MIGHT IS RIGHT?

I remember, with a clarity little blurred by the passage of time, when in about 1980, I began my public rejection and renunciation of being an agent of coercion determined culture with a series of articles in what was then Jamaica’s largest daily newspaper.

Before the publication of one such article, a senior colleague Wilmot Perkins who I then considered the doyen of journalists in my country wrote a piece in which he said, and I quote, “Poverty is like my beard, it just grows and grows.”

That is a popular and widely held opinion despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that in fact was, and is, a deliberate, crucial and carefully orchestrated component of inordinately vile, unrelievedly depraved design for human existence that is coercion determined culture as evidenced the wide trail of death, war, hunger, misery and suffering that has resulted from its practice over all the millennia of human history.

For all but two centuries the poor have been used as cannon fodder to realize the ambitions and aspirations of the powerful; they have been denied access to education which has been the province of rich and the religious; the wretched of this earth have been brutalized without reward to produce yet they are now expected to revel in gainful occupations; they have been treated as hewers of wood and drawers of water and never been allowed to responsible for anything, or, the means to learn to be good parents yet everyone is now surprised when they are not; they have been incarcerated for the slightest infractions for killing a hare or a deer on the lands of a noble yet now we expect them to be law abiding citizens; and, last but certainly not least they have been denied the right of ownership of land.

No! No! Mr. Perkins et al poverty is not anything like your beard, is exists in the realm of cause and effect, it is the direct cause of the design for human existence whose ideology is that ‘might is right,’ whose ethos is competition, whose dominant roles are territorial predator and their hapless prey; and, which relies and has relied on coercion down the ages to motivate the other.

What is amazing in this the first decade of the Twenty First Century is that a partly African American President can have the gall and temerity to speak to address students in this fairytale, fantastic fashion:

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.
This man is totally and completely out of touch with reality.
If there is anyone of my readers who knows someone who is one of the wretched of this earth, who is literate or semi illiterate after spending several years in the American Public School System, I would ask you to convey this message to that person.
On my behalf, I want you to tell that person, “You are not to blame, your illiteracy or semi illiteracy is not a result of any deficiency in yourself.”
“It is a result of the fact that when the schools were integrated in the late Sixties and Seventies, white parents did not wish black teachers to be able to apply corporal punishment to their children so they agitated for this means of motivating patterns of behavior consistent with the discipline and order required for imparting knowledge to be removed from the Public School System, evoking the incipient chaos that exists in those schools today; and, with the direct and inevitable consequence that forty three million Americans are illiterate or semi illiterate today, a number that is growing yearly by leaps and bounds.”
“Further, you cannot overcome this lack by rioting, demonstrating or resorting to any kind of force, this will only drive you deeper and deeper into the coils and toils of dependency and exploitation, what you must do is embark upon the cultural change, the most fundamental change a human being could aspire to or contemplate, changing the man or woman in your mirror by telling the truth until the truth makes you free, the first truth you must become capable of telling is an accurate description of the reality, you must admit to the world that you are unable to read, the necessary prerequisite to solving your problem.”
On another matter, on a seemingly unrelated matter, I see that Governor Blagojevich is publishing a book, that he and his wife are not yet incarcerated as it seemed certain they would be a few months ago when they were the subject of an intense investigation and prosecution.
I have a diametrically opposed view of that issue also.
I believe that the brouhaha surrounding Governor Blagojevich was an attempt by the powers that be to demonstrate to President Obama the vicissitudes, the clear and present dangers, the monumental obstacles to creating positive changes.
I believe they were attempting to communicate to him that he could play the role of Bush Clone, of Uncle Tom President, or, of Oreo President; but that he never, never would be allowed to be the Change Agent President, that that was quite beyond the capabilities of anyone, least of all himself.
I believe they were attempting to make clear to him, and did succeed in making clear to him, that they had the power to implicate him in a scandal that would destroy his Presidency, before it had even begun.
But enough of such fancies, what would the Change Agent President have done faced with the daunting task that faced this President in January of this year. He would have restored fiscal sanity and responsibility to the national budget, he would ensure that government spending was not; and, never would be in the future, a massive obstacle and disincentive to production by ensuring that the government in the future could not engage in deficit financing of the national budget.
He would do this by amending the Constitution to include the requirement that the Government spend what it earns, that it could not borrow to increase government spending, most importantly, that it could not tax profits or incomes.
Then how, as a gentleman enquired in Crescent City, California would the government paying its bills, my answer to him was by putting a one cent tax on each pound of flour and other basic items that are sold; and, by putting a one hundred per cent tax on luxury items, e.g. a Porsche, that is sold.
I did not say this to him, I would support a bill that allowed the budget for the next two years, to combine the two methods of taxation, to reduce the budget deficit and return the ship of state to an even keel.
But after that period, to revitalize and resuscitate an economy that is dying on the vine, so that a producer who wants to produce for the long haul, when he projects what will be the cost of taxation on his enterprise for the next century, will be able to say it will be zero, that in the USA the profit motive will be paramount and unfettered from the chains and shackles of deficit financing of the national budget.
I would also suggest that we create open ended systems of reward for all who labor.
Again, I have actually witnessed the impact of such a payment system on a group of illiterate and semi illiterate stevedores who were seasonal workers who in their downtime were fishermen, petty criminals, posse members, farmers, construction workers, etc.
They were loading, what was then the Esso “Caribe” a motor vessel which was loaded in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with the very same cargo composed of Lube Oil in cans, pails and drums by American stevedores whose loading rate was thirty six tons per hours.
When the incentive scheme was created the loading rate by those Jamaican stevedores was eight tons per hour, I witnessed it improve to twenty four tons per hour; and, was reliably informed that they attained thirty two tons per hour, the closest Jamaican productivity has ever come to American productivity.
Further, simultaneously those same groups of Jamaican stevedores were unloading fertilizer materials for Grace Chemicals over the very same Dry Cargo Dock; the difference being that in this component of the operation there was no incentive scheme.
The unloading rate was a matter for compliant of the management of Grace Chemical continuously, they advised that stevedores were often seen in reclining positions and emitting nasal sounds much more appropriate to their bedrooms than to an industrial operation; that on some midnight shifts not one single ton of fertilizer was unloaded for an entire shift; that the stevedores were conspiring to take as long a time as possible to unload the ship because they were paid by the hour; and the longer the ship remained in port, the more money they made.
Also, pilfering was reduced in the Esso operation and the level of cooperation increased to the point where I could not galvanize the stevedores to engage in industrial action directed at the Esso management when they proved recalcitrant on some issue, something otherwise inconceivable and unique in the six years I represented workers as a Trade Union Officer in Jamaica.
I point I am trying to make is, just as I have witnessed classrooms in which there was at least one “crack” baby, and heard the reports of teachers on their futile attempts to maintain order; I speak on the efficacy, efficiency and overwhelming superiority of open ended systems of reward from first hand knowledge.
It is because of this experience that I was galvanized to become adept at applying positive reinforcements in all my social interactions; and, it is why I can speak with authority and remorseless sincerity of the design for human existence that is coercion determined culture as a inordinately vile, unrelievedly depraved ‘conscious and unconscious premises for thinking and action.’
It is why I reject all efforts of conditioning me to return to being an agent of coercion determined culture out of hand, why despite the many bouts of intense poverty I endured, despite the extreme degradation, shame and humiliation that has been my lot, despite the loneliness and isolation that I endure, I have forever rejected and renounced being an agent of coercion determined culture.
A note to the major media houses, for example, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle, I perennially submit these articles for publication; and, just as often you reject them often with your requirements for publication including that letters will be no more than one hundred and fifty or two hundred words in length, that it is exclusive to your particular newspaper etc.
I am trying to reach a wider audience, and have a different objective, the common good.
I will never submit anything that meets with your requirements because those requirements are designed to perpetuate the status quo that ‘might is right,’ I think you are apologists for the predatory institutions that are the major obstacles to creating a functioning democracy in this nation.
I do believe I know more about what is required to attain that objective than any living human being simply because I have told the truth until it has made me free and I prove it in every piece I write any of which contains more truth than your newspapers print in a year, I am certain I know more than any of the editors of the propaganda machinery that is one of the major components of the powers that be in this nation.
I will continue attempting to communicate the message that telling the truth will make you free in the hope that a bare majority in every social system will tell the truth until it makes them free; and, so create a world in which RIGHT IS MIGHT.