your national debt."

 \--"In America we tend to think of our taxes as being only income taxes and half of the people don't even pay income tax. But there are other taxes. Workers and employers each pay 6.2% of a worker's salary for Social Security and 1.45% for Medicare. But most states have sales taxes and other taxes. Americans pay gasoline and tobacco taxes, excise taxes, gift taxes, inheritance taxes, corporation taxes, property taxes, hotel taxes, telephone taxes and a number of other federal, state, and local taxes. It all adds up to that 27 or 28% total tax burden on the average American citizen."

 —"Let's get back to balancing the budget on retirements, as a goal. One possible desired outcome might be realistic retirement ages. We have talked about it before. In 1950 the OECD countries had seven people aged 20-64 for every one who was 65 or older. Now it is four to one—and on course to be two to one by 2050. The 'pay as you go' pension systems that paid pensions from the contributions of current workers is no longer an option. If there are jobs, immigrants might do them, but if the immigrants are allowed retirement benefits it just prolongs the problem. The obviously necessary solution is to extend retirement ages, even if new job skills need to be learned. Obviously a 70 year old firefighter will be unlikely to be able to climb mountains fighting forest fires but he might well be able to drive the truck, coordinate the attack on the fire, answer phones, guide the robot firefighters, or warn inhabitants to evacuate.

"Many people want to work past retirement age, possibly at the same job and possibly for fewer hours a week. Giving the 'golden handshake' of enhanced retirement benefits for earlier retirement has helped to create jobs for younger and less expensive workers. In California it works for school districts because they don't have to pay the pensions. The districts and the teachers pay into a retirement fund run by the state. When a teacher retires the school district has no more responsibility for her, so if it can get a maximally paid teacher to retire, even if it has to pay a bit more to the pension fund for enhanced benefits, it saves a great deal of money when it hires a replacement at half the salary. The federal government however is at a disadvantage when an employee retires because it has to pay for the retirement benefits."

 \--"In fact it is at a disadvantage when anyone on Social Security retires. We should follow Denmark which has indexed workers' pension age to their life expectancy. But that would solve only part of the problem. When there are recessions and people are out of work there is a lot less in contributions coming to the Social Security fund, but the retirees keep getting their checks. Then if prices go up, such as energy costs, the retirees' payouts are often indexed to the living costs, so the payouts go up."

DEFINING OUTCOMES NEGATIVELY

 —"Right Con. Now let's move a little further along our path to understanding politics. We have indicated that every person and group has some goals. The question is how strong do they hold those goals and are they willing to use effective political techniques to achieve them. So back to you Commander. People often define their desired outcomes by what they are against rather than what they are for. So being against America will incite more suicide bombers than being for a peaceful Islam. Being against the party in power may be a stronger motivation for voting than being for some good program that the opposition is advocating.

"In using some of the political techniques that we have mentioned you may have to create enemies that your followers can attack. Are you against poverty? Then how will your population reduction goals reduce poverty? Are your people against high gasoline prices? Then how will population reduction make the fuel last longer or reduce the number of drivers? If people are against crime or taxes to support education, how will your parent licensing ideas reduce those societal undesirables? Look at the outcomes you want then start to figure out how your own programs will make other people's concerns reduce or disappear.

"To get the outcomes you want you must recognize how the values that you are trying to impose will supplement the values of the person or people you are trying to influence. Like they say, 'give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach him how to fish and he can eat for a lifetime.'"

 —"That's not the way I have observed it. I have observed that if you teach a man to fish he will sit in a boat all day drinking!"

 —"Was that the outcome you predicted?"

 —"Based on our self-centered laziness and our need to forget our problems, I guess I could have predicted it!"

WHAT IS THE STRENGTH OF YOUR DESIRE TO ACCOMPLISH YOUR OUTCOMES

 —" Maybe so. But back to the commander's concerns. Two political questions are whether you are respected for your values or are you feared for your might and secondly, how is your resolve estimated? Is it 'do or die' or will you compromise or even give up? Let's look at the second question for a while. After the long battles in Afghanistan the Russians gave up and the Americans and NATO forces came in. But it wasn't long before their citizens back home grew weary. The resolve was certainly not to 'do or die.'

"Here is another example. If you want to slow down the spread of AIDS you need to either reduce sexual activity, particularly male homosexual and all heterosexual contacts, or increase the use of condoms. George Bush's idea was to educate people to not want sex. But abstinence didn't work.

"China decided that sexual activity was a fact of life, and its citizens had a strong desire for orgasmic experiences, so the government decided to give free condoms to 150 million high risk migrant workers. Non-migrants were already allowed free condoms to aid in the national family planning efforts to limit families to one child. Since sexual activity was a greater risk than intravenous drug use, and prostitutes were more likely to be the sexual outlets for migrants, the free condoms made sense. So here you see China recognizing that the strength of desire for sex by the people could not be controlled by advocating celibacy. So Commander, you have to look at your own strength of desire, which I believe is unquestioned, but also at the strength of the various desires of the people who are trying to convert."

 —"We certainly have to look at the desired outcome and the methods to get there. China has a booming economy. In a relatively few years it has lifted 300 million out of poverty while the U.S. has an increasing number of children, over 20 million, who are hungry. If China's elite Communist Party oligarchy is producing economic and social results, should we emulate them? That would mean giving up our cherished representative democracy that is fueled by special interest money. I have to admit that it is a blasphemous idea, but if it is positive societal outcomes we want, maybe we should examine their method while we set out our desired goals and outcomes. Of course I would certainly want freedom of religion as part of our government."

 —"I don't think our Founding Fathers would support an oligarchy, but they would have to admire much of what the Chinese have done and they would be upset with the way we modern Americans have twisted the meaning of freedom and responsibility. I can't imagine them condoning our massive personal credit card debts."

CONFLICTS IN OBJECTIVES

 —"Or our uncontrollable national debt. I wonder, too, how they would stand on the various entitlements that have increased both our taxes and our debts. Like China today, our revolutionary forebears would have cared for their elderly and sick in their homes. In our country, as in many developed countries, the welfare state takes over the medical care and the end-of-life care. Convalescent hospitals cost nearly $100,000 a year per patient. Certainly few workers or their families have paid that much in taxes for such an eventuality. We spend on huge TVs and an array video games for our homes while the Chinese save about 20% of their incomes so that they can take care of their parents at home when they are too old to work. But the elderly parents help in the education of the young-- teaching traditional Chinese values and helping with their homework."

 —"And you know the Chinese children are in school much longer than our American children are. But I guess if we are going to teach people how to be lazy and just indulge themselves in video entertainment and potato chips we need to give them short school days and long vacations. And I've heard people say that Asian education is nothing more than rote memory while our children are being taught to be creative. That's why we have so many Nobel Prize winners. But it seems that we have to start with rote memory to learn spelling, reading and basic math. If we are going to be creative we had better have the tools to build with.

"So we have our rather nebulous ideals of what the government should do for us, but far too few people take up their responsibilities for themselves or for their governments."

CORRUPTED IDEALS

 —"But where is the democratic ideal that every person is free to do what he wants?"

 —"As much as I hate to admit it, our democratic ideals have often been corrupted. The self-centered morality, in which every person votes for his or her interests, with the hope that a better society will result, is not happening now in our country. Selfishness, rather than an enlightened self-interest, has led to a generalized attitude of taking and not giving back. There isn't the responsibility for forging a nation that our founders envisioned. The Golden Rule is rapidly disappearing from our collective mentality. But the rich philanthropists are often doing an incredibly selfless job."

CONFLICTING GOALS

 \--" Setting your goals and objectives can be difficult because of so many variables that enter into the big equation. The people at the local level usually want good schools but their elected representatives are commonly pressured into putting money into other areas by the lobbyists and other pressure groups. If there is pressure to have better national parks or more lifeguards or more fire protection, the money needed for education may go to these competing areas. They are all worthwhile goals. But which is the most important.

"Then you have goals that are not desired by most of the electorate, but are desired by the moneyed interests. How valuable was Alaska's 'bridge to nowhere?' How valuable are farm subsidies to the average voter? In your case commander you already know that there will be opposition to your population reduction plans by many churches, businesses, and governments. They may all want to reduce the negative climate changes, but when that goal conflicts with the goals of having more souls to save, having more customers to buy, or having more soldiers to fight-- you face some very strong and powerful goals conflicting with your goal."

 —"You see conflicting goals everywhere. Look at California's budget crisis of a few years ago. The legislators and governors ignored the realities of paying for what they wanted. The citizens long ago voted out the regressive taxes on their real estate which funded local schools and government but the state and local governments didn't substitute enough alternative taxes to make up the difference. Then bureaucracies developed in every government area, particularly in education, and the pay that should have gone to the effective teachers went to 'number crunchers' who churned out the reports that the higher levels of governments required."

 —"Are you disputing the fact that the job of education is to keep stacking up statistics instead of educating our youth. My God man, how can we possibly know what to do if we don't view the world from the top of a mountain of statistical reports?"

 —"Lee, I think we are both with the common people. Education should be for educating. Government should be governing—as little as possible. Probably the hardest thing for governments to do in our country is to figure out what is really needed, then to find the fairest way to pay for it. Anybody can propose new programs, but few can figure out how to keep the citizens happy with the new taxes. You would think that they might be able to cut some old programs, but it's like any creation—once created it just continues to evolve and increase! So there are ever more goals to conflict with each other!

"But somewhere down the line reality sets in. Underfunded programs eventually crash, and the evolution and proliferation of children begets planetary problems. Then other problems may come from the outside and you are powerless to control them. For example, the American federal courts have ruled that illegal immigrants are entitled to education and to health benefits. But the states are not allowed to enforce the extradition of illegal immigrants. So the states are saddled with federal rulings. Similarly, if the U.S. wants to put economic pressure on a country like Iran, but China and Russia ignore the idea, America's desires are thwarted. We keep finding conflicting goals at every level from the family to the international arena.

"Did you ever notice that at home one parent may forbid a child to do something but the other allows it. No wonder we are all confused about everything! So, Wreck, as a politician you had better know what outcomes you want, what you need to do to achieve them and who or what may stand in your way.

RESOLVING CONFLICTING GOALS

 —"Good illustration, Con. In California they had to reduce or eliminate welfare checks to poor people. They had to release prisoners early. They had to increase class sizes and reduce the school year. The state had to cut back or eliminate tuition help to college students. California's strong tradition of education was being shot to hell."

  "Here is another desired outcome. Around the world there are discussions about universal health care. Of course it is never free. The questions are how much in taxes must be collected for whatever level of health care you want. Then which taxes will pay for it? Should the expected recipients be charged by taxing all or most sales, such as a value-added tax? Should the rich pay more for the poor? How much should be charged the recipients as co-payments for each doctor visit and procedure?(50)

"Studies have shown that a 10% increase in the financial responsibility of the patient reduces the patient's total medical spending by 2%. Then if you have a fairly high deductible for the insurance, say $1,000, the total spending on medical is reduced by 4 to 15%. But there may be negatives to this approach, so some people have suggested that there be low deductibles for important services, like yearly physicals or for cancer treatments, but high deductibles for less important procedures like breast enhancement or treatment for a common cold. It could even be that smokers or problem drinkers might pay more while aerobic exercisers would pay less."

