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Peter Joseph / The Zeitgeist Movement

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'Defining Peace' lecture - February 12th, 2012

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'ZFest', Tel Aviv, Israel

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Shalom!

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At times like this, I really wish I spoke Hebrew.

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I have no idea what he just said, but I'm going to make a quick introduction

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before I begin the formal speech

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in great gratitude to The Zeitgeist Movement Israel

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that have made this possible.

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[Applause]

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So ... my name is Peter Joseph.

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I work with an organization called The Zeitgeist Movement.

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While most of my talks are about inherent economic inefficiencies

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which are fueling the majority of the civil unrest, ecological abuse

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and general deprivation we see in the world today

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coupled with highlighting existing, yet unapplied scientific realizations

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that could solve such problems in general

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not to mention creating in effect a new societal design

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originating out of another form of thought

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that would virtually guarantee environmental

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and social sustainability if implemented,

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the central focus of this talk is a little bit more temporal.

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It's different than any other talk I've ever given.

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The title of this presentation is 'Defining Peace: Economics,

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the State and War'.

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It's divided into 4 sections.

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The first is entitled 'The History of Human Conflict

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and the Human Nature Debate'.

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As the evidence will show, the stubborn concept that we

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humans are inherently and inalterably aggressive

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and territorial will be addressed.

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Finding that early societies actually did not engage

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in mass warfare and that most conflicts

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especially the large scale mobilization we see in the modern world

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are actually the result of conditions

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real or contrived that lure

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the human being into a position of aggression.

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This will then lead us into the consideration of our environmental condition

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and the structural and psychological modes that encompass it

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leading to the understanding that when it comes to war

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the condition as we know it is set by the state

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generally speaking.

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Part 2: 'The State: Character and Coercion'.

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We will consider the origin of the modern state and its characteristics.

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It's been found that there's an average set of qualities

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that pertain to these concentrations of power.

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Moreover and more profoundly, the influence of the state

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on the values of the culture will be addressed

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especially regarding loyalty, patriotism

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and how easy it has been

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for a very small number of political and invariably commercial interests

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to entice the public that their wars are moral, right and beneficial.

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Then in Part 3: 'The Culture of War:

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Business, Ownership and Competition'

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a deeper look at the underlying condition motivation

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which appears to have created the state and its power

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and the war propensity itself will be considered,

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focusing on the roots of our social system

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and how not only is war natural

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to the current economic methods we use,

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it is inevitable.

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It will be expressed that the structural basis and resulting psychology

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that exists in the monetary market system of economics

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that governs the world today is the core driver

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of human conflict in the world overall.

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In the final section, Part 4: 'Defining Peace:

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a New Social Contract'

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we will consider the causal logic of what we have described prior

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and in a basic reductionist method, deduce what societal characteristics

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actually support peace, and what do not

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and inevitably how we as a world society can reset

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our societal condition to allow for this newfound human balance

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before it's too late.

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However, before we begin, I need to address a broader issue

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that I feel is understated in the world.

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It seems to sit at the core of society as historically lackluster inability

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to change (which I think we all might notice)

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not only in the context of global warfare

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which we see as almost natural in the world today, unfortunately,

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but also with respect to common sense social changes for the better

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which are systematically rejected, without legitimate logical defenses.

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Very simply, it appears that traditional sentiment

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is constantly in conflict with emergent knowledge.

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For example, once an ideological institution is established

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usually with the basic consensus of the population at large

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a time-immemorial distinction emerges

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which implies that this practice or belief is now empirical to the human condition

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and will last forever.

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We see this characteristic in religious, political and economic thought

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most pervasively, but overall no intellectual discipline

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or social advent seems to be immune.

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Even those who call themselves scientists

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claiming to hold dear the vigorous ethic demanded by the scientific method

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often fall victim to traditional biases

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and erroneous loyalties, skewing their findings.

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Those loyalties are almost always born

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out of a traditional, customary culture and its dominant institutions

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with which those personalities are groomed.

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I think Dr. Gabor Maté put this issue very well:

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"It is simply a matter of historical fact

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that the dominant intellectual culture of any particular society

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reflects the interests of the dominant group in that society.

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In a slave-owning society, the beliefs about human beings and human rights

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will reflect the needs of the slave owners.

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In a society which is based on the power of certain people

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to control and profit from the lives and work of millions of others

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the dominant intellectual culture will reflect the needs of the dominant group.

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If you look across the board, the ideas that pervade psychology, sociology

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history, political economy [and] political science

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fundamentally reflect certain elite interests.

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The academics who question that too much

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tend to get shunted to the side or to be seen as sort of 'radicals'."

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A cursory glance at ideas which were once considered absurd,

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impossible, subversive or even dangerous

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which later evolved to serving human progress

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shows a clear pattern of how wrong we can be in our loyalties.

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Hence it is axiomatic to say that many ideas which will enable progress

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and benefit society in the future will be hideously opposed

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and fought in the present-day.

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It seems the more broadly beneficial the new idea, in hindsight,

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the worse the initial reaction is, by contemporary culture.

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A classic case and point is the gruelingly slow recognition

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of the mechanistic nature of scientific causality in the world,

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an understanding and method which has literally facilitated

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every single attribute of human progress in history

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from the solutions of disease resolution

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to the advent of abundance-producing technology

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to our understanding of the human condition itself

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and how the planet works.

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The scientific method, which is really

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the materialization of logic and application

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was not only met with the most heretical condemnation

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by those institutions of political and religious power historically

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it is, I'm sad to say, still rejected today

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in many areas of thought and application.

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Anti-science perspectives

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tend to reside with issues of supposed morality

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argued in a vast wasteland of subjective perspectives.

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A classic example is the highlighting of technological advances

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that have been used for detrimental purposes, such as weaponry

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which of course clearly has nothing to do with technology

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but with the distortion of motivation by the culture who's using it.

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A more sophisticated claim is that the scientific method is simply not objective.

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You will find this view held by early Western philosophers

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like Thomas Hobbes or Robert Boyle.

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Here I can actually find some sympathy

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but only with respect to a certain irony

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given the ongoing interference of cultural victimization on the outcome

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of ostensibly scientific conclusions, as noted before.

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So-called scientists are not to be confused with the method of science.

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Very often the cultural influence and deposits of value

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are simply too strong of a bias to allow for the objectivity required.

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The more controversial the new scientific finding

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the more dissonance usually occurs, and that's what the historical record shows.

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In a classic text by authors Cohen and Nagel entitled

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'An Introduction to Logic and the Scientific Method' (a book I recommend)

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this point was very well stated with respect to the process

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of empirical logical evaluation and its independence from human psychology.

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It states "The logical distinction between valid and invalid inference

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does not refer to the way we think (the process going on in someone's mind).

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The weight of evidence is not itself a temporal event

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but a relation of implication between certain classes or types of propositions.

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Of course, thought is necessary to apprehend such implications

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however, that does not make physics a branch of psychology.

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The realization that logic can not be restricted to psychological phenomenon

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will help us to discriminate between our science and our rhetoric

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conceiving the latter as the art of persuasion or of arguing

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so as to produce the feeling of certainty.

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Our emotional dispositions make it very difficult for us to accept

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certain propositions, no matter how strong the evidence in their favor.

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Since all proof depends on the acceptance of certain propositions as truth

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no proposition can be proved true

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to one who is sufficiently determined not to believe it."

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What is it that comprises that force that stops

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what we would call objective thought? Cultural conditioning and its values.

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Seems very obvious, but unfortunately we're all victim to this.

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We humans have no spontaneous thoughts or actions.

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We are causal organisms perpetuating a chain of ideas and reactions

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always existing in an 'intermediate tenure' if you will.

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So, coming back to the central context, it is critical to point out

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that there is nothing more ingrained in a culture sense of identity

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than the broad social institutions we are born into

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and the values they perpetuated. The older the tradition is

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the stronger the fight to preserve it.

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Hence the world, in many respects, is now an accelerating clash

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between stubborn traditional conceits

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upheld by institutions which continue to gain from their exploitation

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and the emergent, scientific reality and logical assessment

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that is proven to illuminate the closest approximation

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to truth we have as a species.

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As I begin this assessment of the nature of war and peace

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a controversial subject indeed, I'd like everyone to listen to themselves

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monitor their own personal reactions to the statements that I make.

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When you encounter something you don't agree with, honestly ask yourself

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where is that dissonance originating from?

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Is it coming from a technical analysis

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where the variables are being taken into account on their own merit

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absent the messenger? Or is that disagreement coming from perspectives

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which just might be based on cultural value comforts, which

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for better or worse, have defined what you think is empirical normality

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regardless if it's true or not.

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That noted, let's get a few things out of the way regarding myself

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given the sensitive territory I'm about to embark.

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I am not here to speak with condemnation of any country, political party

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religious claim or institution at all.

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I'm not here to argue in favor of war or say against US imperialism.

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I'm not here to even inflame bias in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

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nor am I here to pose judgment on any party or power explicitly

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despite the endless notable atrocities illuminated by history.

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Why? Because when it comes to change, and I mean real change

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all currently received angles of common debate

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and their postulated, inner-systems solutions 'in the box'

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are invalid when the broad context is understood regarding war.

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We need to think on a different level now.

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Given that frame of reference, I cannot logically be loyal to any country.

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I have no loyalty to any person, guru or leader

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or any respect to submission. I hold no loyalty to any race, religion

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political party or established ideological creed

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and most importantly, I hold no empirical faith of permanence

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in any assumption of supposed fact

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historical, current or future, beyond the understanding

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that all known human conceptions will evolve

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change, refine, from here until the end of our existence.

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The only constant is change.

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[Applause]

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The only constant is obviously change.

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While that seems like a self-canceling paradox

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the purpose of the historical record itself is really for us to gain inference

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from everything we see in history whatever the discipline may be

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and when we apply the scientific method of evaluation to its patterns

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we can draw relevant conclusions.

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That is basically what we do with our minds.

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Science is our tool for creating a better world for all human beings

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while preserving the habitat and very simply

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(as this work will describe) it is only when we change the structure

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of the predominant global social system

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namely its economic premise, which precedes all others in causality

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that what could be called 'world peace' is possible.

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Part One: The History of Human Conflict and the Human Nature Debate.

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It appears that much of the world's cultures still possess

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largely superstitious views of human conduct

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territoriality and supposed inevitabilities of war

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both from the standpoint of offensive provocation and defense.

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It has been argued historically that humans have an innate tendency for violence

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implying at the extreme cases that regardless of the nature of the circumstance

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violent, domineering behavior will erupt

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almost randomly like a pressure valve releasing steam.

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Therefore, as the logic goes, the posture of war and protection

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is deemed a natural, inevitable consequence for everyone.

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This idea has taken on various metaphysical forms in history

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with likely the most notable being the religious notion of evil and good:

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00:16:24,535 --> 00:16:28,851
evil existing as a spiritual force that simply cannot be stopped

253
00:16:28,991 --> 00:16:32,146
only protected against.

254
00:16:32,286 --> 00:16:36,397
As will be discussed more later, this use of the good and evil duality

255
00:16:36,537 --> 00:16:40,505
along with many other truly superstitious assumptions

256
00:16:40,645 --> 00:16:44,765
is still very much a part of the motivating political rhetoric

257
00:16:44,905 --> 00:16:49,488
that works to entice public support for the states' wars.

258
00:16:49,628 --> 00:16:53,204
A powerful tool of propaganda indeed, especially given the fact

259
00:16:53,344 --> 00:16:57,027
that the majority of humans on this planet still assume

260
00:16:57,167 --> 00:17:02,342
such religious forms of causality, hence the inherent credulity.

261
00:17:04,576 --> 00:17:08,499
However, if you were to ask most moderately-educated individuals

262
00:17:08,639 --> 00:17:11,216
what they mean by the term 'evil'

263
00:17:11,356 --> 00:17:14,432
the definition would probably be relegated ostensibly

264
00:17:14,572 --> 00:17:18,293
to the scientific notion of human instinct.

265
00:17:18,669 --> 00:17:22,031
Given the near contextual equivalent of these notions in context

266
00:17:22,171 --> 00:17:26,824
I think Dr. James Gilligan of Harvard University Center for Study of Violence

267
00:17:26,964 --> 00:17:30,338
in America had the most direct response. He states

268
00:17:30,478 --> 00:17:33,681
"One reason the instinctual argument for violent behavior

269
00:17:33,821 --> 00:17:36,032
is to support the status quo.

270
00:17:36,172 --> 00:17:39,826
If violence is innate and instinctual, then clearly there is no point

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00:17:39,966 --> 00:17:44,395
in trying to change our social and economic system."

272
00:17:46,130 --> 00:17:49,111
What does history and modern science really show with respect

273
00:17:49,251 --> 00:17:53,415
to the human sociological condition regarding patterns of violence

274
00:17:53,555 --> 00:17:56,020
with respect to the human nature debate?

275
00:17:56,160 --> 00:18:00,102
Have they found the 'war gene' that enables this instinct

276
00:18:00,242 --> 00:18:03,192
for us to come in mass and kill other people?

277
00:18:03,332 --> 00:18:06,068
Is there anything in the physical sciences that can express

278
00:18:06,208 --> 00:18:11,114
an empirical causality residing in the evolutionary biology

279
00:18:11,254 --> 00:18:13,857
or even the evolutionary psychology

280
00:18:13,997 --> 00:18:18,291
of the human organism to express violence inevitably?

281
00:18:18,757 --> 00:18:24,063
The answer as modern sociobiological research has shown is clearly 'no'.

282
00:18:24,203 --> 00:18:26,830
It is found that the entire basis of assumption

283
00:18:26,970 --> 00:18:30,586
that has drawn the conclusion that humans are innately violent

284
00:18:30,726 --> 00:18:33,532
comes from a narrow comparison of events

285
00:18:33,672 --> 00:18:37,383
with high levels of omission, with respect to what circumstances

286
00:18:37,523 --> 00:18:41,120
or conditions brought about those events.

287
00:18:41,608 --> 00:18:46,090
In fact, there is only one universal factor that can be measured

288
00:18:46,230 --> 00:18:49,394
with respect to development and execution of violence

289
00:18:49,534 --> 00:18:54,808
whether civilian or military, and that is the environment.

