Hannah’s Blog

What we have had is forty years of push-back against universal suffrage and popular government consequent to the Freedom of Information Act. Oddly, the latter is now quite frequently referred to in the context of “consumer protection,” as if citizen participation in governing has to be downplayed at all costs. To a certain extent, the recent couching of bank regulation as a “consumer protection” measure by the Obama people is consistent with the need to disguise that the real issue is effective government BY the people.
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Albert is haying and the raspberries are ripening early. The birds got a whole lot of currants before I realized they’re ripe. Guess that’s why I missed the strawberries in the field.

Red-wing black-birds have fledged. Bobolinks are a little behind. Albert will leave their part of the field for last.

Johanna Sigurdardottirof and Jonina Leosdottir wed in Iceland.

Public and private corporations have a common interest. Though it should not have to be pointed out that BP is a private corporation and the United States of America is a public corporation, that point needs to be affirmed because both are at pains to argue/demonstrate that private corporations are more like individual natural persons, endowed with human rights, than they are like public corporations, artificial creations whose duties and obligations are subject to strict limitations and constant supervision.
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While honesty and accuracy are highly desirable, the voting booth is actually much too late in the electoral process to insure we elect competent and reliable persons to represent us in public office. The real selection occurs when candidates are prompted to file for (apply to be elected to) an office.
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In the beginning, the rights doled out by kings and other potentates were largely material. Individuals, backed up by the ruthless use of military force, laid claim to terrain and its physical assets and then doled out their exploitation and use as “rights” to their supporters. Rights were associated with properties that were assigned from outside — extrinsic to the recipient; not an intrinsic attribute.

After Europe “discovered” the Americas, the rulers of England, France and Spain issued charters to trading companies and other commercial enterprise and made grants of land to promote settlement. Then, when the locals objected, the “powers that be” dispatched their military assets to enforce the royal commands. It was an already well-practiced tradition, the transfer of public assets into private hands as rights for exploitation.
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Imagine trying to lead or direct a population that rejects all social obligation and is lacking in self-direction. How do you prompt them to take any action? Threats don’t work because they generate fear and fear equals intimidation and the timid don’t act. Clearly, the only alternative is to prompt imitation and hand out rewards. In other words, when you’re dealing with a passive population, competition aims to promote action. Period. The object isn’t for people to do better; it’s for them to do something, at all. “Keeping up with the Joneses” is a recipe for overcoming lethargy. Which, in turn, translates into the acquisition of things serving not as a substitute for human rights, but as a bribe to prompt active participation in society.
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Melanie reports:
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The authoritarian objective is to insure that the next generation is subservient to –i.e. obedient to — the present hierarchy. The educational establishment, in their view, is to insure that this happens, especially in cases where the parents are obviously incapable of completing the necessary inculcation. From the authoritarian perspective, the purpose of information is to form the insides of the targeted population to insure their behavior conforms to the norm.
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Human rights (life, liberty, speech, privacy, association, mobility) are an affront to conservative sensibilities. What conservatives prefer is obedience, which they purchase with the promise of property rights — i.e. ownership.

“You have the right to remain silent, but if you don’t co-operate, you can be sentenced to death.”

In the alternative, conservatives are much like conservationists who aim to protect the environment by just leaving it alone. The only good thing about human rights, in their book, is to use them as an excuse to ignore social obligations.

Ignoring social obligations effectively negates them. What good is the right to life when all the resources required to go on living are being hoarded by someone else?
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