It’s In Your Head: The New Age of Narcissism

What does talk show host Oprah Winfrey, psychologist Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, medium James Van Praagh and “The Secret” author Rhonda Byrne share in common?

A belief that what you get out of life depends on how you think about life.

It seems straightforward enough. Empowering, even. Unfortunately, it isn’t quite that simple.

Have you ever found yourself wondering if there’s too much ego attached to this trendy philosophy? Or what to make of its logical inverse: that victims are self victimizing?

It’s no surprise, really. Those who are successful seek out a self-affirming explanation for their success. A successful individual may look around and see plenty of people with great potential who nonetheless never seemed to get it right. So what was the deciding factor? Talent? Persistence? Intellect? Good looks? A great attitude? Good timing? The right set of parents? Birthplace? A superior education? Friends in high places?

Out of all the possible explanations — perhaps luck (destiny), preparedness (talent), or persistence (dedication) — how many times does it seem even modestly successful individuals adopt seemingly self-congratulatory explanations, concluding, “I maintained a positive (better) attitude”, or “God has blessed me because I have been faithful”, or “I sent good karma out into the world, and it returned to me in spades”?

Whereas ancient man comprehended his own frailty in the face of a brutal natural world, modern man believes in choice over fate, and self confidence over faith. Insulated within the relative safety of our man-made environments, we feel largely invincible. Going from a victim of the whims of the gods to a victorious Creator certainly holds a certain attraction. We are no longer helpless in the hand of fate, for the only destiny is the one we create.

Over the past 40-some years, however, a darker side to the man-as-god mythology has emerged. The same perception of control that inspires a successful individual, forms a motivation to assign blame. “Negative” and “lazy” become character descriptions for those who do not validate another’s perceived sense of order in the universe (control). This attitude doesn’t merely trickle from the top down, either. An unsuccessful individual may brand him- or herself as one’s own worst enemy — the primary cause of one’s adversity. Such an individual may spend years in therapy attempting to negate the innate genetic, biochemical and personality characteristics that make him or her unique.

In a world that holds there are no victims, only self saboteurs, it is easy to embark on a path of self doubt and criticism for one’s perceived lack of willpower (control). This negative self-determination carries weight because it implies the power of choice. If we made some aspect of our lives go wrong via wrong thinking or wrong choices, we can make all right with the world through right thinking and right decision making. We prefer this viewpoint because if circumstances are deemed outside our control, we are forced to confront unvarnished reality: Control is largely illusory.

At one time, American culture tempered emerging New Age assumptions with levelheaded reminders that we are not captains of destiny. The Serenity Prayer, which became a fixture in the 12-step recovery movement, reminds us that we need a higher power to show us the difference between that which we can influence, and that which is beyond our control. Scripture, likewise, deals with this same question, for it is an age-old concern:

“As Jesus went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life,’” (John 9:1-3).

Here we see an example of Jesus teaching that in our frailty, God’s glory, grace and power shines. But in New Age parlance — and, tellingly, even from prominent megachurch pulpits — we learn to measure God’s love with a yardstick that is almost entirely dependent on outward measures of success (abundance — physical, financial and social). Year after year, these false promises are repackaged and re-branded by one talk show guest and bestselling author after another, who in so doing profits handsomely from this self-as-center-of-universe ideology. It is, after all, what the narcissist within each of us wants to hear.

What gives these half-truths such staying power in American culture?

As someone who spent a number of years in the book business, I can venture an educated guess: Books that postulate that there is less order and more chaos fail in the marketplace. After all, the type of people who are likely to seek out and read self help books are typically those who believe that the truth is “out there”. They believe they can find answers in a book, a religion, a philosophy. When at last they connect with an articulate author’s prose, the crowing revelation is that of self as judge, jury and, ultimately, God. Readers aren’t looking to be reminded that the answers to life’s biggest questions are rarely contained in a $15 paperback, or that cultivating a mentality of control may lead to more suffering than success.

Revered author Ralph Waldo Emerson — perhaps because of his success — also advanced this half-baked philosophy:

“Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances — it was somebody’s name, or he happened to be there at the time, or it was so then, and another day would have been otherwise. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”

While the principle of cause-and-effect is by no means entirely false, it is most often observed within the confines of a scientific laboratory. Boiling complex social, spiritual and interpersonal realities down to a question of input vs. output is an outgrowth of the Industrial Revolution and the Scientific Age, not the real-world complexities that humans have been grappling with on this planet for millions of years. The child receiving cancer treatment didn’t “choose” his or her illness. The parents who agonize over a drug- or alcohol-abusing child are not necessarily the cause. The fellow who was injured on the job and struggled to get himself back together cannot be written off as someone lacking in ambition or a solid work ethic. The doctor who is sued for malpractice is not necessarily an incompetent practitioner. The overweight woman at church may not be a couch potato.

A desire to project ourselves into circumstances where others are neither to blame nor congratulate seems innate. But ancient sources of wisdom paint a more restrained picture. A biblical proverb states “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails” (Pr 19:21). Another says, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps” (Pr 16:9).

Scripture confirms the idea that life is not fair, and may never be fair no matter how much we struggle to maintain the idea that the universe merely reflects our own intentions. Rather, “He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous,” (MT 5:45).