 \--"Yes Con, there are many examples of conflicting goals. That is why we have so many political parties in democracies. But which one holds some truth? I am reminded of what Mahatma Gandhi said, 'It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.' With this in mind let's look at some projected outcomes that people had for a project and whether or not their projected outcomes turned out as they had hoped."

PROJECTING DESIRED OUTCOMES

 —"Look at the way the Mormons developed their religious following in their early years. They did a great job. Polygamy gave women husbands and allowed them to fulfill God's command to have children. This increased the church membership quickly. The strong family life and the common values bred loyalty. The requirement for young men to travel the world, at their own expense, as missionaries spread the word of the Latter Day Saints worldwide. The 10% tithe from a member's gross income gave real riches to the church. The emphasis on large families increased the flock. Every move was a wise political decision. The government's law against polygamy stopped the practice for the main church in 1890, but some sects broke from the church and continued it. But the commonly large Mormon families made up for their previous polygamous practices."

 —"You are right, Con, the Mormon church has been effectively managed. Compare their politics with the recent problems in the Catholic Church--with pedophile priests, the reducing number of priests and nuns, their stand on contraception and abortion, their opposition to condoms to fight AIDS, their unwillingness to consider married or female priests, all have caused some negative feelings against the church. A shrewd politician will look at the myriad of possible outcomes to various political techniques. He is a realist, not an idealist. The world is just not ready to function using the principles of Mother Theresa.

"The short sighted politician sees only the immediate goal. When some Sunnis bombed a very holy Shi'ite mosque they were probably thinking only of punishing a religious enemy. They didn't count on massive retaliation. When jihadist suicide bombers kill people in Israel it is only killing the enemy. But in the long term perhaps those actions will turn non-Muslim countries against all Muslims—preventing immigration and jobs. What if the bomber's children are denied access to a better life in the developed world because of his action. Was it worth it? If the Iraqi Shi'ites unite and destroy Sunni mosques and kill large numbers of Sunnis, possibly including friends and relatives—was it worth it? Was it foreseen?

"When George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq to control its oil, to eliminate Saddam, and to stabilize a major Mideast country by democratizing it--was it worth it? He added trillions to his country's eventual national debt, hundreds of billions to its immediate national debt. He increased international terrorism against a number of non-related countries and groups. He saw many American troops killed. His popularity was severely reduced. And his party lost the presidential election in 2008. Was it worth it?

"Whatever your quest, what are the costs to you, if you win and if you lose? Do you lose your job? Become humiliated? Lose money? For example, the American war in Iraq deposed Saddam Hussein and brought free elections, but it also provoked huge anti-American sentiments world wide, it pushed the U.S. close to bankruptcy, it lost many lives on both sides, it didn't get the oil the U.S. wanted, it created a civil war in Iraq, it lost domestic political power for the ruling Republican party, and it increased the recruitment for America's major terrorist enemy al Queda. By any standard, it was a very poor political move.

"Bush's failed pre-emptive war in Iraq allowed the governments of North Korea and Iran to proceed with atomic research without fear of a pre-emptive war by the superpower. So the superpower was not as super as it had been—or thought it was. Bush's American foreign policy was a great asset to its adversary Iran. He reduced the threat of the Taliban and eliminated Saddam Hussein. He also made his own electorate wary of another war.

"The most effective politician would see most of the consequences of his actions. The result of Bush's war, as I mentioned, was a one to two trillion dollar deficit for the country's national debt, a loss of prestige across the world, the loss of American lives, the increase in terrorism worldwide and the setting of the stage for a civil war in Iraq, a huge reduction for his support and the support for his political party, and a possible legacy of being one of the worst presidents the country has had. So the political results were almost entirely negative. His problem was thinking that the guy with the biggest gun wins. In the movies John Wayne always won. Do all people from Texas think they are John Wayne? But what is the biggest gun? The most bombs, the most money, the most oil, the most people backing you?

"Expectations can be wrong. The outcomes that we hope for won't happen unless we use the right political techniques.

"With any goal you should project the positive and the negative effects from the political technique or techniques you plan to use. 20/20 foresight would have prevented the Vietnam War. But who could have known then that communism in the USSR would fall and that the Chinese Communists would become socialists and free enterprisers and join the political world. In the 60s the 'domino theory' still made sense-- and world communism had to be stopped.

"When you look at your response to 9/11 or look at the Israeli responses to the aggressions of the, Hamas and Hezbollah, the 'eye for an eye' response probably got an approving nod from Joshua and David. But would Machiavelli have approved of the lack of concern for any possible negative results?

"What effect do the Muslim killings in Iraq, Israel, India, Indonesia, Philippines, U.S., UK and other countries have on Muslim religious recruitment, on retention of believers, on the view of non-Muslims toward that religion, on allowing Muslims to immigrate to other countries, on hiring Muslims for jobs, on giving Muslims college scholarships in non-Muslim countries, on doing business with Muslim firms?

"And we might wonder if the lives of the Iraqis, because of your war and the terrorism it developed, were better or worse than if Saddam Hussein had stayed in power. And I might suggest that Iran might have been quieter if Saddam had remained as the Iraqi leader."

 —"True, but if Iraq had been the enemy of Iran would it have kept the Iranian people united behind the government? Possibly eliminating Iraq as an enemy allowed for more dissident action against the theocratic-democracy and weakened the hold of the ayatollahs. Who knows?"

 —"Remember when your legislature, with 650 lawmakers were considering a bill to combat climate change and the oil and coal industries hired almost 3,000 lobbyists to influence the legislation? I saw estimates that their yearly spending was nearly $100 million a year on the issue. The energy industries' desired outcomes were certainly counter to the climate change outcomes that the world needed. But then there were the desired outcomes of the legislators to be elected at their next election. And lobbyists' contributions could certainly be used to that end.

"You can see how many juxtaposed concerns an issue can develop. Commander, I know you are aware of the obstacles to your desired outcomes of a rapidly reducing population and a licensing of parents. Religions, business interests, self centered concerns and more, will not only stand in your way, but will fight you."

 —"I know. When I think of the Mormons I know that they would fight my ideas tooth and nail. But I don't know of a stronger family setting than the common Mormon family. I would guess that they would get more licenses than any other group.

"What we need is as close to 20/20 foresight as we can get. But where can we get the evidence to increase the accuracy of our predictions? I guess I'd start with history. You know they say that those who don't understand history will probably repeat its calamities. But I guess we have to look at psychology and sociology to get an idea of how individuals and groups will react to certain ideas and stresses."

 —"You are getting the idea! Politics is not a hard science like physics or chemistry. It relies on the soft, less reliable, movements of our minds. When Machiavelli wrote his 'Prince' he was really just looking at practical psychology. Of course today there are a number of studies that can give credence to some of his ideas. Then there are some studies that seem to confirm our violent tendencies and some that indicate that we are more comfortable with our traditional beliefs than with empirically proven facts. So our desired outcomes, such as saving the planet, have a number of psychological, religious, political and sociological hurdles to overcome.

"Look at the problems caused by the major recession 15 years ago. At that time we had to rely on some ideas from another inexact science, economics. The economy needed to be stimulated. To stimulate the American economy, should the government have cut taxes and take in less money, or tax and spend the money in stimulant packages, or cut taxes and borrow from foreign governments and increase the national debt which then would increase the yearly government expenses. But then you could solve the problem by devaluing your currency by half or however much would be needed to wipe out your debt. Just print more greenbacks! The investors would then be huge losers and might never lend to you again. Then with the currency worth half as much. Oil and other foreign products would double in cost. Walmart would have to double its prices. American exports would cost half as much to other countries. Maybe all countries could devalue at the same time, then everyone would win and only the investors could declare bankruptcy.

"What outcomes might you have projected when the U.S developed a nuclear bomb? That Russia would equalize the balance of power? What would you have expected when India developed the bomb? Did you think that Pakistan would develop one! If nuclear bombs are bad in the Mideast, why is Israel allowed to have them? Don't you think that you could expect Palestine, Jordan or Iran to develop one?"

 —"Here you are talking about what is just. But does justice require equality? If so, maybe we should all disarm. But of course no country will do that. Every nation wants to have the upper hand so that it can defend itself or so that it can conquer whom it will. So what is 'just' depends on where you are sitting."

 —"Along that line we might look at competence. Of course we all think we are competent to do most things. But would you ask a a priest to lead your country out of a recession? Would you hire an economist to defend you against a murder charge in court? Would you hire a plumber to teach a college class in art? But look at how your American politicians decided to go to war against the advice of your generals. Then once the war is on your leaders who have not even been soldiers wouldn't take the advice your military leaders who have made a lifetime study of war.

"Political decisions about how people or nations will react are best guessed at by psychologists and sociologists and perhaps historians. Look at the AIDS epidemic. First it was considered to be a gay man's disease and a foreigners disease. But as the death rate climbed to over 20 million and AIDS orphans peopled many countries, and as women and girls became the majority of victims, some leaders thought something should be done about it. A major conference was called for African leaders. Only the president of Uganda showed up. President Bush committed $15 billion to the cause, but since he believed in abstinence education rather than condom use, the expected reduction of cases did not parallel the monetary expenditures. The sexual urges of Asians, Africans, and Americans, were not blunted by Bush's evangelical Christian leanings. So the expected, or hoped for, reduction in the disease did not happen because the political techniques used could not be expected to produce the desired results.

"What results might have been expected by the Israelis when they attacked the Hezbollah who had captured two Israeli soldiers? Undoubtedly they wanted to blanket the Lebanese and Palestinians with fear so that they wouldn't attack Israel in the near future. While initially some of the Palestinians and Lebanese had blamed their own countrymen for Israel's attacks, when the Israelis killed 1200 Lebanese civilians and injured 5000 along with the huge destruction of property, the Lebanese increased their hatred of their neighbor to the south. When the Hezbollah gave $12,000 per family to those Lebanese who had lost their houses, they added another positive to their cause. Then to the surprise of all, the Hezbollah fought extremely effectively and gained a great deal of respect from their neighbors. It was obvious Israel could no longer win whatever it sought to gain in just a few days. So what Israel thought would be 'a walk in the park' turned out to be 'a visit to the chamber of horrors.'"

 —"Let's look at American politics for a minute. I wonder how a responsible government leader could be elected to the presidency of the United States if he told people that their taxes must be raised and government spending must be cut. Years ago the Congressional Budget Office's 'Long Term Budget Outlook' noted that from about 1950 the federal spending averaged about 20% of the Gross Domestic Product, but the taxes were only about 18% of the GDP. This yearly shortfall increased the national debt to over eleven trillion dollars in the early part of this century. Then, as the Budget Office predicted, expenses went up to 26% of the GDP but taxes only rose to 19% of the GDP and it just keeps getting worse. To get a balanced budget today, in 2025, we would need to go up to almost 30% of our GDP in taxes—and that wouldn't even start to reduce the national debt. If politicians had the guts to tell the electorate the truth they wouldn't have a snow ball's chance in Hell of being elected. The Republicans want to cut taxes but not reduce spending and the Democrats want to provide more services without increasing taxes. And nobody wants to reduce unneeded programs.