290
00:18:55,222 --> 00:18:58,346
The only known trackable, universal variable

291
00:18:58,486 --> 00:19:02,192
is the nature of the environment, physical and sociological

292
00:19:02,332 --> 00:19:06,480
which the human being has been raised into or exists in.

293
00:19:07,169 --> 00:19:11,266
In fact, at the very core of our human definition

294
00:19:11,406 --> 00:19:16,316
is really the environment itself, something I find quite interesting.

295
00:19:16,456 --> 00:19:21,017
As a species, our physical and mental facilities were selected

296
00:19:21,157 --> 00:19:24,274
and left remaining by biological evolution

297
00:19:24,414 --> 00:19:28,478
with respect to what best enables our fitness and hence survival.

298
00:19:28,618 --> 00:19:32,058
We are literally manifest of the physical environment

299
00:19:32,198 --> 00:19:35,191
and the natural physical laws that govern that environment.

300
00:19:35,331 --> 00:19:39,145
This is what evolution is: a shaping process of the universe

301
00:19:39,285 --> 00:19:43,895
to slowly conform new emerging entities to existing conditions

302
00:19:44,035 --> 00:19:48,303
so they work. This is why we exist on Earth and have the components we do

303
00:19:48,443 --> 00:19:51,741
breathing air versus existing on Venus.

304
00:19:51,881 --> 00:19:54,786
If we evolved there, we'd have very different components

305
00:19:54,926 --> 00:19:58,958
to be able to survive there, if we could survive at all.

306
00:19:59,504 --> 00:20:02,675
Even our gene expression, which is assumed to be at the core

307
00:20:02,815 --> 00:20:05,909
of our supposedly fixed human nature psychology

308
00:20:06,049 --> 00:20:08,758
is actually controlled by environmental stimulus

309
00:20:08,898 --> 00:20:11,238
(something people don't talk about enough).

310
00:20:11,378 --> 00:20:14,870
For example, if you take a child at birth and place him or her in a dark room

311
00:20:15,010 --> 00:20:20,097
for a certain period, the genetic propensity to see will simply not develop.

312
00:20:20,237 --> 00:20:23,382
If you take an infant at birth and feed it and house it

313
00:20:23,522 --> 00:20:27,124
yet never touch or give affection to that young infant

314
00:20:27,264 --> 00:20:31,499
not only would that child not grow, it will likely die

315
00:20:31,941 --> 00:20:36,142
because affection is intrinsic to the infancy stage of development:

316
00:20:36,282 --> 00:20:39,498
environmental influence.

317
00:20:39,638 --> 00:20:43,422
In the end, what is found is that the single greatest determining factor

318
00:20:43,562 --> 00:20:46,936
influencing the human organism in the long and short term

319
00:20:47,076 --> 00:20:51,104
is the environment around us, with our genes reacting to that stimulus

320
00:20:51,244 --> 00:20:54,620
within a certain range of possibility.

321
00:20:54,760 --> 00:20:57,665
The more we learn about this relationship

322
00:20:57,805 --> 00:21:03,753
the larger the range of possibility seems to reveal itself, on many levels.

323
00:21:04,911 --> 00:21:09,044
The largest range of possibilities enabled by environmental causality

324
00:21:09,184 --> 00:21:12,028
is on the level of culture.

325
00:21:12,168 --> 00:21:15,672
When we realize the magnitude of cultural influence on human psychology

326
00:21:15,812 --> 00:21:19,076
and hence sociology, we are left with the glaring realization

327
00:21:19,216 --> 00:21:22,314
that the most profound imperative we have

328
00:21:22,454 --> 00:21:24,613
when it comes to changing human behavior

329
00:21:24,893 --> 00:21:27,623
is to change the circumstance we exist in

330
00:21:27,853 --> 00:21:33,011
both with regard to primal core survival, such as access to the necessities of life

331
00:21:33,151 --> 00:21:37,671
and safety, to the subtle educational and cultural influences

332
00:21:37,811 --> 00:21:42,105
that shape the way we view the world and each other.

333
00:21:43,692 --> 00:21:48,592
To be clear, that isn't to say humans do not have an evolutionarily derived nature.

334
00:21:48,732 --> 00:21:53,107
Our general instinct to live, to procreate

335
00:21:53,247 --> 00:21:55,955
to even defend ourselves if threatened

336
00:21:56,095 --> 00:22:00,185
most certainly we have these tendencies; we are not blank slates.

337
00:22:00,325 --> 00:22:05,199
The consideration of our common auto responses or so-called instincts

338
00:22:05,339 --> 00:22:09,699
are indeed still factors to consider in general in the equation.

339
00:22:10,128 --> 00:22:13,059
But the equation is so greatly skewed

340
00:22:13,199 --> 00:22:16,601
that what has been found is that we have a predictable range of behavior

341
00:22:16,741 --> 00:22:20,048
based almost entirely upon the conditions present

342
00:22:20,188 --> 00:22:23,580
and the difference between one human being picking up a weapon

343
00:22:23,720 --> 00:22:28,488
and killing another in cold blood as the institution of war formally demands

344
00:22:28,628 --> 00:22:33,633
and one who chooses not to, is purely a cultural contrivance.

345
00:22:35,484 --> 00:22:38,424
What separates a serial killer

346
00:22:38,564 --> 00:22:42,233
who profiles a group of people for systematic murder

347
00:22:42,373 --> 00:22:45,383
and a soldier who does the same thing?

348
00:22:45,523 --> 00:22:48,278
Where does the moral line draw?

349
00:22:48,418 --> 00:22:52,160
To me, as controversial as it may seem, it doesn't draw

350
00:22:52,300 --> 00:22:54,782
for there really is no moral line at all

351
00:22:54,922 --> 00:22:58,477
when the circumstances of the person are considered.

352
00:22:58,617 --> 00:23:03,178
For each person is and can only be a consequence of their environment

353
00:23:03,318 --> 00:23:06,696
whether biologically induced or culturally programmed

354
00:23:07,022 --> 00:23:09,882
and the latter holds far more weight than the former

355
00:23:10,022 --> 00:23:12,716
when it comes to human behavior and choice.

356
00:23:12,856 --> 00:23:15,260
Sorry to drill it in.

357
00:23:15,702 --> 00:23:19,749
For those who might think such a notion is dangerous

358
00:23:19,889 --> 00:23:22,763
and cold, no morality

359
00:23:22,903 --> 00:23:26,427
perhaps with the assumption that we humans require some type of moral guidance

360
00:23:26,567 --> 00:23:30,320
for civility, such as the traditional religious commandment:

361
00:23:30,460 --> 00:23:32,949
"Thou shalt not kill."

362
00:23:33,089 --> 00:23:35,970
I ask you from a more pragmatic standpoint:

363
00:23:36,110 --> 00:23:38,892
Have these age-old ideals done anything

364
00:23:39,032 --> 00:23:42,382
to stop the seemingly endless global violence

365
00:23:42,522 --> 00:23:47,418
human abuse towards each other and the anti-human exploitations

366
00:23:47,558 --> 00:23:52,049
that exist on a daily basis? The answer is obviously 'no'.

367
00:23:52,189 --> 00:23:56,504
Imposed philosophic morality will not save the world.

368
00:23:56,644 --> 00:23:59,590
Only a calculated tangible plan

369
00:23:59,730 --> 00:24:04,931
to alter our circumstances so that such actions pose no merit

370
00:24:05,071 --> 00:24:08,915
will stop what we consider to be immoral behavior.

371
00:24:10,072 --> 00:24:14,701
With that out of the way, let's take a brief examination of history

372
00:24:14,841 --> 00:24:16,911
with its relationship to conflict.

373
00:24:17,051 --> 00:24:22,028
I'm going to start in a place you might not expect: our primate ancestors.

374
00:24:22,168 --> 00:24:26,365
Older anthropological studies that have attempted to justify human violence

375
00:24:26,505 --> 00:24:30,217
would often compare humans to our earlier stages of evolution

376
00:24:30,357 --> 00:24:34,469
for their pattern recognition. It seems logical on the surface

377
00:24:34,609 --> 00:24:40,178
since we share about 95 - 99% of the DNA of chimpanzees

378
00:24:40,318 --> 00:24:44,193
and other primates in that spectrum. Sounds impressive.

379
00:24:44,333 --> 00:24:47,053
It might also sound impressive that fruit flies

380
00:24:47,193 --> 00:24:50,757
share about 60% of human genes

381
00:24:51,207 --> 00:24:55,104
but that connection to behavior is dubious at best, I think we'd all admit.

382
00:24:55,244 --> 00:24:58,791
That's because the sharing of genes in this context

383
00:24:58,931 --> 00:25:02,381
has almost no relevance whatsoever

384
00:25:02,521 --> 00:25:06,314
as counterintuitive as that approach is.

385
00:25:06,454 --> 00:25:10,651
Regardless, there are indeed common behaviors relating to violence

386
00:25:10,791 --> 00:25:15,941
we do see between human society and non-human primate society

387
00:25:16,081 --> 00:25:20,309
such as social stratification, even pure murder

388
00:25:20,449 --> 00:25:24,605
elements of organized violence, revenge reactions

389
00:25:24,745 --> 00:25:27,339
trust and antitrust responses

390
00:25:27,479 --> 00:25:31,616
and a number of other reactions that we certainly recognize in our own species.

391
00:25:31,756 --> 00:25:35,814
Yet, like human culture, they also show unique variations and exceptions

392
00:25:36,214 --> 00:25:39,730
to this behavior based on experiences and conditions

393
00:25:39,870 --> 00:25:44,024
which make such notions of trait universality

394
00:25:44,164 --> 00:25:46,981
difficult to diagnose empirically.

395
00:25:47,595 --> 00:25:51,939
For example, an anthropologist and neuroscientist at Stanford University

396
00:25:52,079 --> 00:25:55,777
who spent decades studying a baboon troop in Africa was amazed

397
00:25:55,917 --> 00:26:00,432
to witness a social transformation in this troop after the Alpha males

398
00:26:00,572 --> 00:26:03,814
of the group became poisoned by accident and died

399
00:26:03,954 --> 00:26:08,643
leaving only the lower, less aggressive classes in the troop.

400
00:26:08,783 --> 00:26:11,636
This removal of the Alphas and their troop dominance

401
00:26:11,776 --> 00:26:17,089
apparently transformed this group into one with much lower levels of violence

402
00:26:17,229 --> 00:26:20,988
and aggression than he had ever seen before,

403
00:26:21,399 --> 00:26:25,758
not only for that existing generation, even a decade later

404
00:26:25,898 --> 00:26:29,174
due to this environmental cultural shift in the troop

405
00:26:29,583 --> 00:26:33,366
they still maintained low levels of aggression.

406
00:26:33,506 --> 00:26:37,164
Even when they acquire new males that migrate from other troops

407
00:26:37,304 --> 00:26:40,364
who have those normal aggressive tendencies.

408
00:26:40,504 --> 00:26:43,649
They are actually able to condition those new members

409
00:26:43,789 --> 00:26:47,463
into equally lower patterns of aggression on average

410
00:26:47,603 --> 00:26:50,601
hence the cultural conditioning.

411
00:26:50,741 --> 00:26:56,056
It's a very unique finding. Does that mean that baboons can be conditioned

412
00:26:56,196 --> 00:26:59,373
to wear business suits and drive cars to peace rallies

413
00:26:59,513 --> 00:27:03,347
and sing John Lennon's song 'Imagine'? Of course not.

414
00:27:03,487 --> 00:27:07,840
We're dealing with a range of behavior. Therefore the pertinent question becomes:

415
00:27:07,980 --> 00:27:11,027
What is the range of the human being?

416
00:27:12,514 --> 00:27:16,283
It appears that the more simple the organism is in biology

417
00:27:16,423 --> 00:27:20,798
(especially its cognitive development if there is any) the less flexibility it has.

418
00:27:20,938 --> 00:27:25,663
The classic example would be ants, who show steadfast predictable behaviors

419
00:27:25,803 --> 00:27:28,727
almost to the extent that they are mere chemical machines

420
00:27:28,867 --> 00:27:31,034
unfolding in an automatic way

421
00:27:31,174 --> 00:27:36,582
but the more complex the organism, generally speaking, the more versatile.

422
00:27:36,722 --> 00:27:41,156
If you examine what we understand now about human brain evolution

423
00:27:41,296 --> 00:27:44,784
from its reptilian status to early mammalians

424
00:27:44,924 --> 00:27:48,388
to the late mammal changes, reasonable evidence suggests

425
00:27:48,528 --> 00:27:53,184
that the current state of our cerebral cortex, especially the neo-cortex

426
00:27:53,324 --> 00:27:58,077
is what enables a very unique, adaptive understanding and flexibility

427
00:27:58,217 --> 00:28:02,787
we take for granted in human society, or even don't recognize.

428
00:28:03,576 --> 00:28:08,099
This is also clearly evident in the vast, varied cultural expressions

429
00:28:08,239 --> 00:28:11,227
we see and have seen in the world historically.

430
00:28:11,367 --> 00:28:14,086
It's a unique thing, where on one side of the planet

431
00:28:14,226 --> 00:28:17,566
you can have pacifist communities with little to no violence

432
00:28:17,706 --> 00:28:20,942
while the other side: systematic daily slaughter.

433
00:28:21,351 --> 00:28:24,865
Given no evidence to support true psychological differences

434
00:28:25,005 --> 00:28:29,114
in say races, only the regional conditions and culture

435
00:28:29,254 --> 00:28:32,037
can explain these vast differences.

436
00:28:32,782 --> 00:28:37,083
This leads me to a general history of human society and warfare.

437
00:28:37,765 --> 00:28:42,469
Likely the best place to start is the vast period of human existence

438
00:28:42,814 --> 00:28:46,741
as hunter-gatherers before the Neolithic Revolution

439
00:28:46,881 --> 00:28:49,570
and the advent of agriculture and common tools

440
00:28:49,710 --> 00:28:52,484
which was roughly 12,000 years ago.

441
00:28:52,624 --> 00:28:56,775
We often forget that 99% of what we define as Homo-Sapien (us)

442
00:28:57,631 --> 00:29:02,797
existed in largely non-stratified, egalitarian social structures

443
00:29:02,937 --> 00:29:07,656
with low levels of violence, and the pattern of mass-mobilization for warfare

444
00:29:07,796 --> 00:29:10,616
as we know it, virtually nonexistent.