An odd anecdote from the life of the late trance-medium Edgar Cayce backs the biblical concept of fate.

“One day in a large city I entered a department store to do some shopping. I was on the sixth floor and rang for the elevator. While I was waiting for it I noticed some bright red sweaters, and thought I would like to look at them. However, I had signaled for the elevator, and when it came I stepped forward to enter it. It was almost filled with people, but suddenly I was repelled. The interior of the car, although well-lighted, seemed dark to me.

“Something was wrong. Before I could analyze my action I said, ‘Go ahead,’ to the operator, and stepped back. I went over to look at the sweaters, and then I realized what had made me uneasy. The people in the elevator had no auras. While I was examining the sweaters, which had attracted me by their bright red hues—the color of vigor and energy—the elevator cable snapped, the car fell to the basement, and all the occupants were killed.”

Does this sound like a simple case of cause-and-effect? Were the people trapped in that elevator any more deserving or selective of their tragic destiny than the blind man in Jesus’ day whose friends and neighbors presumed a sin on the part of his parents?

Perhaps the strongest “cause” for any form of success is persistence. But persistence doesn’t necessarily correlate with greater intellect, greater talent, better looks or a better attitude that somehow entitles one individual to more “open doors” than another. So rather than allowing popular philosophy to create an insalubrious expectation that one can or should be able control outcomes — an assumption that parallels the meteoric rise in antidepressants, ADHD medications and all manner of costly prescription and illicit coping aids alike — it is time we make our peace with the counterintuitive.

Let go.

The idea that we can or should live a charmed life if only we project the right set of intentions backed by the appropriate thought process is insidiously toxic. It breeds arrogance among the elite and self doubt among those who have applied such principles only to realize that the Universe does not revolve around, nor faithfully reflect, them. Accepting the reality that good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people may not seem all that comforting, and it certainly won’t sell any books or self-help seminars. Yet acknowledging that the mysteries of life are more numerous than the answers is strangely liberating. Letting go allows us to make peace with an awe-inspiring aspect of life that might otherwise tear at our morale. Only when we remain humble — but for the grace of God there go I — do we allow gratitude, awe, contentment and compassion to heal our relationship with God, ourselves and others. For unlike Eastern philosophies born of gurus who retreated to the solitude of the wilderness, humility will stand beside us amidst our hectic, distracting, and unpredictable contemporary lives.

Split-Ticket Voting: Fear vs. Reality

It has been said that third-party candidates steal votes from mainstream candidates, even splitting tickets and costing presidential elections. Let’s think about this assumption for a moment.

Average voter turnout is generally little more than half of those who are eligible to vote. And while those who calculate voter turnout statistics claim that voter turnout, overall, has not diminished since 1972, that figure, whether it is 40 percent or 60 percent of legal, voting-age US citizens, leaves much to be desired — particularly when compared to our European counterparts.

Enter a third-party presidential candidate. For the purpose of this illustration, Ralph Nader will do.

Who votes for the likes of Ralph Nader? And do third-party candidates such as Nader, who typically garner far less than 5 percent of the popular vote, really have the power to sway elections? 

Sometimes.

Ross Perot is often cited as an example of a third-party candidate who garnered enough popular support to pose a real threat to mainstream party candidates. But most of the time, the idea that a third-party candidate can alter the outcome of an election comes off like a trumped up scare tactic to persuade voters to tow traditional party lines.

The truth lies in the numbers. Generally speaking, if a given race isn’t closer than the percentage of votes a given third-party candidate attracts, the split-ticket argument amounts to little more than a red herring. Nevertheless, the popularity of browbeating long-shot and third-party candidates and their supporters as ticket-splitting spoilers has become so widespread that it borders on what one might call “political fundamentalism”. A July 2004 Salon.com article titled “The dark side of Ralph Nader” had this to say:

“Nader’s share of the votes was the margin that threw New Hampshire into Bush’s column and accounted for the difference in Florida that cast the state into the post-election turmoil that ended only with the 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision in Bush vs. Gore. Nader nearly cost Gore other states as well, especially New Mexico. Every study after the election determined that almost all of Nader’s votes would have gone to Gore if Nader hadn’t run, but Nader continues to insist that he bore no responsibility.”

Notice that the author does not cite a source upon claiming that “every study after the election determined that almost all of Nader’s votes would have gone to Gore”.

Though I am aware of no statistics to back my intuition, I would venture to say that there is no way to accurately predict whether or not a vote for the likes of Ralph Nader — or any other ancillary candidate who attracts conscience-driven voters, for that matter — is likely to translate into a vote for a mainstream candidate if only such-and-such would step out of the way. The real question is ideological and sociological. On that criteria, a seemingly safer assumption holds that those who vote conscience over party are not beholden to conventional party rhetoric.

If we accept that third-party supporters are more independent-minded than they are party driven, it is hardly a stretch of the imagination to assume that such individuals are less likely to cave to the pressure to vote for the “lesser-of-two-evils” out of fear that an opposing party candidate shall win. A willingness to compromise on the merits and qualifications of a particular candidate for the sake of a party win are hallmarks of traditional Democrat and Republican concerns. As such, this line of logic is more likely to sway undecided voters. But undecided voters are not the type of third-party supporters who repeatedly back the likes of Ralph Nader. Votes cast for third party candidates are likely to come from two sources: Those who are disgruntled with mainstream party choices on the one hand, and those who are genuinely motivated by personal affinity toward the third-party candidate and his or her particular views, on the other.