"It seems that American politicians correctly predict what would happen if they were to significantly raise taxes. And they know what would happen if they significantly reduce costly government programs. So while they are accurately predicting what would happen to them if they went against the strongly self-centered beliefs of their electorate, they are ruining their country. But in America, historically, pragmatism has always won the race against idealism and realism."

 —"That's a problem with a democratic republic. People want the power that comes with being elected to lead. Some of your politicians have spent millions of their own dollars to be elected, and even then they don't all get elected. You are right Con, that the American politicians and the electorate refuse to see the consequences of their actions. This happened with Greece 15 years ago when they were close to bankruptcy and other European states had to come to their rescue even though those states had large national debts.

"Economists wonder just how long your country can survive. It's true that nearly all countries have national debts, but the solvent countries, like China, keep getting stronger while your country is weakening. But your concern is how do you change it. It is more difficult in your self-centered individualistic country to shift the public mentality to fiscal responsibility. And trying to tax food or services would bring recall votes for the representatives who wanted to tax you for the services you demand. In Scandinavia, with their more social consciousness, it hasn't been difficult.

"Con, I would think that a way to attack your problem would be to get the responsible people to preach 'responsibility' as some are now doing. But large voting blocks, like the over-65 population, want their 'entitlements' and want others to pay for them. They seem to think that Medicare and Social Security were always benefits for their age groups, but the truth is that they are relatively recent benefits for your retirees. And as more people reach retirement and live well beyond that retirement age the costs keep going up. From 2000 to 2020 the percent of the GDP that paid those bills went up 50% to over 12% of your GDP.

"Look at the money that Western nations have given to Africa for healthcare. The World Health Organization researchers examined the impact of various global health initiatives during the last 20 years. Some programs actually hurt health care. They found that some benefits, like increased diagnosis of tuberculosis cases and higher vaccination rates. But they also concluded that some U.N. programs hurt health care in Africa by disrupting basic services and leading some countries to slash their health care spending. When we look at how much has been spent on public health in the last two decades — the figure tripled to over $20 billion. But the countries with the biggest need didn't get the most money. Nigeria and Pakistan, with greater needs got less money in Ethiopia and Uganda. Also, the poorly managed countries dysfunctional health-care systems used the money ineffectively. There was no real accountability. And as you said, you must know what your expected outcomes are before you plan your political techniques. It is just another example of how the political technique of giving money did not result in the expected improvement in healthcare. The idea sounded good. It just didn't work out as well as planned. It is so common in our individual lives and in the functioning of our governments that what we expect to happen does not."

 —"Here's another case of calculating the risks of an action. The US couldn't invade Darfur to save Muslim lives. If it had the thinking was that other Muslims, like al Queda, would start propaganda and terrorist attacks. And Europeans and Americans have had their fill of war –both the financial costs of the fighting and the loss of the lives and limbs of their young sons. You can just hear a mother saying 'Why send my son to save impoverished people in other parts of the world. I don't feel a thing if they die, but the pain of my injured or dead son would live with me forever.' There are so many problems and so few cost effective solutions."

 —"Everyone concentrates on the problems we're having in our country lately, like: illegal immigration, recovery from hurricanes like in New Orleans, and the alligators and pythons attacking people in Florida. Not me. I concentrate on solutions for the problems. It's a win-win situation. First we dig a moat the length of the Mexican border. We send the dirt to New Orleans to raise the level of their levies. Then we put the alligators and pythons in the moat along the Mexican border. Any other problems you would like for me to solve today?"

 —"Funny Lee, but this is not a laughing matter. I guess we could go on for months looking at the unexpected results of various plans and legislation. Congress is famous for doing things that will get them votes. And they seldom examine all possible outcomes of their legislation. For example the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (51) passed by the Congress in 1986, required hospitals with emergency rooms and ambulance companies to treat about every problem, but the government doesn't reimburse the hospitals for the treatment. It is like me telling you to paint our neighbor's house brown and plant a garden, without me paying you for it and without our neighbor's permission. And the neighbor liked his blue house!"

  "The Congress didn't foresee the number of illegals who would seek treatment. They didn't see the costs to the hospitals and local governments to fund the expenses. They did not foresee the law's effect that included that over half of emergency room treatment would be uncompensated by the patients or by insurance. This then resulted in many hospitals closing emergency rooms or the shifting of the expenses to other patients' charges. While theoretically the patients treated in emergency rooms are liable for their charges, they can generally escape paying. This has cost about $40 billion a year and the costs increase annually. With the increase in the use of emergency rooms averaging about 3% a year, and with one in ten illegal immigrants using emergency rooms annually, you can see the skyrocketing costs.

"Getting what you want requires doing the right things. When bin Laden attacked New York the intention was to hurt America for its helping of Israel and to weaken your ties with Saudi Arabia. It was done at a time when many people were becoming upset with Israel and were shifting to the side of the Palestinians. But after the Twin Tower bombings the reaction against the jihad of bin Laden hardened positions and supported Israel. Obviously some of the Muslims were crazy, but how many?-- several thousand out of the billion or so in the world. But they all got blamed. Bin Laden mobilized most of the forces of the world, including many Muslim countries, against him and his holy war. Politically it was one of the dumbest actions of recent memory. Just like the avarice of Napoleon and Hitler did much to set back their countries. World opinion tends to rise against conquerors.

"Jihad won in Afghanistan when the Russians pulled out in 1989. That jihad was financed largely by the CIA and Saudi Arabia. But the concept they backed backfired and they became the targets."

 \--"But there were some positives for bin Laden's crew from the bombings. It forced all the countries of the world to bring in extra security measures to stop future bombings. This was a huge cost to every country. It seemed to have excited many young people to join jihads in the US, UK, Yemen, Pakistan, India, Iraq and many other places. Suicide missions became commonplace against both Muslims and non-Muslims."

WHAT NEGATIVES CAN BE FORESEEN?

 \--Of course hindsight is 20/20, but the effective politician will be right much more often than he will be wrong. Often doing nothing will be the more effective method. I want to spend a good deal of time looking at predicting the negatives of a political decision. The most effective politicians will be able to accurately predict both the positives and the negatives. Anyone planning a political move will have to consider that there night be some negative results-- whether it is a man asking a woman for a date or a government leader deciding to go to war,. But the effective politician will be able to correctly predict the negatives that might ensue from his decisions and actions.

"Let's look again at President George Bush's Iraq war. In 2003 he had the support of 68% of the Americans. His stated reasons for attacking the Arab country were: finding Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, eliminating the tyrant Saddam Hussein, establishing democracy, and fighting terrorism. But subsequent events showed some problems with his ideas. Some results turned out to be the opposite of what he expected. Bush's ratings from his constituency dropped to 40%. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Democracy for the Iraqis did not mean the same as it meant to Bush. Removing the tyrant also removed a major Sunni enemy to the Iranian Shia who were a greater threat to the U.S., and terrorism and anti-Americanism were significantly increased both in Iraq and across the world. Could he have foreseen that the US would cause a jihad in Iraq. Could it have been foreseen that the jihad would be eclipsed by a Shia-Sunni series of clashes, an actual civil war.

"Some people criticized George W. Bush for carrying out his foreign policy like John Wayne did in his cowboy and war movies. That's not fair. John Wayne had read the whole script before he started acting. George W. didn't have a clue as to the probable end results of his actions. But he seemed to figure that by acting tough, as the Texan leader of the world's only superpower, everything would turn out the way he wanted. But, you say, world politics is not like play acting. True. So the intelligent politician decides to play his hand or stand pat based on the best evidence available, including the lessons learned from the processes of history. Hitler, Caesar, Bush, Tojo, and Milosevik overplayed their cards, as have so many of history's tough guys. But the shrewd politicians generally win out. Churchill, Reagan, Jefferson, and Elizabeth are such examples. Like any poker player knows—you 'gotta' play the odds.

"It is easy to criticize after the fact because we generally have 20/20 hindsight. But the effective politician should come pretty close to 20/20 foresight."

 —"People who are not experienced in life don't expect things to go wrong, They seem to think that 'life is just a bowl of cherries' as the old song said."

 —"But Ray, life isn't like a bowl of cherries. It's more like a jar of jalapeno chilis. What you do today, might burn your butt tomorrow.

"But seriously who could have predicted the incredibly strong Arab aversion to Israel fifty years after Balfour. Who could have predicted the rise in power of the Arab states or of the increase in the numbers of Muslims in the world. Who could have predicted that al Qaeda would have bombed the Twin Towers because of America's strongly supportive relationship of Israel. Who could've predicted the 1967 war in Israel and all the local wars since. Had the British and Americans seen all the resulting negatives of their support of Israel from the time of Balfour, do you think they would still have supported the partition of Palestine?

"But look at some of the other changes in the world since that time. Who in the 1940s could have predicted the invention of the computer, its nearly universal use, the rise of the internet, mobile phones, the ease of bomb making, the rise of technologically sophisticated terrorists, the ease of converting people to be suicide bombers? Could the Greek or EU politicians have predicted that Greece's dysfunctional economy could be disastrous for the entire continent—and the rest of the world?"

 —"Maybe it goes back to the days of Greek mythology! Plutus, the Greek god of wealth, wanted to give riches only to the 'the just, the wise, the men of ordered life.' But Zeus blinded him so Plutus handed out the wealth indiscriminately. It seems that this is what many countries are doing today as they do a nice things for their citizens but don't tap into their piggy banks to pay for the candy they are dishing out. The euro zone countries suffer if one of their members can't pay the bills. China and Japan will be affected if the US can't pay its bills."

 —"Right Ray! When countries can't pay their bills their people suffer. It's like when mommy or daddy lose their jobs, children aren't going to be able to eat as well, to go to the mall shopping, or to buy new electronic toys. Is this the result of parents not saving because they didn't plan to be out of work? At the family level the effects will be felt soon and deeply. But at the national level with all of our self-centered citizens wanting to keep the same benefits that they have always had, like their 'entitlements,' the belt cinching takes longer to do and it misses many bellies that need to be cinched. Long-term budget planning at the national and individual level must take into account that bad things might happen. When you are out of work who will pay the mortgage? When the government can't pay its debts, can it increase the taxes on the citizens who are out of work?

"The dream world that most of us live in must take into account that one day we will wake up. As Dr. Singh said, an effective politician must evaluate both the positive and negative effects that may result from his actions. And that applies to every one of us in every decision we make."

 —"Remember we expected that in college, if we partied hearty, we could expect a hangover all over, the next morning. There are so many ways to put it, 'what goes up must come down' or 'every action has an equal and opposite reaction.' There are so many negatives that can occur from our day-to-day decisions. Driving too fast may get you a traffic fine. Driving drunk may land you in jail. And if you have to go to court, you are putting yourself in the hands of 12 people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty. It's not very often that things just get better and better and better, so we had better plan for possible negatives in our lives. Wreck, what negatives do you see in trying to reduce population?"

 —"Well there will certainly be negatives if we don't reduce population, but there are also negatives if we do. If we don't reduce population I don't see how we can survive, especially with the numbers of people we have and the standard of living that we are used to. But then if we reduce our numbers we are going to have far more old people than young ones for a few generations. That will mean people have to work longer before retirement, if retirement is even an option."