445
00:29:10,756 --> 00:29:13,797
The few hunter-gatherer groups that still exist today

446
00:29:13,937 --> 00:29:18,942
in isolated pockets still show support for this general, peaceful manner.

447
00:29:21,421 --> 00:29:24,557
However, it appears that after the Neolithic Revolution

448
00:29:24,697 --> 00:29:27,892
with the advent of us being able to control our environment

449
00:29:28,032 --> 00:29:30,692
hence production and stockpiling of food

450
00:29:30,832 --> 00:29:34,613
the creation of tools, the ordering of labor rules, etc.,

451
00:29:34,753 --> 00:29:38,733
the seeds of our current socioeconomic system were planted.

452
00:29:39,316 --> 00:29:43,065
For example it is easy to see how the basic concept of value

453
00:29:43,205 --> 00:29:48,504
as derived from one's labor manifested a protectionist and reciprocal system

454
00:29:48,644 --> 00:29:53,416
of exchange of labor, even though such value and market notions

455
00:29:53,556 --> 00:29:58,270
were not formally realized until the 17th or 18th centuries.

456
00:29:59,550 --> 00:30:02,705
As this progression continued from the Neolithic Revolution

457
00:30:02,845 --> 00:30:06,747
the passive often nomadic lifestyles of the hunter-gatherer

458
00:30:06,887 --> 00:30:10,979
slowly became replaced with the settled, protectionist tribes

459
00:30:11,119 --> 00:30:14,411
and then eventually localized city-type societies.

460
00:30:14,551 --> 00:30:18,248
It is here where we begin to see warfare as we know it

461
00:30:18,388 --> 00:30:22,495
including the technology that enables this weaponry

462
00:30:22,635 --> 00:30:25,887
which is a conversation in and of itself.

463
00:30:26,027 --> 00:30:30,162
In the words of Richard A. Gabriel in a text called 'A Short History of War'

464
00:30:30,302 --> 00:30:34,113
"The invention and spread of agriculture

465
00:30:34,253 --> 00:30:37,898
coupled with the domestication of animals in the 5th [millenium] BC

466
00:30:38,038 --> 00:30:41,643
are acknowledged as the developments that set the stage for the emergence

467
00:30:41,783 --> 00:30:45,359
of the first large-scale, complex urban cities.

468
00:30:45,499 --> 00:30:49,643
These societies which appear almost simultaneously around 4000 BC

469
00:30:49,783 --> 00:30:53,500
in Egypt and Mesopotamia used stone tools

470
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:58,474
but within 500 years stone tools and weapons gave way to bronze.

471
00:30:58,614 --> 00:31:02,835
With bronze manufacture came a revolution in warfare."

472
00:31:03,862 --> 00:31:07,893
Likewise, it is also the period that the concept of the state

473
00:31:08,033 --> 00:31:11,481
and the permanence of the armed force emerged.

474
00:31:12,441 --> 00:31:16,826
"These early civilizations produced the first example of state-governing institutions

475
00:31:16,966 --> 00:31:21,015
initially as centralized chiefdoms and later as monarchies.

476
00:31:21,155 --> 00:31:25,547
At the same time, centralization demanded the creation of an administrative structure

477
00:31:25,687 --> 00:31:31,632
capable of directing social [activity and resources towards communal goals.]

478
00:31:31,772 --> 00:31:36,563
The development of central state institutions and a supporting administrative apparatus

479
00:31:36,703 --> 00:31:40,243
inevitably gave form and stability to military structures.

480
00:31:40,383 --> 00:31:43,258
The result was the expansion and stabilization

481
00:31:43,398 --> 00:31:46,886
of the formerly loose and unstable warrior castes.

482
00:31:47,026 --> 00:31:49,728
By 2700 BC in Sumer

483
00:31:49,868 --> 00:31:52,639
there was a fully articulated military structure

484
00:31:52,779 --> 00:31:56,615
and standing army organized along modern lines.

485
00:31:56,755 --> 00:32:00,137
The standing army emerged as a permanent part of the social structure

486
00:32:00,277 --> 00:32:03,890
and was endowed with strong claims to social legitimacy

487
00:32:04,030 --> 00:32:07,376
and has been with us ever since."

488
00:32:08,871 --> 00:32:12,894
Since that time of those early forms of modern civilization

489
00:32:13,034 --> 00:32:16,293
there have been thousands of wars

490
00:32:16,433 --> 00:32:20,839
most of which have to do with the acquisition of resources or territory

491
00:32:20,979 --> 00:32:24,995
where one group is either working to expand its power and material wealth

492
00:32:25,135 --> 00:32:30,193
or working to protect itself from others trying to conquer and absorb it.

493
00:32:30,819 --> 00:32:34,956
This is essentially still the same state of affairs today.

494
00:32:35,096 --> 00:32:38,969
The question to be asked is: Why the persistence of the tendency?

495
00:32:39,359 --> 00:32:43,371
Where's the root origin? What motivates an army to kill

496
00:32:43,511 --> 00:32:49,393
in a controlled cold manner for the sake of the state's benefit?

497
00:32:51,469 --> 00:32:55,573
As will be expanded upon as we continue this talk

498
00:32:55,713 --> 00:32:59,939
the tendency for war is not a universal human trait that demands expression

499
00:33:00,079 --> 00:33:03,481
but a very sensitive vulnerability

500
00:33:03,621 --> 00:33:08,281
to one's sense of social identity, sense of acceptance,

501
00:33:08,421 --> 00:33:13,450
fear and general personal concern which if properly organized

502
00:33:13,590 --> 00:33:18,015
can be manipulated into the service of one group over another.

503
00:33:19,989 --> 00:33:24,800
The human nature debate regarding violence which shows no universals

504
00:33:24,940 --> 00:33:28,937
does reveal a highly probable response tendency

505
00:33:29,077 --> 00:33:32,565
when certain environmental stimulus is presented to the human

506
00:33:32,705 --> 00:33:35,836
to generate fear or offense.

507
00:33:35,976 --> 00:33:39,742
What has been set in motion since the early period of modern warfare

508
00:33:39,882 --> 00:33:42,642
is not some anomaly of human society

509
00:33:42,782 --> 00:33:47,988
nor does it appear to be an unstoppable human tendency.

510
00:33:48,128 --> 00:33:53,362
Rather, it appears to be a natural characteristic of:

511
00:33:53,502 --> 00:33:58,322
1) The function of the state institution and its inherent need for control

512
00:33:58,462 --> 00:34:01,061
along with [2)] the core of its origin

513
00:34:01,201 --> 00:34:05,526
the foundational economic assumptions of resource scarcity

514
00:34:05,666 --> 00:34:09,843
superstition and the psychology it perpetuates.

515
00:34:11,218 --> 00:34:15,458
Part Two: The State: Character and Coercion

516
00:34:17,178 --> 00:34:21,604
Since the very nature of modern warfare is almost universally representative

517
00:34:21,744 --> 00:34:26,701
of a larger social entity and governmental apparatus known as the state

518
00:34:26,841 --> 00:34:30,925
let's consider its basic characteristics in general.

519
00:34:31,703 --> 00:34:34,997
The first to note is its basis in self-protection, obviously.

520
00:34:35,137 --> 00:34:38,534
Since the state was born out of tribal sovereignty

521
00:34:38,674 --> 00:34:42,964
where independent authority is claimed over a geographical area

522
00:34:43,104 --> 00:34:46,891
(a region which had been stolen from some other group

523
00:34:47,031 --> 00:34:49,628
who will likely claim the same thing at some point)

524
00:34:49,768 --> 00:34:54,641
the issue of protection is inherent and consequential

525
00:34:55,782 --> 00:34:59,595
Not only protection from external forces

526
00:34:59,735 --> 00:35:04,802
but from what can be rightfully called in feudalistic terms 'its subjects'.

527
00:35:04,942 --> 00:35:08,708
These subjects are also historically held to hold a duty

528
00:35:08,848 --> 00:35:13,123
or responsibility to the state's institutional preservation.

529
00:35:13,263 --> 00:35:17,980
This medieval remnant is not only with respect to "serving your country"

530
00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:23,254
such as joining the armed forces, but also found in the notions of treason

531
00:35:23,394 --> 00:35:26,838
sedition and other legal protections

532
00:35:26,978 --> 00:35:30,301
that work directly against the citizenry

533
00:35:30,441 --> 00:35:34,111
if they were to get out of line, too far.

534
00:35:34,634 --> 00:35:38,723
It is also worth pointing out that these elements of internal protection

535
00:35:38,863 --> 00:35:42,620
have been updated by more modern means

536
00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:46,412
such as with the fairly new concept of 'the terrorist'

537
00:35:46,552 --> 00:35:50,063
and its inherently open, ambiguous distinction

538
00:35:50,203 --> 00:35:53,374
which can be applied to both foreign and domestic citizens

539
00:35:53,514 --> 00:35:57,327
enabling an even more flexible form of internal protection

540
00:35:57,467 --> 00:36:00,693
due to its ambiguity.

541
00:36:01,504 --> 00:36:05,882
As far as the broad characteristics and nature of interaction of states

542
00:36:06,022 --> 00:36:09,080
state entities (excuse me) across the world

543
00:36:09,220 --> 00:36:13,830
it is generally safe to break them up into categories of superpowers

544
00:36:13,970 --> 00:36:19,734
powers, sub-powers and in feudalistic terms, vassal states.

545
00:36:20,560 --> 00:36:26,016
After the Cold War, the US is noted to have emerged as the world's first superpower

546
00:36:26,156 --> 00:36:29,439
as defined by its military and economic might.

547
00:36:29,579 --> 00:36:32,496
The powers, many of which are gaining traction today

548
00:36:32,636 --> 00:36:35,132
and could now be called parallel superpowers

549
00:36:35,272 --> 00:36:38,896
are the other large economies such as China, Britain, Russia, etc.

550
00:36:39,036 --> 00:36:43,871
each always with enormous military power as well.

551
00:36:45,201 --> 00:36:47,768
The sub-powers could be considered the more passive

552
00:36:47,908 --> 00:36:50,815
yet independent states, which is the majority

553
00:36:50,955 --> 00:36:55,353
while the vassal states are the ones that operate in subservience

554
00:36:55,493 --> 00:36:59,297
to the power states, often providing economic advantage

555
00:36:59,437 --> 00:37:02,937
through subjugation, on one level or another.

556
00:37:03,333 --> 00:37:07,410
With respect to subjugation, this is a core characteristic

557
00:37:07,550 --> 00:37:10,528
of the predatory nature of the state institution.

558
00:37:10,668 --> 00:37:14,601
It is worth pointing out that the tactics of subjugation

559
00:37:14,741 --> 00:37:18,935
which is what in many ways facilitates the state's power status

560
00:37:19,075 --> 00:37:24,952
have changed over time in effect becoming more covert in its warfare.

561
00:37:25,782 --> 00:37:30,369
Some of these methods are not physically violent at all

562
00:37:30,509 --> 00:37:32,718
at least not on the surface.

563
00:37:32,858 --> 00:37:35,644
These include economic warfare approaches which serve

564
00:37:35,784 --> 00:37:38,729
as complete acts of aggression in and of themselves

565
00:37:38,869 --> 00:37:42,191
or a part of a procedural prelude

566
00:37:42,331 --> 00:37:47,162
to traditional military action, which comes in the form of trade tariffs

567
00:37:47,302 --> 00:37:50,997
sanctions, debt by coercion

568
00:37:51,137 --> 00:37:54,398
and many other lesser known, covert methods

569
00:37:54,538 --> 00:37:57,294
which typically have to do with a sense of debt

570
00:37:57,434 --> 00:38:00,228
with dealings of the World Bank or the IMF

571
00:38:00,368 --> 00:38:04,058
or the United Nations in the sense of sanctions.

572
00:38:04,198 --> 00:38:07,185
These globally sanctioned, financial institutions

573
00:38:07,325 --> 00:38:11,847
have heavy vested business and hence state interests behind them

574
00:38:11,987 --> 00:38:16,309
and have the power to impose debt to bail out suffering countries

575
00:38:16,449 --> 00:38:20,187
at the expense of the quality of life of its citizenry

576
00:38:20,327 --> 00:38:23,517
often taking charge of natural resources or industries

577
00:38:23,657 --> 00:38:27,511
through select privatization or other manners that could weaken

578
00:38:27,651 --> 00:38:31,959
a country's ability to the effect that it becomes reliant on others

579
00:38:32,099 --> 00:38:34,939
and their industries.

580
00:38:35,481 --> 00:38:38,454
This is simply a more covert form of subjugation

581
00:38:38,594 --> 00:38:43,020
than we saw with the British Empire during its imperial expansion

582
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:46,246
and the East India Company, the commercial force

583
00:38:46,386 --> 00:38:49,869
that took advantage of the newly conquered regional resources

584
00:38:50,009 --> 00:38:53,273
and labor in Asia in the 19th century.

585
00:38:53,669 --> 00:38:58,577
Some analysts will compare the British Empire to the United States

586
00:38:58,717 --> 00:39:02,232
and examine how the fact that the US gained its status

587
00:39:02,372 --> 00:39:04,722
through not just military pressure alone

588
00:39:04,862 --> 00:39:09,783
but through the presence of this very covert complex economic strategy

589
00:39:09,923 --> 00:39:13,266
which repositions other countries into subjugation

590
00:39:13,406 --> 00:39:17,398
to US economic and geo-economic interests.

591
00:39:18,785 --> 00:39:20,568
Why?

592
00:39:21,323 --> 00:39:24,428
Because as will be addressed in more detail in Part Three

593
00:39:24,568 --> 00:39:27,829
despite the superstitious rhetoric to the contrary

594
00:39:27,969 --> 00:39:30,739
the state is nothing more than a manifestation

595
00:39:30,879 --> 00:39:34,248
and extension of the economic paradigm.

596
00:39:34,388 --> 00:39:36,936
It is an economic entity in its purest form

597
00:39:37,076 --> 00:39:39,832
and this is something many today seem not to fully understand.

598
00:39:39,972 --> 00:39:43,370
The conduct of the state is based around methods of re-securing itself

599
00:39:43,510 --> 00:39:47,652
by whatever means necessary. Those who condemn for example the United States

600
00:39:47,792 --> 00:39:50,464
as a corporate, commercial state empire

601
00:39:50,604 --> 00:39:54,813
as though such a disposition is an anomaly of state power behavior

602
00:39:54,953 --> 00:39:58,577
are not taking into account the very economic premise

603
00:39:58,717 --> 00:40:03,076
upon which it is based, as we will discuss as we go along.