None of this is to say that given fewer electoral choices, mainstream candidates would lose out entirely on those extra votes. Some third-party votes, indeed, may translate into miniscule gains for mainstream candidates. However, any examination of the issue cannot overlook the reality that those who are unwilling to compromise in the voting booth are equally, if not more likely, to fade into the ranks of those who do not show up on Election Day at all.

Ralph Nader and the likes of Rep. Ron Paul, also a former third-party presidential candidate, have in common a form of loyalty that is not a party loyalty as much as it is an ideological or personal loyalty. To claim, therefore, that that their supporters might otherwise vote for a mainstream party candidate appears to be a leap of logic at best, and a dumbing down of US political dialog at worst.

Worst-case scenarios advanced by campaign strategists and media pundits that encourage voters to second-guess their better instincts are a form of manipulation, if not outright propaganda. As voters, fear should play no part in our decisions. Fear of splitting tickets should not play a predominant role in our voting behavior. Fear of voting for someone that does not stand a chance should be no reason to abandon one’s deeply held convictions in order to line up behind the foregone conclusion. The idea that Democrats will mail terrorists formal invitations to attack us is not a legitimate reason to lose sleep at night. And fear that Republicans, if given a chance, will establish a theocracy are similarly alarmist and nonproductive.

As voters, each of us are Americans who want the best for our children and, by extension, our nation. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt put it during the height of the Great Depression: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Is Ron Paul a Radical?

It has been called the “dirty little secret” that everyone in Washington knows.

“We suffer from a ‘fiscal cancer’. It is growing within us. And if we do not treat it, it can have catastrophic consequences for our country.”

Assume those are the words of Congressman Ron Paul, M.D.?

Think again. Those are the words of David Walker, top accountant in the nation.

The U.S. Comptroller General of the Government Accountability Office hit the streets to warn Americans that the long-anticipated Economic Perfect Storm is not only brewing, it made landfall January 1, 2008. Walker began sounding an alarm last year “like an Old Testament prophet” according to CBS “60 Minutes”.

So is Congressman Paul an isolated alarmist — harping as he does on the precarious state of our “monetary system“? Or a modern-day Paul Revere?

Perhaps the best way to answer that question is to take a long-overdue look at the evidence.

Now the first thing one might be inclined to believe is that this sort of talk amounts to little more than partisan drivel. Or that it is a slam on the war.

It is neither.

Walker’s “Fiscal Wake Up Tour” has rallied economists from the conservative Heritage Foundation, the left-leaning Brookings Institute, the nonpartisan Concord Coalition and the Association for Government Accountants, among others. And without ever mentioning Congressman Paul by name, his message sounds eerily familiar.

Evidence for the Perfect Economic Storm

Here is what Walker had to say:

• Demographics: 78 million baby boomers are set to retire — which makes them pensioners and medical dependents of the US taxpayer beginning January 1, 2008. “When those boomers start retiring en masse, then that will be a tsunami of spending that could sink our ship of state if we don’t get serious.”
• Costly Entitlements: “If nothing changes, the federal government’s not going to be able to do much more than pay interest on the mounting debt and some entitlements. It won’t have the money left for anything else — national defense, homeland security, education — you name it.”
• Healthcare Costs: “Our healthcare problem is much more significant than Social Security. By that I mean, the Medicare problem is five times greater than the Social Security problem. … It’s the number one fiscal challenge for the federal government. It’s the number one fiscal challenge for state governments. And it’s the number one challenge for American business . We’re going to have to dramatically and fundamentally reform our healthcare system, in installments, over the next 20 years. And if we don’t, it could bankrupt America.”

And to Walker’s list of Perfect Economic Storm clouds, one might add:

• Campaign Finance Reform: This may be a non-news story this election year, but conflicting loyalties and interests remain as entrenched as ever. Money buys influence in Washington, and influence buys wasteful pork-barrel spending and costly corporate welfare. Just ask disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
• Dollar Devaluation: “The Federal Reserve cut borrowing costs 1 percentage point to 4.25 percent in 2007, sending the dollar to $1.4967 on November 23, 2007, an all-time low against the euro,” states a January 2008 Bloomberg.com article describing investors’ attempts to seek “alternative assets” such as gold. But it only gets worse. “An OPEC switch from the dollar to the euro would bring a quick and devastating dollar and Wall Street crash that would make 1929 look like a $50 casino bet,” writes Sonja Ebron, the chief executive of blackEnergy. And, in fact, President Bush’s recent trip to the Mid East reveals that Mid East currencies, among others, are about to be “de-pegged” from the dollar according to a Yale Global report.
• Mortgage Crisis: Subprime lending practices have not only burst the real estate bubble but depressed state and local tax revenues — causing Christopher W. Hoene, the director of policy and research for the National League of Cities, to warn The Los Angeles Times: “We’re talking about a pretty tough fiscal environment for the next four or five years. Libraries, parks, after-school programs . . . you’ll see lots of questions raised about cities’ abilities to fund them.”
• Globalization: Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, in a December 14, 2007 NPR interview, blames “the extraordinary forces of globalization that arose subsequent to the end of the Soviet Union” for placing pressure on central banks. And far from being an America-specific concern, “housing deflation” is impacting economies worldwide “for the same reasons” they have stateside. All of which is to say that the odds of a recession are “clearly rising”, Greenspan says. But unlike earlier recessionary periods there is now at play a relatively modern financial tool that may contribute to the chaotic economic picture. So-called credit default swaps allow bondholders to insure against default. “Those who such sell such protection receive a quarterly premium based on a percentage of the amount insured,” reports the Financial Times of London. “The subprime crisis came fairly close to destabilizing the global financial system. A CDS crisis, under a pessimistic scenario [as outlined by Bill Gross of Pimco, the world's largest bond fund], could produce a global financial meltdown.”
• Energy Inflation: The Dallas Morning News reports that the Energy Information Administration forecasts a 17.7 percent jump in crude-oil prices in 2008, with a corresponding 10.7 percent boost in the price of a gallon of regular gasoline. “According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics Consumer Price Index, the national average price for gasoline in May of 2007 was $3.18, a 100 percent increase from May of 2003 when it was $1.59,” reports the Appalachian News Express. “I think the Fed has some worries on inflation,” David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor’s in New York tells CBS News. “We are starting to see some leakage from energy into other areas of the economy.” And while cutting interest rates encourages more borrowing and spending that may allay recessionary fears, only increased interest rates can alleviate inflationary fears by increasing the value of US-dollar investments, MSNBC senior producer John W. Schoen writes. It’s a tough tightrope to walk under any definition, but one factor relatively new to the economic mix is the skyrocketing demand for energy in India and China, among other developing nations. Meanwhile, regions such as Africa and Iran, which might otherwise ramp up production to satisfy increasing demand, are hard pressed to do so due to the presence of war or political unrest, an OPEC fact sheet states. Making matters worse, the German-based Energy Watch Group in October 2007 released a study indicating that world oil production appears to have peaked in 2006, and that by 2030 production will fall by half. “These prices are here to stay,” explains Emil Pena, member of the advisory board at Calgary-based Genoil Inc. and the executive director of the Energy and Environmental Systems Institute at Rice University in Houston, speaking to Bloomberg.com in a January 2, 2008 interview after crude oil prices hit $100 per barrel.
• Bread & Butter Inflation: Although estimates vary, the picture of rising food prices is uniformly stark. Grocery increases in 2007 ranged from a 28 percent increase for eggs to a four percent hike overall according to USDA economists. Those prices are estimated to increase another three percent in 2008, with the gap between eating out and home cooking expected to narrow, The Dallas Morning News reports. The sharpest grocery increases since 1990 are expected to continue in 2008, with a disproportionate increase — roughly six to seven percent — in soy oil products and wheat items such as cereal, crackers and baked goods. Milk, meanwhile, is expected to exceed $5 per gallon this year. And it isn’t just consumers who are feeling the pain. “Since last year, wholesale food prices have increased 7.2 percent. If the trend continues, it will be the biggest food price increase in the last 27 years,” the National Restaurant Association told the Nashville Business Journal.
• Unchecked Borrowing: Walker maintains that we are essentially running up a credit card debt “against our grandchildren”. The outstanding public debt as of January 12, 2008 is a mind-boggling: $9,201,303,778,567.90 according to the U.S. National Debt Clock. The estimated population of the United States is 304,063,331 so each citizen’s share of this debt is $30,261.14 — or an average of $1.48 billion per day since September 29, 2006. According to a March 2006 MSNBC article, the war costs alone amount to $200 million per day — and this before factoring in the cost of potentially widening the Mid East war effort to include Iran or Pakistan.

The Bottom Line: “It’s the economy, stupid!“

Concern for the economy, for currency devaluation, for overextending our obligations — these are not conservative or liberal issues but are, in fact, central to the health of the entire nation.

Economists and grandparents alike have been talking for what may seem like forever about the day when Social Security, among other entitlements, would become insolvent. According to our nation’s top accountant, that day has come — and will continue to bear down on our economy over the next 20 years.

“I would argue that the most serious threat to the United States is not someone hiding in a cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan,” Walker said, “but our own fiscal irresponsibility.”

From all available evidence, somebody is going to have the unsavory task of putting our fractured economy back together again. Ready or not, that burden will come to rest upon our next president. But how will we fare if we elect someone who does not even have the wherewithal to prioritize these vital economic issues on the campaign trail — let alone offer a concrete plan to fix them?

One reason we do not hear more on this subject is that it is just plain scary. By the very nature of the problem, paying the piper will entail spending cuts to programs that may not necessarily deserve to be cut. The alternative is increased taxation. Either way, we are entering a period of sacrifice. Consequently, it is not the president or his or her party in the coming years that will provoke seemingly radical solutions. Rather, the economic times in which we live promise to demand out-of-the-box thinking in order to stave off federal bankruptcy. But try getting any sense of that reality from the campaign trail. The word is out among campaign strategists: Voters want a feel-good candidate.