 —"One more thought, to add to the politician's list of concerns, is something that your Henry David Thoreau said, 'It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.' So often when people have muddled their way into huge problems, they do desperate things that have little chance for success in extricating them from the problems they have created. Suicide is a common reaction on the individual level. War is often the reaction on a national level.

"Hugo Chavez's proposed revolution promised oil riches to the indigenous people. But as the intelligentsia left his country for greener and more peaceful pastures the woes of reality clouded the landscape. Shortages of electricity blacked out the hopes, and shortages of water kept the looking glass foggy. Homes and industries succumbed to the lack of these essentials. The unexpected drop in oil prices left the national coffers empty and inflation rates of over 30% a month impoverished all, from the lowly natives to the chiefs of industry. Commander, I know that you and many others believe that the world is in a desperate state, certainly more and more people's lives are desperate."

 \--"The same happened in Africa when Europe freed its vassals. Black chiefs promised black freedom and black prosperity. As the Europeans were sent packing, the knowledge and experience of farming, mining and business went with them. The ideal of Africa for Africans had the ring of hope and justice, but progress requires more than a changed electoral process and some national legitimacy. For utopia to evolve it needs a mastery of the forces that move the society—the economic, political, educational, and technological forces.

"Remember what the great South American revolutionary Simon Bolivar had inscribed on his tombstone 'Whoever works for a revolution is plowing the sea.' Few revolutions have had the quality of people that the Americans had to lead the fight and to establish the new nation. Lenin and Mao were outstanding revolutionaries, but inept post revolutionary leaders. China was fortunate that quality people eventually took the reins of leadership. Russia didn't have such luck."

 —"Could the United Nations have predicted what the partitioning of India would have led to in 1947? They might not have been able to predict the modern day terrorism, but they might have predicted that not all Hindus would move to the new India and not all Muslims would move to the new Pakistan so the religious feuding would not be ended."

 —"Non-political actions may also have severe effects, so with our instantaneous worldwide communication one person's lack of political knowledge may elicit severe consequences. The Danish cartooning of Mohammad in 2005 developed uprisings world wide including the burning of some Danish and Norwegian embassies, economic embargoes on Danish goods and services, violence against civilians and police, and an increased fear and hating of both Muslims by non-Muslims and non-Muslims by Muslims. So the cartoons which were intended to criticize violence actually created violence and hate."

 —"Perhaps a major political mistake was made by the Danish prime minister who refused to meet with several Danish imams who wanted to complain about the cartoons and get an apology. Of course the Danish prime minister had no control over the free press. So a number of factors seem to have contributed to the magnification of the issue—the possibly poor decision of the editor asking for cartoons, the publishing of a cartoon showing Mohammed with a bomb for a turban—which countered the Muslim tradition against showing a picture of the prophet, the conflicting beliefs in the Western ideal of freedom of the press versus Islamic traditions, the refusal of the Danish principles to meet with the clerics and apologize, and the decision of at least one imam to enflame Muslim youth around the world—resulted in the loss of lives and millions of dollars in damage. Can it be that any of these results were political aims of any of the people who initiated the drama?

"The question is how many people must be 'politically correct' all the time. One should not criticize in any way: any person, any religion, any race, any ethnic group, any sexual orientation, any physical or mental difference."

 —"Right Ray! As a lawyer I think I have to be politically correct. I no longer call people from Kentucky, Tennessee or West Virginia 'hillbillies.' I call them Appalachian-Americans. I would never refer to a woman as a 'babe' or a 'chick', I call them 'breasted-Americans.' And what I used to call an 'easy' woman, I would now call 'horizontally accessible.' And just like a used car salesman who says that this Cadillac was 'previously owned', I would say that a woman who has 'been around' is really a 'previously-enjoyed companion.' Similarly when a client tells me that his wife nags him, I remind him that she was merely being 'verbally repetitive.'

"Of course we can't leave out men. So when we used to say he has a 'beer gut' we should now say he has a 'liquid grain storage facility.' And rather than say that he is a bad dancer I would just say he is 'overly Caucasian.' Then when I defend a gang member wearing his pants at half-mast so that you can see the crack in his buttocks, I just tell the judge that his bare buns are 'trouser cleavage.'"

 —"You seem to have political correctness down to a science-- or at least to a semantic surety. But on with our discussion! An example of making a political and economic decision for a nation was seen in China. The country's rulers saw the continuing of social and economic problems because of the huge population and the weak economic base. So, as you know, the Communist oligarchy decided in 1979 to institute a countrywide family planning program to reduce the country's population through late marriages and late childbearing. It limited most urban couples to one child and most rural couples to two children. It is estimated that without the policy, the country's population would have ballooned by 400 million more than the current 1.3 billion, according to China's National Population and Family Planning Commission.

"The policy was seen as necessary for the country's national economy but it was also geared to lift the poor people out of poverty. It has had amazing success in both areas. It was also seen as a way to increase the health and educational potentials of the children. This has also occurred.

"As you might imagine, the positives and negatives of such a grand plan can be better or worse than the planners might have foreseen. This, of course is true of any political plan, but with a plan as immense as this the plusses or minuses could have had incredible social or economic effects.

"On the positive side, in just twenty-five years the Chinese economic miracle catapulted China from a Third World country to a world economic power. Four hundred million people were lifted from poverty. Then there were the advantages of healthier children, since the family's resources were concentrated on the one or two children, not on several children. Additionally the country would not have to invest as much in infrastructure, such as schools and hospitals, for the 400 million children who were not born because of the policy. Each family could spend more on the health and education of their one or two children.

"But several factors were not considered. Since boys were preferred, female fetuses were more likely to be aborted. This led to 119 boy babies being born to every 100 females. The normal ratio is 105 males born to every 100 females."

 —"Why isn't it 100 to 100?"

 —"It seems that the male sperm, the Y chromosome carrying sperm, swim faster and are therefore more likely to impregnate. But it is normal for males after birth to 'out-die' females at every age so that by age 20 the males equal the females and after that there are always more females.

"The 13 million annual abortions, many because the fetus was female, have resulted in 37 million more men than women, so finding a wife can be an impossible job for many men. (52)

"Of course economically things worked out much better than expected and the reduced population worked hard and intelligently which decreased poverty and increased the money the government could spend for infrastructure, particularly on education. So the population became better educated and the education increased its economic potential. China produces 600,000 engineers per year compared to the 60,000 educated in the US and the 500,000 educated in India. But this is not to say that all engineering graduates have equal educations.

"With money for infrastructure much went into producing electricity. Building dams and coal powered generating facilities increased to provide electrical power to more people. But the dam building displaced many thousands of people and the coal plants made China the world's greatest air polluter and emitter of carbon. But the education of engineers and the policies of the government brought China to leadership in the world in developing solar power and electric cars.

"On the negative side, human rights groups criticized the 'one child' policy, seeing it as a violation of human rights. Of course by 'human rights' they mean individual desires, no matter how selfish they may be. And if they use United Nations 'Declaration of Human Rights' as their standard, the declaration only gives people the right 'to start a family' it doesn't give them the right to unlimited children."

 —"Those human rights groups certainly don't look at the survival of the human race as a human right! As we have seen, it may already be to late to save us. I would think that if these groups are intelligent and well informed they would start looking at our long term survival. But I guess it is just so easy to push for people's wishes today rather than their survival tomorrow."

 —"Right. Prisoners have rights that the law abiding must pay for in increased taxation. Large impoverished families have rights that single people are taxed for. Illegal immigrants have rights that the citizens must pay for. What about the rights of the law abiding, the people who have only as many children as they can afford, or the native born or naturalized citizens?"

 —"Better take that up with your legislators, the United Nations or Amnesty International. But let's move on. The Chinese have 22% of the world's people on 8% of the world's arable land. Per capita they have only 25% of the drinking water that the average citizen of the world has.

"Another negative was that since children are expected to take care of their parents, a married couple can be expected to eventually have to care for four elderly parents. China has about 40,000 assisted-care institutions, providing only 12 beds for every thousand senior citizens. As in other countries, the pension fund accounts are not adequate to care for the retired workers. Commander, when you started on your voyage about 10% of Chinese were over 60. It is about 20% today and by 2050 it will be 30%. By then there will be 2.1 working adults per retiree.(53) The question is whether to relax the 'one child' policy to increase the number of workers or to fix the social safety net. China has opted for the latter. Other countries are trying to increase births to fix the retirement problem, Singapore and France are among the many. Of course increasing workers now will lead to needing more workers every year as the larger number of workers retire. It is truly like a dog chasing its tail. You can never catch up. But it sounds good to the voters today. Just don't allow them to think of the ramifications for their children or grandchildren!"

 —"As we have often said, the obvious solutions are to increase the retirement age and to increase the retirement contributions. But what self-interested voter in a democratic country would vote for something that society needs? But I guess we have talked enough about that!"

 —"True Lee. But there was another negative. It relates to the selfish versus the society based values that Wanda Wang talked about and the power drive and esteem needs that Chuck Chan discussed. In spite of the fact that the 'one child' policy was working miracles for the country, some rich people wanted more children. The government had to step in to make such an abridgment of the law undesirable. Rich people who want more children either pay a huge fine equal to ten years of the average pay in the area, about 20,000 to 200,000 yuan which is about $3,000 to $30,000, or they may have the child abroad, particularly in Hong Kong where permits are not required. Travel arrangements to Hong Kong cost about 80,000 yuan, $1,150 dollars. About ten thousand births a year are added this way. But the Chinese government is working to stop such skirting of the existing laws.

"The rich and famous can easily afford the fines so the government enacted additional barriers to having additional children. Businessmen can be barred from governmental contracts and celebrities can be banned from public concerts or television appearances. So shame is added to the fines imposed.(54) A former director of the State Family Planning Commission told me that the rich and famous who break the rules have cast a huge shadow over the country."

 —"But back to our country, look at the unexpected government deficits. Social Security and Medicare were to pay for themselves, but planners didn't predict the increase in medical knowledge, the rapid increase in life spans, the increase in life prolonging drugs and medical devices, and the drop in smoking. These led to greatly increased lifespans and much more end-of-life prolonging possibilities.

"Late in the last century the government had been hit by al Queda terrorists, but they couldn't have foreseen the 9/11 disasters. Because of that they couldn't have predicted the war in Iraq, or the huge worldwide increase in airport security people. There were many jobs created, but they were non-productive jobs. They kept us safe but didn't add to our economy.

"All these added to our national debt and the half a trillion dollars interest we had to pay on it every year."

 —"Midway through my voyage the public debt had risen to over a half a million dollars per household. Even then a family's private debt for mortgages and loans was only a quarter of what it owed on the public debt."

 —"Right. As a businessman I became aware of it with President Reagan's tax reduction initiatives. I saw that the government' s borrowing from other nations was giving me lower taxes. This borrowing kept increasing with every president. Only Clinton slowed the march. Then with 'little Bush' with his wars and still lower taxes the national debt went up to about $12 trillion. All the public and private borrowing finally burst the economic bubble and we had the severe recession of 2009. Then Obama had to spend much more to try to recover from the excesses of the previous 30 to 50 years of excessive spending and unrealistically low taxes.