604
00:40:05,151 --> 00:40:07,313
Those basic issues aside

605
00:40:07,453 --> 00:40:10,935
let's now hone more into the coercive tendency of the state

606
00:40:11,075 --> 00:40:13,737
with respect to its war posture.

607
00:40:13,877 --> 00:40:17,684
Since behind the state (as with any institution) are human beings

608
00:40:17,824 --> 00:40:21,070
and their values, the issue of mass-conditioning

609
00:40:21,210 --> 00:40:25,970
to support the state's integrity is paramount to its survival.

610
00:40:26,110 --> 00:40:28,889
As history has shown, when it comes to war

611
00:40:29,029 --> 00:40:32,144
the public at large rarely, if ever

612
00:40:32,284 --> 00:40:36,186
initiates the original interest in conflict

613
00:40:36,326 --> 00:40:39,331
only the politicians and their benefactors do.

614
00:40:39,471 --> 00:40:44,736
Then, they work to entice their subjects for support.

615
00:40:46,519 --> 00:40:50,783
Patriotism, honor, the moral crusade:

616
00:40:50,923 --> 00:40:54,278
The first thing to notice about all state wars in preparation

617
00:40:54,418 --> 00:40:58,950
is that they never express themselves as being offensive

618
00:40:59,090 --> 00:41:02,601
only defensive, the common defense as it's called.

619
00:41:02,741 --> 00:41:07,611
In the US, the Department of Defense is the name of our war ministry, really.

620
00:41:07,751 --> 00:41:11,492
It sounds noble, while also immediately implying

621
00:41:11,632 --> 00:41:14,599
the assumption of fear from the external.

622
00:41:15,302 --> 00:41:20,073
While the general public sees this fear in a traditional, invasive sense

623
00:41:20,213 --> 00:41:23,795
the more relevant fear is on the state level.

624
00:41:23,935 --> 00:41:29,255
It is discrete, and the fear has to do with the state power's fear of loss:

625
00:41:29,395 --> 00:41:31,553
the loss of power.

626
00:41:31,693 --> 00:41:34,472
Perhaps the best expression of this was exemplified in a work

627
00:41:34,612 --> 00:41:37,909
by former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski

628
00:41:38,049 --> 00:41:41,253
'The Grand Chessboard' was the name of his work and this book details

629
00:41:41,393 --> 00:41:45,323
a series of extremely accurate observations and predictions

630
00:41:45,463 --> 00:41:48,300
with respect to what it will take for America to remain

631
00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:54,073
as the world's major power, specifically its necessity to control Eurasia

632
00:41:54,213 --> 00:41:56,638
and the Middle East.

633
00:41:57,331 --> 00:42:02,355
"In this posture, the fear is generated out of an unargued assumption

634
00:42:02,495 --> 00:42:05,605
that American global leadership is the only way.

635
00:42:05,745 --> 00:42:09,459
And the chess game to preserve, as it were,

636
00:42:10,487 --> 00:42:12,937
always should be in our own favor, or else, perhaps

637
00:42:13,077 --> 00:42:15,932
the world at large will suffer as a result."

638
00:42:16,072 --> 00:42:19,747
It's a classic imperialist apologist view

639
00:42:19,887 --> 00:42:22,922
that we the Americans must take over everything

640
00:42:23,062 --> 00:42:25,986
because we know better (we and our allies of course).

641
00:42:26,279 --> 00:42:29,450
Coupled with this fear-based assumption is that if the US

642
00:42:29,590 --> 00:42:33,350
isn't the empire power, then another one will come along

643
00:42:33,490 --> 00:42:35,897
and hurt US interests which of course

644
00:42:36,037 --> 00:42:39,718
on the level of social maturity at this stage happens to be true

645
00:42:39,858 --> 00:42:43,170
(and this is what Brzezinski argues) but at no point

646
00:42:43,310 --> 00:42:46,761
is there a viable reflection on social balance.

647
00:42:46,901 --> 00:42:49,074
It's simply not considered

648
00:42:49,214 --> 00:42:52,555
which is absolutely characteristic of the state entity

649
00:42:52,695 --> 00:42:57,771
and its foundation, so we shouldn't blame Brzezinski for his view.

650
00:42:57,911 --> 00:43:01,507
He is simply expressing what is sadly normality

651
00:43:01,647 --> 00:43:05,092
even though, as we'll describe, is wholly inhumane

652
00:43:05,232 --> 00:43:07,789
and extremely unsustainable.

653
00:43:08,199 --> 00:43:12,422
He states "America is now the only global superpower

654
00:43:12,562 --> 00:43:15,782
and Eurasia is the globe's central arena.

655
00:43:15,922 --> 00:43:19,829
Hence what happens to the distribution of power on the Eurasian continent

656
00:43:19,969 --> 00:43:24,598
will be of decisive importance to America's global primacy

657
00:43:24,738 --> 00:43:27,478
and to America's historical legacy.

658
00:43:27,618 --> 00:43:29,810
To put it into terminology that harkens back

659
00:43:29,950 --> 00:43:32,659
to the more brutal age of ancient empires

660
00:43:32,799 --> 00:43:36,596
the 3 grand imperatives of imperial geo-strategy

661
00:43:36,736 --> 00:43:42,487
are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals

662
00:43:42,627 --> 00:43:45,430
to keep tributaries pliant and protected

663
00:43:45,570 --> 00:43:48,699
and to keep the barbarians from coming together.

664
00:43:48,839 --> 00:43:51,713
Henceforth, the United States may have determined

665
00:43:51,853 --> 00:43:56,387
how to cope with regional coalitions that seek to push America out of Eurasia

666
00:43:56,527 --> 00:44:01,098
thereby threatening America's status as a global power."

667
00:44:02,494 --> 00:44:05,882
If you read this work, which was written about 15 years ago

668
00:44:06,022 --> 00:44:09,689
you will notice even right now immediately

669
00:44:09,829 --> 00:44:13,919
that the American imperialist state and its allies have been acting

670
00:44:14,059 --> 00:44:17,729
upon this specific interest explicitly.

671
00:44:18,267 --> 00:44:21,617
However, you will not see the political establishment or mainstream media

672
00:44:21,757 --> 00:44:25,914
expressing this view at all to the public in its day-to-day affairs

673
00:44:26,054 --> 00:44:30,349
even though Brzezinski will argue it as though it's common sense.

674
00:44:31,198 --> 00:44:35,595
Rather, the media, the corporations and the state

675
00:44:35,735 --> 00:44:39,949
go back to age-old tactics of psychological coercion

676
00:44:40,089 --> 00:44:45,038
which is based entirely upon a metaphysical fantasy kind of rhetoric

677
00:44:45,178 --> 00:44:48,962
which utilizes ideas such as faith and moral good

678
00:44:49,102 --> 00:44:53,536
patriotism and the idea of honor, fear and common defense

679
00:44:53,676 --> 00:44:56,311
and other largely empty concepts

680
00:44:56,451 --> 00:44:59,302
which serve only to mobilize the population

681
00:44:59,442 --> 00:45:03,012
to support the interests of the warring party.

682
00:45:04,472 --> 00:45:09,169
Thorstein Veblen, a sociologist and economist, who will be quoted quite a bit

683
00:45:09,309 --> 00:45:13,911
in this presentation, I think put this best in 1917:

684
00:45:14,573 --> 00:45:19,097
"Any patriotism will serve as a ways and means to warlike enterprise

685
00:45:19,237 --> 00:45:22,198
under competent management, even if the people

686
00:45:22,338 --> 00:45:26,235
are not habitually prone to a bellicose temper.

687
00:45:26,880 --> 00:45:30,207
Rightly managed, ordinary patriotic sentiment

688
00:45:30,347 --> 00:45:33,165
may readily be mobilized for warlike adventure

689
00:45:33,305 --> 00:45:37,277
by any reasonably adroit and single-minded body of statesmen

690
00:45:37,417 --> 00:45:40,512
of which there is abundant illustration."

691
00:45:40,652 --> 00:45:43,588
Abundant illustration indeed

692
00:45:43,728 --> 00:45:46,711
for at the core of all social motivation for war

693
00:45:46,851 --> 00:45:50,220
rests a subset of such intangible values

694
00:45:50,360 --> 00:45:55,163
which are in all reality exceedingly xenophobic

695
00:45:55,303 --> 00:45:57,760
neurotic and irrational.

696
00:45:58,156 --> 00:46:02,873
Veblen continues "It is also quite a safe generalization

697
00:46:03,013 --> 00:46:06,267
that when hostilities have once been got fairly under way

698
00:46:06,407 --> 00:46:10,116
by the interested statesman, the patriotic sentiment of the nation

699
00:46:10,256 --> 00:46:13,875
may confidently be counted on to back the enterprise

700
00:46:14,015 --> 00:46:16,998
irrespective of the merits of the quarrel."

701
00:46:17,138 --> 00:46:20,719
I think this is best exemplified today with the common American phrase

702
00:46:20,859 --> 00:46:23,785
which probably carries over to other countries "I'm against the war

703
00:46:23,925 --> 00:46:26,200
but support the troops!"

704
00:46:26,340 --> 00:46:30,049
This is what could be called 'classic Orwellian doublethink'

705
00:46:30,189 --> 00:46:33,445
and has been very effective in reducing public outcry

706
00:46:33,585 --> 00:46:36,978
which then plays into the concept of honor

707
00:46:37,118 --> 00:46:42,123
and the very sacrificial nature of the soldier entities themselves.

708
00:46:42,263 --> 00:46:46,425
Here is where the ceremony and elaborate costumes

709
00:46:46,994 --> 00:46:50,670
medals, authority appearances find their place.

710
00:46:50,810 --> 00:46:55,584
Honor is formalized through ceremonials, medals and postures of respect

711
00:46:55,724 --> 00:46:58,607
events and other adornments which impress the public

712
00:46:58,747 --> 00:47:01,560
as to the value of the actions of the soldiers

713
00:47:01,700 --> 00:47:06,149
and hence the value of the war that they represent.

714
00:47:06,289 --> 00:47:08,583
This also creates a cultural taboo

715
00:47:08,723 --> 00:47:11,734
where to insult any element of the war apparatus

716
00:47:11,874 --> 00:47:15,040
can be seen as showing disrespect to the sacrifice

717
00:47:15,180 --> 00:47:20,219
of the Armed Forces and their honor, hence reinforcing the broad illusion

718
00:47:20,359 --> 00:47:25,746
that the initiation of wars are noble acts with noble participants.

719
00:47:27,194 --> 00:47:32,476
Paired with the notion of honor and the effect of what it represents

720
00:47:32,900 --> 00:47:37,787
resides the ultimate tool to crusade: morality.

721
00:47:38,438 --> 00:47:43,430
Veblen continues "Any warlike enterprise that is hopeful to be entered on

722
00:47:43,570 --> 00:47:47,627
must have the moral sanction of the community or of an effective majority

723
00:47:47,767 --> 00:47:51,105
in the community. It consequently becomes the first concern

724
00:47:51,245 --> 00:47:55,022
of the warlike statesman to put his moral force in train

725
00:47:55,162 --> 00:47:58,070
for the adventure on which he is bent.

726
00:47:58,210 --> 00:48:00,916
There are two main lines of motivation:

727
00:48:01,056 --> 00:48:03,465
1) The preservation or furtherance

728
00:48:03,605 --> 00:48:06,861
of the community's material interest, real or fancied

729
00:48:07,001 --> 00:48:10,540
2) Vindication of the national honor.

730
00:48:10,680 --> 00:48:13,389
To these should perhaps be added a third:

731
00:48:13,529 --> 00:48:17,680
the advancement and perpetuation of the [nation's] culture."

732
00:48:18,915 --> 00:48:22,440
This last point on the perpetuation of the [nation's] culture

733
00:48:22,580 --> 00:48:25,350
is best exemplified by the Western imperial catchphrase

734
00:48:25,490 --> 00:48:28,866
of seeking to spread 'Freedom and Democracy'

735
00:48:29,006 --> 00:48:33,210
in a metaphysic/religious notion, pure and simple.

736
00:48:33,350 --> 00:48:37,714
The actual meaning of this poetically fanciful yet entirely empty phrase

737
00:48:37,854 --> 00:48:42,202
has more to do with the perseverance of private interests and their freedom

738
00:48:42,342 --> 00:48:47,117
than some moral objection to another country's supposed inhumanity

739
00:48:47,257 --> 00:48:51,173
and the interest to 'liberate them' or whatever.

740
00:48:51,863 --> 00:48:54,864
In fact, it is no different than the infamous

741
00:48:55,004 --> 00:48:58,347
ideological crusades during the Middle Ages

742
00:48:58,487 --> 00:49:01,573
which always had an underlying material and territorial interest

743
00:49:01,713 --> 00:49:04,092
for the benefit of the few behind the scenes

744
00:49:04,232 --> 00:49:07,808
despite the religious overlay we hear in history.

745
00:49:07,948 --> 00:49:11,337
I can think of nothing more powerful

746
00:49:11,477 --> 00:49:14,082
than the mobilization of religious moral values

747
00:49:14,222 --> 00:49:18,191
in service of the few who actually gain from the war enterprise.

748
00:49:18,331 --> 00:49:22,572
The notion of freedom and democracy is equally as persuasive

749
00:49:22,712 --> 00:49:27,346
as the historical notion of one religious group seeking to save another

750
00:49:27,486 --> 00:49:29,921
by invasion and subjugation.

751
00:49:30,061 --> 00:49:32,375
I hope that connection is made.

752
00:49:32,515 --> 00:49:37,933
That acknowledged, let's consider the general unfolding of the war venture.

753
00:49:39,414 --> 00:49:43,401
With the seed of patriotism and ongoing reinforcement of sentiment

754
00:49:43,541 --> 00:49:48,858
in a given population whose political constituents seek to motivate for war

755
00:49:48,998 --> 00:49:53,854
the first step is usually an event that creates a direct imposition of fear

756
00:49:53,994 --> 00:49:59,135
that's coupled with a violation of the national honor metaphysic.