What we need is an experienced and principled leader — a president who is unafraid to make the tough decisions that tough times call for. The problem? A number of presidential candidates, for all their enthusiasm and potential, are untested at the federal level. Not so, Congressman Paul. With three 10-year terms of Washington experience under his belt, bona fide wartime experience and may years serving on banking, finance and gold committees in Washington, Congressman Paul brings to the table qualities and qualifications that few 2008 presidential candidates can match. And unlike so many politicians who are desensitized to Washington largess, Congressman Paul’s voting record proves something even more telling: A man good for his word.

In the words of former Treasury Secretary William Simon, Congressman Paul is the “one exception to the Gang of 535″ on Capitol Hill. And in testament to his uncommonly strong backbone, Congressman Paul has received awards and honors from organizations such as the National Taxpayers Union, Citizens Against Government Waste, the Council for a Competitive Economy and Young Americans for Freedom, among others, his House.gov profile reveals.

If Congressman Paul seems radical, it is likely a reaction to the sharp contrast between his traditional limited government priorities and modern-day Republicans and Democrats who are not as different as they once were — particularly when it comes to big government and big spending. So if the mere act of calling upon the government to return to its Founding principles is radical, it is less a reflection upon Congressman Paul and more a reflection upon us. Not surprisingly, Congressman Paul’s admonishment to reduce or retire some of the agencies added to the federal government during the Progressive Era may seem counterintuitive in today’s context of presumptive necessity. However, as many of his academic endorsers from the History News Network appreciate, the historic record indicates that many of those agencies have been controversial since their inception — and have remained controversial as they mature into bloated bureaucracies that burden taxpayers, are ineffective at delivering on their promises, contribute to the federal deficit, or encroach upon states’ rights and constitutionally-protected individual liberties. So rather than broad-brush an endangered specimen of traditional statesmanship against the backdrop of prevailing lassitude, perhaps it is time we let Dr. Paul out of the archivists’ box, dust him off, and put his restorative skills to work.

The doctor may prescribe a hard pill to swallow — but it just might cure what ails us.

Now all that remains to be seen is this: Do we elect the candidate who tells us what we want to hear? Or what we need to hear?

Or as the Comptroller General might put it: Do we want the cancer or the cure?

Barack Obama and The Boy Who Cried Wolf

The other day someone remarked that a member of his church group said that he had heard that democratic presidential candidate and Senator Barack Obama, if elected, will purportedly refuse to take his oath of office using a Bible and will instead substitute the Koran. The gossip dispatcher qualified his alarming allegation by saying that he did not know if it were true. Aside from the obvious — that this is one of the many hoaxes believed by the same group of people who fear that the late atheist crusader Madalyn Murray O’Hair is alive and well and presently in cahoots with the Federal Communications Commission — there is another problem with name dropping in this context.

True or not, once a supercharged tidbit of gossip drops, its negativity sticks. Simply stating that one cannot verify whether something is true is a sorry excuse for spreading malicious rumors. At no time in history, after all, has it been so easy to check via the Internet whether the things we read or hear have any basis in fact. Yet we all know the type: those who would rather become conduits of damnable lies than spend two minutes fact checking on About.com’s Urban Legends page.

Not only is feckless forwarding a sure way to get all your friends and family signed up for oodles of SPAM, but it is one of the chief ways in which dangerous computer viruses spread on the Internet (via attachments). Mindlessly forwarding unverified email also dulls recipients’ senses so that when real news stories or causes for alarm come along, nobody knows exactly what or whom to believe.

“The Boy who Cried Wolf” may be our undoing.

Consider the subject of the so-called North American Union, which has been reported extensively by commentator and Harvard-trained political scientist Dr. Jerome R. Corsi on behalf of the conservative publications Human Events Online and WorldNetDaily. According to Wikipedia, a desire to create a currency shared by Canada, the U.S. and Mexico in order to compete with the higher-value euro simply does not exist outside the realm of conspiracy. Never mind that a shared “regional currency” is a logical outgrowth of the North America Free Trade Agreement. Never mind that a similar progression of trade and currency took place in Europe to an initially naive and increasingly acrimonious public reaction. And don’t tell that to the Council on Foreign Relations. In a November 26, 2007 CFR publication titled “Regional Monetary Integration“, ivy-league economists discuss the benefits and potential public relations obstacles to introducing a common currency in North America and elsewhere.

Similarly, there is nothing imaginary about the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America that President Bush, former Mexican President Fox and former Canadian Prime Minister Martin signed in March 2005. The SPP is a natural extension of the NAFTA framework that former presidential candidate Ross Perot infamously remarked would result in a “giant sucking sound” of Middle Class American jobs exiting the border. (Of course, we all know how NAFTA saved the day. General Motors still can’t get it right despite access to cheap Mexican labor. See “Was Ross Perot Right?“.)

Are there real concerns to which we ought to pay heed? Absolutely. Should we express those concerns by forwarding anonymous email or gossiping to coworkers, friends or anybody else who will listen — before we take time to learn if there is any truth to what we have heard? Never. For if there is one thing worse than examining a possible “conspiracy”, it is being asleep at the wheel of democracy.