"When I retired in 2009 I had my own retirement from my business so I didn't have to worry about the government's problems. During my business life I certainly had to make a great many decisions based on possible outcomes, but I provided pretty well for myself in my retirement. I know that my real estate and stock investments will rise and fall, but history tells me that the long term trend is upward. But it seems to me that our country's long term trend is downward. At the end of the last century about a half million people a year retired, by the time I retired it was two to four times that. Then you look at the average cost per year for every retired person of $12,000 for pension benefits and $11,000 for Medicare and you have a financial sinkhole. How many retired people contributed enough during their working years to pay them over $20,000 per year in retirement? It is certainly nice for the retirees, but disastrous for our nation."

 —"But America is not alone. Look at Britain's expenses for government mandated programs. Their health care, education, defense, and their government expenses are over 50% of their gross national product. When David Cameron was elected Prime Minister the first thing he did was to cut programs and government expenses."

REDUCING POPULATION--POSITIVES AND NEGATIVES

"Commander as a possible example of a positive outcome of reduced population Japan might be a possibility. People cite Japan as an example of a country going downhill because of its reduced population. It now has a fertility rare of 1.23 per woman and 22% of its population are over 65 and retired. America's fertility rate is about 2.1 and its retirees are under 10% of its population. How does that affect production and output? In a recent quarter I saw that Japan's output went down 4%, while America's went down 6.3%. If this is any indication of the problems of reduced fertility, maybe reduced fertility is not as negative as many skeptics think."

 —"That is surprising, because I remember talking about that earlier, it might have been with Dr. Wang, when it was noted that a reduced fertility would generally have a negative effect on the country for two or three generations. Maybe reducing population would not have as much of an immediate negative impact as is often believed."

 —"Some people point to China's potential problem with its aging population and it's reduced number of younger workers. The solution is relatively simple, as we have discussed so often, increasing the retirement age is an obvious need in every society. The problem may be that jobs that the elderly can do need to be increased. If they're educated and computer literate it should not be a problem, but for illiterate arthritic farmers who have tilled the soil behind a sloshing bullock for two or three generations, what jobs can they do?

"In 25 years, by 2050, a third of China's population will be over 60. In the US just over a quarter of our population will be in that same age group. But China's elderly population will be larger than the whole US population. The life expectancy in China has nearly doubled since the revolution in 1949. So the average Chinese worker can expect 15 years of retirement after 35 or 40 years of work. As we have said. it is obvious that either very high social security taxes must be paid during their working years or the work years must be lengthened.

"Traditions die hard, and the Chinese millennia old tradition of children taking care of their parents becomes more and more of a burden when there is only one child to care for two parents. The state has begun to build old-age homes. This will create some jobs but it won't solve the problem. The crux of the matter is that the number of under 60-year-old workers has decreased from 5.5 per retiree 15 years ago, to 2.5 today, and by 2050 it would only be one and a half of a worker per retiree. It certainly doesn't take a genius to realize that the pension age must be raised considerably and that we must accustom ourselves to longer working lives as our life expectancies increase.

THE PALESTINIAN SITUATION

"We have looked at several illustrations of negatives resulting from some different political techniques. Let's look at Palestine for a moment. War or other violence is the most primitive technique, but today it is usually not used alone. It may be used with mental techniques such as calling for sympathy, rationalizing one's actions, threats, propaganda and other mental techniques. Let's look for a few minutes at the Palestinian situation. While violence has been the most evident technique used for many years, propagandists are geared to helping us to believe that the violence is either in retaliation for the other side's actions or that there is a reason to make us believe that it was warranted. There are even times when negotiation, a mental technique, has been tried.

"Hitler can probably be blamed for the Israel problem. While Jews have been prejudiced against in the West for centuries, primarily by Christians, it took Hitler's gas chambers to accomplish the Holocaust. Christians with consciences in England, primarily, listened to Jews like the banker Rothschild, and decided to give part of Palestine to the Zionists, who had been seeking a homeland for many decades."

 \--"Why did they give the Jews part of Palestine in 1948. Why not Bavaria, Hitler's base. If God promised the Jews the land of milk and honey, it was certainly more milk and honey in Bavaria than in Palestine. We could use the reasoning that Palestine was traditionally their homeland from 1000 BCE to the present time so it is only fair to give it back. But if we use that reasoning we should also give the former Roman outposts of France and England back to Italy. Taiwan should go back to China. Certainly the US must give back the country to the Indians. And Texas and California should go back to Mexico, if the Native Americans don't want them."

 —"The Mexicans are taking them back. With millions of legal and illegal immigrants in the Southwest and throughout the country there are a lot more of them there now than there were in the 1800s when they lost the territory. Did you know that 40% of all Mexicans work for American companies and that Wal-Mart is Mexico's biggest employer?"

HISTORY OF THE PALESTINE AREA

 —"Let's get back to the Israel situation. I studied the issue in depth when I was in space. Several millennia ago the Hebrews wandered from southern Iraq to the Red Sea. Jerusalem was, for a while, their major abode and King Solomon built his temple there. Because of this most Jews believe that Palestine is their ancestral home. But they weren't the first! The Neanderthals were there 200,000 years ago, but there aren't many of them around to claim it today. The Kebarians were a hunting and gathering group that shared the area with the Neanderthals until they died out. The Kebarians seem to have stayed until about 12,000 years ago. Then came the Natufians until about ten thousand years ago. They were followed by the group we call Yarmukians who started agriculture there, they lasted until about 6,000 years ago. The Ghassulians came next and began urbanization with city-states like Jericho, which has been around for about six thousand years. They lasted until about 5,000 years ago.

"As trade became important, Palestine found itself at the crossroads used by Egypt, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor and countries up the coast to the north. So during the Bronze Age, from about 3,000 to 1,000 BCE a number of peoples lived there. We call them Canaanites, but it was more than one group. They are mentioned both in the Bible and in ancient Egyptian books. These people, who spoke versions of the Semite language, may have come from Africa, Arabia or points north and east. Their arrivals probably related to the trading culture that had begun.

"The Canaanites are the earliest inhabitants that we are really familiar with in the Palestine area. According to the Bible they are the progeny of Canaan, one of Ham's sons. In fact everyone in the world is a descendant of Noah's sons. So we should all be Jewish. According to legend Ham is the forefather to the peoples of Palestine and Africa. Shem's children peopled the Arabian area and Japheth's son populated Europe. The Biblical account would seemingly have no people in India, China or the Americas."

 —"I guess not, if you believe the literal interpretation of your Bible. The archeologists and geologists found the people called the Canaanites in the area we now call Palestine 5,000 years ago. Noah's flood occurred about 700 years later, in 2350 BCE according to Bishop Ussher's dating. Ham, one of Noah's sons sired Canaan some time later so the Canaanites were there before the founder of their tribe was born. And the Canaanites were not Jews. The Bible clearly shows that there was no love lost between them and the Hebrews.(55) Of course Noah, Ham and Canaan were not Jewish because Abraham's monotheistic experiences did not happen until centuries later. So the age-old question returns, how far back shall we go to determine ownership?"

 —"Let me get this clear in my mind. If we look at the values held by the Israelis and the Arab Palestinians, and by many other Muslims, we must look first at how the area was inhabited by each group. Should Palestine today be populated only by the Canaanites as the first inhabitants? Along the same lines should California be given back to the Chumash Indians? Should France be returned to the Cro-Magnons?

 \--"Anyway, about 2000 BCE the Amorites conquered the area. There were no Jews there yet because Abraham lived much farther east and hadn't moved so far to the west. Some years later the Hyksos, possibly Phoenicians or other northerners, conquered the area along the way to taking over Egypt for a few hundred years. The Israelites didn't conquer the area until about 1220 BCE. Then the area was successively conquered by Assyrians, Persians, Romans then eventually Muslims. So who has the right to the land, the religious descendants of the Israelites, the ethnic descendants of earlier conquerors, like the Lebanese, Syrians, Iranians, Iraqis?

"Genetic tests indicate that modern Jews are likely to be related to the people of the north, the Turks, Kurds and Armenians. The Jews, of course, trace their roots back to Abraham who was born sometime between 2100 and 1500 BCE. Usually the earlier date is used. Of course if we use the Anno Mundi, or AM, dating which starts with the date of creation as the beginning of history, then he was born in the year 1948 AM, or after the creation.

"There are actually several possible dates for his birth after the creation. They range from less than 1900 years after the creation to more than 3300 years after. These possibilities seem to make his birth sometime between 1600 and 1800 years before the Christian Era or BCE.

"Complicated, eh? Of course we are not really sure that he even existed. The only evidence would seem to be in the lost books of Moses or in the oral traditions that would have preceded Moses. But the oral tradition is certainly there to tell us that he lived and interacted with the one true God. Of course some people think that the idea if one God came from the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaton who was the first that we know of who proclaimed that there was only one God. But he lived about 1300 BCE long after Abraham is supposed to have lived. But Moses's birth has been calculated to be from about 1150 to 1400 BCE. Some even think he was a contemporary of Akhenaten and possibly even one of his high priests.

"If the Bible is true, Moses led the Jews out of Egypt and into Palestine. This would then have been somewhere in the 1200 to 1300 BCE range.

"The Bible says that the Jews descended from Abraham, through his second son, Isaac, who was born in the land of Israel. Jacob was also known as Israel. Israel's sons took Canaanite wives and adopted their customs. Then they went to Egypt. Then Moses led them back to the land that God had promised them. Remember that God promised the Jews the land between the river of Egypt, the Nile, and the Euphrates River. (56) So God promised the Jews the area that encompasses not only Palestine but also Lebanon, Syria, the western half of Iraq, the southern tip of Turkey, the eastern part of Egypt, and parts of Saudi Arabia. So while the battle today is only about Palestine, should we expect any future moves to recover all the land that was promised? We certainly have a God-based value here. And what Christian or Jew can retract God's promise.

"In spite of God's gift, the Hittites controlled Palestine at about this time.. Then they were defeated by invading tribes from the north. The Philistines were probably among them.

"Then from about 1000 to 600 BCE there was a Kingdom of Israel which was bounded on the east by the Jordan River. The southern boundary ran west from the top of the Dead Sea. To the south was the Kingdom of Judah, which included Jerusalem. It was bounded on the east by the Dead Sea and on the west by the Philistine city states, which included Gaza. So it was landlocked. Sometimes these kingdoms were ruled by separate kings, but sometimes they were united, as happened when they were ruled by David from about 1000 BCE for 40 years, then by Solomon for another 40 years. The god of Judah was named El, from which the Hebrew 'Elohim' seems to have been derived. The god of Israel was called Yahweh, or as written without vowels, YHWH. Both El and YHWH found their way into the texts of Judaism as the written language eventually developed.

"A couple of hundred years later Israel was conquered by the Assyrians and Judah by the Babylonians. Then the Persians ruled for 200 years, then the Greeks, under Alexander had the area for 25 years. Then there was Egyptian rule, then the Seleucids, then the Romans. Of course the Jews, under the Maccabees, picked up some influence for a century. But the Romans ruled for several more centuries. So maybe Italy should claim the ownership of Palestine. The name Palestine actually comes from the Greek and later the Roman names for the area Palaestina. Then in 638 AD the Arabs ruled for about four and a half centuries until the Crusaders came.