757
00:50:00,671 --> 00:50:05,290
Zbigniew Brzezinski understood this well and he stated on the issue

758
00:50:05,430 --> 00:50:09,355
"The attitude of the American public toward the external projection

759
00:50:09,495 --> 00:50:12,288
of American power has been much more ambivalent.

760
00:50:12,428 --> 00:50:15,816
The public supported America's engagement in World War II

761
00:50:15,956 --> 00:50:20,368
largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

762
00:50:20,508 --> 00:50:24,386
As America becomes an increasingly multicultural society

763
00:50:24,526 --> 00:50:29,435
it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues

764
00:50:29,575 --> 00:50:32,902
except in the circumstance of a truly massive

765
00:50:33,042 --> 00:50:36,952
and widely perceived, direct external threat."

766
00:50:37,092 --> 00:50:41,118
This can be not only a threat

767
00:50:41,873 --> 00:50:44,686
in a real sense but also a metaphysical one

768
00:50:44,826 --> 00:50:47,950
in the sense of intangible moral, honor or outrage.

769
00:50:48,090 --> 00:50:51,096
If we go through history, say the United States' wars...

770
00:50:51,236 --> 00:50:54,166
(as an American this is the history I'm most familiar with)

771
00:50:54,306 --> 00:50:58,270
if we go through the US' wars, we find that the point of provocation

772
00:50:58,410 --> 00:51:02,821
that leads to war is almost always of a minor nature

773
00:51:02,961 --> 00:51:08,269
in proportion to what follows, exacerbated entirely by the irrational

774
00:51:08,409 --> 00:51:11,024
moral outrage and honor neurosis

775
00:51:11,164 --> 00:51:14,754
that leads to seeking retribution and revenge

776
00:51:14,894 --> 00:51:17,894
manipulating the public to believe such things.

777
00:51:18,630 --> 00:51:22,207
From the Mexican-American War for example of 1846

778
00:51:22,347 --> 00:51:26,816
that began with a scuffle along the Mexican domination of Texas

779
00:51:26,956 --> 00:51:29,844
the news reports proclaimed 'off the cuff' that

780
00:51:29,984 --> 00:51:34,433
"Mexicans are killing our boys in Texas!" plastered all over the news.

781
00:51:34,573 --> 00:51:38,188
In this little war, stealing land from Mexico

782
00:51:38,328 --> 00:51:42,099
cost 30,000 deaths in total over the course of a few years.

783
00:51:42,239 --> 00:51:45,569
30,000 deaths and that's a long time ago.

784
00:51:45,904 --> 00:51:49,396
The Vietnam-American War which was provoked by a supposed torpedo attack

785
00:51:49,536 --> 00:51:53,038
that didn't kill anybody, yet opened the public support for an involvement

786
00:51:53,178 --> 00:51:56,357
that killed about 3.5 million humans!

787
00:51:56,871 --> 00:52:02,372
Nearly all of these imperial wars, including the inclusion of the US

788
00:52:02,512 --> 00:52:08,135
in world wars, pose proportionally nominal inflictions statistically

789
00:52:08,493 --> 00:52:13,257
yet grossly amplified by the public's jingoistic reactions.

790
00:52:14,625 --> 00:52:18,635
The basic sociological understanding was formalized

791
00:52:18,775 --> 00:52:22,993
in a CIA created plan called 'Operation Northwoods'

792
00:52:23,133 --> 00:52:28,125
when the US was seeking an excuse to invade Cuba in the 1960s.

793
00:52:28,265 --> 00:52:31,393
They planned to conduct a series of terrorist attacks internally

794
00:52:31,533 --> 00:52:35,558
and then blame them on Cuba for the sake of public perception and support

795
00:52:35,698 --> 00:52:40,792
hence exploiting their moral outrage and fear. This is public record.

796
00:52:42,924 --> 00:52:45,171
And of course dare I add

797
00:52:45,311 --> 00:52:48,616
the king of all modern religious events

798
00:52:48,756 --> 00:52:51,771
one that provoked every level of moral outrage

799
00:52:51,911 --> 00:52:54,628
honor and patriotic neurosis and the like

800
00:52:54,920 --> 00:52:59,082
the events of September 11th, 2001 prove beyond any doubt

801
00:52:59,222 --> 00:53:02,784
that the causality of a given provocation need not have

802
00:53:02,924 --> 00:53:06,626
any true bearing on the actions that follow by the State

803
00:53:06,766 --> 00:53:10,039
given enough shock and jingoistic fervor.

804
00:53:10,430 --> 00:53:14,101
Even if the US government's official narrative of this event

805
00:53:14,241 --> 00:53:17,729
was absolutely true, 100% truth

806
00:53:17,869 --> 00:53:21,908
the actions of the US government and its allies that followed the event

807
00:53:22,048 --> 00:53:26,776
had nothing to do with anything that relates to the event itself.

808
00:53:26,916 --> 00:53:30,038
Absolutely nothing, if you paid attention.

809
00:53:30,178 --> 00:53:32,850
[Applause]

810
00:53:36,821 --> 00:53:40,143
It merely opened the floodgates of patriotic retribution

811
00:53:40,283 --> 00:53:44,859
and allowed for a virtually open palette of imperial mobilization.

812
00:53:44,999 --> 00:53:49,359
Back to the broader point of state character beyond the US

813
00:53:49,499 --> 00:53:53,561
the acts of 9/11 also opened the floodgates for a broader redefinition of terms

814
00:53:53,701 --> 00:53:56,854
for almost every power structure in the world

815
00:53:56,994 --> 00:54:00,976
because intrinsically, the power structures of the world, the state entity

816
00:54:01,116 --> 00:54:05,033
are self-contained in their very definition.

817
00:54:05,173 --> 00:54:09,165
They don't really care about any other country or about their population.

818
00:54:09,305 --> 00:54:12,729
It's not a moral thing. It's the way that they've been constructed.

819
00:54:13,022 --> 00:54:16,226
From Turkey to Russia, to Israel, to the UK, etc.

820
00:54:16,366 --> 00:54:20,461
the benefit of 9/11 was massive to the State in hindering the public

821
00:54:20,601 --> 00:54:25,714
the external, engulfing and exacerbating its power.

822
00:54:27,383 --> 00:54:30,638
For the record, there is no war on terrorism.

823
00:54:31,874 --> 00:54:33,506
There can be...

824
00:54:33,646 --> 00:54:35,902
[Applause]

825
00:54:37,689 --> 00:54:40,614
There can be no such thing as a war on an abstraction.

826
00:54:40,754 --> 00:54:45,327
It has no universally operational premise. It has no location

827
00:54:45,467 --> 00:54:48,365
and even worse, it has no universal notion of success

828
00:54:48,505 --> 00:54:52,563
not to mention all acts of so-called 'terrorism' are statistically invalid

829
00:54:52,703 --> 00:54:55,655
with respect to true threats to human society

830
00:54:55,795 --> 00:54:58,361
and public health, but that's for another conversation.

831
00:54:58,501 --> 00:55:01,686
Trillions of dollars being spent on an affair when we have people dying

832
00:55:01,826 --> 00:55:04,907
of so many other things that money could take good use with

833
00:55:05,047 --> 00:55:07,478
but we all know what the real intent actually is:

834
00:55:07,618 --> 00:55:11,804
The real war being waged is actually on problem resolution and human harmony.

835
00:55:11,944 --> 00:55:15,207
The real war is on a balance of power and social justice.

836
00:55:15,347 --> 00:55:20,162
The real war is on the institution of economic equality.

837
00:55:20,302 --> 00:55:23,770
Unfortunately, social stability is not a sought characteristic

838
00:55:23,910 --> 00:55:28,274
of large state enterprises for it affords no advantage.

839
00:55:28,414 --> 00:55:32,094
The true tool of terrorism is not as an act of violence

840
00:55:32,234 --> 00:55:36,707
by an incredibly small desperate subculture that does exist

841
00:55:36,847 --> 00:55:39,664
but a tool of excuse by the State

842
00:55:39,804 --> 00:55:44,349
for further power consolidation, foreign and domestic. I won't drill it in.

843
00:55:44,915 --> 00:55:48,897
As I complete this section of the talk regarding societal manipulation

844
00:55:49,037 --> 00:55:52,819
by state powers for the purposes of reinforcing state integrity

845
00:55:52,959 --> 00:55:57,728
at the ongoing expense of other states and its subjects, I'm often asked:

846
00:55:58,445 --> 00:56:01,522
What defines social cohesion now, and community trust?

847
00:56:01,662 --> 00:56:06,719
Isn't patriotism and national pride a positive force on some level?

848
00:56:07,652 --> 00:56:11,380
If you think about it, nearly all notions of community

849
00:56:11,520 --> 00:56:15,219
have basically been overridden by the ever-dividing premise

850
00:56:15,359 --> 00:56:19,412
of market competition and the privatization of everything.

851
00:56:19,552 --> 00:56:22,694
There's very little left in the world that instills

852
00:56:22,834 --> 00:56:26,789
structurally social capital and community trust anymore.

853
00:56:26,929 --> 00:56:30,891
Even the so-called egalitarian states of the world:

854
00:56:31,335 --> 00:56:35,033
Norway, Sweden, etc. are showing

855
00:56:35,173 --> 00:56:39,052
large patterns of imbalanced growth and income [in]equality

856
00:56:39,376 --> 00:56:44,438
hence their loss of community. It's getting worse, in other words.

857
00:56:44,919 --> 00:56:49,373
For internal purposes, it could be said that patriotism does serve a role

858
00:56:49,513 --> 00:56:52,911
since it's the only thing left, but only within the interests

859
00:56:53,051 --> 00:56:54,958
of the isolated community.

860
00:56:55,098 --> 00:56:58,923
However, I'm sorry to say, this tribalism can easily

861
00:56:59,063 --> 00:57:01,994
be turned around against other forces in the same logic.

862
00:57:02,134 --> 00:57:05,723
I'm sure there was great camaraderie and interpersonal support occurring

863
00:57:05,863 --> 00:57:08,458
with the 10 million strong Nazi army

864
00:57:08,598 --> 00:57:11,854
but that nationalist cohesion also facilitated

865
00:57:11,994 --> 00:57:14,410
one of the largest examples of social destruction

866
00:57:14,550 --> 00:57:17,454
and division in the modern world.

867
00:57:17,594 --> 00:57:20,228
On a different level, on a final note at this point

868
00:57:20,368 --> 00:57:24,363
our economies are of scale and they're inherently international by nature.

869
00:57:24,503 --> 00:57:27,849
They have to be. Patriotic nationalism has no place

870
00:57:27,989 --> 00:57:32,445
in our technical, earthly reality on any level, especially in this regard.

871
00:57:32,585 --> 00:57:37,454
The state as it exists is really an incredible reducer

872
00:57:37,594 --> 00:57:40,874
of technical efficiency when it comes to supporting

873
00:57:41,014 --> 00:57:44,096
the human population through production and the like.

874
00:57:44,236 --> 00:57:46,986
The environmental respect as a whole is also lost

875
00:57:47,126 --> 00:57:50,319
because of the boundaries that are set up.

876
00:57:54,213 --> 00:57:58,760
It really slows down certain attributes and responsibilities inherently

877
00:57:58,900 --> 00:58:02,170
having these walls up. It's not economically efficient.

878
00:58:02,310 --> 00:58:05,741
It doesn't gravitate towards actually being responsible

879
00:58:05,881 --> 00:58:08,745
towards your environment, and I think we're beginning to see those issues

880
00:58:08,885 --> 00:58:12,022
even more so today, on multiple levels.

881
00:58:12,566 --> 00:58:15,587
Same premise: Even today the idea of 'made in America'

882
00:58:15,727 --> 00:58:17,804
(I even saw a 'made in Israel' while I was here)

883
00:58:17,944 --> 00:58:21,119
it's a common mantra for commerce advertising now.

884
00:58:21,259 --> 00:58:25,170
Yet, that intention is of an immediate technical inefficiency

885
00:58:25,310 --> 00:58:29,736
for proper good production is inherently a global affair on all levels

886
00:58:29,876 --> 00:58:32,660
including the usufruct of world knowledge.

887
00:58:32,800 --> 00:58:35,990
Everyone is contributor to the knowledge; there's no isolated knowledge;

888
00:58:36,130 --> 00:58:40,423
it's impossible to assume that only your country could produce isolated things.

889
00:58:40,563 --> 00:58:43,121
It's an organism of knowledge that continues to evolve.

890
00:58:43,261 --> 00:58:48,470
In the truest sense of the word, economy cannot have boundaries

891
00:58:48,610 --> 00:58:51,382
and restrictions. It's simply too inefficient.

892
00:58:51,522 --> 00:58:54,163
You can operate that way, but you're not actually

893
00:58:54,303 --> 00:58:56,960
operating in the true sense of earthly management

894
00:58:57,100 --> 00:59:01,194
which is what an economy is, hence the reduction of waste.

895
00:59:03,203 --> 00:59:06,986
Patriotic nationalism is not only dangerous, it's technically inefficient.

896
00:59:07,515 --> 00:59:11,583
True social cohesion can only truly be sustained

897
00:59:11,723 --> 00:59:16,543
on the human scale globally, with our loyalties to each other, the habitat

898
00:59:17,076 --> 00:59:21,543
and the natural laws of nature, a technical reality, not a poetic one.

899
00:59:21,911 --> 00:59:26,237
Otherwise, you will have nothing but conflict, inefficiency and degradation

900
00:59:26,377 --> 00:59:28,764
which is exactly what we have now.

901
00:59:29,551 --> 00:59:33,151
In the words of Albert Einstein "Nationalism is an infantile disease:

902
00:59:33,291 --> 00:59:35,923
It is the measles of mankind."

903
00:59:36,357 --> 00:59:39,197
[Applause]

904
00:59:43,197 --> 00:59:48,872
Part Three: A Culture of War:  Business, Ownership and Competition

905
00:59:50,489 --> 00:59:54,576
In the prior section, we ran through some core characteristics of the state entity.

906
00:59:54,716 --> 00:59:57,190
Now I would like to express the obvious

907
00:59:57,330 --> 01:00:01,008
yet grossly overlooked foundational premise of its existence

908
01:00:01,148 --> 01:00:05,173
which underscores the logic of all of its characteristics denoted.