When rumor is fact and reality is conspiracy, we are in a dire place indeed.

This nation’s guiding democratic principles cannot survive willful ignorance any more than our friends and family can stomach constant reminders of our frightful gullibility. For those that care to reform their wicked ways, I have a fashionably “retro” suggestion: Newspapers. Perhaps if we read a bit more and gossip a bit less America will reclaim its spot in the top 20 literate nations.

FOX News: We Decide 2008

Did those of you who watched the Republican presidential debates this weekend notice? There was a notable dullness to Sunday’s FOX News Republican debate when compared to the much more lively ABC News debate hosted Saturday, January 5, 2008. When the ratings are in, my bet is that the ABC debate that included Congressman Ron Paul will come out on top. FOX News, thinking it knows what is in our best interest — although curiously clueless when it comes to what is in the best interest for ratings and the democratic process — purposefully left Dr. Paul out. If we’re not talking about him, it’s because THEY are not talking about him. What’s wrong with this electoral picture?

FOX News has failed to exercise responsible gate keeping. Their blatant attempt to shape early public perception as to who is or isn’t a serious contender come Election Day has already begun to backfire. Rudy Giuliani, a FOX News darling, has slid precipitously in the polls — no doubt in reaction to tiresome, obsessive coverage, which has only given Giuliani’s critics added incentive to come out of the woodwork. In an ironic twist that FOX News producers and pundits apparently never saw coming, the former New York City mayor seems to be suffering the political equivalent of the backlash against pop star Brittany Spears. Yes, there is such a thing as too much news coverage. Enough is enough.

The merits of Dr. Paul’s campaign and his grassroots popularity or lack thereof are not at the heart of this commentary against FOX News. The issue is control. Control of who you see. Control of who you hear. Control of how you perceive the electoral process. FOX News may not have a monopoly on the problem, but it is certainly leading the way.

In some ways, Dr. Paul is the 2008 equivalent of Ross Perot — speaking his mind, rocking the boat, and generally scaring the establishment into pushing him out. (You may recall the threats that Ross Perot reported before falling silent and exiting the 1992 presidential race.) Like or dislike him, Dr. Paul has over 30 years experience in Washington. That alone should qualify him for serious attention. But the media would have you believe Congressman Paul is irrelevant. If Congressman Paul is a long shot, it is only because the powers that be decided early on to portray him as such — not a conspiracy perhaps, but certainly a self-fulfilling prophecy.

When it comes to modern-day elections, there is no such thing as letting the proverbial chips fall where they may. With media polls leading the way, it is not “You decide 2008″ — it is “We decide 2008″. With few exceptions, the competition is over when media prognosticators say it is over, and for the most part the American sheeple follow suit for fear that going against the all-powerful polls will split the ticket or cost their favored party the election.

That’s why presidential election polling is bad for America.

It is human nature to line up behind the leading horse in the race. Nobody, after all, wants to back a loser. If the media did not provide second-by-second polling data, voters might be inclined to vote for whom they WANT to win, not merely for who they believe CAN win. This is what I call the “Lesser of Two Evils” philosophy of voting — and it is essentially turning our electoral process into a farce.

When we ask ourselves why nothing ever seems to change for the better in Washington, we must first ask ourselves why fear of change, fear of splitting tickets, fear of wasting our vote, fear of rocking the boat, or fear of being ridiculed for supporting an “outsider” has such a powerful influence over our electoral behavior. Are we pack animals? If not, perhaps it is time to trust our own better judgments enough to clean the electoral house. And that goes for BOTH parties.

As much as it pains me to say this as someone who has served as a member of the media, the public must awaken to the realization that the mainstream media is actively framing our perception of who the “eligible” choices are. Truth be told, Americans of all political bent tend to back media-sanctioned choices if for no other reason that the media, by omission or derision, can cause some candidates to appear less prominent or desirable than others. Need proof? Simply count how many times one candidate’s name is mentioned over another during a single hour of political programming. Within the first 15 minutes, you will begin to develop an appreciation for how subtle yet insidious the process of narrowing the electoral field has become.

It is time we reclaim what is rightfully ours — a government of the people, for the people, and by the people. Yes, the media has an irreplaceable roll in a democratic society. But when it comes to presidential elections, my advice is to tune in for the debates and tune out for the commentary. Under no circumstances should news “consumers” rely on a single pundit or broadcasting corporation for news and views. Those who wish to exercise good citizenship ought to turn off the propaganda box in favor of a handful of newspapers or magazines that cover the gamut — from the New York Times and Mother Jones to the Christian Science Monitor and The Economist. Those who watch FOX News ought to tune in to National Public Radio, PBS or LinkTV. Those who favor CNN or the New York Times ought to surf on over to WorldNetDaily or NewsMax. Why? Because there is nothing intellectually or morally honest about fear. If you have confidence in your views, you won’t be afraid to avail yourself to the diversity of thought, perception and choice that exists in the marketplace of ideas. And remember: It’s not over until it’s over.