"In the early 1500s the Ottoman Turks took over the area. Turkey might still rule the area had it not sided with Germany in the first World War. In 1914 the British promised independence to the Arab lands if the people would support Britain against Turkey in the war. Several thousand Arabs joined the fray against Turkey. British officer T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, led the Arab revolt and defeated the Turks in 1917. At this time nearly 25% of the population was Jewish. The British then occupied the areas of Palestine and Syria. After the war it was decided to have Britain administer Jordan and Iraq and France administer Lebanon and Syria. Palestine was to be internationalized.

"The British promises and politics for Palestine have certainly been confusing. Their 1914 promise to the Arabs for independence was responsible for the Arab conquest of the Turks. Then in 1916 in the secret Sykes-Picot agreement Palestine was to be internationalized. Then in 1917 Lord Rothschild, of the famous banking family, was promised by the British foreign secretary Arthur Balfour that England would help to found a national state for the Jewish people in Palestine."

 —"Was there any rational decision for the Balfour Declaration, or was it merely a politically motivated action based on the wishes of rich Jews in the West."

 —"The League of Nations had given the British a mandate to control Palestine in 1922. This lasted until 1948. During this time there was large scale Jewish immigration. And you wonder why some Muslims have become terrorists."

 -"You know that there is a tradition in Islam in which property given to Allah is untouchable. It includes land given for mosques and other purposes in other countries. Some now stretch this concept and believe that any land once held by Muslims is rightfully theirs until Judgment Day.

"As you probably also know when the Prophet Muhammad began the religion of Islam he designated Jerusalem as the direction for Muslims to direct their prayers. Within a century most of the inhabitants of the area converted to Islam. It is now the third holiest city for Muslims, after Mecca and Medina. So there is a long Muslim history in the area."

THE PROMISED LAND AND ZIONISM

 \--"Be that as it may, the rise of Zionism, the national movement for a Jewish homeland, started in Europe and Russia back in the 19th century. In the seventy years before World War I the number of Jews in Palestine increased from 12.000 to 85,000. This was 11% of the total population but the Muslim population was much larger. By the end of World War II, with so many Jews leaving Europe for Israel, the Jewish population increased to 550,000 and was half the size of the Muslim population. The Jews have always wanted what they saw as their country and non-Jews often assented. Napoleon suggested it in 1799. Movements in Europe and Russia fueled the desire, and many Jews emigrated to Palestine.

"The idea of a modern Jewish state actually began to solidify in 1897 at the first Zionist Congress held in Basle, Switzerland. It announced a program to colonize Palestine. In 1904 at the Fourth Zionist Congress changed that objective and decided to establish a national home for Jews in Argentina, but two years later they went back to original idea. Zionism got a boost in 1917 with the Balfour Declaration, then a setback with the 1939 British White Paper that tried to limit Jewish immigration to Palestine. Throughout this period there were Zionist attacks against both the Arabs and the British. A number of high profile Brits were shot or bombed, which didn't ingratiate the jolly old people of England to strongly champion the cause they had earlier suggested.

"The Balfour Declaration declared that there should be a national home for the Jewish people. There were a series of uprisings and guerrilla actions, Jews trying to take what they thought was theirs and Arabs fighting back and fighting the directives made by the European and world powers. By 1946 the Jews comprised 33% of the population. Then in 1947 the UN developed a partition plan and in 1948 the state of Israel was formed.

VIOLENCE AS A POLITICAL TECHNIQUE IN PALESTINE

"Well, history shows us that forceful violence has been the major political technique used in the world. But in the Mid-East the scriptures give permission to unbelievable violence, in fact their God demands it. I am not aware of any other religion that glorifies and requires violence as the Hebrew scriptures do or the Koran does in its treatment of sinners--both here and in the hereafter. Of course the Christian scriptures are more peace oriented, especially your gospels. But even there you have the scourging and crucifixion of Jesus, and of course as the Christian Church evolved it moved back to violence with its Crusades and Inquisition.

"Peaceful negotiation may be rooted in the 'turn the other cheek' message of Jesus, but Jewish and Muslim scriptures don't seem to give that phrase much credence even though the Golden Rule is found in both the Jewish and the Muslim traditions, so maybe there is a chance.

PRE-PARTITION VIOLENCE

"Look at what Menachem Begin, a Jewish terrorist leader, then later prime minister, said 'The partition of the homeland is illegal. It will never be recognized. The signature by institutions and individuals of the partition agreement is invalid. It will not bind the Jewish people. Jerusalem was and will forever be our capital. The Land of Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it, and forever.' But most Israelis didn't hold this view.

"You may remember that even before the UN partition was finalized, Jews were settling on some of the Arab lands. Those settlements outside of the boundaries of the new country have continued since the official founding of the country, sometimes with governmental approval and sometimes without it. In fact sometimes the Israeli police have ousted the Jewish settlers, but many Jews feel that the whole of Palestine is theirs. After all, God gave it to them 3,000 years ago. Of course the major impetus to the UN declaration was the memory of the Nazi holocaust. Once the UN had acted the Jewish immigration and conquest was powered by the financial power of many American and British Jews."

 -"Those of us with Judeo-Christian Biblical prejudices are well aware of the Hebrews' ancient occupation and control of the land, but the thousand years of Muslim control brought advocates for a partition of Palestine. Neither the Jews nor the Muslims liked the idea of partition. So we had the irresistible force encountering the immovable object, two religiously inspired political truths, each having the authority of the same God, giving antithetical rights. What a dilemma!"

 —"Right father. As you know, there have long been violent Jewish groups in the area of Palestine. Irgun was founded after the riots of 1929 because the previous major military force, the Histadrut, was not seen as effective in defending Jewish interests. By the early 1940s, with the evidence of the persecution of Jews in Europe the Irgun and other Jewish militants increased their attacks against the British who were controlling Palestine. The militants wanted unrestricted Jewish immigration into Palestine. In 1944 Lord Moyne, the British minister in Cairo, and a close friend of Churchill, was assassinated by a group called Levi.

"In the mid-1930s, as a reaction to the Jewish militancy, and with the aim of stopping Jewish immigration into Palestine, the Arabs began their own terrorist campaigns. They attacked schools, trains and buses and burned farmland. This was known as the Great Arab Revolt. The Irgun and other militant Jewish groups often retaliated. But some influential Jewish leaders advised against retaliation."

 —"It is the same old story. If an Arab kills a Jew, kill any Arab—since you probably will never find the murderer. And if a Jew kills an Arab, kill any Jew. It is the typical lack of logic by terrorists."

 —"And throughout history no geographical area has ever been populated with people as terroristically illogical as the inhabitants of Palestine."

 —"But it wasn't just Jews against Arabs. The British became a target when their government published a White Paper in 1939 that attempted to reduce the settlement of Arab Palestine by Jews. Many Jews felt that this would slow or stop the establishment of a Jewish homeland. The Irgun began sabotaging the infrastructure of the area, such as electric lines and the roads. Now it was the British who responded by arresting a number of Jewish terrorists. The Irgun pronounced a death sentence for a British officer. This is the same sort of thing that some ayatollahs had done with their fatwas, like pronouncing a death sentence for Salman Rushdie because he had published the book 'Satanic Verses.' The difference was that Rushdie is still alive but the British officer was blown up by an Irgun bomb. The two assassins, were captured and executed by the British. Here is the difference between terrorism and the government by laws."

 —"As I remember, some years later the bodies of the assassins were sent back to Israel where they were given a state funeral and some years later their memory was honored on postage stamps in a series called 'martyrs of the struggle for Israel's independence.'"

 —"Right. But there was more violence against Britain. In 1947 the Lehi terrorists drove a truckload of explosives into a British police station killing four people and injuring 140. There was a great deal of other violence the next year when the Cairo-Haifa train was mined several times killing a large number of civilians. In 1948 the UN mediator in Jerusalem, Count Folke Bernadotte, was assassinated by the Lehi. Soon thereafter Lehi was disbanded with its leaders getting amnesty from prosecution by the Israeli government.

"The United Nations plan to partition Palestine was even less successful than the partitioning India the year before. As expected, neither party was happy. If possession is nine points of the law, the Muslims had possession of Palestine. It is true that some Jews had lived there through every conquest. But Jews, who did not live there, were given part of the land.

"Looking at some other land ownership questions, the Tibetans have lived in the area for centuries. How can China claim the area. The Native Americans lived in North and South America for ten to twenty thousand years, but the Europeans came, saw and conquered. Then there is the ongoing Hindu-Muslim-Sikh battle for Kashmir."

 \--"Some lands have been pretty much in the same hands for millennia. England, except for the Roman and Norman invasions, and much of China and Japan.

POST-PARTITION VIOLENCE

"People naturally want their own territory. The Tibetans want out from under the wing of China. The Jews wanted out from under the Moslem rule in Palestine. The varying religious and ethnic groups in the former Yugoslavia wanted their own land. The French and English speaking Canadians have their recurring disagreements. Former USSR republics keep feeling the pressures of mother Russia. Basque separatists want their own country. Sri Lanka has its Hindu-Buddhist antagonists. The territorial imperative, that we find in many birds and mammals, becomes far more common and violent in our human species."

 \--"True, but back to our story. In May of 1948 the British left and the first Arab-Israeli war started with the armies of Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq attempting to prevent the establishing of a Jewish state. The UN intervened. About 600,000 Arabs left the area taken by the new Jewish state and became refugees in Palestine. Israel sent farmers into Arab lands hoping to ignite a fight. Each time a fight occurred the Israelis won and acquired more land. The Six Day War in 1967 was the major contest. Israel took Gaza, the Golan Heights, Sinai and other land. The more they took the angrier their neighbors became. The UN proposed that Israel give back the land it had taken and that the Arabs guarantee peace for such a swap. It didn't work out. But the Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel in 1978 resulted in Israel returning the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. At the 1991 Madrid Conference the Israelis allowed Yassir Arafat to return to Palestine. Then the 1993 Oslo Accords gave the Palestinians limited self-government in parts of the disputed territories. In 2000 Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, agree to give 97% of the disputed territories to the Palestinians. But Arafat refused."

 —"You don't mess with Israel. I had a friend who worked with the American Air Force. He told me that when the next world war starts he wants to be in Israel, on Israel's side!"

 —"That may be true Con, but like I said. If Yahweh had promised a land of desert and brackish water, instead of a land of milk and honey, then Israel is the right place.

"But back to the original thought. The Arabs have had the area of Palestine for more years than the Jews have. Are any prior claims valid—and if so how far back to we go? Five years, 100, 1000, 5000? But the Jews have it now-and as we say 'possession is nine points of the law.' But the longer we live, the more animosity is created in the area. When those bad people, whether Jews or Arabs, kill your mother, your wife or your children it is impossible to forgive and forget, so both sides are reeling with incurable hurt and the desire for a deeply satisfying revenge that no treaty will ever numb.

"I'm afraid that the world is becoming more anti-Semitic because of the excessive force that the Israelis have used in answering the Arab attacks.

"I look at how far the Oslo Peace Accords moved the countries toward peace. I would look for any future agreements to be as fragile as those agreed to in Oslo. The Muslims want their land back and the Israelis want to keep what they have, both the lands and their nuclear arsenal, and if they can get an agreement they want to be able to control the nearby territory and the air space to insure their security. So to both sides 'negotiation' means getting all you want. It doesn't seem to include giving up any desires—so it is not real negotiation.