909
01:00:06,136 --> 01:00:08,691
When we reflect on the core values of the state

910
01:00:08,831 --> 01:00:12,605
and its interest in self-protection, coupled with the general propensity

911
01:00:12,745 --> 01:00:15,747
for territoriality and commercial expansion

912
01:00:15,887 --> 01:00:18,959
hence the rotating empires we've seen historically

913
01:00:19,099 --> 01:00:22,568
we find that the core of the institution is really a culmination

914
01:00:22,708 --> 01:00:25,289
born out of certain assumptions

915
01:00:25,429 --> 01:00:28,232
namely those that define the foundation

916
01:00:28,372 --> 01:00:31,077
of what we call modern economics today

917
01:00:31,217 --> 01:00:35,179
or specifically market economics today.

918
01:00:36,094 --> 01:00:40,199
I would like to first point out that when attempting to speak empirically

919
01:00:40,339 --> 01:00:43,874
I see no merit in such terms as capitalism or the free market

920
01:00:44,014 --> 01:00:48,265
or socialism or communism or any other 'ism' notions

921
01:00:48,405 --> 01:00:53,109
which really serve as limits of debate

922
01:00:53,249 --> 01:00:58,781
in the discussion of social operation, as they represent a truncated

923
01:00:59,244 --> 01:01:03,008
frame of reference with respect to our economy and what an economy means.

924
01:01:03,148 --> 01:01:05,567
The fact is, the real foundational premise

925
01:01:05,707 --> 01:01:09,515
of all of those traditional institutions goes back much farther in time

926
01:01:09,655 --> 01:01:12,670
than any traditional economic theorist would admit.

927
01:01:12,810 --> 01:01:17,245
What we find is that the evolution of the economic system we know today

928
01:01:17,385 --> 01:01:22,338
has been in lockstep with the ongoing evolution of the state entity.

929
01:01:24,740 --> 01:01:28,090
If we want to diagnose what it is that initiates war, subjugation

930
01:01:28,230 --> 01:01:32,561
and territorial disputes and the like, along with a possible resolution for global peace

931
01:01:32,701 --> 01:01:35,627
we need to step back much farther and examine the very fabric

932
01:01:35,767 --> 01:01:39,819
of where our life-support and hence dominant personal

933
01:01:39,959 --> 01:01:42,283
and social values are derived.

934
01:01:42,423 --> 01:01:46,203
As noted earlier, the Neolithic Revolution was a powerful turning point

935
01:01:46,343 --> 01:01:48,975
for the manner in which human society organized itself.

936
01:01:49,282 --> 01:01:52,415
With the sudden, then hidden understanding of scientific causality

937
01:01:52,555 --> 01:01:56,533
slowly emerging, our newfound ability to control our environment

938
01:01:56,673 --> 01:02:00,429
and strategically produce more than was available before

939
01:02:00,569 --> 01:02:04,593
brought about the advent of a producer class

940
01:02:04,733 --> 01:02:08,753
and hence the active trade itself eventually as labor specialization

941
01:02:08,893 --> 01:02:13,208
became a normal, fixed part of the socioeconomic model.

942
01:02:14,350 --> 01:02:17,245
This new basis of social organization then eventually advanced

943
01:02:17,642 --> 01:02:21,219
into the use of symbols to represent the exchange value

944
01:02:21,359 --> 01:02:25,162
of a producer's good, in the act of trade, known as money

945
01:02:25,302 --> 01:02:27,916
which in effect was the introduction

946
01:02:28,056 --> 01:02:31,453
of a new commodity in and of itself, an abstraction.

947
01:02:32,462 --> 01:02:35,216
This inherent monetary value

948
01:02:35,528 --> 01:02:38,548
an abstract notion of value of paper

949
01:02:38,688 --> 01:02:41,142
(even with the gold standard, it was still abstract)

950
01:02:41,282 --> 01:02:43,905
led to the concept of investment.

951
01:02:44,045 --> 01:02:47,773
Labor slowly became more and more centralized

952
01:02:47,913 --> 01:02:51,717
as the corporation or plant was owned

953
01:02:51,857 --> 01:02:55,867
and facilitated by the investor class that dealt with the money

954
01:02:56,007 --> 01:02:59,709
in and of itself, that could buy the producer.

955
01:03:02,134 --> 01:03:06,173
Then, as the natural advancement in science and technology

956
01:03:06,313 --> 01:03:11,198
slowly reduced the need for humans as a producer (mechanization)

957
01:03:11,338 --> 01:03:14,110
of all the new novel concepts of service and production

958
01:03:14,250 --> 01:03:17,957
for the sake of maintaining the now established labor system

959
01:03:18,097 --> 01:03:21,753
a transformation has occurred where that original role of the person

960
01:03:22,102 --> 01:03:25,648
has deviated from being a producer harnessing direct trade

961
01:03:25,788 --> 01:03:30,408
for personal interest, to a vehicle of servitude, to the interests

962
01:03:30,548 --> 01:03:34,114
of the investment and ownership class.

963
01:03:34,822 --> 01:03:38,897
Today, as a consequence, the most rewarded form of social participation

964
01:03:39,397 --> 01:03:44,035
which actually has zero bearing on the life-support processes

965
01:03:44,175 --> 01:03:48,591
of the original, economic premise itself, is investment.

966
01:03:48,731 --> 01:03:53,680
As will be reiterated in a moment, this consequential ownership class

967
01:03:53,820 --> 01:03:58,228
is what currently runs the world, colloquially speaking.

968
01:03:59,681 --> 01:04:02,343
Sociologist Thorstein Veblen summarizes this issue

969
01:04:02,483 --> 01:04:06,728
from a slightly different angle, but in a very acute way:

970
01:04:07,407 --> 01:04:11,479
"The standard theories of economic science have assumed the rights of property

971
01:04:11,619 --> 01:04:16,326
and contract as axiomatic premises and ultimate terms of analysis

972
01:04:16,466 --> 01:04:19,407
and their theories are commonly drawn in such a form

973
01:04:19,547 --> 01:04:23,883
as would fit the circumstances of the handicraft industry and petty trade."

974
01:04:24,023 --> 01:04:27,348
What he means by that are the simplistic notions of the producer

975
01:04:27,488 --> 01:04:30,736
early on before modern technology.

976
01:04:31,106 --> 01:04:34,648
"These theories appear tenable on the whole when taken to apply

977
01:04:34,788 --> 01:04:37,630
to the economic situation of that earlier time

978
01:04:37,770 --> 01:04:41,363
in virtually all that they have to say on questions of wages, capital

979
01:04:41,503 --> 01:04:45,897
savings, and the economy and the efficiency of management and production

980
01:04:46,037 --> 01:04:50,474
by the methods of private enterprise resting on these rights of ownership

981
01:04:50,614 --> 01:04:55,221
and contract and governed by the pursuit of private gain.

982
01:04:55,361 --> 01:04:59,935
It is when these standard theories are sought to be applied to the later situation

983
01:05:00,075 --> 01:05:03,070
which has outgrown the conditions of handicraft

984
01:05:03,210 --> 01:05:06,428
that they appear nugatory and meretricious.

985
01:05:06,568 --> 01:05:09,319
The competitive system, which these standard theories assume

986
01:05:09,459 --> 01:05:12,347
as necessary conditions of their own validity

987
01:05:12,487 --> 01:05:16,001
and about which they are designed to form a defensive hedge

988
01:05:16,416 --> 01:05:20,233
would, under those earlier conditions of small-scale enterprise

989
01:05:20,373 --> 01:05:25,469
and personal contract, appear to have both a passively valid assumption

990
01:05:25,609 --> 01:05:28,950
as a premise and a passably expedient scheme

991
01:05:29,090 --> 01:05:33,341
of economic relations and traffic." He continues

992
01:05:33,481 --> 01:05:36,000
"Under that order of handicraft and petty trade

993
01:05:36,140 --> 01:05:39,674
that led to the standardization of these rights of ownership

994
01:05:39,814 --> 01:05:44,674
in the accentuated form which belong to them in the modern law and custom

995
01:05:44,814 --> 01:05:49,061
the common man had a practicable chance of free initiative

996
01:05:49,201 --> 01:05:53,872
and self-direction in his choice in pursuit of an occupation and livelihood

997
01:05:54,012 --> 01:05:58,759
in so far as rights of the ownership bore in his case.

998
01:05:58,899 --> 01:06:02,931
The complexion of things as touches the effectual bearing

999
01:06:03,071 --> 01:06:06,936
of the institution of property and the ancient customary rights of ownership

1000
01:06:07,076 --> 01:06:09,388
has changed substantially.

1001
01:06:09,528 --> 01:06:13,416
The competitive system has in great measure ceased to operate

1002
01:06:13,556 --> 01:06:18,190
as a routine of natural liberty, in fact; particularly insofar as touches

1003
01:06:18,330 --> 01:06:22,836
the fortunes of the common man, the impecunious mass of people."

1004
01:06:22,976 --> 01:06:26,608
He then goes on to elaborate why. This is the most critical point

1005
01:06:26,952 --> 01:06:31,614
"At least in the popular conception and presumably in some degree also in fact

1006
01:06:31,754 --> 01:06:35,661
the right of property so served as a guarantee of personal liberty

1007
01:06:35,801 --> 01:06:39,449
and a basis of equality and so its apologists

1008
01:06:39,589 --> 01:06:41,549
still look on the institution.

1009
01:06:41,689 --> 01:06:44,324
In a very appreciable degree, this complexion of things

1010
01:06:44,464 --> 01:06:47,256
and of popular conceptions has changed since then.

1011
01:06:47,396 --> 01:06:51,214
Although, as would be expected, the change in popular conceptions

1012
01:06:51,354 --> 01:06:54,882
has not kept pace with the changing circumstances.

1013
01:06:55,240 --> 01:07:01,195
On the transition to machine technology, the plant became a unit of operation

1014
01:07:01,335 --> 01:07:06,061
and control has clearly come to be not the individual or isolated plant

1015
01:07:06,325 --> 01:07:10,487
but rather an articulated group of such plants working together

1016
01:07:10,627 --> 01:07:13,331
as a balanced system (a.k.a. corporation)

1017
01:07:13,471 --> 01:07:17,595
under a collective business management, and coincidentally

1018
01:07:17,735 --> 01:07:22,972
the individual workmen has been falling into the position of an auxiliary factor

1019
01:07:23,112 --> 01:07:25,784
nearly into that of an article of supply

1020
01:07:25,924 --> 01:07:29,623
to be charged up as an item of operating expense

1021
01:07:29,763 --> 01:07:33,071
so that at this point the right of ownership has ceased to be

1022
01:07:33,211 --> 01:07:36,476
in fact, a guarantee of personal liberty to the common man

1023
01:07:36,616 --> 01:07:41,685
and has come to be, or is coming to be, a guarantee of dependence."

1024
01:07:42,310 --> 01:07:44,976
He wrote that in 1917

1025
01:07:45,116 --> 01:07:48,127
to avoid a seeming divergence

1026
01:07:48,267 --> 01:07:51,816
on the broad flaws of the monetary market economy in general

1027
01:07:51,956 --> 01:07:55,297
keeping in pace with a specific focus of war, the state

1028
01:07:55,437 --> 01:07:58,518
and as evolution from this core economic foundation.

1029
01:07:58,658 --> 01:08:01,022
This point by Veblen is critical to understand

1030
01:08:01,162 --> 01:08:03,815
as it underscores what is the growth

1031
01:08:03,955 --> 01:08:06,885
of an abstract economic premise of ownership

1032
01:08:07,025 --> 01:08:10,357
with a shift of power from the general worker/producer class

1033
01:08:10,497 --> 01:08:13,536
to the investment and ownership business class

1034
01:08:13,676 --> 01:08:18,253
which are in effect a detrimental perversion

1035
01:08:18,393 --> 01:08:22,474
of the producer concept, the very basis of the original theory

1036
01:08:22,614 --> 01:08:26,091
as these people literally contribute nothing

1037
01:08:26,231 --> 01:08:30,397
to the technical artistic and scientific basis of common industry;

1038
01:08:30,537 --> 01:08:33,141
yet, they are now the focal point of interest.

1039
01:08:33,481 --> 01:08:36,279
Amazingly enough, due to the power now yielded

1040
01:08:36,419 --> 01:08:39,496
by this ownership investment class

1041
01:08:39,636 --> 01:08:42,618
we have a state entity which not only operates

1042
01:08:42,758 --> 01:08:46,533
as a manifestation of those values of competition and ownership

1043
01:08:46,673 --> 01:08:49,995
but pulls the majority of its governance constituents

1044
01:08:50,135 --> 01:08:53,826
from the very same wealth, business and operation pool.

1045
01:08:53,966 --> 01:08:55,966
Surprise, surprise!

1046
01:08:56,503 --> 01:09:01,099
These values also create and perpetuate a legal system

1047
01:09:01,239 --> 01:09:06,179
which works to benefit not only the interests of the ownership class

1048
01:09:06,319 --> 01:09:08,811
but also the interest of its expansion

1049
01:09:08,951 --> 01:09:11,986
which is a trademark of the capital business venture

1050
01:09:12,126 --> 01:09:15,310
which manifests into the monopolistic, imperialist tendency

1051
01:09:15,687 --> 01:09:19,853
that defines a pivotal characteristic of the large state.

1052
01:09:19,993 --> 01:09:22,509
Like business monopoly in the commercial world

1053
01:09:22,649 --> 01:09:25,258
the larger in size the establishment

1054
01:09:25,398 --> 01:09:28,664
the more it tends to want to increase its size.

1055
01:09:28,804 --> 01:09:31,535
It's a basic business acumen.

1056
01:09:32,266 --> 01:09:34,947
On this issue of ownership and hence its inevitable morphing

1057
01:09:35,087 --> 01:09:39,863
into the governance class, Veblen states

1058
01:09:40,221 --> 01:09:43,604
"The responsible officials and their chief administrative officers

1059
01:09:43,744 --> 01:09:48,350
so much as may at all reasonably be called the government or the administration

1060
01:09:48,490 --> 01:09:52,725
are invariably and characteristically drawn from these beneficiary classes:

1061
01:09:52,965 --> 01:09:55,571
nobles, gentleman or businessmen

1062
01:09:55,711 --> 01:09:59,292
which all come to the same thing for the purpose in hand;

1063
01:09:59,432 --> 01:10:02,354
the point of it all being that the common man does not come

1064
01:10:02,494 --> 01:10:06,356
within these precincts and does not share in these councils

1065
01:10:06,496 --> 01:10:10,071
that are assumed to guide the destiny of the nations."