The Evolution of Medicine

This randomly updated commentary on the future of medicine offers my unqualified predictions as to what medical research will one day confirm or discover. The following should in no way be taken as medical fact or substitution for qualified medical care; to the contrary, oftentimes my views will contradict prevailing wisdom. I post these out of curiosity to see, over time, which theories fall flat vs. those that pan out.

1. In view of the many scandals involving Chinese-made products as of late — to include everything from pet food and chloramphenicol-contaminated honey to lead-contaminated Mattel/Fisher-Price toys — it is my belief that people will speculate, if not begin to confirm, that the near-epidemic rise in autism is linked, in part, to a longstanding trend of poor product safety. Underlying the problem is a lack of funding and accountability for watchdog agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission, Food and Drug Administration and others.

2. Within the next 25 years the Supreme Court will hear a conspiracy-of-silence-busting case regarding the lackluster effort the FDA and/or the USDA has made to prevent the spread of so-called mad cow disease, otherwise known as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), which is the suspected cause of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in humans. Most of the American population, blissfully munching their hamburgers, tacos and hot dogs, will feign surprise at the revelation that virtually no effort has been made to prevent the neurological horrors of vCDJ from striking consumers, but for those with eyes wide open it will be old, albeit sad, news. Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, in a 2004 effort to win back their wary overseas customers who don’t sit well with the reality that less than one percent of US beef cattle are screened for BSE, decided to voluntarily test its own beef products at their own cost — a move the USDA prohibited for transparently spurious reasoning. Why, you might ask? Because essentially, Big Brother doesn’t want private industry to cater to their health-conscious markets because in so doing they may shake consumer confidence in ordinary, untested cattle (the cattle the beef lobby is allegedly opposed to testing on the grounds that doing so will undermine profits — the same power-to-be-reckoned-with cohort that sent Oprah Winfrey running for First Amendment cover in a 1996 lawsuit filed by by the National Cattlemen’s Association). How ironic that the government agency sworn to put consumer interests first, is now the agency who is spearheading a Great Farce, which apparently holds that a don’t-look, don’t-tell policy is in our best interest. And we thought they worked for us! While they’re at it, perhaps the USDA should strong-arm the Mayo Clinic to persuade them to look the other way, too. In “Mad Cow Disease: Still a Concern“, the Mayo Clinic concedes that “because children are more likely to eat hot dogs and hamburgers, they may be at higher risk” for developing vCDJ.

A cocoon of their making [The Los Angeles Times/Calendar/E1/August 3, 2007]

What does one make of it when two successful people who have everything to live for throw it all away?This question comes on the heels of a highly tragic and bizarre story written by reporter Chris Lee of The Los Angeles Times about a New York art world “It” couple who in July committed suicide within days of one another, for reasons that are unknown aside from speculation over a shared obsession with the evils of Scientology (according to an alleged 27-page conspiracy “chronology”, written in October 2006 for a never-filed lawsuit, implicating everyone from an ex-girlfriend to actor Tom Cruise, the latter of which, according to the Times, the couple had never met).

Some may know Jeremy Blake, 35, for his melding of Old World artistic traditions with high-tech New World tools — work that graced everything from video games and movie sequences to the walls of The Los Angeles County Museum of Contemporary Art. His live-in girlfriend, Theresa Duncan, 40, was a noted screenwriter and computer game developer who was known for her literary bent on the blog “The Wit of the Staircase”. So inseparable were the two, according to the article, that when Duncan was found dead alongside a bottle of pills, alcohol and a suicide note in the converted New York rectory the couple called home, Blake soon followed — drowning himself off of New York’s Rockway Beach — not unlike the character played by Sterling Hayden in the film “The Long Goodbye“.

Visiting the late Duncan’s blog, one thing is particularly salient: The couple’s relatively recent integration into the life and church of social activist and Father Frank Morales, assistant pastor at St. Mark’s Episcopalian Church. In a Q&A conducted by Duncan in May, Father Morales reveals something the Times’ article does not: a shared fascination with conspiracy theory, such as the purportedly authentic government counterinsurgency program known as “Operation Garden Plot“, which allegedly was created to silence dissent. Duncan titled the piece “Dessert Topping on the Apocalypse Or Paradise Now? Wit Talks Art, War and Religion With Activist Father Frank Morales”. You may read the entries here:

Part 1: http://theresalduncan.typepad.com/witostaircase/religion/index.html

and here, Part 2:

http://theresalduncan.typepad.com/witostaircase/2007/05/dessert_topping.html#more

The way the Times paints it, the couple became convinced that a smear campaign was inhibiting their Hollywood success during difficult negotiations involving Duncan’s screenplay “Alice Underground”, the story of two girls that unwittingly kidnap a rock star, which Duncan intended as her directorial debut. Increasingly, the couple lived in a near-constant fear of impending doom, which hit friends and associates particularly close to home when Duncan sent out a bevy of accusatory emails, and in May posted a 17-paragraph blog entry implicating Blake’s ex girlfriend and her family in a [right-wing] conspiracy. (The ex girlfriend in question, art photographer Anna Gaskell, claims to have had no contact with Blake for 12 years.)