"The US, Russia, Europe and the UN have made periodic efforts to calm the passions inflamed the previous century by usurpation of the land and the violence it engendered. To its credit Israel unilaterally disengaged much of its presence in Gaza in 2004. But it did keep control of the airspace and the coast. This was supposed to reduce Arab tensions, but some Palestinian groups ignored the cease-fire, so things heated up again—and violence pulled the rug of peace out from under the feet of the negotiators."

 —"As a politician in Israel, surrounded by hostile lands with varying degrees of animosity, what was the best tack when one of your soldiers was kidnapped by the Sunni Hamas and two were kidnapped by the Shia Hezbollah? You could offer to move back to the 1947 boundaries if they would return your soldiers. You could ask the UN to protect you or bargain for you. You could hit Lebanon and any Lebanese area that might harbor the Hezbollah? You could extend the war so that the Lebanese might consider ridding themselves of any vestige of Hezbollah in its legislature and on its territory. Would this give Israel another ten years of peace? But what about world opinion engendered by Israel's unsaid motto of '1000 eyes for one eye and a jaw for a tooth.'

"But then Israel had underestimated the organization and firepower of the Hezbollah. The Hezbollah's fighting ability attracted more Arab support and somewhat unified the Sunni and Shia countries. The pro-Israeli feeling expressed by some Islamic nations prior to the kidnappings, turned to anti-Israeli feelings after what was seen as unnecessary destruction and the killing of so many civilians. While the Lebanese might have blamed the Hizballah for kidnapping the soldiers, they ended up by hating the Israelis even more than before because they had killed nearly 1200 Lebanese civilians, injured three times that many, did over $3.6 billion in damage and displaced a million people whose homes were destroyed. Not exactly a way to win friends.

"But violence is not the only political method that has been used in the area. After the war in Lebanon the Hizballah handed out $12,000 per family to pay their rent while their homes were rebuilt. A good way to win friends. Meanwhile back in Palestine the Hamas not only fought the Israelis who had taken part of their country by force, but they did social work among the Palestinian Arabs. Kindness is a political technique based on love, the third level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It is a truism that in politics you should portray the best picture of yourself to those whom you are trying to influence–forget the truth. Also see only the immediate situation, don't look at the whole picture. Make yourself out to be right. Never admit guilt. The Hezbollah and Hamas gained ground politically while Israel lost ground.

20/20 HINDSIGHT

"Would the U.S. and the UK have advocated the formation of Israel had they realized that the problems in the area would be a continual source of violent friction in Palestine and that it was a large part of the reasons for the 9/11 attack in New York, the London bombings, much of the jihadist terrorism as well as the huge expenses for airline and national security.

"So let's look at the foundation of modern Israel. It wants to live in peace. If Israel wants to live in peace, what is the more probable path for peace. Its multi-millennia history of violence in the area pre-dates the Balfour Declaration and the foundation of their country. How many friends in the neighboring countries did Israel develop in the Six Day War, the ongoing Palestinian conflicts, the attacking of Lebanon and Syria. On the other hand, when their neighbors attack their country or kidnap their soldiers, can Israel overlook it? They therefore attack and take many lives for each life lost. This increases the number of enemies and the hatred by its neighbors-- making the goal of a lasting peace ever more remote. It is a 'catch 22.' You want friendly neighbors but you must respond when attacked. There is also the reality that when attacked, if you can kill more of the real and violent enemies, such as the Hezbollah and the Hamas, you may make some progress toward security. But you may also increase the recruitment to those organizations.

"Israel not only has the best defense system in the world, it has nuclear bombs. If Iran eventually gets atomic weapons for the Hezbollah to use, what might happen? Has Israel marshaled more Arab and other countries against it? While the West generally is still sympathetic to the Jews because of the Holocaust, most of world could care less! So what would be the best approach or approaches for the Israelis to use to save their country? Limited wars? Attack Iran? Fall back to the 1947 borders and have the UN work to protect them? Pay the Palestinian Arabs for their land? Or is there any solution that would either conquer or conciliate the Arabs?

THE MUSLIM POSITION

"Only the Arabs seem to have accepted that their own possession of Palestine was nine points of the law. The Judeo-Christian countries that controlled most of the Western World at the time may have felt that the Biblical heritage of the Jews was legitimate. Certainly Jerusalem was the major city in the Jewish and Christian religions, but it is also in the top three for Muslims, and the Dome of the Rock is the second most sacred shrine of Islam.

"So you can see that, as an Arab, anyone inhabiting your land, which was given to them by the United Nations which didn't own your land, would upset you. Then if that land has significant religious importance to you, it adds much salt to the sore. Add to that the fact that you had possessed the land for a thousand years. Throw in the fact that the new inhabitants had used terrorist tactics to establish their rights to the land. Then consider that you are extremely angry and revengeful because your friends and relatives have been killed or displaced because of the violence resulting from the partition. Then, having endured over half a century the dominance of Israel and its powerful allies, the Palestinians have had to negotiate from a position of weakness, being expected to forget the painful past. No wonder their preferred political ploy is violence.

"So you have two groups facing off with deeply held religious and territorial values. And there are few values stronger than religion or property. Then add to the mix the deaths of people you know, caused by the other party, and you have the vengeance value. That may be stronger than the other two. So there is no question about the strength of the values involved.

"In 2010 a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority said that 'The Israeli government proves every day that it is not ready for peace.' He was commenting on Israel's decision to build 700 new homes in East Jerusalem—a move criticized by both the European Union and the United States."(57)

 —"While I don't understand the historic roots of anti-Semitism, unless it is based on the fact that the Jews were a minority population in Christian lands--or possibly that they were doing very well financially as bankers and physicians and profiting more financially than the majority Christians. But I can sure see today the anti-Semitism that surrounds the Palestinian situation."

ANTI-SEMITISM

 —"You know Lee, that 'Semitic' describes a strain of language common in the Mideast and parts of Africa. Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic and Phoenician are some of the Semitic languages. So Judaism, Christianity and Islam all developed from peoples speaking Semitic languages. So we might say that people who are anti-Semitic are against those Arabs and Jews who are Semitic. They may also be against Semitic Christians. Jews, of course, come in many ethnic sizes—Nordic, Negroid, Oriental. And Muslims come in many colors, but the Arabs are pretty much Semitic. It seems to me that rather than use the term anti-Semitic we should use anti-Jewish. anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist if we are criticizing some aspect of Jewish or Zionist activities."

OPTIONS FOR PEACE

 —"It's just another example of an inexact semantic term. But let's go on a bit in terms of political considerations for peace. An effective politician has to accurately determine the 'value of the values' then the cost of achieving those values, then the methods that will almost certainly bring about the desired outcome. Sometimes the cost of the outcome is so great that the astute politician will do nothing. Through the years American presidents had wanted a break up of the USSR. Some went to war in Korea and Vietnam to stop the domino effect of countries falling under communist influence. In Korea, the emergence of South Korea as a democratic and economically efficient state may have been worth it. Vietnam was a negative since not much was really accomplished and there was a great cost of lives and money. What really dismantled the Soviet Union was a combination of President Reagan's 'Starwars' project and an intelligent Soviet leader in Mikhail Gorbachev."

 —"So I understand, Dr. Singh, that the politician must judge how strong his values or desires are, how strong are those of the person or people he is trying to influence, evaluate the potential outcomes of various strategies, then decide to act or not to act. What if I were trying for a peace deal in Palestine?

"What if the Jews would sell Israel for 100 trillion dollars? Would it be worth the money for the Arabs to buy it? What if the Arabs had the use of nuclear bombs and could annihilate everyone in Israel but it would mean killing fellow Muslims who lived in Israel and it would demolish the Dome of the Rock? What if Israel could capture and subjugate Syria, the remainder of Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon at a cost of $500 billion and 2 million lives?"

 \--"You illustrate the multiple problems in trying to settle some of the disagreements in one small part of our earth. Can you see, Commander, the immense tasks you are setting out for yourself?

LIMITING POPULATION AND LICENSING PARENTS

"We have gone around the mulberry bush several times looking at political techniques in general and the kinds of techniques that you might use to advance your causes of limiting population and licensing parents so that all children born to be loved and cared for.

"I hope I have indicated that the right technique can usually get your desire accomplished. The right slingshot can kill the giant. The right choice of words may turn an election. The right romantic ruminations may establish and continue a dream relationship.

"The effective use of political techniques usually results in you getting what you want and the manipulated people liking it. You must think deeply about how you are going to accomplish your goals, then once you have your plan of attack--go for it. If for some reason you don't succeed, at least you can be proud after it's over if your wounds are in your belly, from confronting the problem, not in your back, from running away."

 \--"It may take decades to win people's minds by persuasion, but it is quicker and more certain than trying to do it by force. But like Ben Franklin said, 'If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect.'"

 -"Sages have said that as long as they have been observing and analyzing people. I remember from my philosophy class that Aristotle said 'that the masses of people are impervious to reason.' Spinoza echoed his sentiments when he observed that 'the great majority of people will always be ruled by imagination and emotion.' For effective political decisions you must understand the psychological needs and drives and the values of those you are trying to influence."

 \--"As I see it, things will never get better if we are satisfied with the direction we are going today. We have the cowardly politicians who are afraid to follow the strong predictions of science. We have the greedy business people who think only about today's bottom line, not tomorrow's existence. We have the unthinking religious leaders who teach us to fear hell while we are living in it. And they condemn our progeny to inhabit even deeper levels of the Inferno."

 \--"No one knows enough about economics to predict or control the world's finances. The one thing we know is that we must reduce population to save the planet. When we have unemployment we obviously have too few jobs or too many uneducated workers. Uneducated laborers may have been needed in the 19th century but began to be phased out in the 20th century, and now are almost never needed because robots do their jobs better and cheaper."

 -"You know, Wreck, that I'm not as concerned as you because I think that God will provide. And God often provides through His children. However if His children are to be motivated you have to talk about the present state of the world, bring it close to home-- gasoline prices, food prices, the cost of the justice and penal systems. Some people may come up with answers to our world's predicament. Let's hope so! But it is true that most people live in the present and care little about their future. Although we do have to keep reminding them of the hereafter."

 \--"Right Ray, talking about 100 or 500 years from now makes as much sense as organizing a Bible study focusing exclusively on the devil. The problem is that we are all thinking in the present—not the future. Take care of the old and the sick now—don't worry about reducing the chances that in 100 years we need not have these problems if we will merely plan for the future."

 \--"The greater the challenge, the greater the glory when conquering it. Don't concern yourself with failure Commander. If it is a noble goal it must be pursued.

"To gauge the potential outcomes of a political goal and the political techniques proposed to meet that goal requires a great deal of knowledge about the people who are to be influenced. I have no doubt that you and the many people of the world who will eagerly follow you will put together an effective program. You will undoubtedly find many with passions equal to yours.

"Your passions should inspire you, not enslave you.—and there is no passion stronger than when one has a sound idea to change the world. It takes a truly wise and dedicated person to even attempt it. You must think big and act bigger. As Lloyd George said 'You can't leap a chasm in two jumps.'