1066
01:10:10,958 --> 01:10:13,733
He adds with respect to the legislative legal orientation

1067
01:10:13,873 --> 01:10:18,750
to which these beneficiary classes defined by the ownership investment values

1068
01:10:18,890 --> 01:10:20,806
are in control of

1069
01:10:21,023 --> 01:10:25,109
"It may confidently be counted on that all the apparatus of law

1070
01:10:25,249 --> 01:10:30,029
and all the coercive agencies of law and order will be brought in requisition

1071
01:10:30,169 --> 01:10:32,982
to uphold the ancient rights of ownership

1072
01:10:33,122 --> 01:10:36,864
whenever any more is made toward their disallowance or restriction.

1073
01:10:37,004 --> 01:10:40,043
There is a strong and stubborn interest bound up

1074
01:10:40,183 --> 01:10:44,081
with the maintenance of pecuniary faith (that means money)

1075
01:10:44,221 --> 01:10:48,783
and the class in whom this material interest vests are also in effect

1076
01:10:48,923 --> 01:10:52,788
invested with the coercive powers of the law."

1077
01:10:52,928 --> 01:10:55,646
... which means you're double screwed.

1078
01:10:55,786 --> 01:11:01,273
Put another way, those factors that enable the upper and ownership class

1079
01:11:01,413 --> 01:11:04,176
which have been codified by the near religious acceptance

1080
01:11:04,316 --> 01:11:06,976
of the rights of property, trade and exploitation

1081
01:11:07,116 --> 01:11:09,365
as the practice of social governance

1082
01:11:09,505 --> 01:11:13,921
are reinforced by the direct legal governance via the very same constituency

1083
01:11:14,061 --> 01:11:19,118
that benefits the most by the economic system itself and all its inefficiency.

1084
01:11:20,334 --> 01:11:23,572
When it comes to the state initiation of war

1085
01:11:23,712 --> 01:11:28,227
it does not take a lot of ingenuity to understand the multilevel commercial

1086
01:11:28,367 --> 01:11:32,424
and financial interests that are really behind it, especially now.

1087
01:11:32,564 --> 01:11:35,052
It's bad enough that the basic nature

1088
01:11:35,192 --> 01:11:38,377
of the culmination of the state institution is economic

1089
01:11:38,517 --> 01:11:41,740
self-preserving and exploitative in general

1090
01:11:41,880 --> 01:11:46,245
but when the event-to-event wars are taken into account

1091
01:11:46,385 --> 01:11:51,349
and the specifics of those who gained and those who've lost are figured

1092
01:11:51,489 --> 01:11:54,570
a whole new level of predatorialism emerges

1093
01:11:54,710 --> 01:11:57,837
an entirely new level of disgust emerges.

1094
01:11:58,233 --> 01:12:02,366
In the past, the basic stealing of land and its inherent resources

1095
01:12:02,506 --> 01:12:04,904
were more or less the central benefit of state wars.

1096
01:12:05,044 --> 01:12:08,059
Today, we can extend these economic benefits

1097
01:12:08,199 --> 01:12:10,530
to the massive military expenditures

1098
01:12:10,670 --> 01:12:13,487
that have huge impacts on GDP and trade

1099
01:12:13,627 --> 01:12:16,911
the reconstruction of war-torn areas by the conquering

1100
01:12:17,051 --> 01:12:19,316
state commercial subsidiaries

1101
01:12:19,456 --> 01:12:23,144
the slow prodding of a country's integrity through trade tariffs

1102
01:12:23,531 --> 01:12:26,457
debilitating sanctions and debt impositions

1103
01:12:26,597 --> 01:12:28,806
for the sake of population subjugation

1104
01:12:28,946 --> 01:12:32,964
for the benefit of transnational industries

1105
01:12:33,686 --> 01:12:37,597
and many other modern conventions which universally

1106
01:12:37,737 --> 01:12:41,253
benefit mostly a very small number of people

1107
01:12:41,393 --> 01:12:45,063
and again, the ownership and investment classes.

1108
01:12:45,464 --> 01:12:47,843
This point was most likely best expressed

1109
01:12:47,983 --> 01:12:52,140
by one of America's most decorated Army officers of the 20th century

1110
01:12:52,280 --> 01:12:56,404
Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler. He wrote a book after World War I

1111
01:12:56,544 --> 01:12:58,510
called 'War Is a Racket'.

1112
01:12:58,650 --> 01:13:02,369
He had this to say about the industry of war:

1113
01:13:02,509 --> 01:13:06,633
"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest

1114
01:13:06,773 --> 01:13:09,241
easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.

1115
01:13:09,381 --> 01:13:12,175
It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one

1116
01:13:12,315 --> 01:13:14,838
in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

1117
01:13:15,300 --> 01:13:18,726
I spent 33 years and 4 months in active military service

1118
01:13:18,866 --> 01:13:21,862
and during that period I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man

1119
01:13:22,002 --> 01:13:24,607
for big business: for Wall Street and the bankers.

1120
01:13:24,747 --> 01:13:27,681
In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

1121
01:13:27,821 --> 01:13:30,858
I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe

1122
01:13:30,998 --> 01:13:33,501
for American oil interests in 1914.

1123
01:13:33,641 --> 01:13:36,316
I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place

1124
01:13:36,456 --> 01:13:39,345
for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in.

1125
01:13:39,485 --> 01:13:42,824
I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics

1126
01:13:42,964 --> 01:13:45,890
for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua

1127
01:13:46,030 --> 01:13:49,671
for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1902 to 1912.

1128
01:13:50,086 --> 01:13:54,055
I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916.

1129
01:13:54,195 --> 01:13:57,668
I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903.

1130
01:13:57,808 --> 01:14:00,940
In China, in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil

1131
01:14:01,080 --> 01:14:03,248
went on its way unmolested.

1132
01:14:03,388 --> 01:14:07,944
Looking back at it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints.

1133
01:14:08,972 --> 01:14:12,502
The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts;

1134
01:14:12,642 --> 01:14:15,283
I operated on three continents."

1135
01:14:17,047 --> 01:14:18,679
It's amazing!

1136
01:14:18,819 --> 01:14:21,500
[Applause]

1137
01:14:22,608 --> 01:14:25,195
I'd like to conclude this section by pointing out

1138
01:14:25,335 --> 01:14:28,025
that this analysis is taking a very broad view

1139
01:14:28,165 --> 01:14:30,699
for the sake of the global audience that this lecture hits

1140
01:14:30,839 --> 01:14:33,862
and the relevance as it is in its broadest scheme.

1141
01:14:34,002 --> 01:14:38,211
War, while its core historic drive is indeed economic

1142
01:14:38,351 --> 01:14:41,583
can also have the direct force of ideology, crusade

1143
01:14:41,723 --> 01:14:44,239
and moral right as a central motivator

1144
01:14:44,379 --> 01:14:47,059
not only with respect to public sanction as noted before

1145
01:14:47,199 --> 01:14:51,665
but also as an active component of the motivation on the state level.

1146
01:14:51,805 --> 01:14:54,146
However, this is the exception, not the rule.

1147
01:14:54,286 --> 01:14:56,873
Even with the ostensibly driven, religious foundation

1148
01:14:57,013 --> 01:15:01,330
of the state of Israel, and the assumed divine right it has

1149
01:15:01,470 --> 01:15:05,039
as a backdrop for its claim of ownership against Palestine

1150
01:15:05,179 --> 01:15:07,369
the deciding factors are still to be found

1151
01:15:07,509 --> 01:15:10,242
as economic in operation at the core level.

1152
01:15:10,382 --> 01:15:14,912
As will be noted in the next section, peace will likely not come

1153
01:15:15,052 --> 01:15:17,242
from the interaction of any state

1154
01:15:17,382 --> 01:15:21,637
or any level of governance by the ownership class, the beneficiary class.

1155
01:15:21,777 --> 01:15:24,826
It will come from the people, its subjects...

1156
01:15:24,966 --> 01:15:27,768
[Applause]

1157
01:15:33,551 --> 01:15:37,962
who will work to transcend the power of the statehood entirely

1158
01:15:38,102 --> 01:15:41,009
realizing that the human level of loyalty

1159
01:15:41,149 --> 01:15:44,451
is the only possible perspective.

1160
01:15:46,269 --> 01:15:48,817
[Applause]

1161
01:15:50,543 --> 01:15:53,826
Part Four: Defining Peace: A New Social Contract

1162
01:15:54,118 --> 01:15:57,968
As we all know peace today is not defined by an amiable reconciliation

1163
01:15:58,108 --> 01:16:01,784
of differences in larger efforts for collaboration.

1164
01:16:01,924 --> 01:16:05,085
No, peace today is defined by competitive armament

1165
01:16:05,225 --> 01:16:08,736
and the general premise of 'Mutually Assured Destruction'

1166
01:16:08,876 --> 01:16:12,052
as was coined with respect to the Cold War.

1167
01:16:12,192 --> 01:16:16,037
Peace today is now only a mere pause between conflicts

1168
01:16:16,177 --> 01:16:18,616
on the stage of global civilization.

1169
01:16:18,756 --> 01:16:22,059
There is a war going on somewhere virtually all the time.

1170
01:16:22,199 --> 01:16:24,880
When there isn't, the major powers are busy scuffling

1171
01:16:25,020 --> 01:16:27,771
moving their little tanks in the sand, building more advanced weapons

1172
01:16:27,911 --> 01:16:30,766
selling off old ones to some other allied country

1173
01:16:30,906 --> 01:16:33,153
who are basically posturing in the same way

1174
01:16:33,293 --> 01:16:37,878
all under the name of not only protection, but good business as well.

1175
01:16:39,406 --> 01:16:42,209
Military establishments today have at their disposal

1176
01:16:42,349 --> 01:16:45,610
the most advanced proprietary forms of technology

1177
01:16:45,750 --> 01:16:48,742
employing some of the best scientists on the planet

1178
01:16:48,882 --> 01:16:51,525
in this venture for orchestrated death.

1179
01:16:51,665 --> 01:16:55,317
When we consider the exponential increase of information technology

1180
01:16:55,457 --> 01:16:59,299
occuring in the world, which facilitates greater and greater levels

1181
01:16:59,439 --> 01:17:03,591
of material/technical advancement and the advancement of weaponry

1182
01:17:03,731 --> 01:17:08,261
the realization is that the incalculable levels of possible human

1183
01:17:08,401 --> 01:17:12,448
and planetary destruction possibly awaits us.

1184
01:17:13,358 --> 01:17:15,558
In the words of Albert Einstein

1185
01:17:15,698 --> 01:17:18,421
as he witnessed the expression of the atomic bomb

1186
01:17:18,561 --> 01:17:21,496
"Our technology has exceeded our humanity."

1187
01:17:21,636 --> 01:17:25,289
The question to be asked is are we as a society mature enough

1188
01:17:25,429 --> 01:17:27,996
to handle the incredible possibilities

1189
01:17:28,136 --> 01:17:30,213
for our new technological advancement?

1190
01:17:30,353 --> 01:17:34,947
Technology, which could also benefit the world in profound ways

1191
01:17:35,495 --> 01:17:39,440
or, will our divisive, xenophobic, tribal state premises

1192
01:17:39,580 --> 01:17:42,759
and economic selfishness prevail?

1193
01:17:43,961 --> 01:17:47,699
At least in the past, social immaturity, the prevalence of territorialism

1194
01:17:47,839 --> 01:17:52,085
and dominance had a limited cost, but we have nanotech weapons

1195
01:17:52,225 --> 01:17:55,904
that will eventually make the atomic bomb look like a Roman catapult

1196
01:17:56,735 --> 01:18:01,925
a new level of social awareness and responsibility needs to arise, and quickly

1197
01:18:02,065 --> 01:18:04,887
for this is no longer an issue of national security.

1198
01:18:05,027 --> 01:18:07,981
It is an issue of world security.

1199
01:18:08,121 --> 01:18:11,533
To paraphrase one of my heroes Carl Sagan, an American astronomer

1200
01:18:11,673 --> 01:18:15,915
and avid proponent of scientific thought and its application to society

1201
01:18:16,055 --> 01:18:18,782
"It's almost as though there is a God and he gives us a choice.

1202
01:18:18,922 --> 01:18:22,605
We can use our emerging technological abilities to improve the lives of the human species

1203
01:18:22,745 --> 01:18:26,005
and create an abundance where no one needs to starve or be deprived

1204
01:18:26,145 --> 01:18:29,420
or we can create a greater means to destroy ourselves.

1205
01:18:29,560 --> 01:18:31,546
It's our choice."

1206
01:18:32,905 --> 01:18:37,425
Our global economic system is based on a social Darwinism

1207
01:18:37,565 --> 01:18:41,449
which assumes that if everyone looks out only for their self-interest

1208
01:18:41,589 --> 01:18:43,656
often at the expense of others

1209
01:18:43,796 --> 01:18:46,510
who are basically seeking the same thing in theory

1210
01:18:46,650 --> 01:18:49,684
a larger order, social balance will magically occur.

1211
01:18:49,824 --> 01:18:52,965
This is the foundational meta-magic philosophy

1212
01:18:53,105 --> 01:18:55,711
of figures such as the father of the free-market Adam Smith

1213
01:18:55,851 --> 01:18:59,002
and his notion of 'The Invisible Hand'

1214
01:18:59,681 --> 01:19:01,824
but things have changed.

1215
01:19:01,964 --> 01:19:04,654
We've reached the point where our personal self-interest

1216
01:19:04,794 --> 01:19:08,267
now desperately needs to become social interest

1217
01:19:08,407 --> 01:19:11,418
if we expect to survive the many trials ahead of us.

1218
01:19:11,558 --> 01:19:16,569
Our evolutionary fitness is now becoming a social imperative

1219
01:19:16,709 --> 01:19:19,107
not a personal, self-interested one.

1220
01:19:19,247 --> 01:19:23,914
Our self-interest must become social interest if we expect to survive

1221
01:19:24,054 --> 01:19:26,404
because they are actually one of the same

1222
01:19:26,544 --> 01:19:28,899
if you really follow the logic.