The paranoid preoccupations of a life spinning out of control may have been a catastrophic clue into a closely-guarded secret — perhaps mental illness, the clichéd scourge of the creative and the brilliant — or perhaps the personality-altering effects of as-of-yet unrevealed drug or alcohol abuse (which are also, incidentally, the self-medicating drugs of choice amongst the undiagnosed mentally ill). Whatever the cause, Father Morales couldn’t protect them; in fact, he may have made a bad situation worse.

Father Morales told the Times that he had come to know the couple well enough to understand that their enemies were supposedly plotting against them — a claim the Church of Scientology denies — and had spent time socially drinking with them in their apartment, too. Despite the apparent friendship, Father Morales claims ignorance as to whether or not any of their fears were valid. As rescuer turned apparent enabler, Father Morales not only allowed the troubled couple to seek refuge in the church apartment, but did so, it would seem, at the “tough love” expense of recommending psychiatric help. To the contrary, Father Morales entertained the couple’s self-destructive fixation with conspiracy against all things artistic, expressive and liberal.

This tragedy, though inherently personal and private, imparts a very public object lesson:

1) Talented and successful people, particularly those who suffer from paranoid personalities, bipolar disorder or functional alcoholism [none of which are proven or even alleged in this case], are seemingly less likely to receive the mental health services they need by virtue of their own success, which seemingly leads onlookers to mistakenly assume that they are dealing with rationale people who will “come to their senses”. When one considers, after all, the many people who are living with profound, economic-crushing disabilities, who live in war zones such as Iraq and Darfur, who lack health care in the face of debilitating illness, who lose careers to layoffs, homes to foreclosure or natural disaster, or family members to accident or violent crime, it is particularly difficult to imagine how successful individuals justify self-destructive, potentially life-ending behavior, which may also explain why those who have “everything to live for” seemingly are the last to receive help.

2) Success of the type that involves notoriety is a “damnable blessing” because those who have achieved it often come to believe that all eyes, adoring or malevolent, are on them. The seeming casualties of celebrity are ego — giving rise to a narcissistic level of confidence in the infallibility of one’s own skills or perceptions — and fear (sometimes evolving into all-out paranoia toward those who fall outside one’s social network, which may include those who differ in religion, education, race, class or political bent).

Long before Duncan and Blake became active in the church, for example, they had begun to take note of what they allegedly perceived as satanic Scientology symbols while living in Los Angeles, and later came to suspect, according to Blake’s “chronology”, those with Florida license plates driving near their New York apartment — some defaced by graffiti that resembled, allegedly, Duncan’s handwriting. Apparently it never occurred to Duncan, Blake and Father Morales that if a smear campaign or a politically-motivated conspiracy of imposed silence were to be executed at all, it would be far more likely to strike more outspoken targets, chief among them the Bohemian Grove-infiltrating radio broadcaster Alex Jones, a frequent guest on the nation’s highest rated nighttime talk show “Coast to Coast AM” (http://www.coasttocoastam.com / http://www.prisonplanet.com).

So what does one to make of it when two successful people who have everything to live for throw it all away?

It becomes apparent, firstly, that the very lifestyle so many of us covet carries with it a burden as great as it is glamorous — what one might dub “the law of equal returns”. Fame, in particular, has a way of distorting reality, fueling isolation — since the wealthy and successful must be unusually wary of those fair-weather friends who seek only their limelight or their cash — and, for the most part, depriving those who are insulated by fame or wealth of social and intellectual diversity in all but an academic sense (which may explain Mrs. Barbara Bush’s naive post-Katrina comment that implied that the many “underprivileged” hurricane victims would find living in a shelter relatively comfortable).

The second take-home message is in ironic inverse to prevailing wisdom: Mediocrity is not only the safer path, but in many ways much more gratifying. The so-called simple life will slip by untouched by stardom and unnoticed by history, yet rarely without the priority-centering realization that family and friends, not celebrity, money or influence, are among the most priceless assets one can enjoy.

These observations, however, beg the question: Why does it seem that those who occupy the middle of the political, religious and economic spectrum are more grounded in their capacity to put life into perspective? Perhaps those who hail from humble roots, because they themselves are not too far removed from the lower echelons of society and therefore have yet to lose touch with the sobering realities of survival, are less likely to rationalize an appetite for artificial drama, be it the shallow, alcohol-laced antics exemplified by Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan, or the paranoid, tyrannical preoccupations of the insecure elite as asserted by the likes of Father Morales and Alex Jones. Perhaps viewing life squarely from the middle of the road — from a vantage point where excellence, wealth or fame do not seem quite so unrealistic or excessive as they may otherwise appear to those living hand-to-mouth — imparts an ability for those who do not share in the limelight to nevertheless appreciate the contributions of cultural front-runners sans the deepening divide that proves so destructive to those who are steeped in the peculiar pressures of success. Of course, one could make an equally compelling argument that public figures do not have a propensity towards self destructive impulse that is any greater or lesser than the rest of us — but for the fact that they often find their personal lives beneath a very public magnifying glass.

Whatever the case, it may be said that success brings out the best of times and the worst of times. Perhaps Elvis Presley, Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Monroe, Vincent van Gogh, Sylvia Plath and Virginia Wolf would agree: Great wealth is just as sure a test of character as is great poverty.

Dream big, my friend. But be careful of what you wish for.

…

From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded, (Luke 12:48, NRSV).