"I know you want to get people on the bandwagon today, but most people keep hoping for the best and procrastinating their actions. They are like Scarlett O'Hara in 'Gone with the Wind' said when confronted with an unwanted opinion 'I'll think about that tomorrow.'

"To be successful politically in your goals to limit population or to have parent licensing you must find the hot button for every person. For one person it might be having pleasure in life--lots of sex and vacations. For another it might be found in increasing the health of the world. For another it could be guaranteed employment and money in her pocket. You might be able to make having children, or at least having more than one child, appear to be stupid or selfish.

"Look at the changes society made to the attitudes of people smoking in America. In the 1920s it was the masculine power necessity. By the 50s it became important for women if they were to be equal to men. Then by the 90s and since, it has been looked upon as not just unhealthy, but downright stupid,. Still much of the world is where the U.S. was in the 20s. But people still smoke in the U.S. Why? It's mainly about power, being adult, then they become addicted.

"For your Crusade, I would suggest you start with reason. That's how the smoking reduction began. People knew it was unhealthy and that is smelled bad to other people. So it was easier to divide and conquer by separating areas in restaurants into smoking and non-smoking areas, then eventually restaurants became smoke-free. It happened in the bars, and public buildings, and in parks and at the beaches. The same plan might be used in your attack--using reason, then getting public opinion to change the laws.

"You can start with an educational program that lays out the problems of overpopulation and the raising of unloved children. The thinking people will respond to this. But the emotional people, and that includes many intelligent people whose basic assumptions will not let them accept empirical facts, will be a problem for a while. That, of course, includes many people in the conservative religions of the Mid-East. It also includes many politicians who follow rather than lead. And it includes business people whose pursuit of money precludes them from thinking of longer term survival.

"Once you get the knowledge out there you should be able to paint those people with more than one child into a corner by societal condemnation, just like was done with the smokers. I mentioned money earlier in our discussions. Societies might give tax credits or outright cash to those who would be sterilized. When you think of the costs to a society for educating children to college age being about $75,000, do you think there are any people in Europe or North America that might accept sterilization for $20,000, $30,000 or even $75,000? In undeveloped countries the costs would be much less. In countries where the average income is a dollar a day, do you think that $350 might buy a sterilization? When we look at the amount of global warming done by people in the developed world, the $75,000 spent there might be a better bargain for the world than the $350 spent in Africa, South America, or Asia.

"I am sure you wouldn't have to offer so much money because often free sterilizations would be welcomed. Remember that during the recession of 2010 the birth rate dropped considerably in your country because most people realized that another mouth to feed would cost a great deal of money. In the undeveloped countries if they won't go for free sterilizations you could offer to pay $5 if they get sterilized. When there are no more applicants, offer $10, and so forth. First you could play on their fears of having another child, then you would be working on a combination of fear and greed.

"In advocating licensing for parents you could use sympathy for the unloved children. If you got politicians on your side you might use the threats of jail or fines. If you got business people on your side you might use the threat of the parents without licenses being unemployable. Certainly people with children are more likely to increase in insurance costs of the business and to often require that the parents stay home with their children. This decreases their worth to the business. Nearly every political technique we mentioned could be useful in some aspect of your campaign."

 \--"As practical politicians we must recognize that people seldom want to move out of their comfort zone. Hope springs eternal in the human breast. Our fairy tales tell us that the handsome prince will find and kiss the sleeping beauty. The ugly duckling will blossom into an elegant swan. Our religious leaders tell us that God will provide. The prosperous Western world has become more and more comfortable, so why will that not continue. Our dreams of the future don't allow for the nightmares that scientists can see. Visions of violence and despair are hidden by the veils of our faith and hope. We seem to think that innocent people could never be obliterated by a nuclear bomb or a Jew-icidal holocaust. There can be no hellish afterlife for me. No one I know will ever be murdered, mugged, drug dependent or alcoholic. And the Earth will always provide the natural resources I need and it can continue to absorb the wastes that I spew. How will you overcome such myths?"

 —"I certainly need to gain their trust. One of the great questions of history is 'in whom shall I put my trust.' I assume that I can be seen as more trustworthy if I can counter their fears about having another child. If I can also show that I can help them to become richer, or I should probably say, less poor, I think that would go a long way in helping people to trust me."

"I certainly should consider looking at the selfishness of people. Certainly many people will want some pleasures in life beyond what a child might bring-- if they are lucky enough to have an ideal child. Before we came here we had discussed the costs of children in financial terms. We didn't discuss what that means in recreational terms or in vocational terms. Certainly for most people children will cut down both the time they have for recreation and the money they would have to pursue their recreational interests. Having a boat for waterskiing or taking a week off to ski in Italy will have a cost in both time and money. The vocational area might even be more important. When a woman has graduated from college, possibly with advanced degrees, she is highly likely to want to pursue her chosen occupation rather than being a stay-at-home mother. Although I have noted an increase in the number of men who are staying at home while their wives are the breadwinners. Some are quite content to do this. But many men, like the educated women, want to perform in the economic areas.

"These dual career couples will probably be amenable to either not producing children or to having only one. But I keep hearing women talk about their biological clocks ticking. So many want a child, whether or not they are in a relationship. Whether those biological clocks are truly biological, or merely socio-psychological, I don't really know. It may be that the single women often just want companionship—and a baby has the potential to be that companion eventually. If it is a girl and she successfully navigates adolescence and college—and doesn't have a boyfriend! A major problem is that as women get better educated and seek more rewarding careers their economic and educational superiority places them too far above the average man, who because his inferiority complex can't cope with a superior woman."

 —"It seems to me that the richer people who don't want children should pay for the poor people who do want children. After all, having children is God's plan for us."

 —" Are you saying, Ray, that people who have worked hard for their money should give that money to poor people so they can raise several impoverished and uneducated children. It doesn't make much sense to me."

 —"Let's get back to the Commander's goals. You need a well thought out plan--and luck. Machiavelli and others have recognized that luck is needed for heroes to succeed and without luck the best laid plans can go awry.

"Naturally you need courage, which you obviously have. Being courageous makes life not only exciting, but very worthwhile. But obviously you can't be courageous without a cause. And Commander, your cause requires a great deal of courage and effort. I certainly wish you well."

END NOTES

See Book 6 of this series for psychological motivations and the conversations with Dr. Chan. See Book 4 on human values and ethics and the conversations with Dr. Wang

1a. The Prince, Ch 8

2. Brownell, K. Yale University study, cited on ABC television news, Oct 26, 2009

3. See Book 6 of this series 'On Human Motivation'

4. Confucius. Ch 4 Sayings

5. See Book 6, op. cit.

6. Rothkopf, David. Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making. NY: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. 2008.

7. 'Legislating Under the Influence,' Common Cause.  http://www.commoncause.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=362177&ct=5652515)

8. Agence France-Presse. August 11, 2005

9. Financial Times (London) January 20, 2005

10. Matthew Parris 'As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God'. The Times, December 27, 2008

10a. Matthew 22:21, Mark 12:17 and Luke 20:25

11. Hutson, James. James Madison and the Social Utility of Religion: Risks vs. Rewards. Library of Congress; <http://www.loc.gov/loc/madison/hutson-paper.html>

12. The religiosity information came from a sample of nearly 36,000 participants who were part of the U.S. Religious Landscapes Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life conducted in 2007, while the teen birth and abortion statistics came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

13. William V. D'Antonio, "Walking the walk on family values," The Boston Globe, 2004-OCT-31, at:  http://www.boston.com/)

14. Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 50 (2010)

14a. Kurlanzick, J. "The Hired Gund" Newsweek. Aug. 2. 2010.

14b. See Book 6 of this series.

14c. LA Times, Sept 4, 2010

15. Confucius Sayings, Ch 4

16. Much Ado About Nothing 3:3

17. NY Times, Apr 22, 2006, reprinted in Dagbladet

18. Confucius Sayings Ch. 15

19. Myers, Brian. The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters. 2010

19a. Aftenposten Dec. 2, 2009

19b. "Views", International Herald Tribune, August 28, 2010, p. 6

19c. Koran 4:1, 4:32, 4:124, 33:35, 57:12, 49:13

19d. Koran 4:11-13

20. Ridge, Thomas. The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege...and How We Can Be Safe Again: Macmillan, 2009.

21. Archives of Internal Medicine, June, 2010

21a. See Book 7 of this series

22. Skilling v. U.S., 08-1394

23. Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index. (2009 Index)

23a. China Daily. August 27, 2010.

24. Time. Nov. 3, 2009 p.32

25. Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 50 ( _2010_ )

26. China Daily, January 11, 2010

27. National Snow and Ice Data Center

28. National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo

29. Dr. Pat Michaels of the Cato Institute on the Fareed Zakariah GPS television program on CNN, August 15, 2010.

30. Sheldon Richman, Senior Editor, Cato Institute. 'Testimony relative to--The International Population Stabilization and Reproductive Health Act July 20, 1995.

31. Christopher Doering, Reuters, Washington, August 20, 2008

32. Peter S. Goodman. Washington Post, Dec. 8, 2006

33. Jorge Pina. InterPress Third World News Agency. Nov. 26, 1998

34. Ziliak, Gundersen and Haist. (2007) The Causes, Consequences and Future of Senior Hunger in America, University of Kentucky Center for Poverty and Research, Lexington, KY. The Report was released at a hearing of the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging on March 2008 in Washington, D.C.

35. Henry W Kindall and David Pimentel, "Constraints on the expansion of the global food supply" from: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Ambio Vol. 23 No. 3, May 1994.

35a. Dagsavisen. Sept. 3, 2010. pp 6-7.

36.  Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Reported in: The Guardian, June 10, 2010

37. John 8:7

38. O'Connor, R. Living Happily Ever After—Putting Reality into your Romance. Wiley. NY, 1999

39. Through the Looking Glass

40. Kubler-Ross. On Death and Dying. Routledge. UK. 1973

41. Newsweek, May 25, 2009, p 9

41a. Kruger, Justin; David Dunning (1999).  "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments".  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77 (6): 1121–34)

41b. See _The Triumph of Stupidity_ in Mortals and Others: Bertrand Russell's American Essays, Routledge, 1998, p. 28

42. Hardtalk, BBC. Oct 13, 2008

43. See Book 3 of this series "A Visit to Kino"

44. US Supreme Court, 02-17, 2002

45. guardian.co.uk, Wednesday January 20, 2010

46. See Books 3 and 5 of this series.

46a. Economis online, Sept. 30, 2010 (Survey by GlobeScan and PIPA for the BBC World Service that asked over 22,000 people in 22 countries their preferences for reducing the national debts.)

47. Aftenposten. Sept 27,2009, p.1, Jobb pp 2-3

48. Book 6 of this series

49. See Book 7 of this series

50. Rosenthal, MB. "What works in market-oriented health policy?" New England Journal of Medicine. Vol 360:2157-2160. May 21, 2009

51. 42 U.S.C. para 1395d

52. 42 U.S.C. para 1395d

53. Special coverage: China Family Planning Policy. China Daily. Sept. 2, 2009

China Daily June 15, 2009

54. Ibid.

55. The Bible--Gen 28:1, 6, 8; Nu 21:1; Jos 5:1; Jud 4:23

56. Genesis 15:18

57. Time, January 11, 2010, p. 9