1223
01:19:29,039 --> 01:19:33,625
Either we become a globally conscious, singular society

1224
01:19:33,765 --> 01:19:38,154
with respectable core values on the fundamental level, or we perish.

1225
01:19:38,294 --> 01:19:40,633
Either we change or we die.

1226
01:19:40,916 --> 01:19:43,323
Today the US, Israel and other extensions of empire

1227
01:19:43,463 --> 01:19:46,360
are prodding the states of Iran and Syria growing more and more close

1228
01:19:46,500 --> 01:19:49,129
to a provocation over energy resources

1229
01:19:49,269 --> 01:19:52,836
other acts of commerce, geopolitical, geoeconomic control

1230
01:19:52,976 --> 01:19:57,402
of coveted Eurasia as Brzezinski pointed out 15 years prior.

1231
01:19:57,542 --> 01:20:01,349
The recent withdrawal of US troops from Iraq has now freed up some resources

1232
01:20:01,489 --> 01:20:04,519
and given that most presidential campaigns

1233
01:20:04,659 --> 01:20:08,151
tend to persevere in re-election of the incumbent president

1234
01:20:08,291 --> 01:20:10,754
it would not surprise me at all if we see conflict emerge

1235
01:20:10,894 --> 01:20:13,404
before the 2012 US elections.

1236
01:20:14,092 --> 01:20:18,441
However, Iran is not Iraq. It is in tight economic balance with Russia and China

1237
01:20:18,667 --> 01:20:22,631
the two other superpowers, with enormous military capacity.

1238
01:20:22,771 --> 01:20:27,054
It is not out of the question to foreshadow that any invasion of Iran

1239
01:20:27,194 --> 01:20:30,177
will quickly generate a global destabilization of power

1240
01:20:30,317 --> 01:20:33,147
to which something of a world war could commence.

1241
01:20:33,477 --> 01:20:36,347
If you examine the military expenditure of the large powers

1242
01:20:36,487 --> 01:20:40,205
you will see an upward curve, accelerating in most cases over the past decade.

1243
01:20:40,345 --> 01:20:44,327
Military trade agreement of these powers, such as the recent selling of

1244
01:20:44,467 --> 01:20:49,129
$30 billion of arms to Saudi Arabia, revealing a growing intent.

1245
01:20:49,269 --> 01:20:52,850
On the other side Russia continues to sell arms to Syria,

1246
01:20:52,990 --> 01:20:56,329
another state in the crosshairs of the US empire.

1247
01:20:57,188 --> 01:21:01,925
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov stated in mid-January of this year

1248
01:21:02,065 --> 01:21:04,481
during his annual televised press conference

1249
01:21:04,621 --> 01:21:07,519
that Russia would use its veto at the UN Security Council

1250
01:21:07,659 --> 01:21:11,415
to block any resolution calling for military force to be used against Syria

1251
01:21:11,555 --> 01:21:15,062
also saying that Russia is 'seriously worried'

1252
01:21:15,202 --> 01:21:18,776
that military action against Iran would be under consideration

1253
01:21:18,916 --> 01:21:21,823
and vowed that Moscow would do all it could to prevent it.

1254
01:21:21,963 --> 01:21:25,210
"The consequences will be extremely grave" he said.

1255
01:21:25,350 --> 01:21:29,290
"It will trigger a chain reaction and I don't know where it will stop."

1256
01:21:29,430 --> 01:21:32,842
Likewise in late 2011, a Chinese Maj. Gen. commented

1257
01:21:32,982 --> 01:21:38,214
"China will not hesitate to protect Iran even with a third world war"

1258
01:21:38,354 --> 01:21:41,667
according to NDTV, a Chinese news station.

1259
01:21:41,807 --> 01:21:46,402
These reactions make sense since Iran is a key energy component

1260
01:21:46,542 --> 01:21:51,136
and deeply engrained in the geo-economic interests of those powers in the region.

1261
01:21:51,877 --> 01:21:55,406
In the end, who will suffer from the interests of these state...

1262
01:21:55,546 --> 01:21:58,518
these state interventions, the imperialism

1263
01:21:58,658 --> 01:22:00,876
and even the fighting of it and lack of reconciliation

1264
01:22:01,016 --> 01:22:03,472
(because it's imperialism on all sides if you think about it.

1265
01:22:03,612 --> 01:22:07,184
The motivations are equally the same.)? The people will.

1266
01:22:07,324 --> 01:22:10,896
Possibly on a tragic scale, especially given

1267
01:22:11,036 --> 01:22:13,924
the growing automation of military adventures

1268
01:22:14,064 --> 01:22:17,679
where less people are now needed with such drone aircrafts

1269
01:22:17,819 --> 01:22:20,707
that can be remotely controlled from thousands of miles away

1270
01:22:20,847 --> 01:22:25,009
engaging in combat without direct military loss on their end.

1271
01:22:25,149 --> 01:22:28,575
I won't even go into the direct loss of empathy

1272
01:22:28,715 --> 01:22:33,036
which implies that further cold violence is on the horizon

1273
01:22:33,176 --> 01:22:37,385
because people are detaching themselves from the act of murder

1274
01:22:37,525 --> 01:22:41,922
through automated means. I think Dr. James Gilligan put it best

1275
01:22:42,062 --> 01:22:45,985
"In the past, throughout nearly all of human history

1276
01:22:46,125 --> 01:22:50,172
the main threat to human survival is nature. Today, it's culture."

1277
01:22:51,134 --> 01:22:54,805
Therefore, not only does direct, traditional protest need to persist

1278
01:22:54,945 --> 01:22:57,522
in the limited capacity it has

1279
01:22:57,662 --> 01:23:01,181
but it's time for the people of the world begin to form a new alliance

1280
01:23:01,539 --> 01:23:04,780
that challenges not only the drug-addict behavior-like sickness

1281
01:23:04,920 --> 01:23:09,431
of the state establishment and its endless juvenile, competitive war incentive

1282
01:23:09,571 --> 01:23:13,054
but also get down to the root of its causal nature

1283
01:23:13,194 --> 01:23:16,006
which is the monetary market system of economics

1284
01:23:16,146 --> 01:23:19,067
and its metaphysic notions of wealth, property

1285
01:23:19,207 --> 01:23:22,294
power, trade, ownership and competition.

1286
01:23:23,143 --> 01:23:26,498
In the words of Thorstein Veblen from 1917

1287
01:23:26,638 --> 01:23:29,120
"It has appeared in the course of the argument

1288
01:23:29,260 --> 01:23:33,180
that the preservation of the present pecuniary law and order

1289
01:23:33,320 --> 01:23:36,397
with all its incident of ownership and investment

1290
01:23:36,537 --> 01:23:41,423
is incompatible with an unwarlike state of peace and security.

1291
01:23:42,112 --> 01:23:46,245
This current scheme of investment, business and industrial sabotage

1292
01:23:46,385 --> 01:23:49,651
should have an appreciably better chance of survival in the long run

1293
01:23:49,791 --> 01:23:52,258
if the present conditions of warlike preparation

1294
01:23:52,398 --> 01:23:55,343
and national 'insecurity' were maintained

1295
01:23:55,483 --> 01:23:59,215
or if the projected peace were left in a somewhat problematic state

1296
01:23:59,355 --> 01:24:03,884
sufficiently precarious to keep national animosities alert

1297
01:24:04,024 --> 01:24:06,828
and thereby to the neglect of domestic interests

1298
01:24:06,968 --> 01:24:11,424
particularly of such interests as touch the public well-being.

1299
01:24:11,564 --> 01:24:15,117
So, if the projectors of this peace-at-large are in any degree inclined

1300
01:24:15,257 --> 01:24:19,782
to seek concessive terms on what the peace might hopefully be made enduring

1301
01:24:19,922 --> 01:24:24,008
it should evidently be part of their endeavors from the outset

1302
01:24:24,148 --> 01:24:26,490
to put effects in train

1303
01:24:26,630 --> 01:24:31,404
for the present abatement (stopping) and eventual abrogation (ending)

1304
01:24:31,544 --> 01:24:34,475
of the rights of ownership and of the price system

1305
01:24:34,615 --> 01:24:37,238
to which these rights take effect."

1306
01:24:37,378 --> 01:24:40,992
To restate, peace is not characteristic

1307
01:24:41,132 --> 01:24:45,501
of the current model of economic practice. The question then becomes:

1308
01:24:45,641 --> 01:24:48,789
What form of economic model (if there even is one) would

1309
01:24:48,929 --> 01:24:53,910
inherently reward a state of peace by its very construct?

1310
01:24:55,438 --> 01:24:58,788
As the scientific method of reasoning has made its way into everyday life

1311
01:24:58,928 --> 01:25:03,009
with the slow dissipation of superstition across the world

1312
01:25:03,149 --> 01:25:05,339
(at least with respect to social organization)

1313
01:25:05,479 --> 01:25:07,805
a powerful new train of thought is emerging.

1314
01:25:07,945 --> 01:25:10,480
This train of thought places the basis of economy

1315
01:25:10,620 --> 01:25:13,556
on the principles of natural physical law

1316
01:25:13,696 --> 01:25:18,419
and not the inventive whims of prior, primitive assumptions of human behavior

1317
01:25:18,559 --> 01:25:23,568
and other false dualities and things that are baggage from our evolution.

1318
01:25:24,921 --> 01:25:28,305
It is in this work that The Zeitgeist Movement finds its calling.

1319
01:25:28,445 --> 01:25:32,419
The revolution of our economic premise from superstitious to scientific

1320
01:25:32,559 --> 01:25:35,985
will not only transcend the grand failure of war

1321
01:25:36,125 --> 01:25:38,650
the state power neurosis as well

1322
01:25:38,790 --> 01:25:42,144
while overcoming the grand inefficiencies associated. It will enable

1323
01:25:42,284 --> 01:25:46,066
and reinforce a world of human betterment beyond anything we've ever seen.

1324
01:25:46,206 --> 01:25:49,061
Environmental and social respect (which is desperately needed)

1325
01:25:49,201 --> 01:25:52,486
and a material abundance that our technology could create

1326
01:25:52,626 --> 01:25:54,863
if we decided to allow it to

1327
01:25:55,003 --> 01:25:58,160
something that the world has never seen.

1328
01:25:58,300 --> 01:26:02,848
Just as we had a great social paradigm shift after the Neolithic Revolution

1329
01:26:02,988 --> 01:26:06,390
we are on the edge of an equally strong shift of consciousness

1330
01:26:06,530 --> 01:26:11,730
as we inch into an age of post-scarcity and global collaboration.

1331
01:26:11,870 --> 01:26:15,711
Today there is no technical reason for any human being to starve

1332
01:26:15,851 --> 01:26:19,869
to be without housing or clothes, to not have advanced education

1333
01:26:20,009 --> 01:26:22,859
and high public-health, both physical and mental.

1334
01:26:22,999 --> 01:26:27,127
If we can transcend this dark period which we currently reside

1335
01:26:27,267 --> 01:26:30,524
future civilizations will surely look back in horror

1336
01:26:30,664 --> 01:26:34,811
at the enormous insanity of our actions, fears and arrogance.

1337
01:26:34,951 --> 01:26:39,198
Perhaps a new term will be coined to describe the age that we live in.

1338
01:26:39,338 --> 01:26:42,508
I would suggest 'The Age of Ignorance'.

1339
01:26:44,046 --> 01:26:48,481
In conclusion, I'll make one final point with respect to the

1340
01:26:48,621 --> 01:26:51,406
overcoming of this war machine.

1341
01:26:51,546 --> 01:26:57,009
It will not come from the state or as they say 'speaking truth to power'

1342
01:26:57,149 --> 01:27:00,952
nor will it come via the ownership investment classes that control it

1343
01:27:01,092 --> 01:27:04,433
that have engineered the function of society as we see it.

1344
01:27:04,573 --> 01:27:10,031
World peace will come from a global rise in public solidarity

1345
01:27:10,171 --> 01:27:14,138
on the human civilian level and it will come

1346
01:27:14,628 --> 01:27:18,653
from a mass rejection of the distorted values

1347
01:27:18,793 --> 01:27:22,869
and manipulation tactics coming from the state and its commercial values.

1348
01:27:23,009 --> 01:27:26,643
It will come from a worldwide movement, absent borders

1349
01:27:26,783 --> 01:27:29,737
racial notions or political or religious parties

1350
01:27:29,877 --> 01:27:34,558
to be based rather on the immutable common ground we all share as a species

1351
01:27:34,698 --> 01:27:39,641
which simply says "No, we are not going to play this game anymore."

1352
01:27:40,594 --> 01:27:44,963
As the world is falling apart around us with the growing unemployment

1353
01:27:45,103 --> 01:27:49,377
the resource depletion, the boundless debt expansion

1354
01:27:49,517 --> 01:27:53,470
and collapse pressure, all of which could further fuel

1355
01:27:53,610 --> 01:27:56,661
the motivation for international warfare, as history has shown

1356
01:27:56,801 --> 01:28:00,019
there is likely no greater time in modern history

1357
01:28:00,159 --> 01:28:03,801
than to stand up and begin to do something in a very active way.

1358
01:28:03,941 --> 01:28:07,011
1% of the world stand in control

1359
01:28:07,151 --> 01:28:10,803
of over 99% of the population, in the broadest concept.

1360
01:28:10,943 --> 01:28:14,454
I really personally can't wait to see the look on their faces

1361
01:28:14,594 --> 01:28:20,103
when the 99% realize how much power they really have.

1362
01:28:20,243 --> 01:28:23,046
[Applause]

1363
01:28:31,056 --> 01:28:35,239
In conclusion, in the immortal words of Carl Sagan

1364
01:28:35,592 --> 01:28:38,792
"The old appeals to racial, sexual, religious chauvinism

1365
01:28:38,932 --> 01:28:42,150
to rabid nationalist fervor are beginning not to work.

1366
01:28:42,290 --> 01:28:45,871
A new consciousness is developing which sees the Earth as a single organism

1367
01:28:46,011 --> 01:28:49,534
and recognizes that an organism at war with itself is doomed.

1368
01:28:49,674 --> 01:28:52,297
We are one planet." Thank you.

1369
01:28:52,437 --> 01:28:55,045
[Applause]

1370
01:29:00,947 --> 01:29:05,623
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